WOMEN AND CHILDREN AMONG THE PIONEERS
The chief source of demoralization among the Pioneers was the absence of
women and children, and therefore of any real home. "Ours is a bachelor
community," remarked the "Alta California," "but nevertheless possessing
strong domestic propensities." Most significant and pathetic, indeed, is
the strain of homesickness which underlies the wild symphony of Pioneer
life. "I well remember," writes a Forty-Niner, "the loneliness and
dreariness amid all the excitement of the time." The unsuccessful miner
often lost his strength by hard work, exposure, and bad food; and then
fell a prey to that disease which has slain so many a
wanderer--homesickness. At the San Francisco hospital it was a rule not to
give letters from the East to patients, unless they were safely
convalescent. More than once the nurses had seen a sick man, after reading
a letter from home, turn on his side and die.
In the big gambling saloons of San Francisco, when the band played "Home,
Sweet Home," hundreds of homeless wanderers stood still, and listened as
if entranced. The newspapers of '49 and '50 are full of lamentations, in
prose and in verse, over the absence of women and children. In 1851 the
"Alta California" exclaimed, "Who will devise a plan to bring out a few
cargoes of respectable women to California?"
On those rare occasions when children appeared in the streets, they were
followed by admiring crowds of bearded men, eager to kiss them, to shake
their hands, to hear their voices, and humbly begging permission to make
them presents of gold nuggets and miners' curiosities. In the autumn of
1849 a beautiful flaxen-haired little girl, about three years old, was
frequently seen playing upon the veranda of a house near the business
centre of San Francisco, and at such times there was always on the
opposite side of the street a group of miners gazing reverently at the
child, and often with tears running down their bronzed cheeks. The cry of
a baby at the theatre brought down a tumultuous encore from the whole
house. The chief attraction of every theatrical troupe was a child,
usually called the "California Pet," whose appearance on the stage was
always greeted with a shower of coins. Next to the Pet, the most popular
part of the entertainment was the singing of ballads and songs relating to
domestic subjects.
In '49 a woman in the streets of San Francisco created more excitement
than would have been caused by the appearance of an elephant or a giraffe.
Once at a crowded sale in an auction room some one cried out, "Two ladies
going along the sidewalk!" and forthwith everybody rushed pell-mell into
the street, as if there had been a fire or an earthquake. A young miner,
in a remote mountain camp, borrowed a mule and rode forty miles in order
to make a call upon a married woman who had recently arrived. He had a few
minutes' conversation with her, and returned the next day well satisfied
with his trip. At another diggings, when the first woman resident
appeared, she and the mule upon which she rode, were raised from the
ground by a group of strong-armed, enthusiastic miners, and carried
triumphantly to the house which her husband had prepared for her.
When the town where Stephen J. Field purchased his corner lots was
organized, the first necessity was of course a name. Various titles,
suggested by the situation, or by the imagination of hopeful miners, were
proposed, such as Yubaville and Circumdoro; but finally a substantial,
middle-aged man arose and remarked that there was an American lady in the
place, the wife of one of the proprietors, that her name was Mary, and
that in his opinion, the town should be called Marysville, as a compliment
to her. No sooner had he made this suggestion than the meeting broke out
in loud huzzahs; every hat made a circle around its owner's head, and the
new town was christened Marysville without a dissenting voice. The lady,
Mrs. Coullard, was one of the survivors of the Donner party, and the honor
was therefore especially fitting.
Doubts have been cast upon the story of the bar surmounted by a woman's
sunbonnet, to which every customer respectfully lifted his glass before
tossing off its contents; but the fact is substantiated by the eminent
engraver, Mr. A. V. S. Anthony, who, as a young man, drank a glass of
whiskey at that very bar, in the early Fifties, and joined in the homage
to the sunbonnet. There is really nothing unnatural in this incident, or
in that other story of some youthful miners coming by chance upon a
woman's cast-off skirt or hat, spontaneously forming a ring and dancing
around it. In both cases, the motive, no doubt, was partly humorous,
partly amorous, and partly a vague but intense longing for the gentle and
refining influence of women's society.
