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THE DIARY OF
A FORTY-NINER
Edited by
CHAUNCEY L. CANFIELD
II
BOSTON AND NSW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1920
V
/t V V
^'.^^ '
COmUOKT, 1906, BY MOM«AN SBBPARO COMrAMT
AU. KlOHTt KSSKMYBO
•'W45t m^ f
• •••• ;•"*. -• •
TO MT WIFE, MT CHUM FOR
A QUARTER OF A CEOTTURT,
THIS BOOK It LOVINGLY
DEDICATED
Cbaun CBT L. Cakfield
444026
PREFACE
Now and again there cx>mes out of the dim past
something which opens up an hitherto unknown or
forgotten page in history, A copper implement
from a lake midden, a chipped arrow head from a
cave, a deciphered hieroglyphic from the face of a
granite rock, a ruined temple in an overgrown
jungle by means of which we rescue a chapter that
tells of men's works and men's lives, former gen-
erations, who cumbered the earth for a brief time
and passed away and of whose existence even tra-
dition is silent. There are fascinating revealments
that excite a momentary interest only, for, barring
the scientist, we live in the present, and how our
remote ancestors throve or what they did gives us
but little concern. The long ago is vague, the cave
dwellers and the temple builders existed in fable
land, and, while we concede the importance of the
discoveries, we leave the study to the specialists and
magazine writers and do not burden our mind with
ancient history. This indiflFerence not only ob-
tains with reference to the tribes and peoples who
have disappeared off of the earth; it is equally true
of comparatively recent events.
Probably no one thing has had a greater influ-
ence upon the progress and expansion of our own
country than the discovery of gold in California
in 1849, following the material wealth that it added
to the world's store. Figures of billion gold produc-
tion have been recorded and preserved, but beyond
..
vu
PREFACE
that there is no authentic or truthful record. That
unique period is without its liistorian, and in only
a vague way is it comprehended. The present gen-
eration is content to adopt Bret Harte's tales as
veracious chronicles of life in the foothills and min-
ing camps of the "Fifties," yet every old pioneer
knows that his types were exaggerated, the miners'
dialect impossible and unknown ; but he illumined
his pages with genius, he caught the atmosphere,
and neither protest nor denial are sufficient to re-
move the belief that he was writing real history. As
for the latter day romancers, who attempt to re-
produce pioneer times, they are usually mushy imi-
tators of Harte who romance without knowledge
or understanding. ^ Those old, free, careless days
were and are without parallel. The conditions that
created them vanished with the exhaustion of the
shallow "diggings," and when in creek, gulch and
ravine the golden harvest had been gathered life
became prosaic and dull, with the dullness pro-
priety asserted itself, the conventions of a more
exacting social order crept in and the amazing foot-
hill day^ of the "Fifties" existed only as legend and
tradition.
Perhaps it was best. Men were getting danger-
ously close to Paganism, yielding to the beckoning
of "the wild," the insidious climatic influence of
the pine-cloUied hills, and it was well that the
shackles of civilization should again fetter them.
A great empire demanded development, fertile val-
leys invited cultivation, and the "cow counties"
(as the plains were contemptuously termed by the
miners), with the decay of mining, began to assert
their importance and supremacy. In the "Sixties"
...
viu
99
PREFACE
new conditions sprang into existence and finis was
written to the characteristics of the days of "'49: '
To write understandingly of that period one must
have lived in it; to catch the spirit one must have
been a part of it. In these prosy days of railroads
and trusts it is a fable, resting on no better au-
thority than the romancers' creations or senile
maunderings of the belated pioneer. And yet the
half has not been told. Then fact was romance
and romance fact. To be rich was not to be envied,
to be poor brought no reproach. Brawn and muscle
counted for more than brains; health and strength
was a more available capital than a college educa-
tion.
There lately came into possession of the editor
of the text that follows this preface a stout, leather-
bound book of some three hundred pages, contain-
ing a jumble of accounts and records of happenings
and incidents ranging from the cost of provisions
and supplies to notes of the doings of mining chums
and neighbors. Bearing every evidence of genuine-
ness, it purported to be the experiences of one
Alfred T. Jackson, a pioneer miner who cabined
and worked on Rock Creek, Nevada County, Cali-
fornia. In the lapse of the fifty odd years since
it had been written, the ink had faded and turned
yellow, many of the lines were barely legible, and
a dozen of the first leaves of the book had been
torn away. Fortunately, the remainder was intact
and the, subject matter proved to be of vital his-
torical interest. Here at last was a truthful, un-
adorned, veracious chronicle of the placer mining
dajrs of the foothills, a narrative of events as they
occurred; told in simple and, at times, ungram-
ix
^^ PREFACE
matical sentences, yet vivid and truth compelling
in the absence of conscious literary endeavor. One
speculates as to the motive that impelled the author
to persist in his diary. He was not a Pepys, his
naive confessions do not always give the real state
of his mind or the true reasons for his actions. He
was inclined to self-deception, ^as not frank with
himself while pretending that its pages were in-
tended only for his own eye. It is reasonable to
believe that he entertained a lurking idea that it
might see the light and this, with the relaxation
it afforded him from a contemplation of his hard-
ships and sordid surroundings, made it a pleasant
Sunday evening task. At any rate, it is a unique
contribution to the history of the era subsequent
to the discovery of gold on the flanks of the Sierra
Nevadas. It sets forth graphically the succ essive
)ld mining, from the can and rocicer to the
steps in gold mmmg . f rom tne pan and rocfcer to the
ground sluice and flume, and the quaint beliet of the
ioneers that tne placer ggCT deposits woujd soon
givgTyiit7"th« the sojourn was but^a ^traasknt one
a nd that nothing then rema ined but a retuna to
^e "States.'' Equally interesting is The gradual
evolutfejir of the diarist, from the Puritanical New
Englander, bound and shackled with the prejudices
of generations, narrow and limited in his views and
opinions, morally uncontaminated and unsophisti*
Gated in his experiences, to the broader and more
typical Califomian whose mental growth was stim-
ulated by the freedom of his environment and asso-
ciations. He becomes tolerant, worldly wise, more
charitable to his fcllowmen, convinced that over
and beyond the horizon of tht Litchfield hills, from
whence he came, there was a world worth knowing
PREFACE
and a life better worth living. The sUy in the
foothills made the at first alluring prospect of a re-
turn to his old home, even as the richest man in
the village, not only irksome to contemplate, but
impossible to endure.
That he was deeply indebted to "Pard,'' who was
at one and the same time his mentor and friend, the
x-ecord gives ample proof. Who among the old Cali-
fomians that does not recall the instances of those
ivonderf 111 friendships, resulting from like associa-
tions? ^They cabined together in the Tif ties' ";
that sigxiified a relationship, intimate and more self-
sacrificixxg than that of brothers, a love that rose
superior and forgave the irascibility resulting from
toil, ejcp^osure and fatigue; that overlooked Uie ex-
asperating repetition of sour bread and a scorch-
ing in tlie bean pot, and condoned the irritating
effects of hard fare and rude shelter. Our hero
convincingly illustrates the growth and strength
of the aflFection that bound each to the other with
^^hooks of steel" and the interdependence their dose
companionship created.
No less fascinating is the romance interwoven
in the pages of the diary. Its culmination, leaving
the man.^ on the threshold of a new life, while tan-
talizing in the vagueness of what the future might
be, docs not admit of a doubt that this sturdy, self-
reHant American was equal to a successful grapple
ivith lifers problems in whatever path he might take.
As a final word, the inside of the front cover bore
the name of Alfred T. Jackson, Norfolk, Litchfield
County, C:^rm.,October 10,1849. The entries range
over a period of two years and the people referred
to ^virere persons who actually existed, not only in
xi
PREFACE
Nevada Cbunty, California, at the time covered by
the diary, but also in his New England birthplace.
The editor can add that the many incidents and
happenings so simply noted, tragic and otherwise,
have been verified, both by local tradition and the
testimony of old timers still living, and that the
diary gives a veracious, faithful and comprehensive
picture of the pioneer miners' life in the early
"Fifties.^
xu
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I I
The Hardships of a Miner's Life — Letters From
Home — The Express Rider and His Welcome Call —
The Beginnings of Nevada City — Tapping a Monte
Bank — A Fascinating Twenty-One Dealer — Wing-
daming the River — An Indian Funeral Ceremony —
The Ups and Downs of Mining — The Advent of the
Long-Tom on Rock Creek.
CHAPTER n IS
Bunking With Pard — A Rich Claim — The First .
Ground Sluice — Siestas Under the Big Pine — Nam-
ing the Town — A Dog Fight and a Purchase — The
Grass-Widow Secures a Mate — A Shivarec and Its
Consequences — Banished From Selby Flat — Ander-
son's Eccentricities.
CHAPTER III 25
A Rattlesnake on the Trail — Claim Jumping and a
Tragedy — Miners' Courts and the Alcalde — Raising
the Anti-Debris Question — The First Sermon and a
liberal Collection — A Welcome Storm — Pack Mule
Load of Coarse Gold — lUparian Rights — An Expen-
sive CUcken Broth — Begging Letter From NortL
CHAPTER IV 35
The Forest in Autumn — A Sluice Robber and the
Whipping Post — North as a Monte Dealer — An
£nc9unter With a Highwayman — High-Priccd Hajr
— Another Meeting With the Frenchwoman — Men-
cans Discover a Big Bonanza — An Eviction by Force
— Recognition of the Rights of Foreign Miners.
..«
Xlll
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V 45
Weather Contrasts — Anticipating the Exhaustion of
the Placers — A Lively Dance at Selby Flat — The
Fight Between the Jackass and the Ferocious Bear —
Decamping Showmen — The Town Celebrates the
Event — A Foothill Ditty — The Murder of Henry
North — Following the Channels Under the Mountain
— The Growth of Nevada City,
CHAPTER VI 55
A Real Estate Speculation — Encounter With a Road
Agent — Discovery of Rich Quartz Veins at Grass Val-
ley — A Valuable Specimen — Madame Ferrand Vis-
its Rock Creek — Rich Diggings on the North Yuba
— Generosity of the Pioneers — The Twenty-One
Dealer's Fortune*
CHAPTER VII 65
A Trip to San Francisco — Speculating in Sandhill
Lots — High Living — Hetty Breaks the Engagement
— Back in the Qaim — Nevada County Organized —
Drawing Money From a Gravel Bank — More Gold
Discoveries — The Rescue of a Party of Unfortunate
Immigrants — The "Lost Grave."
CHAPTER VIII 75
Murder on the Trail — A Pursuing Posse — Wanted,
a French Dictionary — Caring for the Distressed Im-
migrants — Jackson's Confession — The Jolly Crowd
at the Saleratus Ranch — A Midnight Concert and a
Row — Haying in the Mountains — Letters From
Home — The Old Folks Taking it Easy — A Peace
Persuader — Pard's Disposition Changes for the Better.
CHAPTER IX 87
Women Arriving in the Country — Our Hero Wrestles
With the French Language — A Waiter Who Could
Not Undersund His Native Tongue — The Rival
Fourth of July Celebration at Selby Flat — Qose to a
xiv
CONTENTS
Lynching Bee — Pard Gets a Surprise — Forming a
River Mining Company — The Sandhill Speculation
Prospers — Anderson's Revelation,
CHAPTER X 97
Fascination of the Sierra Foothills — An Ideal Friend-
ship— Lousy Level — Jack and the Mountain Lion
— The Burning Pine — Sawmill Invasion of the For-
ests — Mounting a Broncho — Cruel Punishment
Dealt to Petty Thieves — Departure for the River.
CHAPTER XI 107
Fluming the South Yuba — In the Bed of the Stream
— A Picturesque Camp — Guarding the Gold Dust —
Elztending the Real Estate Sjpeculation — Jackson
Forms the Reading Habit — The Fascination of the
"Three Musketeers" — A Reformation at Selby Flat
— An Experimental Vegetable Garden on Rock Creek
— The Biggest Poker Game to Date.
CHAPTER XII : . • . 117
A Trip to the Mountains — An E:q)erience in a Sierra
Snowstorm — Perils of. the North Fork Canon — An
Opportune Find of a Deserted Cabin — Entertain-
ment For Man and Beast — The Return to Rock
Creek — Hospitable Miners — Discovery of the Big
Blue Lead — Opening the Ancient River Channels.
CHAPTER XIII 129
Setting Sluice Boxes — Promised Christmas Feast at
Sclby Flat — The First Newspaper Established —
Hermit Piatt Tells His Story — A Pioneer Overiand
Expedition Across the Arid Arizona Deserts — Perils
and Dangers of the Journey — A Welcome Oasis —
Arrival at Don Warner's Ranch — Sad News Awaits
the Argonaut at San Francisco.
CHAPTER XIV 137
A Sensation on the Flat — The M3rsterious Disappear-
ance of the Turkeys —The No^Sobbler Betters Wm
XV
CONTENTS
Their Wagers — An Angry Landlord — The Saleratus
Ranch Under Suspicion — Just a Plain, Everyday
Dinner — The Rendezvous and a Feast Down the
Creek — The Sweetheart Delays Her Return —
The Jackass Escapes a Serenade.
CHAPTER XV .-145
Strange Disappearance of Carter and Ristine — A De-
serted Shanty — Ristine's Death — Revelations at
the Inquest — Who Stole the Turkeys? — A Rich
Streak on the Bed-Rock — Pard Bars the Banjo —
Hetty has a Change of Heart — The Interior of a
Miner's Cabin — A Sentimental Picture — Friend-
shipi Prosperity, and Contentment.
CHAPTER XVI ISS
The Raging Yuba — A Visit to the River — Bad Case
of Jim-Tams — A Swarm of Tin- Jacketed Imps — Sun-
day in Nevada — Food Famine in the Mining Camps
— Rattlesnake Dick Shoots Up the Town — A
Quartz-Mining Speculation and its Failure*
CHAPTER XVII 163
A Formidable Indictment of the Turkey Thieves —
An Old-Time Legal Document — Haled into Court —
The Trial, the Verdict, and the Penalty — A Safety
Valve for the Wild Spirits — The Jackass Not For Sale
— Pard's Tender Heart — His Consideration for Bird
and Beast and Affection for His Cabin-Mate — The
Donkey's Correct Principles.
CHAPTER XVIII I7«
Jackson Visits the Neighboring Mining Camps —
Pocket-Hunting at Rough and Ready — A Puzzle for
the Theorists — A Section of a Dead River — Specula-
tion on the Genesis of Gold — The Old-Timers' Dic-
tum — First Visit to the Theater — Pard Returns
From San Francisco — A Profitable Investment —
Jackson Decides to Marry His French Sweetheart.
xvi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIX i8i
Pard Brushes Up in His Profession — No Deference
Paid to Wealth — How Fortune Favored Jenkins —
When You Have Got the Luck, It's With You From
Start to Finish — Jim Vineyard's Hard Streak — A
Moving Tale of a Missed Opportunity — One Man's
Loss Another Man's Gain — Trousers Pockets vs.
Money Belts.
CHAPTER XX 189
The Unsociable Couple on Round Mountain — Good
Fellowship Among the Pioneers — The Tax-Collector
Passes the Miners By — A Woman in Breeches —
Marie Returns From France — Adoption of a New
Method of Sluicing — The Dog and Donkey Strike up
a Friendship — Frank Dunn and His Eccentricities —
Posing as a Horrible Example.
CHAPTER XXI 199
A Successful Experiment — A Joke on the Visitors —
Road Agents Hold Up a Stage — Unchivalric Treat-
ment of the Woman Passenger — Meeting of the Lov-
ers — Jackson's Word Picture of the Beauties of the
Landscape, Viewed From Sugar Loaf — The Reconcili-
ation of Anderson and his Wife — Marie's Comments.
CHAPTER XXII 207
A Placid Life — Marie Observes the Proprieties —
Pard Plans for the Future — The Progress of a Love
Idyll — Reelfoot Williams and His Gang — Jack's
Warning — Robbery of the Blue Tent Store — A
Fruitless Pursuit — Negotiating the Sale of Mining
Properties — Shallow Placers Worked Out and Deep
Diggings Taking Their Place.
CHAPTER XXIII 217
A Combination to Work Rock Creek — Extracting
Gold From Blue Cement — The Critical Cats at Selby
xvii
CONTENTS
Flat — French Cooking in the Old Cabin— The In-
flux of Chinamen into the Mines — A Joint Visit to
Round Mountain — Marie Predicts an Explosion —
No Cause for Interference.
CHAPTER XXIV 225
The Partners Sell Out the Creek Claim — Jackson's
Reputation in His Old Home — Providing for the
Jackass's Future — The Slocum Farm Has No Attrac-
tion — Loafing the Days Away — Rushes to New-
Localities — Trouble on Roimd Mountain — Scandal-
mongers' Tongues Let Loose — Chinamen Show Fight
and are Run Off of Deer Creek.
CHAPTER XXV 233
Sad Termination of the Round Mountain Mystery —
A Suicide's Cynical Farewell — The Intrusion of the
" Eternal Feminine " — Pard's Remarks — " Let There
Be No Clack of Idle Tongues" — An Impressive Cere-
mony and a Solitary Grave — The Partners Grow
Sentimental Over the Old Log Cabin and Their Mu-
tual Experiences — Preparing for a Leave-Taking.
CHAPTER XXVI 239
Distributing Personal Effects — Pard's Farewell Din-
ner — "Zey Are Ze Good Boys" — Champagne and
Its Effects — The Last Sitting Under the Old Pine
Tree — Voices of the Night Chorus a Melancholy Fare-
well — Wind-up of Jackson's Diary — The Fate of
Hetty and a Last Word in Regard to the Actors Who
Have Figured in the Old-Time Record.
EPILOGUE 249
XVIU
CHAPTER I.
THE HARDSHIPS OF A MINER'S LIFE-
LETTERS FROM HOME— THE EXPRESS
RIDER AND HIS WELCOME CALI^THE
BEGINNINGS OF NEVADA CITY— TAP-
PING A MONTE BANK— A FASCINATING
TWENTY-ONE DEALER— WINGDAMING
THE RIVER— AN INDIAN FUNERAL
CEREMONY— THE UPS AND DOWNS OF
MINING— THE ADVENT OF THE LONG-
TOM ON ROCK CREEK.
THE D I A R Y = 6^
A FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER I.
MAY 19, 1850.— The pork I bought in town last
night is the stinkcnest salt junk ever brought
around the Horn. It is a hardship that we can't
get better hog meat, as it's more than half of our
living. We fry it for breakfast and supper, boil it
with our beans, and sop our bread in the grease.
Lord knows we pay enough for it. When I first
settled on the creek it was a dollar a pound and
the storekeeper talks about it being cheap now at
sixty cents. I believe that if it were not for the
potatoes that are fairly plenty and the fact that
the woods are full of game, we would all die of
scurvy. There is plenty of beef, such as it is,
brought up in droves from Southern California, but
it's a tough article and we have to boil it to get
it tender enough to eat. There is a hunter who
lives over on Round Mountain and makes a living
killing deer and peddling the meat among the
miners. He charges fifty cents a pound for venison
steaks and he told me he made more money
than the average miner. I paid seventy-five cents
apiece in town yesterday for two apples and did not
begrudge the money. I was told that they were
grown in Oregon, which seemed strange, as I did
not know that country had been settled long enough
to raise fruit.
Will sell no more dust to M . . He allowed
^^ rTlmit/:,OD 1 A R Y OF
only $17.00 an ounce and then blew out two dol-
lars' worth of fine gold ; said it was not clean. Jerry
Dix, who is only two claims above me on the creek,
gets $18.50 for his at the store, but it always weighs
short. They are all in a ring to rob us poor miners.
Sent an eleven dollar specimen home to dad.
I Sack of flour $H.0O
Ten lbs. pork 6.00
I One lb. tea 2.50
j Ten lbs. beans 3.00
Two cans yeast powders 1.00
Five lbs. sugar 2.S0
Codfish 2.00
Twenty lbs. potatoes 6.00
Five ihs. dried apples l.SO
Pcdr boots 16.00
Can molasses 3.00
Duck overalls 2.50
Shirt 2.00
Shovel 2.50
Pick 2.50
$67.00
I was charged four dollars for delivering the lot
at the creek Sunday morning. Forgot to get some
powder and shot. Paid four bits apiece for two
New York Heralds.
There is another man who is making money. All
of our letters come by mail to Sacramento and are
then sent by express to Hamlet Davis, the store-
keeper on Deer Creek, who acts as postmaster, al-
though he has no legal appointment. He is the
big gold dust buyer of the camp and can afford to
do the work for nothing, as it brings most of the
miners to his store. Johnny Latham, the express
A FORTY>NlNER
rider, contracts to carry letters and papers for two
bits each and rides the trails and creeks for miles
around delivering them, beside selling newspapers
to such as want the latest news from the "States.**
We are always pleased when his mule heaves in
sight and would gladly give him the weight of the
letters in gold if we had to. How heartsick we get
for news from the old home way off here out of Uie
world and there is no disappointment quite as bad
as when he passes us by without handing over the
expected letter. My folks are mighty good; they
never miss a steamer.
Everybody on the creek gone to town and it's
pretty lonesome. I had to answer letters from Nor-
folk and that made me more homesick. I wonder
what mother would say if she saw my bunk. Have
not put in fresh pine needles for three weeks. I
know she would like my bread ; the boys all say I
am the best bread baker on the creek. Wrote her
a good long letter and sent dad the "Miners' Ten
Commandments."
Wouldn't I like to be with them just for a day!
MAY 26, 1850. — Rocked sixty buckets each day
during the week and got 7 1-2 ounces. Only worked
half a day Saturday. Did not go to town. Sent
over by Jim Early for some tobacco — five plugs for
two dollars. Went hunting this morning; killed
seventeen quail and four pigeons. They make a
good stew if the rotten pork didn't spoil it, but it's
better than the bull beef the butcher packs around.
Took a snooze in the afternoon till the squawking
of the blue jays woke me up. I don't mind them so
much, but when the doves begin to mourn it seems
THE DIARY OF
as if I couldn't stand it. I get to thinking of dear
old mother and dad and the old place, and won-
dering what they were all doing. I know. They
went to church this morning, and then set around
and did nothing until chore time. I'll bet they
didn't forget me.
I hear there are three women over on Selby Flat.
Selby's brother, keeping a boarding house, and a
grass-widow from Missouri, a skittish old woman
who is looking for another husband. The camp has
more people than the settlement at Caldwell's
store on Deer Creek.
What we miss more than anything else is that
there are no women in the country, or compara-
tively few. Barring out the greasers and the
squaws, I don't suppose there are twenty in all of
Yuba County, outside of Marysville. With few
exceptions they are of no particular credit to their
sex. To one who was bom and brought up where
there were more women than men, it is hard to
realize what a hardship it is to be deprived of their
company. To hear some of the miners talk — ^the
married ones — ^you would think their wives were
angels, and maybe they were, but I guess it is be-
cause they are so far away. Still, when I recall
Hetty North, it seems as if she was the dearest girl
in the world, and, although we used to have lots of
quarrels and tiffs and broke off our engagement a
dozen times, I don't believe we would have a cross
word if she were here with me now.
JUNE 2, 1850.— Claim paying pretty well.
(Note.— The camp at Caldweirs store grew into the present Nevada
City.)
6
A FORTY-NINER
Washed out over five ounces, besides two nuggets,
one nine and one eleven dollars. Could do better
if the water did not bother so much. Got two long
letters from home. Thank God, they are all well,
or were a month ago. Dad got the two hundred I
sent him ; says I mustn't stint myself to send money
home. The neighbors think I am making a big
fortune and many of the boys are planning to go
to California this summer. Henry North has sold
a yoke of oxen and his three-year-old colt, and starts
next month. That is this month and he must be on
the way. I like Henry, but I care more for his
sister Hetty. I wonder if she will wait as she
promised, until I get back. Baked enough bread
to last until Saturday. Anderson spent the evening
at the cabin. He is crazy on river mining. He and
friends have located claims on the Yuba and are
going to turn the river when the water runs low.
He is certain if he can get down on bed-rock he
will take out gold by the bucketful. Wants me to
join the company.
JUNE 9, 1850.— Went to town yesterday after-
noon. With last week's washings I had eighteen
ounces besides the nuggets. Spent $27 at the store
and deposited $200. Had two bully meals at the
hotel ; first pie I have eaten since I got here. The
town is full of drunken miners. Have kept my
promise to mother and have not touched a drop
since I started. Went into the Bella Union gam-
bling saloon. The place was full and running over
with gamblers and miners, and the latter seemed
to be trying to get rid of their money as fast as
possible. At some of the tables they were playing
THE DIARY OF
for high stakes, as much as one hundred dollars
on the turn of a card. Monte was the most popu-
lar game and while I was there "Texas Bill" tapped
one of the banks for two thousand dollars and won
on the first pull. Then he took the dealer's seat and
the banker quit until he could raise another stake.
There was a young French woman dealing
twenty-one. She was as pretty as a picture. Began
betting just to get near her and hear her talk. I
lost seventy dollars and she did not notice me any
more than she did the rest of the crowd. What
would Hetty say if she knew I gambled ? Four days*
hard work gone for nothing!
JUNE 16, 1850.— Worked but three days last
week. Had the cholera morbus pretty bad, but
some Jamaica Ginger fetched me around all right.
Took out just two ounces. Henry North wrote me
a letter from San Francisco. He was broke and
wanted enough money to come here. Sent him fifty
dollars, ni be glad to see him. Got a long letter from
dad. He says mother is grieving about me being
so far away and is afraid I will fall into temptation.
She knows from what she sees in the papers that
California must be an awful wicked place. Dad
tells her that I come from old Connecticut stock and
he isn't afraid of his boy not coming out all right-
Wonder what he'd say if he knew about my losing
money in a game of chance.
I hear that Anson James and his partner took
(Note. — ^*Tapping the bank" was the wagcrmg by an outsider of an
amount equalling the cash backing the game. Bets were usually limited
to fifty dollars a single bet, but flush gamblers would often dare the dealer
to accept a wager decided by a single deal of the cards, which if won
doubled the bank's capital or broke iL)
8
A FORTY-NINER
out fourteen hundred dollars on Brush Creek last
week. That beats Rock Creek, but Brush is all
taken up. Anderson is after me to go river mining
with him. He is getting up a company of ten men ;
has seven now and they will put up two hundred
and fifty dollars apiece for capital. They want that
for lumber, whidi costs one hundred dollars a
thousand, and they need twenty thousand feet for
wingdam and a flume, whatever that means. If
my claim gives out before August, may go with
them. Saw two deer on the hill back of the cabin
and Anderson says a grizzly was killed up at the
head of the creek last week. There are thousands
of wild pigeons in the woods, but they are not fit
to eat.^ The acorns they feed on make their flesh
taste bitter.
JUNE 23, 1850.— Have not heard from Henry
North. He ought to have been here last week. I
have been fairly homesick all the week, working in
the claim alone, and I am so dead tired when night
comes that it's a task to cook supper, although
there isn't much to cook. There is always a pot
of cold beans and I fry a piece of pork for the grease,
to sop my bread in, and make a cup of tea. I roll
up in the blankets and go to bed at eight o'clock
and try to get to sleep just to keep from thinking,
although I can't always do it. Thoughts of the
old home will come into my head and it brings up
everything that has happened since I was a boy.
The frogs croak down in the creek just as they did
on Norfolk Pond, and it's the lonesomest sound on
earth, barring the doves. There is a sort of a dog
here that the greasers call a coyote, and you would
THE DIARY OF
swear when night comes on that there were a thou-
sand of them yelping in the hills and around the
cabin. Sometimes I get up and go outdoor, out
under the stars, and wonder what Hetty is doing
and whether she will wait. If she saw me sniffing
and the tears rolling down my cheeks she would
think I wasn't much of a man. I wish Henry
North would come — ^it wouldn't be so lonesome.
Rich diggings have been found on Kanaka Creek
and a lot of miners have gone over to take up
claims. Took out a little over five ounces for the
week.
There is an Indian campoody up on the ridge
above Brush Creek, where about two hundred
Digger Indians are camped. They are the dirtiest
lot of human beings on earth. One has to be careful
going near the place, or he will surely get the itch.
They will eat anything, acorns, grasshoppers, or
seeds, and I have seen an old squaw pull a rotten
pine jog apart hunting for a white grub as big as
my little finger, and, when she found one, swallow
it alive with as much relish as if it were a fat oyster.
There are two white men who have taken squaws
to live with them in their cabins down on the river,
but it is looked on as a disgrace and no decent
miner will associate with them. The Indians bum
their dead and I went over to the ridge with Jim
Gleason to a buck's funeral Friday night. It was
a queer ceremony. They piled up a cord or more
of pine limbs, wrapped the buck in a blanket, de-
posited his body on the pile, together with his bow
and arrows, clothes and small belongings, and set
it on fire. The bucks of the tribe set around outside
in the shadows, glum and silent as ghosts. The
10
A FORTY-NINER
squaws joined hands and kept up a stamping, first
with one foot and then the other, wailing together
in a mournful chorus, which sounded like "wallah
tu nae'^ and which they repeated over and over
as long as I stayed there. Others replenished the
fire with fresh pine knots and limbs. The main
attraction was an old, ugly squaw, who, I was told,
although no relation to the buck, was chosen chief
mourner. She went into a frenzy, howling and
screeching like mad, contorting and twisting her
body and spinning round and round until she ex-
hausted herself and tumbled to the ground. Then
she would come to and crawl to the fire, get hold
of a piece of wood Qtit of which the pitch was frying
and daub it over her head and face until her hair
was saturated with tar. They say that she never
washes herself or tries to get the pitch off, and the
buck's wife can't take another man until the tar
wears away. It got to be monotonous and disgust-
ing and I came away by midnight, but the Indians
kept it up two nights, or until the last vestige of
the body was burned up. ^ What heathens they are
to dispose of their dead in such a barbarous way
instead of burying them decently in the ground!
JUNE 30, 1850.— This last week was my lucky
one. Wednesday I struck a crevice in the bed-
rock on the rim of the creek and it was lousy with
gold. It took me two days to work it out and I
got almost twenty-nine ounces, which with three
ounces rocked the first two days raised the week's
work to more than five hundred dollars. Sent dad
seven hundred dollars last night. That makes
twelve hundred dollars that he has of my savings.
II
THE DIARY OF
The Strike helped me to get rid of the homesick
feeling that has made me miserable for two weeks.
Seems to me old Litchfield is nearer than it was,
and I may fetch it before the rains come. The
only thing bothering me is that the claim is almost
worked out and FU have to hunt new diggings soon.
Strange I haven^t heard from North since I sent
him that fifty dollars. I got a letter from Hetty,
however, the first I have received, asking me to look
after him. Said he was weak and easily led. This
is no place for weaklings, but I'll take care of him
for her sake. Had two square meals in town yes-
terday. They put me out of face with my regular
grub.
JULY 7, 1850.— Been in town all day. The citi-
zens had a celebration Thursday, but it did not
amount to much. Lawyer McConnell made a speech
and another fellow read the Declaration of Inde-
pendence. Then everybody fell into line, marched
up and down the street, hurrahing and firing off pis-
tols, and that was all there was to it. The town was
jammed with outsiders and the hotels and restau-
rants ran short of grub. The saloons and gambling
houses were chock-a-block and half the men in
sight were full of rot-gut whiskey. Went in to see
the pretty French woman, but could not get near
the table where she was dealing. She's a handsome
woman and the boys say she's straight as a string.
That may be, but it is strange, considering the com-
pany she keeps and her occupation. Went home
early, as I couldn't get a meal. It was so hot it
was just simmering and I took a snooze under the
big pine in front of the cabin. There was a fellow
12
A FORTY-NINER
picking a banjo and singing a song in town to-day
and it kept running in my head. It was about "Joe
Bowers from Pike." The second verse was:
I used to love a gal there, they called her
Sally Black,
I axed her for to marry me, she said
It was a whack;
But, ses she to me, Joe Bowers, before
We hitch for life.
You ought to have a little home to
Keep your little wife.
If I can save enough money to buy the Slocum
farm next to our place and Hetty says "yes," I'll
have that "little home and little wife" and that will
be about all I want on this earth. I would like to
have enough capital so that I would not have to
slave from sunrise till dark as I did on dad's farm.
I don't know as the work was any harder than
what we do here, but there is a difference. There
all we got was just about a bare living, at the best
a few hundred dollars put away for a year's work,
but here one don't know what the next stroke of
the pick, or the next rocker full of dirt, may bring
forth — an ounce or twenty ounces it may be. That
is the excitement and fascination that makes one
endure the hardships, working up to one's knees in
cold water, breaking one's back in gouging and
crevicing, the chance that the next panful will indi-
cate the finding of a big deposit. That's the charm
and it would be a great life were it not for the
nights and the lonely cabin with only one's thoughts
for company. It brings up to my mind a piece I
used to recite at school. "Oh, solitude ! where are
13
THE DIARY OF
the charms that sages have seen in thy face?" It's
deadly lonesome and there are times when it seems
as if I just could not stand it any longer. Baked
two big loaves of bread in the Dutch oven. That
will last through the week.
JULY 21, 1850. — ^Two weeks since I took up my
pen. My hands are all calloused and I can do
(better work with a shovel than writing diaries.
Have had bad luck; only cleaned up a little over
four ounces and the claim is pretty near played out.
Anderson offers me a share in his claim. He's
working on a dry gulch just about half a mile north
of the cabin. It's rich on the bed-rock, but he has
to strip oflF about ten feet of top dirt and then pack
the gravel down to the creek a couple of hundred
yards. He offers me one-half a share in the ground
if I will help him cut a ditch from the creek to the
claim to carry the water to it. We will have to
dig about a quarter of a mile. He says there is a
new way of taking out gold by a machine called
a Long Tom. He saw it working at Kellogg's claim
on Brush Creek and as much dirt can 'be put
through it in a day as one can with a rocker in a
week. I will go over and look at it to-morrow.
Anderson is a good fellow and the only one on the
creek I care much about. He is from Syracuse,
New York, and has a good education. If I take
his offer we will cabin together and it won't be so
lonesome. Haven't heard a word from North and
I don't know where to write him.
14
CHAPTER II.
BUNKING WITH PARD— A RICH CLAIM—
THE FIRST GROUND SLUICE— SIESTAS
UNDER THE BIG PINE— NAMING THE
TOWN— A DOG FIGHT AND A PURCHASE
—THE GRASS-WIDOW SECURES A MATE
—A SHIVAREE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
—BANISHED FROM SELBY FLAT— AN-
DERSON'S ECCENTRICITIES.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER II. '
JULY 28, 1850. — I went over and saw the Long
Tom working. It will revolutionize mining if it
will save the gold. Took plans of it. I'm handy
with tools and knocked one together without much
trouble. The Nevada blacksmith charged me four
dollars to punch the holes in the sheet-iron plate.
