[Henry DeGroot, Six Months in '49, The Overland Monthly, April, 1875]

 

316      SIX MONTHS IN '49.  [APRIL

 

SIX MONTHS IN '49.

            ON the 28th of February, 1849, the steamship California entered the harbor of San Francisco, being the first vessel of the kind that had ever passed through the Golden Gate or traversed the waters of the North Pacific. As the pioneer of the fleets that were so soon after to navigate these seas, and as bringing the first party of adventurers from the East, her arrival was not only the occasion of much joy at the time, but constitutes a memorable event in the early annals of the State. Prior to this, and throughout the preceding six or eight months, there had been many arrivals by sea from the Sandwich Islands, and South and Central America, and overland from Oregon, Lower California, and the northern states of Mexico; but with this steamer came the first of the vast migration that so soon after set in, and which has since carried so many thousand adventurers to and from these shores.

            The inhabitants of San Francisco had already been advised of the California's arrival at Monterey, a circumstance brought about in this wise : The officers of the ship caused it to be given out that the stock of coal on hand was so nearly exhausted that it would be necessary to put into that port and procure an additional supply of fuel. There was really coal enough in the lower hold covered up with merchandise; the pretended necessity of going into port being a ruse by those having goods on board to get the vessel into Monterey, whence to dispatch a messenger to San Francisco to negotiate a sale of their stocks before the steamer's arrival should depress the market. In accordance with this programme, the ship was carried into Monterey, and there detained, with great show of cutting and getting pine wood on board, until these "cute " speculators had effected their object, when she resumed and finished her voyage, which, but for this unwarranted delay, would have been completed several days sooner. The passengers had good reason to rejoice at their safe arrival, having escaped the perils of the sea, and the still more perilous passage of the Isthmus, where the cholera was raging with great virulence at the time of their crossing; while the voyage up from Panama had been anything but an expeditious or a pleasant one, every part of the ship having been crowded to excess, and nearly a month consumed in making it.

            Consisting of those first to start for California after the news of the gold discovery had reached the Atlantic side of the continent, the company on board was made up of the most opposite and diverse materials ; every class and calling, the staid and enterprising, as well as the restless and the lawless, being fully represented. There were officers of the army and navy, and agents and appointees of the Government; there were capitalists, speculators, and traders; lawyers, doctors, and teachers ; artists, mechanics, sailors, marines, and soldiers. There were miners from the gold districts of Georgia, the coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania, and the lead regions of the North-west. There were manufacturers from Massachusetts, "blue-noses" from Nova Scotia, and lumbermen from Maine; men who had served under Scott in Mexico, fought under the "Lone Star" flag in Texas, warred with Indians on the western borders, and trapped in the Rocky Mountains. There were

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" roughs" from the great cities, and demure young men from the country, with a goodly sprinkling of mere adventurers and professional gamblers, collected from all parts of the Union. To sanctify and savor so much of the gross and secular, we had less than a score of women on board, two missionaries of the kind sent to scatter good seed in the most stony places, and one or two clergymen making evangelical ventures on private account. Notwithstanding a crowd so motley, confined for such a length of time under conditions of so much discomfort, few broils or exhibitions of ill-temper occurred on the way up ; the steamer having touched at sundry Mexican ports, affording the more vicious and unruly an opportunity to vent their spleen on the miserable inhabitants of those miserable places.

            The condition and appearance of San Francisco at that time have been made so familiar to most persons through the medium of the many printed accounts and tolerably executed pictures extant, that any attempt at further elucidating these points is hardly called for. Enough to say, the densely settled portion of the town, which then contained some 3,000 or 4,000 inhabitants, was bounded by Montgomery, Pine, Pacific, and Dupont streets, with a straggling row of houses extending off toward North Beach. To the south and west of these limits the country, mostly a succession of sand-hills, was covered with oak - trees, having a thick undergrowth, such as we see on portions of it at present. These trees were then so large and numerous, that the business of cutting cord- wood and burning charcoal was carried on extensively over nearly all that part of the city now built up with our best private residences. The houses at that period consisted mostly of two kinds : the old adobes, erected by the early settlers, and the board-and-canvas structures of a later day ; the one capacious, massive, and gloomy, capable of offering a stout resistance to fire ; the other, light, flimsy, and combustible, being well adapted to feed the frequent and lively conflagrations that afterward ensued. Every place was crowded to its fullest capacity, many living in tents and other temporary abodes in the suburbs, while building was everywhere going on actively. Most of the lumber used for this purpose was brought from Oregon, and some from the Sandwich Islands and other distant points ; very little having as yet been made in California, although the price ranged from $230 to $300 per thousand feet.

