Isaac Sherwood Halsey’s diary ends in June 1851, and Frank’s preface carries his life forward to Oakland and 1895. That is a good place for a Forty-Niner’s story to rest. The family keeps going and so does the reason this site is here.
I am Dave Halsey. Isaac is my great-great-grandfather. Isaac’s son Wilbur followed him into dentistry, and Wilbur’s sons were Frank and Bill. Bill became a prune farmer in Colusa. My grandfather Frank Sherwood Halsey transcribed the diary in 1978 with my mom Laurie’s help. He then gave the original to The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley in May 1979. My father is Warren Halsey, a forester. I am married to Jan and we have three sons, Nick, Jack, and Zack. Each of them is connected to wood and land in his own way.
What runs from Isaac to us is the habit of paying attention to the land. Isaac drew a pine in the Sierra Nevada foothills in the winter of 1850. That drawing sits on the cover of my book, Wood Is Good, published in 2026. The original diary is at the Bancroft. The full text is here on this site.
I am an Oregon lumberman. I came to Patrick Lumber in 1997 and have spent my working life with that company and the ones around it. The mill in Philomath and our timberland keep us close to the ground. Warren’s bumper sticker said something close to “Wood is America’s renewable resource.” I grew up believing it. The boys are carrying that forward.
If you came here for Isaac, stay for Isaac. Read the Cape Horn passage. Read the mines, and the stores at Mokelumne Hill and Stockton. Then, if you want the Oregon chapter of the same family, come find me at dave.halsey.co and the book page at Wood Is Good.
The diary was never meant to sit in a drawer. Frank made sure of that. We are still trying to do the same.
Dave Halsey
Corvallis, Oregon