In the fall of 1852, my brother was in the mines, on the north fork of
the Yuba, about one hundred miles above Marysville. As the rainy season
was commencing, and knowing his claims to be on the river, where they
could not be worked except in the dry season, I was daily expecting him
to arrive in Marysville, as he had written to that effect; yet he came
not. Daily I heard accounts of large quantities of snow falling; and it
finally fell to such a depth, that all communication with the
settlements in the mountains was cut off before the winter’s supply of
provisions had been transported thither. Fears were entertained that the
mountain population would suffer incredibly for the want of food; and so
they did. Finally, a straggling, emaciated, exhausted party arrived in
town from Downieville, which is eighty miles distant from Marysville.
Fifty miles of the route they had traversed over snow, which lay to the
depth of ten and fifteen feet, and part of the time sinking, at every
step, up to their arm-pits in it. Two or three of their number had given
out and died on the way. The reports they brought were dismal in the
extreme. They said the entire male population would be obliged to leave
Downieville, and get to Marysville, if possible, or die in the attempt,
as there were only provisions enough in town when they left to supply
the women and children.
What anxiety I felt on my brother’s account, knowing that he must depend
upon Downieville for his supplies! No tidings whatever could I obtain of
him, and did not for four months. During this time, remnants of parties
were arriving, completely exhausted, and reporting great distress in the
mountains. At the expiration of that time, the express-men opened for
themselves a passage through the snow. Then I received a letter, stating
the following particulars:
He had made every preparation for leaving his log cabin as soon as there
was any appearance of snow, when one of his partners (he had two) was
violently seized with the mountain fever. Then came the first fall of
snow. What could they do? They could not leave him to die alone, and it
was impossible to move him. For one month he was constantly delirious.
He had no physician to attend him, and there he lay, day and night,
talking to his mother and friends at home, in happy unconsciousness of
his deplorable situation. The snow fell until it lay to the depth of
fifteen feet.
Downieville was twenty miles distant, and thither one of them must go to
obtain provisions; for they were entirely destitute of everything in the
eatable line, and almost destitute of money. They had sent their gold to
Marysville the day before the partner was taken sick, reserving only
sufficient to defray their expenses down.
My brother started to go to Downieville, previously assisting his
partner to tie the sick man on to his pallet of straw; for, in moments
of violent delirium, one person could not compete with him in strength.
In an exhausted state he reached Downieville, and found provisions very
scarce, and dear as gold dust. For ham he paid eighty cents per pound;
for flour, one dollar and a half per pound; and everything in a like
proportion. For one ten pounds of flour, which he bought during the
winter, he paid twenty-five dollars. He wanted to get some corn meal to
make gruel for the sick man, and succeeded in getting one pound, for
which he paid the exorbitant sum of two dollars.
With a back-load of provisions--which weighed sixty-one pounds, and cost
one hundred dollars--he started back. Several times, on the way, he
felt as if he should never live to reach the little cabin; but he
finally arrived there. “Oh,” said he, “what dreary days and nights we
passed in that log cabin, listening to the moanings of the sick man,
whom we were hourly expecting to breathe his last, surrounded and hemmed
in by impassable barriers of snow! We could not wile away the time
evenings by reading, for we had no oil or candles: a little grease in a
tin plate, with a rag in it, was all we had to light in case of
emergency. Our cabin was completely covered with snow. We kept a hole
open from the door up to the surface. Mornings, upon going out, the
foot-prints of large grisly bears would be all around in the snow, over
the top of the cabin. When we had consumed all the provisions which I
had taken up, we both started again for more, leaving the sick man
alone; but he was wholly unconscious, and never knew of our absence.
What little we could get this time was even higher than before; and the
climate had a tendency to give us such good appetites. We boiled those
ham bones until they were as white as polished ivory. For two or three
days we subsisted upon water-gruel.
“I then started again for Downieville, so hungry and faint, I thought I
should never reach there. I had no money; but a trader in Downieville,
who was acquainted with my circumstances, kindly offered to furnish me
with provisions, upon credit. As I was passing a hotel, I smelled the
dinner, and stepped upon the stoop, wishing--oh, how earnestly!--that I
had the wherewithal to procure a dinner. But I was ‘flat broke,’ as the
saying is there, when one is out of funds. Presently I was accosted by a
fellow who once mined with me in the country. Said he, ‘What is the
matter, Bryant? What makes you look so down-hearted? Are you flat
broke?’--‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and starving, besides.’--Not while I have the
color,’ said he, and put five dollars into my hand. With this I bought
myself a good dinner; and it was a wonder I survived it, for I assure
you I did eat some.
