Twentieth anniversary of the Corporate Society of California Pioneers

BANCROFT LIBRARY

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TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY

CORPORATE SOCIETY

California Pioneers.

ORATION:

BY HON. LANSING B. MIZNER,

POEM :

BY THOS. G. SPEAR, ESQ.

Members of the Society.

SAN FRANCISCO:

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY
1870.

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TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY

CORPORATE SOCIETY

California Pioneers.

ORATION:
BY HON. LANSING B. MIZNER,

POEM :
BY THOS. G. SPEAR, ESQ.

Members of the Society.

SAN FRANCISCO:

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY.
1870.

TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY

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SEPTEMBER 9th, 1870.

In pursuance of the provisions of its Constitution, the Society
of California Pioneers, on the 9th of September, celebrated the
Twentieth Anniversary of its organization, and of the admission of
California into the Union, in the following manner :

At 9 o'clock, A. M., the members, with their families, friends and
invited guests, numbering in all about fifteen hundred, embarked on
board the Steamer Capital, E. A. Poole, Captain, to make an excur
sion to Mare Island. Among the guests were Gen. Wm. T. Sher
man, Maj. Gen. Schofield, Admiral Farquhar, of the English
squadron, and their several staffs, other officers of the United States
Army and Navy, Federal officers, State officers, Military and Civil,
Foreign Consuls, etc. Passing Alcatraz, a general salute was fired.
Arrived at Vallejo, delegations from that place, from Sacramento,
Napa and Sonoma, to the number of several hundred, joined the
party. At the Island, the excursionists were received by Commo
dore Goldsborough and other officers of the Navy, there stationed.
Having formed in line, they proceeded to the Hall prepared for the

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occasion, where, having been called to order by President Carter,
the following exercises were held :

Prayer by Rev. J. A. BENTON, Chaplain of the Society.
Oration by Hon. L. B. MIZNER.
Poem by THOS. G. SPEAR, Esq.
Benediction by Rev. A. WILLIAMS.

After this, Hon. J. B. FRISBIE, in appropriate terms, presented
to Gen. SHERMAN the Badge of the Society, and the General re
sponded in a felicitous manner. During the literary exercises, a
delegation of three hundred Stockton Pioneers arrived. The exer
cises being concluded, those who pleased engaged in the dance
until 4i o'clock, P. M., when the signal for departure was sounded,
salutes were fired from the batteries, the country delegations were
landed at Vallejo, and at 7£ o'clock, P. M., the excursionists
reached the city without aught having occurred to mar the fes
tivities of the day.

ORATION.

MR. PRESIDENT, FELLOW PIONEERS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :

Reticent indeed would be the individual who could not, under
the circumstances that now surround us, utter some word of con
gratulation to the " California Pioneers," and to assure them that
the results of their early trials and privations — their wanderings
far from home, wives, children and friends — are appreciated by all
who now enjoy the blessings of this great commonwealth on the
Pacific.

Again have we assembled, as is our annual custom, to com
memorate the origin of our Society, and to celebrate the advent
of our State into the National Union. A century has not yet passed
since our forefathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their
sacred honor, to the defence and maintenance of that liberty and
independence which we, as their descendants, and citizens of that
Union, now enjoy. But twenty years — two decades — a simple
score of years, have passed away, since you, and I, and all of us,
fellow Pioneers, welcomed the news that California — the Golden
State — she who dallied and lingered last with the setting sun, had
become a member of our glorious Union, thereby adding another
star to that banner which is the emblem of free government and
individual liberty throughout the world. It seems but yesterday
to many of us, of this vicinity, that the steamer bearing the news
of our admission into the family circle of States passed through
our Carquinez Straits, and by her booming cannon, which echoed

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along our valleys, conveyed the intelligence to the people, and
made it inappropriate to speak of the balance of our common
country as " The States" for we were then one of them. What
memories of the past crowd upon us, as from this gay and brilliant
assemblage — from this brink and *shore of time — we look back to
the day of our arrival upon the Pacific ; with what hopes, what am
bitions, what aspirations came we ladened ? One perchance em
bodied the last lingering hope of a dear, sainted, widowed mother,
upon whom the hand of adversity had laid too heavily ; whose little
all, even her health, had been spent in toil and care for her darling
boy, pressing him to her heart, and pointing Westward, bid him
hie to California, where he might carve out for him and her, if not
a fortune, at least a competency. None but a parent can know
with what feelings of anguish that mother saw the form of her only
born fade from her sight ; how in her new desolation she poured
upon his wandering way her earnest prayer ; how for long weary
days, weeks, months and even years, she waited for tidings of the ab
sent one, scanned the newspapers for some clew of his whereabouts,
shuddered at the recital of accidents by land and sea ; how in her
nightly dreams, the horrors of Indian massacres and terrible ship
wrecks oppressed her brain, until suspense ten-fold worse than re
ality was fast driving her to despair ; when some friend or ac
quaintance writes her from the land of gold, that on a certain day,
in a certain gulch or mining camp, her son had sickened and died.
Oh! could all the aggregated wealth of Christendom console that
poor woman — crushed, broken-hearted, weighed down to earth : —
but that small still voice which ever attends the good, whispers to
her, there is a brighter land hereafter ; thus consoled and sus
tained, she stands erect and lives in the faith that earthly partings
are but temporary. Another in the fullness of early manhood,
leaves wife and children behind, comes determined to succeed and
return to the loved ones at home, with means sufficient to secure
for them that position in society which family associations or laudable

