There were about sixteen Jesuit missionary stations in the country
before the discovery of gold, and were there for the purpose of
converting the Indians to the Catholic church, and when converted,
generally made them work to sustain their missionary establishments.
I had returned to my office on the North Beach after my only trip to
Stockton on my brig. My friend R. was progressing with his brewery. He
had received a favorable letter from Lieutenant S. about our Touwalma
city, and informing me that S. had a diamond ring that cost $800 in Rio
Janeiro, at a broker's office, as collateral security for $250 borrowed
on it at ten per cent per month, and the time was about up. If I would
redeem the ring I could keep it and wear it until he paid me. I went and
saw the ring. It was as represented, and I redeemed it and wore it for a
considerable time. One day R. came to me with a naming letter from S.
that he had laid out the city and been elected alcalde, and we would
make our fortune, and there was a friend of S. that was going up there,
and if I would send up the ring by him he would appreciate it so much,
and he would be responsible that I should not lose any thing by it. I
was foolish enough to be persuaded by him and handed him the ring, for
which act I have never forgiven myself. That was the last I ever saw of
the ring or any of the money invested in Touwalma city, for it turned
out a failure. It was never the head of navigation on the river, or any
thing else that was ever heard of.
There were three unfortunate events that occurred in California in the
winter months of 1849 and the beginning of 1850. The rainy season had
destroyed all the dams constructed on the gold rivers and raceways,
which had been constructed at great expense for the purpose of working
the beds of the river for gold, the rivers often rising from ten to
eighteen feet in a night, and the current running with terrible force.
The second, the flooding of Sacramento, destroying large quantities of
merchandise and carrying away and undermining the houses there. The
third was the great fire in San Francisco, destroying one-third of the
main business portion of the city, upon which there was no insurance.
There were no companies organized or agents there to insure property
then, as it was too risky. There was one four-story fire-proof building
that was stored full of the most valuable goods, at a large price for
storage, for it was considered absolutely fire-proof, but when the fire
came the heat of the fire from the buildings around it caused the iron
sides of it to expand, which let the roof fall in and burned every thing
to the ground, so that nothing was saved. Instead of being a place of
safety, it was the most destructive of all.
Some ships in the bay were burned. I succeeded in getting in the rear of
the fire to save my brig. I ordered the men to hoist anchor and put out
further in the bay, which saved it. These unfortunate events destroyed
and marred the fortune of many. On the day before I called on a private
banker, G., on the plaza, and presented my check for $800. He said to
me, if it made no difference, it being steamer day (once a month they
went East when the gold was shipped to the mint in Philadelphia by
them), and if I would call in the morning for it, it would be an
accommodation to him. I said I wanted to use it. He commenced weighing
it out. I then thought it would make no difference to me and it was
mean not to accommodate him, for I might want some favor of him. I said,
if I can have it in three days without fail it would answer my purpose.
He said, you can have it now, pouring the gold in the scales to weigh
it. I said never mind, I don't want it now. The fire came that night,
burnt his place up and all his property. He was a ruined man. I never
saw him afterward.
Mr. G., to whom I had bargained to sell my houses to arrive, (and he
backed out) was an Englishman from Liverpool. He had about all the
consignments of shipments from that city (evidently being very popular
there), to sell on commission at ten per cent; when the goods came and
were sold, instead of remitting the capital to the owners and being
satisfied with his commission, he used it in buying property and in
erecting buildings in San Francisco. He had constructed a fire-proof
building which he rented to the government for a post-office, at a large
sum per month, likewise the first theatre in the city, and other
buildings. He informed me at one time how much his rents amounted to per
month; the sum was several thousand dollars. Money was worth but three
to five per cent in England per year to the owners of the merchandise;
while in California it was in demand at ten per cent per month. I
suppose he thought he would make a great fortune for himself and then
return to England (where he had a wife and children) and pay up all his
obligations with extra allowance, for the use of the money, and make all
satisfactory; but the great fire destroyed all his buildings, and he was
a ruined man, there being no insurance in the city then. I met a friend
in New York about two years after my return from California; I asked him
when he saw Mr. G. last. He said, "it was about 11 o'clock one day at a
hotel where he invited some friends to take a drink. Mr. G. was there,
he declined; but afterward called him to one side and asked him to loan
him $1, saying he had had no breakfast that morning." Such was an
example of some of the fluctuations of fortune in those days.
