LIFE IN THE MINES.
After a lapse of 44 years--January, 1894--I resumed this narrative.
The foregoing was written not long after the events therein written had
transpired, from notes taken from day to day. All those events were then
fresh in my memory.
Such notes as I took subsequent to the 9th of January, 1850, while I
remained in California, and later while I was in Oregon, were not so
copious and full, and what I may hereafter write in relation to my
experiences in those states (then territories) for the next four years
and more will be drawn from these scanty notes, with the assistance of a
very retentive memory.
At the date of the sad experience with the boat on the Feather River,
January 9, 1850, I was a young man of a little more than twenty-one
years of age; while at this time I am more than sixty-five, yet my
memory is still quite fresh in regard to many of those events that
transpired in those times, while I doubt not that many others of equal
interest may have been forgotten altogether; or I may retain only a
partial or faint recollection of them at this time.
In consequence of this, whatever I may write in the following pages will
be such only as I distinctly remember, and they will be a few of the
leading incidents connected with my residence in California and Oregon
until August, 1854, when I returned to New Hampshire.
After a rest of two days from January 9, 1850, the time of the accident
with the boat, we again resumed work with Mr. Burch, and soon after
commenced the excavation of the ditch, which was for the purpose of a
fence on three sides of a field of ten acres, Feather River to form the
boundary on the remaining side. The land was sandy and free from stones,
and the shoveling excellent. We made a very good job, as by hard work we
could each excavate four or five rods a day. The weather at this time
was pleasant. The rainy season had not entirely passed, but February was
a fine month and very agreeable.
After the ditch was completed, as Mr. Burch had no more work for us, we
traveled down the river to Yuba City, a small, new village on the west
bank of the Feather River, opposite the mouth of the Yuba River.
At that time Marysville, situated on the other side of Feather River and
a short distance up the Yuba, was composed of very few buildings, with
the exception of Nye’s ranch, which was one of the old California adobe
ranches. This was substantially at the head of steam navigation on
Feather River, and there was quite a rivalry between the two
“cities”--each trying to become _the_ “city.”
Yuba City had the first beginning, but Marysville later outrivaled her
and became the more important place. At this time two or three small
steamers plied between Sacramento, Yuba City and Marysville. The largest
of these was a flat-bottomed boat of considerable size, which, if I
remember correctly, was the Vezie. It was owned by a company from Maine,
called the Vezie Company, and was built in Maine, taken around Cape Horn
on a vessel, and set up in California. I believe Captain, Colonel or
General Vezie was at the head of the company.
Green oak wood was used for fuel to operate the steamboat, and as there
was quite a number of men present, members and stockholders of the
company, a small board shanty was erected a short distance below Yuba
City for the accommodation of the choppers who undertook to cut the fuel
for the steamer from the oaks that grew near by.
The majority of these men were young and were entirely unused to such
hard manual labor as chopping, and the outcome was that eight or ten of
them could not, or did not, cut a sufficient amount of wood to supply
the boat with fuel.
Shortly after our arrival at Yuba City, I met the agent of the steamboat
company and made an agreement with him to cut 100 cords of wood at $6.50
per cord.
The wood was to be cut three feet in length and split, but no deduction
was to be made on account of its short length. I informed Pinney and
Butler of the contract I had entered into, and of course they expected
to take part in the job.
Mr. Pinney was a native of Vermont, and cutting cord wood had been his
principal work for many years.
For several years previous to his immigration to California he had
resided in Pelham, and had cut wood for about nine months in each year,
being engaged at haying and other work for the farmers during the
heated term of summer. He was noted in Pelham as being an expert
chopper, one that could cut more wood in a given time than any other man
known in or about Pelham. Mr. Butler and myself both knew how to use the
axe, but had never cut very much cord wood.
Mr. Pinney made the remark that in all probability he would cut as much
wood as Mr. Butler and myself together. I made the reply, that if he
should cut twice as much wood as I did, I would leave the job.
A ferry spanned the river from this place to the Marysville side, and
the fare for foot passengers was fifty cents each way.
No axes were on sale in Yuba City, and Mr. Pinney was selected to go to
Marysville and purchase three chopping axes. In due time he returned
with the axes--three being the entire stock found in the market in
Marysville.
As I remember, the price paid was ten dollars each, without helves. One
of them was about the ordinary size and weight for a chopping axe, while
another was a large, heavy one, and the third light and small like a
boy’s axe. Mr. Pinney selected the one of medium size for himself, and
said that Mr. Butler and I could make such arrangements as we should
choose in regard to the other two. I gave Mr. Butler his choice and he
took the heavy one. We made arrangements with a man by the name of
Galushia, who had a tent, to supply us with board at the price of two
dollars per day. He did the cooking over a fire outside the tent.