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ambition might seem to demand ; earnest, bold, honest, he em
barked in whatever appeared to offer the realization of his hopes ;
it made but little difference what — mining, or mule driving, banking
or lawing, running a steam engine or a restaurant — it was all the
same to him, so success wa? reasonably certain. It is scarcely
necessary to say that a large majority of such, after the ups and
downs usually incident to a new country, were crowned with the
reward their patience and industry deserved, and either returned
to their Eastern homes, after a few years, where they found the
children a little older, the girls thinking of the new fashions, the
boys bargaining for razors, and the wife (dear soul) who had for
years been the head of the family, looking a shade less youthful,
but more lovely in her womanly prime ; or as was more frequently
the case, feeling averse to losing any precious time in the great
race for fortune, would send for their families, who in due course of
time would, via New York, Orleans, Panama or Cape Horn, arrive
in the harbor of San Francisco, there to be re-united, the family
once more itself again. Debtors came, impressing their home cred
itors with hopes of future collections ; it is a fact, however, praise
worthy or otherwise, that it was sometimes thought more conducive
to the general prosperity of a new State to keep all our resources
on this side, and crossing the bar outside the Golden Gate was
often considered as barring the collection of old debts — a kind of
" Statute of Limitations." No fault was ever found on this score
however, for the reason that the great prosperity which followed
the efforts of Californians amply repaid all demands. The sons of
the wealthy and influential came, consoling themselves with the
idea that whatever freaks the fickle Goddess Fortune might take,
they would be safe ; that remittances from " the old folks at home"
would be sufficient for all their wants, thus failing to rely on their
own individual exertions. The home supply after a brief time
ceased ; and these young men, too proud or too indolent to work, eked
out a rather precarious existence for a few years, and finally in nine

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cases out often, abandoned the race to those who had no other backing
than their own strong arms and wills, thus teaching that it is far bet
ter to give our young men correct early training, inculcating habits of
industry and economy, than to leave them untold wealth. The
sharp-witted speculator came, he of Wall street, the land districts,
the Exchange and the Bourse, who having had many a contest
with the figurative Bulls and Bears of the stock market, desired to
see these animals in their wild and pristine condition — they laid out
embryo cities, frequently on other people's land ; they embellished
them on maps, with plazas, towers, domes and minarets ; sold corner
lots for fabulous prices, if the amounts indicated in the deeds were
correct ; grand schemes on paper were inaugurated, the funds to
maintain which were to be forthcoming when they should " strike
it rich in the lower tunnel," and actual bills for expenses were not
paid for the reason that the " coin was not in the country."
Mathematical instruments sufficiently minute have not yet been in
vented to measure the exact benefit this class ever was to the
State ; but as the Almighty never made or did anything in vain, it
is but charitable to concede that they were also necessary to the
grand aggregate of the most cosmopolitan -country the world ever
saw, the uttermost ends of the earth being represented among us.
But by far the most important class which came by land and by sea,
o'er mountain and plain, from the East and South, from the vine-
lands of Germany and France, sunny Spain and Italy, from
England and gallant old Ireland, from North and South America,
was the young and hardy sons of toil — they who from their youth
had been trained to occupation and labor, and taught to scorn the
indolent and aimless life of him who expects to inherit a fortune ; but
thirsting for adventure and a fair opportunity to build up for them
selves homes, names, reputations, they came in the year 1849 by
tens of thousands, having been preceded by only a few hundreds.
How well they have succeeded — what they and those who have fol
lowed them have accomplished — let one hundred thousand happy

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homes, five hundred villages, several large cities and one great Me
tropolis answer ; let our splendid steamers, our work-shops, manufac
tories, grain-fields, vineyards, nut, olive and orange groves, bear tes
timony, and let a healthy gold basis for money values throughout
the world concur.

