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THE LIFE OF BRET HARTE
[Illustration: Bret Harte]
The Gale Library of Lives and Letters American Writers Series
THE LIFE OF BRET HARTE
WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE CALIFORNIA PIONEERS
BY HENRY CHILDS MERWIN
WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1911
REPUBLISHED BY GALE RESEARCH COMPANY, BOOK TOWER, DETROIT, 1967
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY HENRY CHILDS MERWIN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published September 1911_
Library of Congress Card Number: 67-23887
TO Anne Amory Merwin THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
PREFACE
It is a pleasure for the Author of this book to record his indebtedness to
others in preparing it. Mrs. T. Edgar Pemberton, and Messrs. C. Arthur
Pearson, Limited, the publishers of Pemberton's Life of Bret Harte, have
kindly consented to the quotation from that interesting book of several
letters by Mr. Harte that throw much light upon his character. Similar
permission was given by Mr. Howells and his publishers, the Messrs. Harper
and Brothers, to make use of Mr. Howells' account of Bret Harte's visit to
him at Cambridge; and of this permission the Author has availed himself
with a freedom which the Reader at least will not regret.
Professor Raymond Weeks, President of the American Dialect Society,
Professor C. Alphonso Smith, Mr. Albert Matthews, and others whose names
are mentioned on page 326, have lent their aid in regard to the Pioneer
language, and Ernest Knaufft, Bret Harte's nephew, has not only furnished
the Author with some information about his uncle's early life, but he has
also read the proofs, and has made more than one valuable suggestion which
the Author was glad to adopt. It is only fair to add that Mr. Knaufft does
not in all respects agree with the Author's estimate of Bret Harte's
character. Another critic, Prescott Hartford Belknap, has put his fine
literary taste at the service of the book, and has saved its writer from
some mistakes which he now shudders to contemplate.
Most of all, however, the Author is indebted to his accomplished friend,
Edwin Munroe Bacon, who, though much engaged with important literary work
of his own, has read the book twice, once in MS. and once in print,--a
signal, not to say painful proof of friendship which the Author
acknowledges with gratitude, and almost with shame.
H. C. M.
CONTENTS
I. BRET HARTE'S ANCESTRY 1
II. BRET HARTE'S BOYHOOD 13
III. BRET HARTE'S WANDERINGS IN CALIFORNIA 18
IV. BRET HARTE IN SAN FRANCISCO 32
V. THE PIONEER MEN AND WOMEN 53
VI. PIONEER LIFE 85
VII. PIONEER LAW AND LAWLESSNESS 120
VIII. WOMEN AND CHILDREN AMONG THE PIONEERS 140
IX. FRIENDSHIP AMONG THE PIONEERS 157
X. GAMBLING IN PIONEER TIMES 168
XI. OTHER FORMS OF BUSINESS 181
XII. LITERATURE, JOURNALISM AND RELIGION 192
XIII. BRET HARTE'S DEPARTURE FROM CALIFORNIA 214
XIV. BRET HARTE IN THE EAST 220
XV. BRET HARTE AT CREFELD 251
XVI. BRET HARTE AT GLASGOW 266
XVII. BRET HARTE IN LONDON 274
XVIII. BRET HARTE AS A WRITER OF FICTION 293
XIX. BRET HARTE AS A POET 308
XX. BRET HARTE'S PIONEER DIALECT 321
XXI. BRET HARTE'S STYLE 330
INDEX 347
ILLUSTRATIONS
BRET HARTE (PHOTOGRAVURE) _Frontispiece._
From a photograph by Hollyer taken in 1896.
BERNARD HART, BRET HARTE'S GRANDFATHER 6
From a painting in the possession of Messrs.
Arthur Lipper & Co., New York.
SAN FRANCISCO, NOVEMBER, 1844 24
After a sketch by J. C. Ward.
BRET HARTE IN 1861 32
The facsimile of Bret Harte's handwriting is taken
from the back of the photograph in the possession
of Miss Elizabeth Benton Fremont.
STORESHIP APOLLO, USED AS A SALOON 40
After a drawing by W. Taber.
GRAND PLAZA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1852 60
From an old print.