This feeling of the miners, roughly expressed in the incidents of the
sunbonnet and skirt, was poetically treated by Bret Harte in the story
called _The Goddess of Excelsior_,--another example of that "perverse
romanticism" which has been discovered in his California tales.
Said the "Sacramento Transcript," in April, 1850, "May we not hope soon to
see around us thousands of happy homes whose genial influences will awaken
the noble qualities that many a wanderer has allowed to slumber in his
heart while absent from the objects of his affection!"
In the same strain, but in the more florid style which was common in the
California newspapers, another writer thus anticipated the coming of women
and children: "No longer will the desolate heart seek to drown its
loneliness in the accursed bowl. But the bright smiles of love will shed
sunshine where were dark clouds and fierce tornadoes, and the lofty spire,
pointing heavenward, will remind us in our pilgrimage here of the high
destiny we were created to fulfil." This has the ring of sincerity, and
yet, as we read it, we cannot help thinking that when the writer laid down
his pen, he went out and took one more drink from the "accursed bowl"; and
who could blame him!
A loaf of home-made cake sent all the way around Cape Horn from Brooklyn
to San Jose was reverently eaten, a portion being given to the local
editor who duly returned thanks for the same.
The arrival of the fortnightly mail steamer was always the most important
event of those early years; and Bret Harte thus described it: "Perhaps it
is the gilded drinking saloon into which some one rushes with arms
extended at right angles, and conveys in that one pantomimic action the
signal of the semaphore telegraph on Telegraph Hill that a side-wheel
steamer has arrived, and that there are letters from home. Perhaps it is
the long queue that afterward winds and stretches from the Post Office
half a mile away. Perhaps it is the eager men who, following it rapidly
down, bid fifty, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, and even five
hundred dollars for favored places in the line. Perhaps it is the haggard
man who nervously tears open his letter, and falls senseless beside his
comrade."[56]
Thus far Bret Harte. In precisely the same vein, and with a literary
finish almost equal, is the following paragraph from a contemporary
newspaper: "This other face is well known. It is that of one who has
always been at his post on the arrival of each steamer for the past six
months, certain at each time that he will get a letter. His eye brightens
for a moment as the clerk pauses in running over the yellow-covered
documents, but the clerk goes on again hastily, and then shakes his head,
and says 'No letter.' The brightened eye looks sad again, the face pales,
and the poor fellow goes off with a feeling in his heart that he is
forgotten by those who knew and loved him at home."[57]
Anxious men sometimes camped out on the steps of the Post Office, the
night before a mail steamer was due, in order that they might receive the
longed-for letter at the earliest possible moment.
The coming of three women on a steamer from New York in 1850 was mentioned
by all the newspapers as a notable event. In May of that year the
"Sacramento Transcript" contained an advertisement, novel for California,
being that of a "_Few_ fashionably-trimmed, Florence braid velvet and silk
bonnets." A month later a Sydney ship arrived at San Francisco, having on
board two hundred and sixty passengers, of whom seventy were women. As
soon as this vessel had anchored, there was a rush of bachelors to the
Bay, and boat-loads of them climbed the ship's side, trying to engage
housekeepers.
In 1851 women began to arrive in somewhat larger numbers, and the coming
of wives from the East gave rise to many amusing, many pathetic and some
tragic scenes. "You could always tell a month beforehand," said a Pioneer,
"when a man was expecting the arrival of his real or intended wife. The
old slouch hat, checked shirt and coarse outer garments disappeared, and
the gentleman could be seen on Sunday going to church, newly rigged from
head to foot, with fine beaver hat, white linen, nice and clean, good
broadcloth coat, velvet vest, patent-leather boots, his long beard
shaven or neatly shorn,--he looked like a new man. As the time drew near
many of his hours were spent about the wharves or on Telegraph Hill, and
every five minutes he was looking for the signal to announce the coming of
the steamer. If, owing to some breakdown or wreck, there was a delay of a
week or two, the suspense was awful beyond description."[58]
[Illustration: THE POST-OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO, 1849-50
A. Castaigne, del.
Copyright by the Century Co.]
