related to me the manner of his finding the rich gulch which attracted
so many to the Mokelumne Diggings. About two months previous to our
arrival, Dr. Gillette came down from the Upper Bar with a companion,
to “prospect” for gold among the ravines in the neighborhood. There
were no persons there at the time, except some Indians belonging
to the tribe of José Jesus. One day at noon, while resting in the
shade of a tree, Dr. G. took a pick and began carelessly turning up
the ground. Almost on the surface, he struck and threw out a lump of
gold of about two pounds weight. Inspired by this unexpected result,
they both went to work, laboring all that day and the next, and even
using part of the night to quarry out the heavy pieces of rock. At the
end of the second day they went to the village on the Upper Bar and
weighed their profits, which amounted to fourteen pounds! They started
again the third morning under pretence of hunting, but were suspected
and followed by the other diggers, who came upon them just as they
commenced work. The news rapidly spread, and there was soon a large
number of men on the spot, some of whom obtained several pounds per
day, at the start. The gulch had been well dug up for the large lumps,
but there was still great wealth in the earth and sand, and several
operators only waited for the wet season to work it in a systematic
manner.
The next day Col. Lyons, Dr. Gillette and myself set out on a visit to
the scene of these rich discoveries. Climbing up the rocky bottom of
the gulch, as by a staircase, for four miles, we found nearly every
part of it dug up and turned over by the picks of the miners. Deep
holes, sunk between the solid strata or into the precipitous sides of
the mountains, showed where veins of the metal had been struck and
followed as long as they yielded lumps large enough to pay for the
labor. The loose earth, which they had excavated, was full of fine
gold, and only needed washing out. A number of Sonorians were engaged
in dry washing this refuse sand--a work which requires no little
skill, and would soon kill any other men than these lank and skinny
Arabs of the West. Their mode of work is as follows:--Gathering the
loose dry sand in bowls, they raise it to their heads and slowly pour
it upon a blanket spread at their feet. Repeating this several times,
and throwing out the worthless pieces of rock, they reduce the dust
to about half its bulk; then, balancing the bowl on one hand, by a
quick, dexterous motion of the other they cause it to revolve, at the
same time throwing its contents into the air and catching them as they
fall. In this manner everything is finally winnowed away except the
heavier grains of sand mixed with gold, which is carefully separated by
the breath. It is a laborious occupation, and one which, fortunately,
the American diggers have not attempted. This breathing the fine dust
from day to day, under a more than torrid sun, would soon impair the
strongest lungs.
We found many persons at work in the higher part of the gulch,
searching for veins and pockets of gold, in the holes which had already
produced their first harvest. Some of these gleaners, following the
lodes abandoned by others as exhausted, into the sides of the mountain,
were well repaid for their perseverance. Others, again, had been
working for days without finding anything. Those who understood the
business obtained from one to four ounces daily. Their only tools were
the crowbar, pick and knife, and many of them, following the veins
under strata of rock which lay deep below the surface, were obliged
to work while lying flat on their backs, in cramped and narrow holes,
sometimes kept moist by springs. They were shielded, however, from the
burning heats, and preserved their health better than those who worked
on the bars of the river.
There are thousands of similar gulches among the mountains, nearly
all of which undoubtedly contain gold. Those who are familiar with
geology, or by carefully noting the character of the soil and strata
where gold is already found, have learned its indications, rarely fail
in the selection of new spots for digging. There is no such thing as
accident in Nature, and in proportion as men understand her, the more
sure a clue they have to her buried treasures. There is more gold in
California than ever was said or imagined: ages will not exhaust the
supply.
I went up in the ravines one morning, for about two miles, looking for
game. It was too late in the day for deer, and I saw but one antelope,
which fled like the wind over the top of the mountain. I started a
fine hare, similar in appearance to the European, but of larger size.
A man riding down the trail, from the Double Spring, told us he had
counted seven deer early in the morning, beside numbers of antelopes
and partridges. The grizzly bear and large mountain wolf are frequently
seen in the more thickly timbered ravines. The principal growth of the
mountains is oak and the California pine, which rises like a spire to
the height of two hundred feet. The _piñons_, or cones, are much larger
and of finer flavor, than those of the Italian stonepine. As far as I
could see from the ridges which I climbed, the mountains were as well
timbered as the soil and climate will allow. A little more rain would
support as fine forests as the world can produce. The earth was baked
to a cinder, and from 11 A. M. to 4 P. M. the mercury ranged between
98° and 110°.
The largest piece found in the rich gulch weighed eleven pounds. Mr.
James, who had been on the river since April, showed me a lump weighing
sixty-two ounces--pure, unadulterated gold.