Set it up on the claim Friday and took out about
two ounces that day. Worked a strip eight feet
square. That is as much as I did in a week with
a rocker. All the miners up and down the creek
came to see it working. I had offers of two ounces
apiece to make three of them, but IVe promised
Anderson to begin work on the ditch as soon as
I get through with the claim. Had a letter from
daa that gave me the blues. Dear old mother is
ailing and pining to see me — afraid something will
happen to me. Well, I am way off out of the world,
but IVe got the best of health. I wrote her a long
letter cheering her up and promising I would come
back as soon as I got six thousand dollars together.
Dad says Hetty is a good girl and I could not pick
out a better wife and that she comes over to the
place regularly and asks them to read to her my
letters. Some of the married miners are planning
to bring their wives out from the States. About
the only thing holding them back is the certainty
that it will not take long to clean up all the gold .
there is in the country and then there would be
nothing left to do except to go back again. A lot
argue that they can go to farming in the valleys;
17
THE DIARY OF
but with the mines worked out and the miners gone
out of the mountains, where would they have a
market for what they raised?
AUGUST 4, 1850.— Had a great streak of luck
last week. Worked out the claim and before I
moved the Tom, tried some of the rocker tailings.
They were as rich as if the dirt had not been washed
and I took nineteen ounces out of the riffle box
beside a nugget that weighed nearly an ounce. IVe
taken out of the claim about one hundred and
twenty ounces and have sent dad fifteen hundred
dollars. It^s cost me about five hundred dollars
to live and IVe got six ounces in the yeast powder
box under the big stone in front of the fire place.
Am worried about North. I don't care for the
fifty dollars, but it's singular that he doesn't show
up or write.
AUGUST 11, 1850. — ^Anderson moved his traps
over to my cabin and we are living together. It
makes a lot of difference having a pard with you,
somebody to talk and tell your troubles to, although
he laughs at me, swears that I have no troubles
and don't know what troubles are. I have told him
about the old folks and Hetty and about my plan
to buy the Siocuija farm, and he says : "Don't worry
about the girl, she will wait for you fast enough
as long as^you are sending home money; and as
for troubles, when you are married then you will
be^n to know something about them." I asked
him if he was married and he said "yes" and then
shut up like a clam. We have dug more than half
the ditch and will finish it this week. There are a
i8
A FORTY-NINER
couple of gray squirrels that frolic around in the big
pine tree near the cabin. I got the shotgun out, but
Anderson said: *Why kill God's creatures? Let
them live their lives." He's strange in some things.
He laid there half the afternoon, watching them
scampering around the limbs or setting up on their
hind legs eating pine nuts, and said there was more
satisfaction in enjoying their antics than eating
squirrel stew.
AUGUST 18, 18S0..-We finished the ditch on
Thursday and turned in the water. It carries a lot
more than we need and when we ran it into the
gulch, Anderson got a new idea. We put a trench
down through the middle of the ravine and there
was a pretty heavy fall. The top dirt is nothing
but red clay and he began picking the dirt and
watching it run off into the creek and then he said:
**What is the use of shoveling this all off when the
water will do it for us?'' Sure enough, it worked
like a charm. We pulled off our shoes, turned up
our overalls, jumped into the trench and worked
away like beavers, and the water did more work in
one day than both of us could have stripped shovel-
ing in a week.
By Saturday noon we had cleared off a strip
forty feet long and ten feet wide, and will set the
Long Tom to-morrow and clean it up. It looks
like pretty good ground, as we could pick up lots
of pieces of gold, some of them weighing two bits.
The weather is awfully hot; believe it is warmer
than summer in the States, but it don't bother us
(Note. — ^Anderson had stumbled on another great step in mining, vk.,
ground sluicing, and without doubt was one of the first to adopt this
method.)
19
THE DIARY OF
much to work when it's the hottest and I have
not heard of anybody being sunstruck. It's curious
how quickly it cools off after sundown. A breeze
starts and blows up the creek strong enough to
sway the tops of the pine trees, and the noise it
makes through the Branches sounds like a lullaby.
Since Pard came to camp with me, we spend an
hour or two every evening after supper sitting out
under a big sugar pine that grows just in front of
our cabin, smoking our pipes, but we don't talk
much. It is all so solemn and still, that is, it seems
so until you begin to hear what Pard calls "voices
of the night"; the frogs, the owls, the rasp of the
tree toad, or the howl of a wolf way off in the moun-
tain, and if it was not for the glimmer of a light in
Piatt's cabin, down the creek, we would think we
were two castaways lost in a wilderness. I believe
it is that sort of feeling that drives so many of the
boys to drinking, or carousing around the saloons
hunting excitement.
AUGUST 25, 1850.— This last week was fine.
, We set the Tom Monday morning, put a box at the
head of it and w^re three days and a half washing
out the ground, which was about two feet thick;
cleaned up the bed-rock and we got sixty-three
ounces. We stripped off about thirty feet more by
noon yesterday and will begin washing to-morrow.
Anderson insisted on my taking half. I thought
I ought to pay him something for the share in the
claim. He wouldn't listen; said we were partners
and he was bound to see that I got that Slocum
farm and Hetty, just to teach me that there was
trouble in the world. He gets letters from home,
20
A FORTY-NINER
but they don't seem to give him much comfort. He
reads them, swears under his breath, tears them
in bits and sulks for the rest of the day. I sent a
draft for five hundred dollars to the old folks last
night. That is two thousand dollars IVe saved in
less than six months.
A woman who kept a boarding house at Selby
Flat was killed yesterday. She got tangled in a
lariat and was dragged to death by a mule.
We walked down to the Yuba River yesterday.
There are about 200 miners working on the bars
and banks, and they are doing pretty well. None
of them have been able to get into the bed of the
stream, as there is no way of turning the water.
Anderson says there is no use of trying it now, as
the rains would come before we could get to work,
but he believes there is gold by the bucketful if he
could get it. We bought about a hundred dollars
worth of grub Saturday. There is a little beast
here they call a woodrat and he plays the devil with
anything left exposed about the cabin.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1850.— Washed up two days
and sluiced top dirt the rest of the week. The
ground is still rich. We got forty-one ounces. That
is as well as they are doing over on Brush Creek.
I bought a new suit of clothes yesterday, black
broadcloth ; two white shirts ; a Peruvian hat and
a pair of fine boots. The hat cost sixteen dollars,
the boots twenty-one dollars, and the whole outfit,
with necktie and handkerchiefs, one hundred and
five dollars. I put them on this morning and went
to town. Pard said I looked like a sport. It*s so
long since I wore decent clothes that I felt like a fool.
21
THE DIARY OF
I was told that the people living round CaldwelFs
store held a meeting and called the place "Nevada
City/' Nevada is Spanish for snow. The French-
woman is still dealing twenty-one, I went in to see
her and started to make a bet when she said: "You
can't play at this game. Gamblers are barred." I
stammered out that I wasn't a gambler, but she
said: "You can't play that on me," and I quit.
She's got a voice like music and just her speaking
to me in that way put me all in a flutter. There
are a few women in the town, mostly Mexicans.
There was a dog fight down on the bridged and a
lot of money bet on it. The losing dog was pretty
badly chewed up, his forelegs bitten through and
through, but he never whimpered. His owner was
disgusted and swore he would kill him. I asked
him what he would take for the dog, and I got him
for two ounces. He could not walk and I had to
carry him. My new boots hurt me like sin and by
the time I got to the top of Sugar Loaf hill I had
to take them off and walk over two miles in my
stocking feet carrying my boots and the dog. When
I got to the cabin my new clothes were a sight, but
Anderson never laughed. He set to work washing
the blood off the dog and binding up his legs. When
I told him the story he said I was a good fellow and
that the look out of the dog's eyes and the way he
licked my hand was worth more than I paid for
him.
SEPTEMBER 8, 1850.— We took out only thirty
ounces this past week. The gulch is getting narrow
and there is a scant fifty feet more before we reach
the ditch. There is a flat of about half an acre
22
A FORTY-NINER
where the gulch runs out into the creek, and Ander-
son says the channel must run through it. If it
does, we will have at least another month's work.
There was some fun over on Selby Flat last week.
A young fellow got stuck on the grass-widow and
they went to town and got married. She is at least
thirty years older than her husband, and when the
boys got wind of it they gathered and gave the
couple a shivaree. He got mad and turned loose a
shotgun at the crowd, peppering some of them with
bird shot. Then they corraled him and come pretty
near lynching him. The boys say they would for
sure, but the old woman got down on her knees
and begged them to spare her dear husband. She
prayed so hard that they agreed to let him go pro-
viding both would leave the camp the next morning.
They skipped at night and now there is only one
woman left on the flat and about three hundred
men. Anderson says one woman is enough to keep
the camp a-boiling. I can't make Anderson out.
He's as good a chap as ever lived, kind-hearted, has
no bad habits, always ready to do twice his share
of the work if I would let him ; but he doesn't seem
to have any faith in anything or anybody except
me. He gets letters from home regularly, reads
them, swears and tears them up, and never talks
about his life or his people. The dog is nearly well
and Anderson is making a regular baby out of him.
He says dogs are not like folks ; they never go back
on a friend. There is something on his mind that
he broods over, but I do not see that I have any
call to put my nose in his affairs, so I take no notice
of his queer moods.
23
CHAPTER III.
A RATTLESNAKE ON THE TRAII^-CLAIM
JUMPING AND A TRAGEDY— MINERS'
COURTS AND THE ALCALDE— RAISING
THE ANTI-DEBRIS QUESTION — THE
FIRST SERMON AND A LIBERAL COL-
LECTION—A WELCOME STORM— PACK
MULE LOAD OF COARSE GOLD— RIPA-
RIAN RIGHTS— AN EXPENSIVE
CHICKEN BROTH— BEGGING LETTER
FROM NORTH.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER III.
SEPTEMBER IS, 1850.— Claim is nearly played
out. We cleaned up fifteen ounces last week and
will work it out by Thursday. Sent five hundred
dollars more to dad yesterday and I have got about
three hundred on hand. I get the nicest kind of
letters from dad. Mother is better because she
thinks I will soon make enough to satisfy me and
come back. Hetty says I ought to be there by
Thanksgiving, but that is foolishness. If I am
there by the next one I will be satisfied. Fm not
so homesick since Anderson came to live with me.
He is better educated than I am, has been through
college and has had more experience, but he doesn't
put on any airs and we get along together like
brothers, although he has his blue spells. He never
answers any letters that he gets, so far as I know,
and those he receives are forwarded to him from
San Francisco instead of coming here direct. He
never goes to town, nor spends a cent except for
grub. We killed a big rattlesnake on the trail to
Qie claim Wednesday. It was coiled up under a
bush and struck at and hit me on the bootleg. I
jumped about ten feet and Anderson smashed its
head with a stone. He was white as a sheet and
called me a dam fool for not looking where I was go-
ing. I got mad and told him he need not worry
about my not being able to take care of myself, then
he put his arm around my neck and said he did not
mean it; but I had come into his life and he did not
want me to go out of it just yet. He's a character.
27
THE DIARY OF
SEPTEMBER 22, 1850.— We finished up the
claim last week. It about petered out. We got
only five ounces. We are going to try the flat and
if that don't pay we will go off prospecting. There
was a fight on the creek last week. Donovan, an
Irishman, jumped a claim, and when the rightful
owner warned him off he drew an Allen's pepper
box and shot Tracy, to whom the claim belonged,
in the leg. Tracy beat the Irishman over the head
with a shovel and left him for dead, although he
did not die until yesterday. Tracy was taken over
to town and tried before a fellow who sets himself
up for an alcalde and was then turned loose, as it
was a clear case of self-defense. This is the first
death on Rock Creek. The miners are indignant
over Tracy being taken to Nevada. There is no
more law there than on Rock Creek. Some fellow
claims to be a sort of judge, but he's got no legal
authority and a miners' court is just as binding
here as in town. We held a meeting of all the
miners along the creek, and Anderson made a
speech. Said it was an unwarranted usurpation
and an invasion of our rights, and we resolved that
we would not permit it to happen again. We buried
Donovan on the hill, and sold his tools and traps
at auction, including his cabin, for $140. Nobody
(NoTE.7-An Allen's pepper box was a pistol much in vogue in the earl]r
days, a singularly ineffective gun, more dangerous to the possessor than
anyone else. It got its name from its fancied resemblance to the old-
fashioned pepper box. It had six barrels which revolved, and was a most
clumsy piece of mechanism, although thousands were sold in the East to
the early gold-seekers. A joke of the times was a standing reward for
pnx)f that any one had been hurt or wounded by its discharge. In a trial
of a mmer for assault with a deadly weapon and intent to kill, held before
a sapient justice of the peace in Mariposa in 1851, the prisoner was dis-
charged, the justice ruling that an Allen's pepper box could not be con-
sidered as falling under the head of deadly or dangerous.)
28
A FORTY-NINER
knows what to do with the money, as it is not known
where he came from. Anderson was made cus-
todian of the proceeds in case any claimant should
turn up.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1850.— We have worked on
the ditch all the week, making it twice as large. The
dirt on the fiat is twenty feet deep and the more
water we have the quicker we can sluice it off. I
haven't much faith in its paying, although the bank
on the creek prospects pretty well. I think Jack —
that's our dog — is mighty ungrateful. I bought
him and lugged him to the cabin when he couldn't
walk and now he has got no particular use for me,
but he just worships Anderson. Sleeps on the foot
of his bunk nights, follows at his heels every minute
of the day, or makes a bed of his coat alongside
the claim; and if Anderson happens to get out of
sight, howls and runs around like a crazy beast.
When I mentioned it to Anderson he looked serious
and said: "Don't get jealous, old fellow; you've
got the folks at home and Hetty — I've got nothing
but Jack, and a dog's love is better than none,"
and he walked out with the dog at his heels wagging
his stump of a tail. I was completely upset. An-
derson sat out under the pine tree for an hour with
the dog's head in his lap and then came in cheerful-
like, slapped me on the back and said: "Don't mind
me being grumpy, I've got you too ; but white man
is mighty uncertain."
OCTOBER 6, 1850.— We turned the water into
the ditch Monday and sluiced out the flat until
Thursday. That aftemoon a deputation of miners
29
THE DIARYOF
from below us on the creek came to the claim and
notified us that we must quit. The mud we were
sending down the stream buried them under slum-
guUion, and the water was so thick they could not
use it in their rockers. Anderson said that was
reasonable and that we would hold up until we
could think of some scheme to remedy it.
We have talked it over and I don't see how we
can avoid it unless we wait until the creek below is
all worked out. The nights are cold and we have
to keep up a fire in the fireplace. Kellogg was over
from Brush Creek to look at our ditch. Says he
is going to make a survey this week to bring the
water into Brush Creek and if it is feasible he will
give us four hundred dollars for the piece we have
dug. They say he has made a pile of money and
has bought up a lot of claims on Selby Hill.
OCTOBER 13, 1850.— There has not been a drop
of rain, nor has there been a cloud in the sky since
May last; but it thickened up early in the week and
Tuesday night when I awoke the rain was pattering
on the roof — a regular old-fashioned storm. Ander-
son woke up, too, and we got up and started a big
fire and sat and listened to the gusts of wind blow-
ing through the pine tree tops and sheets of
water slapping up against the south side of the
cabin. The rain sounded good. The whole country
was dusty and dried up, and I felt as if I wanted
to go out and stand bareheaded in the storm. It
rained all day Wednesday, and Anderson, who
went up to the claim in the afternoon, came back
(Note.— This is the first record of the raismg ol the anti-debris
queation.)
30
A FORTY>NlNER
laughing and said he did not think the miners
would bother us for a while on the slumguUion ques-
tion. There was four feet of water in Rock Creek
and rocks rolling down it as big as a bushel basket.
It did not quit until Thursday afternoon. It washed
out the head of the ditch and we have not fixed it
up yet. Jack is in disgrace. He ran down a skunk
Friday and we just couldn't stand him in the cabin
until Anderson used up all of our soap washing him.
He smells yet. We haven't made a dollar for two
weeks.
OCTOBER 20, 1850.— We got the ditch repaired
and the water turned on the flat by Thursday and
have been running off the top dirt. It's amazing
the amount we move and it astonishes all our neigh-
bors. A lot of them are looking out for side hill
diggings below us and will try the same process.
Anderson says it will be a good idea to extend our
ditch and sell the water to the miners who might
want to use it, but I don't see what righfwe have
got to it more than anybody else. Anyway, he
has put a notice at the head of the ditch claiming
all the water it will hold, and as there is no law in
the case he says he will make a law out of the prece^
dent.
Had a letter from Henry North from Sacramento.
Says he has been working there and has a great
chance to make money if he had the capital. Asks
me to loan him a thousand dollars. Anderson says
to "go slow." I'd do it for Hetty's sake, but he
ought to have written before this. A lot of miners
have gone about forty miles north of here on an-
(NoTE.— The first claim to water rights on record in Nevada County.)
31
THE DIARY OF
Other branch of the river where they say rich, coarse
gold diggings have been discovered. A padk mule
load of gold was brought into town from there last
week and there was one piece worth three thousand
dollars, and lots from an ounce to twenty ounces.
Many of the miners think this is the discovery of
the source of gold; that is, where it grows. There
is one fact that bears out this theory. The higher
the miners get up in the mountains, the coarser the
gold. Around Nevada County, so far as I know,
it is seldom that a nugget is found that weighs over
an ounce, while up on Kanaka Creek one has been
found that weighed twenty-one pounds and several
from five to fifteen pounds, and I am told that there
is very little fine dust in those diggings. I hope
they won't find the fountain head until I have
turned my gold into some kind of property.
OCTOBER 27, 1850.— We have had a great
week. There is a streak up through the middle of
our flat that is lousy with gold. We took out one
hundred and eleven ounces and only worked a small
portion of what we uncovered. We had a meeting
of the miners at our place yesterday afternoon to
decide in regard to ditch and water rights, and it
was a hot one. Some of them claimed that water
was as free as air and no one had a right to monop-
olize it, and they would have carried the day, but
Anderson proposed as a compromise that all inter-
ested should pitch in and build a ditch on shares.
As there were only a dozen or so who had any
use for the water outside of the creek bed, this was
agreed to. These are the ones who have taken up
flat claims like ours and are anxious to prospect
32
A FORTY-NINER
them. We give our ditch to the company and have
a one-sixth interest in the extension. I don't see
what good it will do, but Anderson says common
consent makes law and the action will establish
our rights. Have had two good letters from home.
Mother wants me to return for Thanksgiving and
I'd like to be there, but the chances to get rich are
too good to leave now. Dad writes that he has bar-
gained for the Slocum Farm for four thousand dol-
lars, and if I have another lucky week I will send
him the balance. Somehow I don't feel so eager to
go back and live on it as I did three months ago.
NOVEMBER 3, 1850.— Another fair week, al-
though not so good as the previous one. We are
working the flat about forty feet wide and the sides
do not pay as well as the middle streak, but we
took out sixty-five ounces. The miners have been
driven out of the creek bed by too much water and a
great many have left for other diggings. There are
two men cutting the extension to our ditch. Spent
the day in Nevada City, as they call it now. There
are over two thousand miners working in the vi-
cinity of the town and most everybody doing well.
My little Frenchwoman has gone away. I asked for
her and they told me she was dealing over at Center-
ville.
There is no particular reason why I should be
so much interested, although I was disappointed in
not seeing her.
. A minister preached in the United States Hotel
(Note. — The Grass Valley of to-day was first named Centerville because
it was midway between the two more important mining towns of Rough
and Ready and Nevada City.)
33
THE DIARY OF
dining room and the place was filled, but there were
only three Women in the crowd. I was told he took
up a collection and raked in four hundred dollars.
That is as good as mining and not as hard work.
Our minister in Norfolk would be satisfied with that
much for a year.
NOVEMBER 10, 1850.— Anderson was taken
sick Thursday and has been out of his head for
two days. 1 got a doctor from town and he says
he has a bilious fever and with good care he will
come out all right. I Ve got to like Anderson mighty
well and I should feel bad if anything should hap-
pen to him. His crazy talk in his delirium was
mostly about his wife. I guess they had a flare-up
about her extravagance and other foolishness, and
that's why he left and what makes him so grumpy
about home matters. Poor old Jack has been mis-
erable, licking Anderson's hands and face and whin-
ing like a sick baby, and I had to tie him up. The
boys around have been very good, offering to set
up nights and bringing in quail and squirrels for
him, but he has not eaten a morsel. Doctor says
to make him some broth. IVe managed to get
along, but I'm nearly dead for sleep.
Another begging letter from North. I don't see
what right he has to ask me for a thousand dollars
and without any explanation as to what he wants
it for.
34
CHAPTER IV.
THE FOREST IN AUTUMN — A SLUICE
ROBBER AND THE WHIPPING POST-
NORTH AS A MONTE DEALER— AN EN-
COUNTER WITH A HIGHWAYMAN-
HIGH-PRICED HAY— ANOTHER MEET-
ING WITH THE FRENCHWOMAN— MEX-
ICANS DISCOVER A BIG BONANZA— AN
EVICTION BY FORCE— RECOGNITION
OF THE RIGHTS OF FOREIGN MINERS.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER IV.
NOVEMBER 17, 1850.— Pard is all right again,
thank the Lord, although not able to work yet. I
hired a man to rustle for some chickens and he
found three after a two days' hunt. He paid $24
for them and with his horse hire and time they cost
me $50, but I don't begrudge it for I made chicken
broth and Pard said it went right to the spot. We
have had another big storm. It rained three days
steady. The grass is coming up, the hill sides are
all green and it looks like spring instead of fall.
While it is mighty pretty, it isn't like autumn back
in old Litchfield where the sumachs and the maples
are all ablaze at this time of the year. I worked
in the claim alone for three days and cleaned up
fourteen ounces. After dividing with Anderson I
have got over two thousand dollars on hand and
will send it to dad next week. Pard says I would
do better to buy land in California, but that's fool-
ishness. The gold will all be dug out after a while,
and after that I don't see what there is to stay in
this country for.
NOVEMBER 24, 1850.— We both worked this
week and took out eighty-nine ounces. When I
think of how much money I am making it seems
like a dream. I used to work for a dollar a day
in haying time, and our hired man on the farm gets
twelve dollars a month and found. The regular
miners' wages here are eight dollars a day and very
few men will hire out. I sent the two thousand
37
THE DIARY OF
dollars to dad and tx)ld him to buy the farm for me^
so whatever happens I will have that, but the more
I think of it the less I feel like running it. I don't
suppose I could make more than five hundred dol-
lars a year oif of it at the best, and then have to
work four times as hard as I do here, but then
this is not going to last always. We caught an
Indian cleaning up our riffle box Saturday night.
When the miners found out about it they insisted
on his being punished and it was decided to tie him
up to a tree and give him fifty lashes on the bare
back. Nobody would volunteer to do the whipping, so
we drew lots and Dick Stiles got the job. He used a
double half-inch rope, but the Indian after the first
half-dozen strokes made such a howl that we let him
go, although there was not a red mark on his back.
DECEMBER 1, 1850.— Although there was
nothing to show it, we observed Thursday as
Thanksgiving, as that was the legal day in the
States. All we did was to lay off and eat quail stew
and dried apple pie. I thought a lot about the old
folks and would like to have been home with them,
and I guess I will be next year, although Slocum's
farm doesn't seem to be as enticing as it was when
I first started out to buy it. Ddd writes that Hetty
blames me for not looking up her brother, who
don't write any letters home. I think she is un-
reasonable. I didn't take any contract to look out
for him and he is as old as I am. Pard and I talked
it over and he says why not take a holiday and a
' trip to Sacramento, and then I can decide what to
j do. We worked four days and cleaned up forty-one
/ ounces.
38
A FORTY-NINER
DECEMBER 22, 1850.— This is the first I have
written in three weeks. IVe been to Sacramento.
Pard insisted on my going; said that after nursing
him through his sickness I needed a rest, so I
bought a mustang and saddle, paid sixty dollars for
the horse and seventy-five for the saddle and bridle.
Sacramento is the liveliest place I ever saw. There
are over five thousand people living there, mostly^
in tents, and not more than a dozen wooden houses
in the place. Hundreds of people from San Fran-
cisco are coming up the river every day, and the
bank is piled up with all sorts of goods and pro-
visions for the mines. About every tent is a gam-
bling house and it made my head swim to see the
money flying around. I had a big job hunting up
North and then only found him by accident. I
was almost sorry that I came across him, for I
discovered that he had turned sport and was dealing
"monte." He pretended to be very glad to see me
and then let out that what he wanted the money
for was to start a game of his own, sure that he
could win a fortune. Gracious, what would Hetty
and his folks say if they knew he had become a
gambler. He got very diilly when I wouldn^t let
him have the dust, but made me promise diat I
would not write an)rthing home about it. He is
living with a Mexican girl and I don't think they
are married.
I thought a lot about Pard while I was away.
We were strangers a few months ago, and now I
couldn't love an own brother any better. He was
just as glad to see me as I was to see him, and Jack
pretended he was overjoyed. The old dog is so fat
he can hardly toddle and with Pard petting him he
39
THE DIARY OF
certainly h^s a good time. Pard took out of the
claim one hundred and twenty-two ounces while
I was gone and insists on sharing it, and I could
not argue him out of it. He is mighty set when
he wants to be.
Jim McCord, who lives about half a mile down
the creek, was held up by robbers on the divide
about a week ago while on his way back from town.
He showed fight and one of the highwa3anen shot
him in the knee, shattering the bone. Dr. Hunt has
been attending him and says mortification has set
in and his leg will have to be cut off. That's pretty
rough on Jim.
The widow who married the young fellow at
Selby Flat has shook him and come back to the
Flat again. She says he was "no account," but the
boys think he was glad to get rid of her.
DECEMBER 29, 1850.— We decided to keep the
horse, as it would be handy to ride to town and
over the country. Green feed is plenty, but no
oats or grain to be had for love or money. We had
to have some feed in case of snow, so Christmas
day I rode down to Centerville and found a man
who had cut some wild oats in a valley below that
town. He wanted two hundred and fifty dollars a
ton and fifty dollars more for delivering it on Rock
Creek, and I bought it at that figure. That would
cause dad to hold up his hands, but then they don't
make thirty dollars a day on an average in old Con-
necticut.
(Jackson's figures are verified on the authority of one Johnson, who, in
1851, sold ten tons of hay, which he had cut on a tract of land he had
settled on in Penn Valley, at two hundred and fifty dollars a ton, delivered
at Rough and Ready, a distance of four miles.)
40
A FORTY-NINER
While at Centerville I hunted up the pretty
Frenchwoman. She knew me and asked where I
had been and what game I was running. I could
hardly make her believe that I was a miner and not
a sport. Her pretty French accent was very fasci-
nating. She says she is coming back to Nevada in
a little while and then she will ride over to the
claim some day. I don't believe she will, but if she
does it will cause a sensation on the creek.
The doctor cut off McCord's leg the day before
Christmas and he died the next day. We buried
him on the hill along side of Donovan. He had one
thousand two hundred dollars in dust, which we
sent to his wife, who lives in New York City. It
was pitiful to hear him mourn about her and his
children before he died.
Only worked three days this week and took out .
fifteen ounces and a half. Our claim is as rich as
those over on Brush Creek, and that ground has
been considered the best of any around this section.
There are lots of miners tramping over the country
from one locality to another and we hear stories
of the big yield of gold everywhere in the foothills.
I have talked with men from Mariposa and Tuo-
lunme Cbunties who claim to have left ounce dig-
gings because they had heard of better places North.
It is strange what a restlfcss, discontented lot of
gold seekers roam around from one county to an-
other. They can't make money fast enough at an
ounce a day, but are prospecting for some spot
where they can take out a bushel or more of gold
in a week, and as there have been plenty of such
strikes made it keeps them excited and continually
on the tramp. I was chatting yesterday with a
41
\
THE DIARY OF
miner from Mariposa County and he was telling
me of the discovery at a camp called Bear Valley
that had set the country wild. It seems there are
a lot more Mexicans in that part of the State than
here and they do a good deal of mining. It was
noticed that for a couple of weeks the "greasers"
had been very flush, selling lots 6f dust at the store
and playing "monte'' for high stakes. Some of the
miners put a watch on them and found them pan-
ning on a flat about a mile from the town, and
they soon found out that the Mexicans had struck
the biggest kind of a deposit. It made them mad
to think that a lot of "greasers" were getting the
benefit of it, so they organized a company and drove
them away by threats and force and then worked
the ground themselves. Out of a space forty feet
square they took out two hundred and ten thousand
dollars and that was the end of it; just a big pocket
of gold mixed in the rocks, specimen gold he said,
that is, jagged and rough and not rolled and water-
worn as the dust is in the creeks and ravines. It
was an outrage on the Mexicans, but the jumpers
justified their action on the ground that California
had been ceded to the United States, and that white
men had superior rights to the mines. Anyway,
they got away with the gold.
JANUARY S, 1851.— Another year and I have
been away from the States twelve months. I was
desperately homesick for a while, but since Ander-
son and me became partners I am fairly well recon-
ciled, although at times I long to see the old folks.
I have not done so badly, for I have sent father
four thousand five hundred dollars, have about a
42
A FORTY-NINER
thousand dollars on hand and we have been offered
and refused ten thousand dollars for the claim.
We will probably work it out in three or four months
and then hunt another one. Pard still wants to
go to river mining, and maybe we will. We had
another big week working up the center of the claim
and cleaned up ninety-seven ounces. If it only
holds out I will soon be a rich man. Our neigh-
bors have finished the ditch and it is over a mile
long. We share the water, each using it for one day,
and as it carries twice as much water as when we
first dug it, there is enough to sluice off top dirt and
keep us five days cleaning up the gravel and bed-
rock. Kellogg, of Brush Creek, has started to cut
a ditch taking the water out of the creek a mile
above us, but we have notified him that he must
not interfere with the amount we want in pur ditch.
We do not propose to allow the water to be taken
to another creek to our injury.
JANUARY 12, 1851.— It's been raining all the
week and the creeks are running bank-full. Over
on Deer Creek it drove all the miners out and filled
their claims with rock and gravel. They have struck
the richest kind of diggings up on Nigger Hill above
Nevada, in deep ground, and they have to coyote
to get the dirt. They say that they are maki ng a
hundred dollars a day to the man. A dozen French-
men own one of the richest of the claims, and a
(Note.— **Coyoting^ was a local descriptive term of a mining method
which meant the sinking of shafts, and running small drifts from the
bottom in the bedrock in all directions until the excavated banks became
dangerous, when the shaft would be abandoned and another sunk close by.
It was dangerous work and many a miner lost his life by caving banks.
It was the direct precursor of xegular drift mining, when the tunneb wer^
systematically timbered.)
43
THE DIARY OF
party of roughs drove them out and jumped the
ground on the pretext that the Frenchmen were not
American citizens and could not legally hold mining
claims. There was a big excitement and a miners^
meeting called, which decided that the Frenchmen's
titles were as good as anybody else's and so the
foreigners got the ground again, which shows that
we have more regard for other people's rights than
the Mariposa miners. We got our hay over last
week, but the fellow swore he would not deliver
another ton for five hundred dollars. I don't blame
him, as there was no road farther than Selby Flat,
but we cut away the brush and helped him to get
through. Selby Flat is getting to be quite a place.
Three families, who came across the plains from
Missouri and Illinois, have settled there in the last
month. One of the "Pikes" has two daughters, so
that there are now seven women on the flat and
they talk about giving a dance there next week.
We had a poor week on the claim. Only took
out eleven ounces. The pay seems to be in a streak
about four feet wide up the center; still, eleven
ounces is not so bad after all. I get the nicest
letters from home; think I may go back in the
spring. I sent dad a thousand dollars for himself
and told him I did not want him nor mother to
work hard any more. Wrote him to get a hired girl for
her and if he bought the Slocum farm to just lay
back and boss the two. We can stand hired men
at twelve dollars a month. Some of the claims
down below us are doing very well, but none are
paying as much as ours.
44
CHAPTER V.
WEATHER CXJNTRASTS — ANTICIPATING
THE EXHAUSTION OF THE PLACERS— A
LIVELY DANCE AT SELBY FLAT— THE
FIGHT BETWEEN THE JACKASS AND
THE FEROCIOUS BEAR— DECAMPING
SHOWMEN— THE TOWN CELEBRATES
THE EVENT— A FOOTHILL DITTY— THE
MURDER OF HENRY NORTH— FOLLOW-
ING THE CHANNELS UNDER THE
MOUNTAIN— THE GROWTH OF NEVADA
CITY.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER V.
JANUARY 19, 1851.— Have not written much
about Pard lately, but he is a great comfort. He is
a diflFerent man than when we joined fortunes,
doesn't sulk and get moods as he did at first, and
I notice he doesn't tear up his letters any more.
He says it is all on account of our dog Jack who
came along just at the right time, but that is all
nonsense, alUiough it is wonderful how much they
think of each other. The rain is over, the nights
are cold and frosty, but the grass is growing and
wild flowers are blooming. When I think of the old
Norfolk place, which at this time of the year is
buried under big snowdrifts, I don't feel as if I cared
to leave this country. It seems a pity that when
it is all worked out there will be nothing to stay for.
Pard has a different opinion. He predicts that they\
will grow wheat and fruit in the valleys and Cali-
fornia will be a rich and big State, and he tells me
that he is thinking of investing five thousand dollars/
in real estate at the Bay. The claim paid eighteen
ounces this last week.
JANUARY 26, 1851.— There was a lively time
over at Selby Flat Wednesday night. The landlord
gave a ball at the hotel. All the women were there
— seven of them — and about two hundred men.
They had a fiddler — ^Mart Simonson; one of the
best I ever heard. It was great sport for a while,
but towards morning some of the men got too much
gin aboard and a quarrel started about the right
47
THE DIARY OF
to dance with one of the Missouri girls. Pistols
were drawn, the lights put out, at least a hundred
shots fired ; but, funny enough, only one man was
hurt — Sam Creeley, who was hit in the leg. I went
out through a window and did not wait to see the
finish. It was too exciting for me. y
Had a long letter from dad. He l^as bought the
Slocum farm in my name, but now it's mine I
would not go back and work on it as I did on the
old place under any circumstances. I couldn't con-
tent myself. Pard laughs at me and says how about
that little song I used to sing:
"A little farm, a little wife,
A dozen babies, a happy life.*'
A foot of snow fell last week, but it soon melted
oflF. Claim still paying well.
FEBRUARY 2, 1851.— The town went clean
crazy this afternoon. I would not have believed
that white men could have made such fools of them-
selves if I had not been there. When I was over
in Nevada yesterday I saw on the front of Cald-
well's store a big poster which said there was going
to be a grand fight between a ferocious grizzly bear
and the champion fighting jackass of the State, the
scrap to take place Sunday afternoon in a valley
just beyond the ridge on the trail to Centerville
(Grass Valley). The bill claimed that the jack
had whipped two bulls and killed a mountain lion
in previous fights at Sonora, and was expected to
be a fair match for the grizzly. Most everybody
thought it was a sell, but we found out that a ring
had been built and preparations made for the fight.
