safely ensconced--after all the hair-breadth escapes of my wearisome,
though at the same time delightful, journey--under the magnificent roof
of the "Empire," which, by the way, is _the_ hotel of the place, not
but that nearly ever other shanty on the Bar claims the same
grandiloquent title. Indeed, for that matter, California herself might
be called the Hotel State, so completely is she inundated with taverns,
boarding-houses, etc. The Empire is the only two-story building in
town, and absolutely has a live "upstairs." Here you will find two or
three glass windows, an unknown luxury in all the other dwellings. It
is built of planks of the roughest possible description. The roof, of
course, is covered with canvas, which also forms the entire front of
the house, on which is painted, in immense capitals, the following
imposing letters: "THE EMPIRE!" I will describe, as exactly as
possible, this grand establishment. You first enter a large apartment,
level with the street, part of which is fitted up as a barroom, with
that eternal crimson calico which flushes the whole social life of the
Golden State with its everlasting red, in the center of a fluted mass
of which gleams a really elegant mirror, set off by a background of
decanters, cigar-vases, and jars of brandied fruit; the whole forming a
_tout ensemble_ of dazzling splendor. A table covered with a green
cloth,--upon which lies a pack of monte-cards, a back-gammon-board, and
a sickening pile of "yallow-kivered" literature,--with several
uncomfortable-looking benches, complete the furniture of this most
important portion of such a place as "The Empire." The remainder of the
room does duty as a shop, where velveteen and leather, flannel shirts
and calico ditto,--the latter starched to an appalling state of
stiffness,--lie cheek by jowl with hams, preserved meats, oysters, and
other groceries, in hopeless confusion. From the barroom you ascend by
four steps into the parlor, the floor of which is covered by a straw
carpet. This room contains quite a decent looking-glass, a sofa
fourteen feet long and a foot and a half wide, painfully suggestive of
an aching back,--of course covered with red calico (the sofa, _not_ the
back),--a round table with a green cloth, six cane-bottom chars,
red-calico curtains, a cooking-stove, a rocking-chair, _and_ a woman
and a baby, (of whom more anon,) the latter wearing a scarlet frock, to
match the sofa and curtains. A flight of four steps leads from the
parlor to the upper story, where, on each side of a narrow entry, are
four eight-feet-by-ten bedrooms, the floors of which are covered by
straw matting. Here your eyes are again refreshed with a glittering
vision of red-calico curtains gracefully festooned above wooden windows
picturesquely lattice-like. These tiny chambers are furnished with
little tables covered with oilcloth, and bedsteads so heavy that
nothing short of a giant's strength could move them. Indeed, I am
convinced that they were built, piece by piece, on the spot where they
now stand. The entire building is lined with purple calico, alternating
with a delicate blue, and the effect is really quite pretty. The floors
are so very uneven that you are always ascending a hill or descending
into a valley. The doors consist of a slight frame covered with
dark-blue drilling, and are hung on hinges of leather. As to the
kitchen and dining-room, I leave to your vivid imagination to picture
their primitiveness, merely observing that nothing was ever more
awkward and unworkmanlike than the whole tenement. It is just such a
piece of carpentering as a child two years old, gifted with the
strength of a man, would produce, if it wanted to play at making
grown-up houses. And yet this impertinent apology for a house cost its
original owners more than eight thousand dollars. This will not be
quite so surprising when I inform you that, at the time it was built,
everything had to be packed from Marysville at a cost of forty cents a
pound. Compare this with the price of freight on the railroads at home,
and you will easily make an estimate of the immense outlay of money
necessary to collect the materials for such an undertaking at Rich Bar.