The great beards grown in California were sometimes a source of
embarrassment. When a steamer arrived fathers might be seen caressing
little ones whom they now saw for the first time, while the children, in
their turn, were frightened at finding themselves in the arms of such
fierce-looking men. Wives almost shared the consternation of the children.
"Why don't you kiss me, Bessie?" said a Pioneer to his newly arrived wife.
She stood gazing at the hirsute imitation of her husband in utter
astonishment. At last she timidly ejaculated, "I can't find any place."
In March, 1852, forty four women and thirty-six children arrived on one
steamer. The proportion of women Pioneers in that year was one to ten. By
1853, women were one in five of the population, and children one in ten.
Even so late as 1860, however, marriageable women were very scarce. In
November of that year the "Calaveras Chronicle" declared: "No sooner does
a girl emerge from her pantalettes than she is taken possession of by one
of our bachelors, and assigned a seat at the head of his table. We hear
that girls are plenty in the cities below, but such is not the case here."
The same paper gives an account of the first meeting between a heroine of
the Plains, and a Calaveras bachelor. "One day this week a party of
immigrants came down the ridge, and the advance-wagon was driven by a
young and pretty woman--one of General Allen's maidens. When near town
the train was met by a butcher's cart, and the cart was driven by a young
'bach.' He, staring at the lovely features of the lady, neglected to rein
his horse to one side of the road, and the two wagons were about to come
in collision, when a man in the train, noticing the danger, cried out to
the female driver, 'Gee, Kate, Gee!' Said Kate, 'Ain't I a-tryin', but the
dog-gone horses won't gee!'"
Mrs. Bates speaks of two emigrant wagons passing through Marysville one
day in 1850, "each with three yoke of oxen driven by a beautiful girl. In
their hands they carried one of those tremendous, long ox-whips which, by
great exertion, they flourished to the admiration of all beholders. Within
two weeks each one was married."
But it was seldom that a woman who had crossed the Plains presented a
comely appearance upon her arrival. The sunken eyes and worn features of
the newcomers, both men and women, gave some hint of what they had
endured.[59]
A letter from Placerville, written in September, 1850, describes a female
Pioneer who had not quite reached the goal. "On Tuesday last an old lady
was seen leading a thin, jaded horse laden with her scanty stores. The
heat of the sun was almost unbearable, and the sand ankle deep, yet she
said that she had travelled in the same way for the last two hundred
miles."
And then comes a figure which recalls that of Liberty Jones on her arrival
in California: "By the side of one wagon there walked a little girl about
thirteen years old, and from her appearance she must have walked many
hundreds of miles. She was bare-footed and haggard, and she strode on with
steps longer than her years would warrant, as though in the tiresome
journey she had thrown off all grace, and had accustomed herself to a
gait which would on the long marches enable her with most ease to keep up
with the wagon."
The long journey across the Plains without the comforts and conveniences,
and sometimes without even the decencies of life, the contact with rough
men, the shock of hardships and fatigues under which human nature is apt
to lose respect for itself and consideration for others,--these things
inevitably had a coarsening effect upon the Pioneer women. Only those who
possessed exceptional strength and sweetness of character could pass
through them unscathed. As one traveller graphically puts it: "A woman in
whose virtue you might have the same confidence as in the existence of the
stars above would suddenly horrify you by letting a huge oath escape from
her lips, or by speaking to her children as an ungentle hostler would to
his cattle, and perhaps listening undisturbed to the same style of address
in reply."[60] The callousness which Liberty Jones showed at the death of
her father was not in the least exaggerated by Bret Harte.
And yet these defects shrink almost to nothing when we contrast them with
the deeds of love and affection silently performed by women upon those
terrible journeys, and often spoken of with emotion by the Pioneers who
witnessed them. A few of those deeds are chronicled in this book, many
more may be found in the narratives and newspapers of the day, but by far
the greater number were long since buried in oblivion. They are preserved,
if preserved at all, only in the characters of those descended from the
women who performed them.