48
A FORTY-NINER
I was curious to see it and rode down to the valley
in the afternoon along with about all the rest of
the population.
Sure enough, there was a stockade about forty
feet in diameter, made of split pine stakes driven
in the ground and bound together around the top
with strips of rawhide. It looked pretty weak to
hold^ a big grizzly, but one of the showmen said
the jack would keep the bear too busy for him to
think of breaking away, so we concluded to chance
it. A large cage held the beast, a trap door opening
into the ring, and we could hear the bear growling,
although the chinks were stopped up so that nobody
could see the prisoner. The fighting jackass was
hitched to one of the stakes and for looks he didn't
show to whip a sick pup, let alone a fierce grizzly;
but the boss was willing to take odds in his favor,
although no one wanted any bets on the game. A
rope about two hundred feet from the ring stretched
around the stockade. It cost a dollar to get inside«
and as at least two thousand rustled for logs ana
stumps to stand on and paid the money it was a
pretty profitable speculation. After waiting an
hour or more the crowd grew impatient and yelled
for the show to begin, but the boss would not start
it until a lot of outsiders, who had climbed trees
and were trying to see the fight free had put up
the same price as the rest of us, and, as we all
thought that was fair, they had to pungle.
The jackass was turned loose and started in
nibbling grass as if he were not particularly con-
cerned in the pr6ceedings. Then, after a lot of
fiddling around, two men pried open the trap door,
and we all held our breaths, expecting to see a grand
49
THE DIARY OF
rush of a ferocious beast and a dead burro. The
bear wouldn't come out until they poked him with
a pole, and when he finally waddled into the en-
closure there was a roar from the crowd that made
the woods ring. Instead of a fierce, blood-thirsty
grizzly it was only a scared little cinnamon bear
that didn't weigh over four hundred or five hun-
dred pounds. He sat on his haunches for a minute,
frightened almost to death by the noise and the
crowd, and then walked in a friendly way toward
his opponent. The donkey wasn't making friends
and when the bear got close enough the jackass
whirled and gave him a couple of thundering kicks
in the ribs, and then went on eating grass as if
bears were nothing to him. The bear picked himself
up, made a break for the fence, went over it in two
jumps and started for the chapparal.
The crowd scattered in every direction, except a
few who banged away at the beast with revolvers,
but it got safely into the brush and that was the
last seen of Mr. Bear. Everybody began yelling
to hang the showmen, but in the excitement they
had taken to their horses, lit out of the country
and there was nothing left but the jackass. A pro-
cession was formed, the animal in the lead, and
we all tramped back to town, shouting, singing and
banging away with pistols. When we reached Cald-
well's store the place went mad. The crowd would
drive the burro into a saloon, insist on pledging
him for drinks, then redeem him by taking up a
collection for the bill, and repeat at the next saloon.
The town was in for a grand drunk, but I soon
got tired of it and rode home. I told Pard about
it and he remarked that as we could not make the
SO
A FORTY-NINER
jackass drink he was the only sensible one in the
outfit. It was a pretty good trick and the fellows
cleaned up at least two thousand dollars and got
away with it. I noted one queer thing and that
was the song in which everybody joined. A half
dozen would sing the verse :
**There was an old woman had three sons,
Joshua, James and John.
Josh was hung, James was drowned.
And John was lost and never was found.
And that was the end of the three sons,
Joshua, James and John."
Then the crowd shouted out the chorus, which
was:
"John I. Sherwood, he's a going home.*'
Nobody seemed to know who Sherwood was, or
why he was going home. Pard says he heard the
same song and chorus over at Hangtown and
Spanish Dry Diggings before he came here.
^ Prices of all sorts of grub are down one-half of
what they were six months ago and everything is
getting pretty reasonable. Flour is only eight dol-
lars a sack, pork and bacon twenty-five cents a
pound, and tobacco retails at fifty cents a plug.
The daim is still holding out well ; we have taken
out one hundred and twenty-one ounces in two
weeks. It is the best anywhere around Rock Creek,
but our ditch partners are doing pretty well. I hope
to clean up about ten thousand dollars beside what
I have sent home; then I shall be pretty well fixed.
FEBRUARY 9, 1851.— I have had a shock this
SI
THE DIARY OF
week that has made me feel bad. Wednesday the
expressman brought me a letter and a package from
Sacramento, addressed to me. The letter was
signed Brant Phillips and said that Henry North
had been stabbed and killed in a gambling house
last Tuesday night in a row with a Mexican. He
lived only a few hours after being stabbed, and
had asked that I should be written to as I knew his
folks. The Mexican has escaped and they had
buried North outside the town. There were no
letters or papers and he had no money or property
except the ivory-handled pistol which Phillips sent
along in a package with the letter. It makes me
feel grieved and conscience smitten, as it seems as
if I ought to have persuaded him to come here.
Pard says I am not to blame, that he was just one
of the weak kind that was bound to go wrong and
I could not have influenced him any different if I
had had the chance. After talking it over we agreed
it was best not to write the truth, as it would do
no good and make his folks feel worse, so I wrote
father that a bank caved on North at Mormon Bar,
where he was mining, and to tell his people that
the accident caused his death. It would be an
awful disgrace in their eyes if the real facts should
come out; but I don't see how they can, as nobody
knows anything about North except myself.
The claim is still paying well; and to think that
Henry might have been alive and sharing in it if
he hadn't been so foolish ! I want to write to Hetty,
but don't feel capable of telling her a string of
lies.
FEBRUARY 16, 1851.— Strong and his two
52
A FORTY-NINER
partners made a big strike last week. They are
working in the creek bank a quarter of a mile below
us and it leaked out that they took out over three
thousand dollars in six days. Nobody begrudges
them their luck for they are good fellows. The
news has brought a lot of miners to the creek, pros-
pecting along the banks, but no more discoveries
have been made.
I was over on Selby Flat yesterday afternoon
and found that while the bed pf Brush Creek is
about worked out the lead seems to run into the
hill. Several companies are following it, sinking
shafts and running drifts, and all getting good re-
turns. Kellogg has taken out over twenty thousand
dollars and several others are doing as well. They
have got the same kind of dig^ngs on the other
side of Sugar Loaf and there is no telling how
much gold there is in this country if the channels
run into the hills. Pard says we had better follow
our streak up past the ditch, as it may develop the
same ^s the Brush Creek leads.
I got a long letter from home and dad says he
thinks I ought to be satisfied with what I have made
and come home to comfort nupther and him. It
does not seem as if this was the right sort of a life
for a man — ^no women, no church, nothing of what
there was in Norfolk, but then there is a lot in
this country that Norfolk hasn't got. One isn't so
cramped and it seems as if there was more room
to turn around in. I used to think Squire Battell
was the richest man in the world, and he ain't
worth more than thirty thousand dollars. If I can
go back with that much I would not mind; but
I never could settle down again to farm work.
S3
THE DIARY OF
FEBRUARY 23, 185L— It's been no such winter
as '49 and '50. About a quarter as much rain and
only a foot of snow, which melted nearly as fast
as it fell. The nights are frosty, but the middle of
the day is warm and the grass is up six inches.
Nevada is getting to be quite a town. There are
more than one hundred frame buildings beside a
lot of tents and log cabins and they are talking
about building a theater. There is another town
down the ridge, called Rough and Ready and it's
as lively as Nevada. They hung a nigger there
last week for stealing. It's a queer thing how well
we get along without any courts or law. Over in
Nevada the miners have elected an alcalde, but
his decisions are not binding, only as they are ac*
cepted by the people. Most of the cases are mining
disputes and a miners' jury decides these. Stealing
is punished by a whipping and banishment. Out-
side of a few cutting and shooting scrapes among
the gamblers there have been no serious crimes,
and it is a fact that we are more orderly and better
behaved as a rule than the eastern towns from which
*' we came.
54
CHAPTER VI.
A REAL ESTATE SPECULATION — EN-
COUNTER WITH A ROAD AGENT— DIS-
COVERY OF RICH QUARTZ VEINS AT
GRASS VALLEY— A VALUABLE SPECI-
MEN—MADAME FERRAND VISITS ROCK
CREEK — RICH DIGGINGS ON THE
NORTH YUBA— GENEROSITY OF THE
PIONEERS — THE TWENTY-ONE
DEALER'S FORTUNE.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER VL
MARCH 2, 1851.— In the last month we have
taken a little over four thousand dollars out of the
claim aod it will take us considerable longer to
work it out than we expected, as the flat seems to
pay pretty well all over. I have got over two thou-
sand dollars on hand beside what I have sent home,
so that I have made more than my mark; still I
am not going to quit as long as it pays as it does
now. Pard tells me that with what he had before
we joined fortunes and what he has made since,
he has over ten thousand dollars. He has not sold
any of his dust, but has it buried, nobody knows
where but himself. He thinks it is too much money
to lie idle and has made up his mind to invest it
in San Francisco lots. He wants me to join him
in the speculation and argues that some day it will
be a big dty. I haven't got much faith in it and
neither has anybody else to whom I have talked
about it; but as I owe to him the most of my good
luck I did not feel like refusing, so agreed to put in
what I have saved. He says we will make a trip
to the Bay in a month or so from now and look
over the ground together. One thing is certain.
We are all fooled in the quantity of gold there is
in this country. We thought a year ago that the
rivers, creeks and gulches contained it all, although
somewhere there would be found the source of it;
an immense deposit of pure gold from which all
the dust and nuggets were broken off and washed
down the streams. Several parties have hunted
57
THE DIARY OF
for this, but they haven't come across it yet. We do
find that the gold streaks run into the banks and
under the hills and, in some places, as at Rough
and Ready, on the tops of the ridges, and instead
of being played out there are more and richer dig-
gings (fiscovered every day, I would not be sur-
prised if it took three or four years before it will
all be worked out.
MARCH 9, 1851.— Rode over into Nevada this
morning and loafed around all day. Took dinner
at. the Hotel de Paris and who should I meet there
but my little French girl. She recognized me and
apologized for calling me a gambler. Said she had
mfade a lot of money dealing Twenty-One, most of
which she had saved and sent back to France ; but
she was tired of the life and thought she would
quit soon and go back to her own country. She
asked me a lot about myself, where I was working,
and said if I didn't mind she would ride out and
see me some day during the week. Of course I
replied "Come along"; but I have said very little
to Pard about her and I guess he will be surprised
if she should come. Still, I don't think there is a
chance of her making the trip. This is about as
pleasant a day as I have passed since I have been
in California. Had quite an adventure on my
way home. It was after dark, although the moon
was shining, and as I struck into the trail beyond
Selby Flat some fellow grabbed the bridle and or-
dered me to get off the horse. My foot at his side
had slipped out of the stirrup. Without thinking
I gave him a kick in the head which made him let
go. Then I jabbed my heels into the horse and
58
A FORTY-NINER
Started off at a gallop, but I hadn't gone forty
feet away when he turned loose his gun. Luckily
he didn't hit me and I was soon out of shooting
distance. Pard called me a fool for taking such
chances and I guess I was, but I got off all right
anyway.
The town is all excitement over the discovery of
go4d inside rocks. Over in Grass Valley (Center-
ville it seems had been discarded) they found veins
of a white stone which we call quartz and some of it
has great masses and leaves of gold mixed in. It
is the samje sort of rock that most of the pebbles in
our gravel is made of and we have found in our
claims several of these pebbles that had gold in
them. We thought they were curious and had no
idea that there were solid streaks of it. I saw one
piece in Hamlet Davis' store to-day that had been
brought up from Grass Valley. It was as big as
my head and all covered over with gold. Davis
said there was as much as five hundred dollars in
it. There was a big crowd looking at it, discussing
its origin, and a great many were of the opinion
that this was the source of the gold we had been
looking for. Others agreed that if there was much
more like it there would be so much gold taken out
that it would get to be cheaper than iron.
MARCH 16, 1851.— Sure enough, Madame Fer-
rand — ^that's her name — came over to Rock Creek
Thursday. We were eating dinner and when I
went out and helped her off her horse Pard came
near falling off his chair. I introduced her and
she began laughing and said her ride had given
her an appetite and would we please invite her to
59
THE DIARY OF
dinner. Of course we asked her to eat; it was
mighty poor grub : tea, beans, bread and dried apple
sauce, but she seemed to like it. She talks fairly
good English; but imagine my surprise when An-
derson began to jabber away in French to hen I
was out of the running and was a little provoked,
especially as it was the first I knew that Pard could
speak any foreign lingo. She wanted to see us
working, so we took her up to the claim and showed
her how to pan out dirt. Pard saw to it that she
had a rich pan, and with our help she washed out
half an ounce. Then she sat on the bank chatting
until pretty near sundown, when we went back to
the cabin and had supper. She was.n't very com-
plimentary about our shanty. Said she would come
over some day and tidy it up, and Pard whispered
to me: *The Lord forbid." I saddled up the horse
and rode to town with her. So far as I know she
is the first woman that has ever been on Rock
Creek. She told me that she had come to Cali-
fornia with her husband in H9 ; that he learned her
how to deal Twenty-One. After making a lot of
money in San Francisco they went to Sacramento,
where he was taken sick and died of cholera. Then
she came to Nevada with some Frenchmen and won
a lot more money here, but she had got sick of it
and refused to deal any mdre. She had an eighth
interest in the French claim at Coyoteville and as
soon as she sold that out was going back to France,
as with what she and her husband had made she
had money enough to live on the rest of her life.
I got back to the cabin about ten o'clock. Pard was
asleep and Jack didn't make any fuss, so I slipped
into bed without waking him up.
60
A FORTY^^NINER
MARCH 23, 1851.— I have had to stand a lot
of joshing from Pard over the Madame's visit,
especially as she has made two more trips out here
since last Sunday. Of course, I told him she was
only a passing acquaintance and he laughed and
said: ^^She is a fascinating little devil, and if she
wants you she will land you sure/' That is all non-
sense. It is pleasant to talk to a pretty woman,
particularly if she is decent. So far as I can learn,
nobody has a word to say against her except her
gambling, but she is no more to me than I am to
her and that is nothing.
It looks as if our flat is going to turn out to be
a much bigger claim than we expected. The gravel,
which is from; two to four feet deep, pays pretty
well and there are rich streaks on the bed-rock that
pan out big. If it holds out we will have at least
four months' more work. We average about forty
ounces a week, and at that rate ought to take out
eleven or twelve thousand dollars more.
If we do I will be about fourteen thousand dollars
ahead for a little over a year's work. That is more
than most of the miners are making, but there are
lots of richer diggings. Brush Creek has paid a
hundred dollars a day to the man and on Coyote
Hill they have taken out as high as two and three
thousand dollars a day. A couple of miners came
down from the North Fork of the Yuba and brought
forty-three thousand dollars with ^them — a pack
mule load. They took it from a bar called Good-
year in less than two months' work. They say
there are a lot more claimls just as rich. There has
been quite a stampede of miners from here. It's
a curious thing that our gold is mostly fine, very
6i
THE DIARY OF
few nuggets, and the gold from there is coarse.
They say there was one piece found which was
worth six thousand dollars. As near as we could
make out the new diggings are about fifty miles
north and farther up in the mountains. There is
still a lot of excitement about quartz, although it
has simmered down some. A general search has
been made for these veins and many found, but,
contrary to expectation, the majority have no gold
in them or so little that the stone is not worth
pounding up.
MARCH 30, 1851. — It is astonishing how many
people are coming to California. The hills are
crowded with miners and prospectors and we hear
good reports everywhere. Dozens pass by our
cabin every day, bound for the streams farther up
the mountains, and as many more on their way
back. It don't seem possible, but it is strange the
number of hard luck stories one hears, for there
are many who are disgusted with the country and
are tramping their way back to Sari Francisco.
There was a big fire in Nevada last week and all
of the principal stores, hotels and houses were
burned down.
We have had a sad case on the creek. Allen
Talbot, who is little more than a boy, has been ail-
ing all winter and has been struck with paralysis.
He is completely helpless and the doctor says the
only chance he has is to go to a hospital. He had no
money, so we raised a subscription. Pard and I gave
a hundred dollars and altogether we raised seven
hundred and fifty dollars. The lad was taken away
yesterday and it is a question if he ever recovers.
62
A FORTY-NINER
As a rule, considering the exposure and hard-
ships, the most of us are in the best of health. It's
a queer sort of life we lead; back-breaking work all
day; doing our own cooking and washing; no
amusements, except a friendly game of euchre and
an occasional trip to town. There is nothing there
worth while, except the gambling saloons and the
Mexican girls at the fandango house. We long for
the company of decent women, and while there are
a few scattered around and more coming, still the
miners do not get much chance to associate with
them. I am looked upon as particularly favored,
because Madame Ferrand rides out to the claim to
see me, and it is a pleasure to be with her, but that
will all end shortly. Pard and I are going to the
Bay next week and she is going along, and will
leave for France shortly after. She sold her share
in the French claim for seven thousand dollars and
tells me she has got about forty thousand dollars
put away. That is a pretty good stake for a woman.
I have learned quite a lot of French and can talk
a little to her in her own language.
Sam Carter was bitten by a rattlesnake last week
over on Round Mountain. He was out hunting
and set down on a log and the snake struck him in
the leg. He cut out the bite with his knife, rushed
to town and the doctor brought him through all
right, but it was a narrow squeak.
Kellogg has finished his ditch to Brush Creek.
It is about three miles long. He has agreed not
to interfere with us, but there is plenty of water
for everybody.
63
CHAPTER VII.
A TRIP TO SAN FRANCISCO— SPECULAT-
ING IN SANDHILL LOTS— HIGH LIVING
—HETTY BREAKS THE ENGAGEMENT
—BACK ON THE CLAIM — NEVADA
COUNTY ORGANIZED — DRAWING
MONEY FROM A GRAVEL BANK— MORE
GOLD DISCOVERIES— THE RESCUE OF
A PARTY OF UNFORTUNATE IMMI-
GRANTS—THE "LOST GRAVE."
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER VII.
APRIL 6, 1851.— Pard, the Madame and I are
off for the Bay to-morrow. It was a question what
we would do with our claim, as under mining law
a day's work must be done every week to hold it.
iFinally Tom Gleason and Jack Fisk agreed to strip
top dirt for us once a week, we to pay them an ounce
apiece a day for their work. They are good friends
of ours and will keep the jumpers off. Pard is the
leader and the most popular man on the creek and
we are not afraid of any of our neighbors, but some
outsiders might take a notion to the ground. ^ We
live up to our home-made law strictly and it is
understood that unless the specified amount of work
is done the claim is open to location, even when
the tools have been left in it. We have had one case
on the creek of a young fellow from Maine, who
has been laid up with the rheumatism pretty nearly
all winter. He had a good claim and in order to
hold it for him the boys have taken turns working
it for him, putting in one day a week. We have
taken out nearly enough to pay for his grub and
now he is back working it himself and doing well.
Pard dug up his dust; it was under the chimney
back of the cabin. I gave him two thousand five
hundred dollars to go along with it and he has sent
it down to the Bay by Freeman & Company's ex-
press. He says it will almost break his heart to
part with "Jack,** but Gleason has, promised to take
good care of both the dog and the horse. We have
67
THE DIARY OF
engaged seats and paid passage in Bower's stage
to Sacramento and will take boat from there down.
APRIL 27, 1851.— Back after a three weeks' trip.
We have had a great time and it has been a holiday
that both Pard and I have enjoyed. It was like
getting back into civilization again, although San
Francisco is not the same sort of place as most
eastern cities. There is a rush of people going and
coming, men from the mines with their pile and
men from the States on their way to make it. We
lived high while we were there; our meals averaged
about two dollars each, but we did not begrudge it
after a year's steady diet of pork and beans. The gani-
bling houses were a sight and it was good for sore
eyes to see so many well dressed and good looking
women. Pard made his investment, buying about
twenty fifty-vara lots about half a mile out on the
Mission road and six over on North Beach. The
madame insisted on putting in some money and
took eight fifty-varas at four thousand dollars. I
n^er had less faith in an investment. Our land
is nothing but a pile of white sand and, while there
is some chance for North Beach to grow, the dty
will never get out to our Mission lots in a hundred
years.
The neighbors were all glad to see us back and
Jack went wild. I don't know which was the hap-
piest — ^Pard or the dog. Nobody had bothered our
claims; Gleason and Fisk had kept their contract
and we will begin work again to-morrow.
MAY 4, 1851. — ^Am not in the best of spirits.
Things happened at the Bay that I did not tell
68
A FORTY-NINER
Pard about and I have got a couple of letters from
home that are not pleasant. Father writes that
mother's health is failing and advises me to quit
and come home. Believes my being there would do
her more good than any medicine. If I thought
it was anything serious I would go, but while I am
doing so well here it does not seem right to drop
the chance to make a fortune. Anyway, I will
wait until I get another letter. Henry North's
death has been a great shock to his folks, but it
would be worse if they knew the truth. Hetty wrote
me the meanest kind of a letter, blaming me for not
looking out for her brother, while it was a fact that
I never knew where he was until I hunted him up
in Sacramento. His murderer has not been cap-
tured. I guess nobody tried very hard, as it was a
gambling row anyhow. Hetty throws me over, says
' she can't trust her happiness to me. That's like a
woman, but I don't know but it's for the best and
I am not taking her decision very much to heart.
After three weeks' rest mining comes hard for a
time, but we are both getting used to it again. We
cleaned up the ground that Gleason and Fisk had
sluiced off and took out fifty-four and one-half
ounces. That more than pays our expenses for the
trip.
MAY 11, 1851. — ^Nevada is all built up again
since the fire; better and more substantial than it
was before. They have also built a Methodist
Church on the hill west of the town and have a
regular preacher. It was pleasant to notice eight or
ten women in the congregation. The Legislature
made a new county and called it Nevada, and an
69
THE DIARY OF
election was held while we were gone to the Bay.
Caswell was elected judge and Johnny Gallagher
sheriff, so that now we have a regular law outfit.
Gallagher has appointed Anderson deputy for Rock
Creek district and we have a peace officer here with
legal authority. If we get along as peacefully as
for the past year, Pard won't be very busy.
Showed Pard Hetty's letter and he said, "Give
her time; she don't mean it." He seemed to think I
was not worried over it, which is true. I have got
nothing to blame myself for and why should I let
her play see-saw with me. I answered her letter
and told her she was the best judge, and, although
she had been very unjust, it was for her to decide.
Pard don't know how matters stand between me
and my French sweetheart. I have not told him
that she wanted me to marry and go back to France
with her and I was almost persuaded to do it, and
that she finally decided to make a visit to her home
and come back in the fall and then we should come
to some agreement. I believe I would have made
the jump had it not been for fear of what my folks
would say and now I am half sorry that I did not
go. She wrote me just before she left on the
steamer, but it is in French and I can't read a word
of it and am ashamed to ask Pard to translate it.
MAY 18, 1851. — ^We put in a steady week's work
and got forty-one and three-quarters ounces. It's
like drawing money out of a bank and we have three
months more ahead of us if it all pays. The bed-
rock is nearly level, but rises up on both sides of
the flat and there is no gravel on the hill. The water
has gone down in Deer Creek and the miners are
70
A FORTY-NINER
getting back into the bed, but it was pretty well
worked out last year and isn't paying very well.
The best diggings are up on Nigger Hill and Man-
zanita Flat and there is another place called Gold
Run and a flat at the head of it that is rich. Amos
Laird & Co. have most of the flat and I heard that
for the past month they have been taking out on
an average of one thousand dollars per day. There
are three or four companies on the head of Brush
Creek that are doing well. They are working
ground that is from thirty to fifty feet deep, coyoting
and drifting. Kellogg is blasting out a rock cut
fifteen or twenty feet through the solid granite to
drain the channel. He and his partner have taken
out over seventy thousand dollars in the past year.
Good diggings have also been found on Shady Creek
and Badger Hill and there are four or five hundred
nwners working in that vicinity. It seems as if there
was no end to it; we hear of strikes every day and
in every direction and we are sometimes tempted
to go prospecting, but our claim is too good to quit
just yet. The miners generally agree that one
should be content with ounce diggings.
Early in the week a miner came down from
Sailor Ravine and told us that up on the ridge
where the emigrant road comes through the moun-
tains a party was camped and were in distress and
that he was going into town to get relief for them.
Pard, who is always first when aid for the sick or
sore is wanted, volunteered to go with him and hurry
along the supplies and suggested that I should take
the horse, ride up where they were and hearten
them: up a bit by letting them know that a relief
party was coming. I found them camped about
71
THE DIARY 9 F
eight miles up the ridge and they were certainly
in a bad fix. There were three families, men and
their wives and five children, one baby not a month
old that had been bom on the Humboldt desert.
The mother was nothing but skin and bone, a young
woman, and she could scarcely walk she was so
weak and worn out. It was pitiful to see her cling
to and try to nurse the baby, so forlorn that the
sight would have melted a heart of stone. The rest
of them did not look much better and one, a young
girl fourteen years old, was sick to the point of
death. They had four yoke of oxen, who were
walking skeletons, and, to look at them, it was a j
miracle that they had succeeded in crossing the
mountains, as they were in deep snow all the way
until they reached their last camping ground, where
they had got out of it and in a place where there
was some grass feed for their cattle. Their grub
had given out and they did not have enough pro-
visions on hand for another meal. It was one of
the saddest plights I ever saw, but I cheered them
up and told them they need not worry any more
as there would be plenty for them all before sun-
down. Sure enough, Pard, Lawyer Dunn and Tom
Buckner rode into the camp before dark, driving a
pack-mule loaded with all kinds of grub. It wasn't
long before a good hot meal was prepared ; there were
willing cooks, and we assured the emigrants that
their troubles were over. The poor girl was too
sick to eat; in fact, was almost unconscious. Her
sufferings were too much for Buckner and he swore
he would have a doctor there by midnight, if he
had to bind him hand and foot and bring him by
main force. Buckner is a good fellow if he is a
72
A FORTY-NINER
gambler and we knew he would keep his word. The
girl's mother coaxed her to swallow a couple of
spoonfuls of brandy — Frank Dunn luckily had
brought a flask along — and that seemed to revive
her. They all felt better after the meal and we built
up a big camp fire and set around it listening to
the story of their adventures and hardships until
Tom got back. Sure enough, he brought Dr. Hunt
along with him, who after examining the girl said
that it was a case of exhaustion and prostration for
want of proper nourishment and that the brandy we
had given her was exactly what she needed. Her
father broke down completely and sobbed like a
child when the doctor told him there was a chance
for her recovery. We left them in good spirits,
promising to send them up some more grub the
next day. Pard advised them to stay where they
were for two or three days, until their oxen re-
cruited, and then to come into town and we would
see that they got a fair start. This is a land of
plenty, but the snowline and starvation is not very
far away. We all thought about the Donner party,
and it was a coincidence that not half a mile from
where these emigrants were camped was the grave
of a young girl who was brought out from Starva-
tion Camp by one of the rescuing parties that went
to the relief of the Donners, and who died and was
buried on the ridge. A pen of logs has been piled
around it and it is known as the "Lost Grave."
73
CHAPTER VIII.
MURDER ON THE TRAIL— A PURSUING
POSSE— WANTED, A FRENCH DICTION-
ARY—CARING FOR THE DISTRESSED
IMMIGRANTS-JACKSON'S CONFESSION
—THE JOLLY CROWD AT THE SALER-
ATUS RANCH— A MIDNIGHT CONCERT
AND A ROW— HAYING IN THE MOUN-
TAINS-LETTERS FROM HOME— THE
OLD FOLKS TAKING IT EASY— A PEACE
PERSUADE R— PARD'S DISPOSITION
CHANGES FOR THE BETTER.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER VIII.
MAY 25, 1851.— On Thursday last a fellow rode
up post haste to the claim and inquired if one of us
was an officer, and when Pard answered that he
was a deputy sheriff the man said he was coming
in on the trail from Kanaka Creek and just after
crossing the river found two men dead ; both shot
and evidently murdered that morning as they were
not stiff yet. Pard left me to clean up while he
went down the creek to summon a posse, and the
man went on to town to inform the sheriff. By
the time he got back with his men, five beside me,
I was ready and we started for the place. When
we got to Blue Tent we learned that a party horse-
back — ^two Mexicans and a white man — ^had been
seen before noon skirting the hill and making
through the woods for the ridge. It was five o'clock
in the afternoon before we got to where the men lay
and there was everything to prove that they had
been murdered. One was shot through the head
and the other three times in the back. They were
Americans, and as there were no arms or money
on them there was no doubt they had been robbed.
The sheriff arrived about dusk, but there was noth-
ing to do except set a watch to guard the bodies
from the coyotes and send a man up the trail to
find out who the murdered men were. Our party
tramped back to the creek tired out, but we were
lucky enough on the way to get some grub and
coffee from the miners at Blue Tent. We learned
a couple of days later that the men were miners
77
THE DIARY OF
from New Orleans Camp; that they had cleaned
up about seven thousand dollars between them and
were on their way to Nevada and the Bay when
they were killed. We buried them down on the
bank of the river, as it was impossible to pack their
bodies in to town. Pard with my horse is oflF with
the sheriff hunting the murderers and has been
away since Friday. I cleaned up yesterday after-
noon and got twenty-seven ounces. Have not been
able to read my letter yet; tried to get a French
dictionary in town and found that books were as
scarce as hens' teeth, so had to send to San Fran-
cisco for it. Think I will study French. Pard
would help me out, but I hardly like to ask him as
I do not exactly know how he would look at it. If
I can screw up my courage I think I will tell him
all about the madame. What with the starving
emigrants and the murderers we have had an ex-
citing week.
JUNE 1, 1851. — ^We are certainly having glorious
weather. The days are getting a little warm, but
the nights are cool and one, to be comfortable, has
to sleep under a blanket. We gather up the fresh
pine needles occasionally and renew our mattress
filling, and the pine sn^ell is not only very pleasant
but also seems to be a regular sleeping tonic. The
longer one lives here the more the country grows on
one. When I was at San Francisco, where it was
foggy, windy and disagreeable, my thoughts turned
to the mountains and I longed to get back to Rock
Creek again. Pard has his theory about it and in his
learned way says the main charm is that we go back
to nature, where we belong ; throw off our artificial
78
A FORTY-NINER
civilization and turn Pagans, and that the closer
we get to Mother Earth the more we are in accord
with what the Great Cause intended for us. This
all may be, but pork and beans get monotonous just
the same as having none but the society of men
makes one wish for the sight of and companionship
with a woman. Still, I am afraid I am getting
spoiled for I do not feel as if I could take up again
the drudgery and hard work of my old life, and if it
was not for the old folks I should care very little
about going back to New England again.
We heard from our emigrants and they are all
right. Two of the men have hired out to the boss
of the saw mill on Deer Creek and with the oxen
are going to snake logs this summer for the mill.
The family with the sick girl came over to Blue
Tent and have settled down there. The miners in
that vicinity have done everything to make them
comfortable and are putting on airs because a white
family is living there. The sick girl is well again
and as lively as a kitten.
I have made a clean breast of it to Pard and
showed him Marie's letter. He read it carefully
and before translating it to me said that it was
written by a good woman. There was not very
much to it and some parts of it made me blush,
although it was all very simple and nothing to be
ashamed of. Said she was first attracted by my
fresh young face and her wonder that anyone so
innocent looking could be a gambler, and when she
found out her mistake and heard about me buying
the crippled dog and packing him home she was
interested. There was a lot more and I guess I
must have been pretty soft when we were together
79
THE DIARY OF
at the city. I don't believe she will ever come back,
but Pard insists that I don't know an3rthing about
women, their whims and inclinations, and I can
make up my mind that she has come into my life
and will not go out without a struggle. The "old
boy" was mighty good, did not laugh or make fun
of me or Marie, but said I would have to choose
between her and Hetty and that I better quit moon-
ing around like a sick calf and when the crisis came
make my choice like a man. He does not know
that the engagement with Hetty is off. Pard says
it is a romance of the pines, although there is noth-
ing very romantic in a hero in a flannel shirt and
overalls.
The claim pays regularly and it is almost certain
that we will clean up ten or twelve thousand dollars
apiece.
JUNE 8, 1851. — ^After doing our washing yester-
day, one flannel shirt and the dishes, and baking a
batch of bread in the Dutch oven I went over to
Selby Flat. There is a young fellow living there
called MacCalkins, who has been to our claim sev-
eral times until we got pretty well acquainted, and
he told me what a jolly crowd he cabins with, what
good times they have together and has asked me
and Pard to come on a visit some Saturday evening.
I coaxed Anderson to go along; said he did not feel
like having a stag blowout; rather have a pasear
with Jack over on the river, but for me to make
the trip and pick up some new friends, it might cure
my melancholy. Pard gets sarcastic occasionally
about my sweethearts.
Well, I went and stayed until three o'clock Sun-
80
A FORTY-NINER
day morning and it was a noisy old time if nothing
else. There are six young fellows living together
in a big log cabin they have built near the flat and
all are working on Brush Creek, As I remember
their names, there were John Dunn, MacCalkins,
Charlie Barker, Henry Shively, Delos Calkins and
John HalL They have christened their cabin Saler-
atus Ranch and they are certainly the wildest bunch
of boys on the creek. Barker had killed a buck
down on Myers ravine and they prepared a regular
blowout of a supper: Baltimore cove oysters, veni-
son steak, fried potatoes and dried apple dumplings
and it was well cooked. After supper we sat under
an old oak tree, smoked our pipes and exchanged
experiences. They were all doing well on their
claims. There was not a foot of Brush Creek that
was not rich and, like everybody else, they were
working to make their pile and go back to the
States. I could see in spite of all their joshing that
some of them were lonesome and discontented.
After a while they struck up some old songs. Bar-
ker had a sweet voice and sang Scotch airs : 'The
Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon," '^Highland
. Mar/' and 'The Auld Wife of Alder Valley." The
Callans' swore these were too solemn and started
a nigger song with the lively chorus :
Did you ever see a gin sling made out of brandy?
Johnny am a lingo lay.
Did you ever see a yaller gal suckin* lasses candy?
Johnny am a lingo lay.
We joined in until the woods rang. The bottle
circulated pretty freely, but I wouldn't drink — I
have not tasted liquor since I left home ; told stories,
8i
THE DIARY OF
some of them pretty rocky, and along about eleven
o'clock they proposed to serenade the folks up on
Selby Flat. Each one took a gold pan and a stick.
That was the band and the boys paraded around
the flat singing a lot of verses they had made up.
Every miner they could find was routed out of his
cabin and it was not long before there was at least
a hundred in the crowd, banging on the pans and
shouting the chorus :
On Selby Flat we live in style;
We'll stay right here till we make our pile.
We're sure to do it after a while,
Then good-bye to Califomy.
