BANCROFT
LIBRARY
<
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
MIKING CAMPS
A STUDY IN AMERICAN FRONTIER GOVERNMENT
BY
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN
r
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1885
an
COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
ELECTROTTPBD AND PRINTED
BY BAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY,
BOSTON.
Uelrtcattotu
V\V >N>*
TO MY FRIENDS IN CALIFORNIA.
PEEFAOE.
FEW undertakings of my busy life have brought me more
pleasure than the group of studies linked together in this
volume. They were begun and carried to completion while
I was a student at this university ; and if they possess any
value, it is chiefly because of the spirit of original investiga-
tion fostered here in every department of knowledge.
Since I am about to send this volume to the press, I desire,
with sincere respect and affection, to place on record my
sense of personal obligations to President D. C. Oilman,
Professor Gildersleeve, Professor Paul Haupt, Dr. H. B.
Adams, and Dr. Richard Ely, of Johns Hopkins ; to Presi-
dent W. T. Reid and Professor Cook of the University of
California; and to Dr. Josiah Royce of Harvard, all of
whom have helped me by the loan of pamphlets, by advice,
and by their cordial interest in the undertaking.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN, A.B.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE,
December, 1884.
' vii
U1TI7BRSIT7
CHAPTER I.
PAOB
Scope of the Present Investigation 1
CHAPTER II.
Ancient and Mediaeval Mining-Systems. The Codes of the
Twelfth and Thirteen Centuries. Germanic Mining-Free-
dom 10
CHAPTER III.
Customs of Cornwall. Stannary-Courts, Bar-Motes, and Tin-
Bounds 25
CHAPTER IV.
Early Mining in the United States 37
CHAPTER V.
The Spanish- American System of Government. Mining-Laws
of Mexico 47
CHAPTER VI.
The Missions of the Pacific Coast 59
CHAPTER VII.
Spanish Town-Government. The Pueblo in California . . 72
CHAPTER VIII.
A Study of Alcaldes 83
ix
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
PAGE
California Camps. The Days of '48 105
CHAPTER X.
The Earliest Mining-Courts, and their Influence on State Life . 123
CHAPTER XI.
The Golden Prime of '49 132
CHAPTER XII.
Evidence concerning Law and Order in the Camps . . . 150
CHAPTER XIII.
Illustrations from Early and Successful Camp Organizations . 165
CHAPTER XIV.
Forms of District Government. Folk-Moot, Standing-Commit-
tee, and Alcalde 176
CHAPTER XV.
How an Alcalde was once deposed 190
CHAPTER XVI.
The Miners' Justice of the Peace . . . . . . 199
CHAPTER XVII.
Organization of Town Governments by the Miners . . . 206
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Difficulties with Foreigners in Various Camps . . .212
CHAPTER XIX.
The Famous Scotch-Bar Decision 219
CHAPTER XX.
Sporadic Organizations. Cases of Mob-Law .... 225
CONTENTS. XI
CHAPTER XXI.
PAGE
Local Land Laws and Legislation from 1848 to 1884 . . .232
CHAPTER XXII.
The Early Relationships of Mining and Agricultural Interests . 259
CHAPTER XXIII.
Decisions of California and Other Courts respecting Local Laws
and Customs 270
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Extension and Permanent Influence of Mining-Camp Law . 279
CHAPTER XXV.
Effects, Social and Intellectual, upon Western Development . 287
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
INDEX
MINING-CAMPS.
A STUDY IN AMERICAN FRONTIER
GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I.
SCOPE OF THE PRESENT INVESTIGATION.
THE following pages deal largely with ancient, medi-
aeval, and modern mining-laws, and with the life of
mining-camps ; but this is solely for their value as con-
tributions to American political science and American
institutional history. The proposed investigation is as
far removed, on the one hand, from a technical history
of mining, as it is removed, on the other hand, from
a digest of mining-decisions. It is primarily a study
of the mining-camp commonwealths ; that is, of those
States and Territories in the remote West whose devel-
opment has been under conditions widely different from
those that prevailed on the Atlantic slope and in the
Mississippi Valley. It is also a study of the Spanish
land-system in Mexico and in California, and of the
relations of priest, alcalde, and commandante, in mis-
sion, pueblo, and presidio ; for otherwise the place of
the true mining-camp, as a nucleus of most effective
organization, cannot be fully understood. It is an at-
i
2 MINING-CAMPS.
tempt to break ground in a comparatively new field,
and to examine the laws and customs, not of primitive
pastoral nor of primitive agricultural communities, but
of the workers in ores, and the toilers in auriferous
river-sands.
The best thoughts of such writers as Maine, Seebohm,
Nasse, the Von Maurers, Laveleye, Kovalevsky, have
been devoted to studies of early land-tenure. Patiently
they have examined the traces of village communities ;
of common lands, " Wald, Weide, and Wiese;" of the
prehistoric "three-field system," whose rude crop-rota-
tion the Teutonic farmers have followed, with various
modifications, since the days of village moot assemblies
by the Frisian Sea and on the Swabian Mountains ; and
of the Russian Mir, Swiss Landesgemeinde, and old
Teutonic field meetings, all of them primitive social
organizations, and sources of such institutions as Saxon
territorial tithings, English parish assemblies, and New-
England town meetings. For men of our Germanic
race this line of investigation is, doubtless, the widest
and most important one that institutional history offers;
but we shall do well to remember that all beginnings
of government and society are valuable to the student,
and that, since -the days of Tubal Cain, the arts of
mining have fostered peculiar independence, and devel-
oped a most distinctive organization.
Thoughtful Americans feel that they cannot too thor-
oughly understand our early civic communities, our
towns, parishes, and counties, the germs of State and
national growth, so firmly rooted in the past of our
race. As Green, the " historian of the English people,"
wrote : " in the village moots of Friesland or Sleswick
. . . England learned to be a mother of parliaments."
Freeman, historian of the Norman Conquest, looking
SCOPE OF THE PEESENT INVESTIGATION.
beyond our political and geographical separation, holds
that "the English-speaking commonwealth on the
American mainland is simply a part of the great Eng-
lish folk," and urges that the members of this mighty
kindred should be to each other " at least as much as
were the members of the scattered Hellenic settle-
ments," these all Englishmen, as those were all
Greeks. In studying American colonial life, this sense
of noble unity increases ; and we are inevitably brought
to studies of the European sources of that life. Vir-
ginia and Massachusetts lead us not only to the England
of Shakspeare and Cromwell, but also to that older
England of the Continent.
But, if our institutional studies cease at the summits
of the Alleghanies, we have learned only a part of the
lesson that America has to teach. In that New West
beyond the rocky borders of Nebraska, and the remote
sources of the Missouri, American pioneers have shown/'
their hereditary fitness for self-government under excep-
tionally trying conditions. They have wrought out,
and are still extending into new regions, local institu-
tions in the highest sense their own. Their State life,
growth of law, crystallization of society, largely came
from small settlements known as mining-camps, and
from a social organization presenting remarkable politi-
cal and economic features. So strong, natural, and
impressive has been the display in these camps of a
capacity for organization of the highest order, that the
episode known in the West as "the mining-era" de-
serves to be called a stanza in the political epic of the
Germanic race to which we belong.
The influence of the Atlantic colonies prevailed with-
out opposition in the early settlements of the Mississippi
Valley ; but there came a time when American frontiers-
4 MINING-CAMPS.
men of the third generation found a new environment,
adopted a new occupation, and met alien influences
from Moor and Saracen, from Spaniard and Mexican.
Problems more difficult were nowhere else presented
on the continent: nowhere else were they more tri-
umphantly solved. To-day, over the western third of
the United States, institutional life traces its beginnings
to the mining-camp : that is the original contribution
of the American pioneer to the art of self-government.
Boone and his foresters, Carson and his trappers, Bent,
Bridger, Beckwourth, and their "mountain-men," all
melted away before the tides of civilization, without
being forced by imperious necessity to the creation of
any code of local laws, or to the organization of any
form of permanent government; but the early miners
of the Far West showed large and noble capacities for
bringing order out of chaos, strength out of weakness,
because they were a picked body of men, and also be-
cause the life they led fostered friendship, encouraged
individuality, and compelled the closest social union.
Thirty-seven years ago the discovery of gold in Cali-
fornia caused thousands of miners to assemble in the
canons of the Sierra Nevada ; and soon they were forced,
by lack of Territorial and State government, to organize
for self-protection, and to enact and execute their own
civil and criminal codes. The previous history of this
region had been such that many foreign influences con-
tinued to act either directly or indirectly upon the rude
but efficient system of the early mining-camps, until,
with the formation of permanent government under a
State constitution, all necessity for this local camp-law
of the mountains of California appeared to have sud-
denly ended. Nevertheless, a large portion of this local
law, created thus rapidly and under such unique social
SCOPE OF THE PRESENT INVESTIGATION. 5
conditions, exhibited surprising vitality. It persistently
kept its place, persistently extended itself to other Ter-
ritories, persistently influenced township and county
government. It found ample recognition from Terri-
torial and State legislatures, from Congress, and from
the Supreme Court of the United States ; and it ulti-
mately developed into what can safely be called the
"American system of mining-law," a system that is
honored throughout the civilized world, and forms the
basis of mining-jurisprudence in many of the newer
gold-regions of other countries.
At the present time in the United States, over nine
States and Territories, and throughout a rapidly devel-
oping region already peopled by more than three million
persons, and extending from the silver-ledges of south-
ern New Mexico to the frozen placers l of Cceur d'Alene,
and even beyond, mining-property is still held in the
main by customs of tenure originated by the early
placer and quartz miners of California. Although the
present laws allow mineral lands to be " patented," and
purchased from the government, it is still true that
only the well-developed mining-properties are so pur-
chased, and that the vast majority of claims are held by
simple possessory rights under the " land-laws " of the
camp or district. Often the early " camp " grew into a
" district," embracing several camps ; and this district
ultimately developed into a township of a county ; while
the original " camp " in many cases became a " county-
seat," though still retaining strong evidence in local
customs of its growth and previous history. The free,
1 The word "placer" is from the Spanish. It means "content,"
" satisfaction." " Placers are superficial deposits of gold which occupy
the beds of ancient rivers " (Decision in Case of Moxon vs. Wilkinson,
2d Montana Reports).
6 MINING-CAMPS.
strong life of the mining-camp has been a factor of
prime importance in the social, literary, and institu-
tional development of large and prosperous American
communities. The laws of the mining-camp, in modi T
fied form, still influence many of the newer States and
Territories. Nothing that is likely to happen will ever
take from the civilization of this imperial domain of
Pacific-Coast and Rocky-Mountain region certain char-
acteristics due to the mining-camp era. Even when, a
century hence, it is, perhaps, divided into twenty States,
with a population of twice as many millions, the atmos-
phere and traditions of the mining-camp will yet linger
in the mountain gorges, and fragments of the miner's
jurisprudence will yet remain firmly embedded in local
and State law.
In order to better understand these camps of the Far
West, it has seemed proper, and indeed necessary, to
first investigate, though briefly, the ancient and rneclue-
val mining-systems. Through legal sources, and by
means of history, chiefly Spanish, English, and German,
we must connect the mining-experiences of the New
World with those of the Old, sufficiently, at least, to
serve for purposes of illustration. We shall every-
where discover that, as Professor Stubbs says in his
" Constitutional History," " the roots of the present lie
deep in the past," and that "nothing in the past is dead
to the man who would learn how the present comes to be
what it is." The very kind of local law and self-gov-
ernment known to the miners of California has existed
in some degree among the miners of many other lands.
The mining-tribes of ancient Siberia, the mining-cities of
desert-guarded Midian, the Grecian "companies" that
"drifted" in the hill of Laurium, the Carthaginian
" prospectors " who " panned out " gold from the sands
SCOPE OF THE PRESENT INVESTIGATION. 7
of Tagus and Guadalquivir, each and all contribute
precious material to our investigation. Above all, the
customs of Cornwall and Thuringia serve to define,
illustrate, and explain the workings of primitive law
on the Pacific Coast. We must also study the Spanish
civil and mining code, as developed under Mexican
skies, and as transplanted to the soil of Alta California.
In California itself we must trace Spanish-American
forces from the days of saintly Padre Serra and bluff
Governor Portala to the advent of the bold, restless
Anglo-Saxon trappers, farmers, and miners, with their
capacity for work, and their faculty for organization.
At the point of time when the military governors of
newly conquered California began to rule along the
coast, and when the eager, energetic miners first pitched
their tents beside the foaming Feather arid Yuba, and
swung their mighty picks against the splintering bowl-
ders, and hewed their "rockers " from the giant mountain
pines, century-old, overhead, our investigation, pursued
through so many preliminaries, broadens at last into the
study of American miners' courts, their officials, their
criminal and civil codes, their land-system, their forms
of procedure and government. Some of these forms
were adopted from Spanish law, some from primitive
forms familiar to the Germanic races from the times of
Tacitus, some were peculiarly a product of the men and
the emergency, but all are historically interesting and
important. From this point our studies are properly
confined to an examination into the growth of these
forces, and of their abiding influence upon later society
and government. We must not look upon this period
as merely a brilliant episode full of impetus and splen-
dor, dear to the heart of the Western pioneer, and
crowded with precious accumulations of material for
8 MINING-CAMPS.
coming poet and novelist, but as including elements
of permanent historical value, judged by a standard of
utility, and as, in reality, an episode of great institu-
tional importance, closely connected with a curious past,
and still an influential fact in forms of local organiza-
tion as yet incomplete.
One result of our labors will, perhaps, be that we
shall more clearly comprehend the capabilities of our
Germanic race for swift adaptation of the means to the
end; for readiness in every emergency; for rapid, yet
lasting, social organization ; for acceptance and transfor-
mation of local institutions already at hand; for that sort
of hearty, honest compromise which makes the best of
circumstances, and continually evolves better and better
conditions under which to act. Perhaps we shall thus
gain a higher faith in that Republic whose children have
wrought out, unknown, in silence, and under enormous
difficulties, laws wise and good for the sufficient pro-
tection of life and property, adding, of their own will
and choice, the majesty of government to the careless
freedom of their frontier existence. On this higher
level, as a humble contribution to the practical political
experience of the race, this study of the hitherto un-
described institutions and unwritten laws of typical
mining-camps must find, if anywhere, its reason and its
justification.
In 1866 the chairman of the Senate Committee upon
Mines and Mining closed his report upon a bill then
before Congress, in the following language :
"It is essential that this great system" (of local law)
" established by the people in their primary capacities, and
evidencing by the highest possible testimony the peculiar
genius of the American people for founding empire and
SCOPE OF THE PRESENT INVESTIGATION. 9
order, shall be preserved and affirmed. Popular sovereignty
is here displayed in one of its grandest aspects, and simply
invites us, not to destroy, but to put upon it the stamp of
national power and unquestioned authority."
CHAPTER II.
ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL MINING-SYSTEMS. THE CODES
OF THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES. -
GERMANIC MINING-FREEDOM.
MAN, as Aristotle remarks, is endowed with an in-
stinct subservient to the ends of social union, and is
led thereto by the commands of Nature. Through three
great forms of productive industry, this instinct has
been exercised and developed: first, by the life pas-
toral, the keeping of cattle, the tending of sheep, the
reining of wild horses ; second, by the life agricultural,
the wrestling with tangled forests, the breaking of
the stubborn soil, the walling-in of " tun " and " burh ; "
third, by the life of miners, the search for metals both
useful and precious, the impetus thus given to commerce
and the arts, the development of inventive skill, the
closer organization akin to that of cities.
The value of the precious metals was understood in
the earliest ages, as appears in the literature of ancient
Oriental nations, the rent-rolls of Assyrian monarchs, and
even the curious public libraries of that antediluvian
race, the Accadians, who had collections at Sippera,
Pantabiblia (" Book-town "), and elsewhere, and whose
cylinders of baked clay speak of " gold weighed out for
payment." The Egyptians are known to have had rich
gold-mines in Nubia and Abyssinia, also in the deserts
of Sinai and on the borders of Arabia, where they also
10
ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL MINING-SYSTEMS. 11
V
mined for turquoise, copper, and silver. A papyrus of
the nineteenth dynasty still exists, containing plans
of the workings of the Nubian gold-mines. Herodotus
gives the annual product of the ancient Egyptian mines,
as recorded upon the walls of one of the palaces of the
kings of Thebes, as a sum equivalent to thirty millions
of dollars. This was chiefly from quartz-veins, which
Diodorus describes as "glittering with bright metals,
out of which the overseers cause the gold to be taken."
Egj^ptian and Assyrian methods were purely despotic,
crushing and destroying the earlier freedom of the
miner, which had in all probability existed, and substi-
tuting the doctrine that the ownership of all minerals
was vested in the crown.
The Phoenicians mined copper in Kypros, and gold
in the mountains of Thasos, where, as Herodotus tells
us, they had "overturned a whole mountain," even
before the thirteenth century B.C. The Book of Job
contains a realistic description of the early methods of
mining extant in Arabia, and doubtless stimulated by
Phoenician traders. When the merchandising of the
Phoenicians began to assume world-wide proportions,
their caravans developed the gold-searching instincts of
many a semi-civilized nation and half-savage mountaineer
tribe. Throughout Asia, the "Golden Continent," are
the remains of ancient and extensive gold-workings on
the Smejewka in Siberia, in the Urals and the Caucasus,
along the Oxus and Indus, in Arabia, Persia, Tibet,
Biluchistan, Japan, and at many other widely separated
places.
The probabilities in regard to most of the prehistoric
placer-mines in Northern Asia are, that they were worked
by wandering Scythian tribes, who were, perhaps, on
much the same intellectual level as the turquoise-miners
12 MINING-CAMPS.
of New Mexico, the mica-miners of North Carolina, and
the ancient copper-miners of the Lake-Superior region;
carrying on their mining-operations with rude appli-
ances, and without other than a tribal organization. In
the same region, Gmelin, during the last century, found
upwards of a thousand small smelting-furnaces of brick,
evidently used for gold-ores many centuries ago by
miners of whom we have no further record. It is, how-
ever, an interesting reflection, that some portion of a
modern coin, ornament, or vessel of gold, may consist
of Siberian metal bartered for by Phoenician merchants,
sold to Persia, conquered by Alexander, offered as a
part of the annual tribute of one hundred million dol-
lars which Gibbon estimates that the provinces sent to
Rome, paid by the degenerate Greeks to Harold Har-
drada when he stood among their Varingians, won at
Stamford Bridge, and lost at Senlac. Such is the per-
manence of gold, that, in the worn wedding-ring a starv-
ing woman offers to-day at a pawnbroker's counter in
New York, there may be particles that once shone in
the crown of Sestu Ra, the Grecian Sesostris, or helped
to cover the Ark of the Covenant.
Change and decay have ever been the fate of the
most famous of mining-regions. Mountainous Midian
furnished a hundred and thirty-five thousand fierce
Bedouin warriors in the divy when her "captains and
mighty men of valor " for seven years overran Palestine
(thirteenth century B.C.), driving the people for refuge
to the mountain caves and fastnesses, until the greatest
of the judges of Israel arose, sifted his followers by the
"Spring of Trembling," and defeated the invaders in
the Valley of Jezreel. But this Midian, anciently so
populous, has now become a desert land, inhabited by
only a few nomads. On the sea-coast, and far inland
ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL MINING-SYSTEMS. 13
along the channels of perished rivers, are the ruins of
large cities which were chiefly supported by mining-
industries. The placers and rich gravel-mines, whose
exhaustion caused the decay of once wealthy and com-
mercial Midian, are fairly reticulated with old water-
ditches; on the barren hills are vast reservoirs and
ruined walls ; the country was long ago denuded of its
forests for mining-purposes; and so waste and desolate
does the region appear, that its ancient prosperity is
hard to understand, although the unimpeachable evi-
dence is before the eyes of every traveller in the " land
of Midian."
'The historical and geographical link between Asia
and Europe is Lydia. The broad, fertile, and easily
tilled plains of the classic Kayster were encircled by
mountains rich in mineral wealth. Among the Phrygo-
Thrakians were mining-tribes whose chief occupation
was in gathering gold and silver, learning to smelt the
latter with great skill, and finally inventing a coinage.
Strangely enough, the Lydian standard, the silver mina,
afterwards used with slight changes by the Greeks, was
truly the mana of the Accadians, given by them to
the Babylonians, and so transferred, by way of Persia,
to the mountaineers of Lydia. In this, as in so many
greater things, Europe drew the sources of her knowl-
edge from the remote, despotic, and mysterious Orient.
But, as regards methods of mining, all the Oriental
monarchies were alike in the use of the most cruel forms
of slave-labor and in the greatest conceivable waste.
From an institutional stand-point, they afford little that
is worth study. The mere figures of gold-yields are
astounding. Solomon, it is estimated, had a yearly
income of twenty-three and a half million dollars in
gold alone ; and Calmet thinks that he spent on Jerusa-
14 MINING-CAMPS.
lem and the temple the sum of four thousand million
dollars. Diodorus tells us, that, out of the ashes of Susa
and Persepolis, seven million dollars in gold was ex-
tracted. But treasure-houses such as these were filled
by forced labor and royal monopolies. In the case of
the early Oriental powers, the tribes upon their borders
who were developing local systems for the ownership
and working of mineral deposits were crushed and over-
whelmed before those systems could take permanent
form. We must leave " the wide Asian fen," and turn
to the hills around whose heights " the first-born olive-
blossom brightened," to the rocky coasts that " sheltered
the Salaminian seamen," to " nodding promontories and
blue isles and cloud-like mountains," to the city "violet-
crowned," whose deathless memory moves like sunlight
about the broad earth forever.
In the Athenian state, we discover the first orderly
and effective system in regard to the management of
mineral resources, and the government of mines. The
famous silver and lead mines of Laurium in southern
Attica rose to prominence about the year 600 B.C., and
were worked with varying success till the second century
before the beginning of our era. In 1864, after nearly
two thousand years of neglect, the old shafts were re-
opened by a company of French capitalists. An esti-
mate has been made, that, during the three hundred
years that the Athenians worked these mines, they pro-
cured two million one hundred thousand tons of lead,
and twenty- two and a half million pounds of silver.
According to the law of Athens upon this subject, the
mines were not freehold property. Although belonging
to the state, they were not leased or farmed out to the
highest bidder, as was the Roman custom : they were
granted to individuals to use as a permanent tenantcy.
ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL MINING-SYSTEMS. 15
A small sum was paid on taking possession, and only
one twenty-fourth of the gross ore-yield of the mine was
required as rent. The mine was then to all intents pri-
vate property, unless neglected ; when the state could
bring suit, and recover. The statement, that before the
time of Themistocles the mines were the absolute free-
hold property x>f certain families, rests upon slight
authority, and seems improbable. Any and all members
of the community were empowered to institute public
suits against the mine-possessors in case of their viola-
tion of any statute, and suits of this sort were frequent-
ly brought. There is evidence of the existence of a
"director of the mines," elected by those interested.
The income which the state derived from the rents was
annually distributed among the citizens, in much the
same way as was the " Theoricon " in later times, every
one whose name was in the book of the Lexiarchs receiv-
ing his portion. Themistocles, it will be remembered,
persuaded the Athenians to devote this income to the
building of ships.
From Xenophon's " Treatise upon the Revenues," and
Demosthenes' speech against Pantaenetus, we gather
much about the Grecian system of managing the Lau-
rium mines. Companies were organized to work one
or more shafts, and many of the wealthier Athenians
owned shares in several such enterprises. The size of
each " claim " was strictly defined, and private enter-
prise was greatly encouraged to send out "prospectors."
Secure though the tenure of mining-property was, it
could be transferred only to a citizen, or to aliens capa-
ble of holding agricultural lands. Any person was
allowed to dig for new mines in unexplored places ; but,
although richly rewarded, successful prospectors had no
prior right : what they found belonged to Athens, and
16 MINING-CAMPS.
might be rented to any other person. The labor used
in the mines was that of private slaves. Each shaft
was registered by the mine-inspector of the state, who
examined the supports of the various drifts and galleries,
and saw that the bounds were not exceeded. Lessen-
ing the supports of a drift, and trespass, were punishable
by fines, infamy, banishment, or death. Demosthenes
addresses the tribunal as the "mining-court," set to, try
"mining-cases." Some of the island mines paid one-
tenth of the ore to the shrine of Apollo at Delphos.
Spain, the Peru of Europe, and in minerals the rich-
est country of the ancient world, developed slowly, and
under enormous pressure, a system of mining-laws which
once ruled the greater portion of the American conti-
nents, and still prevails in variously modified forms
throughout Mexico, Central and South America. In
that law, deeply embedded as fossils in a slab of lime-
stone, there yet remain principles of widely differing
origin, Carthaginian, Roman, Gothic, Moorish, Cas-
tilian. But the traces of mining-institutions are few
indeed under the dominion of either Carthage or Rome.
Instead of many mine-owners, bound together, as in
Athens, by a common law, having the same duties
towards the state, and equal protection from it, we
have in Spain, under Carthage, the almost uncontrolled
authority of the proud family of Barca. Hannibal
procured about three hundred pounds of silver each day
from his Spanish mines. Pliny describes the method
of obtaining gold from streams of Spain by using a
pan, also a method of " ground-sluicing ; " and he men-
tions the use of timber supports in drifts and tunnels,
some of which extended fifteen hundred paces into the
hill.
Even in Carthaginian days, the almost inevitable
ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL MINING-SYSTEMS. 17
destruction attending great mining-operations was going
on with unusual rapidity in Spain ; subsequent Roman
methods wonderfully accelerated this ruin. Their mines,
farmed out to the highest bidders, were wastefully worked
and recklessly destroyed. For a time the Romans em-
ployed twenty-five thousand slaves at Carthagena alone,
and the silver-yield was equal to ten thousand dollars
daily. The Spanish placers yielded large sums; and
they also were farmed out, after the manner of the silver-
mines. Inventive skill of a high order characterized the
early miners of Spain, who greatly improved the Egyp-
tian methods of grinding or smelting ores, and extracting
the precious metals. All this implies close organization,
division of labor, and severity of discipline. The later
Roman emperors made reforms in the close military sys-
tem, gave more sway to private enterprise, allowed some
mines to be worked by associations, granted the " pros-
pectors" permission to search for mineral, and intro-
duced a sort of feudal service. The Romans also knew
of placer-mines in northern Italy, discovered by the
Etruscans, who even brought iron from Elba; but,
curiously enough, the Roman senate would not allow
them to be worked. The Salassians opened placers in
Lombardy ; and, as Polybius relates, the Taurisci found
such rich placers near Aquila, that the price of gold fell
one-third throughout Italy in the space of two months.
Thus far in our investigation we have seen, that,
although the gold-hunger has ever furnished a stimulat-
ing element to early society, the ancient world afforded
narrow opportunities for the development of valuable
institutional forms among the classes engaged in mining.
We read of rich placer-mines by the score, but not of
their local legislation and self-government; such fea-
tures being absent until the advent of miners of the
18 MINING-CAMPS.
race whose "political instinct" has become a familiar
phrase. Golden sands of the rivers of Tibet and India
set long caravans in motion past Babylon, past Palmyra,
to imperious, luxurious Tyre ; golden nuggets from the
Chinese frontiers poured into stately Balkh, "mother
of cities," cradle of ancient kings, and greatest satrapy
of Persia; Grecian placers of Pactolus yielded their
treasures to Croesus, and were still worked in the days
of Xenophon. But waste and barren of constructive
energies were all the mining-regions of ancient Europe
and Asia. As the mining-history of the mediaeval
world shows, the Germanic races, and they alone, have
organized true mining-camps which developed into
higher forms of society. Whatever elements other races
have contributed, the informing spirit of such camps
has been thoroughly Germanic. The organization of a
Spanish mining-law began with the Visigothic kings, in
the days of Pelayo ; the laws of the California camps
of 1849 were linked in spirit to the " mining-freedom "
and the mining-cities of the middle ages.
It is impossible to determine what influences from
the Roman mining-world, which even in its decadence
embraced all the rich mineral regions of southern
Europe, could have survived the chaos and wreck of
barbarian conquest.
After the fall of Rome, the Arabs, Franks, and Goths
in Spain, Gaul, and northern Italy, worked to some ex-
tent the abandoned and nearly exhausted Roman mines.
To northern Spain the Visigoths brought a new force ;
and the Fuero Juzgo, or code of laws of the Gothic
predecessors of Alonzo the Wise, shows greater freedom
of the individual, greater respect for local institutions
and for self-government, than Spain had previously
known, Hints of local mining-organizations in Thrace,
ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL MINING-SYSTEMS. 19
and along the Danube in the fifth and sixth centuries,
make it evident, though definite records are lacking, that
wandering miners existed in that region, and were slowly
"prospecting" the mountain ranges to the north and
west. Hungarian mining can be traced back to the year
750, begun by prospectors from Gaul, says Reitemeier.
But German mining-history clusters about the Hartz
Mountains ; and it is a significant fact, that mining began
there, at the great Andreasberg ledges, in the midst of
a political and national renaissance which profoundly
stirred and influenced the whole of central Europe. It
began there towards the close of the tenth century, in
the reign of Otho the Great, second emperor of the
Saxon line, who wore the iron crown of Lombardy and
the imperial crown of Rome, reviving the glories of
that holy empire, obscured since the mightest of medi-
aeval monarchs had sunk to rest with his paladins and
his sword, in the reign of that Otho whose father,
Henry, had driven back the heathen in many a fierce
battle, had quelled the wild Magyars at Merseburg, had
taken the Mark of Brandenburg from the Sclavoniaus
to become in after-time heart of Prussia and appanage
of the Hohenzollerns, had built frontier fortresses, and
posted his warrior Mark-graft to protect the borders
against Dane and Finn, Sclav and Hun. With a firmer
government, a stronger national life, material enter-
prises developed wonderfully ; the forest-ways began to
be trodden by peaceful merchants, and explored by
seekers for precious metals. In Saxony, in the tenth
century, mines of vast richness were discovered by
Bohemian salt-carriers, who found silver ore in the ruts
worn on a steep hillside by the wheels of their rude
cart. The early German miners soon began to make
enactments to govern themselves. A law of mining-
20 MINING-CAMPS.
claims, and rules of mining-life, prevailed among these
first Thuringian miners who struck pick into rocks of
Black Forest and Hartz, and unveiled the treasures of
Freiberg, no less certainly than similar laws and usages
prevail to-day among the organizers of the newest camps
on the Rio Grande and Yukon. The Mark method of
dividing lands was no more certainly a product of the
thought of the Germanic race than are the customs
which to-day govern freemen in distributing with fair-
ness the auriferous soil of western placers. The spirit
of the tribes of whose social and political organization
Tacitus gave so vivid an account, lives at this hour in
free " miners' courts " of Idaho and Alaska.
To Germanic sources we must trace the most impor-
tant principles of mining-law. The local customs of the
earliest Hartz miners have never since ceased to exert
an influence upon civilization. The Mark system of
common lands, annually re-distributed, was most likely
the foundation of early German mining-regulations ; but
it took so long to make a mine productive, that the
re-distribution plan could not be permanently adopted.
The plan of making ownership depend upon actual use,
and limiting it to small, well-defined tracts, was the
obvious substitute. All the early German codes express
the idea of mining-freedom, of a possible ownership of
the minerals apart from the soil, of the right of the
individual to search for and possess the precious metals,
provided he infringed on no previous rights. This
"mining-freedom " (Bergbaufreiheit) contains the essence
of all frontier mining-customs ever since. The right to
"prospect," "locate " a given claim, and hold it against
all comers until abandoned, is the right guaranteed, in
one form or another, by the newest mining-camps of
Montana. This is the same right once possessed by
CODES OF TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES. 21
the men of the " seven mining-cities of the Hartz," and
by those of Freiberg, of Truro, of Penzance, and of
other cities of the middle ages where mining guilds and
organizations existed.
The first written document which embodies these
rights is the mining-treaty of 1185, between the Bishop
of Trent and certain immigrants from Germany. Other
codes appear later ; in 1250 one in Moravia, in 1307 one
in Styria. All these, and others of the period, were
founded on the unwritten custom, on those usages
" which have lasted from tune immemorial." The Mo-
ravian or Iglau code provides for the appointment of
officials to fix mine-bounds, and defines conditions of
ownership. The full size of a claim is set at four hun-
dred and seventy-nine feet long, and one hundred and
ninety-six feet wide ; a portion is set aside for the king,
and a part for the town if on common lands, for the
owner if on private property. Mining-courts are granted
with special rights and jurisdictions (Bergbehorde). In
later years the miners gave effective aid to burghers
and artisans in their struggles against the robber barons.
The precious " mining-freedom " asserted by the work-
ing miners underwent severe assaults from small land-
owners, from petty princes, and from the emperor
himself; but its broader principles were, as a rule, main-
tained intact. During the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, German mining-jurisprudence grew exceed-
ingly complicated, and covered a great range of topics.
Associated mining-enterprises were frequent. Miners
from the most famous districts of Germany had long
been in demand in other mineral regions of Europe,
and often offered their services to foreign kings. Every-
where they carried with them the customs, laws, ex-
perience, and superstitions of the craft. They worked
22 MINING-CAMPS.
mines in northern Italy, in France, in Scotland and
England, developing a strong professional pride and
secrecy. They filled the place in the mediaeval world
that Cornish miners occupy in modern times. Theirs
was the reputation for dealing with the most stubborn
ores, and the most difficult engineering problems.
Speaking in the broadest sense, the true relationship
which exists among the laws of all "mining-camps"
worth the name, is not so much in the form of the laws
themselves, as in the organizing capabilities of that race
which works out similar results under similar circum-
stances, with surprising fitness of method and fulness
of harmony, and with supreme and all-conquering self-
confidence. No one is able to show that there has ever
been any uniform theory of law for mining-camps,
scarcely more than for caravans in the desert : but it
has nevertheless happened, owing to this inherent polit-
ical instinct, that whenever and wherever men of our
Germanic race found minerals, they developed a satis-
factory system of local government, based on a series
of compromises, and differing in essential particulars
from the sort of local government developed no less
naturally by agricultural communities ; their judgments
grew swifter, and their justice surer, as was needed to
counteract the volcanic passions and disrupting tenden-
cies of their fascinating and hazardous pursuit. In the
hands of the Germanic race alone, this fierce gold-hunger
has been controlled, utilized, and made a force of pri-
mary importance in the shaping of civilized society.
Communities created and built up by mining-industries
have thus been transformed, without danger and with-
out loss, into communities based on agriculture, com-
merce, and manufactures. With men of other races,
the possession of wealth-laden placers has too often
GEKMANIC MINING-FREEDOM. 23
meant their rapid, reckless exhaustion, the washing-
away of every particle of soil, the destruction of every
forest-tree, the inevitable decay and desertion of towns,
the absolute ruin and complete desolation of the entire
region : with men of our race, the exhaustion of placer-
mines has only hastened the development of more potent
and permanent resources, has given us the wools of later
Australia, the wheat and wines of later California.
The institutional history of modern mining-camps
thus finds its proper place in the ever-broadening story
of local self-government among men of our race, the
story which runs back to the days when rude, brave
men lifted a chosen leader on their ringing shields, and
swore allegiance ; when the three judges, each with his
twelve doomsmen, met in yearly tribunal ; when "broth-
ers of the sword-oath " (in Icelandic, ver svorjum Bru-
derskaft) bound their rune-cut, bleeding arms together,
swearing eternal freundschaft over their naked war-
weapons. You may find to-day, if you are able to recog-
nize old types in new attire, the true descendants of the
Germanic " sword-brothers " in the devoted " pards " of
a raw mining-camp on the outposts of civilization ; and
closer resemblances than this lie thickly scattered along
the course of our investigation. To those who have
ears to hear, the free and unconventional yet sufficiently
systematized life of mining-camps is able to tell a story
of the beginnings of things, of forest meetings in Sax-
ony, of freemen in isolated villages assembling to allot
the common lands, of English folk-moots in England
before the waves of conquest rolled over the wild
heights of Exmoor, before the hill-fortress of Exeter
passed from Keltic ownership, before Lindum Colonia
became English Lincoln. Since Germanic mining be-
gan, certain vital principles have been asserted by the
24 MINING-CAMPS.
men of camp, district, and mining-town. The local
mining-law whose sources are as old as the capitularies
of Charlemagne, and probably far older, is a living force
in the world to-day. Professor R. W. Raymond says
of early Germanic mining-law,
" In the form of a local custom, obtaining with remarkable uni-
formity in all the original centres of German mining, the principle
of mining-freedom established itself, permitting all persons to search
for useful minerals, and granting to the discoverer of such a deposit
the rights of property -within certain limits. This principle of free
mining emigrated with the German miners to all places whither
their enterprise extended itself, and the original local custom be-
came the general law. In this existence of an estate in minerals,
entirely independent of the estate in soil, lies the distinctive charac-
ter of German mining-law. It is eminently a special law, not sub-
ordinate to civil law but co-ordinate with it." l
1 Relations of Governments to Mining. United-States Mining Re-
port, 1869.
CHAPTER III.
CUSTOMS OF CORNWALL. STANNARY-COURTS, BAR-
MOTES, AND TIN-BOUNDS.
THE development of local legislation among some of
the miners of England furnishes most useful parallels
to the development of such legislation among American
gold-miners. Valuable gold-mines have existed in Eng-
land, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland ; and mining excite-
ments have several times occurred over the " auriferous
gossan" of Cornwall and Merionethshire. A Briton
tribe, the Trinobantes, coined gold, it is said, from the
" placers " of Essex. Edward III. issued a writ assert-
ing royal rights over a gold-mine in Salop County, and
Henry IV. did the same in several instances. During
the reign of James V. of Scotland, some three hundred
placer-miners worked for months at " Gold-scaur," near
Wanlochhead, and collected more than a million dollars.
The largest nugget found weighed thirty ounces ($480).
Many instances of alluvial washings for gold in the
British Isles might be given from the old chronicles ;
the latest being those of Wicklow, Ireland, worked in
1796. But no trace of "local law" seems to have re-
mained; and we are forced to turn to the lead, tin, and
copper miners, for examples of successful organization.
Local customs of the utmost importance have long
existed in Cornwall, Devonshire, and Derbyshire, chiefly
in Cornwall, that land of folk-lore tales and strange
25
26 MINING-CAMPS.
survivals. When, as legends declare, "St. Michael's
wooded mount was six miles from the sea ; " when the
early Britons, or as modern Cornishmen call them " the
old-men," were simple placer-miners digging up " stream
tin " from alluvial channels, and leaving traces of their
toil from Land's End to Dartmoor ; when Beltane-fires
were lit, and St. Piran became the miners' merry saint,
there was rude organization among the miners of Corn-
wall. They held great public assemblies under the open
sky, upon chosen spots on the wild moor, surrounded
by earthen walls, traces of which yet remain ; and these
meetings were called Guirimears or speech-days. Old
smelting-furnaces of this Keltic period still exist, and
the modern miners call them " Jews' houses." A curi-
ous old song, apostrophizing early Cornwall, says,
" Come old Phoenicians, come tin-dealers,
From Marazion come, ye Jews;
Come smugglers, wreckers, and sheep-stealers,
Come tell the ancient county news/'
Into this prehistoric drift, to borrow a term from
geology, an adventurous element was brought from
widely diverse sources. There was a wild freedom in
the air of Cornwall ; and outlaws sought its forests, sea-
rovers the shelter of its cliffs. Literature, with its
divine instinct, loves the stormy land where Tristram
slew giants, and Hereward wrought deeds of prowess ;
and some of the greatest of living poets have made its
shadowy legends as immortal as the tales of the Vol-
sungs. Long ago the miners of "wild, bright Corn-
wall " chose their standard, a white cross on a black
ground ; until within this century they kept " Old
Christmas," the 5th of January, and for twelve days
suffered no fire to be taken from their hearths. So
CUSTOMS OF CORNWALL. 27
tenaciously does the past survive in the present, that
even now a verdant branch is fastened on midsummer-
day to the highest woodwork of the steam-engines, to
mark the beginning of the Baal-year.
Early in the middle ages, miners from the heart of
the Black Forest found their way to Cornwall. 1 They
left numbers of mining-terms embedded in the language,
and greatly modified the local laws and customs. The
use of the divining or "dowzing" rod in England is
not older than the advent of German miners, brought
over by Queen Elizabeth to teach the Cornishmen how
to work certain refractory ores. One of these, named
Schutz, became warden of the stannaries. At this point,
then, we discover the institutional link between English
and German mining-law: we also understand how it
has come to pass that the Cornish miners of Nevada
and Montana still use a vocabulary some of whose terms
are derived from phrases in use among the miners of
Freiburg six centuries ago.
The former rights of the " free prospector " or " tin-
bounder " of Cornwall have only recently fallen into
disuse. The ancient stannary-courts, which we are
now to describe, have only of late years received any
serious modification ; and, though shorn of many of
their ancient dignities, they still remain as, historically
speaking, the last representatives of older and far more
powerful forms.
The local mining-courts, and the force of local custom,
1 There was also some migration of Cornish miners to Germany.
Camclen's Britannia says, " After the comming in of the Normans the
Earles of Cornwal gathered great riches out of these mines . . . sith
that in those daies Europe had tinne from no other place." He goes
on to state that in the year 1240 " was tinne mettall found in Germania
by a certain Cornishman driven out of his native soil to the great losse
and hindrance of Richard, Earle of Cornwal."
28 MINING-CAMPS.
were authoritatively recognized by the organization of
the chief stannary-court, which long proved a most
valuable right and defence of the miners. It has been
modified into a court of records ; but it originally existed
as an original court of equity, of the vice-warden of all
the stannaries of Cornwall. 1 At the present time it has
jurisdiction in certain matters over all companies en-
gaged in tin-mining; but its local, representative, and
legislative character no longer exists. The stannary-
court is treated of at length in various Chancery and
King's Bench reports, and in papers published in the
British Geological Reports ; and it was established, rec-
ognized, and enforced by numbers of ancient charters.
King John granted a charter to the tin-miners, giv-
ing them the right to mine on waste and unoccupied
lands. By a charter of 33d Edward I., all the working
tin-miners were given privilege of being sued only in
the vice-warden's court. According to this and subse-
quent grants, the " ancient charters, local customs, and
records of lower courts " were always to be received
as evidence. Henry VII. increased the powers of the
legal convocation, or " parliament of tin-miners," which
had settled disputes and made laws respecting tin-claims
since the days of Edward III. This stannary parlia-
ment consisted of twenty-four influential miners or
1 Camden's account, in his Britannia, is as follows: "The whole
commonwealth of those tinners and workmen as it were one body hee
(King Edward Third) divided into four quarters . . . Foymore, Black-
more, Trewarnaile, and Penwith. OveiHhem all hee ordained a Warden
called 'Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Stannum,' that is, tinne, who
giveth judgment as well according to equitie and conscience as law, and
appointeth to every quarter their stewards, who, once every three weeks
. . . minister justice in causes personall between Tinner and Tinner and
between Tinner and Forrainer. ... In matters of moment there are
general parliaments suinrnonned whereunto jurats are sent out of every
Stannarie."
CUSTOMS OF CORNWALL. 29
stannators, six chosen in each district. The last par-
liament was held at Truro in 1752. Here the men
of Penzance and Carclaza, of Botallock, Cam Brea,
and dozens of other mining villages and towns, met,
and formulated Cornish mining-laws. They came from
quarry-like mines on the barren moor, open to the sky;
from shafts sunk deep in the earth; and from drifts
extended half a mile under sea, where hammer-blows
sounded beneath the keels of ships, with but ten feet
of crumbling rock between. To-day the descendants of
these men are among the boldest and most successful
miners in America. At Eureka, on the Comstock, in
the Black Hills, wherever one goes, in fact, the heredi-
tary mining-lore of the Cornishmen is in demand.
The miners of the Mendip district, Cornwall, as late
as the seventeenth century, punished those who stole
ore from the drifts with banishment, and with burning
of the offender's domicile ; theft being considered, as in
the Western camps of to-day, a crime of peculiar turpi-
tude. These Mendip miners manifested a mingling of
superstitious dread, and of faithful loyalty to each other,
in their strict rule that the body of a miner who had
been killed in a drift must be dug out, at any cost, and
given Christian burial, before a stroke of work would
be done elsewhere by a single miner. They also had
local laws respecting the explorations of waste ground,
and rights of discoverers, which were always respected.
Indeed, local mining-customs have existed in Corn-
wall " from time immemorial," as the King's Bench Law
Reports tell us. Miners' rights and privileges were
definitely settled centuries ago, and have been tena-
ciously held ever since by the descendants of those
whom the varied mineral wealth of the Cornish land
first attracted to its sea-girt cliffs and granitic moors.
30 MINING-CAMPS.
The custom prevailed, even within the past twenty
years, that any person might enter upon the waste
land of another, mark out a plot of ground, send a
description to the stannaries' court, and lay claim to
it, provided that he proposed to work it himself "in
good faith." In the early part of this century, a written
description was required, just as in Western camps a
written claim-notice is necessary ; but in still earlier
times a verbal statement was considered sufficient. The
written notice was read in the stannaries' court at three
successive meetings; when, if no valid objection was
raised by any person, the court accepted it, and pro-
ceeded to deliver possession to the "bounder," who
then had exclusive right to mine for tin and other min-
erals within the limits of his " bounds." The first act
of the owner was to define the corners of his property
by rearing piles of turf and stones, or by sinking small
square pits. It has always been the " custom " to mark
claims thus in Cornwall. When the earliest miners
of the region recognized " mining-claims " as property,
and began to ordain and enforce a general system of
obtaining them, they had taken a most significant step
towards organization.
The possession of this " tin-bound," thus acquired by
" taking it up," to use the American expression,
involved the payment of a tax known as " toll-tin " to
the owner of the land. This percentage varied ac-
cording to the yield of the district, but not according
to the yield of that particular shaft. In other words,
the owner of the soil and the "bounder" of the mine
were both subject to the usual rule in this regard, and
no one need make a separate bargain unless they chose.
In Cornwall, and also among the miners of the " King's
Field " in Derbyshire, and in the " Forest of Dean," the
CUSTOMS OF CORNWALL. 31
lord of the soil was usually considered as entitled to
one-fifteenth of the gross ore-yield of each shaft sunk
by a "bounder," said ore being "delivered at the
mouth of the pit." As high as one-tenth of the ore,
and as low as one-twentieth, have been given in the
tin-mining districts.
The right to a "bound" was inheritable property,
and might be transferred by sale ; but neglect to work
it caused forfeiture to the owner of the soil, or, by de-
nouncement, to another miner. The landmarks of the
" bound " must be renewed annually, and kept distinct
and in good condition. This reverence and care for
landmarks is a characteristic of all law-abiding and
mighty races; and the varied customs by which the
boundaries of districts and kingdoms, and changes in
the ownership of tracts of land, were fixed in the memo-
ries of men, are highly curious and deeply interesting.
In ancient times the " thoths " or tribal landmarks
were often burial-mounds of wise chieftains and puis-
sant warriors who still guarded the frontiers. On the
border-land, national games, annual fairs, and public
assemblies were held. And, of land transfers, we read
in the Book of Ruth, " Now this was the manner in
former time in Israel, concerning redeeming, and con-
cerning changing, for to confirm all things: a man
plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor, and
this was a testimony in Israel." In the village com-
munes of our Germanic ancestors, "field and homestead
passed from man to man by the delivery of a turf cut
from its soil." The annals of Salem, Mass., state that
in 1695 a homestead there was transferred by "turffe
and twigg," J an unconscious survival of the customs of
1 See Dr. H. B-. Adams: Germanic Origin of New- England towns.
Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1st series, Local Institutions.
32 MINING-CAMPS.
those forest-villages whose freemen dwelt around their
moot-hills, or gathered for council beneath the sacred
oaks of the Odenwald. Other races, too, have trans-
ferred land with similar formalities : when, in 1670, the
Raritan Indians made their final sale of Staten Island
to Gov. Lovelace, they " brought a branch of every sort
of tree and shrub that grew on the island, for a sign ;
reserving only two species used in their basket-work."
Transfers of mineral lands, since the dawn of history,
have been accompanied with quite as much formality
as that attending the transfer of agricultural property,
or of holdings in tribal community lands. The miners
of the California camps showed as much anxiety to
have distinct landmarks and bounds as did the Corn-
ish and the Thuringian miners of centuries ago ; and at
least once, as late as 1856, a transfer of mining-property
in California was completed by the gift, before witnesses,
of a handful of gold-bearing gravel from the claim.
The man who did this was a miner, whom the writer
met as prospector many years after. " Why did you do
it?" we asked : " was not verbal possession sufficient?"
"Mebbe so : but my father, and his father before him,,
always gave a bit o' land away to wind up a bargain ;
an' the rule's good for a mi nin '-claim, I'll allow."
Leaving, however, for subsequent chapters, an analy-
sis of the land laws and customs of modern mining-
camps, we return to the customs of the tin-miners of
Cornwall, in many particulars so similar to those adopted
centuries later by the free miners of the Pacific coast.
The size of their " tin-bounds," so carefully marked out
and set apart, varied greatly according to the old Cornish
rule. It must be "reasonable," but uniformity does not
seem to have been thought essential; the point being to
include sufficient surface to give space for proper work-
CUSTOMS OF CORNWALL. 33
ings. The entire system of " taking up claims " and
securing them, in the Cornwall districts, during the six-
teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, was pre-
cise and effective, and "probably," as one of the English
law-reports says, " was the law of an extinct kingdom
of Cornwall."
The Cumberland silver-miners in the time of Eliza-
beth had special legal privileges, and the justices of
assize went there in their circuit. This was one of the
"royal mines," owing to its proportion of silver. 1 They
do not seem to have had a court of their own for
mining-cases ; but the " smelters, refiners, and miners
held public meetings," as recorded by Bushell in 1641.
Their local customs were much the same as in Cornwall.
Their " tolls " were paid, however, directly to the sove-
reign. In Cornwall such dues were paid to the duke,
whenever such a nobleman existed.
The Duchy of Cornwall was created in the fifteenth
year of Henry III. Edward III. made his son the first
Duke of Cornwall, and gave him "all profits of the
court of stannary and of the mines." Slowly, and with
great difficulty, the ancient tenures and privileges of
many of the tin and copper miners were lessened and
abridged; and so it soon came to pass, that different
degrees of tenantcy were recognized. In the most im-
1 The well-known definitions of Blackstone and Plowden need not
be quoted here. But that quaint and rare book, " A Just and True Re-
monstrance of his Majestie's Mines-Royall to His Majestie," published
in 1641, contains a " declaration of learned lawyers what a Mine-Royall
is, according to presedents," signed by the king's sergeant- at-law, and
thirty other jurists. They say, " Although the gold or silver contained
in the base mettall of a mine in the lands of a subject bee of lesse valew
than the baser mettall ; yet, if the gold or silver doe countervaile the
charge of the refining, or bee of more worth than the base mettall spent
in refining it, this is a Mine-Royall, and as well the base mettall as the
gold and silver in it, belongs by prerogative to the crowne."
34 MINING-CAMPS.
portant and numerous class, the bounds came to be
fixed, or at least re-examined, each seven years, and
re-allotted by an assession court. In the " Caption of
Seizin " of the manor of Tewington, in the time of Ed-
ward III., there is a list of free tenants who hold " in
socage " tracts of from five to twelve acres apiece, and
pay " toll-tin " upon the product of all shafts they sink.
Besides these miners, there were, so states this caption,
" free conventionaries," or miners who held and worked
much smaller tracts on the seven-year basis; and the
sort of land-tenure system which prevailed in these
peculiar " conventionary holdings " was a highly inter-
esting "survival" of ancient Keltic forms analogous to
those of Brittany. Concanen's special report of the
English law case of Howe vs. Brenton describes the
system in full. 1
In the lead-districts, the most interesting local insti-
tution was the bar-mote court, and its executive officer
called the "bar-master." It was his duty to do justice
between miner and miner, between miner and " adven-
turer," and between all the miners and the lord of the
manor. The "adventurers" were what the Western
miner calls "prospectors;" and they have played a very
important part in English mining-history, developing
the richest of mineral districts by their skill and energy.
Local law in the lead-districts awarded to the finder
" the largest share " of a new mine. Disputes were
tried at the bar-mote ; and over this court the deputy
stewards presided, and the bar-master was present. A
i Mr. Frederick Pollock, in " The Land Laws" (English Citizen Series:
Macmillan & Co., 1883), speaks of ancient Cornish laws, and of these
" conventionary " seven-year holdings (pp. 49, 204). He says that in 1844
certain conventionary tenants of the Duchy of Cornwall were enfran-
chised, and does not know whether or not other examples of this ancient
tenure still remain.