It was built by a company of gamblers as a residence for two of those
unfortunates who make a trade--a thing of barter--of the holiest
passion, when sanctified by _love_, that ever thrills the wayward heart
of poor humanity. To the lasting honor of _miners_ be it written, the
_speculation_ proved a decided failure. Yes! these thousand men, many
of whom had been for years absent from the softening amenities of
female society, and the sweet restraining influences of pure
womanhood,--these husbands of fair young wives kneeling daily at the
altars of their holy homes to pray for their far-off ones,--these sons
of gray-haired mothers, majestic in their sanctified old age,--these
brothers of virginal sisters, white and saintlike as the lilies of
their own gardens,--looked only with contempt or pity on these, oh! so
earnestly to be compassionated creatures. These unhappy members of a
class, to one of which the tenderest words that Jesus ever spake were
uttered, left in a few weeks, absolutely driven away by public opinion.
The disappointed gamblers sold the house to its present proprietor for
a few hundred dollars.
Mr. B., the landlord of the Empire, was a Western farmer who with his
wife crossed the plains about two years ago. Immediately on his arrival
he settled at a mining station, where he remained until last spring,
when he removed to Rich Bar. Mrs. B. is a gentle and amiable looking
woman, about twenty-five years of age. She is an example of the
terrible wear and tear to the complexion in crossing the plains, hers
having become, through exposure at that time, of a dark and permanent
yellow, anything but becoming. I will give you a key to her character,
which will exhibit it better than weeks of description. She took a
nursing babe, eight months old, from her bosom, and left it with two
other children, almost infants, to cross the plains in search of gold!
When I arrived she was cooking supper for some half a dozen people,
while her really pretty boy, who lay kicking furiously in his
champagne-basket cradle, and screaming with a six-months-old-baby
power, had, that day, completed just two weeks of his earthly
pilgrimage. The inconvenience which she suffered during what George
Sand calls "the sublime martyrdom of maternity" would appal the wife of
the humblest pauper of a New England village. Another woman, also from
the West, was with her at the time of her infant's birth, but scarcely
had the "latest-found" given the first characteristic shriek of its
debut upon the stage of life, when this person herself was taken
seriously ill, and was obliged to return to her own cabin, leaving the
poor exhausted mother entirely alone! Her husband lay seriously sick
himself at the time, and of course could offer her no assistance. A
miner, who lived in the house, and hoarded himself, carried her some
bread and tea in the morning and evening, and that was all the care she
had. Two days after its birth, she made a desperate effort, and, by
easy stages of ten minutes at a time, contrived to get poor baby washed
and dressed, after a fashion. He is an astonishingly large and strong
child, holds his head up like a six-monther, and has but one
failing,--a too evident and officious desire to inform everybody, far
and near, at all hours of the night and day, that his lungs are in a
perfectly sound and healthy condition,--a piece of intelligence which,
though very gratifying, is rather inconvenient if one happens to be
particularly sleepy.
Besides Mrs. B., there are three other women on the Bar. One is called
"the Indiana girl," from the name of her pa's hotel, though it must be
confessed that the sweet name of _girl_ seems sadly incongruous when
applied to such a gigantic piece of humanity. I have a great desire to
see her, which will probably not be gratified, as she leaves in a few
days for the valley. But, at any rate, I can say that I have _heard_
her. The far-off roll of her mighty voice, booming through two closed
doors and a long entry, added greatly to the severe attack of nervous
headache under which I was suffering when she called. This gentle
creature wears the thickest kind of miner's boots, and has the dainty
habit of wiping the dishes on her apron! Last spring she _walked_ to
this place, and packed fifty pounds of flour on her back down that
awful hill, the snow being five feet deep at the time.
Mr. and Mrs. B., who have three pretty children, reside in a log cabin
at the entrance of the village. One of the little girls was in the
barroom to-day, and her sweet and birdlike voice brought tearfully, and
yet joyfully, to my memory "Tearsoul," "Leilie," and "Lile Katie."
Mrs. B., who is as small as "the Indiana girl" is large (indeed, I have
been confidently informed that she weighs but sixty-eight pounds),
keeps, with her husband, the "Miners' Home." (Mem.--The lady tends
bar.) _Voila_, my dear, the female population of my new home. Splendid
material for social parties this winter, are they not?