Upon one thing the Pioneer women could rely,--the universal respect shown
them by the men. In the roughest mining camp in California an unprotected
girl would not only have been safe, she would have been treated with the
utmost consideration and courtesy. Such was the society of which the
English critic declared that "its laxity surpassed the laxity of
savages!"[61]
In this respect, if in no other, the Pioneers insisted that foreigners
should comply with their notions. Nothing, indeed, gave more surprise to
the "Greasers" and Chilenos than the fact that they were haled into court
and punished for beating their wives.
As to the Mexican and Chilean women themselves, it must be admitted that
they contributed more to the gaiety than to the morality or peacefulness
of California life. "Rowdyism and crime," remarked the "Alta California"
in October, 1851, "increase in proportion to the increase in the number of
Senoritas. This is true in the mines as well as in the city."
At a horse-race that came off that year in San Francisco, we hear of the
Senoritas as freely backing their favorite nags with United States money,
though how it came into their possession, as a contemporary satirist
remarked, "is matter of surmise only." This species of woman is portrayed
by Bret Harte in the passionate Teresa, who met her fate, in a double
sense, in _The Carquinez Woods_, finding there both a lover and her death.
The Spanish woman of good family is represented by Dona Rosita in _The
Argonauts of North Liberty_, by Enriquez Saltello's charming sister,
Consuelo, and by Concepcion,[62] the beautiful daughter of the
Commandante, who, after the death of her lover, the Russian Envoy, took
the veil, and died a nun at Benicia.
Even before the discovery of gold a few Americans had married into leading
Spanish families of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Monterey and Sonoma. The
first house erected on the spot which afterward became San Francisco was
built in 1836 by Jacob P. Leese, an American who had married a sister of
General Vallejo. It was finished July 3, and on the following day was
"dedicated to the cause of freedom."
There is something of great interest in the union of races so diverse, and
Bret Harte has touched upon this aspect of California life in the
character of that unique heroine, Maruja. "'Hush, she's looking.' She had
indeed lifted her eyes toward the window. They were beautiful eyes, and
charged with something more than their own beauty. With a deep, brunette
setting, even to the darkened cornea, the pupils were blue as the sky
above them. But they were lit with another intelligence. The soul of the
Salem whaler looked out of the passion-darkened orbits of the mother, and
was resistless."
Chapter and verse can always be given to confirm Bret Harte's account of
California life, and even Maruja can be authenticated. A Lieutenant in the
United States Navy, who visited the Coast in 1846, gave this description
of the reigning belle of California: "Her father was an Englishman, her
mother a Spanish lady. She was brunette, with an oval face, magnificent
grey eyes, the corners of her mouth slightly curved downward, so as to
give a proud and haughty expression to the face. She was tall, graceful,
well-shaped, with small feet and hands, a dead shot, an accomplished
rider, and amiable withal. I never saw a more patrician style of beauty
and native elegance."[63]
California was always the land of romance, and Bret Harte in his poems and
stories touched upon its whole history from the beginning. Even the visit
of Sir Francis Drake in 1578 was not overlooked. In _The Mermaid of
Light-House Point_, Bret Harte quotes a footnote, perhaps imaginary, from
an account of Drake's travels, as follows: "The admiral seems to have lost
several of his crew by desertion, who were supposed to have perished
miserably by starvation in the inhospitable interior or by the hands of
savages. But later voyagers have suggested that the deserters married
Indian wives, and there is a legend that a hundred years later a singular
race of half-breeds, bearing unmistakable Anglo-Saxon characteristics, was
found in that locality."
This was the origin of the blue-eyed and light-haired mermaid of the
story; and it is only fair to add that the tradition of which the author
speaks was current among the Nicasio Indians who inhabited the valley of
that name, about fifteen miles eastward of Drake's Bay.