Of course, the hotel barroom was doing a great
business and some of the men got uproariously
drunk. One big fellow by the name of Bob Odell
began to pick on me because I would not drink
and sneer at me oa account of the French girl. By
and by he called her a name I couldn't stand and
I knocked him head over heels and would have
hammered the life out of him had not the boys
dragged me off, and that broke up the party. I
went back to the cabin, bid them good-bye, went
home, woke up Pard and told him about the things
and he advised me to shake Selby Flat. Said they
were good fellows, but lack of home ties and re-
straint made them reckless. I guess he is right —
whiskey and deviltry seem to go hand in hand.
Some rich diggings have been struck over on Blue
Tent above Illinois bar, where the trail crosses the
river. I hear that at Gopher Point they are taking
out two and three ounces to the hand. We cleaned
up last week forty-two ounces, but we keep it quiet.
82
A FORTY-NINER
It's no good blowing your horn when there is noth-
ing to gain.
JUNE IS, 18S1,— I did some work last week that
brought back old times. We have kept the horse I
bought to ride to Sacramento and there is plenty
of feed for him now. The hills are covered with
grass, but later in the year it all bums up and then
we have to provide fodder. There is a clearing up
on the mountain of some dozen of acres where the
grass grew pretty rank and we concluded we would
cut it and stack it for fall and winter use. I had a
dickens of a time finding a scythe and rake and
had to ride down to a valley below Rough and
Ready before I could get them. The owner would
not sell, but agreed to loan them for a week provided
I would pay ten dollars for their use and deposit
thirty dollars for the safe return, which I did. It
took Pard and me three days to mow and cure it
and we stacked about three tons. Counting two
days going and returning the scythe and rake and
two men three days] cutting, Pard says our hay
stack cost us about six hundred dollars. After all,
we don't look at it that way; we both enjoyed the
change of work, although it was harder than mining.
We certainly do live an irresponsible, free and easy
sort of a life. Every day on the claim counts for
a hundred dollars, but we don't mind skipping a
day, laying off for an afternoon, or quitting work
sun two hours high. Pard says the claim is a treas-
ure house and it doesn't make any difference
whether we draw out our gold in one month or three,
as long as we know it is there.
Letters from home came yesterday. Dad says he
83
THE DIARY OF
doesn't blame me for wanting to stay while I am
making so much money. He writes that mother is
better and that since I sent the thousand dollars
they are playing rich folks. He is bossing the two
f araos and mother has a hired girl. She has bought
a new black silk dress for church and he a new
buggy, and that is all they have used of it. Bless
them! I suppose they think that is awful extrava-
gant. Hetty has not been to see them but once
since she heard of her brother's death, but he thinks
she will come out all right. There are wonderful
tales going round old Norfolk about my getting
rich and half the town is California crazy. I would
not have believed a year ago that Hetty's thoughts
or actions would be of so little interest to me.
I rode over to Nevada yesterday and bought a
revolver from Zeno Davis. I hear that the fellow
I had a fight with at Selby Flat has threatened to
do me up when he meets me and Pard says that a
good pistol is a great peace persuader. I won't
hunt any trouble and I won't run from it.
Last week was an off week, but we are going now
to put in steady work until we clean up our ground.
JUNE 22, 1851.— We put in good licks all the
week and took out thirty-eight ounces. It's as-
tonishing how steadily the claim yields. Another
thing that makes it pleasant is the change in Pard's
disposition. Instead of moping around and sulking,
as he used to, he has brightened up and is as cheer-
ful as a robin. Then he doesn't get into the dumps
when he gets letters from home, and they come reg-
ularly. He got one last night and after reading it
he said: "It may not be so in Hetty's case, but there
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A FORTY-NINER
are instances when absence makes the heart grow
fonder." Then he whistled to Jack and they went
out under the big pine and had a great romp. He's
a good fellow and I suppose some time he will tell
me more about his life. I know he went through
college and hung out his shingle as a lawyer. He
can recite poetry by the yard and quote from all
sorts of books. We both went down on the Yuba
River to-day and we have about agreed to try river
mining when the water gets low. We will form a
company of ten men, each putting in three hundred
dollars or more, if necessary. We have got to look
around for somebody to whipsaw out a lot of lum-
ber, as we cannot haul any from the mills and it
will have to be cut on the river banks near the
claims.
8S
CHAPTER IX.
WOMEN ARRIVING IN THE COUNTRY—
OUR HERO WRESTLES WITH THE
FRENCH LANGUAGE— A WAITER WHO
COULD NOT UNDERSTAND HIS NATIVE
TONGUE— THE RIVAL FOURTH OF JULY
CELEBRATION AT SELBY FLAT— CLOSE
TO A LYNCHING BEE— PARD GETS A
SURPRISE— FORMING A RIVER MINING
COMPANY— THE SANDHILL SPECULA-
TION PROSPERS— ANDERSON'S REV-
ELATION.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER IX.
JUNE 29, 1851.— They are going to have a
Fourth of July celebration and barbecue at Selby
Flat in opposition to Nevada. Half a dozen more
families have settled there in the last month. Both
of the Missouri girls are married; women can't
stay single long in this country. Anderson has been
asked to deliver the oration and although he bucked
at first he finally accepted. It's astonishing how
everybody looks up to Pard: he seems to be a bom
leader. I hear the Saleratus crowd are going to
have a burlesque entertainment in. the evening.
Pard asked me to spend the day in Nevada, as if
I would consent to stay away and he making a
speech. He is afraid I will have trouble with Odell.
Delos Calkins was over here last week and said
the fellow was only a big bully and that the ranch
would stay with me. I told lum I would look out
for No. One and did not need any backers, although,
of course, I was pleased that they sided with me.
Another letter from Marie. Pard read it for
me, although I have been studying French with his
aid, an OUendorf grammar and French dictionary.
If any one should hear us around the cabin he would
think we had both gone crazy. Of all the fool
questions and answers that grammar takes the
prize. Pard asks me in French if "I have the tree
of my Uncle's garden?" and I say "No, J at ne pas;
but I have the rosebush of my cousin," and we keep
up this lingo for an hour. I don't believe I will
ever learn to speak it. I thought I was getting along
89
THE DIARY OF
fine and a couple of Sundays ago I went into the
Hotel de Paris at Nevada. I told the French waiter
what I wanted for dinner and in his own language.
I repeated it to him twice and then he shrugged his
shoulders and said: ^^I talk ze French and ze Italian
and speak of ze English a leetle, but ze Dutch I do
not understand," I was so hot that I walked out
without my dinner. I told Pard and he said he
must have been an homme de la campagne and did
not catch on to my Parisian accent. I think Pard
was joshing me, but he kept a sober face and maybe
that was the reason.
Marie says she bought a chateau — ^that's a house
— ^just outside of Paris, but that she is coming back
on a visit to California this winter. It makes my
heart jump when I think of seeing her again.
JULY 6, 1851. — I have had an exciting time this
week. Everybody in the neighborhood went over
to Selby Flat for the Fourth. Kellogg read the
Declaration of Independence and Pard made one of
the best speeches I ever listened to. The crowd went
wild over it and I was mighty proud of him. There
was at least a thousand people on hand. Along
toward evening the barbecue came off, an ox roasted
whole and a half a dozen sheep. The Saleratus
Ranchers and their friends organized a company
called the "Rag, Tag and Bobtail Rangers," dressed
up and paraded in the most ridiculous costumes
they could invent and marched around the fiat,
singing, yelling and shouting until they were so
hoarse they could not whisper. I was looking on
peaceably, not interfering with anybody, when I
heard a shot and felt a sting in my shoulder. I
90
A FORTY-NINER
whirled around and saw Pard wrestling with OdelL
He wrenched a pistol away from him and beat him
over the head until he was insensible. Then he
ran to me and said: "B6y, are you hurt?" but I
wasn't — ^just a little graze on my collarbone. I
never saw anybody quite as excited as Pard until
he found out that there was no harm done. The
fellow came to by this time and the crowd wanted
to hang him, but Pard interfered, saying it would
be a disgrace to the camp, so they agreed to banish
him, giving him twenty-four hours to pack up and
leave with penalty of hanging if he ever came back.
That was enough Fourth of July for Pard and me
and we went back to the creek and I got lectured all
the way home about getting into scrapes. I didn't
kick back for I knew he was making believe so I
wouldn't think he cared much and was trying to
hide his real feelings. When we got to the cabin
we let Jack out and sat under the tree, the moon
shining, the wind sighing through the pine boughs,
the dog at our feet, and we got as sentimental as
two old maids. He told me what a lonely man he
had been until we began cabining together and how
luck had turned and fortune had favored him in
many ways since then. He looks on me as a sort
of younger brother and I am sure I could not like
an own brother any better. Jack wagged his tail
as if he understood it all, and I enjoyed the evening
better than the celebration ; but Selby Flats knocked
the spots off of Nevada all the same.
JULY 13, 1851. — It was Pard who got a surprise
this week. We had a special invitation to come
over to Selby Flat Wednesday night and, although
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THE DIARY OF
Pard did not want to go, a delegation came over
for us and we could not very well refuse. We did
not know what was up and they would not let on,
but when we got there we found a crowd of about
a hundred miners gathered at the hotel. Of course,
it was drinks all around ; you can't do anything in
this country without setting 'em up first, and then
Henry Shively made a talk. Said that the miners
of Brush and Rock Creeks and the residents of
Selby Flats were proud of the fact that they had a
man among them who, as an orator, laid over any-
thing that the town of Nevada could produce as
was demonstrated by his Fourth of July speech
and that the Nevada City lawyers were not to be
mentioned in the same class as Anderson. Then he
produced a big gold watch that weighed about a
pound and presented it to Pard as a token of the
boys' appreciation. Pard was so taken back that
for a while he couldn't speak, but he finally caught
on and gave them a nice talk. Then he set up the
drinks again and we left for the cabin. When we
got there we looked over the watch by candle light;
it certainly was a stunner and must have cost three
or four hundred dollars. There was an inscription :
"Presented to L. T. Anderson, July Fourth,
1851, by his admiring friends and miners
of Brush and Rock Creeks. He made the
eagle scream."
For some reason Pard did not seem to be very
chirrupy and when I asked him what ailed him he
said: "Alf, I've been playing it pretty low down
on you boys. My name ain't Anderson and I never
can wear this watch where I am known."
92
A FORTY-NINER
I nearly fell off the bench, but he kept on talking:
*There is nothing wrong, Alf ; I am as straight as
a shoe string. There were reasons that when I
came here made nxe change my name, but matters
are coming out different than I expected and it
won't be long before I will be the man I was before
I left Syracuse. When the right time comes I will
tell you the whole story and you will not be
ashamed of your pard/'
Then, as usual, when he got to feeling off, he
whistled to the dog and they went out into the dark.
You could have knocked me down with a feather,
but I had sense enough not to follow. It's a puzzle,
but I'll bet my pile there is nothing wrong about
Pard.
JULY 20, 1851.— We formed our river com-
pany ; eight of us, and we let a contract to a couple
of Maine men to whipsaw out twenty thousand feet
of lumber at one hundred dollars per thousand.
Pard is engineering the scheme and says that about
the last of August it will be low water and then we
will do some lively work wingdamming the stream.
He is sure that the bed of the river will pay big if
we can get at it and stay in it long enough to clean
up a good sized strip of it. I don't know a thing
about it except that it does seem reasonable that
with gold all along the banks and in every creek and
gulch that runs into it the gold ought to find its
way into the trough of the river. That's the way it
is along Deer Creek, and we were told by some
miners who came down from the North Yuba, which
seems to be a branch of our river, that in the fall
of '50 they managed to get into it in a half-dozen
93
THE DIARY OF
places and that two oi" three of the companies
cleaned up fortunes. One thing sure, all our old
theories about gold don't amount to much. Instead
of the deposits petering out, the miners are strik-
ing it richer in every direction and in places where
we did not think of looking for it a year ago. On
Selby Hill there is a deep channel running into
the mountain and there is more gold in it than
there was on Brush Creek. On the other side of
Sugar Loaf, way up on the hill, there is another
big streak that seems to run in the same direction
as Deer Creek, only it is five hundred feet higher
up. Then down at Grass Valley they are taking
out chunks of gold from quartz. Since this dis-
covery the miners have got it into their heads that
these rocks are the most likely source of the gold
and some parties have built a crushing machine
which pounds up the rock and leaves the gold free
to catch in sluices.
JULY 27, 1851.— Our claim is pretty nearly
played out. There may be a month's more work, but
the bed-rock raises up on each side of the flat along
the hill and there is no gravel in that direction. Pard
thinks we had better work together for a couple
of weeks and then he will go down on the river to
get things ready, leaving me to clean up. If we
take out three thousand dollars more I will have
made altogether twelve thousand dollars, counting
what I have sent home and invested witli Pard at
the Bay. He got a letter from John Perry, his
agent who is looking after the lots, and he tells him
he can double his money if he wants to sell, but
Pard sjays: ^^Let's hold on and make a big stake
94
A FORTY-NINER
or nothing.*' One night last week after supper,
we were sitting out under the old tree, when he
spoke up suddenly and said : ^^Alf , there is no reason
why I should not tell you part of my story and my
real name. I am not ashamed of it and there is no
reason why I should conceal it.'' Then he went on
to say that his true name was
-and that he was bom at Syracuse,
went through college, studied law and practiced in
his own town until he came here. He did not build
up much of a business and while he was as poor as
Job's off ox he married a girl who had considerable
money in her own right. He loved her dearly, but
she was extravagant, fond of society and luxury,
which he could not afford from his own income,
and she would not settle down until he could make
his way. Then they began quarreling and she
nagged him about her money and her family until
he could not stand it any longer and, the gold fever
breaking out, he left for California. He made up
his mind never to go back until he had as much
money as his wife, and, if he failed, why then he
would disappear for good. She thought lie was in
San Francisco, wrote to him there and the letters
were forwarded by a friend to Nevada. For some
(NoTB.— While Jackson's frank revelations concerning himself, his
experiences, loves and adventures can with safety be given to the world,
as he and his kin have vanished mto the unknown, the name that he
reveals as the rightful one of his partner is another matter. It is that of
one who stood among the foremost at the San Francisco Bar and high in
the councils of the State; famous and successful as a pleader in many of
the noted cases before the courts, an orator of persuasive eloquence and,
withal, a man of fortune. He has been dead xnany years, but his immed-
iate descendants are living in California, enjoying the fruits of his wealth
and the benefits of his honorable name. While there is nothing disgrace-
ful m the episode, still it is a chapter in his domestic affairs in whidi the
hero must remain unidentified.)
95
THE DIARY OF
time past she has been coaxing him to return or
let her come here, and he had promised to go to the
States next spring. That is all there was to the
story. He did not say much about what she was
writing, but I knew from the change in him that
things were different from what they were when I
first met him, and he was pretty happy over it. Of
course, he would have to keep the name of Ander-
son until he left Nevada, as he could not explain
the situation to anyone but me. I can see now why
he used to be so sarcastic about the troubles women
could make. I hope it will come out all right.
96
CHAPTER X.
FASCINATION OF THE SIERRA FOOT-
HILLS—AN IDEAL FRIENDSHIP— LOUSY
LEVEL-JACK AND THE MOUNTAIN
LION— THE BURNING PINE— SAWMILL
INVASION OF THE FORESTS-MOUNT-
ING A BRONCO— CRUEL PUNISHMENT
DEALT TO PETTY THIEVES— DEPAR-
TURE FOR THE RIVER.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER X.
AUGUST 3, 18Sl.-^hat a funny kind of life
this is. While I think it all over it seems as if I
was dreaming and must soon wake up. And yet
the old life in the Connecticut hills is as far away
and vague as if it were on another planet. Then
I was content to jog along on the farm working
from sunrise to dark for eight months in the year
and usually snowed up for the other four months.
To be sure, we had our fun, the singing school, the
sleigh rides, the husking bee, skating on Norfolk
pond and I was pretty well content, but I could
not stand it now; it looks dull beside what I have
gone through since I have been here. If it was not
for dad and mother I don't believe I should care
to go back/ Now I am easily worth ten thousand
dollars an3 perhaps more, which two years ago
would have seemed to be a pile of money, but it
doesn't look very big to me now I have got it. Not
that I do not have to work hard, but the harness
does not gall me as it used to. The country is not
more beautiful than the Litchfield hills; it is all
burned up, dry and dusty, our grub is bad and our
cooking worse, but when night comes round and
we have had our wash and supper and go out under
the big tree, Pard and I smoking our pipes, Jack
nosing around and answering the bark of the coyote
or sprawled out at our feet, cocking his ears at our
talk, the wind singing through the pine trees, the
frogs croaking in lie creek, it seems as if only one
thing was wanted to make it perfect — a good woman
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THE DIARY OF
for a companion to enjoy it with you. Pard says :
"You remember what happened when Eve came
into Paradise? She would make you move into
town, put on store clothes and wear a collar. You
could not get her to sit out under the tree for fear
of snakes." Then he laughed and said: "Make the
most of it — ^it won't last forever.'' It would puzzle
anyone if they should overhear us. Wo talk in
French until my jaws get twisted, and then we plan
what we are going to do in the future. Pard is
going to the Bay and will open a law office and I
don't know what I will drift into. He says that
in later years he will meet me on the Paris Boule-
vards and that I will be so Frenchified that he will
not know me. That's all fancy, although it is not so
bad a prospect if things turn out as I would like.
(Note.— The reader who ha< followed Jackson and his communinga
criticaUy will note a change both in his style and thought. The insidioas
climatic influence of the Sierra foothills b working in nis veins. A New
England future becomes more and nioie impossible, and it is safe to predict
that his old home will never claim him again, except as a visitor. Romance
has come into his life through his association with the Frenchwoman.
Although he hesitates to acknowledge it to himself, there is no question
that he is infatuated and poor Hettv b out of the running. The fascinat-
ing part of the diary is to watch the gradual broadening of the hero^is
emergence from the chrysalis state to that of a man of the world. This
no doubt was due to Anderson's influence. Pard was an educated man,
whose after career proved his exceptional brain power and gifts. He found
Jackson in a plastic state and moulded him after his own pattern. Their
companionship banished the old note of homesickness and unrest, stimu-
lated Jackson's dormant, but by no means limited, abilities, and totally
unfitted him for a return to the Puritanical environments of his old home.
It will also be noticed that the diary is taking on a literary aspeci. At first
Jackson was contented to jot down what to him were the most important
Items, such as the price of provisions; the weekly yield of the claim, the
doings of his neighbors and his yearnings for his former surroundings. His
style has expanded; hb language b more copious; hb thoughts take a wi^r
ran^. There b even a touch of poetrv in his divagations. He notes the
music of the wind in the pines ; the dog s answering bark to the coyote; the
peaceful night, under the shadows of the bough, and, above all, the wonder-
ful friendship between himself and Anderson; that tie of 'Tartners" sur-
passing m tenacity and byalty the love of brothers. What old pioneer
100
A FORTY - .N.:l::N-^E *
Pard is snoring in bed, with Jack curled up on the
foot of the bunk, and it is time to turn in. I am
writing a lot more in this diary than when I started
it and saying things I would not care to have any-
body read. I think I will bum it up soon, although
I like to go over it and see how it all happened.
AUGUST 10, 1851.— Pard is spending his days
down on the river, and as it is only about four miles
he rides over and back, morning and evening. I
have not paid much attention to it as it seems to me
it is going to be a hard job, but Pard has figured
it all out from ideas of his own and hints that he
has picked up from the fellows who did the same
sort of work last fall up on the North Fork. He
broke out laughing at supper last night, and when
I asked him what made him so good natured he
said: "What do you think they call the bar below
our claims on the river — ^*The Lousy Level.'"
There are some pretty rough names to the gulches
and flats around here, but that is the worst of all
of them. The bar is really a flat and about a dozen
men are working on it, all doing well. The river
is very low now, and Pard thinks we will be able
to get into it in a couple of weeks. He will take
down five men to-morrow and begin to lay out the
work. We pay these men ten dollars a day. We
will not have to build any cabins, brush shanties
will do, as we have to quit at the first storm. I
ordered a bill of grub at Caldwell's yesterday, about
who does not recall manv mstances of similar lo^al and lovmg relations
between those who jointly occupied the log cabin, shared the common
purse, worked together in the old claim and ate their pork and beans in
dyspeptic harmonv? I trust the reader will pardon the digression, but the
psychological study of the growing of a human soul, as evidenced in these
yellow and worn pages, has been of absorbing and intense interest to the
compiler and, I believe, will be the same to the thoughtful reader.)
lOI
A^/.^i-E..:/ i> I A R Y OF
two hundred and fifty dollars* worth, which will be
packed down this week, beside sledge hammers^
nails, saw and some other tools. There will only
be four of the company to lend a hand, as the rest
are doing too well on their creek claims to leave
them for the river, so we will hire eight men to
help us, if we can get them. It's lonesome working
alone^ although I have Jack for company, as Pard
won't let the dog go to the river — ^it's too long a
tramp. Jack had a narrow escape Friday. I heard
him barking furiously up the gulch above the ditch
and went to see what the trouble was. It was
lucky I did, for I heard a spitting and snarling up
in an old oak tree and there on a limb was a big
mountain lion, lashing his tail and getting ready
for a spring. I think he heard me coming, or it
would have been good-bye Jack! I banged away
at the beast with my six shooter and think I hit
him. He jumped from the tree, made for the brush
and that was the last of him. Pard saw a she
grizzly and two cubs on the river trail last week,
but he had not lost any bears and gave her the
go-by. Mountain lions are plenty, although this
is the first one I have seen. Think I can clean up
the rest of the claim this week, and then we have
decided to nail up the cabin and go down on the
river and stay there until the rains.
AUGUST 17, 1851.— Finished up the old flat
and abandoned the claim. Brought the "Tom'' and
sluice boxes to the cabin. We may want to use
them later. I figure out that with the five thousand
five hundred dollars I have sent home, the twenty-
five hundred dollars invested at the Bay and the
lOZ
A FORTY-NINER
dust I have on hand I am worth over eleven thou-
sand dollars, not counting any increase in the
Frisco lots. That is doing pretty well for eighteen
months' work ; still, there is nothing extraordinary
about it, as many have made ten times as much.
On the other hand, a lot of the boys are just where
they started, but in the majority of cases it is by
reason of their improvidence rather than bad luck.
It is easy come and easy go, and it makes spend-
thrifts out of the careless, happy-go-lucky fellows.
As Pard don't need me I am going to lay off
for a week and loaf. We want another horse, and
I will try and pick up a broncho somewhere. Got
a long letter from home yesterday, which I answered
last night. Mother's health is better and the old
folks are taking it easy. I guess it is all up between
Hetty and me. Dad says she does not visit them
any more and she is telling everybody that she has
given me the mitten. All right, I won't contradict
her, and if Marie should come back this fall there
won't be any strings on me. If, by any chance, I
should marry a Frenchwoman, what a buzz there
will be in old Norfolk. A couple of the Saleratus
Ranch boys were over to see me this afternoon.
They are curious about our river scheme, but have
not much faith in it. I hear there are two other
companies who are going into the same; sort of
mining on the river above Rose's Bar. The weather
has been blistering hot for the past ten days and
the air is full of smoke from mountain fires. The
dry needles bum like tinder. An old dead sugar
pine over on the mountain caught fire last night,
and it was a great sight to see it bum. The flames
shot up in the air at least four hundred feet and
103
THE DIARY OF
although it was two miles away I could hear the
crackling and roaring plainly. This is a great tim-
ber country. There are several kinds of pines, but
what they call the sugar pine is the finest of the
lot. Some of them are twelve feet in diameter and
two hundred and fifty feet high. It seems a pity
that there should not be some use for it. There
is a sawmill at Grass Valley, which is kept busy
turning out lumber for houses for the towns round-
about, and what little the miners need for boxes,
and another one up on Deer Creek, just started, but
it doesn't look as if there was demand enough to
keep two of them going. Twenty sawmills could
not use up the supply in a thousand years.
AUGUST 24, 1851.— I have lazed around all
the week between the cabin and town. I picked up
a pretty good mustang in Nevada, paid eighty
dollars for him, and the first time I rode him I
wished mustangs had never been invented. He
bucked me all over Main Street. The town turned
out to see the fun and I could hear them yell: "Go
it, Yank ; go it, broncho !" but I stuck to him until
I got up on the trail and then I got off and made
a few remarks so hot that they burned up the chap-
paral. Gracious, my backbone still aches ! Queer
thing that when I led him up on the flat and got
on again he loped off as steady as a plow horse.
While I was in town Thursday the crowd tied
up three men to the bridge over Deer Creek and
gave them twenty-five lashes apiece, on the bare
back, then turned them loose and banished them
from the place with a threat to hang them if they
(NoTB.— And yet fifty years have almost deforested the foothills.)
104
A FORTY-NINER
came back. All three were petty thieves, who had
been caught stealing. I could not help pitying the
poor devils. Two of them howled for mercy, but
one gritted his teeth and cursed the crowd with
every stroke. There were but a few miners there
and it would be hard to get together a worse lot
of savages than the ones who stood around gloating
over the wretches. The chances are that nine out
of ten of the lookers-on, if they got their deserts,
deserved the same sort of punishment that was be-
ing dealt out to the culprits. The trouble is that
most of the men are too ready to set themselves up
as judges and, swayed by theii' passions, inflict
penalties, even to sentences of death, on insufficient
evidence. Only three weeks ago the mob hung a
Chilean at Rose's Bar for horse stealing and the
next day the horse he was accused of stealing was
found in the hills above French Corral.
We have packed our pots, kettles, tin plates and
Dutch oven down to the river camp, and I will
nail up the old place and join the crowd in the
morning. I sort of hate to leave it, although we
will come back in the fall when we get through with
our new enterprise. Looking back on the year past,
I have had a pretty good time on the creek and
have been more than lucky. There is no better
companion than Pard, we have made money, our
neighbors are mostly good fellows and, while it has
been hard work and rough living, we have had
health and appetites that would breed a famine.
I have spent the day writing letters, one to Marie
and a long one home to the folks. Won't have
much time for writing for the next month or two.
lOS
CHAPTER XL
PLUMING THE SOUTH YUBA— IN THE
BED OF THE STREAM— A PICTURESQUE
CAMP— GUARDING THE GOLD DUST-
EXTENDING THE REAL ESTATE SPEC-
ULATION—JACKSON FORMS THE READ-
ING HABIT— THE FASCINATION OF THE
'THREE MUSKETEERS"— A REFORMA-
TION AT SELBY FLAT— AN EXPERI-
MENTAL VEGETABLE GARDEN ON
ROCK CREEK— THE BIGGEST POKER
GAME TO DATE.
FORTY-NINER
f/i^^
CHAPTER XI.
OCTOBER 19, 1851.— I certainly have put in
eight weeks of about as hard work as ever mortal man
did, but am through with it and have made some
money. It cost us for material, including every-
thing, three thousand dollars, and we paid out four
thousand dollars for labor. We took out twenty-
nine thousand dollars in twenty-one days' work for
fourteen men, or nearly fourteen hundred dollars
a day. We worked both day and night, eight men
in daylight and six men at night. We will divide
twenty-two thousand dollars, or about twenty-seven
hundred and fifty dollars for each one of the com-
pany. That is not bad, but it did not pay as much
as the flat on the creek. Pard is disappointed, but
I am very well satisfied. It was great work. First
we built a flume close up on the north side of the
river and about three hundred feet from the head
of our claims, five hundred feet long, eight feet
wide, and sides three and one-half feet high. We
put up a dam diagonally from the head of the claim
to the head of the flume, turning all of the water
in the river through the flume. Then we built an-
other dam at the foot of the flume to keep the back
water out, and that gave us a stretch of five hun-
dred feet of the river bed fairly dry. We ran two
Toms and three rockers steady, wheeling dirt to
the Toms and using the rockers wherever we found
gravel. There were a lot of big boulders on the
bed-rock, and it was around these and in the crevices
that we got most of the gold. There was one big
109
THE DIARY OF
pot hole that we thought would be full of dust,
but we did not get an ounce out of it. The richest
spots were down stream in front of the boulders.
We got one pan under a five-ton rock that had four-
teen ounces. The most of the gold was fine. The
biggest piece we found weighed a little less than
an ounce and quite a lot from a dollar to three
dollars. At night we built big wood fires and used
pitch pine torches to work by and the canon made
a pretty picture, lit up by the blaze. On the 14th
it began to cloud up and looked like it was storm-
ing up in the mountains and on the ISth it rained
hard. The river began to raise and we got our tools
out and by night the water was coming over the
dam. At midnight she was booming, and in the
morning it was a rushing torrent and there was no
sign of dam, flume, or anything else to show where
we had been at work, so we broke camp and took
the trail for town. We packed the gold in on the
old horse with four of us to guard it, and deposited
it in Mulford^s bank. I was mighty glad when we
got it there for it has been a trial ever since we
started to take it out, and the more we got, the
more worry. Pard took charge of it during the day,
slept on top of it — ^he worked nights — and I did the
same at night. There was not much danger, how-
ever, as there were fifteen of us, including the cook
— a pretty big gang for thieves to tackle. We have
agreed to lay off for a couple of weeks, and what
we will do then is uncertain. Pard talks of taking a
trip to the Bay to be gone about ten days, to look
after matters there, and wants me to go along ; but
I don't believe I will. If he finds things favorable
he will buy some more real estate and I am willing
no
A FORTY-NINER
to invest some more on his judgment. He tells me
many of the coast valleys are settling up with farm-
ers, who are raising hay and grain and are getting
big prices for their crops. It may be a good farming
country, but it looks pretty uncertain to me where
there isn't a particle of moisture for seven months
in the year.
OCTOBER 26, 1851.— The rain has settled the
dust and washed off the trees so that they are bright
and clean. Sitting in the cabin door and looking
out in the woods, one can't help noticing the dif-
ferent shades of green. It is not like our October
woods back home, a blaze of color; but all the
hues from the almost black of the firs to the almost
yellow of the alder and every intermediate shade.
It certainly is restful to the eye. The days are per-
fect and so are the nights, only it grows chill at
simset and I pile up the logs in the big fireplace
and enjoy the warmth until bedtime. The morn-
ings are frosty and cold, but the sun soon warms
it up. The sunsets at this time of the year are
grand, especially on clear days. Just as the sun
goes down the whole western sky is a vivid crimson
red, and seen through the pine trees it looks as if
the world was on fire. Pard went to Frisco early
in the week to be gone a fortnight, and I am laying
off and having a lazy time until he comes back. We
bought a lot of books along during the summer
and some pretty solid ones, among them a set of
"Chambers' Encyclopedia of English Literature"
and a few novels. I have not read very much as
I was generally too tired after supper to do any-
tiling but sleep, but since Pard went away I started
III
THE DIARY OF
in on the 'Three Guardsmen," written by a French-
man by the name of Dumas. I never realized be-
fore how much pleasure there was to be had in
reading. There are seven volumes, and I have
read them by the firelight until I could not hold
my eyes open any longer, and tackled them again
after breakfast, lying on my back under the old
pine tree, so interested that I forgot when dinner
time came around. There are four heroes : Athos,
Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan, and they surely
had most surprising adventures. I like D'Artagnan
best, although Porthos is a great fellow. It's won-
derful how in reading so interesting a romance one
forgets everything around him and lives in another
world.
Have ridden over on Brush Creek a couple of
times visiting my old acquaintances. They were all
busy, and it was pleasant to sit on the bank and
watch them work. They are curious about the
results of our river mining. It has got round that
we took out a hundred thousand dollars and I did
not say yes or no, as some of the partners might
not want the facts given. Selby Flat is getting
to be quite a place. There are at least a couple of
dozen women living there. The wives of some of
the wildest boys on the creek have come out to join
their husbands, and it has sobered them down con-
siderably. Jim Peters was drowned last week. He
was a hard worker, but would go on a big spree
occasionally. He got full on the Flat at one of
the saloons and started for his cabin after dark.
He must have stumbled and fallen while crossing
the creek for they found him face downward, dead,
in less than a foot of water.
112
A FORTY-NINER
Rode over to the river yesterday. The water
has gone down and there is no trace of our work left,
except the brush shelters on the bank. I hear that
the two companies below us did as well, if not better,
than us. I have changed my ideas a good deal
about this country. I thought a year ago that by
this time there would not be any gold left and that
the foothills and mountains would be as deserted
as they were when we first came. But it isn't so.
More and bigger deposits are found every day and
there seems to be no end to it. If it keeps on, gold
won't be worth much more than lead.
NOVEMBER 2, 1851.— Pard got back yester-
day. I did not know him when he struck the cabin.
He had shaved his beard all off, except his mustache,
and was dressed up in a "biled shirt" — ^the first I
ever saw him wear — and a suit of black broadcloth,
but he soon shed his good clothes and got into
woolen shirt and overalls. Jack was as badly fooled
as I was and started to eat Pard up until he got
a smell of him, and then the old dog went crazy.
Pard tells me that he has invested eight thousand
dollars more, of which three thousand dollars is
for me, if I want it, and that he was offered eighteen
thousand dollars clear profit on our first invest-
ment, but did not take it as he was satisfied that
by next spring he could sell out for from forty to
fifty thousand dollars more than we put in. If this
is so, I am worth fifteen thousand dollars.^ We
have been planning what we will do this winter,
(It kept on and has added a billion or more to the world's stock of the
precious metal, and. notwithsunding Jackson's fears, it is about as valu-
able and much harder to get than in the ^Fifties.")
"3
THE DIARY OF
aBBBSB999B9S!BS9SBBB^B99aSB9BBSSSS=SSBB^Ba=aSS=9
but have not come to any conclusion yet. Pard
thinks we had better try the gulch above the ditch
and see if the rich streak runs into the hill. It
paid up as far as the ditch, but the bank is thirty
feet deep and we will have to prospect it by drifting.
He has fully made up his mind to go to the Bay to
live next spring, and if he leaves I do not think I
will stay here. Our neighbor, Piatt, who lives in
the cabin below us on the creek, has been experi*
menting this summer with a garden. He enclosed
and spaded up about a himdred feet square and
planted beans, peas, com, tomatoes, lettuce, pota-
toes and melons, and all but the melons turned out
fine. He sent us up some string beans and tomatoes
some time ago and yesterday, in honor of Pard's
return, he brought over a dozen ears of com, a
peck of potatoes and a lot of lettuce. We had a
grand feast. It was the first mess of green vege-
tables we have had on the creek, although there has
been some for sale in town. Piatt talks about put-
ting in an acre or more next spring, as he believes
he can make a lot of money raising garden truck.
We can also get a quart of fresh milk occasionally.
Scott has taken up a little ranch on the head of the
creek and has four cows. He charges a dollar a
quart, but it is worth it. ^ I also got a couple of
pounds of fresh butter of him last week. It did not
taste like the stinking, strong firkin butter brought
out from the States. Grub of all kinds is getting
to be pretty reasonable. The storekeepers in town
are stocking up for the winter. I counted nine
twelve-mule teams unloading yesterday on Main
Street. These teams are a sight, from six to eight
span of big mules hauling three wagons. They
"4
A FORTY-NINER
load eight and ten tons, charge forty dollars a ton,
and make the round trip from Sacramento to
Nevada and return in about a week. The mules
are mostly from Kentucky, and I am told that some
of the outfits are valued at ten thousand dollars.
