Great Salt Lake arrested the attention of Brigham Young, the Mormon
patriarch. Fremont had said the valley of Bear River, a tributary
of this lake, made "a natural resting and recruiting station for
travellers." Its bottoms were extensive, water excellent, timber
sufficient, and soil well adapted to the grains and grasses suited to
so elevated a region. The great lake would furnish exhaustless supplies
of salt. And he gave it as his opinion, that cattle and horses would
thrive where grass and salt were so abundantly provided by nature. With
these advantages he recommended it for civilized settlement.
Upon this, the Mormons, who were farmers and graziers, decided to
form themselves in one great caravan, and travel to this Great Salt
Lake. They started out with one hundred and forty-seven people and
seventy-three wagons. On the 24th of July, 1847, as the caravan slowly
wound down the Wasatch Mountains, the exiles saw the plain of their
New Jerusalem stretching out before them, but when they reached it they
found nothing growing upon it but sage-bushes.
They however laid out their city[3] at the foot of the hills, on a
river which, as it runs from Utah Lake to Salt Lake, intercepts the
streams coming down the eastern hills. The Mormons called this river the
Jordan, because of some fancied resemblance to the river of Palestine.
Finding all so barren about them, these people took counsel of the
experience of their neighbors, the Pueblo Indians, who for want of
wood build their houses of adobe, and for want of rain raise crops by
watering them artificially. Thus Salt Lake soon grew out of an arid
plain to be a city of gardens and running streams.
In setting forth the advantages of the Utah Basin, Fremont had described
a portion of the neighbor republic of Mexico, with which we were then
at peace, and in making it their home the Mormons had been moved by a
desire to go outside the limits of the United States, but were strangely
brought back within them again when California was ceded to us.
Though shut out from the world, this strange colony steadily grew in
strength and numbers. The Mormon Church had sent out its missionaries
to make converts in other lands, for in the Union its doctrines were
detested, and the community itself looked upon as little better than
outcasts. So the increase was mostly from this source. Hence it was
natural that the Mormon body should have in it less of the spirit of
national feeling than other communities, and grow more and more away
from the Union by reason of its isolation and the teachings of its
rulers.
These teachings were embodied in a hierarchy, or, in other words,
Church and State were one with the Church above the civil authority.
The bishops, chief priests, and elders were the actual rulers, who both
made and gave the law, and each member of the society gave a tenth of
his living to the support of the Church. All who did not conform to the
Mormon faith were denied any share in civil affairs. Thus the Mormons
had set up in Utah[4] a little republic of their own, which, in
effect, excluded other citizens of the Union from a full share in its
privileges. Though a republic in name it was a despotism at the root.
In short, the Mormons had gone to Utah to found a society for themselves
alone, in which none but their own people should find a welcome.
It followed that the Mormon state was looked upon as an element of
danger, rather than strength, to the Union, for the place where it was
founded was a natural stronghold from which the authority of the nation
might be set at defiance, as soon happened.
Flourishing only by reason of their isolation, the Mormons looked with
little favor upon the passing emigration, though they drew much benefit
from it. They could sell their cattle, grain, horses and other supplies
to the emigrants at high prices, but the steady march of these people
toward the west threatened the security they wished to enjoy apart
from the world. Though always hostile to the great westward movement,
and sometimes resorting to violence to stay it, the Mormons have been
made to contribute to its success, not indeed as free agents, but as
instruments in the hands of destiny. Formidable only in their seclusion,
they have presented the anomaly of a handful of people throwing
themselves before the wheels of progress. Though no longer formidable,
they have done a notable work in making productive what was before
considered an uninhabitable desert.
FOOTNOTES
[1] THE MORMON SECT was founded by Joseph Smith, a native
of Vermont (1805), who claimed direct revelation from God,
and in 1830 put forth the Book of Mormon, or Mormon Bible, as
of Divine inspiration. The same year the Mormon Church began
at Manchester, N.Y. Smith's authority was absolute, like that
of the Pope, and could continue only by apostolic succession.
The Mormons went first to Ohio, next to Jackson County, Mo.,
then to Nauvoo, Ill., where Smith was killed by a mob (1844).
They had little settlements at the Pueblo of the Arkansas and
at Fort Bridger.
