V.

SAN FRANCISCO AND SACRAMENTO.

1849.

The city of San Francisco[98] then had perhaps a hundred board shanties and cloth tents scattered about. We arrived the fourth day of June and when we returned from the gold diggings the next October there were blocks of buildings, three and four stories high, a busy city of 15,000 inhabitants as estimated. The most prominent business was gambling. Thousands of dollars, yes hundreds of thousands, in gold dust, I have seen lying upon the table awaiting the turn of a single card or the wheel.[99]

A gambler came into the diggings where we were and opened a dive. I saw him on winning a pile made up of ten cent pieces, scrape them off the table and throw them, in disgust, out into the brush as too small a matter to spend his time with. Coins of ten cents were comparatively of the same value there as the cent is here for the reason that they would buy no more; in fact there was nothing on sale, from a drink of poisonous whiskey up, for less than one dollar. Flour, corn meal, dried fruit, sugar, onions, etc., etc., were a dollar a pound. Consequently fractional money was a nuisance. When we went into the diggings our freight from Sacramento cost one dollar per pound. The result of such prices was that thousands of dollars worth of outfits were thrown away; storage for a common trunk was three dollars per month and everything else was in proportion. A rag picker, junk and old clothes man could have found his paradise in the streets of San Francisco and Sacramento in those days.[100]

We put up our tent in San Francisco and remained a week before we obtained a chance to reach Sacramento, vessels being very scarce. We finally found a thirty ton sloop which was about to make the trip loaded with freight; we started late in the afternoon, the vessel loaded so near the water’s edge that the waves would throw water through the scupper holes on to the deck. The captain was a sleepy thick headed fellow, evidently a chance “pick up” for the trip, with an equally intelligent crew of three. There was no system or discipline, every one doing just as he pleased. I have often wondered why we were not swamped and drowned before we reached the mouth of the Sacramento river.[101]

It would take a more alluring excitement than gold digging to induce me to undertake a like trip; in fact the whole enterprise from the outset was a fearfully reckless one, whatever the route taken, around the Cape, across the Isthmus, or overland. It is no wonder that disasters, deaths and total failures were far, far in excess of the successes.[102] Fortunately we induced the captain to cast anchor near the head of the bay for the remainder of the night. The next morning we sailed along up the river very nicely until we reached what was called the “sleugh” a stretch of deep, still water five miles long, having but little current. On the left bank was a thick forest of large, tall trees, the right bank being swampy and called Tulare Swamp. The latter was covered with bull rushes large enough for fish rods, 10 to 15 feet long, and gallinippers or mosquitoes were as large as horseflies and came in clouds. It was impossible to protect one’s self. They would think nothing of the pantaloon leg as an obstruction to their voracity.

The trees on the left bank being higher than our sloop’s mast, the wind could not reach our sails—the north west trade winds blew from that direction—consequently the vessel had to be warped up through the five miles; that is, a large rope shipped into a small boat which all vessels carry for emergencies was drawn out its full length, fastened to a tree and then all hands began to pull at the other end. Thus the vessel by main strength was forced up to the tree. We then anchored and paid out the cable for another stretch. Three members of the crew were unable to perform the task, and consequently we who were passengers had to do the work. At night we would tie up the ship, go ashore, build a big fire, get a meal, roll up in our blankets with our feet as near the fire as possible and sleep, the fire giving partial protection from the gallinippers.

We were five days warping through the “sleugh.” When we again got wind, every man was a fearful yet comical sight, face and hands swollen from the bites of the insects beyond recognition, eyes nearly closed, fingers and hands looking like small pumpkins with sticks in them. We were so long in getting through the warping that our provisions gave out and starvation was showing his grinning teeth very forcibly, but fortunately a boat passed us one day; it had no provisions to spare, but the captain informed us there was a camp of woodchoppers about two miles off; we sent out a committee of exploration; they were gone so long that we began to fear they had become lost in the forest, but they finally came in just at dark with several pounds of pork for which they paid two dollars a pound; all now was serene again.