Barker was over to see us to-day and told us of
a big poker game that has been running at Coyote-
ville this week. There were four partners in one
of the richest claims on the hill and they got to
gambling together. They started in playing five
dollars ante and passing the buck. Then they raised
it to twenty-five dollars ante each, and Jack Breed-
love, one of the partners, cleaned out the rest of
them, winning twenty-two thousand dollars. Not
satisfied with this they staked their interests in the
claim, valuing a fourth at ten thousand dollars,
and, when the game quit, Zeke Roubier, another
of the partners, won back eight thousand dollars
and held to his fourth interest. The other two went
broke and Breedlove ended by owning three-fourths
of the claim and winning fourteen thousand dollars
in gold, so that altogether he was thirty-four thou-
sand dollars ahead. He offered his old partners
work in the mine at an ounce a day, which they
refused, packed their blankets and started out in
search of new diggings. They surely were a couple
of fools and, as it was a square game, they can only
blame themselves. The gamblers over in Nevada
City play for high stakes, but this miners' game is
said to be the biggest one that has been played any-
where around this section.
"5
CHAPTER XII.
A TRIP TO THE MOUNTAINS-AN EX-
PERIENCE IN A SIERRA SNOWSTORM-
PERILS OF THE NORTH FORK CANON
—AN OPPORTUNE FIND OF A DESERTED
CABIN— ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN
AND BEAST— THE RETURN TO ROCK
CREEK — HOSPITABLE MINERS — DIS-
COVERY OF THE BIG BLUE LEAD-
OPENING THE ANCIENT RIVER CHAN-
NELS.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XIL
NOVEMBER 9, 1851.— Pard and I have loafed
around all the week, not doing much of anything.
It rained a couple of days, but has cleared oflF and
is pleasant, although cold, and we keep a fire going
in the fireplace about all of the time. Pard suggested
that we take a trip ofif up in the mountains and
see what they are like. We have often stood up
on the ridge, looked off at the range and snow peaks
miles away and agreed that some day we would
explore them, but we have been too busy working
to spare the time. We are now in the mood and
to clinch it Pard bought a jackass from a Mexican
in town and brought him over here. We will use
him to pack our grub and cooking outfit and we
have planned to start to-morrow or next day. Piatt
will take care of Jack until we get back.
I have had a sober talk with Pard about our
futures. I got another letter from Marie — I can
talk pretty fair French and read it — and^ she says
she is surely coming back by the first of the year,
if not sooner. Pard says he doesn't want me to go
wrong and it is time to quit fooling or else take it
up seriously. He argues that I have no right to
lead her on unless my intentions are honorable, I
had to confess that I had made her a partial promise
before she went away but did not have much faith
in her coming back. Now it all seems like a dream.
I never liked another woman as well. She is
straight, and I think I am willing to marry her,
but what will the old folks say: a foreigner and a
119
THE DIARY OF
Catholic, and I brought up a strict Presbyterian.
Norfolk will set me down for a lost sheep. Not that
I care what their opinions or criticisms may be, as
I have about made up my mind that I will never
go back there except on a visit. To all of which
Pard says that I am hit hard — and he thinks by
the symptoms that I will make her my wife if all
of New England objects and that it is in her favor
that she has seen more or less of the world. He says
it's proof enough of her feelings if she is willing
to come five thousand miles to join me and that she
would make me a truer and more agreeable com-
panion than some little, sniffling, narrow-minded
Puritan brought up on Calvinistic doctrine and
mince pie, predestined to dyspepsia and doctrinal
doubting. That is a mean fling at Hetty; but then
Pard likes Marie and is prejudiced in her favor.
Oh, well, I have got a month or more to decide
and I won't worry until the time comes.
NOVEMBER 30, 1851.— Back from our trip.
Got home Thursday and we were gone eighteen days.
It was in the main a pleasant journey, although
we had a snowstorm experience that I do not care
to repeat. We camped the first night on the ridge
above Illinois Bar and then went on to New Orleans
Flat and from there to Alleghany and over to La
Porte and Port Wine. All of these places were
rich and most of them coarse gold camps, and we
he^rd some big stories of the amount of dust the
miners were taking out. The richest place we found
in our travels was at Goodyear Bar on the North
Fork, and the ravine that leads down to it. We
were told for a fact that the bed-rock in this ravine
I20
A FORTY-NINER
was bare for a mile; that the gold lay along it in
piles and that it was picked and scooped up with-
out panning or washing. They swear that it yielded
over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ; one
piece weighing four hundred ounces and a lot more
from five up to a hundred ounces. The claims
on the bar were only twenty-four feet square, and
as high as twenty thousand dollars had been taken
out of some of them. That beats Brush Creek,
although there are claims on Coyote Hill that paid
nearly as well. After leaving Goodyear Bar, we
went over on to Canon Creek and followed it down
past Brandy City diggings to the river. It had been
pleasant weather up to that time, but it clouded
up after we left Brandy diggings and when we got
down to the mouth of the canon it was snowing so
hard that we could not see twenty feet ahead of
us. We followed up along the north bank to Slate
Creek, stumbling along in the snow, which by this
time was two feet deep, and nearly lost one of our
horses which slipped off the bank. Luckily the
brute fell into the river and by hard work we got
the animal back on the trail. We were soaking
wet and half frozen, and it was almost dark when
we reached the mouth of Slate Creek. By good
fortune we found a big log cabin on the flat, locked
up and nobody home. It was no time to stand on
ceremony, so we broke open the door and took
possession. I rustled up a lot of wood — ^there was
' a dead pine tree close by and some oak logs along-
side the cabin — and built a blazing big fire in the
fireplace. That was the most comfortable and
cheerful blaze I ever experienced. We could not
leave the horses and the jack out in the storm, for
121
THE DIARY OF
they would have perished before morning^ so we
cleared away the truck from one end of the cabin
and brought them inside; the shanty was big
enough for all of us. Then we rummaged aroimd
and found a sack of flour, a bag of corn-meal, some
pork and beans of course, and a canister of tea.
Best of all there were two bunks with mattresses
filled with dry grass, which we ripped open. We
gave the fillings to the animals and they tackled
it as if it had been the best of timothy hay. It did
seem as if Providence interfered in our behalf. Our
pack of provisions was soaked through and without;
shelter we certainly would have perished in the
storm. Instead, we had plenty to eat, a good fire,
a tight shanty, roomy enough for us all, and we
knew it could not be very far to some inhabited
miners' camp. A wilder night there never was.
We were down in the bottom of a deep canon, at
least three thousand feet below the top of the ridge
and seemingly completely out of the world. The
snow fell in flakes as big as my hand, the wind
shrieked and howled and blew in gusts liiat rocked
the cabin, and every once in a while we could hear
the crash of a big pine tree blown down by the
gust. A dozen times during the night Pard and I
fought our way out into the storm, breaking oflF
the dead branches of the pine log for our fire, as
we did not dare to let it go out, and then fought
our way back again. There was no sleep for us
that night, and yet through it all the horses and
the jack munched away at their fodder contentedly,
not seeming to mind the rumpus a bit. That is the
difference between animals and men. We were
worried over the prospect and they apparently
122
A FORTY-NINER
shifted the responsibility on our shoulders and the
tempest had no terrors for them. The storm kept
us in all the next day. We confiscated the corn-
meal, mixed it with about half flour and made a
mash for the animals, which they enjoyed hugely,
and I managed to chop off a lot of yoimg alder
branches on the creek for them to browse on. There
was plenty of grub for Pard and I, but there was a
question of how long we would be forced to stay
there. We would have given a few ounces to have
been back in our old Rock Creek cabin. However,
that night the storm let up and the next day the sun
was shining bright. We knew that Oregon Creek
was not very far away on the south side of the
stream, and as it was mined all along its course
we would be sure to find help. Pard wrote a note
to whoever owned the cabin giving our names, ad-
dress and why we burst it open, and about nine
o'clock we started out. By taking advantage of
the bare spots where the wind had blown the snow
away and breaking trail through the woods — ^in
places it was four feet deep — ^we managed by three
o'clock in the afternoon to climb out on the top of
the ridge. Here again we were in the biggest kind
of luck, for we came out within a quarter of a mile
of a station and packers' stopping place where there
was plenty for man and beast. We stayed there
two days resting up and then left for home and
had no more trouble. That day we crossed the
Middle Fork and put up at the Ford and the next
day traveled through Cherokee, crossing our own
river at the north of Rock Creek, and were soon
back on our old stamping ground and safe and
sound. All in all, we enjoyed thfe trip. We saw a
123
THE DIARY OF
lot of wild country, some grand scenery, and wher-
ever we went we found men hunting and digging
for gold. I guess we stopped at forty cabins on the
way: never failed to get an invitation to grub, never
were allowed to pay a cent, and I want to put it
down right here that bigger hearted, more generous,
or more hospitable men than there are in these
mountains never lived on earth. Pard says yes —
and deeper cafions, higher peaks, nor wilder tem-
pests cannot be found anywhere else. It makes us
both pretty sober when we think of our two nights
and a day down on the North Yuba river gorge.
DECEMBER 7, 1851.— Now that we are capi-
talists I believe we have both grown lazy. At least
since we got back from our hard trip to the moun-
tains we have done nothing much beside riding
around the country to near-by localities and loaf-
ing about the cabin projecting and planning as
to what we will do this winter.
One of our friends is working a claim on Gopher
Point, just below Blue Tent, which he seems to
think is rich. He offered us a quarter interest for
$2,000. We rode over to look at it and concluded
we did not want to buy. It is different from any
other diggings in this part of the country, and is
a puzzle to all of the miners. A bed of blue gravel
lies! about six hundred feet above the river, on a
steep side hill, and seems to run into the moun-
(NoTs.— The Gopher Point miners had struck into the ancient river
channel since known as the Blue Lead, now definitely and distinctly
located a distance of forty miles from Smartsville on the west, where it
debouched into the ocean that then washed the shores of the Sierra Nevada
foothills, to Dutch Flat on the southeast, where it had its watershed in
the high mountains. At least fifty million dollars in gold have been ukea
out of this old channel from the many openmgs along its oourae.)
124
A FORTY-NINER
tain. All of the gravel down on Rock and Brush
Creeks and on the Nevada side of Sugar Loaf is a
loose mixture of quartz pebbles and sand easily
washed, but this deposit has neither sand nor quartz
and is as hard as a rock. The miners have to use;
blasting powder to blow it up and then it comes
out in great chunks and has to be broken up with
sledge hammers before it can be washed. There is
no question that it is rich, as we could see the gold
sticking to the rocks ; but the men are not making
very good wages on account of the difficulty of
separating the dirt from the cobbles. I remember)
now that MacCalkins, who went to Walloupa and
Gouge Eye last summer when there was an ex-
citement over the discovery of bench claims in that
locality, described this same sort of gravel that
had been found where Greenhorn Creek cut through
it. As that is on the south side of the ridge, it
looks as if the streak ran clear through underneath
the mountain.
Friday we rode over and along Deer Creek to
learn about a new method of mining being done
there. The miners put in a long string of sluice
boxes, dovetailing into each other with a lot of
riffles in the bottom, then shovel all of the dirt in
from both sides, forking out the cobbles and stones
with a long handled, six-tined fork. A lot of dirt
can be handled in this way, and although the creek
bed had been worked over before with rockers and
Toms, they say they are making more going over
it the second time than when it was first mined.
Rock Creek has all been worked out and abandoned
and if Deer Creek pays to work over it ought to
do the same. We decided to try it and will start
"5
THE DIARY OF
in next week. First, however, we had to call a
miners' meeting and adopt a new law to the effect
that in a creek that had been previously mined,
under the old twenty-four foot rule, the ground
could be taken up and held in claims of three hun-
dred feet in length and from bank to bank. We
located two this morning for ourselves and got
Piatt, Dixon, McManus and Ames, our neighbors,
to take up four more and transfer them to us by
purchase, we agreeing to give them one hundred
dollars each if the ground paid. That gives us con-
trol of eighteen hundred feet. Then the same
crowd repeated the deal, so that each one holds
fifteen hundred feet and among us we have over
a mile of the creek bed.
Another letter from home and I received a box
of things that mother made and sent. The dear
old mother, what a queer idea she has of the climate
out here. There were in the box a dozen pair of
thick woolen socks, two pairs of mittens and a heavy
worsted comforter. She said she thought they would
be useful this winter and that I would like them
because she knit them herself. God bless her! Here
I am going around in my shirt sleeves. Best of all
were daguerreotypes of her and father. She wrote
that they had ridden over to Winsted to have them
taken and that she wore her new black silk dress.
Dad looks as spruce as a banker and mother is a
beauty if she is fifty-two years old. Down in the'
comer of the box was a Bible. She said she knew
I had the one she gave me when I came away, but
maybe I had thumbed it until it was worn out. I
would not tell her for a thousand dollars that I
had not opened it for six months. Gracious ! how
126
A FORTY-NINER
it brought the old farmhouse back to mind. I can
see her sitting by the fireplace, the knitting needles
flying and she and dad talking about their only
son three thousand miles away. Pard was as soft
as I over the letter and the box and his eyes filled
with tears, although he tried to disguise it by furi-
ously blowing his nose. I wrote them to-night that
no matter what happened I was going to start home
in the spring to see them, I have been away nearly
two years and can afford to go if I don't make an-
other cent. It is some comfort to think I have made
life easier for them.
127
CHAPTER XIII.
SETTING SLUICE BOXES — PROMISED
CHRISTMAS FEAST AT SELBY FLAT—
THE FIRST NEWSPAPER ESTABLISHED
—HERMIT PLATT TELLS HIS STORY— A
PIONEER OVERLAND EXPEDITION
ACROSS THE ARID ARIZONA DESERTS
—PERILS AND DANGERS OF THE JOUR-
NEY—A WELCOME OASIS— ARRIVAL
AT DON WARNER'S RANCH— SAD NEWS
AWAITS THE ARGONAUT AT SAN FRAN-
CISCO.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XIII.
DECEMBER 14, 1851,— We bought enough
lumber in town last week to make a dozen sluice
boxes and had it hauled out here. There were about
five hundred feet and the mill charged twenty-five
dollars for it and fifteen dollars extra for delivering.
We have got the boxes made and, if it does not
storm, will be ready to set them in the creek next
week. If it's a wet winter we are not going to do
very much, as a steady rain raises the water so
that it would wash out our sluices in no time. In
the meantime we will drift into the bank at the
head of our old claim and see if the rich streak runs
into the hill. Our neighbors down the creek have
all got pretty fair claims and are doing well. Piatt
tells us that he and his partner have taken out over
five thousand dollars since they started in and they
have got considerable ground left.
Henry Shively was over to the cabin last night
and brings the news that there is going to be a grand
ball at Selby Flat Christmas Eve, and that the land-
lord of the hotel promises a turkey dinner on Christ-
mas. Henry says that the boys are betting that it
will be turkey buzzard, as nobody ever heard of
turkey in this country. He wants me to come over
to the dance, but I don't think I will. The last
ball I went to on the Flat I came away through
the window instead of the door and it was alto-
gether too lively for me. Nevada is putting on airs
lately. The citizens are figuring on building a
brick courthouse and the town has a weekly paper.
131
THE DIARY OF
It is not much of a newspaper, but we subscribed
for a copy at twenty dollars a year to help it along.
There are about thirty families settled down there
and the moral people have got up a petition re-
questing the storekeepers to close on Sundays. That
is asking too much, however, as everybody^ comes
to town on that day to do the week*s trading.
DECEMBER 21, 18SL— It has rained more or
less all the week and the water is so high in the
creek that there is no chance to get our sluice boxes*
in place. Our neighbor at the next^ cabin, "Silent
Piatt,'' as we call him, stuck a pick in his foot and
has been laid up for a few days. He's a queer stick
in some ways, rarely goes to town or anywhere
else except to his claim, and does but little talking;
doesn't seem to be interested in anything. That's
why we call him "Silent Piatt." We were surprised
Thursday when he came up to our cabin and spent
the day and evening with us, and then we found
out why he had become almost a hermit. We made
him feel at home and then he told his story. It
seems that he was foreman in a clock factory in
New York, making a pretty good living, but not
getting ahead very much, so when the California
fever broke out he and his chum, who worked in
the same shop, made up their minds to seek their
fortune together. He was married and had one
baby, a little four-year-old girl, and he fixed it for
his wife and child to live with his wife's mother
on a farm she owned near Hartford, Cbnnecticut.
He had saved about five hundred dollars and it
took about all of this to outfit himself for the. trip.
He joined a company of fifty adventurers that was
132
A FORTY-NINER
formed in New York City, and instead of cx>]ning
around the "Horn," as most of these associations
did, the members planned to go to Texas and then
overland until they reached California. They char-
tered a bark to take them to Galveston and there
outfitted for the journey. Each member of the
party bought two mules, one to ride and one to pack,
together with grub and cooking utensils, and were
even foolish enough to pack along picks and shovels
and other useless truck, which, however, soon be-
came burdensome and were thrown away. A cap-
tain and other officers were selected, and it was
agreed that they would all stand together until they
reached Southern California. They knew nothing
about the country between Texas and California,
except by vague report, as there was no road and
no white man had ever traveled it, with the excep-
tion of a company of United States Dragoons,
which had gone through in 1846. They heard
stories of long deserts, heat and hostile Indians,
but they were all young and adventurous and had
gone too far to turn back. They got along all right
until they had journeyed through the north of West-
em Texas, and then their hardships began. From
what Piatt related, it seems that from there on
imtil they reached this State the whole territory is
nothing but a vast, hot, arid region with only here
and there a patch of grass and a dried up river bed.
They had to make long marches under a burning
sun to reach water and forage and, when found,
lay for a week to recruit their animals. They were
ambushed twice by Indians, nine of the party were
killed and two died from the effects of heat and too
much mescal that was procured at various Mexican
133
THE DIARY OF
villages* At these places they managed to buy a
small stock of com and beans and finally fell in
with the Pima tribe of Indians on the Gila River,
who were more than friendly and did all that was
possible to help and succor the party. After stay-
ing with the tribe for ten days they pushed on for
the Colorado River, two Indians going along as
guides. Here they had to build rafts to cross and
swim the mules, and one of the party was drowned
in crossing. The next one hundred and fifty miles
were the worst of the journey. They were forced
to travel nights, as the sun was too hot in the day
time, and they found water in but two places. On
the moming of the second day Piatt lost his partner.
They had not had a drop to drink for twenty-four
hours, but were expecting to find a sink hole which
the Indians had told them about, when his partner
jumped off his mule and started to run into the
desert. He had gone clean crazy. He ran about
a mile when he fell and died in a fit. The best they
could do was to cover Him with a little sand and
leave him in his lonely grave. Piatt said that long
before they saw any indication of water the mules,
which had been barely crawling along, pricked up
their ears and broke into a lope, and, sure enough,
around the turn of a spur of the hills they came to
a perfect little oasis, about half an acre of green
grass and willow trees and a pool of fresh spring
water, fifty feet across and four feet deep. The
mules were frantic and rushed into it with their
packs and saddles on, drank their fill and then
laid down and rolled over and over. They had
but little grub left, but they stayed there two days,
in order to strengthen up the animals, as this was
134
AFORTY-NINER
the first good feed they had had since leaving the
Gila River. Here they turned off into the San
Jacinto mountains and rode seventy miles to War-
ner's ranch, where their troubles were over. Piatt
says that Don Warner was the most hospitable
man on earth. The party stayed at the ranch a
week, the men and the mules were given all that
they could eat and drink, and at the end Warner
refused to accept a cent for it. From the ranch they
went to Los Angeles, where the party broke up
and scattered. The trip consumed six months and
eleven days from New York City to Los Angeles.
Here the sad part of Piatt's story came in. He
was anxious to hear from home and knew that
there should be letters for him at San Francisco,
He had written from Galveston and San Antonio,
but, of course, nothing had reached him on the trip
and he hurried on as fast as possible, eager to get
the home news before striking for fortune at the
(NoTB.— In simple words, Jackson calls up a graphic picture of an over-
land journey in which the pbneers encountered hardships and adventures
of sufficient interest to fill a volum^ and it would be an historical con-
tribution well worth having. There is a striking coincidence oonoborating
fully Piatt's narrative. Singularly enougk the father of the compiler of
this diary, a pioneer, was a member of tfiis same party, and, as a boy,
the writer has often listened to the relation of the mddents, hair-breadth
escapes and sufferings of these pbneer gold hunters.^ And what splendid
courage it illustrates!^ Plunging into a terra incognita^ at that time less
known than the interior of Africa, these Argonauts, with superb self-con-
fidence and magnificent daring, alhired by tales oi the 'Kjolden FleeGe,**
undertook the journey with as little hesitation as a Native Son, nowadays,
projects a Pullman car trip across the continent. And of such mental
and physical make-up were the majority of the 'Torty-nmers."
The compiler can add to Piatt's story that the par^ did not break up
at Los Angeles. Two or three stayed in that town and Piatt followed
the coast to San Francisco. The majority kept on, crossing into the
San Joaquin VaUey, through Tejon Pass, finallv settling in Mariposa
County, the first mining region reached from that direction. What a
sturdy lot of old boys they were, these typical American adventurers, and
bow little the present generatbn knows of or cares about them.)
135
THE DIARY OF
mines. The letters were there, all from his mother-
in-law. His wife had sickened and died in six weeks
after his departure. Piatt says that for a week he
was out of his mind and that half a dozen times
he went down to the wharf, fully determined to
jump oflF and end his misery. Then the memory of
his little girl came to him and held him back. After
the first acute agony was over he realized that he
still had something to live for, and resolving to
devote himself to the baby he sold his mules, for
which he got four hundred dollars, sent three him-
dred dollars to the grandmother and started for
the mountains. He fell in with Dixon, his partner,
on the boat bound for Nevada, and finally settled
down on Rock Creek. They had both done well
and were in a fair way to be independent. The child
was healthy, well taken care of, and he was in hopes
in a year or so to bring her and her grandmother
to California. He had neither inclination nor de-
sire to see the States again.
136
CHAPTER XIV.
A SENSATION ON THE FLAT— THE MYS-
TERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE
TURKEYS— THE NO-GOBBLER BETTERS
WIN THEIR WAGERS— AN ANGRY
LANDLORD—THE SALERATUS RANCH
UNDER SUSPICION— JUST A PLAIN,
EVERYDAY DINNER — THE RENDEZ-
VOUS AND A FEAST DOWN THE CREEK
—THE SWEETHEART DELAYS HER RE-
TURN—THE JACKASS ESCAPES A SERE-
NADE.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XIV.
DECEMBER 28, 1851.— Selby Flat has had a
sensation which has furnished the boys no end of
fun. There was no turkey dinner Christmas, that
is, at the hotel, although the landlord swears that
his birds furnished a private feed to somebody and
he is vowing vengeance on those he suspects of de-
priving his boarders of a grand blowout. The ma-
jority were skeptical as to there being any turkeys
procurable and they backed their opinions with
their money, while a few who were in the secret
took all of the bets offered, knowing that the land-
lord had made arrangements a month previous
with a peddler from the valley, who assured him
that he was going to bring a load from a flock
that had been raised on a ranch below Marysville
and had agreed to deliver to him a dozen fat birds.
Sure enough, a week before Christmas, he arrived
with six coops full — a hundred altogether; had no
difficulty in selling them at from eight to ten dollars
each, and the landlord got his dozen, as agreed.
Those who bet on a turkey dinner wanted to be
paid their stakes then and there, but the wagers
were on a Christmas feast and the stakeholders,
decided to wait until that day before giving up the
money. It was a sure thing, so no objection was
made. The birds were cooped up and stuffed with
all they could eat, the landlord advertised the feed
at two dollars and a half a head, and was rash
enough to promise mince pie for dessert. Two days
before Christmas the dreadful word went around
139
THE DIARY OF
that the turkeys had disappeared, and the Flat was
all torn up over the news. The landlord was frantic,
but had no clue as to the thieves, although he, as
well as everybody else around the Flat, suspected
the Saleratus Ranch boys, they being usually at
the bottom of any deviltry going on. He even went
so far as to demand that Pard, who is the deputy
sheriff, should search their cabin, but Anderson
declined unless a search warrant was sworn out,
which the landlord, who had nothing to go on be-
yond his suspicions, could not very well do. The
women pronounced it a shame and the men said
it would be unhealthy for the occupants of any
cabin near which turkey feathers or bones ought
be found.
It was just a plain, ordinary dinner at the hotel,
except for the mince pie, and was followed by a
Christmas dance. After the dinner the guests —
about fifty of them — decided that they would pay
a visit to the Saleratus Ranch and see what sort
of holiday grub the boys were having. ^ If they ex-
pected to find turkey they were badly disappointed,
for there was nothing in sight but the regular old
pork and beans and boiled beef. The ranch boys
said that they had fully expected to eat a turkey
dinner at the hotel, which, of course, was not to be
had, so as they had their mouths made up for a
taste of the bird, they were all going over to Nevada
for supper, as turkey was plenty in that town, and,
sure enough, about three o'clock they all started
for that place. After that nobody suspicioned
them, and it was the general belief that some thiev-
ing Indian from the campoody, over the ridge, had
robbed the turkey roost. I was saddling up my
140
A FQRTY-NINER
horse to go into town when Charlie Barker came
over to the creek and asked me and Pard to meet
a lot of the boys down where Brush and Rock
Creeks come together, about two miles below Selby
Flat. He was grinning and chuckling over some
great joke and wouldn't let on what it was, but
teased us to go with him to the rendezvous. Pard
suspected what was up and said that as an officer
of the law he guessed he had better stay away,
but just for curiosity I went along. The cabin
we were bound for was Jack Ristine and Carter's
place. The rest of the boys went up the road to
Sugar Loaf, as if on the way to Nevada, but instead
branched off down the ridge and hill, and when
just before dark we reached the shanty, there were
about twenty of them gathered there and, shame-
ful to tell, the turkeys were there too. It seems
that all of those who had bet on there being no
turkey dinner were in a plot. They had stolen the
birds, taken them down to the creek, killed and
picked them, throwing the feathers into the run*
ning water, and then half a dozen, who were not
suspected, had slipped away Christmas day and
helped Ristine and Carter prepare the feast. It
was a bully good supper and I must say I enjoyed
it. The boys were full of fun, and as whiskey
was more than plenty, they were soon full of that
too. They sang and told stories until about eleven
o'clock, then gathered up the bones and remnants
of the supper, dug a hole in the bank of the creek
and buried the remains three feet deep. They all
stood around the hole, or grave, as they called it,
bareheaded, while Arthur Brooks delivered a fu-
neral oration over the "dear departed." As they
141
THE DIARY OF
were getting uproarious I slipped away and came
back home. I told Pard about it and he laughed
and said that the boys did not mean any harm
but it was just a little rough on the landlord.
JANUARY 4, 1852.— I had a disappointment
for my New Year. I have been expecting every
day to hear that Marie had got back to San Fran-
cisco^ but instead I got a letter saying that unless
I insisted on her coming at once she would wait a
couple of months more before starting for America.
She was looking after her investments and visiting
her people — she had a mother and two sisters living
in Paris — and as she did not know when we would
go back together, was staying longer than she
flanned. The letter gave me a fit of the blues and
almost made up my mind to take a plunge, leave
the country and go to. Paris myself. Pard hurt me
by jokingly suggesting that some Frenchman had
cut me out, and maybe he is right; but if that is
true what would be the use of me making the jour-
ney for nothing. I wrote her a long letter, telling
her that I was in earnest, and if she intended to
keep her promise she must come back without delay.
It doesn't look as if we were going to get into
the creek very soon with our new mining scheme,
as it keeps on raining just enough to raise the water
to a flood level. In the meantime we have got tired
of loafing and have started to drift on our old
claim. It is not paying very big. The streak of
pay dirt is only about two feet wide and a foot deep.
We have to shore up the ground with timber and it
takes us a lot of our time cutting it. We drifted about
eight feet last week and took out eleven ounces.
142
A FORTY-NINER
Our jackass is getting to be a nuisance and is
almost as much of a pet as Jack, although we don't
let him sleep in the cabin, a liberty which, judging
by his actions, he seems to think should be allowed
him as well as the dog. He gives us a concert in
the early morning that wakes up the woods ; follows
at pur heels to the claim; when we visit our neigh-
bors, trots along as if social duties were in his line,
and "he-haws" and brays whenever we are out of
sight. Pard says that with the exception that he
is too fat, he has all the symptoms of being in love.
143
CHAPTER XV.
STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF CARTER
AND RISTINE-A DESERTED SHANTY—
RISTINE'S DEATH— REVELATIONS AT
THE INQUEST— WHO STOLE THE TUR-
KEYS?— A RICH STREAK ON THE BED-
ROCK— PARD BARS THE BANJO— HETTY
HAS A CHANGE OF HEART— THE IN-
TERIOR OF A MINER'S CABIN— A SENTI-
MENTAL PICTURE— FRIENDSHIP, PROS-
PERITY, AND CONTENTMENT.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XV.
JANUARY 11, 1852.— The country is stirred
up over a mysterious tragedy that nobody seems
able to solve. Neither Ristine nor Carter, the two
miners at whose cabin we ate our Christmas sup-
per, have been seen by anybody since that night.
No attention would have been paid to this, as the
boy^ do not keep track of each other to any extent^
had it not been that Simday, a week ago, Henry
Shively went down to their place to pay them a
visit. He found the door of the cabin open, and
no sign of the men around. This would not have
seemed strange had not the inside of the shanty
looked as if no one had been there for a week. The
fire was dead in the fireplace and a pot of beans
that hung on the hook had been there for days, aa
the contents were sour and mouldy. The flour sack
had been gnawed open in places and flour was scat-
tered over the floor — ^no doubt the work of coyotes
and mountain rats. Nothing else seemed to have
been disturbed. Shively went down to their claim,
which was close by, and found their Tom and tools
in place, the picks and shovels and the Tom iron
were rusty, proving that they had not worked in
the mine for a week or more. Thinking it queer
he concluded to come up and tell Pard the circum-
stances, which he did, meeting Anderson on the
trail coming back from town. Pard turned back
and went with him to their cabin,^ taking Piatt
along. They found everything as Shively had told
them, noted that the best clothes were hanging over
147
THE DIARY OF
their beds, a shotgun and rifle on pegs over the fire-
place, and a six-shooter imder one of the pillows.
On a little shelf by the window, where the gold
scales stood, there was a yeast powder can with
about five ounces of gold in iL It was certain from
the looks of things tLat the men had no intention
of leaving, and it was also sure that they had not
been near their cabin or their claim for a week
or ten days. Pard came home and told me about
it and next morning early we rode down to Selby
Flat to see if anything had turned up to explain
the mystery. Nobody there had seen anything of
the missing men since Christmas. After talHng
it over it was agreed that a delegation should go
over to Nevada and find out if they had been there,
or had left by any of the stage lines, while about
twenty of us formed a searching party to look the
country over in the vicinity of the cabin. In the
middle of the forenoon we heard some of the boys
shouting up on the hill and, on going to them,
found out that they had discovered Ristine's body
under a manzanita bush. It was in bad shape and
the coyotes had torn off both arms, but the face was
not touched. A watch was left, the coroner notified,
and that afternoon an inquest was held. Outside of
the fact that Ristine was dead, nothing was de-
veloped and the jury returned a verdict of "died
from unknown causes.*' Then a thorough search
of the cabin was made and inside of the mattresses
a big buckskin purse was found, which contained
about eight hundred dollars in dust. In a box
under the other bunk there were three yeast powder
cans that were full to the top with gold. We buried
Ristine close to where we found his body and it
148
A FORTY-NINER
f
was a sickening job. From letters in the box it
was learned that both men were married. One
came from Reading and the other from Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. There is no suspicion of robbery,
for there was nothing stolen, and it doesn't look
like murder, for if one had killed the other the
murderer would certainly have hidden the traces
of his crime and not have left the gold dust behind
if he intended to quit the country. The general
opinion is that Carter is dead and that his remains
will be found somewhere around.
Even a tragedy generally has its funny side. At
the inquest it all came out about the turkey supper,
and now the landlord says he will sue the crowd
for damages, prosecute them for petty larceny, and
the sinners are wondering if he will carry out his
threat.
We worked in the drift the rest of the week, but
it is not panning out very well. We cleaned up
seven ounces, but that is more than grub money,
and we will stay with it until we can get into the
creek. I bought a banjo when I was over in town
Tuesday and am learning to pick it. Pard says
that as a nuisance it is a toss up between me and
the jackass.
JANUARY 18, 1852.— It rained, snowed, and
has been disagreeable weather all week. The drift
is slow work, as it takes about half the time to cut
timbers and put them in place. Timbering is not
a greenhorn's job and we made a poor fist at it
until we went over to Coyoteville and took notes
of the drift mines there. We struck a rich little
streak in the tunnel, not more than three inches
149
THE DIARY OF
wide and right on the bedrock. It looked as if it
had been poured out of a bag, it was so regular.
We panned it out and as far as we followed it we got
an ounce to the pan. Altogether, we took out over
twenty ounces. That is like old times.
Pard struck a bargain with me. If I would agree
not to practice on the banjo when he was around —
I don't see why he don't like it for I can already
play "Old Bob Ridle/' and "Camptown Giris"
pretty well — ^he would read aloud to me a new
novel that he had bought: "Nicholas Nickleby,"
by an Englishman named Dickens. I had already
read his "Pickwick Papers" and it was a great book,
so I agreed and the consequence has been that we
have not gone to bed a night this week before mid-
night. Some of the chapters are very funny and
some pathetic, but it is all interesting. I am not
very sentimental, but as I stretched out on the bunk
listening, the big drops of rain pattering on the
roof, the wind whistling through the trees and the
firelight flashing on Pard's handsome face, I thought
this was a pretty good old world after all, and I was
lucky to be in it. Pard's voice was like a lullaby
and I got to thinking of Marie and dreaming of the
future. Perhaps some day I might see London and
Yorkshire and follow D'Artagnan's road through
France. Then Pard shut the book with a slam and
said I was a lunkhead and he would not read any
more to such an unappreciative fellow. He did not
know what dream pictures I was conjuring up.
There have been no more discoveries about Ris-
tine and Carter and it seems as if it would always
be a mystery.
ISO .
A FORTY-NINER
JANUARY 25, 1852.— It turned out cold and
there has been a big snowstorm. The whole cx)untry
is covered with snow three feet deep. It was a
pretty sight, the spruce and fir trees loaded with
snow, and when the sun comes out they sparkle
like diamonds. It put me in mind of the hemlock
woods in old Litchfield.