            The population of the place was already cosmopolitan, all the principal nationalities on the globe being represented save the now omnipresent Chinaman, who put in his first appearance about one year later. Contrarily to the generally received opinion, the social and moral state of affairs in San Francisco was at this time by no means bad. Thefts were unknown, while robberies, murders, and other acts of violence were of rare occurrence. Of gambling there was a good deal going on, though even this was confined to a comparatively small class; not many Americans, except those belonging to the sporting fraternity, engaging in the practice. Nor were the stakes generally so large as commonly supposed ; the players, mostly of the mixed Spanish or other foreign races, wagering Mexican dollars, then the principal currency, a few of which made a great show of wealth. Occasionally the betting would run high, as when a Mexican, after the reckless manner of his kind, would "plank down" a pile of doubloons ; or a miner, excited with drink or the results of previous play, would hazard a huge nugget or a well-filled purse of gold - dust, these always being taken at his own estimate of their value. But, however large the stake or whatever the result, very few rows or desperate en-

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counters grew out of this class of transactions. If the bank lost, it was unprofessional to grumble; if the player, he knew there was no help, and that he could readily repair his ill - fortune ; so that little strong feeling was apt to be shown on either side.

            As there was not much to be had, so there was but little required to fit the miner for active service. A pick, pan, shovel, and roll of blankets, supplemented with a few cooking utensils and a small stock of provisions, sufficed for a maiden effort, which, truth to say, satisfied the aspirations of a good many in that direction. Thus equipped, the embryo miner had next to decide whether he would repair to the northern or southern branch of the gold-fields. If to the former, he took passage on a launch for the embarcadero, as the landing at Sacramento was then called ; if to the latter, he embarked in like manner for Stockton. Occasionally parties would proceed to the diggings with teams or on horseback; a few also ascending the rivers in boats, purchased or constructed for the purpose. The launch, however, was the common means of making the journey, notwithstanding these vessels (a species of schooner, built to bring hides to San Francisco) were slow, clumsy, and comfortless. Nearly every day one of these hide -drogers would be announced as "up" for the diggings, her sailing being put off from day to day until loaded to the gunwales with freight and passengers ; the amount of these the skipper could manage to crowd on board being incredible.

            Having determined to try my luck in the northern mines, I repaired to the beach and made choice of a vessel bound to the embarcadero. She was a nameless, ill-shaped craft, with seams gaping ominously, and shockingly dirty; being in these particulars not much unlike all the others engaged in this business. She lay off about where Battery Street now runs, leaving at low tide a considerable belt of mud and shallow water between her moorings and the shore, which had to be overcome by the joint operation of wading and skiff navigation. Rolling up my trousers and making a porter of myself; I packed my dunnage through the mud to the water's edge, whence a small flat- boat conveyed me to the vessel's side. For this service I paid my Charon $3, he being a common sort of a person and charging accordingly. It was only lawyers, ministers of the gospel, and such like, having college diplomas and other testimonials of respectability and learning, who could command the fancy prices for this sort of service that we sometimes hear of. The fee of these gentry for wrestling with an ordinary-sized trunk was, it appears, $50—extra size in proportion.

            Having gained the deck of my launch, I found it swarming with human beings —Americans, Mexicans, Europeans, Africans, Kanakas, and Indians, with their varying clatter of tongues. Getting off with a fair wind, we ran the first day across San Pablo Bay and through the Strait of Carquinez, going ashore that night and camping under the lee of Mount Diablo. Our experience this day had been in most respects a pleasant one. The returning miners, of whom our company chiefly consisted, had told us, what we most wished to hear, stories of prodigious wealth and many fine things of life in the diggings. It was early in March, and the country about the bay, as seen from the deck of our vessel, seemed like a land of enchantment. Scattered over the hills and plains, now robed with the fresh verdure of spring, were immense herds of horses and cattle, sleek and fat, and wild as the untamed bands of the pampas. Looming on the crest of the Coast Range the stately redwoods shot up into the blue heavens like spires from the roof of a mighty cathedral ; the hills and lower

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slopes of the mountains being dotted over with picturesque oaks, standing alone or gathered in clumps ; while the ravines that furrowed their sides were filled with chaparral and innumerable flowering shrubs. The landscape on every hand wore an indescribable beauty, and the whole air was filled with a delicious perfume. The immense extent of unoccupied country—its fertility and loneliness, with so little sign of human presence or improvement—the height of the mountains, the vast sweep of the plains, with the cattle on more than a thousand hills, threw over it a sort of weird interest, and awakened in even the most stolid a sense of its beauty and vastness.

            During the night a chilly wind swept down from Mount Diablo, the summit of which was covered with snow, rendering the situation of many of our party extremely uncomfortable. A few days before a cold storm had occurred, more snow falling at San Francisco than has ever been seen there since. Embarking early in the morning, and getting our launch under way, we crossed Suisun Bay, and, entering the Sacramento River, ran up as far as Montezuma City, where we camped out the second night. This was one of the many town -sites that had already been selected at supposed eligible points along the rivers and on the shores of the bay, and the most of which were made to figure conspicuously on the rude maps of that early period. On the day before we had passed Benicia, a place containing several houses, and already aspiring to supersede San Francisco as the entrepôt of the Pacific. Looking off to the right as we entered the Sacramento, we had also sighted another candidate for commercial supremacy, bearing the pretentious name of "New York of the Pacific !" This emporium in prospective then contained three houses ; I am not aware that it now contains any. Of its rival, Montezuma, this much can be said: if it has since failed to make any marked progress, it has at least been able to hold its own. The same house that stood there in '49 stands there still. Of all the numerous marts and seats of traffic projected at that day, few ever advanced beyond the most rudimentary condition ; some not so far as to have ever contained even a single house or inhabitant.