LETTER _the_ THIRD
[_The_ PIONEER, _April_, 1854]
LIFE _and_ FORTUNE _at the_ BAR-DIGGINGS
SYNOPSIS
Flashy shops and showy houses of San Francisco. Rich Bar charmingly
fresh and original. A diminutive valley. Rio de las Plumas, or Feather
River. Rich Bar, the Barra Rica of the Spaniards. An acknowledgment of
"a most humiliating consciousness of geological deficiencies". Palatial
splendor of the Empire Hotel. Round tents, square tents, plank hovels,
log cabins, etc. "Local habitations" formed of pine boughs, and
covered with old calico shirts. The "office" of Dr. C. excites the
risibilities of the author. One of the "finders" of Rich Bar. Had not
spoken to a woman for two years. Honors the occasion by an "investment"
in champagne. The author assists in drinking to the honor of her
arrival at the Bar. Nothing done in California without the sanctifying
influence of the "spirit". History of the discovery of gold at Rich
Bar. Thirty-three pounds of gold in eight hours. Fifteen hundred
dollars from a panful of "dirt". Five hundred miners arrive at Rich Bar
in about a week. Smith Bar, Indian Bar, Missouri Bar, and other bars.
Miners extremely fortunate. Absolute wealth in a few weeks. Drunken
gamblers in less than a year. Suffering for necessaries of life. A mild
winter. A stormy spring. Impassable trails. No pack-mule trains arrive.
Miners pack flour on their backs for over forty miles. Flour at over
three dollars a pound. Subsistence on feed-barley. A voracious miner.
An abundance stored.
Letter _the_ Third
LIFE _and_ FORTUNE _at the_ BAR-DIGGINGS
RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,
_September_ 20, 1851.
I intend, to-day, dear M., to be as disagreeably statistical and as
praiseworthily matter-of-factish as the most dogged utilitarian could
desire. I shall give you a full, true, and particular account of the
discovery, rise, and progress of this place, with a religious adherence
to _dates_ which will rather astonish your unmathematical mind. But let
me first describe the spot as it looked to my wondering and
unaccustomed eyes. Remember, I had never seen a mining district before,
and had just left San Francisco, amid whose flashy-looking shops and
showy houses the most of my time had been spent since my arrival in the
Golden State. Of course, to me, the _coup d'oeil_ of Rich Bar was
charmingly fresh and original. Imagine a tiny valley about eight
hundred yards in length, and perhaps thirty in width, (it was measured
for my especial information,) apparently hemmed in by lofty hills,
almost perpendicular, draperied to their very summits with beautiful
fir-trees, the blue-bosomed Plumas (or Feather River, I suppose I must
call it) undulating along their base,--and you have as good an idea as
I can give you of the _local_ of Barra Rica, as the Spaniards so
prettily term it.
In almost any of the numerous books written upon California, no doubt
you will be able to find a most scientific description of the origin of
these bars. I must acknowledge with shame that my ideas on the subject
are distressingly vague. I could never appreciate the poetry or the
humor of making one's wrists ache by knocking to pieces gloomy-looking
stones, or in dirtying one's fingers by analyzing soils, in a vain
attempt to fathom the osteology or anatomy of our beloved earth, though
my heart is thrillingly alive to the faintest shade of color and the
infinite variety of styles in which she delights to robe her
ever-changeful and ever-beautiful _surface_. In my unscientific mind,
the _formations_ are without form, and void; and you might as well talk
Chinese to me, as to embroider your conversation with the terms
"hornblende," "mica," "limestone," "slate," "granite," and "quartz" in
a hopeless attempt to enlighten me as to their merits. The dutiful
diligence with which I attended course after course of lectures on
geology, by America's greatest illustrator of that subject, arose
rather from my affectionate reverence for our beloved Dr. H., and the
fascinating charm which his glorious mind throws round every subject
which it condescends to illuminate, than to any interest in the dry
science itself. It is therefore with a most humiliating consciousness
of my geological deficiencies that I offer you the only explanation
which I have been able to obtain from those most learned in such
matters here. I gather from their remarks, that these bars are formed
by deposits of earth rolling down from the mountains, crowding the
river aside and occupying a portion of its deserted bed. If my
definition is unsatisfactory, I can but refer you to some of the
aforesaid works upon California.