[2] POLYGAMY, or plurality of wives. The Mormons claim to
practise it in accordance with a revelation of the Divine
will. It is however now made an offence by United States laws
framed to reach it. (See the Edmunds Bill.)
[3] THEIR CITY, elevated almost a mile above the sea,
"was located mainly on the bench of hard gravel that slopes
southward from the foot of the mountains toward the lake
valley. The houses—generally small and of one story—have a
neat and quiet look, while the uniform breadth of the streets
(eight rods) and the 'magnificent distances' usually preserved
by the buildings (each block containing ten acres, divided
into eight lots, giving each householder a quarter of an acre
for buildings, and an acre for a garden) make up an _ensemble_
seldom equalled. Then the rills of bright, sparkling, leaping
water which flow through each street give an air of freshness
and coolness which none can fail to enjoy."—_Horace Greeley._
[4] UTAH is the name of an Indian tribe, said to mean "those
who dwell on the mountains." It was formed into a Territory,
1850. "The great basin, six hundred miles by three hundred,
seems to have been a vast inland sea. The immediate valley
in which Salt Lake lies is much its best portion, and with
irrigation the soil is very productive."—_A. D. Richardson._
But for polygamy, Utah would long ago have been a State in
the Union.
GROUP III.
GOLD IN CALIFORNIA, AND WHAT IT LED TO.
"_There is nothing in the world so sound as American
society._"—GOLDWIN SMITH.
I.
THE GREAT EMIGRATION.
EL DORADO FOUND AT LAST.
"_It is always the unexpected that happens._"
What El Dorado[1] had been to the active imaginings of De Soto's
Spaniards, was now to become a reality that would startle the world
from its long forgetfulness. The world believed they had been chasing a
phantom which lured them to their death. One seeks in vain to know why
Nature at last revealed the secret she had so long kept hid from those
who had sought but not found, to disclose it to others who had found
without seeking.
The war was scarcely ended[2] which gave us California, when a scene
took place there of far-reaching moment to mankind. Words can hardly
describe it. For a time it seemed the overturning of all laws governing
the acquisition and distribution of wealth, if it were not to put the
common laborer on a level with the millionaire, and so revolutionize
society itself. When we consider what has followed in its train, the
story itself seems tame indeed.
[Illustration: SUTTER'S MILL.]
Captain Sutter had been having a saw-mill built for him fifty miles
above his fort, on the south fork of the American River, which is here
a swift mountain stream. One evening, when all within the fort wore its
usual quiet, a horseman rode up in hot haste, and asked to see Sutter
alone. This was James W. Marshall, one of Sutter's men, who had charge
of the mill above. Seeing by his manner that something unusual was
the matter, Sutter led the way into his private room, and turned the
key in the lock. With much show of mystery, Marshall then handed his
employer a packet, which being opened, was found to contain a handful
of yellow metal, in flakes or kernels, which he said he had taken from
the mill-race, and asserted to be gold. By the light of a candle the two
men bent over the little heap of shining particles in eager scrutiny.
Sutter would not believe it was gold. Marshall was sure it could be
nothing else. Aquafortis was then tried without effect. The metal was
next weighed with silver, in water. All doubt was removed. It was indeed
gold, yellow gold, that Marshall had found.
His story, briefly told, was to this effect. They had started the mill,
when the tail-race was found too small to carry off the water. In order
to deepen it the whole head of water was then let into the race, thus
washing it out to the required depth. It was while looking at the work
the water had done, that Marshall saw many shining particles lodged in
crevices of the rocks, or among the dirt the water had carried down
before it. All at once it flashed upon him that this might be gold.
Gathering up what he could without risk of detection, he had started
off for the fort without making his discovery known to any one.
Sutter saw his happy pastoral life of the past on the point of
vanishing. He made an idle effort to keep the discovery secret, at least
till he could set his house in order. It was soon known in the household
and at the mill. From this little mountain nook it was borne on the
wings of the wind to the sea-coast, and from the sea-coast to the four
quarters of the globe.
Captain Sutter's men[3] deserted him in a body. The American settlers
and Indians of the neighborhood next caught the infection. Gold was
quickly found at a point midway between Sutter's Fort and Mill, called
the Mormon Diggings,[4] on Feather River, and in the gulches above
the mill site. From these districts the first miners began to straggle
down to San Francisco with pouches of gold-dust in their possession. Men
who had hardly known what it was to have a dollar of their own suddenly
lived
"Like an emperor in their expense."