            After entering the Sacramento River, our progress was slow and the journey laborious ; the tall trees that then lined the banks of that stream taking the wind out of our sails, and compelling us to warp the schooner up by hand. In navigating by this method, a line was carried ahead for a distance of several hundred yards and fastened to a tree on the river's bank. , Laying hold of this, a strong company of men, standing on deck and pulling hand-over-hand, would warp the vessel slowly up to the spot where the rope had been made fast. The latter was then untied and again carried forward and fastened to another tree, and the process of hauling up the vessel repeated ; this being kept up steadily, except during such brief intervals as we might happen to catch a favoring breeze. This was not only a tedious but also a very tiresome style of navigation, wonderfully in contrast with the improved methods that soon after came in vogue. Though the work was by no means easy, such was the general desire to get ahead, that few men were found unwilling to take their regular turn at " cordalling ; " and thus helped on, and aided by an occasional puff of wind, we reached the embarcadero in six days from San Francisco, making what was then considered a pretty good passage.

            The spot where Sacramento City now stands was at that time covered with wide - spreading oaks and sycamores, scattered among which were a number of tents and large covered wagons, the

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abodes of sojourners on their way to the mines. The only permanent habitations near were a couple of board shanties, where meals were furnished to transient customers. The entire business of supplying the country above was then done at Sutter's Fort, standing on the open plain a mile and a half east of the embarcadero. Here all the trading- posts were located, being, with one exception, within the walls of the fortress—a rude quadrangular structure, built of adobes. Ranging along the walls and opening inward were rows, extending all round, of low cell- like apartments, formerly used by General Sutter as workshops and quarters for his domesticated Indians, but now occupied for stores. In the centre of the fort stood a large two-story building, formerly the residence of the proprietor and his family, but at the time of which we are speaking already converted into a hotel. It still remains in a good state of preservation, being all, with the exception of a single bastion and the mounds formed from the crumbling adobes, that is now left of this once famous establishment and historical landmark.

            A few hundred yards east of the fort, Sutter had erected a large frame building, intended for a flour-mill. The discovery of gold having put an end to his scheme of wheat-growing, this building had been rented to Samuel Brannan for a store, that gentleman having here collected the largest stock of goods outside of San Francisco, and carrying on an extensive and profitable trade. From the fort goods were forwarded, mostly by ox - teams, to the adjacent mining-camps, freights ranging from $30 to $40 per hundred- weight. Travel was performed afoot or on horseback, there being as yet no stages or other public conveyances. Sutter's Mill, now Coloma, the spot where gold was first found, being my objective point, I engaged an Oregonian, the owner of four gaunt and bony oxen, to convey my slender outfit to that place, conforming myself to the custom of miners by trudging along on foot. Four days were consumed in reaching the Mill, during which an appalling amount of blasphemy was vented against "Star," "Juke," "Bally," and "Blackfoot," the patient brutes having been meanwhile fearfully belabored by their unmerciful driver. As this was the first time I had ever heard a western bullwhacker "exhort," I marveled greatly at the strength and originality of his expressions.

            Scarcely a day passed, on our way up, that we did not meet parties coming from the mines "dead broke," and wholly discouraged ; some of them advising us to turn round and go back, either because it was too early to go to the diggings, or because it was too late, they being already worked out. The most of these men were sailors or others not accustomed to be thrown wholly on their own resources, and who between inability and unwillingness to work, had really accomplished but little, and were honest enough in the advice they gave us. As the preceding winter had been severe, interrupting work much of the time, and provisions had been excessively dear, it was, no doubt, as much as those who had been in bad luck could do to earn a livelihood. Owing to a want of suitable shelter and wholesome food, many who spent the winter of '48 in the mines had also suffered a good deal from scurvy and other ailments.

            Reaching the Mill, we found a settlement of several hundred inhabitants, among them a number of families, women and children not having yet become so scarce that it was found profitable to place them on public exhibition. The most of the families were western people, who, some years before, had crossed the plains and settled in Oregon and California. They had homes elsewhere and were only temporarily in the mines,

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having arrived the year before, and most of them leaving again in the fall of '49. The hamlet at the Mill was composed of log-cabins, and board huts and houses. There were also a good many tents scattered about, though the practice, elsewhere so common, of inclosing frames with canvas, had not here been introduced, this being one of the few places in the country where lumber could be obtained at reasonable prices, owing to the existence of a saw-mill.

