Other Pauley Connections

The California Gold Rush

There is also a Pauley connection to the California Gold Rush. In the Sierra Nevada Mountains near the town of Downieville, west of Lake Tahoe, there is a Pauley Creek and Pauley Falls. Ben Pauley had a saw mill on the creek just above the falls and both are named after him. This area is right in the middle of the northern California gold country.

In April 2002 I spoke with Marian Lavezzola, a longtime resident of Downieville and whose husband runs a museum there. She did some research for me regarding Ben Pauley (some records show his last name as Pauly) and, according to an 1882 text ‘The History of Plumas, Lassen and Sierra Counties,” Ben was born in Bavaria in 1826. He arrived in New York with his parents when he was seven years old. After working at several jobs he arrived in Sierra County, California in November 1852 and mined in the vicinity of Downieville until 1858 when he bought the East Fork (later named Pauley Creek) saw mill. He ran the saw mill until 1910 and died in Downieville on August 2, 1912. So we now know that Ben is not related to the Virginia/West Virginia Pauleys. Coincidentally, however, while reading through her material I discovered that the town doctor back then, J. J. Sawyer, was for a time the acting assistant surgeon at Camp Douglas in Illinois during the Civil War. This is presumably where George Washington Pauley was held after being captured (see his record for further information). I have since traveled twice to Downieville, the county seat of Sierra County with a population of 185, to see the creek and falls, and the surrounding area.

(From The Gold Ledge website) In the Antelope Valley area of the Mojave Desert in Southern California, Joe Pauley, Sr. was a local prospector in the early 1900s. He was born in 1912 at Muroc, CA (now the site of Edwards Air Force Base, and died in 2000. His son Joe, Jr. is still in Rosamond, CA. Antelope Valley is north of Los Angeles, near the town of Lancaster. The valley was the site of numerous gold mining operations in the early 20th century. Joseph E. Pauley is found in the 1930 federal census living in Muroc with his parents Bernard and Margaret. The record indicates that Bernard was born in Missouri and his father was born in Germany, so Joe is not a relative.

Here is some interesting information regarding West Virginia’s association with the California Gold Rush from the West Virginia Culture web site. “When news reached the East in 1848 that gold had been discovered in California, thousands across the nation joined in a mad rush to strike it rich. Gold fever hit Harper’s Ferry, where an expedition was organized. As many as 800 prospective gold miners followed former Texas Ranger Colonel Whiting to California. It is not known whether these miners ever reached their destination.

“More is known about a group that left Charles Town (now Charleston, near where many of my ancestors lived) on March 27, 1849. Eighty men formed a joint stock company and pooled their money. The company’s constitution prohibited any work on Sunday, forbade gambling, and discouraged drinking. The company was governed by a seven-member board of directors, headed by Benjamin Washington, a great-grandnephew of George Washington. (This particular group was known as the Charlestown Mining Company and did not have a Pauley on the roster.)

‘The prospectors faced all sorts of dangers, including Indian attacks, along the 2,100-mile journey to California. During a two week period, half of the prospectors fell sick and five died. When the company finally made it to Sacramento, its members disbanded and struck out to search for gold in small parties. For weeks, the Charles Town press reported the adventures of the Jefferson County 49ers. A few were successful but most failed and returned home. Some of the prospectors remained in California, including Benjamin Washington, who became the first editor of the San Francisco Examiner.”

Other California connections include the Pauley Pavilion at UCLA, as well as a Pauley Hall and Pauley Ballroom at UC Berkeley in northern California, all of which are named after distant cousin Edwin Pauley.

Just north of Pikeville, Pike County, Kentucky is the small community of Pauley. There is an old, one-lane suspension bridge there known as the Pauley Suspension Bridge that crosses Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River and connects N. May Trail and Thompson Rd. It was closed to vehicular traffic in 1991, closed to all traffic September 2000 and restored and reopened to pedestrian traffic in 2006. According to the list of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky, the bridge was built in 1940 and listed on the register March 26, 1992.

Also in Pike County, Kentucky is Pauley Hollow (described as a valley), south of Williamson, West Virginia; the Pauley School (two of them – one labeled historic) south of Varney, KY; and Pauley Hollow Road. There is also the Pauley Cemetery, Pauley Gap and Pauley’s Gap Road in Bullitt County, KY (all just southwest of Louisville, KY, near the Jefferson/Bullitt county line); Pauley Gap Road in Jefferson County (same road as Bullitt County); and a Pauley Road in Greenup County.