_Gold Mining in '49 and '50._
At last we were in California. I had a rather bitter introduction,
but I soon felt well again and began to look about to see what
California was really like and to learn the truth of all the wonderful
stories I had heard about gold. We didn't want to take up claims
immediately--wanted to look about and get the best location possible.
They told us about Sacramento City being down the river and we decided
to go down there. Weaver Creek was a small tributary of the American
River, so we went down to the main stream and moved on down in the
direction of Sacramento City. We met a man who said he had just been
down there. We asked him how far it was, and he said forty miles. Said
it was at the mouth of the American River, that is, where the American
River flowed into the Sacramento River. In two days we reached the
mouth of the river, but we didn't see any city. I saw a few tents, and
there was an old sail boat anchored on Sacramento River up close to
the bank, but that was all. I asked a man where Sacramento City was.
He said, "This is the place."
We didn't expect to find much of a city, but were hardly prepared
for what we found. We stretched our tent, turned our cattle out to
graze and prepared for a rest. It was a delightful place. I never saw
finer grass nor finer water, and we still had plenty to eat. Toward
the close of the day I went down to where the sail boat was being
unloaded. Four or five men were carrying provisions--flour, bacon,
pickled pork, sugar, coffee, rice--in fact everything substantial to
eat, out of the boat and throwing it upon the bank among the grape
vines. I saw no owner. There were no police and nobody seemed to be
afraid of thieves. They were not afraid either of rain, for none could
be expected at that season of the year. Nor was there even any dew.
Everything seemed to be safe both day and night.
Our lean old cattle fattened fast and in a little while we could
hardly recognize them. It was a joy to see them eat and drink and rest
after the hardships they had endured. The poor things had suffered
even more than the men.
About the first of September we started back to the mines. Twenty
miles up the American River we each took up a claim and went to work.
Everything was placer mining. Each man had his pan and with it and the
water of the river, he washed the gravel away from the loose gold. We
worked there several weeks and so far as we could see, exhausted the
gold that was in our claims. We found on estimating the result of our
work that each man had averaged about sixteen dollars a day for every
day he had worked.
About the time our claims were exhausted, we were surprised to meet
Russell Hill, a cousin of mine, who had worked his way down from
Oregon to Sacramento by way of Shasta City, and learning at Sacramento
that we were up the American River, had come on up to see us. He had
left his home in Iowa the year before and had gone to Oregon. He told
us he had stopped a few days at Shasta City and believed it to be a
better mining place than the American River, and urged us to go there.
Accordingly we yoked up our oxen and packed our belongings into the
wagons again and started. When we reached Sacramento City this time,
it was not necessary to ask where the city was. The whole valley was
covered with tents and lunch stands. There must have been several
thousand people there. They had come in from everywhere, off the
plains by caravan, up the river from San Francisco by boat, and from
every other place in the world, it seemed to me. There were as yet
no houses. People, men mostly, lived in tents and the lunch counters
consisted of the sideboards of the wagons laid upon poles supported
by forks driven in the ground. Meals were a uniform price, $1.00, but
lodging was free. Just spread your blanket down on the grass anywhere
and make yourself at home.
Shasta City is two hundred miles up Sacramento River and a little
northwest of Sacramento City. Knight's Landing, near the mouth
of Feather River, was our first stop of any consequence. We went
up Feather River to where Marysville now stands and thence in a
northwesterly direction back into the Sacramento Valley. This valley
is about an average of twenty-five miles in width and at that time
there were no towns or even camps upon it and consequently I can
give little account of our progress. I only recall that about every
twenty miles we came upon a ranch occupied by a few families of
Spaniards. These Spaniards had made slaves of the Digger Indians who
lived in mounds or huts covered with earth. The Indians raised wheat
and gathered it in cane baskets. They then rubbed the wheat out of
the straw and beat it into flour. These Indians went almost naked
and lived, themselves, on salmon, acorns, grapes and grasshoppers.
They were the most disgusting mortals I have ever seen in my life.
When we passed the huts or mounds in which they lived, the pappooses
would dart back into them exactly like prairie dogs. I asked an old
Spaniard why he kept these filthy Indians around him, and he said they
protected him from the wild Indians.
The whole valley was covered by abundant vegetation and was full of
wild herds of Spanish horses and thousands of wild Spanish cattle. It
was also full of many savage wild animals, grizzly, brown and black
bear, California lions, panthers, wolves, wild cats and badgers. There
was an abundance also of elk, deer and antelope, and we never lacked
for fresh venison.