I got a long letter from Hetty, the first she has
written in months, and now I am up a tree. She
says that when the news came to her of her brother's
death she was nearly crazy with grief and did not
realize how harsh a letter she had sent to me. Now
she is sorry for it, admits that she has been unjust
and if I will forgive her we will forget all about
it and be the same to each other that we were before
it happened. I wish she had not changed her mind,
for I do not have the liking for her that I did when
I started for California. Marie is in my mind all
day, I dream of her nights and I never can go back
to my boyish love. I have not shown Pard the
letter yet, and don't think I will. Somehow I am
getting so that I do not like to have him ridicule
me. In a great many ways I am a different man
than I was when I left the States. I thought I was
a pretty smart fellow around the old neighborhood,
and was chock full of conceit. Now I can look
back and see what a greenhorn I was in many re-
spects. I had a fair schooling, for beside the district
school house I went three terms to the academy.
After that I worked on the farm steadily until I
started for California. The farthest I was ever
away from home up to that time was to Litchfield,
the county seat, sixteen miles. I never read any-
thing but the New York Tribune and the Litchfield
151
THE DIARY OF
Inquirer, two papers that dad subscribed fon
Mother was dead set against novels and the only
books we had in the house were "Pilgrim's Prog-
ress," "Fox's Book of Martyrs," "Pollock's Course
of Time," "Young's Night Thoughts," "Calvin's
Institutes of the Christian Religion," "Jonathan
Edwards' Sermons," and the Bible, of course. That
was pretty dry stuflF and I did not take to it I
knew less about the world than I did about Heaven,
for, from what I could hear, I had an idea that
New York was the biggest city on earth. I knew
better, but that was my narrow way of thinking.
Pard drew a diagram, which he said expressed my
mental and geographical ideas, as follows, and I
guess he was right:
o
o
Norfolk United States The World
Well, I have outgrown that, and while I don't
set up for a traveler, or claim much experience,
I certainly see everything in a different light- Our
old cabin is not much to look at outside or inside ;
dad wouldn't keep his hogs in such a place, yet
one could not be more comfortable or more con-
tented than I have been for the past year. I have
been lonesome at times and have had blue spells,
but they did not last very long. There is nothing
but a dirt floor, which we wet down every day
to keep it hard, a couple of bunks filled with pine
needles where we roll up in our blankets and on
152
A FORTY-NINER
which we sleep like logs; three-legged stools for
seats; a plank for a table; an open fireplace five
feet wide; an iron kettle and a coffee pot; a Dutch
oven and a frying pan to cook in; it used to be
tin plates and cups until we got high-toned and
bought crockery; grub stored away most any-
where; a shelf full of books — ^we have bought about
fifty volumes altogether — ^and that is about all. We
put a big oak-back log in the fireplace, pile up
big chunks in front and the wind can howl, the
snow fall and the rain beat on the roof, what do
we care? The flames leap up the chimney and
light the old cabin, the dog stretches out in front
of the fire and grunts with contentment or dreams,
for often his legs twitch, he whimpers and barks
softly, his eyes closed, then wakes up, looks at
us in a foolish way until he realizes his surround-
ings, and goes to sleep again. Pard grows senti-
mental and quotes poetry and gets down a book,
reads a chapter or two and we are off in our minds
to England, France, or Spain (we are reading Irv-
ing*s **History of Granada"). Then we turn into
our bimks, the fire dies down to coals, and as they
sputter and sparkle I lie and watch the glow and
see all sorts of pictures until my eyelids grow heavy,
and I don't know anything more until I get a dig
in the ribs and Pard says : "Get up, you lazy whelp,
and help get breakfast."
I suppose we are contented because there is no-
body to boss us — ^**Not even a woman," puts in
Pard — ^have money enough so that we need not
live this way if we don't want to, no scandal, no
gossip, and nobody to criticise us as long as we
keep off of other people's corns, a jolly good lot of
153
THEDIARY OF
neighbors who live as we do, and our friendship,
which is the thing that counts more than all the
rest. Naturally, I don't want to live this way for-
ever and we have our plans for the future; but
in the meantime and until things ripen, we are
satisfied with the old cabin.
^ The snow is so deep that it is difficult to cut
timber and we did little work during the week.
The rich streak held on for about four feet, and
from that and the rest of the gravel we made seven-
teen and one-half ounces. It has rained or snowed
steadily for almost two weeks. We bought a couple
of pairs of rubber boots and two tarpaulin coats
to tramp between the cabin and the claim. Luckily,
we had laid in enough grub to last a month ; there
is plenty of hay for the horses and the jackass,
and they are as fat as butter, so none of us are
suflFering any hardships.
(NoT8.—J[Ack8on draws a graphic sketch of the miner^s life and touches
partially on its fascination. Of course he had his plans for the future;
they all had, but in many cases the plans bore no fruitbn, and the foothills
held them to the end.)
IS4
CHAPTER XVI.
THE RAGING YUBA— A VISIT TO THE
RIVER— BAD CASE OF JIM-JAMS— A
SWARM OF TIN-JACKETED IMPS-SUN-
DAY IN NEVADA— FOOD FAMINE IN
THE MINING CAMPS— RATTLESNAKE
DICK SHOOTS UP THE TOWN— A
QUARTZ-MINING SPECULATION AND
ITS FAILURE.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XVI.
FEBRUARY 1, 1852.— We had a glimpse or
two of the sun last week; but it rained most of
the time, carrying off the snow with it. I rode
down to the Yuba River yesterday afternoon and
it was a sight to see. The river is more than bank
full, all of ten feet deep, and a madder, wilder
rush of water was never seen. I could hear the great
rocks grinding and crushing against each other
as they rolled over and over, big logs and pine
trees swirling down the stream or tumbling end
over end as they butted against some obstruction,
and the noise was deafening. It was a grand sight
and did not look much like the place where we
mined last fall.
We very nearly had another tragedy on the creek
early in the past week. Andy Collins, an Irish-
man, who has lived alone in his cabin, about a
mile below us, for a year or more, has been a hard
drinker ever since we have known him. He bought
his rum by the gallon and kept soaked all the
time. Tuesday night he had a bad attack of the
jim-jams, and his nearest neighbor, O'Neil, heard
him yelling and shrieking like all possessed. He
rushed down, opened the door and found Collins
cowering in one comer, striking at imaginary
swarms of imps in the air. "Don't you see them?'*
he yelled; "little devils with tin jackets on. Look
at them coming down the chimney and through the
window, hundreds of 'em!" With that he rushed
157
THE DIARY OF
through the door, out into the rain and darkness,
and O'Neil lost sight of him. He at once roused
everybody up and down the creek, but we might
as well have looked for a needle in a hay mow.
We kept up the search until one or two o'clock and
then quit until daylight. The general opinion was
that he had jumped into the creek and had been
drowned, as there was four feet of water in it,
and running like a mill race. He was not bom
to be drowned, for we found him next day over on
Round Mountain, nearly dead with exposure and
cold. It was a job to pack him back, as we had
to make a litter to carry him. We got him into
his cabin, warmed him up, and when he came to,
dosed him with strong tea. He was in his right
senses, too, and had forgotten all about his little
tin devils. Now we have got to nurse him and sit
up with him nights until he gets on his legs again.
No whiskey for me. We have never had a drop in
the cabin since we have lived here.
It has been a poor week on the claim. While
there is plenty of gravel, it is almost barren. All
we got for our week's work was a little over an
ounce. That isn't even grub wages. Still, we are
not as unlucky as we might be.
Anderson received a letter from Perry, our
agent, saying that he could sell out our holdings,
including North Beach, at an advance of twenty-
two thousand dollars. It was a tempting price to
me, as I would get in all, with what I put in, over
ten thousand dollars. Pard said, "No, let's hold
on until we clean up fifty thousand dollars." I
think he is making a mistake, but I am bound to
stay with him, and trust to his judgment.
IS8
A FORTY-NINER
FEBRUARY 8, 1852.— I spent the day over
in Nevada. It is getting to be quite a big town.
What a contrast it is to our poky, slow New Eng-
land villages. There are half a dozen stores which
carry all kinds of provisions and hardware, two
jewelry shops, two bakeries, a gunsmith store,
butcher shop, five hotels, and gin mills too numerous
to mention. Saturday night and Sundays — I for-
got, one church — are the lively days. Then there
are two or three thousand miners in town, the ma-
jority drinking, gambling and carousing. Woolen
shirts and duck overalls are the fashion, and if you
see anybody dressed up it's a sure thing he is either
a gambler or a lawyer. What beats me is the craze
the miners have for gambling. Every saloon has
some sort of game running, and the big ones have
a dozen. "Monte," "Red and Black," "Chuck-a-
luck," "Twenty-one," "Rondo," and "Fortune
Wheels" are the banking games, and they play
poker and "Brag^' for big stakes. The fool miners
work hard all the week and then lose their dust
at these games of chance. There does not seem
to be much chance about them, for nobody ever
heard of a miner winning anything. Of course,
the miners don't all gamble; in fact, a lot of them
do their trading, get a square meal at the hotel,
and go back to their claims. Still, enough waste
their money to keep the sports slick and fat. I sup-
pose they are looking for excitement — anything to
break the monotony — and this is the way they
get it.
Charley Donaldson, who had a rich claim on
Brush Creek, worked it out last fall and left for
the States with six or seven thousand dollars. In a
159
THE DIARY OF
couple of weeks he was back again hunting for
new diggings, and it leaked out afterward that he
lost every cent in a Frisco gambling helL I have
never tried my luck but once, and then I lost seventy
dollars in half an hour. I don't regret it, though,
for then it was when I met Marie and it was more
than worth the price.
It looks as if it were going to be as wet a season
as Forty-nine. It has rained or snowed almost
every day for a month. Teaming has quit and the
stages don't make regular trips. Provisions have
jumped up to double prices. Flour is scarce and
the storekeepers are asking thirty dollars for a hun-
dred pound sack. Last winter they all put in big
stocks. It was a dry season and they lost money.
This year they thought they could team the same
as last and did not lay in heavy supplies, and, as
a consequence, if the rains don't let up, there is a
prospect of a famine. I am told that there are
eight big team outfits loaded with flour, stuck in
the mud, between here and Sacramento. Rattle-
snake Dick, a sport and a desperado from Auburn,
was chased out of town last week. He shot up a
fandango house, held up a monte bank and then
abused Stanton Buckner like a pickpocket, making
the old fellow go down on his knees and beg for his
life. About this time the citizens began to gather
with shotguns and Dick took to his horse and struck
out for some other camp. Buckner is a nice old
fellow, a lawyer, prides himself on his Kentucky
breeding, and swears that nothing but blood will
wipe out the insult. I guess he won't hunt Dick
very far.
A prospector found what is supposed to be Car-
i6o
A EORTY-NINER
tei^s hat and coat down in Myers Ravine. Outside
of that there have been no developments. Some
think that Carter is still alive and has left the
country, but the majority believe he is dead. It is
a strange aflFair.
We worked a little in the tunnel and found nothing
worth while. The weather is too bad to do any
prospecting and there is no telling when we can
get into the creek. Mining is almost suspended,
except where they are drifting and coyoting. At
Grass Valley they are working several big quartz
veins and it is said that they are very rich. At the
Rocky Bar claim over seventy-five thousand dollars
have been taken out in the last four months. They
have found two or three quartz veins along Deer
Creek that pay pretty well, working them by the
Mexican arrastra process. A scientific cuss in
Nevada has formed a company to get the gold out
of the quartz by a new method and is selling shares
like hot cakes at ten dollars a share. He is going
to build a furnace and melt the gold out of the
rock. It may be all right, but I don't know any-
thing about quartz mines and have not bought any
stock. I hear, as a rple, miners have fought shy
of the investment, as the majority are skeptical
and don't believe in any new-fangled process for
getting gold out of rocks, but the business men
don't feel that way. I am told that the mer-
chants, lawyers and a great many sporting men
have put money into the scheme and the inventor
has raised about forty thousand dollars. He is
grading oflF a site for his furnace on Deer Creek, op-
posite the town, has sent below for fire-bricks and
machinery, and is burning a kiln of charcoal for
i6i
THE DIARY OF
fuel. His idea is to raise a sufficient heat in the
furnace to melt the rocks, run it off at a spout, con-
tending that the gold, being so much heavier, will
sink to the bottom and can then be taken but
pure and solid. It is all right in theory, but I have
not much faith in its success. To hear the investors
talk, however, you would think they were already
millionaires.
iNoTB/— It did not work. He oonld not separate the gold from the slag
the forty thousand dollars was a clear loss.)
162
CHAPTER XVII.
A FORMIDABLE INDICTMENT OF THE
TURKEY THIEVES — AN OLD-TIME
LEGAL DOCUMENT — HALED INTO
COURT— THE TRIAL, THE VERDICT,
AND THE PENALTY— A SAFETY VALVE
FOR THE WILD SPIRITS— THE JACKASS
NOT FOR SALE — PARD'S TENDER
HEART — HIS CONSIDERATION FOR
BIRD AND BEAST AND AFFECTION FOR
HIS CABIN-MATE— THE DONKEY'S COR-
RECT PRINCIPLES.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XVII.
FEBRUARY IS, 1852.— The boys over on Selby
Flat are having a bushel of fun in these slack times.
When the inquest was held on Jack Ristine, it
leaked out that there had been a turkey supper
at his cabin. Two or three of the witnesses, who
were on oath, gave it away under pressure, and the
landlord, who has not yet got over being mad, ap-
plied to the justice of the peace for warrants for
as many of those as he learned were at the feast.
As he could not swear as to who stole the birds,
he wanted them arrested as accessories to the crime.
The judge refused to issue the warrants and the
miners got hot and leagued together to quit patron-
izing both the hotel and barroom. This brought
him to his senses, he apologized and agreed to drop
the matter. It gave the boys a hunch, especially
these who had lost their bets, and for deviltry they
called a miners' court, preferred charges against
the lucky ones who had won their money, on the
theory that they must have had guilty knowledge
of the larceny or else they would not have been
so anxious to bet. The charges were drawn up
in mock legal form and were as full of "whereases,"
"whereins,*' "aforesaids" and "be it knowns'* as a
lawyer's brief. As I recall the document, it runs
about as follows:
"Whereas, Before, on, about, or preceding Christ-
mas Day, some party or parties unknown to the
complainants, but by strong and corroborative dr-
i6s
THE DIARY OF
cumstantial evidence, suspected to be [here fol-
lowed about twenty names, including my own and
my Saleratus Ranch friends], and
^Whereas, We believe these aforesaid named
parties did feloniously, surreptitiously, not having
the peace and dignity of Selby Flat, its hitherto
untarnished and unstained name and reputation'
at heart, enter, break into and force open a certain
coop known to have contained one dozen gobblers,
and did abstract, take away, carry oflF and levant
with the said birds, the aforesaid turkeys, being;
the property of the proprietor of the Selby Flat
Hotel, and
"Whereas, Said gobblers having been provided,
bought and procured for the delectation, comfort,
sustenance and happiness pf your petitioners, it
being understood, agreed and promulgated that the
aforesaid and before-named ^ birds were to be
roasted, stuffed, cooked, garnished and served to
the denizens of Selby Flat, a town situated and
being in and about Brush Creek, Nevada County^
State of California, U. S. A., irrespective of pre-
vious condition, sex, or color, at the rate of two
dollars and fifty cents per capita, with mince pie and
fixings thrown in, and
"Whereas, Said felonious abstraction wrought
upon your petitioners great mental and physical
anguish, disturbing their peace of mind as well
as the dignity of Selby Flat, and
"Whereas, The above-named and aforesaid
parties did, contrary to the Statutes of the Com-
monwealth (See Randall on non sequitur, vol. IV,
page 32), enter into a conspiracy, based, founded
upon and made possible by their guilty knowledge
i66
A FORTY-NINER
of the intended forcible and felonious abstraction
of the previously mentioned gobblers, wheedle, en-
treat and coax innocent bystanders, to wit, your
petitioners, to wager, hazard, and bet certain sums?
of money in regard to the presence of the aforesaid
turkeys at a Christmas dinner, and
'Whereas, It is a well known and deep founded
principle of common law, as well as an obiter dicta,
in all well regulated sporting circles, that no man
can take advantage of or profit by betting on a
dead sure thing;
"Therefore, your petitioners respectfully pray
this court, taking into consideration the heinous-
ness and enormity of the offense, to adjudge the
aforesaid and before-named parties of the first part
guilty of foul murder, and that if the court and
jury be inclined to mercy and should hesitate to
impose capital punishment, that the least penalty
to be meted out to these outlaws and disturbers of
their neighbors* turkey roosts be the return to your
innocent and defrauded petitioners of the monies
they were induced to put up, chance, and risk on
a game where the cards were stacked *agin 'em/ "
There was a lot more to it which I can't remem-
ber, and it was a gay afternoon consumed in taking
testimony, swearing witnesses and making mock
speeches. It was nearly dark before the trial was
finished and the case submitted to the jury, which
brought in a verdict without quitting their seats, of
"Rape in the first degree." The sentence was drinks
ad libitum for the town, and the landlord got even
as the crowd patronized his bar with a free hand
and purse.
After I went home and got to thinking it over
167
THE DIARY OF
it all seemed childish and foolish, but Pard differed
with me. He argued that the lives we led were
dismal enough and that anj^thing that would break
the monotony and furnish amusement was a safety
valve. I guess he is right, for, nonsensical as it
was, I enjoyed it as much as any of them. After
all, there was a damper to it, for even at our wildest
we could not help tiiinking of the mysterious fate
of Ristine and Carter, and that the last we ever
saw of them was when we were eating supper in
their cabin.
FEBRUARY 22, 1852.— It has been fairly pleas-
ant all the week, but we have done very little, as
the water is still up in the creek and the drift is
played out. Pard thinks he will make a trip to the
Bay, and wants me to go along, but I don't feel like
it just yet. We are both tired of loafing, and I
think we would pull up and leave if we had not
set our minds on working Rock Creek. We have
our interests in our river claims, but we can't get
into them before next August, at the earliest, and
as our partners are willing to buy our shares, I think
we will sell out to them. We have a fourth interest,
and have been offered six thousand dollars for it
by outsiders.
I have not answered Hetty's letter yet. It is a
puzzle what to say to her. If she had not broken
the engagement I should feel bound to stick, even
if my feelings have changed, but she cannot expect
to play fast and loose with me. To be honest, I
love Marie more than any other woman on earth,
and if she comes back and is in the same mind as
when she went away, the chances are that we will
i68
A FORTY-NINER
make the match* The only hesitation I have is
as to what the old folks will say, but I will take
her back to them, and Marie is sure to win them
over.
Pard is^ always growling about the jackass dis-
turbing his rest and making him look foolish by
trotting aroimd after him like a dog, so I proposed,
as we had no particular use for him, that we sell
him. Gracious ! he flared up and wanted to know
if he did not have a right to associate with a jackass
of his own choice, when I was running with a dozen
or more. This was a fling at the crowd over at
Selby Flat. I have been going over there two or
three nights in a week not thinking that I was
leaving Pard alone or that he cared much for my
company. If it had not been for the twinkle in
his eye I would have snapped back, but I saw he
was not in earnest, so I replied if the beast and I
were not enough jackasses for him he was welcome
to get more. He said that he would acknowledge
that the jack didn't have a very tuneful voice and
his song was not as melodious as that of some of
the birds but he preferred his note to that of the
blue jay, and insisted that he was an animal of
good principles. He did not associate with bad
company, drink whiskey, or break any of the com-
mandments, and if he, die donkey, was jackass
enough to put trust in a man he was not going to
abuse it. *The fact is, Alf ," he said, " ^ack' [that's
the dog] and he are great comforts to me. I have
told them in confidence all about my past life and
it doesn't seem to have lowered me in their opinion
a bit. Under the circumstances I can't go back on
either of them."
169
THE DIARY OF
Pard is a queer stick. When I think it over I
have never known him to kill animal, bird, or
reptile, with the exception of the rattlesnake that
struck at me on the trail, nor have I ever heard
him say an unkind word of a living souL He has
been a big brother to me, and I can look back and
see how happy we have been together, but still he
insists that the obligation is on his side. The only
thing in the future that troubles me is the possibility
that our partnership will break up when we leave
here.
170
CHAPTER XVIIL
JACKSON VISITS THE NEIGHBORING
MINING CAMPS— POCKET-HUNTING AT
ROUGH AND READY— A PUZZLE FOR
THE THEORISTS-A SECTION OF A
DEAD RIVER— SPECULATION ON THE
GENESIS OF GOLD— THE OLD-TIMER'S
DICTUM— FIRST VISIT TO THE THE-
ATER— PARD RETURNS FROM SAN
FRANCISCO— A PROFITABLE INVEST-
MENT—JACKSON DECIDES TO MARRY
HIS FRENCH SWEETHEART.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XVIII.
FEBRUARY 29, 1852.— Pard left for San Fran-
cisco Monday, and I have been wandering over the
country all the week. I rode over to Rough and
Ready Tuesday and found a lively camp. The dig-
gings have been very rich all around it and they have
found on the ridge, near Randolph Flat, claims that
have paid big. A peculiarity is the number of rich
pockets that have been struck. A miner named
Axtell uncovered one two weeks ago, from which
he has taken out fourteen thousand dollars, and
there have been any number that yielded from five
hundred to five thousand dollars. There are miners
who follow pocket mining exclusively, and there
certainly is a fascination to it. They will work for
weeks without making grub and then come across
a pocket from which they will take out hundreds or
thousands. As one of them said to me: "It*s like
playing a number on *Red and Black.' You may
make a hundred bets without winning a cent, but
when it does come up you get a hundred for one.*'
I guess we all like to gamble. There is a place
below Nevada City that is like Rough and Ready
in the way of deposits, and that is Red Hill. I am
told that they find the gold there in little narrow
clay streaks and when they discover one it is sure
to be rich. It's a peculiar sort of gold, not nuggets
or ordinary dust, but flaky and in thin leaves, and
so light that a yeast powder can full will not weigh
more than four or five ounces. It has been a puzzle
to the mining sharps, as it knocks out all theories
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of gold coming down from the high mountains or
out of the quartz veins exclusively. No one can,
after seeing these flakes of gold, sometimes two
inches square and as thin as a wafer, stuck in the
clay, dispute that it grew there. And here is an-
other puzzle. I was over to Red Dog Wednesday
and stayed there all night. The miners told me
that for a couple of years mining there was about
the same as around Nevada. Greenhorn Creek and
the gulches and ravines were rich, but were all
worked out. Last fall they ran into blue gravel
cemented, which had paid well, and they are work-
ing along this streak for three miles or more. The
queer thing is that the majority believe that their
claims are in the bed of an old river, and to prove
it they say that the bed-rock rises on both sides
of a well defined channel, that all of the rocks and
boulders are smooth and water-worn, and that they
find petrified logs and impressions of leaves that
floated down the stream when it was running.
This may all be, but how did it come that there
are two hundred feet of clay (lava) on top, and how
is it that a river could run up on the side of a moun-
tain?
At the hotel that night there was a lot of discus-
sion and argument as to how the gold came there,
but none of them was very convincing. An old
fellow said to me: "Never mind these scientific
cusses. rU give you the right one. Gold is just
where you find it and you are as likely to come
across it in one place as another.** The next day
I crossed over the trail to Grass Valley and had a
look at the quartz mines. There is something that
upsets all of our notions. In two or three places
174
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they have followed these veins of whit6, glassy rock
down into the bed-rock for seventy-five feet and
they don't seem to pinch out. I did not find any-
body to explain how gold got inside this hard rock,
and I guess nobody knows. I saw on my way home
that in the valley where we had the bear and jackass
fight, the timber had been cut off, a race track
laid out, and on Sunday night there is to be a quar-
ter of a mile dash for two thousand dollars, be-
tween 'Wake Up Jack" — a horse that belongs to
the Nevada postmaster — and "Come Along
Johnny" — a Marysville horse. I have never seen a
race horse and believe that I will ride over to it.
I'm getting to be real sporty. They built a theater
in Nevada, down over Deer Greek, and a company
from Sacramento has been playing there all the
week. I had never been to a play, so Friday night
I went over and took it in. They played a piece
called "The Stranger," and at first I could not see
where the enjoyment came in. It was so ridiculous
to see a lot of people upon a raised platform making
believe something was happening that was real,
when anybody in his right senses knew better, but
before I realized it I was that interested in Mrs.
Waller's troubles [what old-time theatre-goer does
not recall the weepy Mrs. Waller?] that I forgot
where I was, that these were only play actors, and
the tears rolled down my checks over the heroine's
trials and sufferings. It came out all right and
(Note. — ^Jackson touches on a subject that in pioneer days furnished
matter for elaborate discussion. The geologist and expert had not invaded
the field at that time and in the early ''Fifties" there were many theories,
absurd and otherwise, as to the genesis of the gold deposits. The one gen-
erally accepted was that which^ attributed its origm to a huge vem or
deposit high up in the mountains and thu ignis fatuus luxed many to
long, weary and fruitless search e s.)
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I must admit that the performance was worth the
money.
Had a letter from Marie, which makes me feel a
lot better. She says that she will surely come back
in a month or two and that I must remember that
the only reason for her return is to see me, as what
little money she has invested in San Francisco
would not be sufl&dent inducement for her to make
a long, tiresome voyage. The letter was written
the latter part of January, and it may be possible
that she is now on her way. I have fully made
up my mind that if she wants me she can have me,
no matter what anybody thinks about it.
MARCH 7, 1852.— Pard got back from the Bay
Monday night and came straight over to the cabin.
We have done nothing during the week but talk
over our own aflFairs and plan for the future. He
says San Francisco, in his opinion, is bound to be
a large city, and that, even if the gold is all dug out
I of the country, it has resources enough to get along
f without it. We can clean up a profit of twenty-four
thousand dollars on our land investments, but he is
not going to sell out at that figure. If I don't want
to stay he will give me fourteen thousand dollars
for what I have put in, which includes principal
and profits. That makes me worth over twenty
thousand dollars, but I am not going to accept his
offer for a while yet. We are both tired of the hard
work and the hard fare of a miner's life. It was
different when we were taking out of our claim
forty or fifty ounces a week ; but it is worked out,
and, outside of our interest in the river claims and
our project to wash over Rock Creek, there is noth-
176
A FORTY-NINER
ing ahead. Pard says that his wife has agreed to
join him in the spring, and would come at once
if he would say the word. He has made up his
mind, however, to brush up a little on the law (he
brought a lot of law books back with him), and the
old cabin is just the place to do his reading. Then
in the spring he will go to San Francisco, provide
a home for his wife and open an office. There is
plenty of litigation, principally over the Spanish
land grants and titles, and he is confident that he
can work up a good practice. He has enough to live
on now without touching his wife's money, so that
that trouble cannot come between them again. Now
he can see that he was unreasonable, and the greater
part of the fault was on his side in asking her to
live a poor man's life when she had plenty of money
of her own, and was not brought up that way4 He
wants me to go along, and says that I can study
law with him, but frankly tells me that he doesn't
believe I will ever make a good lawyer, not that
I have not got brains enough, but he doesn't think
I have a legal mind or inclination. That is true.
I never had any hankering to be a lawyer, doctor,
or preacher.
On my side, I made a clean breast of it and con-
fessed that there was an understanding between
Madame Ferrand and myself, and when she came
back from France we would visit the old folks to-
gether and then get married, but that neither she
nor I had any idea of settling down in my old home.
Pard said that it was that sort of a situation that
any advice from him would be impertinent. He was
most favorably impressed with the madame, if she
returned it was proof of a sincere attachment, and
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THE DIARY OF
that she was capable of a great, unreasoning love.
It was not my money that she was after, for she
had more than I. Beside, she was taking as many
chances as I was, I showed him Hetty^s last letter,
and he said it was up to me to decide, although
he knew without me telling him what the decision
would be. If I had not come to California and
had lived my life out on the farm, Hetty would
have. been the right sort of a helpmeet, but I had
got out of the leading strings and would never be
contented to fall back into that old rut. Not that
I was not unsophisticated and anything but worldly
wise, still I had grown too big for the Litchfield
hills. Then he got sarcastic and remarked that,
anyway, the woman I married would boss me, and
that the madame would probably make the yoke
easier than the little Puritan. All he asked was that
after I had seen a little of the world I would come
back to San Francisco, where we could be together,
and he would keep us both straight.^ Dear old boy!
He does not like the idea of our parting, and neither
do I. Well, our talk settled it. We will stav here
until spring, not bothering to work very much, and
then leave to carry out our plans.
I went over to the race at Hughes' track this
afternoon. There was a big crowd and a lot of ex-
citement and reckless betting. There were a half
dozen Marysville sports on hand and they backed
their horse without stint. *Wake Up Jack,'' the
Nevada horse, won the race by ten feet in a dis-
tance of a quarter of a mile, and they say the home
gamblers were ahead more than twenty thousand
dollars. Just for fun, I ventured a hundred dollars
on **Wake Up Jack," and gained that much. I have
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said nothing to Pard about it, as he would surely
give me a lecture on the folly of it. I note one
thing, whenever I am around where gambling is
going on I have an inclination to join in and I
can now understand why so many miners are in-
veterate gamblers. The best way is to keep away
from it and out of temptation.
The remains of Carter's body were found last
week near the head of Myers Ravine, about a mile
from his cabin. There was nothing but the skull
bones, gnawed clean, and his shirt, overalls and
boots; but the hair was the same color, and in the
pocket of the overalls there were a knife, pipe
and tobacco pouch that were known to have be-
longed to him. No sort of theory as to their deaths
fits the case. It was not robbery. If it had been
a quarrel and they had killed each other, their
bodies would not have been found a mile apart. So
far as known, they lived on the best of terms, and
they were good fellows who had no enemies. It is
not likely that both went crazy and wandered off to
die. Some think that they may have accidentally
poisoned themselves; but it is all guesswork and
a great mystery.
(NoTBv— It may be added that it was a mysteiy that was never solved,
and in those stirring times, when incident followed mcident so rapidly, the
memory of it soon faded from men's mmds.)
179
CHAPTER XIX.
PARD BRUSHES UP IN HIS PROFESSION-
NO DEFERENCE PAID TO WEALTH-
HOW FORTUNE FAVORED JENKINS—
WHEN YOU HAVE GOT THE LUCK, IT'S
WITH YOU FROM START TO FINISH-
JIM VINEYARD'S HARD STREAK— A
MOVING TALE OF A MISSED OPPOR-
TUNITY—ONE MAN'S LOSS ANOTHER
MAN'S GAIN— TROUSERS POCKETS VS.
MONEY BELT.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XIX.
MARCH 14, 1852.— When we thought the rain
over and a few weeks of good weather due, it began
to storm again, and it is now worse than ever. My
companion does not mind it, as he has settled down
to studying his law books, and the rain is an excuse
not to budcle to hard work again. In fact, if we
carry out our project to work Rock Creek, he pro-
poses to hire a substitute, as he pretends to be rusty
in his profession and needs all the time he will have
to spare to brush up before we go to San Francisco.
I have no profession to study up and the hours
hang heavy on my hands. I have written the old
folks that I will be home early in the summer, and
they are delighted. So am I, with the exception
that I am not certain exactly how they are going
to take to Marie. A foreigner and a Papist — ^what
a shock that will be to mother, saying nothing about
the gossip of my boyhood friends and neighbors. I
will trust Marie to win her way with the old folks,
and don't care a snap of my fingtfr about the rest
of them. On the otJier hand, what a big man I
will be back there, returned from California with a
sack full of gold, and the richest man in the village,
with the exception of old Squire Battell! What
little difference it makes to us here whether a man
has money or not. I know half a dozen men on
Selby Hill who have taken out in the past year
anywhere from forty thousand to sixty thousand
apiece, and a dozen more who have made still more
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than that from mining ground on Gold Flat,
Coyoteville and Manzanita Hill. They don't put
on any airs and nobody envies them. We don't ask
what a man is worth or how much he has got. The
only question is, is he a good fellow? If he is, he is
one of us ; if he isn't, we let him alone. Even brains
and education do not count for very much and some
of the most ignorant are the most prosperous. Min-
ing is not a complicated process, and, as far as I
can see, is more a question of luck than anything
else. A miner from Auburn was telling me the
other day of a case that happened there last sum-
mer. A man named Jenkins was working at the
head of Missouri Gulch, "tomming." His diggings
were just fair, about half an ounce a day. He had
built a little dirt reservoir to catch what water
there was, which was very scarce. The gulch headed
in a flat and up at the end of it, where it rose up
to the hills, there was a running spring, the water
seeping into the flat and going to waste. In order
to make his own supply hold out, he dug a narrow
trench and ran the seepage into his reservoir. It
worked all right for a few days and he paid no
further attention to it, not even going up on the
flat for a week. One morning he noticed that the
water was not running in the ditch and, supposing
that a gopher had tapped it, he put his shovel on
his shoulder and walked along the trench to see
what the trouble might be. When about half way
across he was astonished to see that the bottom
of his ditch for twenty feet or more was one yellow
mass of gold. It was an immense rotten quartz
deposit, and inside of a month he had taken out
forty-one thousand dollars. That was surely blind
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luck ; still, there was another phase of it that was
luckier. The flat was unclaimed ground, open to
location by anybody. The gold must have been
there in plain view day and night for a week or
more. Miners were tramping around in every direc-
tion hunting diggings, yet by pure chance not one
happened to cross the flat that week. Fortune
started in to favor Jenkins and did not make any
half work of it. As my friend said, "It just shows
that when you've got the luck, it's with you from
start to finish." Then he rounded off with what he
called a hard luck story. The moimtains are full
of miners tramping around from one section to
another, wandering over the country, men leaving
with their piles or hunting better diggings, and
there are numerous hold-ups and murders on the
trails that become known only when somebody runs
across the bodies. As we are all strangers to each
other outside of our inmiediate neighborhoods, the
identity of the murdered man is rarely discovered
and but little interest is taken in apprehending
the murderers. Jim Vineyard, who was mining a
bar on the Middle Fork of the Yuba, [Vineyard
was father-in-law of Cherley De Long of Marys-
ville, afterward Congressman from Nevada and
U. S. Minister to Japan] was ui> to the store on
.Kanaka Creek one Sunday, having a good time
with a crowd of the boys, and remarked that he
had a streak of mightjr hard luck during the week.
**What's the matter, Jim, isn't the claim paying?"
asked one of his friends. "Oh, h ^I, the claim is
all right; it was this way, you see. I was working
on the mine Thursday afternoon, windlassing
gravel, when I saw a floater (a drowned man) come
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THE DIARY OF
bobbing down the river and it drifted on to the
upper edge of the bar. It was some poor miner who
had fallen in somewhere up the stream. I went
through his pockets to see if there was anything
that would reveal who he was ; but found nothing
except a knife, plug of tobacco and a buckskin
purse with three hundred dollars of dust in it. Of
course, I kept the purse, as somebody might recog*
nize it and prove his identity." Jim paused to
take another drink and the crowd did not seem to
catch the point.
"I don't see anything very unlucky about that,"
interjected his friend. *Tfou don't," retorted Jim.