Some parties came with various kinds of machinery that was to make a
certain fortune for them, and was taken up into the interior at great
expense. I never knew of one that was successful. About all the
companies that were formed in the States to go around Cape Horn for
mining purposes generally dissolved after arriving in California, but
what they brought with them for supplies, sold for so high a price that
it generally sold for more than the cost of their passage, and they had
money coming to them. Some companies bought the ships as they came in
and hired the captain. I recollect one, called the _Mechanics' Own_.
Every person joining their company in the States had to be voted in and
pay $1,000. They put on airs and talked quite aristocratic of their
captain as their boy.
Three persons started the first bank in San Francisco, called the
Miners' Bank, on the northwestern corner of the plaza. Mr. Haight, who
was from Rochester, N.Y., and the sutler of Colonel Stevenson's
regiment, was one of them. It was said that at first they bought gold as
low as $8 per ounce, when it was worth more than $18 at the mint East.
The owners of the bank made $100,000 each in three or four years.
Before the discovery of gold the then small places on the Pacific Coast
obtained their supplies from small trading vessels that sailed along the
coast and stopped at their towns occasionally. After the discovery of
gold, at first goods went up four or five times their previous value,
and when one of these vessels was seen entering the port, parties would
put out in small boats to get aboard of them before they came to anchor
(they on board knowing nothing about the discovery of the gold), would
bargain with them for some of their goods, and finally offer them so
much for all their cargo. It being beyond their expectations the offer
was generally accepted, and thus some big speculations were made.
A lieutenant of Stevenson's regiment, who had been down in Monterey and
had not heard of the gold discovery, on his first day in San Francisco,
informed me that he did not know what to make of things. Most of his old
acquaintances wanted to know if he did not want to borrow some money;
they had some that he could have as well as not.
The steamers came in once a month with letters and papers. Then long
lines were formed to the post-office. Sometimes it took half a day to
get there. The New York papers at first sold for $1 each. Then they got
down to fifty cents. I sold the _New York Herald_, that was more than a
month old, that contained the latest news there from the States in the
interior, for $5, and the man coaxed it out of me at that, for I wanted
to give it to a party of friends I was going to see in the mining
districts. I knew it would be a great treat to them. It is almost
impossible to recall all the exact scenes of those days, so as to have
them fully realized by the reader.
The city of San Francisco was extending more rapidly in what they called
the Happy Valley district, which was toward the Mission of Dolores,
established by the Jesuits. I visited it when the building was intact. I
recollect a painting of an Indian warrior, with his bows and arrows, the
implements of war, represented as a saint ascending to heaven--I suppose
to create favorable impression on Indians and make converts of them.
My friend was going on with his brewery, and borrowing money and getting
me deeper on his paper. He heard that I had $2,500 deposited with
McCondery & Co., and pleaded with me to let him have it as it would
carry him through. I had lost all confidence in him, and felt it would
be like throwing it in the sea. I informed him that I had shipped it
the day before, which I had not, but went right down and gave an order
for its shipment, for fear he might over-persuade me to let him have it,
and I thus saved it. When most completed, a barrel of alcohol that was
in the building bursted, and it ran down to the furnace and set it on
fire, and burnt it up. That was the fate of the first brewery started in
California. Since then there have been millions made in that business
there.
The North Beach property, after I had sold all my houses out, I closed
my interest in. It proved a failure to use for a wharf or shipping
point.
During the seven months of summer the north-west wind blew there so hard
every afternoon that it was not a safe place for vessels, and the
property would never have any value for that purpose, and I do not think
it has ever been used since for that.
In the winter months, which is generally the rainy season, the wind
blows from the south for five months, and the other seven months it
blows from the north-west over six thousand miles of ocean, and,
consequently, is not impregnated with any decayed vegetable matter, and
is as pure as air can be. In San Francisco the sun would rise in a clear
sky every morning and there would be a perfect calm; by 11 A.M. there
would be a little breeze; by 2 or 3 o'clock, a gale. When the sun set
the wind would subside and there would be a perfect calm again. Every
day would be the same, month after month. What was almost a gale on the
coast would be a gentle breeze up in the mining district, in the
interior. The next day that air would be displaced by another gale from
over the thousand miles of ocean, for it is impossible to imagine any
other country with purer air.