Among the women who first arrived from the East by sea, there were many of
easy virtue; but even these women--and here is disclosed a wonderful
compliment to the sex--were held by observing Pioneers to have an
elevating influence upon the men. "The bad women," says one careful
historian, "have improved the morals of the community. They have banished
much barbarism, softened many hard hearts, and given a gentleness to the
men which they did not have before."[64]
If this was the effect of the bad, what must have been the influence of
the good women! Let the same writer tell us: "Soon after their arrival,
schools and churches began to spring up; social circles were formed;
refinement dawned upon a debauched and reckless community; decorum took
the place of obscenity; kind and gentle words were heard to fall from the
lips of those who before had been accustomed to taint every phrase with an
oath; and smiles displayed themselves upon countenances to which they had
long been strangers."
And then the author pays a tribute to woman which could hardly be
surpassed: "Had I received no other benefit from my trip to California
than the knowledge I have gained, inadequate as it may be, of woman's many
virtues and perfections, I should account myself well repaid." In a
ship-load of Pioneers which sailed from New York around Cape Horn to San
Francisco in 1850 there was just one woman; and yet her influence upon the
men was so marked and so salutary that it was often spoken of by the
Captain.
The effect of their peculiar situation upon the married women was not
good. They were apt to be demoralized by the attentions of their men
friends, and they were too few in number to inflict upon improper females
that rigid ostracism from society, which, some cynics think, is the
strongest safeguard of feminine virtue. Women in California were released
from their accustomed restraints, they were much noticed and flattered;
and, then, as a San Francisco belle exclaimed, "The gentlemen are so rich
and so handsome, and have such superb whiskers!"
In a single issue of the "Sacramento Transcript," in July, 1850, are the
following two items: "A certain madam now in this town buried her husband,
and seventy-four hours afterward she married another." "One of our fair
and lovely damsels had a quarrel with her husband. He took the stage for
Stockton, and the same day she married another man."
Even those Pioneers who were fortunate enough to have their wives with
them did not always appreciate the blessing. Being absorbed in business
they often felt hampered by obligations from which their bachelor rivals
were free, or perhaps, they chafed at the wholesome restraint imposed upon
a married man in a community of unmarried persons. There was a dangerous
tendency among California husbands to permit their friends to look after
their wives. On this subject Professor Royce very acutely remarks: "The
family grows best in a garden with its kind. When family life does not
involve healthy friendship with other families, it is likely to be injured
by unhealthy if well-meaning friendships with wanderers." This is a
sentiment which Brown of Calaveras would have echoed.
Men with attractive wives were apt to be uncomfortably situated in
California. It is matter of history how The Bell-Ringer of Angel's
protected his young and pretty spouse from dangerous communications: "When
I married my wife and brought her down here, knowin' this yer camp, I sez:
'No flirtin', no foolin', no philanderin' here, my dear! You're young and
don't know the ways o' men. The first man I see you talking with, I
shoot.'"
In 1851, there was a man named Crockett whose predicament was something
like that of the Bell-Ringer, and still more like that of Brown of
Calaveras, for he not only had a very handsome wife, but it was his
additional misfortune to keep a tavern on the road between Sacramento and
Salmon Falls. It was not unusual for a dozen or more bearded miners to be
gazing at Mrs. Crockett or watching for an opportunity to speak with her.
This kept Crockett in a continual state of jealous irritation. He was a
very small man, and he carried ostentatiously a very large pistol, which
he would often draw and exhibit. A guest who stopped at the tavern for
breakfast at a time when miners along the road had been more numerous than
usual, found Crockett "charging around like a madman, and foaming at the
mouth." However, he received the guest with hospitality, informed him
that "he (Crockett) was a devilish good fellow when he was right side up,"
and finally set before him an excellent meal. Mrs. Crockett presided at
the table, "but in a very nervous manner, as if she were in expectation of
being at almost any minute made a target of."
If life in California during the earlier years was bad for women, it was
still worse for children. In San Francisco there was no public school
until the autumn of 1851. Before that time there had been several small
private schools, and one free school supported by charity, but in 1851
this was given up for want of funds. In the cities and towns outside of
San Francisco there was even greater delay in establishing public schools.
In 1852 there were many children at Marysville who were receiving no
instruction, and others, fourteen years old and even older, were only just
learning to read. Horace Greeley visited California in the year 1859, and
he wrote, "There ought to be two thousand good common schools in operation
this winter, but I fear there will not be six hundred."[65]
Partly in consequence of this lack of schools, partly on account of the
general demoralization and ultra freedom of California society, boys grew
up in the streets, and were remarkable for their precocious depravity.