From all I saw and heard, while at the Mokelumne Diggings, I judged
there was as much order and security as could be attained without a
civil organization. The inhabitants had elected one of their own number
Alcalde, before whom all culprits were tried by a jury selected for
the purpose. Several thefts had occurred, and the offending parties
been severely punished after a fair trial. Some had been whipped and
cropped, or maimed in some other way, and one or two of them hung.
Two or three who had stolen largely had been shot down by the injured
party, the general feeling among the miners justifying such a course
when no other seemed available. We met near Livermore’s Ranche, on the
way to Stockton, a man whose head had been shaved and his ears cut
off, after receiving one hundred lashes, for stealing ninety-eight
pounds of gold. It may conflict with popular ideas of morality, but,
nevertheless, this extreme course appeared to have produced good
results. In fact, in a country without not only bolts and bars, but
any effective system of law and government, this Spartan severity
of discipline seemed the only security against the most frightful
disorder. The result was that, except some petty acts of larceny,
thefts were rare. Horses and mules were sometimes taken, but the risk
was so great that such plunder could not be carried on to any extent.
The camp or tent was held inviolate, and like the patriarchal times
of old, its cover protected all it enclosed. Among all well-disposed
persons there was a tacit disposition to make the canvas or pavilion of
rough oak-boughs as sacred as once were the portals of a church.
The history of law and society in California, from the period of
the golden discoveries, would furnish many instructive lessons to
the philosopher and the statesman. The first consequence of the
unprecedented rush of emigration from all parts of the world into
a country almost unknown, and but half reclaimed from its original
barbarism was to render all law virtually null, and bring the
established authorities to depend entirely on the humor of the
population for the observance of their orders. The countries which were
nearest the golden coast--Mexico, Peru, Chili, China and the Sandwich
Islands--sent forth their thousands of ignorant adventurers, who
speedily outnumbered the American population. Another fact, which none
the less threatened serious consequences, was the readiness with which
the worthless and depraved class of our own country came to the Pacific
Coast. From the beginning, a state of things little short of anarchy
might have been reasonably awaited.
Instead of this, a disposition to maintain order and secure the rights
of all, was shown throughout the mining districts. In the absence of
all law or available protection, the people met and adopted rules for
their mutual security--rules adapted to their situation, where they
had neither guards nor prisons, and where the slightest license given
to crime or trespass of any kind must inevitably have led to terrible
disorders. Small thefts were punished by banishment from the placers,
while for those of large amount or for more serious crimes, there was
the single alternative of hanging. These regulations, with slight
change, had been continued up to the time of my visit to the country.
In proportion as the emigration from our own States increased, and
the digging community assumed a more orderly and intelligent aspect,
their severity had been relaxed, though punishment was still strictly
administered for all offences. There had been, as nearly as I could
learn, not more than twelve or fifteen executions in all, about half of
which were inflicted for the crime of murder. This awful responsibility
had not been assumed lightly, but after a fair trial and a full and
clear conviction, to which was added, I believe in every instance, the
confession of the criminal.
In all the large digging districts, which had been worked for some
time, there were established regulations, which were faithfully
observed. Alcaldes were elected, who decided on all disputes of right
or complaints of trespass, and who had power to summon juries for
criminal trials. When a new placer or gulch was discovered, the first
thing done was to elect officers and extend the area of order. The
result was, that in a district five hundred miles long, and inhabited
by 100,000 people, who had neither government, regular laws, rules,
military or civil protection, nor even locks or bolts, and a great part
of whom possessed wealth enough to tempt the vicious and depraved,
there was as much security to life and property as in any part of the
Union, and as small a proportion of crime. The capacity of a people for
self-government was never so triumphantly illustrated. Never, perhaps,
was there a community formed of more unpropitious elements; yet from
all this seeming chaos grew a harmony beyond what the most sanguine
apostle of Progress could have expected.
The rights of the diggers were no less definitely marked and strictly
observed. Among the hundreds I saw on the Mokelumne and among the
gulches, I did not see a single dispute nor hear a word of complaint.
A company of men might mark out a race of any length and turn the
current of the river to get at the bed, possessing the exclusive right
to that part of it, so long as their undertaking lasted. A man might
dig a hole in the dry ravines, and so long as he left a shovel, pick
or crowbar to show that he still intended working it, he was safe
from trespass. His tools might remain there for months without being
disturbed. I have seen many such places, miles away from any camp or
tent, which the digger had left in perfect confidence that he should
find all right on his return. There were of course exceptions to these
rules--the diggings would be a Utopia if it were not so--but they were
not frequent.
The treatment of the Sonorians by the American diggers was one of the
exciting subjects of the summer. These people came into the country in
armed bands, to the number of ten thousand in all, and took possession
of the best points on the Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Mokelumne Rivers.
