KNTltAIsCE TO THE GOLDEN GATE.
CALIFORNIA LIFE
ILLUSTRATED.
BY WILLIAM TAYLOR,
OF THE OALIFOKNIA CONFERENCE,
AUTHOR OF "SEVEN YEAES1 STEEET PEEACHING IN SAN
FRANCISCO" AND "ADDEESS TO YOUNG AMERICA.1'
When a traveler returneth home, let him not leavo the countries where he
hath traveled altogether behind him. — LORD BACON.
Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of
the brooks.— JOB xxii, 24.
SIXTEEN ENQRAVINQS.
PUBLISHED FOE THE AUTHOR,
BY OAELTON & PORTER, 200 MTJLBERRY-STREET.
1858.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
D. L. ROSS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New-York.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTEK I.
MISSIONAKY LIFE.
First View of California Coast — Entrance through the Golden Gate —
"Let go the Anchor" — Lassoing a Bullock — Wonderful California
News by Mr, M. — Prices — Wages — Gold — Gamblers — One Church
and that a Jail — One Preacher and he a Gambler — First Impressions
of San Francisco — The Canvas City — Vain Search for Methodists —
" No such Creatures in the Place"— Bark Hebe, Captain Stetson— His
Men left to the Mercy of the Patagonian Indians — Their Eescue —
J. H. Merrill — "Brother Finley"— John Troubody— Father White's
Family — Shanty with Blue Cover — First Sermon — First Class-Meet
ing—Its Peculiarities — Palmer J. Whiting, the Shepherd Boy — Our
Oregon Chapel — No House for the Preacher — Captain Otis Webb, the
noble Outsider — John B. Seidenstricker — His Dreams and Hardware
— Collins and Cushman — Life in the Eedwoods — Preacher building
a House — Carpenter's Wages — Home — Eats — Garden — " Greens fifty
Cents a Fork" — Chickens — Milk — Egg Currency — Cheap Cow —
Hard Winter, etc PAGE 13
CHAPTEE H.
MISSIONAEY LIFE — CONTINUED.
Oregon and California Mission Conference — The Superintendent —
Gambler's Donation — Preacher taken down by a Stage Actor — Cap
tain Gelson — Church Lots out of Town — Dedication of First Method
ist Episcopal Church — Eev. William H. Hatch "in the Lurch"— Bal-
6 CONTENTS.
timore California Chapel — Early Church Organizations, and Pioneer
Missionaries — Eevs. T. D wight Hunt, 0. C. Wheeler, S. "Woodbridge,
(Where is the Capital of California?) J. W. Douglass, S. H. Willey,
Alfred Williams, J. A. Benton, Drs. Vermehr and Mines — Stranger's
Friend Society — Charity Hospital — City Fathers — Sacrifice of City
Property — San Francisco Bible Society — Colonel M'Kee, Indian Agent
— Number of Indians in California — Their Colonization PAGE 52
CHAPTEE III.
MISSIONARY LIFE — CONTINUED.
First Quarterly Meeting — Salary of Preacher — Eev. J. Doane — First
Preaching to the Gamblers — Infant Society — Its Peculiarities — Scar
city of Females — The Pioneer Family — Alfred Love and the Grizzly
Bear — Specimen Members of our First Society: John Troubody, Wil-
let M'Cord, L. F. Budd, (who wouldn't rent his House to a Rum-seller,)
Alexander Hatter, J. B. Bond, D. L. Ross, R. P. Spier, W. H. Cod-
dington, (the Sabbath-keeping Butcher,) Robert Beeching, (the Musi
cian who wouldn't play for thirty Dollars per Night,) Isaac Jones,
(who would rather starve than set Type on Sunday) — Early Local
Preachers — Exhorters — Class-leaders — Second Class organized —
First Sunday-school— First Watch-meeting — Arrival of "the Meth
odist Company" — Their Shipwreck in the Bay — Calvin Lathrop —
Wheeling Firewood — The "Darkey" who struck the Gold Lead in
"Negro Hill." 77
CHAPTER IY.
MISSIONARY LIFE — CONTINUED.
First Visit to Sacramento City — Band of Elk — Dr. Grove W. Deal —
Rev. Isaac Owen — Sufferings of his Family — Rev. James Corwin —
Preaching in the Baltimore California Chapel — Flood of Waters — City
Submerged — Chapel swept from its Foundations — Stock drowned —
Liberality of Steamboat Companies — "Mules not Preachers" — Rev.
Mr. Owen's Family driven by the Flood to San Francisco — " Sister
Merchant " — Presiding Elder at a Washtub — The smoking Preacher
who wouldn't help his Wife — J. Bennett — First Visit to San Jose and
CONTENTS. 7
Santa Cruz — " In the Mud" — Early Settlers of San Jose* — First Itin
erant Horse — His " ups and downs" — Asa Finley — Chicken for Bre. lo
fast — California Shepherd Dogs — Mountain Scenery — First Chun 'i
Arbitration — First "Protracted Meeting" in Santa Cruz — Lost in the
Night — Waked up the Indians — Prayed with the Gamblers — A Night
with the Hunters — Eeturn Home. PAGE 104
CHAPTER Y.
MISSIONAEY LIFE— CONTINUED.
"A Screw loose" with Sister Merchant — She claims the Preacher's
House — Lights and Shades of Insanity — Daniel Webster's Private
Secretary in the Hospital — Insane Asylum in Stockton --Preacher's
Trunk broken open hi Daylight — "He fell on his Knees and begged
us to kill him " — Itinerant Horse eating Hay at fifteen Cents a Pound —
"Book Concern of the Pacific " — Death of Rev. Mr. Owen's Daughter
— Eev. William Roberts— Death of William H. Stevens — "Daddy's
dead, and I don't know what to do with him" — Dr. Deal in the
Legislature — New Church — Horse-race — Shark-catching — Hospital
Scenes — Clearing the Track for old Grizzly — Quarterly Meeting
in Santa Cruz — "The Stranger taken in" — Arrival of Missionaries
from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South — Two Methodist Organi
zations — J. D. Hoppe — Birthday Reflections 132
CHAPTER- VI.
SOCIAL LIFE IN CALIFORNIA.
Its Nature and essential Conditions — The latter wanting — Adam's sin
gle Wretchedness — His ten thousand California Sons — Tearful Adieus
— Telescope of manifest Destiny — Initiation of " Green-horns" — Cali
fornia Lodging-house — Bunks — Third Plague of Egypt — Blanket*
passed round — Rev. Mr. Trumbull and the Fleas — Ranches — Social
Life "dried up" — Why? — Despondent ones — Mr. P.'s Bonnets —
Men didn't want them — Hole in Captain Wooley's Pocket — Money
leaked out — Shanty robbed — Dog-days — "Every Dog has his Day"
— S. S. dying on the Sand-hill — H. S. in the Station-house — Substi
tutes for Wives, Sisters, and Daughters — The Harmonious Family —
8 CONTENTS.
Social Life superseded by Excitement— Excitants— Ordinary and Extra
ordinary— Prices —Wages — " Big Lumps," etc.— Tippling — Gambling
— Great Ventures — House of the strange Woman — Soiree — Temple of
Virtue — Sunday Amusements — The Mission — Buss's Garden — Oakland
Horse-racing — Bear and Bull-fighting — Specimen of Ethics — Duel
ing PAGE 161
CHAPTER VII.
SOCIAL LIFE — CONTINUED.
Sunday Traffic — Liberal Catholic — Excursions — Dog-fight — Going to
Heaven by Steamboat— " The Sagamore" — Her Explosion — Horrible
Tragedy — Philip Groves — Fandangoes — Circuses, Monkey Shows, etc.
— Excitants extraordinary — Political Mass-meetings, etc. — Lynch
Law — Ship Challenge — Captain W.'s " Persuader"—" New Diggings"
— " Gold Bluffs"— Pacific Mining Company — Gold by the Ship-load —
Dr. H. on "Short Allowance" — Letters from Home — Joseph Stocker
— Bachelors — Written Order for a Wife — Courting by Proxy — Mar
riage on Sight — Disproportion of the Sexes — Great Evil — Men newly
Eigged— D. 0. Shattuck's Family on the Wreck of the " North Amer
ica" — Arrival of Families and betrothed Ones — Disappointment and
Agony — Variety of touching Scenes 184
CHAPTER VIII.
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES.
Depot of Death — Preacher begging to see his dying Brothers — The old
Tar— " Pay Booms "— " Lower Wards " — Careless Nurses —Dreadful
Mortality — Prevailing Disease — "Dead Cart" — Captain Lock —
Sleeping with Corpses — "Foul Play with the Dying" — Captain
Welch refusing to have his Leg cut off — John Purseglove scrambling
away from Death — Charity of the Church — Free-Masons — Odd-Fel
lows — Scurvy Patients — Medicine from the Sand-hills — Grateful
Spaniard — Hopefulness and Hopelessness of Death-bed Repentance —
Variety of Scenes given for Illustration — Hospital Improvements —
United States Marine Hospital — Doctor M'Millen — Preaching in the
Dining-room — Conversion of J. H. Perry 217
CONTENTS. 9
CHAPTEE IX.
EXTENT AND EESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA.
Former Ideas of "Californy" — Impression of early Emigrants — Vast
Desert — Adventurous Farmers — Potato Mania like Gold Fever — John
had " no Idea the World was so big " — Comparative Extent of California
— Agricultural Eesources — Statistical Exhibit of Products in 1856 —
"Some Punkins"— Three Dollar Apple— Fruit and Fruit Trees—
Grapes— Live Stock — Wild Game— Fisheries— Lumber Business —
Number and Cost of Saw-mills — Number and Cost of Grist-mills —
Manufactories of various Kinds — Ferries and Bridges — Mineral Pro
ducts : Silver, Copper, Iron, Magnetic Iron, Platinum, Chromium, Gyp
sum, Nickel, Antimony, Cinnabar, Bitumen, Coal, Marble, Granite,
Buhr Stones, and Gold — Discovery of Gold, and aggregate Yield to the
present Tune — Various Modes of Mining illustrated — Number and
Cost of Quartz-mills — "Eich Diggins" — Length and Cost of Canals
and Ditches— " California Eegister " PAGE 247
CHAPTER X.
LIFE AMONG THE MINEES.
Industry of the Miners — Faith, Hope, Energy— "Live Yankee Com
pany" — « Good Prospects" — Miner's Orphan Boy — Not all success
ful — Why ? — " Packing " — " Prospecting " — Social Condition— Ef
fect of Female Influence — Moral Condition — Not anxious to go to
Heaven — Stage-coach and Elijah's Horses — How they keep Sunday —
Meetings and Laws — Best Christian in the Mountains — Preaching at
Long Bar — Old Captain wouldn't pray — Congregation got drunk —
Their Liberality — Preacher Merchant — His back Door ajar on Sunday
— His Bar— Success — Eeverses — Brother H.'s Store— Wouldn't sell
on Sunday — Called an old Fool— "Boys" advertised him — Made his
" Pile" — Good Qualities of Miners — Liberality — Contempt for mean,
little Things — The live Chicken Eoaster — His Sentence — Alameda
Butcher— No Biota in California as in Eastern Cities — Eiot in Wash
ington City — Murder of a Miner's Wife — Murderer hung by Judge
Lynch — Hanging of Jenkins — Better Day coming — Freedom of
10 CONTENTS.
Speech — Night Preaching in the Streets of Sonora and Jamestown —
Opposition Line — Permanence of Mining Operations — Success of the
Gospel — Improvement of Society — Fall of the Gambling Goliah —
Better Observance of the Sabbath PAGE 277
CHAPTEK XI.
CALIFOKNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD.
God's two leading Modes of Evangelizing the World — Importance of
Foreign Missions — A. M. Brown — A Persecutor — Dying with Chol
era in Constantinople — Picked up by a Missionary — Converted —
A Preacher — Sent to the Sandwich Islands — God's grand Design in
sending Heathens to the Gospel — Success of Home Missions among
the Africans, Scandinavians, Germans, etc. — Eepresentatives of all
Nations in California — Effect of Yankee Civilization — John Chinaman
"just same von Melican Man" — Preaching in M'Ginnis's Store — Chi
nese Reporter — Translation of his Notes — The Gospel preached to
the Representatives of all Nations at once — Scene described in the
"Annals of San Francisco " — Text recorded in the Sand-bank — Keeper
of the Gate to Hell — Whisky Barrel Pulpit — Great Variety of the
Audience — " What's the News ?"— Slighted Irishman— St. Patrick —
Italian Refugees — Defense of Spanish Boy — Maltese — Manilla Men's
Donation to the Preacher — The Prussian — " De Handt of Got is on
me" — "De pig Snake"— "De Debil"— His Conversion— Shipped
" to go and tell Mudder "— Methodist Kanakas — Obstructions — Ulti-
timate Triumph , 304
CHAPTEK XII.
BIT OF EXPERIENCE — CONCLUSION.
Seamen's "Bethel" and "Home in San Francisco"— Successes— Re
verses — Book-making — Leave of Absence — J. P. Haven — Passage
Money— Arrival in New- York — Funds out — Death in the Family —
Publishing Book — Scarlet Fever — Small-pox — Rheumatism — Labors
— Trials — Triumphs — Return to California, etc., etc. — Summary of
California Life yet to be illustrated 383
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAOB
ENTRANCE TO THE GOLDEN GATE 2
SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849, FROM THE HEAD OF CLAY-
STREET 18
A STEEET SCENE ON A RAINY NIGHT 46
INTERIOR OF THE EL DORADO 79
SACRAMENTO CITY 105
CALIFORNIA LODGING-ROOM 166
CITY OF OAKLAND 181
CITY HALL ON FEBRUARY 22, 1851 191
THE POST-OFFICE, CORNER OF PIKE AND CLAY
STREETS 202
ARRIVAL OF A STEAMSHIP 212
UNITED STATES MARINE HOSPITAL 243
NEW WORLD MARKET, CORNER OF COMMERCIAL AND
LEIDSDORFF STREETS 258
BUTTER'S MILL 266
HANGING OF JENKINS ON THE PLAZA 298
CHINESE FEMALES 312
CHINESE MERCHANTS. . . 316
CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
CHAPTER J..,, v
MISSIONARY
ON the 21st day of September, 1849, the captain
of our noble ship said: "We are now in latitude
about five miles north of the Golden Gate. Never
having entered the port of San Francisco, I thought
it best to run a few miles north, and feel my way
down the coast till I could find the entrance." We
could at that moment distinctly hear the breakers,
but were enveloped in so dense a fog that the
man at the look-out could not see the length of the
ship ahead. The breeze was dying away, and to
proceed on our course was very hazardous, for if we
should get too far " in shore," and have no wind to
enable us to " tack, and wear off," a current setting
in might carry us on to the rocks. We therefore
"stood off" a while, hoping the fog would rise, but
14 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
it did not. The breeze, however, sprang up a little,
and Captain Wilson said : " We'll head on toward
those breakers, and see what we can find." That
shrill command, " 'Bout ship," sent a thrill of com
mingled hope and fear to the hearts of the entire
ship's company. There we were, in untried seas,
running through a fog, which utterly darkened the
field of vision in every direction, right toward the
breakers, whose thunder pealed its warning notes
into our ears with increasing distinctness as we
advanced. But we had unshaken confidence in the
skill of our commander, and said, " Go on." We
liad tried him during a long voyage round Cape
Horn ; had witnessed his perfect self-possession as he
stood amid the wreck of our masts and rigging,
which had been thrown down in tangled prostration
on the deck of our noble ship by the sudden burst
of a " white squall ;" had seen him convert his
deck into a shipyard, and make masts, yards, and
rigging, and refit, without putting into port, or
losing a day's sail ; and again we said to our grand
old captain in the fog, " Go on." So on and on we
went till, as suddenly as striking a sunken reef, we
ran out of the darkness into the brightest day of
California's sunshine. The whole coast, as far as the
eye could reach, was, in a moment, spread out to the
rapturous gaze of one hundred passengers, who had
not seen the land but once for one hundred and
MISSION AKY LIFE. 15
fifty-five days. The scene was transporting beyond
description.
There lay the land we had longed for ; over us
were the brightest skies we ever had seen ; around
us were myriads of ducks and pelicans, and other
fowls of the sea in vast variety. Beneath us were
several whales spouting and playing about our ship,
often coming within thirty feet of us. Some of the
passengers discharged their revolvers at them with
out any apparent effect.
Thus entertained we sailed down the coast, ran
without a pilot through the Golden Gate,* and just
as the sun was sinking below the horizon of the great
Pacific our sails were furled, and the command was
given, " Let go the anchor."
During our voyage of five months and three days
we heard no tidings from California, except at Val
paraiso. There we were informed by " The latest
news from San Francisco," that lawless anarchy
reigned, that there was no security for life or prop
erty, and that the few families who had the bad for
tune to go to California had been obliged to leave,
not excepting even the family of the territorial gov
ernor. Such news reminded me of the sayings of
some of my friends, who had charged me with cruelty
for taking my family to that " barbarous land."
Under these circumstances we were all very anx-
0 See Frontispiece.
16 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
ious to know the facts about California life. The
first thing that arrested our attention after finding
our moorings, by way of variety, after the frequent
shouts of " Sail ho !" or, " A whale ! a whale !" was
the lassooing of a bullock on the north side of " Tele
graph Hill," then a wild wood, now a populous part
of the city of San Francisco. It was now too late for
the passengers to go ashore that night, all being
strangers in a strange land ; but soon a Mr. M., a
brother of one of our passengers, boarded our ship,
and we all gathered around him to hear the news.
He brought marvelous things to our ears. No war
in the country, but peace and plenty, and fortunes
for all who could work or gamble expertly: that
clerks were getting in San Francisco two hundred
dollars per month, cooks three hundred per month ;
the gamblers were the aristocracy of the land;
gambling being the most profitable, hence the most
respectable business a man could follow. I asked
the gentleman whether or not there were any min
isters of the Gospel or churches in the place ?
"Yes," said he, "we have one preacher, but
preaching won't pay here, so he quit preaching and
went to gambling. There is but one church in town,
and that has been converted into a jail."
Some one told him that I was a minister, and had
the frame of a church aboard. He advised by all
means to sell the church, assuring me that I could
SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849, FROM THE HEAD OF CLAY- STREET.
MISSION AEY LIFE. 19
make nothing out of it as a church, but I could sell
it for ten thousand dollars. I told him my church
was not for sale. I afterward found his assertions in
regard to wages true; in regard to the gamblers
nearly true ; but his ecclesiastical history false, except
that the "school-house on the Plaza," which had
been used as a preaching place, was then used for a
jail. "With our evening repast of news from Mr. M.
we retired to rest, hoping on the morrow to spy out
the land ourselves. The next morning, Saturday,
September 22, I went ashore in company with Cap
tain Wilson and Kobert Kellan.
When we reached the summit of the hill above
Clark's Point, we stopped and took a view of the city
of tents. Not a brick house in the place, and but
few wooden ones, and not a wharf or pier in the
harbor. But for a few old adobe houses, it would
have been easy to imagine that the whole city was
pitched the evening before for the accommodation of
a vast caravan for the night ; for the city now con
tained a population of about twenty thousand, and I
felt oppressed with the fear that under the influence
of the gold attraction of the mountains, those tents
might all be struck some morning, and the city sud
denly leave its moorings for parts unknown. But
my business ashore was to see whether I could find
any lovers of Jesus, and, especially, any bearing the
name of Methodist, who could tell me how the land
20 CALIFORNIA LITE ILLUSTRATED.
lay, and of the whereabouts of my fellow-missionary,
Rev. Isaac Owen, who had started with his family
"over the plains" before I sailed from Baltimore, and
whom I expected to find on my arrival. I was in
troduced to the business firms of Dewitt & Harrison,
Bingham, Reynolds, & Co., and Finley & Co., and
spoke to many other persons ; and everywhere I went
made diligent inquiry whether or not there were
any Methodists in the city ? but everywhere learned
that no such creatures lived in the place, or if they
did, they had neither seen nor heard of them.
After prosecuting my fruitless Methodist hunt till
noonday, I fell in with Captain Stetson, master of the
bark Hebe, from Baltimore, and accepted his invita
tion to dine with him aboard his vessel. I had seen
his passengers as they embarked in Baltimore for the
" land of gold," and saw him set sail on his California
voyage, and listened now with mournful interest to the
captain's narrative of his eventful and in some respects
disastrous voyage. In attempting to pass through
the Straits of Magellan he had been obliged to cast
anchor, and await a favorable wind to enable him to
go through the Straits. While there, some of his
passengers concluded to go ashore. I believe there
were seven of them who had taken their guns to have
a little pleasure on the frozen shores of Patagonia.
But during their absence a furious gale arose, which
swept the bark from her moorings. She dragged her
MISSIONARY LIFE. 21
anchors until her chains parted, and was then driven
before the blast into the Atlantic Ocean.
All the captain's earnest efforts to get back to his
lost men proved ineffectual. Having no anchors
left, he could not make a near approach to the land,
in that stormy region, so he was under the painful
necessity of leaving his adventurous sportsmen to the
rigors of a Cape Horn winter, and to the tender mer
cies of the Patagonian Indians, considered the most
merciless of their kind. Happily, however, for the
poor fellows, after enduring great sufferings from
cold, hunger, and Indian barbarity, they finally
escaped in a vessel that was passing through the
Straits.
At Valparaiso the captain supplied his bark with
anchors. "VYhile there he became acquainted with
Rev. Dr. Yermehr, en route to California as a mis
sionary from the Protestant Episcopal Church. The
doctor and his family had been so badly treated on
the ship in which they had rounded the Cape, that
the good people of Valparaiso made up a purse for
the doctor, and secured a passage for himself and
family to San Francisco in the bark Hebe. Captain
Stetson, as a Christian gentleman, brought them on,
in comfort, to their destination.
After dinner I again went ashore, and renewed
my Methodist search. Hearing some one speak of
Merrill's Hotel, I was reminded of a published letter
22 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
I had read, from the pen of Eev. "William Roberts,
giving an account of his short sojourn in San Fran
cisco, on his way, as missionary, to Oregon, in 1847 ;
and of his having organized a little Sunday school
here, appointing J. H. Merrill superintendent. It
occurred to me that this might be the same Merrill ;
BO I hastened to find Merrill's Hotel, on Stockton-
street, where the City Hospital now stands.
Finding Mr. Merrill, I ascertained sure enough
that he was the man referred to by Brother Roberts.
He said he was not a Methodist himself, but he knew
of a number of them in the city ; u and yonder," said
he, " is their new church," pointing to an uncovered
frame on a neighboring hill.
" There is a Methodist family," continued he,
" living down there in that adobe house ; and Mr.
Finley, the head of the family, is sick, and I have no
doubt would be glad to see you."
" I will be pleased to call on them," said I.
So Mr. Merrill went with me, and introduced me
to Brother and Sister Finley. I was delighted that I
had found at least one good Methodist family in
California, and talked very freely with Brother and
Sister Finley about the interests of our common
Methodism on the Pacific coast, and asked them
many questions. I then had a good season of
prayer at the bedside of Brother Finley ; after which
they frankly informed me that I was mistaken in
MISSIONARY LIFE. 23
tjjf
regard to their Church relationship; that they were
not Methodists exactly, but Campbellites.
I covered my disappointment as well as I could,
but felt glad that I had made their acquaintance, for
I had come to the conclusion that they were a kind
and good family, whatever they might be called ; an
opinion I have never changed during a subsequent
acquaintance of seven years.
As I was taking my leave of these my first Meth
odist acquaintances, I was met at the door by a
plain-looking man, five feet eight, and was intro
duced to him as Brother John Troubody. " He is a
Methodist," said Sister Finley with a smile ; and
such I found him to be, a truebody in every respect,
true as a personal friend, and true to the interests
of the Church. He introduced me to Rev. O. C.
Wheeler, the Baptist minister of the city, who
invited me to fill his pulpit the next day at 11 A. M.
Brother Troubody then introduced me to Brother Asa
White's family. Brother White was a local preacher
from Illinois, more recently from Oregon. His sons
and daughters, of whom he had a large family, were
sociable and kind, and were all, except two small
boys, members of the Church. They lived in the
woods, in Washington-street, near Powell, in the
neighborhood of where our chapel was being built.
Their habitation was a small rough board house, one
story high, covered with blue cotton cloth. It was
24 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
known in familiar Methodist parlance, as " the shanty
with the blue cover," and was the rallying point of
Methodism in the city, where the prayer and class-
meetings were held every Sabbath, conducted by
Brother White, who had authority from Eev. "William
Roberts, the superintendent of the " Oregon and
California Mission Conference," to do the best he
could in collecting and holding the little society
together till the missionary should arrive.
Brother Roberts organized a small class in San
Francisco in 1847, on his way to Oregon. The
class consisted of Alexander Hatler and wife,
Aquila Glover and wife, and three or four others.
Brother Glover was appointed the leader, but being
a timid man, he never led the class after Brother
Roberts left, and no class-meetings were held there,
as Brother Hatler and others informed me, till the
spring of 1849, when Brother White arrived from
Oregon. He settled his family first in a blue tent,
in the woods, near the corner of Jackson and Mason
streets. Into this tent the scattered sheep were
immediately gathered, and regular class-meetings
were held from that time. Elihu Anthony, a local
preacher, who lived a short time in the city, and
then settled in Santa Cruz, assisted in these meet
ings, but Brother White was the responsible leader.
The class numbered, upon my arrival, about twenty
persons, and the traveling Methodist adventurers
MISSIONARY LITE. 25
made an additional average attendance of about
thirty.
At Brother White's I received a letter from
Brother Roberts, informing me that I was appointed
to San Francisco, and that my fellow-missionary,
Brother Owen, was "appointed to Sacramento City
and Stockton." Altogether that was to me an
afternoon of thrilling interest, and contrasted hope
fully with the unfruitful efforts of my forenoon
adventure.
I returned to our ship in the evening with a
full budget of news for the entertainment of my
waiting family. Oceana, our beautiful little mission
ary girl, born on the South Atlantic, off " Rio de la
Plata," in the region of pamperos and storms, wras
now about three months old. ^Native country she
had none ; the sea had been her home, the land she
had never yet seen. Her mother, nearly exhausted
by the monotonous wear and tear of sea life, and the
wasting effects of chronic diarrhea, was hardly able
to walk ashore, but the idea of getting off ship, and
of finding a resting-place on the land, was so exhila
rating, that the next morning, Sunday, September
23d, she accompanied me to Mr. Wheeler's church,
on Washington-street, where I preached on the
divinity of Jesus, from the text, " What think ye of
Christ ?"
There was profound attention and good order dur-
26 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
ing the sermon, with one exception. A rough-look
ing man, a little beyond the meridian of life, seemed
to take offense at my arguments in favor of the
divinity of Christ, and cried out in the midst of my
discourse :
"I don't believe it ! I don't believe it !"
" "Wait, my old friend," said I, " till I get through,
and let us take it one at a time."
But he continued to mutter to those about him, till
Mr. Wheeler arose and commanded him to hush
instantly or leave the house! He got up abruptly,
and walked out, and I proceeded.
That occasion was to me, and I believe to many,
a " season of refreshing from the presence of the
Lord." "We dined with Brother Troubody, who then
lived in a small house on Washington -street. He
soon afterward built the first brick dwelling in the
city, on the corner of Washington and Powell streets ;
a four-story house, about twenty-six by fifty feet, in
which he still lives.
At three P. M. we attended class-meeting in the
"shanty with the blue cover." The place was full
of men, and many stood outside the door. Their ex
periences were characterized by originality, freshness,
and thrilling interest. Some had " crossed the plains ;"
others were just from a voyage round Cape Horn;
some had, on their passage across the Isthmus, seen
scores of their friends swept away by the malignant
MISSIOXAEY LIFE. 27
fevers of Panama. All had seen sights, encountered
dangers, made hairbreadth escapes from death, and
they were overflowing with gratitude that " out of all
the Lord had brought them by his love."
All had loved ones far away, who had been pray
ing for them. Their prayers had been answered;
but their friends did not dream that they, in Califor
nia, were in a Methodist class-meeting. They
thought that California was but another name for
Pandemonium ; that nothing could be done there
without the consent of the god of the country, alias,
the devil; and that he never would allow a Meth
odist class-meeting to be held there. Indeed they
could hardly believe the testimony of their own
senses, and realize that in California they were then
enjoying an old-fashioned class-meeting. I will note
an experience or two as a specimen.
Palmer, from Xew-York, said : " I used to be
happy in God, but I backslid. When I departed
from the Lord I got into trouble, and the further I
went from him the more my troubles increased.
Everything seemed to go ill with me, so I made up
my mind to leave Xew-York and make a voyage
round Cape Horn to California, and thus get rid of
my troubles. But I had been out to sea but a few
days when I found, to my sorrow, that I had brought
all my troubles with me, and left all my comforts
behind. My health was bad, my head and heart
28 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
were sick, and my distress became intolerable. I
then remembered that Jesus had said : i Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest;' so I carried my burden to
Jesus, and he took away my load of guilt and sorrow.
Glory be to his name, forever! We had a long,
tedious voyage, but my soul has been happy in God.
As soon as I came ashore I inquired where I could
find a Methodist class-meeting. I happily fell in
with a man who pointed out this cabin, and said:
' That is the place you are hunting for.' Brethren, I
was so glad to hear of such a place in California that
I could hardly wait to walk up the hill to get here.
I ran, and O how sweet it is, after being cooped up
with the wicked during a long voyage round Cape
Horn, to get to such a place as this ! It is heaven to
my soul ! Glory be to God !"
The old man, with repeated exclamations of "Glory
to God !" took his seat and wept aloud. They were
tears of joy and gladness.
After leading the class inside the " shanty," I led
the outsiders, among whom I found James Whiting,
a native of Buenos Ay res, South America, who
had been converted to God through the instrument
ality of our missionary there, Rev. D. D. Lore.
James told us a simple, sensible, touching story of
his life as a shepherd boy in orphanage. He was
brought up with the sheep, lived among them,
MISSIONARY LIFE. 29
slept among them in the open field; and while
" watching his flocks by night " had often gazed at
the stars, and thought of God, but saw no star to
point him to Bethlehem. His soul was in darkness
until the missionary found him and led him to Jesus.
He had descended from American parents, but had
never before trod North American soil, nor mingled
with his Father's brethren in a class-meeting ; and
though there was no room for him in the house, he
was contented to stand outside and listen, for he
" would rather be a door-keeper in the house of God,
than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." Being
perfectly familiar with the Spanish language, he be
came a valuable helper in my work ; sometimes going
with me through the hospitals to talk to sick Span
iards about Jesus, and occasionally exhorting the
Spanish portion of my street audiences, and giving
them Bibles and tracts in their own language. He
is still a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church
in San Francisco, and doing well.
That was a class-meeting never to be forgotten.
The rustic appearance of the men, and the pointed,
lively impression of their narratives on my mind, are
in my memory like a favorite old picture, to which the
successive roll of years adds but increasing interest.
"We spent the following week in learning California
prices and modes of life, and in trying to secure a
house in which to live. Captain Wilson kindly invited
30 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
us to remain aboard ship until we could make
arrangements for housekeeping, and allowed us the
free use of his boat in passing to and from the land.
The lowest price of boat hire for the shortest distance
was one dollar per passenger. We learned prices in
part by little experiments in buying. Mrs. Taylor
said to a dealer in potatoes : " How much do you ask
per peck for your potatoes ?"
"We sell nothing by measure here," replied he,
" for man or beast. Everything is bought and sold
by weight, ma'am."
" Well, what do you ask per pound for potatoes ?"
"Fifty cents per pound, ma'am."
" I'll take a pound to begin with," said she, laying
down the money ; and he gave her for fifty cents but
one potato.
I priced some South American apples, nearly as
tough as leather ; fifty cents apiece. We ascertained
that fresh beef was selling for fifty cents per pound ;
dried apples, seventy-five cents per pound ; Oregon
butter, two dollars fifty cents per pound ; flour, fifty
dollars per barrel ; and provisions of every kind pro-
portionably high. None of these things moved us,
however, for we had brought with us a year's supply
of all the substantiate of life. The only difficulty with
us was to get a house in which to live. Rev. O. C.
Wheeler, I learned, was paying five hundred dollars
a month rent for such a house as we needed, a small
MISSIO^AEY LIFE. 31
one-and-a-half story house, containing four or five
rooms. That was frightful, for I only had money
enough, including the missionary appropriation for
our support for a year — seven hundred and fifty dol
lars — to pay rent, at that rate, for about two months.
There stood in the neighborhood of our chapel a
one-story rough board shanty, about twelve feet
square, with a shed roof of the same material, prom
ising, altogether, but very little protection from the
storms of approaching winter ; but I thought as a last
resort I would try and get my wife and babes into it
till something better could be obtained. I learned
that the rent for the shanty was forty dollars per
month. I immediately applied for it, but lo ! it had
been secured for the personal occupancy of a reverend
Episcopal brother, in " the regular succession ;" and
I, a poor irregular, was left to do the best I could.
I then spoke of building a little house, but lumber
was selling for from three hundred to four hundred
dollars per thousand feet. To pay such prices, and
build a house with my little stock of funds was out
of the question.
In the mean time I had my household goods and
provisions taken ashore, paid ten dollars per dray-
load to have them hauled up on the hill near the
chapel, and there they lay piled up in the open air
for a fortnight. That was prior to the advent of petty
rogues in California.
32 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLTISTKATED.
On my second Sabbath, at eleven A. M., I again
occupied the pulpit of Brother Wheeler, and had a
gracious meeting. At three P. M. we had another great
class-meeting in the " shanty with the blue cover."
Many of the brethren with whom we had prayed,
and sung, and shouted the Sabbath before had gone
to parts unknown ; but a new recruit had come in of
the same sort. After class the question was raised,
" How shall our preacher get a house to live in ?"
It was decided that the only way was to build one ;
and then an effort was made in the class to see how
much could be raised toward that desirable end.
But the sojourners " were strapped" and the resident
brethren had subscribed all they felt able to give
toward the chapel, and could do but little for a
parsonage, so the effort resulted in a subscription
amounting to twenty-seven dollars, perhaps enough
to buy the nails and hinges. The prospect for a
residence in the land of our adoption, as we supposed
for life, was very dark ; but I never had doubted that
God sent me to California, and felt a comfortable
assurance that in some wray he would provide for us.
Captain Otis Webb, son of old Father Daniel Webb
of the Providence Conference, though nothing him
self but a high-minded outsider, (the Lord bless the
outsiders ! I have found among them some of the best
friends I ever had in my life,) hearing of our situa
tion, sent us word that he was building a house near
MISSIONARY LIFE. 33
our chapel, which would be finished in a week, and
that we were welcome to the use of it, rent free, for a
month. So after remaining a fortnight in port aboard
ship, enjoying the hospitality of Captain "Wilson, we
moved into the new house of Captain Webb, a one-
and-a-half story house, containing five rooms, and
would have rented for about four hundred dollars a
month. Thus the evil day, in regard to shelter, was
postponed for a month at least. We were, however,
without fireplace or stove ; but. through a propitious
dream of John B. Seidenstricker, of Baltimore city,
we had a supply of table furniture, and some good
ovens and skillets. About the time of our appoint
ment as missionaries to California, John dreamed one
night that he had given us free access to his hardware
store for a supply of everything we might need in
our new home ; so in the morning when he awoke
he dressed himself, and hastened immediately to tell
us his dream and give it a practical fulfillment, which
he did with a free good-will. The Lord bless him !
It was neither the first nor the last act of Christian
kindness we have received at his hand. So building
a camp-fire out of doors, we brought our ovens and
skillets into use. That did pretty well until the rains
began to descend upon us, and then for a sick wife to
stand over a drowning fire was not exactly the thing.
We had room in doors for a stove, but a small cook
ing-stove was worth at least one hundred dollars.
34 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Happily for us in this emergence, the firm of Collins
& Cushman, in San Francisco, presented us with a
good new cooking-stove, just the thing we then most
needed. I paid three dollars per joint for the neces
sary pipe, and five dollars for a common tin coffee-pot.
The question now was, " What shall we do at the
end of the month?" Some said, as the Missionary
Society had sent us there they would be bound to
support us. I replied that the Missionary Society
never had, and never could support a man at Cali
fornia rates ; that my rent alone for a year would be
about five thousand dollars, to say nothing of other
expenses ; that the society, moreover, was in debt,
and that I never expected to draw on them for a
dollar while in California. I said to the brethren
that if nothing better opened I would take my ax
and wedge, and go to the Redwoods, fifteen miles dis
tant across the bay, and get out lumber for a house,
and build it myself. They said I could not do it;
but could suggest no other way of getting a house.
A brother who had located from the traveling
ranks to try his fortunes in California, said: "Poor
Brother Taylor will work himself sick, and that will
end the matter. It had been better for him to come
to California on his own hook as I did." I said that
I had come in the order of Providence, and that I
did not believe that God would allow my family to
suifer for want of shelter.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 35
I saw no other way, however, but to go to the
Kedwoods, and leave the result with the Lord.
Alexander Hatler, a brother from Missouri, who,
with his good wife, had emigrated to that land
before gold was discovered, said he would go with
me, and help me get out lumber. So on Tuesday,
the 10th of October, we set sail for the Redwoods,
in company with some of Father "White's family,
who had a shanty in the woods, where the old man
and his sons spent much of their time, getting out
and hauling lumber.
We lauded where the town of San Antonia is now
located. We then had five miles to walk, and climb
a mountain, carrying our packs of blankets, pro
visions, and working tools. We reached the shanty
a little after dark. Brother Hatler and I put our
stock of provisions into the family mess, and were
admitted as guests, with the privilege of wrapping
in our own blankets, and sleeping on the ground,
under the common shelter. After supper we
listened to Father White's thrilling backwoods
stories till bedtime ; and then at the family altar
we made the tall forests vocal with our song of
praise.
The next morning Brother Hatler and I found a
large log that some woodsman had abandoned,
which we thought could be worked to good ad
vantage. We drove all our wedges into it, but
36 CALLFOKNIA LITE ILLUSTRATED.
could not split it, so it took us till noon to chop our
wedges out. A heavy rain then set in, which con
tinued till the next morning.
On Thursday we worked till noon on another log.
Being very large we had to bore it, and burst it open
with powder; but it was too cross-grained for our
purpose. We then selected a large tree, and
chopped at it till dark. The next morning brought
our giant of the forest to the ground ; but, alas ! we
could not work it. It was difficult to find a tree
writh straight grain and easy to split; but the trees
were so large, many of them measuring twelve feet
in diameter, that when a good one was opened it
yielded almost a yardful of lumber. But we did
not succeed in getting the right tree.
On Friday P. M. we returned to the landing, so
as to take the land breeze early on Saturday morn
ing, and be in the city in time for the appointments
of the Sabbath. "We lay on the beach that night, in
the open air, to gaze at the stars, listen to the howl
ing of the coyotes, (a small species of wolf,) or the
gabble of multiplied thousands of wild geese, and the
quacking of wild ducks, or meditate, or sleep, as we
felt inclined. I took my turn at each of these,
especially the last.
The city brethren were not at all disappointed
with the result of our trip to the woods. It was just
as they expected; but I surprised them by telling
MISSION AEY LIFE. 3*7
them that I was not at all discouraged, and meant to
tiy it again the next week.
That was my fourth Sabbath in the city, and the
second to preach in our new chapel. It was crowded
that day, and we had a memorable season. I made
provision for my appointments on the following Sab
bath, so as not to be under the necessity of returning
from the woods for a fortnight. Brother Hatler
could not leave his business to return with me to the
Redwoods, so I had to depend on my own muscles
and skill alone. That week I wrought very hard,
and was a little scared one night, as the following
extract from my journal will show :
"Friday, October 19, 1849. — We are here on the
territory of grizzly bears and wild cats, which are
frequently seen by the wood-choppers. I had some
expectation of a visit from a grizzly last night. We
butchered a calf in the evening, which we had pur
chased from a Spaniard, and had it in the shanty. I
lay before the open door, and thought if bruin
should come in to get some veal I would have the
honor of his first salutation. But, thought I, the
God who saved me from the dangers of the deep
will surely keep the bears oif me. With these
reflections I fell into a sweet sleep.
"After midnight I was suddenly awakened by a
noise outside the hut. I sprang up, saying to myself,
' There's the bear, sure enough !' when in he came ;
3
38 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
but, to my comfort, I found it one of the men of the
shanty. Such are many of the dreadful bears we
encounter in this life."
On Friday, the 19th of October, I went to a wood
man's tent, to sharpen my draw-knife, and found there
a man, by the name of Haley, very far gone with
diarrhea. Soon as I mentioned the subject of religion
to him he burst into tears, and cried like a child.
He told me that he had once enjoyed religion, and
had been a member of the Baptist Church ; but, in
his wanderings in these Western wilds, he had got
off the track, and lost his religion. I prayed with
him, and he promised to give his heart, there and
then, to God. When I called to see him the next
day I found him rejoicing in the love of Jesus.
" O, I'm so glad," said he, " that you called in
yesterday to see me ! I. had thought of sending for
you, but I felt so guilty I could not have the courage
to do so ; but now I feel that God, for the sake of
Jesus, has pardoned all my sins. My soul is happy :
I am not afraid to die now."
Poor fellow ! I expected him to die within a few
clays, but afterward learned that he recovered.
Three years after this, one night, at the close of
meeting in the Bethel, in San Francisco, a man in
troduced himself to me, and asked me if I remem
bered praying with a dying man in the Redwoods,
in 1849.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 39
I replied : " Yes, sir, I do."
Said he : "I am that man ; and my soul is still
happy in God."
I believe this was the first man I was permitted to
lead to Jesus in California. A little of my Bed-
wood experience is noted in my journal of Saturday,
October 20, as follows :
" I experience a good degree of the love of God
in my soul this evening ; but I should feel better
could I spend the approaching Sabbath at some
point more important. O that my house were built,
and my family settled, that I might be wholly given
up to the great work of my mission. I feel, how
ever, that I am working now, in this Redwood, for
the Missionary Society and the Church, and that, by
the labor of a few weeks, I can live without another
draft on the funds of the society. O my Master, help
me in my work of avoiding expense to the Missionary
Board, and in my work of saving sinners in California !"
It may not be amiss here to insert another bit of
experience from my journal :
"Sunday morning, October 21, 1849. — For retire
ment and meditation I have strolled out to the top of
a high hill. The sky is clear as crystal, and the
sun is shining with a California radiance, unknown
in other lands. O this is a delightful Sabbath, and
I have just been waking the echoes of the wilderness
with that sweet song :
40 CALIFORNIA LITE ILLUSTRATED.
' Welcome sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise,' etc.
Looking eastward I see a dense forest of linge red
wood timber ; doubtless the veritable cedars of Leb
anon. West and north, hills and mountains stretch
to the uttermost line of the ken of vision, and the
scene, in its barrenness and sterility of appearance, is
only relieved here and there by a small oasis, and
by the herds of cattle feeding on the dry grass.
Southward the whole valley, for fifty miles, is filled
with fog. It looks as though a firmament of white
broken clouds had dropped from the heavens, and
settled over the whole region of the Bay of San
Francisco and its adjacent vales. Here I stand on a
summit above the clouds. Many walk beneath those
clouds in comparative darkness, while I bathe in the
brightest sunlight. It is well for every lover of Jesus
to rise above the world, and dwell on the Mount of
Holiness, walking 'in the light as God is in the
light.'
"A little to my right are two graves. There sleep
the dust and buried hopes of two California adven
turers. Whence were they? What their names?
Who are their parents? Do they yet live to inquire
after their sons in the far West? What was the
character of these sons ? What the circumstances of
their death ? Where now are their souls ? These are
questions which arise in my mind, but no voice
MISSION AEY LIFE. . 41
responds. This is a lonely, solemn place. Its lone
liness is increased by the numerous vultures which
are floating through the air over my head, and the
hoarse croaking of the raven. ' O my Master, bless
me, and keep me wholly thine ! My dear sick wife
and babes, I leave in thy hands !' "
I may here add that I preached that Sunday under
the shade of a large redwood tree to twenty-five
woodsmen. One of my hearers, a man of forty-five
years, heard preaching that day for the last time.
He soon afterward took suddenly ill, and died, and
was added to the two lonely strangers on the neigh
boring hill. The ensuing week I finished my work
in the woods. My scantling, which I bought in a
rough state, split out like fence rails, I hewed to the
square with my broadax. I got my joists from a
man who had a saw-pit. I made three thousand
shingles, and gave them for twenty-four joists, seven
teen feet long. I bought rough clapboards six feet
long, and shaved them down with my draw-knife for
weather-boarding ; and thus got in the woods all the
materials for a two- story house sixteen by twenty-six
feet, except flooring, doors, and windows. I bought
the doors from a friend at a reduced price, eleven
dollars per door. The windows one dollar per light,
ten by twelve inches. It cost me twenty-five dollars
per thousand feet to get my lumber hauled to the
landing, and the regular price of freight from there to
42 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTBATED.
the city was forty dollars per thousand feet ; but by
hiring a boat and working myself, I got it done for
less than half that price.