But above all, higher and greater than these physical achieve
ments, can we point with just pride and exultation to our advance
ment in the scale of moral, intellectual and scientific prosperity.
In support of these we might summon the allied world, and the
procession of our witnesses stretch out to the crack of doom.
There is no field of moral or Christian culture, no avenue to mate
rial, commercial or scientific greatness in which we as citizens or
as a State, have not been conspicuous. The church beckons the
erring and the faithful from every valley and hill-side in the land,
and our missionaries bear the banner of the Cross to millions of
of the heathen in India and the Isles of the sea ; our free schools
offer knowledge to all. Our products and manufactures have be
come the wonder of the world ; our voice has been heard with ad
miration amid the Federal Judiciary, and in the National Capitol.
Members of our Society have commanded with honor the Nation's
ships and fleets in time of war, and led our conquering armies
with the sword in one hand, and the olive branch in the other,
" from Atlanta to the Sea."

It would be well for the lawgiver, in view of the rapid advance
ment of the Laboring Classes in all that tends to true honor and

stability, to realize the fact that henceforth this, the greatest of Na-

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tions, is to be governed by the toiling millions, the hardy sons of the

plough, the hammer and the pick. The laws of nature, the ex
perience of buried centuries, all prove that the prosperity of Em
pires depends upon the frugal industry, honest labor and equal
rights of the citizen, and he is a poor statesman who attempts to re
sist these immutable rules. Of such were the " California Pio
neers." Composed of all classes and conditions of men, who were

willing and anxious to gain a livelihood by the sweat of their brow,
three thousand miles of toil and weary travel, o'er sandy plain and
desert, and snowy mountain tops, amid the dangers of famine and
hostile savages, had no terrors for them — no power to stay their
onward march. Eighteen thousand miles of ocean around Cape
Horn, between decks, twice through the tropics, with unwholesome
food, subject to disease and death, could not subdue their patience ;
and the fevers and malaria of Panama could not deter them from
their El Dorado. It is idle to attribute any motive of selfishness
to our Pioneers greater than that which attends the ordinary efforts
of every individual in the land. We dared unknown gangers, ran
risks against which a respectable insurance office would not have pro
tected us for less than ninety per cent., while our criticising friends re
mained at home and profited by our absence, and the tens of millions
of gold with which we enriched the world. We found here a wilder
ness, a land groaning under waste : it is now populous, smiles and
looks glad ; its valleys of alternate verdure and yellow harvest re
flect back the glistening of eternal snow. We were the fore
runners — the John the Baptists — of civilization and prosperity on the
shores of this great ocean.

What an Empire is growing up from that advance guard of
only twenty years ago ? And all the result of our liberal institu
tions and voluntary efforts. Our great commercial emporium is it
self a magnificent monument to the enterprise and industry of our
people, a parallel for which history fails to furnish — and all accom
plished in twenty years, under the incentive of the greatest good
to the greatest number. No land of the Constantines is this ; no
Tyrant commands us to quit Rome and build a city on the Bos-
phorus, but every man is a Lord of the Soil and the arbiter of his
own fortune. Twenty years, while they dim the eye, whiten the
head and add many wrinkles to the brow and shadows to the heart
of man, are but a span, a mere speck in the lifetime of a State.
Thousands of generations shall go and come, and go again, and

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Monte Diablo clothe himself in azure hue as he does now, and the
surf break upon our ocean-worn strand as of yore : while the
blessing of the free institutions now founded shall still endure.
The imagination fails — we are lost in wonder and amazement —
when we contemplate the destiny of our State ages hence, guaged
by our past progress. Here, around the bay of San Francisco,
breathing the purest air, should grow up a world-commanding race.
No element of deterioration can ever enter, no degeneration induce
a decline and fall ; a climate invigorating, soil and mineral-produc
ing lands rich beyond measure, but exacting labor sufficient to keep
up for ever the energy and intellectual superiority of Californians,
which will but be in accordance with the natural surroundings of
our wonderful State. We have the loftiest mountains, the highest
cliffs and waterfalls, the richest gold fields, the best wheat and fruit,
the largest and tallest trees, the widest ocean, the prettiest women,
and why not the best men ?