At the Sonorian camp on the Stanislaus there were, during the summer,
several thousands of them, and the amount of ground they dug up and
turned over is almost incredible. For a long time they were suffered to
work peaceably, but the opposition finally became so strong that they
were ordered to leave. They made no resistance, but quietly backed out
and took refuge in other diggings. In one or two places, I was told,
the Americans, finding there was no chance of having a fight, coolly
invited them back again! At the time of my visit, however, they were
leaving the country in large numbers, and there were probably not more
than five thousand in all scattered along the various rivers. Several
parties of them, in revenge for the treatment they experienced,
committed outrages on their way home, stripping small parties of the
emigrants by the Gila route of all they possessed. It is not likely
that the country will be troubled with them in future.
Abundance of gold does not always beget, as moralists tell us, a
grasping and avaricious spirit. The principles of hospitality were as
faithfully observed in the rude tents of the diggers as they could be
by the thrifty farmers of the North and West. The cosmopolitan cast of
society in California, resulting from the commingling of so many races
and the primitive mode of life, gave a character of good-fellowship
to all its members; and in no part of the world have I ever seen help
more freely given to the needy, or more ready coöperation in any humane
proposition. Personally, I can safely say that I never met with such
unvarying kindness from comparative strangers.
FRÉMONT’S GREAT RIDE
FREDERICK S. DELLENBAUGH
1849
From “Frémont and ’49.” Reprinted by permission of the publishers, G.
P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.[14]
For a period of about fifty days, from January 16, 1847, Colonel
Frémont was recognised everywhere in California as Governor, under
Stockton’s appointment. Kearny went up to Monterey, and in March
Frémont thought he had discovered signs of another outbreak which he
believed should be immediately reported to the General. H. H. Bancroft
declares: “These alarms were invented later as an excuse for disobeying
Kearny’s orders.” But it seems somewhat unreasonable to suppose that
Frémont would make such a tremendous effort as he did in the long ride
to be described, merely to inaugurate, or cover up, insubordination.
At the same time one may ask, “Why was it necessary for him to carry
the news in person?” He writes, “I made a most extraordinary ride to
give information to prevent an insurrection. The only thing, it would
seem, that I came for in that interview, was to insult General Kearny,
and to offer my resignation; and he [pretends he] does not even know
what I went for. Certainly the public service, to say nothing of myself
as an officer, required a different kind of reception from the one I
received.”
The immediate trouble seems partly to have arisen from General Kearny’s
insisting that Colonel Mason should remain through the interview, on
the ground that he was the officer appointed to succeed to command
in California after the approaching departure of General Kearny. The
situation was antagonistic. Kearny finally gave Frémont a limited time
in which to declare himself as to obeying the General’s orders, and
after an hour’s consideration he returned agreeing to obey. He was then
directed to report at Monterey at the earliest possible moment. Of the
impending insurrection at Los Angeles nothing more is heard.
The great ride which culminated at Monterey in this unsatisfactory
interview was one of the most remarkable on record for speed and
distance. Few men would have the endurance necessary to accomplish such
a feat, but Frémont was a man of iron. At dawn, March 22, 1847, he rode
out of Los Angeles accompanied by his devoted friend Don Jesus Pico,
like all Californians of that day a superb horseman full of endurance,
and by the equally devoted coloured man Jacob Dodson, now, by his long
experience, the equal of a Californian in riding and lasso-throwing.
Besides their three mounts they drove before them six other horses in
good condition, all unshod, and from time to time (about every twenty
miles), Dodson or Pico would rope fresh horses from the free band to
relieve the tired mounts. Changing saddles was but the work of a few
seconds, and off they sped again. By night of this first day they had
made 120 miles, over mountains and valleys, part of the way by the
Rincon, the precarious path along the coast, possible only at low tide,
and they slept beyond Santa Barbara at the ranch of Señor Robberis. The
second day the distance covered was 135 miles, over the mountains where
the Battalion had been so furiously beaten down by the terrible storm
described by Bryant, and they counted the skeletons of fifty horses
that had succumbed on that day of exposure and suffering.
Sunset found them at Captain Dana’s place taking supper; and the home
of Pico, San Luis Obispo, was reached by nine in the night. Here a
warm welcome met Frémont for his clemency to Pico in the matter of
the parole, and it was eleven o’clock the next morning before they
were again in the saddle, with eight fresh horses and a Spanish boy
for herder, and riding for Monterey. Seventy miles to their credit
brought them to a halt for the night in the valley of the Salinas,
where they were barred from sleep by a number of grizzly bears prowling
near and frightening the horses. Frémont was for shooting them but
Pico said no, and he shouted at them something in Spanish when they
forthwith retired! But a large fire was then built, breakfast was
prepared, and at break of day the last stretch of the road to Monterey
was taken at a fine pace, the ninety miles being covered by three in
the afternoon (March 25th) making a grand total in _four days of 420
miles_. Frémont, that evening, had the interview, with General Kearny,
above referred to, which H. H. Bancroft regards as the “turning point”
in the Kearny-Frémont affair. The next day, at four in the afternoon,
the party started on the return to Los Angeles and they made 40 miles.