            Things up to this time had remained here in their primitive condition, the '48 style of life and modes of doing business still prevailing. The miners took matters easy, content to earn enough to defray current expenses, little dreaming of the change that was so soon to precipitate upon then.; an eager, grasping horde, so unlike the men who had as yet appeared on the scene, and who, by their sharper practices and superior thrift, would monopolize most of the business and crowd out those earliest in the field. Mining had as yet been pursued mostly by a population accustomed only to farming, and who, preserving still their bucolic habits, had brought with them into the diggings their domestic animals, and sometimes also their families. These were the serene and tranquil days of California gold-digging. Kind and neighborly feelings everywhere prevailed, and there was neither contention nor crowding, each one acting under the conviction that there were ample room and wealth for all.

            Trade, up to this time, had been left almost solely in the hands of men uneducated to commerce, who conducted it in a manner denoting a strange indifference to gain and a singular ignorance of the wiles of traffic. How eminently this was the case here at the Mill, will appear, when it is considered that General Sutter and Charles E. Pickett were then two of the leading merchants of the place—men as guileless of ever cheating another out of a dollar as they have been of laying up a cent for themselves. Both were at the time doing a tolerably large but not particularly profitable business ; their gains, owing to a lack of thrift, being generally in the inverse ratio of their sales. The newcomer requiring a stock of provisions on credit was sure to make his way to Sutter or Pickett, and so with the " dead-broke" miner or the "busted -up" generally—these same kind-hearted dealers being almost always made the recipients of their dubious custom.

            On reaching the Mill, my depleted exchequer forbidding delay, I proceeded at once to hunt up a partner preparatory to getting to work ; as it required two to mine to advantage—one to dig and carry, and the other to wash the dirt. They were queer affairs, those partnerships of that day. Two entire strangers would meet, and without preliminaries go to work, living and toiling together for weeks and even months, trusting each other with their joint earnings, and dividing the same without trouble ; never perhaps learning anything more of each other than simply the Christian name. And yet very few dissensions or misunderstandings occurred, it being a rare thing to hear complaints of dishonesty or unfair dealing between partners ; so apt are men to act honorably and justly when relieved from the pressure of hard circumstances and the temptations of want. My first partner was a burly Irishman, who had followed the sea for a living. He was tattooed on many parts of his body, was covered with scars showing former deep wounds with other rough usage, and I always entertained the belief that he had been a pirate. Still, we got along first-rate—eating, sleeping, and laboring together like brothers ; and I have not the slightest idea that he ever wronged me out of a cent, though he had ample opportunity to do so. Our joint earnings amounted

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to between $30 and $40 a day—about the average with miners at that period. The earnings are generally supposed to have been much larger; but that this is a mistake is shown by the fact that good hands could then be hired at the rate of an ounce ($16) per day.

            Having worked with these moderate results for several weeks near the Mill, I was permitted as a matter of special favor to join a company of Oregonians, consisting of eight young men, who had found a rich bar about sixteen miles distant, on the Middle Fork of the American River, which, from the tragic event I am about to relate, was afterward christened " Murderer's Bar," a name it bears to this day. The party finding this spot at once moved over and went to work there ; it being my intention to follow as soon as I could get up my horses, which, having been turned out after the usual custom, had strayed off.

            By the time I got back to the Mill with my animals, I found the inhabitants in a state of no little commotion, two of the Oregonian party having arrived there the day before, announcing the murder of their companions, six in number, by the Indians—these two having gone out to prospect, and thus escaped the fate of their comrades. For two or three days before this, some of the Indians had been observed coming into our settlement from that direction dressed in red shirts and other apparel of a better kind than they were accustomed to wear, causing some wonderment as to where they had got them. The mystery was now explained, and as a number of Whites had before been killed in the vicinity, it was determined that the perpetrators of this atrocious crime should be pursued and properly punished. A company of volunteers at once set out for the scene of the massacre, under the leadership of William Huefner and John Greenwood—the latter a half-breed, well skilled in Indian tactics—both of these men being distinguished for courage and knowledge of the country.

            On reaching the spot, a shocking spectacle presented itself. The bodies of the slain, mutilated and charred, lay in a heap where the savages had thrown and afterward attempted to burn them. The ground was torn up and covered with blood, indicating that a fierce struggle had taken place. The unfortunate young men had, indeed, as afterward appeared, made a desperate resistance ; defending themselves with their picks and shovels, the only implements within their reach. It would seem, from the account given of the affair by the squaws subsequently captured, that the Indians, affecting a friendly feeling toward the Whites, had succeeded in throwing the latter off their guard, causing them to leave their arms in the tent, several rods from the spot where they were working. These their wily foes managed to secure without being observed, and, turning them upon their victims, had them at a terrible advantage. Nevertheless, the miners succeeded in killing several of their assailants, and wounding many more, before, overcome by fire-arms and superior numbers, they met their fate. The butchery over, the savages had stopped on the ground and indulged in a general carouse ; after which, with a view to baffling pursuit and escaping detection, they separated, and, going in different directions, mixed up as much as possible with such of their people as had no hand in the crime.

            Imitating their example, the Whites separated into small bands, and, following their trails, were not long in overtaking the most of them. Some, having refused to surrender, were killed on the spot, while the rest, or at least such as there was reason to suspect, were brought into the Mill, that the innocent might be sifted from the guilty. This process concluded, ten were convicted and held for punishment.