Of the hosts which came prior to 1850, many are not here.
Where are they ? Their bones lie mouldering on every hill and in
every valley from Siskiyou to San Diego ; one by one they have
perished. " Sunk in the dark and silent lake." 'T is a time for
memory and for tears ; within the deep, still chambers of the heart,
a specter dim whose tones are like the wizard- voice of Time heard
from the tomb of ages, points its cold and solemn finger to the
beautiful and holy visions that have passed away and left no shadow
of their loveliness on the dead waste of life. That Specter lifts the
coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love, and bending mournfully
above the pale, sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flow
ers o'er what has passed to nothingness. Time in its swift course
has waved its scepter o'er the beautiful and they are not. Re
morseless Time, fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power
can stay him in his silent course or melt his iron heart to pity ?
On, still on he presses and forever : the proud bird — the condor of
the Andes — that can soar through Heaven's unfathomable depths,

or brave the fury of the northern hurricane, and bathe his plumage
in the thunder's home, furls his broad wings at night- fall, and sinks
down to rest upon his mountain crag, but Time knows not the
weight of sleep or weariness, and night's deep darkness has no
chain to bind his rushing pinion," and to his relentless call, thou
sands of our comrades of twenty years ago have bowed and yielded,
as we in our time shall soon bow and yield. Some by the hand of
the savage, fighting fell, some overwhelmed by mountain snows,
and driven to feed upon human flesh, which nourished not, found
their sepulcher ; others in lonely mining camps or by the wayside,
neglected, without attendants or comforts, longing for the sweet
care of mother, sister or wife ; passed away, and no stone or mark
indicates their last resting-place. Violence, dissipation and despair
have claimed their victims ; and in a few years " California Pio
neers" will be as scarce as the survivors of the Revolution, and all
they can hope for is, that their descendants may be instrumental in
transmitting unimpaired to an endless posterity this great State
and its free institutions. Then to our fellow Pioneers who have
gone to the grave, we bid a generous, manly, long farewell ; and if
by an inscrutable Providence it be so ordained that your spirits
hover around us now, give us your blessing, and inspire us with
the virtue, patriotism and nerve to go on and complete the great
work you have begun ; and above all teach us charity to all men,
that we may forgive as we expect to be forgiven ; that all our dif
ferences, sectional, political, or otherwise may be settled upon the
altar of our common Country; all our disputes be subject to the fiat
of the courts and the ballot box, and " those who make the wars,
be the only men to fight."

In the brief time allotted to such an address as this, it would be
out of place, as well as unnecessary, for me to attempt anything
like a detailed history of the discovery and settlement of California,
that task having been so admirably performed by many of my pred
ecessors, and more particularly by the late gifted Edmund Ran-

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dolph — peace to his ashes — that a mere allusion to our early his
tory will suffice. The Spaniards, the Mexicans, and the English,
were pioneers here long before the recent discovery of gold.
There is some evidence, also, that thousands of years ago — far
back in the dim past — the Chinese discovered and, visited this
country, and that the aborigines whom the Europeans found here
are the descendants of the moon-eyed races ; and it is within the
range of probabilities that my successor, who will perform this
pleasing task one year hence, will read translations from well au
thenticated oriental history, detailing the particulars of Chinese
occupation of this land long before the Christian era. But be that
as it may, the first white man who saw California was Cabrillo, 328
years ago ; he sighted and named Cape Mendocino. Sixteen years
later Sir Francis Drake landed near Point Reyes, and reported to
his Government : " That there is no part of earth here to be taken
up, wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold and silver;"
notwithstanding which, gold was not discovered at Sutter's Mill for
290 years latter. In 1602, Sebastian Yizcayno entered San Diego
and Monterey, and in that year held the first Roman Catholic serv
ice, as Drake had twenty-five years before held the service of
the Church of England near Point Reyes. Neither Monterey nor
any of the country north thereof was again visited by the whites
for 160 years. Up to the year 1769, Upper California seems to
have been neglected and forgotten, and left to the undisputed pos
session of worthless Digger Indians, grizzly bears, and herds of
elk and antelope. In that year arrived Father Junipero Serra, a
Jesuit Priest, whom we look back to as the head and front of Cali
fornia Pioneers. From his eiforts followed a system of Christian
izing Missions, which built up homes for the faithful and native con
verts from San Diego to Sonoma ; protected them with many pre
sidios, and established San Jose and Los Angeles for their supply.
From 1769 to 1835, the Church shared largely in the direction and
control of the simple pastoral affairs of the country ; notwithstand-

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ing that in 1822 the sovereignty of the country had been trans
ferred from old Spain to the Republic of Mexico, by the success
ful revolution of the latter. In 1846 California was taken possession
of as a part of the territory of the United States. Soon after,
gold was discovered, and hundreds of thousands of people came.
A Territorial Government was established, followed by our admis
sion into the Federal Union on the 9th day of September, 1850 —
twenty years ago to day. We are out of our teens, but still in our
infancy.