After digging a foundation on the church lot, rear
of the chapel, and getting my lumber ready for build
ing a parsonage, I was led to change my choice of
location by the following facts, as noted from my
journal :
"Friday, October 26. — I have all along designed
building a parsonage on the church lot, thinking that
when the brethren should get through with the
chapel debt, they might refund to me the actual cash
I expend in the building. But I find that, though
I shall save more than half the cash cost of such a
house by my own labor, it will nevertheless cost
more money than the brethren will feel able to pay,
and much more probably than they would have to
pay two years hence for a house that will suit them
much better for a parsonage.* Moreover, if I build
on the church lot, we shall have to carry all the water
we use up a long, steep hill ; or, if brought to us, it wTill
cost us twelve cents per bucket. If, therefore, I can
get a lot convenient to water, and build on my own
account, and thereby save the society the enormous
rents, or present rates of building a parsonage, I shall
be doing the Church a good service in that regard,
* Brother Simonds built there three years afterward a better
parsonage for less than half the cost of my house.
MISSION AEY LIFE. 43
and may on the property save myself from heavy loss
in the end."
In the mean time Brother Hatler bought a lot, and
built a house for himself and family on Jackson-
street, above Powell, and proposed to me, if I would
buy the next lot adjoining and build, and be his
neighbor, he would dig a good well at our door, and
would advance me the money to pay for my lot, and
let me refund it when I could, without interest. So
I bought a lot next door to Brother Hatler, twenty-
three by one hundred and thirty-seven and a half
feet, for twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
Brother Hatler, being a carpenter, gave me instruc
tion and some help in building my house. I hired a
few carpenters to hasten the business, as the wet
season was upon us, till I got the house under roof.
I paid my carpenters twelve dollars a day, and while
they were at work for me, the men of their craft in
the city struck for higher wages, sixteen dollars a day,
threatening a penalty, which I need not mention, on
any carpenter who should work for less ; so I had to
come up to the figures of sixteen dollars per day.
So soon, however, as I got my house under roof,
I dismissed my men, and did the rest of the work
with my own hands, except occasionally a brother
passing along would give me a few hours' work.
Clarkson Dye, now proprietor of the Tremont House,
Kew-York, put up my stairs. Treat Clark gave me
44 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
a day or two ; but I wrought daily from dawn till
dark myself till it was finished. While digging
the foundation I found the stakes of the original
Methodist blue-tent. It happened that I was build
ing on the very spot where Father White had
pitched his blue-tent in which he held the first class-
meetings in the spring of 1849. So we seemed to be
on consecrated ground. If it had not been before, it
certainly was afterward, by the glorious class-meet
ings and bright conversions in our pioneer house.
In six weeks from the time we moved into Captain
Webb's house we moved into our own, and thus
avoided paying one cent of rent. I had two rooms
up stairs to rent, to help pay for the building, and
had one fitted up for strangers, and especially for
preachers, if we ever should be favored with the com
pany of any. We had just got it furnished when Rev.
J. Doane and his wife, missionaries for Oregon,
arrived, and rejoiced to find so good a "prophet's
room" in San Francisco. But we waited more than
a year before the first recruit of missionaries for Cali
fornia arrived.
A forcible entry was made into my house as soon
as I got it under roof, by an immense immigration
from all climes of the rat tribe. Their multitude
almost equaled that of the frogs of Egypt, and they
were everywhere, in " bed-chambers," " ovens," and
"kneading troughs." We could scarcely walk the
A STREET SCENE ON A H A I N Y NIGHT.
MISSIOISTAEY LIFE. 47
streets at night without being brought into contact
with them. I brought one to an untimely end one
night by accidentally setting my foot on it in the
street. I have seen them swimming in the bay, from
ship to ship, and when pursued they would dive and
swim under water like minks. Mrs. Taylor had a
beautiful counterpane, presented to her by friends in
Baltimore, which she laid away carefully for safe
keeping. One night, as she was taking it up for
examination, she found it cut full of holes, and out
sprang two China rats, white as cotton, with bright
colored eyes surrounded by a streak of red. Having
never seen any of that color before, their appearance
produced quite a sensation in the family ; we succeed
ed in capturing one of them, and having heard that
if a singed rat were turned into a nest of rats they
would all leave the house, we tried the experiment
on our China fellow. We gave his white coat a good
singeing, not, however, so as to hurt his feelings, and
let him go. I really thought that the unsightly
appearance of his ratship, and the smell df fire he
bore away with him, would be a caution to all the
family. His China friends took the hint and left, but
the huge gray and black rats stood their ground and
held possession of the premises. Those who could
build rat-proof houses were highly favored among
men. I used to see this notice on the door of a little
house built over a well : " Shut the door and keep
48 CALIFORNIA LITE ILLUSTRATED.
the rats out of the well, the nasty things" But
long ago the rats, rogues, and gamblers have been
reduced to great straits in that city, and are now seen
but seldom.
In addition to building materials for our house,
I brought from the woods material to fence in
the back part of our lot for a garden. But says one,
" Are you a carpenter and gardener too ? " I am
neither one nor the other, but I had faith in God,
and lacked not confidence in my own muscles, and
in my skill to direct them in building, digging, and
doing whatever else was necessary for a living in
the land to which we had been sent to labor for God.
Our garden nourished so that in a few weeks from
the commencement of the rains in October, we had
turnips, greens, and lettuce in abundance, a luxury
enjoyed, I believe, by but one other family in the
city. A restaurant keeper, passing by our garden
one day, said to Mrs. Taylor : " I would like to buy
some of your greens, madam ; what do you ask for
them?" ""We have not offered any for sale," she
replied, "but as we have more than we need, you
can have some at your own price." Said he, " I'll
give you ten dollars for a water-pail full." He took
them, paid the money, and in a few days returned
for more. Mrs. Taylor filled his pail again, and
told him she would not take ten dollars for them,
but would be well satisfied with eight. She then
MISSIONARY LIFE. 49
asked him how he conld afford to pay such prices ?
"Well," said he, "I boil the greens slightly, with a
little bacon, and get for them, when ready for use,
fifty cents a fork. I make a very good profit on
them."
We were now pretty well fixed, but Mrs. Taylor
thought our little home wrould look more homelike if
O
we could have a few chickens. So she applied to a
neighbor lady who had a good stock of poultry, and
the lady replied that she would be happy to accom
modate her, and as she was the missionary's wife,
she might have them at a reduced price.
"How much, Mrs. C., will you charge me for a
rooster and two hens ?"
" You can have the three, madam," replied Mrs.
C., " for eighteen dollars."
Mrs. Taylor paid the price demanded, and brought
home the fowls. I built a house for their accommo
dation, and put a lock on it to secure them at night,
but some hungry fellow came along a few nights
afterward, pulled a board off the rear end of the
house, and carried away the cock and one of the
hens, and we saw them no more. The remaining
hen soon paid for herself in eggs.
Having to buy milk for our little Oceana, we got
a supply daily from a neighbor, at the low rate of
one dollar per quart. One dollar and a quarter per
quart was the selling price, but being missionaries
50 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
we were specially favored. Our milkwoman did
business also in the egg line, and offered us six dol
lars per dozen for all we had to spare. She gave
us but six dollars, because she bought to sell again
for nine dollars per dozen. So when it was not con
venient for us to pay money for milk, we found a
convenient currency in eggs, at fifty cents apiece.
In the course of human events our milkwoman
moved away, and we bought for milk some kind of a
chalk mixture that made our little girl sick ; so I
sent to Sacramento City, where good cows could be
got cheap, and bought a cow for two hundred dollars,
and then we had plenty of good milk of our own.
Such was life in California in 1849.
I have gone thus into detail, not to exhibit mine as
a peculiar case, for it was not so, but simply to illus
trate California life. As for sufferings I had none.
My labors in house building were simply a good
acclimating process, which increased my physical
power, and prepared me the more effectively to
endure the ministerial toil to which I was called. As
for comforts, I was better off than most of my neigh
bors. We had a comfortable home, while the great
mass of our " city folks " lived in very inferior shan
ties and tents.
I have often gone out in the morning after a
stormy night, and found whole rows of tents lying
flat on the ground, and scattered in every direction
MISSIONARY LIFE. 51
\
by the merciless blasts of winter ; and many of my
brethren in the ministry, at a later day, suffered
probably greater trials and hardships than I did at
the beginning. The Lord bless and reward them, for
he only knows how great and varied have been the
trials of missionary life in California.
52 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
CHAPTEE II.
MISSIONARY LIFE - — CONTINUED.
WHEN the organization of the " Oregon and Cali
fornia Mission Conference" was authorized by the
General Conference of 1848, Kev. WILLIAM EGBERTS,
who had been sent as missionary to Oregon the year
before, was appointed superintendent of the mission
ary work in both territories ; a good appointment, for
he is a capable, noble brother, and a faithful minister
of the Gospel ; but his services were in great demand
in Oregon, and being fully committed to the work
there, and having his family and home there, more
than seven hundred miles distant from San Francisco,
he was only able to render to California the semi
annual visit of a few weeks.
His first visit as superintendent was in the summer
of 1849, during which he preached in San Francisco,
Sacramento City, Coloma, and perhaps at other points.
A friend, who heard him preach at Coloma, says
that Eev. Mr. Damon, from the Sandwich Islands,
preached that day in the same house, and a "hat
collection" of one hundred and thirty dollars was
MISSION AEY LIFE. 53
raised, to be divided equally between the two preach
ers, to defray their traveling expenses. In the " hat"
was found a twenty and a ten-dollar piece, carefully
folded in paper, on which was written, " I design the
twenty dollars for Mr. Roberts, because he fearlessly
dealt out the truth against the gamblers. The ten
dollars are for Mr. Damon/' Signed by the leading
gambler of the town.
Without casting the slightest reflection on Brother
Damon, for I believe him to be a faithful man of
God, I would remark that the conduct of the gam
bler is a good illustration of a prominent characteris
tic of Californians generally, however wicked ; for
while they will not endure low abuse, they want
a man, and especially a minister of the Gospel, to
speak out the whole truth fearlessly, boldly, and to
make thorough work of whatever he undertakes.
I heard of a would-be preacher in California, who
tried to become " all things to all men " in a sense
that the great apostle would not approve. He fell
in company with a fine-looking man, whom he took
to be a gambler, and made himself very agreeable to
him indeed, till finally the latter remarked :
" The old fogies at home would be horror-stricken
to see a man of your cloth associating so familiarly
with one of my profession."
"O," said the preacher, "I look upon your pro
fession in a very different light from that of most
54 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
ministers. California is a peculiar country ; a country
of chance in every department of business ; and games
of chance are about on a par with everything else,
and gambling has been made honorable here by the
many honorable men who have engaged in it."
" By Harry!" rejoined the other; " do you
mean to insinuate that I am a gambler ? If I were a
gambler I wouldn't show myself in decent society.
I belong to the stage ; but I want you to understand
that I'm no gambler," and, turning on his heel, he
cut the acquaintance of his fawning friend.
The justly mortified preacher found that he had
set his moral standard too low for California common
sense, and quite undershot his mark.
I will in justice say, that I know of no regular
missionary of any denomination in California who
has acted the part of the preacher just referred to.
Brother Roberts on this trip secured from Captain
Sutter the donation of a church lot in Sacramento
City ; and hearing that I was bringing with me, via
Cape Horn, the frame of a church from Baltimore,
he decided that it, on arrival, had better be shipped
to Sacramento City, and he would, immediately on
his return, have one for San Francisco, framed and
shipped from Oregon.
Captain Gelson set apart for the Methodist Epis
copal Church in San Francisco, a fifty vara lot, one
hundred and thirty-seven and a half feet square,
MISSIONARY LIFE. 55
near the corner of Montgomery and Pine-streets ;
but " it was away over in the sand-hills, quite out of
town;" and the brethren bought, for two thousand
dollars, the half of a fifty vara lot on Powell-street,
on which to erect the forthcoming church. Captain
Gelson then sold the said fifty vara lot for one thou
sand dollars, and subscribed that amount to the new
church enterprise on Powell-street.
The church site on Powell-street was, like Mount
Zion, " beautiful for situation ;" the top of a high
hill, above the town, commanding a grand view of
the bay and surrounding country, and requiring
nearly all who desired to worship there to say :
" Let us go up to the house of the Lord." But the
going up was so heavy a business that the location
for a church was, for several years, very unfavorable
indeed. A large number of families having since
settled on that and on other hills still further west, it
has become a very good location for a church.
The Gelson lot, however, which was twice as large,
and was sold for half che price of this, was within
less than four years in nearly the center of the city,
and one of the best church sites in it, but could not
be bought for less than thirty thousand dollars.
On this visit to California Brother Roberts brought
with him his blankets, sleeping and traveling gear,
and on his arrival bought and rigged up a mule,
and thus traveled on " the foal of an ass " in primi-
4
56 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
tive independent style, carrying a Bible in one hand
and a good Colt's revolver in the other. The Bible
he had occasion to use every day, the blankets every
night, but happily for him and for all the hostile
foes he encountered, the sight of the "fire-dog" was
enough.
On his next visit, a few months later, he brought
his blankets again ; but we informed him that he
need not untie them, as California had so risen in the
scale of civilization, and had so advanced in internal
improvements, that she could furnish at least one bed,
blankets and all, for the ministers who might visit
her shores. He ascertained that it was even so, and
I saw no more of his blankets.
On my arrival in San Francisco I found the frame
of the said church from Oregon up, and the floor
laid ; size, twenty-five by forty feet. There was as yet
no regular board of trustees ; but Brothers Troubody,
Hatler, White, and others were earnestly at work
"building a house for the Lord." They had paid
eleven hundred dollars freight on the lumber from
Oregon, and were paying the carpenters as the work
proceeded, so that when the church was finished they
owed nothing except the cost of the lumber in Ore
gon, which was nearly fifteen hundred dollars. Some
months afterward, when Brother Roberts presented
the lumber bill, they raised and paid over nearly
five hundred dollars, and turned over to Brother
MISSIONARY LIFE. 57
Eoberts Captain Gelson's thousand dollar subscrip
tion.
This, the second Protestant, and first Methodist
church built in California, was dedicated the third
Sunday after my arrival, October 8th, 1849. I
preached the dedication sermon to a crowded house,
from : " The voice of him that crieth in the wilder
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight
in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley
shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall
be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough places plain. And the glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it to
gether ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
I was assisted in the dedicatory services by Rev. O.
C. Wheeler, Baptist minister ; Rev. Alfred Williams,
Presbyterian ; and Rev. T. Dwight Hunt, Congrega
tion alist.
These were all the Protestant pastors in the city
at that time, except Rev. Mr. Mines and Rev. Dr.
Vermehr, who, though friendly enough in social life,
did not, being Episcopal clergymen, give us an eccle
siastical fraternization. But the three brethren above
named all extended to me a hearty welcome on my
arrival, and afterward ever exhibited gentlemanly
courtesy, and the good-will of a common Christian
brotherhood.
In connection with our dedication service, we ded-
58 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
icated our little missionary girl to the Lord by bap
tism. Born on the ocean on our voyage round Cape
Horn, we called her Oceana. The ordinance was
administered by Kev. William H. Hatch. Brother
Hatch had that year located from the New-England
Conference, and became the chaplain of a large
mining company which arrived in San Francisco in
the fall of 1849, in the ship Araetus, Captain "Wooley.
They were going to dig a mint of gold, establish a
colony, build a church ; and Brother H., for his serv
ices as chaplain, was to share equally in the profits
with those who were to dig the gold. It was a mag
nificent arrangement.
I met with this ship's company at Valparaiso, en
route to California, and there, by the politeness of
Brother Hatch, taking a peep through their telescope
of manifest destiny, I saw the beautiful vision of their
dreams. But soon after their arrival in California, as
was invariably the case writh large mining companies
in those days, they disagreed with each other, dis
banded, and every one took his own course.
Brother Hatch had made no calculation on going to
manual labor. His prospects of success and useful
ness were built alone on the unity and success of the
company ; but now it was all broken up, and he was
left in the lurch, which was almost as shocking to his
nervous system as to his bright hopes, and lee-lurched
him so low in a spell of sickness, that for weeks it
MISSIONARY LIFE. 59
was very doubtful whether he ever would right up
again. Poor brother, I really pitied him. There he
was, nearly six thousand miles from his family, ont
of funds, out of health, but few friends, and they
constantly engaged in looking out for themselves ;
no home, no employment, and expense of a mere
subsistence enormous. The brother was in a bad
case, and somehow, whenever an itinerant Methodist
preacher locates, however pure his motives, and
afterward gets into adversity, he shares in the sym
pathy of his friends about as largely as did Jonah
when swallowed by the whale. To make the matter
worse, the unhappy sufferer is very apt to join with
his friends in reproaching himself. When Brother
Hatch got able to work a little, he had, from neces
sity, to take the position of a waiter in the mechan
ic's boarding-house, from which some slanderer re
ported at home that he was selling rum. There was,
however, no bar in the establishment, being simply
an eating-house, and Brother Hatch was engaged in
the very honorable business of washing dishes, set
ting table, etc. He afterward went to the mines,
and I learned had good success in digging gold ; and
what was better, regained a higher degree of health
than he had enjoyed for years before.
From an intimate personal acquaintance with
Brother Hatch during most of his sojourn of a couple
of years in California, I have to say of him, that
60 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
however great his mistake in locating, I believe,
through all his humiliating reverses and subsequent
prosperity, he conducted himself as a Christian gen
tleman, and as a minister preached frequently, and
always with faithfulness and acceptability. He is a
good Gospel preacher, and immediately on his return
to his family resumed his work as an itinerant in the
New-England Conference.
Our congregations being too large for our little
church, we made, in the early part of 1851, an addi
tion to the rear end of it, twenty feet in depth by
thirty-five in width, giving the house the form of the
letter T. This enlargement cost about sixteen hun
dred dollars.
In 1854 the original church was sold and moved
off the lot, and a fine wood edifice erected, fifty by
eighty feet, at a cost of about fifteen thousand
dollars.
The old church is now used as a dwelling on an
adjoining lot.
THE BALTIMORE CALIFORNIA CHAPEL, though sec
ond in its erection by a few weeks, was the first
Protestant church ever prepared for California use.
It was framed in Baltimore by John W. Hogg, in
February, 1849, having doors, windows, tin roof, and
everything furnished, just ready, like the materials
of Solomon's temple, for being put up.
The friends in Baltimore not only thus provided a
MISSIONARY LIFE. 61
church, but paid all the freight on it to San Fran
cisco. Whole amount contributed, eleven hundred
and ninety-eight dollars and seventy-four cents. Of
this North Baltimore Station paid four hundred and
sixty-four dollars. The rest was made up in Light,
Eutaw, Fayette, and Charles-street Churches, with a
few private donations. The largest subscriptions was
fifty dollars, by Durias Carter. It cost upward of
five hundred dollars to freight this little chapel from
San Francisco to Sacramento City, an amount ex
ceeding the freight from Baltimore to San Francisco ;
but it was a godsend to the Sacramentans, for they
greatly needed a church, and lumber there was four
hundred dollars per thousand feet. Prior to the
erection of the church they had preaching under an
oak-tree, and sometimes in a blacksmith's shop.
Though the Methodists were the first Protestants to
explore California as a missionary field, Rev.
William Roberts and Rev. J. II. Wilbur, Methodist
missionaries to Oregon, having as early as May,
1847, visited San Francisco, Monterey, and othei
points, and made earnest appeals to the Church on
the importance of sending missionaries there imme
diately ; and though the General Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, as early as May, 1848,
authorized the organization of the " Oregon and Cali-
9 fornia Mission Conference," and the appointment of
two missionaries for California that year, still, in the
62 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
order of time, we were considerably behind other
denominations in occupying the field.
Rev. T. D. HUNT, who had for some time been
in the service of the "American Board of Com
missioners of Foreign Missions," arrived in San
Francisco, from the Sandwich Islands, in October,
1848.
"Three days after his arrival he was formally
invited by the prominent citizens of the place, of
every religious persuasion, to reside among them, and
act as chaplain of the town for one year, dating from
November 1, 1848. A salary of two thousand five
hundred dollars was voted at the public meeting as
compensation for his services, and was promptly
subscribed, and paid in quarterly installments. The
school-house on the Plaza was appropriated by the
town as the place of public worship, and services
were at once held in it at eleven o'clock A.M., and
half past seven P.M. of every Sabbath."
Acting thus as chaplain for the town, Mr. Hunt
did not organize a Church until July, 1849, when
he organized the "First Congregational Church."
Their first house of worship, size about twenty-four
by forty feet, was built on the corner of Jackson and
Virginia streets, and was dedicated February 10,
1850; four months after the dedication of our chapel
on Powell-street. They subsequently built a brick
church on the corner of California and Dupont
MISSIONARY LIFE. 63
streets, where they now have a flourishing society
and Sunday school, under the pastoral care of Rev.
Mr. Lacy, Mr. Hunt having returned to the State of
New- York.
The steamship California, which arrived in San
Francisco, February 28, 1819, brought four mission
aries from New- York, namely, Rev. O. C. Wheeler,
a Baptist, Rev. S. Woodbridge, an Old School Pres
byterian, Rev. J. W. Douglass, and Rev. S. H. Wil-
ley, both New School Presbyterians.
Rev. O. C. WHEELER immediately commenced
operations in San Francisco, and on June 24,
1849, organized the "First Baptist Church." They
soon afterward built a church on Washington-street,
between Dupont and Stockton streets, size about
thirty by fifty feet, which was the first Protestant
church built in California. They have since erected
a brick edifice on the same site, in which Rev. B.
Brierly officiates as pastor, Rev. Mr. Wheeler having
gone to Sacramento City.
Rev. S. WOODBRIDGE established a Church in Beni-
cia, where he still resides as pastor. He was chaplain
of the California Legislature, during the sojourn
of that migratory institution in Benicia ; for the loca
tion of the State Legislature was, for several years,
one among the ten thousand contingences of Cali
fornia life. San Jose was first fixed by law as the
capital of the state. Subsequently General M. G.
64 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Yallejo, a wealthy Castilian, himself one of the legis
lators, living north of the Bay of San Francisco,
offered, I believe, nearly half ti million of dollars for
public buildings, etc., if they would locate the capital
in a city bearing his name, to be laid out, and built
on the shore of " E~apa Straits," opposite Mare
Island, where the Pacific Navy Yard is now located.
His proposition was accepted, and the next session
of the Legislature appointed to be held in the new
city that was to spring up during the year. The
magnificent paper " City of Yallejo " was forthwith
surveyed and plotted, containing beautiful parks,
and all the modern improvements, and a rare oppor
tunity for investment afforded to everybody wTho
wished to be property holders in the great metropo
lis of the state.
The next year, when the law-makers assembled in
the new capital, they were not exactly satisfied with
the new State House, nor the accomodations afforded
by the town for their comfort ; in short, they believed
that the general had not fulfilled his contract with
them, and about arrived at the conclusion that his
offer was predicated on the sale of city property,
which had not been so productive as was anticipated,
and they did not feel like waiting till the money
could be made in that way.
Benicia, a rival town seven miles distant from
Yallejo, then put in a bid for the job of accommodat-
MISSIONAKY LIFE. 65
ing that honorable body, and through some log
rolling process succeeded. Benicia was then the per
manent capital of the state, and her real estate
commanded good prices. San Jose", however, still
claimed by constitutional right to be the capital ; but
nobody could answer the simple question, " Which
is the capital of California?" After a tremendous
amount of heaving on the political windlass, the
government anchors were weighed, and the Legisla
ture permanently moored in Sacramento City. Land
speculators made a capital thing out of these re
movals of the capitol ; but the expense to the state
was enormous, beyond my present means of compu
tation, and many a poor fellow who wanted a home
in the State capital was badly taken in.
Rev. J. W. DOUGLASS preached a year or two in
San Jose", and afterward became editor and pub
lisher of "The Pacific," a religious paper published
in San Francisco. Mr. Douglass subsequently re
turned to New-York, and the said paper is now
edited by Rev. Mr. Brayton.
Rev. S. H. WILLEY landed at Monterey, and re
mained there a year and a half. During his stay
there the convention that framed the State Constitu
tion met in Monterey, and Mr. Willey officiated as
chaplain. He subsequently went to San Francisco,
and organized the " The Second Presbyterian Church "
in that city, of which he is still pastor.
66 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Rev. ALBERT WILLIAMS arrived in San Francisco, in
the steamship Oregon, April 1, 1849. After preach
ing a few times in the public school-house on the
Plaza, he organized, on the 20th of May, the " First
Presbyterian Church," composed at that time of six
members. On the west side of Dupont-street, be
tween Pacific-street and Broadway, they pitched a
large tent, " which had been the marquee of a mili
tary company in Boston, and in it during the remain
der of the dry season of 1849 they statedly held their
meetings. It was plainly but neatly furnished with
matting, pulpit, seats, and seraphine, and afforded
accommodations for about two hundred persons."
Mr. Williams also taught a small school in this tent.
Their first church was built on Stockton-street, near
the corner of Broadway, and was dedicated on the
19th of January, 1851. The materials had been pur
chased and framed by the liberality of friends in
New-York, so the society in San Francisco had to pay
nothing on the materials, except the freight from New-
York, the respectable little item of three thousand
dollars ; and putting up and finishing the church cost
ten thousand dollars more. It was of the early Gothic
style of architecture, thirty-five feet wide by seventy-
five feet in depth, and would seat eight hundred per
sons. So Mr. "Williams, after waiting more than a
year and a half, had now the best church in the state,
and a good congregation. They, however, enjoyed
MISSIONARY LITE. 6*7
their fine house but five months, when the sixth great
San Francisco fire laid it in ashes. By the 12th of
October, 1851, they had another, though a very plain
one, ready for use on the same site, which still stands,
and is now occupied by the same society under the
pastoral care of Rev. Dr Anderson, Mr. Williams
having returned to the East.
Rev. J. A. BENTON, Congregationalist, arrived in
the summer of 1849, and organized a church in Sac
ramento City, of which he is still the pastor.
Rev. F. S. MINES, an Episcopal clergyman, also
arrived in the summer of 1849, and organized "Trin
ity Church," the first of his denomination in Cali
fornia. They built a small chapel next door north
of the Methodist chapel on Powell-street, which was
ready foi use about January 1st, 1850. They after
ward sold out to the Rev. Mr. Prevaux, Baptist
minister, for an academy, which he successfully
established, and built of corrugated iron a more
commodious church on Pine-street, between Mont
gomery and Kearney-streets.
Mr. Mines died in 1852, the only clergyman who
has ever deceased in that city. Rev. Dr. Wyatt is
his successor.
Rev. Dr. YEKMEHK, also an Episcopal clergyman,
arrived, via Cape Horn, a few days before I did, in
September, 1849. He organized "Grace Parish" in
April, 1850. "Grace Chapel" was opened for wor-
68 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
ship on December 30th, 1849, on Powell-street, about
one square north of "Trinity Church." It was
superseded by a commodious wood edifice near
the same site, which was opened in July, 1851.
Dr. Yermehr afterward took charge of a school in
Souora, and was succeeded by Bishop Kip.
Of these pioneer missionaries, the two Episcopal
clergymen named, and the Kev. Messrs. Hunt,
Wheeler, and Williams, were, as before stated, the
only pastors established in San Francisco on my
arrival ; and with the two exceptions before men
tioned, they received me with a cordial greeting
as a co-laborer with them in the great work of
evangelization in California. I know not that a
discordant note was ever struck to disturb the har
mony of our mutual friendly relations. As evidence
of the fraternal feelings existing between us, we all
dedicated our respective churches at twelve M.,
to afford the other congregations opportunity to get
through with their regular morning services in time
for the people to attend, and the ministers to par
ticipate in the dedicatory services. We also in
those days had a ministers' meeting every Monday
morning, where we prayed for each other, and
for our respective charges, and exchanged words
of mutual comfort and encouragement. We also
discussed questions of general interest, and project
ed plans for promoting our common cause in Cal-
MISSIONARY LIFE. 69
ifornia; for example, the organization of a "Stran
gers' Friend Society." The winter of 1849-50 was
a very severe one for^that climate, and especially so
because the people were but very poorly provided
with shelter to protect them from the heavy rain
storms. Provisions, too, were scarce, and prices enor
mously high ; many, too, were without money, and
friendless ; consequently there was a vast amount of
suffering and sickness, of which many died.
For the relief of destitute and sick strangers, the
"Strangers' Friend Society" was organized in our
church in Powell-street, about February 1st, 1850.
Brothers Hunt, Wheeler, and Williams, with their
congregations, all took an active part in this society,
and it was the means of affording temporary relief
to many sufferers. The society was not continued
beyond the emergences of that winter; but another
important movement grew out of it, which, if it had
been successful in the accomplishment of its ends,
would have resulted in great good to the city, and
to thousands of sick strangers.
The principle of farming out the care of the sick
to the lowest bidder, on which the city fathers were
acting, was deplored by reflecting men as a great
evil. The city was then paying five dollars per
day for the care of each charity patient. The physi
cian's honesty and sympathy might lead him to
give to each patient five dollars' worth of attention,
YO CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
or his cupidity might restrict him to one dollar's
worth of care to each patient, and cause the other
four dollars to go into his own pocket. Such was
thought by many to be too great a temptation to set
before even an honest California doctor.
At a public meeting of "The Strangers' Friend
Society," at the Baptist Church, on the 19th of Feb
ruary, 1850, a committee was appointed to draft and
present a memorial to the City Council, praying for
the erection by the city of a charity hospital. The
committee consisted of the Revs. Wheeler, Hunt,
Williams, and J. B. Bond, E. Townsend, Dr. Logan,
and myself. The committee, after various meetings,
prepared their memorial, to which was appended a
plan illustrating the character of the contemplated
hospital, and a constitution for its government, all of
which were duly presented to the City Council. The
city fathers seemed well pleased with our suggestions
and plans, and said it would be just the thing needed
if they had the money to carry it into effect ; but, for
want of funds, they respectfully declined to act.
They, however, continued to pay out from four
hundred to six hundred dollars per day for the care
of the sick, even - at the reduced rate of four dollars
per day each patient. It was not many months
until a debt of sixty-four thousand dollars hung over
the city for the care of her sick strangers, for the
recovery of which suit was instituted and a judg-
MISSIONARY LIFE. 71
ment given against the city, under which at least
two million dollars' worth of city property was sacri
ficed; enough to have built half a dozen charity
hospitals, and to have supported them by endowment
for fifty years. But though our memorial was not
honored by the City Council, it had a manifestly
good effect on the management of the city hospital,
by calling general attention to the subject of hospital
abuses. The fears of those concerned in it were
excited, their movements were watched more closely
by their employ ers and by the public generally, and
the sick consequently received better attention.
Another work in which we had hearty concert of
action, was the organization of the Bible Society, of
which the "Annals of San Francisco," a book full
of valuable historical matter, published by Appleton
& Co., is ew- York, has the following notice :
" On October 30th, 1849, a meeting of citizens
friendly to the formation of a 'Bible Society,' was
held in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Powell-
street, at which Rev. T. Dwight Hunt presided, and
Mr. Frederic Billings acted as secretary. Addresses
were delivered by F. Buel, agent of the ' American
Bible Society,' Messrs. F. Billings, and W. W.
Caldwell ; and on motion of Mr. William K. Wards-
worth, the ' San Francisco Bible Society,' auxiliary
to the 'American Bible Society,' was organized, a
constitution adopted, and the following officers
5
72 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
chosen, whom we recognize as the early laborers on
this field, and who, with characteristic zeal, frankly
joined hands, irrespective of sect or denomina
tion : President, John M. Findley ; vice-presi
dents, Kev. Dr. Yer Mehr, Kev. Albert Williams,
and Kev. William Taylor ; treasurer, W. W. Cald-
well; secretary, Frederic Buel. Since its organi
zation the society has been steadily engaged in its
appropriate work of supplying the Scriptures to the
citizens of the state, and has issued from its deposit
ory about ten thousand volumes, [1854,] in the differ
ent languages spoken in the state and adjacent
territories, the majority by sale, and the remainder
by donation to those unable to purchase. This
institution has ably commended itself to the spirit of
catholic Christianity by the universal circulation of
that book within which its doctrines are compre
hended. Other societies, for the same purpose,
established in the interior, have materially aided this
object.
"The depository of the society was destroyed by fire
on the morning of the 26th of April, 1853 ; in place
of which a new fire-proof brick building has been
erected on the lot belonging to the society, JSTo. 376
Stockton-street, between Union and Green-streets.
"The officers for 1854 are: President, Hon. D. O.
Shattuck ; vice-presidents, Rev. B. Brierly, Eev.
M. C. Briggs, and Kev. S. H. Willey; secretary,
MISSIONARY LIFE. 73
F. Buel ; treasurer, E. P. Flint ; executive com
mittee, Colonel D. S. Turner, Major A. B. Eaton,
Nathaniel Gray, George WydofF, and K. P. Spier."
When Colonel M'Kee, one of the Indian agents ap
pointed by the government at Washington to treat
with the California Indians, was about to enter upon
the discharge of his duties, he came to our ministers'
meeting to consult them as to the best mode of
reaching and civilizing the red men of the Pacific.
We discussed the subject at large, and all concurred
in the views of the colonel, namely : to colonize them
on reservations, and place them under competent
tutors, appointed by government, who should teach
them husbandry and mechanism, and protect them
against the rum-selling, extortionary, peddling fra
ternity of mean white men, who had been such a
curse to all the Indian tribes of the East ; and then,
as soon as practicable, employ teachers to teach
them science, and then missionaries to teach them
salvation.
Such was, in substance, the plan there submitted
and concurred in, and we all prayed over it, and
committed it to the care of the red man's God and
ours.
The plan has met with much opposition from three
classes. First, from the Indian exterminators, who
maintain that nothing can be done successfully to
elevate, or long to perpetuate the red race; that
74 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
while they exist they will ever be a treacherous and
troublesome foe, and therefore the sooner they are
all killed off the better. Second, from those who
are jealous of the Indian's claim to the little tracts
of land embraced in the reservations; and, third,
from those who disapprove of government interfer
ence with the Indian's wild mode of living and native
liberty.
Some of the last named class urge their objections
no doubt from honest motives, but others from
selfishness, because the plan, if properly executed,
will debar them from their favorite mode of taming
and civilizing the Indians, namely, by selling them
rum, and robbing them of their furs or their gold
dust.
But the colonization plan, notwithstanding all
opposition, has, for the time it has been in opera
tion, been successful beyond all precedent in Indian
history.
In October, 1856, I got the following statistics in
San Francisco, in the office of Col. T. J. Henly,
superintendent of Indian affairs in California :
" The number of Indians now collected and resid
ing on reservations is, at
Klamath 2,500
Nome Lackee 2,000
Mendocino 500
Fresno . . 900
MISSIONARY LIFE. 75
Tejon YOO
Nome Cult Valley, attached to Nome Lackee 3,000
King's River, attached to Fresno 400
"Making in all ten thousand. The number of
Indians not connected with the reservations cannot
be correctly estimated. The following statement is
made up from the most reliable information I have
been able to obtain :
On and attached to reservations, as above 10,000
In San Diego and San Barnardino Counties 8,000
Los Angelos, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Mon
terey, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz Counties 2,000
Tulara and Mariposa 2,500
Tuolumne, Calaveras, San Joaquin, Alameda, and
Contra Costa Counties 4,100
Sacramento, Eldorado, and Placer Counties 4,500
Sutter, Yuba, Nevada, and Sierra Counties 3,500
Butte, Shasta, and Siskiyou Counties 5,500
Klamath, Humboldt, and Trinity Counties 6,500
Mendocino, Colusi, Yolo, Napa, Sonoma, and Marin
Counties 1,500
" Making the total number of Indians within this
superintendence sixty-one thousand six hundred."
I learn that during the year 1857 another thousand
Indians have been gathered in, and settled on the
reservations. To illustrate the practical operation of
this plan of colonization I here insert the following
testimony concerning the Nome Lackee Eeservation,
76 CALIFOROTA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
from the official report of Mr. Charles E. Fisher, the
assessor for Tehama County :
" I cannot close this report without speaking of the
healthy and nourishing condition of Nome Lackee
Reservation, which is situated twenty miles west of
the Sacramento Eiver, at the foot of the Coast
Cange. Under the management of Y. E. Geiger, it
is in a more flourishing condition than ever before.
Mr. Geiger is much beloved by the Indians, and
keeps them under the strictest discipline ; but still
they are contented and happy. Between thirty and
forty thousand bushels of grain were raised on the
reservation this year, the work being all done by
the Indians. Under the management of Mr. Geiger
it will be but a short time till all the Indians in the
northern part of California will be safely settled on
the reserve."
I am sorry to say that the plan, so far as it relates
to schools, and the preaching of the Gospel among
the Indians on the reservations, has not as yet been
carried into effect. I hope it will be very soon ; for,
however dull the parents may be, the children are
bright, and capable of elevation. O how my heart
has bled for them, as I have witnessed their sports,
and listened to their merry shouts, as they skipped
over the hills! I loved them as myself, being niy
brethren; and longed to see them enjoy my privi
leges of enlightenment and salvation.
MISSI01STAKY LIFE.
CHAPTER III.
MISSIONAKY LIFE CO^TE^UED.
As we before stated, Rev. William Roberts organ
ized a small class in San Francisco, in the summer of
1847, which was reorganized in the spring of 1849,
by Brother Asa "White.
The first quarterly meeting in California was held
in our chapel on Powell-street. It commenced by
the organization of a quarterly conference, on Satur
day night, December 2, 1849. John Troubody,
Alexander Hatler, and "Willet M'Cord were elected
stewards. Resolutions were passed, expressing
thanks to the Missionary Board for sending them a
missionary, and pledging themselves for his support,
beyond the appropriation they had already made.
The said new board of stewards fixed my salary and
table expenses at two thousand dollars per year, in
cluding the missionary appropriation of seven hun
dred and fifty dollars, I finding and furnishing my
own house.
On the Sunday of our quarterly meeting Rev. J.
Doane, missionary, en route to Oregon, preached at
78 CALIFOKNIA LITE ILLUSTKATED.
eleven o'clock A. M. That morning I announced
that I would preach at three o'clock P. M, on the
Plaza. It was a startling announcement, which
greatly excited the fears of some of the brethren ; for
nearly all the gamblers in the city were located
round the Plaza, in the best houses the city afforded.
An idea of the prestige of the gambling fraternity,
and the magnificence of their saloons in those days,
may be obtained from the accompanying cut, repre
senting, to the life, the interior of the El Dorado, a
large gambling-house, at the northeast corner of the
Plaza. The tables, loaded with gold and silver, you
cannot see for the multitude ; but in the rear end of
the sa]oon you see, elevated on a stage, a band of the
best musicians the country could furnish, sending
forth their melody in such sweetness and variety as
to crowd the house, and hold in admiration the pro
miscuous masses in the streets. I have heard them
sing and play, " Home, sweet, sweet home," till
homeless wanderers, by hundreds, would stand en
tranced, seeming to live for a time in the embrace of
loved ones, surrounded by all the sweet associations
of the past. Alas! it was but the song of the
siren.
On the right may be seen the beautifully orna
mented bar, with splendid mirrors in the rear, around
which many a jolly circle of hopeful young prodigals
drank to each other's health the deadly draught.
I N T E K I O K OF THE EL DORADO.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 81
Such places were crowded, especially on Sunday,
with men of all nations, the most daring and reck
less, perhaps, in the world ; and such was their
dominant influence, that when they shot a man dead,
as they frequently did, there were no arrests, and
nothing said, but that " C. B. was killed last night in
the Parker House."
v*"" The brethren knew that if the gamblers should *
regard my attempt to preach on the Plaza, thrilling
every one of their saloons with the echoes of an un
welcome Gospel, as an interference with their busi
ness, and should shoot me down, there would be no
redress. It would simply be said, "The gamblers
killed a Methodist preacher." At the appointed
time I was on the Plaza, accompanied by Mrs. T.
and a few friends. I got Mrs. T. a chair, and put
her in care of Dr. B. Miller, and appropriated a
carpenter's workbench, which stood in front of the
largest gambling-saloon in the place, as my pulpit.
At that moment Clarkson Dye, thinking I might
need some protection against the rays of the burning
sun, went across to Brown's Hotel, and asked for the
loan of an umbrella to hold over the preacher. He
was met with the reply : " I won't let my umbrella be
used for such a purpose, but if I had some rotten
eggs I'd give them to him." He had to pay nine
dollars per dozen for eggs, and couldn't afford to
throw them at the preacher.
82 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Taking my stand on the work-bench I sang
" Hear the royal proclamation,
The glad tidings of salvation,
Publishing to every creature,
To the ruin'd sons of nature.
Jesus reigns, he reigns victorious
Over heaven and earth most glorious,
Jesus reigns !
" See the royal banner flying,
Hear the heralds loudly crying,
Eebel sinner, royal favor
Now is offer'd by the Saviour.
Jesus reigns, etc.
" Hear, ye sons of wrath and ruin,
Who have wrought your own undoing ;
Here is life, and free salvation,
Offer'd to the whole creation.
Jesus reigns, etc.
" 'Twas for you that Jesus died,
For you he was crucified,
Conquer'd death, and rose to heaven,
Life eternal's through him given.
Jesus reigns, etc.
" Here is wine, and milk, and honey,
Come and purchase without money ;
Mercy, like a flowing fountain,
Streaming from the holy mountain.
Jesus reigns, etc.
MISSION AKY LIFE. 83
" For this love, let rocks and mountains,
Purling streams and crystal fountains,
Roaring thunders, lightning blazes
Shout the great Messiah's praises.
Jesus reigns, etc.
" Turn unto the Lord most holy,
Shun the paths of sin and folly ;
Turn, or you are lost forever,
O now turn to God your Saviour !
Jesus reigns, etc."
By the time the song ended, I was surrounded by
about one thousand men. Kestless hundreds, always
ready for the cry, "A whale ! a whale !" or any other
wonder under the sun, came running from every
direction, and the gambling-houses were almost va
cated.
I had crossed the Rubicon, and now came the tug
of war. Said I, "Gentlemen, if our friends in the
Atlantic states, with the views and feelings they en
tertained of California society when I left them, had
heard that there was to be preaching this afternoon
on Portsmouth Square, in San Francisco, they would
have predicted disorder, confusion, and riot ; but we
who are here believe very differently. One thing is
certain, there is no man who loves to see those stars
and stripes floating on the breeze, (pointing to the
waving flag of our Union,) and who loves the institu
tions fostered under them ; in a word, there is no true
84 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
American but will observe order under "the preach
ing of God's word anywhere, and maintain it if need
be. "We shall have order, gentlemen. Your favorite
rule in arithmetic is the rule of ' loss and gain.' In
your tedious voyage round the Horn, or your weari
some journey over the plains, or your hurried passage
across the Isthmus, and during the few months of
your sojourn in California, you have been figuring
under this rule; losses and gains have constituted
the theme of your thoughts and calculations. ISTow
I wish most respectfully to submit to you a question
under your favorite rule. I want you to employ all
the mathematical power and skill you can command,
and patiently work out the mighty problem. The
question may be found in the twenty-sixth verse of
the sixteenth chapter of our Lord's Gospel by St.
Matthew. Shall I announce it ? ' What is a man
profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul ?' ':
Every man present was a "true American" for
that hour. Perfect order was observed, and pro
found attention given to every sentence of the ser
mon that followed. That was our first assault upon
the enemy in the open field in San Francisco, and
the commencement of a seven years' campaign,
which is illustrated in my book on " Street Preach
ing in San Francisco." I preached in the chapel
that evening to a crowded house, and four men
MISSIONAEY LIFE. 85
presented themselves at the altar as seekers of sal
vation.
I preached every night during that week, and
three persons professed to experience religion ; the
tirst revival meeting in California. The little society
was greatly refreshed, and especially encouraged by
the fact that God could and did convert sinners in
that land of gold and crime, a thing almost as incred
ible, even among Christians, at that time in California
as the doctrine of the resurrection among the Saddu-
cees. We had, upon the whole, though minus a
presiding elder, a good old-fashioned quarterly meet
ing, never to be forgotten.
During the fall of 184:9 we had but one class,
which met every Sunday at three o'clock P. M.
