I soon found the colonel one of the warmest of friends. Captain John A.
Sutter, who was a captain in the Swiss Guards of Charles the Tenth of
France, after the revolution of 1830 in that country, came to the United
States, who some years previous had wandered across the country to
Oregon, and the Russian Fur Company secured for him a large grant of
land from Mexico in California, on which the city of Sacramento now
stands, extending back from that city many miles to where the gold was
first discovered. He was having a raceway dug on the American river for
the purpose of erecting a saw-mill, as there was no lumber in the
country. He had constructed a fort some miles back from the Sacramento
river, where he made his home. The object of the Russian Fur Company was
to have a place where they could purchase grain, as there was none
raised there at that time, and they had a contract with him, and that
they were to send a vessel at such a time, and he was to settle up the
country and cultivate it. Sutter was the most social and generous of
men. The latch-string of his cabin was always on the outside, and all
callers were welcome, and the hospitalities of the fort extended to all
callers.
At the time of my arrival, on August 18, 1849, there were several
hundreds of ships anchored in the bay deserted by their crews, who had
gone to the mines. They could make more in one day there than their
wages would amount to in a month on the vessel.
In the city a large portion of its population were living in tents.
There were not buildings enough. Vessels were constantly arriving loaded
with people from all parts of the world. As my health permitted I
investigated matters there. I took a walk out. I met what looked like a
laboring man. I asked him how long he had been there? He said two
months. I said to him: "And not gone up to the mines yet?" He said to me
he was in no particular hurry. He said he had a row-boat and made $20 a
day rowing passengers to and from the vessels (there was then no dock).
He had his boy with him, who gathered mussels and sold them. Between the
two they averaged $30 per day, which explained why he was in no hurry to
go to the gold diggings.
Lumber was bringing fabulous prices. It looked very favorable for my
house ventures. Mr. G., the Englishman, had been very anxious to buy
them. He had seen the specifications of the carpenter on the steamer
coming up. On Saturday P.M. I called at his office. He asked me if I had
made up my mind to sell him the houses. I said to him: "If I should put
a price on them you would not take me up." He said "try me." I named a
price. He said he would take them and go to my lawyer to draw up the
contract. I said I would just as soon go to his (which was a fatal
mistake). I knew his was a State senator from Florida, and had come up
on the steamer with us. We found the lawyer in his office, and he
commenced drawing up the contract. I made my statement that I sold the
houses from my carpenter's specifications (not from any representations
I made myself), and from the bills of lading and from my insurance
policy, which ranked the ship _Prince de Joinville_, formerly a Havre
packet, classed A, No. 1. He was to deposit bills of lading of the ship
_St. George_ from Liverpool, consigned to him, in value to the amount of
$50,000, with a third party, as collateral security, that on the
arrival of the _Prince de Joinville,_ and the delivery of the houses, he
was to pay me the sum agreed upon.
The lawyer, after writing a little, complained of a headache, and asked
if it made any difference if he put it off until Monday morning. I said,
Mr. G. had been very anxious to buy the houses, and I had not cared
about selling them to arrive, preferring to take my chances when the
vessel got here, but since I had consented to sell them, I preferred to
have it on the solid. I said, I supposed the transaction was not of
great importance to Mr. G., but I had all that I was worth in the world
at stake on the venture, and would prefer to have it closed now. He
commenced writing, and again complained of the headache. I then
consented to put it off until Monday morning at 10 o'clock. We both
pledged our honor to meet there at that time and consummate it. I was
there on Monday morning at the time designated. Mr. G. came in at 11
o'clock and said he had changed his mind and would not take the houses.
I said all right, but his word of pledge of honor would have no value
with me hereafter.
I would have made $18,000 profit, but I was selling them for a good deal
less than they would have brought if they had been there. Lumber was
selling as high as from three to four hundred dollars per thousand feet
in San Francisco at that time. But I was making certain of a good profit
and running no risk of what might happen in the future.