“Thus we lived on for four long, weary months. The fever settled in the
sick man’s toes, and they all decayed. Finally, he began to convalesce;
but it was six months from the time he was taken with the fever before
he was able to walk. How grateful he felt to us, who had almost
sacrificed our lives to stay by and nurse him! He would cry, and say,
‘If I am ever worth a fortune, you shall share it with me.’ Before I
left the country, he had been able to earn a little money. He came to
see me, and proffered the whole, as he said, to compensate, in a
measure, for my kindness to him. Of course, I refused to accept of one
dollar; for he then looked too feeble to work.
“During all these winter months, we never shot but one deer; and then we
feasted! The snow lay to such a depth, we could not go hunting; and game
was very scarce, too.
“The provisions which we consumed during three months amounted to five
hundred dollars, and then never had as much as would satisfy our
appetites at any one meal.”
My brother described the snow-slides in the mountains as grand and
frightful. A body of snow would commence rolling at the summit of a
mountain, collecting and increasing in size as it rolled, until it came
with such velocity, and in such a mass, that it would snap off large
trees in its descent as easily as if they had been whip-sticks. One
could hear the rushing, roaring sound it made, for miles. It is
necessary to build their cabins in such a position that they will not be
in danger of annihilation from these slides. Cabins have been swept
away, and the inmates killed, by snow-slides.
As soon as the rocks around the cabin began to get bare, they began to
crevice for gold. One night, while his partner was preparing supper, my
brother took out seventeen dollars (in little lumps) with a
crevicing-spoon.
A lady once told me, who had lived in the mountains, that every day,
after her housework was done up, she would take her crevicing-spoon, and
go out among the rocks searching for gold. She resided there one year,
and, during that time, had collected five hundred dollars in that way.
When the spring opened, my brother concluded to remain through the dry
season, and for eighteen months he was a dweller in those mountain
solitudes, and not once during that time visiting the valley. In his
rambles, one day, he found the skeleton of a human being. What sad
reflections the sight of those bones called up! He dug a grave, and
buried them.
The grisly bears were quite plenty around them; and one day, while they
were out mining, “Old Bruin” made a descent into their cabin, helping
himself to everything the place contained, and overturning tin pans,
pots, and kettles, and everything within his reach. He swallowed all
their butter, for which they had paid one dollar and a half per pound,
and marched off, no doubt delighted with the feast he had enjoyed at
the expense of the poor miners. When they returned, tired and hungry, to
their shanty, to prepare their frugal meal, they were struck with the
utmost consternation at beholding the havoc made within,--by whom, they
readily conjectured, for there were his large footprints, very
conspicuous. Then there was no alternative but to go, tired as they
were, to Downieville, (twenty miles,) and back up more provisions. Then
they baited old Bruin with a piece of meat, loaded their guns, and lay
in wait for him all day and night; but he never came again. Whether his
digestive organs were incapable of performing the necessary functions
after such an expensive feast, or whether he was so cunning as to
suspect they would watch for his return, they never knew.
At one time an old hunter came to their cabin with his dog, and reported
himself to be very expert at killing grislys. They took their guns, and
accompanied him. They soon routed an enormously large bear, whose roar
seemed to shake the earth. He first turned his attention to the dog,
which appeared terribly frightened, and ran away as fast as his legs
would carry him. Then he turned upon the brave hunters, who quickly
followed the example of the dog. They fled to some tall trees, upon
which there was not a limb for twenty or thirty feet from the base. They
exerted every faculty to shin up those naked trunks. My brother, who was
not a little frightened, thought that, at least, he was twenty feet from
the ground, when, upon looking down, he found he was not more than five.
How he redoubled his efforts! for the bear was making after them at a
furious rate. After clearing the field of his antagonists, and giving
two or three tremendous roars in honor of victory, he marched off into
the surrounding forest. After this, they were engaged in several more
successful bear-hunts.
At one time, he was mining on Cañon Creek, and had occasion to cross the
mountains to Slate Range. Many of these mountains are perennially
covered with snow. When travelling in the mountains, clothes more than
you have on your back are burdensome and unnecessary.
After going a short distance from the camp, he hung an overcoat on the
limb of a tree, set his carpet-bag at the foot of it, and buried what
gold he had with him at a short distance from the tree, carefully noting
the spot. He then pursued his journey. Upon arriving at his destination,
his mining operations detained him there eight months. When he
returned, he found his coat hanging upon the same limb; his carpet-bag
was unmolested; and he found his gold just as he had left it. Clothes,
in the mountains, are no temptation to a person’s cupidity, if he has a
suit on his back.
At one time, in company with two or three others, started to go from one
mining locality to another. They were obliged to camp out for four
nights upon the snow; and in some of the deep ravines, which were filled
by the sliding of the snow into them, they judged it to be at least
fifty feet in depth. Nights, they would roll themselves in their
blankets, and lie down upon the snow, with nought above them but the
blue dome of the star-lighted heavens, and sleep as soundly, and be
visited by dreams as sweet, as ever blessed their midnight slumbers in
nicely carpeted chambers, on beds of down.