We reached Shasta late in September, and like Sacramento City, found
everything but the city. One or two log cabins and a few tents made up
the sum of all the improvements. We put in a few days looking over the
situation and viewing prospects for getting gold and decided to spend
the winter there. This made it necessary for us to look immediately
into our stock of provisions, and upon going through it we found that
we had hardly enough to last us. Nothing could be done but go back to
Sacramento and secure an additional supply, and brother William and a
man by the name of Gleason, from Iowa, who had made the trip with us
up the river, started back with one wagon and four yoke of oxen. We
stretched our tent and stored all the provisions we had in it in such
a way as to protect them, and brother William and Gleason bade us good
by.
This trip meant four hundred miles more of hardship and danger, and
we hated very much to see them leave, but nothing else could be done.
The boys made the trip down without trouble, so they reported upon
their return, but on the way back the rainy season set in and swelled
the rivers so that they were past fording much of the time. The trip
ought to have been made easily in twenty-five or thirty days, but it
occupied from the latter part of September until Christmas.
Hard as this trip was upon the two who made it, their sufferings
were hardly to be compared to the condition of brother James and
myself. We had but a small tent in which to shelter both ourselves
and our provisions and such meagre equipment as we had hauled across
the plains. We had been alone but a few days when brother James was
taken down with the scurvy. About the 10th of October the rain set
in and continued almost in a steady downpour for about three weeks.
Everything was completely soaked. It was next to impossible to find
fuel enough to start a fire. I had to take care of brother James and
keep changing the provisions to prevent them from spoiling, had to
dry the blankets and clothing three or four times a day. In all, I
don't think I averaged more than two hours sleep out of the whole
twenty-four during this period of continued rain. I battled along the
best I could, and at the end of about three weeks it ceased to rain so
hard.
I shall never forget two friends who came to my rescue at this
time--Charles Laffoon and Mike Cody. Both were from St. Louis and had
run a dray on the wharf on the Mississippi River, they said. They had
reached Shasta a few months ahead of us and had built a log cabin. On
one side of this they attached a shed which they used for a cook room
and the whole made a very comfortable dwelling. Lately, however, a
great many people had arrived and they had arranged a bar at one end
of the main cabin and fixed up some tables at the other for a poker
game. Both of these enterprises proved good money makers and they were
getting along fine. After it had been raining three or four weeks,
Mike came up to our tent one morning. He saw the trouble we were in
and said we must not stay there. I told him I knew nothing else to do.
He said he would arrange that all right; that he would make room for
us in his cabin. He didn't even wait for an answer, but set to work
packing things up. In a little while everything we had was moved under
a roof. He fixed a bunk in the shed or cook room for my brother and
brought some men up and carried him down and laid him on it. We used
our own blankets of course, and I cooked our meals, but Mike and his
partner took care of the rest of it. Everything was very quiet in the
day time when the men were out working in the diggings, but at night
things were mighty lively--drinking, gambling and fighting. We didn't
mind all this, for it was so much better than the leaky old tent we
had put up with for so long, and no kinder men ever lived than Mike
Cody and Charles Laffoon.
Brother William and Gleason got back on Christmas day, worn out
themselves and their teams in worse condition. It was still raining.
They had had a dreadful time, high water, mud, rain and no shelter.
They had to expose themselves in order to keep the provisions dry.
A cabin, some distance away from the cluster of houses which was
called the town, had been vacated, and we moved in, though I think
Cody and Laffoon would have arranged in some way to accommodate all of
us in their cabin had they thought we could do no better. The cabin
was fairly comfortable. It had a good fire-place and a good roof, and
these were the principal necessities. The weather was not very cold,
but everything was so entirely saturated that fire was even more
necessary than if the weather had been cold. We had room in the cabin
for our cots and provisions, and we settled down about the first of
January to spend the winter. We drove the cattle ten miles down the
river to Redding's Ranch and turned them loose in his wild herd to
graze until spring. About the middle of January, William took the
scurvy. James had improved very little, so I now had both of them on
my hands. They both lay there unable to walk a step for three months.
There was but little that could be done for them, but I had a great
deal on my hands doing even that and was thankful that I had been
spared from the disease myself, for if I had taken down we should all
have been cast upon the generosity of the wild, rough men who made up
that camp. I had no fear, however, but what we would be taken care of.