It contained but about thirty members ; the meet
ings, however, were swelled by a constant stream of
immigrating Methodism, to an average attendance of
sixty persons, and frequently numbering as high as
ninety. "We had but very few females, a lack we
keenly felt ; for the great man, Moses, could not get
along well without a sister to help him ; and the Great
Prophet, of whom Moses was a type, needed Marys
and Marthas, and Joannas, who stood by him, ' mid
shame and scorn,' to the death, the last to listen to
his dying groans, the first to hail his welcome rising,
and bear the coronation tidings of the King of Glory
to their poor, frightened, desponding brethren.
86 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
"What could the great apostle to the Gentiles have
done but for the help of Phebe, Priscilla, and others,
of whom he says : "I entreat thee also, true yoke
fellow, help those women which labored with me in
the Gospel, whose names are in the book of life."
But there, in California, we had to do the best we
could with the assistance of but very few sisters. I
had one, thank the Lord, who stood by me in every
battle ; but in a class- meeting of ninety persons we
could number only two or three ladies. Yet we had
glorious meetings notwithstanding, for they all had
mothers, wives, or sisters far away, whose influence
followed them across the continent, and over oceans,
and there, vibrating on every nerve, stirred the
tender sensibilities of their souls, and caused them, on
the utterance of that sweet but mighty word HOME,
to weep like children. By a rapid association of
kindred thoughts their minds were carried forward
to the longed for meeting again with distant loved
ones, and the possible doubt of not meeting them
again on mortal shores, led them to the anticipation
of the glorious meeting of friends on the shores
of immortality, and the inseparable and unceasing
friendships of a home in heaven. Their uplifted
hands, streaming eyes, and joyous shouts told of their
far-reaching hope and faith, which pierced through
the darkness of death, and fixed their unclouded
gaze on the glories of God's own home, and theirs.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 87
Those class-meetings, composed of Christian adven
turers from every land, were intellectual, social, and
religious feasts, full of heaven and glory. I never
expect to see any more exactly like them. In that
infant society there were some noble men ; I will
here notice a few of them.
ASA WHITE, now past the meridian of life, a hardy
sun-tanned pioneer of the woods, was a man of good
common sense, and very generous heart, a local
preacher of moderate abilities, a good exhorter, full
of fire. He had three married daughters with him
at that time, who, with his good wife and two of his
sons-in-law, were all zealous Methodists. They
could have a good meeting any time, whether any
body else came or not. They were closely bound
together as a family band, by mutual confidence and
ardent affection, and could have made a fortune, and
done a great deal of good in almost any place in
California, had they settled down ; but they had
been pioneers all their lives, moving westward in the
van of early emigration, and having reached the
western limit of the continent, they spent their
time in moving up and down the shore, now in
Oregon, now in California, then again to Oregon,
then back again to California, men, women, and
children, all of the same mind, and all moving
together. They seemed, by their constant migra
tions, to say : " O that we had a new continent of
88 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
unbroken forests, unscathed by the axe of civiliza
tion, well stocked with Indians, panthers, wildcats,
bear, deer, elk, raccoons, and opossums, that we
might spend our days in crossing it, and entertain
ourselves in shooting game, felling timber, building
log cabins, and in surprising pioneer Methodist
preachers with our backwoods refinement and extra
ordinary sympathy and kindness.
ALFRED LOVE, the unconverted son in-law in the
family, came the nearest making a permanent settle
ment in California of any of them. He was a very
kind-hearted fellow, a sincere friend to the cause of
religion, and I often tried to persuade him to be
reconciled to God. He admitted the truth of all I
said, but still pursued his own course.
One day he went out into the mountains alone to
take a hunt. In working his way through a chaperel
thicket, he suddenly stumbled on a huge grizzly
bear. The grizzly put after him at full speed.
Alfred dropped his gun, and ran for life, but soon
perceived by the cracking of the brush behind him,
and the heavy footfall of old bruin, that he was
rapidly gaining on him. His course led him across
a deep ravine, in the bottom of which was a deep
cut washed out by the winter torrents. He had no
time to get round it, and in attempting to jump
across the cut, his foot slipped, and down he fell to
the bottom. As he struck, the terrors of death got
MISSION ABY. LIFE. 89
hold of him, and he found trouble and sorrow.
There was no hope in further effort, so he lay in
motionless affright, expecting the grizzly to separate
his joints within a minute. Happily for him the
bear leaped the cut right over him, and went on his
course, I suppose wondering what had become of his
man. After the bear passed out of sight, Alfred
crawled out, and made tracks in the opposite direction.
I heard him say afterward: "While I lay there
every moment expecting the bear to jump on me, I
was so sorry I had not taken Mr. Taylor's advice, and
given my heart to the Lord, while I had opportu
nity ; but I thought it was all over with me then."
JOHN TKOUBODY is by birth an Englishman, but
crossed the water with his wife in early manhood.
He lived a while in Pennsylvania ; then in Missouri ;
and moved across the plains to California in 1817, or
1848. He appears to be a slow man in everything,
but he steps so cautiously and constantly, that he
always comes out about even with the fastest in every
race. He has acquired a handsome property in Cali
fornia. A man of unbending religious integrity, a
true friend of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and
has never forgotten " the rock whence he was hewn,
nor the hole of the pit whence he was digged."
His wife was also a member of the Church, and
their house may be set down, I think, as the first
Methodist preacher's home in California.
6
90 CALIFORNIA LITE ILLUSTKATED.
WILLET M'CoRD, from Sing Sing, New- York, was
by no means a noisy Methodist. He always had on
hand a dish of wit and pleasantry for the social
circle, and was always in his place in the class-room
and prayer-meeting.
L. F. BUDD was a remarkably simple-hearted,
inoffensive, conscientious brother, of generous, re
fined feelings, and stern integrity. He had spent
several years in Costa Rica, Central America, as
commercial agent for some mercantile firm, and was
instrumental in leading a wealthy coffee planter there
to Christ. This planter corresponded regularly with
Brother Budd in San Francisco. I used to read his
letters with great interest. They were full of spirit
and life, and earnest prayers for the redemption of
the Central American states from the chains of sin
and superstition. I am sorry I have forgotten the
planter's name. Budd went from Costa Rica to
California, in the employ of the same house ; and in
the palmiest days of San Francisco for money-
making, gave his time to his employers at a small
salary, fixed according to Eastern rates, till the term
of his engagement expired. He then invested his
earnings in a house, which was to let for several
months before it was occupied, while he had applica
tions for it almost every week. He always inquired :
" For what purpose do you wish to rent my house ?"
" I want to keep a boarding-house and a bar."
MISSION AEY LIFE. 91
To which he always replied, " I can't let my house
for the sale of grog."
Finally a man, who greatly desired the house,
tried to argue him out of his position. Said he :
" Budd, I don't see why you should be so squeamish
here in California ; why, you are worse than the old
fogies at home. The people will have liquor ; some
body will supply the demand, at great profit, and
I may as well do it and make money as anybody;
and now I'll give you three hundred dollars per
month for your house, and will take good care of it ;
and what does it matter to you what I use it for, if
I return it in good order ?"
Said Brother Budd, in reply: "My dear sir, the
curse of God is hanging over this rum-traffic and all
its abettors, and my policy is to stand from under."
He had no family, but being very anxious again to
see his sisters and other kindred in the East, he
wound up his business in 1853, and on his homeward
passage sickened and died. He was a great admirer
of the ocean. I have often heard him tell of the
blessed seasons of communion with God he enjoyed
in Costa Rica, as he strolled daily along the ocean-
shore from sunset till dark in quiet meditation.
When the sea shall give up her dead, L. F. Budd
will beyond a doubt have a glorious resurrection.
ALEXANDER HATLEK, from Missouri, one of my
earliest and best California friends, with a heart full
\
92 CALIFOEKEA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
of kindness, which felt that no sacrifice was too great
for the altar of his friendship, was so unassuming and
timid that he never did much in public religious
exercises. But he was a man of unblemished moral
character, and a liberal supporter of the Church.
His wife is the exact counterpart of himself.
J. B. BOND, son of Dr. Thomas E. Bond, deceased,
did not make a loud profession of religion, and yet
he was foremost in every good work, distributing
tracts, visiting the sick, attending class, praying in
the prayer-meetings, and giving his money freely to
the Church and the poor. We missed him greatly
when he returned to New- York.
D. L. Ross, our " most excellent Theophilus," good
humored and pious, a sincere lover of God and of
Methodism, was one of the strongest pecuniary bul
warks of our Church' enterprises in California. We
hoped to have retained him and his amiable wife;
but after a few years they weighed anchor, and re
turned to New- York. The Lord reward them here,
and in the day of eternity give them a mansion in
heaven.
R. P. SPIER (I will not call him an old bachelor,
for he is not so old but that there is still hope in his
case) is as pure and conscientious, I believe, as was
Joseph in Egypt ; very cautious and correct in every
thing he does, though better qualified for " bookseller
and stationer" than governor of Egypt. He went into
MISSIONARY LIFE. 98
a mercantile copartnership in Stockton, California, at
one time, but when the other partners resolved to sell
rum he promptly withdrew. He renders so much
service in carrying out the details of the pastoral
work, keeping the church-register in order, visiting
delinquent and sick members, etc., that we sometimes
call him Bishop Spier.
WILLIAM HEXRT CODINGTON, from Sing Sing, New-
York, almost a beardless youth, opened a butcher-
shop on Kearney-street. Sabbath-breaking was
almost universal throughout the land, and I don't
suppose that any other butcher had as yet dreamed
of keeping the Sabbath in California; but young
Codington hung up in a prominent place in his shop
this sign: "Tnis MARKET CLOSED ON SUNDAYS." I
know several butchers who were then considered
very wealthy, doing a great business seven days in
the week, who have since gone into insolvency, and
some of them into an untimely grave, while Brother
Codington has acquired a handsome property, mar
ried a good wife to help in its enjoyment, and grown
up a man of God, and a pillar in the Church.
ROBERT BEECHING, from New- York, had a hard
time of it in crossing the plains. The first Sunday
morning after his arrival in San Francisco he met
me at the church door, apologized for his rough
appearance and threadbare clothing, and told me of
his sufferings and reverses on his way to the land of
94 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
i
gold. Said he: "I've been accustomed to wear
decent clothes in New- York, and I feel ashamed
to go into church looking as I do ; and yet I love
Jesus, and want to be with his people."
I saw in him, at a glance, a man, a Christian, a
gentleman, and, taking him by the hand, conducted
him to the "highest seat in the synagogue.'3 He
being a fine musician, some gamblers offered him
thirty dollars per night if he would play in their
saloon. There he was, five thousand miles distant
from his family, minus friends, money, and employ
ment. By playing an instrument, which was his
delight even at home, he could make thirty dollars
every night; how quickly he might make his "pile,"
return to his family, and do good with his money.
It was a well-circumstanced temptation, and he was
almost led to a parley with the enemy.
That week, when he came to class at my house on
Jackson-street, he related in the meeting the facts as
above given, and said, " i Truly God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me,
my feet were almost gone ; my steps had well nigh
slipped ; for I was envious at the foolish, when I
saw the prosperity of the wicked.' I have thought,
c Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed
my hands in innocency.' I have at least tried to
serve God for many years ; but in my great trials I
seemed to be almost forsaken. ' Behold, these are
MISSIONAKY LIFE. 95
the ungodly who prosper in the world ; they increase
in riches.' When I thought to know the reason of
this, it was too painful for me ; until I came to this
sanctuary of God ; now understand I their end.
4 Surely they stand in slippery places, and shall be
brought to desolation, and utterly consumed with
terrors.' ' But thou, O my God, art my portion for
ever. Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there
is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' "
His tall, manly form, flowing tears, sweet com
manding voice, all contributed to produce an effect
in the class-room which I cannot describe. He then
sang a triumphant song of Zion, which thrilled every
heart.
ISAAC JONES was a Welsh local preacher, and by
trade a printer. He was employed in the office of
the " Evening Picayune," and made a special agree
ment with the proprietor of that journal that he
should never be called on to work on Sunday.
Some weeks afterward his employer said to him
one Saturday night: "Jones, the steamer has just
arrived, and we have so much new matter to set up
that I want you to lend a hand with the boys, and
set up a few thousand ems to-morrow."
"My dear sir," replied Jones, "I am willing to
work till twelve o'clock to-night, and commence
work again at one o'clock on Monday morning ; but
you know I told you in the commencement that it
96 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
was against my principles to work on Sunday, and
we made an agreement to that effect."
" O well, never mind, go on in your own way,"
said the proprietor.
A few weeks after his employer came in late one
Saturday night, and said to him again: "Now, Jones,
it's no use talking ; you see what a quantity of mat
ter we have to set up for the next issue, and a great
deal of it must go in type to-morrow. It has to be
done, and you may just as well help to do it as for
the other boys to do it all. The fact is, I won't have
a man about me unless he is willing to work at all
times whenever he is needed."
" "Well," said Jones, " I shall be very sorry to lose
my situation, for it is very expensive living here, and
I am dependent on the daily labor of my hands for
the support of my family ; but if rny continuance in
your office and my support depend upon my working
on the Sabbath, I'll beg my bread from door to door,
or if need be I'll starve in the streets rather than
desecrate God's holy day."
After bustling round among the type-stands
a while, the proprietor replied : " "Well, Jones, you
are a good workman and an honest fellow, and I
don't want you to leave me." Jones's triumphant
death, and that of his good wife, Mary, are noticed
in my " Seven Years' Street Preaching in San Fran
cisco," p. 353.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 97
WILLIAM PHILLIPS and his son JOHN were English
hardware merchants, and true as steel.
I mention these " few names in Sardis, [California,]
which have not denied their garments," simply as
specimen illustrations of a large class of sin-hating,
God-fearing men in our first society in San Francisco,
and of a noble band of martyr spirits to be found in
perhaps all the early Church organizations of the
country, of different denominations. In popular es
teem in those days religion was at a large discount.
There were no inducements to make a stalking-horse
of religion; hence, hypocrites and milk-and-water
Christians stood aloof. Asa "White and Colonel
Allen from Kentucky, Eobert Kellan, M. E. "Willing,
Calvin Lathrop, and James M'Gowan were our early
local preachers in San Francisco. Our early class-
leaders were Kichard T. Hoeg, Horace Hoag, and
J. W. Bones. "William Gafney, now of the Cali
fornia Conference, and H. Hoag were exhorters.
Our second class in the Powell-street Charge was
organized about January, 1850, and met every Tues
day evening at my house in Jackson-street. We had
glorious meetings there, in which souls were occasion
ally converted to God. A small Sunday school was
organized in our church in the fall of 1849, of which
Robert Kellan was superintendent. It was a weak
and delicate plant in Zion, but we watered and cul
tivated it, and it lived and grew, and is now quite a
98 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
tree, bearing fruit to the glory of God. As was be
fore mentioned, Rev. William Roberts, missionary,
en route to Oregon, organized a small Sunday school
in San Francisco in 1847, appointing J. H. Merrill
superintendent. I have before me an original letter
from Roberts to Merrill in regard to it, which, as a
matter of history, I will here insert :
"MONTEEEY, May 27, 1847.
"DEAR SIR: — 1 hereby send to you the library of
primary Sunday-school books, of which I spoke when
at San Francisco. They were found yesterday, and
the captain of the Commodore Shubrick, I expect, will
bring them to you without charge. There are one
hundred and three volumes of books, one dozen
cards, and one dozen catechisms, and also one reg
ister or receiving-book. These books are the prop
erty of the Sunday School Union of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and I place them in your hands
for the use of the school under your care, with the
hope that God's blessing may rest upon this effort to
bless the youth of the land.
" I am yours respectfully,
" WILLIAM ROBERTS."
That Sunday school, numbering about twenty schol
ars, was kept up, as Mr. Merrill informed me, through
the summer of 1847, soon after which gold was dis
covered, which caused a general stampede of both
MISSION AHY LIFE. 99
parents and children. I found the said Sunday-
school library in care of Brother White on my ar
rival, and we appropriated it to the use of the school
organized in 1849, as above described. The first
" watch-night meeting" ever held in California came
off in our Powell-street Church, at the closing of that
eventful year, 1849. I extract the following from
my journal in regard to it :
"Januai^y 1, 1850. — On last evening I preached in
our chapel to about thirty persons, and held a watch-
meeting. Though our meeting was not large, it was
an occasion of great interest. After sermon, from
the text, " "What shall I render unto the Lord for all
his benefits toward me ? I will take the cup of sal
vation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will
pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of
all his people," we occupied some time in the relation
of Christian experience. A majority of all present
spoke of the benefits they had received at the hands
of God during the past year, and especially while
encountering the dangers of the deep or of the desert.
The exercises were concluded as the new year was
being ushered in, by solemnly singing on our knees
the covenant hymn :
" Come, let us use the grace Divine,
And all, with one accord,
In a perpetual covenant join
Ourselves to Christ the Lord," etc.
HTMN 1054, Methodist Hymn Book.
100 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
About this time the " Methodist Company," in the
ship Arkansas, Captain Shepherd, arrived. Accord
ing to their advertisement in New- York, the com
pany was to be composed entirely of Methodists, and
many joined it with that understanding, thinking it
the rarest chance that ever was to get to California
without being brought into contact with the wicked
rabble that mixed in with promiscuous companies.
But when they got out to sea and gathered the flock
together, they soon found that the goats outnumbered
the sheep. The voyage, socially and morally, was
by no means a pleasant one ; and I have no doubt
that many of them adopted St. Paul's conclusion :
that to be freed " altogether " from " fornicators, cov
etous, extortioners, or idolaters," "then must ye needs
go out of the world." The night of their arrival in
the port of San Francisco, before they could land, a
heavy gale caught their ship, which dragged her
anchors, and was carried by the violence of the storm
till she struck Bird Island. There they were in mid
night darkness, thumping among the breakers ; and
for a time they thought the whole ship's company
must perish right there in their destined port ; but
by cutting away the masts they finally succeeded in
saving the hull, cargo, and passengers.
The captain was subsequently known in San Fran
cisco as Judge Shepherd. He brought a few very
mean men to California ; but also some as noble and
MISSIONAKY
good, perhaps, as ever landed in that port ; such
men, for example, as Calvin Lathrop, who for seven
years was favorably known in California in the
various relations of minister of the Gospel, Bible-class
leader, gold digger, and clerk, and who filled so
efficiently and satisfactorily for years the office of
publishing agent of the California Christian Advo
cate. He has returned to his family in New- York,
but is a thorough Californian still, and pants for the
pure breezes of the Pacific. I wish it suited his fam
ily to go ; he is needed in California.
It was several weeks after my arrival in San Fran
cisco before I heard anything of my fellow-mis
sionary, Rev. Isaac Owen, who had started with his
family " across the plains " about the time I sailed
from Baltimore. I felt great solicitude for his wel
fare, having heard much of the hazards of the over
land route to California. After a few weeks, how
ever, my mind was relieved by the news of his safe
arrival in Sacramento City. Nearly four months had
now elapsed, and yet we had not seen each other,
neither having had time to visit the other. Fri
day, the fourth of January, 1850, found me making
preparations to go to Sacramento City to see my col
league. First, I had to provide for my pulpit the
Sabbath I should be absent, and I found a supply in
James M'Gowan and M. E. Willing, local preachers,
lately arrived in the ship Arkansas. Second, I had
.102",; GALI^CENL4 LITE ILLUSTRATED.
to lay in a good supply of firewood to keep my wife
and babies warm during my absence.
Wood in the market was forty dollars per cord,
and very poor stuff at that. I couldn't afford to
burn wood at those rates.
The sand hills back of where I lived had been
thickly covered with evergreen scrub oaks, but they
had all been cut off, clean as a newly-mown meadow.
I, however, took my ax and went to work on a
stump, and soon found, to my agreeable surprise,
that more than half the tree was under ground ; that
the great roots spread out horizontally just under the
surface ; so I had a good supply of wood at the simple
cost of cutting, and loading it on my wheel-barrow
and rolling it home. I had made a rare discovery,
but, like the darkey who first struck the- rich gold
lead in "Xegro hill," I soon had plenty of men to
share my fortune.
The said colored man, I am told, went into the
mines to dig some gold for himself, and thinking
the " diggins " all free for everybody, he struck into
the first good-looking place he came to. Presently
along came a rough-looking miner, who said, angrily,
" What are you doing there in my claim, you black
rascal ?"
" O massa, I didn't know dis are your claim !"
He then went off a little way, and saw a hole in
which he thought he might find gold, so he jumped
MISSIONARY LIFE. 103
into it and went to work ; but immediately a man
came running at him in a rage, and shouted :
" Get out o' my hole, you cursed nigger, or I'll
knock your head off!"
" Lor'sa, massa, me didn't know dis are your hole !
Good Lor'sa, massa, where must I go ?"
" Go up on the top of that hill, and dig," replied
the miner, not dreaming that there was gold there ;
for as yet the value of hill diggings had not been
found out.
But the poor old colored man went on the hill,
and "sunk a shaft," (just like digging a well,)
and wrought there several months, when it was dis
covered that he had struck a " rich lead," and was
taking out the "big lumps." He then soon had
plenty of company to share in his rich discoveries.
The hill was afterward known as " Negro hill," and
has yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars.
By Friday night I had my arrangements all made
for an early start next morning for Sacramento City.
104 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
CHAPTEE IV.
MISSIONARY LIFE CONTINUED.
ON Saturday, January 5, 1850, at T o'clock A. M.,
I embarked on the steamer Senator for Sacramento
City, a distance of one hundred and twenty-five miles.
As we ascended the Sacramento River we saw a large
band of elk. They ran along the bank of the river
in our direction several hundred yards, seeming as
desirous to look at us as we were to look at them. On
the sharp crack of a rifle in the hands of one of our
passengers they changed their course, and gave us a
wider berth, and soon disappeared in their own wild
woods. A buck elk, with a head of full-grown horns,
leaping over the hills, is a majestic looking animal.
Arriving in Sacramento City at Y o'clock P. M.,
I was conducted by a stranger through one vast
mud-hole of nearly half a mile to the house of Dr.
Grove "W. Deal. I had known the doctor well in
Baltimore, and loved him much; saw him about a
year before embark for California in the schooner
Sovereign, via Panama, and often, during a tedious
voyage round Cape Horn, comforted myself with
SACRAMENTO CITY.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 107
the anticipated joy of meeting him on my arrival in
San Francisco. This, however, was the first sight
I had got of him in California. The doctor, I had
learned, had done a great deal of faithful preaching
"under the oak" in Sacramento City; and prior to
Brother Owen's arrival, exercised a shepherd's care
over the "few sheep in the wilderness." He had
also succeeded well in his practice as a physician,
besides some good trading " strikes," so that I did
not find him in a tent, nearly up to his knees in mud,
like most of his neighbors, but occupying one of the
best houses in the city. It was a small, two-story
frame-house, rough boards outside, and canvas lining
inside. The first floor was occupied as a store,
owned by the doctor, William Prettyman, another
old Baltimore friend, and a young man whose name
I have forgotten. They had in the store an assort
ment of clothing, dry goods and groceries, hardware,
miners' tools and drugs, books and stationery, and
such other varieties as the denizens of a new country
were likely to need. The upper story was used as a
reception-room, parlor, doctor's office, dormitory, etc.
In the rear of the store was a shed made of rough
slabs ; the floor was of matting, to hide the mud, and
to keep the passengers above ground ; this was the
wash-room, storage-room, kitchen, dining-room, etc.
There I received a hearty welcome, and found a
noble-hearted, jovial set of fellows, and there we
7
108 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
talked, and ate, and slept, and thanked the Lord,
and talked again. The conversation now turn
ing on the days of other years, and the loved ones on
the other side of the continent, and now on the won
derful country into which our lot had fallen, and then
the stirring incidents of the voyage, and the ever-
exciting " news of the day." On Sabbath I accom
panied the doctor to our " Baltimore California
chapel," and was there introduced to Brothers Owen
and Cor win.
I will not attempt to give a history of Brother
Owen. Dr. Thurston, who, for the last five years,
has been gathering materials in California for a book,
asked Brother Owen to give him a sketch of his life
for his book. After looking over a list of autobio
graphic notices in the doctor's book, by different min
isters, and observing that special reference was made
to the cities in which they had lived, and the col
leges in which they had graduated, he penned some
thing like the following : " Isaac Owen was born in
Vermont, raised in Coon range on White River, in
the wilderness of Indiana ; costumed in buckskin, fed
on pounded cake; educated in a log school-house.
First book, Webster's spelling-book ; first lesson in two
syllables, commencing with 'Baker.' Converted in
the woods, licensed to preach on a log ; first circuit,
then called Otter Creek Mission, embraced a part of
five counties. Last heard of, a missionary in Cali-
MISSIONARY LIFE. 109
fornia, and on a review of his life has no apologies to
offer for having been born." Brother Owen is a
thick-set, rotund man, about five feet ten inches high,
eyes and hair black, face round, with an easy, pleas
ant smile on his countenance. He is a good preacher,
voice clear and strong, his preaching earnest and
practical, characterized by clear Scripture expositions
and familiar illustrations. Besides a thorough, prac
tical education in real life, he has made himself quite
familiar with his Greek Testament.
He is a man of indomitable energy and perse
verance. I once heard Bishop Morris say of him
that " Owen never gives up ; he always does what he
undertakes ; if he can't do it one way he will an
other." He is apt in expedient in every emergency.
He says he never was lost but once, and that was
when a little boy. He was away in the wilderness
alone ; night was settling down upon him ; the woods
were full of wolves, wild cats, and panthers ; and he
knew not which way to go. After a little cogitation
an expedient struck him. He cut a rod, caught his
dog, and gave him a severe flogging, then letting the
dog go, he instinctively cut for home as fast as he
could run, and young Owen after him at the top of
his speed. He thus got his bearings, and safely
reached home a little after dark.
He says he never was in "straitened circum
stances" but once. He had been out on a hunt,
110 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
and got his buckskin trowsers very wet ; coming
home very wet and cold, he got into the fireplace
of one of the old-fashioned wide chimneys, and stood
by a blazing fire to warm himself. Being veiy much
chilled, he could not feel the heat at once, till he felt
something drawing very tightly about his legs; and
now the heat seemed to be taking the skin off him ;
lo, his trowsers were drawn up into crisp, searing
and singeing him ; but though he jumped round, and
cried for help, he could not pull them off. Said he :
"I found myself that time in decidedly straitened
circumstances."
Brother Owen is one of the greatest beggars in
the world. He was for five years the agent of the
Indiana Asbury University ; so that besides natural
talent for it, he is thoroughly skilled in the business.
When he thinks a certain portion of a man's money
ought to be appropriated to a special church enter
prise in which he is engaged, (and he always has
one such on hand,) and gets after him, that man
had just as well, like old Dan Boone's coon, give up
at once.
Rev. James Corwin had been a member of the
same conference (Indiana) with Brother Owen, and
located to accompany him to California, first, to help
him with his family across the plains, and, secondly,
to enter into the itinerant work with him on the
Pacific.
MISSIONARY LIFE. Ill
He is a preacher of medium talent, faithful as a
pastor, acceptable to the people, and very useful, not
only in getting sinners converted, but in building
churches and parsonages. He has no family of his
own, but builds for those who have. After helping
Brother Owen to build a parsonage for his family in
Sacramento City, he took an appointment, and has
been in the regular work ever since.
On the Sabbath morning above referred to, at
Brother Owen's request, I preached to a full house,
from, " God commendeth his love toward us, in that,
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Brother Owen preached at three P.M., and I again
in the evening.
The next day the doctor and I dined with Brother
Owen's family, and a sumptuous dinner it was, too;
roast pork, sweet potatoes, and a variety of good
things, hardly to be expected in California at that
day. Brother Owen and wife had hardly recovered
from the wear and tear of their long journey across
the plains. They had a hard time in getting to
California, and a sad reverse after their arrival.
Though I could hear nothing of them for several
weeks after my arrival, they had reached the north
ern part of the territory about the same time that I
reached San Francisco ; and he preached near where
the town of Grass Valley is now located, on the same
Sabbath in which I commenced operations in the
112 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
Bay city. Thence lie came on by land as far as
Benicia, en route to San Francisco, and there learned
that he had been appointed by the superintendent to
Sacramento City, nearly one hundred miles back in
the direction he had come. They were all nearly
worn out, and to haul their effects back that distance,
with a broken-down ox-team, was too much to think
of enduring, so they engaged a sail-vessel to take
their things to Sacramento City, and thus relieve
their broken-down animals. The vessel was cap
sized, and they lost nearly everything they had in
the world, all the supplies they had hauled across
the continent.
When they got to Sacramento City, therefore, they
were destitute of everything but the rough traveling
clothes in which they appeared. They lived for a
short time in a small tent, but Brother O. soon got
able to move around among the people, and went to
work with his usual zeal.
In a short time the chapel was up and ready for
use, and he was at the time of my visit in a new
parsonage, that cost about five thousand dollars. The
society was in prosperous condition, and they had
pledged themselves to give their minister a salary of
four thousand dollars ; one thousand dollars of which,
however, Brother Owen appropriated toward the
payment for the parsonage.
We walked and talked together for several days,
MISSIONARY LIFE. 113
and laid the basis of an intimate and solid mutual
friendship, which has remained unbroken to the pres
ent time, and will, I have no doubt, last forever
We also matured plans for future operations. A
book depository was to be established, and the coun
try supplied with a pure religious literature ; acad
emies and a university were to be founded for the
education of the rising generation ; but at present
we had to explore, and organize societies, so far as
possible, without neglecting the charges to which we
had been appointed. We agreed that I should, in
addition to my work in San Francisco, travel south
to San Jose and Santa Cruz, and organize societies ;
and that he should do what he could north of San
Francisco, and thus prepare the way for other mis
sionaries. We spent a part of Wednesday, the ninth
of January, in Dr. Deal's upper room ; and in the
afternoon, when we came down to return to the par
sonage, lo ! a river came rolling down the street,
meeting us. Half the city was already submerged,
and the swelling flood hasted to bury the remainder.
A wagon happened to pass near us at that moment,
and Brother Owen paid the driver two dollars to
take him a couple of blocks, whence he got a boat
man to ferry him home. I took refuge in the doc
tor's house till after tea ; but as the tide was still
rising, and as I preferred to go to sea in a boat
rather than a house, I commended my Baltimore
114 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
friends to the mercy of the floods, and waded as best
I could to the steamer Senator, and put up for the
night.
The scene next morning is briefly described in my
journal as follows :
" Thursday, January 10, 1850. — This morning I
went up on the foretop of a store-ship anchored near
our steamer, to take a survey of an entire city under
water. I could not discover a single speck of land
in sight, except a little spot of a few feet on the levee
near our boat. The boatmen were navigating the
streets in whale boats in every direction."
That day I returned to San Francisco, accompanied
by Brother Corwin, who was on his way to Stockton,
where he organized a society, and built a church and
parsonage, partly by subscription and in part by his
own hands ; he, like the great Prophet of Nazareth,
being a carpenter as well as a preacher.
We paid for our meals aboard the Senator two dol
lars each ; the price of a state-room for one night
was ten dollars; the fare alone from San Francisco
to Sacramento City was thirty dollars. Charles
Minturn, the agent in San Francisco, gave me a free
passage up ; and through the mediation of Captain
Gelson I obtained a similar favor in Sacramento City,
by which on that single trip I saved sixty dollars.
Brother Corwin, however, not being considered ex
actly in the regular succession, had to pay his fare.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 115
Captain Gelson, as one of the owners of the steamer
M'Kim, that plied between the two cities named,
offered a free passage to all Tegular ministers — those
sent out as missionaries, or those having pastoral
charges. I believe in that way the precedent was
established ; at any rate it became a custom with the
owners and agents of steamboats running on the Sac
ramento and San Joaquin Rivers to give to all regular
ministers a free ticket ; and when the " California
Steamboat Navigation Company " was organized,
they adopted that as an item in one of their by
laws. They subsequently thought that the privilege
was abused; that preachers multiplied too fast for
the wants of the country ; in other words, that many
who were not pastors, and possibly not preachers at
all, took advantage of it.
It was said, for example, that a man took passage
on a Sacramento boat for himself and a lot of mules.
When the captain demanded his fare he replied, " O,
I'm a preacher, sir." " Indeed !" said the captain,
and, pointing to the mules, inquired, " and. are these
preachers, too ?" The fellow had to " walk up to the
captain's office and settle." In consequence of
these abuses the company passed a resolution making
it necessary for all ministers wishing to travel on
their boats to apply to the president of the company,
who would, on the evidence that they were minis
ters, give them a free ticket.
116 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Upon the whole, the liberality of California steam
boat companies toward ministers of the Gospel
stands unrivaled in the history of steamboat navi
gation, and has saved to the preachers (all of them
poor enough in regard to means) an expense in trav
eling amounting to an aggregate of thousands of dol
lars. Stage proprietors in California have also shown
a commewiiUMO liberality in the same way.
The Safrfin-ento flood prevailed for days, bearing
on its heuviiig bosom the tents and small buildings
of the city, and a large proportion of their stock,
consisting principally of horses, mules, cows, and
oxen, which had been brought over the plains by
hundreds. There was but little opportunity of saving
the stock, because the valley, for the width of
several miles, and in length for more than a hundred
miles, was an unbroken sea of waters. The dwellers
of the inundated city took refuge in the second
stories of the few houses that remained, and in boats,
and in the vessels that lay at anchor in the river.
Our Baltimore chapel was carried from its founda
tions into the street, but not seriously injured.
Brother Owen and family, after a few days' impris
onment in the upper story of their parsonage,
determined to move to San Jose* Valley, a distance
of one hundred and seventy-five miles, and seek a
place of residence on dry land. Sacramento City
was inundated two or three times, which led to the
MISSIONARY LIFEr llT
construction of a strong levee around it, and it is
lience frequently called the "Levee City." Much
sickness prevailed there in early days, and thousands
of sturdy adventurers sleep their last sleep on her
low grounds ; but it has become a very beautiful and
healthful city, with a population, within eight years,
of between twenty and thirty thousand.
On the 17th of January Brother Owen and family
arrived in San Francisco, on their way to San Jose
Valley. To give themselves some time for recupera
tion and preparations for their new home in San
Jose, they made a temporary settlement in "Asa
White's house with the blue cover," which, naturally
enough, in view of the migratory character of its
owners, was vacant at that time.
Having Brother Owen in the city to fill my pulpit,
I embraced the opportunity to fulfill a promise to
visit San Jose* and Santa Cruz. Mrs. Taylor being
out of health, and having the care of her babes and
household duties, I thought it necessary to get some
one to assist her during my absence. A Sister Mer
chant, an old maiden lady, had arrived a few weeks
before, having made the voyage of Cape Horn,
passing the dreary hours of the trip in composing
poetry. She was sincerely pious, no doubt, and
uttered many shrewd and sensible sayings; and yet it
was evident that somewhere in her mental constitu
tion there was a screw loose; still she was regarded
118 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
as a valuable helper in the family ; she said she
could do everything in that line that could be
desired. So I thought it would be a fine arrange
ment to have Sister Merchant as company for Mrs.
Taylor, and to relieve her of the housework till I
should return. The idea of a regular servant in a
O
preacher's family, when servants got larger salaries
than preachers, was out of the question. The
preachers and their wives had to serve eacli other,
and both together serve the children and the people.
I know a California presiding elder who used to roll
up his sleeves, and spend a day over the wash-tub as
regularly as he went to quarterly meeting. I have
turned out many a washing of clothes, and baked
many a batch of bread, and think I understand the
details of kitchen-work better than I do book-making.
There were, however, preachers in California who
would not hazard their ministerial dignity in the
kitchen, or over the wash-tub, but were contented to
let their wives struggle through all such drudgery
alone, at whatever hazard.
Mrs. Taylor tells the following in regard to one of
this class :
"I said to a missionary on arriving, whose deli
cate wife seemed ill-fitted for the labor and toil of
pioneer life, c You will have to help do the washing.'
1 Not I,' replied the brother ; and to my certain
knowledge he never did. How appropriate! how
MISSION ART LIFE. 119
considerate ! a delicate female toiling at the tub
over her clear lord's linen, while he sits compla
cently reading or puffing his havana, now and
then yawning from pure laziness, and inquiring,
' Dear, when will dinner be ready ?' as if there were
a cook in the kitchen, or a nurse minding the infant,
whose cries were heart-rending to the sympathizing
mother. A man should not wonder if his gentle,
sweet Mary, by such multiplied cares, unassisted,
in the course of time seem unlike the youth
ful, happy girl he took from the old folks at
home."
Sister Merchant was very much pleased with the
idea of living in the preacher's family — always loved
the preachers and their wives. She had been sick,
but had fully recovered, and was ready " to take all
the work off Mrs. Taylor, and nurse the baby too."
I thought myself highly favored in getting my pul
pit and my family so well provided for during my
contemplated absence of two weeks, and myself well
provided with a traveling companion in the person
of Brother J. Bennett, an exhorter in our Church,
who was then on his way from the mines in Colo-
ma to his family in Santa Cruz. On Saturday,
January 19th, at half past nine A. M., we took pas
sage aboard a little steamer for San Jose* ; distance,
fifty miles, forty -two by water and eight by land ;
fare, twenty-five dollars each on the steamer, and
120 CALIFOKTSTA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
five dollars per stage for the land travel to the
town.
We reached the embarcado at five P. M., and
concluded to save our stage fare by working our
own passage thence to the town. After three
hours hard wading through mud and water to our
knees, we reached Widow White's house, within
half a mile of town, and there obtained supper and
lodging. !N"ext day, at eleven A. M., I preached in
the house of old Mr. Young, from "Fear not, for
they that be with us are more than they that be
with them." We had a refreshing class-meeting
after preaching, consisting of more than "twelve
persons.''
Several American families, principally from Ken
tucky and Missouri, had settled there as early as
1846, and others later; in all now numbering about
thirty, among whom were several Methodist families,
namely : William and Thomas Campbell, and families,
Captain Joseph Aram, a member of the convention
that framed the constitution of the state, and family.
Old Mr. Young was not then a Methodist, but his
wife was, and their house was the preaching-place
and the preacher's home. Charles Campbell, a local
preacher, had been preaching there regularly for
several months. Several Cumberland Presbyterian
families also united with us, until such time as it
might be practicable for them to organize for them-
MISSIONARY LIFE. 121
selves ; of whom were J. M. Jones and Asa Finley,
with their excellent wives, and others.
That night I preached at Mr. Young's again, and
many rejoiced with tears that the long desired day
had come, when they should hear the voice of a reg
ular minister, and be gathered into a fold, and re
ceive the ordinances of the Lord's house. The next
day Brother Bennet and I tried to get a horse to
carry us over the creeks and rivers, and assist us
on our way to Santa Cruz ; distance, thirty miles by
mule trail across the rugged coast-range of mount
ains. "We might have walked, but did not like to
wade the streams; and besides, Brother Bennet
had a heavy "miner's pack," which we had car
ried alternately the Saturday night before until we
thought it decidedly cheaper to employ the aid of a
little horse-power. We found that the cheapest rate
at which we could hire a horse was eight dollars per
day, and as I did not expect to return for ten days,
a very short calculation convinced us that "that
would not pay."
Finally we succeeded in buying, for eighty dol
lars, a young red horse, very poor, hair all turned
the wrong way, his mane pulled out by the roots,
and his head nearly off. He had been tied to a
mule, which ran away with him, and dragged him
half a mile by the neck ; and really, if he had not
been a better horse than his appearance indicated, it
CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
would have killed him. Much has been said about
the fine, fat horses of the itinerancy, and verily if the
legions of Methodist cavalry connected with the nine
thousand three hundred and forty traveling preach
ers of the United States were marshaled in one
grand cavalcade, we should hardly know which most
to admire, the noble horses or their heroic, self-sacri
ficing riders.
However illustrious the line of itinerant horses in
California may become, let it be remembered that
the specimen we have exhibited is the head of the
succession, the l>ona fide St. Peter of the whole
fraternity ; being the first member of that tribe ever
admitted into the itinerancy in that territory, except
ing, of course, the mule Brother Roberts used on
one of his visits from Oregon, and afterward sold
to Brother Owen on sight, unseen, but has never
been seen since by any of the parties claiming. So
as it is not best to keep the Church in doubt as to the
true head, which would lead to endless and useless
discussion, it is better to decide the question at once
in favor of the red horse.
There were at the time of our purchase plenty of
good horses out on the plains, but not available
in time for our purposes ; so we did the best we
could. In the afternoon we rigged up our young
charger to go on our journey a few miles, and lodge
at the house of William Campbell. When we got to
MISSIONARY LIFE. 123
Pueblo Creek, which, was greatly swollen by the late
heavy rains, we both mounted our new horse, but by
the time he got us fairly into the stream, he fell
down, and gave us both an immersion, and I thought
would have drowned, if we had not helped him
up. We then led him by the rein, and waded out,
and proceeded on our way, rejoicing " that it was as
well with us as it was."
Arriving at Brother Campbell's at nightfall, we
immediately sent out an appointment for preaching
that night, and got in all the neighborhood, consist
ing of three families and six travelers, and had a good
meeting.
After preaching we went and spent the night with
Asa Finley and family. They treated us with great
kindness, and gave us an early breakfast of chickens
and eggs, reputed to be a favorite dish with the
preachers ; the first and only place where I received
such fare in California for nearly two years. The
mountain scenery of that day's travel was beautiful,
and grand beyond description. Now a grove of red
wood trees of immense size, and now a vast field of
wild oats, cut in every direction with the trails of
deer and grizzly bears.
Crossing the foot-hills we passed a large herd
of sheep, guarded by a shepherd's dog, who alone
had the care of the flock. He kept between us and
his sheep, and gave us to understand, by his growl-
124 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
ing, that we must keep a respectful distance, and not
meddle with him or his charge.
Those dogs are very common in California, and
guard the sheep committed to their care with cease
less vigilance day and night. But for them the co
yotes, which are very numerous, would make dread
ful havoc among the sheep. I heard of a California
dog that took special care of the weak lambs of his
flock, and was frequently seen to pick up the lagging
lamb, and carry it in his mouth to its mother. Such
illustrious examples in the canine tribe excite feelings
of profound contempt against those lazy dogs that do
nothing but eat, and sleep, and snap at the children.
Ascending to the mountain summit, the view was
enchanting. Looking eastward we saw the splendid
valley of San Jose*, adorned in its beautiful new dress
of green, spotted over with large bands of cattle,
horses, mules, and sheep. Looking westward, over
mountain peaks, foot-hills, and valleys, a distance of
twelve or fifteen miles, there lay the great Pacific,
spread out in silent grandeur as far as our ken could
scan the horizon, and six thousand miles beyond.
Night overtook us in the mountains ; and, having no
moonlight, we had no small difficulty in finding our
way out.
At Santa Cruz I found a class of about twenty
members, among whom were four local preachers.
One of the preachers was a young man of consider-
MISSIONARY LIFE. 125
able talent, and was employed at a salary of two
thousand dollars a year to teach the village school ;
and, at the request of the society, had taken the
relation of temporary pastor and preacher until they
could be supplied by a regular missionary. The
society got along very prosperously till a short time
before my visit, when a dispute arose between two
of the most prominent members about a town lot.
Party strife was now at the flood, and the little
heritage of the Lord, it was feared, was about to be
swept away. The Sunday before an altercation
arose in the class-meeting, in which a number of
members left the house, saying they did not wish to
be considered members any longer. The elected
preacher in charge tendered his resignation, the
meeting was broken up in confusion, and many pious
souls went home weeping, and " thought that all wras
lost, and they never should again have any more
good meetings." The arrival of a missionary just at
that juncture was regarded as opportunely providen
tial. We went to work immediately, as per Disci
pline, and had the case arbitrated, and although
the breach was not healed at once, the society was
relieved and reunited, and the way prepared for the
preaching of the Gospel.
On Saturday, at eleven A. M., I preached in the
house of Elihu Anthony from, "Therefore, leaving
the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on
126 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
unto perfection." Preached again at night. Sunday,
at half past nine A. M., we held a love-feast, and a
joyful feast it was. Preached at eleven A. M. in the
school-house, on the Divinity of Christ, to a crowded
house. Several Spanish families were present, and
seemed to be greatly interested. After sermon I ad
ministered the sacraments of baptism and of the
Lord's Supper. About twenty persons partook of the
emblems of " the broken body and shed blood " of
their blessed Lord for the first time in California, and
a majority of them had been in the country ever
since 1847. They had longed for such a privilege in
their new home, and now their tears, and sobs, and
shouts told of the gladness of their hearts.