I had another offer of a number of lots on Stockton street, the next
street above the plaza in the heart of the city, for six of the smaller
ones, which, if I had consummated, would have made my fortune. "There is
a tide in the affairs of men, which, if taken at the flood tide, leads
on to fortune, or, if not seized, are forever lost." (Shakespeare.)
The ideas of the people there at that time was, that a railroad across
the continent, connecting California with the East, was entirely
impracticable. That there were one thousand miles of desert to cross,
where there was no water, and the Sierra Nevada mountains presented an
impassable barrier, and they thought how could it ever be an
agricultural country, when there was no rain for more than seven months
in the year. The idea of irrigation was not thought of then. How
different every thing has turned out since, I have nothing to do with. I
must be true to my subject, the days of the Forty-niners.
As it would be, at least, three months before the ship could come in
with my houses, and my health had improved, I was anxious to get up to
the mines. I was informed that there was a party from Albany at the
Dutch bar, on the south fork of the American river, about eight miles
from Coloma, where gold was first discovered, with whom I was
acquainted. I found a sloop about to sail for Sacramento (there were no
steamers then) the starting point to the northern mine. I took passage
on board with all the passengers the boat could accommodate. I noticed
on the passage up that the mosquitoes were very large, with penetrating
bills. It was as much as we could do to protect our faces.
The only important event on the passage was that a Jew had potatoes that
he was taking up on speculation, and that he was going to treat his
fellow passengers to some, one day at dinner. We were a little
disappointed when we found they were sweet ones, but still they were a
treat. Vegetables were scarce, potatoes selling from forty to sixty
cents per pound. After a few days we arrived at Sacramento, it being
about one hundred miles from San Francisco by water. There were no hacks
at the landing, nobody that wanted a job to carry your baggage. Governor
Shannon, of Ohio, was among the passengers. He had been minister to
Mexico, yet he had to carry his own baggage, and make several trips to
do it. One of the passengers assisted him. He was president of a mining
company organized in Ohio.
It was evening. We stopped at a hotel, and I slept in my Mackinaw
blanket that I carried with me, on the dining-room floor. The next
morning after breakfast, about 9 o'clock, I went out on the front
portico to take observations of the place. The landlord was there. There
was a loaferish-looking fellow going by on the opposite side of the
street. The landlord cries out to him: "Bill, what will you charge to
chop wood for me from now until night?" He cries back, "What will you
give?" He replies, "$10." Bill answers back, "Can't chop for less than
an ounce," which was $16, and walked right on. It was evident that
common labor was not suffering there for want of employment. I was there
some days, and could find no one to post me how to get to Coloma. All
was excitement and bustle. While there, Sam. Brannan--who had built a
new hotel there (just finished), called the City Hotel--gave a free
entertainment for one day to the public. He must have expended $1,000
for refreshments. He had been a Mormon preacher, and was a captain in
Colonel Stevenson's regiment. He was very enterprising and generous, a
prominent figure with the "Forty-niners."
I saw an article in the paper a few years ago from a California
correspondent, giving a biography of him; that he was, at one time,
worth several millions, and went into some big enterprise--which I
cannot now recall--and was unfortunate and lost all his wealth, and that
he was, at that time, in San Francisco at a twenty-five-cent
lodging-house, and that he told him that he passed two men that day who
had crossed the street to avoid him, to whom he had furnished the money
from which they had made their fortunes. Well, I finally found an
Oregon man with a yoke of oxen, who was freighting goods up to Coloma.
He said he had seven hundred and fifty acres of land in Oregon, but no
cattle on it. He thought he would come to California and get gold enough
to buy them, and his wife was keeping a cake and pie stand on the
streets of that city. I never saw him after that trip, but coming with
so modest expectations, I have no doubt he was successful.