During the latter part of the winter, I was taken with a light attack
of the same disease. I was very much afraid it would become serious,
but I did not get down. I could walk flat footed on my left foot, but
had to tip-toe on my right, and all through the balance of the winter
I did the cooking, provided the wood, and ran the errands, hobbling
along the best I could.
Besides this, we were somewhat troubled by finances. Everything was
going out and nothing coming in. Everybody at work making plenty of
money, but we were compelled to stay in this cabin and spend what we
had made. We were rich, however, in provisions. Had enough to last
us a year and they were worth more than gold. I remember that flour
was worth two hundred dollars a sack, and most everything else was in
proportion.
Late in March a doctor drifted into camp. He heard that we had
sickness up at our cabin and came up. He looked my brothers over. He
had no medicine and there was very little, if any, in the camp. He
prescribed raw Irish potatoes sliced in vinegar. We had no potatoes.
I went down to see if I could find them in camp. I hunted the place
over and could not find any. I was going home discouraged when I met
Mike Cody. I told him what I had been doing and he said if there was
a potato in California, he would get it for me. Next morning a man
brought a bushel up to our cabin and told us that was all the potatoes
in that part of the country. I asked him what he wanted for them and
he said they were paid for. When I asked him who paid him he said it
was Mike Cody. I then asked what he got for them. He said seventy-five
dollars. I took the potatoes and fixed them up as the doctor had told
me and gave them to the boys. In a few days they began to mend and in
two or three weeks were able to hobble about the cabin, and by the
first of May they were well enough to take care of themselves nicely.
I hadn't forgotten Mike Cody in the meantime. I went down one day and
told Mike I wanted to settle for the potatoes and for the use of his
cabin the early part of the winter. He said "You don't owe me anything
for staying at the cabin and the potatoes were a present." Said if
he could do anything else, just let him know. I thanked him the best
I could, but he told me that he didn't want any thanks, and that I
must not feel under obligation to him. He reminded me that on several
occasions when he wanted to go out in town and have a good time, I had
kept his bar and run his poker game for him, and said that paid for
everything he had done for us. I knew that was only an excuse to keep
me from feeling so much in debt to him, but I let it go at that and
never lost an opportunity to show that I appreciated what he had done.
I ought to mention, probably, my experiences as a bar-keeper and
manager of a poker game on the few occasions when I was called upon to
assume those responsible positions. The bar was a broad plank which
rested upon supports and extended clear across one end of the cabin.
The bottles of whiskey and bowls of gold dust were kept on this
plank. Mike sold nothing and had nothing to sell but whiskey. When
a man wanted a drink he would hand me over his sack of gold dust. I
poured out the price of a drink in the scale pan and put it over in
the bowl. I then gave him his drink and handed him back his bag of
gold dust. The poker game was not very hard to manage. The players had
their rules and kept their guns close by to enforce them. This made
everybody very cautious about observing the rules and seeing that a
fair game was played. As long as the fellows remained sober I never
saw any trouble over these games. Sometimes a fellow would get drunk
and try to start trouble and he usually succeeded. We generally saved
the lives of such fellows by taking them immediately away and putting
them to bed.
About the 1st of May, Gleason, who had remained at the camp all
winter, and I rigged up a couple of pack mules and went over to
Trinity River, thirty miles west. There we found quite a prosperous
camp where they were getting a good deal of gold. We each took up a
claim and went to work, and got quite a quantity of gold. About the
1st of June, James and William, who by that time were able to ride
horseback, came over and they each took a claim. By the 1st of August
we had worked these claims pretty well out and decided to go on to
Salmon River, forty miles farther west. While we were at Trinity
River, Alfred Jack of near Camden Point, Platte County, came in and
joined us. He decided to go on with us to Salmon River and we all
packed up and started. The trip was without incident, except that over
toward the end of our journey we came to an Indian village. We rode in
toward the village and as we approached we saw the bucks all running
away as fast as they could, leaving their squaws and pappooses
behind. This was strange behavior and we wondered what it meant.
When we got up to the village, we found a white horse which they had
just shot full of arrows. This looked a little dangerous to us. We
didn't know the meaning of this conduct and took it to be a sign of
war. We passed on through the village, hurried after the Indians and
soon overtook them. We had our guns and plenty of ammunition and were
pretty well prepared for a fight with them, as against their bows and
arrows, though they greatly outnumbered us. When they saw we were
prepared for them and knowing as they did that we had not harmed their
squaws and pappooses, they came and told us that they had run away
because their dogs had run at sight of us. They didn't explain why
they had shot the horse full of arrows, but I have always been of the
opinion they intended to waylay and kill us if they could.