We each made a helve and hung the axes and began chopping. The wood was
the white oak species and was growing a short distance back from the
river. The trees were principally large, very old and brash, not very
tall but with numerous large branches spreading over a wide surface. The
trees were scattering, with no underbrush, “oak openings.” It was seldom
that we cut the trunks of the trees into wood, but left them on the
ground, making use of the branches only. In many instances we would
climb the trees and cut off the branches and leave the trunk standing.
The first of my work at chopping caused my hands to blister badly. It
was late in the forenoon when I commenced, and when it became night I
felt an anxiety to know about how much I had succeeded in cutting. I
piled and measured it, when I found I had cut in the short day, one and
one-quarter cords, or had earned over eight dollars.
By the agreement made we were not required to pile the wood, but the
company was to have it drawn out and piled on the bank of the river,
where it could be measured.
We were not a long time in completing the contract of cutting one
hundred cords, and we made another contract to cut another hundred
cords. Each of us had our wood kept separate and piled by itself. Some
days, when I was fortunate in the selection of a good tree, I would cut
as much as four cords; while on some other days, when I had a bad tree,
I would not cut more than two cords. The first week or ten days of
chopping caused my hands to become very sore, so much so that the helve
of the axe would be covered with blood when they came in contact with
it.
MARCH 1, 1850.
After having worked at chopping about one month and having had our wood
drawn out and measured, it was found I had cut almost two-thirds as much
as had Mr. Pinney, and Mr. Butler had cut about one-half as much.
As spring was approaching and as gold mining was our chief object and
uppermost in our minds as a means by which to make a fortune in
California, we thought the time was near at hand when we should select a
mining claim for the coming summer.
At that time it was almost the universal opinion among the miners of
California that the beds of the rivers and large streams must be very
rich with gold dust. That to turn the water from its natural channel so
as to be able to work out the gravel from the bed of the stream, a quick
fortune was almost sure to result.
The mines had been worked for a comparatively short time, and this plan
had not been tested in only a few instances. The theory was that as gold
was found in greater or lesser quantities along the shores of nearly all
the streams, in almost every bar, and in paying quantities in a great
number of them, if the river bed could be worked there would be
necessarily large deposits of the yellow metal, as owing to its great
specific gravity it would naturally seek the lowest levels and there
remain.
The rivers in the mountains were a succession of falls and rapids, and
at many such places it was practical to construct temporary dams, so as
to turn the streams from their channels for a greater or lesser
distance.
Almost the entire mining population of Feather River in the spring of
1850 was engaged in enterprises of this nature. Many had selected their
mining claims in the autumn previous or in the early winter, and had
worked upon them during the winter in making preparations to carry their
project into execution as early in the spring as the water should become
low enough to permit of its being successfully carried out. The Pelham
company owned a claim on the south fork of Feather River, where they had
built and were occupying a comfortable log-house, and had expended much
time and labor in making the necessary preparations.
They bought a pitsaw with which they sawed sufficient plank for the
construction of a long flume to carry the water a considerable distance.
In appearance it was one of the most promising gold claims in the
mountains. It was almost certain that for each one of the company there
was a fortune awaiting in the bed of the stream.
Numerous similar companies were constructing improvements of greater or
lesser magnitude. Everybody seemed sanguine of success.
We were doing fairly well at cutting wood and could continue to cut for
the Vezie Company at six dollars per short cord. We could earn on the
average, including some rainy weather, twelve or fifteen dollars a day.
But we naturally reasoned something different. If our friends in the
mines should _strike it rich_ and succeed in making a moderate fortune
in a few months and we should spend our time cutting wood when we had
the opportunity of securing a claim at some place along the river,
perhaps equally as rich as others, we should regret that we did not
attend to it at the opportune time.
After discussing the matter in many different aspects, it was decided by
us that Mr. Pinney would remain and cut wood, while Mr. Butler and
myself would go up the river into the mountains and endeavor to secure a
claim.
Consequently, we left Yuba City and went up the Feather River into the
mining country. After prospecting for several days, we succeeded in
securing a claim on the middle fork of Feather River, nearly thirty
miles above Bidwell’s.
At this time large quantities of snow still remained in the mountains
above Bidwell’s Bar. We made sufficient arrangements to comply with the
mining rules and regulations to hold the claim, and formed a company.
The names of all of this company I do not at this time recall, but at
least there were two additional men that made the journey with us from
Boston to California--Alden J. Nutting, of Westford, Mass., and Cyrus
Whittemore, of Antrim, N. H.