We started on our journey in the afternoon. The country through which we
traveled looked as if it had been an old-settled land, and deserted by
its inhabitants. It seemed that we must come to a farm-house, but there
was none. There were scattering trees in the country and occasionally a
woods, but no dense forest. We made eight miles, then camped for the
night on the edge of a woods. I had brought no provisions with me, so I
offered him $1 per meal to eat with him, which was accepted. He made
tea, cooked some Indian meal, and had a jug of molasses; so we made a
very good supper. I got my satchel out of the wagon for a pillow, and
with my blankets made my bed on the ground under the wagon. I thought it
would keep the dew off, but there was none.
There is no danger of taking cold sleeping on the ground in the dry
season, when it does not rain for seven months. He had set fire to a
dead tree to keep the grizzly bears off, and about the time I got
comfortably laid down, there was a pack of coyote wolves came howling
around. Amid those surroundings, the burning of the fire to keep the
grizzlies off and howling of the wolves, I fell asleep and did not wake
until morning, refreshed from my slumbers. After a breakfast similar to
the meal the night before, we proceeded on our journey, but the ox team
travelled so slow that in walking I got away ahead of it, and then got
tired of waiting for it to come up to me, and so went on alone. Toward
night I came to Mormon Island, the first gold diggings. I inquired if
there was a place where I could get quarters for the night. They said I
might, at the hospital. It was a log cabin with bunks in it, and what
was my astonishment to find the proprietor, a doctor from Troy, N.Y., an
old acquaintance. I was more than welcome. We were both delighted to see
each other. I to find such comfortable quarters, and he to meet with a
friend in the wilderness, and to hear the latest news from the East. He
got for me the best supper that the surroundings would afford; as I had
eaten nothing since morning, it was very acceptable, and he provided for
me the most comfortable of his bunks for sleeping. He informed me that
it was twenty-five miles from Coloma, and there was but one place on the
way where I could get water to drink. I started after breakfast,
refreshed. After travelling some miles, I came to the smoke of the
camp-fire of Indians, just ahead of me. It was rumored that the Oregon
men were in the habit of shooting an Indian on sight when they had a
chance. The Indians killed white men in retaliation, as they could not
make peace until they had killed as many whites as they had lost,
according to their ideas of equity. As I did not care particularly about
being one to make up the number, I struck off in a ravine and passed
around so as to avoid their camping ground and came to the road beyond
them. What truth there was about the shooting of them I could not say,
but it was currently reported at the time. About 4 o'clock, P.M., I got
to a stopping place six miles from Coloma. There I met a man with a long
beard, slouched hat, a sash around his body, a flannel shirt, evidently
a miner. I had a long talk with him. He posted me about the gold
diggings and I him about the news from the States. As we were about to
part, he asked me to take a drink. He inquired of the proprietor if he
had champagne? He said, yes, at $10 a bottle. The man said, pass us
down a bottle, which we drank together. He, evidently, had struck good
diggings. We parted, as I was anxious to get to Coloma before dark,
which I did, just as the sun was setting, having made twenty-five miles
in one day on foot. I found a regular tavern here, kept by a man from
Mississippi, with his family. I sat down to a regular table for my
supper, which seemed quite a treat. He informed me that he had no
bed-room for me; that I could sleep on the dining-room floor, or in his
barn. He had just had some new hay put in. I chose the latter. It was a
kind of a shanty building, but the soft bed of new hay was a luxury
after my twenty-five miles walk.
I awoke the next morning refreshed. After my breakfast I took in the
place and went to the raceway where the first piece of gold was
discovered. There were three or four stores in the place to supply the
miners of the surrounding region. I got my direction how to find the
Dutch Bar, eight miles from there. Proceeding on my way, after going
about five miles, I came to a person, his face covered with a long
beard, whom I recognized, by the expression of his eyes, as a person who
I knew in Albany, and who belonged to the party I was seeking. He
informed me that I was within three miles of them, and he gave me plain
directions how to find them. I soon came to their camp and there was a
genial meeting and exchange of news. There were five in the company.
