On July 29, 1849, after an eight-year courtship, two young schoolteachers were married in a small town in northern Vermont. Their story could easily have been lost to history, except that Alfred and Chastina Rix had the foresight to begin recording their observations in a joint journal. Their unique husband-and-wife account, which captures the turbulence of life and events during the gold rush era, is also a personal--and compelling--chronicle of a singular family's separation and reunion.

When the Rixes began their journal, abolition, temperance, and the westward movement dominated...