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            Near sunset, on a pleasant afternoon in April, the miners, advised of the result of the examination, collected to escort the culprits from their place of confinement to a grove of pines a little below the town, where they were to be shot to death. All came armed, the most of them determined to take a hand in the execution of the criminals. As soon as the Indians were brought out, some of the old mountaineers present, perceiving by their demeanor that they contemplated a break, advised securing them in such a manner as should defeat this purpose. But the crowd, some of them excited with liquor and all well armed, scouting the idea of the condemned attempting an escape, proceeded to surround them, and at once marched them off to the place of doom. The moment a halt was ordered, the Indians, as if by a preconcerted movement, scattered in every direction, and, rushing through the crowd, endeavored to escape. The danger of hitting their own people deterred many of the Whites from firing on the fugitives, while others, less considerate, blazed away at the poor wretches with their revolvers or attacked them with their knives. Three were killed almost before they had made the first jump, while all the others, save one, were brought down within a few hundred yards of the spot whence they started; two having been shot in the water while attempting to swim across the river. One, said to have been the worst in the lot, outstripping his pursuers and evading the missiles sent after him, made good his escape. It was only by good luck and adroit dodging that the executioners themselves came out of the fusillade with whole skins. A number, myself included, who did not fancy the way things were shaping from the start, and had no great relish for this kind of sport, eluded the flying bullets by seeking shelter behind the rocks, fallen logs, and trees in the vicinity, the instant the affair took this unexpected turn.

            In making "good Indians" of these nine, it was considered an excellent day's work had been done; this chastisement, followed by one or two others of less severity, having exerted a restraining influence on the murderous propensities of our Digger brothers. It was sometimes difficult on these occasions to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty; offenders seeking to escape the penalty of their crimes by mixing with those least likely to commit them. On one of the raids made by the Whites upon a rancheria near the Cosumnes, Charles E. Pickett, who had spent many years among the western tribes and was well versed in Indian ways and character, made one of the party, being moved thereto by a merciful rather than sanguinary purpose. On their return to the Mill, Pickett reappeared with an Indian boy, whom he had rescued from the massacre, mounted behind him—most of the other members of the party coming in each with a dusky scalp dangling from his saddlebow.

            These Californian Indians, though a degraded and squalid race, were not particularly vicious or blood- thirsty ; the most of the murders perpetrated by them at this period having been in retaliation for the killing of their kindred by the Oregon men, under the following circumstances : Some years before, the Presbyterian denomination, of New York, had sent to Oregon the Rev. Mr. Whitman and family, to establish a mission among the Cayuse Indians, a powerful nation inhabiting the interior of Oregon Territory. For several years these devout and zealous persons labored with such success that they had partially christianized a good many of the savages, a few having been domesticated and received into their household. The small- pox at length breaking out and

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carrying off some of the neophytes, the "medicine men," who had become jealous of the growing influence of the Whites, persuaded the survivors that the disease was being propagated by the missionaries with a view to their early extermination. Giving credence to this devilish suggestion, the deluded creatures, alarmed for their safety, rose upon their benefactors and slew all but two young women, teachers in the institution, whom they carried into captivity, reserving them for a crueler fate than death.

            Reaching the settlements, the news of this outrage fired the Oregonians with a common desire for vengeance, and it was decided that the captive girls should be rescued, cost what it might ; the young men hastily arming themselves and hurrying to their deliverance with an alacrity alike creditable to their chivalry and valor. A bitter war ensued, resulting in the recapturing of the young women and the severe punishment of the Cayuse nation, while it inflamed the minds of the Oregonians with a bitter and undying hatred of the entire Indian race. Carrying this feeling with them when they came to California, and indulging it freely by shooting the Indians on every favorable occasion, the latter soon came to regard these men as their special foes ; and, hence, neglected no opportunity to retaliate where they could do so with safety. With their buckskin clothes, long rifles, tall bony persons, and general make -up, it was not difficult to distinguish these Oregonians from other Whites, and seldom did the Diggers mistake the latter for their more dangerous and determined foes.

            Though able by industry and economy to make fair wages almost anywhere, the miners were as ready then as now to engage in any impracticable scheme promising to increase their earnings, or to go off on a prospecting tour after new diggings elsewhere. Even as early as May of this year the first expedition was fitted out to go in search of Gold Lake ; a thing brought about in this wise : Encamped near the Mill was an old mountaineer and trapper named Greenwood. Born on the western frontier, he had spent the most of his long life in the Rocky Mountains and regions adjacent. In his capacity of hunter and trapper he had sojourned with many of the leading tribes of the interior ; and, while possessing the virtues common to his class, had contracted all the habits and not a few of the vices peculiar to the savage peoples with whom he had so long consorted. Having been the husband of several Indian wives, he was now the honored sire of a numerous half-breed progeny, the oldest of whom, his son John, a handsome lad, as straight as an arrow and as lithe as an eel, bad now grown nearly to man's estate.