STANNARY-COURTS, BAR-MOTES, AND TIN-BOUNDS. 35
jury was summoned, composed of miners, and questions
were tried before them. Arrears of the duties of " lot
and cope " were properly presented by the officers of
the manor. 1 In modern times English law-reports show
clearly the continued existence, and the recognition in
mining jurisprudence, of most of the customs and local
usages of tin, lead, and copper miners, alluded to in the
preceding pages. Local customs, as modified by Acts
of Parliament, are still in force in Cornwall, Derbyshire,
and other mining-districts.
Throughout England the rule has held good, that
mining requires much knowledge, skill, and special
training ; creating in the past a constant tendency tow-
ards separate courts, towards denial of the jurisdiction
of the lower civil courts, and towards a more direct
dealing with higher courts of appeal. The Cornish
stannaries court of to-day is one of the survivals of this
long-continued struggle, and so is the bar-mote court
of the lead-districts. In the rocky and agriculturally
worthless regions, where for many centuries the entire
community was dependent upon mining for its liveli-
hood, the miners evidently governed themselves long
before there was any Duke of Cornwall or manorial
claims : they recognized the liberty of the prospector and
the sacredness of the claim-stake, in that remote past
when " stream-tin " gathered from the river-channels
was the chief mineral resource of the region, and the
veins of ore were only superficially worked. To such
conclusions, at least, the nature and evident antiquity
of the mining-customs of Cornwall would certainly
point. They seem to be fragments and remains of
ancient laws adopted in meetings of freemen, for the
1 Arkwright vs. Cantrell, 7 Ad. and E. p. 5G5.
36 MINING-CAMPS.
purpose of securing equal rights, and imposing equal
duties upon all within their jurisdiction. As a promi-
nent California mining-lawyer once said to the writer,
" Those old Cornish miners, with their local freedom
and self-government, deserved ' to have been born four
centuries later, as prospectors in the Sierra placers."
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY MINING EN THE UNITED STATES.
THE first English settlers in America hoped to find
great mineral wealth ; and the royal charters in most
cases reserved " all mines," and claimed as rent one-fifth
of all gold or silver ore, " to be delivered free of charge
at the pit's mouth." Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vir-
ginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and others of the early
colonies, had clauses of this kind in their charters. 1 But
the " gold-ores " invariably proved worthless, much to
the disappointment of the merchants in the Virginia and
the Massachusetts companies, who had hoped for other
resources besides those of fishing, trading, and farming.
The "rights-royal" never amounted to any thing; and,
in the process of time, mining-jurisprudence came to be
founded upon common law merely, the mineral being
held to belong to the soil, and conveyed by one and the
same title with agricultural lands.
There is little of value for our investigation in the
scattered attempts at mining in Colonial and Revolution-
ary days. The first on record appears to be that men-
tioned in Stith's History of Virginia, the opening of
an iron mine in 1622 at Falling Creek, near James
River. The next was probably in New England, where
Governor John Winthrop in 1657 obtained a license
1 Bainbridge, "Law of Mines," chapter ii.
37
38 MINING-CAMPS.
to work " mines of lead, tin, copper, or any mineral,"
and to "enjoy forever" said mines, and all woods,
lands, and things necessary for their workings, " within
two or three miles." He proceeded to prospect exten-
sively ; and in 1661 received a special grant of mineral
lands near Middletown, Connecticut, where he opened
and worked mines. President Stiles's Diary says, speak-
ing of the " Governor's Ring," ,a mountain in East Had-
dam : " Governor Trumbull has often told me that this
was the place to which Governor Winthrop of New
London used to resort with his servant, and spend
three weeks in roasting ores, and assaying metals, and
casting gold rings." The mine was worked to a depth
of a hundred and twenty-five feet, with extensive drifts.
The abandoned shaft was discovered in 1852, and after-
wards re-opened, though unprofitably. The first blast-
furnace in the New-England Colonies was built by Lam-
bert Despard at Mattakeeset Pond, Plymouth County,
Massachusetts, in 1702. The copper-miners of Simsbury,
Connecticut, received their charter in 1709. Arent
Schuyler began to work the cupriferous ores near the
Passaic, seven miles from Jersey City, in 1719. Ac-
cording to the centennial address of Mr. D. D. Field,
Middletown, Connecticut, in 1853, a lead-mine was
worked in that town long before the Revolution ; and
from May, 1775, till February, 1778, this mine was
operated for the citizens " by a committee of three,
Jabez Hamlin, Mathew Talcott, and Titus Hosmer."
Such efforts, of which there were many, were merely
business or war enterprises, and had little or no organiz-
ing influence upon society. Somewhat more than this,
however, may be said with justice of some of the famous
gold-camps of the South, early in the present century.
In Spottsylvania County there were numbers of placers,
EARLY MINING IN THE UNITED STATES. 39
and from one claim twenty feet square ten thousand
dollars was taken ; in Louisa County, one placer-claim
yielded seven thousand dollars ; and near the Rapidan
over forty thousand dollars was taken out by a miner
from his placer property. These instances are noted in
Mr. Taylor's report (1867) on " Gold-mining East of the
Rockies. " There were also some famous mines in Buck-
ingham County, Virginia, and others in Abbeville
District, South Carolina ; but those of Rowan and
Mecklenburg Counties, North Carolina, and particu-
larly the placer-mines upon the tributaries of the Great
Pedee, produced hosts of prospectors, who took up
claims and worked mines according to a sort of local
law, subject, however, to the jurisdiction of the county
authorities. Wheeler's History of North Carolina gives
interesting illustrations of this mining-era and its ex-
citements; its crude organization, its "big nuggets"
(that of 1803 weighing twenty-eight pounds), its cul-
mination, and its decay. West of the Blue Ridge, along
the famous French Broad River, a number of placer-
miners worked for half a century on small claims held
by possessory rights. The Georgia and Alabama gold-
miners had a wider field ; and the operations begun in
1799, in valleys that De Soto visited, have continued
with greater or less energy ever since. None of the
mining-districts of the South possessed any organization
separate from that of the county, but some of them had
simple local regulations in regard to the size of claims.
In one case, that of the Hale mining-tract, Lancaster
District, South Carolina, over fifty years ago, the system
had fostered individual freedom, though to the great
detriment of all the mines. The owner of the land
allowed any persons to come in, and work where they
chose, only agreeing to sell all gold found to him for
40 MINING-CAMPS.
sixty cents per pennyweight, when it was really worth
ninety cents, thus paying a ground-rent of one-third
the gross yield. The alluvial deposits were, however,
so rich, that many prospectors accepted the terms.
They used "pans and rockers," dug holes in search
for "pockets," worked out the rich places, recklessly
stripped the mine, and then deserted it. Nothing per-
manent could come from such a wasteful and destructive
system. But as soon as gold was discovered on the
Pacific coast, all these old camps of the South sent well-
trained miners and prospectors to the new placers ; and
there they found that larger freedom in which local
mining-institutions were rapidly developed.
The attitude of the state and national governments
towards mining-interests affords a much more important
theme than is offered by any of the Southern gold-dis-
coveries. Long before the Revolution, most of the Col-
onies had recognized the rights of land-owners over all
the contents of the soil; so that when, in 1785, the Con-
tinental Congress reserved one-third of the gold, silver,
lead, copper, and some other minerals found* within
the States, the principle aroused the greatest opposition.
It was only an extension of the " crown-right " idea of
the civil law ; but the rights so long recognized by im-
memorial custom and prescription in Germany, the Elec-
torates, France, Portugal, Spain, and other dominions
of Europe, seemed so "un-American," that their asser-
tion was soon abandoned.
The United States next tried the plan of attempting
to hold, and lease to the highest bidders, the salt-springs
and lead-mines. After the acquisition of Louisiana,
lands containing lead ores were reserved from sale ; and
in 1807 the President received authority to lease them
for five years, in tracts of not more than three miles
EARLY MINING IN THE UNITED STATES. 41
square, afterwards reduced to one square mile, the
return of six per cent of the ores being required.
Under this system the first lease was issued in 1822;
but after 1834 many of the miners and smelters in
Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas
positively refused to pay rents, because there had
been a vast number of fraudulent entries of mineral
lands as agricultural lands, and the system appeared
unjust. By 1846 this lease-system became untenable,
and was definitely abandoned. 1 Acts of Congress then
restored to the several States the right to sell their salt-
springs, and also opened to pre-emption as public lands
the hitherto-leased tracts in the lead and copper mining-
districts.
The history of the disputes, protests of pioneers, and
litigations among rival claimants, which led at last to
the abandonment of the lease-system, is long and highly
interesting. It extends over nearly the first half of the
century. The numerous complications which arose out
of the entangled condition of Spanish and French land-
titles in the provinces of upper and lower Louisiana,
involved the best mining-districts of Missouri and Iowa,
and test-cases were fought from court to court until
1 The Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1865 says,
speaking of the Pacific Coast mineral lands, " A system of lease-hold,
. . . after the lessons which have been taught of its practical results in
the lead and copper districts, cannot, of course, be recommended."
The course of United-States legislation up to this point can be synop-
sized as follows: Ordinance, May 20, 1785, reserved one-third of the
gold, silver, lead, and copper; Act of March 3, 1807, dealt with lead-
mines; Act of March 3, 1829, authorized their sale in Missouri; Act of
Sept. 4, 1841, excluded salines and mines from pre-emption; Case of
U.S. vs. Gear, 1845, confirmed the previous act; April 18, 1846, mineral
lands of Isle Royal, Lake Superior, reserved; July 16, 1846, lead-mines
in Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa, offered for sale at two dollars
and a half per acre ; March 1, 1847, lands in Lake Superior district offered
at five dollars per acre.
42 MINING-CAMPS.
settled by the highest authority in the land. The lead-
claims of upper Louisiana introduced hitherto unknown
elements into our jurisprudence. Our government, act-
ing in accordance with the law of nations, had agreed
to recognize all lawful titles to lands in the ceded
territory. 1
Owing to these causes, it happened that American
lawyers who settled in New Orleans and St. Louis early
in the century found that a knowledge of French and
Spanish law was essential to success. As regards land-
titles, the courts of Louisiana have decided that the
colonial Spanish government of such rulers as Galvez,
Miro, and Carondelet, recognized verbal as well as writ-
ten grants. The grants made by French officers during
the ownership of Louisiana by France were never con-
tested, but most of the Spanish grants were. Land-
grants in some cases were referred for final decision to
the captain-general of Cuba, within whose jurisdiction
were Florida and Louisiana. The Indians were assigned
one square league about their villages, including the
town-site. A primitive land-title existing in any tribe
was never recognized. Absolute ownership in their
village-lands was not allowed, severe restrictions being
placed upon its sale and alienation. If all died or re-
moved, the lands reverted to the crown. A simple order
from the governor was sufficient to establish these reser-
vations. It thus followed that grants by Indian tribes
1 Among the important decisions that bear upon Spanish and French
claims, Indian rights, mineral lands, and United-States title, are the
following: Sanchez vs. Gonzales, Louisiana Rep., 11 M., p. 207; Le Blanc
vs. Victor, 3 L., 47; Landry vs. Martin, 15 L., 1; De Vail us. Choppin, 15
L., 566; Murdock vs. Gurley, 5 R., 457; Reband vs. Nero, 5 M.; Moes vs.
Gilliard, 7 N. S., 314; Brooks vs. Norris, 6 R., 175; Breaux vs. Johns, 4 A.,
147; Choteau vs. Molony, 16 How (U.S.), 203; Wilson vs. Smith, Yeager
5, 347 (Mo. Rep.); Delassas vs. United States, 9 Peters, 117.
EARLY MINING IN THE UNITED STATES. 43
to white men anywhere within the Louisiana territory
required acceptance and confirmation from the Spanish
authorities. A noted case which reached the Supreme
Court in 1853 decided the ownership of the Dubuque
lead-mines adversely to the claims of those who held
under title from scheming Julien Dubuque, the old
Indian trader and pioneer, who, in 1788, had received
from the five chief villages of the Fox Indians in coun-
cil assembled the gift of an illy defined tract of nearly
one hundred thousand acres of land. 1 Albert Gallatiu
also made a report to the President upon the Dubuque
claims, saying that the tract was undoubtedly govern-
ment land. In 1832 there was trouble among the rival
claimants to the mineral soil ; and in 1833 troops were
called into requisition, who drove off one party, and
burned their cabins. The government then leased the
land to the miners.
The St. Vrain concession of mineral lands was de-
cided to have been perfected under the requirements of
Spanish law; and so to be outside of the jurisdiction
of the act of 1807, creating a board of commissioners for
the re-adjustment of land-claims. The "inchoate title"
of the descendants of " Pierre Charles Dehault, Knight,
Lord of Delassus Luzieres, and Knight of the great
cross of the royal order of St. Michael," covered a square
league on St. Francis River, Missouri, containing valu-
able lead-mines, which had been worked by prehistoric
miners, and were re-opened by the knight of many titles
in the days of Baron Carondelet, who purchased, in the
name of the Spanish Government, thirty thousand pounds
1 Le Sueur, the French explorer, discovered mineral on this Dubuque
tract in 1700 or 1701. The earliest notice of mines in the North-West,
however, is contained in the report of Jesuit missionaries, who in 1G60
found copper-ore in the Lake-Superior region.
44 MINING-CAMPS.
of lead annually for five years. This title, legal as far
as it went, but never made complete, was confirmed by
the United States.
But while the courts and the lawyers were deter-
mining the status of hundreds of varying claims under
Spanish and French titles, the region was being settled
by hardy and energetic pioneers, long before the
United-States Government had arranged to sell lands.
The immediate result was the formation of " squatter
associations," to take up, place on record, and hold
land-claims. Professor Macy of Iowa College, in a
paper upon "Institutional Beginnings in a Western
State," read before the Historical and Political Science
Association of Johns Hopkins University, Nov. 2, 1883,
and since then published as No. 7 of the second series
of the "University Studies in Historical and Political
Science," has well described the claim-laws of these
agricultural settlers, whose guiding principle was to
give each man his fair and equal chance.
In the mineral region of Iowa, we find early organi-
zation. Professor Macy tells us, that June 17, 1830,
the Dubuque lead-miners assembled, and appointed a
committee of five to draught regulations, which were
unanimously adopted. They agreed to live under " the
code of Illinois," with the following additions :
"ARTICLE I. That each and every man shall hold two hun-
dred yards square of ground, working said ground one day in six.
" ARTICLE II. We further agree, that there shall be chosen, by
a majority of the miners present, a person who shall hold this
article, and grant letters of arbitration, on application having been
made; and that said letters of arbitration shall be obligatory on
the parties concerned so applying."
These simple laws, thus adopted by the lead-miners
in public meeting, form the earliest, and for thirteen
EARLY MINING IN THE UNITED STATES. 45
years the only, local code of Americans on the soil
of Iowa. In 1833 the Indian title to these mineral
lands was extinguished, and within a year Dubuque
contained two thousand inhabitants. May 20, 1834,
the miners tried and condemned a man for murder,
and a month later policed the town, and executed
him, after the Governor of Missouri and the Presi-
dent of the United States had been applied to for
pardon by the prisoner's friends, and had replied that
"the pardoning power rested with those who passed
the sentence."
The early local history of this interesting mineral
region shows most clearly the working of forces which
reached their fuller development only in the compara-
tive isolation of later camps. Lead-miners of Iowa, tin-
bounders of Cornwall, early silver-miners of Germany,
all recognized the claim-stake, dwelt under equal laws
of their own creation, and tried and punished their
criminals.
Furthermore, as we have observed in the course of this
chapter, the lead and copper miners west of the Missis-
sippi came into contact, in many cases, with old Span-
ish grants and concessions. Here, in the heart of the
continent, midway between Lakes and Gulf, the Ameri-
can miner first met the Spanish influence that he was
to find once more, in far stronger forms, on the shores
of the Pacific. Americans had no sooner controlled the
lead-regions of Dubuque and St. Joseph, than they
pushed westward, in the years preceding the great gold
discoveries of California; there to meet a current of
institutional development that had come from Spain by
way of Mexico, not by way of lower Louisiana, and so
had retained far more of its original characteristics. It
is to this Spanish-American realm that we must now
46 MINING-CAMPS.
turn our attention, in order to understand the elements
underlying California life, and the conditions that
favored peculiar local organizations in the mining-camps
of the Sierra and the Rockies.
CHAPTER V.
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.
MINING-LAWS OF MEXICO.
SPANISH rule, and the first attempts of Spaniards to
mine in the New World, are of especial significance by
reason of sharp institutional contrasts to the forms of
Germanic development; also because of the influence
subsequently exerted upon the South- West, and the Pa-
cific coast of the United States. The growth of the
Spanish system of government, and the complete sepa-
ration of mining-courts from civil courts that for a time
existed in Mexico, form an essential part of our investi-
gation.
The first Spanish colonists were lazy and lustful,
reckless and turbulent. They desolated the fairest
isles of the West Indies, they rebelled against their
governors, and they drove to suicide the unhappy race
they had enslaved. Everywhere under their system,
with its strange contrasts of stately indifference and vol-
canic energy, the Spaniards forgot their own Castilian
proverb of awful significance, " Dios consiente pero no
para siempre" (God may consent, but not forever).
The only judicial officer of these early colonists was
the alcalde, a district judge, who possessed a great
variety of powers, as will be shown in a subsequent
chapter. The first mention we find of this officer is at
Cuba, early in the sixteenth century. The first mili-
47
48 MINING-CAMPS.
tary rule of Mexico brooked no interference from local
officers of any sort ; but Cortez soon developed great
administrative skill and energy, and rapidly introduced
the local institutions known to Old Spain.
It is, however, to a colony and a mining-camp that
we must look for the best Spanish example of elected
officers and local organization. Early in the sixteenth
century, about a hundred Spaniards, led by Enciso,
founded the town of " Santa Maria de la Antigua del
Darien." The afterwards famous Vasco Nunez de Bal-
boa, roused by some acts of petty tyranny, persuaded
the colonists to depose Enciso, and elect himself chief
alcalde, with an assistant and a regidor. A little later,
in 1514 in fact, some rich gold-placers were discovered
three leagues from " Santa Maria del Darien ; " and a
rush to the new mines was the immediate result. Al-
most at once the miners organized. They elected a
mining-superintendent and a surveyor of claims, under
whose supervision and authority plats of ground twelve
paces square were measured off for each able-bodied
miner ; no one being allowed to hold or to work more
than one claim at a time. They paid the royal de-
mands; but, while the mines lasted, they managed their
own local affairs with more skill and energy than
miners of their race have elsewhere displayed. Here,
in this little camp of Spaniards, a seed of local self-
government had been planted ; but it could find no firm
root in national characteristics, and no abiding support
from national institutions. Instead of springing up,
bearing fruit, and extending itself to camp after camp
northward along the Isthmus through Central America
to the placers of Yucatan and Mexico, its blossom fell
to the earth unfructified, its stem withered and perished
in a single summer.
SPANISH-AMEEICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. 49
Permanent social order, and organized self-govern-
ment, could not develop from the early Spanish placer-
mining, any more than from the gold-lust of Spanish
leaders like Cortez and Pizarro. Hither and thither
through the New World, the freebooters of Spain had
hastened, searching for traces of gold, as wolves follow
the scent of smoking blood. Impelled by this passion,
they hewed paths through tropic forests, crossed des-
erts, explored unknown seas, illustrated the utmost
valor, cruelty, endurance, and fanaticism, and unfurled
the intertwining standards of Rome and Spain at al-
most the same time in Amazonian and Floridian for-
ests, in Patagonian and Oregonian wildernesses, and
over hills of Arkansas, deserts of Arizona, and isles of
the California pearl-coast. This breathless search was,
happily, futile : the continents held no more semi-
civilized kingdoms rich in treasures of gold. By the
help of slaves, the baffled conquistadores then began to
develop the mineral resources of New Spain. They
still sent out expeditions by land to follow such mi-
rages as the Golden Temple of Dabaiba, and fleets to
search the North Pacific for the fabled Straits of An-
nian ; but the fever of exploration had nearly run its
course. Silver and gold bearing rock soon began to be
worked with system and success. Humboldt says that
the annual gold-yield of America, from 1492 to 1521,
was $ 250,000; from 1521 to 1546, it was 83,150,000.
In 1545 Potosi began to pour forth its treasures, and f
the annual yield of gold and silver combined was $10,-
300,000 for the sixty years after that discovery. The
ransom of Atahualpa had been 120,000,000. Jacob, in
his "History of the Precious Metals," says that the
mining-industry of Europe was greatly stimulated by
the mining done in America; that, in fourteen years
50 MINING-CAMPS.
after 1516, there were twenty-five rich veins found in
Bohemia ; and that, between 1538 and 1562, over a
thousand leases and grants of new mining-ground were
made by the Bishopric of Salzburg.
The Mexican system of civil law, as transplanted
from the overlordships of Castile and Aragon, lasted,
with few changes, until well into the present century ;
and its more abiding local forms of administration still
rule the land that Cortez conquered. The principles
upon which the colonial possessions of Spain were gov-
erned, and even the details of that government, present
remarkable parallels to the complex system of authority
extended by Rome over her subject provinces. Under
Spain, all titles, power, and dignity flowed from the
royal throne, as, under the later Roman system, they
all flowed from the emperor. The viceroyalties of
Spain in Peru, Grenada, Mexico, corresponded with
singular fidelity to the proconsulates and pro-prsetor-
ships of Syria, of Gaul, and of Spain herself under
Rome. As, in the Roman world, hardly any two cities
bore the same yoke, or occupied exactly identical rela-
tions to the centra] government, whether that of senate
or of emperor ; so, in the Spanish empire, hardly two
viceroys had equal rank, or exercised identical powers.
The most casual observer cannot but seize upon strik-
ing similarities and instructive contrasts between these
vast and ultimately unsuccessful colonial empires.
The Spanish system had a feudal element, in that the
land, and the Indians as attached thereto, were divided
among the colonists. This royal gift of soil and people
was called an encomienda, and first occurred in Hispa-
niola, extending thence to all the Spanish dominions.
Cortez made a provisional repartimiento, or division of
the natives; and this was re-adjusted by a royal audien-
SPANISH-AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. 51
da, or council. Cruelty, disease, and hard work slew
them so rapidly, that the greater part had perished be-
fore they were set free, and given land to cultivate in
common, as in some of the modern pueblos.
The system of Spanish civil government extended
upward from the alcalde of the village to the viceroy
of the whole territory, all appointed or elected with
such severe restrictions that matters were in practice
kept under royal control. The detailed minuteness of
the administrative affairs in even the most obscure prov-
inces of Peru or the Indies, that passed under the eyes
of the king himself, and were decided according to
his wishes, is something that almost surpasses belief.
Some choice in village and district affairs was all that
was left in the hands of the people, until the mining-
laws differentiated the powers of the system, and the
local alcaldeship was thus enabled to gain a greater
dignity and influence. Spiritually, Mexico was divided
into provinces, sees, and parishes. The visidados, or
special emissaries of the king, and the " legates of the
pope," formed ambassadorial links between the Old
World and the New.
Government of the towns (pueblos') was, in Spanish
days, intrusted to a town-council, or ayuntamiento,
whose head was either a mayores or an alcalde, assisted
by several regidors (directors) and syndicos (clerks).
The villages had only an alcalde. In the large towns
of each district, the municipality chose two alcaldes de
mesta, to preside over semi-annual councils of the live-
stock owners. This pastoral custom was carried wher-
ever Mexican colonists journeyed ; in a modified form it
survived in California until a few years ago, and still
exists in New Mexico and the South- West.
Studying as a whole the civil government instituted
52 MINING-CAMPS.
by Spain, we can safely affirm that no nation has ever
possessed a nicer sense of the theoretical proportions
of aristocratic rule, or brought to the difficult labors
of colonial government a more dignified and stately ad-
ministrative genius; but the fatal facility with which
department was added to department, and wheel to
wheel, made the whole cumbrous machinery break down
at last beneath its own weight. It was an ingenious
mechanical contrivance, not a vital organism. Pulleys,
levers, and speaking-tubes, not arteries, nerves, and mus-
cles, set the mandates of the central government in
operation throughout the system. Hence its weight
and increasing weakness, its decay and final failure, its
giant wrecks rusting in solitude on the hills of every
Spanish-American province, its mournful problems, as
of misgoverned Cuba. This overloaded mechanism of
government reaches its climax in the mining-laws of
New Spain, more particularly of Mexico, which con-
stitute the most unique, laborious, and complicated sys-
tem of special jurisprudence ever developed on this
continent.
In February, 1774, the miners of Mexico petitioned
the King of Spain, by whose orders a perpetual corpora-
tion was established, embracing all the mine-owners, and
ruled by a great tribunal consisting of an appointed
president, an appointed director, and three elected depu-
ties. Acting under this central organization were local
tribunals, one in each province. The system proposed
was to have jurisdiction in all cases which concerned
the mines or the miners, and it was at first received
with universal enthusiasm. One of the first things
done was to found a college of mines on an immense
scale in the city of Mexico. Alexander von Humboldt,
in his " Political Essay on New Spain," describes this
MINING-LAWS OF MEXICO. 53
Real Seminario de Mineria as it existed in the city of
Mexico in 1803. The director of the college had then
been collecting statistics from the thirty-seven Depu-
taciones de Minas, and from these reports he had per-
fected a mineral-map for the use of the supreme college
or head tribunal. A great banking-system, whose rami-
fications were to extend to the remotest mining-town,
was early organized. The tribunal, soon after its crea-
tion, had formulated a code of laws for the government
and regulation of mine-towns, mine-owners, and mine-
laborers. In 1783 this code received the full approval
of the king and the grand council of the Indies. 1 Thus
the mining-interests of Mexico were separated from
direct control of the civil authorities ; and the powerful
corporation created in accordance with the petition of
the miners received rights of separate courts, and privi-
leges and immunities almost royal in scope and nature.
No " mine-town " had a right to vote at any election
for a tribunal deputy, unless it contained "an inhabiting
population, a church, and a curate or deputy, a judge
and deputy of mines, six mines in actual working, and
four reducing-establishinents."
Paternal government over the mines and the miners
was developed to such an amusing and exasperating
degree, that some of its manifestations seem almost
beyond belief. Supervision was never reduced to a
1 This great Council of the Indies was created by Ferdinand in
1511, but was not fully organized till thirteen years later under Charles
the Fifth. It was a plan much favored by that wise statesman, Cardi-
nal Ximenes, whom Sir Arthur Helps has compared to the English Earl
of Chatham. The Recopilacion de las Leyes de las Indias declared that
this council should consist of twenty-two councillors, presided over by
the king himself as perpetual president, and of foiir secretaries. It was
given supreme jurisdiction throughout Spanish America and the Philip-
pines. As a rule, the councillors were men who had seen service as
viceroys or captains-general in the New World.
54 MINING-CAMPS.
more exact science. This royal ordinance of 1783
declares that all cases must be decided " without any
of the usual delays, written declarations, or petitions of
lawyers." It sets apart the refuse ore-heaps and " tail-
ings " as " support for the widows and orphans, old and
helpless." It forbids reduction of wages, fixes rations,
commands registration of laborers with a view to pre-
vent their leaving a mine, and orders that the price of
articles used in the mines shall be fixed by law so that
" no undue profit " shall be taken by any one. It also
prohibits all persons from making demands of the work-
men for alms, this being aimed at the beggars and the
mendicant friars of the time. One of the most interest-
ing provisions is to the effect that " persons going about
to search for mines shall be allowed to have one beast
to ride on, and one to carry their bedding and provis-
ions, and shall not have to pay for their pasture, either
on public or private property, whether it be customary
or not to pay for the same." The reason for this pro-
vision is evidently to be found in the royal rights over
mineral ground. Whoever discovered a new mine was
an unofficial "king's messenger;" he was increasing the
revenues of the crown. The prospector was, therefore,
a more privileged charactei in Mexico during the days
of Washington, and under the rule of pleasure-loving
Charles the Third of Spain, than he is at the present
time in any spot on the American Continent.
The code ordained by the miners' tribunal further
provided for certain local officers, called disputaciones,
to reside in mining-towns as arbitrators in difficulties
respecting mining-property, and also to discharge the
very peculiar duty of "admonishing extravagant, waste-
ful, or gambling miners." If this warning was not
heeded, the tribunal had power, which it often exer-
MINING-LAWS OF MEXICO. 55
cised, of "appointing a guardian for said miner, and of
limiting his expenditures." In ways like this the
mining-code of Mexico descended to the most minute
particulars and trivial details of daily life, regulating
the laborer's food, attire, and hours of labor ; forbidding
" dice, cards, and cock-fighting," still besetting sins of
the Mexican miners ; punishing idlers and vagabonds ;
and seemingly making some provision for every possible
emergency.
The use of a disputaciones, or arbitrator, was a favor-
ite idea of Mexican jurisprudence. The powers of this
office were, at its abolishment, transferred to the alcalde-
ships. The disputadoneS) under this later form, was
long in use in California. The same idea sprang up
in the early " mining-courts " of the American mines,
as we shall hereafter see ; but the " arbitrators " of the
miners had little historical connection with the Spanish
disputaciones, except that this particular function of
the early alcalde-courts might have aided to suggest the
plan in some few of the mining-camps.
That section of the Spanish mining-laws which orders
cases to be decided " without delay " is peculiarly char-
acteristic of all mining-communities. Time is precious;
every one is in haste ; the poor are about to be made
rich, the rich about to become extremely wealthy. The
world over, all mining-codes in whose making the miners
themselves have had a hand are certain to ignore tech-
nicalities, urge swift decisions, and laugh to scorn each
fine-spun argument.
The laws of Mexico, as of Spain, recognized two dis-
tinct interests in land, surface and mineral ; interests
not only legally distinct, but even transferred by sepa-
rate and differently worded titles. One was la propie-
dad del suelo, the other was la propiedad de la mina.
56 MINING-CAMPS.
The first, the right of pasturage and of agricultural use,
was transferred or conveyed from the authorities of the
province, by sale, by absolute gift, or by gift conditioned
on settlement ; the second, the right to dig for minerals,
was obtained by special gift of the king himself, by
registration of discovery, by denouncement of another
mine for "non-wo'rking" and its consequent forfeiture,
or by purchase subject to special royal taxes and restric-
tions. An agricultural grant left the entire right to
minerals in the hands of the Spanish Government, which
right passed thence to Mexico at the Revolution. The
right of miners to enter on private domains was abso-
lute, nor was it conditioned upon payment of damages.
The ideas involved in the system were, so far as re-
garded mineral lands, somewhat as follows : legal title
complete in the crown; absolute right of the public to
search for mineral, and work ungranted mines ; right of
eminent domain over mining-lands and mining-interests
of every sort, such as in wood and water, vested in the
government; rights of the crown to confer private
ownership; ordinary mining-rights, valid only during
the life of the reigning king, and a renewal necessary
at his death.
Many of the agricultural grants made by Mexico to
citizens of Alta California were found, after the con-
quest, to contain mineral wealth ; and in some cases such
lands were entered upon by prospectors, and claimed as
being public lands, 'in the sense of the Mexican mining-
law, and so having passed by conquest to the United
States. A knowledge of the Spanish laws thus became
necessary to every American lawyer in California, as
once before to the lawyers of Louisiana and Missouri,
and as now in Arizona and New Mexico. They were
obliged to have some acquaintance with the codes and
MINING-LAWS OF MEXICO. 57
commentaries of the famous Spanish jurist Gamboa,
with the ordinance of 1783, with subsequent acts of the
Tribunal de Mineria, and with various decrees of Co-
monfort, Juarez, and other Mexican presidents, and acts
of different Congresses.
The greatest alterations which have been made in the
mining-laws were shortly after Mexican independence
was established. The mining-deputations were brought
more under the control of the government; mining-
courts, consisting of a lawyer and two mine-owners, were
established in each one of the States, to serve as a court
of appellate jurisdiction ; lastly, the rights of foreign-
ers to purchase mines was recognized, though with re-
strictions. This was in 1823. At a later period, all
" contentious jurisdiction" was transferred to the civil
courts, and the separate mining-courts lost the greater
part of their authority. Successive modifications of the
laws respecting foreign miners, and the influence of
English, German, and American capital and energy, have
produced many changes, of late years, in the northern
Mexican States. The local customs and district laws of
that region are being superseded slowly but surely by
American mining-usages. 1
The condition of Mexican mining and civil law at the
present time is, however, foreign to our investigation.
Our inquiries have been only for the purpose of ascer-
taining to some extent the spirit of Mexican institu-
tions, so as to understand more clearly the nature of
their influence upon California, and the modiications
they necessarily underwent. Before American pioneers
1 " This Province [Sonora] is beginning to adopt American mining-
customs" (private letter from the late Manuel M. Corella, professor at
the University of California, and afterwards an eminent Arizona law-
yer; written in 1880).
58 MINING-CAMPS.
captured California, before American miners had organ-
ized a single camp, three institutions of Spanish origin,
the mission, the pueblo, and the alcaldeship, existed in
the coast-region, and deserve our careful study. They
serve as a background for the fuller activities of the
American period, and they help to explain the local
political difficulties that preceded the organization of
State government. The pueblo and the alcaldeship
were transferred, with slight modifications, from the
limits of Mexico ; the " mission " was an institution that
gained for a time, in the provinces of California, an in-
fluence almost as overwhelming as that it so long held
in parts of South America under the Jesuits.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MISSIONS OF THE PACIFIC COAST.
THE institution known in California as the " mission "
was, from one stand-point, missionary and ecclesiastical ;
from another it was industrial and political. There was
a decided flavor of worldliness, not to say greed of gain,
mingled with the undoubted zeal and holiness of the
early priests. In all the mountainous wilderness from
Cape St. Lucas to Cape Mendocino, their missions occu-
pied the choicest spots in the fairest valleys. They
chose for soil, water, climate, sightliness, commanding
position; and subsequent years have only confirmed
their almost unerring judgment. The cash value of each
convert to the gardens and pastures of the mission's
broad domains was never overlooked: Christianized
Indians meant laborers and vassals. The California
natives of whom, in 1721, Collier wrote, " Every family
hath an entire legislature, and governs at discretion,"
were brought into a subjection only paralleled in Para-
guay. Students of economic subjects could not fail to
find much of interest in the internal management of
these famous missions of Alta (or Upper) California, the
outgrowth of those established by the Jesuits in the
peninsula of Baja (or Lower) California, where Fathers
Ugarte and Salvatierra planted Loreto, Oct. 19, 1697.
Within seventy years the priests had four flourishing
missions and many minor settlements along the shores
60 MINING-CAMPS.
of the Gulf, then known as the Red Sea, or the Sea of
Cortez (el mar Cortez). Soldiers under their command
mapped out the surrounding region. Humboldt in his
"New Spain" describes early conflicts of secular and
ecclesiastical authority, terminated by the Spanish
courts, which issued a cedula real, or writ, and put
the entire detachment at Loreto under the orders of the
priests. This famous shrine was soon enriched by pearls
from the Gulf and silver from the mines : it possessed
embroideries made by the hands of the Queen of Spain,
and paintings by Murillo and Velasquez. In 1719 Father
Ugarte built a missionary ship from timber dragged two
hundred miles through the gray mountains and barren
sand-dunes, there being no forests nearer to Loreto.
At last, in 1767 the Jesuits were expelled, giving place
to their successful rivals the Franciscans ; and the fol-
lowing year they left the adobe-built missions of Lower
California, the gardens, young orchards, and semi-civili-
zed converts of their faith. The first settlement, the
first church, and the first ship built in the California
provinces were the result of Jesuit enterprise. The
work they did was the direct means of attracting the
attention of Spain to Upper California, and led to imme-
diate efforts for its colonization. The leaders changed;
but the movement which culminated at Mission Dolores
on the Bay of San Francisco received its primary im-
pulse when Fathers Ugarte and Salvatierra, with nine
soldiers, set up their rude cross by the sheltered cove of
sultry Loreto.
In July of 1769, that fateful year which witnessed
the birth of those mighty leaders of opposing armies,
Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington,
Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan apostle, a man
of singular zeal, piety, asceticism, and administrative
THE MISSIONS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 61
ability, founded San Diego, and began the mission
system in Alta California. 1 His successors completed
its ecclesiastical conquest, and brought the coast- tribes
into full subjection.
The missions in their prime were little more than
Indian reservations, managed, it is true, with great
skill and marked industrial success, but entirely incapa-
ble of making citizens out of their Indian occupants.
From the days of the good Las Casas, Spain and Mex-
ico had honestly tried to do their best by the Indians.
The laws of Mexico gave them many rights which in
practice they were utterly unable to obtain. A decree
of Philip II., in 1571, ordered that the property of
Indians should never be sold except at public auction,
before the alcalde, after thirty days notice. Later
Spanish laws created additional safeguards against the
loss of their common or other lands. The Recopila-
cion de Indias says explicitly that they cannot be sold
nor alienated (" Por ningun case se les pueden vender ni
enagenar "). The royal Audencia of Mexico, adopted
in 1781, enforced with additional legislation the same
idea. The object of all these regulations was purely
beneficent, to interpose an insuperable barrier against
all attempts of the whites to strip the newly emanci-
pated Indians of whatever property they might receive
from the government, or accumulate by their own in-
dustry. Their rights in the common lands of a pueblo
could not be sold or rented ; and this was good law in
California, for some time after the American occupation. 2
1 Father Serra founded six mission colonies, gathered into strict dis-
cipline over seven thousand Indians, died Aug. 28, 1784, and was buried
at San Carlos, Monterey, beneath the church-altar. Father Francisco
Palou, his friend, associate, and biographer, wrote Serra's life at Mis-
sion Dolores, the first book written in California.
2 Sunol. vs. Hepburn, 1 Cal. Rep., p. 224.
62 MINING-CAMPS.
But in California, as in Mexico, the actual rights pos-
sessed by the Indians were less than their legal rights,
even during the sixty years of the missions' undisputed
control. For these slaves of the soil, that civil author-
ity represented by commandantes, ayuntamientos, and
other officials of pueblo, presidio, or province, only
existed as casual apparitions, gorgeous and stately as
the bandits of an Italian opera. Very justly says
quaint old Nicholas Mill, in his " History of Mexico,"
"In California the monks do rule the country." In
the early mission days, they discouraged settlements
and colonies of whites ; and at a later period they still
found means of controlling the Indian population far
more absolutely than had been the intention of the
civil authorities. Mexican laws enacted early in this
century, and still in force in California after the Ameri-
can conquest, provided for Indian alcaldes, in these
terms :
"Mission Indians have the right to elect their own alcaldes,
who, with the advice and assistance of the mission priests, shall
make all the necessary regulations for their own internal govern-
ment."
The Acts of 1833-34, secularizing the missions, pay
much attention to the welfare of the Indians. From
the point of view taken by the Mexican Government,
the only good reason for the long-continued existence
of the missions had been to train citizens. They were
not intended to be permanent establishments; but
would, it was hoped, change peacefully into prosperous
parishes, and gradually lose their peculiar industrial,
political, and communal features. But the laws relat-
ing to Indian alcaldes were practically a dead letter.
Cooke, in his "Conquest of New Mexico and Cali-
fornia," mentions such an alcalde at "San Phillip!"
THE MISSIONS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 63
(Felipe) ; but otherwise, so far as we are able to learn,
the right was unused and forgotten.
If the condition of vassalage in which the mission
Indians were kept be considered entirely justifiable,
their treatment was, on the whole, satisfactory. Few
whites except priests and soldiers were allowed to live
at the missions, whose tile-roofed buildings of black
sun-dried bricks (adobes) surrounded a large court; cool
with flowing streams of water and shade-trees. One
side of the square was occupied by the great mission-
church; while the remaining three sides were devoted
to galleries, porches, workshops, barns, stables, grana-
ries, kitchens, store-houses, cells of neophytes, and rooms
of priests. The Indians were fed and clothed, taught
trades, simple mechanical arts, and the system of agri-
culture practised in Spain; passing their uneventful
lives as humble servants of the Church, which was
virtually independent of Mexico, owner of the soil,
and master of the country. 1
One might fill a volume with incidents of life in
these quaint and curious missions before their hour
of doom came. The people rose at sunrise, spent an
hour at the chapel, marched singing to the fields, re-
turned when the evening angelus rang, spent the even-
ing in games and amusements, and retired to their huts
of tules grouped under the mission's protecting shadow.
They planted gardens, orangeries, vineries, and olivari-
ums, gardens in which the choicest fruits of Granada
and Andalusia were grown; and they tended the fast-
multiplying herds of the mission in the broad valleys
and on the fertile foot-hills. California became almost
a sanitarium and refuge for army veterans and worn-
1 Paper on California. Harris: Maryland Hist. Soc. Pub., 1849; now
a very rare pamphlet.
64 MINING-CAMPS.
out priests; the missions where they dwelt were like
highly cultivated oases in the midst of a wilderness.
Catholic writers have strongly denounced the subse-
quent Mexican policy of secularization, marked as it
was by the confiscation of the "Pious Fund," estab-
lished for missionary purposes by wealthy Catholics in
Mexico and Spain. De Courcy says that the Franciscan
Fathers had seventy-five thousand California Indians
civilized and converted before 1813. Another writer,
Marshall, adds that in eight years the secular adminis-
tration of the missions " re-plunged the whole province
into barbarism," and utterly failed in every particular ;
reducing at the chief missions the 30,650 Indians to
4,450, the 424,000 head of cattle to 28,220, the 62,000
horses to 3,800, the 331,000 sheep to 31,600, arid the
annual yield of 70,000 fanegas of wheat to 4,000. (A
fanega weighed 150 pounds.) This scattering of help-
less, ignorant Indians over California has ever, and most
justly, appealed to human sympathies. Even at this day
the great adobe walls of the few mission-churches that
yet stand, the rude sculptures, gaudy frescos, and square
belfries, the neglected burial-grounds, the huge and
rude crosses set sloping on the hillsides or crowning
some seaward-overlooking peak, the mournful silver-
gray olive-trees, large as those that look down the dark
chasm of Sorrento, all appear sacred and deeply impres-
sive features in the California landscape. Protestants
and Catholics alike treasure these memorials of the
dreamy, romantic childhood of California, of conditions
of society that have forever departed from the Ameri-
can continent, and of an ecclesiastical rule more power-
ful and more exclusive than existed elsewhere in North
America.
When the missions were first established, a tract of
THE MISSIONS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 65
about fifteen acres was allotted to each one ; but their
lands were never surveyed, and they gradually extended
their bounds until they virtually laid claim to nearly
the entire region. The term "mission," that once had
meant only the church-town, with the gardens and
orchards near it, soon came to include the extensive
tracts over which the cattle, horses, and sheep owned by
the establishment were allowed to roam at will. There
were, a few years later, some separate private grants and
presidio reservations. The priests never received any
formal acknowledgment, from the Spanish Government,
of their land-claims. The revolution of 1822 put the
subject into the hands of Mexican Liberals, who four
years later freed the Indian serfs from compulsory alle-
giance to the priesthood. The mission-lands were gradu-
ally alienated, and the decay and ruin spoken of in the
previous paragraph followed as a natural consequence.
It appears evident that the missions in their best
estate were triumphs of organization, and marvels of
pastoral wealth. San Gabriel, for instance, once con-
tained three thousand Indians, owned one hundred and
five thousand cattle, twenty thousand horses, forty thou-
sand sheep, and seventeen extensive ranches all well
cultivated; it had fig, olive, grape, and orange planta-
tions; and thousands of dollars were in its treasury.
The twenty-one missions of Alta California in 1820
contained thirty thousand Indians, and owned a million
head of live-stock. By 1833, when secularization be-
gan, the number of Indians had fallen to twenty thou-
sand, there being great mortality among them, and little
recuperative energy. By 1837 the missions held only
about four thousand Indians, and less than sixty-three
thousand head of live-stock. Seventeen years never
wrought more complete ruin in a social system.
66 MINING-CAMPS.
We have now to consider the legal aspects and
methods of organization of the mission colonies. The
Franciscan padre who governed each mission was at
first its civil as well as religious ruler, and dealt directly
with the viceroy of Mexico. He was called the presi-
dente, or governor, and administered the law within his
jurisdiction. Nominally it was the law of Mexico ;
practically it was frontier government, few and simple
rules, prompt and summary enforcement, and no appeal
except to the city of Mexico. Thus they governed the
Indians, the soldiers, the few white settlers in the vil-
lages that grew up near the missions. The province
had its commandante, representing the civil and military
power, but never interfering with the management of
the missions, nor criticising the decisions of the priests.
In Father Junipero Serra's time, there was a conflict of
authority, which ended in a victory for the ecclesiastics,
and the military authorities accepted the situation.
The first grant of land the priests allowed to be given
in California was in 1774, to a Spanish soldier named
Butron, who had married a baptized Indian girl from
Carmel Mission, and received a tract in that valley. 1
By this time their claims embraced nearly the whole
territory from sea-coast to sierra, and from Sonoma
Mountain to San Diego Bay. It was difficult, even at
a later date, when secularization was evidently an inev-
itable fact, to secure ownership of land "against the
encroachments of powerful missions which discouraged
immigration, and under a weak and irregular territorial
government." 2 Despite these difficulties, and the al-
most constant opposition of the priests, the little pue-
blos, or free towns, grew, and received alcaldes. In 1813
1 Tuthill's History of California, pp. 60-63, passim.
2 Cooke's Conquest of New Mexico and California.
THE MISSIONS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 67
the Spanish Cortes granted right to form ayuntamientos,
or town-councils. By various enactments between 1822
and 1833, the Mexican Government took secular author-
ity from the presidencias, and swept away the irrespon-
sible, undefined, and illegal power so long exercised
within those jurisdictions. The presidente, or priest-
president, became a simple prefect, and civil authority
prevailed over ecclesiastical.
The mission-land claims were continued long after
the American conquest. Priests in charge of missions
attempted to sell or rent lands in the vicinity, and were
prevented by Mason, the military governor. The noted
case of Nobili v. Redman 1 decided the legal status of
the missions, and aided greatly in settling land-titles in
California. This decision was to the effect that "the
missions established in California prior to its acquisition
by the United States were political establishments, and
in no wise connected with the Church. The fact that
monks or priests governed them does not prove the
ownership of the Church. The lands the mission held
remained government lands ; and the Church can only
claim mission property under the Mexican decree of
1824, and subject to all its limitations." 2 This evidently
refers to and includes the Acts subsequent to 1834,
carrying into effect the original announcement of 1824.
The secularization of the mission-lands will be de-
scribed more at length in discussing the pueblos, or free
towns, into which some of the missions were converted.
This secularization seems to have been amply justified
1 6 Cal. Rep., p. 325. Another interesting case is that of Santilan
vs. Moses, 1 Cal. Rep , p. 92. The position of the priest was held analo-
gous to that of " sole corporation " in England.
2 " Primafaeie, that the Mexican Government of California had the
power to grant mission-lands as they chose." Den. vs. Den., 6 Cal. Rep.,
p. 81.
68 MINING-CAMPS.
as a principle of public policy, though it was not wisely
conducted. It was, so far as the descendants of the
first Spanish settlers were concerned, an act of simple
justice. As early as 1763, men had removed from
Mexico to California under promise of becoming land-
owners ; and this had hitherto been denied them. It was
also an act of patriotism ; because the priests of Mexico
and California had done all they could to prevent the
success of the revolution, and whatever reduced their
political and financial influence aided the stability of
the new republic. The last of the missions the priests
had established was that of Sonoma, in August, 1823 ;
and between 1824 and 1834 the various decrees already
alluded to stripped them all of their possessions. The
civil officers put in charge were often dishonest; the mis-
sion-cattle were stolen, or else strayed off into the moun-
tains ; the Indians in many cases gladly returned to
their savage life, or wasted their patrimony, and sank
into beggary. These ten years represent a transition
period from the era of missions to the era of pueblos,
and in many respects the change was a trying one for
the people.
The famous missions, with all their faults of theory
and of practice, had been planted by men possessed of
the true missionary spirit : they had done much to civ-
ilize the natives, and more to improve the country.
They had often dispensed a genial and generous hospi-
tality to strangers, and they ruled their servants with a
firm and liberal hand. When the whole social fabric
of the mission-system went to ruin, the suddenness of
its downfall shocked all thoughtful observers. Yet it
was but an artificial system, and its intrinsic worthless-
ness was plainly revealed the moment outside pressure
and military coercion were removed. Moral suasion was
THE MISSIONS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 69
futile to retain the thousands of Indian converts, who
could no longer be persuaded to make soap, mould
bricks, weave wool, sing Latin hymns, and repeat
mediaeval prayers. They returned to their hillsides,
their grasshoppers, their camass-roots, 1 and their idle-
ness ; while many of the priests went back to Mexico.
The missions' lack of economic success was by far the
least part of their failure.
The population of Alta California, exclusive of In-
dians, was at this time (1834) about five thousand, of
whom not more than forty were English and Americans.
Some of these, however, occupied very influential posi-
tions ; several were alcaldes, and nearly all had married
wealthy senoritas. But, in order to obtain any political
rights, they had been compelled to become Catholics,
and were objects of suspicion and hatred. Don Jose*
Castro was heard, in 1837, to declare that " a- California
cavallero cannot win a seftorita if opposed in his suit
by an American sailor. . . . These heretics must be
cleared from the land." Their numbers, however, were
constantly receiving accessions. The foreign element
grew stronger, despite all efforts to dislodge them.
They held on, with the tenacity of men in whose veins
the blood of many generations of Aryan pioneers was
flowing. A few swaggering trappers came wandering
through the mountain passes; a few runaway sailors,
such as Gilroy, who married the Spanish heiress of vast
possessions, became lords of inland valleys ; a few keen-
witted Yankee traders settled in the towns: and the
end of Spanish-American domination was close at hand.
Meanwhile the light-hearted, passionate, generous na-
1 " Camass esculenta," the most important food-bulbs of the Pacific-
coast Indians. Described by the late Hon. B. B. Redding in American
Naturalist, and in report to Smithsonian Institute.
70 MINING-CAMPS.
tive Californians established their ranchos in all the
fertile valleys, and built their dingy, thick-walled adobe
mansions on points of vantage from San Diego to Sono-
ma; always choosing, with some hereditary instinct of
the race,- the picturesque and beautiful outlooks, or
nestling in the most sheltered of vales, or in the wild-
est of ravines. The life they lived, in its freedom from
care, and its glorious physical healthfulness, was simply
perfection. Dana somewhere speaks of the Californians
as " a people on whom a curse had fallen, and stripped
them of every thing but their pride, their manners, and
their voices." But he had only seen them in their
pueblos near the coast : he had not visited their wide-
roofed homes, when all the descendants of the Cas-
tilian pioneer of 1763 gathered under one roof-tree in
harmony and affection. Horses could be had for the
asking ; cattle were only of value for the hides, worth
two dollars apiece, and called " California bank-notes."
There were no fences anywhere, except hedges of
nopal (or prickly-pear), walls of brush, and ditches
formerly dug by the mission Indians about the adobe
ranch-houses. There were no roads, except, near the
towns, the occasional track of a slow, wooden-wheeled
carreta, or ox-cart. Every one rode on horseback, and
with an ease, grace, vigor, and fearlessness, which have
never been surpassed by any race. This was the peo-
ple whose flocks and herds soon covered the plains
and hillsides once claimed by the missions, and into
whose untroubled life the American pioneers brought
elements of change and confusion. This was the era
of California's eventful existence, that coming artists
of language will delight to portray. Its saints are such
as that high-born maiden, Concepcion Arguello, of
whose faithfulness Bret Harte's poem tells ; its shrines
THE MISSIONS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 71
are mostly ruined walls of sunburned clay, the oldest
architectural remains on the Pacific coast of the United
States ; its heroes are dark and haughty vaqueros, storm-
ing across broad mesa, wild canon, and steep barranca.
An old Spaniard dying in a rude hut near San Luis
Obispo, in the winter of 1874, sprang to his feet in the
delirium of fever, and cried out, "I hear the ringing
of their spurs on the mountain, the trample of their
horses ! " and so, repeating the names of his companions
of fifty years before, he sank back in an unconsciousness
from which death soon released him.
CHAPTER VII.
SPANISH TOWN-GOVERNMENT. THE PUEBLO IN CALI-
FORNIA.
THE pueblos of Mexico are simply towns, as the pue-
blicitos are simply villages. In Alta California, the first
pueblos were so distinct from the presidios, or nomi-
nally fortified towns under military rule, and from the
missions under ecclesiastical rule, that they well de-
serve the title of free towns. They alone had an
alcalde chosen by the people ; and they alone had
common lands, and gifts of town-lots to all residents.