An organization such as the " California Pioneers" cannot fail
to exercise a beneficial influence in the land, composed of immi
grants from every State in the Union, self-perpetuating in their
sons, permitting no discussion on religious, political or sectional
questions, other than in a spirit of mutual concession : — it is the
very embodiment of Self Government ; having for members all
who yet survive of the framers of our State Constitution, they
know what it is to found a State ; they have seen it grow into power,
and be a blessing to its citizens ; — they help swell that great voice
which echoes from continent to continent, " the people are mighty
and will prevail." The handwriting on the wall, which startled the
Assyrian on his throne, appears again in characters of blaze and
blood athwart European skies, indicating this time that the day is
past when hundreds of thousands of brave men must perish, and
as many homes be made desolate, for the inconsiderable object of
perpetuating individual dynasties. To our honored guests of the
Army and Navy, the Executive of the State, Civil and Military
Officers, ladies and gentlemen, we greet you one and all ; thank
you for your presence, and rejoice with you that peace and pros
perity reigns throughout our land : and especially to our distin
guished fellow Pioneer, who has traversed a continent to meet us ;
the head of our armies, General W. T. SHERMAN, we say All Hail !

That dream of the Pioneer, the Great Overland Railway from
ocean to ocean, has now been completed for more than a year, and

the " California Pioneers" have been whirled in palace cars from
Pacific to Atlantic, amid the cheers and acclaims of hosts of friends.
What shall we say, what can we say, of that great work, in compar
ison with which all others of ancient and modern times seem to
dwarf into insignificance ? " Those Titanian fabrics of old, which
point in Egypt's plains to times that have no other record," are but
the aimless, worthless monuments of unrequited toil ; Rome's
boasted Appian Way was but a cow-path when contrasted with this
great triumph of our people ; and more wonderful than all, is the
fact that a people could plan such a work at a time when their
country was contending on the battle field for National existence, re
quiring armies greater than the Persian ever led, and the expendi
ture of treasure that would have bankrupted all the Empires of an
cient times.

Our onward march to power — the position of our world-renowned
Bay, with all its commercial advantages, with its growing towns,
and its great emporium, San Francisco, sitting secure in her regal
and undisputed splendor at the gateway of a world's traffic — seem
to have confused and dumfounded not only the people, but politi
cians and statesmen, who stand in wonder at the promised revolu
tionizing of the commerce of the Earth that is sure to follow a wise
and progressive policy. With all due deference to the general
intelligence of our Eastern countrymen, and of our law-makers in
the Halls of Congress, we may be permitted to say that they fail
to comprehend the greatness of the land in which they live. Ac
customed to bound their Country on the west by the Alleghanys, or
at best by the Mississippi Valley, they are utterly bewildered at
the splash of our ponderous Oriental steamers nearing our coast,
and the thunder of our railroad trains as they dash eastward o'er
mountain and plain, laden with the wealth of the Indies, far in
advance of all competing routes, literally forcing them to look to
the West for all that heretofore came to them from the East. They
are fairly startled with the conviction that the great highway of

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Nations, from Canton to London, is across the Pacific ocean and
our own continent, and that the Golden Gate is the toll-gate where
the Nations must stop, and walk up to the Captain's Office and set
tle. With the experience of ages before him, upon the rise and
fall of Empires, it is criminal for the Statesman as well as the Gen
eral to make a mistake ; he should use to the greatest advantage
the means and opportunities which God in his infinite wisdom has
placed at his control. If the trade and commerce of 400,000,000
of people directly in front of us can be had for the asking, he is
an enemy to his country who would decline it, or throw any obsta
cle in the way of securing it. Never let it be said that free and
enlightened America has driven from her shores that commerce
which has enriched every nation that has ever controlled or even
shared it. Shall we adopt that exclusiveness of which we have
complained for ages, and which we have just been the means of
breaking down ? A single article manufactured by our own la
bor, by our own mechanics and with our own machinery, from our
own wood, wool, cotton, metals, cereals and other products, if gen
erally introduced to the favor of the numerous Mongolian family,
would be of infinitely more benefit to our country than all the gold
mines ever discovered. Every man and woman throughout our
State could then find employment at wages commensurate with
their wants, and the cry of " dull times" be heard no more in the
land. We should tower high and far above the local interests of
to-day, disregard the incendiary appeals of the demagogue made
for personal and partisan purposes, and grasp the great future ; se
cure for ourselves and our posterity — in addition to our other ele
ments of prosperity — a maritime supremacy, which by reason of
our commanding position and boundless resources, shall endure un
til the great pendulum of Time, ceasing to vibrate, shall settle to
its center.