            After the manner of his kind, Greenwood was prone to relate the adventures of his life, and tell of the strange objects he had seen in his long tramps over the mountains and plains. While talking these things to a party of us one day, he went on to say he had once camped on the border of a lake in the mountains off to the north-east, the shores of which were covered with gold; offering, if we would fit out his son John in a handsome manner, to direct him to find the spot, and send him to pilot a party thither ; stipulating further that he, the old man, should also receive certain considerations in advance. Now, Greenwood had a bad reputation for truth and sobriety. Indeed, his powers of falsification were quite phenomenal ; to say that he was an habitual liar would mislead, as leaving room for the inference that he sometimes spoke the truth. Yet in this particular instance, while his statements might be exaggerated, there must, we thought, be some foundation for them, or he would hardly suffer his son to go

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off on such an errand. At least, so reasoned a party of us ; and, so reasoning and believing, we fell in with the old fellow's offer, furnished him with a liberal supply of whisky and a few of the other necessaries of life, rigged out the son in first-rate style, and sent him at the head of a company of thirteen to seek this Gold Lake and advise us of its whereabouts. Several pack-animals were sent with the party, to carry provisions and to bring back gold. Such of the outfitting company as could not conveniently go in person were allowed to pay their quota and send a substitute. As I had by this time, in conjunction with my partner, superadded to the business of mining that of packing and trading, I could not well go with the expedition myself; so I sent, to represent me, a Norwegian sailor, who, having run away from his ship and arrived at the Mill a day or two before, was nothing loth to place a few additional miles of mountain travel between himself and his possible pursuers.

            After an absence of three or four weeks the expeditionists returned, as ragged and forlorn a set as ever passed through Coventry ; their clothes in tatters, their "grub" eaten up, their animals jaded, and themselves disgusted beyond measure. They found the lake, and in fact several lakes, but no gold, nor had they seen any after leaving the foot- hills of the Sierra. Greenwood, when questioned as to the failure, coolly put off his inquirers with the remark that John had missed the right place ; that the "stuff," adopting his style of speech, "war thar, shure."

            Not quite satisfied with this explanation, I halted one day not long after, when passing the old man's camp, then pitched in the valley that now bears his name, and without much ceremony proceeded to deliver him a piece of my mind in rather plain language. For a time he bore it in silence, which so emboldened me that I waxed still more indignant, going so far as at last to call him a cheat and a liar. About this time the old chap rose from the log where he had been seated, and, standing over six feet in his moccasins, addressed me a few words something after this style: "Look a - har, young man; I reckon thar aint no use for this onpleasantness atween gentlemen. See them yar ?"— pointing to a stack of rifles leaning against a tree at the door of his tent" all fixed for sarvice, and shure to carry lead whar ye pint 'em ; take yer chice, stranger, and measure off yer groun'— I'm not perticler 'bout distance." Here was a turn of affairs I hadn't looked for. To accept the old fellow's invitation to step out and be shot at was a thing not to be thought of; for, although more than seventy years old, and his eyes red as those of a pigeon through a long-continued use of liquor, Greenwood was still a dead shot; and to have any collision with him whatever was altogether foreign to my purpose. Still, as I did not like to back down at once and show myself the poltroon outright, I began to prevaricate, saying it would not look well for a young man like me to fight one of his years—his eye-sight impaired with age, etc. Interrupting me, and pointing to his eyes, the old man exclaimed: "Paint nothin' ails them yar eyes, stranger —yaint no varmint lives onto wich they ever drawed bead ! Jes' step off nigh onto you bush," continued the implacable trapper, pitching a chip toward a manzanita a little way off—"step off about thar, an' I reckon we can settle this yar difficulty like White men orter."

            It was useless. I had to back down squarely, and without further quibbling decline these proffered hospitalities ; but as it was policy for packers and others owning animals thereabout to maintain cordial relations with the house of Greenwood, I fell back on my pack- train as

326      SIX MONTHS IN '49.              [APRIL,

soon as this conference was over, and, getting hold of a plug of tobacco, took or affected to take a chew therefrom, and then without further words handed it to my adversary, who to my great relief seized it, and biting off a mouthful dropped the remainder into the pocket of his hunting- shirt. I had with me none of his favorite beverage ; but on my next trip I further placated him with a small keg, the contents of which effectually extinguished the last spark of resentment smouldering in the breast of the old man. Indeed, this supreme act of good-will secured me thenceforth immunity from the pranks of his boys, and, with an occasional renewal of the tribute of these peace-offerings, established me firmly in the affections of this veteran disciple of Ananias forever afterward. Were it my misfortune to be engaged in running a distillery, or to be otherwise interested in promoting the liquor trade, I should procure to be published a large edition of the Life of Greenwood, setting forth the incredible quantities of whisky he had imbibed in his day, and his consequent longevity and excellent health, and scatter it everywhere, to the annihilation of medical testimony and the confusion of all teetotal persons.