They had a tent and owned a pair of mules. I joined them, as I had not
come to depend on mining, as I never had been accustomed to physical
labor. At first I thought it was awful hard work, and that it was lucky
for me that I had not come to California depending on it, but after a
short time I got used to it and liked it. They took turns in cooking, so
each one had one day in the week that he did the cooking. We lived on
fried pork and flapjacks made from wheat flour fried in the fat of the
pork, tin cups for our tea and coffee, and tin dishes. We each had stone
seats, and a big one in the center for our table. At night we slept
under our tent. The gold rivers were not navigable. They were sunk way
down deep in the earth. When the rainy season sets in during the winter
months, and sometimes rains every day in the month, causing the snow to
melt on the Sierra Nevada mountains, where these streams take their
rise, will cause the water to rise often from ten to twenty feet in a
night, and in the course of ages has worn their depth down into the
earth, and is supposed to have washed out of the earth the scales of
gold that are found on the banks of the rivers. The first mining was a
very simple process. A party of three could work together to the best
advantage. A virgin bar was where the river had once run over and now
receded from it. Three persons worked together, one to clear off the
sand on the ground to within six inches of the hardpan. The top earth
was not considered worth washing, the scales of gold, being heavier, had
settled through it, but could not penetrate that portion of the earth
called the hardpan, so the earth within six inches of it was impregnated
with more or less gold, and one to carry the bucket to the rocker, and
the other to run the rocker, which was located close to the water. The
rocker was a trough about three feet in length with three slats in it
and a sieve at the upper end, on which the bucket of earth was thrown.
The man worked the rocker with one hand and dipped the water out of the
river with a tin-handled dipper. As he worked the rocker the fine earth
and scales of gold passed through the holes of the sieve and settled
behind the slats in the trough, and the stones and large lumps in which
there was no gold were caught in the sieve and thrown away. After a
certain number of buckets of earth had been run through in that way, the
settlings behind the slats in the trough were put in a milk-pan and the
water was allowed to run in the pan and the fine earth and sand would
float on the top of the water. You would let that run off.
After a few operations of that kind you would see the yellow scales of
gold on the edge of the sand. You would continue that process until
there was but a little of the sand left; then you would take it with you
when you went to the tank and warm it by a fire to dry the sand; then
with your breath you would blow away the sand and have the gold, which
you carried in a buckskin bag, which was the currency of the country, at
$16 per ounce, and at the mint in Philadelphia was worth $18.25. I have
carried three hundred buckets in a day, and at twenty-five cents worth
of gold in a bucket, it would amount to $75, $25 to each man for his
day's work, which was frequently the average. In those days all it cost
for a party of three for capital to start mining was about $15. Then you
had the chances of striking a pocket. That was a cavity in the rocks
where gold had settled. In the course of ages, and where the strong
currents of the streams, when the rivers were high, could not reach it
to wash it out, I have known a person to take out $800 of gold in less
than an hour. The first miners, when they found gold on the banks of the
river, thought if they could only dig in the deep holes of the bed they
would find chunks of it, and they went to a big expense, and those who
had money hired laborers to assist in constructing raceways at $16 per
day, to change the current of the river; but when they had effected
their object and dug there they found no gold, for there was nothing to
prevent the strong current from carrying it off; but I knew a party to
draw off the water and expose the bed of the river, where there were
rapids, and they were successful, and the gold had settled down between
the crevices of the rocks, and the currents could not disturb it.
There were some other kinds of diggings discovered different from the
river mining, called cañons, one I know of, called the Oregon. It was
described like a tunnel, deep down in the earth, where a party of three
persons from near our locality went and returned in about three weeks
and had from three to five thousand dollars apiece, which they showed
me. It was not scale gold, but nuggets of all sizes. Of course, they had
unusual luck.
On the river mining each person was entitled to so many feet, as long as
they left any implements of labor on it. No person would trespass upon
it; but if he took every thing away, then it was inferred he had given
it up, and anybody had a right to take it. All regulations were strictly
respected and every thing was safe, and a person told me that he would
not be afraid to leave his bag of gold in his tent. Every thing was
honorable and safe until the overland emigrants from western Missouri
arrived there.