Through the middle of Rich Bar runs the street, thickly planted with
about forty tenements, among which figure round tents, square tents,
plank hovels, log cabins, etc., the residences varying in elegance and
convenience from the palatial splendor of "The Empire" down to a "local
habitation" formed of pine boughs and covered with old calico shirts.
To-day I visited the "office," the only one on the river. I had heard
so much about it from others, as well as from F., that I really _did_
expect something extra. When I entered this imposing place the shock to
my optic nerves was so great that I sank helplessly upon one of the
benches, which ran, divan-like, the whole length (ten feet!) of the
building, and laughed till I cried. There was, of course, no floor. A
rude nondescript, in one corner, on which was ranged the medical
library, consisting of half a dozen volumes, did duty as a table. The
shelves, which looked like sticks snatched hastily from the woodpile,
and nailed up without the least alteration, contained quite a
respectable array of medicines. The white-canvas window stared
everybody in the face, with the interesting information painted on it,
in perfect grenadiers of capitals, that this was Dr. ----'s office.
At my loud laugh (which, it must be confessed, was noisy enough to give
the whole street assurance of the presence of a woman) F. looked
shocked, and his partner looked prussic acid. To him (the partner, I
mean; he hadn't been out of the mines for years) the "office" was a
thing sacred, and set apart for an almost admiring worship. It was a
beautiful architectural ideal embodied in pine shingles and cotton
cloth. Here he literally "lived, and moved, and had his being," his bed
and his board. With an admiration of the fine arts truly praiseworthy,
he had fondly decorated the walls thereof with sundry pictures from
Godey's, Graham's, and Sartain's magazines, among which, fashion-plates
with imaginary monsters sporting miraculous waists, impossible wrists,
and fabulous feet, largely predominated.
During my call at the office I was introduced to one of the _finders_
of Rich Bar,--a young Georgian,--who afterwards gave me a full
description of all the facts connected with its discovery. This
unfortunate had not spoken to a woman for two years, and, in the
elation of his heart at the joyful event, he rushed out and invested
capital in some excellent champagne, which I, on Willie's principle of
"doing in Turkey as the Turkeys do," assisted the company in drinking,
to the honor of my own arrival. I mention this as an instance that
nothing can be done in California without the sanctifying influence of
the _spirit_, and it generally appears in a much more "questionable
shape" than that of sparkling wine. Mr. H. informed me that on the 20th
of July, 1850, it was rumored at Nelson's Creek--a mining station
situated at the Middle Fork of the Feather River, about eighty miles
from Marysville--that one of those vague "Somebodies," a near relation
of the "They-Says," had discovered mines of a remarkable richness in a
northeasterly direction, and about forty miles from the first-mentioned
place. Anxious and immediate search was made for "Somebody," but, as
our Western brethren say, he "wasn't thar'." But his absence could not
deter the miners when once the golden rumor had been set afloat. A
large company packed up their goods and chattels, generally consisting
of a pair of blankets, a frying-pan, some flour, salt pork, brandy,
pickax and shovel, and started for the new Dorado. They "traveled, and
traveled, and traveled," as we used to say in the fairy-stories, for
nearly a week, in every possible direction, when, one evening, weary
and discouraged, about one hundred of the party found themselves at the
top of that famous hill which figures so largely in my letters, whence
the river can be distinctly seen. Half of the number concluded to
descend the mountain that night, the remainder stopping on the summit
until the next morning. On arriving at Rich Bar, part of the
adventurers camped there, but many went a few miles farther down the
river. The next morning, two men turned over a large stone, beneath
which they found quite a sizable piece of gold. They washed a small
panful of the dirt, and obtained from it two hundred and fifty-six
dollars. Encouraged by this success, they commenced staking off the
legal amount of ground allowed to each person for mining purposes, and,
the remainder of the party having descended the hill, before night the
entire bar was "claimed." In a fortnight from that time, the two men
who found the first bit of gold had each taken out six thousand
dollars. Two others took out thirty-three pounds of gold in eight
hours, which is the best day's work that has been done on this branch
of the river. The largest amount ever taken from one panful of dirt was
fifteen hundred dollars. In a little more than a week after its
discovery, five hundred men had settled upon the Bar for the summer.