After preaching that night, two of Brother Ben-
net's daughters presented themselves as seekers of
religion, the first female penitents I had seen in Cali
fornia. I made a plan of preaching appointments
for the local preachers, and left the work in their
hands till I should return in the spring. I was
much pleased with my visit. Santa Cruz is a de
lightful place, situated on the north side of Monterey
Bay, enjoying a pleasant sea-breeze, in the midst of
one of the most fertile spots in the country. The
American portion of the population at that time was
composed principally of families who had settled
there before the gold discovery, and had their chil
dren growing up around them, and hence the place
MISSIONARY LIFE. 12?
was more home-like than any other place I had seen
in the territory. They had also the best school, and
largest Sunday school, in the country. There were
the Anthony, Case, Bennet, and Hecox families,
and others that I took real pleasure in visiting.
On Tuesday, the 29th of January, I retraced
my steps alone over the mountains to San Jose Val
ley. It rained on me the whole day, and for several
hours in the morning the fog wras so dense that I was
in great doubt as to what direction I was steering.
The narrow mountain path was in many places very
steep, slippery, and dangerous. In one such place
my little horse fell down, and finding that he was on
the eve of taking a roll down the mountain, I sprang
off on the upper side, and let him have his roll to
himself. Such a slide wrould probably have killed a
common horse, but the little fellow was very tough,
and like some unpromising young preachers I have
seen, there was a great deal of " out-come " in him,
for I learned he afterward made a fine horse.
I met two Spaniards on the mountain, who asked
me for matches, and wanted me to stop and talk, but
I did not like the looks of the fellows much, and
made no tarrying. By the time I got through the
mountains night overtook me, and that part of the
valley being a vast sea of water and mud, I lost my
way. In trying to find Brother Finley's place, I
came to an Indian hut, and had a great fight with
128 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
half a dozen dogs. I waked up the Indians, but
they could not understand my language, nor I theirs.
Finally, at a late hour, I reached the "Mission of
Santa Clara," now a flourishing town, and the seat of
our university. I put up at an old adobe house,
bearing the name of Eeynolds' Hotel, and was con
ducted to the bar-room, where a jolly set of gam
blers were engaged in card-playing. After getting
myself warmed, and refreshed by a pretty good sup
per, the gamblers having finished their games for the
night, I engaged them in conversation about Califor
nia life, and sobered them down a little by a descrip
tion of the condition of sick adventurers in the San
Francisco hospitals. None of them knew me, but
they treated me with respect, as most Californians
will always treat any man who behaves himself, and
attends to his own business. Finally one said :
" Well, boys, let's go to bed."
" Agreed," responded another.
Said I: "Gentlemen, if you've no objections, I
propose that we have a word of prayer together be
fore we retire."
They looked at each other and at me a moment,
in evident surprise, when the bar-keeper, who was
standing behind his bar, waiting an opportunity to
sell to each fellow a retiring " nip " for twenty-five
cents per head, said :
"I suppose, sir, there's no objection."
MISSIONARY LIFE. 129
" Thank you, sir," said I, and added : " And now
let us all kneel down, as we used to do with the old
folks at home, and ask the Lord for his blessing."
I believe that every gambler of them kneeled
down, as humbly as children, and I had a blessed
season in praying for them, and for their mothers
and sisters, whom they might or might not ever
again see on mortal shores ; but that the wandering
adventurers in California, with their mothers and sis
ters at home, might all give their hearts to God, be
lieve in Jesus, and be prepared for a happy greeting
on the other shore, and a home in heaven.
They took no more nips that night, but slipped off
to bed, mute as mice. I afterward met one of them in
San Jose*, and he took off his hat by the time he got
within a rod of me. I said nothing to them on the
" %
subject of gambling. The next day I exchanged my
little red horse for one that could carry me through
the mud without falling down, at the hazard of his
own neck and mine, and gave thirty dollars to boot.
The next night I preached again at Mr. Young's
in San Jose, had a good audience and profitable
meeting.
On Thursday morning I started for San Francisco,
distance fifty miles, through mud and water, a great
part of the way, up to my horse's knees. I passed
Whisman's before noon, the only public house on the
road, or private one either, except two or three
130 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
" Spanish ranches." I knew not where I was to
spend the night, but determined to go as far as I
could, and to stop wherever my horse gave out.
Never having traveled that route, I went several
miles out of my way; but met a Spaniard who
kindly put me on my course.
About nine o'clock at night I reached Saix Fran-
ciskito Creek, which was booming and overspreading
its banks. It made such a roaring and crashing that
I tried in vain to get my horse into it, and the dark
ness was so dense that I could not tell where I was
to land if he had gone in. Turning back I saw a
light not far distant, and, approaching, found it to
be a hunter's camp, occupied by three men, two of
whom were very drunk. They granted me permis
sion to lodge with them, that is, to warm by their
fire, and sleep on the ground in a blanket they
loaned me.
I staked my horse out to grass; for though the
valley was flooded, it was covered with new grass,
about eight inches high, and returning to the fire,
the drunker man of the two met me, and said, "I
want to have a word with you," and, staggering
round behind the tent, he took my arm, and said,
" Stranger, you mustn't mind anything that man
there may say to you. He's a clever feller, but he's
pretty drunk to-night. Stranger, you mustn't mind
him."
MISSIONARY LIFE. 131
After I seated myself by the fire the three men
told their experience. The details were too horrible
to be repeated. "When they got through they wanted
me to tell mine : so I gave them a little of my ex
perience.
As I proceeded they stared at me, and finally one
of them said, " You're a preacher, ain't you ?"
" Yes," I replied ; " I pass for one."
"O, good Lord, didn't ye catch us?" said they,
with sundry apologies for their vulgar talk in the
presence of a preacher. "We didn't dream that
there was a preacher in the country."
After that they gave me extra attention, and I left
them, after an early breakfast, feeling that I owed
them a debt of gratitude, and homeward I went,
expecting to find Mrs. Taylor quite recruited in
health by the opportune aid of good Sister Mer
chant.
132 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
CHAPTEK Y.
MISSIONARY LIFE CONTINUED.
ON my return from Santa Cruz I learned that
Sister Merchant, instead of being servant in the
family, had assumed to be mistress, and had all
hands, with a neighboring family added, to wait on
her. The day after I left, by some means, several
more screws got loose about her; indeed, she became
crazy, and refused to do anything ; said that " the
Lord's children are kings and priests," and that she
" was one of them sure," and that it did not become
kings and priests to be doing housework. She also
refused to leave; said that " the house was the Lord's,
and that she was the Lord's, and had a right to stay
there as long as she pleased ; was astonished that Mrs.
Taylor should have the audacity to speak to her about
leaving the house of her heavenly Father ; she knew
Brother Taylor wouldn't do such a thing ; that Brother
Taylor was more sanctified than Sister Taylor, and
that he would settle the question of right between
them as soon as he got home, that he would."
She took possession of an upper room, which had
MISSION ABY LITE. 133
just been rented for fifty dollars per month, and
refused to give it up to the person who had rented
it, or to anybody else, and there remained day and
night, demanding her meals regularly, and all other
needful attention, and kept Mrs. Taylor and the chil
dren awake a good share of every night with her
songs and prayers. Having no home nor friends,
Mrs. Taylor would not have her turned out of doors,
but patiently did her bidding. It was some time
after my return before we could get her comfort
able quarters elsewhere. In the mean time she
righted up, so as to look out for herself. So much
for our first experience with servants in Cali
fornia.
At that time we had no asylum for the insane in
California, and yet such was the constant overstretch
ing of mind and muscle, that a great many persons
became deranged, and their condition was indeed de
plorable. Some such were sent to the hospitals, some
to the " Prison Brig," and some were confined in
private outhouses, with about as much care as a wrild
animal would command. I remember one in the hos
pital who thought he was in prison and was suffering,
and verbally detailing all the horrors of false impris
onment, dragged away from his family, and impris
oned for life, without ever letting him know with
what offense he was charged. He wept and be
wailed his desolate condition, nobody to plead his
134 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
cause, and no hope of ever seeing his wife and chil
dren again."
"When I would assure him that he was not in
prison, but being unwell he was placed in that house,
which the city had kindlj provided for sick stran
gers, for medical treatment, and that he would soon
be well, and could then go and see his family, " O, is
that it ! O, I'm so glad ! I'm so glad !" he would
rejoice a minute, and then slide back into his hope
less prison.
Another I used to see in the hospital, said he was
Daniel Webster's private secretary. He was always
cheerful, arid polite as a French dancing-master.
He was constantly receiving company. "Good
morning, Commodore Perry. I'm very happy to see
you so unexpectedly. Walk in, walk in, commodore.
Give me your cap, and be seated. I'll call Mr.
Webster. I know he'll be delighted to see you. He
was speaking of you only this morning at the break
fast table. I was just reading, commodore, as you
came to the door, one of your dispatches from the
seat of war. That was a dreadful fight you had with
the Philistines ! The American navy never had such
a contest before, and never before achieved so glori
ous a victory ! All glory to the American navy ! all
honor to Commodore Perry ! Let the stars and
stripes float forever ! I say."
Those two poor fellows were both harmless, and
MISSION AEY LIFE. 135
occupied places in large wards filled with sick
men.
But I used to see a man who was considered dan
gerous. He was tightly laced in a strait-jacket,
and bound down to the ground floor of a basement
room in the hospital, dark, damp, cold, and cheer
less as Hades.
Poor fellow, how I pitied him in my very soul !
A Captain B. was taken to a hospital near where
I lived, and was confined in a stable. lie com
plained of very bad treatment, and at all hours we
could hear his ravings. He tore off his own clothes,
and must have suffered from cold. Mrs. Aringtou
living near, getting permission of the doctor to visit
the captain, and give him his meals occasionally,
took him in hand, and treated him kindly ; he ceased
his ravings, and spent much of his time in lauding
the dear woman who became his friend when he had
none. He subsequently recovered.
In January, 1852, a state Lunatic Asylum was
commenced in the city of Stockton, which has since
received annual appropriations by the State Legis
lature for improvements, and for the cure of the
insane.
The appropriations for the year 1854 amounted to
one hundred and fifty-three thousand dollars. Eighty
thousand of that amount was for the erection of a
main building, which is thus described in the "An-
136 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
nual Reports of tlie Officers of the Insane Asylum of
the State of California for the year 1854."
" The main building, just erected and finished, is a
brick structure, seventy feet square, three stories
high. The first story is fifteen feet in the clear, con
tains eight rooms and two halls, fourteen feet wide.
The second story is twelve feet in the clear, contains
sixteen rooms, with halls same as in the first story.
The third story is eleven feet in the clear, contains
eighteen rooms, with halls same as in the lower
stories. There is a ventilator in every room, flues
in all the rooms in the first story, and in all the prin
cipal rooms in the second and third stories. The
height of the top of the spire from the ground is one
hundred and nine feet, and height of top of pediment
from the ground is sixty-one feet."
Table IY of said report, " shows the number of
admissions, recoveries, discharges, deaths, and the
number remaining in the hospital at the close of
each year since the organization of the institution,"
up to the close of 1854 :
1858.
1858.
1854.
TOTAL.
Admissions
124
222
305
651
Kecoveries
52
110
150
312
Deaths
10
12
21
43
Discharges
Remaining
52
62
110
103
150
134
312
299
A German gardener came to me, saying " that he
had hired himself for a year, at a hundred dollars per
MISSIONARY LIFE. 137
month, to a Scotch gardener at the mission," and
begged me, as a favor, to draw up an article of
agreement for him, which, as a matter of accommoda
tion, I did. Then, after getting it signed, he begged
me, with the Scotchman's consent, to take care of it
for him, so I locked it up in my private trunk.
During my absence at Santa Cruz our little babe
was taken very ill, and Mrs. Taylor, having no one to
send for the doctor, went to the door, hoping to see
some one pass whom she might send for a physician.
Just as she got to the door she met the German
gardener, accompanied by another, who demanded
of her the said article of agreement. " It is with Mr.
Taylor's papers," said she, "locked up in his trunk,
and he has the key in his pocket, so you can't get it
till he returns."
" We must have it," said they, " and if you don't
give it up peaceably, we'll take it by force."
The sick babe was crying in the kitchen, the crazy
woman was singing and shouting up stairs, and there
were two savage-looking men contending against one
sick woman. Mrs. Taylor replied : "I told you before
that the paper was in that trunk, and I can't get it.
If it is your mind to break open the trunk, you do it
at your own risk," and with that she left them,
and went to her babe. They then broke open my
trunk by knocking the bottom out of it, and after
rummaging through all my papers, letters, memoran-
138 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
da, etc., found their paper and left. So Mrs. Taylor
had a fine opportunity for the development and
exercise of her patience during my absence. The
trunk breakers afterward learned that they had laid
themselves liable to prosecution, and soon after 1
returned the gardener came to apologize, and oifer
to pay for the trunk. Colonel Kevins happened to be
at my house when he came in. I told the fellow
that I would not accept pay for the trunk; that to
come in my absence, and frighten my sick family,
and break open my trunk in that manner, was an
offense not to be wiped out by paying the price of a
trunk, and, continued I, here is Colonel Nevins, an
old practitioner at the bar, I'll turn you over to him,
and let him put you through as you deserve. The
colonel heard the statement of the case and said
to him : " My dear fellow, you have got yourself into
a bad fix; you are guilty of a state prison offense;
the evidence is all clear ; a very plain case, and
we'll have you in the chain-gang in less than thirty-
six hours."
The old fellow dropped on his knees, and weeping
like a whipped child, begged us to kill him ; said he
had " never been arrested for any offense in his life,
had always tried to support a good character, and
now in his old days to be put into the chain-gang
was worse than death." So we had compassion on
him, and after farther admonition dismissed the case.
MISSION AKY LIFE. 139
On going through the hospital, on my return, I
was shocked to see what sad havoc death had made
among the poor fellows with whom I had sympa
thized and prayed the day before I left the city.
Having added a horse to the number of my family
cares, I had occasion to take some new lessons
in California prices. Bought a sack of barley, one
hundred and fifty pounds, for fifteen dollars. Bought
a hundred pounds of hay, miserable stuff too, for
fifteen dollars, and carried it all home on my horse
at one load. But having promised to preach occa
sionally at San Jose" and Santa Cruz, and take the
pastoral oversight of them, I found it cheaper to keep
a horse, even at those rates, than to pay the enor
mous fare of public conveyances.
February 10th, 1850. Brother Owen and I, assist
ed by a few brethren, dug the foundation, and com
menced the erection of a small book-room, adjoining
our church on Powell-street. Carpenters' wages were
so enormously high, twelve dollars per day, that we
did most of the work with our own hands. Brother
Owen, after his appointment to the missionary work
in California, spent some time in collecting funds
and books, and shipped for California about two
thousand dollars' worth of books. They arrived per
ship Arkansas, and on January 16th, 1850, I got
them ashore, paying for lighterage five dollars per
ton — fifteen dollars. They were discharged from the
9
140 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
lighter on the sand beach, foot of California street,
whence I had to heave the boxes fifty yards, to get
them where they could be loaded on a dray. Paid
forty dollars to have them hauled to my house on
Jackson-street, where they remained unopened till
February 16th, when we had them hauled to our new
book-room. This was the nucleus of "The Book
Concern of the Pacific ;" and in the midst of our toil
in establishing it, we contemplated with a good deal
of satisfaction its future greatness and usefulness.
As I was resident in the city, it devolved on me
to attend to the books, which I did at the expense
of a great deal of time and toil, in connection with
the multiplied duties of the pastorate. It was so
expensive hauling, that I generally packed on my
shoulder the boxes and packages we sent out to
order from the book-room to the boat, more than
half a mile ; but I thought nothing of time and labor,
if we could thereby establish a good book depository,
and supply the coast with a sound religious litera
ture; for next to the preaching of a pure Gospel,
we considered that most important for the redemp
tion of the country from error and sin.
While Brother Owen's family still occupied Father
White's shanty in San Francisco, their little daughter,
two years old, took croup, or something similar, and
on February 13th died. It was a beautiful child,
and having carried it over the plains, it had become
MISSIONARY LITE. 141
an early partner in their toils and sufferings, and had
endeared itself to the family to a greater degree, per
haps, than children ordinarily do at that age. To
see the old missionary and his wife join hands, as
when they stood at Hymen's altar, and bow together
over their dying babe, and impress on its fading
cheek the parting kiss, was indeed a scene too
touching for adequate description. The good brother
bowed his head, and received the shock like a man
of God inured to trial ; but Sister Owen, dear woman,
had been so worn down by hardship and toil, and
her nervous system was so shattered, that the light
ning bolt seemed to strike through her soul. The
shock to her was so heavy that she has never fully
recovered from its effects. She is still a sensible,
pious woman, but evidently a wreck, physically, of
what she has been in her days of sunshine and hope.
Brother Treat Clark made her little girl's coffin, and
I, assisted by Brother Hatler, dug the grave; and
there, on the northwest corner of the Powell-street
Church lot, we buried the little jewel of Jesus, the
first member of our mission to leave us ; a hostage
taken by the Master to bind that wayworn family
more firmly to the land of their adoption, and to
commit them more fully to the work of its redemp
tion from sin and error.
Brother Owen built a small one-story house, half a
mile east of the town of San Jose", into which he
142 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
moved his family ; and leaving them in care of his
father-in-law, he on the 2nd of March returned alone
to his charge in Sacramento City. The waters having
assuaged, he had his church brought back to her
moorings, and fulfilled the duties of his charge, in the
absence of his family, till the close of that conference
year.
On the 2nd of March, 1850, while I was at work in
the book-room, Brother Troubody and a good-looking
stranger came in, and I was introduced for the first
time to Rev. William Roberts, our superintendent.
The great pleasure of meeting a fellow-laborer, expe
rienced by those in distant fields, where such meet
ings are like angel visits, can hardly be conceived
by any but the subjects of it. Brother Roberts
put up with us, and occupied our prophet's room.
We felt it a great privilege to enjoy his company,
not only on account of the novelty of it, but especially
because he is a Christian gentleman of high order — •
one of the Lord's noblemen. He preached in our
chapel at eleven A. M. next day, from, " Whosoever
shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of
man also confess before the angels of God." It was a
pointed, practical sermon, which was to me as manna
to the hungry soul. He preached again at night an
excellent sermon on the witness of the Spirit. That
day, at three P. M., I preached, from a pile of lumber
on Mission-street, the funeral sermon of William H.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 143
Stevens, who had died the day before, leaving in his
distant home, "Winnebago County, Illinois, a wife and
six children. Death in California in those days
seemed clothed with extraordinary terrors, without
any of the mitigating circumstances attending the
death-scenes of old settled communities. No kind
sister's hand to wipe the death-sweat from the brow ;
nor affectionate wife to impress on the pallid cheek
the parting kiss, and whisper words of peace in
the ear of the dying; no gathering of the children
around the departing father to receive his last, solemn
charge, catch his last smile and lingering look. A
little boy, for example, was seen crying in the street
of San Francisco early one rainy morning in the
winter of 1849-50, and a man said :
"Little boy, what's the matter with you?"
" Daddy's dead, and I don't know what to do with
him !"
The lad conducted the man into a small tent, and
there lay his dead father all alone. It was said that
he owned a farm in Missouri, and had plenty of
friends at home ; but lingered and died, unknown to
any but his little boy.
The circumstances attending the protracted illness
of Brother Stevens were most distressing; but he
was triumphant over all by the grace of Jesus, and
said when dying, " Tell my wife I die in peace, and
go home to heaven. I expect to meet her and the
144 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
children there." This death-scene is described in
detail in my " Seven Years' Street Preaching in San
Francisco," p. 363.
Brother Roberts spent nearly four weeks in Cali
fornia at that time, two Sabbaths in San Fran
cisco, and the rest of his time in Stockton and Sacra
mento City. He sailed for Oregon on the 29th of
March. On the same day I made my second visit to
San Jos6, accompanied by my family.
We were met on our arrival by our old friend,
Dr. Grove "W. Deal, who was a representative from
Sacramento in the Territorial Legislature, then in
session in San Jose". The doctor filled his seat in the
Legislature during the week, and preached the Gospel
to his fellow-law-makers on the Sabbath.
I shall not attempt to report the good which he
may have accomplished there, except to say that a
bill for the incorporation of Church property was pre
sented, in which it was provided that the trustees
should be elected by the society, and the doctor had
it so amended as to recognize any board of trustees
duly elected or appointed according to the rules or
discipline of the Church they might represent.
I saw an example six years afterward, of the prac
tical importance of that amendment. An effort was
made in a lawsuit to ignore the legal existence of a
Methodist board of trustees. The lawyer on the
other side said :
MISSIONARY LIFE. 145
" This is not a legal board of trustees, because they
never were duly elected by the society."
"True," replied another, "they were not elected
by the society, but they were duly appointed by the
preacher in charge."
" Yes," answered the other, " but, according to the
statute, they must be elected ~by the society"
He had not read the statute lately, if ever, and did
not know that when it was being molded it had
passed through the hands of a Methodist preacher.
He was then requested to read the statute, and he
found, to his disappointment, that it decided against
him the point on which he had hung all his hopes of
success in the suit.
On Saturday the 30th, I accompanied Doctor Deal
to the Assembly Hall, and witnessed the election of
the first district judges in the territory. Next day I
preached at Mr. Young's, and also in the Senate
Chamber. After preaching in the morning we had
a blessed class-meeting. A Frenchman with a
Spanish wife were in class, and upon Brother C.
Campbell's recommendation were admitted into
society on probation. They soon afterward moved
away, and I know not what became of them.
On Monday, April 1, I opened a subscription for
the erection of a Methodist Episcopal Church in San
Jose*. That was election day there for county offi
cers, and hence a day of great excitement in town,
146 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
but more especially because of a celebrated horse
race, which came off that afternoon. An American
by the name of Hedgepeth, and a native Californian
by the name of Pico, ran against each other for
a prize of ten thousand dollars on each side. Such
a stake was in keeping with the times, and such
a scene the highest intellectual entertainment that
could engage the attention of the masses. Hedge
peth took the prize.
I was abroad among the people making interest for
my new church enterprise, but would not turn my
head to see the race, which to many was matter of as
great surprise as my apparent want of interest in the
shark catching on my voyage to California.
One Sunday, in the South Pacific, just after preach
ing, I was seated on deck reading the Bible, when
lo, a cry, " A shark ! a shark !" All hands ran abaft
to see the great man-eater of the deep. Many said
to me as they passed, " Come and see the shark ; he's
a rouser." Several baited hooks were thrown out,
swallowed, and bitten off. At one time they hooked
it, and drew it up to the taffrail, when the line broke,
and down it dropped. Finally they harpooned it,
and, in the midst of universal shouting and hurraing,
it was drawn aboard. It was a huge monster.
Colonel Myers returning from the scene, said to
me, as I sat still reading the word,
" Did you not see the shark ?"
MISSIONARY LIFE. 147
«No, sir," said I.
" Why, not ?" said he, with great surprise.
" I was engaged," replied I, " in reading the word
of the Lord, which to rne is of more importance than
shark killing, especially on the Sabbath ;" and
added : " Colonel, if I were engaged in conference
with a king on important business, and should in the
midst of his conversation, on the occurrence of some
trivial excitement, catching a shark, for example,
jump up and leave him abruptly, I would be treat
ing him with great disrespect, would I not ? I have
just been reading a message from, and holding a con
versation with the GREAT KING, and I think to stop
short and run away to see a fish killed on this his
holy day, would not be treating him with becoming
courtesy."
" True," said he ; "that's consistent ; you're right."
So in the great horse-race excitement I was en
gaged in preparing to build a house for the Lord ;
and I did not wish to give countenance to such en
tertainments.
After spending a couple of days in San Jose* solicit
ing for our new church, and getting on subscription
about two thousand dollars, I returned to San Fran
cisco. My visit to the hospital the day after my
return is thus noted in my journal :
"April 5, 1850.— Visited hospital this P.M.
Eight or ten persons have died during my brief
148 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
absence. C. W. Bradley, from Louisiana, died to
day while I was there. Said he, when dying : 1 1
am ready; I resign all to Jesus. Tell my wife to
meet me in heaven.'
" Poor M., one of the men I rescued from the other
hospital, (see " Seven Years' Street Preaching in San
Francisco," etc., p. 66,) died cursing and swearing in
the bitterest despair.
"D. is an honest-looking pioneer, a man of good
common sense and information ; has been religiously
educated, has a Methodist wife at home, but is sink
ing to the grave without salvation. He says : " It's
so presumptuous, now that Pm dying, to offer myself
to God ; I cannot do it. It is impossible for me to
receive pardon !' "
These are but specimens of a various multitude of
cases. The day after the above was penned I was
called to see Dr. G. He lay in a small shanty on a
sand hill, near what is now the corner of Mont
gomery and Pine streets ; and as his case will illus
trate the condition of hundreds whom I have seen
encounter death on those distant shores, I will give a
brief description of it.
He was an intelligent man, had been favored with
good literary and religious educational advantages,
had a pious wife at home ; but there he was, an iso
lated stranger among strangers, reduced to penury,
far gone with chronic diarrhea, utterly dispirited, no
MISSIONARY LIFE. 149
hope in this life, and worse than all, no hope beyond
the grave. Said he : "I have always known it was
my duty to serve God, and have had a great many
invitations to accept of mercy through Christ ; hut,
though outwardly moral, I have lived a great sinner
against God all my life, and now I'm caught ! I'm
caught at last ! God is about to call me to judgment
without mercy."
I urged him to seek God's favor, and trust in the
merits of Jesus.
" Too late now," said he ; "I have been so pre
sumptuous and wicked there's no hope for me. I
sometimes catch at something that inspires a little
hope, but again lose my hold, and all is darkness.
There appears to be a thick vail between God and
my soul ; a bar that I cannot get over. I feel that
when I leave this world I shall have no home and no
employment ! I wish I never had been born ! For
what purpose have I had an existence ? The world
could have done without me ; I've done no good in
it ! I might have been saved, but I refused ; and
now I must be the personification of everything
that is despicable, and wretched, and mean for
ever !"
I talked, and sung, and prayed, and did everything
I could to inspire a hope in the poor fellow's heart,
in the light of which he might find his way to the
cross of Jesus, but all without effect.
150 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
At another time when I called to see him, for I
saw him frequently, he said :
"I have been trying since you were here to seek
Jesus, but I cannot find him."
When I represented to him the mercy of God in
Christ, he replied :
" God has given me commandments to keep, but I
have broken them all my life. I often felt guilt and
sorrow for my sins, but did the same things again,
and now God has gone from me."
I then gave him the Saviour's illustration of impor
tunity in seeking, and his encouraging command and
promise : " Ask and ye shall receive ; seek and ye
shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
" I fain would ask," replied he ; " but when I try
I talk to vacancy, I find not the ear of God ; I know
not how to seek, and I cannot find the place to
knock."
Alas! thought I, poor Esau; birthright gone, and
no place for repentance. How my soul pitied him.
I then said, " O my dear brother, you must not give
yourself up to despair."
" It has given itself to me," said he ; " it covers my
soul with the pall of death, and overwhelms me in
darkness without hope."
Soon after this interview, when death struck him,
he begged most imploringly : " Help me up ! O do
help me up ! Set me down on the floor."
MISSIONARY LIFE. 151
He was helped out of bed by those present, and
gasped and died before they could get him back.
What madness and folly to postpone the great busi
ness of life, for the accomplishment of which the
Lord does not give us too much time nor strength,
to such an hour, when time and strength have fled.
Wednesday, April 10, found me on my way a
second time to Santa Cruz, to organize a quarterly
conference, and hold a meeting. Before starting
that morning I sold a lot of Methodist books to a
Brother Walker, to take to New South Wales ; also
sold rny horse to W. O. Johnson for one hundred
and fifty-two dollars, reserving two trips on him to
Santa Cruz, thereby securing the end without the
risk and expense of keeping him. Bought him to
save expense ; amount saved, one hundred and sixty
dollars ; sold him to save expense ; cost in the
country one hundred and ten dollars ; brought in the
city one hundred and fifty-two dollars. Johnson
afterward told me he was a "lucky horse" for him;
said after making ten thousand dollars in California,
his livery stable was burned, and everything in it
except "Charley." He had to begin the world
again with nothing but that horse, but started the
same business with him, and in two years regained
all he had lost.
I did better with that horse than 1 did with the
mule on which I traveled a couple of months in the
152 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
mines. Bought the mule for ninety dollars, rode
him about two hundred miles, and fell in with a
" packer," who claimed him, and proved property ;
but in consideration of my having bought him before
in good faith, he sold him to me for fifty dollars.
When I returned from the mountains I put him in
charge of a man who had a "ranch" on Sacramento
River, to have him recruited, and took his receipt.
When I sent to get the mule, the "ranch" was still
there, but the man, mule, saddle, bridle, and all,
" had gone to other diggins," and I have not heard
of them since.
The following scrap from my journal notes an
incident of that trip to Santa Cruz :
"Friday, Apt4l 12, 1850. — On my way to quar
terly meeting in Santa Cruz; now seated at one
P.M. under the shade of an ancient oak, which
stands on the summit of the coast range of mount
ains between San Jos6 Yalley and the Pacific Ocean,
from which both are in view. I am in the midst of
one of nature's grand pasture fields of wild oats and
grass. While my horse is grazing, having taken my
cold lunch alone, I have just had a precious season
of prayer < on the mount.' Jesus often went up into
a mountain to pray. I have prayed on many a
mountain on both the Eastern and Western slopes of
the continent, and have always found the mount a
good place for prayer. Its pure air, its grand im-
MISSIONARY LIFE. 153
press! ve scenery, its altitude, bearing you away
heavenward far above the din and bustle of the
babbling world beneath.
" Jesus had a reason for going up into a mountain
to pray. I now mount my horse and travel on ;
very warm ; have to walk a great deal, because of
the roughness and danger of the way. Half past
four P. M., have just got through the mountain, and
seated myself in the midst of one of nature's most
beautiful flower-gardens to rest.
" The Lord has lavished more beauty on California
than upon any spot I have ever seen. The perfect
transparency of her atmosphere, the salubriousness
of her climate, the sublimity of her mountains, the
invigorating freshness of her ocean breezes, the
beauty of her valleys, and the variety and extent
of her native flower-gardens, carpeting hill and dale
for miles together with all the colors of light, are
quite without a parallel anywhere in * Uncle Sam's '
dominions, if not in the world.
" For a couple of miles back, as I came through a
dense chaperel thicket, I have been on the track of
a grizzly bear. His track, by measurement, was
fourteen inches long and seven wide ; he must have
been a monster. I was on the look-out at every turn
of the path to see him start up before me, and won
dered whether or not he would clear the track.
The path was cut so deeply by the winter torrents,
154 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
and was in many places so narrow, that there was no
chance to wheel and retreat. I, however, felt but
little fear, for I regard old grizzly as one of my
Father's domestics, and can't hurt me without his
consent ; still, if I saw him coming, and had room,
I should be like the fellow I heard of a few days
ago. He got rather close to an old grizzly in this
very mountain, and bruin took after him as fast as
he could run, and the fellow almost killed his mule
getting out of the way ; but he cleared the track,
and saved his mule meat and his own as well."
Organized and held our quarterly conference on
Saturday, April 13th, at four o'clock P. M. Ee-
newed the preaching license of E. Anthony, A. A.
Hecox, H. S. Loveland, and Enos Beaumont ; and at
that meeting licensed Alexander M'Lean to exhort.
He afterward became a very useful young preacher
in California, but feeling it his duty to take a course
at the Biblical Institute in Concord, we very reluc
tantly gave him up, hoping that he would afterward
go into the work in California. He took his course ;
I believe graduated, and is still a preacher, though
not in the itinerant work. I am decidedly in favor
of the thorough preparation of mind and heart for the
work of the Christian ministry; but when a man is
called of God to preach the Gospel, and in the order
of Providence is as actively and efficiently committed
to the work as was Brother M'Lean, I very much
MISSIONARY LIFE. 155
question whether it is his duty to leave the regular
work to go to Concord, Jericho, or anywhere else. 1
have no doubt that Brother M'Lean is useful wher
ever he is, but I think he ought to be wholly devoted
to the ministry. He is a very capable young man.
On my way to the meeting above referred to, I
put up at a public house, where they made no
charge except for my horse, and invited me to stay
with them whenever I could; said they were "al
ways glad to see the preachers." Eeturning, I spent
a night at the same place, and took with me three
travelers, who designed going elsewhere. My host
talked very kindly to me, but charged us all alike,
five dollars and fifty cents each for our night's lodg
ing and breakfast. I could not account for the
change of his conduct toward me, unless, 1st, his
covetousness got the mastery of his "kind feelings
for the preachers;" or, 2d, his wife, who seemed to
be the personification of grasping cupidity, charged
him to charge me.
He was like a Christian an old sailor tells about.
"There is a clothing merchant up in Boston," said
Jack, "who keeps that command in the Scriptures
where it says, 'Thou shalt take the stranger in.' I
was a stranger and he took me in bad on a pea-jacket
I bought of him."
On my return to San Francisco, I learned that
the first missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal
10
156 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Church, South, Dr. Jesse Boring, and Brothers Pol
lock and Winn had arrived. Up to that time, Meth
odism in California had been as true to its native
instincts — devotion of heart to God, and the union
of a common brotherhood, through that favorite
nursery of Christian sympathy, the class-meeting
— as the needle to the pole ; a unit ; no North nor
South ever mentioned. The only question they
ever asked me on their arrival, anywhere from
Maine to Florida was, "Are you a Methodist
preacher?" "Yes, sir, I pass for one." "I
thought so," was generally the reply, followed by
another, " shake hands," and a hearty, mutual con
gratulation on the enjoyment of the blessings and
privileges of our common Methodism on the Pacific
coast. And I really thought by burying all local
prejudices, and by uniting the cool, calculating
heads of the North, and the warm hearts of the
South in one body, and then have that body in
vested with the characteristic energy of California
life, and then have all sanctified to God, we would
raise up on the Pacific coast the greatest people in
the world. I must say, therefore, that I looked with
fearful apprehension upon an effort to make " twain"
of that which, I thought, for the honor and efficiency
of our common Methodism in California, should be
but ONE. I immediately went, however, and called
on the newly arrived brethren of the Church, South.
MISSIONARY LIFE. 157
My feelings and views in regard to them are ex
pressed in my journal as follows :
" Thursday, April 18, 1850. — Learned on my re
turn to-day, that the representation of the Southern
Church had arrived, and in company with Dr. B.
Miller, I called and spent an hour with them. They
avow neutrality on the slavery question ; say they
do not believe that slavery ever will exist in Cali
fornia, but that the Church, South, as a Christian
Church, claim the privilege of sending missionaries
to China, California, or wherever they think they
can do good. I take them to be Christian men,
and true ministers of the Gospel, and as such I shall
treat them till they convince me that I am mistaken.
There is a great work for Christian men and minis
ters to do in California, and if the Lord has sent
these men here to help do it, I pray that he may
open their way for harmonious action with other
Churches, and give them great success in saving-
souls ; if the Lord has not sent them here, I hope
he will send them back where they came from, and
the sooner the better. I shall leave them in his
hands, and not attempt to drive them away. I shall
give them a welcome to my pulpit and to my heart,
as men of God, while they act as such.
Brother Pollock was stationed in Sacramento City,
and was cordially received by Brother Owen, who
not only invited him to his pulpit, but gave him a
158 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILUSTRATED.
list of the names of all his members who had come
from the South. I did not feel like going quite so
far as that. Many of my members were from the
South, and I loved them. They had joined my
Church voluntarily, without a word of persuasion,
and I thought now, if they wish to leave and join the
Church, South, they may report themselves and go as
they came. One or two felt it their duty to go, and
I did not blame them. The greater number thought
it their duty to remain with us, and I thought they
did right to do so.
But I am clearly of the opinion, that however sin
cere and holy the ministers of both parties, one
organization of Methodism in California would ac
complish at least twice the amount of good in the
salvation of sinners, and the redemption of that fair
land, than the two are accomplishing, or can accom
plish. True, we have not spent much time and am
munition in fighting each other, and never expect to ;
but our relative position is such that there are hun
dreds, and probably thousands, who would have
been warm friends of either branch had it been alone,
who will commit themselves to neither, situated as
we are. I will illustrate the truth of this view of the
subject by a specimen case. J. D. Hoppe, a mer
chant in San Jose", member of the convention that
framed the constitution of the state, a friend to
Methodism, had been a Church member in Missouri,
MISSIONARY LIFE. 159
gave me a subscription of one hundred dollars for our
church there, and verbally promised two hundred dol
lars more as we progressed in the work; but afterward,
hearing of the arrival of the Southern representation,
he said to me : " By the organization of two Method
ist Churches in California you are going to have col
lision and strife, and I'll have nothing to do with
either party of you. I'm sorry I promised to help
you with your church. The hundred dollars I sub
scribed I'll pay," handing it to me at the same time ;
" but I'll subscribe no more, and pay no more to
either party of you." I believe he kept his word to
the day of his death. The poor fellow died in San
Francisco about three years after, from burns re-
ceived in the explosion of the steamer " Jenny Lind."
I believe a legion of similar illustrations could be
produced.
The chapel we built in San Jos6 during the sum
mer of 1850 is still in use by a flourishing society and
Sunday school: a good station, giving support to a
preacher and family.
As a bit of personal experience in California, I will
insert a birthday notice from my journal :
" Thursday, May 2, 1850. I am this day twenty-
nine years of age. How astonishing to me that I am
entering my thirtieth year. I feel like a boy. I have
not at all, as yet, realized my aspirations for literary
and spiritual attainment, nor my ideal of manhood.
160 CALIEOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
If I may judge of the future by the past, I shall never
learn much from books. Inestimable treasure lies
locked up in my library, but I do not take time to
count it out and use it ; always intending to do so,
but always attending to other duties, such as visiting
the sick, looking after Book Depository, answering
the ten thousand questions asked by strangers, just
arriving, about California, etc., my time is cut up
into so many fragments that it appears to be lost. I
am spread over so much surface that I cannot con
centrate what I consider effective force at any one
point. O Lord, in whatever else I am disappointed,
let me live in thee, and win souls to Christ ! Twenty-
nine years more, and I will probably be dead ; nay,
alive for evermore."
SOCIAL LIFE. 161
CHAPTER VI.
SOCIAL LIFE IN CAUFOENIA.
SOCIAL life indeed ! Precious little of that article
found or even tolerated in California for years.
California was a vast social Sahara. The element of
social life, to be sure, is inherent in our being, and
has, perhaps, a more prominent and varied manifes
tation in human life, than any other principle essen
tial to humanity. Its most appropriate sphere of
manifestation is in the well ordered family. It gives
vitality and felicity to connubial, paternal, maternal,
and filial relationships. It constitutes the integral
bond which unites the family together, the severance
of which is as the lightning bolt entering a man's soul.
The man or woman in whom this principle is dead
is a misanthrope, and abides in darkness, uncheered
by one ray of light or hope ; loves neither father, nor
mother, nor brother, nor sister, nor son, nor daughter;
a miserable being all alone in the world. The man
who has no appropriate object on which to exercise
his social affections, is a Selkirk, standing on his
lonely island, surrounded by an ocean wa?te, fit
162 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
emblem of the deep, dark void of his own restless soul.
Look, for example, even at Father Adam in Eden.
A bran new creation, all beaming in untarnished
glory, and by the Creator himself pronounced
u good," spread out before him. But among the
teeming millions of animated nature, all moving in
their pristine strength and beauty, there was not
found a helpmeet for poor Adam, though he sought
one diligently. The Lord saw that he was in a bad
state of single wretchedness and said, "It is not
good that the man should be alone : I will make him
a helpmeet for him." When Adam awoke from that
" deep sleep," and set his eyes on an object worthy
his love, the most beautiful creature he ever saw in
his life, part of himself, for himself, and all his own,
loving him, and waiting to be loved by him, his par
adise was complete ; and Father Adam has ten
thousand sons in California to-day, any one of whom
would be most happy to sleep such a sleep as that,
and to have two ribs taken out, if need be, could he
but wake up in possession of a helpmeet. Alas ! poor
fellows, they have often slept a " deep sleep," and
dreamed something about extracted ribs, and waked
but to stare out on their own isolated wretchedness.
The tearful adieus of fathers, and sons, and broth
ers, as they departed for California, told of the deep-
gushing fountains of social sympathy and affection
which swelled their hearts. For weeks afterward
SOCIAL LIFE. 163
they gazed daily, with tearful interest, at the me
mentoes from loved ones, already painfully distant ;
but they had launched out on unexplored seas of
wealth-seeking adventure, and must look ahead.
Many were without moral quadrant, compass, or
chart, but all had the telescope of manifest destiny,
through which they could see in the distance the
auriferous mountains. Dark clouds sometimes inter
cepted their vision, but their edges were so beauti
fully fringed by the sunshine of hope, that they only
added grandeur to the scene. Each one felt as cer
tain of getting there, and of " making his pile," as
did the prophet Balaam, when trotting over to
Mount Peor ; but, poor fellows, how many of them,
like the prophet, were " driven to the wall."
Having reached the land of gold, and the flurry and
surprises of the arrival over, then came the initia
tion of the " green horns," as they were familiarly
called, into the mysteries of California life, which
was a very interesting, and in many cases a very
serious affair. Some meeting friends there, had but
little difficulty ; but many arrived destitute of both
friends and funds. All, however, soon learned that
to succeed in California, every man must be self-
reliant and independent, a brave on his own account.
Home reflections and associations brought painful
contrasts to view, and led to gloomy forebodings,
and must hence be dismissed from their minds.
164 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Those who " put up at the hotel, at thirty dollars per
week," found no soft beds in rosewood, with downy
pillows, but occupied " bunks " made of rough
boards, on the side of the wall, shelving one above
another, as in emigrant ships. I have seen not only
the walls of hotel lofts thus lined with bunks, but
large cribs of them, extending up to the roof of the
house, covering the entire floor, except narrow
passages giving access to them. Sheets were a
superfluity not indulged in ; pillows were of straw ;
mattresses, where they had any, were of the same;
but in many cases the sleeper lay on the board
which held him up off his follow-sleeper beneath. I
tried one night to sleep in one, which, unfortunately
for me, was covered with cross slats, evidently
designed for a mattress ; but the last-mentioned very
important article, in such a case, was not there.
Turning and rolling on these slats, I longed for the
morning. The soft side of a board, compared with
them, would have been a luxury.
To the foregoing sleeping arrangements, if you add
a few coarse gray blankets, you will have an original
California lodging-house furnished. I heard it posi
tively asserted by many, who had been made trem
blingly sensible of the fact, that in some houses a few
pair of blankets supplied a houseful of lodgers. As
the weary fellows "turned in" one after another,
they were comfortably covered till they would fall
CAL1KOKNIA LODUING-KOOM.
SOCIAL LIFE. 167
into a sound sleep, and then the blankets were re
moved to cover a new recruit, and thus they were
passed round for the accommodation of the whole
company. By way of variety, the adventurous lodg
ers in those pioneer hotels were frequently visited
by the third plague of Egypt, accompanied by a
liliputian host of the flea tribe, whose stimulating
influence upon their subjects is represented in the
accompanying cut. Any man who is not proof
against fleas, or who cannot effect a good insurance
on his skin, had better keep away from old Spanish
towns and Indian villages. When I was at Val
paraiso I preached for the Kev. Mr. Trumbull ; spent
an evening in his company, and heard him relate a
little of his experience with fleas. Said he : " When
I first came to this place I feared the fleas would
worry the life out of me. I could neither eat nor
sleep, nor stay awake with any comfort. But after a
few weeks I got used to them, and now I pay no atten
tion to them. The biting of a dozen at once don't
cause me to wince, nor lift my pen from my paper."
Others, not willing to pay much for the mere
name of "boarding at the hotel," formed mess-
companies, pitched their own tent, bought a skillet
and coffee-pot, and kept "bachelor's hall." This
mode of life is familiarly known in California as
"ranching." Their tent or cabin is called the "ranch,"
from "rancho," the Spanish name for a farm. A
168 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
large proportion of the miners still live in this way.
" Ranchers" usually cook by turns; sleep in bunks
furnished with a pair of blankets, and a few old
clothes ; a pair of trowsers rolled up with an old coat,
make a pretty good pillow. " "Wash-day" among the
ranchers comes but seldom, and is never welcome ;
for there are no wives, nor daughters, nor Bridgets
to do the washing. In San Francisco, in 1849-50,
there was but little washing done. Men had not yet
learned how, and to have it done cost from six to nine
dollars per dozen ; so it was generally found cheaper
to give their check-shirts a good wearing, (white was
out of the question,) and then shed them off into the
streets, and put on new ones. I have seen dozens of
shirts lying around in the streets and vacant lots,
which had thus been worn once and never washed.