They were a different kind of people; more of the brute order. When
they saw a party of two or three that had a good claim, and they were
the strongest, they would dispossess them. (I suppose the same class
that raided Kansas in John Brown's time.) They became so obnoxious that
a respectable man would deny his State.
And another corrupt element arrived by sea, the ex-convicts from Sidney.
I went to Coloma one day to get supplies for the party. I rode one of
the mules, the other followed to be packed with the purchases. When I
bought what was wanted, I handed the storekeeper my bag of gold to pay
him. When he returned it to me, I found his statement made was between
three and four dollars less than I knew was in it. I informed him of the
discrepancy. He said he did not see how that could be; that he weighed
it right. He came in in a few minutes and apologized, saying that he had
weighed it in the scales that he used when he traded with the Indians.
It needs no comment to know that the Christian man is not always
superior to the Indian in integrity. There was an Indian who had struck
a pocket. He came to Coloma with $800 in gold dust that he got out in a
short time. He invested it all with the storekeepers in a few hours. He
had dressed himself in the height of fashion, including a gold watch. He
was dressed as no California Indian ever had been before. The gold he
could not eat nor drink.
[Illustration: DRESSED AS NO CALIFORNIA INDIAN EVER WAS BEFORE.]
How the gold came there is one of the mysteries of nature. One theory
is, that the Sierra Nevada mountains were once the banks of the Pacific
ocean, and all California had been thrown up from the bottom of the sea
from that depth where gold was a part of the formation of the earth, in
connection with quartz, and as all gold appears in a molten state, which
would go to corroborate this theory. A person informed me that he went
through a ravine where one side of the road was half of a large rock,
and on the other side, the other half. He could see where the two halves
would match each other exactly. Well, I lived that life for two months.
We had an addition to what I have described to eat--pork and beans on
Sunday, and Chili pudding. It had been baked and sweetened, and then
ground up like flour and put in bags. All you had to do was to moisten
it with water to eat it. All our flour came from that country, put up in
sacks of fifty and one hundred pounds each, but we had no vegetables.
One day we heard that they had dried-apple sauce at the hotel at Coloma
for dinner. The next day, Sunday, three of us walked eight miles to get
there to dinner to get a taste of it. We paid $2 apiece for our dinner,
and they had the sauce; it tasted so good that we did not begrudge the
price of the dinner and the walk back again. We were fully satisfied.
The rainy season set in. It rained three days, and although it was
three or four weeks before it would be possible for my houses to arrive,
yet it was a new country and no bridges. The streams might get up so as
to be impassable, and the houses were consigned to me, and no one but
myself to receive them. I thought I had better get back to San Francisco
at once. What I was making in the mines was mere nothing to what I had
at stake in the houses. Although, to tell the truth, I never left a
place with more regret, as hard as the fare was. We were interested
every day in the work for gold, and did not know when we might make a
rich strike. My last day there it rained. Notwithstanding, a companion
and myself went out to dig for a couple of hours. When we returned, we
had $25 worth. That was the last of my mining. I started the next
morning for Sacramento afoot. I sold my pistol and blankets for an ounce
each, $16 apiece. On my route I met a man bound for the same place. We
joined teams and became very intimate.
The only incident of importance was when we got within five miles of
Sacramento. We stopped at a log cabin and ordered dinner. A short time
after my companion came to me in some excitement and said he had looked
through the window and that they were cooking potatoes for dinner. I
could not believe the good news, and so went and looked for myself and
found it was true. I had not tasted one in two months. We took the
steamer _Senator_ that evening for San Francisco. It had been a Long
Island steamboat and had arrived since my departure for the mines. It
was the first steamer that had ever sailed the interior waters of
California, and had been put on to run from San Francisco to Sacramento.
I think it belonged to Grenell, Minton & Co., a prominent shipping firm
of New York city. Charley Minton had charge of it. Of course its profits
were great. But I could not sleep in my state-room berth; I had been so
long used to a hard bed I was restless, but we arrived safe the next
morning at San Francisco. The bulk of my book will be events that
occurred during my residence in that city. I scarcely know how to begin
to describe it. My efforts will be to portray them truthfully. To do so
I must continue in the form of a personal narrative. That is the only
way I can recall the events to my mind of so long ago.