But there is an application of the word "pueblos"
to the relics of an ancient, fast-fading, native civiliza-
tion, which has perhaps become more familiar to most
readers than is the Mexican or Californian usage. The
pueblo of the south-west region of the United States
is far different from those we have just described. Ad-
venturous students such as Mr. Frank Gushing, explo-
rers such as Major Powell, and archaeologists such as
Mr. L. H. Morgan, have made us acquainted with the
rock-fortresses and the immense communal buildings of
the race that reared Cicuye*, Quivira, Cibola, and the
City of Mexico. 1 Even to-day the Moquis shape their
1 The first of these was discovered by Coronado; the second was the
city that Penalosa saw; the third was the mystic and seven-citied realm
that the Franciscan friar, Marcos de Niza, reported in his " Relations "
(Hakluyt Soc., vol. iii. p. 438). For these pueblos, see Morgan's Homqs
of the Aborigines, Government Reports of Major Powell, Short's North
72
SPANISH TOWN-GOVERNMENT. 73
black and red pottery as they did before Martin Behaim
began to dream of a new world ; the Zuni priests still
guard their sacred fires, and pray in their secret lan-
guage for the fast-fading " children of Montezuma." It
is curious enough that this Spanish word " pueblo " should
have come to be applied to the "joint-tenements" of the
proud and brave people that drove Otermin out of New
Mexico, and for fifteen years governed themselves. At
the present time the pueblo Indians of the South-west
choose their own chief ruler, war-captain, and fiscal, as
they have done for years. The pueblos of California
had no essential relation to the Indians, and were only
modifications of the Mexican town-system.
In Alta California, the need of pueblos began to be
felt soon after missions were first established. The
presidios, where the soldiers and commandantes were,
required grain, vegetables, and supplies of various sorts.
Spanish vessels from the East Indies occasionally wanted
provisions. The viceroy of Mexico therefore wrote to
the commandante of San Diego and Monterey, under
date of Aug. 17, 1773, declaring that he "grants him
the power to designate common lands, and also allows
him to distribute lands in private to such Indians as
may most dedicate themselves to agriculture and the
breeding of cattle ; but they must continue to live in
the town or mission, not dispersed on their ranchos"
The commandante is also empowered to grant lands to
any new and desirable settlers, and he " must give legal
titles without cost." Then follows the statement, clearly
opposed to the claims of the ecclesiastics, that he "may,
if he deems it expedient, change a mission into a pueblo,
and subject it to the same civil and economic laws as
Americas of Antiquity, Putnam's Archaeology of the Pueblos; also, A
Pueblo Fete Day, in Overland Monthly for April, 1884.
74 MINING-CAMPS.
govern the other pueblos of the kingdom." Nothing,
however, seems to have come of this permission, except
a few isolated grants, all under permission from, and
with the full approval of, the priests.
Four years later, in June, 1777, explicit directions
from the viceroy ordered the establishment of two
pueblos, one at San Jose*, the other at Los Angeles, on
the Rio Guadalupe and the Rio Porcincula respectively.
In 1795 the Marquis of Branciforte founded a colony,
and the pueblo of Branciforte, near Santa Cruz. All
the other pueblos of California were outgrowths of mis-
sions or of presidios. The regulations outlined in the
letter of the viceroy, written in 1773, were adopted for
the first two pueblos.
In June, 1779, additional regulations respecting the
pueblos were issued, and were approved and emphasized
by royal orders of Oct. 24, 1781. By these orders, each
publador, or village colonist, was to be paid $116.44
yearly for the first two years, and $60 yearly during the
next three : he was also to have the free use of horses,
mules, cattle, sheep, utensils, and to be furnished with
seed-wheat and other necessaries, of which a long list is
given.
The officials are to lay out the streets and public
squares, with which all Spanish towns are well pro-
vided; and are to choose and mark out the common
lands (egidos), the lands for municipal purposes (pro-
pios), the house-lots (solares), and the separate sowing-
lands of the colonists (suertes). We have here a four-
fold and extremely interesting division of lands among
villagers, a division of very ancient usage among the
Spaniards. All the details of the system point to its
origin in a community where some of the land had to
be irrigated on account of the uncertainty of the sea-
SPANISH TOWN-GOVERNMENT. 75
sons, and where much of the wealth of the people was
in cattle. The common lands of the pueblo were to
furnish water, pasturage, timber, and firewood, and
these privileges were free to all dwellers in the town.
Those who received grants of building-lots were obliged
to fence them, make certain improvements, and plant
trees thereon, within a stated time ; and this they prom-
ised in their petition to the alcalde, or to the town-
council. The "sowing-lands" were granted in two
parcels to each individual ; one half being " capable of
irrigation," the other half " dry ground," or upland (de
tierras) .
The object of establishing the California pueblos was
set forth in a long preamble in the royal order of 1781.
It was, " to forward the reduction of, and as far as possi-
ble make this vast country useful to the State ; " and
the union of white men, or " people of reason " (gente
de razori), in close communities; also, the "better edu-
cation of the Indians."
Each pueblo was furnished with alcaldes and other
municipal officers (members of council, and syndicos'),
in proportion to the number of inhabitants. For two
years these officers were appointed ; the third year, and
thereafter, they were elected. The titles to houses,
lots, and water-rights for irrigation, were recorded in
the "Book of Colonization," and kept in the pueblo
archives. The council had many duties similar to those
of the ordinary town-councils known to Americans :
they ordered the laying-out of streets, the planting of
shade-trees, the repair of roads.
In some cases the pueblo council established schools.
Feb. 11, 1797, Felipe Goycochea, of the presidio of Santa
Barbara, wrote to Governor Borica, saying, " I trans-
mit to you a statement in relation to the schools, to-
76 MINING-CAMPS.
gether with six copy-books of the children who are
learning to write ; " and these Spanish copy-books of
this pueblo school are still in the archives of California,
and likely to long remain, the only thing for which
history takes note of these last-century officials. The
missions had their schools, also, where some of the
brightest Indians were taught to read and write, to
keep accounts, and superintend laborers in the field.
The hero of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson's pathetic and
beautiful novel " Ramona " is in no wise an impossible
creation : a few such men grew up under the training
of mission and pueblo. "Ramona" gives information
about the organization of the more progressive Indian
settlements of southern California, after the seculariza-
tion of the missions, before their common lands were
wrested away by fraud and force, and shameful neglect
on the part of the United-States Government.
In March, 1791, the viceroy wrote from Chihuahua,
Mexico, to Governor Romeu of California, the order
reaching him in October, ordaining that the extent
of four common leagues measured from the centre of
the square was sufficient for the new pueblos, into
which the old presidios were transformed. The cap-
tains of the presidios were to grant and distribute
house-lots and lands to citizens and former soldiers
within these limits. The decree closed with the cus-
tomary phrase used by the courtly hidalgos of Spain,
" God preserve you many years."
President Iturbide in 1823 established new laws for
the pueblos, but they were never put into practical
operation in Alta California. The decrees of 1824 and
1828 of the Mexican Congress, however, set forth minute
regulations regarding the colonization of the vacant
lands, and the granting of town-sites to individuals
THE PUEBLO IN CALIFORNIA. 77
who bound themselves to establish colonies. No person
was allowed to receive more than one square league
of irrigated land, four leagues of land dependent on
the seasons, and six leagues of pasture. The lands
granted must be "vacant," as the exact status of
the mission-lands was declared "to be as yet unde-
termined," and "must not be within ten leagues of
the coast." This last was evidently an attempt, which
proved of little avail, to populate the interior valleys.
Less than twelve families were not considered as form-
ing a colony. The government, policy, and town-laws
of Mexican towns were copied as nearly as practi-
cable.
The spirit of the laws governing the granting of lands
to the pueblos was manifestly liberal, as is shown in an
Act of the governor and territorial deputation of Cali-
fornia, Aug. 6, 1834. It is there provided, that when a
settlement is made, and the people establish a council,
that body may apply for assignments of land. This
evidently contemplates the growth of free towns, not
begun by formal colonies, or under large grants, but by
a few settlers in the ordinary Anglo-Saxon fashion of
planting communities. The municipal land so granted
was rented, or given out by lot, subject to an annual
tax imposed by the council, " the opinion of three
intelligent men of honor being first taken." Each
house-lot of one hundred varas square l cost the grantee
six dollars and twenty-five cents for fees paid to the
alcalde. Land required for warehouses and other edi-
fices was reserved by the authorities.
Aug. 9, 1834, the long series of efforts to secularize
the missions, and convert them into pueblos, of which we
1 The vara is the Mexican yard of thirty-two inches and four-tenths.
It is still iu use in real-estate transaction in Sail Francisco.
78 MINING-CAMPS.
have previously spoken, and which had extended over
so many years, culminated in the "provisional regu-
lations " of Governor Figueron, providing for the secu-
larization of ten of the missions. 1 The new pueblos
were given alcaldes and councils. Appointed commis-
sioners took charge of the mission-property, and made
classified inventories. They explained to the Indians,
"with suavity and patience," that the missions had been
converted into pueblos; that they were only subordi-
nate to the priest in matters spiritual ; and that each
one must work, maintain, and govern himself, " without
dependence on any one." A few large Indian rancherias,
distant from the missions, were allowed to form separate
pueblos ; but these were failures.
Thus, as we have seen, the system that prevailed dur-
ing the early part of this century underwent many
changes. Once the territory had been divided into
four provinces, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey,
and San Francisco, each with a command ante, 2 and
the seat of government of each being named a presidio.
About it were tracts of land reserved for the use of
1 The Cortes of Spain first mentioned secularization in a decree of
Jan. 4, 1813, in reference to Buenos Ayres; saying, " Steps will soon bo
taken to reduce vacant and other lands to private ownership." Sept.
13, they ordered the Buenos Ayres Indians to choose representatives to
meet the governor's agents, and distribute the mission-lands. In Janu-
ary, 1831, the governor of California issued a decree based on these Acts
of 1813; but clearly illegal, and so at once recalled. Agitation continued
till 1833, when appeared the general Act under which the regulations of
1834 were passed.
2 "We have before alluded to the commandante. He is a classic
figure in early California life. Cases from alcalde-courts and from mis-
sions were often referred to him. He held his appellate court with
great dignity, a naked sword on one side of his chair, and a silver-
headed cane on the other. The sword awed the simple Indians and
Mexicans; the cane was a perpetual writ of summons, sent to a man's
door to call him as witness, or carried through the village to bring
young and old to the court-room.
THE PUEBLO IN CALIFORNIA. 79
the king's soldiers, and called rancherias. 1 The mis-
sions held all they chose of the remaining territory.
By 1835 there were secularized missions, ruled spiritu-
ally by priests, temporally by government administra-
tors called major-domos in the Act of 1840 ; free towns
or pueblos, ruled by officers of their own election ; and
private estates, controlled with almost manorial powers
by lordly Spanish dons owning ranchos or haciendas.
When Americans began to acquire property in the
pueblos, a knowledge of their laws was essential ; and
many land-titles long depended on the pueblo records
and procedure. 2
Historically, the most important of the pueblos was
that of Yerba Buena, at first a mere embarcadero, or
landing-place, for boats of fishermen and hide-drogers ;
which grew up near the Mission of Dolores and the
presidio of San Francisco, absorbed both, took the
name of the latter, and has since grown into the largest
city on the eastern shores of the Pacific. San Jose and
Los Angeles have also had great prosperity, and prove,
in American hands, that "the ancient and honorable
pueblos" from which they sprung were admirably
located.
The early courts of the State of California recog-
nized and confirmed titles received from the pueblos,
and sustained their rights to common and municipal
lands. 3 In the case of the pueblo of San Francisco,
1 The word has fallen from its high estate. A rancheria is now only
a collection of Indian huts.
2 " Pueblos could be formed by discharged soldiers, or by a grant to
a chief colonist, or to twelve or more families, or by a presidio being
established, or by the secularization of a mission " (Welch vs. Sullivan,
8 Cal. Rep., p. 165).
8 Case of Welch vs. Sullivan, 8 Cal. Rep. Also Hart vs. Burnett,
15 Cal. Rep.
80 MINING-CAMPS.
the centre of the old presidio square was made the
initial point for a survey of the four square leagues to
which the town was entitled as successor to the rights
of the pueblo of Yerba Buena. 1 It was decided, under
American law, that the lands of a pueblo were not sub-
ject to seizure or sale under execution. 2 The power
of granting pueblo lands was usually vested in the
alcalde, as before stated, but sometimes needed the
approval of the ayuntamiento, or sometimes of the peo-
ple of the pueblo. If there was no alcalde, a justice of
the peace, in American days, granted lots. In all these
cases, specific rules and restrictions were observed. The
authorities, for instance, could only grant or lease small
house-lots, or garden-lots of two hundred varas square.
Certain lands could not be sold, mortgaged, nor alien-
ated, even to pay municipal expenses. 3
Under Mexican rule, the petition required to be sent
to the alcalde must set forth that the petitioner was
a citizen of Mexico, a resident of the pueblo, desired
to use and possess a certain unoccupied tract, and
would proceed to make certain improvements. The
land was usually granted at once. The expenses of
the proceeding varied at different times from five to
twenty dollars. 4 /The opportunities and perquisites
of the office of alcalde were fully appreciated in later
times by some of the American incumbents, who granted
tracts outside of pueblo bounds, and seriously compli-
cated land-titles. The American military governors of
California had various difficulties on this score with the
1 Payne and Dewey vs. Tread well, 16 Cal., 220.
2 Fulton vs. Hanlon, 20 Cal. Rep., 450.
a 1 Cal. Rep., 306. Also cases of Redding vs. White, 27 Cal. Rep.,
282; Branham vs. San Jose', 24 Cal., 585.
4 Petition of Rosalie Haro, of Yerba Buena Pueblo, to Alcalde
Padilla (before American conquest), 1 Cal. Rep., 323.
THE PUEBLO IN CALIFORNIA. 81
pueblos of San Francisco, Sonoma, San Jose*, Monterey,
and Santa Barbara. So far as was consonant with jus-
tice, the grants made during this period were sustained.
The rights of San Francisco were continuously recog-
nized from 1835 to 1850, except that certain grants
made in 1849 by a justice of the peace were set aside
as invalid. 1
In the Mexican system as known in California after
1837, the alcalde was chief officer in all towns, and
always presided over the town-councils when such
existed. As late as 1850 he retained the right of
granting town-lots.
The preceding notes upon the pueblos have thus led
by natural steps to a full consideration of this chief
office of the pueblo, the Mexican-Spanish alcalde-
ship. Several times in the progress of this study, we
have found it necessary to use the term, and allude to
the office. Alcaldes ruled the Darien colonists and the
Darien mining-camp; they found a place in Mexican
mine-towns, and Mexican pastoral communities. Trans-
planted to Alta California, the office still preserved its
unique character, and continued its development tow-
ards higher forms. At last the American miners for a
time adopted the name and the institution, transferring
it from the towns of the coast to the camps of the
Sierra. We must, in a separate chapter, consider the
historical evolution of this office in Spain, in Mexico,
and in California. How was it that a local officer of
the Spanish civil system became the most important
of institutional contributions from Spanish America to
Germanic America? How was it that the freedom of
the people to choose their own alcaldes was often
i Cohas vs. Raisin, 3 Cal. Rep., 443.
82 MINING-CAMPS.
greater in California than in Mexico ? To answer these
questions, we must consider the nature and scope of
the office in its varied forms, and throughout its event-
ful career. We must turn to the caliphate of Cordova
and the three Christian kingdoms of northern Spain.
CHAPTER VIII.
A STUDY OF ALCALDES.
THE heart of the Spanish local system is the alcalde-
ship. We must, however, turn to the fruitful Orient
for the origin of the office: it is, in fact, the kadi of
Persia and Arabia, the alJcaid of the Saracens and
Moors ; it is also the village judgeship of Spain in its
heroic age, when Aragon possessed the most liberal
constitution in Europe. 1 Art, romance, and literature
have loved to linger over the picturesque features of
this office ; tales of the East, and peasant-songs of the
Spanish peninsula, alike describe the "judge of the
village," whose power for good or evil was almost
unlimited.
The very forms that the word has taken in the
Spanish language are evidences of the universality and
importance of the thing itself. An alcaidia is a town-
warden, or governor of a town, or it is the district of
his jurisdiction ; his wife is the alcaidesa ; the duty
anciently levied on all cattle driven across the district
1 In Aragon, the citizens of the free towns, or pueblos, had provincial
laws, organized guilds, and elected alcaldes. They chose deputies to
the cortes, or legislative council; and this council elected the supreme
judge, or justicia, levied taxes, and appointed minor officers. Aragon,
Valencia, Castile, and Catalonia held cortes of three estates, prelates,
nohles, and deputies. Leon in 1188 assembled the first council of elected
deputies. Barcelona grew from the Spanish Mark established by Karl
the Great, and became independent in the days of Charles le Chauve.
83
84 MINING-CAMPS.
or through the town was the alcaida ; the alcaiceria
the market-place. These are earlier forms, and point
wider sway, and even greater powers, than the model
alcaldes ever possessed. The true alcalde was judge oi
the town, and ex-officio mayor of the council. To be
given alcaida^ was to receive the protection of some
powerful citizen or great nobleman ; the office itself is
the alcaldia; the judge's wife is the alcaldesa; lastly,
as a term of contempt, anger, or sarcasm, applied to any
absurd or hasty action, we have the word alcaldada.
Pleadings before the Spanish alcaldes were oral ; and
proceedings were summary, and in all ordinary cases
were final. Even in very important trials, an appeal
was infrequent ; for to carry it farther meant to become
entangled in the Spanish courts of record, a worse fate
than to drift into the delays of the English chancery
courts. In one of the mediaeval Spanish romances, a
peasant says, " Yonder stone wall will rot ere thy law-
suit ends."
Under the Spanish laws, the alcaldes were the con-
ciliators of disputes, and the head men of the village,
responsible to higher authority for the behavior of those
under their charge.
Wherever the descendants of Spain went, they took
the main features of the alcalde-system to which they
were accustomed : the silver-headed official staff of the
alcalde was planted beside the cross of the Jesuit mis-
sionaries and the Franciscan friars. We have previously
spoken of alcaldes in the colonies of Cuba and Darien :
alcaldes also accompanied the soldiers of De Soto and
Narvaez. When Cabeza de Vaca, afterwards pioneer
explorer of New Mexico, declined to accept command
of the fleet of Narvaez, it was an alcalde who took the
position. The alcaldes of that period were soldiers and
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 85
judges by turn, leaders of expeditions, and governors of
new colonies. Don Diego Peiialosa, one of the most
adventurous Spanish knights of the seventeenth cen-
tury, was in succession alcalde of La Paz, alcalde of
Cuzco, and provincial alcalde of all the La Paz prov-
inces. 1
So soon as Mexico was conquered, division into dis-
tricts and the planting of pueblos began, to each of
which an alcalde was appointed, vacancies being after-
wards filled by election. The powers and duties of the
office were probably much the same as at the present
time ; except that, so long as the mining-courts existed,
no alcalde had any jurisdiction over mining-cases. He
could not even give a title to mineral-lands ; this right,
as we have already seen, being vested in the " mining-
deputation" of the provinces. In 1812 the Spanish
cortes extended municipality privileges to all Mexican
villages of fifty or more inhabitants, and provided that
several hamlets could be united politically for town
government ; that is, under an alcalde, for no council
was considered necessary in such cases.
One of the most interesting and primary duties of the
Mexican village alcalde was that of arbitration in all
minor disputes. Conciliacion was recognized as a part
of the mining-law: it also belonged in the civil code.
No trial could take place until the alcaldes (always
known in this capacity as hombres buenos) had tried to
settle it equitably, and to the satisfaction of both parties
without expense to either. " Each alcalde," the law said,
"shall have a book, called the 'Book of Conciliation^
in which to keep a record of all cases, and of the means
taken to prevent litigation." But " ecclesiastical, mili-
1 Shea's Penalosa Quivira Expedition.
86 MINING-CAMPS.
tary, and municipal cases, and those that affect public
revenues," were not subjects for conciliacion and com-
promise. The ceremony of arbitration as a necessary
prelude to all lawsuits was first disregarded, in Cali-
fornia, in February, 1850. 1 The Spanish principle of
conciliacion is doubtless a gift of Roman jurisprudence.
The eighth section of the fourth book of the Pandects
lays down the principles almost exactly as now accepted
in Mexico. Some of the old provincial laws of France
provided for "arbiters." The principle is recognized as
of great importance in international law, to settle diffi-
culties and prevent war.
There was a form of local and special alcaldeship
first known to Mexico during the sixteenth century,
that has, in modified forms, become a part of Western
life in the United States. Yearly the village alcalde
and the council (if one existed) chose two or more
alcaldes de mesta, who presided over the semi-annual
assemblages of the live-stock owners. This custom was
carried wherever Spanish colonists went. In California
these officers were known as jueces del campo (" judges
of the plain "). They were obliged to be present at
all the annual rodeos, or meetings on horseback in the
open fields, for the purpose of collecting and branding
all the live-stock of the district. These rodeos were
the most important celebrations known to the Spanish
Californians. Every ranchero and vaquero was on hand
with whirling riata and gayly caparisoned mustang.
The jueces were often called upon to settle disputes
about the ownership of cattle, the identity of brands,
and similar matters ; and they were very useful and
dignified officials. From the first, the Californians ap-
1 Von Schmidt vs. Huntington, 1 Cal. 55.
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 87
pear to have elected their own jueces ; and several
times Americans were chosen before 1846. During the
military occupation of the territory, the office of jueces
continued ; Americans serving in Los Angeles, Monte-
rey, and San Jose*. When the first legislature of the
State of California met, it passed, on the last day of
its session (April 20, 1850), a bill repealing all the old
Spanish laws " except the laws of the jueces del campo"
For years after, and, indeed, as long as any rodeos were
held in the pastoral regions of California, local judges
to decide disputes were chosen. As late as 1870, a vis-
itor to San Luis Obispo County saw American and
Spanish cattle-raisers holding rodeos, and submitting
peaceably to the decisions of three "judges of the plain"
chosen from among their number on the first day of the
rodeo. The great plains of California have all been
fenced, and are being sown with wheat and planted with
vines, so that the annual rodeo is now an extinct insti-
tution. But in Western Texas, New Mexico, Colorado,
and northward, wherever great cattle-ranges are found
to-day, the stock-men, in their picturesque and exciting
" round-ups," still follow the ancient Spanish plan ; not
knowing that it is a heritage from a race they despise,
they choose " cattle-judges," to settle disputes, and up-
hold their decisions as final.
The strange vitality of that nomad institution, the
alcalde de mesta, is explained by the fact that it was
perfectly adapted to the needs of a pastoral community,
as much to cattle-owners and cow-boys as to rancheros
and vaqueros. But the fixed and permanent office of
the true town-alcalde has proved hardly less enduring,
and is certainly much more instructive to the student
of institutions.
The Mexican alcaldeship of to-day is much the same
88 MINING-CAMPS.
office that the first Spanish colonists knew. It is a
good working combination of justice of the peace, town-
constable, town-recorder ; it involves a sponsorship be-
fore the law ; it possesses a sort of patriarchal authority.
In each village, the power of the alcalde is supreme : his
will is exercised over the in-coming and the out-going,
the eating and the sleeping, the toil and the recreation,
of every inhabitant. Each traveller visits him to make
inquiries, to secure bargains, or to settle disputes with
his servants or guides. Questions the most trivial are
asked in the same breath with questions the most stu-
pendous : to this Indian he quotes the market-price of
onions, and to that blushing sefiorita gives advice con-
cerning rival suitors. He has social privileges and polit-
ical power. He is the chief overseer of local interests.
If a travelling show wishes to visit the town, it usually
bribes the alcalde to permit it to exhibit there, and the
village priest to announce it from his parish pulpit. The
messengers of the king used to carry letters of commen-
dation to the alcaldes along their route. The simple
and ignorant peasants have personal dealings with few
other officials. Fear and reverence encircle the throne
of this little autocrat, the alcalde, to whom every con-
ceivable difficulty is brought for solution. For these
reasons, the office is one of the most interesting, prime-
val, and romantic of yet surviving Spanish institutions
upon the continent. 1
The rule of the alcalde in California was never so
firmly established or so despotic as in Mexico, but it
was always of greater importance than its nominal
rights and duties would seem to justify. The powers
1 Books of travel teem with allusions. Mr. D. S. Richardson of
California, the private secretary of Minister Foster, in Mexico, writes to
me giving an account of the alcalde's importance in village-life.
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 89
authorized by the decree of March 20, 1837, were sup-
plemented and increased by the weight of local custom ;
for alcaldes had existed in California since the first
pueblo was founded.
This decree of 1837 re-organized the judiciary of
California, providing for courts of conciliation, or lower
alcalde-courts, for courts of first instance, courts of
second instance, courts of third instance, and final
appeals to the Mexican supreme court. But the revo-
lutions and political difficulties in Alta California, then
and thereafter, prevented the practical adoption of any
such system : it simply remained a dead letter. The
powers which it gave the alcalde were less than that
officer really exercised. An enumeration of these
powers, though suggestive and useful, must therefore
be accompanied with a statement of the alcalde's un-
written duties.
"Alcaldes," it is provided in this decree, " shall secure
good order;" shall execute the laws of the prefects;
shall call for a military force, or upon the citizens for
help, when needed ; shall see that the residents of the
town live by useful occupation; shall reprimand idle,
vicious, and vagabond persons ; shall preside over coun-
cil meetings, and vote there ; and may impose fines of
not more than twenty-five dollars.
Jurisdiction over mining-claims was expressly with-
held from the California alcaldes, and was left to the
mining-deputation of the nearest province, Sonora.
The large towns were given three alcaldes, six regi-
dors, and two syndicos ; the nine forming the ayunta-
miento, and the senior alcalde presiding. These officers
were to be elected yearly ; but the office-holding power
was not limited, and it was declared that " no one must
refuse to serve without having the governor's permis-
90 MINING-CAMPS.
sion to retire." Certain officers of the governmei
were prohibited from being members of the ayunta-
miento.
The same Act of 1837 defines the duties of this coun-
cil. It was to have charge of the streets and the ceme-
teries, of sanitary affairs, of prisons and hospitals, of the
inspection of drugs, liquors, and provisions. It was to
act as a committee of charity in case of pestilence ; was
to keep a record of births, marriages, and deaths ; was
to provide for market-places, straight paved streets,
bridges, parks, and public fountains. One of its duties
was that of "making contracts for all sorts of diver-
sions," such as public games and shows. It was em-
powered to establish schools, and pay the teachers out
of the municipal funds. Lastly, it was required "to
be impartial to all citizens, rich or poor," to protect
the weights and -measures, to expend public moneys
honestly, and to report annually to the governor.
Each member of the ayuntamiento was responsible for
mal-administration or malfeasance. When elected,
they were sworn in by the prefect, or by a former
alcalde.
In some of the Mexican towns, the councils were
doubtless burdened with most of the duties described
in the previous paragraph. In California towns, the
council seldom met, since the office was not salaried ;
and the alcalde performed most of its functions, per-
haps ordering a " horn-burning " in the pueblo square
as a sufficient sanitary measure when unusual sickness
prevailed.
A subsequent Act of 1837 restored certain powers to
the alcalde. In the departments of California, New
Mexico, and Tabasco, he was empowered to perform
the functions of judge of first instance in all districts
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 91
where there were no such judges ; and this was after-
wards sustained by the American courts. 1
But in most instances the alcaldes were even more
than "judges of first instance." The disordered condi-
tion of California gave the office greater power, but at
the same time rendered its tenure more precarious, than
the Mexican Government had contemplated. We have
before alluded to these disasters in speaking of the
sudden wreck of the missions, and the scattering of
the Indians. Bands of wandering trappers descended
into the valleys; the Russians had settled at Bodega
and Fort Ross; and the Americans in the country
aided Gen. Solis in his unsuccessful rebellion of 1830.
Minor disturbances followed, and the Indians raided
outlying ranches. American rifles decided the success
of Alvarado's revolution of 1836-38 ; and from that time
the American party began to organize, much as it did
in Texas, aided in the downfall of Alvarado, and the
success of Micheltorena in 1842. By 1845 the corrup-
tion of his government caused a new rebellion, headed
by Castro, Pio Pico, and others ; and Micheltorena was
deposed. The American settlers in the Sacramento
valley, and near Sonoma, soon had reason to believe
that movements were on foot to drive them out ; and
they organized the noted " Bear Flag " battalion, com-
manded by Captains Ide and Grigsby, which thrust
Castro from the Sonoma and Sacramento valleys, and
was on the eve of proclaiming a republic when Fremont
and Stockton came to their aid.
While such political changes were in progress, the
alcalde's tenure of office became precarious, because any
district or town that wanted an alcalde preferred to
1 Menars. Le Roy, 1 Gal. Rep., 216; also Panaud vs. Jones, 1 Cal.
Rep., 448. See 1 Cal. Rep., 559, appendix, on general alcalde system.
92 MINING-CAMPS.
choose him for an indefinite period. Since the alcalde
made his own laws, and saw them enforced according
to his own methods, an unpopular law or a disagree-
able decision speedily caused discontent, and sometimes
ended in an appeal to the governor, or even in a pro-
nunciamiento and a public assembly, taking the alcalde-
ship away, and ordering a new election. This was done,
in some instances, before the American conquest.
In practice, the only judge above the California al-
calde was the governor of the province, who could grant
tracts of agricultural or pastoral lands in much the
same way as the alcalde could grant town-lots, except
that the papers and applications had to be forwarded
to Mexico for final approval. Castro, Alvarado, and
Pio Pico granted so many " concessions," that, in some
cases, a single tract was given several owners, each
showing equal title to the whole. Nominally there was
a veto-power vested in the governor's council, called by
courtesy a " departmental legislature ; " 'but, under the
governors we have mentioned, large tracts were given
away, unchecked even by Mexico. American courts
sifted and tested these grants, refusing to confirm a
large number on the grounds of illegality according to
Mexican law. 1 After 1837 the governor held the only
true appellate court in California.
We have spoken of the " Book of Conciliations " that
was kept by each alcalde. Besides this, he kept a
*' Book of Verbal Processes," recording his judgments
therein; also, and of more importance, he was com-
pelled, according to the "Plan of Pitic," a Spanish
law of 1789, to record all the grants of lands made by
him within the pueblo bounds, to have them signed
i Cases of Ferris vs. Coover, 10 Cal. Rep. ; Berryessa vs. Schultz, 21
Cal. Rep. ; Waterman vs. Smith, 13 Cal. Rep. j and others.
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 93
and attested (though without seals), and a copy deliv-
ered to the petitioner. These books of record kept by
alcaldes during the Spanish era, and previous to the
organization of the State, were received as evidence of
land-titles on proof that the signatures of the alcalde
and clerk (syndicos) were genuine. 1 An alcalde deed
to land was not void because no consideration was ex-
pressed, nor were transfers of property which he made
compelled to have a price mentioned. 2
The old Spanish forms of wills were extremely simple ;
and an alcalde, though appointed as executor, could
authenticate the document in his judicial capacity, if
only he was not named in the will as heir or legatee,
nor derived any compensation for administering it. .
The will of Anastasio Alviso of the pueblo of San Jose*,
dated Sept. 19, 1846, contains a list of " passive debts "
such as, " I declare that I owe Senora Romero seven
hides;" also a list of "active debts" such as, "I declare
that Vicente Monez shall pay for the kitchen utensils
whatever he in his conscience shall think proper to
deliver over." 3 Primitive habits of life are manifest in
every line of such quaint documents, in spirit centuries
removed from the California of to-day, though written
less than forty years ago.
During the military rule of the American officers,
who governed California before it was yielded by treaty '
to the United States, the powers of the alcaldes were
much limited in the coast-towns, though almost as exten-
sive as ever in places where no military were stationed.
1 Cases of Touchard vs. Keyes, 21 Cal. Rep. ; and Downer vs. Smith,
24 Cal. Rep. Halleck says that Governor Pio Pico made antedated land-
grants, and inserted them in the blank leaves of record-books.
2 Merle vs. Mathews, 26 Cal., 455.
8 Panaud vs, Jones, 1 Cal. Rep.
94 MINING-CAMPS.
In 1847, before the close of the war, while General
Kearney was military governor, he appointed alcaldes
whenever vacancies occurred, exercised close supervis-
ion over their acts, and removed them whenever he
saw fit. He directed the alcalde of San Jose*, John
Barton, to dismiss a suit that the Mexican courts had
already decided; he advised John Nash, alcalde of
Sonoma, that a writ of restitution he had issued in
an ecclesiastical case was illegal; he sent word to H.
D. Fitch, alcalde of San Diego, empowering him to
fine, imprison, or both, certain unruly persons.
When Colonel Mason succeeded General Kearney as
military governor of California, he announced that
" the alcaldes are not authorities of the United States,
nor are they Mexican authorities. They are the civil
magistrates of California, and therefore the authorities
of California within their respective jurisdictions, sub-
ject to removal from office by order of the governor."
He authorized them "to continue in the practice and
custom of the country," and to grant lots within the
town-limits, but construed the word " grant " to mean
" sell for the benefit of the municipality." The alcaldes
were not to perform the marriage ceremony in cases
where either of the contracting parties was a Roman
Catholic.
About this time the spirit of change and uncertainty
prevailed in many places, and there were numerous
instances of violation of property-rights. Squatters
were taking possession of lands near the missions San
Jose* and Santa Clara, where, the previous winter, they
had been permitted to occupy some old buildings. The
San Jose* alcalde was ordered to remove them. Troops
were sent to the disputed lands ; but a compromise was
effected, and the settlers agreed to pay a small rent
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 95
until the true limits of the mission-property should be
ascertained.
The authority of the alcalde, in all cases between
citizen and citizen, was decided to be the same as under
the Mexican law, and to include minor cases in which
citizens and soldiers were involved. An officer was
reprimanded in 1848 for interfering in such a case, and
for " sending a file of soldiers to rescue a disputed sad-
dle from the alcalde's juzgado"
Indian troubles occurring in September, 1847, regu-
lations were issued that all peaceable Indians should
procure protection papers from the alcaldes of their re-
spective districts. In December a letter from Colonel
Mason urges the Indian agent to have them appoint
alcaldes among themselves for their own better govern-
ment. A later proclamation imposed a fine of one
hundred dollars on persons convicted before an alcalde
of selling liquor to Indians.
During October, 1847, a sailor who had stabbed the
mate of the ship " Vesper " was turned over to the
alcalde of San Francisco for trial. " In the old alcalde
courts of California," Colonel Mason writes, "the
alcalde tried such cases; and when the sentence was
death, the governor either ordered the execution, or
sent the case to Mexico for further advice." Some
time in November, one Anastacio Ruiz of San Vicente,
San Diego County, charged with murder, was tried be-
fore a jury of twelve presided over by the alcalde,
Colonel Mason authorizing them to inflict capital pun-
ishment. He was probably acquitted, as the case is
not again mentioned in the California Documents.
Although the acting governor had appointed alcaldes
to fill all vacancies, yet in most cases he asked the
people of the district to signify by petition their pref-
96 MINING-CAMPS.
erences. In 1847 native Californian alcaldes were in
charge in only four or five towns on the coast. Every-
where else Americans ruled. At Sonoma a town-
council was elected, and the alcalde issued certificates
of election. At San Jose* the town-council of six was
twice voted for, and considerable difficulty followed;
but the matter was settled by the appointment of a
committee of three to examine the returns.
Dec. 20, 1847, an American alcalde who applied for
information was told by Colonel Mason, that, " in cases
of horse-stealing, a fine, and hard labor on publiS works,
and in aggravated cases fifty lashes in addition, is in
accordance with the old California practice." A month
or so later, a commercial case, tried in San Jose* before
an alcalde and a jury of six men, was appealed to Colo-
nel Mason, who denied it on the ground that there was
no higher court.
San Jose* pueblo at this time had two alcaldes, the
first being an American, the other a Spaniard. These
two officers appointed a town treasurer, who gave bonds,
and at once entered upon the discharge of his duties.
The alcalde of San Luis Obispo, early in 1848, organ-
ized a party of thirty settlers to check the depredations
of Indians who had been stealing cattle, and acted as
their leader. Colonel Mason offered to furnish them
ammunition if called upon to do so.
In March, 1848, there was but one alcalde, Elam
Brown, in all the "Contra Costa and San Joaquin
region," a territory some hundreds of miles in extent.
Stephen Cooper had just been appointed alcalde at
Benicia, the new town north of Carquinez Straits.
The various alcaldes in California were notified by
Colonel Mason, that " notes and accounts contracted in
the United States cannot be legally enforced and col-
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 97
lected in California until the United States shall or-
ganize a territorial government in this country, and
extend her laws over the same." No debts made else-
where could be collected in California until the State
constitution was in full operation.
By the close of October, 1848, the evil effect of the
immigration caused by the gold excitement began to
be shown in some places. Several murders were com-
mitted. Three men were tried by an alcalde and jury
at San Jos6 pueblo, for robbery and attempted murder
of two returned miners, found guilty, and promptly exe-
cuted. Colonel Mason wrote : " I shall not disapprove
of this course, and shall only endeavor to secure to
every man charged with a capital crime a fair trial by
a jury of his countrymen." A Mr. Reed and his entire
family, ten persons in all, were murdered at Mission
San Miguel ; and the perpetrators were captured, tried
before an alcalde jury, and hung. Other murders
occurred ; and some of the accused were given jury-trial,
some were tried before an alcalde without a jury, some
were lynched.
The most important alcaldeship in California, and
that which probably contains the most complete and
valuable records, was that of San Francisco. Its his-
tory from the days of the marine pueblo or embarcadero
of Yerba Buena, established in 1833, to the days when
the last alcalde under the military governors resigned
his position, and was re-elected as the first mayor under
the State laws and legislative Act of Incorporation,
will sufficiently show the continuity of the office, and
the importance of its archives. 1 No order actually
1 The Spanish archives kept in San Francisco are the basis of many
valuable real-estate rights. They embrace the expediente or record of
proceedings; the petitions, maps, decree, and titulo or title-deed of nu-
98 MINING-CAMPS.
announcing the establishment of the pueblo was ever
issued ; but its existence was assumed through all the
changes, revolutions, and confusion of the last years ot
Mexican rule, as amply shown in Hon. J. W. Dwinelle's
argument for the pueblo land-titles.
Nov. 27, 1835, the people of Dolores Mission held
their first election, and chose J. J. Estudillo as alcalde.
There was then but one dwelling, the tent of an English
trader named Richardson, on the Yerba Buena cove.
An adventurous American, Jacob P. Leese, procured,
after much difficulty, permission to lay out a new town,
and by July 4, 1836, had built a shanty of rough boards
as a trading-house for the rancheros about the bay.
The only other building in the vicinity was an Indian
temiscal, or sweat-house. The presidio contained no
garrison, and only one resident, a superannuated sol-
dier named Pina. The rule of Alcalde Estudillo ex-
tended over the entire peninsula ; but he lived upon an
extensive ranch on the southern shore of the bay, in
what is now Alameda County, and spent little time at
mission or pueblo. Extreme simplicity of life and man-
ners prevailed among the inhabitants.
Several changes in the alcaldeship took place; and
in 1839 the franchises, books, and papers of presidio,
mission, and pueblo, appear to have come into the pos-
session of J. P. Guerrero, the alcalde, who assumed
jurisdiction over all except the immediate possessions
of the Mission Dolores. All the grants made by this
alcalde before the war have been held by American
merous grants; the formal books Tamas del razon of 1828; the Jimeno
Index, or list of grants, and its continuation, the Hartnell Index; and
the evidences of the approval of the departmental legislation. There
are five hundred and seventy-nine complete Spanish grants, and threo
hundred and fourteen incomplete or inchoate ones, recorded in these
archives.
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 99
courts to have been made in the course of his ordi-
nary duties. After the American ships took possession,
General Kearney appointed Washington Bartlett as ma-
gistrate and justice, and gave him the right to give
away town-lots ; also, a little later, ordered the sale of
certain water-lots. These orders constitute the earliest
American titles to real estate in San Francisco. The
title of the United States to the public domain was
held to relate back to the time of the occupancy of the
country, 1 when Mexican laws ceased, except as re-estab-
lished by military authorities, as they were in most
cases.
Alcalde Bartlett, and his successors Hyde and Leaven-
worth, exercised control over San Francisco affairs at a
turbulent period. As soon as the war closed, Colonel
Mason, and his successor General Peter Kiley, attempte
to unite the civil and military functions of government ;
and an anomalous condition of affairs followed. There
was, for a time, nothing to set things in motion ; and
neither law nor administration of justice existed except
so far as exemplified in the alcalde courts, which had
known no checks and had taken no vacations. San
Francisco was growing rapidly ; and the local customs
and simple code of a rude Mexican population, known
in written forms to but few, chiefly dependent on verb-
al processes and instantaneous decisions, were suddenly
required to fulfil the complex and varying needs of an
active and enterprising people, carrying on immense
business transactions, and sincerely anxious to base
them on the laws of the United States. Governor
Mason by proclamation enforced the Mexican civil law
in its main features, and set Messrs. Halleck and Hart-
1 See "Woodworth vs. Fulton, 1 Cal. Rep., 295; Reynolds vs. West,
Cal. Rep., 333.
100 MINING-CAMPS.
nell at work to make a translation and digest of such
parts of the laws of 1837 as were judged applicable, and
still in force. 1 The people, accepting all this as a sad
but inevitable necessity, began to struggle towards
local organizations and a State government.
During this unsettled period, the "judge of first in-
stance," or alcalde, sat each day in the little school-
room on the plaza of San Francisco, trying cases, and
rendering that speedy justice that was then more de-
sirable than exact justice, since men's time, in those
early days of 1849, was worth from sixteen dollars to
one hundred dollars per day. The judge listened to
brief arguments, announced his decision, took his fees,
and called up another case : hardly once in a hundred
times wat there any thought of an appeal to the gov-
ernor at Monterey. Criminal jurisprudence, however,
was in decidedly a bad way : neither jails, district funds,
nor city organization existed ; so that sheriffs, guards,
and other officers had to serve without pay, and sel-
dom, until the community was fully roused, could a
trial be had in cases demanding capital punishment.
For lesser crimes, lashes or hard labor on the streets
could always be imposed.
The powers of the alcalde increased apace, and vari-
ous difficulties between that officer and two rival town-
councils early in 1849 culminated in the formation of
an independent organization called "The Provisional
Government of San Francisco." 2 Its chief feature was a
1 Ready for publication in July, 1849, pp. 40. Printed in the appen-
dix to Debates in the Convention of California. J. Boss Browne, 1850.
Washington.
2 Early in 1849 the citizens of Sonoma and of Sacramento had elected
similar district assemblies. In San Francisco, Feb. 12, the people to the
number of five hundred assembled, organized, adopted a plan of gov-
ernment, appointed an election-day, and asked the council and alcalde
to resign.
A STORY OF ALCALDES. 101
legislature of fifteen members. They met March 5, 1849,
and swore " to support the Constitution of the United
States and the government of this district." They or-
ganized for business, began to make laws, and took the
records of the town from Alcalde Leavenworth, with
whom there was great dissatisfaction, and who had re-
fused to resign as requested. It was a government de
facto.
March 10 they addressed a letter to Major-General
Persifor F. Smith, in which they pointed out the fact
that the civil institutions of California were "neither
Mexican nor American," but nondescript; that many
ministerial and judicial offices of the pure Mexican sys-
tem had been allowed to sink into disuse ; and that the
only office retained was that of alcalde, which office
" had been permitted to obtain and exercise a most ex-
tensive and unlimited jurisdiction, wholly incompatible
with the dictates of reason and justice. The right of
appeal to the military governor has been denied or
evaded." " Undoubtedly," the committee added, " this
office of alcalde was continued " (through the interreg-
num) "by the presumed consent of the people, and
without any alteration, except that the right of appeal
became inoperative. The jurisdiction, power, and duty
of the office, partially limited by martial law, became,
without it, unlimited and irresponsible. The tenure,
duty, and property of the office, as existing under mar-
tial law, without any definite or prescribed rules, was
continued so, and the people left without any law in
the adjudication of every civil and criminal issue, ex-
cept the mere will of this single officer," who is " elected
by the people," and "has all public records in his hands,"
and " owns no superior tribunal," not even to " compel
him to discharge his obligations with his fellow-citizens
102 MINING-CAMPS.
as a private individual. . . . All the civil and crimi-
nal issues that come before him are determined accord-
ing to his own notions of right and wrong, directed
and enforced by his mere will ; " and, as this emphatic
document reiterates in closing, "without the right of
appeal." But Provisional-Governor Riley, to whom a
similar statement had been made, proclaimed the entire
proceeding illegal, and the legislature without authority,
forbade the payment of taxes to its subordinates, up-
held the alcalde, and ignored the complaints formulated
in the above letter to Major-General Smith. The alcalde
afterwards resigned ; and a new election was ordered,
resulting in the choice of Mr. J. W. Geary. It was a
noteworthy struggle throughout, and the temper of the
citizens was admirable.
When a city government under the State Constitu-
tion was established, the alcaldeship, with its varied
powers, came to an end, and yielded up its ancient
authority. Alcalde Geary, the last of the San Fran-
cisco alcaldes, was re-elected Jan. 1, 1850, and in April
was chosen city mayor under its first charter. Thus
the institutional link was established : thus the office of
mayor of San Francisco derived its historical descent,
not from American and English sources, but from the
semi-despotic rulers of Spanish pueblos, and the trib-
ute-levying governors of mediaeval towns of Castilian
frontiers. The term survives ; and San Francisco, me-
tropolis of the Pacific Coast, still cherishes the title
of "ancient and honorable pueblo."
The story of the alcaldeship in San Francisco was
repeated on a lesser scale in many other towns and
villages of California. Everywhere it was of funda-
mental importance during the transition era, and every-
where it presented remarkable minglings of Mexican and
A STUDY OF ALCALDES. 103
American features. The alcaldes, whether elected or ap-
pointed, were usually honest and intelligent, anxious to
deal out justice with an impartial hand, well sustained by
the American settlers, and obeyed by the Mexicans. But
the confusion of authorities was vexatious and amusing.
Some offices contained only a few worn and smoky Span-
ish manuscripts, heirlooms of the last century ; in some
the codes of Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina,
and other States, were in constant use ; in some were a
few volumes of French, Spanish, German, or English
law, that the new alcaldes had somehow obtained to add
an air of impressiveness to the scantily furnished room.
Before leaving this subject, and passing to the broader
field of the mining-camp, we must sum up and define
the duties and powers of the typical alcalde. We have
seen that he always wielded great power, and sometimes
wielded sole authority throughout his district, in both
civil and criminal cases ; that he was the guardian of
the common and town lands ; that he summoned courts,
and appointed minor municipal officers; that he exer-
cised an almost parental supervision over the inhabit-
ants "of his pueblo. Studying his multifarious func-
tions, we discover with admiration, not unmixed with
awe, that one and the same person was often supreme
judge, clerk of court, town-constable, sheriff, recorder,
treasurer, justice of the peace, land-officer, government-
agent in land deliveries, 1 superintendent of roads, town
board of health, board of school-trustees, arbitrator in
petty disputes, general advisory board for young and
1 A petition for a land-grant was often, in Spanish times, referred
by the governor to an alcalde to report on. The last of the steps in
judicial procedure in land-grants was the formal delivery of the tract,
along with a map, by the alcalde of the district in which it lay, after
examining the bounds. This ceremony was akin to the " livery of seizin "
of English common law. See also United States vs. Pico, 6 Wall. KJG.
104 MINING-CAMPS.
old, and even, near the coast, judge in admiralty to pro-
nounce upon all marine cases. One and the same room
was often the police-court, probate-court, civil-court,
criminal-court, court of equity, court of appeal, land-
office, council-hall, and conciliation court; it was also
bed-room, dining-room, kitchen, library, and drawing-
room of the busy, potent, and ubiquitous alcalde. Stran-
gest fact of all in this unique combination, the lordly
alcalde palace which sheltered such an army of officials
was probably, in the mines at least, an edifice of can-
vas, with an empty nail-keg for a chimney-top. In the
pueblos of the coast, the alcalde assembled himself in
some old Mexican house, under yellow roofing-tiles
moulded years before by serfs of the mission, and be-
side priest-planted gardens of olive and orange. One
American alcalde of the transition period lived and
held court in a house of zinc, whose outside measure-
ments were less than twelve feet in length and breadth.
The law in which these men dealt was as concentrated,
and free from waste and surplus, as were the houses in
which they dwelt. The various functions of govern-
ment were performed without clashing, by this happily
invented alcalde-system ; judicial jealousies, and brow-
beating of lesser officers, were absolutely unknown. In
the nature of the case, nothing could be less permanent
than such an all-containing office as that of the alcalde
in its prime ; but nothing could well be more influential
and arbitrary while it lasted. Its widest freedom and
its fullest development were not in the quiet pastoral
and agricultural districts of the coast, but in the midst
of the whirling excitements of the famous mining-camps
of '48 and '49. The alcalde of the Sierra is the per-
fected American type ; but so rich was the period, that
this forms but a small part of its institutional harvest.
CHAPTER IX.
CALIFORNIA CAMPS. THE DAYS OF '48.
THE four preceding chapters have been devoted to a
study of Spanish-American institutions, and their influ-
ences on early California. The remaining chapters of
this work deal with the organization and government,
by citizens of the United States, of large and isolated
mining-camps ; returning in some cases to primitive
forms, sometimes using and modifying the Mexican
alcaldeship, sometimes adopting methods suggested by
New-England town-meetings, but always aiming to
quell disorder, and protect property and life. They
attempt to describe what manner of men these miners
were, and with what customs, laws, and usages camp
and district were ruled. They discuss the influence
these miners exerted, directly and indirectly, upon the
political organization of California; and the acceptance,
in American jurisprudence, of principles originated by
gold-diggers in the folk-moots of the Sierra.
One of the most entrancing chapters of this nine-
teenth century's eventful history is that which narrates
the gold-discovery of 1848, the rush of anxious wealth-
seekers to California, and the rapid growth of new insti-
tutional life among people thus assembled from all parts
of the world. When American pioneers conquered the
Mississippi Valley, they made it the stepping-stone to
more difficult victories. The sons of the men who set-
105
106 MINING-CAMPS.
tied Kentucky and Ohio crossed the mighty river, and
took possession of Iowa and Missouri: their sons, in
turn, have made the term " West " no longer applicable
to the great valley ; they have even shattered the phrase
into fragments, and so have given us the South-West
of New Mexico and Arizona, the North- West of Idaho,
Oregon, and the Puget-sound basin, the Central-West of
Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. The all-com-
pelling magnet which drew peaceful armies to these
wastes and mountains of the western third of the conti-
nent, there to build great cities, there to organize pros-
perous communities and powerful States, was a flake of
virgin gold found on a California hillside thirty-six
years ago.
That was the year of revolutions in Europe ; of barri-
cades in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Milan ; of Louis Blanc's
44 ministry of progress," and Louis Napoleon's deceitful
presidency ; of students in arms, and petty princes abdi-
cating in haste their pasteboard thrones ; of liberal con-
stitutions, national assemblies, and a Sclavonic congress ;
of Lombardy, Schleswig-Holstein, and Hungary in arms,
the last, under the leadership of Kossuth, to make her
death-struggle for freedom. On the Bourse, and in
Lombard Street, the kings of the financial world were
noting the signs of coming storm, even as the year
began ; but the event of most importance to the money-
markets of Europe occurred unheralded before the
* 4 Revolution of February." Let us note the place and
the manner of the occurrence. /It was one hundred and
seventy miles east of the Pacific Ocean ; it was in the
grizzly-haunted mountains of an obscure and neglected
province only a few months before owned by Mexico,
thinly populated by tribes of degraded Indians, idle
Spanish-Americans, musical-ton gued Kanakas, wander-
CALIFORNIA CAMPS. 107
ing trappers, and a few Anglo-Saxon farmers and specu-
lators ; it was Jan. 19, 1848, and about a fortnight be-
fore the actual signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, which gave the United States 522,955 square
miles of territory, including this obscure El Dorado, for
the trifling sum of fifteen million dollars. Some laborers,
on this California hillside, were digging a water-ditch to
supply a flour-mill that was being built by the feudal-
like lord of a vast tract over which wild oats waved,
wild flowers bloomed, and herds of antelope roamed,
mingling undisturbed with bands of cattle and horses,
and even venturing at times within sight of the massive
oaken gates of the adobe-built fort where this active,
courtly, enterprising, and generous adventurer had
established his authority as lord of " New Helvetia." l
Captain Sutter, at that important era in early 1848,
swung his malacca cane, pulled his trim military mous-
tache, gave crisp orders to his Indian alcalde, his com-
mander of the troops, his general superintendent, his
manager of cattle, and his head farmer; paid his two
hundred laborers with pieces of tin stamped with num-
bers representing days' work, and redeemable at his
storehouses; kept open house for every traveller, ex-
plorer, or government official : he was, in a word, the
most vital, sinewy, and picturesque figure in all Alta
California, beside whose manliness the plotting, irasci-
ble, treacherous, dishonest governors who disgraced the
1 Captain John A. Sutter in 1841 received from Governor Alvarado
a grant of eleven leagues in the Sacramento Valley, and built a fort
where the city of the same name now stands. He was commissioned
" representative of the government, and officer of justice on the northern
frontier." The comparison to the old courts palatinate is irresistible.