We reached Salmon River late in the afternoon and camped for the
night. Next morning we took our picks, shovels and pans and went out
to look for gold and found it. By noon when we gathered back at the
camp every man was satisfied to make permanent camp and remain a
while. We were the first in this immediate section of the country.
Other parties were farther up the river and still others farther
down the river, but we found no evidences at all that any white men
had ever been in this particular place. We seemed to have a way of
getting in ahead. We were in the lead across the plains, among the
first to reach Sacramento, about the first at Shasta City, and Trinity
River, and actually the first on Salmon River. We were not there long,
however, until others began to come in, and in a short time all the
available locations for placer mining were taken. We remained some
six weeks, as I recollect, on Salmon River and panned out quite a
quantity of gold; enough to pay us well for the trip but hardly as
much as we anticipated we would get when we left home, after hearing
the reports that came to us. Still we were satisfied and now that
we all had good health, had no complaint to make. Some one who came
into our camp on Salmon River brought the word that our brothers were
coming across the plains from Missouri, and would get in sometime in
September. We decided to go back and meet them, so we broke camp and
went back to Shasta City. Here we loaded our plunder into our own
wagons which had been left during our absence, and after procuring
our cattle from Redding's Ranch--so fat and sleek we could hardly
recognize them, we set out down Sacramento River. The trip was made
without incident. It was the dry season of the year. There was plenty
of game, plenty for the cattle to eat, and no trouble about fording
the river. While we were in camp one night at Knight's Landing, I put
a sack of dried beef which we called "jerky," under the back part of
my pillow to make sure the coyotes would not get it. In this I was
mistaken, for sometime that night a coyote came up and helped himself
and we had no jerky for breakfast. My slumbers were not disturbed in
the least by the burglar.
A little farther down the Sacramento River, while in camp one night,
we were all awakened by an unusual noise. The camp fire was burning
dimly and afforded enough light for us to see, not twenty yards
away, a huge grizzly bear. He was sniffing around picking up scraps
of meat and bone which we had thrown away. There was a good deal
of quiet excitement in the camp over the discovery of this guest,
but fortunately everybody had sense enough to keep still. The old
fellow prowled about the camp for a long time. Sometimes he would
get right up by the fire and then we had a good look at him. He paid
no attention to us at all. Apparently didn't know we were in the
neighborhood. At least if he knew it, he didn't let on. By and by,
after satisfying himself that there were no more scraps, he walked
slowly away and we could hear him rattling the bushes and crushing the
dead limbs and sticks that lay upon the ground for a long distance. It
was not until he had been out of hearing for quite a long time that
anybody dared to speak, and then our first words to each other were
of congratulation. We hadn't had very much experience with grizzly
bears at that time and didn't know but what the old fellow might have
attempted to piece out his meal on one of us. We were glad enough when
he decided to go and hunt up some more bones and scraps and let us
alone.
We reached Sacramento City about September 20th, and from there went
up to Salmon Falls on the American River, where we found our brothers,
Isaac, Zach and Robert, and quite a company of our Buchanan County
acquaintances--Calvin James, Charles Ramsey and his family, Perry
Jones, William Glenn, James Glenn, and some others whom I do not at
this moment recall. Charles Ramsey's wife was the first white woman I
had seen since I left St. Joseph, May 2nd, 1849.
It was a great joy to us to meet these old acquaintances and to feel
that we were now not quite so lonely out in that wild country. We all
remained in camp at Salmon Falls for several weeks. During this time
the boys looked around to see what they had better do. Chas. Ramsey
and Calvin James took up a ranch about thirty miles west of Sacramento
River on Cash Creek. The five brothers of us decided that the best
thing we could do was to take up a ranch also. We went over into the
same neighborhood and squatted on a body of land. There was no law
prescribing any amount that each man could take, and the grazing land
was held largely in common. We had a good bunch of cattle and horses
of our own and emigrants were continually offering their teams for
sale. Isaac, Zach and Robert had brought considerable money out with
them, and James, William and myself had practically all the gold we
had cleaned up in mining, so we were in shape to begin the cattle
business on a pretty good scale. By the first of December we had a
fine herd of cattle, all branded with our particular brand, grazing on
the pasture along Cash Creek.