At this time more changes took place there in a month than in most any
other place in a year. Every thing was done by the month. Buildings were
rented by the month; money was loaned by the month; ten per cent per
month was the regular interest. There was but one bank, called the
Miners', on the corner of the plaza, owned by three parties. During my
absence a great boom had taken place--influenced by new arrivals and
most favorable news from the gold mining sections. This was the fall of
1849. The lots that I had thought of trading six of my houses for had
tripled in value, but lumber was still bringing fabulous prices and
every thing looked favorable for a big strike on my houses when they
arrived. Montgomery street was on the banks of the bay. There was one
pier at this time constructed from it in the bay, and a temporary pier
by Colonel Stevenson at the north beach. The city was growing up toward
Happy Valley. Portsmouth Square, the plaza, still had some of the adobe
buildings on it. The best hotel was the Parker House, on the west corner
of it. The plaza was sand, no vegetation on it.
Rincon Point, on Telegraph Hill, was the spot where ships and steamers
were signalled. Steamers coming in but once a month, they brought the
last news from the East. The New York papers were peddled at $1 each.
Long lines of people were formed to get the mail, and you had to take
sometimes half a day before you could reach the office. Oakland,
opposite the bay, had no existence. Goat Island had plenty of wild
goats on it, and we could never imagine how the first goat ever got
there. There was no scarcity of meat--plenty of beef and grizzly bears
were hung out at the doors of the restaurants as a sign, and plenty of
venison. I can recall now to my mind, venison steaks that we would get
in the evening with their rich jellies on it. The luxuries of Asia were
coming in there. Many China restaurants with their signs from Canton or
Pekin. But there was a great scarcity of vegetables. Onions and potatoes
sold for forty cents per pound.
A day or two after my arrival, my friend who came down with me from the
mines came to me and said that there were a lot of blankets to be sold
at auction; that he had no money, or he would buy them; that if I would
buy them he would take them up in the mines and peddle them out for me
for half of the profit. As I knew they were in great demand there--I had
sold, when I left there, mine for $16--I told him if he could buy them
for $4 per pair to bid them off and I would furnish the money to pay for
them. He came back in a short time and said he had bought them, and that
they came to $800. We had them taken to the steamer _Senator_ to ship to
Sacramento. We paid $10 a load to have them carted from the store where
they were bought to the steamer. (The result of this speculation later
on.)
There were at this time several hundred vessels anchored in the bay,
deserted by their officers and crews. A ship could be bought for
probably one-third of what it was worth in New York, and I conceived the
project of buying a ship as soon as I sold my houses, which I expected
soon to arrive, being on so fast a ship as the _Prince de Joinville_,
and going myself to the Sandwich Islands and buying a load of onions and
potatoes, as I was informed that they could be bought as cheap there as
in the States, and ciphered out that one successful venture of that
kind would make my fortune. So I went among the idle ships to see what I
could do in that line, and to have one selected, ready to close the
bargain as soon as the houses arrived. I came across a brig that had
been running to Sacramento, but was condemned as a foreign bottom, when
Collier, the collector, arrived there, a short time before, and extended
the marine laws of the United States over California. The captain and
crew were aboard. The captain was an Englishman; the crew,
cosmopolitan--a Hindostan, a Mexican named Edwin Jesus, an English
sailor and an American. I inquired of the captain about the history of
the vessel. He said she had been built at Quavqiel, down the coast, and
had belonged to a Mexican general, and was built partially of an
American whaler that had been wrecked on the coast, so I got American
timbers in her. They wanted to sell the vessel. I told him I might buy
her. I would let them know in a day or two. So I went to Colonel
Stevenson and gave him a history of it, and asked him if he would see
Collier, the collector of the port, and see if I could not get her
papers as an American vessel, which he did, and informed me the next day
that it was all right. I went at once and bought the brig. As soon as I
got its American papers it was worth twice what I had to pay for it. I
kept the same captain, as he knew the navigation of the rivers, which
few did at that time. I gave him $250 per month and put a supercargo at
$150 per month, and kept the same crew. I had it put up for Stockton,
the head depot for the Southern lines. The first month it made two
trips. Its receipts were $3,100; its expenses, $1,100; so it earned me
$2,000 clear.