The effect was magical. Within a short three months most of the houses
in San Francisco and Monterey were shut up. Blacksmiths left their
anvils, carpenters their benches, sailors their ships. Soldiers were
every day deserting from the garrisons of San Francisco, Sonoma, and
Monterey. The two newspapers[5] then printed in the country suspended
their issue indefinitely. Everybody was off for the mines, and nothing
else was talked of but gold.
[Illustration: TWO MINERS.]
Consul Larkin thus describes the scene at the Mormon Diggings in June,
1848: "At my camping-place I found forty or fifty tents, mostly occupied
by Americans, strewn about the hillsides next the river. I spent two
nights in company with eight Americans, two of whom were sailors, two
carpenters, one a clerk, and three common laborers. With two machines
called cradles, these men made fifty dollars each per day. Another miner
had washed out, with a common tin pan, gold to the value of eighty-two
dollars in a single day."
Mr. Larkin thought there were then about one thousand people, mostly
foreigners, actually working in the mines, whose daily gains would
amount to at least ten thousand dollars. And he even ventured to hint
that at this rate gold enough would be produced in a single year to
repay what California had cost the nation.
Colonel Mason, the military governor, adds what he saw while making
a tour of inspection to the new placers: "Along the whole route mills
were lying idle, fields of wheat were open to cattle and horses, houses
vacant, and farms going to waste. At Sutter's there was more life and
business. Launches were discharging their cargoes at the river, and
carts were hauling goods to the fort, where were already established
several stores, a hotel, etc. Captain Sutter had only two mechanics in
his employ, whom he was then paying ten dollars a day. Merchants pay him
a monthly rent of one hundred dollars per room; and while I was there
a two-story house in the fort was rented as a hotel for five hundred
dollars a month."
FOOTNOTES
[1] EL DORADO. Refer to p. 14 for the origin of this name.
[2] THE WAR HARDLY ENDED. Confusion exists as to the precise
date of the gold discovery. Larkin says, on the spot, January
or February. Hittell, a well-informed writer, says January 19.
Royce, January. Bancroft is not accessible as I pen this note.
[3] CAPTAIN SUTTER'S MEN. Some of those who were either in
his employ or under his military command, became wealthy and
influential citizens of the State. Among them John Bidwell,
Pearson B. Reading, Samuel J. Hensley, and Charles M. Weber
may be named.
[4] MORMON DIGGINGS. The Mormons who were found here by Mr.
Larkin in June, probably came into California overland with
Colonel Cooke, or with Samuel Brannan by sea in July, 1846.
Governor Mason reports them as preparing to go to Salt Lake.
See Note 5.
[5] THE TWO NEWSPAPERS. The "Californian" (later "Alta
California"), first published in Monterey, then in San
Francisco; founded 1846 by Walter Colton and Robert Semple;
edited by Semple after its removal to San Francisco. The
"California Star," founded by Samuel Brannan early in 1847,
was merged with the "California." See Note 4.
SWARMING THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATE.[1]
Meanwhile the area of the gold-fields was being rapidly enlarged on all
sides by new discoveries. Each day had its story of the finding of some
richer placer for which a general rush was made. As time wore on, gold
was found in all the streams which cut their way through the foothills
of the great Sierra.[2] By midsummer four thousand people, half of
whom were Indians, were washing for gold as if it had been the only
employment of their lives.
By this time too the first guarded statements made about the extent
and richness of the gold-fields gave place to predictions as bold as
they were hard to believe. For instance, Governor Mason, who had been
over-cautious at first, soon had no hesitation in saying that there was
more gold in the country than would pay the cost of the war a hundred
times over.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE.]
It is true that flour was worth fifty dollars a barrel, at the mines,
and a common spade ten dollars, but when even the poor and degraded
Indians of the rancherias[3] could afford the luxuries of life, the
cost of necessaries was of little account to men who thought four golden
ounces only a fair return for a day's labor.
This is the story of only a few short months,—the preface, as one might
say, to the larger history. It was yet too soon for the discovery to
be known in the United States, but the time was drawing near when it
would be the one all-engrossing topic in every hamlet from Maine to
Florida. Meanwhile it spread to all the shores and isles of the Pacific.
