Go, Jonus, Go: A Remembrance of His Youth

Jonus Neuburr tells his grandchildren about his early life in Kentucky and Missouri. After the death of his father, he is sent to live with a skinflint uncle. At age fifteen, he runs away to his mother's home in Elizabethtown. He goes to work on riverboats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Tired of river life, he moves to St. Louis. There he meets new friends and has several dangerous adventures. In 1859 his entire family travels by wagon train to California. All this takes place during the political unrest of the 1850s.