He purchased from the Russians their extensive claims on Bodega Bay,
and thus, perhaps, saved the United States from many subsequent diplo-
matic difficulties.
108 MINING-CAMPS.
closing years of Mexican rule, sink into utter insignifi-
cance. His title appeared unimpeachable, his possessions
secure under the American flag, his colony enterprise
well managed and certain of success. But the discovery
of a flake of gold, lying concealed in the red hillside
soil twenty miles away, set forces in operation that
blighted and destroyed all his plans.
January nineteenth, while unconscious S utter gov-
erned his little kingdom, the workmen at Coloma, hav-
ing finished their ditch, lifted the water-gate ; and the
clear mountain torrent leaped gurgling and foaming
along its new-cut channel, uncovering a piece of virgin
gold, first recorded nugget of American California. 1
This precious lump, smaller than the first joint of a
child's forefinger, gleamed in Marshall's mill-race, at-
tracted human eyes, was tested in a locked room by
roused and excited men, and caused a rush that ended
Sutter's multifarious operations, bidding the hides rot
in his tanneries, his wheat fall to the earth ungathered,
his herds wander untended, and perish at the hands of
outlaws. The fame of this discovery drew to the spot,
with magic power, the population of the whole terri-
tory ; so that, a few months later, but five men were
left in San Francisco, ships swung sailorless at anchor,
and soldiers deserted their colors. All Alta California
was concentrating in the mines. Thus the memorable
gold-rush began.
Soon the news went abroad to all the world. Piles
of California nuggets lay in the windows of banking-
houses, gazed at by thousands. The fact that in the
new placers unskilled, uneducated, and penniless men
were able to gather from fifty to five hundred dollars
1 Small placers had been found by Mexicans near the coast in 1.S28,
1833, and 1838. See M. Castanare's letter to President of Mexico, 1844.
CALIFORNIA CAMPS. 109
in gold-dust, each day they worked, was calculated to
produce a profound impression. Mockers were silenced,
doubters were swept into the current. Before the close
of the year, fifty thousand of the healthiest and most
energetic young men of the nation were on their way
to California. Meanwhile the five thousand men who
were fairly at work in the mines in 1848 dug out over
five million dollars in gold-dust. Numbers of small
parties from Oregon arrived before July, but the vast
body of gold-seekers known afterwards as the "Argo-
nauts " did not reach the Pacific Coast until early in
1849. The organization of the smaller mining-com-
munities of 1848 must be considered before we can
discuss the more complex elements of later camps.
When, early in 1848, mining began at Coloma, near
Sutter's Mill, Captain Sutter himself had alcalde pow-
ers over the region. That autumn Mr. Belt was elected
alcalde at Stockton. The two thousand Americans who
were living in California in February, 1848, were nearly
all in the mines before the end of June ; and most of
them knew what an alcalde was, knew that they had
no legal right to elect any other officer, and knew that
Colonel Mason, the de facto governor, was the only
other authority. But there was no general acceptance
of Sutter as alcalde. Some of the very first miners
attempted to own, hold, control, and rent to others, a
large and valuable mineral-bearing tract. After paying
rent for a short time, the new-comers, who were in the
majority, began to equalize matters, and adopt laws
respecting the size of " claims." Nothing in the early
history of these camps is more evident than the unpre-
meditated and unsystematic nature of their first pro-
ceedings. Officers were never elected until they were
needed to give an immediate decision. And, as we have
110 MINING-CAMPS.
said, local customs in regard to the " amount of groum
a man could mine " took form before officers were foi
ally chosen. Every one knew that most of the lan<
on which they worked was government land : the use
it belonged to all alike until such time as the govern-
ment made other regulations. Equality of ownershi]
was the only logical conclusion. Here, then, the lai
of the camp had their beginning. Long before lawles
ness and trouble with foreigners arose, long before th<
first California gold had reached New York, "claims
of a definite size were being measured out in the mining
camps for each gold-seeker. The ownership of land
was the beginning of organization ; its ownership
equal parts is significant of the form of society tl
prevailed, for an unconscious socialism it certainly was.
The mines put all men for once upon a level. Clothe
money, manners, family connections, letters of inl
duction, never before counted for so little. The whole
community was substantially given an even start in the
race. Gold was so abundant, and its sources seemed
for a time so inexhaustible, that the aggrandizing power
of wealth was momentarily annihilated. Social and
financial inequalities between man and man were to-
gether swept out of sight. Each stranger was wel-
comed, told to take a pan and pick, and go to work fc
himself. The richest miner in the camp was seldom abl
to hire a servant ; those who had formerly been glad
serve others were digging in their own claims. Tl
veriest greenhorn was as likely to uncover the rich<
mine on the gulch as was the wisest of ex-professo]
of geology ; and, on the other hand, the best claim
the river might suddenly " give out," and never
yield a dollar. The poorest man in camp could have
handful of gold-dust for the asking from a more su<
CALIFORNIA CAMPS. Ill
cessful neighbor, to give him another start, and help
him " hunt for better luck." No one was ever allowed
to suffer: the treasure-vaults of the Sierra were too
near, and seemingly too exhaustless.
To a little camp of 1848 (so an old miner writes me)
a lad of sixteen came one day, footsore, weary, hungry,
and penniless. There were thirty robust and cheerful
miners at work in the ravine ; and the lad sat on the
bank, watching them a while in silence, his face telling
the sad story of his fortunes. At last one stalwart
miner spoke to his fellows, saying,
" Boys, I'll work an hour for that chap if you will."
At the end of the hour a hundred dollars' worth of
gold-dust was laid in the youth's handkerchief. The
miners made out a list of tools and necessaries.
" You go," they said, " and buy these, and come back.
We'll have a good claim staked out for you. Then
you've got to paddle for yourself." Thus genuine and
unconventional was the hospitality of the mining-camp.
The early camps of California did more than merely
to destroy all fictitious social standards. They began
at once to create new bonds of human fellowship. The
most interesting of these was the social and spiritual
significance given to the partnership idea. It soon
became almost as sacred as the marriage-bond. The
exigencies of the work of mining-claims required two
or three persons to labor together if they would utilize
their strength to the best advantage. The legal con
tract of partnership, common in settled communities,
became, under these circumstances, the brother-like tie
of " pard "-nership, sacred by camp-custom, protected
by camp-law; and its few infringements were treated
as crimes against every miner. Two men who lived
together, slept together, took turns cooking, and wash-
112 MINING-CAMPS.
ing their clothes, worked side by side in dripping claims,
and made equal division of returns, were rightly felt to
have entered into relationships other than commercial.
There soon were larger associations to work deep
claims, or turn the channels of rivers ; but each such
association came into existence when it was needed,
not a moment sooner. Nowhere in the mines was
there any planning ahead: men were too busy, and
time too precious, for that. The result was a degree
and quality of unhampered, untroubled freedom, to
which it is hard to find an historic parallel. Society,
reduced to its original atoms, began to shape itself
anew.
One of the elements in early camp-life consisted of
"companies," or groups of associates who had come
from the same place, or had travelled together for
mutual comfort and protection. Many of these com-
panies had organized, and made rules for their own
government, before they left their homes. Some were
from the coast-region, some from Oregon ; and in 1849
many such parties arrived across the plains, or by sea.
Sometimes these companies formed separate camps,
sometimes only a group in a larger camp, but usually
the bond of unity was preserved.- The Oregonians
"hung together" remarkably well, and exercised the
best of influence. Some of them had helped to organ-
ize local government and a legislative body among the
pioneer Americans in the Willamette Valley. Peter
Burnett, who became the first governor of California,
was one of the earliest to start from Oregon, where he
had been a poor and hard-working farmer. He organ-
ized a large company among his neighbors, was chosen
captain, and guided them to the mines.
Ryan, in his " Adventures in California," gives the
CALIFORNIA CAMPS. 113
rules of a small mining-company of whom he was one.
Slightly abbreviated, they read as follows :
" (1) That we shall bear an equal share in all expenses,
" (2) That no man shall be allowed to leave the company with-
out general consent till we reach the mines.
" (3) That any one leaving with our consent shall have back his
original investment.
" (4) That we work together in the mines, and use our tools in
common.
" (5) That each man shall retain all the gold he finds, but must
contribute an equal portion of our daily expenses.
" (6) That we stand by each other.
" (7) That each man shall in turn cook, and do his share of
the drudgery.
" (8) That any one guilty of stealing shall be expelled from
tent and claim, with such other punishnien.t as a majority of OUT
company decide upon.
" (9) That no sick comrade be abandoned."
These rules, we observe, do not provide for an appeal
to the general body of miners, nor do they recognize
any higher court than the law of the majority of the
company. It is the idea of family rule and family jus-
tice, as opposed to tribal authority or to the supremacy
of the whole body of assembled freemen. But this
tendency played little part in actual mining-life, though
a few cases occurred where men were punished by their
associates, no others interfering, not through indiffer-
ence so much as because of acquiescence. The rule
.that " each man shall cook in turn " was probably sup-
plemented by the unwritten proviso, still dear to West-
ern camp-life, that " no man shall grumble at the cook's
failures, under penalty of cooking for twice the usual
period."
When we compare the rules of different companies
organized to go to the mines, we find considerable
114 MINING-CAMPS.
variation. Quite a number provided for an equal divis-
ion of all the gold found. This was certainly a spirit
that many tendencies of camp-life developed, but there
were opposing forces of much more powerful nature.
That chiefly which in the "flush times" prevented
any general acceptance of the idea of equal division of
profits among all the miners of a group, or even of a
camp, was the fact that men like to take risks, run
chances, and have the intoxicating excitement of sud-
den gains. The miners of '48 believed with all their
hearts that there was gold enough for all ; that the
turn of the poorest miner would come ; but that, as
they often said, " gold belongs to the finder, and to no
one else."
Several of these companies formed to go to the mines
provided for disbandment at the end of six months'
labor. Quite a number forbade their members to use
ardent spirits, except as medicine. Some arranged for
a certain percentage of each member's gains to be paid
over to the captain in trust for sick or unfortunate
comrades. But enough has been said to give a general
idea of their organization.
As soon as the great value of the mines was known,
and crowds of persons began to hasten thither, the
necessity for having " wholesome regulations and laws,
with a view to the security of personal property and the
prevention of disputes among those engaged in mining,"
began to present itself to the military authorities at
Monterey. There were no disturbances in the mines,
however : the only crimes reported were from the coast-
region. But it was suggested that the entire mineral
belt should be laid off in lots, by a public land-agent
and a surveyor, and that they should then, under proper
regulations, allow miners to occupy and work these lots,
THE DAYS OF '48. 115
requiring them to pay a fee, or ground-rent, to the gov-
ernment. While this was under consideration, so many
soldiers deserted, that the governor threatened to con-
centrate the remaining troops in the mining-districts,
and take military possession. One company, stationed
at Sonora, lost thirty-seven men out of sixty.
In July, 1848, there were about two hundred men at
work on the American Fork, at " Mormon Diggings,"
twenty-five miles from Sutter's Fort. Colonel Mason
and Lieutenant (now General) W. T. Sherman were
making a tour of the mines ; and the first official report
about that region is dated at Monterey, Aug. 17, im-
mediately after their return. Along the whole route,
houses were vacant, and farms going to waste,. At
the lower mines, the hillsides were strewn with can-
vas tents and bush arbors. Some of the miners used
tin pans, some used closely woven Indian baskets ; but
the greater part had a rude machine known as the
cradle. This required four men to work it properly.
A party 1 thus employed averaged one hundred dollars
a day. fMining-camps were fairly established on the
American Fork, the South Fork, the Yuba, Feather, and
Bear Rivers, and on various tributaries.^ Colonel Mason
was informed that about four thousand men were at
work in the entire gold-region. The labor was very
hard, but all seemed prosperous. In many camps, two
ounces was considered but an ordinary yield for a, day's
work. A small, shallow rock-channel, a hundred yards
long and four feet wide, was pointed out, where two men
had obtained seventeen thousand dollars in seven days.
From another small ravine, twelve thousand dollars had
been taken. The principal store at Sutter's Fort re-
ceived, in payment for goods sold in nine weeks, some
thirty-six thousand dollars in gold-dust. A company
116 MINING-CAMPS.
of seven miners hired fifty Indian helpers to carry
gravel to the " cradles," worked seven weeks, and ob-
tained two hundred and seventy-three pounds of pure
gold ; they paid off the Indians, and each of the seven
partners had about thirty-seven pounds for his share. A
private soldier who was given twenty days' furlough
went to the mines, where in one week he made fifteen
hundred dollars, with which he returned and reported
himself for duty. The cash value of gold in the mines
was twelve dollars per ounce ; in trade, sixteen dollars.
These instances are from Colonel Mason's report to
the Adjutant-General. He also relates an occurrence
to which he was eye-witness. At Weber's brush-built
store, a man picked up a box of seidlitz-powders, and
asked its price ; he was told that it only cost fifty cents,
but was not for sale ; he offered an ounce of gold, and
was refused ; but, promptly raising his offer to an ounce
and a half, he bore off the desired article in triumph.
Colonel Mason gives the most decided testimony as to
the good behavior of the community. Crimes were very
infrequent : peace and order prevailed. He naively ex-
presses his surprise that no thefts or robberies had
been committed in the gold-district, although every
one lived in tents, bush houses, or in the open air,
and frequently had about their persons thousands of
dollars' worth of gold. He makes no allusion what-
ever to any elected officers in the various camps.
It was a matter of serious reflection to him, how the
rights of the government in the land could best be
secured. Considering the character of the people en-
gaged, he resolved not to interfere. He suggested two
plans : one, to grant licenses to work tracts of ground
of a hundred yards square, at rents of from a hundred
dollars to a thousand dollars per year, at the discretion
THE DAYS OF '48. 117
of an appointed superintendent; the other, to survey
the district, and sell to the highest bidder, in tracts of
twenty or forty acres. The latter plan he preferred,
but no steps were ever taken to carry either of them
into execution. In a later letter, he proposed levying
a percentage on the gold found.
In August, Indian troubles led to the establishment
of a small military post in the Sacramento region ; but
it exercised no supervision or authority over the camps
of the miners, though it was situated on Bear River,
near some of the richest placers. The next year troops
were sent to Taylor's Ferry, on the Stanislaus, partly
to quell Indian difficulties, and partly to prevent an
apprehended collision between the Americans and the
foreigners along the Tuolumne; but "the reports of
hostilities had been greatly exaggerated." Throughout
the various letters, proclamations, and official actions of
the de facto governor of California in 1848, nothing is
more evident than the complete way in which the
mining communities were left to their own devices.
Even General Riley in his visit, a year after Colonel
Mason's, told the miners that "all questions touching
the temporary right of individuals to work in particular
localities of which they were in possession, should be
left to the decision of the local authorities," meaning
alcaldes and other officers by that time installed in
many camps.
Letters from pioneers, and all printed accounts, agree
in the general features of mining-life in the later months
of the summer of 1848. /Scattered over a large terri-
tory, the men of the various camps dwelt together in
peace and good-fellowship, without any representatives
of the United-States Government in their midst. \ Legal
forms and judicial machinery were as nearly non-exist-
118 MINING-CAMPS.
ent as it is possible to imagine in a civilized country.
] The "social-contract" ideas of Rousseau and his fol-
lowers seemed to have suddenly found a practical ex-
pression.] The unwritten, unformulated law that ruled
each camp was the instinct of healthy humanity to mete
out equal justice to all. There was no theft, and no
disorder ; few troublesome disputes occurred about
boundaries and water-rights. The miners assembled to
discuss in open meeting the size of claims that should
be allowed, and the will of the majority was cheerfully
accepted by the entire camp. The size, however, varied
materially : most of the early camps thought that ten
feet square was quite enough, or, in some cases, ten feet
in width on the stream, extending from the base of the
ravine to the centre of the channel ; fifteen feet square,
twenty feet square, and more, were allowed in later
camps. Ardent prospectors used to tell stories of new-
found placers "where four by four was enough for a
claim," but no camp ever adopted so small a standard.
Definite bounds for the separate camps that after-
wards became mining-districts did not at first exist.
No surveyors went out from the camp to mark its sub-
ject territory. The district grew simply and naturally
about the most convenient assembly-place, gulch, or
camp; so that, when fully organized, it conformed to
purely physical boundaries. A relief-map of the Sierra
region, with all the deposits of auriferotis gravel accessi-
ble to the rude appliances of the early miners marked
in yellow, would show, at a glance, how imperious the
physical reasons were. One district must, by reason of
its position, include the half-dozen camps of a circular
valley girt round about with rocky peaks ; another must
extend itself along a narrow ravine, and be five miles
long and hardly an eighth of a mile in width.
THE DAYS OF '48. 119
The miners needed no criminal code. It is simply and
literally true, that there was a short time in California,
in 1848, when crime was almost absolutely unknown,
when pounds and pints of gold were left unguarded in
tents and cabins, or thrown down on the hillside, or
handed about through a crowd for inspection. An old
pioneer writes me, that " in 1848 a man could go into a
miner's cabin, cut a slice of bacon, cook a meal, roll up
in a blanket, and go to sleep, certain to be welcomed
kindly when the owner returned." Men have told me
that they have known as much as a washbasin-full of
gold-dust to be left on the table, in an open tent, while
the owners were at work in their claim a mile distant.
Of course this condition of affairs was partly due to the
ease of acquiring gold. Men, in some cases, pulled up
bunches of grass from the gulches and hillsides, shaking
them into buckets, thus obtaining many pounds of gold;
one miner gathered sixteen thousand dollars thus in
five weeks of work. Another miner " cleaned up "
eighteen thousand dollars in one day's labor with pan
and pick. Certainly it was easier to earn money than
to steal it, but it was infinitely safer also. In later days,
for a man to be caught sluice-robbing was to sign his
own death-warrant ; with the miners of '48, whipping,
banishment, or hanging was likely enough to have been
inflicted upon the robber of claim or tent. For the
criminality of theft was brought squarely home to each
man's conscience, and to the entire community. Con-
sidering all the circumstances, a man capable of steal-
ing from his comrades in these busy, friendly camps,
was hopelessly hardened, was capable of all the crimes
of the Decalogue.
Throughout this Arcadian era, there was not only no
theft, but the bonds of fellowship wore strong and sin-
120 MINING-CAMPS.
cere among all the miners of the camps. In some dis-
tricts where the American element kept strongly in the
majority, the entire " flush period " from 1849 to 1853
was marked by such unity. But in most camps disturb-
ances increased ; human leeches and parasites lowered
the healthy tone of the community ; and the miners
drew farther apart than in the days when their first
tents were pitched beneath the lofty Sierra pines, in
clumps of chapparal and manzinita.
The miners themselves noticed how rapidly disturb-
ances increased in number a few years later. " We
needed no law," writes an old pioneer, " until the law-
yers came ; " and this idea is repeated in a thousand
forms. " There were few crimes," says one correspond-
ent, " until the courts with their delays and technicali-
ties took the place of miners' law." This is, in truth,
the persistent prejudice against lawyers that has existed
among frontiersmen (nor among them alone), in every
age of the world. Poetry and fiction have always been
severe upon the "cozening, cheating, subtle-tongued
lawyers." Dr. Johnson, as a withering and overwhelm-
ing assault, once said of an opponent, "Although I
should be sorry to calumniate any man, yet, sir, I be-
lieve the gentleman in question to be an attorney."
But it is pioneers who give the most frank expression
of this time-honored opinion. And, although the fact is
not generally known, there was a time when one-half of
the world tried, but of course unsuccessfully, to live
without any lawyers. When Spain established her colo-
nies, every one of them petitioned the king, in the most
earnest and anxious terms, to allow no lawyers to sail
for America ; because they desired to live in peace and
prosperity, freed from the malice of men and the malign
presence of attorneys. As loyal Catholic subjects they
THE DAYS OP '48. 121
prayed to be protected from the whole " lean and ras-
cally " legal fraternity. The gallant soldier of fortune,
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, wrote to the king, saying,
" One thing I supplicate your majesty : that you will give orders,
under a great penalty, that no bachelors of law should be allowed
to come here ; for not only are they bad themselves, but they also
make and contrive a thousand iniquities." 1
Pioneers of New Spain, and pioneers of golden Cali-
fornia, were equally in earnest in their denunciation of
lawyers, and were equally at fault in the analysis by
which they reached such conclusions. In views of this
sort, we have a curious confusion of ideas, a curious
substitution of effect for cause. The conditions of soci-
ety do not change because of the lawyer's arrival : he
comes because the conditions of society are already
changing, and there is, or is about to be, a demand for
his labor. Though we grant all that the pioneers say
respecting the Arcadian simplicity, and total freedom
from difficulties, of the camps of the earlier gold-period,
we must not conclude that this absence of lawlessness
was necessarily due to the absence of lawyers. There
were plenty of them, working as quiet citizens in their
claim-ditches, and waiting until there was a demand for
attorneys and the machinery of courts. How could
there be much lawlessness where so few temptations to
crime, and so few opportunities for its commission, ex-
isted ? Men could quarrel, could steal, could kill each
other; but nine out of ten of the misdemeanors and
crimes that appear in the docket of an ordinary crimi-
nal court were impossible in the mining-camps, while
ninety-nine hundredths of the ordinary civil cases were
equally out of the question. Land-titles all similar,
i Helps's Spanish Conquest, p. 338; note, Carta el Rey, Jan. 20, 1513.
J^
122 MINING-CAMPS.
transfers verbal, commercial transactions for cash, bor-
rowing and lending simply a matter between individ-
uals the best of lawyers would have starved in such
a community. As society grew more complex, tempta-
tions and opportunities increased ; and by the time the
machinery of a State was set in operation, California
presented, as regards land-titles, mining-cases, and a
thousand other subjects, so many legal complications,
that for a time it became the paradise of lawyers.
By the close of 1848, mining was actually in progress
for a distance of two hundred miles along the axis of the
Sierra. Colonel Reading was at work with his Indians
on Clear Creek, Shasta County ; and General John Bid-
well, in like manner, on Feather River. When winter
came, most of the miners returned to their homes in the
valleys, in San Jose*, Monterey, Sonoma, or San Fran-
cisco. Before the summer of 1849, the pioneers of 1848
had been overwhelmed and lost in the gold-rush of that
eventful year. The peace and freedom of the early
camps gave way to a new order of things ; and, out of
chaos and confusion, the organizing faculty of the race
began to bring settled government. But so marked, so
characteristic, so different from all later types of miners,
was the pioneer of 1848, that it has even been said, that
with that year " all that was staid and primitive in or
about the mines of California vanished ; with it ended
the old civilization and the old scenes." l This, however,
is only true from the stand-point of a general observer :
from the institutional stand-point, the camp-organizations
of 1849-53 had their beginnings in the camp-organiza-
tions of 1848.
1 Henry de Groot: Recollections of California Mining-life. Pam-
phlet, pp. 1C. San Francisco, 1884.
CHAPTER X.
THE EARLIEST MINING-COURTS, AND THEIR INFLUENCE
ON STATE LIFE.
THE general features of the organization of the "min-
ing-courts," that were in many cases found necessary
towards the close of 1848, can easily be described.
There were no permanent officers, except where the
alcalde plan was adopted, as in instances hereafter
described; neither were there any written laws, or
any records of proceedings. Any one who desired
could call a meeting. A person who thought himself
wronged would tell his friends, and they would tell
others, till the miners of the region would assemble if
they thought the cause sufficient; but, if not, would
ignore the call. Some important meetings grew out of
informal discussions, among groups of miners, as to the
best regulations for mutual benefit and protection. As
soon as "mining-districts," so called, began to be laid
out, they assumed exceedingly definite boundaries as
regarded the actual gold-bearing territory, but were
very indefinite regarding size and shape. Each district
included certain gulches, ran to the top of certain
divides, took in certain flats and ridges, and would
have presented a very irregular appearance on a map.
The district might include several camps, or but one,
according to convenience. The term " camp " is prop-
erly used to express the nucleus of the district, the
123
124 MINING-CAMPS.
tent town to which the miners returned at night. The
discovery of new mines might at any time create new
camps, but not necessarily new districts, until its miners
in camp assembled made new laws, and separated them-
selves from the jurisdiction of their former laws.
At the first meeting called to organize a camp in
a recently discovered mineral belt, the boundaries of
a district were drawn so as to include not only the
claims of all the miners present, but also all the un-
claimed ground that seemed easy of access, and likely
to be valuable. If, however, the district proved too
large for convenience as a political unit, the dissatisfied
miners would post up notices in several places, and call
a meeting of those who wished for a division of terri-
tory, and a new district. If a majority favored such
action, the district was set apart and named. The old
district was not consulted on the subject, but received
a verbal notice of the new organization. Local condi-
tions, making different regulations regarding claims de-
sirable, were the chief causes of such separations. In
most of these earlier cases, district and camp were
one and the same : the camp was the unit. Disagree-
ments between two camps, as camps, were never heard
of. Cases of lesser camps uniting themselves for gov-
erning purposes with larger ones were of later occur-
rence.
There were no county lines to consider, for this was
before the organization of the State. A number of
districts were therefore laid out, through which county
lines were discovered to pass when surveyed a few
years later; but they retained their organization as
separate political units. There are in northern Cali-
fornia, at the present time, -several mining-districts that
include within their boundaries territory under the
THE EARLIEST MINING-COURTS. 125
jurisdiction of two counties. The State of Nevada, in
its laws of 1866, ordained that previously created dis-
tricts, through which county lines passed, should be
allowed to retain their autonomy, and continue to enact
local laws. In facts like these we find evidence of the
institutional nature of the early camps, or districts,
which thus created a local government area long before
counties were established, and were able, when they
chose, to maintain it intact. The decay of placer-min-
ing was perhaps the only thing that prevented the later
adoption of districts as universal divisions of the town-
ship, or rather as areas of local authority that should
disregard township and county lines much as English
parishes, unions, school districts, and various local gov-
ernment areas, intersect and overlap at the present
time. 1
The " mining-court " of the camp, in its earliest form,
was simply the assembly of the freemen in open coun-
cil. All who swung a pick, all who held a claim, boys
of sixteen and men of sixty, took part in its delibera-
tions. It was the folk-moot of our Germanic ancestors.
If the citizens had been summoned to try an important
case, they elected a presiding officer and a judge, impan-
elled a jury of six or twelve persons, summoned wit-
nesses, and proceeded to trial forthwith. Sometimes
/ there was no jury; and the case was submitted to the
assemblage without argument, and irrevocably decided
vivavoce. Had A trespassed on B's claim? Was C's
possessory right forfeited by absence, or neglect to
work? and could D assume it, or was Da" claim-
jumper"? Such were the questions usually brought
before the "folk-moots" of the Sierra. Changes and
1 See Local Government, Chalmers, chap, ii., English Citizen Series,
Macmillan & Co., 1883.
126 MINING-CAMPS.
developments in this method of procedure occurred
a year or two later, but the earlier camps seized upon
the " folk-moot " plan with a true race-instinct.
Two things there were, that no camp-assemblage ever
attempted to regulate: no mining-court ever collected
debts either for or against any individual, nor did it
ever take cognizance of minor personal difficulties. As
regards the first of these, the miners felt and said that
it was disgraceful to dun a man for money. They held
that honor between men, and the strength of social
and business relations, is a far better protection to the
lender than bond of Shylock and execution of sheriff.
In one case, in one of the camps of '48, a miner, dunned
for a small debt at an unseasonable hour of the night,
took a lantern, went to his claim, washed out more
than sufficient, tied it up in a shot- bag, and, return-
ing to the tent, flung it in his creditor's face with
all the force of a sinewy arm. Men had to settle their
financial affairs and their petty quarrels among them-
selves : that was mining-cainp doctrine. Of course
friends would interfere to separate drunken men, or to
prevent a fight: but the camp as an organization set
out to protect life and property, not to meddle with
what seemed trivialities; so it winked at pugnacious
tendencies, and possessed the most liberal definition of
eccentricity conceivable. How else should it secure its
Sunday-afternoon amusements, and maintain its clowns
and oddities ?
Crimes against society found swift enough punish-
ment. The thief, for instance, was publicly flogged,
and expelled from camp ; forfeiting, of course, whatever
mining-ground he had occupied. But the thieves were
usually the hangers-on of the camp, the idle Mexicans,
or South-sea Islanders, not the men who owned and
THE EARLIEST MINING-COUETS. 127
worked claims. Stealing, as we have previously stated,
involved a greater degree of crime than it possibly could
in a more highly organized commonwealth ; because the
social compact was simpler, and more clearly understood
by all men.
/ Late in 1848 the foreign element began to find its
way to the mines, and compelled better organization
on the part of the Americans. \ When Mexicans settled
the noted " Sonoranian Camp, now the town of Sonora,
in Tuolumne County, nineteen white men twelve of
them Americans followed, and, a little later, held a
miners' meeting, elected R. S. Ham as alcalde, and
agreed to support his authority. This district, James-
town, was known as the "American Camp." The
Mexicans and Chilians were greatly in the majority in
the region, and their numbers increased during the next
year. Many of them were men of the worst charac-
ter, and only the closest organization prevented a reign
of lawlessness. The real struggle for control of the
southern mines was, however, at a later period than
'48. " Sonoranian Camp " obeyed the mandates of Al-
calde Ham with reasonable cheerfulness, and the few
miners' meetings held were devoted to making laws
regarding claims- There was no official communication
between Alcalde Ham and Colonel Mason, then act-
ing governor of California : the camp was left to govern
itself.
\ In the camps of '48, Americans learned what strength
there was in organization ; but systematic development
of mining-courts, alcalde-courts, and other forms of
camp-government, can hardly be said to have existed
until the next year. / The work of the better class of
miners, during the winter af 184849, was closely con-
nected with the beginnings of that larger life, State
128 MINING-CAMPS.
organization. The miners returning to their homes,
forced by winter storms to desert their camps in the
mountain gulches, began to seek for a remedy for
certain no longer endurable evils that were afflicting
the body politic. American miners who had lived in
peace and friendliness all summer in their camps, had
formed new bonds of fellowship, had more closely ce-
mented former bonds, and had proved their ability to
protect and govern themselves, were now to take the
initiative in several remarkable organizing efforts.
A " memorial," at a later period presented to Con-
gress, reviews the political history of California. 1 It
says, in effect, that, " as early as 1847," many Ameri-
cans in California advocated the establishment of a
civil Territorial form of government ; that, in October
of that year, the military contribution tariff was estab-
lished in Calif ornian ports, and rigorously enforced, but
never once resisted though extremely onerous; that
the overland immigration of 1847 strengthened the de-
sire for a more American form of government; that
the military power continued taxation without repre-
sentation, and afforded inadequate protection to life and
property ; that the gold-discovery occurred, and in April
the towns were deserted, all industrial pursuits were
abandoned, and " a pall seemed to settle upon the coun-
try ; " that in August the news of the treaty with
Mexico was received, but the existing order of things
was nevertheless continued. It describes an unsettled
and unstable order of things, and a dissatisfaction and
even a profound discontent as existing along the Cali-
fornia coast in the summer and fall of 1848. It then
i Memorial presented March 12, 1850, by Messrs. Gwin, Fremont,
Wright, and Gilbert, senators and representatives elect from California.
App. to Debates in Convention, Washington, 1850.
THE EARLIEST MIKING-COUHTS. 129
proceeds to use the following remarkable language re-
garding the influence of the miners:
" Upon the coming-on of winter, the great majority of the miners
returned to their homes in the towns. They came rich in gold-
dust ; but a single glance at the desolate and unthrifty appearance
of the territory convinced them that other pursuits than that of
gold-digging must receive a portion of their care and labor . . .
They felt, as all Americans feel, that the most important step they
could take, and that most imperatively called for by the wants of
the inhabitants, was the establishment of a stable system of gov-
ernment, which would command the respect and obedience of the
people whose property it protected, and whose rights it preserved.
Congress had adjourned without providing a Territorial govern-
ment ; and the public had settled into the firm conviction that the
de facto government was radically defective, and incapable of an-
swering the public wants."
This ample recognition of the important place in
State-organization taken by the returned miners appears
to be fully borne out by the facts. A large public
meeting was held at San Jose*, Dec. 11, 1848, at which
the people of California were asked to organize in
districts, and elect delegates to a convention for the
purpose of forming a "provisional Territorial govern-
ment," to go into immediate operation, and remain in
full force until superseded by Congressional action.
The plan was heartily welcomed and indorsed at mass-
meetings held in San Francisco, Dec. 21 and 23; in
Sacramento, Jan. 6 and 8 ; in Monterey, Jan. 31 ; and
in Sonoma, February 5. Returned miners were promi-
nent men in all these meetings. The very inclement
weather, and impassable condition of the roads, had
caused nearly two months to intervene between the
San Jose* meeting and the Sonoma meeting, and had
prevented proposed meetings in other districts; but
the five districts mentioned comprised more than three-
130 MINING-CAMPS.
fifths of the whole population of California, and they
elected delegates to a convention to be held early in
March. Part also of this movement, was the elec-
tion, early in the year 1849, of "district legislative
assemblies " for Sacramento and Sonoma. The legis-
lature elected in San Francisco, for local reasons, was
of a somewhat different type, and was chosen at a
later date. The earlier assembly of Sacramento, which
aimed to govern the entire surrounding region, was
more directly the result of mining-organizations than
were the Sonoma and San Francisco assemblies. But
all three of them disbanded peaceably in obedience to
Governor Bennett Riley's orders. By the time the
Territorial Convention assembled, the majority saw
that California was too wealthy and populous for a
Territorial government ; and they at once issued an ad-
dress to the people, recommending a Constitutional Con-
vention, which took place in September, 1849, at the old
pueblo of Monterey.
In all the important political events which began
with the San Jose* meeting of December, 1848, and
ended with the adoption of a State constitution, the
men who had toiled, struggled, suffered, and " stood by
each other " in the mining-camps were leading spirits.
Some of them returned to the mines ; some engaged in
other and more profitable occupations in the valleys and
coast-towns, for few of the pioneers of '48 had accumu-
lated fortunes.
The preceding pages have in no wise exaggerated the
intrinsic value of the work done by the " men of '48 "
in settling the foundations of society. Throughout
our examination into the methods of later camps, and
the laws made by various districts, we shall be con-
stantly finding traces of earlier institutional orgaiii-
THE EARLIEST MINING-COURTS. 131
zation. The debt of the Pacific Coast to the few
thousands of miners who first explored the Sacramento
and El Dorado placers is greater than historians have
heretofore acknowledged. They were the pioneers of
the pioneers: without their brave and loyal work as
American citizens, the greater and more dazzlingly
successful work of that strange and complex era which
followed could never have been accomplished.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49.
A KNOWLEDGE of the characteristic features of the
mining-days of 1849 is essential to a full appreciation
of the good sense and political wisdom shown by the
miners as a class. Merchants, mechanics, farmers, ex-
isted but to supply the miners; and the gold of the
mines was the chief resource of California. Four-fifths
of the able-bodied male population were living in the
mineral belt, or were on their way thither, when the
working-season of 1849 opened. Only four years be-
fore, in the summer of 1845, there had been but five
hundred Americans in California; in February, 1848,
but two thousand ; by December, 1848, this number had
grown to six thousand ; by July, 1849, to fifteen thou-
sand ; and by December, 1849, to fifty-three thousand.
Chiefly owing to the gold-rush of 1848-53, the centre
of population of the United States moved eighty-one
miles farther west. Within four years after the spring
of 1849, the population of the new State was three
hundred thousand ; and more than two hundred and
sixty million dollars had been dug from the gold-fields.
The gold-product of California for all the years from
1848 to 1883 inclusive has been over twelve hundred
millions of dollars, or three-fourths of the entire gold-
product of the United States during the past century.
But, great as this total is, it would have seemed little to
132
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 138
the minds of the excited Argonauts of 1849. Only the
stories of the fortunate wealth-seekers had gone abroad
to the world, and men were prepared to believe any
thing about California.
Dr. Stillman, in his "Seeking the Golden Fleece,"
says that at the close of January, 1849, "sixty vessels
had sailed from Atlantic seaports, carrying eight thou-
sand men, and seventy more vessels were up for pas-
sage." Bayard Taylor, speaking more particularly of
the land-journey, said that " it more than equalled the
great military expeditions of the Middle Ages, in magni-
tude, peril, and adventure." John S. Hittell writes:
" From Maine to Texas there was one universal frenzy."
One of the " pilgrims " wrote a song, which was soon
heard on every street-corner of the Atlantic cities, in
which he proclaimed,
" Oh ! California, that's the land for me !
I'm bound for the Sacramento,
With the washbowl on my knee."
As in the excitement of '48, so again in '49 a nucleus
of camp-organization often began in these companies of
pilgrims, by land or by sea, who became acquaintances
and friends, who decided to proceed to the same district
of the mining-region, and who often formed associated
bodies of workers. The men who crossed the plains
together, or were for months in the same ship, hold
annual re-unions at the present time, on the Pacific
Coast. Each year their numbers lessen, but the sur-
vivors cling to the observance with ever-strengthening
affection.
There were many interesting features about this
great onset, all the world seeming to be in haste to
occupy this hitherto neglected region. Armies of enii-
134 MINING-CAMPS.
grants were attracted by the magic of its name, and
toiled wearily in wavering lines across the continent.
Many a mountain valley was thus settled long before it
could have been reached in the natural course of agri-
cultural progress, and the entire frontier of the West
was borne forward : the immemorial race-impulse of the
Aryan had re-awakened with all its ancient force. In
vain the elders of lonely Deseret, and the dupes of the
Book of Mormon, tried by falsehood and crime to roll
back or turn aside this dreaded and hated advance
of American civilization. Some of the "Latter-day
Saints " joined the current, but most of them were faith-
ful to their shrine. 1 But the fierce, impetuous, resist-
less human torrent swept on its way to the Pacific
Coast : it ran in haste, it fairly leaped over obstacles, as
one sees mountain rivers curl down into hollows, and
curve over bowlders, till, in the rush of its advance, the
smallest inequality of the channel is reproduced in its
surface.
The mining-camps, whose white tents and rude cabins
rose so rapidly beside these rivers o~this new-Celehis
in early '49, have found an enduring place in litera-
ture. The Argonaut himself has become one of the
heroic figures of the past, and is likely enough to sur-
vive, as real and strong a type in the story of America
as Viking or Crusader in that of Europe. But it
is the place held by the Argonaut as an organizer
of society, that is most important. He often appears
in literature as a dialect-speaking rowdy, savagely pic-
turesque, rudely turbulent : in reality, he was a plain
American citizen cut loose from authority, freed from
1 The Mormon leaders told their followers, that gold was to pave
streets and cover houses; and, if they were faithful, they should have
more than sufficient in their own territory when the proper time ciuue.
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 135
the restraints and protections of law, and forced to
make the defence and organization of society a part of
his daily business. In its best estate, the mining-camp
of California was a manifestation of the inherent capa-
cities of the race for self-government. That political
instinct, deep rooted in Lex Saxonum, to blossom in
Magna Charta and in English unwritten constitution,
has seldom in modern times afforded a finer illustration
of its seemingly inexhaustible force. Here, in a new
land, under new conditions, subjected to tremendous
pressure and strain, but successfully resisting them, were
associated bodies of freemen bound together for a time
by common interests, ruled by equal laws, and owning
allegiance to no higher authority than their own sense
of right and wrong. They held meetings, chose offi-
cers, decided disputes, meted out a stern and swift
punishment to offenders, and managed their local affairs
with entire success ; and the growth of their commu-
nities was proceeding at such a rapid rate, that days
and weeks were often sufficient for vital changes, which,
in more staid communities, would have required months
or even years.
The gateway to the mines was San Francisco. In
January, 1849, when Rev. D wight Hunt, who had for
several months preached to the returned miners throng-
ing the streets, organized- the "First Congregational
Church," the population of the city was less than fif-
teen hundred. A little later, the first ship-loads of
immigrants began to arrive ; and, though every new-
comer felt obliged to visit the mines to see for himself,
yet many persons soon returned to enter into business ;
and San Francisco had fifteen thousand inhabitants
before the close of the year.
A San-Francisco pioneer of '49 writes :
136 MINING-CAMPS.
" Gold-dust, provisions, and tools were safe without police. We
had no disturbances at first, no rows, and no murders. Men gam-
bled, for that was an old California vice ; * but they did so as
honestly as it can be done. We had no poor men, and labor was
at a premium everywhere."
Before very long, however, an organization called
"The Hounds " began to rob Spanish-Americans, and
committed other outrages ; and, July 16. the law-abid-
ing citizens, who had in vain complained of the ineffi-
ciency of the alcalde, met, organized a court, elected a
judge and attorneys, and by fines and imprisonments
put an end for some years to ruffian supremacy.
The harbor of San Francisco became populous with
ships of every nation. When scholarly Richard H.
Dana, Harvard graduate, adventurous sailor before the
mast, had visited Yerba Buena harbor, while the Mexi-
can "eagle and nopal flag" yet drooped from the pre-
sidio staff, there was not a single vessel in the harbor,
not a single boat on the broad bay, and but one house
where San Francisco now stands. Herds of deer came
down to the water's edge ; and, as in Kotzebue's time,
sea-otters swam within easy gun-shot. 2 Soon after, a
Russian vessel entered the harbor, but in a few days
1 Gambling in California was permitted under Mexican rule, and
under the military government of |6-'49. It was even a source of
revenue to the ayuntamiento of San Francisco in August, 1849. It
was a legalized and important pursuit, followed with zeal by Mexicans,
French, and Americans. See Hittell, Hist. San Francisco, p. 236.
2 Lieutenant Kotzebue visited San Francisco Bay in 1816, when Argu-
ello was Spanish commandante, and Kuskoff ruled iu the Russian set-
tlement at Bodega, thirty miles northward. Twenty Russians and fifty
Indians captured two thousand sea-otters that season. Count Ad< llicrt
Von Chamisso, that sensitive genius, author of " Peter Schlemihl," and
Eschscholtz the botanist, were members of this expedition. The lat-
ter's consonantal name is perpetuated in the most brilliant flower of
the Pacific-coast flora, the rich orange-scarlet wild poppy of field and
hillside.
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 137
sailed away, and left the solitary hide-droger to its
work. Less than fifteen years later the summer of
1849 saw no less than five hundred and forty-nine sea-
going vessels in the port. In the month of August
four hundred large ships were idly swinging at anchor,
destitute of crews ; for their sailors had deserted, swum
ashore, escaped to the gold-fields. Thirty-five thousand
men came by sea, and forty-two thousand by land, dur-
ing the year. Australia, the Asian coasts, Africa, and
South America contributed to the motley host that
thronged the roads to the placers.
Society was masculine, and most of the men were
under forty. In the spring of 1849, there were but
fifteen women in San Francisco. As one writer says,
" Women were queens, children were angels." Bearded
and weather-bronzed miners stood for hours in the
streets to get a glimpse of a child at play. At a little
later period, there were plenty of women who were
"vile libels on their sex;" but the reverence that Cali-
fornians of the gold-era paid to respectable women has
received a tribute of admiring praise from all observers.
Men often travelled miles to welcome "the first real
lady in camp." A New-England youth of seventeen
once rode thirty- five miles, after a week's hard work in
his father's claim, to see a miner's wife who had arrived
in an adjoining district. " Because," he said, " I wanted
to see a home-like lady ; and, father, do you know, she
sewed a button on for me, and told me not to gamble
and not to drink. It sounded just like mother."
New towns were laid out in the valleys to supply the
camps, and those already established grew with aston-
ishing rapidity. ^Stockton, for instance, increased in
three months from a solitary ranch-house to a canvas
city of one thousand inhabitants. Sacramento also
138 MINING-CAMPS.
became a canvas city, where dust-clouds whirled, and
men, mules, and oxen toiled ; where boxes, barrels,
bales, innumerable, were piled in the open air, no shel-
ter being needed for months. For the City Hotel, Sac-
ramento, thirty thousand dollars per year was paid as
rent, although it was only a small frame building. The
Parker House, San Francisco, cost thirty thousand dol-
lars to build, and rented for fifteen thousand dollars
per month. Speculation in promising town-sites soon
reached as extravagant heights as it ever did in the
Mississippi Valley or in the Pennsylvania oil-region.
Every cross-road, river-landing, and ferry had its " cor-
ner-lot speculators," who prophesied its future great-,
ness. The "town of Oro," near the mouth of Bear
River, had but one house, and soon lost even that.
Linda, Eliza Featherton, Kearney, and dozens of others,
paper towns of the lowlands, are familiar to all pioneers.
The conditions under which business had to be con-
ducted in San Francisco and at the interior towns were
extremely trying and difficult. The only supply-mar-
kets were so remote, that the greatest fluctuations in
the stock of goods on hand were constantly occurring,
against which no human foresight could guard. New
York was nineteen thousand miles distant by the sea-
route ; and about six months were required to send an
order from San Francisco, and get the goods delivered.
Oregon's few thousand pioneers had little to sell. China
sent only rice and sugar ; Australia and Chili supplied
some flour. Every thing else came from the Atlantic
seaports. Lumber, worth four hundred dollars per
thousand one month, would not pay for the freight four.
months later; tobacco, once worth two dollars a pound,
was tossed in the streets. Saleratus fluctuated between
twenty-five cents and fifteen dollars per pound. The
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 139
entire community was dependent for food and clothing
upon other communities thousands of miles distant.
And the rate of interest was ten per cent per month.
( By the time goods reached the mountain camps, their
cost was so enormous that most of the miner's gains
went for necessaries of life.M Those who were very
fortunate often indulged in curious and expensive
whims and "extravaganzas," feeling sure that their
claims would continue to yield treasure. They bought
the costliest broadcloth, drank the finest wines, and
smoked the best brands of cigars. " A wild, heedless,
wasteful, dissipated set of men," is what one of the
" forty-niners " calls his old comrades. Men who had
been brought up to keep sober, and earn sixteen dollars
per month, and save half of it, went to California,
found rich claims, earned several hundred dollars a
month, of which they might have saved three-fourths,
but spent every cent in riotous living. Men who
had been New- York hod-carriers paid out ten dollars
a day for canned fruits and potted meats. But only a
few years later, when the surface placers were all ex-
hausted, these same unkempc sybarites returned to
beans and pork, strapped up their blankets, and made
prospect tours to other regions, taking their reverses
more placidly than one could have thought possible.
To many cheerful, impetuous, and intelligent men,
the ups and downs of mining-life seemed full of wild
fascination. To be there was to be a part of a scene
that each thoughtful miner knew in his heart was as
1 Mr. George F. Parsons, for many years editor of the Sacramento
Record-Union, and author of the Life of James W. Marshall, the
discoverer of gold in California, copied the following prices from the
books of the Sutter Fort store : "Two white shirts, $40; one fine-tooth
comb, $6; one barrel of mess pork, $210; one dozen sardines, .'55; two
hundred pounds of flour, $150; one tin pan, $9; one candle, $3."
140 MINING-CAMPS.
evanescent as it was brilliant, an episode whose inten-
sity corresponded accurately to its briefness. And, to
many persons of this type, it certainly seemed as if the
way to make the most of the era was to take a hand
in every thing that came along. Reports filled each
camp, almost every week, telling of new diggings where
from a hundred to a thousand dollars might easily be
collected in a day. Down came the tent-ropes, the
claims were abandoned; the epidemic gold-rush fever
had seized each Argonaut in the camp. They went to
Gold Lake, Gold Bluffs, and a hundred other as loudly
trumpeted regions, till the habit of following with
swift feet each new excitement became as much a part
of the Argonaut's nature as the habit of running after
a fire is a part of the healthy boy's organization. The
Argonaut was well enough aware that the blaze is very
apt to be only a bonfire, or else to be over long before
he arrives. But he could not bear to stand by, and see
others run and hurrah : so off he started at the best of
his speed, to come back, a few months later, "dead
broke " financially, but wealthy in experience.
Fortunately there were men of quite another type,
whose clear brains and steady habits enabled them to
lay aside a part of their gains, afterwards to push larger
enterprises, to organize mining-companies, to dig great
water-ditches extending for miles in a magnificent sys-
tem of engineering. Some of them bought farms in the
valleys, or entered into business in the towns and cities,
retaining to the fullest degree their affection for the
wild mountain realm where they first obtained a start
in life. Even in the earlier fever-heats of the gold ex-
citement, there were numbers of men who had come to
California to remain, and make homes, who recognized
vast resources other than mineral, and by whose un-
THE GOLDEN PKIME OF '49. 141
swerving fidelity to justice the best elements of camp-
life were evolved. The returned miners of 1848, and
the home-hungry, home-creating few of the thousands
of 1849, formed the nucleus of safety-committees and
camp-courts of law.
A fine example of this was afforded in what were
called the Southern mines, the camps of Tuolumne,
whose organization late in 1848 has been described in
the preceding chapter. The several hundred dwellers
in and about the Mexican or " Sonoranian " camp were
re-enforced as early as July, 1849, by fully fifteen thou-
sand foreigners, chiefly from Sonora, Chili, and the Isth-
mus. Many of them came in armed bands, and made
the country unsafe. Some of them were outlaws and
desperadoes of the worst types. They brought degraded
women with them, had fandangos and bull-fights, and
were a thoroughly alien community. Opposed to them
was the little camp of Americans who had elected their
alcalde the previous autumn, and several other Ameri-
can camps, well organized for self-protection, founded
early in 1849. The foreign invasion (for it can be
termed little else) was held in check, and finally turned
back, only by the energy and "inborn capacity for
creating order " displayed by some of the Americans.
The methods taken by the Americans were not always
wise or just: in many individual cases, cruelty was
practised towards weak and inoffensive Mexicans, and
their claims were taken from them, as has been done in
innumerable cases along the south-west frontiers within
the past few years. But the central fact of the neces-
sity for organization on the part of the Americans
remains undisputed. Men had been robbed, horses
stolen, and the roads rendered unsafe for travellers.
In some camps "good and true men" were at once
142 MINING-CAMPS.
elected as alcaldes ; in others there was the direct inter-
vention of " miners' courts," such as adopted by some
of the miners of '48 ; still a third form was the election
of a committee of justice. Under all these forms, sup-
ported by public opinion, the work of purification was
done rapidly and well. Suspicious characters, both
Mexican and American, were notified to leave ; crimi-
nals were followed, captured, and punished. Although
the camps southward from Placerville (then Hangtown)
were undoubtedly more turbulent than the northern
mines, they struggled against greater difficulties, not
only in 1849, but at several subsequent periods, as we
shall see in a later chapter.
The mountain land over which mining became the
chief industry of men, and to which all sea-roads and
trails along the Sierra passes seemed to lead, was a re-
gion fitted by nature to attract and secure the affections
of a hardy and energetic race. Its physical features
are most noble and inspiring, even at the present day
when the valleys and foot-hills are subdued to agri-
cultural purposes, and brought under a high state of
cultivation. But when the miners of '49 began to
pitch their tents in the wilderness, it was unfenced,
unclaimed, and almost unexplored ; for the work of the
previous year had only mapped out the leading features
of the mineral belt. The unsurpassed wealth of what
is now Nevada County was as yet undiscovered. Every-
where the land had a charm that no language can de-
scribe. Flowers of new species and wonderful beauty
bloomed on slope and crag, trees of unparalleled grandeur
stood in the forests, the climate of the foot-hills was like
that of Italy. From the great and sea-like valley of the
Sacramento, eastward through rolling, oak-clad hills to
the broad plateau of the Sierras, and through wild forests
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 143
and dim gorges to the granite heights and the pointed
peaks covered with eternal snow, the ardent miners
searched every gulch, traced every stream to its source,
and in five years of eager, reckless toil did the work
that in other communities would have taken a genera-
tion. They spread out in every direction from the
Sacramento and Feather-river region, searching ridge
and ravine southward to the desert sands and borax
deposits of Mojave, northward to the barren lava-beds
of Modoc. They crossed the westward valley to explore
the wildest and most difficult recesses of the Coast
Range; established Redding Springs, afterwards Shasta
City; rifled the Trinity basin of its riches; and dis-
covered the placers of Klamath, Siskiyou, and Southern
Oregon. They went waist-deep into the ocean, and
brought back tales of beaches gold-spangled by
" All the storms
That hurled their ancient, white-topped, weary waves
On California, since the world began."