The most promising claims had been selected and we made the best
arrangements that seemed practical at that time.
The winter of 1849-50 was noted for the great amount of rain that fell
in the valleys and the enormous depth of snow that accumulated in the
mountains. It was not expected that the streams would become
sufficiently low so as to admit of working our claim before June.
After making the arrangements to hold the claim we returned to Bidwell’s
and did some mining there and at a place on the middle fork of Feather
River, about 15
[Illustration:
From an Old Print.
POSTOFFICE IN ’49.]
miles from Bidwell’s. The water being high our success was poor.
While at Yuba City I became acquainted with a man by the name of Damon.
Capt. Robert D. Bonner went into trade then in company with another man
and desired to hire some money at 10 per cent interest per month.
I loaned him a considerable sum, but unfortunately I never received from
him any interest nor any part of the principal. I soon afterwards lost
sight of him and never knew his fate. As he had become very dissipated
probably he did not survive long.
Hay had sold at very high prices the winter previous, in some of the
cities as high as $500 per ton.
Mr. Damon of Yuba City made the proposition that we go up Feather River
to a suitable place and there cut and stack a lot of hay and sell it
later. He said he could not mow himself, but that he would hire a man to
mow with me, and as he owned a horse, he would draw the hay together and
pile it up, and we would sell it before the rainy season should set in.
I acquiesced in the proposition and we went up the river a few miles to
a place where we found the grass was quite good. We bargained for the
right to cut as much as we might desire for a nominal sum from a man
that owned a ranch nearby. He was a squatter and probably had no more
right to the grass than we had.
Mr. Damon owned one scythe and we succeeded in finding another--an old
one--which we purchased for about fifty dollars. Mr. Damon hired Alden
J. Nutting, before mentioned. Mr. Nutting was a short, thick set,
robust, muscular man, and seemed to be in the enjoyment of good health.
The grass grew on the river bottom and was the natural product of the
soil. It stood quite thick and was a fair crop, but had been trampled by
cattle that had ranged over it and fed upon it at will, which caused it
to be slow and difficult mowing.
We commenced mowing on Monday morning and I continued mowing every day
through the week until Saturday night. Mr. Nutting complained of being
exhausted and quit work at Thursday noon, but resumed again on Friday
morning. There was no dew there at the time and the hay remained in the
swath as it fell from the scythe, where it cured perfectly.
The next week we pitched it together into small piles where we loaded it
upon a wagon and formed it into a square pile on the ground in a broad,
open field.
Rakes of any kind we did not use. We did some more mowing for Mr. Damon,
as he would need some to feed to his horse.
Our stack of hay was about 40 feet long by 30 feet wide and ten or
eleven feet high, and was estimated to contain twenty tons.
It is impossible at the present time, after the lapse of nearly
forty-five years, to give from memory a _connected_ account of _all_ the
transactions in which I was engaged during the spring, summer and fall
of 1850. Consequently, I will write about events of which I find my
original minutes, or others of which I still have a distinct memory,
without regard to the exact dates or order in which they transpired. It
is possible that some events which I may relate may have taken place at
a time previous to that of cutting the hay.
Some time I believe during that spring as Mr. Pinney and myself were
returning from the mines on our way to Marysville, or Yuba City, we made
a stop at Charles Burch’s ranch, where we met a party of surveyors.
The engineer, Robert Elder, a Scotchman who had been employed for twelve
years as an assistant engineer on the Michigan and Illinois canal, said
to us that he was short of help and would like to employ us for a short
time if our price was satisfactory.
Having no particular work in view, we set our price at eight dollars per
day with board. Mr. Elder thought that was more than he could afford to
pay for help that had had no experience at such work, but said we could
go to work on trial for two or three days.
He was laying out a new city a short distance farther up the river, it
being a mile square, or nearly so. He had then worked upon it for a few
days. The survey was being done for a company in Sacramento City, who
later erected one or two large buildings, and made considerable effort
to get a city started, but at length it proved to be a “paper city,” as
has been the fate of numerous other like schemes in the West. We
commenced work and after a few days were constantly expecting a notice
of acquittal from Mr. Elder, or otherwise a reduction of wages. Nothing,
however, was said by either party in regard to it for nearly two weeks,
when I inquired of him how much longer he supposed our services would be
needed. His reply was: “I would like to have _you_ stay a good while.”
Mr. Elder was a very kind man, yet he was somewhat eccentric, and his
likes and dislikes very decided. Up to that time I had no reason to
believe that he had any preference for me over Mr. Pinney.