During that time there were various visionary reports of new discoveries
of gold regions, one of a lake that the sands of its banks were rich
with gold. All you had to do, to make your fortune, was to wash it out,
which produced quite a sensation, and parties were organized to go
there, but they never found it. The next year after the purchase of my
brig, there were small steamers constructed to run to Stockton, and they
had already some sailing vessels put on, built there, and the price of
freight had commenced falling, and I thought I had better sell my vessel
while I could get a good price for it. There was a man who came to me
and said he wanted to buy it; that he had been a captain of a boat on
Lake Erie. I stated to him my price for it. He said that was not out of
the way, but he would like to try it one trip before closing the
purchase, and referred me to a mercantile house there as his reference.
They said he had run vessels for them on Lake Erie when they were doing
business in Buffalo. I concluded that was entirely satisfactory; that
that had evidently been his regular business. He said he wanted to
employ all his own hands. I had the vessel, at the time, half loaded
with freight, which I turned over to him. I paid my men and discharged
them, and told them the vessel was about to change owners, and put him
in full possession of it. Of course I had nothing more to do with it
until he returned from the trip to Stockton; then I expected he would
close the purchase as he said that the price was satisfactory to him.
After a few weeks I commenced looking for the return of my brig, but it
did not come. Finally I heard a rumor that the captain had left the
vessel at Stockton, but did not believe it, but thought that some
accident might have happened. I had borrowed a spy-glass to investigate
the bay. I could have recognized my vessel by the red streak around it.
Finally, after it had been gone long enough to make several trips, I
discovered it at anchor in the bay. I went and supplied myself with
money, in case it should prove true that the captain had left the
vessel, to pay his men in full before they got ashore, because the
vessel was liable for their wages, whoever might have employed them; so
I hired a boat to row me out to it. I met a man on the deck that seemed
to be in command. I inquired of him where the captain was. He said he
had run away. I spoke to him in a sharp tone of voice and said, how do
you know that? He said, because I saw him on the back of a mule going
over the plain. Then he asked me, are you the owner? I said, yes. Then I
said, you have all got your pay before he went; I did not employ you. He
said, some of them have got some.
As you seem to be in command, I suppose you have kept an account of how
it stands. He said, "Come down in the cabin and I will show it to you."
I said, "It was hard on me to be robbed of all my freight money, but it
was also hard for them to be cheated out of their hard earnings, and I
would see what I could do for them." He presented the statement of what
each man had received and what was due them. I was surprised at his
correctness. I said: It seems all right and I would pay them, which I
did, and took their receipt. I was afraid if they went ashore and found
the vessel was liable for their wages they might make any kind of
demands, so I got possession of my vessel again, very much damaged.
Before leaving the port he had let the steamer _Senator_ run into the
bows of the vessel, and it cost me $700 to have it repaired, ship
carpenters' wages being $20 per day, payable in gold. The events which I
had anticipated of the decline of that kind of property had come, and,
after it was repaired, I put it up at auction and sold it, so that
rascal cost me several thousand dollars. Such was life in California in
the days of the Forty-niners.
Having some leisure I thought I would take a trip up the mining regions,
and make a visit to my old friends there. More than a year had passed,
and greater changes had taken place than would have occurred in any
other country in many years. The population of California increased one
hundred thousand the first year after the discovery of the gold, which
had accounted for the great changes which had taken place since my
previous trip. I went up on the steamer _Senator_ to Sacramento, which
had become quite a city, and the next morning started for Coloma in a
stage full of passengers, drawn by mules. I took a seat aside of the
driver. I got in conversation with the driver. I asked him what pay he
received? He said, only $450 per month and his board. I asked him if he
had driven stages before? He said, yes, out of Boston. I said, at what
wages? He said, $14 a month. I said that there was a big difference
between that and $450. He said, yes, but that this was his last trip. He
took a party of three up only a few weeks ago, and he brought them down
yesterday, and they had between $3,000 and $4,000 apiece, and he was not
going to waste his time driving for $450 a month. He was going to the
mines the next day. It was quite probable that the party referred to had
made an unusual lucky strike, for I had met parties that had done the
same thing. I had had in my hands at one time, in San Francisco, a piece
of solid gold metal, something in the shape of the cover of a sugar
loaf, that was worth $4,500, found by a couple of green Irishmen. They
inquired of some miners in the interior where was a good place to dig.
