ID: Emily (Fairfield) Duncan autobiography, page 2

young David made his way to New York City seeking employment which his mother begged him should be of a nature not to spoil his beautiful hands, an inheritance from the Cleveland ancestry. Accordingly, he found work as a clerk in a dry goods store, where his handsome face and gentlemanly manner made him much admired by the ladies. But he was young and ambitious, longing for adventure and when his cousin, Wellington Burnett, about his own age, proposed that he join him in the daring and exciting venture of seeking a future in California, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. Wellington Burnett's mother was also a Cleveland and he had been educated in the tradition of the Burnett family - for the law - and proposed to establish himself in the new city of San Francisco in his profession. The two young adventurers set out in the year 1854 for the land of their dreams. My father visited his home in Connecticut to bid his family goodbye, assuring them he would be back in a year or at most, two, with the family fortune. He never returned and never again saw his parents or the beloved little sister, although his two brothers followed him to California -Charles in a few years [after 1850 and before 1860], and Jason, later.

Taking ship from New York, crossing the isthmus of Panama by train and proceeding up the coast to San Francisco on the ship was all one grand adventure and I have often heard these two [David and Wellington] in their later years, laughingly remind one another of incidents, especially in connection with some members of the "fairer sex" who were among the passengers that made the voyage memorable. Mr. Burnett settled in San Francisco and after about two years of, I think, quite successful practice, he journeyed back to New York to be married, and returned with his cousin, Jane Cleveland [daughter of Charles and Jane (Scott) Cleveland], who, I have heard my father say, was not the lady whom he had planned to wed. She (Jennie, my parents called her) was a beautiful stately woman, I have never seen one who so adequately expressed in appearance and demeanor, the descriptive adjective "queenly." With the true Cleveland flair for social position, she took her place in the early day society of San Francisco and in her home entertained many who became noted figures in the business and social development of that city. Mr. Burnett was for years City and County Attorney for San Francisco and always had a fine practice in the civil courts. They had a large family; Isaac, Lester, Olive, Gertrude, and Marius, and one boy, Charley, who died in infancy.

My father did not linger in San Francisco, but set out to try his fortune in the mining regions to the north. How I wish now that I had listened more carefully to the tales he used to tell of those earlier days. He seems not to have engaged actively in mining, but sought employment in other lines. I have often heard him refer to days and nights spent with pack trains, carrying supplies to the various mining towns where no wagon roads had yet been built and goods must be carried by train of mules and horses. By the year 1860, he had taken a position as clerk in the Napa Hotel at Napa City and it was there he and my mother were destined to meet.