            As the summer advanced, politics began to engage the attention of the rapidly accumulating population in the mines —the organization of a new State, the framing of a constitution, the question of slavery, and many other exciting issues, coming up for discussion. Already a few men from the South had arrived in the mines, bringing their slaves with them, and a strong effort was making to plant the "peculiar institution" on the soil of California. This threatened encroachment on free territory excited a fierce opposition, imparting a keen interest to the canvass, in which many of us were disposed to take an active part. Here for the first time the great contest that resulted in the overthrow of slavery took a practical shape. Here, metaphorically speaking, was fired the first gun in the "irrepressible conflict ; " and although it was not afterward waged here with the same bitterness as elsewhere, those early sentinels of freedom can not be accused of having slept while standing guard on this farthest outpost of the republic.

            About the middle of August, while attempting to ford the American River, I was carried over a rapid, and badly hurt. My health becoming impaired in consequence, I determined to close up my affairs and go home to New York. My "pile," though not large, was yet so much greater than I had ever before possessed that I felt tolerably rich, hardly thinking at the time I left that it ever would be necessary for me to return to California. Having, however, after arriving at home, discharged some old pecuniary obligations and suffered impecunious friends to contract some new ones, my finances, by the time that spring came round, were depleted to the point of collapse, admonishing an early return to the land of gold.

            If, in relating these events and incidents of my six months' pilgrimage in '49, I have failed to recount as many romantic or tragic occurrences as it has been customary to credit these early times with, I can only say I did not happen to participate in or be an eyewitness of so many of these as perhaps fell to the lot of some others. Although not studying to avoid scenes of danger, violence, and strife, I did not, from the time I left New York (in December, 1848 ) until I returned—just one year—witness a serious accident, see a white man killed, or executed, or even so much as wounded in an affray ; nor did I have occasion more than once during this time to attempt killing a human being myself. When I relate the circumstances under which that attempt was made, I am sure the reader will acquit me of blame.

1875.]              SIX MONTHS IN '49.              327

            At the time of our trouble with the Indians, the miners working in the vicinity of the Mill were in the habit, for greater safety, of repairing to the town and staying there over night. I was then at work on the bar, one mile below, having for near neighbors a couple of old fellows who had drifted in from the direction of Texas or Mexico.  I knew nothing of their history or character, save as indicated by outward appearance, which looked the reprobate all over, seeming to advertise that they had subsisted by means the most questionable.

            One evening, while the other miners betook themselves to the town as usual, I fraternized with these my neighbors, and joined them in their determination to pass the night on the bar. We took up our quarters in a vacant log-cabin, the only entrance to which we barricaded with rocks and logs. Here, being thoroughly armed, and the apertures between the logs serving well for embrasures, we felt quite secure. The night being calm and the moon shining bright favored our purpose ; yet, as I had never had much experience in Indian warfare, I was not for a long time able to yield to the somnolent effects of a hard day's work, and when I did my sleep was none of the soundest. My companions, however, more accustomed to this sort of life, were soon wrapped in deep slumber.

            About the middle of the night I was wakened from an uneasy sleep by the crackling of twigs, and what, in my half-conscious state, I felt certain was the stealthy footstep of an Indian. As I rose, grasping my pistol and not yet quite awake, I saw, as I supposed, one of the bloody savages on the opposite side without the cabin, peering in, evidently trying to get a good shot at us. Without losing an instant I took aim and fired ; perceiving, the very moment I did so, that the image consisted of my own shadow, thrown on the wall of the cabin by the moonbeams streaming through the chinks behind me. At the report of my pistol, the two old sinners snoring near me suddenly awoke, started to their feet, and, seizing their arms, demanded to know what was the matter? It was not a good time to state the exact facts just then, as this would have procured a writ of ejectment from that dormitory, to be served upon me in the shape of two enormous boots swinging in the space it would be instantly supposed I had better vacate. This, I considered, would have been a legal informality; but with the explanation I gave, instead of such harsh and unneighborly treatment, I was commended for my vigilance, my courage was complimented, and the belief expressed that I had settled that savage, or at least taught him a lesson that would restrain his prowling propensities in future. To be sure, this is not much in the way of a bloody personal adventure to relate ; but it exhausts the record of my exploits in that line, having been the nearest I came to killing a man during my then stay in California.

            The fact is, the imputation of so much that is desperate and vicious to the men of that day is not altogether well founded; since, although many really did become addicted to a variety of reprehensible practices, there was yet very little actual debauchery to be seen in the mines, while those atrocious crimes afterward so common were then of rare occurrence, theft and robbery having been things almost wholly unknown. Being without the restraints common in older communities, men sometimes did grow careless in manner and rough in speech, seemingly indicating a depth of depravity to which they had not always descended. Of a piece with these extravagant notions are stories told of the gallantries of that period, wherein the miners are represented as dancing fran-

328      SIX MONTHS IN '49.              [APRIL,

tically about any fragment of female apparel that chance might have thrown in their way, or offering their "pile" for the privilege of kissing children of tender years ; and this, when there was hardly a camp or hamlet in the mountains but what contained more or less of White women, with a more than proportionate number of "olive branches," the feminine Digger being everywhere disgustingly plentiful. There were living at Sutter's Mill that summer not less than a dozen families, the place affording material enough for a regular Sunday-school; an institution of this kind having been organized and "run" in conjunction with a variety of other religious observances, such as prayer- meetings, "stated preachings," etc. There are now living at Santa Cruz several families who spent the summer in the place named, besides others residing in other portions of the State. Many of the American settlers had removed to the mines in the early part of this and the preceding year, taking with them their wives and children and a portion of their stock, and remaining till the fall rains came on, when they returned to their homes. It could, therefore, have been only such individuals as were peculiarly susceptible to the influence of the presence of cast-off skirts, or to mothers and their progeny, who " took one' in the manner above alluded to.