The miners said in fun, dig there in that sand bank behind you. The
Irishmen took them up in earnest and went to digging. In a short time
they found that chunk of gold, where no experienced miner would think of
digging.
I have dug gold in the cellar of the brewery in San Francisco. I think
most all the soil of that part of California is impregnated with gold.
But the point is to find it in sufficient quantities to pay to dig it.
As an illustration, if you knew that in a certain piece of ground there
was $5,000 worth of gold, and it cost you $10,000 to wash all the ground
to get it, of course that land would have no gold value. I found at
Coloma that my friends had left the Dutch bar and gone to the middle
fork of the American river, some distance from there. I got directions
how to get there and started on foot. Toward night I met a young man who
had just came overland and had separated that day from his party to get
work in the mining camp. I told him where I was going, and that he had
better go with me, and that he could get from $10 to $16 per day to work
for other parties, or to join two others and work a claim for himself,
which he did. So as it was getting toward night, we camped under a tree
and slept until morning, and took a fresh start. That day we found the
middle fork of the American river and my friends. The river was sunk
way down in the earth. It seemed almost a mile down to the water where
they were to work. It was quite a large mining place. The excitement
there every day was when the "dummy" went into the river. It was a
diving armor that had been used in the gulf of Lower California to go
down in the deep waters to hunt for pearls, and had been bought by a
party of five, each putting in $800, making $4,000, expecting to make
their fortunes by getting into the deep water of the gold rivers. (As I
have shown before, the torrents and force of the currents had prevented
any gold from ever lodging there.) Every day at such an hour, it was
announced that the "dummy" was a going in the river. The other miners
quit their work to see it, and the proprietors of the "dummy" always
treated the crowd in the most lavish manner. Its credit was good for any
store bills. Its always treating the crowd had made it popular, and
nobody would trade with the storekeeper who would not trust it, so it
was death to the prosperity of the storekeeper, whether he trusted it or
not. They never got any gold while there through "dummy," and when he
left to go further down the river to try another place, the main
storekeeper there lost $800 by trusting it, which broke him. These
stores were tents, to supply immediate wants of the miners. I never
heard of "dummy" afterward. I have no doubt he operated on all the store
tents until he came to grief like all evil-doers.
The productiveness of the gold rivers had not diminished any that I
could perceive. I talked to a man who had been off a little ways to
prospect in another place. I asked him what luck? He said, there was
nothing there. I said, was there no gold? He said; yes, there was some,
but of no value. He said a man could make $10 a day, and who was a going
to waste their time on that. My visit over, I returned to San Francisco.
My friend R.'s brewery was not completed. I was informed he had been
borrowing money from a Jew at twenty per cent a month. It was no use for
me to back him any more, however valuable it might be, if completed, and
I had no doubt there was a fortune in it, but neither he nor I had the
capital to do it.
I had some other financial entangling matters, and I was afraid if I
kept on with them I might get broke, and the only way I saw of getting
out with them was to announce that I was going to leave, and going down
to Relago, Central America.
There was an English steamer advertised to sail for that port and
Panama. I thought I would go for sixty days and then return and commence
again and manage my affairs in a more conservative way, and what I could
control. Well I closed my matters out the best I could and engaged my
passage on the steamer for Relago. There was considerable excitement at
this time about the Nicaragua route. The above place would be the
terminus on the Pacific coast, and, consequently, a place of importance.