"Wait until you hear the rest of it. I was too
busy and too tired to haul the body out and bury
it, so I just gave it a shove and let it float along
down stream. Jack Batterson is fluming about
a mile below my bar and the fool corpse had to
jam into the head of his flume, instead of going on
down the river to the plains. If it had, then I
would never have known how mean fortune could
be. Just why Jack stripped its clothes off, I don't
know; any sensible, sympathetic man that had the
interest of the corpse at heart would have dug a
hole and put it under ground, clothes and all, but
he didn't; maybe he wanted the clothes for an
extra suit; anyway, he took them off and I'm
d d if he didn't find a money belt around the
waist with twelve hundred dollars more in dust
inside, and now he is crowing over me because I
was not smart enough to make a better search. If
you don't call that hard luck, then I don't know
what the article is."
The crowd agreed that it was pretty tough on
i86
A FORTY-NINER
Jim and proceeded to help him forget it by order-
ing drinks all around.
I must say I was a little shocked by the heart-
lessness of the incident, although my friend con-
tended that it was a good joke on Jim, and it was
so regarded by everybody on the Middle Fork.
187
CHAPTER XX.
THE UNSOCIABLE COUPLE ON ROUND
MOUNTAIN — GOOD FELLOWSHIP
AMONG THE PIONEERS— THE TAX-
COLLECTOR PASSES THE MINERS BY—
A WOMAN IN BREECHES— MARIE RE-
TURNS FROM FRANCE— ADOPTION OF
A NEW METHOD OF SLUICING— THE
DOG AND DONKEY STRIKE UP A
FRIENDSHIP— FRANK DUNN AND HIS
ECCENTRICITIES— POSING AS A HOR-
RIBLE EXAMPLE.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XX.
MARCH 21, 1852.— There is a queer couple
living up on the slope of Round Mountain at the
gap where it breaks off into the Rock Creek Canon.
All sorts of stories and rumors about them and
their doings have been in circulation, although
nobody had any acquaintance with them or knew
any facts about their operations. It was noticed,
however, that they never were away from the cabin
at the same time, that they made no friends or
visits and that when anyone came around their
neighborhood they were gruff and unsocial. As this
is a great country for everybody minding his own
business, no attention would have been paid to
them if their manners and customs had not been so '
different from the general rule. If there is one
thing above another that prevails, it is the good-
fellowship among us all. If a man is taken sick,
is hurt, or in bad luck, there is not one of us that
is not ready to nurse him or put our hands into our
pockets if necessary. We don't ask who he is, where
he came from, or what is his religion. On the other
hand, men are coming and going all the time. You
may have known a man for a year, then you miss
him, see a stranger at his cabin, and ask what has
become of the old occupant and the answer will
be, ^^Oh, he has made his pile and gone back to
the States,** or, "His claim petered out and he's
off prospecting,'' or, "He went with the rush to
Gold Bluff, or the Kern River excitement," and
then you forget him. It's all a hurly-burly with
191
THE DIARY OF
nobody making plans to live here permanently. We
were talking about this over at Selby Flat the
other night and the crowd was unanimous in de-
nouncing the extravagance of a project that was
being agitated to build a brick courthouse at Nevada
City. No matter how much gold is discovered, it
cannot last always — ^not more than a few years at
most — ^and when it is gone what will there be to
keep up a town, or to live for, and then all of the
money spent on stone buildings and courthouses
will go to waste.
I don't suppose I ought to growl about it. So
far as I know, the tax-collector does not bother
us miners. Our log cabins are not worth taxing,
our claims are exempt, and if the town people want
to pay for these follies, it is their privilege. The out-
side towns — Grass Valley, Rough and Ready and
Selby Flat — are doing some lively kicking over the
courthouse scheme, and there is talk of a fight to
take away the county seat from Nevada City.
Out of curiosity I rode over to see the couple
who live on Round Mountain, and I made a funny
discovery. If one of them is not a woman dressed
in men's clothes, then I don't know a woman when
I see one. The cabin is a queer sort of shanty,
about thirty feet long, built into the bank so that
the roof comes down even with it. There are two
doors, one narrow and the other five feet wide.
There is a wheelbarrow track leading out of the
wide door to a dump-pile of waste dirt and a Tom
set in the ravine below, where, evidently, the pay
dirt is washed. I could see at once that they were
tunneling into the hill from the back of the cabin,
although if it had not been for the dump-pile. Long
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Tom and wheelbarrow track no one would have
suspected that any mining was going on in the
vicinity. While I was sitting on my horse taking
in all this, a slight young fellow came out wheel-
ing a barrow of dirt. He seemed startled to see
me, turned his head away, dumped his dirt, pulled
his hat down over his eyes and went back through
the door without even saying good morning. I
started to ride away when another man appeared
at the door — a long-whiskered, stout-built fellow
who did not seem to be at all pleased at my being
there — and asked me roughly what I wanted. I
replied that I wanted nothing, was riding around
the country, happened to come across the place, had
halted a minute and that was all. He turned to
go back, hesitated, then looked around and asked
me to get down and hitch the horse. I was so
curious that I accepted the invitation and in a few
minutes we were sitting out on the dump-pile in
the sun chatting away like old friends. I think he
is a Western man by his accent, not that I asked
any questions, not having the chance. He did the
questioning, and kept me busy answering, not
seeming to know anything about what was going
on anywhere, neither in his own neighborhood nor
abroad, and although he did not appear to be an
ignorant man in a general way, he certainly lacked
information on current happenings. The young
fellow failed to show up, and, after an hour or so,
the man excused himself for a minute — ^it was past
noon — came back and asked me if I would not stop
for dinner. I was dying to see the inside of the
cabin and accepted. Well, you never saw a neater
place. Twenty feet of it was partitioned oflF. There
193
THE DIARY OF
was a board floor, swept and clean, a curtain to the
window, paper, the edges cut in scallops, on the
shelves, a home-made double bed nicely made up,
and pillows. The table was covered with a table-
cloth made of flour sacks sewn together, but white
and clean, and the crockery all washed since break-
fast. I wondered what sort of finicky miners these
could be, so different in their housekeeping from
the rest of us, when the young fellow began to put
the grub on the table. That settled it. He had
his hat off, and ^^he" was a woman dead sure. If
there had been nothing else, the cooking would
have proved it; hot biscuit, fried quail with a thin
strip of bacon wrapped around them, beans, of
course, but not greasy beans, a fine cup of coffee,
and doughnuts. Gracious! That was 'the first
doughnut I had eaten since leaving Connecticut.
He just introduced her as his partner without any
explanation and I did not ask for any, although
it looked funny to see a pretty, black-haired, black-
eyed woman dressed up in a woolen shirt, overalls
and boots. I had sense enough to keep my mouth
shut on the subject and we ate our dinner as if
there was nothing strange in the situation. After
it was over and we had smoked our pipes, she in
the meantime clearing off the table and washing
the dishes, he asked me to come in and look at his
mine. He had run a tunnel into the mountain from
the back of his cabin and was in a hundred feet
or more. He said he had stumbled on it by acci-
dent, built the cabin as I saw it, just for a notion,
that it had paid and was still paying very well and
he would stay with it until it was worked out. He
came out with me when I got ready to go away,
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A FORTY-NINER
shook hands and asked me to ride over again, and
then said that he knew that he had the reputation
of being unsociable and eccentric; that maybe he
was, but if I got acquainted I would find out he
was not a bad sort; that while it seemed as if there
was a mystery there really wasn% and there was
not much to telL If I made him another visit he
would explain, not because he had to, but that he
could understand how it looked queer to an out-
sider. Then he got sort of gruff and said it was
nobody's business but his own, and I rode away.
Pard and I talked it over and we agreed that the
woman was without doubt his wife, who preferred
to live with her husband in this way rather than
be separated. If they wanted to lead hermit lives
they had the right. Really, the only strange part
of it is her dressing in men's clothes and working
in the mine. I would not let any wife of mine do
that sort of thing.
MARCH 28, 1852.— After all my doubts and
fears Marie arrived in San Francisco by the last
steamer, and I got a letter from her yesterday. She
says she will spend a week or ten days there and
will then come to Nevada, and that I am not to
come to meet her, but wait until she arrives. Pard
says I am too absurdly happy to be in my right
mind, and I guess I am, although a week is a long
time to wait and I have had a notion to go down
after her anyway. Instead, however, we began
setting our sluices in the bed of the creek, the water
having run down so as not to interfere very much,
and Pard is as tired of reading as I am of loafing.
It has taken us all of the week to get the boxes in
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THE DIARY OF
place and we will begin sluicing in the dirt to-mor-
row. We are going to try the same plan on the
creek that we did on the flat, ground-sluice the dirt
and let it run through the sluices. We found out
that on Deer Creek they have adopted another plan,
doing away with cross riffles and forking out, and,
instead, paving some of the boxes with cobbles and
the rest with heavy slats and Hungarian riffles. If
this works all right we can put a lot of dirt through,
as there is plenty of water and fall for a tailrace.
The country is looking fine. Since the rain quit
and the sun shone, the grass is up three inches on
the hillsides and the oaks and sycamores are leav-
ing out. The horses and jackass are rolling fat, and
even Jack seems to like the coming of spring time.
He has got to be a very sedate and serious dog.
He and the jackass have struck up a great friend-
ship and wander over the hills together all day
long, but invariably bring up at the cabin when
night comes on. We stake out the horses, as they
might feed off too far and be stolen, or lost, if we
let them run loose. Mother writes me that she
surely expects me home in June and that I must
not break my word. I don't think I will go back
on it. It will all be decided as soon as I see Marie.
Another miner lost his life through whiskey. Bill
Grace, who had been having a night of it over in
Nevada, started for home about midnight on Tues-
day. He disappeared, and his partner, who could
get no trace of him in town, or elsewhere, found
his body Thursday in an old shaft on Selby Hill.
There was about ten feet of water in the shaft and,
of course, he was drowned. There is a good deal
of complaint about these old abandoned shafts and
196
A FORTY-NINER
there is talk of the miners taking some action to
compel the claim owners to cover them up. It is
dangerous even for sober men to walk around dark
nights.
Frank Dunn, of Nevada, was over to see Pard
yesterday. He is one of the brightest lawyers in the
State, and liked by everybody, but he has a bad
failing. He will go on long sprees and is so un-
certain in his habits that his clients lose faith in
him. He made a proposition to Pard to form a
partnership and practice together, but Pard de-
clined ; he is set in his determination to go to San
Francisco.
They tell many amusing stories of Dunn and
his habits. They found him one day sitting in the
street in the sun, his back against the liberty pole
on the Plaza, owlishly viewing the surroundings.
One of his friends remonstrated and tried to per-
suade him to seek the obscurity of his room. "What
for?*' said Dunn. "Is there anything in the statutes
of the State of California contrary to my occupying
the small space which I have so preempted on this
highway.^ Is there any reason, if I am so minded,
that I should not teach my fellow citizens the great
moral lesson of the overthrow and debasement of
genius by the Demon Rum.? Am I not better em-
ployed than if in a stifling, tobacco perfumed court-
room, beating law into the skull of a thick-headed
judge, who don't know Blackstone from white
quartz? No, I will not remove myself from the
(Note.— Dunn was all that Jackson says, a bright lawyer and a leader
of the early Nevada bar. In the old days his witty sayings, idiosyncrasies
and queer bibulous fancies were talked of and repeated by everybody in the
county. He died, I believe, in 1856, and is buried in the old Pine Tree
Graveyard.)
197
THE DIARY OF
public gaze unless/' — ^here he hesitated and winked
his eye at his friend — ^**unles8 you should happen
to have four bits about you and should ask me to
join you. That would be a moving and persuasive
argument not to be resisted. Ah! you have, help
me up" — and he was persuaded.
198
CHAPTER XXI.
A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT— A JOKE ON
THE VISITORS— ROAD AGENTS HOLD
UP A STAGE— UNCHIVALRIC TREAT-
MENT OF THE WOMAN PASSENGER-
MEETING OF THE LOVERS-JACKSON'S
WORD PICTURE OF THE BEAUTIES OF
THE LANDSCAPE, VIEWED FROM SUGAR
LOAF— THE RECONCILIATION OF AN-
DERSON AND HIS WIFE— MARIE'S COM-
MENTS.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XXL
APRIL 4, 1852.— We buckled down to sluicing
the creek Monday morning, and as we had plenty
of water we put through a pile of dirt. It was
working in the dark, for neither one of us knew
whether we were saving any gold or not. I had my
doubts and Pard was not sure, as the stuff ran
through with a rush and it did not seem as if the
riffles would catch the gold. It began to rain Friday
night and we cleaned up the best we could Saturday
morning, as we knew the creek would rise and carry
out our sluices unless we got them up on the bank.
We were agreeably surprised to find that we had
caught fourteen ounces. Most of it was very fine,
but there was a little coarse gold the size of pumpkin
seeds and one nugget that weighed nine dollars.
While not wonderfully rich it will pay pretty good
wages. It will take three or four days to get our
boxes set back in the creek, and, as it is liable to
rain more or less during April, we have concluded
not to try it again until the first of the month. By
that time the winter rains will be over.
We had a good joke on John Hall and Delos
Calkins this morning. I have got so I can speak
French fairly well, and when the boys dropped over
on a visit Pard and I jabbered away at each other
in that language, throwing in a little English to
Delos and John occasionally when they broke into
the conversation. They listened awhile, but got
more and more disgusted, and finally Delos said:
**You think you are smart, but I think you are a
20I
THE DIARY OF
couple of d ^n fools. What is it, Choctaw or
Greek?" We told him it was French and that it
was our custom to converse with each other in that
polite language, and he said we were a pair of
galoots, who didn't know the difference between
French and Patagonian. He offered to bet us an
ounce apiece that we could not tackle the proprie-
tor of the Hotel de Paris in Nevada and throw
that lingo at him for five minutes without being
taken for lunatics and chucked out into the street.
Then he began to grin as if he had caught on to a new
idea and said: "Why, of course, he's going to talk
to her in her own language, Tarley vous Fran^ais,
Madam?' " How they got on to it I don't know,
but the bovs all know that Marie is coming back
and that there is something in the wind; so part
of the joke was on me after all.
We had a talk with them about our new method
of mining on Rock Creek, and they have taken
the pointer and are going to work a portion of Brush
Creek the same way. .We told them part of our
plans and that we arc going to leave the country
early in the summer and they were genuinely sorry
to hear it. They like me, but are specially fond
of Anderson. He has been a sort of umpire in all
of the disputes that have arisen and a peacemaker
in the neighborhood of quarrels. They made up
their minds to run him for the Legislature next
election, but our going away spoils their plans. After
they left Pard said that before he went away he
intended to get them all together, give them a blow-
out and then tell them his real name and why he
had sailed under false colors. He felt that he had
to do it, both in justice to them and himself.
202
A FORTY-NINER
The country above and all the trails have been
infested with a gang of highwaymen for the past
three months and it has not been safe to travel, as
they robbed and murdered right and left. It is
Reelfoot Williams' gang and he and his followers
do not seem to be afraid of anything or anybody.
Wednesday morning they held up the Nevada stage
near Illinoistown and they got away with seventy-
five hundred dollars. There were only two passen-
gers aboard, a man and a woman. He gave up two
hundred and thirty dollars, all that he had. She
swore she did not have any money, but they were
mean enough to search her and, although she fought
like a tiger cat, it did not do her any good. Sure
enough, they found six slugs (fifty dollars each)
in her stockings, which they confiscated, and rode
away laughing. The man said that she came pretty
near getting even in the tongue lashing she gave
them, and that, until her tirade, he did not known
that the English language had such possibilities.
APRIL 13, 1852.— I went over to Nevada both
Monday and Tuesday afternoons to meet the stage,
thinking that possibly Marie might be aboard, but
she wasn't. I swore I would not go again until
I heard from her, but I guess I would if she had
not saved me the trouble, for about three o'clock
Wednesday afternoon Pard and^ I were sitting out
under the tree, and I was^ thinking about saddling
the horse and taking a ride, when Jack began to
bark, and here she came riding down the trail as
pretty a sight as ever I saw. My heart beat like a
trip hammer, my head felt dizzy, and I did not
have sense enough to help her oflF her horse. Pard
203
THE DIARY OF
saved me the trouble, for which I didn't thank him^
but she paid no atten^tion to him; she just flung
her arms around my neck and began laughing and
crying and calling me "mon chere," I was mightily
embarrassed for a minute, until I saw out of the
tail of my eye Pard and Jack disappearing up the
trail. Then I gave her as warm and loving a
welcome as she had me. Wasn't it lucky that we
weren't working, and I had on clean clothes? I
hitched her horse and then we sat down on the
clean pine needles holding each other's hands, and
if I lived a thousand years I never could write
down half we said in the next hour. Gracious!
Isn't she pretty with her crinkly brown hair, her
laughing eyes and her white teeth. I never realized
before how handsome she is. I sprung my French
on her and she just laughed and said I spoke it
so well that she could understand some of it.
After a while Pard strolled back, patted her hand
and told her that to see me happy was to make him
the same; all that I wanted was a good wife, and
he was sure that she would make me one; that he
loved me as well as if I was his own brother; and
then he choked and whistled to Jack and started
for the trail again, but we would not let him go.
We discussed all of our plans and came to a mutual
understanding. Pard got supper — I was too busy
talking and had no appetite anyhow — and about
ten o'clock we both rode to Nevada with her, for
the sake of the proprieties, as Pard put it. That,
to me, was the happiest evening of all my life. Since
then she has been over every day, generally getting
here about nine o'clock in the morning — she has
a room at the Hotel de Paris — stays until after
204
A FORTY-NINER
supper and then I ride back with her in the twilight.
I don't think there is any other place on earth where
the evenings are as beautiful as they are here. We
ride up to Sugar Loaf gap and look off on the
country, the sky all aglow with the setting sun, a
great ball of red fire dropping down behind the
Yuba ridge. Deer Creek winding down the canon,
the pine trees on the opposite slope standing out
like black giants against the background, and as
the darkness falls the lights twinkle and flash in the
town lying at our feet, a breeze stirring as soft and
caressing as — ^well, I am at a loss for words, but
it is just good to live. When I tell Pard of it he
says: "Yes, you're in love and every prospect
pleases.'' Poor old Pard, he watches us as if we
were a couple of children. She has petted, played
and fondled Jack until the old dog has about thrown
off the rest of us. Pard says he used to have a
dog and two jackasses, and now he has only a single
jackass left. Marie has coaxed him into telling
his story and she says : **You poor man, you tried
to throw away the best thing on earth, a good
woman's love." He pleads guilty, but insists that
he repented in time. It is settled that Pard's wife
will meet him in San Francisco in June.
We had a marriage up at Scott's^ ranch last week
and Marie and I went to it by invitation. Lou
Hanchett, the boss miner on the ridge, has been
courting a pretty girl at Selby Flat. They were
friends of the Scotts, and the wedding was held
at their place. About twenty of the boys from
Selby Flat were there, as well as all of the miners
from Rock Creek. Lou provided a big blow-out
and ended up with a dance, which we kept up until
20S
T H E D I A R Y OF
midnight and then scattered. Hanchett is one of
the best fellows in the country, but the boys are not
exactly pleased with his capturing the belle of the
county and taking her away from the Flat.
(NoTE.-^HancIiett and wife settled at the camp afterward known as
Moore's Flat, where he diaoovered and opened one of the richest mines in
the State. A girl baby was bom to them in 1853, who passed her girl-
hood in that pretty mountain town. She married George Crocker, son of
Charles Crocker, one of the original projectors and buil<fer8 of the Central
Pacific Railroad, and died m Paris two years ago. Lou Hanchett and wife
still survive and are living in San Francisco at the present time.)
206
CHAPTER XXII.
A PLACID LIFE— MARIE OBSERVES THE
PROPRIETIES— PARD PLANS FOR THE
FUTURE— THE PROGRESS OF A LOVE
IDYLI^REELFOOT WILLIAMS AND HIS
GANG — JACK'S WARNING — ROBBERY
OF THE BLUE TENT STORE— A FRUIT-
LESS PURSUIT — NEGOTIATING THE
SALE OF MINING PROPERTIES— SHAL-
LOW PLACERS WORKED OUT AND DEEP
DIGGINGS TAKING THEIR PLACE.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XXIL
APRIL 18, 1852.-^It'8 a queer life we are lead-
ing, but it could not be pleasanter. I have given
her my horse to ride and Pard lets me use his
animal. Mine is the gentler one and I would not
trust Marie on a bucking horse. Pard^ says that
in the present state of affairs a j admass will do him.
The landlady of the Hotel de Paris and Marie are
countrywomen, and are great friends, which makes
it very pleasant, as she has a companion to live
with and it stops talk. Marie gets her breakfast
at the hotel and then rides out to the cabin. Then
we sit around in the shade until dinner time. Marie
calls it dijeuner d la jourchette, and says dinner
time doesn't come imtil six o'clock. We've himted
the town for dainty things to eat and have a regular
picnic cooking our meals. It's astonishing to see
how neat we have got to be, beds made up, dishes
washed, cabin tidied up as clean as we can make
it, and we have even swept the dooryard. , Marie
rubs her finger over the plates and shows us the
grease on them and says : **We have not used of ze
soap plenty enough" and "ze dish cloths, they are
so dirty." Pard calls her a little tyrant, but he
is as pleased as a boy, and Jack has gone daffy.
Some of the afternoons when it is not too hot we
ride together over the hills, but generally sit around
under the pine trees chatting and planning the
future. Pard is set on my going into some kind
of business at San Francisco. First of all, though,
209
THE DIARY OF
we will visit the old folks, although not to settle
down there. Marie says: "Perhaps ze fazzer and
ze muzzer zey will not like it t'at I take zeir boy,
but I t'ink I will make zem to love me,'* and Pard
says she is a pretty witch whom nobody could help
liking. Then she wants me to visit Paris and meet
her mother and sisters and then, "if San Francisco,"
shrugging her shoulders, *Svell, what ze husband
he desire, ze good wife she should do ze same." Pard
roars at this and says good doctrine before mar-
riage, but wait until afterwards.
We rubbed pretty close to a nasty adventure
Thursday. Reelfoot Williams' gang has been raid-
ing the trails and roads for the past month. Posses
have been raised to chase and capture them, and
there was a fight two weeks ago between the rob-
bers and a Marysville posse down below Rose's
Ban A deputy sheriff and one of his men were
killed, but the thieves got off scot free. We have
heard of them around Nevada County, and they
held up the stage near Illinoistown a couple of
weeks ago. We had just finished dinner when
Jack growled and Pard went to the door to find
out what the trouble was. He saw a lot of men
coming up the trail about fifty yards away, and it
(NoTB.-*It will be seen that Jacksoa's diary has degenerated or risen,
as the reader is pleased to view it, into a love romance, pure and simple,
and the prosaic tacts of his existence do not get the same detail as^ before,
but the situation is idyllic. That this hard-headed Yankee and vivacbus
Frenchwoman should drift together from opposite ends of the earth and
form a mutual attachment that ignored family- ti^, opposing religions and
contrary views from almost any sUndpoint, braving the sneers and criti-
cisms of the world, each with an abiding faith m the other's affection, con-
stitutes a romantic episode, and, I was about to add, a strange one. ^ I
qualify this, however, for I can recall dozens of instances that were quite
as unreasonable from a commonplace standpomt. Love has no reasons, no
excuses, and the sexual instmct will not be denied.)
210
A FORTY-NINER
popped into his mind that they were the highway-
men. He jumped back and grabbed his rifle and
I followed suit with the shotgun and pistol. We
both stood in the door and when they rode up
they saw^ we were heeled and had the advantage
of being inside. They halted, hesitated a minute,
the leader fell back and said something to one of
the men, and then asked if they were on the Blue
Tent trail. Pard answered, "Yes, keep right along
and you will get there." The spokesman, a good-
looking fellow with long, light hair and mustache,
wanted to know if we took them for a lot of d n
robbers, and Pard replied: "Never mind what we
take you for, move along*'; and they went. After
(Note. — ^Reelfoot Williams, who u credited with being the leader of
the gang of highwajrmen mentioned in the diary, was a notorious desperado
of the eariy days, and, so far as known, the first to organize a gang of
murderers and thieves for systematic predatorjr work on the roads and
trails. He first became locally known at Downievillc^ Sierra County, as a
gambler and suspected robber, his chief source of mcome being derived
from holding up miners on the traib and relieving them of their coin and
gold dust. He was arrested in 1851 for hishwajr robberyj and escaped
conviction after a hard-fought legal battle. In this connection, a story is
told of his encounter, shortly after his trial, with the judge before whose
court he had been arraigned. When Sierra County was organized in 1850^
one Chap Schaffer secured the appointment, an all-round good fellow,
as eood telbws were estimated in those dajrs. He had a smattering of law,
and occupied the bench to the satisfaction of the people, who did not
demand too mudi learning or profundity. It was not held a^inst him
that he would at any time adjourn court to participate in a lively poker
game, or that his salary and fees were dissipated at the faro banks. The
day after the acquitul in Schaffer's court of Reelfoot Williams, the judge
had business in one of the adjacent mmmg camps and, mounting his mule,
turted on his journey. When half way up the Shig Canon trail a man
stepped out of the chaparral and ordered hun to throw up his hands and
deliver his vahiables.
The judge obeyed without hesitation so far as elevatmg his hands, but,
recoenizmg the highwajrman, exclaimed in perturbed tones: "Good Lord,
Williamsl I haven't got a cent, the bosrs cleaned me out in a little game
last night."
Williams bwered his pistol with a 'HeUo, judge, is that you? I didn't
know you or I wouldn't have hekl you up. I knew I had no chance against
211
THE DIARY OF
they were out of sight Paid said I had better take
Marie back to Nevada and he would go along and
raise a posse. Marie was as courageous as either
one of us and kept as quiet as a mouse while they
were at the cabin, but on the way to town tried to
coax me not to go with the party, said that thief
catching was not my business, and so did Pard, but I
was not going to let him take any chances that I was
not willing to share, even if he was a deputy sheriff.
So I went. We might as well have stayed at home
for all the good it did, although we found out we
were right in thinking them highwaymen. An
hour after they left us they robb^ the Blue Tent
store of a lot of provisions and eight hundred dollars
in dust. It was five o'clock before we started and
dark by the time we reached Blue Tent. We pushed
on to Humbug [now North Bloomfield] but they
had not been seen there and we figured out that
they had gone down the ridge toward Cherokee.
We went there the next day, but they had kept out
of view and we heard no more of diem. I got a
those pownieville sports. But say, judge, do me a favor, win you? Hurry
on, tKere's another fellow coming up the trail and I've got to get out
of this d country somehow." ^
The judge, much relieved m mind if not m pocket, stood not on the order
of his going and, digging his sptirs into the mule, started o£F at a livdy gait.
The other fellow was duly halted and Williams secured seven hundred
dollars. It was after this exploit that he associated himself with Rattle-
snake Dick and three others and started out as a full-fledged "road agent."*
The band held together until 1853, when three of its members were kUled
in an encounter with a sheriffs posse near Forbestown, Yuba County,
Williams and Rattlesnake Dick escaped and fled to the southern country.
Dick was stabbed and killed by a rival desperado at Spanbh Diy Diggings
in '54. Williams disappeared from view tor several years, but turned up
m die "skties" m that paradise of roughs and bad men, Virginia City,
Nev., where he flourished as ''chief," to the annoyance of other aspirants
to that coveted title, one of whom poked a shotgun through a sakxm
window and emptied a charge of buckshot into his carcass, bringing hit
career to an abrupt termination.)
212
A EORTY-NINER
good sight of the party at the cabin. There were
five of them, three white men and two greasers.
The fellow who did the talking was without doubt
the leader, Williams, the other two were Rattle-
snake Dick and Jim Mosely, and the two Mexicans,
Alverez and Garcia, We have not the least doubt
that they had intended to rob us, and would have
done so if Jack had not given us warning. Good old
Jack, he showed right there that he is worth all
the trouble he ever gave us.
APRIL 25, 1852. — ^It has not rained for ten days
and we will be able to get back into the creek again
if we do not have any more showers. Neither Pard
nor I are very anxious to continue mining and we
have an offer from some of the Brush Creek boys
which we may take up. ^ We told them the result
of our first week's washing and they proposed to
come over and work with us a week, and if it yielded
as well as in the beginning they would form a com-
pany to run it on shares and give us twenty per
cent, of what they took out. We have agreed to
their proposal and will begin putting in the boxes
as soon^ as the water runs down a little more. I
am anxious to get away, but Pard says he will not
leave until the time comes to meet his wife. She will
start from New York the 21st of May. I asked
Marie what we should do and she says that while
there is nothing to keep her here except my con-
venience, still, after all Pard had done for me, and
considering what our relations may be in the fu-
ture, we had better postpone our complete happi-
ness for a little while. Pard is much pleased over
our decision.
213
THE DIARY OF
^ We have bargained to sell our interests in the
river claim to the other members of the company
for six thousand dollars. If the creek turns out
iwell, I will have pretty close to twenty-five thou-
sand dollars, so I am comparatively a rich man.
Marie tells me that she has twenty thousand dollars
in French Rentes, which, as I understand it, are
government bonds; the five thousand dollars in-
vested in Frisco lots, and a country place near
Paris, for which she paid fourteen thousand dollars.
This place she wants her mother and sisters to live
in, rent free, if I am willing, and they have enough
income of their own to get along on nicely. As if
I were going to have anything to say about what
she does with her money ! I will never touch a cent
of it, although she insists that when we are married
it is mine. Pard says she has it well invested
and not to disturb it, as I have enough of my own
to go into business or speculate with.
I notice that the miners now, instead of mining
alone, or with a single partner, as was generally the
rule at first, have got to forming companies of half
a dozen or a dozen men and working their claims
more systematically and extensively. Ounce dig-
gings are not as easily found as they were a year
or t^o ago and the creeks, gulches, and shallow
placers are pretty well worked out. There are a
lot of deep diggings, mostly operated by means
of shafts, and some of these are down as much
as one hundred and fifty feet.
On Coyote and Manzanita Hills they have rigged
up whims, and hoist the dirt by horsepower, and
at Red Dog and its vicinity they have built water
wheels, which they use both to pump and raise the
214
A FORTY-NINER
gravel. There is a lot of improvement in mining
methods since we first began and I suppose there
will be a lot more before the gold is all taken out
of the ground.
215
CHAPTER XXIII.
A COMBINATION TO WORK ROCK CREEK
—EXTRACTING GOLD FROM BLUE
CEMENT— THE CRITICAL CATS AT
SELBY FLAT— FRENCH COOKING IN
THE OLD CABIN — THE INFLUX OF
CHINAMEN INTO THE MINES— A JOINT
VISIT TO ROUND MOUNTAIN— MARIE
PREDICTS AN EXPLOSION— NO CAUSE
FOR INTERFERENCE.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XXIII.
MAY 2, 1852.— We got our sluice boxes back
in the creek, finishing yesterday, and John Dunn
and three of his partners will start in to-morrow
morning. They are going to adopt the same plan
that we tried, using as big a head of water as the
boxes will carry, and ground-sluice all of the gravel
through with as little handling as possible. The
bed-rock will have to be creviced and cleaned by
hand. If it pays they will make the same proposi-
tion to Piatt and Dixon. They have enough
groui;id of ours to keep them busy all summer. Dunn
and his crowd are taking up all of the vacant ground
on Brush Creek and will work it in the same way.
It is a pity we did not know enough two years ago to
wash the ground through sluices, instead of rock-
ing it. We could have cleaned up a fortune in a
month. We thought when the Long Tom came in,
that it would never be improved upon. Now one
rarely sees either rocker or Tom except in dry
gulches and ravines where water is scarce.
I was over on Gopher Point a short time ago.
The miners are having lots of trouble getting gold
out of the cement. They run some of it through
sluices, but the water has but little eflFect on it,
and half of it goes into the tailrace without break-
(NoTB.^ack8on was speculating on the availability of gravel deposits
that a few years afterward, when hydraulicking came into vogue, proved to
be the most valuable hydraulic mmes in the world, as the subsequent opera-
tions at North Bloomfield, Malakoff, Columbia Hill, Badger IfiU, etc^ dem-
onstrated. Tackson and his Pard mi^ht have been tempted to a kmger
stay IB the roothills had they had a glunmering of the poasibiUties.)
219
THE DIARY OF
ing Up. The richest of it they spread out on the
bare bed-rock alid let it weather slack, and then
pound it up with sledge hammers. In spite of
all this they are making money. Over on the other
side of the river, at Humbug, they have struck
some good diggings and quite a large mining camp
has sprung up there. It is a loose quartz gravel,
easily washed, and they say that there are im-
mense beds of it covering three or four miles up
and down the ridge. It doesn't all pay; in fact,
there are only a few spots that are rich enough to
work, but there is a little gold through it all. If
there was only some way to wash big quantities
of it cheaply, Uiere is lots of gold to be taken out.
Marie and I have paid a visit to Selby Flat, but
I think we will avoid that place in the future. The
boys treated us nicely and as respectful as could
be; but the women — ^they are a lot of cats. There
is not one of them that can hold a candle to Marie
for good looks; and as for reputation, well, the
most of them are good women, but there were a
few who sneered behind our backs and were in-
clined to be very uppish, and those were the ones
who had no reputation to speak of. All because
she had dealt a gambling game and that is all they
can say against her. I was inclined to give them
a piece of my mind, but Marie laughed at it and
said : "You foolish boy, never quarrel wiz a wdman.
You cannot fight wiz her and her tongue is too
much for you." Of course, she is right; but it is
this sort of thing that makes me want to get away
from here. We have jolly times at the cabin, how-
ever. She always brings over some dainty to eat
from the hotel or stores, and we get up all sorts of
220
AFORTY-NINER
fancy dishes, that is, she does, and Pard and I do
the rough work. She says cooking is an art in
her country, and I guess it is, for she has about
spoiled us and it would be a tough proposition to
have to go back to our old. 'grub. We have got
down to coffee and bread for breakfast and neither
one of us can tackle fried pork and beans any
more. It doesn't make much difference, as we do
not get up until nine o'clock. Pard rolls out at
daylight to fire rocks at the jackass, who insists
on giving us an early concert every morning. We
let Jack out to keep him company, and that seems
to soothe his troubled spirit. It is a strange thing
the attachment between the two animals. It's
worth while being awakened to know that we have
not got to crawl out, get breakfast and then tackle
a hard day's work in the mud and water. Marie
gets back to the hotel regularly before dark and
won't let me stay later than ten o'clock. "It is for
what ze people would say, my Alfred," and I strike
out for die cabin. Pard is deep in his books, but
he drops them and we chat and plan until midnight.
We both wish the days would go by faster. The
"old boy" is longing to see his wife and looking
eagerly forward to the meeting.