I think the handsomest sight I ever beheld was while we were laboring so hard pulling our little vessel by main force up stream inch by inch. A large full rigged ship with every sail set and bending to the wind hove in sight several miles below us, the water flying in sheets from her prow. She moved along like a giant as she approached us and passed us as a thing of life, loaded with passengers, her captain in full dress pacing the deck giving his orders with all the dignity of an autocrat as he was. She soon passed us and was out of sight in a few moments, leaving us poor devils exerting our muscles to force our little craft inch by inch. Had our safety depended entirely upon my efforts I could not have used them while that magnificent scene was before us: my imagination was, and is to-day, so charmed with its soul inspiring beauty that I was completely overwhelmed with the scene and was unconscious of our condition. It was the most striking because of the great contrast between the conditions of the two vessels.

When we finally arrived at Sacramento that ship was moored to the bank with her sails all furled. I went aboard of her one day to take a good look at her and whom should I run against but Vincent Page of Unadilla, sitting on a stool cleaning up his gun. Through him I learned of R. G. Mead, Charles Smith, Henry Wright and others.[103]

Sacramento when we landed was a city in name only; there were only two board shanties, one being a store house for dry hides collected for shipment and market, the only business in the country previous to the gold excitement. The plot of land embraced in the city limits was originally owned by that old and now famous settler, Captain Sutter, who had a large ranch under a title from the Mexican Government. His residence was surrounded by a heavy wall for protection against attacks from Indians. In his later life he was unfortunate, with irregular pursuits, and finally lost his estate piecemeal and died in comparative poverty.[104]

Among his professed friends was “Sam” Brannon, a Mormon who managed to get title to the section embraced in the city which numbered in population the following October, when we returned from the diggings, 10,000.[105] Jay Street was built up with imposing two and three story solid blocks for a long distance back from the river; buildings of all descriptions were springing up in all directions. Had our company not been blinded, as were nine-tenths of the men who came into the country, by the gold fever, we might have made our “pile” in three months without seeing the diggings or doing a single stroke of labor. We were among the first to arrive and of course knew of the vast multitude who were on the way.

Had we invested what little of our capital we had left, with running our credit as far as it would carry us, in real estate, we could have been ready to return home when I did, the following November with all the money necessary for any reasonable company of men, but the argument was that we had started for the diggings where gold could be shoveled up like wheat in the bin. I made an effort with my company to allow me to remain, put up a big cloth house, open a hospital, put out my sign and they go to the mines. I had an interview with Brannon and he advised carrying out the idea by all means, and told me to select my location—that I might have any lot on Jay Street, now the Broadway of the city, for $300, and have six months’ time for payment. I selected two adjoining 25 foot fronts, but I could not prevail upon my company to release me. I was their physician and must be with them. The next October, when we returned for the winter from the mines these lots had been sold for $13,000 each and were occupied by fine three-story buildings.[106]

We arranged to have two of our company, who understood butchering, remain in Sacramento and open a market. Just across the river was a large ranch devoted to raising cattle for their hides. We made a bargain with the owner to sell us cattle as we wanted them to kill at $13 per head and furnish two men to help catch and drive them to the slaughter house. Beef was selling at 75 cents a pound just as fast as it could be cut up. On the morning when we were to start for the mines these two rebelled and thus broke up our arrangements.

After selling what of our outfit we could and throwing away the balance except our trunks, which we stored, we made a bargain with a man from Connecticut whom our captain accidentally met and recognized as formerly a professor in Yale College—his name I cannot recall. He had invested in a pair of oxen and a lumber wagon, and was hauling freight for a living.[107] We paid him one dollar per pound for carrying our kit on to the Middle Fork of the American river, or as near as the team could haul the load. The distance was estimated, I think, as 80 miles from Sacramento.

The party all had to walk, of course, and camp out at night. Except for being disturbed by the howling of wolves—and a big fire would keep them at a proper distance—camping out in the open air was really a luxury after a hard day’s journey in the hot sun. The air, during the dry season of the year—seven to nine months—is devoid of moisture; the regular northwest trade winds are robbed of all moisture while passing over the snow mountains, where it is condensed and falls as snow; there are no dews, but a delicious coolness calling for a pair of woolen blankets to lie under.

Sacramento City is situated at the junction of the American river with the Sacramento. We stopped there a week and decided to go on to the Middle Fork of the American. The American river is made up of three branches—north, middle and south. To reach the middle fork we had to follow up the main river some 40 miles when we struck the mouth of the south fork on which was located the sawmill built by Mr. Sutter, where the first gold was discovered in the tail raceway.[108] Here we exchanged our ox-team mode of travel for a train of mules.[109]