There were yet other fortune-seekers who, instead of
ranching in companies, went alone. How they lived
I know not ; but they slept each in a home-made cot,
at each end of which was a fork, driven into the
ground, in which lay a ridge-pole, with just enough
of canvas stretched over it to cover the cot. The
cot, tent, and all were not four feet high. There
was one of this kind during the winter of 1849-50
near where I lived on Jackson-street. In the morning
I could see the fellow crawl out of his cot from under
his little tent, sometimes head foremost ; at other times
his feet would first appear. While I have seen large
SOCIAL LIFE. 169
tents carried before the blast, ridge-pole, rigging and
all, this little tent, which looked like a covered grave,
stood the storms of winter without moving a pin.
The various classes thus described are not made up
of the isolated cases, but represent the great mass of
the early denizens of the golden land ; men who wore
check-shirts, and gray or red flannel, instead of coats ;
trowsers, fastened up by a leather-girdle, such as was
worn by John the Baptist, and they were planted
down to their knees into the coarsest boots the market
afforded. These were the men who, but a few
months before, were known among their friends at
home as doctors, lawyers, judges, and mechanics,
clothed in broadcloth and fine linen, each one a
center of social light and life, around which daily
revolved the beautiful and gay, fair daughters, sisters,
and wives. How did these men so soon become
rustics in California? What has become of their
polish and social life ? I'll tell you. A large class
of California adventurers thought about home, and
mourned their absence from loved ones, till gloom
and despair settled down on their souls. Hope died,
energy and effort were paralyzed, and they became
helpless and worthless. Some of this class moved
round like specters a few months, and then managed
to beg, or otherwise secure their passage home to
their friends. Whether social life ever had a sound
revival in them I know not.
170 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
There was one of this class with whom I was ac
quainted, who took a shipment of bonnets to Cali
fornia in 1849. There were very few American
ladies in the country ; the Spanish ladies wore no
bonnets, so my friend P. found no sale for his bon
nets. In vain he peddled them round among the
men ; no one wanted a bonnet. He had some money
also, but knew not what to do with it. Once or
twice a week he came to consult me as to what he
had better do? Said I : " My dear fellow, you must go
to work ; you cannot long bear California expenses
unless you draw upon California resources. More
over, if you continue to mope about the streets you
will take the blues so badly that you'll die ; you must
do something. If you can't open a large store, open
a stand on the sidewalk until you can do better ; if
you can't do that, go to work on the streets, roll a
wheel-barrow at four dollars per day."
" I can't work on the streets," said he ; " I've al
ways been accustomed to merchandising, and can't
do manual labor ; but I must go into business."
"Yery well," said I; "seek an opening to-day, and
go at it,"
Some time after this, as I passed down Commercial-
street, I saw Mr. P. striding diagonally across the
street to meet me. His face seemed much elonga
ted, and I expected to hear a sad tale. Approaching
me he said :
SOCIAL LIFE. 171
"Mr. Taylor, what shall I do?" choking with an
agony of emotion.
" What's the matter now, Mr. P. ?"
" O," said he, " I loaned my money to my mess
mate. He said he wanted it but a few days, till I
got ready to go into business, and now he's got my
money and gone. I shall never see him again !"
"Well, Mr. P.," I replied, "I'm very sorry for
you ; but it's no use to mourn over lost money any
more than over spilled milk. There's Captain Wooley,
whom I know well, who made a thousand dollars, and
one day last week as he was leaving his ship he put
his purse containing his one thousand dollars in gold
dust into his pocket ; but poor fellow, he has no wife
with him to sew up the holes in his pocket, so as he
was descending his ship's ladder his purse, gold and
all, slipped through a hole in his pocket into the bay.
Well, sir, the captain said he never looked back, nor
lost one minute grieving over it. He knew it was
gone, and just went to work with great purpose of
heart to make another thousand. And yesterday as
I walked out on Montgomery-street, a man called me
by name : ' Mr. Taylor, look here ; I made five thou
sand dollars, and had it hid away in my shanty here,
and last night some rascal came and stole every dollar
of it ; so I'm just where I started. But never mind,'
continued he ; < I'll go to work and make five thou
sand more, and will try and put it where the rogues
172 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
can't get hold of it.' And Mr. E., a friend of mine,
who boarded up town, went down one morning to
his auction store, which he had just filled with goods
on his own account, but lo ! the store, goods and all
were gone! While he slept the whole were con
sumed by fire. Did he stop to mourn over his losses?
No, sir ; he got another place, and went into business
before the setting of that day's sun. And here are
hundreds of men who had made a fortune, and had
it all invested in their storehouses and the goods that
filled them, and in a single night the dreadful fires
we have had have laid them all in ashes. Well, sir,
in the midst of smoke and ruins a new store, phoenix
like, springs right up, and is filled with goods by the
time the smoke of their former fortunes has cleared
away. So you see, Mr. P., if you would get along in
California you must pick up courage and go to work,
and stick to it till success crowns your patient toil."
Mr. P. soon afterward returned home, where he
should have stayed in the first place.
Another of this class came often to me to know
" what he must do to be saved " from starvation ?
So I said to him one day :
" Mr. L., a wag was once asked, ' How many dog
days are there ?' His prompt reply was, ' Every dog
has his day.' Now, Mr. L., if you'll go to work, and
be patient, I think you'll have your day in California,
as well as others."
SOCIAL LIFE. 1*73
He afterward succeeded much better, and at
tributed his success mainly to that little piece of
advice. But a great many of this class in their
despondency gave up, and sought comfort in the
intoxicating bowl, and went down to infamy and
death. As I walked over the sand hills back of the
city of San Francisco, I found Simon S. lying under
a scrub oak, in rags, reduced by drunkenness and dis
ease to the verge of the grave. As I exhorted him
to give up strong drink, seek religion, go to work,
and become a man, O how bitterly he wept; but,
poor fellow, energy was gone, hope had fled, nothing
left to stimulate an effort.
H. S., a fine business man, with an interesting
young wife and child in the city of B., was taken
from the gutter by his friends again and again.
They knew him at home and loved him, and greatly
desired to save him, but finally, during one of those
dreadful nights of storm and tempest in San Fran
cisco, in the winter of 1849, he was picked up by the
police, and put into a station-house on the Plaza for
protection from the rain ; and in the morning, when
they went to wake him up, they found him cold in
death. I need not multiply the notices of such cases,
as I have seen them by hundreds by the waysides
and in the hospitals. Their " name is legion."
There was another large class of California adven
turers, who, retaining their social life, and hope, and
11
174 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
energy, tried to substitute objects of social affection
for the wives, sisters, and daughters they could not
see. These substitutes consisted of pet dogs, cats,
etc. A company of men ranching near where I
lived on Jackson-street, had at one time a couple of
grizzly bears, with which they spent their social
hours. A pet coon made a pretty good companion
for some, others preferred a caged wild cat, or Cali
fornia lion. One man, whom I used to see often, had
a large family which accompanied him wherever he
went. His family consisted of a bay horse, two
dogs, two sheep, and two goats. Whenever I met
one of that circle (and they were often seen in the
streets) I saw them all together, and they seemed to
be a very harmonious family indeed. Now these
animals seemed to be very mean substitutes for fami
lies "at home," but, poor fellows, what better could
they do ?
But again, the largest class of wealth seekers in
California seemed to ignore their social nature, and
substitute for it California excitement. The social
element of their souls seemed to be absorbed by
raging thirst for gain, an excitement that burned
with quenchless glow. The stimulants to excitement
may be classed as ordinary and extraordinary.
Among the ordinary were the daily excitements of
business. Enormous prices and wages; "happy
hits and large strikes ;" " big lumps and rich dig-
SOCIAL LIFE. 175
gings found ;" fortunes made and lost ; these consti
tuted the themes of every- day talk, attended by a vast
amount of bluster and patient toil.
The day's work and supper over, and what next ?
"Sit down in that dirty ranch and think about home?
Never ! I'd take the blues in an hour, and be worth
less for a week. Must have some entertainment."
" Where ? At some friend's social fireside." " No
such thing to be found within five thousand miles.
Too far for this evening. Come, boys, let's take a
w^alk down town." They soon come to a drinking
saloon splendidly ornamented and illuminated, and
behind the bar a beautiful-looking woman. They
stop and glance at her a moment, and think of sisters
and fair loves at home. " She's a confounded pretty
girl, ain't she, Bill?" "She is, indeed; let's take a
drink, and we'll get a good look at her." So they
refresh their spirits at the bar. They next come to
a gambling saloon, fitted up like a palace. From a
stage in the rear end of the magnificent saloon, a
band of the sweetest music sends forth its melody on
the gentle stillness of summer's evening. In a front
corner is a bar, where the needful is displayed in all
its deceptive and deadly varieties. From front to
rear the tables are laden with gold, and crowding
hundreds of every nation fill the aisles, both as spec
tators and participators. " One evening sixteen
thousand dollars' worth of gold dust was laid upon a
176 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
faro table as a bet. This was lost by the keeper of
the table, who counted out the money to the winner
without a murmur, and continued his business with a
cheerful countenance, and apparently with as good
spirits as though he had incurred no more than an
ordinary loss. As high as twenty thousand dollars,
it is said, have been risked upon the turn of a card.
Five thousand, three thousand, and one thousand
were repeatedly ventured. The ordinary stakes,
however, were by no means so high as these sums,
from fifty cents to five dollars being the usual
amount ; and thus the common day laborer could lay
his moderate stake as stylishly as a lord." — Annals of
San Francisco, p. 249.
There, too, were beautiful women, dressed in silk
and satin, lending enchantment to the scene, and
enticing the unwary to the game. A little further
on was " the house of the strange woman," magnifi
cent without, beautiful within, furnished with Brus
sels, velvet, silk, and damask. Heavy furniture of
rosewood, and walls hung with beautiful paintings;
and music from pianoforte, melodeon, and harp ; no
house more prominent or beautiful for situation in
the city. The mistress, beautified by all the magic
touches of art, rode fast horses, promenaded the
streets, enticed many by "her much fair speech," who
went " after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the
slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks."
SOCIAL LIFE.
The most of the virtuous women in California in
early days had to look after their children and
attend to housework, not generally being able to
pay one hundred dollars per month for a servant to
help them, and hence could not contribute much to
the social life of the country. Thus virtue plodded
through the streets, bearing burdens, while pros
titutes, lauded and caressed, became the leading
conservators of social life, fanning its waning fires
into ephemeral brightness by a magnificent display
of their presence and deceitful smiles.
To show how the devil of licentiousness had en-
coiled himself under the foundations of society, and
held in his deadly fangs its very vitals, we quote
the following life-scene from the "Annals of San
Francisco :"
" See yonder house. Its curtains are of the purest
white lace, embroidered, and crimson damask. All
the fixtures are in keeping, most expensive, most
voluptuous, most gorgeous ; the favorite ones with
the same class of humanity, whose dress and decora
tions have been made so significant ever since the
name of their city and trade, c Babylon.' It is soiree
night. The 'lady' of the establishment has sent
most polite invitations, got up on the finest and
most beautifully embossed note-paper, to all the
principal gentlemen of the city, including collector
of the port, mayor, aldermen, judges of the county,
178 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
and members of the Legislature. A splendid band
of music is in attendance. Away over the Turkey
or Brussels carpet whirls the politician with some
sparkling beauty, as fair as frail ; and the judge
joins in and enjoys the dance in company with the
beautiful but lost beings whom to-morrow he may
send to the house of correction. Everything is con
ducted with the utmost propriety. Not an unbe
coming word is heard, not an objectionable actior
seen. The girls are on their good behavior, and are
proud once more to move, and act, and appear as
ladies. Did you not know, you would not suspect
that you were in one of those dreadful places so
vividly described by Solomon ; and were it not for
the great proportion of beauty present, you might
suppose yourself in a saloon of upper-tendom.
"But the dance is over; now for the supper-table.
Everything within the bounds of the market and
the skill of the cook and confectioner is before you.
Opposite, and by your side, that which nor cook nor
confectioner's skill have made what they are, cheeks
where the ravages of dissipation have been skillfully
hidden, and eyes with pristine brilliancy undimmed,
or even heightened by the spirit of the recent cham
pagne. And here the illusion fades. The cham
pagne alone is paid for. The soiree has cost the
mistress one thousand dollars; and at the supper,
and during the night, she sells twelve dozen of
SOCIAL LIFE.
179
champaigne at ten dollars a bottle ! This is a
literal fact, not an idea, nor a draft upon the
imagination, decorated with the colors of fancy." —
Pp. 668, 669.
This horrible picture, said to be truthfully drawn
from real life, and from what I have seen outside, I
have no reason to doubt it, tells a sad tale ; but,
thank the Lord, " Babylon has fallen ! has fallen !"
and now above its scattered ruins the walls of the
temple of virtue are towering, clearly defined in the
sunshine of a better day, and already exhibiting
permanence, beauty, and grandeur, and still going
up and hastening on to a glorious consummation.
Men and women of sterling integrity and purity
steadily withstood the desolating tide of licentious
ness that swept over the land, often at the hazard of
life, some falling in the struggle by the assassin's
hand, until gambling was successfully put down by
law throughout the state, and sunk under the odium
of outraged public feeling, a thousand per cent, below
par, and the whole fraternity of the " strange woman"
has shared about the same fate.
Sunday amusements held a very prominent place
among the entertainments of early days in California ;
consisting in horse-racing, bull-baiting, an occasional
fight between a mad bull and a man, and more fre
quently between a bull and a grizzly bear. The
race-tracks, and first grand Sunday resort of San
180 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Franciscans, was at "Mission Doloros," about two
miles from the city. There are now two plank
roads leading to the mission, and omnibuses run
ning every half hour. Several thousands of persons
on a single Sunday sometimes visited it, to witness
one or more of the scenes described. "Russ5 Gar
den," about half way out on the mission road, which
contains a large circular hall for the accommodation
of pleasure-seeking parties, is a great rendezvous for
Sabbath breakers, especially among the Germans.
Bands of music, fiddling, dancing, singing, feasting,
and drinking constitute the principal entertainment
there. The city of Oakland, across the bay, eight
miles distant from San Francisco, became the rival
of "Mission Dolores" in Sunday amusements. One
day, in crossing the bay in the Oakland " steamer
Clinton," I saw a man posting on the side of the
wheelhouse the following bill, in large letters:
" Great bear fight, in front of the American Hotel,
in Oakland, between the red bear Sampson, and a
large Grizzly, on Sunday, January 29, 1854. The
steamer Clinton will make two extra trips for the
accommodation of the public."
" On Sunday ?" inquired one of the uninitiated,
who had recently arrived.
"O yes," replied an intelligent-looking English
man ; " Sunday's a great day ; a great day here in
California."
CITY OF OAKLAND.
SOCIAL LIFE. 183
" Nothing could be done," said the poster, " on a
week-day."
" O no," answered the Englishman, " if I were to
have anything of the sort, 1 would certainly have it
on Sunday ; may just as well go to hell on Sunday
as on any other day ; all going there anyhow. I
look at the thing philosophically."
Another then added : " We are not burdened with
religion here in California."
" The fact is," said the poster, " religion won't pay
here in California."
I consider this, in regard to the whole Sabbath-
breaking fraternity, as a fair specimen of California
ethics.
In connection with bull-baiting, bear-fighting, etc.,
we had, by way of variety, a duel occasionally, in
which an editor or politician was sometimes killed,
as were the bulls and bears, in the presence of the
excited multitude.
184 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
CHAPTER YII.
SOCIAL LIFE CONTINUED.
IN the early history of California cities and towns
no Sabbath was recognized in merchandise and trade ;
and those who observed it at all observed it only as a
holiday, the day for a " grand bust up," or for gun
ning, or a dancing party, or an excursion party, or
some of the varieties before mentioned.
I once called on a Roman Catholic in San Fran
cisco for a subscription for a Methodist church : " O
yes," said he, " I'll give you a hundred dollars ; I'm
a Catholic, but I see the great advantages of churches
in a community like this. I remember when noth
ing could be seen in this city on Sunday but the
bustle of business, and nothing heard but the rattle
of horse-hoofs, and the shouts of those engaged in or
witnessing the race. But since churches have been
erected, and the preaching of the Gospel introduced,
Sabbath is fast becoming a quiet day ; respectable
business houses are closed, and horse-racing has been
driven beyond the limits of the city. I go in for the
multiplication of churches as the best means of im
proving society."
SOCIAL LIFE. 185
The embarcation of Sunday excursion parties, ac
companied by a band of music, drew thousands of
persons to the wharf to hear the music, and witness
their departure. I frequently took advantage of such
occasions, by taking my stand in sight and hearing,
and when the boat's hawsers were cast off, would strike
up a loud song, and draw the returning crowd, and
sound in their ears the tocsin of the coming judg
ments of a sin-avenging God, and present them with
an offer of mercy through the Crucified. The excite
ment of such occasions afforded a fine opportunity
of driving some strong appeals to the sinner's con
science.
On one such occasion, just as I had sung up the
crowd, a dog-fight occurred in the street fronting the
next block, and a large part of my audience ran to
see the fight, so that the programme of that morn
ing's excitants would stand thus : first, the excursion
and music ; second, the songs of the preacher ; third,
the dog-fight; and fourth, another song from the
preacher, which drew the audience back as soon as
the dogs had finished their part. I then said to
them, by way of introduction: "Gentlemen, if 1
could come to you this morning and say, Ho ! all ye
who want to go to heaven, now's your time. A splen
did line of celestial steamers will run, for a few days,
from San Francisco to the port of Glory, a country
every way superior to California, having in it the
186 CALIFOE1STA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
richest gold diggings ever discovered, the very streets
of the great city being paved with gold. In that
country are oceans of lager beer and drinks of every
kind, and all free ; pretty women also, and pleasures
in endless variety, exceeding the dreams of Moham
med as far as the brightness of the meridian sun
exceeds the dim twinkle of the glow-worm! Pro
gramme for the voyage: Embarcation a^nid the
melody of the best band in the world. That music
which so attracted you this morning not to be men
tioned in the comparison. Appropriate entertain
ments for each week day, to be announced daily.
Each Sunday to be celebrated, first, with a grand
feast, closing with a rich profusion of lager beer,
champagne, good old port, whisky punch, brandy-
smashes, Cogniac, hot Tom and Jerry, etc. Second,
a game at cards. Third, a grand ball in the upper
saloon. Fourth, a dog-fight on the upper deck.
Fifth, a theatrical performance in the evening,
closing with a magnificent farce. O my friends and
fellow-citizens, if I could truthfully publish such an
advertisement as that, I think about two sermons on
the Plaza would suffice to convert the whole city,
except some of those croakers who are always talk
ing about death, hell, and judgment, and we would
all quit this lower world of trouble, and take the
steamer for heaven on her next trip."
By that time I could bid defiance to all the dogs
SOCIAL LIFE.
187
in town. I had the crowd, and, perhaps, never gave
a set of men a more faithful warning in my life. It
turned out to be a very solemn and tearful meeting.
The first steamboat built in California was called
the " Sagamore." On the 29th of October, 1850,
the admission of California as a state into the
Union, was celebrated by grand processions of
various public bodies, and the people generally,
Americans, French, Italians, Chinese, etc., with
the best of music and the thunder of heavy
ordnance, and the fizzing and popping of fire-crack
ers, barrels of which were burned by the China
men. When all assembled on the Plaza, an oration
was delivered by Judge Bennett, of the Supreme
Court. One of the incidents of that day was the
explosion of this first California built steamer, the
Sagamore. Just after leaving the wharf for Stock
ton, with a load of merry souls who had been par
ticipating in the common joy, her boiler burst and
broke to fragments all her top works from stem to
stern. It was believed that between thirty and forty
persons were killed. I witnessed that tragedy, and
tried to minister to the dying. Its details were hor
rible. I saw a man named Johnson, from Illinois,
where he had a wife and two children, brought ashore
with one leg torn off at the calf. He thought he
would recover, but died in fifteen minutes. He had
a brother-in-law who died as he was being carried
188 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUST11ATED.
into the house where the other was dying. Another
died as they brought him ashore. I saw a weeping
Spanish woman, holding on her lap a man whose
head had been split open, and his brains lay scat
tered on the wharf. Many more, badly wounded
and burned, were taken to the hospital. (See Seven
Years' Street-Preaching, etc., p. 90.)
One poor fellow, with a broken leg, implored them
not to take him to a hospital, saying, " For mercy
sake, don't take me to a hospital, or I shall die. Take
me to a good hotel, and employ a good physician to
attend on me. I've got plenty of money, and will
pay for everything that is done for me."
Philip Groves, the shouting Methodist, was aboard
in the midst of the explosion, and as he crawled up
from under the broken timbers, he shouted, " Halle
luiah ! I am ready ! Glory be to God, I'm all right !"
On examination he found that he was not hurt ; but
his hat, containing some valuable papers, was gone.
By and by a man came to him in the crowd, and said :
" Is this your hat, sir ?"
" Yes, sir."
His papers were all safe, as he left them. He
never knew how his hat got ashore, unless it was
blown on the wharf by the explosion.
A Swedish sailor said to me the next day : " When
the Sagamore was launched and fitted up, the cap
tain invited everybody who wanted to break the
SOCIAL LIFE. 189
Sabbath to come and take a Sunday trip in her.
Her first run was for a Sunday excursion ; God was
displeased, and now we see what it has come to."
The wreck was re-fitted, and called the " The Boston."
For a time she was used principally as a Sunday
excursion boat. On one occasion they moored her
near our Bethel Ship. Mrs. Taylor happened to be
on deck when they were "making fast" to our
ship, and said to the captain, " I wish you would not
tie that Sabbath-breaker to our Bethel. I am afraid
of her. I am daily expecting to see her explode, or
take fire and burn up." Not long after she took fire
across the bay, near Oakland, where her keel still
lies embedded in the mud. A great many mishaps
attended those Sunday excursions.
"Spanish fandangoes" (a rude native dance) were
very common in the early days of California. Fancy
dress balls and masquerades soon came in vogue, and
then followed the establishment of theaters, and an
ever-changing variety of entertainments for the ex
cited masses. In the mines, to this day, there are
itinerant theatricals, minstrels, circuses, performers in
legerdemain, dog and monkey shows, etc., constantly
traveling to and fro, entertaining the miners at a dol
lar per head. I had a good deal of competition with
these during a preaching tour I made through the
mines in 1855. At Springfield they had too much
music for me, and left me but a small audience to
190 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
preacli to. At Shaw's Flat they had to wait till I had
done preaching before they could get the crowd ; sa
also at Smith's Flat they waited quietly till I dismissed
my audience, and then tuned up. I heard many say,
after preaching at the last-named place, " I'll save my
dollar to-night sure."
I am no apologist for the moral degeneracy and
ruin of thousands in California ; but, in the light of
the foregoing facts, it is easy to see how insidiously
the foe insnared them. It is not at all remarkable
that many fell. Among the excitements extraor
dinary may be named grand political gatherings and
celebrations, a sweeping fire occasionally, vigilance
committees, and the mass-meetings called together
under the administration of Judge Lynch.
Some idea of such exciting occasions may be
gathered from the accompanying cut, which repre
sents a scene enacted at the City Hall in San Fran
cisco, February 22, 1851. On the nineteenth of that
month the store of C. J. Jansen & Co. was entered
about eight o'clock P. M. by two men, who said they
wanted to buy blankets. As Mr. Jansen, who was
in the store alone, turned to get the articles, he was
knocked senseless to the floor with a " slung shot."
The premises were robbed of two thousand dollars,
and the rogues fled. Two men, Windred and Bur-
due, were next day arrested on suspicion and lodged
in jail under the City Hall. By the twenty-first
CITY HALL ON F £ B B U A R V 22, t«.M.
SOCIAL LIFE. 193
Jansen had so far recovered as to be able to give tes
timony, and, with but a shade of doubt, identified the
two men under arrest as the robbers of the store.
The frequent occurrence of such outrages, and the
general belief that there was a large organized band
of robbers and murderers confederated throughout the
state, led to a popular outburst of vengeance, and a
demand for the prisoners bj a crowd of eight
thousand persons. At the request of Windred's wife,
I with great difficulty pressed my way through the
excited mass, and visited the prisoners. Above the
din and commotion of the multitude the shouts
resounded from every direction, "Have them out!
hang them !" " The courts are sure to let them go !"
uHang them now!" I spent some time with the
prisoners, as they were expecting every minute to be
dragged out and hung.
After a few hours, on certain assurances from lead
ing city authorities that the prisoners should be
promptly tried and justly dealt with, the crowd dis
persed.
Windred afterward broke jail and ran away. Bur-
due was convicted, and sent to Marysville to be tried
for the murder of Mr. Moore, sheriff of Auburn, and
was there convicted and sentenced to be hung ; but
pending this sentence the San Francisco Vigilance
Committee arrested the real murderer and robber for
whom Burdue, from exact personal appearance, had
12
194 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
been mistaken ; so Burdue was afterward released,
and the guilty rnan hung.
I was walking down Pacific wharf one Saturday
afternoon, in company with Rev. S. D. Simonds, when
we saw aboard the clipper ship " Challenge," which
had just come into port, a vast crowd of men. We
supposed that they had come to see the splendid ship,
and I remarked : " Brother Simonds, the deck of that
ship will be a good place for me to preach to-morrow.
If hundreds come to see her in the week, there will
be thousands on Sunday, and I'll have an opportunity
of preaching the Gospel to them."
" Good," said he ; " we'll go aboard and get per
mission of the captain."
So we went aboard, and hunted from cabin to fore
castle and back again, but could find no captain.
We soon learned that all the rest were hunting the
captain too.
" Why, what's the matter here ?" said I.
" Matter enough," replied one ; " Captain W. has
killed several of his crew ; and if you'll look into the
forecastle you'll see such a battered up set of men
as yon never saw before."
" We're after the captain," responded one and an
other. " We'll hang him to the yard-arm !"
The object of our search being so different from
that of the crowd, we suddenly left.
It was said that the captain had an octagon shaped
SOCIAL LIFE. 195
stick, about four feet long, which he called his *' per
suader," and his persuasions were so earnest that
several men died under the force of them. He, how
ever, evaded the search of the exasperated crowd,
concealed himself till the people were all drawn off
by some other extraordinary excitement, and then
came forward, stood his trial in court, and was ac
quitted.
Another class of extraordinary excitements grew
out of the wonderful gold discoveries that were con
tinually being made, such as " Gold Lake," " Gold
Bluffs," " Australian Gold Fields," "Kern Kiver
Diggings," etc. The papers were filled with the
wonderful tidings, ships were chartered, caravans
formed, men by thousands would leave their business
of whatever kind, and away to make their pile at
once, without any further delay.
The following account of the " Gold Bluff" excite
ment we extract from the " Annals of San Fran
cisco :"
"January, 1851. — San Francisco has been startled
' from its propriety ' by news from the celebrated
' Gold Bluffs,' and during the greater part of this
month has dreamed unutterable things of black sand,
and gray sand, and cargoes of gold. A band of
pioneers and prospecters had recently proceeded in
the ' Chesapeake ' steamer northward to the Klamath
River, near which, on the sea-shore, they fancied they
196 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
had found the richest and most extraordinary gold
field that had ever been known. The sands of the
sea, for a broad space several miles in length, beneath
cliffs some hundreds of feet high, appeared to be
literally composed in one half at least of the pure
metal. Millions of diggers for ages to come could
not exhaust that grand deposit. Already a few
miners had collected about the spot ; but these were
so amazed and lost in the midst of the surrounding
treasure that they knew not what to do. ~No man
could carry more than seventy-five or a hundred
pounds weight upon his back for any great distance ;
and with that quantity of pure gold it was ridiculous,
so it was, to be content when numberless tons lay
about. A brilliant reporter for the Alta California
says : ' The gold is mixed with black sand, in propor
tions of from ten cents to ten dollars the pound. At
times when the surf is high the gold is not easily dis
covered ; but in the spring of the year, after a suc
cession of calms, the entire beach is covered with
bright and yellow gold. Mr. Collins, the secretary
of the Pacific Mining Company, measured a patch
of gold and sand, and estimates it will yield to each
member of the company the snug little sum of $43,-
000,000, (say forty-three millions of dollars,) and the
estimate is formed upon a calculation that the sand
holds out to be one tenth as rich as observation war
rants them in supposing.'
SOCIAL LIFE. 197
" No digging even was required, since one had
only to stoop a little, and raise as much as he wished
of the stuff — half gold, half sand — from the surface
of the beach. Back the adventurers hastened to San
Francisco, where they had long been impatiently
expected, and the glorious news ran like wild-fire
among the people.
" General John Wilson and Mr. John A. Collins,
both of whom had been among the number of discov
erers, frankly testified to the truth of these wonderful
statements. The beach, they said, for a great dis
tance, was literally strewed with pure gold. It was
found in the greatest quantity in a certain kind of
1 black sand,' although the 'gray sand,' which was
rather more abundant, contained likewise a large
proportion of the same black-colored stuff, with its
special share of gold. ' Mr. Collins,' says the poetic
reporter, * saw a man who had accumulated fifty
thousand pounds, or fifty tons, he did not recollect
which, of the richest kind of black sand.
"Such intelligence astounded the community. In
a few days eight vessels were announced as about to
sail for this extraordinary region. The magic phrase
4 Gold Bluffs ! Gold Bluffs !' everywhere startled the
most apathetic, and aroused him as with a galvanic
shock. ' Gold Bluffs !' filled the columns of news
papers among the shipping advertisements ; they
covered, on huge posters, the blank walls of houses
198 CALIIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
at the corners of the streets; they were in every
man's mouth. A company was formed, called the
4 Pacific Mining Company,' the shares of which in
stantly rose to a handsome premium. There seemed
no doubt of their incalculable gains, since they
showed numerous samples of the wondrous 'black
sand,' where the golden particles lay and shone
mildly as stars in the milky way innumerable. The
company had already, by the greatest good fortune,
secured a considerable number of miners' claims,
embracing indeed the entire beach beneath the
1 bluffs,' so that all was clear for immediate operations.
"The first damper to the hot blast that raged
through the town, and from whence it spread and
fired up distant countries, until the arrival of the
next mail, was intelligence from the earliest miners,
that they found it very difficult to separate first the
black sand from the gray, and next the gold itself
from the black sand, the particles of the precious
metal being so remarkably fine. A little later it was
found that the innumerable " patches " of black sand
began most unaccountably to disappear. Heavy seas
came and swept them right away; and though it
was hoped that heavier seas might soon bring them
back again, the people got tired waiting for that
event, "and hastily fled from the place, ashamed of
their hopes and credulity. Much serious loss was
suffered by the ' Gold Bluffs ' piece of business.
SOCIAL LITE. 199
" The unfortunate ' Pacific Mining Company ' had
bought the Chesapeake, at a cost, for boat and repairs,
of twenty thousand dollars' had run her up the coast
several trips at the loss of as many thousand more ;
and afterward, when she had been injured in a storm,
were glad to sell her for about two thousand dollars.
" There was considerable gold at the Bluffs, but it
turned out in the end to cost more trouble to gather
than it was worth. Hence the place was abandoned,
except by a few still hopeful individuals, after a few
months' trial."— Pp. 311-314.
Dr. II. , a friend of mine, a very tall man from
Missouri, was carried off by the "Gold Bluff" fever.
When nearly ready to sail, he said to me: "Mr.
Taylor, they tell me that I can easily make there
eleven hundred dollars per day ; but you know I'm
not easily moved by such reports, [moving then
under a high pressure of excited hope at the rate of
six knots per hour.] I shall be satisfied," continued
he, " if I make three hundred dollars per day, and that
I know I can do without any difficulty."
A few months afterward the doctor returned to
San Francisco almost in rags, out of money, and as
lean as a pelican in the wilderness. He told me a
sad story of his adventures, reverses, and sufferings.
He had lost his all, had been shipwrecked, put on
short allowance of water and food, and had nearly
starved to death.
200 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
But though social life, as I have shown by the
facts and illustrations under this head, was in many
quenched by the tide of their reverses and sorrows ;
in many more ignored and superseded by the grasp
ing spirit of the times and the excitements of the
country; and though by others prostituted and
abused, there always have been occasions when the
springs of social life in California suddenly broke
out afresh, like mountain rills after a thunder shower,
and flowed, for a short season, with astonishing
impetuosity.
The monthly, and afterward semi-monthly, arrival
of the mails, with letters from home, generally suf
ficed to open the fountains of social sympathy in the
souls of the multiplied thousands of isolated wan
derers scattered over the land. I took with me
from Baltimore a large package of letters, round
Cape Horn, from friends to their friends in Cali
fornia.
At that time but few persons seemed to realize
that there was anything of California outside of San
Francisco, and my going there was thought to afford
the surest means of a safe conveyance of letters; for
I would, of course, meet all their friends on my
arrival, see them face to face, and deliver the letters
in person. The said friends, however, were scat
tered possibly back through the mountains, and
along the coast, from San Diego to Puget Sound, a
THE POST-OFFICE, COKNER OF PIKE AND CLAY STREETS.
SOCIAL LIFE. 203
distance of more than a thousand miles, many of
whom I never met in seven years.
I met with Joseph Stocker, a good Baltimore
friend of mine, a few months after my arrival, and
handed him a letter from his wife. He had not
seen her for nearly a year, and in all that time had
not received a letter from home. He broke the
long-expected letter, and its effect upon him was
wonderful. It did not jerk him out of his boots,
exactly, but it did more ; contrary to all his plans,
and at a cost of immense sacrifice of business inter
ests, it carried him, boots and all, out of the terri
tory by the next steamer. I doubt if he indulged in
the luxury of one good night's rest until he saw his
wife and children. He soon after returned to Cali
fornia accompanied by his good wife and babes.
The slow single file marches in front of the Post-
office, to the windows of delivery, by long lines of
anxious faces, formed several hours before the open
ing of the office, famished evidence of the social
longings of their hearts. It was interesting to mark
the countenances and conduct of men as they turned
away from the delivery windows at the horrible
announcement, "Nothing for you, sir," or as they
grasped and broke open the letters which brought
them news from home. (California Post-office scenes
are described at length in my " Seven Years' Street
Preaching," etc., p. 282.)
204 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
But what contributed still more to revive and pro
mote social life in California was the semi-monthly
arrival of families. For a couple of years after the
gold discovery but very few of the great mass of
California adventurers had any thought of a perma
nent settlement in that country. They had generally
given themselves about two years in which to make
their " pile," and return home. They therefore
cared nothing about California except for her gold,
and hence felt but little responsibility in regard to
their conduct or character. Indeed very many had
left their character at home, if they had any, as an
old Missouri sinner said he left his religion. Said
he : "I knew I couldn't carry my religion with me
through California, so when I left home in Missouri
I hung my religious cloak on my gate-post until I
should return."
After a couple of years' sojourn in California, very
many began seriously to contemplate a permanent
settlement in that country. They were delighted with
the climate, and became deeply interested in the
development of the immense resources of the country,
agricultural, mineral, and commercial, and in the
growing greatness of their young giant state. Then
such expressions as these became very common : " If I
had my family here I never would leave California ;
but I can't consent to bring my family to such a place.
Everything is inviting, so far as the country, physi-
SOCIAL LITE. 205
cally, is concerned ; but the social and moral condi
tion of the people is so horribly bad, I can't risk the
education of my children in such a place." Very
many found, too, at the end of their two years, that
they had done nearly everything else but " make
their pile," and could not bear the mortification of
returning without it ; but having a fine prospect
ahead, they were led at once to say : " O if I
had rny family here, and could settle down and
take my time at it, I would make my fortune and
live at ease in this most delightful climate in the
world ; but O, the moral and social condition of the
country is horrible !" These and similar considera
tions, together with the fact that some families had
been there from the first, and got along pleasantly,
wife and children healthful and happy, led men by
the hundred to the determination to go or send for
their families, and make a home in California.
As soon as they made up their minds to settle per
manently in the country, their conduct underwent a
great change for the better. They began earnestly to
manifest interest in the establishment of schools and
churches, the regular preaching of the Gospel, the
better observance of the Sabbath, and whatever they
thought would contribute to improve the social con
dition of society. Some, who could leave their
business, went in person for their families ; but many
more, not being able to leave without too great a
206 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
sacrifice of time or money, sent for their families.
Single men, also, from similar considerations, came to
similar conclusions in regard to permanent settle
ment. Some, Laving matrimonial engagements at
home, began to arrange for their consummation with
reference to a home in California. Others determ
ined to live in California at any rate, and trust to
getting a wife to share their fortunes, either from
home or by good fortune from among the arrivals of
fair ones, or from the divorcement or death of some
fellow who had a wife in California. A great many
young men have modestly but seriously requested my
observation to find out, and my mediation to try and
secure far them each a good wife. I once received
a letter from a stranger, whom I had never seen,
living in Bad ego Valley, to this effect:
" DEAK SIB, — You will please pardon the liberty
I take in addressing to you this note, and especially
for introducing the subject it contains.
" I am a young man, twenty-nine years old, five
feet ten inches high, possessing a sound constitution
and good health ; I have a good farm, well stocked,
well improved, and all paid for. I want to make this
my home ; but I am a single man, living alone, but
I find it not good to be alone, and I want a wife. I
thought, as you always take an interest in every good
work, and as you live in that great port of entry, you
SOCIAL LIFE. 207
might be kind enough to recommend to me some
lady who would make me a good wife. I would like
to have one possessing good common sense, good dis
position, and one who understands how to attend to
household duties. I think I could make such a
woman happy, and should not expect her to work
beyond her own inclination. I am not very particular
about beauty, nor whether she has a cent of money.
If you can render me any service in this matter, I
shall be exceedingly obliged, and will, besides, re
munerate you handsomely for your trouble. Please
write me at your earliest convenience.
" Yours respectfully."
His proper signature and address were added, but,
poor fellow, the demand was so great among my in
timate acquaintances, and the supply so limited, that
I could do nothing for him. If it had been practica
ble for a man to have opened an " intelligence office,"
with a good supply of wives instead of servants, he
would have had a run almost equal to the run on the
banks in Wall-street a few months ago.
Mr. S., a friend of mine, in the city of Sonora,
negotiated for a wife, through a very respectable
married lady in that city, to whom he was well and
favorably known. The said lady had a niece in the
East, who she thought would suit, and be well
suited in my friend Mr. S. So it was agreed that
208 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Mr. S. should write the said young lady, proposing
marriage, and the offer of money to pay her passage
to California, and accompany the letter with his
daguerreotype, and that the aunt should also write
giving all necessary information, etc. The young
lady was requested to answer at her earliest con
venience, and, if she acceded to the proposition, to
accompany her acceptance with her daguerreotype.
It seemed that the young lady had been desiring to
go to California to see her aunt for a long time, and
on receiving such news from a far country, made up
her mind to go without delay.
The next mail carried back her consent, and the
likeness of her smiling face, and as soon as the pas
sage-money could be sent from her unseen lover, she
embarked for California. The two lovers were intro
duced to each other, and united together in the holy
bands of matrimony, in the house of the aunt. I
learn that they are getting along very pleasantly,
and are perfectly delighted with each other.
If those humane societies now engaged in sending
Eastern girls to the West as servants, could find
it practicable to enlarge their business so as to send
good girls of unblemished, certified character, to Cal
ifornia for wives, I think it likely that a bachelor's
fund could be raised in California, which would
defray all the extra expense involved in the new
department of the business. The thing would, of
SOCIAL LIFE. 209
course, have to be judiciously managed, and not con
nected with " bloomer fashions ?' and " women's
rights," as was an attempted enterprise of this kind a
few years ago. They should go in care of good fam
ilies, letting the bachelor subscribers, and the said
families, alone know who they are, or where to be
found after their arrival.
I merely throw this out as a suggestion, without
stopping to mature, or to present any definite plan.
It is, however, a subject of great importance. There
are thousands of young men in California who, in
their isolation, are going to ruin, who could be saved,
and elevated to honorable citizenship, by the surplus
of young ladies in the Eastern states who are worthy
of good husbands.
The Mexican war and the gold attractions of Cal
ifornia, have drawn away so many thousands of
young men from the Eastern states, that the over
proportion of young ladies on this side of the con
tinent equals, and perhaps greatly exceeds the over
proportion of young men in California, and their
separation is a great social, moral, and national evil,
which ought, if possible, to be remedied.
There were in California, according to the state
census returns in 1856, in a total aggregate popula-
tion of five hundred and seven thousand and sixty-
seven, but seventy thousand white females all told ;
while there were one hundred and seventy-five
210 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
thousand " men of war," men liable to military duty,
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five.
Now, in view of the foregoing facts, it is not dim-
cult to conceive of the thrilling social effect of a
semi-monthly arrival in San Francisco of wives, fam
ilies, and charming, virtuous Marys. An observer
could always tell a month in advance when a man
was expecting the arrival of his real or intended
wife ; the old slouch hat, check shirt, and coarse
outer garments disappeared, and the gentleman could
be seen on Sunday going to church, newly rigged
from head to foot ; with fine beaver or silk hat, white
linen nice and clean, good broadcloth coat, velvet vest,
patent-leather boots, his long beard shaven or neatly
shorn, he looked like a new man. As the time drew
near many of his hours were spent about the wharves
or on telegraph hill, and every five minutes he was
looking for the signal to announce the coming of the
steamer. If, owing to some breakage or wreck there
was a delay of a week or two, then the suspense was
awful beyond description. I remember how my
good friend Hon. D. O. Shattuck, Judge of the Su
perior Court of San Francisco, who was awaiting the
arrival of his family on the steamer " North Amer
ica," was agonized when he heard of the wreck of
that steamer sixty miles below Acapulco. After
much delay and suffering, however, they arrived in
safety.
Z|^|=is=^- ; j •
ARRIVAL OF A STEAMSHIP.
SOCIAL LIFE. 213
When the signal-flag on telegraph hill, announcing
the arrival of a steamer, was thrown to the breeze,
there was a general rush, and before the arrival gun
was fired the wharf was crowded with such men as
we have described, accompanied by those who sym
pathized socially with them, to the number some
times of from three to five thousand.
The crowds became so great, and so annoying to
passengers by their perfect blockade of the wharf
and streets, that the two steamship companies put
up a gate at the head of each of their wharves to
prevent the assemblage of such masses, and gave
strict orders to the gate-keepers to let none pass in
unless they had families or friends aboard. But even
after that enough had families or wives in anticipa
tion, or particular friends aboard, to crowd the
wharves still. The fact is, men by hundreds as
sembled through social sympathy to witness the
happy greeting of men &nd their wives who had not
seen each other for years, accompanied by dancing
and shouting for joy, embracing, kissing, laughing,
and crying, all to the great amusement of the excited
throng. The disappointment of those whose wives
did not arrive at the time expected was almost like
a thunder shock. I knew a man well who boarded
a steamer expecting to meet his wife, and the disap
pointment threw him into a spell of sickness, from
which he did not recover for nearly a fortnight.
13
214 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
I knew another who came from the mines to meet
his wife, waited several days in San Francisco for the
arrival of the steamer, and then, instead of meeting
his wife, he received a letter from her stating that
she feared to make the voyage, and had indefinitely
postponed it unless he would come home to accom
pany her. The poor man became almost deranged,
now weeping with grief, now enraged, saying : " I'll
never send for her again, and I'll never go home as
long as I live ! If she can get along without me I
can get along without her. I'll go back to the
mines, and live and die a hermit." Then after a
pause he would add : " But there are my children ; I
can't bear to give them up ! I don't know what to
do, upon my soul I can't tell what to do !"
I took the poor fellow to my house, and reasoned
with him on the subject until I succeeded in recon
ciling him somewhat to his disappointment. After
a few months his family arrived, and they are now
happily situated on a good farm in San Jose Valley.
My friend Brown, from Baltimore, had two disap
pointments before his wife arrived. At the time he
expected her he boarded the steamer, and learned
to his sorrrow that she was not aboard. He then
thought the next steamer would bring her without
a doubt, and at most he would have to wait only
two weeks.
Those were long, dreary weeks, but he was a good
SOCIAL LIFE. 215
fellow, and waited patiently ; and when the steamer
got in he was on hand in good time, you may be
sure. Rushing aboard he inquired :
" Is Mrs. Brown aboard ? is Mrs. Brown aboard ?"
" O yes," replied one who seemed to know ; " she
is in her state-room, No. — ."
He hastily took the circuit of the state-rooms to
find the number. Mrs. Brown heard in the mean
time that her beloved husband was aboard, and was
filled with ecstasies. Finally Brown found her state
room, and sprang in to embrace his wife, when O !
shocking to their hopes! they found it was neither
of them ; he was not the man, and she was not the
woman !
Soon after, however, his wife and family arrived,
and they are living happily together, and are exem
plary members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in
California.