The flickering, beckoning will-o'-the-wisp that ever
led them on was the hope of new diggings, of nuggets
gleaming from the moss of mountain lakes, of
" Beds of streams that evermore
Washed down the golden grain, and in a year
Paid to the treasury of the insatiate flood
More than the subjects of the richest kings
Yield to their despots in a century."
But of all the writers who have attempted to express
the splendid virility, the impetuous battle with nature's
forces, the healthy outdoor atmosphere of happy, hearty
toil, that the " miners of '49 " knew so well, none have
said the right word in a better way than Fitz James
O'Brien, poet, romancist, genial Bohemian, loyal friend,
144 MINING-CAMPS.
knightly soldier. Listen to the song of his " Sewing-
bird " lyric :
" Up in a wild Calif ornian hill,
Where the torrents swept with a mighty will,
And the grandeur of Nature filled the air,
And the cliffs were lofty, rugged, and bare,
Some thousands of lusty fellows she saw
Obeying the first great natural law.
From the mountain's side they had scooped the earth,
Down to the veins where the gold had birth ;
And the mighty pits they had girdled about
With ramparts massive and wide and stout ;
And they curbed the torrents, and swept them round
Wheresoever they willed, through virgin ground.
They rocked huge cradles the livelong day,
And shovelled the heavy, tenacious clay,
And grasped the nugget of gleaming ore,
The sinews of commerce on every shore.'*
I have visited the mining-region, the realm of the
" Argonauts of '49." Titans have been at work there.
The land for miles is like a battle-field where primal
forces and giant passions have wrestled. Rivers have
been turned aside ; mountains hurled into chasms, or
stripped to the bed-rock in naked disarray. I have
seen wild and steep ravines where each square rod once
had its miner ; where stores, theatres, and banks once
stood in the flat, and gold-dust ran in the streets, and
every man carried his pistol, and a day of life contained
more of healthy out-door existence and passionate en-
ergy than does a year of life in a metropolis : and in
those ravines once so populous a few old and trem-
bling men, worn out before their time, and pitiful to look
upon, creep down from their cabins to pick and moil
among the crevices for the little gold left by the gallant
"forty-niners;" and creep back to brood over memories,
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 145
while year after year they watch with feelings of pain
and almost anger the approach of gardens, vineyards,
orchards, slowly re-subduing, in far more durable man-
ner, the lost conquests of the Argonauts.
Even to-day the smallest of these decaying camps is
worth patient study. } In the hollows, grown over with
blossoming vines, are acres upon acres of bowlders and
debris, moved, sifted, and piled up by the hands of
pioneers; on the hill's sunny slope are grass-covered
mounds where some of them rest after their passionate
toil, their fierce and feverish wrestle with hard-hearted
fortune. Once this was Red Dog Camp, or Mad Mule
Gulch, or Murderer's Bar : 1 now it is only a nameless
canon, the counterpart of hundreds of others scattered
over a region five hundred miles long by fifty miles
wide, each one of them all once full to the brim and
overflowing with noisy, beating, rushing, roaring, mas-
culine life. Go down and talk with those ghostly in-
habitants of the ancient camp, and they will set your
blood tingling with tales of the past. Twenty years,
thirty years, ago ? Why, it is centuries !
The saddest of all possible sights in the old mining-
region is where there are not even half a dozen miners
to keep each other company, but where, solitary and in
desolation, the last miner clings to his former haunts.
He cooks his lonesome meals in the wrecked and rotting
hotel where a quarter of a century before, then young,
gay, prosperous, and in his prime, he had tossed the
reins of his livery-team to the obsequious servant, and
1 Names of California camps, given in books of travel, are not always
to be trusted: visitors expect an eccentric title for each ravine. But the
real names were remarkable enough; such were the following: Loafer
Hill; Slapjack Bar; Chicken-thief Flat ; Git-up-and-Git; Rat-trap Slide;
Sweet Revenge; Shirt-tail Canon; You Bet; Gouge Eye.
146 MINING-CAMPS.
played billiards with the "boys," and passed the hat
for a collection to build the first church ; he sharpens
his battered pick at a little forge under the tree on
which he helped hang the Mexican who had stabbed
Sailor Bill (how famous Bill was for songs and horn-
pipes in the El Dorado saloon whose roofless posts slant
in the yielding earth !) ; he looks down in the canon
where vines and trees hide all but the crumbling chim-
ney of the house where the " Rose of the Camp " lived,
sweetening their lives with a glimpse of her girlish grace
and purity as she tripped over the long bridge to the
little schoolhouse, and waved her pretty hand to her
friends toiling waist-deep in their claims. But that
was long ago : she married, and went to Europe, and
is famous, he has heard ; now the bridge has fallen into
the torrent, and snow-storms have shattered the school-
house, and the end of the story is very near.
Not one of all the thousands who hurried into the
new camps of '49, who developed and over-crowded
the old camps of '48, ever paused to consider how these
camps would look if deserted ; nor, if some prospector's
tale carried them on a frenzied gold-chase, did they
glance back at the camp they left. The record of the
gold-returns is sufficiently suggestive. In 1849 the
miners took out, by official record, twenty-three million
dollars ; in 1850 they increased this yield to fifty million
dollars; and the probabilities are that twenty-five per
cent of the gold discovered was not reported at San
Francisco. By the summer of 1850, there was forty
million dollars in taxable real estate in San Francisco,
and as much more in the way of personal property, 1
most of which had grown directly or indirectly from the
1 " Gold in California." International Review, October, 1880.
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 147
mining-interest. Yet, only four years before, Webster
had said, in the United-States Senate, that California
was worthless except as a naval station.
( The typical camp of the golden prime of '49 was
flush, lively, reckless, flourishing, and vigorous.^ Saloons
and gambling-houses abounded; buildings and whole
streets grew up like mushrooms, almost in a night.
Every man carried a buckskin bag of gold-dust, and it
was received as currency at a dollar a pinch. Every
one went armed, and felt fully able to protect himself.
A stormy life ebbed and flowed through the town. In
the camp, gathered as of one household, under no law
but that of their own making, were men from North,
South, East, and West, and from nearly every country
of Europe, Asia, South America. They mined, traded,
gambled, fought, discussed camp affairs ; they paid fifty
cents a drink for their whiskey, and fifty dollars a barrel
for their flour, and thirty dollars apiece for butcher-
knives with which to pick gold from the rock-crevices. 1
" They talked," as one who knew them well has written, " a lan-
guage half English and half Mexican. They learned to wash and
mend their own clothes, and bake their own bread, and cook their
own pork and beans. They were hardy, generous, careless, brave :
they risked their lives for each other, and made and lost fortunes,
and went on lonely prospect tours on foot among the snow-peaks,
and grew old and feeble, and found that a new race that knew
them not had arisen in the State they created. They died lonely
deaths, or perished by violence, pioneers to the last."
As about the typical camp there were too often loss,
decay, and final desertion, so about the typical pioneer
there were too often loneliness and sorrow, pathos and
heroism. A few camps were germs of towns and cities.
1 This sum was paid for a time by the miners in some districts of
Tuolumne.
148 MINING-CAMPS.
A few pioneers prospered greatly, and settled down into
leading positions in the State their labors had helped to
create. But the vital waste and destruction of the
struggle overwhelm the observer with pity. The mines
were no place for weaklings ; even strong, healthy, and
earnest men often sank beneath the wearing excitement
of that fervid life. But these rough and busy men,
whose lives were so often only the saddest of tragedies,
established and enforced a code of ethics governing
their relations with each other and their property rights,
enforced justice though without written law, and in the
end created a system of jurisprudence that has won
the approval and indorsement of the highest courts of
the land. Sturdy, keen-witted, courageous, independ-
ent, they left the impress of sterling natures upon all
their primitive institutions.
As we have seen, there were times in almost every
camp when the rowdy element came near ruling, and
only the powerful and hereditary organizing instincts of
the Americans present ever brought order out of chaos.
In nearly every such crisis, there were men of the
right stamp at hand, to say the brave word, or do the
brave act ; to appeal to Saxon love of fair play, to seize
the murderer, or to defy the mob. Side by side in the
same gulch, working in claims of eight paces square,
were, perhaps, fishermen from Cape Ann, loggers from
Penobscot, farmers from the Genesee Valley, physi-
cians from the prairies of Iowa, lawyers from Maryland
and Louisiana, college-graduates from Yale, Harvard,
and the University of Virginia. From so variously
mingled elements, came that terribly exacting mining-
camp society, which tested with pitiless and unerring
tests each man's individual manhood, discovering his
intrinsic worth or weakness with almost superhuman
THE GOLDEN PRIME OF '49. 149
precision, until at last the ablest and best men became
leaders. They fought their way to the surface through
fierce oppositions, and with unblenching resolution sup-
pressed crime, and built up homes in the region they
had learned to love.
CHAPTER XII.
EVIDENCE CONCERNING LAW AND ORDER IN THE
CAMPS.
LET us now examine the testimony of visitors, trav-
ellers, and government officials, and of miners who
have since published their observations upon the con-
dition of the camps during the flush period. Were
these camps orderly and well-governed ? What impres-
sion did they make upon impartial strangers?
Ryan, in his " Personal Adventures in California,"
says,
" The miners dwelt together in no distrust of one another, and
left thousands of dollars' worth of gold-dust in their tents while
they were absent digging. ... A determination to punish rob-
bery seemed to have been come to, by all, as a measure essential
to security."
This was written of the camps of 1850, as a result
of wide observation ; and he elsewhere alludes to the
admirable manner in which the camps had been con-
ducted from the first.
We have before alluded to Colonel Mason's report
on the mines of '48. Governor Riley, deciding to see
the mines for himself, left Monterey, July 5, 1849, with
Major Canby, Captain Wescott, Captain Halleck, Lieu-
tenant Derby, and others, proceeded to Sacramento, and
thence to the principal camps. After his return he
wrote to Washington as follows :
150
LAW AND ORDER IN THE CAMPS. 151
"Order and regularity were preserved throughout almost the
entire extent of the mineral district. In each little settlement or
tented town, the miners have elected their local alcaldes and con-
stables, whose judicial decisions and official acts are sustained by
the people, and enforced with much regularity and energy."
In another place he says,
" The alcaldes have probably, in some cases, exercised judicial
powers never conferred upon them by law ; but the general results
have been favorable ... to the dispensation of justice."
The alcalde system, as adopted and modified by the
miners, was all that fell under Governor Riley's obser-
vation : but there were camps in the region he visited
which were governed, perhaps quite as well, though
in a much more primitive manner, camps ruled by
a chosen committee, to whom all authority was in-
trusted ; or governed only by the irregular assemblage
of the miners, which we have before compared to a
folk-moot. Governor Riley did not inquire into the
minutiae of organization. He only knew, that, copying
after the system of the old Spanish pueblos of the coast,
the miners in the longer-established camps had chosen,
and were obeying, alcaldes ; and, to assist these alcaldes
in the discharge of their duties, had ingrafted upon
the system the town-constableship of New-England
villages.
Bayard Taylor was an appreciative observer of the
camps. In his " Eldorado " he describes their political
organization. "There was," he says, "much order and
regularity. The miners had elected one of their num-
ber alcalde (this was on the Mokelumne), before whom
all culprits were tried." He says that several persons
had been severely punished; some had their ears
cropped, and others were whipped soundly. "It was
152 MINING-CAMPS.
a Spartan severity of discipline," all of which Mr. Tay-
lor fully approves. In another place he says,
" The disposition to maintain order, and secure the rights of all
men, were shown throughout the mining-districts. In the absence
of law, the people met, and adopted rules for mutual security.
. . . There had been," he said, "previous to 1849, twelve or
fifteen executions for murder and for large thefts. . . . Alcaldes
were elected, who had power to decide all disputes or complaints,
and summon juries. When a new placer was discovered, the first
thing done was to elect officers. In a region five hundred miles
long, inhabited by a hundred thousand people, who had neither
locks, bolts, regular laws of government, military or civil protec-
tion, there was as much security to life and property as in any
State of the Union. The rights of each digger were definitely
marked out and observed."
These words of Bayard Taylor's were written of the
camps of 1850 and 1851, but apply with almost equal
force to the camps of 1849. Everywhere in southern,
central, and northern camps, he reports a reign of order,
under laws of their own creation ; and the sight fills
him with admiration.
One of the speakers before the First State Constitu-
tional Convention addressed that body in October,
1849, upon the permanent character of the towns built
up in the mining-region, of which he was a resident.
He added,
" Every glen, every ravine, every canon, almost every hill-top, is
lined and covered with the thousands and tens of thousands that
are scattered over the whole country."
He proceeded to speak of their peaceful prosperity,
and the constant investment, in the larger towns, of
capital dug from the mines. Other speakers before the
convention alluded to the quiet and order preserved
in the placer-region.
LAW AND ORDER IN THE CAMPS. 153
Governor Peter H. Burnett, in his " Recollections,"
says :
" The miners were engaged in a common pursuit, and exposed
to common dangers. Property was almost held in common, a
practical socialism of a very interesting type."
Burnett says further,
" We [the miners] had the right to establish a de facto govern-
ment which would rest on the same basis as the provincial gov-
ernment of Oregon. We held a meeting at Sacramento City in
January, 1849, and elected Henry A. Schoolcraft first magistrate
and recorder for Sacramento District."
Mr. Burnett had then just left the mining-camps,
where he worked during the summer and autumn of
1848, and had opened a lawyer's office in Sacramento.
The leadership of ex-miners was unquestioned in poli-
tics and in society.
A vivid account of life in the early days is furnished
by Mr. Frank Marryat's "Mountains and Molehills."
He speaks of " Murderer's Bar," with the swift river,
the black obstructing rocks, the village of sun-bleached
canvas; the miners, waist-deep, toiling to turn the
course of the river, others in pits digging to bed-rock ;
some alone, some in companies ; all life, vigor, and
determination. He says in one place, that
" In most mining-villages, indignation [over theft] was confined
to ordering the offender to leave, or take the consequences. . . .
The mining-population was allowed to construct their own laws
relative to the appropriation of claims, and the system worked
well. There was no interference on the part of the Legislature."
This observation of Mr. Marryat's was made a year
or so after the organization of State government, and,
as we shall hereafter see, remained true of the mining-
districts for many years.
154 MINING-CAMPS.
"Every digging," Mr. Marryat continues, "has its fixed rules
and by-laws. All disputes are submitted to a jury of resident
miners. In some cases, twenty men or so from one camp are
met by an equal number from another camp."
He proceeds to say that disputes sometimes arose,
and even demonstrations with fire-arms, but that good
sense always prevailed. He speaks of the by-laws of
each district as recorded in the county office, and as
sometimes being stringent, ill-defined, and conflicting.
His own experience of their practical workings, how-
ever, was as follows:
"I have had my placer-claim of ten feet square encroached
upon. I appealed to the crowd ; and a committee of three, being
at once chosen, measured it from my stake; and, being found
correct, the jumper was ordered to confine himself to his own
territory, which he always did."
Mr. Marryat's observations are particularly interest-
ing on several accounts. He was an English univer-
sity man, and adept with both pen and pencil. He
entered heartily into the spirit of life at the placers,
studying mining institutions with trained intellect ; and
the time he visited the camps was after California had
been divided into twenty-seven counties, and county
government nominally established. Thus his state-
ments regarding the amount of local government which
each camp retained by tacit consent, and exercised
whenever necessary, are of great importance. Com-
mittees from different camps still met in consultation :
informal appeals were still made to the crowd to right
or prevent a wrong. In all essential particulars, the
camp was still the " camp of '49."
As late as 1857, " Blackwood's Magazine," reviewing
books on California, and speaking of the entire gold-era,
says,
LAW AND ORDER IN THE CAMPS. 155
" It is an agreeable and unexpected feature in the mines them-
selves, that order, justice, and courtesy reign there." . . .
And again :
" Patches of a few square feet, teeming with gold, are as sacred
as if secured with title-deeds."
J. D. Borthwick's " Three Years in California " is full
of choice material for studies of this era. He describes
the daily life of the gold-miners ; tells us of heaps of
gold-bearing gravel piled up in some camps to lie un-
guarded but safe until the rainy season, having been
made personal property by the labor performed in heap-
ing them together ; pays a hearty tribute of praise to
the universal spirit of hospitality, the careless liber-
ality such as led the Downieville miners to give fully
five hundred dollars in gold-specimens to a lady who
sang ballads for them at one of the first concerts ever
held there. Mr. Borthwick speaks in many places of
the ample security afforded by the mining-regulations.
He also seems to have been struck by the sharply con-
trasted social instincts and methods of organization dis-
played by the American miners and the French miners.
He says, in effect, that the Americans wandered about
the mountains, often as solitary as grizzly bears, working
like demons, and keeping their own counsel regarding
their prospects or claims with all the stolidity of Turk-
ish mutes. Sometimes the American miner worked in
silence and loneliness upon a single claim, going back
and forth night and morning, a truly dangerous, reso-
lute, and deliberative animal. The Frenchmen, on the
contrary, were never seen alone : their social instinct
was irrepressible ; they went in groups to their work,
and clustered together like buzzing bees. But when
our solitary and reflective Americans found quartz or
156 MINING-CAMPS.
gravel that they thought would pay better to work
in associated bodies, they came together at once in a
way for which the sociable Frenchman showed slight
aptitude. The Frenchman's bond of union was depend-
ence, not mutual confidence: the American's reserve
was really the source of his power, and the secret
of his supremacy in every camp. Their loneliness
meant resolution : therefore their organizations always
meant business, and accomplished their appointed
work.
/ One of the interesting bits of evidence upon the
condition of the camps of '49 is afforded by Dr. J. B.
Stillman's "Seeking the Golden Fleece." He says
there was "no government, no law;" but "more in-
telligence and good feeling than in any country I ever
saw. . . . Men are valued for what they are. . . . One
feels that he has a standing here that it takes a man
until he is old and rich to enjoy at home." This
ignores the camp-laws, as unauthorized, but tacitly ac-
knowledges the good order and peacefulness prevalent
in the mining-region. On the subject of miners' gen-
erosity, Mr. Bacon, now an Idaho journalist, and an
old California miner, writes me as follows :
"I have never lived in any community where there was less
crime, or where people were more charitable, than they were in the
early mining-camps of California. No one was ever allowed to
suffer for necessaries of life, and nowhere were the sick neglected.
I remember many instances where a miner with a broken consti-
tution, who had become discouraged or unable to work, and desired
to return to his family, was sent home by the miners, and, in addi-
tion, was given one or two thousand dollars for a 'home-stake.'"
Theodore Winthrop, that "bright, generous poet and
novelist, saw the same characteristics in the hearty
pioneers of the Pacific Coast, and rejoiced over " the
LAW AND OKDER IN THE CAMPS. 157
rough sincerity impressed upon people by the life they
lead in new countries." l
Some of the darker portions of the picture are shown
by Theodore J. Johnson, in his " Sights in the Gold-
Region ; " and his views deserve careful consideration.
" The thirst for gold, and the labor required to procure it," he
says, " overruled all else, and absorbed every faculty. Complete
silence reigned among the miners. They addressed not a word to
each other for hours."
He says, further, that although enduring great hard-
ships, exposure, and often disease, the miners as a class
obtained only a moderate remuneration. The average
yield per miner was, he thought, only three or four
dollars a day ; and not more than one man in a hundred
made a fortune, and invested it safely away from the
mines. Out of one hundred and twenty men who went
around the Horn, and were at the same camps, "not one
had great success." These views regarding the average
yield of the mines to each toiler are well sustained by
the official reports. The five thousand miners of 1848
averaged one thousand dollars apiece, though many of
them did not reach the mines till very late in the sea-
son ; but the hundred thousand miners of 1850 dug out
only half as much proportionately, working a longer sea-
son, and with far better appliances. The gold-product
of the State reached its culmination in 1853, then sink-
ing year after year to a point below the total of 1849,
but varying little during the past ten years. The in-
troduction of capital and machinery has rendered it
impossible to estimate the amount that each man's
labor now produces. The annual gold-yield of the
1 Theodore Wiuthrop, " Life and Letters." See also his description
of the " appalling activity " of San Francisco, then the chief outfitting
point for all the mines; p. 134.
158 MINING-CAMPS .
State has been, for a number of years, something over
sixteen million dollars; in 1883 it was 116,500,000.
Another very strong statement upon the nature of
life in the mines comes from Mr. George F. Parsons,
in his Life of Marshall, to which we have previously
alluded. He says,
" It was a mad, furious race for wealth, in which men lost their
identity almost, and toiled and wrestled, and lived a fierce, riotous,
wearing, fearfully excited life ; forgetting home and kindred ; aban-
doning old, steady habits ; acquiring all the restlessness, craving for
stimulant, unscrupulousness, hardihood, impulsive generosity, and
lavish ways, which have puzzled the students of human nature who
have undertaken to portray or to analyze that extraordinary period."
He says that a true account of those times would be
" so wild, so incredible, so feverish and abnormal," as
to remind one rather of a description of a Walpurgia
Night than of an era in real life. In another place we
have this graphic picture :
" Take a sprinkling of sober-eyed, earnest, shrewd, energetic
New-England business-men: mingle with them a number of rollick-
ing sailors, a dark band of Australian convicts and cut-throats, a
dash of Mexican and frontier desperadoes, a group of hardy back-
woodsmen, some professional gamblers, whiskey-dealers, general
swindlers, or rural agriculturists ' as Captain Wragge styles them ;
and having thrown in a promiscuous crowd of broken-down mer-
chants, disappointed lovers, black sheep, unfledged dry-goods clerks,
professional miners from all parts of the world, and Adullamites
generally, stir up the mixture, season strongly with gold-fever, bad
liquors, faro, monte, rouge-et-noir, quarrels, oaths, pistols, knives,
dancing, and digging, and you have something approximating to
California society in early days."
Statements such as these concerning the overpower-
ing excitement of the gold-search, and its evil effects,
undoubtedly reveal a deep psychical truth. Evil men
became more evil, miserly men more miserly, in the
LAW AND ORDER IN THE CAMPS. 159
Sierra camps. There must have been many to whose
souls this "yellow, glittering, precious gold" was a
" most operant poison," making " black, white ; foul,
fair ; wrong, right ; base, noble ; " and over whose
wretched lives the spirit of the exiled, ill-starred, man-
hating Athenian's terrible mockery prevailed in ghastly
earnest, until they lived and died in the bitter faith
that " this yellow slave " of the exile's scorn could
" Knit and break religions ; bless the accursed ;
Make the hoar leprosy adored ; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation
With senators on the bench."
All in all, the most unfavorable and rabidly pessi-
mistic account of California and of life in the mines,
that has fallen under my observation, is Mr. Hinton R.
Helper's " Land of Gold." l Writing as late as 1855,
he says that the country had " no redeeming features ; "
the land was " a desert ; " the customs of the people
were atrocious ; murders were of daily occurrence, and
men were lying sick and uncared-for in the streets of
the towns ; it was the Nazareth of States, from which
nothing except evil could come. To further prick the
44 California bubble," Mr. Helper offers such items as
the following :
Loss by fires, 1849-54 $45,870,000
Loss by freshets, 1849-54 1,500,000
Shipping lost on the coast 5,060,000
Total $52,430,000
This certainly seems to show an astonishing degree
of waste and loss. But the table is entirely unreliable.
1 Land of Gold: Baltimore, 1855. Printed for the author. An in-
tensely interesting work, chiefly by reason of Mr. Helper's unexampled
talent for persistent pessimism.
160 MINING-CAMPS.
It furnishes the separate items of the fire-losses which
go to make up that total of over forty-five million dol-
lars, and by these items we can test its accuracy. The
San Francisco fire of May 3, 1851, is stated to have
caused a loss of twelve million dollars : Hittell, a most
cautious writer, gives it as seven million dollars. The
Sonora fire of 1852 is stated to have destroyed property
worth two million five hundred thousand dollars : the
Tuolumne County official directory places the loss at
seven hundred thousand dollars. From a multitude of
equally reliable sources, the grand total of over fifty
million dollars appears to be at least one-third, and
probably one-half, too great.
From the fact of Mr. Helper's temperamental bias
towards gloomy views of Pacific-coast life, manners,
and institutions, his unexpectedly favorable evidence
regarding the miners gains a peculiar importance.
" There is," he remarks, " more real honesty and fairness among
the miners than among any other class of people in California.
Taken as a body, they are a plain, straightforward, hard-working
set of men, who attend to their own business without meddling
with the affairs of others; and I have found as guileless hearts
among them as ever throbbed in mortal bosom.
" Almost every bar," he continues, " is governed by a different
code of laws, and the sizes of the claims vary according to locality.
In one place a man may hold twice, thrice, or quadruple the num-
ber of feet that are allowed him in another. One-fourth of an
acre is an average-sized claim."
Governor Richard J. Oglesby of Illinois was one of
the pioneers of Nevada County, in "the days of '49
and '50." In a letter, published in the history of that
county, he says,
" There was very little law, but a large amount of good order ;
no churches, but a great deal of religion ; no politics, but a large
LAW AND ORDER IN THE CAMPS. 161
number of politicians ; no offices, and, strange to say for my coun-
trymen, no office-seekers. Crime was rare, for punishment was
certain. I was present one afternoon, just outside the city limits,
and saw with painful satisfaction, as I now remember, Charley
Williams whack three of our fellow-citizens over the bare back,
twenty-one to forty strokes, for stealing a neighbor's money. The
multitude of disinterested spectators had conducted the court.
My recollection is that there were no attorneys' fees or court-
charges. I think I never saw justice administered with so little
loss of time or at less expense. There was no more stealing in
Nevada City until society became more settled and better regu-
lated."
Among the men who "prospected" in the Nevada
mines, during 1849, was the late Benjamin P. Avery,
afterwards editor of " The Overland Monthly," and for
some time United-States minister to China. Mr. Avery,
and the late Samuel Williams, long literary editor of
44 The San Francisco Bulletin," were two of the noblest,
purest, and best-loved men ever connected with Pacific-
coast journalism ; and their memories are kept green
throughout the State they did so much to develop. A
letter from Mr. Avery printed in Bean's Directory of
Nevada County, in 1867, recounts his adventures in the
mines, and gives a graphic picture of " the childhood of
California." " I started from Mormon Island," he says,
" late in October, 1849 ; rode a little white mule, with
pork, hard-bread, and blankets packed behind me."
He heard of "pound diggins" (two hundred dollars
per day) near Caldwell's Upper Store, and at Gold
Run, in the famous basin where Nevada City and
Grass Valley now stand. There were about a dozen
parties working the bars with dug-out cradles and
wire and rawhide hoppers. A few tents were scattered
over the flat. The " store " was a square canvas shanty,
where mouldy biscuit sold for a dollar a pound, pork
162 MINING-CAMPS.
for two dollars, flour one dollar, and boots for six ounces
of gold-dust per pair. He found good prospects, and
returned for his comrades. Evidently there was as } T et
no organization by which he could secure a claim, and
hold it during his absence. He seems to have posted
no claim, driven no stake ; and, when the party re-
turned, the ravine Mr. Avery had prospected " was
occupied from end to end by long-haired Missourians
who were taking out their piles." They had organized,
and staked out claims of thirty feet along the ravine ;
and found them so profitable that "many a long-torn
party took a quart tin pail full of gold-dust to their
camp at night." The isolation of the place is suffi-
ciently shown by the fact that " it cost two dollars and
a half to get a letter to or from Sacramento." Mr.
Avery afterwards prospected "in the savage wilds of
the Middle Yuba, where only the grizzly and wildcat
roamed the lofty purple ridge, four thousand feet above
the sea." Eight years later he was editor and proprie-
tor of a newspaper published there, in the midst of
villages, churches, schoolhouses, gardens, vineyards,
and hydraulic mines.
An unvarnished account of pioneer experiences is to
be found in Lawson B. Patterson's " Twelve Years in
the Mines of California." Arriving in canvas-built
Sacramento, July 29, 1849, the author set out, on foot,
for Mormon Camp, where the early miners had taken
out over a million of dollars. He afterwards pros-
pected far into the wilds of El Dorado. "George-
town Camp" contained several hundred tents, but
there was not a single woman in the district. " Hud-
son Gulch," in the same region, " is only three hundred
yards long, but the first time it was worked it paid over
fifteen hundred thousand dollars," and has been worked
LAW AND ORDER IN THE CAMPS. 163
over and over perhaps a dozen times since. American
miners began to find the need of business organization ;
and in 1850 and 1851 a "company of one hundred
members tunnelled in Cement Hill." They did most
of their own work, and ran four distinct tunnels far
into the solid rock before they pierced the basin of au-
riferous gravel whose existence they suspected. Their
association was reduced to six members, then rose to
twenty, before success came. The total expenditure
was one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and
yet the results paid well. Associations of miners ran
twenty different tunnels into "Mameluke Hill," and
sank many deep shafts, taking out over thirty-five hun-
dred thousand dollars. The organization of the placer-
camps was already leading to personal association for
working the deeper deposits.
We find notes from a careful observer of mining-life
in E. S. Capron's " History of California." He tells us
that the miners are mostly "persons in the- humbler
walks of life," yet there are " no inconsiderable num-
ber connected with the learned professions. Whoever
attends one of their miners' meetings will be convinced
that neither the fools nor the drones go to the mines.
Let the visitor wend his dark way into the mountain
drift, or clamber over heaps of rocks and earth, and
leap wide artificial drains, or go to some river where a
deep, broad eddy has allured the hopeful miner, or
travel over miles of upturned earth to where a solitary
toiler is at work under the exhausting sun, and he will
meet the grave divine, the skilful physician, the shrewd
lawyer, the professor, the philosopher, the gentleman
of leisure, and the student, as well as the farmer, me-
chanic, and common laborer. . . . Their time is es-
teemed too precious to hunt, fish, or cultivate the soil.
164 MINING-CAMPS.
. . . Vagabond Mexicans, outlawed at home, make the
miners their frequent victims."
Of mining laws and customs, Mr. Capron gives a tol-
erably accurate account. He says that the miners in
public meetings had established courts " summary and
signal in their proceedings ; " and that " their jurisdic-
dion embraced all actions and proceedings, civil and
criminal. In most cases, the presiding officer was an
elected alcalde, aided by a sheriff." The spectators
constituted the only court of appeals. Annual meet-
ings of the miners regulated all laws regarding claims.
The size of claims averaged sixty by one hundred feet,
and they were numbered and registered. In earlier
times meetings were held much oftener than once a
year, and the great body of " local mining-law " had
been thus created. The " imperious necessity for these
enactments " was universally recognized.
f Quotations might easily be made at much greater
length, and from many more writers. Everywhere we
find, among observers of mining-life, testimony to the
success of the system of self-government adopted in
the camps; and, in no less degree, testimony to the
energy and simplicity of the miners themselves.) Some
few among these observers give instances of abuse of
mining-courts, of camp-justice that had for the moment
degenerated into mob-rule. Cases are given where
men's lives were saved by the prompt and cool courage
of a few persons who insisted on another trial, or
pointed out defects in the evidence. But we shall hear
more of these things hereafter, in studying the local
history of some of the notable camps. The main point
to remember, so far, is the favorable impression made
upon so many different writers, English, German, and
American.
CHAPTER XIII.
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM EARLY AND SUCCESSFUL CAMP
ORGANIZATIONS.
REMINISCENCES of the pioneers of California often
drift into print. Many a book, justly famous, has been
hammered out of the virgin gold of stories told around
the camp-fire by men who were a part of that eventful
period. A number of pioneers, some of them leaders,
some of them of the uncounted thousands who only
followed, have written me, giving, to their best ability,
accounts of the organization of various mining-camps.
Their recollections are often hazy upon definite points ;
but they all agree as to the informality and celerity of
early proceedings, and the high degree of good order
secured in every camp, without exception.
A gentleman, once a pioneer citizen of Marysville,
before the famous Briggs orchard was planted, or Yuba
County organized, writes, saying that he was among
the first of the miners " in quite a number of migrat-
ing camps which proved evanescent, and disappeared
with the swift current of events," but "were well
governed while they lasted." In one case he .and a
companion " found pay-dirt in a canon which sloped to
the rushing Yuba," then a clear and beautiful river.
Here they toiled for several days, and were doing well,
when, one morning, they were suddenly visited by a
delegation of miners from a neighboring camp, where
166
166 MINING-CAMPS.
the report of lucrative discoveries in the new gulch
had been circulated by men who had climbed the
hills in search of a stray pack-mule. The visitors, six
or eight in number, proposed to organize a new camp,
and share the " find." A consultation was held ; and it
was decided that each miner should be allowed to own
and mine a strip of land ten feet wide on the river,
and three hundred feet deep. Our friend and his com-
panion were in the minority, and could not have ob-
jected had they wished ; but the plan was so entirely in
accordance with the usual custom, the unwritten law
of older camps, that they yielded a ready and cheer-
ful acquiescence. In view of the fact that they were
the discoverers of the mineral wealth of the gulch, it
was unanimously agreed that they should have first
choice of ground ; that is, the privilege of abandoning
the location already made, and of taking up any other
claim on the gulch. In many districts, they would
have been allowed two claims apiece in acknowledg-
ment of their rights as prospectors, but first choice was
quite as often the rule. In closing his narrative, this
gentleman says that "there was seldom or never any
difficulty, because such a spirit of fair play actuated
the miners of '49." 1
Another gentleman, a graduate of Yale, 2 says, in the
course of a highly interesting letter, that he " ought to
know something about it," for he " began to work at
mining when there was not even a custom, so that a
man hardly objected to your digging close beside him
so long as you left him room to swing a pick."
1 This pioneer was Mr. William C. Dougherty, now (1884) deputy
postmaster of San Francisco. He was once sheriff of Yolo, and was
well known throughout the northern mines.
2 Mr. C. T. Blake of San Francisco.
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CAMP ORGANIZATIONS. 167
" A little later," he goes on to say, " I was present at a miners'
meeting near Illinois Town, which was called together simply by
sending notices through a district four or five miles square. My
recollection is, that there was nothing done of any importance, as
there were so many clashing interests that we could decide upon
nothing which suited everybody concerned."
The Anglo-Saxon idea of compromise as the basis of
all political action could not be more clearly shown
than in the above statement. At a subsequent meeting,
they doubtless settled upon some scheme that was the
best that could be done under the circumstances ; that,
as far as possible, suited everybody. Americans were
the only class of miners who recognized this principle
as essential to any harmonious organization.
Our correspondent, in speaking of the mining-camps
in which at various times he lived and labored, says
that they " were mostly of limited size, say a small canon
and its tributary ravines, or a ridge between two canons,
or a river-bar." A mining-region of great extent, like
Georgetown, Placerville, Coloma, or Nevada, "might
contain numerous districts with entirely different laws.
The work of mining, and its environment and conditions,
were so different in different places, that the laws and
customs of the miners had to vary even in adjoining
districts." ' Nor were the laws of any district permanent :
they had to be changed from time to time, as the dis-
trict came to be "re-worked." This re-working of a
district increased the size of a claim. With rich virgin
soil, ten or twenty feet frontage was a large claim ; but
the same gulch when being worked over for perhaps
the fifth time, for what predecessors had been unable to
obtain, was divided up into claims of one or two hun-
dred feet frontage. The ground worked at first by
placer-miners with pick and pan, was again sifted and
168 MINING-CAMPS.
searched by rocker and long-torn process ; then, perhaps,
by ground-sluicing ; and lastly, by various forms of the
hydraulic process, the entire gulch, where dozens of
small claims had once existed, passing under one owner-
ship.
" Almost every mining-district," our correspondent writes, " kept
written records from nearly the beginning, as claims had to be
registered ; but most of these records have been burned in the in-
evitable fires which have swept over almost eveiy mining-town in
California."
( Some of the mining-counties of California, whose
county-seats are towns that have grown from little
mining-camps, are unable to show any historical records
of earlier date than 1851. The lesser and migratory
camps carried on most of their proceedings without
any written records or documents of any sort what-
ever.
Notes sent by a California fruit-grower l describe his
experiences in the mines. The only officer known in his
camp was a recorder of claims, elected by the miners.
His duties appear to have been clerical merely : the real
business of the camp was transacted in open meeting
by the assembled miners, who tried all criminal cases
and disputes over claims, choosing a chairman, and vot-
ing viva voce. He never knew the miners of one
camp to trespass upon the territory belonging to another
camp. Difficulties of any sort were extremely rare.
The camp being in a dry region, entirely dependent
upon the water-ditches for working the claims, one of
the district-laws was that all claims left idle a certain
number of days after mining could be commenced, were
considered to have been abandoned. Here we have
i B. D. T. Clough, of Alameda County, California.
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CAMP ORGANIZATIONS. 169
hints of what was afterwards developed into a complete
and exact system of riparian regulations.
An account of the organization of Gold Hill Camp
has been secured through the kindness of a California
friend, 1 who interviewed an old miner named Morey,
and questioned him upon various features of interest.
The camp occupied a gulch and the adjoining hill-
sides, in the western part of Nevada County, and was
first prospected by several miners early in 1850, the
year that witnessed such surprising growth throughout
all that region. A few hours' labor convinced the dis-
coverers that the royal metal was there in paying quan-
tities, and they pitched their tent on the bank. Soon
the news spread ; and within a week there were fifteen
or twenty men at work in the low, gravelly bed of the
creek. At first the camp had no organization or gov-
ernment, and every man's conduct conformed to his own
ideas of right and justice. Each miner had chosen a
spot to work in, and no question of encroachment could
possibly arise until their widening circle of operations
began to approach each other. About the close of the
first week after the establishment of the camp, the near
approach of two miners' operations caused a dispute
about the size of claims. One of the miners consid-
ered his rights infringed upon ; and, a few days later,
after a good deal of talk, his friends circulated an in-
formal verbal request through the camp, whose popula-
tion had by that time increased to fifty or more, asking
for a miners' meeting in the evening. They all felt
that sooner or later definite laws must be adopted
for the government of the camp, or disorder would
prevail. The single question that had arisen could
1 Rev. W. F. B. Lynch, of Centreville, Alameda County, Cal. ; former
county superintendent of schools.
170 MINING-CAMPS.
easily be settled by arbitration, but they must have
some general rules regarding claims.
When the miners of the new camp assembled, one
of their number called the meeting to order, and nomi-
nated a permanent chairman, who was at once elected.
The chairman then stated that there had been a little
trouble about claims, and might easily be more. They
could no longer let matters take their own course, but
must make a serious effort to get the camp into shape.
Its bounds were then established, making it about
three miles in length, and nearly two miles in width.
A few regulations were made about the size of claims ;
some informal talk was indulged in regarding roughs
and thieves; and the meeting adjourned, to re-assem-
ble whenever called together by the chairman, who was
regarded as continued in office, and, in fact, as the head
of the camp, until such time as a new election took
place. At subsequent meetings, some further difficul-
ties about claims were settled by vote ; and the punish-
ment of several thefts was fixed in the same way.
This camp never had a recorder or a jury, either of
six or of twelve. The whole meeting constituted the
jury; their decisions were final, and their punishments
immediate in execution. The chairman simply named
such miners as he thought sufficient to " carry out the
sentence of this meeting." Every man in the camp
was liable to be called upon to act as an executive
officer ; and each law-abiding citizen of the camp was
a public prosecutor, unless he had been expressly ap-
pointed to defend the prisoner. Meetings assembled
whenever an offence had been committed, and disbanded
as soon as it had been punished. This crude but effi-
cient law gave general satisfaction until the civil and
criminal law of the State stepped in to take its place,
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CAMP ORGANIZATIONS. 171
and Gold Hill Canon became a small and lessening
village in one of the townships of the county. 1
One of the Nevada-county pioneers writes of the
beginnings of Rough and Ready Camp. The ravine
was "located" in 1849 by a company of ten persons,
who were followed by another similar company; and
the two parties tried to maintain a monopoly of the
gulch. One of the leaders went to the Atlantic States,
and hired men to work for his company; but during
his absence the influx of miners, who paid no regard
whatever to the extensive claims of the first settlers,
swept every thing before it. In September, 1850, there
were five hundred miners at work in the gulch, and
they had staked it out from end to end with claims of
the ordinary size. Yet there was " no trouble, no shoot-
ing, or difficulty of any sort : " the monopoly scheme
had failed, and that was the end of it all. Some of
its members secured claims for themselves, and some
were compelled to buy interests in claims already taken
up. /All the* camps of this period rose and fell in
population with a surprising rapidity.) At Gold Flat
there were two cabins in August, 1850; in July, 1851,
over three hundred miners were at work there ; in 1852
the place was abandoned. Washington Camp, settled
in 1849, contained a thousand miners within one year ;
and during the winter of 1850-51, over three thousand
men were at work in tho immediate vicinity. Moore's
Flat diggings, within a year from their discovery, grew
into a camp of five hundred miners ; Orleans Flat, into
one of six hundred. Grass Valley had fifteen cabins in
1 The township of California is not like the township of New Eng-
land. It is much larger, often containing three hundred square miles.
It only elects road-supervisors and constables, and these only on the
county ticket, and has a proportionate vote in the county board of
supervisors.
172 MINING-CAMPS.
October, 1850, and a hundred and fifty by March, 1851 :
four years later, its population was three thousand five
hundred. In each of these camps, organization kept
pace with the growth of population ; and there was
never any serious disorder.
A pioneer of 1849, who, after many wanderings
among the camps new and old, has settled down as the
editor of a Boise City newspaper, 1 lays great stress, in
his reminiscences, upon the law and order maintained
with little difficulty in the camps of California. In
his experience, all persons who attended a meeting
were allowed to take part in its deliberations, whether
residents of that particular district or not. If it was
a criminal case that the court had assembled to con-
sider, the accused was granted counsel, both sides were
heard, and a vote was taken. In some instances the
amount of punishment awarded was excessive, but it
usually inclined towards mercy's side. In one case,
in the little Sierra camp in which he dwelt, a meeting
was held to try an Irishman and a Dutchman on a
charge of stealing an old shovel and pick from a claim
where they had been left by the owner to hold posses-
sion for him ; the rule of the district being that all
claims were forfeited so soon as the tools were removed.
They were convicted on the evidence of witnesses who
saw them carry the tools off. Their plea was, that the
tools were so old and worthless that they supposed
no one else wanted them. But the claim, it was an-
swered, by that act, through no fault of its owners,
had been thrown open to the next prospector ; and
therein lay the guilt of the accused, since they were
fully aware of the law of the camp. They were there-
i Mr. D. Bacon, editor Boise City (Idaho) Republican.
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CAMP ORGANIZATIONS. 173
fore sentenced to be whipped, and expelled from the
diggings. One of them received a portion of his lashes,
but a motion was then made and carried to remit the
remainder; and the two men were escorted to the
border of the camp, and told to seek fresh pastures.
The miners' meeting then gravely and earnestly ad-
vised the owners of the claim to be careful and leave
better tools there another time, so that the object of
so leaving them might be indisputable.
After giving various regulations about the size of a
claim, similar in their leading features to those pre-
viously spoken of, this correspondent says that this
method avoided endless litigation ; and that the system
of later years, adopted in the newer Territories such as
Idaho and Montana, which allows a man to hold twenty
acres of valuable mineral-ground, to the exclusion of
all others, has produced bitter fruit. The smaller plots
of the California miners were much better for the com-
munity. All were contented, and none were hopelessly
poor. A group of California prospectors, in those
early days of which we are writing, seldom attempted
to determine the superficial extent of the placer, and
then divide it up among themselves. When they did
attempt it, the effort always came to grief, as in
Rough and Ready Camp. They seemed rather to wish
to ascertain how much surface-ground would give an
operator a full season's work; they chose the richest
spots they could find, marked out their small claims,
and left to later comers the ascertaining of the limits
of the auriferous deposits of the district. Very often,
indeed, when a miner had worked out his claim, there
was plenty of equally good and never-occupied ground
close at hand.
But the lesser differences in all these early camps
174 MINING-CAMPS.
were innumerable. An old miner writes me from Chili,
where he owns a large hacienda on the borders of the
Araucanian country, and states that a Yuba county
camp he helped to organize in 1850 did not permit the
transfer of claims, either by sale or by gift; and dis-
putes were referred to the oldest man in camp, whose
decision was final, but was in every case so in accord-
ance with justice, that it was invariably accepted. An
old miner whom the writer once met illustrated a similar
method in vogue in one of his early camps : " When we
come back to dinner, Bill an' I, two strange fellers was
at work in our claim. We sat down on the bank, an'
told them there was plenty of good gravel, jest as good,
a mile down the river, an' that was our diggin's. They
didn't stir, so one of us went an' asked Cap'n Bob
Porter, the best an' quietest man in camp, to come up ;
an' we all had a drink outen the cap'n's flask, an' then
we talked it over, he bein' spokesman. Pretty soon they
said it warn't no use making a row, an' went off very
friendly."
This very summer of 1884, the dwellers in a cottage
on one of the fairest islands of Casco Bay interviewed
a rugged old sea-captain, a pioneer of the gold period,
and a kindly, white-haired giant of a type not unlike
brave John Ridd in "Lorna Doone." He had toiled in
many different camps, but chiefly in the noisy town of
Spanish Bar, Placer County, where an elected alcalde
ruled, and where " every one drinked as much whiskey
as they wanted." The size of claims in his experience
varied, but at Spanish Bar it was ten feet square in the
dry diggings. Tools left on a claim held it for three
days' absence, and a claim-notice protected it for seven
days. Claims on the river were one hundred feet in
length, as a rule ; though sometimes, when a camp was
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CAMP ORGANIZATIONS. 175
crowded, and all the best claims taken up, a new com-
pany of miners would come along, and, calling a public
meeting of the miners, persuade them to diminish the
prescribed size of claims, so as to give all an equal
chance. Sometimes the first-comers exceeded their
rightful bounds, but readily yielded when other miners
arrived.
This sort of evidence and illustration, afforded by
letters from pioneers of California, might easily be ex-
tended beyond the limits of a single chapter ; but we
must turn to a more definite discussion of the laws of
the camps, and the varunis systems under which they
were controlled. The flexibility of the government
known in the Sierra camps, and the freedom with which
it assumed different forms, were quite as admirable
traits as were its earnestness and efficiency. Even in
the quotations already given, there are hints of differ-
ent methods of governing camps ; and these must now
receive consideration.
CHAPTER XIV.
FORMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. FOLK-MOOT, STAND-
ING COMMITTEE, AND ALCALDE.
As we have seen, the forms of local organization
under which laws, civil or criminal, were made for the
governing of mining-districts, were varied and sugges-
tive ; but they are all reducible to three types, that
rule of the whole body of freemen, which we have here-
tofore denominated the "folk-moot of the Sierra;" that
rule of a select and permanent committee or council to
whom supreme authority was sometimes delegated ;
and, lastly, that individual rule of the alcalde, or of
the miners' justice of the peace, offices of nearly similar
powers and duties in the eyes of the early gold-seekers.
Behind the seldom-questioned supremacy of council
and alcalde, preventing them from unjust, despotic, and
arbitrary extremes, was the tacit acknowledgment of
the right of the community to interfere in extreme
cases. Society ever kept a watchful eye upon its au-
thorized dispensers of justice. The "folk-moot" was
the original and central institution.
This assemblage of the people, called together by
any person or persons, after choosing a temporary offi-
cer, proceeded to discuss subjects of interest, try cases,
make laws, and enforce them. It was literally govern-
ment by the miners of the district. Boys of fifteen and
sixteen, broad-shouldered and self-reliant, often took
176
FOKMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 177
part in the deliberations of the meeting. It was this
miners' court, that our Norse and Saxon ancestors,
could they have risen from burial-mounds like Beowulf's
" on the steep, seen by sea-goers from afar," reared there
by the "battle-brave hearth-companions" of the dead,
would undoubtedly have recognized as akin to those
folk-moots held of old in primeval German and Scan-
dinavian forests. In both alike were the right of free
speech for all freemen, the right of unhampered discus-
sion, the visible earnestness, the solemn judgment, not
only in the name of the people, but by the people
themselves, assembled to right wrong, to try offenders,
to smite even to death, or to justify and set free. Out
of this meeting, containing such possibilities for good
and for evil, other forms of government known to the
miners developed, or in this meeting were of their own
free will adopted. No alcalde, no council, no justice
of the peace, was ever forced upon a district by an out-
side power. The district was the unit of political or-
ganization, in many regions, long after the creation of
the State ; and delegates from adjoining districts often
met in consultation regarding boundaries, or matters
of local government, and reported to their respective
constituencies in open-air meeting, on hillside or river-
bank.
In all cases of criminal trials, the miners' court as-
sumed much of a judicial aspect. Whatever legal talent
the miners possessed was brought into service. In 1849
hardly a camp existed on the great Sierra slope, that
did not contain miners who were graduates of colleges
and law-schools, or were lawyers of considerable expe-
rience. Many of these men, in after-years, became
leaders in county and State affairs. Earnest, intelli-
gent, and cultivated speakers stood ready to defend the
178 MINING-CAMPS.
accused. When acting as tribunals of life and death,
all who appeared were entitled to a vote, and to be
heard ; but when deciding laws concerning claims and
local government, members of other camps could not
vote. The accused camp-thief, sluice-robber, horse-
stealer, or murderer was guarded by men with re-
volvers, or was tied to a tree. The miners' court was
in such cases assembled at once, not by formal notices,
but by a cry running from claim to claim, from height
to height, proclaiming, for instance, that "they've
caught the fellow that robbed John Smiley 's sluice-
boxes last night." Nearly every one then came into
camp, and the case was usually brought to trial within
half an hour.
Short speeches were made for and against the pris-
oner ; the presiding officer charged the jury " to do the
fair thing accordin' to common-sense ; " and after a brief
deliberation they rendered a verdict, and the presiding
officer decided the penalty. If there was no jury, the
case was submitted to the decision of the miners pres-
ent, who also fixed the punishment. In small camps,
where only thirty or forty men assembled, this was
perhaps the usual system ; but in larger camps, the jury-
system prevailed. In one case, a trial was had, and the
prisoner hung within an hour ; it being a cold-blooded
murder, with a dozen witnesses to the act. In another
case, the jury spent four days in taking testimony and
listening to arguments. When it was decided to hang
the prisoner, the crowd guarded the town and the build-
ing where he was confined, having reason to fear an at-
tempted rescue ; they gave him four days to prepare for
death, and then, on the ninth day after his arrest, hung
him to a bridge in the presence of more than two thou-
sand men, with all the dignity and solemnity imaginable.
FORMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 179
Capital punishment was not, in the miners' code, con-
fined to murder: it was often inflicted upon those
guilty of lesser crimes. Thus the roads were made safe,
the cabins of the lonely miners secure ; as in the days
of good Duke Robert, " gold bracelets might hang un-
touched from an oak by the public highway." Horse-
stealing was sometimes considered a capital offence;
partly because of the great value and scarcity of horses
in the mines, partly from the fact that a desperado once
mounted was infinitely more dangerous than before to
society. The entire absence of jails and prisons in
which to confine criminals reduced available penalties
to three, banishment, whipping, and death. In prac-
tice the punishment awarded for theft was whipping
for the first offence ; but if repeated, it was at the peril
of the offender's neck. The cases in which men were
hung for theft were justified by the miners under the
plea of necessity ; the lawless classes being sometimes
strong and defiant, only checked by the stern deter-
mination of Americans to protect their property from
claim-jumpers and thieves.
Cases of whipping were very numerous. A man
who stole a sack of flour, just after the Nevada City
fire of 1851, was given twelve lashes. In 1850, in Grass
Valley, a mule-thief received thirty lashes. In Trinity
County, at Hay Fork, the first thief was whipped by
the entire camp, each miner giving a blow. Hardly a
camp existed in the mining-region, where, sooner or
later, the assembled court did not decree this form of
punishment to some offender. In one case, a man who
entered the tent of a Chileno woman one night during
her husband's absence, and attempted violence, was
whipped so severely that he was hardly able to drag
himself out of the camp he had disgraced. A store-
180 MINING-CAMPS.
keeper was once whipped for swindling the miners out
of their gold-dust by false balances. In Calaveras
County, a man stole a small amount of dust, received
ten lashes ; returned that night, and committed another
theft ; was given twenty lashes, and sent out of camp.
He went to the next camp, and there stole a mule on
which to leave the country ; but the miners of this
camp caught him, and the court sentenced him to fifty
lashes well laid on. When stripped, however, his con-
dition from previous punishments appeared so dreadful
that a vote of forgiveness was passed ; and the owner
of the mule took the culprit to his tent, and dressed the
bleeding wounds.