THE FIRST HOTEL AT SAN FRANCISCO 86
After a drawing by W. Taber.
MINERS' BALL 94
After a drawing by A. Castaigne.
THE TWO OPPONENTS CAME NEARER 114
After a drawing by Frederic Remington illustrating
"The Iliad of Sandy Bar."
SACRAMENTO CITY IN 1852 120
From an old print.
THE POST-OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO, 1849-50 144
After a drawing by A. Castaigne.
HE LOOKED CURIOUSLY AT HIS REFLECTION 166
After a drawing by E. Boyd Smith, illustrating "Left
Out on Lone Star Mountain."
DENNISON'S EXCHANGE, AND PARKER HOUSE, DECEMBER,
1849, BEFORE THE FIRE 178
After a drawing by W. Taber.
MAIN STREET, NEVADA CITY, 1852 196
From a photograph in the possession of Colonel
Thomas L. Livermore.
THE BELLS, SAN GABRIEL MISSION 212
From a photograph.
I THOUGHT YOU WERE THAT HORSE-THIEF 248
After a drawing by Denman Fink, illustrating
"Lanty Foster's Mistake."
THE HOME OF "TRUTHFUL JAMES," JACKASS FLAT, TUOLUMNE
COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 310
From a photograph.
THE LIFE OF BRET HARTE
BRET HARTE
CHAPTER I
BRET HARTE'S ANCESTRY
Francis Brett Harte was born at Albany in the State of New York, on August
twenty-fifth, 1836. By his relatives and early friends he was called
Frank; but soon after beginning his career as an author in San Francisco
he signed his name as "Brett," then as "Bret," and finally as "Bret
Harte." "Bret Harte," therefore, is in some degree a _nom de guerre_, and
it was commonly supposed at first, both in the Eastern States and in
England, to be wholly such. Our great New England novelist had a similar
experience, for "Nathaniel Hawthorne" was long regarded by most of his
readers as an assumed name, happily chosen to indicate the quaint and
poetic character of the tales to which it was signed. Bret Harte's father
was Henry Hart;[1] but before we trace his ancestry, let us endeavor to
see how he looked. Fanny Kemble met him at Lenox, in the year 1875, and
was much impressed by his appearance. In a letter to a relative she wrote:
"He reminded me a good deal of our old pirate and bandit friend,
Trelawney, though the latter was an almost orientally dark-complexioned
man, and Mr. Bret Harte was comparatively fair. They were both tall,
well-made men of fine figure; both, too, were handsome, with a peculiar
expression of face which suggested small success to any one who might
engage in personal conflict with them."
In reality Bret Harte was not tall, though others beside Mrs. Kemble
thought him to be so; his height was five feet, eight and a half inches.
His face was smooth and regular, without much color; the chin firm and
well rounded; the nose straight and rather large, "the nose of generosity
and genius"; the under-lip having what Mr. Howells called a "fascinating,
forward thrust."
The following description dates from the time when he left California: "He
was a handsome, distinguished-looking man, and although his oval face was
slightly marred by scars of small-pox, and his abundant dark hair was
already streaked with gray, he carried his slight, upright figure with a
quiet elegance that would have made an impression, even when the
refinement of face, voice and manner had not been recognized."
Mr. Howells says of him at the same period: "He was, as one could not help
seeing, thickly pitted, but after the first glance one forgot this, so
that a lady who met him for the first time could say to him, 'Mr. Harte,
aren't you afraid to go about in the cars so recklessly when there is this
scare about small-pox?' 'No! madam!' he said, in that rich note of his,
with an irony touched by pseudo-pathos, 'I bear a charmed life.'"
Almost every one who met Bret Harte was struck by his low, rich,
well-modulated voice. Mr. Howells speaks of "the mellow cordial of a voice
that was like no other." His handwriting was small, firm and graceful.
Chance acquaintances made in England were sometimes surprised at Bret
Harte's appearance. They had formed, writes Mme. Van de Velde, "a vague,
intangible idea of a wild, reckless Californian, impatient of social
trammels, whose life among the Argonauts must have fashioned him after a
type differing widely from the reality. These idealists were partly
disappointed, partly relieved, when their American writer turned out to
be a quiet, low-voiced, easy-mannered, polished gentleman, who smilingly
confessed that precisely because he had roughed it a good deal in his
youth he was inclined to enjoy the comforts and avail himself of the
facilities of an older civilization, when placed within his reach."