I had another Baltimore friend, who was a wid
ower. Having at home two very interesting daugh
ters, and a second wife engaged, he sent for the
three to come together to California. He put on his
extras and went to greet his daughters and intended
bride, but was met by his youngest daughter,
who alone was left to tell the sad tale that the other
two had suddenly sickened and died, and found a
grave in the coral depths of the Pacific. That was a
dark day for poor "Wm. H. Middleton. Another
216 CALIFOE1STIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
friend of mine had his family coming out in that
splendid clipper ship, the " Queen of the Seas."
When she was due, I was told that he prepared a
great feast, and invited about two hundred guests to
celebrate the occasion of his wife's arrival. When
he boarded the ship his little daughter met him, and
pointed him to a box which lay in a boat on the
hurricane deck, securely folded in tarpaulin, and
said to him, " There's mother !" She had been a
corpse for three months.
But notwithstanding the distance and dangers, and
extraordinary difficulties attending emigration to
California, and the numerous deaths and disappoint
ments recorded and not recorded, the yearly caravans
across the plains, and the semi-monthly arrivals in
San Francisco, have sufficed already to dot the great
social Sahara of California with more than ten
thousand oases. By the introduction of good families,
and the socializing and purifying institutions of the
Gospel, living waters have broken " out in the wilder
ness, and streams in the desert."
HOSPITAL EEMTNISCENCES. 21 T
CHAPTER Yin.
HOSPITAL KEMmiSCENCES IN SAN FEANCISCO.
IN the fall of 1849, as I walked down Clay-street,
one day, my eye rested on a sign, in large red letters,
" CITY HOSPITAL." I stopped and gazed at it
till my soul was thrilled with horror. The letters
looked as if they were written with blood, and I said
to myself, Ah ! that's the depot of death, where the
fast adventurers of California, young men in man
hood's strength, stricken down by the hand of
disease, are cast out of the train and left to perish.
There all their bright hopes and visions of future
wealth and weal expire, and are buried forever.
There are husbands, and sons, and brothers, thou
sands of miles from sympathizing kindred and friends,
dying in destitution and despair. Shall I not be a
brother to the sick stranger in California, and tell
him of that heavenly Friend "that sticketh closer
than a brother?" The cross of intruding myself
into strange hospitals, and offering my services to
the promiscuous masses of the sick and dying of all
nations and creeds, was, to my unobtrusive nature,
218 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
very heavy, but I there resolved to take it up, a
decision which I have never regretted. I went
immediately to the said hospital and inquired for the
physician who had it in charge ; introduced myself to
him, and told him the object of my call, to which
he replied: "I can readily appreciate your motives,
but then you must know, sir, that we have very sick
men in every room, who could not bear any noise.
Anything like singing or praying might greatly
excite them and make them worse. I would prefer
that you would not visit the wards unless some par
ticular man wishes to see you."
" Well, doctor," I replied, u I certainly would not
wish to do anything that would be injurious to any
patient, but I have been accustomed to visit the
sick, and think I so understand my business as to
talk, and sing, and pray, or do whatever may seem
appropriate, not only without injury to any one, but
in a manner that will even contribute to the im
provement of their physical condition. By diverting
their minds from the dark realities of their own con
dition and unhappy surroundings, and by interest
ing them in some new associations and themes of
thought, I may impart to their minds vigor and hope,
and mind, and heart, and will may unite with gather
ing strength, and make successful resistance against
disease. Those who are hopelessly diseased cannot
receive much injury from my visits, while I may be
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 219
instrumental in benefiting their departing souls. If
you please, doctor," I continued, "you can go with
me, or send a man to point out the men to whom
you do not wish me to speak, and to see that I do
no injury to any one."
Said the doctor : "I have no time to go with you,
and nobody to send."
Another doctor present then added: "It is not
proper that he should go through the hospital."
At that moment an old man, who had been sitting
in the office listening to our conversation, said :
" Doctor, there are many sick men in the hospital,
who, I know, would be very glad to receive a visit
from this gentleman ; and if you will allow me, sir,
I will conduct him through the rooms."
The doctor replied: "Very well. Take him up
stairs first, and then down to the lower wards."
" Ay, ay, sir," said the o]d tar, as he beckoned
me after him up the stairs. He introduced me to
every patient in the house, and made a greater ado
over my arrival at the hospital than if the alcalde
had visited them. I was first conducted through the
" pay rooms ;" the departments of those who, in whole
or in part, paid for their keeping. Many small rooms
had but from two to four men in them. Others,
larger, had as many as twelve. I spoke to each pa^
tient, inquiring after their condition of health, and
the state of their souls. I then addressed a few words
220 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
of sympathy and religious instruction to all in the
room collectively, sung a few verses in a soft strain,
and prayed in an audible, but subdued tone, adapt
ing the petition, as near as possible, to the wants of
their individual cases as I had learned them ; and so
passed on, performing similar services in each room.
Darius Carter, of Baltimore, who gave me fifty dollars
for my California chapel, also gave me ten dollars'
worth of tracts, which I distributed principally in
the hospital, to the great comfort of many who had
nothing else to read, and nothing to do but read.
The patients at first seemed very inquisitive to know
my object in visiting them, and many at first refused
to take tracts, saying, " I have no money ;" but when
they learned from myself and my earnest old captain,
that my visit was gratuitous, and my tracts the same,
they expressed great surprise and gratitude. Some
of them said that they had never supposed that any
body in California ever thought of doing anything
but for money.
After going through the pay rooms, I was next
conducted across a yard to a separate one-story
building, about thirty by forty feet in size, divided
into two wards, each containing from forty to fifty
sick men. Here the city patients, proper, were con
fined together as closely as possible, and allow room
between their cots for one person to pass. I thought
the up-stair rooms were filthy enough to kill any well
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 221
man, who would there confine himself for a short
period ; but I now saw that, in comparison with the
others, they were entitled to be called choice rooms,
for the privilege of dying in which a man who had
money might well afford to pay high rates. But
these "lower wards" were so offensive to the eye,
and especially to the olfactories, that it was with
great difficulty I could remain long enough to do the
singing, praying, and talking I deemed my duty.
The ordinary comforts, and even the necessaries
of life in California, in those days, were very rare
and costly; and to the patients were things to be
remembered in the experience of the past, only to
add, by contrast, a keener edge to their present sor
rows.
The nurses were generally men, devoid of sym
pathy, careless, rude in their care of the sick, and
exceedingly vulgar and profane. One hundred dol
lars per month was about as low as anything in the
shape of a man could be hired, and hence hospital
nurses were not only the most worthless of men,
but insufficient in number to attend adequately to
their duties.
I remember a poor fellow, by the name of Switzer,
died in one of these wards, who told me that he lay
whole nights suffering, in addition to the pains of
mortal disease, the ragings of thirst, without a drop of
water to wet his lips. A cup of tea was set in the
222 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
evening upon a shelf over his head, but his strength
was gone, and he had no more power to reach it
than a man on a gibbet. He was a Christian, too, a
member of the Congregational Church, and I have
no doubt went from there to heaven. When he got
to that country in which "there is no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying," and looked back to the
place where he left his corruptible body, the con
trast must have filled him with unutterable sur
prise.
The most prevalent and fatal disease in California
at that time was chronic diarrhea and dysentery, a
consumption of the bowels, very similar, in its debili
tating mortal effect upon the constitution, to consump
tion of the lungs. Men afflicted with this disease
have been seen moping about the streets, looking
like the personification of death and despair, for
weeks, till strength, and money, and friends were
gone, and then, as a last resort, they wrere carried to
the hospital, to pass a few miserable weeks more in
one of those filthy wards, where they often died, I
was told by the patients, in the night, without any
one knowing the time of their departure. In the
morning, when the nurses passed round, they found
and reported the dead. A plain coffin was imme
diately brought, for a supply was kept on hand, and
laid beside the cot of the deceased, and he was lifted
from the cot just as he died, laid in the coffin, and
HOSPITAL BEMIKLSCENCES. 223
carried out to the dead cart, the driver of which
was seen daily plodding through the mud to the
graveyard, near North Beach, with from one to three
corpses at a load.
While many lingered on the confines of death for
weeks, I have often seen men enter those horrible
wards with apparently very slight indisposition, and
within a few days wilt down and die. I wondered
that any could survive in such a place for a longer
period. The city was then paying for the care of
those patients five dollars per day, an amount, one
would think, sufficient to furnish a motive, if not to
cure and discharge the patients, at least to prolong
their lives as long as possible ; but I suppose they
made as profitable a speculation out of the multipli
cation of new cases as they could do by protracting
the lives of the old ones ; and hence, no matter how
fast they died, others took their places, who for a
time, perhaps, required less attention.
It turned out that the old man who piloted me
through the hospital on my first visit was an old ship
master, Captain A. Welch. He introduced me that
day to his friend Captain Lock, who died soon after,
having after my visit professed to find peace through
Jesus, and a preparation for heaven. Captain "Welch
told me that seeing his friend neglected, he said to
the doctor: "Captain Lock has had no attention for
forty-eight hours, and is dying from sheer neglect."
224 CALIFOBXEA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
"Well," replied the doctor, "let him die, the
sooner the better. The world can well spare him,
and the community will be relieved when he is gone."
He died that night. Before his death he gave his
clothing to his friend Captain Welch, but the captain
told him he would not touch a thing he had while he
was alive, but as soon as he was gone the nurse
relieved the captain of any trouble with the effects
of the deceased man.
The doctor fell out with Captain "Welch, because
he spoke his mind so freely, and threatened to turn
him out of the hospital.
" Yes," said Captain Welch, in reply, " I saw Cap
tain pay you for the ten days he had been in
here eighty-six dollars, and after his death you col
lected the same bill from his friends. JSTow, sir, if
you want me to show you up, just turn me out."
The doctor then took his cot from him, and the
captain said : " Doctor, where shall I sleep, sir ?"
"Sleep there on the floor," replied the doctor,
pointing to a corner where they laid out the dead,
when it was too late in the evening, or the weather
too bad, to remove them directly from their cot of
death to the dead cart.
The captain said he lay there one night with four
corpses around him, and could hardly get his breath.
I have heard patients complain of very foul play
toward those who had money, but sick men are apt
HOSPITAL KEMIKESCENCES. 225
to be sensitive and suspicions, especially in such
a place as that, and I always hoped those things
were not so bad as represented ; but from what I saw
I had my fears for the safety of any man's life who
had money, in the hospital at the time of which I
speak.
The hospital changed hands several times, how
ever, within a few months, and one or two good phy
sicians, and I believe honest and kind-hearted men,
had for a short time the care of the sick, and were
really working a reform in the old hospital, before
the whole care of the city patients was, in 1850, trans
ferred to Doctor Peter Smith, in a new hospital, near
the corner of Clay and Powell streets, where the sick
had better accommodations, and more attention
shown them.
Old Captain Welch was in the old hospital over a
year, and would doubtless have died if he had been
confined to his room, but he was out where he could
get pure air most of his time. He had a very sore
leg, and the doctor told him that it was mortifying
and would have to be amputated. Finally several
doctors came into his room with a table, and a lot of
surgical instrument, and said to him, " Come, cap
tain, we want to lash you to this table, and take off
that bad leg of yours."
" I won't have my leg taken off," replied the cap
tain.
226 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
"If you don't," said the doctor, "you are a dead
man, or as good as dead, for that leg is mortified now."
" Well," said the captain, " if I die I'll die with
both legs on me."
The doctor became enraged, and said to him : " If
you don't obey orders immediately, and submit to the
rules of this house, you shall leave it this day."
"Yery well," rejoined the captain. "And that
very day," said the captain to me since, "I took up
my sore leg and walked oif with it, and have not
been back since." He is the same Captain Welch
who since received a medal from some New- York
citizens for his success in rescuing a number of the
poor survivors of the wrecked " steamer San Fran
cisco," and is now employed as colporteur and Bible
distributer in the city of New- York.
John Purseglove, a good Methodist brother, who
had just arrived in the city, sick and destitute, was
sent to the hospital ; but finding that he was sinking
daily, and would soon die if he remained there, he
prayed to the Lord to give him strength to get off his
bed and walk away. He said he believed the Lord
would help him, and according to his faith so was his
effort, for he immediately crawled out, and without
saying a word to doctor, or nurse, or anybody, he
scrambled away by the aid of a couple of sticks,
determined, if he must die, to die somewhere else.
Some of the brethren soon found him, and fitted up a
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 22T
room for him and supplied his wants till he recovered.
He believes to this day, that by leaving the hospital
he slipped right out of the clutches of death.
Sick and destitute members of our Church have
generally been cared for by the brethren in San
Francisco. I have no recollection of more than three
Methodists who died in the San Francisco hospital,
and they were sick on their arrival, and had never
been reported to the Church. Indeed there were
but very few hospital patients connected with any
Church. I met with many backsliders there who
had once been Church members, but were not then.
An extraordinary degree of liberality has always
been shown by the masses of Californians toward the
sick and destitute. But few men, it is true, would
give their time even to carry a dying man out of the
streets, but would freely give their money on applica
tion. Then again, the Order of Free and Accepted
Masons, who organized a Lodge in San Francisco as
early as October, 1849, and now number five or six
thousand members in the state, have done a vast
amount of work, and expended several hundred
thousand dollars for the relief of the suffering and
destitute in California. The Indepedent Order of
Odd Fellows, who organized about the same time,
have fully measured up with the Masons, according
to my best information, in numbers, charitable works,
and liberality.
228 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
Other charitable institutions have each done their
part, and the Churches of various denominations have
displayed great liberality, not only for the relief of
their own destitute members, but in response to the
calls of the suffering of every variety. A vast
amount of money has been raised to pay the home
ward passage of destitute maimed and sick men. I
remember a case, for illustration, of a man by the
name of Peter Deal, who in the summer of 1851
came one night to a love-feast in our church on
Powell-street, and told a good story about his re
ligious enjoyments, his afflictions, destitution, desire
to go home to his family, etc. None of us had
ever seen him before ; but at the close of the meet
ing the brethren raised for him one hundred and
forty dollars to pay his passage home. Similar calls
for passage-money were made, as regularly as the
sailing of the steamers, on the Churches generally,
and the people at large, and wherever a hope of suc
cess presented itself. Many hundred dollars have
been contributed by the crowds attending preaching
on the Plaza to assist poor fellows who, by sickness
or otherwise, were disabled, to get back to their
families and friends.
To transcribe in detail the hospital scenes which
have been daguerreotyped on the tablets of my mem
ory during a period of seven years in San Francisco,
would make a volume so large, and so revolting to
HOSPITAL KEMLNISCENCES. 229
humanity in its delineations, that the reader would
sicken and turn away from it before he could read
half through it. Our purpose, therefore, in these remi
niscences, is simply to present a few specimen scenes,
and individual cases of hope and of despair occurring
at different periods in the history of that city. As a
general description, I would remark, the City Hospi
tal of San Francisco, from 1849 up to the present, has
always had a great variety of patients, ranging in
number from one hundred to three hundred and fifty.
The largest number of the patients were Americans,
and foreigners who spoke the English language. The
next in number were Frenchmen, and then Germans,
and Spaniards, and Scandinavians, Russians, Portu
guese, Italians, Turks, Islanders of various tribes,
Chinamen, etc.
My usual mode of visitation was to speak person
ally to as many as possible ; inquire into their condi
tion and wants, bodily, spiritual, and otherwise;
act as amanuensis for the sick and dying, recording
last messages to friends at home; get letters out of
the post-office, and convey them to the sick; carry
messages to friends in the city; and in very early
days, when waiters were scarce, I often ministered to
the bodily wants of the sick, dressed blisters,
turned or raised patients, fixed their beds, gave
them drink, and sometimes comforted the con
valescing with a little of Mrs. Taylor's good home-
U
230 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
made bread, and gave them such advice as I thought
might be useful to them.
In the winter of 1849-50, we had a great many
scurvy patients in the hospital ; many of whom had
been on long voyages, living for months on what the
sailors call " old junk " and ship-bread ; all the fresh
meat they got was found in a live state in their
bread. Poor fellows ! they had come to a bad
market, where potatoes were fifty cents per pound,
and scarcely any other vegetables to be had at
any price. There they were, confined in the bad
atmosphere of the hospital, swallowing drugs and
dry provisions, sinking down and dying daily. One
day, as I entered a large ward filled with such
patients, I looked at them and thought a minute on
their wretched condition, and then I said, " My
friends, what are you doing here ? You are cooped
up in this miserable place, without fresh air, without
sunshine, without exercise, and without vegetable
diet. You will die, the last man of you, if you don't
get out of this place. You had better be turned out
in San Jose Valley to graze, like old Nebuchadnez
zar, than pine away and die in such a place as this.
Now," said I, " I'll tell you what will cure you. On
those sand-hills back of the city there grows a kind
of wild lettuce," which I described to them. " If you
will go out and gather that lettuce and use it, with a
little vinegar, it will cure you. I knew the open air,
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 231
and sunshine, and exercise would help them, and
believed the prescribed salad the best thing for
them within their reach. It was an interesting sight
to see those poor fellows under the inspiration of
a new hope, crawling out and scrambling up the
hills in search of my prescribed cure. The next
week, when I called again to see them, I was really
surprised to see how much their condition had im
proved. When I entered, some of the poor fellows
wept, and others laughed, and after a grateful
greeting they said: "You've saved our lives, sir;
your prescription has done us more good than all the
medicines and all the doctors in the city could do
for us." The most of them soon afterward recovered
and left the hospital. As a spiritual adviser in my
hospital visits, I generally addressed them personally,
and tried to lead them to seek an acquaintance with
the sinner's Friend. I then usually sung in each ward,
in a soft tone, one, two, or three appropriate pieces,
and prayed for them collectively and personally,
so far as I had been able to learn their personal con
dition and wants, and frequently, either before or
after prayer, made some remarks in the form of an
exhortation to be reconciled to God. I usually
introduced religious exercises by saying : " If my
brethren in affliction have no objections, we will sing
a few verses and have a word of prayer together."
I do not remember of ever hearing an objection
232 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
made but once, and that was by a poor man who
became very much ashamed of his conduct before
the exercises were over. Many, to be sure, seemed
careless and indifferent, read novels while I prayed,
and never seemed to profit by what I said, but a
large majority seemed to appreciate very highly
my efforts for their good. Even foreigners, who
could not understand my language, seemed greatly
interested, especially in my singing.
I was once traveling in San Jose Valley, and
passing in sight of a company of Spaniards, who had
stopped at a spring of water to refresh themselves,
one of them came running to me, and grasped my
hand as though I had been a brother he had not
seen for a dozen years. For a moment I could not
tell how to interpret his conduct ; but I immediately
recognized him as a man I had often seen in the
hospital. He had been a great sufferer, and I had
many times bent over him and inquired after his
welfare, and it seemed that my attentions to him, or
the singing, or something else, had made a deep im
pression on him.
I think, however, from all I could see and learn,
that not more than an average of one hospital
patient in thirty was a professor of experimental
religion. About an average of one in every five
showed signs of penitence ; but of those not more
than one in twenty made a profession of religion.
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 233
In my book on "Street Preaching" there is a
chapter of " triumphant death scenes," in which is
given a number of cases of hopeful conversion to
God among hospital patients ; but those, alas ! are
but the exceptions, and not the rule. The rule is
for men to die as they have lived.
The question is often asked in regard to a de
parted friend : " How did he die ? Was he pre
pared ?" A more appropriate inquiry is : " How
did he live ?" " Tell me how he lived, and I'll tell
you how he died," unless he is one of the rare excep
tions referred to. I, however, never feel like giving
a sinner up this side the gates of perdition, for we
are not saved by works of righteousness which we
have done, but by the mercy of God through the
merits of Jesus ; and if a man, even in the grasp of
death, can fully submit to the will of God, and " be
lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ," I know of nothing
to prevent his being saved from sin, and washed in
the blood of sprinkling, and thus prepared for
heaven.
But the difficulty which I have seen illus
trated in the experience of thousands of sick ancl
dying men, consists in the fact that the principles
and habits which have been developed and matured
by a life of rebellion against God, are, according to
the constitutional laws of mind, still strong and con
trolling in death, and the stronger, frequently, be-
234 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
cause of the enfeebled, distracted condition of the
soul amid the wreck of its tabernacle.
The dreadful habit of procrastination, for example,
is about as common and all-conquering in sickness
and death as it is in life and health.
I remember, after pleading with a dying man to
give his heart to God, he said : " O, it's not worth
while now; I'm getting better; I'll soon be well.
I feel no pain at all, and nothing ails me now but
want of breath. I can't breathe easy ; but I'll soon
be relieved of that."
Poor man ! I could then hear distinctly the death-
rattle in his throat, and yet he would not believe
that there was any danger. In a few hours he was a
corpse.
I remember a fine-looking young man from New-
York, whom I tried hard to lead to Christ ; and after
talking, and singing, and praying with him, and
doing everything I could to induce him to try and
seek Jesus, I said to him : " Now, my dear brother,
when will you begin to pray, and try to give your
heart to God?"
"Well," said he, "I think I will make a com
mencement in about three weeks."
The poor fellow, though he would not believe it,
was dying then, and I knew it, and hence continued
to press the subject of a preparation on his attention
till he drew the cover over his head to escape my
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 235
appeals. A few hours afterward he was covered
with the pall of death.
Young C. M. was accidentally shot, and immedi
ately sent for me in such haste that the messenger
stopped me in the midst of a street sermon, and en
treated me to go at once arid try to relieve the mind
of the dying man. When I presented myself beside
his bloody bed, he said :
" Father Taylor, I'm glad you've come ; but O !
I'm in such pain I can't talk, nor pray, nor do any
thing now. Please call again in an hour ; perhaps
by that time I'll feel better."
I prayed with him, and called again at the ap
pointed time, and found him gasping in his last
struggle.
Without noting a hundred such cases, as I might,
which have come under my own observation, I will,
for the further illustration of the subject, add but one
other case.
He was a very genteel-looking man, who died with
cholera in the hospital during the fall of 1850. He
was in a collapsed state when I found him. I said
to him : " My dear brother, have you made your
peace with God ?"
" No, sir," answered he ; "I can't say that I have."
" Do you not pray to the Lord sometimes to have
mercy on you, and for the sake of Jesus to pardon
vour sins ?"
236 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
" Have yon never prayed ?"
" No, sir, never in my life."
" You believe in the Divine reality of religion, and
that we may have our sins all forgiven, and enjoy
the conscious evidence of pardon, do you not ?"
" Yes, sir, I believe in religion, and think it a very
good thing to have."
He was calm and composed ; his dreadful parox
ysms had passed, and the fatal work was done. He
was then poised on an eddying wave of death's dark
tide, which on its next swell would whirl him out of
the bounds of time into the breakers of eternal seas
beyond. I saw his peril, and pulled with all my
might to bring the life-boat of mercy by his side. I
got very near to him, and entreated him to try to
get into it and save his soul, but I could not prevail
on him to make an effort; under the force of the
ruling habit of his life he coolly said :
" Well, I'll think about it."
How true the sentiment of an English bard :
" Procrastination is the thief of time ;
Year after year it steals till all is gone,
And to the mercy of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal state."
But horrible to relate, that last moment on which
hangs the soul's eternal destiny, is hooked by the
same insidious rogue, and then and forever all is lost !
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 237
Next to the horrible habit of procrastination, and
closely allied with it, is that of indifference and
moral insensibility, that dreadful state thus described
by St. Paul : " Having the understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness
of their heart : who being past feeling have given
themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all un-
cleanness with greediness." This state of mind in
some cases manifests itself in reckless self-deception,
and in many more in the blindest stupidity and indif
ference in regard to the future of their souls.
A dying sailor, originally from Buffalo, N. Y.,
whom I exhorted to be reconciled to God, said :
" I don't think it makes much difference whether
I have religion or not. I have always lived a straight
forward, upright life, like other sailors, and I can't
see what more is required."
A very good-looking young man said, in reply to
my entreaties on behalf of his soul :
" I have not prayed, and don't intend to. God
Almighty can do with me what he likes ; I shan't
concern myself about it."
He then turned over, shut his eyes to sleep, and
woke up in eternity.
"When to this soul-destroying habit of indifference
there is added a surfeit of drugs and opiates, there is
but little more power of thought, feeling, prayer, or
238 CALIEOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
repentance than might be expected of the dead. I
have seen hundreds of poor fellows sleeping away
their lives without any apparent consciousness of
danger ; and I have heard men call this peaceful
dying !
J. M'. died of cholera at a boarding-house kept by
a Scotchman, who sent for me to attend his funeral,
and said to me on the occasion, in regard to the
deceased : " He was a good man. One of the best
men I ever had in my house, and he died in great
peace. He did not speak a word for twenty-four
hours before his death. Ah ! he was a good man ; to
be sure, he would take a glass of grog now and then,
and was fond of a game of cards, and sometimes
would swear a little, but he didn't mean any harm by
that, for he was a good man, and died in great peace."
A great many, however, of those whom I have
seen in the death struggle, shook off the apathy I
have described, and awoke to the keenest sensibili
ties of conscience, and the most dreadful forebodings
of future ill ; but a large majority of such wrapped
themselves closely in the mantle of despair, so dark
and impervious that no ray of hope could reach
their souls. A dying young man from Michigan
said, in an agony of emotion : " O that I had sought
religion when I might ! but I put it off, and now I'm
so weak in body and mind it is no use to try. Too
late now !"
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 239
A gentleman from Boston, very near his end, said
to me:
"My friends are nearly all religious ; I have passed
through a great many revivals, and have had a great
many pressing invitations and opportunities to seek
religion. How easy it would then have been for me
to have given my heart to God. What a fool I was.
Why did I not embrace religion and be a happy
man? I should then have been ready for this hour.
But alas! I did not when I might, and now I
cannot."
A poor young man said as he was n earing the
grave : " When I try to pray my mind becomes de
ranged, and I'm so weak I cannot pray."
When Mr. R., from Baltimore, was seized with
cholera, he sent for me to come and see him, and
said to me, when I entered his room : " My wife,
who is a Christian woman, has been writing me ever
since I came here to make your acquaintance, and
attend your church, but I have not done it ; and what
is worse, I am about to leave the world without a
preparation to meet God." He was as noble-looking
a man as could be found in a thousand, and knowing
many of his friends in Baltimore I felt the greatest
possible sympathy for him ; my soul loved him, and I
determined, if possible, to contest the devil's claim
on him to the last moment of his life. But he was
in despair, and after laboring with him about an
240 CALIFOKTTCA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
hour, in urging him to try to fix his mind on some
precious promise of the Bible, he said :
" There is but one passage in the Bible that I can
call to mind, and that haunts me. I can think
of nothing else, for it exactly suits my case : ' He that
being often reproved hardeneth his heart, shall sud
denly be destroyed, and that without remedy.' Mr.
Taylor," continued he, " it's no use to talk to me, or
to try to do anything further ; I am that man, and my
doom is fixed."
The next day when I entered his room he said to
a couple of young men present, "Go out, boys; I
want to talk to Mr. Taylor." Then he said : " I have
no hope, my doom is fixed; but, for the warning
of others, I want to tell you something that occurred
a few months ago. I was then in health, and doing
a good business, and a man said to me, ' Dick, how
\vould you like to have a clerkship?' and I replied,
£I wouldn't have a clerkship under Jesus Christ.'
Now, sir, that is the way I treated Christ when I
thought I did not need him; and now when I'm
dying, and can do no better for this life, it's presump
tion to offer myself to him. It is no use ; he won't
have me."
Nothing that I could say seemed to have any
effect toward changing his mind. A few hours after
ward, when he felt the icy grasp of death upon his
heart, he cried, " Boys, help me out of this place !"
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 241
" O no, Dick, you're too sick ; we cannot help
you up."
" O do help me up ; I can't lie here."
" O Dick, don't exert yourself so : you'll hasten
your death."
" Boys," said the poor fellow, " if you don't help
me up, I'll cry Murder !" and with that he cried at
the top of his voice, which was yet strong and
clear, "Murder! murder! murder!" till life's tide
ebbed out, and his voice was hushed in death.
How dreadful the hazard of postponing the business
of life, the great object for which life is given, to the
hour when heart and flesh are failing f
O
The City Hospital has changed hands many times,
and its location has been changed nearly as often as
its resident physicians. It has also changed its name,
bearing for several years past the title of " State Ma
rine Hospital." JSTo permanent improvements for the
comfort of city patients have been made. The city
has always borne the enormous tax of heavy rents
for hospital accommodations, with all other incon
veniences of renters.
There have been several private hospitals in the
city, Dr. Stout's and Dr. Shuler's being the most
largely patronized ; and the French citizens have
built one. that will accommodate perhaps one hun
dred patients, on some kind of a joint stock principle,
by which each subscriber is entitled to its privileges.
242 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
But the only permanent public building of this
kind in the city is the UNITED STATES MARINE HOS
PITAL. It is located on Rincon Point, on an eleva
tion affording a grand view of the city and bay of
San Francisco, the Contra Costa valleys and hills,
and the coast range mountains. The city authorities
conveyed to the United States six fifty vara lots,
each one hundred and thirty-seven and a half feet
square, as a site for the institution, and it was built
by United States authority at a cost of two hundred
and twenty thousand dollars, appropriated from a
fund created by a tax on all American sailors, of
twenty-five cents per month, which shipmasters are
required to deduct from their wrages, and pay at the
custom-house.
In return for this tax every sailor belonging to
American vessels is entitled, in case of illness, to a
certificate from the collector of the port, for admis
sion into the hospital which has been built, and is
furnished and supported by his money, so that he
enters not as a charity patient, but as one of the
owners of the institution. The United States Marine
Hospital in San Francisco will accommodate com
fortably about five hundred patients, and is kept in
the most perfect order; the floors, furniture, and
everything almost as neat and clean as a new dollar.
There is no regular chaplain in this hospital, but I
introduced regular religious services there on Sab-
UNITED STATES MAHINE HOSPITAL.
HOSPITAL REMINISCENCES. 245
bath soon after it was built, which I kept up during
most of my subsequent stay in California ; and which
are still kept up by local preachers, exhorters, and
occasional visits from regular pastors.
My first preaching appointment there is thus noted
in my journal :
"Monday, December 26, 1853.— When at the
United States Marine Hospital last week, I made an
arrangement with Dr. M'Millen, the resident physi
cian, to have preaching there at nine o'clock every
Sunday morning. The doctor was very cordial in his
affirmative response to my proposition, and gave me
choice of any room in the house. The dining-room
being a very popular room with the convalescing
sailors, convenient, easy of access, very clean, and
well provided with seats, I selected that as the
preaching-place, where the bread of life should be
dispensed to hungry souls without money and without
price. I accordingly went up yesterday morning,
and found my chapel, the dining-room, in order, and
at the ringing of the breakfast-bell the congrega
tion assembled. At this time there are but about
seventy patients there, and many of them are unable
to leave their rooms; but we had an audience of
thirty-five men of the sea, who listened with great
attention, and many of them with tears, to a discourse
from: 'O wretched man that I am! who shall de
liver me from the body of this death?' There was
246 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
evidently a gracious influence felt by all on the
occasion, and I am much pleased with the prospect
of good at that appointment, by the Lord's help."
Those who were unable to attend preaching I visited
in their wards, and sung, and prayed, and talked to
them ; but my ward visits were generally during the
week. I had been preaching very frequently in the
City Hospital for several years prior to the opening
of the United States Marine Hospital; but subse
quently, while I continued my visits to the former
through the week, I continued to preach only in the
latter. A carpenter, by the name of J. H. Perry,
employed as one of the hands in the erection of this
magnificent building., embraced religion while at
work up in the fourth story, and joined our Bethel
Society, and became a very consistent Christian. If
my space permitted it I might here record many
incidents, and some hopeful conversions, among sea
men, coming under my observation in connection
with my visits to this noble institution.
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 24?
CHAPTER IX.
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.
WHEN I set sail for California in the spring of
1849, the prevailing idea among the people generally
seemed to be, that California was a small peninsula
on the Pacific coast, a place of but little importance,
except for the gold diggings which had been dis
covered there, which would be worked out in a few
years, and then the country would be abandoned to
the Indians and wolves ; that everybody lived in
San Francisco, and worked in the mines near by.
I carried a large package of letters round Cape Horn,
the writers of them believing that though the con
veyance did not belong to the fast line, it was, never
theless, the most reliable, as I would be certain to
meet all their California friends on my arrival in
San Francisco.
The emigration of 1849, though they found Califor
nia an astonishingly large country, yet arriving there
in the dry season, they regarded the entire territory,
except a few irrigated garden spots, as a vast barren
desert. But few persons, even after a sojourn of two
15
248 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
years there, could believe that California soil would
produce grain or vegetables without irrigation. But
few had faith enough to put the question to a prac
tical test, and it was not until a few hopeful, adven
turous farmers, who were willing to hazard their
money and their reputation for soundness of mind,
had made a fortune out of the products of their
unirrigated fields, that the mass of the people were
gradually led to change their views.
The potato-growing fever then set in, and raged
like the gold mania. Hundreds of thousands of dol
lars were invested in the potato-crop. Fifteen cents
per pound were paid for seed potatoes, and one hun
dred dollars per month paid each man to fence and
prepare the land and attend to the crop. The result
was that the markets were glutted, the price of pota
toes went down to the cost value of the sacks that con
tained them, and hundreds of thousands of tons of the
finest potatoes in the world, dug and gathered into
large cribs, lay and rotted, creating such a nuisance
that it was feared 'that they would breed a pestilence
in some localities. A friend of mine offered a man
his crop if lie would take them away. " O," replied
the man, " I can do better than that ; I can get them
on the same terms nearer -home, and save the freight."
Another friend of mine lost fifty thousand dollars on
a single crop. Some poor fellows paid very dear for
the experience, but it convinced the people that
EXTENT AND BESOUKCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 249
the great California desert was more productive than
any fruitful land they had ever seen. No Californian
now doubts that the agricultural resources of the
country are immense beyond adequate computation,
but I find masses of persons on the Atlantic side
who have very limited views of California, both in
regard to the extent of her domain, and her exhaust-
less resources. Many persons, whose views are based
on a mere glance at statistical exhibits, remind me
of a school-boy in Lexington, Yirginia. He was
regarded as a great proficient in the study of geog
raphy; always " stood head in his class." During
vacation he made a visit to Staunton, a distance of
thirty-five miles, to see his aunt. On his return his
associates hailed him : " Halloo, John ! how did you
like your visit to Staunton ?" " O, I was perfectly
delighted ! I had no idea that the world was so big."
That portion of the little peninsula we used to
trace, in school-boy days, on the map of the Pacific
coast, and spell out its hard name, " Californy," em
braced in the State of California, extends along the
coast from 32° 40' 13" to 41° 44' 41", north latitude,
embracing a coast line, from San Diego to Crescent
City, of about seven hundred miles, with an average
width back to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, of
about two hundred miles.
The total area of the state, including lakes, bays,
and precipitous mountains, is carefully estimated at
250 CALIFOKKEA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
ninty-nine millions, four hundred and sixty-three
thousand, six hundred and eighty acres. To form a
comparative idea of the extent of such a patch of
land, take the states of Maine, Vermont, New-Hamp
shire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
New- York, Pennsylvania, New- Jersey, Delaware,
and Maryland, and spread them all out together on
the broad bosom of California, and they will leave
an uncovered margin of thirteen thousand seven
hundred and seventy-four square miles. This surplus
margin might be divided up into ten such states as
Rhode Island, and still you would have one hundred
and seventy-four square miles left, which you might
appropriate for " Indian reservations."
The amount of land in the State of California,
adapted to the purposes of agriculture is estimated
at forty-one millions, six hundred and twenty-two
thousand, and four hundred acres, exclusive of the
swamp and overflowed lands, estimated at five mil
lions, which, when reclaimed, will produce every
variety of crops. The amount of grazing land is
estimated at thirty millions of acres, making a total
of seventy-six millions, six hundred and twenty-two
thousand acres of land, suitable for agricultural and
stock-raising purposes. The amount of land inclosed
for agricultural purposes is about six hundred and
twenty-eight thousand acres.
The area of gold mining land is variously estima-
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 251
ted at from eleven to fifteen millions of acres ; sup
pose we say in definite numbers twelve millions ;
which, added to the agricultural and grazing portions
just named, would make an aggregate of eighty-eight
millions, six hundred and twenty-two thousand four
hundred acres of productive land in the State of Cali
fornia, leaving ten millions eight hundred and forty-
one thousand two hundred and eighty acres, for the
accommodation of grizzly bears and California lions.
"In the year 1856 there were 578,963 acres in Cal
ifornia cultivated in cereal grain. Wheat, 176,963
acres, yielding 3,979,032 bushels. Barley, 151,671
acres, yielding 4,639,678 bushels. Oats, 37,602 acres,
yielding 1,263,359 bushels. The average yield of
wheat in 1856 was twenty-three bushels per acre,
which, owing to the severe drought of the early part of
the season, was much less than that of previous years.
The ordinary average is about thirty bushels per
acre, taking the crop of the entire state together.
The average yield of barley is thirty bushels per
acre. It frequently yields from fifty to seventy-
five bushels per acre. The average yield of the oat
crop is thirty-three bushels per acre. Crops of this
grain have frequently averaged seventy-five bushels
per acre ; and a crop of thirty-two acres in Alameda
County, which received a premium at the State Agri
cultural fair for 1856, averaged one hundred and
thirty-four bushels to the acre,"
252 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
One peculiarity in California grain growing is, that
two or three crops are generally raised from one sow
ing. After the first crop is harvested, and the field
gleaned by the hogs, it is then closed up, generally
without a replowing, or anything, till the next har
vest-time, when a better crop is sometimes gathered
than the first. In case of severe drought the second
crop is the most reliable, from the fact that it takes
root with the first fall rains before seeding-time com
mences, and comes earlier to the harvest.
The visiting committee of the California Agricul
tural Society, in their report for the year 1856, have
the following notice of a field of barley : " Near
Alviso, Santa Clara County, there is a field of barley,
fifty acres in extent, which has averaged the present
season forty-three bushels to the acre. This is the
fifth crop from a single sowing; it has received no
special care, and may be regarded as a memorable
example of a succession of volunteer crops." Two
crops are almost invariably expected from one sow
ing ; the third is not generally relied on.
" The returns from thirty-four counties of the state
exhibit the crop of Indian corn, of 1856, at 11,020
acres, averaging for the entire crop thirty one bush
els per acre. Rye averages about thirty bushels per
acre. Buckwheat about twenty-five bushels per
acre. Beans average about thirty bushels per acre,
and peas twenty-eight. The number of acres planted
EXTENT AND KE30UKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 253
in potatoes in the year 1856, are sixteen thousand
four hundred and thirty-four, averaging, in Alameda
County, seventy bushels ; Sacramento, one hun
dred ; San Joaquin, two hundred ; Siskiyou, one
hundred ; and Trinity, three hundred bushels per
acre.
" The returns of twenty-two counties exhibit four
teen thousand seven hundred and three acres planted
with vegetables. It is probable that the remaining
counties will increase this amount to about forty-five
thousand acres."
Some rare specimens of vegetables and fruit were
exhibited at the State Agricultural Fair of 1856. I
saw them myself, and have no doubt as to the cor
rectness of the published statements in regard to
them. There were exhibited " two pumpkins from
Sacramento, weighing two hundred and ten, and two
hundred and forty pounds." Those were "some
punkins" were they not?
A beet, grown by Colonel Hall, of Sacramento
City, weighing seventy-three pounds ; a carrot,
weighing ten pounds, measuring one foot and eight
inches in circumference, and three feet and three
inches in length. There were fifty in the same bed of
equal size. The seeds were sown on June 25th, and
the carrots dug September 20th. A tomato, seven
teen inches in circumference ; a squash, weighing
one hundred and forty-one pounds ; an onion, weigh-
254 CALIFOBNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
ing two pounds and fifteen ounces, and measuring
twenty inches in circumference ; a cornstalk, twenty-
one feet and nine inches in height; watermelons,
from near Nevada, twenty-seven gave an aggregate
of five hundred and fifty pounds ; a sweet potato,
from San Jose*, weighing eleven pounds and two
ounces; an Irish potato, from Bodega, weighing
seven and a quarter pounds ; a bunch of potatoes, of
the Oregon red variety, from a single eye, weighing
ten pounds."
I would here remark that in California the best
potatoes are selected for seed, cut up carefully, and
but one eye put in a hill.
"Grapes, several bunches, weighing over four
pounds each ; a citron lemon, sixteen and a half by
eighteen and three quarter inches in circumference,
weighing two pounds and fourteen ounces, from Los
Angeles ; fig-tree, a slip one foot in length, and five
eighths of an inch in thickness, was planted April 1st,
and in the month of September following was eleven
feet and six inches high, and nine and a quarter
inches in circumference at the base, with a corre
sponding growth of branches ; peach-trees, in twenty-
eight months from the planting of the seed, bore
fruit over nine inches in circumference, and weigh
ing from seven to eight and a half ounces; there
were thirty-four of these large peaches on one tree ;
an apple, measuring fifteen and one third inches in
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 255
circumference each way, weighing twenty- three
ounces, grown in the Yamhill Orchard."
Those large apples are called "Gloria Mundi."
Soon after their first appearance in the San Fran
cisco markets I bought one of them for three dollars.
I felt a little conscience-stricken for paying that
much for one apple ; but Mrs. Taylor was in very
delicate health at that time, and a little discouraged,
so I thought that the sight of such a specimen of the
" fruits of the land " would do her more good, and
be cheaper than a doctor's prescription. I believed
we would get at least three dollars' worth of hope
out of it, and then the apple itself would be clear
gain, which would not be, upon the whole, a bad
speculation.
Brother Owen and I were looking at some of those
great apples one day, and the price seemed to take
Owen aback. After expressing his surprise, said he
to the fruit- vender :
" How much will you charge me for the privilege
of smelling one of them ?"
" Nothing at all, sir," replied the fruit man.
" O that is very reasonable, indeed," answered
Owen. " I'll not buy any now, but will take a little
of the odor."
Hay is cut by the hundred thousand tons from the
spontaneous growth of grass, clover, and wild oats,
on the hills and valleys.
256 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
The sales of butter, cheese, and poultry in Sonoma
County alone, during the season of 1856, are esti
mated at five hundred thousand dollars.
The soil of California, as proved by successful
experiment, is well adapted to the production of
cotton, tobacco, sugar-cane, sugar-beet, and mul
berry ; and it is believed that rice will grow as well
on her marsh lands as in China.
California is also destined to become one of the
greatest fruit-growing countries in the world, and
great attention is being given to the cultivation of
the best varieties.
"There are now growing in the orchards of the
state three hundred and twenty thousand five hun
dred apple-trees ; six hundred and nineteen thousand
nine hundred and ninety-three peach-trees ; fifty-
nine thousand one hundred and seventy-one pear-
trees ; twenty -five thousand two hundred and sixty-
four cherry-trees ; two hundred and seventy-one
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five of varieties
not specified; and one million five hundred and
thirty-one thousand two hundred and twenty-four
grape-vines."
There are but few countries so well adapted to
stock raising of every kind as California. The val
leys, and hills, and mountains are covered with grass
and wild oats, and where stock can have free access
to the range they will thrive the whole year without
NEW WORLD MARKET, CORNER OF COMMERCIAL AND LEIDSDORFF STREETS
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 259
being fed. The only period in the year when they
are likely to suffer at all, is about one month, begin
ning with the first fall rains. The grass matures and
dries on the ground, and remains good hay during
the dry season, but is spoiled by the first rains ; then,
until the new grass is up, which is but a few weeks,
the pasturage is not good.
The census returns of 1856 make the following
exhibit of live stock in California :
" One hundred and six thousand nine hundred
and ninety-one horses ; thirty thousand six hundred
and forty-one mules and asses ; six hundred and
eighty-four thousand two hundred and forty-eight
cattle ; two hundred and fifty -three thousand three
hundred and twelve sheep ; four thousand five hun
dred and forty -four goats ; one hundred and eighty-
six thousand five hundred and eighty-five swine ;
two hundred and sixty-six thousand three hundred
and thirty-six poultry."
"Wild game and fowl abound in California; elk,
deer, grizzly bears, etc., wild geese, brants, duck, etc.,
by the hundred million.
Fisheries are becoming a fruitful product of the
California coast. " A company of Portuguese in Mont
erey have gone into the whale fishery along the coast,
and have taken from whales which they have cap
tured since March, 1856, say eight months, sixteen
thousand gallons of oil, which were sold for twelve
thousand dollars."