The following day 120 miles more were put between them and Monterey,
and with 130 miles then on each of the two succeeding days, the Colonel
and his companions rode into Los Angeles on the ninth day after his
start from there; a total journey of 840 miles over rough country in
76 actual riding hours by the use of 17 horses. To test one of them
Frémont rode him without change for 130 miles in 24 hours. The famous
ride from Ghent to Aix, immortalised by Browning, was barely more
than the least one of these eight days of Frémont. Browning missed an
opportunity. Riding with a herd of loose horses running ahead from
which the lasso any moment can bring one a fresh mount is highly
exhilarating. I tried it once, with 25 horses, for some 300 miles
across Utah, but I was not bent on saving Aix or even Los Angeles.
THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP
BRET HARTE
From “The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches.” Reprinted by
permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Company, Boston.[15]
There was commotion in Roaring Camp. It could not have been a fight,
for in 1850 that was not novel enough to have called together the
entire settlement. The ditches and claims were not only deserted,
but “Tuttle’s grocery” had contributed its gamblers, who, it will be
remembered, calmly continued their game the day that French Pete and
Kanaka Joe shot each other to death over the bar in the front-room. The
whole camp was collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the
clearing. Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of
a woman was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the
camp,--“Cherokee Sal.”
Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse, and, it is
to be feared, a very sinful woman. But at that time she was the only
woman in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity,
when she most needed the ministration of her own sex. Dissolute,
abandoned and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard
enough to bear even when veiled by sympathizing womanhood, but now
terrible in her loneliness. The primal curse had come to her in that
original isolation which must have made the punishment of the first
transgression so dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of
her sin, that, at a moment when she most lacked her sex’s intuitive
tenderness and care, she met only the half-contemptuous faces of
her masculine associates. Yet a few of the spectators were, I think,
touched by her sufferings. Sandy Tipton thought it was “rough on Sal,”
and, in the contemplation of her condition, for a moment rose superior
to the fact that he had an ace and two bowers in his sleeve.
It will be seen, also, that the situation was novel. Deaths were by no
means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People
had been dismissed from the camp effectively, finally, and with no
possibility of return; but this was the first time that anybody had
been introduced _ab initio_. Hence the excitement.
“You go in there, Stumpy,” said a prominent citizen known as “Kentuck,”
addressing one of the loungers. “Go in there, and see what you kin do.
You’ve had experience in them things.”
Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection. Stumpy, in other climes,
had been the putative head of two families; in fact, it was owing to
some legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp--a city
of refuge--was indebted to his company. The crowd approved the choice,
and Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on
the extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside,
smoked its pipe, and awaited the issue.
The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these
were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were
reckless. Physically, they exhibited no indication of their past lives
and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion
of blond hair; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and
intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous
man was scarcely over five feet in height, with a soft voice and an
embarrassed, timid manner. The term “roughs” applied to them was a
distinction rather than a definition. Perhaps in the minor details
of fingers, toes, ears, etc., the camp may have been deficient, but
these slight omissions did not detract from their aggregate force. The
strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand; the best shot
had but one eye.
Such was the physical aspect of the men that were dispersed around
the cabin. The camp lay in a triangular valley, between two hills and
a river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill
that faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon. The suffering
woman might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay,--seen it
winding like a silver thread until it was lost in the stars above.
A fire of withered pine-boughs added sociability to the gathering. By
degrees the natural levity of Roaring Camp returned. Bets were freely
offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that “Sal would
get through with it”; even, that the child would survive; side bets as
to the sex and complexion of the coming stranger. In the midst of an
excited discussion an exclamation came from those nearest the door, and
the camp stopped to listen. Above the swaying and moaning of the pines,
the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the fire, rose a
sharp, querulous cry,--a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp.
The pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, and the fire to
cackle. It seem as if Nature had stopped to listen too.
The camp rose to its feet as one man! It was proposed to explode a
barrel of gunpowder, but, in consideration of the situation of the
mother, better counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were
discharged; for, whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or
some other reason, Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she
had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and
so passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame forever. I do not
think that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation
as to the fate of the child. “Can he live now?” was asked of Stumpy.
The answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal’s sex
and maternal condition in the settlement was an ass. There was some
conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less
problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and
apparently as successful.