Bret Harte's knowledge of these disappointed expectations may have
suggested the plot of that amusing story _Their Uncle from California_,
the hero of which presents a similar contrast to the barbaric ideal which
had been formed by his Eastern relatives.
The photographs of Bret Harte, taken at various periods in his life,
reveal great changes, apart from those of age. The first one, at
seventeen, shows an intellectual youth, very mature for his age, with a
fine forehead, the hair parted at one side, and something of a rustic
appearance. In the next picture, taken at the age of thirty-five or
thereabout, we see a determined-looking man, with slight side-whiskers, a
drooping mustache, and clothes a little "loud." Five years afterward there
is another photograph in which the whiskers have disappeared, the hair
seems longer and more curly, the clothes are unquestionably "loud," and
the picture, taken altogether, has a slight tinge of Bohemian-like
vulgarity. In the later photographs the hair is shorter, and parted in the
middle, the mustache subdued, the dress handsome and in perfect taste, and
the whole appearance is that of a refined, sophisticated, aristocratic man
of the world, dignified, and yet perfectly simple, unaffected and free
from self-consciousness.
In a measure Bret Harte seems to have undergone that process of
development which Mr. Henry James has described in "The American." The
Reader may remember how the American (far from a typical one, by the way)
began with sky-blue neckties and large plaids, and ended with clothes and
adornments of the most chastened, correct and elegant character. Actors
are apt to go through a similar process. The first great exponent of the
"suppressed emotion" school began, and in California too, as it happened,
by splitting the ears of the groundlings and sawing the air with both
arms.
Bret Harte had something of a Hebrew look, and not unnaturally so, for he
came of mixed English, Dutch and Hebrew stock. To be exact, he was half
English, one quarter Dutch, and one quarter Hebrew. The Hebrew strain also
was derived from English soil, so that with the exception of a Dutch
great-grandmother, all his ancestors emigrated from England, and not very
remotely.
The Hebrew in the pedigree was his paternal grandfather, Bernard Hart. Mr.
Hart was born in London, on Christmas Day, 1763 or 1764, but as a boy of
thirteen he went out to Canada, where his relatives were numerous. These
Canadian Harts were a marked family, energetic, forceful, strong-willed,
prosperous, given to hospitality, warm-hearted, and pleasure-loving. One
of Bernard Hart's Canadian cousins left behind him at his death no less
than fourteen families, all established in the world with a good degree of
comfort, and with a sufficient degree of respectability. Now the
impropriety, to say nothing about the extravagance, of maintaining
fourteen separate families is so great that no Reader of this book (the
author feels confident) need be warned against it; and yet it indicates a
large, free-handed, lordly way of doing things. It was no ordinary man,
and no ordinary strain of blood that could produce such a record.
Bernard Hart remained but three years in Canada, and in 1780 moved to New
York where, although scarcely more than a boy, he acted as the business
representative of his Canadian kinsfolk. The Canadian Harts had many
commercial and social relations with the metropolis, and there was much
"cousining," much going back and forth between the two places. Bernard
Hart lived in New York for the rest of his life, and attained a high rank
in the community. "Towering aloft among the magnates of the city of the
last and present century," writes a local historian, "is Bernard Hart." He
was successful in business, very active in social and charitable affairs,
and prominent in the synagogue. In 1802 he formed a partnership with
Leonard Lispenard, under the name of Lispenard and Hart. They were
commission merchants and auctioneers, and did a large business. In 1803
the firm was dissolved, and Mr. Hart continued in trade by himself. In
1831 he became Secretary to the New York Stock Exchange Board, and held
that office for twenty-two years, resigning at the age of eighty-nine. In
1795, the year of the yellow fever plague, Bernard Hart rendered heroic
service, as is testified by a contemporary annalist. "Mr. Hart and Mr.