260 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
"Salmon fisheries are carried on upon the Sacra
mento River for a distance of fifty miles, extending
south from a point ten miles north of Sacramento
City. The season embraces five months, from Feb
ruary to April, and from October to November, in
clusive, of each year. There are about four hundred
men engaged in this business, employing a capital of
seventy-five thousand dollars. The number of sal
mon taken during the season of 1856 was estimated
at four hundred and fifty thousand, nearly four thou
sand per day. The average weight is about fifteen
pounds each, amounting in the aggregate to six mill
ion seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which,
at twelve and a half cents per pound, the average
price of the sales throughout the year, amounts to
eighty-four thousand three hundred and seventy-five
dollars. There are several establishments at Sacra
mento engaged in the salting, smoking, and pack
ing of these fish for home consumption, and to supply
the demand from abroad."
The bays and rivers abound in sturgeon and other
fish in almost endless variety.
The lumber business is carried on extensively.
Timber is not well distributed through the agricultural
regions of the state ; there are millions of acres, not
only in the valleys, but on hills and mountains, with
out a tree or sapling ; one vast meadow with a heavy
growth of grass and wild oats just ready for the
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 261
plow, without even the obstruction of a stone ; hut
the farmer is dependent for fencing and fuel on other
regions not quite so good for agriculture, so that the
"independent farmer" has to make terms with the
independent woodsman of the mountains. There is
an inexhaustible supply of timber in the Sierra Nev
ada and coast range mountains, and much of it the
heaviest timber ever seen since the flood.
" The product of lumber in several counties forms
an important part of their resources. In Tuolumne
County alone the sales are estimated to exceed eight
hundred thousand dollars per annum. The number
of mills in the state is three hundred and seventy-
three, of which one hundred and seventy are pro
pelled by steam, and two hundred and two by water.
Cost of erection estimated at two and a half millions
of dollars. Aggregate capacity is about five hundred
millions of feet per year."
"In addition to the above, there are several mills in
San Francisco and Sacramento employed in the saw
ing and dressjng of lumber. The exports of lumber
for 1854, 1855, 1856, amounted in the aggregate to
one hundred and ninety thousand and twenty-six
dollars."
" The number of grist-mills in the state is one
hundred and thirty-one. The aggregate run of stone
two hundred and seventy. Sixty-seven mills are
propelled by steam, arid fifty-four by water. The
262 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
aggregate capacity per day of the water-mills is
three thousand five hundred and fifty-two barrels;
of the steam, five thousand two hundred and forty.
Estimating the water-mills to be in operation six
months of the year, and the aggregate capacity of
the mills of the state is two million one hundred and
seventy-four thousand nine hundred and sixty barrels
per annum. The capacity of the mills of Sacramento,
San Francisco, San Joaquin, and Santa Clara, is one
million two hundred thousand barrels of flour per
annum ; twice the quantity necessary to supply the
entire population of the state. The cost of the erec
tion of the above mills is estimated at two million
four hundred thousand dollars." There are various
other manufactories in the state.
The San Francisco Sugar Refinery, employing one
hundred and fifty hands.
San Francisco Cordage and Oakum Manufactory,
in successful operation. The buildings connected
with the works are of the most extensive and perma
nent character.
Pioneer Paper-Mill, thirty miles from San Fran
cisco, in Marin County, with a capacity to turn off
fourteen and a half tons per week. The cost of
the establishment, complete, is about ninety-two
thousand dollars."
"There are fourteen iron founderies at present in
operation in the state, several of which are of an
EXTENT AND EESOURCES OF CALIEOENIA. 263
extensive character, and well supplied with all the
appliances necessary for the manufacture of machin
ery of the heaviest description."
There are eighteen Tanneries at present in the
state, employing capital to the amount of ninety-four
thousand dollars.
The amount of capital employed by the different
ferries of the state is estimated at three hundred
thousand dollars. This amount does not include the
cost of the steamers employed on the Sacramento and
San Joaquin Rivers. There are one hundred and
seventeen bridges constructed, the aggregate cost of
which is about five hundred and fifty thousand
dollars."
Ship-building is becoming quite an important
branch of business in San Francisco.
There are distilleries enough in the state to produce
a stream of liquid fire sufficient in volume and venom
to kill all the people in it, the producers included.
The limits of this work will not allow me to give a
more definite and detailed account of the various
manufactories above referred to, nor an enumeration
of many others worthy of notice.
The mineral products of California, so far as re
ported by the state geologist, Dr. Trask, are, in addi
tion to that of gold, of which the world in general has
been notified, as follows: Silver, copper, iron, sulphate
of iron, magnetic iron, platinum, chromium, (the fine
264 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
chrome yellow, so highly prized, is manufactured
from this mineral,) gypsum, nickel, (a metal extens
ively used in the manufacture of German silver, for
wares and household utensils,) antimony, cinnabar,
or quicksilver. New-Almaden mine, in Santa Clara
County, is believed to be the richest in the world,
yielding at this time about twelve thousand pounds
per week.
Bitumen is found in large quantities in the south
ern part of the state. " There cannot be less than
four thousand tons of asphaltum lying upon the sur
face of the ground in the Counties of Los Angeles
and Santa Barbara alone, within a few miles of the
coast. Its value, delivered in San Francisco, would
not be less than sixteen dollars per ton, equal in
value to sixty-four thousand dollars." Nothing has
been clone in this line of business as yet, for the
reason, I suppose, that induced Kobert Sears, a
friend of mine, to give up the lime-making business.
Robert spent a year in the manufacture of lime in
Santa Cruz, and sent a large shipment, the result of
his year's toil, of as good lime as ever was produced,
to San Francisco. He came up in company with me,
from one of rny Santa Cruz trips, to San Francisco,
full of hope, to draw his money, but, alas for poor
Bob ! the money-market was overstocked, and all
the lime he had would pay but about half his freight
bill. He immediately left for the mines, believing
SUTTER'S MILL.
EXTENT AND BESOUECES OF CALIFOKNIA. 267
that if he could produce gold instead of lime, he
would be sure of his money.
Coal is found in abundance, and exhaustless stores
of marble, granite, and burr-stones. These are all
regarded as sources of mineral wealth to the state,
most of which are yet undeveloped, quicksilver and
gold being the only two which have attracted much
attention. Gold is the staple of the country. Its
discovery was made by James W. Marshall, in
Coloma Valley, about sixty miles east of Sacramento
City, in the month of January, 1848. This gold
discovery was not subsequent to the treaty by
which California was ceded to the United States, as
has been asserted in my hearing, by men in high
position, the said treaty not taking effect till the
30th of May, 1848 ; but the treaty was made before
the news of the gold reached the treaty-making
parties. Marshall was employed by Captain Sutter,
to build a saw-mill. In the prosecution of his work
he turned a stream of water from the river into the
tail-race, for the purpose of widening and deepening
it by the strength of the current. After the water
was shut off Marshall saw, at the foot of the race,
some shining yellow stuff, which had been washed
out and exposed to view by the action of the water,
and gathering a handful of it, he ran away and told
his employer. The echoes of his voice shook the
world, and all nations responded to his thrilling
16
268 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
story, and sent their sons to assist him in digging his
tail-race.
"The amount of treasure manifested at the port of
San Francisco from 1849 to the close of 1856, is
three hundred and twenty-two millions, three hun
dred and ninety-three thousand, eight hundred and
fifty-six dollars ;" but besides that amount, millions
have been carried away in private hands. I remem
ber, a few years ago, a party of returning Californi-
ans, in being conveyed in a boat from the landing to
the steamer in Virgin Bay, were capsized, and many
of them sunk like lead, with the weight of the gold
belted about their persons ; while their poor brothers,
who, perhaps, had no gold to carry, were picked up
and saved. A lucky miner once fell into the San
Juan River, and finding that his bag of gold was
too heavy for his body, he took it off, and clenched
it in his teeth, but it immediately put his head
under water, so he let go the hard earnings of
years, and by the greatest exertions saved his life ;
according to the devil's scripture, " Skin for skin,
yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life."
Job ii, 4.
From the best available sources of information, it
is estimated that the California gold mines have
yielded, within the period above specified, " nearly
six hundred millions of dollars"
There are various modes of mining, some of the
EXTENT AND EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNA. 2 69
most prominent of which I will mention. Early
miners in California confined their operations almost
exclusively to surface diggings along the banks of
the water-courses, or sufficiently near to be hauled
to the streams for washing. At present deep dig
gings, by means of " shafts " and " tunnels," into the
hearts of the hills and mountains, are carried on very
extensively. This mode requires capital, but is
much more permanent and productive than surface
digging. These drifts or adits are seldom less than
three hundred feet in length, and generally range
from ten to twelve hundred feet, and many of them
large enough to use a horse within for carrying the
" pay dirt" to the sluices without.
Dr. Trask, state geologist, gives the following
specimens of cost and profits of some successful
operations of this kind :
"The cost of opening the Mameluke hill, near
Georgetown, by the parties interested, exceeded
forty thousand dollars, while the receipts for the
same, during the period of little more than one year,
has exceeded five hundred thousand. Another case
is that of Jones's Hill, the opening of which has
already cost above thirty-four thousand dollars, the
receipts being above two hundred and eighty-four
thousand dollars ; and still another in the County of
Nevada, (Laird's Hill,) the expense of opening which
was nearly forty thousand dollars, while the receipts
270 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
from it in June last had reached the sum of
one hundred and fifty thousand ; the resources of
either are as yet in anything but an exhausted
condition.
"The above is mentioned only for the purpose
of conveying a better idea of the expenses and
profits of what is denominated deep mining in this
state ; and the localities named form but a small
proportion of the aggregate of similar workings. In
the counties of Nevada, Sierra, Placer, El Dorado,
Amador, and Calaveras, there are scores of adits and
other workings of similar dimensions, which have
already cost sums varying in amount from ten
thousand dollars upward to the figures given above,
and from which proportional profits have been
derived."
Hiver diggings are carried on but about six
months in the year, while the rivers are low. The
mode is to divert the stream from its channel, so as
to work the river bed. This is done by " wing
dams," so constructed as to carry the stream all to
one side, and open to mining purposes a part of the
original channel ; but more extensively by building
a dam across the entire river, and by throwing the
whole stream into a large "flume," constructed of
timber and plank, in size and strength sufficient to
carry the entire volume of the river. I saw one a
little below Downieville, which carried the whole of
EXTENT AND RESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 2Y1
Yuba River for nearly half a mile. Along those
flames there are a great many water-wheels, as
large as the under-shot wheels of grist-mills, nsed
for propelling various kinds of pumps for raising
and carrying off the leakage and standing water in
the original bed of the stream, and for raising water
by means of buckets attached to the wheels, which
is conveyed in small flumes to other mining locali
ties in the neighborhood, and also for pumping the
water out of claims in the low grounds along the
rivers.
An immense flume, with its wheels, and pumps,
and small flumes, together with the hundreds of men
engaged in disemboweling the bosom of the ancient
river, and dragging to light the hid treasures it had
concealed, it may be, ever since the days of Xoah,
presents a very lively scene. All these works are
generally swept away by the high tides of the
" former rains."
The great desire of the miners to work out their
claims, generally keeps all hands busy in getting out
the gold till the floods come, and then there is but
little opportunity left for saving any fluming timber
or accompanying appliances. A member of a flum
ing company on the north fork of Feather River,
told me that in the summer's work they did not
make enough to pay expenses till the last fortnight
of the season, when, from beneath a single boulder,
2^2 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
they took out thirty thousand dollars. He showed
me the hole whence it was dug.
As an illustration of the extent of such operations,
we note the following :
" A portion of Feather River, in the vicinity of
Oraville, is at the present time under contract for
a distance of two hundred thousand feet, at an ex
pense of four hundred and ninety thousand dollars."
Some idea of the extent to which quartz mining
is carried on may be gained by an exhibit of the
number and cost of the quartz mills employed.
"The number of quartz mills in operation in the
state is one hundred and thirty-eight, of which
eighty-six are propelled by water, forty-eight by
steam, and four by horse-power. The aggregate
number of stamps connected with these mills is fif
teen hundred and twenty-one. The cost of machin
ery is estimated at one million seven hundred and
sixty-three thousand dollars."
The quartz rock is quarried out, broken up,
stamped, and ground to powder, from which, by
means of water and quicksilver, the gold dust is
extracted.
Hydraulic mining is also carried on very extens
ively. The mode is to convey through a canvas
duck hose, a volume of about twenty inches of water,
with a fall of from thirty to three hundred feet, which
presses the water through an iron or brass inch and a
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.
quarter nozzle, with a force that would knock a man
down. This nozzle, in the hands of a miner who un
derstands his business, directs the stream against the
side of a mountain or hill, by which, in many locali
ties, he can in one day wash down a thousand cart
loads of dirt. He first directs the stream near the
" bed-rock," at the base of the hill he wishes to wash
down, and, by thus undermining it, causes a " land
slide." When the foundations are thus swept away,
and the side of a hill, with its huge boulders and
mighty trees, breaks and tumbles with a crash and
thunder like the roar of artillery, all hands have
to stand from under. I witnessed such a crash one
day near Coon Hollow, in El Dorado County, and
when I saw and heard the hill coming toward me, I,
with all the rest, beat a hurried retreat ; when distant
about fifty yards, and increasing the distance as fast
as I could, a stone, propelled by the force of the fall
ing hill, struck me on the heel, and for days I 'halted
like wrestling Jacob. The same water thus used to
wash down the dirt, carries it through the " sluices,"
and washes out the gold.
The sluices, which are from twelve to eighteen
inches deep, and as wide as deep, are made of plank,
and extend in length from one to three hundred
yards ; in the bottom of them are cross bars, called
"rifle boxes/' to catch the gold, while all the gross
material is carried away by the stream. Along these
274 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
sluices men are employed with forks and shovels,
breaking the clods, throwing out the large stones,
and otherwise assisting the water to disengage the
gold from the mass of accompanying matter. Every
day or two the good time for " cleaning the sluices "
comes, when every variety of gold dust, and " scales,"
and "grains," and "big lumps" are gathered. This
mode of mining pays largely in mining land so poor
that a man, with "pick and shovel," could not from
it earn his salt. Many locations which have been
worked over by other modes of mining, are profita
bly re-worked by this mode.
Gold-mining of every description requires water,
and hence the dry diggings could only be worked
during the wet season, and the spring-time of dis
solving snow, until, by artificial means, the water
was conveyed from the rivers over high mountains,
and across deep canons, to those dry districts. The
vast extent of rich mining country of this kind has
given rise to a distinct department of business in
mining operations, which furnishes employment for
a great many water companies, and profitable invest
ment for a vast amount of money.
The extent of this department of business may be
illustrated by the following statistical exhibit in
regard to canals and ditches: "There are four thou
sand four hundred and five miles of artificial water
courses for mining purposes in California, construct-
EXTENT AND RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 275
ed at a cost of eleven million eight hundred and
ninety thousand eight hundred dollars. In addition
to these there are about nine hundred miles now in
the course of construction. There are thousands of
square miles of rich mineral land in the state, now
lying almost valueless for the greater part of the
year, which could, with the aid of enterprise and
capital judiciously expended, be made valuable for
mining purposes, and thereby secure an abundant
return."
It is proper to add, that " the progress already
made in the construction of these works has been,
with but few exceptions, accomplished by the miners
themselves." If the limits of this book would admit
of it, I would insert a great many more facts and
incidents in regard to mining operations. The inform
ation contained in this chapter in regard to the re
sources of California, is compiled principally from the
official reports of Dr. Trask, state geologist, and the
returns of the state census for the year 1856. I have
a number of those reports and census returns in my
possession, but I am indebted for the compiling of
most of the statistics of this chapter, and some re
marks in quotation, to " The State Register and Year
Book of Facts, for the year 1857," a 12mo volume,
published annually by Henry G. Langley and Sam
uel A. Matthews, of San Francisco, and James
Queen, of Sacramento City. The Register is the
276 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
most complete collection of California statistics of
every kind ever published, and I would heartily
commend it to every man who desires to study
California. I shall now pass from the mines to illus
trate life among the miners.
LIFE AMONG THE MINERS.
CHAPTEK X.
LIFE AMONG THE MINERS.
CALIFORNIA miners are a hardy, muscular, powerful
class of men, possessing literally an extraordinary
development of hope, faith, and patience, and a cor
responding power of endurance. They have in my
opinion done more hard work in California, within
the last eight years, than has ever been done in any
country by the same number of men, in the same
length of time, and I think I may safely say
double that length of time, since the world was
made.
All that is necessary to convince any man of the
truth of this position, is for him to travel through the
mines and see what has been done, in the leveling of
hills and mountains, filling up of valleys, the digging
of about five thousand miles of ditches and canals
through mountains on mountains piled, the construc
tion of aqueducts across deep canons, or gorges, from
mountain to mountain, and the hundreds of acres of
" bed-rock " under the mountains they have laid bare,
and scraped and swept like a ship's deck. He will
2*78 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
be struck, too, with the wonderful facility and force
with which a miner moves his muscles.
There is as much difference between the muscular
action of a California miner and that of a man hired
by the month to work on a farm, as between the
agonizing, aimless movements of the sloth and the
pounce of the panther. As an illustration of miners'
hope, faith, patience, and endurance, I will instance
the " Live Yankee Company " of Forest City. I was
informed when there that, as an experiment, they
commenced a drift into the mountain between that
city and Smith's flat. The mountain was so high
that it was impossible to prospect it by sinking a
"shaft" to the "bed rock," the nearest way to the
heart of the mountain being in a line from the
base.
They soon encountered a strata of solid rock, as hard
nearly as pig metal. The company having no capital
outside of their muscular power and indomitable
energy, had to get their provisions on credit, and
worked in that drift, boring, blasting, and digging for
three years before they got the " color ;" but " struck
a lead " at last, and were amply repaid for all their
toil. They took out a single " lump," while I was
there, worth seven hundred dollars.
The miners are not all successful, but they nearly
all abound in hope and energy. I seldom ever met
with one who had not a " good prospect." ~No mat-
LIFE AMONG THE MINERS. 279
ter what his past disappointments and losses had
been, he was going to do first rate as soon as he
could get his claim open, or his " pay dirt washed
out." Even the little boys of the country partake of
this spirit. A "lucky miner," determining to take
his family back to the Atlantic side, came on as far
as San Francisco, and while stopping at Hillman's
Hotel, awaiting the day of embarcation, went out one
night and fell among thieves, who robbed and mur
dered him. His body, three days afterward, was
found in the bay. His poor widow was almost heart
broken, and her little miner boy, only four years old,
when he heard that his pa' was dead, went to her
and said, " Ma, don't cry ! don't cry ! we'll dit along.
You won't have to beg, ma. Dist wait till I dit a
little bigger, and I'll do up and dig a hole right down
in the mountain, and det out the dold for you. Ma,
don't cry ; you won't have to beg."
That all miners are not alike successful, is a fact
growing out of a variety of causes." Some chance to
get richer claims than others. Some have better
health than others. Working in the rivers is very
injurious to health. Those rivers are fed by the leak
age of mountains capped with perpetual snow, and
are in midsummer almost as cold as ice-water. To
wade and work in this ice- water from day to-day,
under the burning heat of summer sunshine, freezing
the lower extremities and scorching the brain, will
280 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
severely try any constitution ; but for the purity of
the atmosphere, and general heal thf ulness of the
climate, very few could stand such exposure at all.
A Baltimorean made five thousand dollars in the
mines, and started to go home to his family, but was
induced to go into a fluming operation, and spend a
summer in the river. He concluded that it was no
use to go home with but five thousand dollars, when
by staying a few months longer he could double that
amount. The operation was unsuccessful, and the
poor man not only lost every dollar of his money, but
by working in the water so much lost his health, and
never got further homeward than to San Francisco.
I found him there in the charity hospital just as he
was sinking to the grave.
Many injure their health working in drifts, espe
cially when they are working under leaky ground.
I saw a tunnel, near Forest City, from the arch of
which water came down continually, like rain tor
rents, and one of the men engaged in it had been
down with inflammatory rheumatism, unable to move
a limb for weeks. A sick man not only loses his
time, but his purse, subject to the drainage of Cali
fornia rates of expenditure, very soon discharges all
its dust.
Again, in some mining districts the cost of living
is enormous. There are large towns, and thousands
of miners, away in isolated regions so completely
LIFE AMONG THE MINERS. 281
mountain-locked that the only way of access to them
is by mule trails winding round dangerous rock
cliffs, and over mountain heights which, to the unin
itiated, would seem to defy the daring of the chamois.
Everything that is used in those regions — clothing,
provisions, mining tools, and machinery — is packed
on mule back.
Packing has hence become a very extensive and
profitable business. A pack train usually numbers
from thirty to one hundred mules, each carrying a
burden of about three hundred pounds, of every
imaginable shape — bales, barrels, boxes, crates, bags,
and everything that the necessities or luxuries of a
mining city could demand. To live in such regions,
therefore, costs perhaps fifty per cent, more than in
places easy of accesss.
Again, many miners are very reckless ; they sport,
and spree, and waste their hard earnings. Others,
again, spend all they make in " prospecting." The
prospectors constitute a very large and useful class
of miners. They are always dreaming of immense
treasures of undiscovered wealth. No matter how
well they are doing, when they get a few hundred
dollars ahead they must be off, with pick, and pan,
and miner's pack, and seldom ever stop till their
money is gone, and then they set to work in one
piace again till they can make "another raise." They
are constantly discovering " new diggings," and open-
282 CALIFOENIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
ing immense treasures for others to gather and enjoy,
while they continue to toil and go, and toil and go
again, enduring the greatest hardship, and labor,
and poverty ; living on hope, but dying in despair.
They are very much like their hardy pioneer brothers
who led the van of Western emigration, lived in log-
cabins, supplied their families with plenty of wild
game and " pounded cake," slept on their arms, and
defended the outposts of civilization against savages
and wild beasts ; an honest, generous, noble set of
men, who deserve much, but get nothing more than
a plain subsistence, and generally die in poverty.
As a specimen of California prospecting, I will
mention the case of my friend C. He arrived in
San Francisco in 1850, and got employment at Mis
sion Dolores in the brick-making business, which was
his trade, at seven dollars per day, with the prom
ise of steady work by the year. After making a
few hundred dollars he became dissatisfied. Said
he:
" I've not seen my mother for several years, and I
can't stay more than a year or two in California ; and
I see plainly enough that in that time seven dollars
per day won't make such a pile as I want."
So he gave up his situation and went to the mines,
where he knew he could do better with even ordi
nary success, and, besides, stand a chance to make
some " big strikes."
LIFE AMONG THE MINERS. 283
I met with him a couple of years afterward, and
said: ""Well, friend C., how do you get along?"
" O, pretty well," replied he ; "I opened a first-rate
claim in Mariposa County last year, but just as I got
it in good working condition the water failed, so I
had to let it lie over. When the time came that I
could have worked it, I happened to be away up
near Downieville, and having a good claim there I
didn't go back to Mariposa. I have taken out a
great deal of gold, but in prospecting from place to
place I have spent it all ; but I have some good
claims which will pay big by and by,"
Three years after that I met Friend C. in American
Yalle}7. " Halloo, my old friend ; how do you get
along ?"
" O, pretty well," replied he ; " but I'm not ready
to go home yet."
"I presume your dear old mother would be glad
to see you by this time."
" Yes, indeed, and I would be glad to see her ; but
I can't go home till I make something."
" Well, how near are you ready ?"
" I don't know. I have made money ; but in
traveling from place to place I have spent it all. I
have been up to Oregon since I saw you, and had a
chance to get a first-rate farm there, if I could have
stayed ; but I had some rich claims in Mariposa, and
thought I ought to come down and look after them j
17
284 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
but when I got there, I found that some fellows had
jumped my claims, and I couldn't get them off with
out a great deal of trouble, so I came away and left
them. I afterward opened a good claim near Yreka ;
but my partner was a disagreeable, quarrelsome fel
low, so I sold out for a mere song, and came away.
I've got a good prospect near Elizabethtown, which
I think will pay well when I get it opened."
Another, with whom I was acquainted, who had
not seen his family for six years, said to me one day :
" For five years I have set a time to go home about
every six months; but every six months has found me
either dead-broke, or doing so very well I could not
leave." But few of this adventurous class, the pro-
specters, will submit to the mortification of returning
to their friends without money, and but few of them
are likely ever to have enough at any one time to
pay their passage home ; while nearly all of them,
with their mining skill, might make a fortune if they
wrould remain in one place, and save their earnings.
The social condition of a large proportion of the
miners of California has been bad, but is now rapidly
improving. Separated as they have been from all
socializing home influences, and especially from vir
tuous female society, reduced to constant toil and the
roughest modes of life, they became rustics, and
many of them became very vulgar and profane.
Many men of fine mind and good education have
LIFE -AMONG THE MIXERS. 285
laid all their intellectual strength under contribution
for the manufacture of witticisms and vulgar sayings,
adapted to the demand of a vitiated social taste, and
spent their evenings in detailing them for the enter
tainment of the fun-loving crowds.
The introduction of virtuous women and good
families is working a hopeful social reform through
out the mining regions. I heard a letter-carrier's
salutation to a company of miners, which was vulgar
and scandalous in the extreme. From the miners
he came to the house at which I was stopping, and
addressed the lady of the house in a most polite,
chaste, and gentlemanly manner.
The moral condition of the miners is by no means
what it ought to be. But very few of them are par
ticularly anxious to go to heaven. I preached to a
large assembly of miners one Sunday afternoon in
the streets of Placerville, a flourishing mining city of
six thousand inhabitants. In front of my goods-box
pulpit stood a stage-coach, which was crowded to its
utmost capacity with as many of my auditors as were
fortunate enough to secure so good a seat. I endeav
ored to show the multitude before me their unfitness
for heaven in their unregenerated state, their utter
want of sympathy with God, or adaptation to the
immunities of heaven. To illustrate the truth of my
position, I said : " If God should dispatch a rail-car
train to the city of Placerville this afternoon to con-
286 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
vey passengers direct to heaven, the conductor might
whistle till the setting of the sun and not get one pas
senger. Heaven has no attractions for you. It is a
place to which you don't want to go. Why, if the
flaming steeds of Elijah's chariot of fire were hitched
on to that stage-coach, and the driver cracked his
whip for the heavenly country, every fellow in it would
jump out;" and in a moment the coach was cleared,
every man in it leaped for the street in an apparent
fright, from the apprehension that, perhaps, Elijah's
horses might be hitched to the stage, and they
taken off to glory, a place to which they did not wish
to go.
/ Sabbath-breaking and profane swearing are promi
nent in the catalogue of miners' offenses against the
Lord.
Sunday in the mines was remembered only as a
day for trading, recreation, spreeing, business meet
ings, and preparation for the business of the ensuing
week.
It was very common to see large cards hung up in
boarding-houses and business places, like this : " All
bills paid up here on Sunday." That was the day
for miners to get their blacksmith work done, and
lay in their supply of provisions for the week ; the
day for holding public meetings for the enactment of
miners' laws, or other municipal business. Under a
general statute, every mining district enacts its own
LIFE AMOXG THE MINERS. 28?
laws, by the voice of the majority, regulating all the
mining claims of the district, as to size, conditions of
pre-emption, etc. Under those laws they can sue
and be sued, and everybody has to conform to them.
Mining companies and water companies also did a
great deal of their collective business on that day;
and promiscuous masses of all sorts assembled at the
hotels and drinking saloons, to drink and spree with
out restraint. "What was worse, the standard of
moral law was thrown down, and its authority
denied. When we remember that a large majority
of those men were educated in a Christian country,
and that many had -even been professors of religion,
it is easy to see how quickly even a Christian people
will relapse into heathenism, if deprived of the
wholesome restraints and elevating influences of the
Gospel.
In a preaching tour I made through the mines, as
late as 1855, I traveled nearly a week without the
privilege of any Christian association, and I longed
for the opportunity of shaking a Christian's hand,
and of feeling the warming sympathy of a heart that
loved Jesus. On entering a mining town I inquired
in the hotel at which I put up, whether there were
any professors of religion in that town.
"Yes," answered the landlord, "there is one.
Mr. T., our blacksmith, is a good Christian man."
And different boarders added : " Yes, Mr. T. is a
288 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
good man if ever there was one. He lias his family
here, and everybody looks up to him."
So, at my earliest convenience, I hastened to see
Brother T. He received me very cordially, and in
troduced me to his family, all of whom looked very
neat and respectable, and I rejoiced in the privilege
of meeting so exemplary a Christian family away in
those wild woods.
As soon a§ I took my seat I inquired of Brother T.
how he was prospering in religious life.
" Well," replied he, " I think I am getting along
pretty well, considering all the circumstances ; but
not so well as I did in Illinois, where I enjoyed the
public means of grace. My greatest drawbacks here
are my having no religious meetings to go to, and
my having to work on Sunday. I support my family
by blacksmithing, and the miners must have most of
their work done on Sunday; and, to tell you the
truth, I have worked in my shop here every Sunday
except two for five years. One Sunday I was sick,
and couldn't work ; and one Sunday I went to hear
the only sermon ever preached on this creek, which
was delivered by Brother Merchant."
"O," thought I, "shades of the fathers! if this is
the * best man in these mountains,' the Lord pity the
worst."
I traveled nearly a week before I found another
Christian. He was an old ship-master, a good old
LIFE AMO]STG THE MINEES. 289
Methodist from Boston. I invited him to go to Long
Bar,, on north fork of Feather River, to hear me
preach the following Sunday.
At the appointed hour, Sunday morning, I had a
large audience to preach to under the shade of an
ancient pine. The sound of the Gospel had never
echoed through those hills before. Looking over my
audience I discovered my old captain, and felt glad
to think that I had at least one praying heart, who
could sympathize with my mission and my message
of mercy. After meeting I asked the old captain
to take a walk with me " up into the mountain to
pray." I felt that I needed the warming influence
of a little prayer-meeting, and I supposed he did too.
Finding a suitable place, I sang a few verses and
prayed ; I then sang again, and thinking I had got
the good brother pretty warm, and that he in turn
would contribute to the fire of my own heart, I called
on him to lead in prayer. But I couldn't get a grunt
out of him. Thought I, "Poor old captain, he is
dried up."
I announced an afternoon appointment for preach
ing in the same place, and thought from the size of
the morning audience, and the apparently good effect
of the preaching upon them, that I would have a
much larger congregation, and a better time, at the
second appointment. But, to my surprise and mor
tification, I did not have more than twenty hearers,
290 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
and when I cast about to know the cause, I learned
that, according to custom, nearly the whole popula
tion of the neighborhood had by that hour of the
day become too drunk to attend preaching. Such a
variety of antics as they displayed beat anything I
had ever witnessed. E"ext morning I found most of
them sober, and ready to work ; and to show their
appreciation of my ministerial services, they gave me
a donation for my Bethel cause of nearly one hun
dred dollars. The cases here given are to illustrate
the general character of the miners in those regions.
I found in nearly every place I visited honorable ex
ceptions — sober, serious men, who deeply deplored
the prevailing wickedness of the miners ; and every
where I went there was a general expression of
desire for the regular preaching of the Gospel, and
the establishment of its institutions among them,
and a liberal support for a preacher and his family
was pledged. I found a few merchants, too, who
would not sell goods on the Sabbath. A man of
my acquaintance, who passed for a minister of the
Gospel before he went to California, opened a pro
vision store in the southern mines. He commenced
business with the determination not to sell liquor,
nor to break the Sabbath. He had a moderate de
gree of success on that principle, but nothing to com
pare with the success of his business competitors,
who sold liquor and kept open on Sunday. His
LITE AMOXG THE METERS. 291
pecuniary sense became shocked a great deal more
by what he considered his losses, than his moral
sense was comforted by his spiritual conquests. So,
having mining friends to call and see him on Sunday,
he was induced to leave his back door ajar, so that
any who desired might be accommodated with a
pair of boots, or a week's provisions. That paid so
well that he was induced next to leave his front door
ajar. He then in a short time, in accordance with
that vulgar, dangerous, but popular maxim, " May as
well be hung for stealing an old sheep as a lamb,"
set his doors wide open, and added the liquors to his
supply. He felt that it was all wrong, but pleaded
necessity, and thought that as soon as he could make
a certain amount of money, he would quit the busi
ness, go home, and do good writh his money. For a
season he had extraordinary success, employed thirty
yoke of oxen, all his own, on the road from Stockton
to his place of business, to supply his store with
goods. He had besides several hundred head of
valuable cattle.
Finally, there came a night in which he was sur
prised by the Indians, who stampeded his cattle,
burned up his store, goods and all, and the ex-reverend
gentleman fled for his life, and begged his way down
to Stockton as poor as Lazarus. He regarded his
reverses as a judgment for his apostasy, and repented
his fall. When I made his acquaintance he was in
292 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
the honorable business of milling, making flour to
supply his neighbors with bread, and was bringing
" forth fruits meet for repentance." I heard him in
a public meeting give a tearful narration of the
above facts. Brother H., a friend of mine, opened a
provision store in the northern mines. The first
Sunday after opening, a company of miners came to
get a supply of provisions at the " new store," but to
their surprise they found the doors closed, and going
in the rear, they found the new merchant in his tent.
" Halloo ! old man, we've come to buy some pro
visions from you. We are very glad you have
opened a store in these diggings ; it's what we have
wanted here for a long time."
" Well, boys," Brother H. replied, " I have opened
a store here, and intend to keep a good supply of
everything you may need ; but I want you to under
stand from the start, that I will never sell you any
liquor, and will never sell you goods of any kind on
Sunday."
" Well, old man, you may just as wrell pack up
your duds and go home, for you can do nothing here
on those terms.
"You have a right to your opinion, boys,"
replied Brother H., "but I intend to do right,
whether I make anything or not. If I can't make a
living without poisoning my neighbor by selling rum,
and offending God by breaking his holy day, I'll
LIFE AMONG THE MIXERS. 298
starve, or beg my way home ; but I intend to give it
a fair trial before I abandon the effort."
" Old man," rejoined the miners, " we are hungry,
we ate the last of our provisions yesterday evening,
and have come to get something to cook for our
breakfast. Let us have enough to satisfy our hunger
to-day, and we will come to-morrow, and lay in a
supply for the week."
" Boys, you can fast and pray to-day," replied the
old man, " and you'll learn, next time, to make
timely provision for the wants of the Sabbath."
With that the miners got mad and swore a while
at the " old fool," and left ; but everywhere they
went they told about an " old fogy who had come
up into the mountains to teach us all how to keep
Sunday." They thus advertised him all through
those mountains, and thinking men at once came to
the conclusion that a man maintaining such a
position must be an honest man. " "We can depend
on the word of such a man as that. Rely upon it
he won't cheat us." The result was that the better
class of miners poured in upon him for supplies at
such a rate, that in a few months he " made his pile,"
and returned East to his family.
Wicked as were the mass of California miners,
they have always displayed some good qualities.
They have all encountered hardships and sufferings,
and most of them have hearts to sympathize with the
294 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
suffering. Though appeals to their charity- are
of almost daily occurrence, yet no man in real need,
that I ever heard of, has ever yet made a fruitless
call on the miners for help. They are magnanimous,
too, in their liberality ; but they have an utter abhor
rence of little, mean things ; for example : There was
a fellow at Smith's Flat, who, to gratify some secret
brutal passion of his own, tied a chicken, and put it
alive on the fire, and cooked it for his dinner. The
thing was made known in the town, and the miners
immediately called a meeting, and unanimously
passed a resolution to the effect that the chicken-
roaster's presence was no longer desirable in that
camp, and that fifteen minutes be given him, after
due notice from a committee appointed to notify
him, for his disappearance from those diggings,
never more to return. Several months had elapsed
at the time of my visit there, but up to that hour he
had not been seen in those parts after the expiration
of the ominous fifteen minutes.
A butcher in the town of Alameda received a sim
ilar notice from a similar court, giving him two
hours. About the middle of his last hour I saw him
driving away with his effects in a wagon. Among
his movables were several live sheep, one of which
got loose in the midst of the town, jumped out, and
ran for life. The butcher and one of his men pur
sued it a few squares, and finally shot it, threw it
LIFE AMONG THE MIKEES. 295
into the wagon, and was out of sight by the time his
hour had expired.
Notorious rogues were often discharged from a
town or mining camp in that way, while notorious
murderers were hanged by the neck. Judge Lynch
has transacted a great deal of business in California.
I designed inserting a chapter of facts and incidents
illustrating the history of Lynch law and Yigilance
Committee operations in California, and the natural
and Providential laws under which those facts have
been manifested, but my space in the present book
will not admit of it. However much may be said
in condemnation of Judge Lynch's court and its pro
ceedings, there is this to be said in favor of the den
izens of California, that riots, and a promiscuous
shooting into the masses, killing the innocent with
the guilty, such as have been enacted in Baltimore
and other Eastern cities, have never been known in
California. Such, for example, as I saw last May
in Washington City, when, to quell an election riot
that had occurred and passed over without any mor
tal effects three hours before, one hundred and ten
hired soldiers, with muskets each loaded with ball
and three buckshot, fired upon an unsuspecting crowd
of citizens, instantly killing eight unoffending men,
besides wounding many others. That I witnessed, if,
to be sure, getting up from my dinner-table just
across the street and standing behind a brick wall
296 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
to avoid being shot myself, may be called witness
ing it.
Such riots, and such promiscuous shooting and
killing I have never yet heard of in California. In
the administration of California Lynch law, so far as I
have known or heard, the thunderbolt of public fury
has always fallen only on the head of the guilty man
who by the enormity and palpable character of his
crime excited it, and then not until after his guilt
was proved to the satisfaction of the masses compos
ing the court.
For example : A stranger called late one evening at
the cabin of a miner who had his wife with him, and
begged for lodgings, saying that he was a poor trav
eler, had been unfortunate in business, etc. The
miner and his good wife pitied the poor stranger, took
him in, and treated him to the best they had. The
next morning after breakfast the miner had occasion
to go away a few miles, and left the man at his
house. When he got out of sight, the accommodated
stranger murdered the woman and proceeded to rob
the house. Before he got quite through, however,
with his nefarious work, the miner returned, saw
what was done, and raised the alarm.
The murderer was caught and tried. A meeting
of miners was called to order, a judge appointed to
try the case ; witnesses were examined, and the guilt
of the criminal proved, upon which the judge stated
|ii«i§"^fip'
iM^^^^-t^^^ #£v
.1 1' U !'(|1 4|
l&^.f ^> . ™-
&j&$3f*&£& A£.±* *'•>'
HANGING OF JENKINS ON THE PLAZA.
LIFE AMOXG THE MINERS. 299
the case and submitted the question of life or death
to the mass composing his court, who unanimously
voted guilty, and death by hanging. The judge de
cided that the criminal should be allowed fifteen
•
minutes in which to prepare for death. He was then
hung by the neck to a tree.
I give this fact without comment, simply to illus
trate the character of Judge Lynch's proceedings.
The accompanying cut will illustrate a similar trag
edy, and the first of that kind enacted in San Fran
cisco b}~ the Vigilance Committee of 1851. Jenkins
was hung from a cross-beam at the south end of " the
Old Adobe on the Plaza," within a few feet of my
pulpit. This is the " Old Adobe " to wrhich frequent
allusion is made in my " Seven Years' Street Preach
ing in San Francisco," from the front veranda of
which, as seen in the cut, I for several years preached
to the excited varieties of the world.
It is a fact, which I believe is generally admitted,
that just in proportion as the LAW acquires power in
California for the protection of her citizens, in that
proportion Lynch law is dispensed with ; and I believe
that when the legal authority of the state attains to
a degree of honorable dignity and strength sufficient
for the accomplishment of its glorious ends through
out that commonwealth, Judge Lynch will resign
his office, and forever decline re-election.
I would remark further in regard to the miners,
300 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
and the same remarks will apply to Californians gen
erally, that they are a self-reliant, independent class
of men, who, in all matters of personal opinion and
conduct, think, and speak, and do as they are
inclined, and cheerfully extend the same privilege to
each other and everybody else. Hence ministers of
the Gospel, in California's worst days, were permitted
to preach in bar-rooms, gambling-saloons, public
thoroughfares, or wherever they wished, without hin-
derance or disturbance.
For example : I went into the city of Sonora at
nine o'clock one Saturday night, not knowing a man
in the place ; and finding the streets crowded with
miners, who had gathered in from all parts of the
surrounding mountains, I felt a desire to tell them
about Jesus, and preach the Gospel to them ; so I got
a brother whom I chanced to meet, to roll a goods'
box into the street, nearly in front of a large crowd
ed gambling-house, and taking my stand, I threw
out on the gentle zephyrs of that mild April night
one of Zion's sweetest songs, which echoed among
the hills, and settled down on the astonished multi
tudes like the charm of Orpheus. My congregation
packed the street from side to side. Good order and
profound attention prevailed, while the truth, in the
most uncompromising terms, was being proclaimed.
At the close of the exercises many, strangers to me,
who had heard me preach in the streets of San Fran-
LIFE AMONG THE MINERS. 301
cisco, gave me a hearty greeting, among them a
notorious gambler, who shook my hand and wel
comed me to the mountains.
I preached in Jamestown one night under similar
circumstances. I got permission of a butcher to con
vert his meat-block into a pulpit ; I tried to have the
butcher himself converted, but did not succeed in
that, though he made very humble confessions, and,
like Herod under the preaching of John, " did many
things." Selecting the best point for a crowd, I hap
pened again to be in front of a large gambling-house.
Some of the gamblers, thinking that I was putting on
too strong an " opposition line," took offense and
tried to run me off the track. They knew the char
acter of the miners too well to attempt to confront
the preacher personally ; so to try and scatter my
audience, they tied some tin pans to a dog's tail, and
sent him off with a clatter, they yelling after him.
Stopping short in the midst of my sermon, I said :
"There they go, poor fellows; they want to make
their souls happy. Rather a poor intellectual enter
tainment, tying tin pans to a dog's tail; but I presume
it's the best they can do, so we'll let them go and
make the most of it."
By that time they were out of sight, out of hear
ing, and the attention of my audience stimulated and
improved.
The social and moral condition of the California
18
302 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
miners has been gradually improving for the last
four years. Mining operations have already assumed
a degree of local permanency, which to many would
be considered impossible. When a man opens a
drift into a good lead he has before him, in working
out his claim, profitable employment for a dozen
years.
The deep diggings, hydraulic and quartz mining,
are all carried on for years in the same locations ;
and in many places the miner can calculate in ad
vance the returns of a year's labor, as certainly and
definitely as can the mechanic, merchant, or farmer.
The mining towns commenced eight years ago, and
which it was believed would be abandoned to the
coyotes in two or three years, as the mines in those
localities would be worked out, have generally gone
on, increasing in size and permanence every year,
and bear now as hopeful indications of living to the
end of the world, as do the agricultural and commer
cial towns. I am not speaking of the paper towns and
cities peddled about in numberless scores by specula
tors, but which never had an existence except on their
beautifully colored maps ; the mining towns I have in
my mind when instituting the above comparison, are
such as Nevada, Grass Yalley, Columbia, Sonora,
each containing an average of five thousand inhabit
ants ; and a hundred others of various sizes, equally
prosperous and permanent.
LIFE AMONG THE MINERS. 303
The miners everywhere through the mountains are
settling their families ; schools and churches are mul
tiplying in every direction. Besides the ministers of
other denominations, who are doing a great work for
God, there are upward of ninety itinerant preachers
in connection with the California Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, who are sounding the
jubilee trump from Dan to Beersheba, from Yreka
to San Diego. Gambling has gone down, under the
pressure of an indignant public sentiment, a thousand
per cent, below par, and all the "hells" in the state
were closed three years ago by the hand of the law.
The great Goliah of Gath, the gambling fraternity
of California, which defied all Israel for years, has
fallen, and his decapitated carcass has been delivered
over to the vultures. The Sabbath is honored much
more now than formerly, and though many, very
many and great evils remain, yet social and moral
progress are now the order of the day in California.
304 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
CHAPTEE XI.
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD.
GOD, in his word and in his providences, has re
vealed and established two leading modes of spread
ing the tidings of salvation to perishing sinners of
distant lands. The first is to send the Gospel to
them in heathen lands, by his embassadors; and
the second is to send them to the Gospel in Chris
tian lands, by his providences.
The Divine authority of the first mode is found in
the great commission : " Go ye into all the world,
and preach the Gospel to every creature ;" but the
apostles receiving it were to tarry at Jerusalem, until
endued with power from on high. By the time the
power descended upon them, God, in his providence,
developed the second mode. When the apostles
came down from that celebrated upper room, from
that extraordinary protracted prayer-meeting, writh
hearts of love and tongues of fire, lo ! right at their
doors were assembled representative dwellers of at
least fifteen different nations. These all listened to
Peter's great pentecostal sermon, and not only heard
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 305
and saw the " wonderful works of God," but felt in
their hearts, that very day, the power of pardoning
grace, and away they went back to their homes, de
claring everywhere the great things which had come
to pass in the " Holy City," and " holding forth," in
the experience and conduct of a new life, the torch
of redeeming love in the darkest and most remote
portions of the earth long before the preachers had
even noted one foreign mission on the plan of their
appointments. God was beforehand with them then,
as he has been ever since.
