In the spring of 1854, I bade adieu to Marysville, and started for San
Francisco, preparatory to leaving for the Atlantic States. Three years
previously, I had entered Marysville, when it was a little town, built
mostly of canvas. Distinctly did I recollect my feelings at that time.
All those bright hopes and buoyant anticipations--how had they been
realized? Alas! as are too many of the frail hopes of earth, they had
been blasted and blighted in the bud. Now I left it a large city,
containing ten thousand inhabitants. Blocks of brick, fire-proof
buildings had been reared; churches also, whose spires seemed pointing
to that better land; and school-houses, whose doors were thrown open to
receive hundreds of happy children who had emigrated with their parents
to this inland city. And I left it now, a sadder and a wiser woman; for
there I had drunk deep draughts of sorrow, and had learned, by bitter
experience, the fallacy of placing implicit confidence in earthly
objects.
I was borne down those magnificent streams for the last time; yet every
object is distinctly daguerreotyped in my mind as I saw it then. Yes! I
bade all those scenes a final adieu; and would that I could have bade
farewell to heart-troubles also. But how tenaciously they will gather
around the fountain of memory, ever ready to spring to the surface, at
the mention of some name, or half-forgotten word either of kindness or
reproof! It was a bright May day, the last I passed in San Francisco. I
met there several of the tried, firm friends of other days; and
certainly I needed their support and protection then, if ever. Varying,
conflicting emotions crowded so thick and fast upon the tablets of the
brain, and so gained the ascendency over the power of self-control, that
it was impossible for me to support my trembling frame without
assistance, as I walked down the densely crowded wharf to get on board
the steamer that was to convey me from scenes of suffering to my
childhood’s happy home.
That day, three steamers left that wharf, within an hour of each other,
for the Atlantic States,--the “Uncle Sam,” the “Panama,” and the
“Cortez.” I went on board the “Uncle Sam.” She was the last to leave,
and was crowded with passengers: she had on board about eight hundred
people.
When the gun was fired,--the signal for departure,--as the echo
reverberated over the waters, I fancied it to be one unanimous farewell
emanating from the breasts of all on board,--a farewell to the sunny
vales and towering mountains, to the gold-studded placers and majestic
streams, the deep ravines and rocky cañons, of beloved California.
What different emotions swelled the bosoms of those persons who stood
gazing, perhaps for the last time, on that great emporium of the West!
Many perhaps, then on board, like myself, had threaded its sandy streets
when in its state of infancy; had viewed the scene from Telegraph Hill,
when nought but canvas shanties dotted the surface of those valleys,
surrounded by numerous sand-hills, which had since been levelled to make
room for elegant blocks of granite buildings, which reared their stately
proportions, the admiration of thousands, and an honor to the energetic
and enterprising projectors.
Some were returning, from a residence in that city and country, to their
Eastern homes, blessed with an abundance of the shining metal which had
lured them to its shores, and perhaps entirely destitute of all those
principles of virtue and honesty that ever shed a brilliant lustre over
the human mind, and give to the humble, indigent, and sorrow-stricken, a
passport to a happy home above.
The possession of wealth does not necessarily pervert the human heart;
and yet how often do we see the possessor utterly regardless of the
feelings of the worthy poor! Wealth too often takes the precedence of
intellect; and many times we have seen the gifted mind struggling
through years of poverty, uncheered by even an encouraging word from
the rich, and finally sink in obscurity into an early grave.