Pell, who kept store at 108 Market Street, a few doors from Mr. Hart, were
unceasing in their exertions. Night and day, hardly giving themselves time
to sleep or eat, they were among the sick and dying, relieving their
wants. They were angels of mercy in those awful days of the first great
pestilence."
Bernard Hart was also a military man, and in 1797 became quartermaster of
a militia regiment, composed wholly of citizens of New York. That he was a
"clubable" man, too, is very apparent. It was an era of clubs, and Bernard
Hart founded the association known as "The Friary." It met on the first
and third Sundays of every month at 56 Pine Street. He was also President
of The House of Lords, a merchants' club, which met at Baker's City Tavern
every week-day night, at 7 o'clock, adjourning at 10 o'clock. Each member
was allowed a limited quantity of liquor, business was discussed,
contracts were made, and sociability was promoted. He was, too, a member
of the St. George Society, and is said, also, to have been a Mason,
belonging to Holland Lodge No. 8, of which John Jacob Astor was master in
1798. Bernard Hart was a devout Jew, and his name frequently appears in
the records of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, known as the
Congregation Shearith Israel, the first synagogue established in New York.
He lived in various houses,--at 86 Water Street, at 24 Cedar Street, at 12
Lispenard Street, at 20 Varick Street, and finally at 23 White Street. A
picture of him still hangs in the counting-room of Messrs. Arthur Lipper
and Co., in Broad Street.
How came it that this orthodox Jew, this pillar of the synagogue, married
a Christian woman? The romance, if there was one, is imperfectly preserved
even in the family traditions. It is known only that in 1799 Bernard Hart
married Catharine Brett, a woman of good family; that after living
together for a year or less, they separated; that there was one son, Henry
Hart, born February 1, 1800, who lived with his mother, and who became the
father of Bret Harte.
A few years later, in 1806, Bernard Hart married Zipporah Seixas, one of
the sixteen children, eight sons and eight daughters, born to Benjamin
Mendez Seixas. These young women were noted for their beauty and
amiability, and so strong was the impression which they produced that it
lasted even until the succeeding generation. The marriage ceremony was
performed by Gershom Mendez Seixas, a brother of the bride's father, and
rabbi of the synagogue already mentioned. From this marriage came numerous
sons and daughters, whose careers were honorable. Emanuel B. Hart was a
merchant and broker, an alderman, a member of Congress in 1851 and 1852,
and Surveyor of the Port of New York from 1859 to 1861. Benjamin I. Hart
was a broker in New York. David Hart, a teller in the Pacific Bank, fought
gallantly at the battle of Bull Run and was badly wounded there. Theodore
and Daniel Hart were merchants in New York.
[Illustration: BERNARD HART
Bret Harte's Grandfather]
One of Bernard Hart's sons by the Hebrew wife was named Henry. He was born
in 1817, and died of consumption in his father's house in White Street on
November 16, 1850. He was unmarried. Bernard Hart himself died in 1855, at
the age of ninety-one. His wife was then living at the age of
seventy-nine.
None of his descendants on the Hebrew side knew of his marriage to
Catharine Brett or of the existence of his son, the first Henry Hart,
until some years after Bret Harte's death. It seems almost incredible that
this Hebrew merchant, prominent as he was in business and social life, in
clubs and societies, in the militia and the synagogue, should have been
able to keep the fact of his first marriage so secret that it remained a
secret for a hundred years; it seems very unlikely that a woman of good
English birth and family should in that era have married a Jew; it is
highly improbable that a father should give to a son by a second marriage
the same name already given to his son by a former marriage. And yet all
these things are indisputable facts. There are members of Bret Harte's
family still living who remember Bernard Hart, and his occasional visits
to the family of Henry Hart, his son by Catharine Brett, whom he assisted
with money and advice so long as he lived. Bret Harte himself remembered
being taken to the New York Stock Exchange by his father, who there
pointed out to him his grandfather, Bernard Hart. It may be added that
between the descendants of Bernard Hart and Catharine Brett and those of
Bernard Hart and Zipporah Seixas there is a marked resemblance.