We worked a few days after the time of the incident narrated, when one
day he said to me that he would suspend work and go to Marysville for a
few days and he desired us to go with him. We had boarded with an
Englishman whom Mr. Elder had employed for that purpose, but he had
lived at the ranch or house of a Frenchman by the name of John Roulo,
located more than a mile down the river. Mr. Roulo had an Indian wife.
The Englishman was not a bad cook, but the principal diet for breakfast,
dinner and supper the week through was stewed beef. This beef was of
good quality and was very well cooked, but it did not agree with me for
a constant diet, with scarcely any other kind of food.
About this time we went to Marysville, and Mr. Elder took a trip to
Sacramento City to consult with some of the officers of the company for
whom we were at work, or they came to Marysville, I am not certain
which.
Mr. Elder desired me to remain and return with him. I made the
proposition that I would do so upon the condition that I should board at
the Frenchman’s, where he did. I confessed I could not stand the
Englishman’s stewed beef any longer. He said I could just as well board
at that place and might have done so if I had spoken about it to him. We
returned and I worked until the job was finished. Mr. Pinney did not
return with us.
There was in our party a Scotchman by the name of Campbell, one of the
Sidney convicts. He was quite agreeable when he was sober, but
sometimes he would get partially intoxicated, and then he was a bad man
to get along with. He appeared to be a man of good education and
understood surveying. Mr. Elder was obliged to be absent a part of the
time, and in his absence he made Mr. Campbell his foreman.
Sometimes when he had indulged too freely of whiskey, he would neither
work himself nor permit any one else. This did not suit me, as I
intended to labor just as faithfully in the absence of Mr. Elder as I
would if he were present.
One day when Mr. Campbell became quite drunk and foolish, and had
allowed but very little work to be done by the party until afternoon, my
patience had become exhausted. I undertook to drink from the waterpail
that was standing nearby under a large tree, when he gave the pail a
sharp tilt, which spilled some of the contents upon me. I started the
second time to drink from the pail and he repeated the same foolish
trick. After he had done this for several times, I dashed all the
remaining water in the pail squarely into his face. He at once became
almost frantic with rage, and seizing an axe threatened to cut me in
pieces. I kept myself a short distance beyond his reach, and laughed at
his threats.
I knew it was an easy matter for me to keep beyond his reach, but I
didn’t know how long his anger would continue to rage, or whether he
would revenge himself at some convenient time in the future when I might
not be expecting it. After a short time he ordered me to go to the river
near by and refill the pail with water, but he still held the axe in one
hand and the pail in the other. I invited him to put aside the axe and
give me the pail, which he finally did, and I immediately complied with
his request.
After Mr. Elder returned I spoke to him in relation to Mr. Campbell’s
actions, and he discharged him. The next winter I heard that he was
lynched at some place in one of the mountain valleys for horse stealing.
One incident I always remembered which took place while we were employed
on this job. When we were boarding at the French ranch, we carried a
lunch for our dinners, which we would eat while seated under a large oak
tree. One day we sat down in the shade of a large branching tree and ate
our dinner and rested ourselves perhaps nearly an hour. Upon starting
for our work we had gone but a short distance from the tree, where but a
moment previous we had been quietly seated, when we heard a loud crash,
and upon turning around we saw that a very large limb had broken from
the tree and had fallen exactly upon the spot where we had been seated
but a moment previous.
This branch at the point of breakage was more than a foot in diameter,
and probably contained nearly a cord of wood. There was not a breath of
wind stirring and the branch had broken from its own weight, being just
fully leaved out. It seemed to me to be a very narrow escape from a
serious accident. I afterwards learned from my own observation that it
was very often that limbs broke from such trees when loaded with leaves
and there was no wind stirring.
Mr. Elder seemed to manifest a deep interest in my welfare, and while he
was drafting the plan of the survey we had made, desired me to learn to
use the protractor, scale and dividers.
At that time I had no intention of taking up the business of surveying,
although from what little experience I had had with it, I thought I
would like the work very much. I practiced with the instruments as I had
the time to spare from my other work, and learned something about
protracting and the use of the scale and dividers.
Later in the same season I assisted Mr. Elder in laying out another
“paper city,” but it was not of so large extent as was the former one.
Not only was the winter of 1849-50 an excessive one in cold and storms,
but the year 1850 was the most trying in the history of the
gold-seekers. The struggles for the possession of titles to the claims
staked out by the prospecting miners reached a critical stage; the
cholera raged in every section of the Pacific slope--aye, spread from
ocean to ocean--and in addition to these and the trials and
uncertainties of life in the mines, where hundreds were losing to one
making, the Indians started upon the warpath.