The fact is, their views in regard to foreign mis
sionary work and the redemption of the race were, as
yet, so contracted, that they would not preach the
Gospel to any but Jews, even at home, until by the
exhibition of the " great sheet," with its animals of
every kind, St. Peter's sectarian shackles were un
loosed, and he was compelled, by the direct command
of God, to go and preach to the house of Cornelius.
St. Paul was the first foreign missionary to go abroad
and establish missions among the heathen, and make
a practical demonstration of the first mode referred
to ; but in nearly every place he visited, he found
scattered abroad the pentecostal seeds of truth, which
had been borne, as it were, on the wings of the wind
by the efficient workings of the second mode.
Without stopping to show that those two modes of
missionary enterprise bear respectively the sanctions
306 CALIFORNIA LUTE ILLUSTRATED.
of Divine providence in every age of the Church's
history, I would simply say, that never, perhaps,
since the days of St. Paul, have they been more
clearly exhibited than at the present hour. The
planting and sustaining of Christian missions among
the heathen and semi-heathen nations of Europe,
Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, are in strict accordance
with the first mode. Foreign missionary work, there
fore, is Scriptural in its authority, and therefore
necessary, and must be sustained at whatever cost,
however long we may have to wait to see the fruits
of an abundant harvest. The practical results, how
ever, arising from the labors of foreign missionaries,
of all Christian denominations, are, upon the whole,
hopeful and cheering. They survey and plot the
unoccupied territories of Immanuel's lands, establish
militant posts, and garrisons for soldiers of the cross,
and bear the truce-flag of redemption to the utter
most parts of the earth. Foreign missions are worth
more than the cost of sustaining them, for the in
fluence they exert on the commercial adventurers
and seamen of Christian nations. Many a prodigal
son has been arrested and brought to Christ in
foreign lands by Christian missionaries, who could
not, perhaps, have been reached anywhere else. I
will give one single case to illustrate this position.
A. M. Brown, a sailor of my acquaintance, was ex
tremely wicked and profane, an avowed enemy of
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 307
Christ and his Church, and especially of mission
aries in foreign fields. He openly opposed the mis
sionaries at the Sandwich Islands, Navigator's Islands,
and other islands of the Pacific, and did everything in
his power to throw obstructions in their way. From
the Pacific he shipped to Constantinople, and was
there, a few days after leaving the vessel, seized with
the cholera, and under the dreadful shock fell help
less and alone in the streets. I have heard him say :
" While I lay there in the streets of Constantinople,
dying, as I believed, I thought on my past life, and
awoke to a sense of my dreadful condition as a sin
ner ; I felt that I should soon be in hell ; despair, with
all its horrors, seized my soul ; and thinking that it
was then too late to pray, I said to myself, Why
didn't I attend to that before ? Why didn't some one
kindly warn me of my danger ? I had a father, who
once made a profession of religion, but he never told
me what a dreadful thing it is to die in sin, and go
to hell. Why didn't some preacher, or some Chris
tian friend tell me of all this ? No man hath cared
for my soul, and now I'm dying in the streets of a
foreign city, and going to hell. And," said he, " in
an agony of despair, I cursed the day of my birth, and
cursed my father for his neglect, and cursed the
preachers, and cursed the Church; and then my
paroxysms of pain would come on, and I writhed un
der the scorching rays of the sun till life was almost
308 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
gone ; and when I had a little respite, I thought of
my mother, and wept, and said, ' O, if I had a moth
er's care, or if I had anybody who could understand
my language, I could tell them what to do for me,
and I might yet live. The Turks would stop and
look at me, and jabber to each other and pass on.
" When all hope had gone from me, a man, whom
I supposed to be an Englishman or an American,
came and looked at me, and I thought, O that he
would speak to me in a language I can understand !
He spoke to me ; but, alas ! it was in the Turkish
language. Seeing that I could not understand him,
he addressed me in my own mother tongue ; such
music never thrilled my soul before. He spoke, too,
such words of kindness and sympathy as never before
fell on my guilty ears. He had me taken up and
conveyed to his house, and under his skillful treat
ment and care I was relieved in a few hours. That
good Samaritan was an American missionary. He
saved my life ; and, more than that, he led me to
Christ. Three days after my recovery, while still at
his house under his instruction, God, for Christ's
sake, spoke my sins forgiven, and healed my soul."
From that day Brown became a steadfast, zealous
Christian. He was for several years a local preacher
in my charge in San Francisco, and one of the most
efficient workmen I had.
I received a request from the " Hawaiian Tract
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 309
Society," a few years ago, to send them a colporteur
for Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. I sent them A. M.
Brown, who fulfilled his engagement greatly to the
satisfaction of the society, and successfully preached
the Gospel in the very port where once he had so
wickedly opposed it.
But however important and glorious the foreign
missionary work, I believe that the greatest achieve
ments of American missionary enterprise are now in
progress, and will ere long be accomplished, through
the second mode, above indicated. "The abundance
of the sea " is now being " converted," and used,
more effectively than ever, for the great purposes of
the Gospel. The nations are flowing together as
they never did before, and flowing especially in all
their variety to Protestant America.
The tide of emigration from European nations has
been rolling in for more than a century, and now the
tide from Eastern heathen nations is bearing its tens
of thousands to our Pacific shores. What glorious
Gospel achievements have already been gained
among those resident on our shores, and how wonder
ful the reflex power of them on kindred and friends
in the various lands whence they came, and how
many, like the "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,
and dwellers in Mesopotamia," etc., have gone back
to tell of the " wonderful works of God," through all
the countries whence they came. Mark the success
310 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
of American Christian missions in the Republic of
Liberia. See the success of Methodist missions
among the Scandinavians in this country, and the
missions now being successfully established by con
verted Swedes and Danes, in Denmark and Sweden.
Especially note the extraordinary success of Meth
odist missions among the Germans, first in this coun
try, and then, by a kind of reflex power, in the
" Father-land," waking up the German mind from the
dreams of rationalism and dead formality. The Ger
man missionaries sent back from this country to Ger
many, have accomplished more good within the last
twelve years, by preaching the Gospel in their ver
nacular language, than the same number of men of
any other nation or language could have accom
plished there in fifty years. They now have a mis
sion conference there, which held its first session in
September, 1857, Bishop Simpson presiding.
The Methodist mission in China was commenced
about the same time that Brother Jacoby was sent
back to Germany, and after all the toil, and expense,
and sacrifice of life which have been given to the
Chinese mission, those zealous missionaries have
never yet been able to report the conversion of more
than six Chinamen. I do not mean to institute any
invidious comparisons, or to say one word against
the Chinese mission.
The mission is necessary and must be sustained,
CHINESE FEMALES.
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 313
but what I wish to say is, that if the Lord in his wise
providence has no other mode for the conversion of
China, it will be a long time before her three hun
dred and sixty millions of heathens will hear the
Gospel. Let any man fond of arithmetical calcula
tions tell us how many men, and how much money,
and how long a period of time will be required for
the conversion of the Chinese Empire by the present
mode?
But let the wisdom and mercy of God be adored,
he has another mode which is already beginning
to shed the light of hope on the future of China.
The Missionary Society is supporting a few men in
China, who have to devote half a dozen years in
acquiring the language so as to gain access to the
Chinese mind, and then a dozen years more will be
necessary to wear off their prejudices against foreign
ers, so as to give them access to the Chinese heart.
But, in the mean time, God in his providence has
forty thousand long-cued fellows in California, at no
expense to anybody, studying the English language,
through which the Gospel message will reach their
hearts, and then, they, by the thousand, it may be, can
return on the principle we have illustrated, and carry
the tidings of salvation to the perishing millions of
their own land. True, but little has been done as
yet, in the way of direct Christian effort, for the con
version of the Chinese in California. Rev. William
314 CALIFORNIA LITE ILLUSTEATED.
Speer, of the Presbyterian Church, formerly a mis
sionary in China, built a good brick Chinese Church
in San Francisco, organized a small society of China
men, preached to them for several years in their own
language, organized a Sunday school among them,
where they were taught the rudiments of the English
language, and also, for a time, published a Chinese
paper in San Francisco. Mr. Speer's health failing,
he has for a season suspended his labors. Rev. Mr.
Shuck, of the Baptist Church, formerly a missionary
in China, has built a Chinese chapel in Sacramento
City, where he, in connection with a pastoral charge
of his own people, preaches to the Chinamen in their
own language. Besides those two enterprises, I
know of no direct organized effort for the salvation of
the men of China. A Methodist preacher takes hold
of one sometimes and teaches him letters, and gives
him Gospel teaching. Rev. S. B. Rooney reported
a very hopeful conversion of a Chinaman at our con
ference in 1856.
But though so little direct effort has been put forth
by the Church in this direction, still, much has been
done, and the way is being prepared, in the order of
Providence, for their conversion by and by. They
acquire our language with considerable facility.
They soon become impressed with our superiority
over them, and so soon begin to give up their national
prejudices and exclusiveness. When a Chinaman
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 31 7
arrives in San Francisco, with his turban cap, wide
trowsers, and wooden shoes, he enters with the pre
vailing idea of his people, namely, that he belongs to
the most enlightened, enterprising, and pious nation
under the sun ; but after he stares a few days at our
magnificent buildings, gas-lighted streets, and ma
chinery of various kinds, our splendid steamers, etc.,
and sees the enterprise and energy exhibited by Amer
icans, and others whom he always before regarded
as barbarians, he wilts right down like Jonah's gourd,
feels as though he was nobody, and all his people in
the same class with himself. The next idea which
seems to strike him, is that perhaps he may, having
such models to work by, become somebody after all,
"be same as von Melican man;" and the next time
you see him you discover that he has shed off his
native costume as clean as a snake in spring-time,
and has come out in full American rig — hat, coat,
pants, and the biggest boots in town. The self-con
ceited, prejudiced, haughty Chinaman has been con
verted into " von Melican man," with a full desire
and purpose to learn, and talk, and be "just same as
any other Melican man."
From that time he begins to learn the English
language and pry into everything.
I preached one night in the summer of 1855 in
M'Ginnis's provision store-room, at Twelve Mile Bar,
on the east branch of the North fork of Feather
318 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
River. A large proportion of my congregation were
Chinamen, who appeared to listen with great atten
tion. Among them there was a tall intelligent-look
ing fellow whom they called " Chippee." I was told
that he had been in the country only about six
months. Chippee not only appeared to listen attent
ively, but took out his pencil and went to noting
down such thoughts as he could gather from the dis
course, on a piece of wrapping-paper which lay on
the counter, as gravely as a New-York reporter.
The next morning the clerk of the store observed
him transferring his notes from the wrapping-paper
into a book or journal, and asked him to translate
them into English.
Then said Chippee : " What you call him talk las
night?"
"That was Mr. Taylor, from San Francisco," re
plied the clerk.
He noted the name in his book, and then said,
looking and pointing upward : " What you call him,
Him — Fader, big Fader, up ! up ! What you call
HIM?"
" We call him God," answered the clerk.
So he noted that in his journal also.
He then gave the following brief translation of his
notes from the wrapping-paper, which I now have in
my possession :
"Tell all men, no gamble; tell all men, no steal
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 319
em gold; tell all men, no steal ern cargo; tell all
men, no talk em lies ; tell all men to be very good
men."
That was the first sermon Chippee ever heard, and
those were the ideas he gathered from it. What the
spirit of inquiry thus awakened in his mind may lead
to, who can tell? But besides the forty thousand
Chinamen referred to, whose numbers are every year
increasing, we have in California the representatives
of all other nations. What St. Peter saw in vision,
on the house-top of Simon the tanner, is exhibited in
fact, in California, and none of them common or
unclean, nor excluded from the covenant of mercy,
but all are subjects of redeeming love, and living
objects of the Saviour's sympathy and intercessions.
What I said of the Chinese is true of the rest ; they
are learning our language and our civilization, and
the way is opening for their reception of the Gospel,
and thence they may bear the news to the ends of
the earth. It has been my lot to preach the Gospel
hundreds of times, if not to every creature, at least
to specimen representatives of all the creatures, I
suppose, of human kind in this lower world.
The following account of preaching the Gospel to
all the world in San Francisco is given in the
" Annals ;" due allowance must be made for the
writer's poetical allusion to the singing on the
occasion :
320 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
" Suddenly from the piazza of an old adobe on the
Plaza arises the voice of one crying in the wilder
ness. He 'raises' a hymn in a voice which would
be dreadful in its power were it not melodious.
Hark! you may hear the words half a mile off.
The City Hall sends back the echo like a sounding-
board. You may stand at the foot of Merchant-
street and distinguish every sentence: 'The chariot!
the chariot ! its wheels roll in fire !' Had the vehicle
spoken of really rolled over the planked streets of the
city, it is doubtful if the tumult of its lumbering
wheels could have drowned the voice of him who
was thus describing, in thunder-like music, its
advent.
" That voice at once arrests attention. The loiterer
turns aside from, his careless walk, stops, and listens.
The miner, in his slouched hat and high boots, hears
the sounds of worship, recollects the day, thinks of
the home and the dear ones far away, and of the
hours when he, too, worshiped with them in the old
church pew, in the country town, with the graves of
the rude forefathers of the village visible from the
spot where he sat ; the old elm-trees bending grace
fully beneath the weight of years and foliage, over
the dust of those who planted them ; and where he
listened to the trembling words of the gray -haired
old clergyman as he read, or spoke from that old-
fashioned pulpit, and he joins the motley crowd.
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 321
The loafing Mexican arouses from his reverie, and
from the smoke of his cigarette, gives an extra puff
from his nostrils, throws his variegated serape over
his left shoulder, leans against the fence, and listens
to words which he does not understand.
" John Chinaman passes along, and, seeing books,
and being of a literary turn, ceases to jabber in the
language of Confucius, joins the outskirts of the com
pany, and risks the integrity of his yard-long queue
among the ' outside barbarians.'
" The Malay, with his red-pointed cap, stops a
moment to wonder, and, perhaps, forgets a while the
well-known trade of piracy when listening to a
Gospel which he cannot comprehend.
"It is not long ere there is a sufficient audience.
The singing has brought together the congregation.
There is room enough for all. The worship pro
gresses. Prayer, singing, reading of the Scriptures,
text and sermon follow. All can hear, all can see ;
there is no sexton nor usher, nor is one needed. It
is a primitive service, very earnest, and by no means
ridiculous."— P. 671.
I think I never felt a greater thrill of pleasure in
proclaiming a free Gospel to the human varieties of
California, than I did one Sunday morning a few
years ago on Long Wharf in San Francisco. It hap
pened that morning, when the time came for my
wharf appointment, that I was minus a text. I was
19
322 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
caught in the same embarrassing dilemma once be
fore, on my way to preach on the Plaza, but as I
passed along I saw a poor inebriate lying in the
sand, with his face downward, drawing with every
breath the sand into his nostrils, and as temperance
sermons were in order occasionally on the Plaza, be
ing a place notorious for rum holes, I resolved, as I
looked at the poor fellow, to preach that afternoon a
sermon on temperance. When I had sung up my
crowd, I said to them : "You may find the text re
corded on a sand-bank in front of the General Jack
son House, in First-street."
Then said I, " It is usual in sermonizing to insti
tute inquiries something like these :
" I. What are the facts in this case ?
" II. What are the causes or occasions of those facts?
" III. What are the consequences ?"
With that arrangement I proceeded and had a good
time, but waked up a great excitement among the
rum-sellers. Opening our fires right at the mouth
of their dens, there was no popping at a man of
straw, or sham-fighting. When I succeeded in mak
ing out a case, I pointed out my man, and the home-
thrust of the prophet Nathan to the guilty king of
Israel, "Thou art the man," was backed by the con
centrated gaze of a thousand listeners. Such thrusts
were hard to bear, but harder to resist, and the guilty,
after one cry of complaint, usually got out of sight.
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 323
On the Sunday morning above referred to, I found
no drunken man to suggest a theme, but I met a
brother who said, " Good morning, Brother Taylor ;
what's the news this morning ?"
" Good news, my brother, good news ! Jesus Christ
died for sinners." Said I to myself, " I've got it."
So on I went, and took my stand on the head of a
whisky barrel in front of the worst rum hole in the
city ; if there could be a worse one it was at the op
posite corner, just across the street. I guess the latter
was the worst, for they would not let me preach in
front of it. I preached there a few times, and the
proprietor sent me word that I blocked up the street,
and cut off access to his house, and he didn't want
rne to preach there any more.
The next Sunday after I received his message, I
stood on a pile of wood about thirty feet from his
door, and by way of apology for changing my pulpit,
said to the people : " That man there complains that
I block up the entrance to his house, and forbids
my preaching there any more. He is a gate-keeper
of the way to hell, and is bound to keep the passage
clear, so that all who are silly enough to go to hell
may walk in without hinderance. He's a generous
soul, is he not '? Moreover, a man who steals God's
holy day, and spends it in the work of human de
struction, can't afford to lose an hour of it."
Then the proprietor of the opposition death line on
324 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
the other side of the street, sent me word that I might
preach in front of his place. He rued his "bargain
once or twice, and tried to run me off, but I stood
fire, held my ground, and turned his empty whisky
barrels to good account, by preaching perhaps a hun
dred sermons from them.
On the occasion I was going to describe, I sung
together a vast crowd, of such a variety of human
kind as never was seen except in California. Peter's
congregation on the day of Pentecost, for variety,
was but a small affair compared with it. When the
songs ended, I said : " Good morning, gentlemen ; I
am glad to see you this bright Sabbath of the Lord.
What's the news? Thank the Lord, I have good
news for you this morning: 'Behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people.' ': I then addressed them as individual rep
resentatives of the different nations thus : " My
French brother, look here !" He looked, with earn
est eye and ear, while I told him what Jesus had
done for him and his people. " Brother Spaniard, I
have tidings for you, seilor," and told him the news,
and requested him to tell his people. " My Ha
waiian brother, don't you want to hear the news this
morning? I have glad tidings of great joy for you,
sir." I then told him the news, and that his island
should " wait for the law " of Jesus, together with
other " isles." " John Chinaman, you, John, there
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSION AEY FIELD. 325
by that post, look here, my good fellow, I've got
something to tell you," etc. Thus I traveled, as it
were, over all creation, calling by name all the
different nations I could think of, recognizing their
representatives before me, and I felt unspeakably
happy in the fact, that throughout creation's vast
realm I could not find a rebel to whom I could
not extend the hand of hearty Christian sympathy,
and say, I have good news to tell you, my brother,
"glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people." When I had got round, as I thought, an
Irishman in the congregation spoke out and said :
"And may it plase your riverence, and have ye
nothing good for a poor Irishman ?"
"Why," my dear Irish brother, "I ask your par
don, sir," I replied, " I did not mean to pass you by.
Thank the Lord, I have good news for you, my
brother. Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted
death for every Irishman on the Emerald Isle ; and
let me tell you, my brother, that if you will this
morning renounce all your sins, and submit to the
will of God, Jesus, your Saviour, will grant you a free
pardon, and clean all the sins and all the devils out of
your heart as effectually as your people say St. Pat
rick cleared the snakes and toads out of Ireland."
" Thank you, sir," said he, " I raly belave ivery
word you say, and I'll try and be a betther man."
There is, beyond a doubt, a spirit of inquiry at
326 CALLFOBNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
work in the dark minds of heathen and semi-heathen
foreigners in California, in regard to our institutions,
civilization, and religion ; and when they become
familiar with our language, and with our Bible,
the light will break upon them as upon the mind of
Martin Luther, when he found the chained Bible.
An intelligent-looking Italian came to me to know
where he could get an Italian Bible. " A Spanish
Bible will do," said he ; " I can read Spanish pretty
well, but I prefer an Italian Bible, as I want to read
to my companions." He informed me that he was
one of a party of twelve Italian refugees, who took
part in the revolution of 1848, and had to flee for
their lives ; said that he and his party had been in
California eighteen months, and had often heard me
preach in the streets, and were anxious to become
acquainted with our Bible and the Protestant re
ligion. They liked the preaching so far as they
could understand it, and thought that was just the
religion the Italians needed. I went with him, and
he got a Bible from a branch depository of that
glorious institution, the American Bible Society.
The Italian afterward told me that he and his com
panions were delighted with the great things they
found in the Bible. He said they spent their even
ings in reading and talking about it.
Those fellows despised oppression. I saw a Span
iard in Clay-street one day beating his little boy.
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 327
Several of those Italians happened at the time to be
on the opposite side of the street, and as soon as they
heard the cries of the little fellow, they ran across
the street, and knocked the Spaniard to the pavement
almost as suddenly as if he had been shot, and took
charge of the boy. I happening to know the boy,
took him by the hand and conveyed him to his
mother.
The next time I saw the Italians, they ran across
the street to meet me, and inquired very particularly
about the welfare of the little boy for whom they had
fought.
A company of Maltese lived near me for^ several
years. I gave them a Testament, and told them
about St. Paul's shipwreck and sojourn on their
native island, and how well their ancient ancestors
treated the servant of God. They seemed as much
delighted with the book as if I had given them the
family records of their fathers.
A company of Manilla men wintered near me dur
ing the winter of 1849-50. I used to tell them about
Jesus, and they attended my preaching in " the high
ways." They could not, at that early day, under
stand much English, but to show their appreciation
of their preacher, when in the spring they were about
leaving for the mountains, they brought me a pres
ent, consisting of a variety of their native tools, etc.
One Sunday, as I was preaching in Washington-
328 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
street, I observed in the congregation an old Italian
weeping. At the close of service he grasped my
hand:
" O, dat what I like ; tell everybody 'bout Jesus ;
I never saw such free preaching and free Jesus be
fore. O, I likes it ! When you preach again ?"
"This afternoon, on the Plaza, at four o'clock,"
said I.
" O, I'll be there ! I likes it !"
" Are you acquainted with Jesus ?" said I.
" O yes, bless de Lord, I'se got him right in here,"
replied he, putting his hand on his breast ; " I loves
him wid all my heart."
I saw him at preaching several times afterward.
He always took his stand close in front of me, and
gazed, and listened, and wept, and seemed to enter
almost into the spirit of good old Simeon. I have
no doubt that he enjoyed the pardoning mercy of
God, and was ready, like Simeon, at the call of his
Master to say : " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine
eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast pre
pared before the face of all people ; a light to lighten
the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel."
At an experience meeting in our Seamen's Bethel
in San Francisco, a Prussian arose, and said :
" I come to California to git golt ; now I don't care
about de golt ; I want to find dat Yaesus you all
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD. 329
talk about. I believe lie is my friend too, and I want
to find him. De handt of God lias been heavy upon
me since I be in California ; he shakes me, he shakes
me now. I dream de odder night dat I was dying, and
a great pig snake had me, and just as my breadt was
almost gone, Brodder Taylor came along and knock
de snake away, and help me up. I didn't know
Brodder Taylor den, but dis is de man dat knock de
snake off, and dis is Brodder Taylor. De snake is
de debil; O Brodder Taylor, and all you brodders,
will you pray for me, and help me get away from de
debil, and find Yaesus ?"
We all prayed earnestly for him, and he was
clearly converted to God. As soon as he found
Jesus, he said he wanted to go back to his own
country to tell his mother about Jesus; and about
a year afterward he took passage, saying he was
going home to tell his mother about Jesus. I have
seen a number of Scandinavians converted in San
Francisco ; and the first thing a converted young
Dane, or Swede, or Norwegian talks about when he
finds Jesus, is his "dear mudder." They want to
go straightway and tell "mudder" all about it.
We have, in connection with Yreka station in Siski-
you County, about four hundred miles north of San
Francisco, a class of, I believe, eighteen Methodist
Kanakas, Sandwich Islanders. They have one of their
own men for leader ; and Brother Stratton, who was
330 CALIFOK1XTA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
their pastor a couple of years, represented them in
conference as being very pious and consistent, at
tended class regularly, and contributed voluntarily
and liberally for the support of their pastor. And
while the masses of Americans around them paid
no regard to the Sabbath, those converted heathens
spent it only in songs of praise, and in other religious
exercises. There are many hinderances to oppose
the spread of the Gospel among the heathen and
semi-heathen of California, especially the example of
God-hating, Christ-rejecting, Sabbath-breaking, over
reaching, profane English and Americans, the lead
ing representatives of Protestant Christian nations,
whose influence has spread over the land a universal
moral blight, which for a time seemed to consume,
like the locusts of Egypt, every green thing.
But now, thank the Lord ! the spring-time of
religious life has come ; much that seemed to be
dead has revived, and all over the country are seen
buds and blossoms, and "fruit unto holiness;" and
songs in the vales are heard, like the songs of the
ancient captive people of God when returning and
coming to Zion. Notwithstanding all past and
present obstructions, the Church may command
greater facilities for the conversion of the heathen in
California than she can have in a foreign field. In
the first place, as we have shown, their contact with
American ingenuity and energy knocks their national
CALIFORNIA AS A MISSION AEY FIELD. 331
pride and prejudice into the dust, and they are
almost imperceptibly, as by a ground swell, borne up
on the tide of American civilization. They at once
feel that they are dependents, and soon become imi
tators of their superiors. Thus some of the great
est obstructions to the foreign missionary's success
are carried away before the Church makes a direct
effort for their salvation. Again, a foreign missionary
cannot, ordinarily, till after many years of labor,
exhibit to the heathen the light of Christian example,
except that of his own experience and conduct. He
has no means of giving them an example of the prac
tical effect of religion in society. There are many
persons, even in Christian lands, who think that re
ligion is only suited for preachers and men of leisure,
and not at all adapted to the active relations of
business and social life, and such a conclusion would
be most natural to the mind of a heathen. To place
a foreign missionary, therefore, on anything like
equal footing, in this regard, with the Church in
California, we must export to his field of labor
Christian merchants and mechanics, blacksmiths,
carpenters, etc., and Christian farmers and house
wives, etc. ; in short, a Christian colony.
In California the heathen are learning, and will
yet learn more perfectly to discriminate between the
mere subjects of Christian nations, and the Chris
tians in fact; and there the missionary has at once
332 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
the advantage of a living exemplification of Chris
tianity in every department of business and social
life, to set before his heathen brother.
Let any man weigh the facts we have in part indi
cated, and he will see that the gold magnet of Cali
fornia was pointed by an all-wise and merciful Prov
idence, for the purpose of attracting and enriching
the nations, not in gold, but godliness ; and that when
these " strangers and foreigners " shall have acquired
our language, and some knowledge of the institutions
of Christianity, a Pentecostal gust of glory may burst
upon them, and they by thousands see and experi
ence " the wonderful works of God," and return to
their homes God's own embassadors, to carry the
truce flag of redeeming mercy to their perishing
brethren, and declare to them in their own vernac
ular tongue, the royal proclamation of peace and par
don through the blood of Jesus. Upon a careful
review of the foregoing facts, taken together with the
proximity of California to the heathen millions of
Asia, and Japan, and Oceanica, etc., and her con
stant inter-communication with them, I come to
the deliberate conclusion that California is to-day,
in the openings of Providence, the most import
ant missionary field under the sun. "The harvest
truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few : pray
ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will
send forth laborers into his harvest."
BIT OF EXPERIENCE. 333
CHAPTEE XII.
BIT OF EXPERIENCE CONCLUSION.
FOR the information of my friends who inquire
why I am here, five thousand miles from my confer
ence, and my California field of labor, and when I
expect to return, I will very briefly insert a bit of my
experience.
After organizing the Powell-street Church in San
Francisco — the first Methodist Episcopal society in
California — which I served two years, I was appoint
ed to establish in that port a seamen's Bethel enter
prise, which was to comprise the erection of a large
church for the seamen and sojourners of the nations
who were constantly thronging our streets, and the
establishment of a home for the shipwrecked and des
titute mariners of all seas as they were crowded upon
us. I commenced without a dollar's worth of patron
age from any source, except what spontaneously
sprang up in the streets of that city in connection
with out-door preaching ; but we proceeded in the
name of the Lord and the people, and within a
period of two years we completed a church forty
334 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
by ninety feet, plain and substantial, the best church
at that time in the state, besides a good parsonage,
and had a church property worth in the market,
above all indebtedness, thirty-four thousand dollars;
and, what was better, the Lord was with us in great
mercy, awakening and converting sinners, so that
the " Bethel enterprise " was considered the most
glorious work connected with our conference.
Up to this time the Home department of the enter
prise had not been commenced, while the necessity
demanding such an institution in that port was
keenly felt from the beginning. Finally, in the
progress of improvements in that part of the city,
an opportunity presented itself by which the trustees
of our enterprise saw clearly, as they believed, that
if they could obtain a loan of the funds necessary to
put up the Home building, that certain available
resources in hand (the nature of which we have not
room here to explain, nor is it necessary) would in
due time refund the money, and we would then have
our enterprise completed and out of debt, without
having to make any further demands on public be
nevolence ; a most desirable consummation.
The trustees found, however, that while moneyed
men were satisfied with their securities — the lot on
which the Bethel stood, and the one on which they
contemplated the erection of the Home — they were
not willing to take the names of a Church corpora-
BIT OF EXPEEIENCE. 335
tion. They demanded, in connection with those secu
rities, a responsible personal name. " Father Tay
lor's " name was proposed and accepted. It was a
matter of no secular interest to me, and involved a
heavy pecuniary responsibility ; but having long be
fore consecrated myself to the Lord and his cause,
and shrinking from no responsibility that seemed ne
cessary and safe, and the basis being considered by
all parties ample security against all contingences, I
consented to that arrangement, got the funds without
difficulty, and made the proposed improvements, my
conference indorsing it as one of the grandest enter
prises of the day. So it seemed to all observers in
the light of California progress at that time.
For a season everything went on prosperously, but
a tide of reverses soon set in, affecting the business of
the entire state, depreciating everything, and espe
cially San Francisco real estate. In the midst of the
pressure along came a devouring fire, which swal
lowed up our late improvements in an hour, and our
" broad and reliable basis " had by this time nar
rowed down by the general depreciation until, like
the prophet's bedstead, it was quite too short to allow
a long man, straitened out with such responsibilities
as I had to bear, " to stretch himself on it, and the
covering narrower than that he could wrap himself
in it ;" and now an un thought of alternative began
to stare me in the face, more dreadful to my feelings
336 CALIFOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
than a dozen of deaths. Two days after the fire a
noble band of San Francisco merchants met together
" on 'Change." and having looked over the facts and
figures of our sinking enterprise, came up to the
question of relief with an enthusiasm and generosity
which were characteristic of merchant princes. Said
they : " This man must not be allowed to suffer. We
know how he has preached here five times a Sab
bath, and labored day and night for the improvement
of society in this city for half a dozen years, and
here are the official documents to show that he never
could have been benefited one cent by this enterprise,
had it been as successful as was contemplated ; and
now to allow him to sink under its unforeseen and
uncontrollable reverses, is a thing to which we will
never consent." That was the talk, I assure you. It
came like the voice of hope to a drowning man.
They accordingly appointed a committee of four of
the best men in the city, in my opinion, to raise by
subscription the funds necessary to rebuild and carry
our enterprise through. That committee, after meet
ing together, and looking over the ground, reported
to me that they would forthwith raise ten thousand
dollars, and then stand by and see that I should not
suffer. A mountain was rolled off my heart, and I
returned home that day, feeling like a man just con
verted and saved from impending perdition. But
my rejoicing was of short continuance ; for only two
BIT OF EXPERIENCE. 337
days after that, before my committee could com
mence their work, Page, Bacon, and Co.'s bank, and
immediately Adams and Co.'s bank, with their
branches throughout the state, banks of world-wide
celebrity and unquestioned solvency, went down
with a crash, followed by a train of banking
institutions and business firms, till the panic arose
and swept through the state like a hurricane in a
forest.
My friends, by the hundred, and most of my trus
tees, were thrown into tangled prostration, and buried
in the common ruin. The few friends who were left
were like the standing oaks in the forest after the
fury of the tornado has passed, scathed, peeled, and
slivered, holding their position firmly, but having
no sap to spare for their dying neighbors. So I was
now caught in what a Californian would call " a
very bad snap," and how to get out was the ques
tion. My committee and a few others did nobly;
but after a few desperate struggles we had to suc
cumb. Everything was surrendered but the church,
without a lot to stand on ; and I went up to confer
ence with a full exhibit of the facts and figures from
the commencement, which were examined by that
body of ministers and pronounced correct; but the
unanticipated extraordinary reverses had swept the
board, pay day had come, and there was nothing in
the " locker," Those California preachers are, upon
20
338 CALIFOK]$TA LIFE ILLUSTEATED.
the whole, as noble a set of fellows, in my opinion, as
the Lord ever made, and they would have footed the
bill and helped me right up if it had been possible ;
but it should be remembered, that in the space of
half a dozen years we had supplied, at an enormous
expense, exceeding that of any other new country,
about fifty circuits and stations with churches and
parsonages; and though we had gone as strictly as
seemed practicable, on the principle of "pay as ye
go," we were, nevetheless, nearly everywhere more
or less behind, and all suffering from the general
panic, so that nearly every preacher came to con
ference with a church or parsonage on his back, or
a crushing weight of reponsibility on behalf of " our
paper" and university, and each wondering how
upon earth he was going to get rid of his burden.
We were like a set of shipwrecked mariners, each
cast forth on a broken fragment of the wreck to
drift or paddle ashore as best he could; and all
we were able to say as we floated near each other
was, "The Lord" bless you, my brother! I hope
you'll get ashore. I'm sorry I can't help you."
They passed a list of resolutions of confidence and
condolence on my behalf, very good in their place,
but they would not pay any debts. The report of
the " Committee on the Bethel," which was adopted
by the conference, closes with the following preamble
and resolution, a certified copy of which I have :
BIT OF EXPERIENCE. 339
" Whereas the Rev. William Taylor, at the request
of the trustees of the Seamen's Bethel, assumed
heavy personal liabilities for the Bethel enter
prise ; and Whereas this conference, at its session in
Sacramento City, 1854, did give their sanction to
the Bethel enterprise and said arrangement ; and
Whereas, by fire and depreciation of property, the
enterprise financially failed, and involved Brother
Taylor to an amount above assets of twenty-two
thousand fifteen dollars and thirty-five cents; there
fore,
" JResolved, That we deeply sympathize with
Brother Taylor in said involvement, and regret that
it is not in our power, personally, to assist him.
(Signed) " ISAAC OWEN, "1
" JOHN DANIEL,
uir n ~n f Oommtftee."
" M. C. BRIGGS,
" G. S. PHILLIPS. J
Now, what was a poor Methodist preacher to do
in such a case as that ? Must I be sacrificed on the
altar of my devotion to the cause of God and
humanity, and go down into the dark sea of bank
ruptcy without hope, or fall back on my own re
sources, and say, It shall be settled? I chose the
latter alternative. And my resources, what were
they? What little property I had was dried up in
the general depreciation, so as not to avail one copper.
340 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
My resources consisted of a well-developed physi
cal constitution, six feet high, and a heart full of the
love of Jesus, and Gospel hope and faith. With
these I said to the Conference : " Brethren, I am
fully persuaded that God, in permitting this train
of reverses to befall our Bethel enterprise, has
higher and better ends in view than our pecuniary
success, which he will bring to light in due time;
but the honor of the cause demands that at some
time this whole business be satisfactorily settled.
However great the mistake in running any risk in
the premises, the Lord knows the purity of the
motives underlying the whole matter, and I be
lieve he will in mercy permit such a settlement;
and in view of all the facts, I have made up my
mind to "face the music," trust in God, and settle
it. How or when the Lord only knows, or how
much he will enable me to pa}7, I cannot tell; but
enough to satisfy all parties concerned under the
circumstances, and vindicate the honor of his
cause."
In the midst of those reverses I had, for the first
time in my life, an attack of rheumatism, which kept
me in doors a few days; and being unable to do
anything else, I tried my hand in writing out a few
death scenes; and finding that my pen went much
easier than I expected, I became interested and
encouraged, and in connection with my regular
BIT OF EXPERIENCE. 341
pastoral work, I found in a few weeks that I had
matter enough written to make a book.
On the eve of the session of conference to which I
have referred, it struck me one morning that I ought
to go to New- York and publish my book, and it
might become the entering wedge toward relieving
my embarrassments; and moreover, that, with twelve
years' experience in street-preaching, I might by my
example, in connection with my book on that sub
ject, enlist the sympathies of the Church more fully
on behalf of the ten millions of outsiders in the
United States, for whom there are no church accom
modations. The more I thought of it, the more
plausible it seemed ; but there were two apparently
insurmountable difficulties in my way. First, I could
not leave without the consent of my conference, and
I knew they had no men to spare ; and second, I
could not go without money to pay my passage.
To leave my family would cost more than to take
them with me, and that would cost, with myself,
about seven hundred dollars ; quite an item for a
man who had not money enough to take him fifty
miles to conference and back. But when I started
to conference I submitted the matter to the Lord
in this way : I said to the Lord, that if it were his
will and my duty to go East, I would take two facts
as an expression of his will, and never doubt. The
342 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
first was the advance of the passage money, and sec-
*ondly, the consent of my conference.
I was not presumptuous nor enthusiastic ; I did not
expect the Lord to work a miracle, or anything of
that sort, for my accommodation ; but I did not know
of a friend I had " unbroke," to whom I could go
for the money ; and I knew that it was a law in
the spiritual kingdom, not to send a man to wage " a
warfare at his own charges." At any rate I was
willing to leave the case in the hands of the Lord,
and let the decision of the question, to go or not, turn
on those two conditions.
Strange as it may appear, without solicitation, and
most unexpectedly, I received on the second day of
the session of conference, the following note from
Judge Haven, a noble, high-minded outsider, who
had known me and my labors from the commence
ment:
"SAN FKANCISCO, Aug. 26, 1856.
"Mr DEAR BROTHER TAYLOR, — The Mail Company
will take you and family, for $675, and knock off
$375, leaving $300, which I have to-day collected
for you, so .that it will cost you nothing to get home.
" Yours truly, J. P. HAVEN."
I read it and said, " Thank the Lord for that ; I
think I see in that an important link in the chain
of Providence." On the last day of the session
BIT OF EXPEKIE^CE. 343
I informed the brethren that I had written a book;
told them my convictions of duty in regard to going,-
East, the unexpected supply of the passage money,
etc. ; so the conference voted me leave of absence,
which was sanctioned by the presiding bishop. The
conference then passed the following preamble and
resolution :
"Whereas the Kev. William Taylor, an honored
and useful member of this body, has prepared
materials for a work, to publish which it appears
necessary that he should visit the Atlantic states, for
which purpose he has obtained leave of absence from
this field for a time, therefore,
" Resolved, That the Rev. W. Taylor has our con
fidence and sympathy, our commendations and our
prayers, and he shall find willing hands to clasp
him and warm hearts to welcome him on his return.
Signed, " M. C. BBIGGS,
"E. THOMAS,
" J. D. BLAIN."
We came to New- York as strangers in a strange
city, in which the high rates of boarding very soon
exhausted our little stock of fimds ; and when our little
California boy died we had not money enough to
bury him. It was Christmas day, and while the
multitudes were rejoicing without, I sat with the
partner of my missionary trials, triumphs, and
reverses, in the house of mourning ; and as we wept
344 CALIEOKNIA LIFE ILLUSTKATED.
over our dead, she inquired, " William, how much
money have you left ?" " Two dollars and seventy-
five cents ; not enough to buy a coffin for our dear
Willie." But we knew in whom we had believed,
by whom we had never been forsaken in the darkest
storms we had ever seen. We looked to our Father
in heaven, and. he sent us sympathizing friends in
our need. A good brother bought us a coffin, and
hired a hack, in which we conveyed our boy to the
house of the dead, and thanked God for comfort in
the dark days. Then, again, when I tried to get my
book through the press, I could not find a publishing
house that would touch it without the cash ; a thou
sand dollars must be paid as soon as the work was
done, and I had not a dollar in the world ; but I
made a contract on the faith that the Lord would
help me some way ; so the night before it was
necessary to close the contract, up turned a live Cali-
fornian, a merchant prince, who knew me and my
cause, and said he, " Go ahead, Taylor ; I'll back
you;" so out came the book. While getting that
book through the press it struck me that I could
write a better one, but I was so occupied for a year
after, that I could get no time for writing, except one
week in Philadelphia, last summer, having but six
sermons to preach, I sat down and wrote, " ADDRESS
TO YOUNG AMERICA, AND A WORD TO THE OLD FOLKS,"
a little book which is selling well, and, I believe,
BIT OF EXPEKIENCE. 345
doing good. And when confined last fall with
small-pox, isolated from society as utterly as if I had
the leprosy, I wrote a chapter on Social life in Cali
fornia for my contemplated book, but when I got out
I immediately went to work in the great revivals of
the season. I assisted in conducting some heavy
campaigns, and everywhere had glorious victories,
and became so absorbed in the great business of soul-
saving that I got quite out of the spirit, and about out
of the notion of writing another book, and had
engagements for several months ahead ; but in the
midst of a siege in Stamford, Connecticut, I was at
tacked with rheumatism, the second attack of my
life, but much more severe than the first. I was
knocked off the track completely, and finding myself
incapable of field work, my attention was again
called to my contemplated book ; so when the
extreme severity of the rheumatic shock had passed,
I went to writing, and now, as the pains are leaving
me, I am finishing my last chapter. .
In regard to my return to California, I have only
to say, that I expect to return from choice. I labor
for the salvation of sinners as cheerfully and earnest
ly in one place as another, but my family are home
sick to get back to California, and I prefer it to any
other country, both for myself and for my boys, and
I am held here only by the pressure of the mission for
which I came. I travel from city to city, and have
346 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTEATEL.
no home for my family. We have buried one boy, as
I have before remarked, since our sojourn here ;
nursed another last spring through scarlet fever;
nursed two others last fall through small-pox, self and
wife down with varioloid at the same time ; so we
find this mode of itinerancy anything but agreeable.
"We are, nevertheless, greatly comforted by several
considerations.
First, The Lord is with us in great mercy, and has
cheered us with his comforting presence during
every hour of our reverses and afflictions, and has
graciously sanctified them all to our spiritual ad
vancement.
Secondly, Though absent from my conference and
my adopted field of labor, I am, nevertheless, at
work in the vineyard of God, preaching regularly,
in doors and out, except during the periods of con
finement referred to, from eight to twelve sermons
a week, and have had the happiness of seeing many
hundreds of souls converted.
In the third place, I am doing more for the relief
of my needy cause than I can hope to do in any
circuit or station, and hence feel it my duty to work
on in this way till my cause is relieved, or till my
duty in some other direction is clearly indicated in
the order of Providence. If I had a few " kinsmen"
here, or in California, who could redeem their brother,
and let me up from this crushing responsibility, I
CONCLUSION.
would be free at once to go into the regular work in
California, or wherever else the Lord might send me.
What is past in my experience, I know ; what is to
come, is with the Lord and the people. I believe I
am, in the order of Providence, through a train of
reverses, well ballasted, and am ready, most unhesi
tatingly, to respond to the Lord's call for any voyage :
" Here am I, send me."
It was my design in this book to finish my story
in regard to the " Book Concern of the Pacific ;" to
tell of the California Christian Advocate, its life,
death, funeral expenses of nine thousand dollars,
and its resurrection in time to publish to the world
the first notice of its own death ; in short, I designed
giving specimen exhibitions of missionary life in
California, from the commencement down to the
present period. I also designed giving life-takings
of individual men and women, personal adventures,
perils by sea and land; well-authenticated thrilling
facts and real scenes, illustrating California life in
all its departments. Also some account of ancient
relics of history, government works, charitable insti
tutions, and to tell of the natural wonders of the land
— its sublime mountains, crowned with crystal and
eternal snow, whose tears water the vales in summer
heat ; its mineral springs ; its streams and water
falls; Yohamite Falls, the greatest wonder of the
kind in the world, leaping from mountain heights
348 CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED.
four times the distance of Niagara ; its giant trees,
the largest, I have no doubt, the Lord ever built;
and especially the seasons, perfect transparence and
purity of the atmosphere, and the salubriousness and
variety of California climate.
But my book is full. In missionary life I have but
briefly illustrated the first seven months coming
under my own observation. I have only "pros
pected" and u opened" a rich historic mine, running
through a period of more than seven years, which
yet remains to be " worked out," besides the lateral
" drifts " to which I have just referred.
ISTow, in view of these facts, I feel inclined to add
another volume. If I can command the time, and
the public demand will justify the expense, a second
volume of " CALIFORNIA LIFE ILLUSTRATED " shall be
forthcoming.
THE END.
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