We built a cabin close to the cabin that James and Ramsey had put up,
and staked out our ranch. There were five men in the James cabin and
seven in ours--six Gibson brothers and Eli Wilson. The whole valley
of Cash Creek as well as much of the valley of Sacramento River, was
covered with wild oats. Red clover grew wild and there were many other
grasses just as good for cattle.
We had plenty of flour, sugar, coffee and such other common groceries
as were to be had in the markets at Sacramento. It had cost quite a
sum of money to get these provisions--I do not remember just how much,
but it was fabulous almost, and the only consolation we got was out of
the fact that we didn't have to buy meat. We had our own cattle if we
wanted beef, but there was no need even for that when venison was so
plentiful.
It must have been sometime during the first of December that we
organized a hunt for the purpose of laying in a good supply of meat
for the winter. We rigged up ten pack mules, went to the mountains a
few miles distant and camped. From this camp we conducted our hunting
expedition and in a few days had more than enough venison to last
through the winter. We killed elk, deer and antelope enough to load
our train. Part of this we took down to Sacramento and traded it for
other provisions. We felt that we could get meat any time when we had
to have it, but might not be able to get other provisions, and that an
extra supply would make us feel more comfortable.
The grazing was fine all through the winter. The climate, as every one
knows, is not cold and the one discomfort was the continued rain, but
this had its compensations. When the rivers and sloughs filled up with
water, the wild ducks and wild geese came in to feed upon the wild
oats. We had little to do but look after our cattle and think about
what we would like to eat. If we decided in the morning to have duck
or goose, some one took the gun, went out and brought back just what
we had decided upon. The rivers were full of the finest fish and they
were no trouble to catch at all, so when we wanted fish, it was at
hand. I have never lived at any place in my life where I felt so sure
of provisions as in that cabin during that winter. We had four large
greyhounds that had come across the plains with some of the emigrants
and we picked them up as company. We trained them to hunt bear--that
is the bear soon trained them. It was no trouble to get them to trail
bear. They seemed to do this by instinct, but seemed not always to be
sure of the kind of animal they were after. I judged this by watching
them tackle the bear after they had overtaken it. They would dash in
with as much confidence as if he were a jack rabbit or a coyote and
showed plainly that they proposed to take him in and annihilate him
at once. They would also show a good deal of surprise when the old
bear would rise up on his hind feet and box them ten feet away. They
soon learned to keep their distance and play with the bear, keeping
him standing on his hind feet, watching them until we could come
up close enough to get a shot. That always ended it. Sometimes the
bear would take to a tree. In either case we always got him. These
dogs were great company for us. If we happened not to want any bear
meat, we would take the dogs and chase jack-rabbits and coyotes. They
were pretty swift dogs, but it was seldom that they could pick up a
jack-rabbit, and rarely ever got a coyote on a straight run, but we
had as much fun and more probably than if the dogs had been able to
pick them up right along.
Thus passed the winter of '50 and '51--as pleasant a period as I
recall during my whole life. By the spring and early summer of '51 our
cattle were fat and fine and ready to be sold for beef. We peddled
them out to the butchers and miners along the Sacramento and American
Rivers. They brought us an average of one hundred and fifty dollars a
head. By the first of July they were all gone and we began to look for
emigrants' cattle to re-stock the ranch. We supposed that emigration
across the plains would continue and in order to get first chance at
cattle that might be for sale, we loaded up our pack mules, crossed
the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and went down Carson River to Humboldt
Desert. We were greatly surprised to find only a few straggling
emigrant trains coming in and most of these were bent on settlement
rather than mining and had brought their families. Of course, they had
no cattle to sell. We waited until the latter part of July, and when
we became convinced that no cattle were coming we had to determine the
next best thing to do.
The grazing of cattle had proved so much more to our liking than
digging gold that we wanted to continue in that business, but we
couldn't do it without cattle. We thought about the thousands of
cattle back in Missouri that might be had for ten or fifteen dollars
a head, and decided to return across the plains and during the winter
gather up a herd and take it back the following summer. This plan
seemed to suit best. Brother William was not in the best of health and
didn't feel equal to the task of crossing the plains, so it was agreed
that he and Eli Wilson would stay with the ranch and take care of
things during the year and that the rest of us would go back.