When James Phelps was born on 22 September 1832, in Independence, Jackson, Missouri, United States, his father, William Wines Phelps, was 40 and his mother, Stella "Sally" Waterman, was 35. He lived in Salt Lake, Utah, United States in 1850 and Sacramento, Sacramento, California, United States in 1852. He died in Australia.
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George Grey explores Western Australia.
On January 24, 1848, gold was found at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, which began the California gold rush. In December of that same year, U.S. President James Polk announced the news to Congress. The news of gold lured thousands of “forty-niners” seeking fortune to California during 1849. Approximately 300,000 people relocated to California from all over the world during the gold rush years. It is estimated that the mined gold was worth tens of billions in today’s U.S. dollars.
End of transportation to Western Australia.
Scottish and English (southwestern): variant of Phillips .
History: The brothers George and William Phelps emigrated from Gloucestershire, England, to Dorchester, MA, c. 1630. Five years later they moved to Windsor, CT. George's sixth-generation descendant, Anson Greene Phelps (1781–1853), rose from being a penniless orphan to the status of a major industrialist and a prominent CT philanthropist.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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