Without intending to be invidious, or in the least to disparage
others, here in the shadow of that vigorous, prosperous young city

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which is to convoy his name down to posterity, I cannot permit the
occasion to pass, without assuring Don Mariano Guadelupe Vallejo,
that the " Pioneers " honor and respect him ; honor him as a true
and upright adopted citizen of the United States — respect him, in
that he was brave and faithful to his former Government. In him
we recognize a noble type of the generous, hospitable Native Cali-
fornian, whose door before the days of hotels and country inns was
ever open, and gave us food and shelter without money and without
price ; a type of that race among us that is fast passing away.
No ! not passing away, but mingling its blood with the Anglo
Saxon hordes, contributing an element of Latin fire and dash to
Scandinavian descendants, which is, and is to be, the perfection of
the human family. Thanks to the blending influence of time,
association and common interest, the Native Californian can no lon
ger utter the melancholy soliloquy of him who was summoned to
answer in one of our courts : " Yb soy un extrartjero en el pais de
me natividad, y no intiendo la lengua que ablan" (" I am a
stranger in my native land, and the language they speak I do not
understand.") Ere I conclude, permit me to allude to another
class of " Pioneers": I mean those of our great and good men who
thought out this country long before many of us were born. Jef
ferson, Madison, Monroe, Lewis and Clark, Breese, Semple, Doug
las and Benton, pioneered this Pacific Coast with their brains, dur
ing the first forty-five years of the present century, in their public
messages, speeches and reports, and in their private efforts they
pictured in earnest and glowing words the advantages of this
Coast to the National Union ; they drew aside the curtain of the
future and saw all that we are now realizing, and are to realize
hereafter, and brought the weight of their great power and influ
ence to secure its blessings to their country. But time will not per
mit us on this occasion to pass any extended eulogy upon them and
others of the great army of Pioneers ; they have built their own
monument, laying its foundation deep in the hearts of the Ameri-

18

can people, and by tfceir own great acts, they " have piled stone
upon stone until the shaft pierces 'mid-heaven, and vaulting to its
summit " they stand there the acknowledged champions of free
government throughout Christendom, and e'en now methinks we
can look down the dim avenue of Coming Ages, and hear posterity
sounding in their ears the plaudits of generations yet unborn.

Delivered before the Society of California Pioneers. Sep
tember 9th, 1870.

The ground is new on which we tread to-day —
New to the Arts and Freedom's friendly sway —
New to the Commerce that has found its shore,
The Saxon race, their language and their lore —
New to the throngs Adventure here beguiled,
Whose labors smoothed the way and cleared the wild
For countless followers, adding, as they came,
Life's social charms to realms of golden fame —
New to the world, admiring, from afar,
As when in Heaven we greet some late-found star,
And grow familiar with the shining sight,
Full of pleased wonder and sublime delight,
Where flaming suns escort their planet trains,
In its bright path o'er the celestial plains.

When, since the pen on History's page began
To trace the life of States, the deeds of man —
To tell the birth of nations, and recall
Their glorious rise or their disastrous fall,
Was there a spot, in earth's most genial zone,
On which the sun's propitious beams had shone,
So long a waste of mountain, plain and sod,
By the dull brute and squalid savage trod,
With such fair vantage for all aims sublime,
As this bright land — this hope-inspiring clime ?

And what was meant, and why the long delay
To give its soil to an enlightened sway ?
Why, through the periods of the darkling past,
Was this clime-trophy left to be man's last ?

( 20 )

What kept its treasures and enticing skies

From the grand role of human enterprise ?

Did Heaven withhold the knowledge of the power

That slept unsought, for more auspicious hour ?

Look at the rule of a spasmodic race,

Whose futile prowess Science can trace.

In vain the Indian the quicksilver scanned —

In vain the Trapper washed the golden sand.

The Priest, devoted to his cloistered task,

Would not to human toil the mines unmask.

But not in vain did Marshall's eyes behold,

At Sutler's Mill, the shining specks of gold.

He brought them forth, that all might quickly know

What treasures slept those silent hills below.

The tale was told from mountain to the sea,

And, bird-like, East, went winged among the free.

The world was stirred, and felt the mighty spell

Which, Heaven-directed, works out all things well.

The rocks relate, that geologic times

Have given the earth its features and its climes —

That complex powers, in Nature's giant plan,

Had worked out wonders ere the birth of man —

From crude to clear, from chaos to the Soul

That moves supremely through the boundless whole.

So with events, that, unsuspected, come

From out the vortex of Time's teeming womb.

They show the world's advances — that the rise

Of races with the soul's Meal lies —

And ever since rude man's imperial part,

While scanning Nature for proficient Art,

Was seen to be, to choose his place of toil

Where'er he loved the climate and the soil,

His westward march, in long diffusive line,

Has seemed intoned with Heaven's serene design —

Whether as nomads o'er the Persian plains,

To where Phoenicia's memory still remains —

Or with the Goths, who left their Northern home,

And ravaged Spain and sacked divided Rome —

Or as the sons of Israel, when the throng

Through drear and desert wastes were led along

From gloomy Egypt, called by voice divine,

To Canaan's promised land in Palestine ;

Or, strangest still of all of Heaven's decrees,

That doomed the Mayflower to uncertain seas,

Filled with the Pilgrims, fired by faith sublime,

Fleeing from wrong to an untraversed clime.