            Indeed, these '49-ers have been credited with a great deal more of the rough mock - heroic, as well as other sorts of foolishness, than they were entitled to. Although characterized by generous impulses and a fondness for adventure, the most of these men were an industrious, frugal, unromantic set, intent on digging out and saving all the gold they could, that they might be able to leave the country and get home again as quick as possible. That their character and habits should have been so generally misapprehended is due mainly to the fact that so many have found it profitable to caricature everything pertaining to California, and more especially to the labors of those clever essayists and professional humorists, who, coming here at a later day with opportunities for seeing but little, had determined to bear a good deal, to which end they consorted much with the convivial and talkative, listening long to stories told about the camp- fire and in the bar-room--neither of these places being proverbial, among ordinary persons, as sources of exact information. While something is due to the exactness of history, it seems almost a pity to dispel a class of Munchausenisms so harmless, and from which the veteran Californian, as well as the less experienced reader abroad, has derived, though for an opposite reason, so much real entertainment—the one laughing over their recital because he thinks them true, and the other because he knows they are not.

            While claiming so much good sense and character for the pioneer miner, it must be conceded that the tone of our population began soon after to deteriorate. With the next year the desperadoes from the south-western border, the slum of the great cities, and other demoralizing elements began to arrive more freely, and, increasing rapidly thereafter, soon lifted the name of California to its present bad eminence. Yet here again have our people general cause for complaint; most of the stories told of the murderous propensities of some having been greatly exaggerated, and not a few being purely the coinage of waggish or imaginative brains. But, be the deserts of these later Californians what they may, society in '49, fairly "sampled," would have "averaged" about the same here as elsewhere. Making my individual experience the criterion, I should feel constrained to award to the miners of that day an excellence not common to the mass of mankind. My mining part 

1875.)              SIX MONTHS IN '49.  329

ner—not the "pirate," though I had no reason to complain of him, but my later partner, Edward Penfield—was a man to be remembered forever, so true was he to the better promptings and all the higher precepts of his nature; and Clarkson Dye, my partner in the submarine adventure, whereof has been related in a previous number of the OVERLAND -- was there ever a more cheery soul than his ? Gifted and generous, his hand was readiest for every useful enterprise and his spirit foremost in every good work. His presence in our midst was a perpetual sunshine. And so of many others with whom I was then in daily converse.

            But, to get back from this digression and complete my narrative. Having, for the reason mentioned, determined that I would arise and go home to New York, I sold out my trading-post under the tree, closed up my not very extensive business, and bidding, as I supposed, a final good-by to the dark deep cañons, and the tall red hills along whose precipitous sides I had helped to break the pioneer trails, I mounted a mustang and turned my face toward Sacramento. On arriving at that place, I was surprised to find a large and bustling town occupying a site entirely vacant when I passed over it five months before. Quite a fleet of sea-going vessels was lying along the river-bank, discharging cargo, while the streets and levee were thronged with teams and pack- trains loading for the mines, and new buildings were going up in every direction. As there were yet no steamers running on the river, I took passage for San Francisco on a schooner—a large, handsome vessel, very unlike the sorry craft I had helped to haul up the river the preceding spring. The only passenger on board besides myself was John McDougal, afterward Governor of California, then on his way back from the mines, where he had been trying his hand at gold-digging. Having met with but indifferent success, the poetry of the thing was pretty well leached out of him, while his torn and dust-begrimed apparel and generally forlorn appearance denoted that he had had a rough time of it.  Within an hour after we reached the city I saw him again, now washed and neatly dressed, and looking very different from what he was in his miner's rig.  As we passed down the river the change effected in the aspect of the country by the dry weather—everything scorched and withered, the grass burnt up, and the oats (in the spring so fresh and green) now standing dead and yellow on the hills—was apt to create the impression that California was nothing but a desert, that being the opinion I carried away with me at the time.

            Before San Francisco, where but a score or two of ships were anchored in March, there lay now hundreds of vessels, the flags of nearly every nation flying at their masts. The town, a whirl of excitement, had grown into almost metropolitan proportions, having pushed out over the water and crept well up Telegraph Hill, while a long street had been extended toward North Beach. The prices of real estate had been greatly advanced; lots in certain portions of the city selling for nearly as much as they would bring at the present time.  Almost every day one or more ships would arrive, loaded down with freight and passengers, and already three steamers—the California, Oregon, and Panama—had made their appearance in the harbor. Taking passage on the last named vessel, I left San Francisco on the 2d of September, just six months having elapsed since I passed through the Golden Gate, coming in on the California.