The miners' court was never wittingly cruel in its
judgments, but it was liable to be swayed by prejudice
or passion. The change to a committee or council form
of government, which occurred in quite a large number
of cases, was a decided improvement. The best ex-
ample of this type occurred at Rough and Ready Camp,
Nevada County, early in 1850, after the State govern-
ment had been organized, but while three-fourths of
the mining-region still depended upon miners' courts.
This camp, established late in 1849, had a population
of several hundred persons. They held a mass-meeting,
and elected a committee of three persons to administer
justice. The miners then went about their business,
and left the management of the affairs of this thriving
camp entirely in the hands of these three citizens.
There was no higher court ; and their authority was
nearly absolute, and always well sustained.
Before this council, a man who was accused of steal-
ing was tried with the forms of law, was found guilty,
and was given thirty-nine lashes, after which he was
banished, and warned never again to appear in that
FORMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 181
camp. The three members of the council had equal
powers, and all voted in such cases. Presumably a
majority ruled. In quite a number of cases, the punish-
ment given to offenders was " forty stripes save one."
The council had civil jurisdiction, as well as criminal.
They settled quite a number of disputes about claims ;
they laid out the streets of the town, and apportioned
the town-lots among its citizens ; they even appointed
a constable, issued writs as occasion demanded, and
accepted bail-bonds for the appearance of accused per-
sons. One of these bonds is still in existence, and
shows that a person charged with horse-stealing offered
bail to the amount of one thousand dollars, and after-
wards came forward and stood his trial.
The nearest fully established court of justice was at
Nye's Landing, afterwards Marysville, over thirty miles
distant, where a justice of the peace had been elected
under the State laws. Nevada City had an alcalde,
but he exercised no jurisdiction outside of that district.
The Grass-valley miners met in November, 1850, under
a large oak-tree, and elected by ballot a justice of the
peace, and constable. But Rough and Ready district
was satisfied with its council, which accordingly de-
cided all disputes, administered justice with an equita-
ble hand, and in all respects made their management of
camp affairs so satisfactory that it lasted until the juris-
diction of the county was fully established. 1
This sort of government by a committee, or council,
to whom all powers are intrusted, re-appears in Tuo-
lumne, Placer, and Shasta counties. The influence of
the idea is, perhaps, manifest in the adoption in many
1 Rough and Ready was then in Yuba County's jurisdiction. H. Q.
Roberts, James S. Dunleavy, and Einaimel Smith formed this Com-
mittee of Vigilance and Safety.
182 MINING-CAMPS.
camps, almost simultaneously, of the principle of arbi-
tration, according to which permanent officers were
chosen, and given the duty of acting as arbitrators
whenever called upon. In some camps, as late as 1 854,
all disputed claims were referred to a standing commit-
tee ; and the laws of many districts, as will be shown
hereafter, contain traces of this principle. No case of
the miners' court interfering with, or revising the action
of, such a committee, seems known to record or to
tradition.
The third, and historically the most interesting form
of camp-government, was by means of an alcalde, that
Spanish-American official of time-honored authority and
dignity. It seems to have given satisfaction wherever
adopted ; as the camps which in 1848 organized under
that form made no change until their incorporation as
towns under a city council, or their subjection to the
general county system. The duties, powers, and many-
sidedness of the office in its typical development have
already been described.
Removal of the office from the immediate control of
the military governors of California to places far in the
interior, and difficult of access, had practically emanci-
pated it from all superior authority. We have already
seen what close supervision the alcaldes of the coast-
towns received under Kearney and Mason, and what
jurisdiction General Riley claimed and exercised; but
over the alcaldes of the mining-region, there is no evi-
dence that the control elsewhere exercised by the de
facto governor of California was ever felt or acknowl-
edged. 1 The miners were not in the habit of writing
1 The California Documents containing the official correspondence
of Kearney, Mason, and Riley, at various times during 1847, 1S4.S, and
1849, to various officers, are crowded with letters to alcaldes iu coast-
FORMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 183
letters of inquiry when difficult cases were brought
before them, or of waiting for weeks till, by slow and
uncertain methods of communication, advice was re-
ceived from Monterey. Even when the Constitutional
Convention was called, it proved impossible for more
than half the miners to vote ; again, when the question
of adopting the constitution was submitted to the peo-
ple, the same difficulty occurred. Even a tax-gatherer
could not keep the run of the new camps. Each little
district in the Sierra was a body politic by itself, con-
scious of no outside control ; its alcalde seldom paid
any attention to the doings of his neighbor alcaldes, nor
conformed his rulings to the strict letter of Mexican
alcalde-law, nor, indeed, to the letter of any law what-
ever.
The typical plan by which a single officer was elected,
and clothed with full alcalde powers, was often modi-
fied. It sometimes happened, that, at the very first
miners' meeting of the district, a sheriff was chosen
to aid the alcalde; and a recorder to register mining-
claims, sometimes to act as clerk of the alcalde-court.
A camp provided for in this lavish manner was consid-
ered to have given proof of its permanence to all the
world. The chairman of the meeting administered an
official oath to the newly elected officers, who were at
once installed. The alcalde issued writs and summons
according to forms copied from the nearest available
law-book, or evolved from his own inner consciousness
and sense of fitness, and often expressed in untechnical
even ungrammatical language; the sheriff served
towns. But no letters were written to, or received from, any alcaldes
east of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers ; nor were any removals,
appointments, or changes made east of those rivers. Even when Mason
and Riley visited, in 1848 and 1849, the camps, there were no appeals
made to them : the miners had already organized.
184 MINING-CAMPS.
these writs and summons, made arrests, preserved order,
and saw that prescribed punishments were duly inflicted.
The compensation allowed to these officers varied.
The alcalde usually received about sixteen dollars for
trial of a cause. The sheriff had pay for serving writs,
and mileage for all travel performed in the discharge
of his duties. Jurors received six dollars apiece for
each case tried, and witnesses were paid their actual
expenses.
Funds for these and other necessary expenses were
secured by the system of registering claims. The fees
for this were from fifty cents to one dollar for each re-
gistry, of which the recorder received a percentage ; and
miners were so restless, so constantly taking up new
claims and abandoning their old ones to others, that
even small camps were kept in funds for all necessary
judicial expenditures. There was no waste whatever.
Every dollar, except the recorder's small percentage, was
used for legitimate expenses. A camp that charged no
fees for recording claims had two financial resources,
one, and the most frequent, by means of a collection ;
the other, by a direct assessment upon the claims. Thus
we see that the miners had solved the problem of obtain-
ing financial support to their courts of justice, and, in
full accordance with the socialistic features of their
system, fcad made taxation equal. The amount to be
raised was small : no miner felt the payment of a dollar
when he registered a new claim. No tax-collectors were
needed, for the fact that unregistered claims were liable
to be "jumped" in short metre was a sufficient incen-
tive. The district thus provided for was a self-governed,
independent, and self-supporting state in miniature.
The jury for civil cases was usually composed of six
persons, perhaps from questions of economy ; in criini-
FORMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 185
nal cases, it was always twelve. The alcalde's decision,
it need hardly be said, was final.
In many cases, a camp was long governed by occa-
sional miners' courts, and did not adopt the alcalde
system until nearly the full organization of State and
county courts. Thus, in March, 1850, "the need of
more authority was felt at Caldwell's Upper Store ; "
and a man named Stamps was by ballot elected alcalde,
two hundred and fifty votes being cast. At the same
miners' meeting, the name of the camp was changed
to " Nevada City." Only two months later the county
officers at Marysville ordered an election for justice of
the peace to supersede the alcalde, so his reign was a
brief one. 1 The evidence of Governor Riley, as noted
in a previous extract from his report of a visit in 1849 to
the Tuolumne camps ; also the evidence of Mr. Bayard
Taylor, who describes alcalde rule as "nearly universal
in the Butte-county region," is sufficient to show the
extent to which the system was adopted. It suited the
demands of the mining-community ; being simple, effi-
cient, thoroughly representative, and always responsible
to the people.
Stories of curious alcalde decisions are numerous in
the mining-region, and some of them are extremely
characteristic.
In Columbia district, Tuolumne County, the first case
brought before the alcalde was an American miner's
complaint against a Mexican for stealing a pair of old
leather leggings. That official, himself an American,
remonstrated; but, justice being demanded, he fined
the Mexican three ounces (about fifty dollars) for the
theft, and the miner one ounce for making a complaint
1 Thompson and West's History of Nevada County; chapters on
Early Courts, aud on Nevada City.
186 MINING-CAMPS.
over such a trifle. The second case in this court was
a miner's suit against a neighbor, for a pick stolen from
his claim. Judgment for plaintiff, for value of pick, one
ounce ; and costs, three ounces.
In 1849 an El Dorado alcalde had a case of trespass
on mining-ground brought before him, and settled it to
the satisfaction of both parties. The district treasury
was nearly empty. Turning to the astonished sheriff,
the alcalde ordered him to pay the costs, since the tres-
passing miner was poor, and had infringed unwittingly
upon his neighbor's rights, while the mulcted officer
owned the best claim on the gulch. " If you don't do
it, the boys will have to take up a collection." Protests
were ineffectual, and the sheriff paid the costs.
In one of the Calaveras camps of 1849, a sailor de-
serter, too lazy to work, stole several thousand dollars
in dust and coin from under a miner's pillow, was cap-
tured, left tied to a tree the rest of the night, and in
the morning given a jury -trial, and found guilty. The
alcalde sentenced him to one hundred lashes well laid
on, though the crowd wanted him hung as an example
and warning. All the miners favored stringent and
rigidly enforced laws against theft. A law permitting
capital punishment for theft remained for a few months
on the State statute-book.
One more story of early alcalde methods will suffice.
It was in one of the northern mines ; and the alcalde
had a slow, oracular delivery, and a mild, gentle, per-
suasive manner. To him one day a well-dressed young
man who had stolen a purse, and tried to escape on
horseback, was brought for punishment; the evidence
being so clear, that after five minutes' listening to the
testimony, the alcalde said in his most seductive ac-
cents,
FORMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 187
" Would you like to have a jury-trial, my son ? "
" No, judge : it isn't worth while to do that."
" All right, my son. Now you must return the dust
you stole."
" Certainly, judge."
" And the court regrets the necessity, but really, my
son, you ought to pay costs, two ounces."
" Oh, I can stand that : here it is, and thank ye,
judge."
" Now the court is fully satisfied, with the exception
of one trifling formality. Boys, take him out, and give
him thirty-nine lashes well laid on."
We must remember that all the various forms of
camp-government existed in one place or another, at
the same time; that the older and more prosperous
camps were assuming the appearance of towns, and
perhaps had a town-council, sheriff, and recorder, be-
sides the alcalde ; while the newer camps were in the
first stages of growth. Nevada camps of 1849 were in
somewhat the condition of El Dorado camps of 1848 ;
Trinity-county camps of 1851 were ruled as simply and
directly as were those of Nevada in 1849. For months
after the State judicial system was adopted and estab-
lished at the various county-seats, the remote camps
saw only the tax-collector, and continued to govern
themselves by their favorite local methods. Long after
Sonora Camp had organized a town government, and
elected a council and mayor, though without State
authority, there were hundreds of small camps where
no officer except the chairman of the miners' court
had ever been known. The primitive folk-moot reigned
supreme in these temporary camps. \ A chronological
study of the life of various camps is impossible.! Some
were blossoming, others decaying; some began under
188 MINING-CAMPS.
committee-rule, others with one-man power. But none,
after electing an alcalde, chose to abandon the system
and return to primitive methods ; although in more cases
than one they asserted the right of the camp to sit in
judgment on the actions of their elected ruler.
Brief though the reign of the^ mining-camp alcaldes
was, it left a deep impress upon mountain society ; as
an occurrence in northern California a few years ago
will perhaps illustrate. There is a school-teacher there,
a man of mighty frame and great energy, whose boy-
hood was spent in the placers of Siskiyou, and his
young manhood on the cattle-ranges of eastern Oregon,
and in adventurous wanderings along the frontiers of
British Columbia. When the late war began, he went
East, and joined a regiment; returning to his mountain
wilderness in 1865, a crippled and battered veteran.
He had always been a close reader and hard student :
so, as a teacher, he soon won a reputation for success
over three counties. Under these circumstances he was
called to take charge of what, with undoubted justice,
was called one of the worst schools in northern Cali-
fornia. The mail-rider threw off the trustee's letter at
the door of this man's summer cabin, perched on a pine-
clad height of the Sierra ; trout-stream within a stone's
throw ; grouse, deer, and bear in the woods ; his gun and
rod in the corner, his " Marcus Aurelius " and " Noctes
Ambrosiana " on a rustic shelf. He saddled his horse
the next morning, and reached the village, once a min-
ing-camp, before nine o'clock. When school was called
to order, he found that efficient work demanded a re-
classification ; because the previous teacher had tried to
gain cheap favor by advancing grades without reason,
and skipping the hard places. After a few weeks he
had come to grief by trying to persuade a large boy
FORMS OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 189
not to smoke a cigarette in school-hours ; for the play-
ful innocents had ducked him in the adjacent stream,
sousing him up and down until he escaped, waded to
the farther bank, and sought other fields for his peda-
gogic prowess. But the new teacher possessed fron-
tier freedom of resource, and military discipline of
character.
44 1 must turn you back in your grades," he said, after
several hours of examination. An ominous murmur
of rebellion followed. Several boys rose in their seats,
and announced that their parents "would see about
that."
The teacher then made his first and last speech to
the excited school. He took a book from the table, and
addressed the most noisy of the rebels.
" Do you know what this is ? "
" Yes, sir, the school-law."
" And it defines the grades ; and you think that last
year you passed an examination, and that I cannot go
behind the law ? "
" Yes, sir."
"Very well, you are quite mistaken. I am the al-
calde of this school. I am sheriff, and register of
claims, and judge of the camp, and the whole jury. I
am absolute finality here ! " With this comprehensive
statement, he threw the school-law out of the open win-
dow, and then, in the midst of an awe-struck throng,
proceeded to break up and consolidate class after class.
" Yes, an alcalde was what the district needed," was
the opinion of the old pioneers of the village when the
story was told; and a better school, for the rest* of
the year, northern California never knew.
CHAPTER XV.
HOW AN ALCALDE WAS ONCE DEPOSED.
WE have said that in the mines there always was a
tacit recognition of the power vested in the people of
the camp to depose an alcalde from his high office.
One of the best known instances of the exercise of this
power occurred in the southern Oregon mines, as late
as the autumn of 1852; and its history throws more
light upon the ideas of justice and law which underlie
these frontier courts, than could be obtained by pages
of barren generalization. 1
It is not our purpose to describe the beginnings of
local government in Oregon, the famous " Wolf Meet-
ing " of the settlers of the beautiful Willamette Valley
in 1843, and those earlier local organizations in that
region in 1838 and 1839, which preceded and made pos-
sible that notable assembly. The Spanish-American
and gold-seeker elements were entirely foreign to the
struggle that organized Oregon under a legislative com-
mittee and supreme judge, while the ownership of her
territory was as yet undetermined. That interesting
struggle of Americans to gain control in the north-west
must be studied elsewhere. 2
f The points for this chapter are obtained from an article, " Pioneer
Justice in Oregon," Overland Monthly, first series, vol. xii. p. 226, and
from letters of correspondents.
2 Oregon: Barrows; American Commonwealth Series, p. 265. Mrs.
Victor's articles on Early Oregon, Overland Monthly, first series. Gray,
W. H., History of Oregon. Overland Monthly, November, 1884, p. 555.
190
HOW AN ALCALDE WAS ONCE DEPOSED. 191
But in south-western Oregon there were placer-mines;
and to these narrow gulches, clad with spruce and fir,
California miners went, bearing with them the organiza-
tion perfected through fierce struggles and dire neces-
sity in the camps of 1848 and 1849. They governed
their Oregonian camps on the plans adopted in Siskiyou
and Shasta, in Amador and Fresno, in Tuolumne and
Nevada. North of the Calapooia Mountains, the pioneer
Oregonians were, and always remained, totally unac-
quainted with that famous Spanish office, the sflcalde-
ship: south of those mountains, there were several
alcaldes chosen by the settlers, and given the extensive
powers of the office as known in California camps.
Before January, 1852, there were no county organiza-
tions in the south-western fourth of Oregon, and for
a year later the alcaldes continued to rule supreme in
that region. Returned Oregonians, who had determined
to prospect nearer home after one or two seasons in
California, were influential forces in all the earlier Ore-
gon camps.
The miners of Jackson-creek Camp, Rogue-river Val-
ley, had an alcalde named Rogers. He was not at all
popular, but was thought to be honest and capable
until events showed him in an unexpected light. His
election had occurred before the camp had " boomed : "
the few early miners on the creek had chosen him, and
the crowds that came later had accepted his authority.
It happened that there were two mining-partners,
named Sim and Sprenger, who worked a claim together,
and were unnoticed and unknown in the mass of busy
workers till a sudden difficulty brought them into
prominence.
Sim took money from the funds of the concern, and
went to Portland to lay in their winter's stock of pro-
192 MINING-CAMPS.
visions. During his absence his partner, Sprenger, met
with an accident, and was crippled, helpless, and sick
in the cabin, nursed by a few sympathizing friends,
when Sim returned. The real nature of Sim revealed
itself: without any compunctions he at once ejected
Sprenger from their cabin and their claim. Of what
use was a sick and crippled partner ?
The wronged and unfortunate miner secured the ser-
vices of a young man named Kinney as his lawyer, and
took his complaint to Alcalde Rogers. But Sim, as
events proved, had forestalled him by arguments of an-
other sort : putting little trust in his claim of a verbal
sale, and his extremely doubtful witnesses, he bribed
the unworthy alcalde, who, disregarding local custom,
mining-law, and the plain dictates of reason and justice,
rendered his verdict against Sprenger. The plaintiff,
in sad destitution and misery, and urged as a forlorn-
hope by some of his friends, begged the alcalde for a
re-hearing of the case, which was promptly refused : a
judge could not be expected to overrule his own de-
cisions. Nor would he grant a jury-trial. Restitution,
and re-instatement in his possession of one undivided
half of cabin, tools, provisions, and claim, appeared un-
attainable for poor Sprenger.
The story was told throughout the camp, and it was
openly said that there had been bribery of the wit-
nesses, perhaps of the alcalde ; but the camp, though
populous, was a scattered settlement, and concerted
action was difficult. There was indignant talk, but the
men and the hour had not yet arrived. Sprenger found
shelter in a friendly cabin, and Sim began to look about
for an able-bodied partner who wanted to "buy in."
But no one desired the situation of partner to such a
man.
HOW AN ALCALDE WAS ONCE DEPOSED. 193
Matters were in this condition when Sprenger, still
brooding over his wrongs, still urged by sympathizing
friends, heard that a miner in the camp, named Prim,
was a first-rate lawyer, a graduate of some law-school,
and an attorney of considerable experience. Hoping
against hope that some new mode of procedure might
yet be devised, Sprenger hobbled to Prim's claim, and
begged for his assistance. At first this was denied ; and
Prim even said he was no lawyer, and could not leave
his work. But Sprenger's penniless and piteous condi-
tion became an appeal that could not be disregarded :
the miner threw down his tools, hunted up Sprenger's
former attorney Kinney, and they held a conference.
Further appeal to the alcalde was clearly useless.
But Prim proposed to reach the territorial courts north
of the Calapooia Mountains, to go, in fact, to Portland
itself, and there obtain powers to organize a district
court with appellate powers over the entire region.
There was constant need, he argued, for a more com-
plete scientific system. They could not continue the
unbalanced, uncontrolled, irresponsible alcalde system
without a higher court to check its abuses. The practi-
cal difficulty in the way was, that all this would take
months, and their unfortunate client would probably
starve long before the close of the approaching wfeer.
Then, too, the value of the interest he owned in the
claim from which he had been ousted was steadily di-
minishing, as Sim worked there from daylight to dark.
And if Sim should succeed in finding a partner, a new
element of difficulty would be added.
At last Kinney is. reported to have exclaimed, "Who
but the people made the damned scoundrel alcalde, any-
how ? We can organize our own court of appeals."
Prim caught eagerly at the idea. They sent a man
194 MINING-CAMPS.
up and down the gulches, and over the ridges, to the
extreme limits of the district within Alcalde Rogers's
jurisdiction. It took a day of hard travel to summon
them all, but nearly every one heeded the appeal to
his sense of justice. There was no attempt to pre-
judge the case, or to bias men's opinions. Each miner
was told that numbers of persons thought a great
wrong had been done, and that it was desired to exam-
ine the entire subject with all fairness and deliberation,
sustaining or reversing the former judgment as the evi-
dence should warrant.
So the eventful morning dawned ; and over a thou-
sand miners threw down their picks and shovels, left
their rockers, long-toms, and sluices, and came hasten-
ing to the main camp. Every man of them all suffered
a loss, by his day's idleness, of whatever his work that
day would have earned, perhaps five dollars, perhaps
fifty dollars; but the miners of Jackson Creek were
willing to suffer loss if justice, as between man and
man, could thereby be established.
The court met in the open air, and chose a presiding
officer. They then elected a committee of three well-
known miners to wait on Alcalde Rogers, and respect-
fullv request him, " in the name and by the authority
of me citizens of Jackson-creek Camp," to re-open his
court, and give the case of Sim vs. Sprenger a new
trial : they asked also that a jury be allowed. Rogers
refused point-blank, and retired grimly defiant to the
intrenchments of his log-cabin. The committee re-
turned, and made a report in open meeting. It was
then discharged, and the first act of the drama had
closed.
Only one course was left for the miners' meeting,
to organize their higher court, and invest it with full
HOW AN ALCALDE WAS ONCE DEPOSED. 195
authority to review any and all proceedings of the
court below. This seems to have been done by these
bold reformers on the supposition that it might have to
be a permanent thing : it was not merely an expedient
by which to re-instate Sprenger*in his rights, if such
rights a fair trial proved him to possess. It had dawned
upon the minds of those earnest men assembled in that
winding Oregonian ravine, that the time had come for
a higher judicial organization. With strong good
sense and sturdy independence, they grappled with the
problem.
First, a miner named Hayden, one of the most re-
spected and intelligent men in the entire community,
was nominated and elected to serve as chief judge of
the district. He declined the responsible position, beg-
ging them to choose some one else ; but the duties of
the office were urged upon him until he was forced to
accept.
Judge Hayden displayed the greatest promptitude,
dignity, and good sense in his proceedings. He at
once asked for a sheriff and a clerk, who were immedi-
ately elected, and reported themselves ready for duty.
Within an hour after Hayden's acceptance, a writ of
certiorari commanding Alcalde Rogers to appear in the
new and duly established court, before Judge Hayden,
and submit the records of his proceedings, was served
upon that officer by the newly installed sheriff of Jack-
son Creek. To the surprise of all concerned, the stub-
born alcalde refused to yield, and proceeded to impugn
the motives of certain leaders, and deny the legal exist-
ence of the court. History has failed to keep an exact
record of his language; but, beyond a doubt, it was
profanely belligerent.
The crowd of miners were by this time tired and
196 MTNING-CAMPS.
angry. It was suggested to batter down Rogers's
cabin, take possession of his records, and lay them
before the newly chosen superior judge. But to this
Judge Hay den objected, as defeating the ends of jus-
tice. He called the sheriff, and issued new writs, order-
ing both parties in the original controversy to appear
before him at once for a trial : in other words, he ignored
all former proceedings, and asserted original as well as
appellate jurisdiction over the camp. The impressive-
ness of the scene had now become indescribable. Those
hundreds of brawny, bare-armed, red-shirted men,
grouped in the open air, under giant oaks, were moving
without noise or excitement to the full accomplishment
of their appointed task.
Plaintiff and defendant came before the new court,
and were assured of a full and fair trial. Witnesses
were summoned ; a jury impanelled, sworn to do their
duty ; and lawyers appointed for each side. Tradition
reports that Sim's lawyer was able and courageous, but
that his witnesses weakened under the severe cross-
questioning of his opponent. Both lawyers made ap-
peals to the jury, and the case was submitted. No one
can doubt, from the dignity and earnestness which had
hitherto prevailed, that a verdict for the defendant,
though contrary to the general expectation, would have
been accepted by the assemblage. By the verdict of
that jury, those freemen who had left their claims lying
idle for miles were tacitly pledged to abide ; and Prim,
Kinney, and Hay den would have been the first to ac-
quiesce, the last to propose any " new deal."
The court, in his charge to the jury, said that they
must strip the case of technicalities, regarding no law
but right and wrong, no test but common-sense. They
listened with approval, and at once proceeded to dis-
HOW AN ALCALDE WAS ONCE DEPOSED. 197
agree on a vital point : some wanted to hang Sim, who
had been proved guilty of bribery ; several wanted to
hang Alcalde Rogers. This dangerous phase soon passed
away; the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, and
left the sentence with the court, where it evidently be-
longed. Judge Hayden then, amid breathless silence,
announced his decision : Sprenger was to be re-instated
in all his former rights, as half owner of cabin, tools,
provisions, and claim ; Sim was also ordered to pay
the costs of his partner's sickness. The court then
adjourned.
But some of the evidence offered had revealed so
much rascality and malfeasance on the part of Alcalde
Rogers, that none of the miners were satisfied to let
him longer hold the office he had so disgraced. Who
could any more put confidence in so untrustworthy an
official? How could a thousand men, some of them
living five miles from the central camp, be expected
to leave their claims, and administer justice by newly or-
ganized courts each time there was need thereof? The
crowd proceeded to Rogers's cabin, growing angrier and
more tumultuous each moment. A cry that he should
be hung swelled like a mountain torrent in time of
flood; but Hayden, Prim, Kinney, and Jacobs (who
had been Sim's lawyer), made speeches, and reason
again prevailed. One thing, however, was certain,
Alcalde Rogers must resign ; and this he did without
demur. Judge Hayden's court was then re-assembled,
and it levied an instant execution upon some mining-
property which ex-Alcalde Rogers had illegally and
unjustly obtained; it being part of the Sim-Sprenger
claim, given to him by Sim as a retainer at the time
of the first trial.
The Hayden court lasted until county organization, a
198 MINING-CAMPS.
few months later, but no other case of any importance
was brought before it. The lesson taught by the sight
of those assembled pioneers had proved sufficient.
The typical nature of this remarkable case is best
shown by the facts that Sim's lawyer, Mr. Jacobs, has
since become chief justice of Washington Territory; that
Mr. Prim has been chief justice of Oregon ; that Judge
Hayden for many years has been one of the leading
citizens of southern Oregon ; that the full records of
the case are on file in the archives of Jackson County,
Oregon ; and that variants of the story can be heard in
mining-camps hundreds of miles from Jackson Creek.
Years ago, in Douglas-city Camp, Trinity County, Cal.,
the writer first heard of "Judge Hayden's appellate
court : " to-day, perhaps, the story is told in the Koote-
enay passes, and under the Uintah pines.
In points of interest and importance, this case is only
surpassed by the equally famous Scotch Bar case of the
Siskiyou mines. But at Scotch Bar the problem was
of a different nature, and cannot be considered in this
connection : we must first return to the California camps
of the early gold-era, and discuss a curious institutional
link between the alcalde of full and unlimited powers,
and the ordinary justice of the peace of ten years
later.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MINERS' JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.
THE most important officer the miners had under the
early State and county organization was a justice of
the peace, on whom, in practice, partial alcalde powers
were bestowed in a number of cases.
The State law of 1850 ordered the election of justices
of the peace in every township, and abolished the office
of alcalde. The length of term was fixed at one year ;
jurisdiction to extend over the township, often as large
as the average county of an Atlantic seaboard State.
The justice had cognizance of action to recover damages,
or specific property of not more than two hundred dol-
lars in value.
In 1851 the powers of this office were greatly en-
larged. The justice of the peace was given authority
to try all civil cases when the amount involved did not
exceed five hundred dollars, all cases of forcible entry
and detainer, and all disputes over mining-claims and
cases involving mining-properties, whatever their value.
It was this last clause which made the miners' justice of
the peace a much more powerful potentate in 1850-52
than was his brother of the valley townships. His
criminal jurisdiction included all cases punishable by a
fine of not more than five hundred dollars, or not more
than a year's imprisonment.
Hon. A. A. Sargent, in his valuable " Sketch of the
Nevada-county Bar," says,
199
200 MINING-CAMPS.
" The jurisdiction of justices of the peace in 1850-51, who were
then the only judicial officers known in these diggings, was a little
shadowy, or very substantial, as the reader pleases."
Some examples are given by Mr. Sargent. In 1851,
in Rough and Ready, just after the famous council re-
tired to private life, a case which involved possession of
a mining-claim on Lander's Bar a claim worth fully
one hundred thousand dollars was tried before Justice
Roberts. Among the counsel was Mr. Lorenzo Sawyer,
now on the supreme bench of California. The trial
lasted three days, and the jury disagreed. A new trial
was commenced on the following day, which lasted ten
days, and was one of the most closely contested legal
struggles of the period. Able and brilliant lawyers
fought the ground over, inch by inch, and exhausted
every resource of the profession. This trial resulted in
a verdict, and the losers paid a bill of costs amounting
to nineteen hundred and ninety-two dollars in gold-
dust.
In September, 1850, one of the "coyote-hole claims,"
near Nevada City, was owned by several Frenchmen,
and is said to have paid as high as nine hundred and
twelve dollars to the pan. 1 Several Americans coveted
the mine, and so demanded to see the owners' foreign-
tax receipts. The Frenchmen had none less than two
months old, but were ready to pay whenever the col-
lector appeared. The Americans drove them off, took
possession, and began work. Suit to recover was brought
before the justice of the peace. The case went to a jury,
and the chief plea of the Americans was that "they
wanted a slice." Of course the verdict was against
them; a sheriff's posse at once re-instated the true
1 "Coyote claims," small holes on the hillside to reach rich gravel,
which is carried to the nearest stream, and washed out.
THE MINERS' JUSTICE OF THE PEACE. 201
owners, and the claim- jumpers were warned against
repeating such exploits.
Quite a number of cases are on record where a justice
of the peace issued writs of injunction to restrain par-
ties from working valuable mines until their true owner-
ship could be decided. In one case, this injunction was
made perpetual.
The justices were not always fit men to hold office.
A miner near Placerville was once on trial before a
justice for assaulting a claim-jumper. The story is ad-
mirably told in Parsons's Life of Marshall. The trial
began at eleven P.M. ; and the justice kindly adjourned
the court every few minutes, so that prisoner, prosecutor,
jury, witnesses, officers of the court, and spectators
could fraternize at the bar of the neighboring saloon.
When morning came, "a drunken lawyer addressed a
drunken jury, on behalf of a drunken prosecutor , and,
a drunken judge having delivered an inebriated charge,
a fuddled verdict of acquittal was rendered."
At Nevada City, in 1852, a thief was sentenced by
the justice, to receive twenty lashes : so he was tied to
a pine-tree, and given his punishment before the court
adjourned. Stories of equally summary judgment and
execution are told of pioneer justices of the peace at
" Piety-hill " Camp in Shasta, and at camps in Klamath
and Butte.
In one very amusing case reported from Nevada
County, two alleged horse-thieves were brought before
an old justice of the peace whose fame for honest, origi-
nal, and usually sensible decisions had gone abroad.
The friends of the two lawj^ers who conducted the case
had laid wagers as to which lawyer would make the
best speech ; but of this the justice was, of course, kept
in ignorance. The lawyer for the prosecution made
202 MINING-CAMPS.
out an unusually clear case ; but the defendants' attor-
ney called up a man from a neighboring camp, and
asked, " What was the prisoners' character at the Eas^
where you knew them ? "
" It was good," replied the witness.
" Good character ! " squealed the brusque and excited
old justice. " Good character, when they have been
proved to be damned thieves ? That evidence won't
do. They stand committed. Sheriff, take them to jail."
A shout went up from the assembled crowd, and all
wagers were declared " off."
The early justices of the peace in Tuolumne County
were endowed with the same miscellaneous assortment
of judicial powers that we have noted in Nevada : in
some respects the survival of alcalde powers was more
complete in the southern mines, where those powers had
always been more despotic.
Justice Barry of Sonora, successor of the last alcalde
of that region, was a type of a large class. He had an
advertisement inserted in the Sonora "Herald" of July
4, 1850 (the first issue of the first newspaper published
in the mines of California), which read as follows :
" All persons are forbid firing off pistols or guns within the limits
of this town under penalty ; and under no plea will it be hereafter
submitted to ; therefore a derogation from this notice will be dealt
with according to the strictest rigor of the law so applying as a
misdemeanor and disturbance of the peaceful citizens of Sonora.'*
In the foregoing, "the judicious printer" had evi-
dently corrected the orthography ; but no printer could
destroy the expressiveness of " derogation " and " strict-
est rigor." The following decision is given verbatim et
literatim, and in the annals of frontier-justice docu-
ments it certainly deserves a high place. The affair
which drew out this paper was a case in which the
203
State was prosecutor, and a Mexican named Barretta
was defendant. The trial lasted nearly two days, law-
yers being engaged on both sides. Justice Barry, after
several hours of study and reflection, returned his de-
cision in the form of a written document, still in exist-
ence. It reads as follows :
" Having investigated the case wherein Barretta has bean
charged by an old Mexican woman named Maria Toja with having
abstracted a box of money which was burried in the ground jointly
belonging to her self and daughter, and carrying it, or the con-
tents away from her dwelling, and appropriating the same to his
own use and benifet, the suppossed arnmount being over too hun-
dred dollars ; but failing to prove positively that it contained more
than twenty, and that proven by testimony of his owne witness,
and by his owne acknowledgment, the case being so at variance
with the common dictates of humanity, and having bean done
under very painful circumstaces, at the time when the young
woman was about to close her existance, the day before she died,
and her aged mother the same time lying upon a bead of sickness
unable to rise or to get a morsel of food for her self, and he at that
time presenting him self as an angel of releaf to the poor and
destitute sick, when twenty poor dollars might have releaved the
emediate necessitys of the poor, enfeabled, sick, and destitute old
woman, far from home and friends. Calls imperitively for a severe
rebuke and repremand for sutch inhuman and almost unprece-
dented conduct, as also for the necessity of binding him over to the
Court of Sessions in the sum of $500^^-.
(Signed) R. C. BARRY, J.P.
" SONOBA, Nov. 10, 1851."
Amusing as is this summing-up, this special pleading,
this honest indignation, and characteristic of the mining-
camp justice as is the entire document, yet the reader
cannot but feel a sense of disappointment at the out-
come. One fully expects a sentence that shall fitly
punish the Barretta enormities. But Justice Barry
recognizes the rights of the newly established court
of sessions, though evidently with a struggle, and
204 MINING-CAMPS.
he will keep strictly within his powers as defined by
State law. The court of sessions consisted of the
county judge and two justices of the peace, and had
original jurisdiction in all criminal cases except murder,
manslaughter, and arson. Justice Barry was a member
of this court. Sonora was in 1851 the county-seat of
Tuolumne. In 1863 the sessions courts of California
were abolished by a constitutional amendment.
From papers still in the Tuolumne-county records, it
appears that Justice Barry acted as town coroner, for
which his fees were ten dollars in each case. Between
Oct. 20, 1850, and July 28, 1851, we have the following
record of violent deaths : William Doff, Michael Burk,
James Haden, and William A. Bowen, all murdered,
" no clue to the perpetrators ; " George Williams, sui-
cide ; William Bowen, hung at Curtis Creek, for killing
A. Boggs ; T. Newly, killed by an outlaw named Fuller,
who made his escape; Leven Davis, "killed by a rifle-
shot in a Jumping Claim Row ; " two homicides decided
to have been justifiable. Almost every document winds
up with, "Justice fees ten dollars," or "Coroner's fees
ten dollars."
One document (No. 997) in Justice Barry's court,
was a writ issued to the sheriff, ordering him to summon
parties charged with having jumped a town lot belong-
ing to " one Donnalld," who " claims his rights as an
American cittizen by claiming a writ to disposess them,
and to have restitution according to law with appropi-
ate damages for the imposission now about to be carried
out against him by sutch high-handed and mercenary
arrowgance on the part of aforesaid accused." 1
1 These records of Justice Barry's courts are taken from a very rare
pamphlet, published at Columbia, Tuolumne County, in 1856, by Hecken-
dorf and Wilson, and entitled a Miner's and Business Directory. It
THE MINERS' JUSTICE OF THE PEACE. 205
Many other stories of the early courts of justices of
the peace might be told, but enough has been said to
give some idea of their methods and powers. Calaveras,
Stanislaus, Amador, El Dorado, and Tuolumne appear
to have contained a large number of camps where these
officers had more extensive powers than elsewhere.
The men who were chosen justices of the peace in
these mining-camps were often eccentric and illiterate,
but as a rule their honesty and good judgment were
unquestionable. They had the full confidence of the
people, and were conscious of the responsibilities of
their office. In many a town of the mining-region, the
pioneers still remember their names with respect, and
still smile over their eccentricities. One of them, when
dying, left "all his money, after paying funeral ex-
penses " (some five hundred dollars), to " the boys for
a treat ; " and it was duly spent in the saloons of the
camp. Yet he is said to have dealt out justice with
firmness and good sense : his official conduct was sat-
isfactory.
The race of such " miners-justices " has disappeared ;
and the office has shrunk each year to lesser powers and
narrower duties, until it is now only the smallest wheel
in the complex judicial machinery of the Common-
wealth. But there is no doubt of the fact, that socially
the position held to-day by a justice of the peace in
the old mining-region retains something of its former
prestige and dignity : the justice is often " judge " or
" squire," terms that one seldom hears thus applied in
the valley counties.
was lent me by the kindness of Mr. William G. Dinsmore of Oakland,
California.
CHAPTER XVII.
ORGANIZATION OF TOWN GOVERNMENTS BY THE
MINERS.
THE nature of the town organizations adopted by the
miners in a number of instances next claims our atten-
tion. As soon as a camp was thought to be " perma-
nent," that is, supported by rich mines, and by lesser
and tributary districts, there was always talk of town
government; perhaps from those used to the town
councils of the Eastern States, perhaps from ambitious
politicians. Sometimes the compromise that was made
consisted in the election of a "committee of manage-
ment," a council of three or five to attend to town
affairs. Of fully organized town government, however,
the best examples that the mines afford are those of
Sonora and of Nevada City.
Mention has already been made of the struggle to
obtain control of Sonora Camp in the days of '48, when
an American alcalde was first chosen. Th6 border-land
position of the camp makes all its history interesting.
Few of the mining-camps offer material of equal value
for our investigation. The Americans of Sonora and
that vicinity were from the first outnumbered by the
foreign population, and only united action saved them
from being overwhelmed. There were but nineteen
" white men," two of whom were Frenchmen, four
Spaniards, and the rest English, Scotch, and Ameri-
206
ORGANIZATION OF TOWN GOVERNMENTS. 207
cans, in Sonora Camp in 1848 : the rest of its popula-
tion were Mexicans and Chilians. Before the close of
1849 the total population was five thousand, and the
camp was ruled by Americans. The manner in which
town organization then arose was entirely unforeseen
and unpremeditated.
As soon as the rainy season of 1849-50 set in, mul-
titudes of miners, many of them Mexicans, were attacked
with scurvy, owing to their exclusive diet of salt meat,
since vegetables could be obtained only in small quan-
tities, and at enormous prices. The resources of char-
itable individuals were evidently inadequate to cope
with the evil, and it was proposed to organize and
establish a town hospital. Nov. 7, 1849, this idea took
form in the creation of a town government, it being
felt that every thing had best be kept under one manage-
ment. Mr. C. F. Dodge was then the alcalde of Sonora,
and he was asked to act as mayor of the town. A
council of seven members, five Americans and two
Frenchmen, were elected to serve until further notice.
They at once established a hospital, which was success-
fully maintained for more than six months, or until the
ravages of scurvy were checked.
Expenses were enormous. Lime-juice cost five dol-
lars a bottle, potatoes one dollar and a half a pound ;
canned fruits and all anti-scorbutics were twenty-fold
the usual prices. Wages of servants were eight dollars
a day.
The alcalde dedicated his official fees to hospital uses,
and the citizens contributed largely ; but the chief
financial resource was soon seen to consist of the va-
cant town lots. The council, shortly after its organi-
zation, ordered a survey of the town, and had quite a
number of new streets laid out. Up to this time, any
208 MINING-CAMPS.
one who chose took possession of a vacant lot, with the
understanding that no one was to occupy more than
one such lot of a reasonable size. All the hillsides
not claimed under the mining-laws of the camp were
unfenced, and used as common pastures until thus
taken up for building-purposes. The winding streets
of the earlier portion of the town followed the base of
the canon, or the lines of old pack-mule trails on the
hillside. Land had possessed no value, except as used ;
and no one had taken more than he needed, for that
only involved the building of more brush or picket
fence. But when the new council had streets laid out,
and lots surveyed, it gave them a positive value. Sel-
dom, if ever before, has an American town attained to
a population of several thousand without a great deal
of very lively land-speculation; but the miners of
Sonora Camp had lived in blissful unconsciousness of
that resource.
Just about the time the survey was completed, but
before the town council had asserted any particular
rights over outside lands, the first State Legislature
met, divided the State into twenty-seven counties, of
which Tuolumne was one, and selected Sonora as its
county-seat. Before the latter fact was known outside
of the committee-rooms, one of the legislators wrote to
a member of the Sonora town council, informing him
that the county-seat question had been settled in favor
of Sonora, and asked him to " take some of the boys,
and secure possession of just as many town lots as pos-
sible," expecting, of course, to share in the profits.
The councillor was thoroughly indignant. He walked
into town meeting that very night, with the letter in
his hand, read it to the mayor and council, and offered
a resolution, which was unanimously passed, that no
ORGANIZATION OF TOWN GOVERNMENTS. 209
one should be permitted to take up vacant lots, " be-
cause all such unoccupied lands do belong to this town
in its corporate capacity." This action was promptly
enforced. From time to time, the lots were sold to the
highest bidder, and the proceeds devoted to the town
hospital.
When the county of Tuolumne was fully organized,
it was found that the town government could have no
legal existence without a special charter from the Legis-
lature. It was therefore disbanded ; and, the office of
alcalde having been abolished, the only officer to rule
the town was the "miners' justice of the peace," the
Justice Barry mentioned in the previous chapter. But
a charter was procured; and under it, in 1851-52, a
mayor, marshal, attorney, sheriff, treasurer, clerk, re-
corder, assessor, and seven aldermen were elected.
This proved too expensive ; and in 1855 the town gov-
ernment was simplified, under a new charter, to a board
of five trustees, with merely municipal powers. .
The early Sonora town-council experiment seems in-
teresting chiefly because of its spontaneity of growth.
Established to secure a town hospital, and relieve the
alcalde of its extra duties, it at last took all the man-
agement of town affairs upon its shoulders ; while the
mayor, still acting as alcalde, decided disputes and
criminal cases brought before him. The councillors
received no salaries, and most of them could devote
only their evenings to their official duties. 1
1 As illustrating with clearness the " political atmosphere " of the
mining-camps of 1850-51, the following instance deserves attention.
Tuolumne County elected as one of its representatives a young man
whose poverty was so great, that, after he was chosen, the citizens of his
district assembled, regardless of party, and voted him a gift of sev-
eral hundred dollars to buy clothes, pay stage-fare to the capital, and
live comfortably till he could draw his salary. He made the best of
records, afterwards practised law, and gained a competence.
210 MINING-CAMPS.
Nevada City also had an experience of town govern-
ment under the mining regime. The camp that in the
spring of 1850 was only a collection of a few tents and
brush huts, grew by August to a town of two thousand
inhabitants ; while within a radius of four miles a popu-
lation of eight thousand men were at work, in a dozen or
more lesser camps. On Dec. 22, the " Alta California "
called Nevada " a frost-work city ; " for hundreds of
miners had abandoned the region, and the town seemed
in the last stages of ruin. In the spring of 1851, all
mining-interests revived, and the town soon recovered
its former prosperity. Its enthusiastic citizens now pro-
cured a charter for a city government, and incorporated
it on a liberal scale, providing for a mayor, marshal,
clerk, recorder, and nine aldermen, including the
"president of the council." They purchased a city-
hall, built a jail, and established a hospital; for here,
also, miners were dying of scurvy.
But Nevada City had no common lots to sell, no taxes,
and few license fees were collected ; and the financial
resources of the organization were soon at an end. By
September the town government had run itself eight
thousand dollars in debt, and a public meeting was
called to consider the problem. The aldermen agreed
to discharge all the city officials, and suspend opera-
tions. Early the following spring, the State Legislature
repealed the charter. Some of the scrip issued by the
city was never redeemed, because the very disastrous
fires which occurred late in the gold-era crippled its
resources for some time. In 1853 the town was again
incorporated, under a less expensive form of govern-
ment.
( Fifteen or twenty mining-towns received charters,
and organized some sort of town government during
ORGANIZATION OF TOWN GOVERNMENTS. 211
the gold-era. Weaverville, Shasta, Oroville, Grass
Valley, Nevada City, Jackson* Placerville, and some
places that are now but waste and almost deserted vil-
lages, organized on a liberal plan, so soon as the day
of tents and rough shanties had passed. \ It must be
remembered that a great deal of capital went into per-
manent investments in these thriving and energetic
towns. Brick blocks, three-story hotels, stores, banks,
and fine residences embowered in blossoms and sur-
rounded by lawns, were not infrequent long before
1856 in all the towns we have named/ Population
lessened as the mines decayed ; and in many cases such
investments proved unprofitable, or, indeed, nearly
worthless. But the spirit of confidence that led miners
to organize town governments so soon was eminently
praiseworthy. Some of the schemes of the time were
notable. A costly plank-road between Grass Valley
and Marysville was discussed ; plans for railroads were
made public; the toll-road system developed rapidly,
and was very important ; local improvements, town-
halls, theatres, costly bridges, met with hearty indorse-
ment. | Unity of action, and sympathy of interests, gift
of early camp-life, are peculiarly characteristic of moun-
tain towns of the gold-region, even at the present time. \
The towns are but overgrown and permanently settled
camps. Nothing that is likely to happen will ever de-
stroy this mining-camp atmosphere, that still pervades
such peaceful and orchard-surrounded towns as El
Dorado, Auburn, Grass Valley, with the loyalty and
earnestness, the strength and freedom, of their tent and
rocker period.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DIFFICULTIES WITH FOREIGNERS IN VARIOUS
CAMPS.
THE heterogeneous population of the mining-region
included a strange medley of races from the islands and
shores of the Pacific, from the provinces of Mexico,
and the countries of Southern Asia. Outlaws, des-
peradoes, men who had long before flung defiance in
the face of law and society, were far too abundant in
this conglomerate mass. Difficulties with such foreign-
ers were inevitable, and they only served to weld the
Americans into a closer union. Sometimes, however,
the Americans were unjust and overbearing, or were
at least careless and indifferent to the rights of others.
It is an old story, still told in the mines, that idlers and
gamblers have often been known to " raise a stake " by
a double collection of the foreign-miners' tax from Chi-
nese or Mexicans. The treatment of the early French
miners, who, in 1849 and 1850, were forcibly driven
from their claims in several camps, was simply out-
rageous ; and the better class of miners did not always
interfere to protect them against the bands of ruffians
who desired their property. The filibustering expedi-
tion of Count Raousset to Sonora, with its romantic
features and tragic termination, would probably never
have occurred, had it not been for the attacks which
drove so many Frenchmen from the mines.
212
DIFFICULTIES WITH FOREIGNERS. 213
As for the Chinese, there were large numbers of
camps where none were allowed to work or hold claims
at any time. They now find employment in many of
the old and nearly exhausted gulches, working over the
gravel, and often, it is thought, making quite valuable
" finds." Their patience, perseverance, and industry are
tireless. Even at the present time, however, there are
camps within whose precincts no Chinaman is ever al-
lowed to set foot. The local laws of Churn Creek Dis-
trict, Shasta County, as late as 1882, forbade any miner
to sell a claim to a Chinaman, or to give employment to
one. The feeling is, that, so long as white races find it
pays to work the district, they shall be allowed to do
so : when they desert the camp, the Chinamen may, of
course, take possession. In many of the camps of the '
flush period, however, Chinamen were allowed to hold
and work claims, by paying their foreign-tax. It was
the experience of American miners, tnat many of the
Chinamen were adept claim and sluice-box thieves ; and
to this fact the beginnings of the undoubted prejudice
against them can be traced.
One of the cases where indignation against foreigners
had much justification was during 1850 and 1851, in
the southern mines. In June of the former year, the
collector appointed by^the State to receive the "foreign-
miners' tax," then thirty dollars a month, arrived in
Sonora. This sum had not been exorbitant in the
newer camps, but in many cases men began to find it
difficult to obtain so much. The foreigners, chiefly
Mexicans, met, and denounced it, held public meet-
ings, refused to pay a cent, and seemed so determined,
that rumors went abroad to the effect that armed re-
sistance could be expected. The miners of the sur-
rounding camps armed themselves, and, to the number
214 MINING-CAMPS.
of several hundred, marched into the town, set a watch,
organized patrols, and offered their services to the
alcalde "for the preservation of peace and the sup-
pression of crime." The Spanish-Americans in Sonora
and in several Mexican camps adjoining, or not over
four miles distant, seem to have far outnumbered the
tax-supporters, and there was every reason to expect
a collision.
About this time many of the Mexicans left their
claims, and, retiring to the mountain fastnesses, be-
came outlaws ; so that, in a few weeks, robberies and
murders were of almost daily occurrence. July 3 the
citizens of Sonora met in public meeting to discuss
"the public safety, and methods of self-protection."
They resolved to organize a rifle company " of twenty-
five men good and true ; " they elected a captain, and
ordered him to raise his company at once, and report to
the new "court of sessions." They also chose a finance
committee of three members, and began to take sub-
scriptions from different individuals and camps.
July 10 four Mexicans were discovered piling brush
upon and burning the bodies of two American miners.
They were arrested, and hurried into Sonora. A crowd
assembled; a jury was empanelled, and a judge chosen.
The defence set up was, that the bodies had been lying
there for several days, that the real murderers were
unknown, and that it was the Mexican custom to cre-
mate the bodies of the dead. But by this hasty and
illegal trial, illegal, because the court of sessions was
fully organized, and the case came within its jurisdic-
tion, the prisoners were condemned. A riata was
'passed over the limb of an oak, and the trembling Mexi-
cans brought forward to meet their doom. At this
exciting moment Judge Tuttle, one of the bravest and
DIFFICULTIES WITH FOREIGNERS. 215
best of the pioneers of that region, accompanied by
Judges Marvin, Radcliffe, and other gentlemen, arrived.
Judge Tuttle made a thrillingly earnest appeal, saying
that now the county had law, had courts, and could not
afford to disgrace its record. The prisoners were given
up, and taken to jail by the town officers.
The next week, district court and county court were
both in session, and for the first time. Monday morn-
ing over eighty armed citizens of the town marched
through the streets; and three hundred miners from
" Green Flat Diggins," where the murdered Americans
had been found, arrived to see the laws carried out in
the punishment of the murderers. Every knife and
revolver in every camp within a radius of a dozen miles
was strapped to some stalwart miner's side, and either
already in Sonora, or on its way to that place. The
assembled miners were assured that speedy and reliable
justice would be afforded, and they prepared to remain
till the end of the trial.
Rumors of an uprising in a Mexican camp three miles
distant were so numerous that the sheriff, with a posse
of thirty American miners, went thither, arrested one
hundred and ten Mexicans, marched them to Sonora,
and confined them in a corral until the next day, when
they were cross-examined by an interpreter, and, prov-
ing their innocence, were released.
Tuesday was the beginning of the famous trial.
Fully two thousand armed and excited men were in
the streets of the town. There was much talk ; but the
resolution to support the law, and abide by the decision
of the court, was steadily increasing in strength. Part
of Tuesday and all day Wednesday, the trial continued.
" There did not appear a tittle of evidence against the
prisoners, and the jury acquitted them." So, at least,
216 MINING-CAMPS.
runs the report of the newspapers of the time. And
the crowd, ashamed, it may be, of their haste and eager-
ness for blood, signified their approval, and separated
in silence.
Before the close of this eventful day, there were ac-
counts of new outrages and murders. A public meet-
ing was held, and Judge Tuttle was the speaker. He
urged the necessity of active organization to arrest the
progress of crime, and secure the safety of citizens.
The chairman of the meeting appointed a committee
of safety, which called a mass-meeting to assemble four
days later, and strengthened the town-patrol.
Resolutions adopted at this mass-meeting were to the
effect that
" Whereas, The lives and property of Americans are in danger
from lawless marauders of every clime, class, and creed under the
canopy of heaven, and scarcely a day passes that we do not hear
of the commission of murders and robberies :
" Resolved, That all foreigners in Tuolumne County, except per-
sons of respectable character, be required to leave within fifteen
days unless they obtain a permit from the authorities hereinafter
named.
