[1] In 1849, Messec joined in the California Gold Rush, leaving East Texas for California with a party of fifty men, he crossed the entire state of Texas, turned south at El Paso into Chihuahua, Mexico to avoid the Apache, crossed into Sonora by way of the Guadalupe Pass, followed the trail through the future Gadsden Purchase territory to the Gila River, and rode down the Gila to the Colorado River.
Fording the Colorado at the future site of Fort Yuma, they crossed the desert to Warner's Ranch and traveled onward to Los Angeles and thence to San Francisco.
At the start of the war he was commissioned as Captain of the Trinity Rangers by Governor John B. Weller of California at the request of Adjutant General William C.
[6] Captain Messec, the local hero of the Wintoon War, was elected Sheriff of Trinity County for two terms, 1859–1861.
[7] However the decline gold mining in the region and continuing disruption of travel over the pack trails due to the continuing Bald Hills War led Captain Messec to leave for Nevada Territory and engage in mining, on a large scale, at Virginia City, Nevada.
Subsequently, he then spent four years in San Francisco, where he figured prominently in local politics and served on a commission that opened new Montgomery Street.