There was a friend of mine named R., who owned a third interest in a
factory that belonged to a relative of mine who got the gold fever when
I did, and got me to negotiate the sale of his interest in it to him,
which I did for $8,000, so he could go to California with me. When he
arrived there he proposed to build a brewery. His father had been a
brewer in Scotland. He bought a lot, a part of the city called Happy
Valley, and started to build the first brewery on the Pacific coast. He
commenced to build one that would cost $30,000 with that capital, which
was his mistake. If he had commenced in a small way he would have made
his fortune. (In my personal narrative he had much to do with my
affairs.)
At this point in writing my manuscript, I have just heard of the death
of Colonel Jonathan Stevenson, aged ninety-four, in California, to whom
I had a letter of introduction from Governor William L. Marcy. I found
him the warmest, the truest and most generous friend. He was a little
unpopular when I first met him, for what I conceived the most noble
action of his life. There were in his regiment roughs from the city of
New York, where it was organized, who, when the war was over with
Mexico, would go into saloons and places and help them selves to what
they wanted and refused to pay. They were termed "The Hounds." There was
a vigilance committee organized against them, which public sentiment, at
that time, fully indorsed. They had seized a number of them and were
about to hang them. Colonel Stevenson faced the excited crowd and asked
to have them give the men a trial and punish the guilty. He said that
when he returned to New York and their mothers asked him what had become
of their sons, how could he face them if they were put to death in that
way; but if he could say to them that they had a fair trial, were found
guilty of crime, and had been punished according to law, it would be
different. I think they were not executed, but banished; but it set up a
cry against the colonel that he had taken the part of "The Hounds," so
unjust is often, for a time, public sentiment. That was the first
vigilance committee; the great one came afterward, but I am confined to
the days of the "Forty-niners."
It was rumored, at the time, that there was a jealousy between him and
Colonel Freemont. It was not on the part of Stevenson. I boarded at the
same hotel with Freemont.
See illustration for bill which I received while at the hotel with
Colonel Freemont:
[Illustration: HOTEL BILL.]
The colonel asked me one day to speak to Freemont at dinner, and
request him, if convenient, to stop in his office as he came from
dinner, which I did. Stevenson's office was on the plaza, but Freemont
never called.
There was great difficulty about the title to lots at that time. There
were contentions set up, and claims of property from different Mexican
grants, as it became valuable. It was guaranteed by the United States,
at the treaty of Hidalgo, when California was ceded to us, that all
titles that were good under the Mexican government should be recognized
by us. L., the chaplain of Stevenson's regiment, seems to have been the
butt of the boys before the gold was discovered.
They, as a farce, elected him alcalde of San Francisco, which position
is a combination of mayor and judge, as we would understand it, and his
election was declared illegal. Then they elected him for spite. He
served one year. There was a Mexican law that in any village in that
country a person had a right to settle on one hundred veras of land so
many feet, about three hundred, and if he put up any kind of a building
on it, and held undisputed possession for one year, he could go to the
alcalde, and by paying $16, get a good and valid title. When the lots
became so valuable in San Francisco, after the gold was discovered, many
lots based on those kinds of grants became very valuable two or three
years after the discovery of gold. L. became quite wealthy, it was said,
by advances in real estate. There were rumors of bogus titles in the
names of dead soldiers and others who had left the country, but could be
traced to no authentic source. He was estimated to be worth several
hundred thousand dollars, made in the rise of real estate. I met him but
once and I sold him some lumber.
My shipping merchant who negotiated freight for my brig got a legal
title of that kind.