How far was the venerable Jew from suspecting that the one fact in his
life which he was so anxious to conceal was the very fact which would
rescue his name from oblivion, and preserve it so long as English
literature shall exist! Even if the marriage to Catharine Brett, a
Christian woman, had been known it would not, according to Jewish law,
have invalidated the second marriage, but it would doubtless have
prevented that marriage. What rendered the long concealment possible was,
of course, the deep gulf which then separated Jew from Gentile. Catharine
Brett had been warned by her father that he would cast her off if she
married the Jew; and this threat was fulfilled. Thenceforth, she lived a
lonely and secluded life, supported, it is believed, by her husband, but
having no other relation with him. The marriage was so improbable, so
ill-assorted, so productive of unhappiness, and yet so splendid in its
ultimate results, that it seems almost atheistic to ascribe it to chance.
Is the world governed in that haphazard manner!
But who was this unfortunate Catharine Brett? She was a granddaughter of
Roger Brett, an Englishman, and, it is supposed, a lieutenant in the
British Navy, who first appears in New York, about the year 1700, as a
friend of Lord Cornbury, then Governor of the Province. The coat of arms
which Roger Brett brought over, and which is still preserved on a pewter
placque, is identical with that borne by Judge, Sir Balliol Brett, before
his elevation to the peerage as Viscount Esher. Roger Brett was a
vestryman of Trinity Church from 1703 to 1706. In November, 1703, he
married Catharyna Rombout, daughter of Francis Rombout, who was one of the
early and successful merchants in the city of New York. Her mother, Helena
Teller, daughter of William Teller, a captain in the Indian wars, was
married three times, Francis Rombout being her third husband. Schuyler
Colfax, once Vice-President of the United States, was descended from her.
Francis Rombout was born at Hasselt in Belgium, and came to New Amsterdam
while it still belonged to the Dutch. He was an elder in the Dutch Church,
served as lieutenant in an expedition against the Swedes, was Schepen
under the Dutch municipal government, alderman under the reorganized
British government, and, in 1679, became the twelfth Mayor of New York.
Francis Rombout left to his daughter, Roger Brett's wife, an immense
estate on the Hudson River, which included the Fishkills, and consisted
chiefly of forest land. There, in 1709, the young couple built for their
home a manor house, which is still standing and is occupied by a
descendant of Roger Brett, to whom it has come down in direct line through
the female branch. A few years later, at least before 1720, Roger Brett
was drowned at the mouth of Fishkill Creek in the Hudson River. Catharyna,
his widow, survived him for many years. She was a woman of marked
character and ability, known through all that region as Madame Brett. She
administered her large estate, leased and sold much land to settlers,
controlled the Indians who were numerous, superintended a mill to which
both Dutchess County and Orange County sent their grist, owned the sloops
which were the only carriers between this outpost of the Colony and the
city of New York, and was one of the founders of the Fishkill Dutch
Church. In that church, a tablet to her memory was recently erected by the
Rombout-Brett Association, formed a few years ago by her descendants. The
tablet is inscribed as follows:--
_In memory of Catharyna Brett, widow of Lieutenant Roger Brett, R.N.,
and daughter of Francis Rombout, a grantee of Rombout patent, born in
the city of New York 1687, died in Rombout Precinct, Fishkill, 1764.
To this church she was a liberal contributor, and underneath its
pulpit her body is interred. This tablet was erected by her
descendants and others interested in the Colonial history of
Fishkill, A. D. 1904._
Roger Brett had four sons, of whom two died young and unmarried, and two,
Francis and Robert, married, and left many children. Whether the Catharine
Brett who married Bernard Hart was descended from Francis or from Robert
is not certainly known. Francis Brett's wife was a descendant of Cornelius
Van Wyck, one of the earliest settlers on Long Island. Robert Brett's wife
was a Miss Dubois.
Such was the ancestry of Bret Harte's paternal grandmother. Her son, Henry
Hart,[2] lived with her until, on May 5, 1817, he entered Union College,
Schenectady, as a member of the class of 1820. He remained in college
until the end of his Senior year, and passed all his examinations for
graduation, but failed to receive his degree because a college bill
amounting to ninety dollars had not been paid. The previous bills were
paid by his mother, "Catharine Hart." Alas! the non-payment of this bill
was an omen of the future. Henry Hart and his illustrious son were both
the reverse of thrifty or economical. Money seemed to fly away from them;
they had no capacity for keeping it, and no discretion in spending it.