As I had missed it in trading six of my houses for lots in San
Francisco, there might be a chance to get some there in advance of any
rise on them. Any way, I wanted to get out of my entangling alliances
and take a fresh start. The night before I sailed Mr. Brady (Colonel
Stevenson's son-in-law) came to me and said the colonel did not like to
have me go. I told him I had paid my passage, $200. He said the colonel
understood that. He put his hand in his vest pocket and pulled out a
roll of bills. He said, here is the $200, which he told me to give you,
so you will not lose any thing by not going. There was once a lady, the
wife of one of the officers of his regiment, who arrived there,
expecting to meet her husband, but he was up in the country. The colonel
asked me to go down to the steamer and meet her, and escort her to a
boarding-house to stay until her husband arrived, which I did. I told
him that she was short of funds, having expected to meet her husband. He
gave me $150 and told me to give it to her, as if I loaned it to her,
and when her husband paid me I could return it to him. I mention these
little incidents to show that whatever faults he may have had, he was
the most generous of friends.
Colonels Stevenson, Freemont and Captain Sutter will stand pre-eminent
in the future history of the State as its most prominent founders.
I sailed out of the port of San Francisco on the steamer _Ecuador_ for
Relago, Central America, expecting to return to California within sixty
days. In a few days, out at sea, we began to hear unfavorable rumors
about our vessel; that the engineer had left the day before our sailing;
that he did not consider it safe to go in it; that it could not carry
coal enough to take it to Acapulco, the next coaling place. And we were
informed that it was a steamer that had been running from Panama to
Valparaiso, and had been bought up by a speculator and sent up to San
Francisco as an experiment, to see if it would pay. The officers and men
had never been up the coast before, and knew nothing about the port. One
day we were startled in mid ocean by the stopping of the engine. We soon
found the cause. The captain was about to try his sails so as to save
coal (which verified the reports about being short of coal). We made
some headway with the sails, but lost it again when the wind subsided,
by the currents of the ocean; so that project was abandoned, and after
some days we put into the port of San Blas, in Mexico, for fuel. There
was no coal there, so we laid in all the wood we could to try and reach
Acapulco (here we could not buy any thing with our $5 gold pieces, but
they were ready to sell for silver). The cholera had been there, they
said, but had left. The priests had had a procession, and, with their
incense boxes, had marched through the streets and driven it out. We
took in all the wood we could get and started to make the port of
Acapulco, the regular coaling port for all the steamers on that coast.
It was Sunday P.M. We could raise fuel enough to make only four knots an
hour. It was an iron steamer. We were burning what there was of the
woodwork of the vessel, for if we could not make the port before dark we
were lost. The officers were not acquainted with the coast. We had not
fuel enough to keep steam up all night, and we would be on the broad
Pacific ocean, six thousand miles across, without the remotest
possibility of meeting any other vessel, without any control of our
steamer, subject to be driven in any direction. I heard the mate talking
to the captain about the propriety of wrecking the vessel and saving
what lives they could, although we were in sight of land. The captain
said the under-tow was so great that none could be saved in that way.
It is twice as great on the Pacific as the Atlantic. There were no
female passengers. One man said he had $10,000 in gold with him; if his
wife and children only had that he would be content to meet his fate,
under the circumstances, but it was hard to leave them without it. All
the passengers had more or less gold, or they would not have been
returning.
You can imagine with what anxiety we watched every indication of the
coast to see if there was any chance of us nearing the port. Finally,
toward night, we saw a high projection of land on the coast, and that
was predicted that it was the entrance to the port. If we could reach
that point before dark, we might be saved. The passengers went to work
to break up any thing for the fires that would make steam. The captain
made no objections, but told them to burn all woodwork on the vessel to
save their lives. At dark we reached the point we had in view, and it
was fortunate for us that it was the entrance to the port. As the vessel
turned to enter, you could see, coming over the waters of the ocean, a
tropical storm, accompanied with wind, thunder and lightning. Twenty
minutes later it would have reached us, and we would have been lost. As
soon as we got safely in port (and it was very dark), I can hear now, in
imagination, the sound of the anchor as it was let down in the water,
which assured our entire safety. It thundered and lightninged, and
blowing a high gale, which was music in our ears, as we knew we were out
of danger, and feeling the supreme gratification of knowing what we had
escaped. Blessed to us was the high mountains which surrounded the port.