Dark-visaged Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands, swarthy Peruvians and
Chilenos, added their thousands to the already composite character of
the population of the land of gold. From the Russian Possessions in
the north, from the Sandwich Islands in the midst of the Pacific, the
wondrous tale was speeding on to China and the Australian Isles. Then
with the autumnal rains the first chapter of this history of marvels
was closed for a brief season.
[Illustration: CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN.]
Authentic reports of the gold discovery first appeared in the public
prints of the Atlantic States in the autumn. In December, President
Polk gave Governor Mason's and Consul Larkin's reports to the country.
From these sources the story was taken up and multiplied through the
myriad channels of public and private intelligence, until the name of
California became a household word throughout all the length and breadth
of the land. Talismanic word! It was soon to entice a million men from
their homes to seek their fortunes among the gulches of the wild Sierra.
Rarely in the history of the world has society been so deeply stirred
to its centre. It was like an electric shock that is felt throughout
the whole social organization. First there was the numbness of wonder,
then the fever of unwonted excitement. How to get to this land of
gold, was now the one absorbing question of the hour. Near a thousand
leagues of barren plains and desert mountains lay between it and the
settled frontier. These could only be crossed after grass had grown in
the spring. A still longer ocean journey must be made by crossing the
Isthmus of Darien, over the trail struck out by the viceroys when Spain
held the keys of the East; or, if the voyage were to be made round Cape
Horn, the distance would be more than quadrupled. But the thought of
these vast distances to be traversed seemed only to add to the general
impatience to surmount them. The temper of the public mind was such
that it would bear any thing but delay. Soon ships were fitting out in
every port[4] of the Union for Tampico or Vera Cruz, for Chagres, and
for the long voyage round Cape Horn. In the seaports nothing was heard
but the note of preparation. On the frontier caravans were everywhere
forming to go forward with the appearance of the first blade of grass
above ground. "Ho for California!" was the cry borne on every breeze
that wafted ship after ship out over the wide ocean with her little
colony of gold-seekers. "Ho for California!" was the watchword of those
who were braving the perils of a winter journey across the Sierras.
And "California!" was still the answer of other bands that were wending
their way across the Cordilleras, in paths first traced by Cortez and
his comrades, to Acapulco, San Blas or Mazatlan on the Pacific. All
roads seemed leading to the Golden Gate. El Dorado was found at last.
FOOTNOTES
[1] THE GOLDEN GATE. "Approaching from the sea, the coast
presents a bold outline. On the south the bordering mountains
come down in a narrow ridge of broken hills, terminating in a
precipitous point, against which the sea breaks heavily. On
the northern side, the mountain presents a bold promontory,
rising in a few miles to a height of two or three thousand
feet. Between these points is the strait—about one mile broad
in its narrowest part, and five miles long from the sea to the
bay. To this gate I gave the name of _Chrysopylae_, or Golden
Gate, for the same reason that the harbor of Byzantium was
called _Chrysoceras_, or Golden Horn."—_Fremont._ This was
prior to the gold discovery. The old Presidio was at the end
of the southerly point.
[2] ONE VAST GOLD-FIELD. Most of the tributaries of the
Sacramento and San Joaquin were soon tapped, and search was
even made among the sources of these rivers in the belief that
gold existed there in virgin masses, from which the particles
found lower down had been worn by water. Eager prospectors
soon carried exploration from the Trinity in the north, to
King's River in the south.
[3] INDIANS OF THE RANCHERIAS were employed in large numbers
by the whites to wash gold for them. With willow baskets fifty
Indians washed out in one week fourteen pounds (avoirdupois)
of gold.
[4] IN EVERT PORT. "A resident of New York coming back
after an absence of three months (this was in January) would
be puzzled at seeing the word 'California' everywhere staring
him in the face, and at the columns of vessels advertised to
sail for San Francisco."—_New York Tribune._
THE CALIFORNIA PIONEERS.
Although we have seen much doing there in the previous year, and the
earliest comers were the true pioneers, the great rush to the gold
region took place in 1849, upon the first news being spread throughout
the States. It is therefore from that year that the history of the gold
fever is usually dated.
So great was the demand for shipping, that even old whale-ships were
fitted up to carry three or four hundred passengers round Cape Horn.