Unpaid bills were the bane of their existence. Henry Hart's improvidence
is ascribed, in part, by those who knew him, to the irregular manner in
which his father supplied him with money, Bernard Hart being sometimes
very lavish and sometimes very parsimonious with his son.
Henry Hart was a well-built, athletic-looking man, with rather large
features, and dark hair and complexion. His height was five feet ten
inches, and his weight one hundred and seventy pounds. He was an
accomplished scholar, speaking French, Spanish and Italian, and being well
versed in Greek and Latin. He passed his short life as school-teacher,
tutor, lecturer and translator.
On May 16, 1830, he married Elizabeth Rebecca, daughter of Henry Philip
Ostrander, an "upstate" surveyor and farmer, who belonged to a prominent
Dutch family which settled at Kingston on the Hudson in 1659. It will be
remembered that the hero of Bret Harte's story, _Two Americans_, is Major
Philip Ostrander. The mother of Elizabeth Ostrander, Henry Hart's wife,
was Abigail Truesdale, of English descent. Henry Hart was brought up by
his mother in the Dutch Reformed faith, but soon after leaving college,
owing to what influence is unknown, he became a Catholic, and remained
such until his death. His wife was an Episcopalian, and his children were
of that, if of any persuasion.
In 1833 we find Henry Hart at Albany, and there he remained until 1836,
the year of Bret Harte's birth. In 1833 and 1834, he was instructor in the
Albany Female Academy, a girls' school, famous in its day, where he taught
reading and writing, rhetoric and mathematics. Early in 1835 he left the
Academy, and for two years he conducted a private school of his own at 15
Columbia Street, but this appears not to have been successful, for he
ceased to be a resident of the city in the latter part of 1836, or early
in 1837. One event in Henry Hart's life at Albany is significant. In
December, 1833, a meeting was held in the Mayor's Court Room to organize a
Young Men's Association, which proved to be a great success, and which has
played an important part in the life of the city down to the present day.
Henry Hart, though a comparative stranger in Albany, was chosen to explain
the objects of the Association at this meeting, and at the next meeting he
was elected one of the Managers. When Bret Harte came East from
California, he went to Albany and addressed the Association, upon the
invitation of its members.
After leaving Albany the family led an unsettled, uncomfortable life,
going from place to place, with occasional returns to the home of an
Ostrander relative in Hudson Street in the city of New York. The late Mr.
A. V. S. Anthony, the well-known engraver, was a neighbor of Bret Harte in
Hudson Street, and played and fought with him there, when they were both
about seven or eight years old. Afterward they met in California, and
again in London. From Albany the Henry Hart family went to Hudson, where
Mr. Hart acted as principal of an academy; and subsequently they lived in
New Brunswick, New Jersey; in Philadelphia; in Providence, Rhode Island;
in Lowell, Massachusetts; in Boston and elsewhere.
A few years before her death Mrs. Hart read the life of Bronson Alcott,
and when she laid down the book she remarked that the troubles and
privations endured by the Alcott family bore a striking resemblance to
those which she and her children had undergone. Some want of balance in
Henry Hart's character prevented him, notwithstanding his undoubted
talents, his enthusiasm, and his accomplishments, from ever obtaining any
material success in life, or even a home for his family and himself. But
he was a man of warm impulses and deep feeling. When Henry Clay was
nominated for the Presidency in 1844, Henry Hart espoused his cause almost
with fury. He gave up all other employment to electioneer in behalf of the
Whig candidate, and the defeat of his idol was a crushing blow from which
he never recovered. It was the first time that a really great man, as Clay
certainly was, had been outvoted in a contest for the Presidency by a
commonplace man, like Polk; and Clay's defeat was regarded by his
adherents not only as a hideous injustice, but as a national calamity. It
is not given to every one to take any impersonal matter so seriously as
Henry Hart took the defeat of his political chieftain; and his death a
year later, in 1845, may justly be regarded as a really noble ending to a
troubled and unsuccessful life.