"Alvin Coffey: The True Story Of An African American Forty-Niner"

Retired librarian Nancy Leek of Chico has long been drawn to pioneer history. Her new book, illustrated by Steve Ferchaud, is about a man who "did not come to California of his own free will. That decision was made for him by the man who claimed to own him. But he came with hope. Hope for freedom. Hope for a better life for himself and his family."

"Alvin Coffey: The True Story Of An African American Forty-Niner" ($16.95 in paperback from Goldfields Books, goldfieldsbooks.com) is available locally at Made in Chico, ABC Books, Bidwell Supply Company, the Chico History Museum, and the Bidwell Mansion gift shop. 

Coffey was born into slavery in Kentucky 200 years ago. "In 1846, when he was 24 years old, Alvin was sold to Dr. William Bassett for $600." Married to Mahala, with a growing family, Alvin's life was not his own. "At that time," Leek writes, "the law said he did not even own himself."

With help from "Alvin and Mahala Coffey's great-great-granddaughter, Jeannette Molson," Leek sets out the story of an enslaved man who finds not riches but something far more precious.

"When Dr. Bassett heard about gold in California, he was eager to go. He took Alvin along to do the hard work for him." The wagon train arrived in California in October, 1849. "I worked the claims," Alvin said in interviews years later. "After dark and on Sunday I used to do odd jobs for other people and work at my shoemaker's trade."

That side money was enough to buy his freedom, but instead Bassett took it all. Back in Missouri, Bassett sold Alvin for $1000 "to Mary Tindall, the owner of Mahala." Alvin got permission to return to Shasta County and, as he said later, "toiled away for years" and succeeded in buying their freedom.

Returning to Missouri, he took his family to California. "We stood at last under God's clear sky," he said, "free at last, thank Him."

The story, Leek writes on her website, "needs to be better known." She is keeping alive the memory of slavery's terrible legacy--and the life of a courageous man.