Early in the summer, while I was at work at Bidwell’s on Feather River,
I witnessed the interesting and somewhat startling spectacle of a band
of her men decked out in all of the horrible panoply of savage warfare.
All were elaborately painted in striking colors and armed in Indian
fashion, bows and quivers, decorated in bright figures and filled with
sharp pointed arrows tipped with glass heads, knives and other
implements of a warlike nature.
These dusky forces were composed of the “Valley Indians,” as the native
inhabitants of the lowlands were called, among whom was a branch known
as the “Digger Indians,” and the mountain tribes that had their homes in
the Sierra Nevadas and adjacent highlands. The last named tribes were at
enmity with the first--a predatory warfare that existed for a long
period--a war as it seemed to the bitter end.
An Indian village was situated twenty or twenty-five miles from
Bidwell’s easterly in the Sierras, which I had frequently passed through
when I was prospecting in the Feather River gold mines.
One day about noon there suddenly appeared in this little mining
settlement a file of naked Indian warriors; forty or fifty in number,
nearly all young men in the vigor of manhood, all apparently sound, well
developed, beautifully proportioned, athletic men, the leader the most
conspicuous figure. They came into view traveling at a slow dog trot,
single file, each at a uniform distance from his file leader. No word
was uttered, and no one of them perceptibly turned his head to the right
or to the left.
As the foremost reached the river, which at that place was deep and of
considerable breadth, he stepped boldly and deliberately into the
current without the slightest hesitation, and swam quickly to the
opposite shore, where he again resumed the Indian trot of a few minutes
before. Even the river did not break the line or check the speed
materially, but the line was maintained and the speed was continued on
and up the steep mountain incline as on the level, without break or
hesitation, far, far up the rugged mountain trail as we could see,
their military order and discipline unbroken.
They were from a valley tribe and had suddenly come into view, passed
through the village, swam the river, climbed the mountain side, and
passed beyond our view in silence, bent on their errand of bloody
carnage and death. Determination, vengeance and savage destruction was
pictured on every brow.
Something of vital moment to the aboriginal population not far distant
was about to transpire. And it was not long delayed. It was learned a
little later that the Indian village in the mountains before mentioned,
was suddenly and sadly surprised on the night of the day that the war
party passed through Bidwell’s, and for the small Indian settlement it
proved a great slaughter or massacre of the men, while a large number of
the women and children were taken prisoners and conducted to new homes.
Some time in the spring, James M. Butler being somewhat out of health,
went to the Pelham camp to do the cooking for the company, where he
remained until late in the fall, when he returned to his home in Pelham.
I did some mining at Bidwell’s and one or two other places while we were
waiting for the water to subside. We visited our claim on the middle
fork of Feather River several times, and made preparations to work it as
soon as the state of the water would admit of doing it. We were obliged
to convey all the provisions needed there on our backs over the
mountains from Bidwell’s Bar, a distance of 25 or 30 miles.
It was some time in July when the water became sufficiently low so as to
admit of working the claim to advantage. At that time the companies that
had taken claims in the most favorable locations had succeeded in
getting a part of the water turned aside from the channel, so that they
had begun to work some of the beds of the streams. A few of those who
had succeeded in working any part of the river bed had found the claims
rich, but a very large majority of such mines were only paying very
moderately, and many were almost entirely worthless. Some companies that
had been at work all winter making preparations to turn a stream from
its bed, when at last they had succeeded at the cost of so much labor
and expense, found the bed of the stream so poor that it would not pay
the expense of working. This state of affairs was not encouraging for
us. As yet we had expended but little labor on our claim, but in loss of
time in making arrangements, going back and forth conveying provisions
and tools, with the loss of time in waiting for the water to subside,
all together made it a matter of considerable magnitude, reaching
probably two or three thousand dollars. However, it was not our purpose
to abandon our claim without a fair trial.
Instead of arranging to turn the whole stream at once, as we had
originally intended, we concluded to construct a wing dam, so as to be
able to test the paying qualities of the bed. If it should prove of such
richness as to warrant it, we could then build the dam as we had planned
and turn the whole stream. If it should prove of poor paying quality we
would abandon it.
Consequently, we constructed a wing dam so as to be able to turn the
water from a small part of the river bed so as to permit of working so
far as to be able to test the quality.
After completing this work, and washing the material from the river bed,
we found but very little gold, not sufficient to pay for working.
I would probably have had nearly or quite a thousand dollars more than I
did have at that time if I had kept at work and taken no part whatever
in or about any river claim.
The Pelham company worked their claim and it paid for working after the
stream was turned, but the returns as a whole were small, and the
company was dissolved in the fall.