"Resolved, That the authorities referred to be a committee of
three, to be chosen by the American citizens of each camp.
" Resolved, That all foreigners in this county (except such as
have a permit) are notified to turn over their weapons to the com-
mittee, and take a receipt for the same."
The other resolutions provide for carrying this plan
into effect. But the really dangerous men, the scattered
Mexican outlaws, whose camps were in the mountain
fastnesses, and hardly two nights in the same place,
could not be reached by any such method ; and it was
not enforced except in a few camps where difficulties of
an aggravated type had occurred.
The next year, an attempt having been to fire the
DIFFICULTIES WITH FOREIGNERS. 217
town, and an organized band of thieves having been
discovered, a new vigilance-committee was established,
which was in session several times a day for three or
four weeks ; which punished petty crimes by whipping,
and banished a number of suspected persons. This
committee seems to have refrained from all excesses,
and it turned over to the civil authorities the only man
that was brought before its tribunal charged with a
capital offence. When order was restored, the vigi-
lantes disbanded, and left the regularly constituted
authorities in full authority.
The " southern mines " furnish some of the worst
cases of mob-law, as well as some of the best examples
of law-abiding, justice-seeking organization. The great-
est number of difficulties with foreigners occurred there,
and some of the worst quarrels over disputed claims
were in those southern camps. It has been said by
some observers, that men were readier to resort to the
arbitrament of the revolver in the southern than in the
northern mines. If such were the fact, it would not be
surprising; for gold-seekers from the South-west and
South predominated in those camps, as men from the
North-west and North did in the camps north of Placer
County. Organization in the southern camps was
under greater difficulties, but it seems to have been
fully as complete and successful as in the more north-
ern camps. Some of the most orderly of the southern
camps were controlled by New-England men, some by
Georgians and Virginians. The steady evolution of
society in these camps, out of the chaotic mixture of
men of every race and characteristic, deserves our ad-
miration ; but a close study of the newspapers of the
time, and the evidence of pioneers, convinces us that it
is difficult for the American frontiersman to avoid treat-
218 MINING-CAMPS.
ing the Mexican frontiersman with a sort of contempt-
ious defiance. Joaquin Murietta, and his outlaw reign
of years, was the natural result, not of deliberate injus-
tice on the part of the American miners as a body, but
of blameworthy carelessness that too often permitted
the viler elements of the camp to enforce by actions
their rude race-hatred of the " Greasers." This tend-
ency to despise, abuse, and override the Spanish-
American, may well be called one of the darkest threads
in the fabric of Anglo-Saxon frontier government.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FAMOUS SCOTCH-BAR DECISION.
THERE was a very remarkable example of the gold-
seekers' methods of settling serious disputes, which
once occurred in the northern part of California. It
fairly deserves to be termed one of the most important
and interesting of litigations in the early history of the
mines. In many respects, it is even entitled to rank
as the unique example of a higher type of organized
effort to do the best thing possible under each and
every circumstance, than is shown in the history of any
other mining-camp of the period. The following brief
account of the case rests upon the recollections of one
of the most genial, generous, and intelligent of early
Californians, Mr. Anton Roman, first publisher of the
"Overland Monthly," who spent sixteen months dur-
ing 1850 and 1851 in several of the most successful
mining-camps in Klamath and Siskiyou. Upon his sto-
ries and recollections some of Mr. Francis Bret Harte's
best prose-work is founded ; and they still afford a mine
of invaluable material, literary and scientific.
Scotch Bar is rather indefinitely located by my in-
formant as "in the Siskiyou-Klamath region." It was a
highly prosperous camp, " booming " as the miners said ;
and the fame of its rich placers had already extended
to Trinity, Shasta, and_Butte, attracting traders, pros-
pectors, and parasites of the camp. Exactly what local
219
220 * MINING-CAMPS.
laws and local officers the camp had, we do not know ;
but probably much the same that were known to dis-
tricts in the central part of the State. It is likely that
they had elected a justice of the peace, allowing him
to settle their disputes over boundaries, and to keep
a record of their claims. At least, so it appears, the
camp had been peaceable, law-abiding, and contented ;
the miners had dwelt together in concord, much in the
spirit of the Arcadian days of '48 ; and it was " a royally
good camp to live in."
Some time early in 1851, a discovery of some very
"rich gravel," or mining-ground, was made, and made
in such a way, also, that two equally strong parties of
prospectors laid claim to it at the same time. There
were about a dozen men in each party, and both groups
were entirely honest in their belief of the justice of
their respective claims. Each clan at once began to
increase its righting numbers by enlistments from the
rest of the camp, till twenty or thirty men were sworn
to each hostile assembly. The ground in dispute was
so situated that it was best worked in partnership, and
thirty claims of the ordinary size allowed in the dis-
trict would occupy all the desirable territory of the
new find. So there were two rival companies ready to
begin work, and no law whatever to prevent a pitched
battle.
It began to look more and more like fighting.
Men were asked to join, and bring their bowies, revolv-
ers, and shotguns. Men were even forced to refuse the
honor, against their wills, because, forsooth, there were
no more weapons left in camp. The two opposing par-
ties took up their stations on the banks of the gulch ;
there was further and excited talk ; at last there were
eight or ten shots interchanged, fortunately injuring
THE FAMOUS SCOTCH-BAR DECISION. 221
no one. But by this time the blood of the combatants
was fairly roused; the interests at stake were very
large ; neither side proposed to yield : and the next
minute there probably would have been a hand-to-hand
conflict, except for an unlooked-for interference.
The camp, the commonwealth, the community at
large, had taken the field the very moment the first
shot was fired. Dozens and hundreds of men, five
minutes before mere spectators of the difficulty, at once
compelled a parley, negotiated a truce, and urged a re-
sort to legal methods. The moment this compromise
was suggested, the combatants laid aside their weapons.
They knew there was no legal authority within twenty
miles, and not even in the camp itself any force able
to keep them from fighting ; for persuasion was the
only argument used, and it is not supposable that the
rest of the miners would have actually fought to pre-
vent fighting. It was a victory of common-sense, a
triumph of the moral principles learned in boyhood in
New-England villages and on Western prairies. " Men
more thoroughly fearless never faced opposing weap-
ons ; " but the demand for a fair and full trial in open
court found an answering chord in every bosom.
Both parties willingly agreed to submit to arbitration ;
but not to the ordinary arbitration of the "miners'
court," or of the "miners* committee," or of the " miners'
alcalde," all of which we have heretofore described.
They thought out a better plan, and adopted it after
a few moments' discussion.
The rude and often biassed jury of the camp was
repudiated by both contestants alike. None of the
ordinary forms of tribunal known to the mining-region
seemed to them entirely adequate to this momentous
occasion. They chose a committee, and sent it to San
222 MINING-CAMPS.
Francisco. There they had three or four of the best
lawyers to be found, engaged for each party ; and they
also engaged a judge of much experience in mining-
cases. It was a great day at Scotch Bar when all this
legal talent arrived to decide the ownership of the most
valuable group of claims on the river, claims that
had been lying absolutely idle, untouched by any one,
guarded by camp-opinion and by the sacred pledges of
honor, ever since the day of the compact between the
rival companies.
Well, the case was tried with all possible formality,
and as legally as if it had occurred within the civil
jurisdiction of a district-court. It is not reported in
any of the California law-books ; but no mining-case
ever commanded better talent, or elicited more exhaus-
tive and brilliant arguments. The lawyers and judge
were there to settle the case ; the entire camp wanted it
settled ; both parties to the dispute were anxious to find
out who the real owners were. In order to show the
childlike sense of fairness the miners had, we should
mention that before the trial began it was arranged by
mutual consent that the winners should pay costs. To
the losers, it was sufficient to have failed to prove title
to such rich claims : they must not be made still poorer.
Now, in ordinary cases of camp-rule, there is often
too much compromise : one claimant gets less than he
deserves, while the other gets more. But in this justly
famous Scotch-Bar case, there was in the end a verdict
squarely for one side, and squarely against the other.
The defeated party took it placidly, without a murmur ;
nor then, nor at any other time, were they ever heard
to complain. The cheerfulness of their acceptance of
the verdict was not the least gratifying episode of the
famous trial.
THE FAMOUS SCOTCH-BAR DECISION. 223
" Ah ! it was a great case," writes our informant, after an inter-
view with Mr. Roman. " The whole camp was excited over it for
days and weeks. At last, when the case was decided, the claim was
opened by the successful party ; and when they reached bed-rock,
and were ready to ' clean up,' we all knocked off work, and came
down and stood on the banks, till the ravine on both sides was
lined with men. And I saw them take out gold with iron spoons,
and fill pans with solid gold, thousands upon thousands of dollars.
Ah ! it was a famous claim, worth hundreds of thousands of
dollars."
On the bank, along with these hundreds of specta-
tors, stood the defeated contestants, cheerful and even
smiling : it was not their gold, any more than if it had
been in Africa. And the successful miners brought
their gold out on the bank, divided it up among them-
selves, so many pounds apiece, and each went to his
tent to thrust the treasure under his blankets till a good
opportunity arrived for sending it to San Francisco.
The community capable of that Scotch-Bar case was
a community which could be trusted to the uttermost.
Put it down on a desert island, and it would organize a
government, pick out its best men, punish its criminals,
protect its higher interests, develop local institutions ;
and soon, unless its natural surroundings forbade, there
would be a healthy, compact, energetic state, with
capital city, seaports, commerce, navy, and army. Put
it down on a new continent, and it would eventually
possess, control, and develop all its resources and ener-
gies ; doing the work that Rome did for Italy, that the
Puritans did for New England, and through New Eng-
land for the United States. And if the evidence of
travellers, of the pioneers themselves, and of the insti-
tutions they organized, can be trusted, there were many
such camps in California. The Siskiyou region did not
monopolize that habit of self-control, of acceptance of
224 MINING-CAMPS.
the situation, of submitting questions to the best obtain
able courts, and of abiding by their decisions. From
Klamath to Colusa, from Siskiyou to Fresno, from Lab
Bowman to Trinity Peak, manhood and honesty rule(
the camps of the miners. Some were ruled better than
others, but all were ruled well.
CHAPTER XX.
SPORADIC ORGANIZATIONS. CASES OF MOB-LAW.
THIS portion of our subject would not be complete
without some allusion to irregular and sporadic forms
of miner organization, to burlesque meetings, to later
forms connected closely with the earlier assemblages
of " all the miners of the district," and, lastly, to cases of
mob-rule.
Rough and Ready Camp, in Nevada County, so inter-
esting by reason of its simple and effective standing
committee, or council, affords a valuable though eccen-
tric example of independence. The township contains
about a hundred and twenty-seven square miles, and
was very prosperous in 1850, when a miner named
Brundage conceived the idea of having a permanent
and separate organization to be called the "State of
Rough and Ready." He called a meeting, evidently in
dead earnest, and proposed the scheme ; urging that
none of them had voted for the State Constitution, nor
helped, through delegates, to make that instrument.
About a hundred persons favored the plan, and for
some time he continued to agitate its adoption ; but the
funny and absurd elements of the proposal so appealed
to the miner's abundant sense of the ludicrous, that the
entire scheme disappeared at last, in a fit of irrepressi-
ble and Homeric laughter. It became a topic of con-
versation in every cabin, and beside every long-torn,
225
226 MINING-CAMPS.
for miles ; but the State of California was good enough
for the light-hearted, keen-witted miners.
A curiously burlesque assembly gathered together in
Grass Valley in the winter of 1852-53, and is known
in local history as "The Hungry Convention." The
winter had been so severe that supplies were short :
bacon and flour had once again risen to the prices of
1849. Miners could not work their claims, and were
assembled in the town, spoiling for some enterprise or
excitement. So a meeting was called, in dignified ear-
nest, to consider whether the scarcity of provisions could
in any manner be relieved. Every one soon saw, that,
in the condition of the roads, there was nothing for it
except patience : the merchants would secure supplies
at the earliest moment possible. The meeting imme-
diately degenerated into a wild burlesque. Speeches of
the most desperate and communistic order were made,
and hailed with shouts of laughter and applause. A
duly elected committee reported, declaring war upon
San Francisco, and their resolve to have supplies thence
" peacably if we can, forcibly if we must."
The later history of the mining-camps affords innu-
merable examples of the keen pleasure that the average
American pioneer takes in public meetings, in resolu-
tions, in committees, chairmen, and "big talks." He
does it in sober earnest most of the time, but now and
then he does it for the mere fun of the thing. The men
of the mining-region are even now, after all the changes
of the past thirty years, a race of men peculiarly ready
to assemble for free discussion, peculiarly apt to have
debates in the district-schoolhouse, to start arguments,
and listen to stump-speeches. The early training of
miners' courts and of camp-life has left its impress upon
the people of the mining-region. They differ from the
SPORADIC ORGANIZATIONS. 227
people of the valleys, as the mountaineers of Tennessee
differ from the dwellers in the lowlands. But they
have closer and better organization, a more abiding
habit of seeking each other's counsel, of meeting in
assemblies, and of discussing their affairs, than ordinary
mountaineers have. The life of the gold-seeker brings
men closer together in their camps and districts, and
creates links of town-life, while the purely pastoral
mountains still remain almost a wilderness.
Yet one must ask, in reviewing the subject of camp-
government, Did the machinery of justice set in opera-
tion by the miners never degenerate into the weapon
and excuse of a mob ? Were the innocent never pun-
ished, the guilty allowed to go free ? Did not feverish
excitement and unreasoning violence too often rule?
What, after all, was the miners' court, but an appeal to
lynch-law, as that term is now understood? Were not
council government and alcalde government, scarcely
less than the miners' court itself, based on the will of
the mob, and liable to strange outbursts, fluctuations,
and monstrosities ?
We find, throughout the mining-era, sporadic cases of
true mob-law ; of men being hung without judge or jury,
without fair trial, and perhaps without justification.
Considering the population, these cases were scarcely
more numerous than in the Western States to-day.
Regularly organized miners' courts proceeded with great
care, and gave the prisoner the benefit of every doubt.
Those men who were killed by mobs were usually caught
red-handed in the act. In one notable case, a murderer
was beaten to death before he was a hundred yards
away, by pick-handles caught up hastily from a barrel
in front of a store. In another instance, the murderer
was stoned to death, with more than Hebrew energy,
228 MINING-CAMPS.
before he could climb the steep banks of the ravine
where his victim lay.
The men who had led in organizing miners'-courts
were the first to advocate their abandonment in crim-
inal cases so soon as the county organization was possi-
ble, and were the first to oppose mob violence. In
Nevada County, in 1850, a man named Studley was
falsely accused of stealing a nugget worth three hundred
and twelve dollars from a miner ; and the crowd seized
him, tied him to a tree, and proceeded to administer a
flogging. Judge Roberts and several friends were pass-
ing; and they rushed into the crowd, released him, and
soon proved his entire innocence of the theft. At
Rough and Ready, in 1851, two miners, Stewart and
Watson, rode into the town one afternoon, and saw a
stranger being led by a mob who purposed to hang
him. They drew their pistols, ran into the crowd,
shouting, " You have the wrong man : let go of that
man ! " organized a committee, secured a fair trial ; and
in an hour the prisoner, who was accused of having
stolen three hundred dollars, was set free. Cases like
these were not the work of camp-organization, but of
the roughs and hangers-on of the camp. Arid even the
courts at that time awarded capital punishment for
grand larceny. 1 " Law-abiding citizens from the first "
is what Hon. A. A. Sargent calls the old " forty-niners."
Nearly always, when passion and prejudice swayed the
crowd, men of nerve and courage were at hand to
check the tendency to mob-law. .Sometimes it was the
county or township officers who first interfered ; as at
1 For about a year, 1850-51, a law which permitted a jury to bring in
a verdict of death for grand larceny was on the statute-books. Under
this law, one man was hung in Nevada County, one in Marysville, one
in Sacramento, and one in Tuolumne County.
CASES OF MOB-LAW. 229
Beckman's Flat in 1852, when a miner was accused by
his partner of theft, and was about to be hung by the
crowd, when the county sheriff and the district attor-
ney arrived on horseback, and rescued the prisoner, who
was proved innocent. Perhaps the worst case of mob
violence that ever occurred in the northern mines was
at Newtown Camp, in March, 1852, where a jury of
twenty-four, a presiding judge, and a clamorous crowd
condemned on the merest suspicion of theft a negro, and
hanged him immediately. As late as September, 1855,
the Grass Valley community, roused to deep indigna-
tion against incendiaries, came near hanging a man who
was found lighting his pipe near some unfinished build-
ings. In 1874 the mountain town of Truckee, infested
by persons of bad character, was purified by a secret
organization known as " 601," which killed one person,
and severely wounded another, besides banishing quite
a number.
Cases of lynch-law occur from time to time in
almost every frontier community, and too often in
older communities also. But the difference between
the true miner-courts of the gold-era, and such cases of
mob-law, is fundamental and generic. Lynch-law, in
the plain, every-day acceptance of the term, is the work
of an association of men who have determined to vio-
lently expedite, or to suddenly change the course of, judi-
cial procedure in one individual case. They announce
no new laws, create no new system, add nothing what-
ever to the jurisprudence of the land. The moment
the piece of work they were banded together to do is
accomplished, they separate, and the association ceases
to exist. They keep no records of their proceedings ;
the names of their leaders are sedulously concealed ; and
the regular officers of the law are often, in the discharge
230 MINING-CAMPS.
of their duty, brought into open collision with the
lynchers. The utmost that may be said for them is
that they often, though unintentionally, compel better
administration of the laws; but, on the whole, lynch-
law is manifestly selfish, cowardly, passionate, un-
American.
In every important particular, the organizations of
the typical mining-camps, which we have been consider-
ing, offer sharply outlined contrasts. Camp-law has
never been the enemy of time-tried and age-honored
judicial system, but its friend and forerunner. Axe of
pioneer and pick of miner have levelled the forests, and
broken down the ledges of rock, to clear a place for the
stately structures of a later civilization. Rude moun-
tain courts, rude justice of miner-camps, truth reached
by short cuts, decisions unclouded by the verbiage of
legal lexicons, a rough-hewn, sturdy system that pro-
tected property, suppressed crime, prevented anarchy,
such were the facts ; and on these, frontier government
rests its claims to recognition as other than mob-law,
and better than passionate accident.
Later illustrations of vigilants-justice than those of
California can readily be found. When, after a reign of
terror almost unexampled in American frontier history,
the tried and true miners arid merchants of Montana
organized during the winter of 1863-64, and in a few
weeks hung twenty-four desperadoes and murderers,
they performed a solemn duty laid upon them as Ameri-
can citizens. The present peace, order, and prosper! ty
of that empire in the high Rockies, the "land of the
silver bow," as its children love to call it, are the
result of this acceptance of weighty responsibilities.
Not until nearly a hundred persons had been waylaid,
robbed, and slain, in various parts of the Territory, by
CASES OF MOB-LAW. 231
members of a fully organized band of assassins, did
society accept the challenge, and supply the absence of
civil authority with the military firmness of the Vigi-
lantes. It is a matter of history, that this organization,
like that of San Francisco, never hung an innocent man,
and that, when its work was done, it quietly disbanded.
In studying the nature of the mining-camps of" Cali-
fornia, we are irresistibly compelled to think of the
whole race of American pioneers, from the days of
Boone and Harrod to the days of Carson and Bridger ;
heroic forest chivalry, heroic conquerors of the prairies,
heroic rulers of the mountain wilderness, ever forcing
back the domains of savage and wild beast. Well did
one of the most eloquent of American lecturers once
exclaim,
" Woe to the felon upon whose track is the American borderer !
Woe to the assassin before a self-empanneled jury of American
foresters 1 No lie will help him, no eloquence prevail ; no false
plea can confuse the clear conceptions or arrest the just judgment
of a frontier court." J
When the pioneers of the newer West pushed into
California, adding the leaven of such ideas to the mass
of ancient Spanish civilization ; when youth and energy
from older communities of the Atlantic States, and
adventurers from every land under the sun, joined in
the famous gold-rush of 1849, the marvel of marvels
is, that mob-law and failure of justice were so infrequent,
that society was so well and so swiftly organized.
1 Dr. John C. Lord, lecture on " Land of Ophir; " delivered in
Buffalo, February, 1849.
. CHAPTER XXI.
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION FROM 1848 TO 1884.
HERETOFORE we have considered only the appear-
ance, general government, and criminal procedure of
the early mining-camps; but there is a broad field of
special mining-jurisprudence as yet comparatively un-
touched, and that, also, the field of most permanent
value and greatest historical interest. The civil regu-
lations of the miners were more varied and numerous
than their criminal codes ; and, reduced to their primary
significance, they were " land-laws of the frontier."
It is difficult to express the supreme importance of
laws which govern the ownership of land. The social,
economic, and political history of the human race has
turned upon the pivot of changes in systems of land-
tenure; and here is a battle-ground of the future, as of
the past. Nothing which serves to illustrate the work-
ings of any land-system, or of any method by which
lands were actually held in any community, can ever
be called irrelevant or worthless ; for the entire field of
study is so broad, and broken into so many angles, that
each ray of light is needed. Earnest students have
explained the prominent features of the land-system of
the ancient Germans, and have followed its history to
the present time : they have told us how the primitive
equality of the Mark system gave way in some remote
past to the allodial system of village life, mid how the
232
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 233
holdings of lands in common yielded slowly to rights of
separate ownership and inequality of estate, until thus
the foundations of royal families and of feudal duties
were laid. The ownership of land among the Saxons
of the fifth century "was the outward expression, rather
than the basis, of political freedom," so Mr. Stubbs tells
us, " and in itself a usufruct rather than a possession."
Landed property in England before the Norman con-
quest was of four distinct kinds, the folk-land, belong-
ing to the nation ; the common-land, held by communities,
as it is still held under the Russian Mir system, by the
villagers of India, and in the pueblos of New Mexico ;
the heir-land, which had become partially alienated from
the common-lands, and could pass by will, perhaps by
purchase, with the consent of all the members of the
community ; lastly, the book-land, with its full and sepa-
rate ownership, under a grant from king and witan.
At last the hereditary freemen of the township became
the tenants of the lords' manor, and the modern system
of individual ownership of land was ultimately devel-
oped.
Now, the study of the mining-camps of the Far West
reveals the presence of primitive Germanic ideas more
clearly in their land-laws than in any other department
of their jurisprudence. The rights of the individual
over land were strictly subordinate to the rights of the
camp, for use was made the proof of ownership. Then,
also, the legislative enactments of the mining-camp
clustered with peculiar force about the central question
of land-tenure ; and a large body of laws was thus
created, setting forth with great exactness the size of a
claim, the conditions under which it could be held, the
circumstances which would work its forfeiture, and the
methods of settling disputes in reference to its possession.
234 MINING-CAMPS.
Moreover, the establishing of district land-laws led in-
evitably to meetings of the miners of many districts,
who harmonized their diverse district codes into one
which should be binding upon all the miners within the
county, a still further step in institutional progress.
The claims of each district were numbered and re-
corded, and their size was according to local regulation.
The miners' meeting, when sitting to decide upon ques-
tions of this sort, was in fact like a local legislature,
or a committee of the whole. It decided how many
claims a person could hold ; how much work he had to
do upon each one to retain possession ; what forms of
conveyance were requisite ; what relative rights and
duties the owners of adjoining claims had ; what consti-
tuted abandonment of a claim ; in what manner riparian
rights could be secured and maintained ; lesser regula-
tions about water-supply ; rights of, or restrictions upon,
aliens in the camp ; and hundreds of cognate subjects.
It could levy assessments for general or particular ex-
penses of the camp as a body corporate, and could at
any time adopt such new regulations as seemed desir-
able for preserving and protecting private rights. And
these powers of the miners' meeting, or of committees,
or officers appointed by them, lasted long after the
State was organized.
In each new district, the framing of local mining-
laws became the most important legislative duty of
the miners. The laws of the hundreds and thousands
of camps that grew and decayed in the Pacific-coast
region, differing though they did in many particulars,
all agree in recognizing discovery and appropriation of
mineral property as the source of title ; and develop-
ment by use and working, as the condition of continued
possession. This acceptance of the law of equal owner-
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 235
ship in the gifts of nature deserves more than a passing
notice. Probably every man in the gold-region had
been educated in the doctrine of individual ownership
of land: yet this instinctive return to first principles,
this adoption of the ancient idea of " free mining-lands,"
common to all as once the woods and fields and pastures
of England were common, will ever prove an attractive
theme for students of historical and social topics. 1
That mining-claims should become a subject of specu-
lation, of sale and purchase, of transfer from owner to
owner, seems to have been foreign to the views of the
earliest placer-miners of California ; and in some camps
a man who sold his claim could not take up another.
But it was not long before claims were everywhere
acknowledged as real-estate property, held by " miners'
title;" and the process of perfecting minor regulations
went on with great rapidity. For all this, the miners'
sole and all-sufficient plea was " imperious necessity ; "
and so thoroughly did they accomplish the work of
creating a land-law, that until a comparatively recent
1 Mr. Henry George, in his Progress and Poverty, writes:
"For the first time in the history of the Anglo-Saxon race, these
men were brought into contact with land from which gold could he
obtained by the simple operation of washing it out. . . . The novelty of
the case broke through habitual ideas, and threw men back upon first
principles; and it was by common consent declared that this gold-
bearing land should remain common property, of which no one might
take more than he could reasonably use, or hold for a longer time than
he continued to use it. This perception of natural justice was acquiesced
in by the general government and the courts; and while placer-mining
remained of importance, no attempt was made to overrule this reversion
to primitive ideas. . . . Thus no one was allowed to forestall or to lock
up natural resources. Labor was acknowledged as the creator of wealth,
was given a free field, and secured in its reward. The device would not
have assured complete equality of rights under the conditions that in
most countries prevail; but under the conditions that there and then
existed, a sparse population, an unexplored country, and an occupa-
tion in its nature a lottery, it secured substantial justice."
236 MINING-CAMPS.
date the titles to all the mining-property of the newer
States and Territories has rested upon these local laws
and miners' enactments.
We therefore proceed to a minute analysis and com-
parison of the land-laws and consequent regulations by
which mining-camps were and are governed. We have
taken the laws actually enforced for a period of years
in many of the leading camps of various States and
Territories; sometimes abbreviating their enactments,
but omitting nothing essential to a full understanding
of the subject. The laws in their complete form are
usually concise, well-worded, and clear in meaning. In
some cases they were evidently drawn up by lawyers ;
in other cases, by persons of good general education,
but as evidently ignorant of law. The period to which
they refer ranges from the summer of 1848 to the close
of 1884.
As regards the important question of the number of
mining-districts which have been governed by local
laws of their own devising, the United-States Reports
on Mineral Resources state that in 1866 there were
over five hundred organized districts in California, two
hundred in Nevada, and one hundred each in Arizona,
Idaho, and Oregon. There were, perhaps, fifty each in
Montana, New Mexico, and Colorado. Here is a total
of more than eleven hundred camps in the Far West,
as late as 1866. Since then the number of districts has
diminished in the older mining-regions, and increased
in the newer ones ; but State and National legislation
has in a great degree restricted the field for local enact-
ments. The number of actual placer-camps in Cali-
fornia during its " flush period " is not recorded ; but it
could not have fallen below five hundred, and probably
exceeded that figure. Mining was carried on vigorously
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 237
in twelve large counties, and to some extent in three
others.
The first camp to which we shall invite the attention
of our readers was situated five miles from Sonora, the
county-seat of Tuolumne County, Cal., and was in one of
the richest ravines known to the early miners. It bore
the homely appellation of "Jackass Gulch" from the
days of its first organization in 1848, but its earliest
laws were not committed to writing. A square of ten
feet of ground " often yielded ten thousand dollars from
the surface dirt," and ten feet square was the maximum
size of the claim allowed. After 1851 the laws, as
adopted and enforced by the camp, were as follows :
" First, That each person can hold one claim by virtue of occu-
pation, but it must not exceed one hundred feet square.
" Second, That a claim or claims, if held by purchase, must be
under a bill of sale, and certified to by two disinterested persons
as to the genuineness of signature and of the consideration given.
" Third, That a jury of five persons shall decide any question
arising under the previous article.
" Fourth, That notices of claims must be renewed every ten days
until water to work the said claims is to be had.
" Fifth, That, as soon as there is sufficiency of water for working
a claim, five days' absence from said claim, except in case of sick-
ness, accident, or reasonable excuse, shall forfeit the property.
" Sixth, That these rules shall extend over Jackass and Soldier
Gulches, and their tributaries."
The greatly lessened value of the mining-ground is
shown by the size of the claim being increased from
ten feet square to one hundred feet square. Require-
ment of claim-notice renewals during the idle season
was common in most of the camps, unless a miner lived
upon his claim. Thriving though the camp was in
1851, still crowded with miners by the hundred, it was
rapidly exhausted ; and in 1856, according to the Tuo-
STJFIVlftSITT
238 MINING-CAMPS.
lumne Directory of that year, had only twenty-two
voters.
Springfield District, whose leaders were men of New
England, trained in town-meetings and local self-gov-
ernment, was able to create an organic law far superior
to that of the preceding camp. Its laws were adopted
in written form at a mass-meeting of the miners, April
13, 1852 ; were revised Aug. 11, and again Dec. 22, 1854.
After describing the boundaries with great minuteness,
the preamble (of 1852) declares
" That California, is and shall be, governed by American prin-
ciples ; and as Congress has made no rules and regulations for the
government of the mining- districts of the same, and as the State
legislature of California has provided by statute, and accorded to
the miners of the United States, the right of making all laws, rules,
and regulations that do not conflict with the constitution and laws
of California, in all actions respecting mining-claims ; therefore
we, the miners of Springfield District, do ordain and establish the
following rules and regulations."
There are sixteen articles. The size of the claim is
fixed at one hundred feet square, no person under any
circumstances to hold more than one ; work must be
performed upon it at least one day out of three during
the season for mining. Claims must have substantial
stakes at each corner, and must be " registered and de-
scribed in the book of the precinct registry," to which
the owner or owners shall sign their names. Several
persons, each owning a single claim, may concentrate
their labor upon one of those claims.
Disputes are to be referred to a standing committee
of five miners, or to any member or members of this
committee, as arbitrators; or a miners' jury may be
summoned. Each member of the standing committee
shall in each case be paid two dollars for his service.
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 239
It is easy to see that a single arbitrator was in many
cases entirely satisfactory for both disputants. The
laws proceed to further define the process of arbitra-
tion. The head of the committee is to be sworn by a
justice of the peace, provided such an officer be ap-
pointed in this mining-district, and is to administer the
oath to his associates and to the witnesses. In some
of the early camps, the alcalde administered this oath
" to honestly arbitrate," to his deputies. The decision
arrived at in either jury-trial or arbitration must be
received as conclusive and binding upon the parties
thereto, and be deemed and considered final in all such
cases. Either party may compel the other to come to
trial, by giving three days' notice of time and place.
Costs shall be paid in the same way as in magistrate's
courts. Disputes over water-privileges are especially
named for arbitration.
Thirty days' desertion of a claim during the working-
season results in forfeiture without remedy.
Article thirteen reads as follows :
" No person not an American citizen, or where there is a rea-
sonable doubt of his being entitled to the privileges of an American
citizen, shall be competent to act on any arbitration, or trial by
jury."
The next article provides that " companies which go
to. great expense running tunnels " are allowed " two
claims for each member of the company." The first
code of " tunnel-claim laws " adopted in this region was
several years later, Jan. 20, 1855 ; and it defined a
legal tunnel-claim as " one hundred feet along the base,
and running from base to base through the mountain."
Article fifteen provides for the election of a district
recorder, who is to have fifty cents for recording the
title of each mining-claim.
240 MINING-CAMPS.
The last article provides that "all claims held by
foreigners who have failed to secure their State license "
shall be forfeited. This was to aid in the enforcement
of the State Act of April 13, 1850, passed at San Jose*.
A list of the unnaturalized foreigners was to be kept
in each county. The recorders of the different districts
usually aided in its preparation.
These laws of Springfield District show plainly how
much dependence was placed upon the arbitration or,
as the Spanish termed it, the conciliacion plan. We
shall find equal care in this regard in many other dis-
tricts. Springfield is said to have been the first dis-
trict in the Sierra Nevada that built a church before it
built a gambling-house. It has remained an orderly,
flourishing, and energetic community, since the days
of its first organization.
Jamestown District, settled in August, 1848, by South-
ern and Western men, was regulated by miners' meet-
ings assembled every six months, and sometimes holding
special meetings to consider particular cases. In 1853,
several persons having attempted to pass unpopular
laws, the miners held a rousing assembly, repealed
"all previous laws, of every sort whatever," enlarged
the boundaries of the district, adopted the usual stand-
ard size for claims, one hundred feet square, and
declared that all claims secured under former laws were
publicly acknowledged as legal.
In this district, within three days from the time of
location, a claim must have a ditch one foot wide and
one foot deep cut about it : notices must also be posted,
and stakes driven at the corners. Failure to work a
claim within six days after the mining-season begins,
causes its forfeiture. A miner can hold other claims
only upon proof of purchase. Miners shall have the
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 241
use of water from the ditches according to the date and
situation of the location of their claims.
An important clause is to the effect that miners may
dig up any farm, or enter within any enclosure, by giv-
ing the owner security that they will pay all damages
inflicted. In no case, however, shall they dig within
twelve feet of a building, or obstruct the entrance.
Payment of damages meant only compensation for grow-
ing crops and improvements.
Shaw's Flat District required the claim to be " in one
lot, and square in form." A notice would hold a claim
for ten days after the season began. Part of a com-
pany could not " hold the claims of a whole company
during the absence of a part of its members." Claims
in "deep-diggings," where pay-dirt is twenty-five feet
or more below the surface, may be laid over without
work from Dec. 1 to May 1, if they are well defined
by marks and notices, and recorded in the district re-
gister, which shall always be open to inspection. For
some years there was an annual meeting to revise the
district law, besides several meetings called by the chair-
man when it seemed desirable.
The laws of Sawmill Flat, Brown's Flat, Mormon
Gulch, and Tuttletown districts present many points
of resemblance. Two of them begin by saying,
" Whereas, This district is deficient in mining laws and regula-
tions, and disputes have arisen : therefore we, the miners of
district, in convention assembled, do pledge ourselves to abide by
the following laws."
In three of the districts named, the laws provide that
the discoverer of new diggings shall be allowed to hold
twice the usual amount of mining-ground.
The laws of Sawmill Flat provided for a committee
of three persons, elected by the miners, to call meetings
242 MINING-CAMPS.
of all the miners of the precinct, either to enforce the
laws, or whenever, for any reason, they deem such meet-
ing necessary. The arrangement for arbitration is as
follows :
" Whenever any dispute shall arise respecting claims or water-
privileges, each party shall choose two disinterested persons ; the
four thus selected shall choose a fifth ; and the five thus selected
shall hear evidence according to the laws of this precinct."
The law of Brown's Flat provided that " all arbitra-
tors shall be appointed by the committee" of three
which then governed the camp. They were to be five
in number; and were to "examine all disputed terri-
tory, hear testimony, and decide accordingly." This
governing committee of Brown's Flat was elected " to
hold office until superseded." It was the court of ap-
peals in cases where the arbitrators failed to satisfy the
parties. Its members were paid " wages for summoning
the arbitrators, and for other duties ;" but the amount
is not named.
The Tuttletown laws say, " No person shall hold more
than two claims, either by purchase or otherwise." They
also provide that any one who destroys a notice or claim-
stake shall be fined not less than five dollars nor more
than fifty dollars. Notices of discontinuance of work
on deep claims during winter are to be posted in
some convenient and public place in the district.
Tuttletown was so named because Mr. Tuttle, after-
wards first county judge of Tuolumne, built and occu-
pied the first cabin there. The miners of the district
organized a water-ditch company in June, 1851, and
carried their enterprise to a successful termination.
Mormon's Gulch and Brown's Flat were first mined in
1848. Sawmill Flat became a great resort of Mexicans,
Chilenos, and Peruvians, in 1850-51. Joaquin Muri-
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 243
etta, the notorious outlaw, was a monte-dealer there in
1852.
Yorktown, Poverty Hill, and Chili camps had similar
laws; and these pioneer camps were organized early
in 1849. The first and last were settled by Mexicans
and Chilenos, but Americans soon ruled all three. At
Yorktown, within a month after its discovery, the Amer-
icans and other miners met, " and elected P. Cutrell for
alcalde, and Mr. Rochette (better known as ' Frenchy ')
for sheriff," under whose administration the district was
governed well and quietly. The alcalde system was re-
tained in its main features until superseded by county
organization. In these districts, the miners assembled
to pass legislative enactments; but they only referred
to size of claims, and possession thereof, not in any case
to " arbitration," because that was one of the alcalde's
most important duties. The camp-laws limited " deep-
diggings " to claims " of thirty feet square on unworked
ground, and to fifty feet square on previously worked
ground." A claim of sixty feet square was set apart
for the discoverer of a placer. A claim must be worked
within three days after staking it out, and placing a
claim-notice upon it. Ten days' absence in the work-
ing season subjects it to forfeiture, and throws it open
to re-location as an abandoned claim.
Chinese Camp also had an alcalde system ; and its
laws, passed at a miners' meeting Sept. 17, 1850, were
in operation for many years, without change. The
alcalde elected at this meeting had "power to decide
upon all disputed claims ; " his fees were fixed at three
dollars for his decision, and a dollar a mile for travel-
ing expenses from the central point of the camp to the
disputed claims, and return. The legislative enact-
ments of the district confirmed all claims " as made by
244 MINING-CAMPS.
the present settlers ; " confined all future claims to
" twenty feet square ; " and required a ditch two feet
wide and one foot deep to be dug about each claim,
" unless prevented by rock or clay," in which case the
removal of the surface-soil and the erection of corner-
stones was considered sufficient. In this district, Isaac
Caps was the first alcalde, and S. E. Chamberlain the
first sheriff.
The laws of Gold Spring Camp presented some
features differing materially from those of other dis-
tricts in the region. Claims must be worked one day
in every seven. Arbitrators were " earnestly recom-
mended," but not made essential. Miners were com-
pelled to make a new road if they destroyed the old
one in their operations. This is often a bone of much
contention in mining-districts. Gold Spring Camp had
a population of about eight hundred, and was ruled in
1850 by an alcalde ; in 1854 the population was five
hundred. The gold of this district minted more than
that of any other of the early diggings. 1
Columbia District was always a large and important
one, including several lesser camps, such as Yankee
Hill, where many fine nuggets, one weighing twenty-
three pounds, were found in the early days. The his-
tory of this camp was highly characteristic of the
mining-era. March 27, 1850, five prospectors all
New-Englanders, and three, at least, from the woods of
Maine camped beside a gulch, and tested the gravel.
To their delight it was found that they could make
eight or ten ounces a day to the man, though water was
1 Gold-dust, which at first passed at uniform rates in the mines, and
in San Francisco, at one time falling to seven dollars per ounce, was
carefully tested by the express companies ; and they found that it ranged
in value in different localities, from $14.50 to $19.50 per ounce.
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 245
very scarce. They named the place Kennebec Hill,
and proceeded to wash gravel with their utmost energy,
knowing that others would soon find the gulch. Within
a week, another prospector joined them, and succeeded
in taking out two pounds and a half of gold-dust
during his first day's work. Within thirteen days from
the time the five original prospectors camped on Ken-
nebec Hill, there were eight thousand miners in the
new town. Many gamblers came with the crowd ; and
at one time there were not less than a hundred and
forty-three monte and faro banks in operation, the funds
of which were nearly half a million dollars. Men were
often seen to turn a card for three or four thousand
dollars, sometimes for several times as much. It was
one of the most rapid developments of a great and
prosperous mining-camp ever known in California.
Within a fortnight, the need for some system of gov-
ernment was manifest. A public meeting was called to
talk up the subject ; but nothing in particular was done
except to give the camp a name, Columbia. Two or
three days later, at another and much better attended
mass-meeting, Major Sullivan was chosen alcalde, and
allowed fees collected from registry of mining-claims.
June 1 the new State tax on foreigners was enforced,
and the population decreased greatly. In 1852, 1,229
votes were polled in the district.
The points in the mining-law in Columbia, which
differed from those previously noted, were as follows :
Full regulations respecting "dry-diggings," and gold-
bearing earth thrown up in heaps to remain till winter
rains, such heaps being held to be private property ;
full regulations to prevent persons from diverting water
flowing naturally through gold-bearing ravines, from its
course, without the consent of all parties interested ; the
246 MINING-CAMPS.
presence on a claim of tools, sluice-boxes in condition
for use, or other mining-machines, accepted as prima-
facie evidence of occupation.
There are no regulations for arbitration, that being
one of the alcalde duties in this camp. The alcalde
appointed jurors in civil cases when asked for. The
other officers were sheriff and recorder ; and the sheriff
chose his own assistant, or selected a posse whenever
thought necessary. Recorder-fees were at first a dollar,
but afterwards fifty cents.
But far the most important sections of the Columbia-
District law were as follows : " Neither Asiatics nor South-
Sea Islanders shall be allowed to mine in this district,
either for themselves or for others." " Any person who
shall sell a claim to an Asiatic or South-Sea Islander
shall not be allowed to hold another claim in this dis-
trict for the space of six months." " None but Ameri-
cans, or Europeans who intend to become citizens, shall
be allowed to mine in this district, either for themselves
or others." These laws were in full operation in 1856,
when Columbia had more than five thousand inhabit-
ants. 1
Montezuma Camp, Tuolumne, allowed "three squares,
of a hundred feet each," to constitute a surface claim ;
a hundred and fifty feet in width was a " tunnelling-
claim ; " a hundred feet wide by three hundred feet long
was a deep-sinking claim. All shaft-claims must be re-
corded within one week after location, and must receive
three full days' labor each week. The recorder was
1 In 1854 the town was incorporated. In 1855 the miners were anx-
ious to aid the progress of a water-company's ditch; and three hundred
or more of them took their picks, and gave several weeks' work to the
enterprise. This company, in ten months, constructed forty-four miles
of canal and fluming, and supplied twenty-five square miles of mining-
ground.
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 247
elected "for one year, and until his successor is chosen,
unless dissatisfaction occurs : " then the miners of the
district "may call a special meeting, and by a two-thirds
vote declare said office vacant, arid proceed to elect his
successor." Arrangements are made for an annual meet-
ing, called by the recorder. His fees are a dollar for
recording each claim, and a dollar for each arbitration.
He presides over the arbitration court, which consists
of two miners chosen by each of the disputants. If
either party refuses to choose arbitrators, the two others
and the recorder shall decide ; and their decision is final.
Jacksonville Camp allowed for a claim fifty feet in
width on the diver, and extending from the centre of
the stream to the adjacent mountain ; in the small ra-
vines, three hundred feet constituted a claim, one hun-
dred and fifty feet on the flat, and sixty feet in certain
deep-diggings. Fifteen days' idleness in the working-
season destroyed dTCim-rights. In Garote District, fifty
yards up and down the creek were allowed, and seventy-
five yards on neighboring gulches.
In 186 the mining-laws of French Camp, Stanislaus
County, then called La Grange, contained the fol-
lowing, after providing for arbitrators : " In the event
of any of the disputing parties not acknowledging the
decision, then the miners of this district will assem-
ble, and compel said party to recognize the umpire's
decision."
The Sweetland mining-district, Nevada County, was
organized in 1850, claims then being thirty feet square.
Two years later the privilege was increased, and claims
of eighty by a hundred and eighty feet allowed. In
1853 the miners met, and subdivided the district into
three ; and different regulations were adopted in each.
North San Juan, one of these districts, and long the
248 MINING-CAMPS.
great hydraulic-mining centre of California, provided,
in its earlier code, for " one claim by location, and an
unlimited number by purchase. The claim-notice must
be renewed every thirty days, unless obviated by the
daily presence of the owners or their representatives."
An expenditure of five hundred dollars in prospecting
or opening up a claim secures it for two years. A re-
corder was to be elected annually by the miners, with
the usual fees ; arid each sale or transfer was to be placed
on record within a week.
Pilot Hill, Calaveras County, passed laws about 1855,
to the effect that each " gulch-claim " should be a hun-
dred and fifty feet long, and fifty feet wide ; each " sur-
face-claim," two hundred feet by a hundred feet; and
each " tunnel or shaft claim " should be a hundred feet
in width, and extending through the hill. On the last
class of claim, work to the value of twenty-five dollars
per week is required from each company. "Occupa-
tion and use " is required of the owners of the other
species of claims.
New Kanaka Camp, Tuolumne County, allowed, in
1858, "creek-claims" of two hundred feet in width, and
from bank to bank ; also " gulch-claims," of one-fourth
that size ; and " bar or flat " claims, of twenty feet in
width and fifty feet in length. Work must be done
" one full day in three, unless the owner is sick or on a
jury." On this point, the law of a little Trinity-county
camp in 1854 said with grim humor, "and a physician's
certificate is needed ; " there being at that time but one
or two medical men in the county, and none at all in
that particular camp. New Kanaka furthermore or-
dained that each miner might hold one claim by pre-
emption, and one by purchase, but no more. The
Chinaman was shut out ; " not allowed to own, either
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 249
by purchase or pre-emption." All disputes were left to
three arbitrators, who " must be paid at the rate of three
dollars per day for their time." One curious item was,
that the elected recorder should number each claim
registered, and himself attach to a claim-stake, in the
presence of witnesses, a piece of tin bearing that num-
ber. The laws of Copper-Canon District, Calaveras
County, were similarly exact on this point; requiring
the recorder to visit each claim, and examine its bounds.
One of the most remarkable instances of definite
regulation of the " legal representation " of miners at
all meetings was that afforded by Brown's Valley Camp,
Yuba County. The miners of this place appear to have
been sufficiently energetic ; for we find them, early in
1853, assembling, and repealing a " previous arbitrary
and oppressive set of laws to-day revoked by common
consent." They met again Aug. 8, and resolved,
" That each claim shall be entitled to a vote in the miners' meet-
ings of this district by the proper owner, or may be represented by
a power-of-attorney from the proper owner, specifying the object
of that power, and its limitation."
These meetings were semi-annual, and claims not repre-
sented were declared to be forfeited. This code was in
full force until 1864, and many of its provisions lasted
until a few years ago.
/ Examples of kindred regulations might easily be
( quoted from the laws of placer-camps in California.
\ We have before us notes from pioneers upon the codes
bf Cherokee, Nimshew, Bangor, and Forbestown camps,
( in Butte County ; i>f La Porte, Hungarian Hill, and
Grizzly Creek, in Plumas County ; of Port Wine, Forest
City, Monte Cristo, and Downieville, in Sierra ; of Slab-
town, Tiddletown, and Volcano, in Amador ; of Mount
Ophir, Blue Gulch, Peuon Blanco, and Horseshoe Bend,
250 MINING-CAMPS.
in Mariposa ; and of many other camps once famous,
but now lost in oblivion. None of them present im-
portant variations from those already described. The
laws of Mud Springs, El Dorado County, as late as 1863
provided for the use of arbitrators; and Georgetown
Camp in 1866 clung to many of the primitive forms.
In 1868 each district in Placer County had its own
rules, and little uniformity was manifest.
A claim-notice posted in San Andreas District, Cala-
veras County, in 1862, was as follows :
NOTICE. The Undersigned claims this ground for mining-pur-
poses, known as the Robert McCall Claim, being a deep or shaft
claim, and bounded on the northwest by the Gilchrist & Cornwell
Claim, & on the southeast by the Plug-Ugly Claim, and he in-
tends to work it according to the laws of the San Andreas Mining
District.
(Signed) WILLIAM IRVINE?.
JOHN SKO WALTER, Recorder, ^.ug. 18.
Another notice found by the writer over a deserted
claim in Shasta County, a few years ago, was of a much
more primitive type, and read after this fashion :
NOTIS: To all and everybody. This is my claim, fifty feet
on the gulch, cordin' to Clear Creek District Law, backed up by
shotgun amendments.
(Signed) THOMAS HALL.
A few quotations from other " claim-notices " that
were in their time accepted as " good and sufficient "
may perhaps be pardoned. One man wrote : " TAKEN.
This is my Honest Claim of Ten feet each way."
Another : " To MINERS. Look further. Respect my
claim stakes driven by the rules of Douglas Bar." Still
another grew combative with his " CLAME NOTISE.
Jim Brown of Missoury takes this ground ; jumpers will
be shot." Some camps prescribed the proper size for
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 251
the "notice," and that it "should be written in ink,"
others required it to be "painted or cut on wood;" and
it was often boxed, or otherwise protected from the
weather. One camp described the legal claim-stake as
four feet high and five inches square. There was evi-
dently a great deal of honest attention paid to details
of this sort.
All the laws we have hitherto described are those of
placer-districts where mines were worked at compara-
tively little cost, except when tunnelling was required.
But the first quartz-mining began in 1850-51, near
Oroville ; and the necessity of having laws by which to
regulate the size of quartz-claims, and their tenure, was
at once manifest. The miners soon took steps to enlarge
their code, and extend it to county jurisdiction. Late
in 1852 the miners of the various districts of Nevada
County held a meeting at which there was a full dis-
cussion of the subject, and a free interchange of opinion.
A committee was appointed to report at another meeting,
called for Dec. 20, at which time a convention of the
quartz-miners from all the districts of the county was
held at Nevada City. The laws' they adopted at this
meeting were still in force in 1881, and have served as
the regulations of all the quartz-mining of that region.
They carry the force of law, and have sustained various
judicial decisions. The jurisdiction of these laws was
declared to be "over all quartz mines and claims in
Nevada County." The extent allowed to a claim was
"one hundred feet on the ledge," including "all dips,
angles, and variations," or, as later laws read, " all dips,
spurs, and angles." The discoverer was entitled to two
hundred feet. The marking and staking of a claim
must be done within three days, and the recording
within ten days ; and within thirty days, work to the
252 MINING-CAMPS.
cost of one hundred dollars, or twenty full days' labor,
must be done, and the same repeated each year to hold
the claim, until a company is fully organized, and has
a mill worth five thousand dollars " contracted for in
good faith." The recorder may then give the company
a title-deed to the mining-property, guaranteeing posses-
sion and proprietorship forever. Failure to comply with
this provision about the quartz-mill, ultimately works
forfeiture. Any citizen of the United States can take
up one quartz-claim, and may also hold " all that he
purchases in good faith." The regular county recorder
of Nevada County was to serve as mining-recorder in
the matter of quartz-claims. His deputy was to be
elected by the district.
The Sacramento-County miners assembled in 1857,
and passed laws that were in force until after 1868.
They required twenty days of work per year on each
quartz-claim ; the work when done " to be examined by
the recorder of the local district," and a certificate
given. Whenever a quartz-mill worth five thousand
dollars has been contracted for in good faith, the com-
pany is entitled to receive a permanent title-deed to
the lands from the county recorder. Only citizens, or
" those who have declared their intentions of becoming
so," are entitled to hold claims. About 1855 the
miners of Sierra County formed a code, requiring
work to the value of a hundred dollars per year, allow-
ing " foreigners who pay their miners' tax " to hold
claims, and limiting the size to two hundred feet on the
lode, by a total width of five hundred feet. In 1858
the miners of Tuolumne County assembled, and made
uniform laws for the quartz interests.
At the present time most of the counties in the State
have held " miners' meetings," at one time or another,
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 253
to regulate the interests of the owners of quartz-lodes.
There was a plan suggested, some time before 1860, for
a State convention of delegates from all the mining-
districts of California, to formulate a general mining-
code ; but the need was not sufficiently felt at that time,
and Congressional action a few years later rendered
such a convention useless. No student of the life of
the camps, however, can deny that the full possibility
of a State-wide organization existed.
Enough has been said to show how exact and definite
were the California camp-laws which regulated property
rights. They dealt in a practical manner with river
and placer mine-rights, with cement and deep-gravel
rights, with tunnel and water-ditch rights, and with
leads, ledges, and lodes of every description. These
laws thus created became the common heritage of the
entire body of American miners, and were in a few
years adopted by camps in far-distant regions.
In the Territory (now the State) of Nevada, Virginia-
city District adopted its first code Sept. 14, 1859.
Quartz-claims were to be two hundred feet on the lead,
including "dips, spurs, and angles." Three days of
work were required each month. Each quartz-claim
was to receive a name, and to be recorded within ten
days. " Hill and surface " claims might be a hundred
feet square. " Ravine and gulch " claims were to be a
hundred feet wide, and extend " from bank to bank."
Claims of every sort were forfeited if not worked. The
recorder, elected for one year, should hold his book
" subject to inspection," and should post copies of the
district-laws in two conspicuous places within the
camp. Reese-river District in 1864 extended twenty
miles north and south. Its laws were numerous and
definite. A written notice signed by fifty claim-owners
254 MINING-CAMPS.
could at any time be called to depose the recorder.