Even these were quickly crowded with emigrants. But ere long the demand
for vessels that would show greater speed gave rise to new models in
ship-building; and to this cause we owe the fast clipper ships which
sometimes sailed from New York to San Francisco in eighty-seven days.
At first it was much the fashion for men to go in companies formed in
their own neighborhoods. Those who could not go themselves would club
together and send a substitute, as men may own shares in a ship or a
machine, the substitute being allowed to keep a certain share of the
profits of his own labor.
[Illustration: A FATHER.]
Then, again, a novel appearance was given to the streets of our seaport
towns by the daily presence in them of men dressed in red woollen
shirts, slouch hats, and cowhide boots,—men wearing pistols and dirks,
or carrying rifles,—whom it was not easy to know for peaceful citizens
just turned out of their farms or workshops or counting-houses. Nor
was the emigration confined to the bone and sinew of society only.
Men of every walk in life were drawn into it. A scholar might have
a day-laborer for his companion. Larkin has told us how this worked
in the mines. The one purpose to dig for gold quickly put all on an
equal footing, for in making labor the sole means of wealth, as in the
beginning it was, the common laborer had become the peer of the most
learned scholar in the land. Hence every ship and every caravan carried
its little republic of equality. And hence society seemed going back
into its original elements, as if gold were the magnet attracting all
else to itself.
[Illustration: MOUNT SHASTA.]
The sailing of many ships, full freighted with eager gold-seekers,
was followed in the early spring by the march of thousands across the
plains. Like colonies of migratory ants the long line of wagons crept
along the roads leading to the South Pass and Rio Grande. At Salt Lake
City, which we have just seen founded, the weary emigrants tarried a
while to recruit their failing animals for the dreaded passage of the
desert; then to the road again to struggle ever on through the parched
valleys, where their gaunt beasts died of thirst, or up the granite
sides of the Sierras, where they dropped from exhaustion, till the
Sacramento Valley was reached at last, and Shasta Peak burst on their
enraptured sight. Hundreds perished by the way, and long after the march
for gold in 1849 might be traced by the abandoned wagons or dead animals
that strewed its path.
Many reached Panama by way of the Chagres River, whose course led up
to the mountain chain dividing the waters of the Atlantic from those
of the Pacific. Day by day a motley fleet of dug-out canoes might
have been seen toiling with pole and oar against the swift current
of this mountain stream. At the head of boat navigation, in an open
spot, under the high mountains, a few cocoanut palms lifted tufts of
graceful foliage above a clump of miserable huts, whose owners were of
mixed Spanish and Indian blood. This was on the route the Spaniards had
discovered in 1513. This was Gorgona.
[Illustration: ON THE OREGON TRAIL.]
Taking mules at Gorgona the emigrants crossed the mountains to the
Pacific, which they here closely approach. At the ancient city of
Panama, interesting only as a specimen of that older civilization which
had run its course, several thousand Americans[1] were soon waiting
for vessels to take them on to California. Every crazy hulk that would
float had been taken up by earlier comers. So these people had to stay
at Panama through the sickly season, though the deadly fever of the
country was daily thinning their ranks of the bravest and best. Thus
months of weary waiting must pass before these people could set foot in
the land of gold.
When they did reach it[2] they found San Francisco[3] a city
of tents and shanties scattered about a group of barren, wind-swept
sand-hills. In the basin below, formed by the curving shore, a fleet of
deserted ships rode at anchor. Farther off rose the little island of
Yerba Buena,[4] and still farther, beyond the leagues of glittering
water, the rugged wall of the Coast Range grandly enclosed the bay in
its encircling arm.
[Illustration: SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849.]
To this picture now add the hurry and confusion which the beach showed
at all hours of the day, and we shall get a rapid glimpse at the humble
beginnings of the destined mart of the Pacific. Those tents on the beach
were the warehouses of the future metropolis; those on the hills were
the abodes of its wealthiest citizens.
Should we follow the swarm of boats seen every hour pushing off from
the beach for the mines, they would lead us to the two great inland
waterways of the country. On the spot where Sutter had made his
landing-place another city had sprung into being. This was Sacramento.
On the San Joaquin, where Weber had made a home in 1844, Stockton was
growing up. These were the two great depots for the mines north and
south.