forty-niners

1. Those who flocked to California in 1849 in search of gold, which had been discovered there in 1848. Reportedly, there were about eighty thousand of them.

Example Sentences

And the same week there was a company at another theatre there playing the old man's 'Forty-Niners.'

From Project Gutenberg

The Forty-Niners, and those who came in the early Fifties, were such men as enlist in the first years of a war.

From Project Gutenberg

Bret Harte has seized upon the name as the theme of tales and ballads of the "Forty-niners."

From Project Gutenberg

It was the same allurement which drew the "forty-niners" to California, and in 1897 the gold-seekers to the Canadian Klondyke.

From Project Gutenberg

Sailin'-ships, so rotten that their owners were glad to get rid of 'em, were sold to forty-niners at fancy prices.

From Project Gutenberg