But grand as strange was the resulting good

( 21 )

Born of their suffering, prayer and solitude.

They found a wilderness of rock and sand,

And, while they looked, a commonwealth was planned—

They met a savage, treacherous as the seas,

But, like the waves, their rage died by degrees —

They saw a continent, in which the seed

Of Thought they planted bears no poisonous weed ;

And from soul-blossoms that around them grew,

They shared the fruits of Truth and Freedom too.

Limbs knit to work, minds trained in Virtue's school,

Made the best sovereigns for their country's rule.

They faced all foes that menaced Home and Land —

O'ercame all mischief evil councils planned,

And saw their numbers grow, their power increase,

And wrote their annals in the love of peace ;

Till, far away, where Freedom was a word

Ne'er without Union in its utterance heard —

As temples reared their domes and wigwams fled,

New Border States the sweep of Empire spread ;

And in the West, bathed by the setting sun,

Fair California shone with Oregon —

The wastes confessing man's progressive sway,

From Plymouth Rock to San Francisco's Bay.

Here was the flag the freeman loves unfurled
To front Cathay — still floating round the world —
Here, when Columbia's mountain march was stayed,
And the land shrank its bounds, the sea obeyed,
And Science tasked the aid of steam and sail,
Where'er the keel of commerce could prevail.

And this fair heritage, by Nature planned,
When first she traced the picturesque and grand,
And culled the tints from Beauty's glowing store,
To give her scenes the enchantments that allure,
With all its charms of sunny vales and streams,
And treasures hid, beyond Aladdin's dreams —
This realm of peace, this land of fruits and flowers,
And pleasures sent to cheer life's fleeting hours,
Is theirs who struggled o'er the stormy wave,
With souls all hopeful and with hearts all brave.
And wlien, at last, the haven sought was found
Within the Bay, by mountains circled round,
That echoed back the ship's saluting gun,
O'er sites for homes they loved to gaze upon —
Where from green hills sloped down the smiling plains,
Waiting for harvests of nutritious grains,
While inland seas received each mountain flood,

( 22 )

And Fancy saw an Empire in the bud, —

The voyager felt, with transport in each eye,

Here was the field man's noblest aims to try —

Here would the heart accept the guages given

To do Life's work, and leave the rest to Heaven. %

And those who traversed deserts, worn and tired,
By California's name alone inspired —
Who dared the dangers of wild beasts of prey,
And savage hordes that hemmed each wanderer's way
O'er plains and mountains, where, to suffering's cry,
Came back no answer, none brought succor nigh —
Who, in their saddened marches, turned not back,
Though graves bestrewed the wastes along their track —
Though wreck and ruin marked the dreary way,
While acrid waters brought them new dismay —
With cattle wasting — teams o'ercome and mired —
And ashen plains grown white as beasts expired —
Where gorged the vulture his unnatural maw,
And gaunt wolf, hungry, snapped his rasping jaw —
There, onward as the tide of travel rolled,
Came Donner's fate— the saddest ever told —
There raged the conflict between hope and gloom,
A land of beautv or a desert tomb.

But when the plains were crossed — the mountains passed-
To where the snowed heights sent no freezing blast —
How soft the gales that fan their western sides,
Down which the wanderer with his wagon strides —
How mild the sunlight of the cloudless sky —
How rich the sward his team stands grazing by —
How graceful look the pines — the oaks how green —
With spreading parks and flowery lawns between —
How blythe the wild birds from the branches sing —
How fearless in their pride the gray deers spring —
What grateful odors the pleased senses greet —
What cooling springs gush sparkling at his feet —
What buoyant influence fills the exhilarant air —
What new life-strength the upland breezes bear.
Where a brown carpet all the land o'erlies,
What vales of beauty meet his wondering eyes —
What groves of mammoth redwood reach on high,
Their branching fingers twining in the sky —
With rivers sweeping on their silvery way,
And lakes embosomed where the tules play —
And from the mountains, where his courage fell,
What rows of rounded foothills roll and swell,

( 2-3 )

To where the billows break and islands rest
Upon the bright Pacific's boundless breast.

The Pioneer has reached the Golden Land,

His country's western boundary and its strand.

He meets the sons of other lands and skies,

And onward rolls the car of Enterprise.

He rears his tent — dispels his thoughts of gloom —

Digs in the bar, and plans the mountain flume.

He hews the log to fitting depth to hold

The riffling dirt, and cradle out the gold.