Dunn and his partners put in the week on our
Rock Creek claims and are well satisfied with the
retuftis. They took in MacCalkins and Barker
on the lay and six of them tackled it. It doesn't
make any difference to us how many are interested,
as we get twenty per cent, of what comes out. They
cleaned up yesterday afternoon and had fifty-one
ounces. That will give us two hundred dollars for
our rake off and they are averaging about an ounce
221
THE DIARY OF
apiece per day. Dunn has an idea that he can do still
better by increasing the size of the boxes. They are
now using ten by twelve-inch bottoms and ten-
inch sides. He has ordered at the mill two and
a half feet bottoms and eighteen-inch sides of two
inches thickness, and will set these in the bed of
the creek, anchoring them down permanently so
that flood water will not carry them away. He says
he is convinced that if he can hold them down he
can catch most of the gold in the dirt that is carried
down when the water is high and then clean up
the creek at low water. I do not see any reason
why it should not work. Anyway, the experiment
will cost us nothing.
Oiinamen are getting to be altogether too plenti-
ful in the country. Six months ago it was seldom
one was seen, but lately gangs of them have been
coming in from below. There is a big camp of
them down on Deer Creek, below Newtown, and
we found a lot of them getting ready to work on
the bars on the Yuba River. Pard and I chased a
dozen oflF of our river claims and warned them that
we would shoot them if w^e found them there again.
We called a miners' meeting and adopted a miners*
law that they should not be allowed to take up or
hold ground for themselves nor should they mine
worked or unworked ground unless purchased from
a white owner. Some were for driving them out
of the country entirely, but the majority thought it
would be a good thing to sell them claims, as it
was an easy way to make money. Pard says it
is a great mistake to let them get any sort of a
foothold; but as we are going to quit mining, our
objections were not as strong as they might have
222
A FORTY-NINER
been. I understand that most of the camps have
adopted the same sort of law. They are not looked
upon as human beings and have no rights that a
white man is bound to respect, except in protecting
them in their titles to ground that they have regu-
larly bought under agreed conditions. Their big
camp on Deer Creek was raided a couple of weeks
ago, it is said, by a gang of Mexicans, two of them
were killed and the remainder scattered all over the
country. Report says that the Greasers got away
with over thirty thousand dollars. The Chinamen
appealed for protection, but nobody paid any at-
tention to them. There were over fifty living in the
camp and they ought to have been able to protect
themselves ; but they seem to be great cowards and
will not fight under any circumstances.
I told Marie about my visit to the couple on
Round Mountain and she proposed that we ride
over and see them. We found them at home and
still working the tunnel, and the man, while not
particularly glad to see us, was decent enough to
ask us to get off of our horses and come inside
the cabin. I don't think he liked the idea of Marie
getting acquainted with the woman, although he
made no objection. She was as shy as a deer and
no doubt ashamed of her man's dress — she was
still wearing overalls and shirt — and we left them
together while he and I went outside for a chat.
He was as curious as ever about what was going
on outside and kept me busy for an hour posting
him up to date on the news. Then we were called
in to luncheon, which Marie had helped to get
ready, and we had a nice meal. I noticed the
woman's eyes were red and that she had been cry-
223
THE D I A R Y OF
ing. Marie stepped on my foot and I had sense
enough to say nothing awkward. When we bid
them good-bye the women kissed each other and
Marie promised to see her again soon. As soon
as we were out of earshot she said indignantly : "Oh !
he is what you call ze great brute ; no, he does not
beat her, she say he is not cruel, but she is all ze
same as one prisoner and her heart it is for to
break, she is so isolement — lonely you call it." They
had had a long talk and, while the woman had not
told her any of her history, or why she was leading
so strange a life, she had learned enough to know
that her solitude and isolation were not of her.
own choice. She said her work was really only play,
that her companion did not ask her to toil, that
her masculine dress was donned for convenience,
and that they were making money and would go
away when the claim was worked out. *There
is ze grand mistarie,'' said Marie. "Oh, no, she
is not ze wife of ze man and they hide away from ze
world; more I do not know; she is for to keep her
mouth shut, as you say in Engleesh. Some time
there will be ze explosion, pouf 1 and then we will
see." It is a queer case, but there is no call for
outside interference that I can judge. I think that
Marie is mistaken about her being a prisoner, as
she has plenty of chances to go away if she wants
to. I warned Marie not to talk about it, as it might
make a lot of trouble for the couple when there
was no call for it.
224
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE PARTNERS SELL OUT THE CREEK
CLAIM— JACKSON'S REPUTATION IN
HIS OLD HOME— PROVIDING FOR THE
JACKASS'S FUTURE— THE SLOCUM
FARM HAS NO ATTRACTION— LOAFING
THE DAYS AWAY— RUSHES TO NEW LO-
CALITIES—TROUBLE ON ROUND MOUN-
TAIN—SCANDALMONGERS' TONGUES
LET LOOSER-CHINAMEN SHOW FIGHT
AND ARE RUN OFF OF DEER CREEK.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XXIV.
MAY 9, 1852.— The creek claim panned out
well for the week, the clean-up yesterday amount-
ing to sixty-one ounces. Dunn and his partners
have been at the cabin all the afternoon bargaining
to buy the claims outright, and we agreed on terms.
They are to give us three thousand dollars in cash
and we turn the ground over to them. This suits
both of us, as we will go away next month and
do not want any interests left behind, as neither
of us calculate on coming back. As we have already
agreed to sell our interests in the river claims for
six thousand and are to receive our money on June
1, we will have nine thousand dollars to divide be-
tween us, which is not very bad for a winter's work.
I had some nice letters from home and a copy
of the Winsted Herald, in which there is an item
that Mr. Alfred Jackson, of Norfolk, had made his
fortune in the California mines and would soon
return and settle down in his old home. I guess
the editor is mistaken about my settling down. Nor-
folk is too small a village for me, although there
was a time when I thought it was the greatest place
on earth. I am beginning to believe with Pard
that this is going to be a great State, and tne
chances are that here will be my home. First,
however, I am going to see something of the world;
we will go to Europe and roam around for six
months or more. Pard says it will be an ideal
honeymoon trip and one that will expand my ideas,
broaden me out, and that I will get rid of some of
227
THE DIARY OF
my Puritan notions. It may be so, but I guess
my bringing up has not been any great drawback.
Come to think of it, he has got as many queer
ideas as I have. He has asked me to give him
Jack, which I am very glad to do. I like the old
dog mighty well, but somehow he was fonder of
Pard from the beginning, and besides, I could not
very well take him to the States with me. Then he
is going to take the jackass below with him; says
he will turn him out on a ranch where he can get
a good living without work. He explained that he
could not bear to think of somebody packing him
with heavy loads over the rough trails and beating
him to death. So he is with all of God^s creatures,
a tender heart for everything that lives.
For the past month everything has seemed as
unreal to me as a dream, and the thought comes
once in a while that I may wake up and find such
to be the case. It is not quite three years since I
left home and the people wondered at my courage
in venturing into an unknown country at the ends
of the earth. Now it seems as if it was the center
of the universe instead of the hub, and I have a
sort of pity for those who are ignorant of its attrac-
tions. I have become a reader and a student.
Books, which at one time were a weariness, delight
me. I came away engaged to be married to a good
girl. Now, although she is the same Hetty, I am
not the same man, and I know that we are not
suited to each other. I was poor, now I am com-
paratively rich, and I have ambitions and aspira-
tions to push on in the world and carve out a
career, where three years ago I would have been
content to take the Slocum farm and vegetate on
228
A FORTY-NINER
it the rest of my life* I have faith that Marie will
not only make me a good wife, but also the com-
panion I need as a stimulus to my ambitions.
And then Pard, who has been such a comfort and
aid to me, made me solemnly promise that when
I get through with my wanderings I will come back
to San Francisco and settle down there where we
can still have each other^s friendship. He quotes
Emerson, *When you are sure of your friend, hold
to him with hooks of steel." Well, it is a great
change in three years and who knows what the next
three years will bring?
MAY 16, 1852. — ^The days go by most pleasantly
and we are almost as irresponsible as three chil-
dren. The rains are over, the summer's heat has
come and the foothills are an earthly paradise. We
have even become too lazy to ride around the coun-
try. I content myself with an evening gallop to
town and back, and the rest of the time we loaf
under the trees. Pard quotes some old Greek
poet about the Elysian Isles, "Where Rhadaman-
thus dwells, and pain and sorrow come not, nor
rain or wind, and the never dying zephyrs blow
softly oflF the ocean."
That will do very well just now, but it would not
be very apt during one of our winter storms with a
gale blowing through the pines, the limbs breaking
and crashing to the ground, and everything in an
uproar. I have a copy of Byron and am reading
aloud his "Childe Harold." It is a great poem.
Nevada City is growing out of all bounds and is
a big town. There are at least five thousand people
living in and around it, and it is fast filling up with
229
THE DIARY OF
families from the States; wives and children cx>me
out to join their husbands. As a consequence,
it is getting to be a much more orderly and decent
community.
They nearly had a famine during the winter
rains, but the roads are all in good order again
and prices of all kinds of supplies reasonable. They
are talking of building a wagon road over Sugar
Loaf, down Rock Creek to die river, bridge that
stream, and then over the Yuba divide to Cherokee
and San Juan, both of which having grown to be
good-sized and prosperous mining camps. The
upper end of Shady Creek has paid well and good
diggings have been found on Badger Hill, but the
best pay in that section has been taken out of
Blind Shady, a gulch that empties into Big Shady
Creek. I am told that there are a dozen claims on
this ravine that have averaged a hundred dollars
a day to the man. It does seem as if there was no
end to the gold deposits. There has been a big
rush to Gold BluflF, on the ocean beach above Trini-
dad, but most of the miners have come back badly
disappointed. There were marvelous stories of the
waves washing up dust on the beach by the bushel,
but it was all an exaggeration. While there was
some gold found, it was difficult to gather and in
no such quantities as reported. It is curious how
restless the majority of the miners are and how
ready to pack up and drift away on the strength
of mere rumors.
Marie is a prophet. There has been an explosion
on Round Mountain and we can hardly get head
or tail of it. Anyway, there was a shooting match,
and nobody hurt, the woman has skipped the coun-
230
A FORTY-NINER
^^■■^■^■^— — ————■■— ^^^^—M^
try with some other man and the one we thought
her husband is back in the cabin alone, refusing
to talk to anybody and more unsociable than ever.
Marie saw the woman in Nevada with a stranger.
They stayed there for a couple of days and then took
the stage for parts unknown. From the little that
the woman confided to Marie, the stranger called
her companion out of the cabin and, after a few
high words, drew a pistol and began shooting. He
took to the brush and she did not think he was hit.
Then she changed her dress, put on the clothes that
belonged to her sex and came away with the new
comer. She seemed to concede the stranger's right
of possession, and was not unhappy. The sheriff
went out to the cabin, the intruder having told him
of the occurrence; expecting, possibly, to find a
mortally wounded or dead man. On the contrary,
he found the man unhurt and unwilling to give
any details or make any complaint. There is a lot
of gossip and talk over it and every man has a
theory. The prevailing opinion is that the fellow
had run away with some man's wife, or mistress,
and sought seclusion and concealment in their odd
cabin on the mountain ; that the wronged man had
traced the guilty pair, tried to kill his wife's para-
mour, and, not succeeding, had to forgive her, taken
her back and had gone away without any further
attempt to avenge his wrongs, that is, if he had any
to avenge. It's funny to hear the "cats" over at
Selby Flat talk about it. Not one of them has a
good word for the woman and think the husband
must have been a mean spirited fellow in consent-
ing to take her back. . But, then, women have queer
ways and don't see things in the same light that
231
THE DIARY OF
men do. They do say that the one who talks the
most and the worst is badly tarred with the same
stick. She has poked her nose into my affairs and I
should have called her husband down long ago had
it not been that we were going away soon and Pard*s
pleadings not to make a nasty rumpus over it.
The miners on Deer Creek, below the town,
turned out last week and drove all of the Chinamen
off that stream. The heathen had got to be impu-
dent and aggressive, taking up claims the same as
white men and appropriating water without asking
leave. They cut one of the miner's dams and, when
he attempted to repair it, chased him away, brand-
ishing their shovels and making a great hullabaloo.
He passed the word up and down the creek, and that
afternoon about fifty miners gathered together, ran
the Chinamen out of the district, broke up their
pumps and boxes, tore out their dams, destroyed
their ditches, burned up their cabins and warned
them not to come back under penalty of being shot
if they made a reappearance. The miners* actions
are generally endorsed and there is a disposition
to bar the Chinks out of the district. It is said that
they are coming to the State by thousands, and, if
not molested, they would soon overrun the country.
Below Newtown they have got possession of two or
three miles of the creek and are not disturbed, as
they acquired the ground by purchase from white
speculators. I am told that they paid in the neigh-
borhood of forty thousand dollars for the claims
they are working. It is a sight to see them on the
trails, packing two big baskets of stuff on the ends
of a bamboo pole and carrying a load that would
stagger a jackass.
232
CHAPTER XXV.
SAD TERMINATION OF THE ROUND
MOUNTAIN MYSTERY— A SUICIDE'S
CYNICAL FAREWELL— THE INTRUSION
OF THE "ETERNAL FEMININE"— PARD'S
REMARKS— "LET THERE BE NO CLACK
OF IDLE TONGUES"— AN IMPRESSIVE
CEREMONY AND A SOLITARY GRAVE—
THE PARTNERS GROW SENTIMENTAL
OVER THE OLD LOG CABIN AND THEIR
MUTUAL EXPERIENCES— PREPARING
FOR A LEAVE-TAKING.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XXV.
MAY 23, 1852. — It would seem as if we had at
last got to the final chapter in the story of the Round
Mountain couple and it has ended in a sad sort of
way. John Hall, who was out hunting yesterday
afternoon, passed by the cabin and, seeing no signs
of life and receiving no response to his call opened
the door, which was unlocked, and went in. He
was shocked to find the man on the bed lifeless and
cold. There were no traces of violence and Hall
says the man looked more like one asleep than
dead. The cabin was undisturbed and if it had
not been for a letter left on the table there would
have been no reason to believe that he had died
from other than natural causes. However, the note
and the traces of crystals of arsenic in a cup clearly
indicated that he^ had committed suicide. The
letter, which I copied, was strange and pitiful. He
had written in a clear, firm hand :
** Whoever finds my body, if U kas not gone back to its ori^mU
''elements before discovery, will if it taxes not his humanity too
**much, dig a hole and cover it with dean earth and there let it rot
**without mound or stone to mark the place. It is only an atom
*'that of its own accord goes back from whence it came. WhUe it
"dwelt on earth, it found men rogues and women false. It inspired
**hate and treachery, but could not compass love. Fearing its own
"company, distrusting all men and despising all women^ it arrogated
"the right to end an existence that was thrust upon it without its
"consent. There is no one left to mourn or rejoice; and if there is
"an unproved hereafter, of which no man knows, it will at least have
"repose from the clack of idle tongues.**
There was no signature and, singularly enough,
there was not a soul who knew the man's name.
Pard, to whom I read the copy of the letter, was
^35
THE DIARY OF
quite affected and said that, while it was morbid
and cynical, it showed, whoever he was, a man of
more than ordinary intelligence, one who had drank
the cup to the bitter dregs. "Be sure, Alf,*' he con-
tinued, "it*s the eternal feminine; to some of us they
are angels, to others — ^this poor fellow, for example
—the reverse. I hope they will carry out his last
wish, and I will go over this afternoon and see that
they do." I went along and found quite a crowd.
There was a coroner's inquest and a verdict of sui-
cide, and then Pard proposed that we carry out the
dead man's last request. We dug a hole on the
hillside, about a hundred yards away from the
cabin, rolled the body up in blankets and deposited
it in the bottom. The crowd asked Pard to say
something and he made a few remarks, in sub-
stance as follows:
"Boys, a sermon would be a hollow mockery, a
eulogy pure invention, for of his virtues or his fail-
ings we know nothing. He was a man, who having
tasted life, found it unpalatable and pushed it aside.
From what little we know, he loved, sorrowed, de-
spaired and laid down the burden. The only tribute
we can pay him is to not vex the^ air roundabout
his old dwelling place, to quote his epitaph, ^with
the clack of idle tongues.' "
V Then we filled the grave, rolled a big rock on it
and went away. It was a simple but most impres-
sive ceremony and one could see that it had made
an impression on the crowd. Happy, careless fel-
lows, they went from curiosity, and came away
-filled with great pity for the dead.x After we got
back to the cabin we could not help speculating on
it all. Marie, who had stayed away, was in tears
236
A FORTY-NINER
over the story and the last letter. "Poor fellow,'*
she said, "perhaps somewhere a muzzer she wait
and she mourn for him and he comes not." I rode
over to town with her, but we were both low spirited
and melancholy and had but little to say to each
other. "^ Altogether, it is about the saddest Sabbath
day I have spent in this country, and it has set
me thinking how little we know or care about the
aflFairs of those other than ourselves or immediate
friends.^
MAY 30, 1852. — In two weeks more we will bid
the place good-bye and leave it, so far as I can see,
for all time. I think we would go sooner, as we
are all getting impatient and restless, but we will
not receive the money for our river claims until
the 8th of June and must wait to close that trans-
action. Dunn and company, who have bought and
paid for our creek ground, are doing well, and
are satisfied with the bargain. They have got the
lumber on the ground for their big flume, half of
the boxes made and will begin to put it in this week.
They have also succeeded in buying up the most
of Brush Creek below the flat and will flume it in
the same way. All of the Saleratus Ranch boys
are interested and I hope they will make a fortune.
They are a jolly lot of fellows and, excepting Pard,
my best friends, and they don't like to hear of our
going away. Pard has planned to give a farewell
supper to them and about twenty others, including
Piatt, Dixon, Gleason, and Fisk, our Rock Creek
neighbors, and there he is going to carry out his
intentions of telling them his right name and his
reason for sailing under false colors, as he calls it.
^37
THE DIARY OF
It will be a strictly stag affair, but even then Pard
says men will tell their wives, wives will tell their
neighbors, and there will be the ^'clack of idle
tongues/' We are going to give our books to the
ranch boys, the rest of our belongings to our neigh-
bors, and leave the old cabin to rot, or to the chance
shelter of some wandering miner. As Pard says, it
is humble enough and rude enough, but there is
many a costly house that cannot compare with it,
for it has sheltered and fostered enduring friend-
ship, unruffled peace, the miracle of content and the
boon of prosperity; and I add a happy reconcilia-
tion, a growing romance, the awakening of love, and
we are a pair of soft chaps who grow sentimental
over some rough pine logs and weather beaten
shakes. I am sure, wherever we go, the old log
cabin on Rock Creek will never fade out of our
memory.
238
CHAPTER XXVI.
DISTRIBUTING PERSONAL EFFECTS-
PARD'S FAREWELL DINNER— "ZEY ARE
ZE GOOD BOYS "—CHAMPAGNE AND ITS
EFFECTS-THE LAST SITTING UNDER
THE OLD PINE TREE— VOICES OF THE
NIGHT CHORUS A MELANCHOLY FARE-
WELI^WIND-UP OF JACKSON'S DIARY
—THE FATE OF HETTY AND A LAST
WORD IN REGARD TO THE ACTORS
WHO HAVE FIGURED IN THE OLD-TIME
RECORD.
FORTY-NINER
CHAPTER XXVI.
JUNE 6, 1852.— Only a week more and it is
good-bye to Rock Creek. We have arranged all
our plans and will leave here on the 14th for San
Francisco. Marie will take the stage and wait for
us until we arrive, and will carry Jack along with
her. The old dog will make no objection, as he
is as fond of her as of us. Pard has arranged with
a teamster to drive the jackass to Sacramento and
we will ride that far on our horses and then take
the boat. We calculate to reach the city by the
18th at the latest, and may get there a day earlier.
Pard expects to meet his wife about the 20th. She
left New York, or was to, on the 22d of May. The
old boy is as restless as a caged animal and paces
up and down in front of the cabin imtil he has
worn a path for a himdred feet or more, as well as
wearing out Jack's patience. The dog started in
to follow him, and it was fun to watcb him look
at Pard when he made the turn at each end. Jack
soon gave it up as a piece of foolishness, this walking
all the time and getting nowhere. It was an idio-
syncrasy that he pardoned, but refused to be a party
to, preferring to curl up alongside of Marie and be
petted.
We have not got very much baggage to bother us.
I have packed up all of the old letters and home
trinkets and will send them by express. What little
stuff we leave behind in the way of crockery, cook-
ing utensils, etc., the neighbors are welcome to. I
will give Calkins my shotgun and Charlie Barker
241
THE DIARY OF
my banjo. I have a pride in keeping up this diary
to the last, and will write in it again next Sunday
and carry it with me in my saddle bags. We are
going to have a blow-out at the Hotel de Paris
Wednesday night, a sort of a farewell to those of
our friends that we care to say good-bye to. Marie
and the landlady are arranging for it, and we will
surely have a good feast.
JUNE 13, 1852.-— There are only six more blank
pages in this book and I don't think I will fill
them, neither will I start another one. I don't
think I have written anything here that I would
be ashamed to have my wife read. Pard has gone
over it from start to finish and says that I ought
to keep it until I am old and gray-haired. Then
it will take on a new meaning and I will regret those
glorious days when "youth was mine." ^ I don't
exactly catch his meaning, but it is certain that I
shall look back to the old creek and the memories
of it and its surroundings, and it will be a pleasant
remembrance.
We had our dinner Wednesday evening and there
were seventy-seven of us altogether, including the
Saleratus Ranch boys and our neighbors. Marie
looked in and helped the landlady awhile. There
was real champagne, a couple of baskets of it, and
before I knew it Pard had me by one arm and
Marie by the other and the guests stood up and
drank a toast to France and America and the pair
whose prospective alliance would surely bring hap-
piness to a representative of each country. I was
too embarrassed to speak and the champagne
choked me— it was the first time I had tasted it—
242
A FORTY-NINER
but Marie bubbled over with glee and said, "Oh!
zey are ze good boys, and in our hearts we will
nevair, no nevair, forget zem,*' and then she ran
away and was seen no more that night.
After she had gone Pard got up and made what
he called his confession. He explained why he had
taken the name of Anderson and, while he regretted
the deceit, still there was no man in the world that
he was ashamed to look in the face and he could
only beg their pardon and return them a watch
that did not bear his name. You should have heard
the shouting, everybody yelling: "No! No! Keep
it and we will give you another one,'* crowding
around and grasping his hand, and then MacCalkins
yelled out: **What*s in a name, anyhow?" Barker
struck up:
"For he's a jolly good f ellow.*'
And we made the old hotel ring. Then we
marched around the table, singing:
"For he was a dandy man,
With his rocker, pick and pan.
And it took him quite a while
Before he made his pile.*'
I don't remember much more about it. The
table began to swim around, my head got dizzy.
Pard took me out in the air, helped nie on my horse,
and we started home. My! I was sick on the way
and the next morning my head ached to split. If
that is the way champagne makes one feel, I don't
want any more of it.
Pard and I sat out under the old pine tree to-
night for the last time — ^we will be busy to-morrow
243
THE DIARYOF
getting our traps into town — and neither one of
us was in the best of spirits, although as far as
we can see there is nothing but happiness ahead
of us. The moon beams shimmered down through
the pine needles, the frogs croaked in the creek, a
coyote barked up on the hill, the echo of the hoot
of an owl drifted up from the trail. We have
listened to the same sounds every night for years,
but somehow this evening it seemed as if they were
all saying "Good-bye."
244
FORTY-NINER
HERE THE DIARY ENDS.
(So we bid good-bye to Pard and Jackson, Marie
and Hetty, Jack, the dog, and the donkey, to "ze
good boys" of Rock and Brush Creeks. The days
of placer mining, as depicted in the diary, came
to an end long ago, the glory of Selby Flat, that
once "beat Nevada City in a Fourth of July cele-
bration" has departed; even the patient Chinamen
glean no more from the worked-out creeks, gulches
and ravines. The romance and the sordid facts are
but dim memories and the Argonauts have gone to
seek the golden fleece in the land just beyond the
sunset.
They were good old days and when Jackson for-
got to put his diary in the saddle bags he left for
posterity a record unique and invaluable. We have
had a surfeit of the stoic gambler, uncouth miner,
draggle-tailed courtesans and impossible school-
mistresses. These were inventions touched, dis-
torted and illuminated by Bret Harte's genius. The
later-day writers who attempt to reproduce this
early life with their^ sentimental pathos are as
far away from the spirit of the "Fifties" as mush
and molasses from "Lobster a la Newburg." While
Jackson's narrative may not rank high as litera-
ture, he has given in his diary a faithful, accurate,
and vivid picture, from the miner's point of view,
of foothill mining life. As he was writing it for his
own amusement and not for posterity, the weaving
into it of his romance is to be pardoned. For my-
self, I confess that to me this has been one of its
245
THE DIARY OF
chief fascinations. Its great interest, however, is
the details we glean of the everyday life, of how
much yellow dust the claim yielded, the growth of
mining camps, the queer theories as to the genesis
of gold, the incidents and happenings in town and
country, the comedies and tragedies; these con-
stitute history not to be found elsewhere. Yet, to
note the gradual development and mental growth
of this New England Puritan, the intrusion of "the
eternal feminine," the hesitation and doubt, the sur-
render and final culmination of it at the point
most novelists end the final chapter, the marriage
altar, surely that was a romance of the foothills.
However, all this had best be left to the reader.
I trust that he has been as much entertained in
following Jackson's fortunes as I in deciphering
and transcribing them from the blotted pages and
faded ink of his old diary.
A final word. Nevada pioneers will recall many
of the men who figure in the diary. John Hall,
John Dunn, Henry Shively, Barker, the Calkinses,
these were all Forty-niners, well known in local
annals. Niles Searls, Tom Williams, Frank Dunn,
Stanton Buckner — ^whose dignity was so badly ruf-
fled by "Rattlesnake Dick" — ^were members of the
bar, and Zeno P. Davis, the gunsmith, was a
familiar character. The brick courthouse that was
pronounced an extravagance because there would
be no use for it after the gold gave out is replaced
by a still more costly one. The "Hotel de Paris"
flourished until late in the sixties, and the quartz
veins, so quaintly described as white rock with gold
in it, are still yielding treasure. Rock and Brush
Creeks are overgrown and choked with growth of
246
s
A FORTY-NINER
alder and willow, the pines that towered above the
rude log cabin were felled long ago and a second
growth takes their place, the old trails replaced
by dusty highways ; yet the coyotes bark, the frogs
crdak, and the owls hoot in chorus, as when Jackson
interpreted it all as a "good-bye." The flourishing
mining camps that he visited, the euphonious "Red
Dog,'* Cherokee, Humbug, Rough and Ready, You
Bet, Coyoteville, and Blue Tent are but travesties
of the old times ; even "Lousy LeveF' is kno\m no
more. I am sure we are indebted to Jackson in
so far as his diary gives us a glimpse of those golden
days.
Moved by a spirit of curiosity as to the later
career of Jackson, I made inquiries by letter at his
old home, Norfolk, Connecticut. I did not get
much information from my correspondent —
woman, by the way — ^but enough to determine that
Jackson did not return to tarry in that placid vil-
lage. She said that a family of Jacksons lived
on Pond Hill, about a mile from Uie town, on a
farm; that they had sold the property just before
the war, left the State, and it was said that San
Francisco was their destination. They had a son
who had made a fortune in California and had
come back on a visit, accompanied by his wife, a
foreign woman (mark the contempt of the phrase),
and that was all she knew of the Jacksons. She
devoted a dozen pages to that interesting girl, Hetty
North, which I will try to condense into as many
lines. The Norths were prominent people of Cole-
brook township. Hetty was accomplished, her
education was finished off in the Hartford Semi-
nary, she played the melodeon, was a handsome,
247
THE DIARY OF
black-haired, black-eyed beauty, and had taught
school at Colebrook Center. In 1860 she married
a prosperous farmer and then went, not exactly
crazy, but eccentric; embraced spiritualism and all
the other "isms" of the time. Some four years
before her death she took to her bed, although af-
fected with no malady, and there she resolutely re-
mained until her dying day. In the light of this
I think Jackson is to be congratulated on his escape,
and I doubt not that he was far happier with the
"foreign woman.*' ^ As for Anderson, it has been
explained in a previous note that he became a leader
in the State as a lawyer, politician, orator, and
millionaire, and that for various reasons it is better
that his identity should remain undisclosed.)
THE END
248
FORTY-NINER
EPILOGUE,
The publication of *THE DIARY OF A
FORTY-NINER'' was interrupted and delayed by
a catastrophe that for a brief time put aside all inter-
est in literary matters. On the morning of April 18
occurred the violent earthquake and the beginning
of the fire, that within three days reduced San Fran-
cisco to ashes. When the conflagration ceased the
dty had reverted almost to its original conditions,
when, as the pueblo of Yerba Buena, it was a cluster
of adobe houses and had not reached sufficient im-
portance to be dignified by location on a map. The
compiler of *The Diary*' had watched it from its
earliest beginnings, through all its growth and
transformation into an important city. As the out-
lines of the hills and valleys that formed its site
came into view and its desolation was realized, it
came to the few left of us, old pioneers, how much
we loved the place and with what sentiment we
regarded it. We did not mourn the destruction
of the modem fourteen-story buildings, the 'big
business blocks of later years, or the fine residences
of the Western Addition ; but there were old shacks,
dilapidated houses, one-story shanties that had not
given way to modem progress, and that told of the
life of the old days. When they were built we
were young men, who in all of the ups and downs
of the town, the fires that devastated it, the exodus
to other fields where new gold discoveries had been
made and which threatened to depopulate the dty,
249
THE DIARY OF
the wane of gold products, wet seasons and dry
seasons, had kept our faith in its ultimate grand
destiny, and we saw our courage justified and our
predictions close to fulfillment, when, a little rock-
ing of the earth, and behold! it was blotted out.
In that fateful forty-eight seconds, numbed and
paralyzed by the crash and wreck, the dull, sinis-
ter roar that seemed to be nature's threat to
end all things, the menace that some malign power
added as a dirge to the death throes of the world,
there flitted through our brain the questioning
thought as to whether it was a continental cata-
clysm, or a mere local disturbance. Were the old
Sierras shaken to their foundation and undergoing
a remoulding such as characterized the era when
her mighty rivers were buried a thousand feet deep
in lava? Was it another upheaval of the more re-
cent Coast Range, or a new mountain-making pro-
cess ? There was a tinge of regret, even in that mo-
ment of supreme peril, that the works of the
upbuilder should come to naught. It was local and
the foothills are still there. At least, us old boys,
who counted in our memories as the red-letter days
in our lives those we spent in the "Fifties" on the
western slopes of the Sierra Nevada range, had a
harbor of refuge and it would not be much of a
hardship if we were driven back to our early haunts.
To be sure, tht ounce diggings were gone, the cabins
had rotted away, the unsightly scars we had left
when we had overturned the flats, bars and hillsides
in our search for gold had taken on a new aspect,
for nature, ever laboring to restore the original
condition, had renewed ^e soil and replanted the
barren wastes. The balmy air, the swajdng pines,
2S0
A FORTY-NINER
the spreading oaks invited us to peace and the
simple life. Would it not be better to gather to-
gether what remained to us, get back to the foot-
hills and pass the remainder of our days in idle
contentment? Of course, it was only a dream,
although an alluring one, and none will desert the
city in its extremity.
Sturdy Jackson and his old "Pard" are resting
in Lone Mountain Cemetery and the overturning
and shattering of their monuments did not disturb
their slumber. The city they helped to build is
ashes and debris, but their pioneer spirit still lives
and animates their descendants, and doubtless the
same steadfast purpose that created a prosperous
commonwealth will be equal to the reconstruction
of the destroyed city. It will not be the "Bay,** as
we miners used to term it; that will live only in
our memories for the brief time that we linger
and in the legends and traditions passed on to our
descendants. The hurly-burly of the "Fifties," that
strange mixture of discordant elements, that^ life
that had almost resolved itself into its primitive
beginnings, that levelling of social standards that
put us all on an equality, the freedom from the
thousand vexatious trammels of our modem busi-
ness methods, the days of the circulation of the
slug (a locally-coined gold piece valued at fifty
dollars) and when our smallest coin was a two-bit
piece, when strength and muscle counted for more
than brains, when the scarcity of good women ele-
vated them in our esteem to goddesses, to whom
we paid a profound and sincere deference very
much modified in these modem times — all of
these characteristics vanished in the long ago and
THE DIARYOF
with the atmosphere that made San Francisco
unique.
Since the earthquake it has been current com-
ment that the city had reverted to "Forty-nine"
conditions; but we old fellows know better than
that. There is not the least resemblance, except
in one or two disastrous fires in 'SO and *S1 when
we took on sackcloth and ashes for a brief time.
The ruins are picturesque in their desolation, but
they are a mass of twisted iron beams, fallen brick
and stone, tangled electric and telephone wires —
all betraying modernity. When we were burned
out in the "Fifties" there were no debris problems
confronting us, there was nothing but ashes and
the gentle trade winds that swept them into the
bay. Those who allude to the resemblance to a
'49 camp are of the ilk that we term "Pullman Car
Pioneers," who make their sightseeing pilgrimage
on the restored trolley-car lines, or dash over the
paved streets in automobiles where we plodded in
mud ankle-deep or rode a bucking mustang across
the drifting sandhills. .
Glory be ! the foothills are as firm on their granite
base as in the days when, served by youth, we built
our cabins beneath lofty sugar pines, baked our
bread in the Dutch ovens, ate our primitively cooked
meals on rough planked tables, smoked our pipes in
the gathering twilight while we discussed witii our
neighbors the luck of the day, or took the trails for
the nearest camp in search of relaxation and dis-
traction from the monotony of our toil. We fancied
then that we were martyrs ; that we were enduring
hardships, exposure and wearisome banishment;
that there were no compensations except "striking
252
A FORTY-NINER
it rich/* not realizing that we were having the "time
of our lives/' and that, in future years, we would
like Jackson, evoke from out of the past pleasant
recollections of the log cabin, the claim in the gulch
and ravine, the care-free hours, when we accounted
to no one either in the matter of our habits or our
pleasures, when hospitality and good-fellowship
were the rule, when nobody fawned on the rich or
flouted the poor — ^yes, they were golden, unmatch-
able days, and when we old boys get together we
are prone to grow garrulous and rather pity these
young fellows, our descendants, who know nothing
of that era of steamer days, of Broadway Wharf
and the tide of sturdy humanity that gathered there
every afternoon on its way to the mines, crowding
the Sacramento and Stockton boats ; of that favor-
ite hostelry, the What Cheer house, where the ma-
jority of the visiting miners put up and which
would not accept women as guests ; of the hundred
landmarks that have been swept away. With them
has gone all that made San Francisco dear to us ;
and, while we admire their courage, energy, forti-
tude and optimism, — concede that they inherit the
spirit that possessed and was tjqjical of the "Argo-
naut," — ^we shake our heads and bid good-bye to the
Utst link of the golden age. Our memories were
of "when the water came up to Montgomery
Street'* ; now our successors will date from the time
"when the fire reached Van Ness Avenue.'*
C. L. CANFIELD.
San Francisco, Col., August i, igo6.
^53 ;
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