Even the climate contributed to this result, for, except in the rainy
season, the shelter of a house could easily be dispensed with by night as
well as by day. "It was the voice of a small boy, its weak treble broken
by that preternatural hoarseness which only vagabondage and the habit of
premature self-assertion can give. It was the face of a small boy, a face
that might have been pretty and even refined but that it was darkened by
evil knowledge from within, and by dirt and hard experience from
without."[66]
It was no uncommon thing, in San Francisco especially, to see small boys
drinking and gambling in public places.
A Pioneer describes "boys from six upward swaggering through the streets,
begirt with scarlet sashes, cigar in mouth, uttering huge oaths, and
occasionally treating men and boys at the bar." Miners not more than ten
years old were washing for gold on their own account, and obtaining five
or ten dollars a week, which they spent chiefly on drinks and cigars. Bret
Harte's Youngest Prospector in Calaveras was not an uncommon child.
An instance of precocity was the attempted abduction in May, 1851, of a
girl of thirteen by two boys a little older. They were all the children of
Sydney parents, and the girl declared that she loved those boys, and had
begged them to take her away, and she thought it very hard to be compelled
to return to her home. This incident may recall to the Reader the
precocious love affairs of Richelieu Sharpe, whose father thus explained
his absence from supper: "'Like ez not, he's gone over to see that
fammerly at the summit. There's a little girl there that he's sparkin',
about his own age.'
"'His own age!' said Minty indignantly, 'why, she's double that, if she's
a day. Well--if he ain't the triflinest, conceitedest little limb that
ever grew!'"
The son of a tavern-keeper at Sacramento, a boy only eight years old, was
described as a finished gambler. Upon an occasion when he was acting as
dealer, all the other players being men, one of them accused him of
cheating. The consequence was a general fight: two men were shot, one
fatally, and the man who killed him was hung the next day by a vigilance
committee. Even Bret Harte's "perverse romanticism" never carried him
quite so far in delineation of the California child. The word "hoodlum,"
meaning a youthful, semi-criminal rough, originated in San Francisco.
But there is another side to this picture of childhood on the Pacific
Slope, and we obtain a glimpse of it occasionally. There was a
Sunday-school procession at Sacramento in July, 1850, upon which the
"Sacramento Transcript" remarked, "We have seen no sight here which called
home so forcibly to our minds with all its endearments." Three years later
in San Francisco, there was a May-Day procession of a thousand children,
each one carrying a flower.
Even Bret Harte's story of the adoption of a child by the city of San
Francisco[67] had a solid foundation in fact, though perhaps he was not
aware of it. In July, 1851, the City Fathers charged themselves with the
support and protection of an orphan girl, and on the thirteenth of that
month a measure providing for her maintenance was introduced in the Board
of Aldermen.
The scarcity, or rather, as we have seen, the almost total absence at
first of women and children, of wives and sweethearts, led to the adoption
by the Pioneers of a great number and variety of pet animals. Dogs and
cats from all quarters, parrots from over-seas, canaries brought from the
East, bears from the Sierras, wolves from the Plains, foxes and raccoons
from the Foot-Hills,--all these were found in miners' cabins, in gambling
saloons and in restaurants. They occupied the waste places in the hearts
of the Argonauts, and furnished an object, if an inadequate one, for those
affections which might otherwise have withered at the root. One miner was
accompanied in all his wanderings by a family consisting of a bay horse,
two dogs, two sheep and two goats.
These California pets had their little day, perished, and are
forgotten,--all save one. Who can forget the bear cub that Bret Harte
immortalized under the name of Baby Sylvester! "He was as free from angles
as one of Leda's offspring. Your caressing hand sank away in his fur with
dreamy languor. To look at him long was an intoxication of the senses; to
pat him was a wild delirium; to embrace him an utter demoralization of the
intellectual faculties.... He takes the only milk that comes to the
settlement--brought up by Adams' Express at seven o'clock every morning."