Such is the wonderful alacrity with which a mining town is built. Soon
after was discovered, on the same side of the river, about half a mile
apart, and at nearly the same distance from this place, the two bars,
Smith and Indian, both very rich, also another, lying across the river,
just opposite Indian, called Missouri Bar. There are several more, all
within a few miles of here, called Frenchman's, Taylor's, Brown's, The
Junction, Wyandott, and Muggin's; but they are, at present, of little
importance as mining stations.
Those who worked in these mines during the fall of 1850 were extremely
fortunate, but, alas! the monte fiend ruined hundreds. Shall I tell you
the fate of two of the most successful of these gold-hunters? From poor
men, they found themselves, at the end of a few weeks, absolutely rich.
Elated with their good fortune, seized with a mania for monte, in less
than a year these unfortunates, so lately respectable and intelligent,
became a pair of drunken gamblers. One of them, at this present
writing, works for five dollars a day, and boards himself out of that;
the other actually suffers for the necessaries of life,--a too common
result of scenes in the mines.
There were but few that dared to remain in the mountains during the
winter, for fear of being buried in the snow, of which, at that time,
they had a most vague idea. I have been told that in these sheltered
valleys it seldom falls to the depth of more than a foot, and
disappears almost invariably within a day or two. Perhaps there were
three hundred that concluded to stay, of which number two thirds
stopped on Smith's Bar, as the labor of mining there is much easier
than it is here. Contrary to the general expectation, the weather was
delightful until about the middle of March. It then commenced storming,
and continued to snow and rain incessantly for nearly three weeks.
Supposing that the rainy season had passed, hundreds had arrived on the
river during the previous month. The snow, which fell several feet in
depth on the mountains, rendered the trail impassable, and entirely
stopped the pack trains. Provisions soon became scarce, and the
sufferings of these unhappy men were indeed extreme. Some adventurous
spirits, with true Yankee hardihood, forced their way through the snow
to the Frenchman's rancho, and packed flour _on their backs_ for more
than forty miles! The first meal that arrived sold for three dollars a
pound. Many subsisted for days on nothing but barley, which is kept
here to feed the pack-mules on. One unhappy individual, who could not
obtain even a little barley for love or money, and had eaten nothing
for three days, forced his way out to the Spanish Rancho, fourteen
miles distant, and in less than an hour after his arrival had devoured
_twenty-seven_ biscuit and a corresponding: quantity of other eatables,
and, of course, drinkables to match. Don't let this account alarm you.
There is no danger of another famine here. They tell me that there is
hardly a building in the place that has not food enough in it to last
its occupants for the next two years; besides, there are two or three
well-filled groceries in town.
LETTER _the_ FOURTH
[_The_ PIONEER, _May_, 1854]
ACCIDENTS--SURGERY--DEATH--FESTIVITY
SYNOPSIS
Frightful accidents to which the gold-seeker is constantly liable.
Futile attempts of physician to save crushed leg of young miner.
Universal outcry against amputation. Dr. C., however, uses the knife.
Professional reputation at stake. Success attends the operation. Death
of another young miner, who fell into mining-shaft. His funeral.
Picturesque appearance of the miners thereat. Of what the miner's
costume consists. Horror of the author aroused in contemplation of the
lonely mountain-top graveyard. Jostling of life and death. Celebration
of the anniversary of Chilian independence. Participation of a certain
class of Yankees therein. The procession. A Falstaffian leader. The
feast. A twenty-gallon keg of brandy on the table, gracefully encircled
by quart dippers. The Chilenos reel with a better grace, the Americans
more naturally.
Letter _the_ Fourth
ACCIDENTS--SURGERY--DEATH--FESTIVITY
RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,
_September_ 22, 1851.