That officer's fees were one dollar ; and he could appoint
deputies, since the district was so large. The written
application of twenty miners would at any time call a
special district-meeting.
The regulations of the famous Alder Gulch in Mon-
tana, the richest for its size that has ever been found,
were adopted in miners' meeting, Sept. 16, 1864, and con-
sisted of two articles in thirty-one sections. They were
draughted by a select committee chosen by the miners
in open "folk-moot;" and were approved in like man-
ner, clause by clause, after free discussion. The officers
of the district were president and secretary. We have
now passed beyond the utmost limits of the alcalde and
the " government by committee " systems. A written
application of five claim-owners was sufficient to call
a special meeting. Much space is devoted to riparian
rights, laws of trespass, and flume ownership. Tailings
must not be permitted to accumulate on another miner's
land. Bar-claims, creek-claims, hill-claims, and other
classifications are mentioned. Three days per week is
the work-requirement. All in all, it is a highly organ-
ized and definite code, and shows the influence of
experienced miners from Idaho, Colorado, and Cali-
fornia. The growth of Montana was marvellous. Be-
fore 1867 twenty-five hundred mineral-lodes were
prospected and recorded in the Territory. In Confed-
erate Gulch, in 1866, three miners are said to have
taken out four hundred and forty-one thousand dollars
from a claim three rods square. Montana miners in
1865-70 founded dozens of new camps, even as far
north as the Saskatchawan.
We must turn to the later manifestations of law in
single mountain camps, organized by Americans. In
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 255
the autumn of 1883, away up in the northern corner of
Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene placers were discovered, south
of Lake Pend d'Oreille, in fastnesses of the North
Rockies that romance and tragedy have made their
own. The mining excitement that followed was enough
to revive the most vivid memories of 1849. From New
Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, California, hardy prospect-
ors by the hundred started for Spokane and Rathrum,
the gateways of the region. They surged in from
Minnesota, from Puget Sound, from Winnipeg and the
Assiniboine, from British Columbia, and the wheat-
plains of Dakota. Mining-papers devoted columns to
the new mineral belt. Some doubted, some warned,
some condemned ; but still the gold-rush continued.
On Pritchard and Eagle Creeks, Shoshone County,
Idaho, the first local laws of the new mines were
adopted. It was early in March, 1884, in Coeur d'Alene
mining-district ; and the " by-laws," as the code is
termed, show clearly how the ideas of the earliest camp-
laws have since been modified.
The greatest of changes is in regard to size. All
locations on lodes of quartz, conforming with the
United-States mining-laws of 1872, are to be fifteen
hundred feet in length by six hundred feet in width.
Placer-mine claimants are allowed twenty acres, so lo-
cated that neither length nor breadth shall exceed eighty
rods.
Section three of the thirteen sections of this code
introduces a new factor. It provides that authorized
agents for capitalists may locate and -record claims for
them. Such a thing was seldom or never heard of in
old California days; but, as all the world knows, the
professional prospector and locator for others is one of
the most prominent figures in Western camps. " Give
256 MINING-CAMPS.
me a grub-slake, an' I'll locate ye a dozen good mines,"
is the appeal made to each " tenderfoot," as a greenhorn
is affectionately termed.
Section four allows persons to locate one claim on
each gulch where mineral is found, and also to hold
other claims by purchase. This also marks the growth
of the interests of capital, and large moneyed enter-
prises.
Section five regards assessments and claim-work.
The first year after location, one hundred dollars of
work must be done ; and twenty dollars each month be-
tween June and November of subsequent years. Neces-
sary work, such as making roads or trails, building
cabins or other improvements, is allowed to count on
the assessment at the rate of five dollars per day. Be-
tween November and May, the winter-season in that
trying climate, all claims are " laid over ; " that is, no
work is needed to retain their ownership.
The section relating to claims being recorded allows
fifteen days from the date of location, evidently because
the district is so large, and the mountain trails so steep
and difficult to travel over, that a shorter time would
inconvenience prospectors who wish to make long tours
before returning to camp.
Riparian rights, as always, receive careful attention.
The oldest locations have first privilege of water ; but
cannot control the surplus, nor waste the water, which
is in every case to be returned to the channel of the
stream for the use and benefit of those below.
The regulation regarding company organization per-
mits miners to unite their claims for purposes of work-
ing them better, and to perform " all their assessments
on one claim." This is extremely similar to the usage
in the early California mines.
LOCAL LAND LAWS AND LEGISLATION. 257
The principle of arbitration is still preserved in almost
its pristine exactitude. All difficulties are to be settled
thus : " Each disputant to be allowed an equal number
of arbitrators ; and, in case of a tie on the decision, said
arbitrators shall have power to call in an assistant."
Claims located prior to the adoption of these laws
are indorsed. Changes in the district-laws require the
written application of at least twelve miners, and ten
days' notice of a meeting posted in three or more con-
spicuous places in the district. Changes between the
1st of November and the 1st of June are illegal and
void. Previous unwritten laws are repealed. The offi-
cers are a claim-recorder, and a chairman, who has power
to call miners' meetings.
Now, these rules made for the government of the
Idaho camp of 1884 have many resemblances to the laws
of the California camps of 1848. The thirty-six years
between have only caused those inevitable changes that
come from the increased capital invested in the busi-
ness, and from the more definite State and National
legislation upon the subject. The generic relationship
of the earlier and the later codes is manifest. Ameri-
can frontiersmen are ruling in Idaho, as once they
ruled in California.
In October, 1884, a New- York gentleman who had
been present at a miners' meeting, Eagle-creek Camp,
in the Cceur d'Alene, only a few months before, told
the writer that the impression he received from it was
that it was the true descendant of the New-England
town-meeting, and illustrated local self-government of
the highest order. Another gentleman recently re-
turned from a journey to the head- waters o^ the Peace
River, the Frazer, and the Saskatchawan, about the
gigantic precipices of Mount Hooker, says that the
258 MINING-CAMPS.
prospectors there were forming camps, and adopting
their local codes concerning " claims," their primitive
land-law. The process is going on at this hour in the
narrowing realm of the pioneer, to the north and to
the south, along the ridge of the continent; and the
close of this century will not see its completion.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE EARLY RELATIONSHIPS OF MINING AND AGRICUL-
TURAL INTERESTS.
THE student of mining-camps and their local customs
and enactments soon becomes interested in a class of
problems peculiar to those districts of the West that are
situated upon government-lands. He finds that class-
difficulties have arisen between farmer and miner ; and
that not merely camp-law, but the decisions of the State
courts, have taken abundant cognizance of this fact.
These interests, naturally helpers, he finds at times
opposed to each other ; and he can trace the sources of
many recent law-suits to early local legislation. 1
Several of the district-laws quoted in the preceding
chapter recognize the duty of " restoring roads destroyed
in mining operations," and protect a few feet about
a building so that it shall not fall, nor slide into the
i Among the important decisions of early State courts, which deal
with the relations of miner and agriculturist, are the following : Hicks
vs. Bell, 3 Cal., 227; Irwin vs. Philips, 5 Cal., 145; Stoakes vs. Barrett,
5 Cal., 39; McClintock vs. Bryden, 5 Cal., 97; Tartar vs. Spring Creek
Mining Company, 5 Cal., 398; Conger vs. Weaver, 6 Cal., 556; Burdge vs.
Underwood, 6 Cal., 45; Nims vs. Johnson, 7 Cal., 110; Martin vs. Brown,
11 Cal., 12; Burdge vs. Smith, 14 Cal., 380; Henshaw vs. Clark, 14 Cal.,
460; Smith vs. Doe, 15 Cal., 100; Gillam vs. Hutchinson, 16 Cal., 153;
Coryell vs. Cain, 16 Cal., 573; Lentz vs. Victor, 17 Cal., 271; Fremont
vs. Seals, 18 Cal., 433; Rogers vs. Soggs, 22 Cal., 444; Ripley vs. Welch, 23
Cal., 452. For mining-<^&ns cases, Woodruff vs. North Bloomfleld
Mining Company, opinions of Judges Sawyer and Deady, printed in
San Francisco journals of second week in January, 1884.
259
260 MINING-CAMPS.
gulch* At this point these local rules stop : arbitra-
tors must decide the amount of loss in each individual
case.
As a matter of fact, the mining-interests were in
those days held to be altogether predominant in impor-
tance to the agricultural interests, over the entire gold-
bearing area. Law was made by the miners, for the
miners ; and this meant in practice a disregard of agri-
cultural interests that seems unjust and short-sighted,
until we have analyzed its causes, and comprehended
its reasons. Nominally, we may remark, the district-
rule in early days, and the decision of State courts
afterwards, was, that full damages must be paid: in
practice the obtaining of a fair compensation was often
difficult.
At an early date the State courts of California de-
cided that "agricultural lands, though in possession
of others, may be worked for gold ; " that " the right
belongs to the miner to enter on public mineral lands,
although used for agricultural purposes by others, and
whether enclosed, or taken up and entered under the
Possessory Act." " All persons," it is held, " who settle
for agricultural purposes upon any mining-lands in Cal-
ifornia, so settle at their own risk ; " they do it " sub-
ject to the rights of the miner, who may at any time
proceed to extract any valuable metals which he finds
in such lands." At a later date, some cases of great
hardship and loss having occurred, it was decided that
" the enclosure about the house and outbuildings of a
farmer is protected against entry." The burden of
proof was thrown upon the miner, who was required to
justify his right to enter upon and work a farmer's
land by showing that the land was public land, that it
contained mineral, and that he proposed to occupy
MINING AND AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS. 261
it for the bond-fide purpose of mining ; and he must pay
for the growing crops destroyed by his operations.
The State passed an Act, April 20, 1852, providing
that persons using public lands for pasturage or agri-
culture might bring action for damages against miners
who enter upon said lands, but must not interfere with
their operations. An Act of April 25, 1855, protected
"growing crops, buildings, and other improvements,"
in the mining-districts ; but closes with, " Nothing in
this Act shall prevent miners from working any mineral
lands in the State after the growing crops on the same
are harvested." Decisions under these Acts were nu-
merous. In every case, the right of the agriculturist
to use and enjoy public lands was considered inferior to
the right of the miner when gold was discovered in the
land. The Government would issue no patent to a
pre-emption claimant upon mineral lands who claimed
it for agricultural purposes. Mere entry and possession
gave no right to the exclusive enjoyment of public
mineral lands. " The mines of gold and silver are as
much the property of the State, by virtue of her sove-
reignty, as are similar mines in the hands of private pro-
prietors ; " and the State has, therefore, the " sole right
to regulate and govern these mines." Growing wood
and timber on public lands " belong to the prior appro-
priator." No person, under pretence of holding land
as a town-lot, can take up and enclose a tract of -min-
eral land in a mining-district, as against persons who
afterwards enter on the land in good faith to dig gold,
and who do no injury to the use of the premises as a
residence or for business purposes. Decisions like
these, and many of a similar nature, help us to under-
stand the completeness of the early mining-rights.
The license granted by the State to each and every
262 MINING-CAMPS.
miner, allowing entry upon land for mining-purposes,
as we have amply shown, was restricted to the public
lands. No person could enter upon agricultural lands
held by a United-States patent, and most of the farms
in the mining-counties of California are at present so
held. 1 In cases where the land has never been " with-
drawn as mineral land," but, on the contrary, has been
classed by the Surveyor-General as "agricultural public
lands," the burden of proof rests on the mineral claim-
ant. Within the last year, the Secretary of the Interior
has rendered a number of decisions upon controversies
of this character, in some cases overruling the decision
of the commissioner of the Land Office. He has de-
cided, in regard to placer-mining on small, unnavigable
streams, that it is well settled that such places " may
be appropriated ; and that, as to the water, the locator
obtains only a usufruct in it ;" and granted a patent to
a claim in the bed of Bear River, California. Local
laws are allowed great weight in such decisions in the
Territories.
The foregoing illustrations only serve to emphasize
the predominance of the mining-interests during the
gold-era, when all the lands of the Sierra region were
unsurveyed ; when there was no farm in the mining-
counties, that miners could not condemn and mine out,
paying for only the actual damages done. The fairest
of gardens, the thriftiest of vineyards, the most fruitful
of orchards, one and all were liable to be destroyed
without remedy, by the early placer-miners. The gold-
seekers could, and often did, sluice away roads, or cut
them across by channels impassable for years, undermine
houses, wash away fertile land, move towns to new sites,
i See the famous case of Boggs vs. Merced Mining Company, 14 Cal.
Rep., 279, in which Chief Justice Fields gave the decision.
MINING AND AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS. 263
and tear the old location down to bed-rock with tor-
rents of water. There are towns in the mining-region
that have been twice or thrice thus removed ; there
are others that have been " tunnelled," and " coyoted,"
and " drifted," until " caves " and " breaks " are of not
infrequent occurrence in the midst of streets or town-
lots.
But it has not been destructive always, this endless
onslaught of the miners upon rock and hillside, vale
and cliff. Lands have as often been created as others
have been ruined ; barren beds of rock have often been
filled up to the very brim with rich hillside soil, the
alluvial deposit of ages, and so turned into gardens of
magnificent beauty and exhaustless fertility. Farmers
on mountain streams in the early days have more than
once found that the mud-laden waters from mines above
them brought added fruitfulness to their soil. Many
persons have occupied adjoining tracts for mining and
for agriculture, and have used water first for gold-
washing and then for irrigation. Though the pre-
eminent rights of the miner over all public lands
sometimes worked hardship, yet the full recognition of
these rights was the only logical conclusion of early
California society ; and the only wonder is, that so few
serious difficulties occurred in the gold-period, over this
difficult problem.
The earliest authenticated case of forcible entry upon
fenced-in property used for agricultural purposes, of
which we have an account, occurred in Grass Valley, in
the spring of 1850. There was in all the mountain
land no more lovely and fertile a spot than this valley,
when the placer-miners began work there, and stripped
its soil to the bed-rock along the wonderfully rich
ravines : there is no lovelier spot to-day, when the re-
264 MINING-CAMPS.
storing hand of time, and the labor of loyal home-
builders, have embowered it in gardens of unsurpassed
beauty ; it is one of the fairest and most prosperous of
the long array of mining-towns, once mining-camps, that
nestle in the Sierra foot-hills, or rest in its pine-clad
canons.
But in 1850, when Grass Valley was the " camp," two
men fenced in a natural meadow. Here they could
annually cut two heavy crops of hay, which was worth
eighty dollars per ton ; they counted upon receiving at
least four hundred dollars per acre that year. How-
ever, before a month had elapsed, a prospector climbed
the brush fence, sunk a shaft through the soil, struck
"pay gravel," and in less than twenty-four hours the
whole hay-ranch was staked out in claims of fifty feet
square ; and, as tradition reports, the ravaged proprie-
tors, through neglect or inability, did not obtain a single
claim. The tract was not property, in the miners' defi-
nition. The possessors had fenced it, subject to the risk
that there might be mineral there. They ought to have
prospected it for themselves first, and whispered the
secret thereof to their intimate friends : so the sturdy,
red-shirted, blue-overalled miners said. ,
In 1851, it is said that two miners began to sink an
exploration shaft in Main Street, Nevada City, nearly in
front of the office of the South Yuba Canal Company,
and in the business centre of the town. A sturdy
merchant came out, and expostulated with them ; but
was promptly told that nobody had made any law
against digging down to bed-rock, and drifting out the
streets, and they proposed to try it. " Then, I'll make
a law to suit the case," said the irate and energetic
citizen, himself an ex-miner. Walking into his store,
he came out with an army-revolver, and by its persua-
MINING AND AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS. 265
sive presence established the precedent that Main
Street, at least, was not mining-ground. Of course,
this was an extreme case. A jury, or a miners' court,
would probably have decided to exempt Main Street
from exploration, as more valuable for business uses.
But in the lesser towns of the mining-region, perma-
nence did not exist. Nothing was sacred : all rights
were subject to the claims of the miner. Many a case
occurred, where the entire town was moved to an adja-
cent spot, and every inch of the soil on which it stood
was sluiced away from grass-roots to bed-rock. In
many other cases, the miners thought it better to tunnel
underneath, and work out the layers of rich gravel as
best they could ; though this sometimes caused disasters,
and buildings slid from their foundations with the crum-
bling soil during winter rains.
As regards the destroying of roads by miners, an
instance which came under the writer's observation
may serve to illustrate the custom. Nine miles of well-
built mountain road connected a village of two hundred
inhabitants with the county-seat. Though there was
no district organization remaining (in 1878), its influ-
ence was still strong. Along the river-bed, filled twenty
feet deep with the wash and debris of the mines of
1850, were rich spots, neglected by those careless, hasty
pioneers. About a dozen men spent their illy-paid
days in making experiments here and there, trying to
find one of these unspoiled, unrifled bits of a placer.
Two of these prospectors sank a shaft at the edge of
the gravel, five or ten feet from the county-road, and
" struck it rich." They worked a few days, and found
the pay-streak extended into the hill ; they cut a rough
and barely passable wagon-road through the dense
thicket, a hundred feet higher up the slope, and in a
266 MINING-CAMPS.
week had torn out fifty feet of the road, leaving a
chasm twenty feet deep. Farmers, merchants, county
officials, passed by, swore at the climb, told them to
hurry with their work, and asked how much they
meant to clean up, but never hinted that the proceed-
ing was illegal or unjustifiable. A few weeks passed,
and the small, irregular piece of virgin ground over-
looked by the early miners was swept clean, yielding
enough, it is said, to pay for a well-stocked farm in
the Sacramento Valley. The two miners tapped a ditch
that passed by on the hillside, far above them, hired the
use of the water, and sluiced earth, rock, and bushes
down into the chasm until it was full to the brim,
ready, when fairly settled down, to form a good foun-
dation for the county-road again.
Countless stories might be told to exemplify the
supreme position of the miner in early California. But
there was little abuse of that supremacy. Once admit
that the highest use of the soil was to yield gold, and
the rest follows as a matter of course. The great ma-
jority of the early farms and orchards were planted on
soil that was guiltless of containing gold in paying
quantities, and so remained undisturbed. In one case
a miners' court decided, when a small orchard of four-
year-old apple-trees had been mined out, that the land
was worthless; but that the trees, which had been
brought overland from Oregon, were worth fifty dollars
apiece, fruit being then excessively high-priced in
the mines. They had not yet borne fruit, but the
owner received twenty-five hundred dollars for them.
We have heard of several instances where men who
paid high prices for possessory claims to agricultural
lands made extensive improvements; and, the lands be-
ing entered upon for mining-purposes, no equivalent
MINING AND AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS. 267
damages could ever be obtained. In Placerville we
were shown a bit of meadow, which in 1881 had been
mined out five or six times, as it receives the rich,
wash from mines above, and the soil from the hillsides.
Pieces of waste and worthless bed-rock, swept clean by
the pioneers, have often been restored, and made into
beautiful and profitable vegetable-gardens, clover-fields,
and fruit-orchards, simply by the process of washing
the rich surface-soil of the hillside down into the
hollows, by using the hydraulic method.
As a rule, in the mines, agriculturists and miners
lived together in harmony in those early days. The
profits of vegetable-growing, hay-raising, etc., were so
great, that the man who tilled the soil often made more
than did the man who washed out gravel ; and their
unity of interests has been so well recognized, that in
the long struggle between the valley-farmers and the
miners, over the debris-question, which has now passed
into history, the farmers of the mining-region often
helped to support the miners through their thoroughly-
welded-together organizations.
Of that great struggle, which has been to all intents
and purposes a suit between valley-counties and mining-
counties, it is yet too soon to speak ; for a generation
must pass away before its results are manifest. But it
will always rank as one of the most important judicial
decisions ever made in an American State. The calcu-
lations of engineers were, that, since 1876, a hundred
million cubic yards of gravel, sand, and clay had been
washed into the Yuba and its tributaries ; that in 1880
some 15,220 acres had been seriously injured by these
" slickens " deposits ; and that six hundred million
cubic yards yet remained to be removed. The steady
shoaling of navigable rivers and bays was also charged
268 MINING-CAMPS.
to the mining-detritus. It was testified, that, prior to
1862, at least thirty thousand miners worked the
Yuba and its branches. The citizens of the valleys
brought many suits of a representative character ; and
between 1877 and 1884 the issue was fought with the
best legal weapons, and funds were raised on both sides
by means of associations. The question was sui ge-
neris : the agricultural interests of the lowlands were
pitted against the hydraulic-mining interests. The State
Supreme-court decision of Jan. 7, 1884, was, that private
rights could not be encroached upon under guise of
" miners' customs," even in districts where the statutes
recognize the validity of such local laws. The maxims
of the common law in reference to water-rights were
fully sustained, and a perpetual injunction granted
against the miners " unless they can so mine as not to
injure the valleys." The rights of miners to use places
of deposit for " tailings " and other mining-vein's, sub-
stantially supported by earlier decisions, were thus sub-
ordinated to agricultural interests ; and only the alter-
natives of " drifting " out the rich gravel, or of im-
pounding, satisfactorily to the courts, the hydraulic
debris, have been left the miners. The hidden wealth
of the pliocene river-channels is so great, that many
portions of them will pay for working, even by these
more expensive methods ; but the early predominance
of mining over agricultural interests, granted by local
law, is now a thing of the past.
1 The time is not far off when the varied agricultural
possibilities of the old mining-region will be recognized
as second to that of no territory of equal size on the
Pacific Coast ; and when the population supported by
agricultural and horticultural pursuits within those
famous mining-districts whose laws we have studied,
MINING AND AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS. 269
and whose early organizations we have described in the
previous chapters, will be greater then that of those
camps in their "flush times."f The land, every acre of it,
will pass under full private ownership, held by govern-
ment-patent ; and the mineral in the land will belong to
the dweller thereon. Indeed, the railroads and various
large corporations now hold a great part of the lands
in this mineral belt once entirely public lands. The
timber is being removed, the iron is being smelted, the
valuable stone-quarries worked ; in some places, colonies
of settlers are planting orchards and vineyards, orange-
groves and olivariums, using for irrigation the water of
mining-ditches cut by the labor of the energetic pioneers
of '49, enlarged and extended by the vast associated
capital of later years. The future of the mining-region
used to be a favorite subject of conversation with the
late Mr. B. B. Redding, one of the foremost nature-
students on the Pacific Coast, one of the noblest and
most generous of men, the friend and associate, all his
life, of the pioneers, founders, and leaders of the State.
He used to say that Italy, Spain, and southern France,
all combined, would some day seem poor in comparison
with eight or ten counties of the mineral belt of Cali-
fornia, whose resources in horticultural directions were
simply incalculable. The work done in that region dur-
ing the past five years has gone far towards justifying
Mr. Redding's bold prediction.
CHAPTER XXIII.
DECISIONS OF CALIFORNIA AND OTHER COURTS RE-
SPECTING LOCAL LAWS AND CUSTOMS.
THE miners* local land-laws, as we have heretofore
seen, rested on the proposition that the soil was all
government property, and that the nation allowed them
the use thereof, under a possessory title, even though
they should never wish to purchase it. Digging gold
.was early declared to be "a franchise from the govern-
ment, and free to all." In this faith, American miners
developed the system we have been studying in notes
from the laws of different camps. But the hundreds of
important mining-litigations that occurred during the
gold-era of California preserve in their dreary wastes
some precious bits of local history, like diamonds in the
sea-sands. Law is the great shrine-builder, after all.
The wrecks of old systems, the superstitions of forgot-
ten races, the customs of perished kingdoms, are frozen
in this iceberg of law, sealed forever in its translucent
prison-walls, as mammoths in the ice of the Siberian
tundras ; or, if we choose, we may use a gentler simile,
and call law the amber of the Baltic, making precious
each bit of ancient life intrusted to its care. 1
1 Among the important cases in the California Reports referring to
"local laws and customs," are the following, besides many others:
People vs. Naglee, 1, 238; Hicks vs. Bell, 3, 219; Mitchell r*. Hagood, 6,
148; Davis vs. Butler, 6,511; Fairbank vs. Woodhouse, 6, 433; Sims r,s\
Smith, 7, 148 ; McKeon vs. Bisbee, 9, 137 ; Packer vs. Heatou, 1, 5(i8 ;
270
DECISIONS RESPECTING LOCAL LAWS. 271
We find that because the early miners of California,
in their plain, effective, and untechnical system, had
made use. the only basis of ownership, they also or-
dained that the same piece of ground could be occupied
and owned by different persons at the same time, pro-
viding it was required and held for different purposes.
If one man held a placer-claim for placer-uses, and
another miner discovered a quartz-ledge on the same
tract, it could be recorded and held without any inter-
ference from the placer-miner. If there was also an
unclaimed spring or stream of water on the same tract,
it could be taken up, or claimed, for mining-purposes,
by still a third prospector ; and these three men might
long continue to use and enjoy the profits of their sepa-
rate interests in the same small tract. Ground taken
up for mining . could be again taken up for fluming pur-
poses. Riparian rights were possessory, and subject to
much the same rules that governed the holdings of
mineral lands ; neither party claiming absolute owner-
ship. 1
The State courts recognized as legal mining-claims
those held by local law and customs, and also those
held by actual occupancy of government-lands. But
Jones vs. Jackson, 9, 237; O'Keiffe vs. Cunningham, 9, 589; Clark vs.
McElvy, 11, 154; Waring vs. Crow, 11, 366; California vs. Moore, 12, 56;
McGarrity vs. Byington, 12, 426; Jackson vs. F. R. & G. W. Co., 14, 22;
Merritt vs. Judd, 14, 64; Brown vs. '49 and '56 M. Co., 15, 160 and 20,
198; Clark vs. Duval, 15, 85; Edmond vs. Chew, 15, 142; Roach vs. Gray,
16, 387; English vs. Johnson, 17, 107; Atwood vs. Fricot, 17, 37; Prosser
vs. Parks, 18, 47; Gore vs. McBrayer, 18, 582; Logan vs. Driscoll, 19, 623;
Tahle M. T. Co. vs. Stranchan, 20, 198; Copper Hill M. Co. vs. Spencer,
25, 18; Martin vs. Solambo,26, 527; St. John vs. Kidd, 26, 263; Hess vs.
Winder, 30, 349 j Stone vs. Bumper, 46, 318; Shay vs. Ryan, 46, 33. Also
California Legislature, Act of April 14, 1860; Act of May 17, 1861; and
Act of April 4, 1864.
1 " Surveys, notices, stakes, and blazing of trees, followed by work,
. . . give title to unclaimed water." Kiinball vs. Gearheart, 12 Cal., 27.
272 MINING-CAMPS.
the size of claims must not be unreasonable : even
where no local law exists to limit them, it must con-
form to the general usages of miners. The customs of
miners in the definition of quartz-ledges are entitled to
great if not controlling weight. Proof of similar cus-
toms in other districts besides that in which a claim is
located is not improper. Subsequent mining-rules of a
district have been accepted as valuable evidence to aid
in determining prior rights. The entire mining-code of
a district must be considered, not merely a portion of
it. The State courts waived the right of inquiry into
the "regularity of the modes in which these local legis-
latures or primary assemblages act. They must be the
judges of their own proceedings. It is sufficient that
the miners agree, whether in public meeting, or after
due notice, upon their local laws, and that these are
recognized as the rules of the vicinage." l Consonant
with this is the decision that the authority of " mining-
customs " is to be allowed to take precedence of written
district-laws which have been disregarded or long neg-
lected. What gives district-laws their authority is not
their mere enactment, but the obedience and acquies-
cence of the miners following upon that enactment;
and a custom in itself reasonable and generally observed
ought certainly to take precedence over a generally
ignored district written law. The moment a district-law
falls into disuse, it is void. This question has been held
" one of mere fact, for the jury to determine; " and simi-
lar in nature, recognizing the will and intention of the
miners' assembly, is a decision, that, " although mining-
laws were passed on a different day from that men-
tioned in the notice calling the meeting, they are not
1 Gore vs. McBrayer, 18 Cal., 582.
DECISIONS RESPECTING LOCAL LAWS. 273
invalidated. It is sufficient that the miners agreed
when they did meet. The regularity of their local
meetings is not to be questioned."
Controversies must be settled by the customs and
usages of the " bar " or "diggings " embracing the claim
in question, whether such customs be written or un-
written. Miners have the right to prescribe rules gov-
erning acquisition and divesture of title to claims, and
their extent, subject only to State laws. But mining-
rules must not limit the number of claims that a person
may acquire by purchase, nor prevent prospectors from
locating mines for others.
No acts are required of the miner other than use of
his property in accordance with local laws. He need
not live on his claim (though governme*nt-land could
not be held for agricultural purposes unless used as a
homestead by the claimant), nor need he build upon
it, nor cultivate it, nor enclose it. His title is funda-
mentally different from that of the agricultural settler.
And it has also been decided, that the right the miner
has possessed since 1848 to enter and mine upon
government-land carries with it the right to whatever
else is needful, such #s use of water and of wood. It
includes the right to build, to make a home, to plant
orchards and gardens. But fences are not necessary
for the miner : the defining of his boundaries by district
monuments is sufficient. He still keeps his homestead,
not by agricultural pre-emption, but by a miner's pos-
sessory title, and as a privilege attached to the owner-
ship of his claim.
It was decided by the Colorado courts, that not until
compliance with district rules had been attacked, was
any proof of such compliance required ; that if the
district, for instance, made " notices " and " prospect-
274 MINING-CAMPS.
stakes" sufficient without registry, it is taken for
granted, without proof to the contrary, that the local
law is obeyed. 1
In Montana, as in California, it was decided that the
rights of ownership vested in a person, under the rules
of a given mining-district, are not affected by a change
in the district boundaries : the old rules still govern as
regards size, but not as regards method of working. 2
/ In the old California camps, as we have seen, the
verbal conveyance of a claim was sufficient. - Until
1860 the validity of such verbal sales was fully sus-
tained by the State courts, which had previously held
that writing was not necessary to vest or to divest the
title ; which title is in the government, and the right
to mine is in" the local custom. A transfer may as
well be by simple possession as by deed. All miners'
claims, under local law, to public mineral lands, are to
be regarded as titles ; but the right passed by a bill of
sale, without seal and without warranty, is only a pos-
session, and is subject to a superior right.
The penalty of forfeiture fixed by camp-laws, if a
certain amount of work was not performed, has been
amply sustained by the courts. .A person who had
abandoned his claim was not allowed to re-assert his
former interest to the prejudice of others. In questions
of "abandonment," the intention governs. The rule,
custom, and usage of the district must be open, plain,
notorious, so that the miner leaving his claim knows
that his action is tantamount to an intention of aban-
donment. If a miner attempts to hold more than local
custom permits, any other miner can take possession of
and work the surplus portion, and the injured party
1 Sears vs. Taylor, 4 Colorado Rep.
2 King vs. Edwards, 1 Montana, 236.
DECISIONS RESPECTING LOCAL LAWS. 275
cannot recover damages. The term "forfeiture of
rights," as used in mining-customs, has been decided
to mean " the loss of a right previously acquired to
mine a particular piece of ground, by reason of neglect
or failure to comply with local rules and customs."
Forfeiture re-opens a claim to immediate location by a
new owner. But in the absence of any custom or local
regulation of the given district on the point, the right
of property in a claim is not nullified by lack of dili-
gence in working it. According to recent decisions
of the Secretary of the Interior, it is not necessary to
require miners re-locating a lode to furnish positive
and complete proof of its abandonment by a former
locator. The fact that such abandonment was alleged
in the notice of location, and published in the manner
and for the time required by law, is thought sufficient,
provided that no adverse claim is presented. Full
recognition of the force and authority of local laws is
nowhere more evident than in the State-court decisions
regarding abandonment of claims.
Those special rights granted to discoverers of, and
first locators upon, new placers, receive encouragement
from State decisions, which ruled that "the owner of
the oldest location on a stream or canon-bed may dam
up tha canon to work his claim, even though it floods
other claims the owners of which are damnum absque
injuria" Ordinarily each person mining in the same
stream is " entitled to use, in a proper and reasonable
manner," both the channel of the stream, and the water
flowing therein. According to good law and reason,
miners were forbidden to deposit the waste gravel, or
" tailings," on other men's claims.
As regards actual work done upon a claim, the
local laws have been sustained and liberally interpreted
276 MINING-CAMPS.
by State courts. Work on adjoining land to construct
roads ; drains and improvements necessary to develop-
ment of the mines ; efforts made to procure machinery,
as the hauling of the same ; starting a tunnel, though
at a considerable distance, to run into the lead or
deep gravel-bed, these and similar labors are termed
" work " in the eyes of the law ; such acceptance being
in fullest accord with miners' local legislation.
Mining-claims having been recognized as property,
and the course of local enactments being to give their
ownership the permanence of real estate held under
United-States laws, we find that in 1861 those provisions
of the law exempting mines from taxation were re-
pealed. "The interest of the occupant of a mining-
claim is property liable to taxation, and to being taken
and sold under execution."
( We have previously seen how great a monthly tax
was levied upon foreigners in the early mining-days.
By 1861 the tax, once thirty dollars per month, had
been reduced by successive State enactments to four
dollars. [The tax-collector- of the county was then au-
thorized to sell at public auction, on one hour's notice
by proclamation, the mining-property of any person
refusing to pay such tax. Americans connected in any
way with foreigners in working mining-ground- were
held liable for the amount of license of each such for-
eigner. This tax upon foreigners was held to be only
a license-fee, and its imposition not contradictory to
the powers of Congress. And "the State alone can
enforce the law which prohibits foreigners from working
mines without a license : " other miners could not take
the law into their own hands, and trespass on such
claims.
The mass of printed material relating to the decisions
DECISIONS RESPECTING LOCAL LAWS. 277
of district, county, Territorial, or State courts, upon
mining-subjects, is so extensive that the illustrations
already given form but a small part of the whole. Vol-
ume after volume of Western law-reports deal with
mining-cases, and contain laborious researches into
Spanish archives, and Californian provincial history,
and the masterly deductions of unsurpassed judicial
intellects. A book written by a lawyer, for lawyers,
upon some of the great mining-cases of California, from
those of the early fifties in Tuolumne, Placer, and
Butte, to the famous group of " mining-debris " cases
of the last few years, would be a notable work, and
one well worth the while of some fully-equipped jurist.
From a lawyer's stand-point, the worst thing about
the local laws of the early camps was their lack of
uniformity ; but from an institutional stand-point, this
irregular and spontaneous element is their strongest
claim to a place in Western history. A great need
called them into existence : they grew in accordance
with the nature of things, as simply and surely as pines
grow in a forest. Yet we have previously shown many
points of resemblance ; and a still closer analysis of the
hundreds of codes of old camps now obtainable of
camps from every mining-county of California, Nevada,
Oregon, and some of the Territories proves that the
local laws and usages over this great region are based
upon five principles: to have each claim of definite
size ; to enforce the law of use ; to maintain " in-
clined locations " (gestreckfeld') in case of quartz ; to re-
cord all claims ; and to insist on this record as final in
case of dispute. All these appear to be Germanic ideas,
now a part of our race-equipment for the world's battle,
but none the less a heritage from Teutonic ancestors.
German, English, American laws, adopt the "inclined-
278 MINING-CAMPS.
location" idea, that a man takes up a piece of mineral
land for the lode alone, and shall have the right to
follow it downward indefinitely, including all dips, spurs,
and angles. Spanish law insists upon "square loca-
tions," simply the surface, and all beneath it in a per-
pendicular direction. Some high authorities, such as
Professor Raymond, prefer the latter system, as greatly
lessening litigation. Commissioners, among whom were
Clarence King, J. W. Powell, and Thomas Donaldson,
recommended, in 1880, the abandonment of the "in-
clined-location " system. It is a question that should,
of course, be decided upon practical grounds ; but it is
not likely that our present system will soon be dis-
carded.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE EXTENSION AND PERMANENT INFLUENCE OP
MINING-CAMP LAW.
THE varied methods by which camps were governed,
and district-law enforced, and the acceptance of their
enactments by the early State courts, have probably
received sufficient illustration ; but the way in which
these enactments spread over the surrounding territory,
and ultimately aided to form a national system of min-
ing-law, deserves our attention, as added proof of its
creative force.
Recognition by State legislatures began with Cali-
fornia, in 1851, when senators and representatives,
acknowledging the fact that the miners had perfected
a practical working-system, provided that in all actions
respecting such claims the proceedings of the miners'
meetings should be regarded by the courts, "so far as
they are not inconsistent with the laws and constitution
of the State." It was this Legislature that conferred
jurisdiction in all cases of mining-claims, whatever
their value, upon the local justices of the peace.
A little before this time, the very existence of the
mining-code had been in great danger. When John C.
Fremont was United-States senator from California, he
introduced a bill to establish police-regulations through-
out the mining-region, and levy a small tax upon the
miners. At that time the winter of 1850-51 such
279
280 MINING-CAMPS.
a measure would have destroyed the institutions so rap-
idly developing in the camps of energetic gold-seekers.
The discussion in the Senate was a tedious one. Many
of the senators favored sale of all mineral lands to the
highest bidders. But it is to those great but widely
different leaders, Seward and Benton, that the full
acceptance by the nation of the policy of free mining
on government-land was finally due. They vainly
urged it, and at last insisted upon delay in legislation.
A year later the local regulations of the mining-camps
were so satisfactory, that Congress hesitated to change
the system. Meanwhile, the miners accepted this de-
lay as a tacit recognition of their demands, a tacit
promise to legalize their possessory rights. So they
pushed forward their explorations of gravel-beds and
rock-ledges, of ravines and mountains; they increased
their investments in machinery, water-ditches, costly
tunnels, flumes, embankments, and other requisites of
their gigantic undertakings.
By 1861 the miners' customs, usages, laws, and reg-
ulations had spread outward from California, whose
court-decisions were almost universally followed, and
were recognized in other States and Territories of the
West. In Colorado the miners made local laws long
before the Territorial legislature attempted to regulate
such things. Illinois District, Gilpin County, allowed
claims to be two hundred feet long by fifty feet wide,
and prospectors were allowed to locate claims for others.
In November, 1861, the Legislature of Colorado decided
that valid mineral locations could only be made in full
accordance with the local laws of the district in which
the location was made. 1
1 Sullivan vs. Hense, Colorado Rep., vol. 2, p. 425.
THE EXTENSION OF MINING-CAMP LAW. 281
The laws of Nevada Territory, passed in November,
1861, declare that,
"In actions respecting mining-claims, proof shall be admitted
of the customs, usages, or regulations established and in force in
the mining-district embracing such claim ; and . . . [they] shall
govern the decision of the action in regard to all questions of loca-
tion, possession, and abandonment."
The laws of Nevada, in 1862, provided that,
" All conveyances of mining-claims . . . shall be construed in
accordance with the lawful local rules, regulations, and customs of
the miners."
The "location and transfers of mining-claims . . .
shall be established and proved before courts by the
local rules, regulations, or customs of the miners in the
several mining-districts." 1
The Nevada statute of Feb. 27, 1866, provided
that,
*' The extraction of gold or other metals from alluvial or dilu-
vial deposits, generally called placer-mining, shall be subject to
such regulations as the miners in the several mining-districts shall
adopt."
Idaho, Feb. 4, 1864, ordained that,
" The conveyance of quartz-claims shall be construed in accord-
ance with the local mining rules, regulations, and customs in the
several districts."
1 The local laws of Reese-river mining-district, passed in 1862, and
amended in 1864, provided for a mining-recorder, whose fees were one
dollar for every location registered. The term of office of said recorder
was one year, " unless sooner removed by an election called by fifty or
more claim-holders." The size of a claim is fixed at two hundred feet
on a ledge, " with all the dips, spurs, angles, offshoots, outcrops, depths,
widths, and variations." An application of twenty-five miners is sul*
ficient to call a miners' meeting.
282 MINING-CAMPS.
Arizona provided that the size of the mining-claims,
or pertenencias, should be regulated within given areas
by the miners ; and, further, that the records of mining-
districts " shall not be rejected for any defects in their
form when their contents may be understood." Twelve
or more persons were allowed to form a new district,
"make laws therefor, and elect a recorder." Mon-
tana passed a Territorial Act allowing thirty or more
miners to hold district-meetings, and "make all laws
not conflicting with vested rights." Oregon, in a stat-
ute of 1867, ordained that " any person may hold one
claim by location, and as many by purchase as the
local laws of the district allow ; " also, that the miners
" shall be empowered to make local laws " in relation
to the possession of water-rights, the possession and
working of placers, and the survey and sale of town-
lots in mining-camps, "subject to the laws of the
United States."
Thus the local law of the miners had won recogni-
tion in State courts, and had extended to other States
and Territories. It also gained a hearing in the Supreme
M^ourt of the United States. In 1865 Chief Justice
Chase, in one of his decisions, said,
" A special kind of law, a sort of common law of the miners,
the offspring of a nation's irrepressible march, lawless in some
senses, yet clothed with dignity by a conception of the immense
social results mingled with the fortunes of these bold investiga-
tors, has sprung up on the Pacific Coast, and presents in the
value of a mining-right ' a novel and peculiar question of juris-
diction for this court." l
Senator Stewart of Nevada, himself a miner of 1849,
and one who helped to govern some of the early camps
1 In Supreme Court U. S., Dec., 1865, case of Sparrow vs. Strong ;
appeal from Story Co., Nov. : 3 Wallace, U. S. Sup. Ct., p. 100.
THE EXTENSION OF MINING-CAMP LAW. 283
of northern California, speaks eloquently of the legis-
lative work done by the pioneers. In a letter to Sena-
tor Ramsay, and in a speech delivered in the Senate in
June, 1866, he exclaims that the Argonauts "found no
laws governing the possession and occupation of mines
but the common laws of right which Americans alone
are educated to administer. They were forced to make
laws for themselves. The reason and justice of the
laws they formed challenge the admiration of all who
investigate them. Each mining-district in an area ex-
tending over not less than fifty thousand square miles
formed its own rules, and adopted its own customs.
The similarity of these rules and customs throughout
the entire mining-region was so great as to attain all
the beneficial results of well-digested general laws.
These regulations were thoroughly democratic in their
character, guarding against every form of monopoly,
and requiring continued work and occupation in good
faith to constitute a valid possession." 1 About the
same time the Conness Committee Report to the Senate
of the United States said,
" The miners' rules and regulations are not only well under-
stood, but have been construed and adjudicated for now nearly a
quarter of a century. ... By this great system established by
the people in their primary capacities, and evidencing by the high-
est possible testimony the peculiar genius of the American people
for founding empire and order, popular sovereignty is displayed in
one of its grandest aspects, and simply invites us, not to destroy,
but to put upon it the stamp of national power and unquestioned
authority."
In another place the same report says,
" The rules and regulations of the miners . . . form the basis
of the present admirable system arising out of necessity; they
i Speech, reported in Cong. Globe, June 19, 1866.
284 MINING-CAMPS.
become the means adopted by the people themselves for establish-
ing just protection to all. . . . The local courts, beginning with
California, recognize those rules, the central idea of which was
priority of possession ." l
y Congress passed an Act July 26, 1866, which recog-
nized the " force of local mining-customs, or rules of
miners wherever not conflicting with the laws of the
.United States." Subsequent Acts, principally the Act
*r of 1872, have defined the entire subject of mining-law;
and decisions of the courts and of the heads of the
departments have followed in the lines laid down by
the Acts of 1866 and 1872. The manner in which a
United-States land-patent may be obtained for any
land claimed and located for valuable mineral deposits
is now fully set forth. The payment of five dollars
per acre is required, and the smallest legal subdivision
is ten acres. After a notice of " intention to purchase "
a described tract of mineral land, sixty days are allowed
for other parties to file their adverse claims, if any such
exist; after the expiration of this time, no objection
from third parties shall be heard except it be shown
* that the applicant has failed to comply with the law.
Congress has required that placer-locations upon sur-
veyed lands shall conform to public surveys in all cases
except when this is made impossible by the previous
appropriation of a portion of the ten or more acres
desired (that is, by claims held under local law), or
where it "is impracticable to so locate the claim." 2
It is the evident intention of the mining-laws to allow
persons to take a certain quantity of land fit for mining.
Where the entire placer-deposit in a canon within cer-
tain limits is claimed, and where the adjoining lands are
l Report to Senate, May 28, 1866.
Act of July 9, 1870; modified by Act of May 10, 1872.
THE EXTENSION OF MINING-CAMP LAW. 285
unfit for any use whatever, the claimant need not con-
form to the survey-lines." 1
The Revised Statutes of the United States, relating
to mineral lands and mining-resources, supersede and
repeal many provisions of the Acts of 1866, 1870, and
1872; but mineral lands are still "free and open to
exploration and purchase . . . under regulations pre-
scribed by law, and according to the local customs or
rules of miners in the several mining-districts, so far
as the same are applicable, and not inconsistent with
the laws of the United States." The sections referring
to locators and their exclusive right of possession and
enjoyment of their mining-claims, to tunnel-rights, to
miners' regulations and improvements, to existing rights,
to vested rights in the use of water, to rights of way
for canals, and to titles of town-lots as subject to
mineral rights, are all of them distinct recognitions of
early local law, and afford plain evidence of its wide-
spread influence.
This liberal policy has filled the ravines of the Rockies
with prospectors and miners. It has fostered freedom,
and aided the beginnings of law. Men still form
mining-camps, still govern them under local forms : but
as soon as the district proves of permanent value, they
usually abandon this form of organization, for township,
county, and territorial forms; for they are not only
miners, but also citizens of the Republic, and they
look forward to State life and national relationship.
In the course of the development we have endeavored
to trace, the most prominent fact appears to be the
wide-spread effect of these informal laws of frontiers-
men. The best talent in the State of California was
i Kecent decision of Secretary Teller, February, 1884.
286 MINING-CAMPS.
engaged at last in the task of codifying the scattered
camp-laws, eliminating their manifold contradictions,
and remedying their shortcomings. Slowly, through a
long series of years, a multitude of wise judicial decis-
ions moulded scattered customs, fragmentary camp-
laws, relics of the folk-moot era, survivals of the alcalde
period, usages of the time of the later hydraulic mining,
into an apt, terse, strong, useful, and comprehensive
system of common law, regulating not only the rights of
miners over mineral ground, but also their riparian rights.
Then the nation recognized its responsibility, and the
work of creating a general system was begun. There
is much yet to do ; a National School of Mines must be
established, and stricter legislation is required to pre-
vent wasteful mining: but the great features of the
present law are thoroughly consonant with the spirit
of republican institutions. This we owe to the men
of the mining-camp.
.
CHAPTER XXV.
EFFECTS, SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL, UPON WESTERN
DEVELOPMENT.
CONSERVATION of energy is an axiom of science.
Though every mining-camp perished to-morrow, the
impulse that gave them birth would still survive. The
local life, strength, and energy of the early camps has
already passed as a powerful force, not as a name, into
the warp and woof of society. So far-reaching and
powerful have been the influences of camp-life and
camp-law upon the growing communities of the Far
West, that one might almost be justified in the belief
that a new social order would thus be produced.
Everywhere, over the great region we have been study-
ing, the spirit of the past abides in multitudinous forms.
It matters not that the elder camps have decayed;
nor that the elder pioneers have departed, as the " poet
of the Sierras " expressed it, " to prospect the stars ; "
nor that county officials sit where alcaldes sat, and
schoolhouses stand where folk-moots met of old. The
men and women whose childhood was passed in these
camps are beginning to control the State. Each com-
munity, once welded together in camp-life, possesses a
unity of feeling that bids fair to be permanent. This
is true of California, and may reasonably be expected
to prove true of the later-settled mining-regions. We
287
288 MINING-CAMPS.
observe, in the newest camps of the British-Columbia
border, the same spirit of swift, healthy camp-life, the
same return to primitive forms of jurisprudence, the
same American determination that crime shall be pun-
ished, property and life made safe : therefore we may
have faith that the same results will follow there as in
California, that stable communities will be established,
and higher forms of society evolved.
The nature of the forces long ago set at work in new
Western communities by the institutions of the typical
camp can best be illustrated by a case which was but
one of a thousand. It occurred in 1858, in California ;
and some of those concerned in the enterprise are still
alive. The " surface diggins " of the camp were ex-
hausted, but rich gravel was thought to lie beneath the
mountain, to be reached only by a tunnel of great cost ;
and the men who owned the possessory right to tunnel
were all poor. They met, and talked it over, counted
their funds, and began work ; blasted a hole forty feet
in the rock no more money in the treasury. They
borrowed quite an amount in small sums, paying no
interest, and drove the tunnel deeper. They appointed
a number of men to continue the work, while the rest
of the company hired themselves out at daily wages
to support them, and buy the necessary tools and
blasting-powder. Economy was the order of the day,
and fraternal co-operation was its watchword. At last
they won : a company of poor and uneducated men, by
reason of perfect faith in each other, and grim, tireless
persistence, carried a load that capitalists would have
refused, and walked at last into Nature's treasure-
house, finding a bed of gravel rich enough to amply
repay them all. It was not thought a remarkable thing
in those days. All over California, groups of compara-
EFFECTS UPON WESTERN DEVELOPMENT. 289
tively poor men were standing by each other in the
same manly way. Now, that, in the last analysis, was
and is the feeling fostered in true mining-camp life. In
camps, too, we have something of the guild idea. The
weavers and the goldsmiths of the Middle Ages had the
fraternity feeling, and so have the miners of America.
Sturdy self-reliance, mingled and tempered with a high
appreciation of one's dependence upon others; the
power to stand alone ; the power to organize, if need
be, with sudden energy and startling swiftness, these
were traits fostered by the patient toil of the miners of
America; and because of qualities such as these, the
fame of the pioneers of California and the Rockies has
gone wherever winds blow or waters run.
The physical spread of the mining-camp influence,
through wandering prospectors and miners from de-
serted camps, assumes in this connection a greater
importance than before. We have studied the growth
of the miners' code from the rude regulations of the
few camps of 1848. We have alluded to the nature
of the frequent mining excitements that inevitably
extended this code ; but some of the features of this
movement deserve especial prominence. In 1859, for
instance, several thousand California miners went to
Cariboo, British Columbia ; in 1860 the first mining
was done in Idaho, on the Clearwater and Salmon ; and
hundreds of Californians hastened thither. The same
year, also, the Washoe rush began ; and within 'two
years the sage-brush deserts and treeless mountains of
Nevada were explored, the treasures of Coso, Pioche,
Tuscarora, Esmeralda, Potosi, Humboldt, Reese, and
other districts had been unveiled ; while Bodie in Cali-
fornia was also discovered. The year 1862 also wit-
nessed the rush to Boise, and to the John Day region
290 MINING-CAMPS.
in Oregon, in which State the Powder and Burnt River
placers had been found the previous year. The Owyhee
mines drew prospectors in 1863, the quartz of Alturas
in 1864, the placers of the Big Bend of the Columbia
in 1865, White Pine in 1866. California sent out thirty
thousand or forty thousand stalwart and well-trained
miners in these three or four years.
The reasons for such an exodus are not hard to find.
When the surface-wealth of California became so nearly
exhausted that men could no longer make the wages
to which they had been accustomed, they became rest-
less ; when surface miners could no longer make living
wages, their occupation was clearly gone. The game
was " played out ; " so was the camp. There were
then a few, more fortunate or more frugal than the
majority, who were able to unite in companies to pur-
chase machinery, build forty-mile flumes, explore the
deeper auriferous channels of blue gravel, tunnel solid
rock and walls of lava, turn the course of rivers, sink
deep shafts, to hold their own, in brief, throughout
the new era of capital and monopoly. The weak men
sank into laborers for the new companies, or became
searchers for precarious finds in the gravel-heaps of the
past. Hundreds of energetic men of small means were
still able to hold and work mining-property on a mod-
erate scale, but the one resource of the strong was to
find a new camp. The great majority of those to whom
the mines were no longer liberal swarmed out of the
busy hive, as has ever been the custom of the pioneers
of our race. When the smallest coin used for change
in California sank from a twenty-five-cent piece to ten
cents, the emigration began ; when it sank still farther
to five cents, the disgust and despair of the genuine
forty-niner can hardly be described. He felt the earth
EFFECTS UPON WESTERN DEVELOPMENT. 291
slipping away from under his feet. Even as late as
1878, in Trinity County, five-cent pieces were very
rarely seen, and were sometimes refused. The smallest
coin expected for a service was a quarter. Nickels
were particularly obnoxious to the miners. Every
thing smaller than half a dollar was rather disrespects
fully denominated " chicken-feed." , j.
Under these conditions, hundreds of miners became
tillers of the soil; but other hundreds swarmed out
into the unexplored spaces, searching the ranges that
loom higher and highe 