Month follows month, and, as the years unroll,

He sees what Time writes on Life's lettered scroll ;

He sees the village grace the lovely vale,

Where late the wolf awoke his midnight wail —

He sees the city rear its prospering head,

Where merchant-feet were late unknown to tread —

He sees the church with its invoking spire,

Where rash men scoffed the soul's religious fire —

He sees the school-house reared the youth to train,

Whence ne'er went graduate with a vacant brain —

He sees the Law assert its rightful sway

Where Crime had stalked and courted bloody fray.

He sees, on heights o'er which the venturous climb,

The moon-eyed sons of China's swarming clime,

With basket-hat and pole, along the road

Trudge to the mines with his Samsonian load —

A patient plodder with the toiling van,

In this new mingling of unresting man.

He sees the camp, near which his pile was found,

A wreck of cabins — a deserted ground —

The hillocks gone where trees and shurbbery grew,

With boulders, sand drift and alone in view —

The ravaged earth divested of its charms,

Where erst the Placers rallied eager swarms.

But, in their stead, as Older camps decline,

He sees the quartz that tells th' exhaustless mine —

And other sounds along the mountains rise

Than long-toms rocking where the torrent flies ;

And the white cottage, with home's well-housed fold,

Bring sweet content with humbler piles of gold.

He sees the pick and spade, in cumbrous pack,

No longer bristling at the miner's back.

Down the riven gulch, or by the river's side,

No white tents gleam — no busy toilers glide- —

The waters roar in turbid eddies still —

The grizzly growls on the adjacent hill ;

But checkered camp-life and its rugged throng

1 24 )

Are passing to romantic tale and song.

He sees the bold Prospector, far and wide,

Lift up the veils that Nature's treasures hide,

O'erleap the barriers that obstruct the way,

And hold the fields reclaimed from savage sway.

He sees the vineyard or the well-tilled farm,

Where reigned but dearth or weeds, without a charm.

He sees the Trades, the Arts and Knowledge spread,

Where Science ne'er before had reared its head —

The College, wisely planned, with generous dower,

Where Berkeley's muse names Learning's latest flower.

He sees the Lyceum and the Lecture call

Scholar and student to the desk and hall.

He sees the rail-car daily speed its load,

Where he with team lagged months upon the road ;

And where the pony galloped with the mail,

He hears the swift-winged lightning tell its tale ;

And ships in squadrons sailing to and fro,

Where only shallops skimmed some years ago.

He sees a people, strangers when they came,

Ruled in sweet concord by Love's social flame,

And a great State, with all the forms of power,

Born of good impulse in a thrilling hour —

First child of Freedom by Pacific's waters,

And fairest yet of all Columbia's daughters.

And looking East, while conning o'er his task,

He sees Rebellion's hideous form unmask,

And traitors plotting, in an evil time,

To turn the tide of Progress into Crime.

He sees his country's danger — hears the roar

Of battle loud along the Atlantic's shore ;

But in the smoke, and o'er the fiery storm,

He sees a Grant, and Sherman's gallant form,

Leading the legions of the loyal brave

From mountain fastness to the Gulfs blue wave —

Till Treason crushed and Freedom's falchion sheathed,

By Victory's hands the warriors' brows are wreathed,

Her banners proffered to the arms of Peace,

Without star-darkening — without stripe decrease —

Pledged to the right, in Union's Federal fold,

That man may keep what Heaven would not withhold.

For twenty years these scenes have met his gaze,
With new emotions at each changing phase —
For twenty years these marvels have been wrought,
Outstripping fable — opening worlds of thought.
Nay, years that count, by yonder tell-tale sun,
In man's brief life, not less than twenty-one —

( 25 )

Years which have taught, that, swerve howe'er he will,

Man's special mission waits him to fulfill.

His choice in youth might be some useful Art,

In village scenes to play a noiseless part ;

But Heaven's intent, disguised in Fortune's call,

Has lead his feet to scale some mountain wall —

But, where he dreamed the gold in heaps to find,

Meeting but scanty ounces, unresigned,

He, for subsistence, plies his early trade,

And finds of such the Pioneers are made.

Though Wealth's allurements from the mines recede,

Life's social uses keep his days from need ;

And years speed on, by Avarice uncontrolled,

Beneath a climate that has charms untold —

Where Nature scatters Plenty's copions stores,

And rosy Health dwells by congenial shores —

Years that have given the world its Golden Age,

And proffered means man's sufferings to assuage,

If for so grand an almoner could be,

Dispensers meet for poor humanity —

Years that have seen achievements that expand

The soul to heights that higher realms command ;

And that have built, 'midst smiles and frowns of Time,

The path of nations to the Orient clime ;

And made this varied mountain land a part

Of a great Empire's palpitating heart ;

And gained, with scope for millions of the free,

Another shore to search another sea ;

And brought, with changes under mountains mined,

New hopes, new homes, new blessings for mankind.