The entrance to it is narrow, but when you get inside it is one of the
safest harbors in the world, being perfectly land-locked. The next day
opened on a happy lot of passengers. I felt as if I was commencing life
anew. We went ashore expecting to be there several days, as they
proposed to take in a full supply of coal. This place had been once
quite a city, but many years ago had been partly destroyed by an
earthquake. It was said that the water went out of the bay most to the
tops of the mountains, and then reacted to its usual level in the
harbor; that there was a French ship carried up to the sides of the
mountains, and when the water reacted, carried back in safety in the
harbor. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed, the ruins of which are now
visible where the city once extended.
I was introduced to General Alvarado. He was the most prominent man in
Mexico, on the Pacific coast, at that time, and afterward became very
prominent in the public affairs of his country. On our return to the
vessel that evening there was quite an excitement on board. Among the
passengers was a party of three who had been quite successful in
Sacramento in the bottling of soda and summer beer, and peddling it out
through the city. They had picked up by chance an old acquaintance from
Waterford who belonged to an aristocratic family there, and by his
habits of dissipation was a mortification to them. So when the
California excitement broke out, they furnished him the money to go to
the gold regions. It would either reform him or they would get rid of
him. Of course, such men were no good in California, and he had spent
his money and wanted to return. These men came across him and told him
they were going to return East in sixty days, and if he would keep
straight, and drive one of their wagons for them, they would take him
home with them. When they went ashore the first day they left him in
charge of their baggage, and promised him that he could go ashore the
next. They had their private store of wines and brandy. He had found it
and tried it and got full, and treated all the sailors and everybody on
board that would drink with him, and was the most popular man on board
with the sailors. He repented the next day and begged their
forgiveness, and they took him home with them. Like a bad penny, he
returned as he was before. Distance did not reform him.
Well, our next port was Relago my destination. Just after dark one day
we got opposite to what, according to the charts, was that port. It was
necessary for them to wait until morning before they could undertake to
enter it, as they had never been there before, and there were no pilots,
and they decided not to let the steam go down, and they concluded that
they would sail slowly around in a circle, so as to be opposite to the
port in the morning. When morning came it was foggy, and we could not
see the land. But they had such confidence in the correctness of their
chart that they determined to enter it. Instead of the port, we came to
the white caps, dashing against the rocks almost mountains high, and we
came within an ace of being dashed to pieces against them. If the
engineer had not reversed the movement of the engine the instant he
did, we would have been wrecked. The captain was now completely
befogged. In a short time he came to me with a paper to sign agreeing to
go to Panama. It should cost me nothing extra for my passage there; that
the few other passengers for that port had signed it. I thought I had
better sign to go anywhere than to take any more chances in that
steamer. Come to find out afterward, instead of being opposite the port
that morning, we were twenty miles from it, the currents of the ocean
having carried us that distance while we were sailing around in a
circle, which they had not ciphered on, and thus came so near wrecking
us. By chance we saw a sailing vessel. The captain gave orders for the
steamer to follow it, and, when we overtook it, we found it was bound
for Relago. There was a man on board of it who was acquainted with the
port. They got him to come on our steamer and had him pilot us to that
port, so I expected to go ashore, and got my baggage in readiness, and,
when the time came, had it brought up on deck. They did not enter the
port, but came to outside. There were two passengers, it seems, that
would not sign the paper to go to Panama, and it was to land them he had
come to, and when I went to have my baggage put in the small boat the
captain informed me I had signed to go to Panama, and some of the other
passengers said I was very foolish to risk my life in that sea in so
small a boat. Before I scarcely knew it the boat had pushed off without
me, and, consequently, the whole current and course of my life was
changed. Upon such little incidents often do the events of human life
depend. It may have been fortunate for me that I did not land there.
There was in Nicaragua at the time a filibustering expedition under the
command of Captain Walker, who went from California to overthrow the
government there by taking sides with the revolutionary movement that
had been started, and to get an American control of the government,
which I did not approve of, for I considered it a dishonorable movement;
but still, if I had landed, they being my countrymen, I might have got
mixed up with them. They were conquered and all sentenced to death, and
shot. It is barely possible I might have shared their fate. I have often
thought since I made a good escape by not landing.