USA > California > A Volume of memoirs and genealogy of representative citizens of northern California, including biographies of many of those who have passed away > Part 10
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At Soda Springs, on Bear river, they met Captain Grant of the Hud- son Bay Company, who told them to go to a certain point where they would find one Adams and his two sons in charge of a store, where they could procure supplies ; but when they arrived there they found that the three men had been killed by Indians and they had to subsist on fish until they reached the trading post of Sam Black further on. There they got provisions and went on by way of Donner Lake and Downieville, and when they arrived at Plumas ranch they found it still in charge of one of their brothers. Colonel Robinson and his brother John took up land adjoining Plumas ranch and started a wood yard and sold wood to passing steamers an mined from time to time with varying results, as opportunity presented. Later John returned to Missouri and in November, 1859. Colonel Robinson went to Old Mexico to operate the Nacacharama silver mine in Sonora, in which he had become a stockholder. Eventually he sold his interest in this property and bought another mine, which he operated on the Mexican plan and in a year and a half had a profit of eight thousand dollars. While in Mexico he acquired a good knowledge of that country and its resources and of the habits and customs of various tribes of Indians. This knowledge hie embodied in a book of one hundred and ninety-two pages entitled Sonora, which was copyrighted and published in 1861 and came to be recognized as an authority on the subjects treated. While he was yet in Sonora a party of Californians, of whom his friend Judge David S. Terry was one, passed through there en route to Texas to join the Confederate army. He quickly
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disposed of his interests there and joined them at Mazatlan. They traveled by way of Durango and Monterey to Texas, and from there they went on to Tennessee, where Colonel Robinson joined Company B, Eighth Regi- ment, Texas Cavalry, popularly known as the Texas Rangers, attached to Bragg's army, which was at that time retreating from Stone river to Chattanooga.
.After the battle of Chickamauga, where Colonel Robinson received a wound in the right hip, which disabled him for four months, the Confederate secretary of war ordered him to report to General Magruder, commanding the department of Texas, and he was given command of the Partisan Rangers with headquarters at Bastrop on the Brazos river. In December. 1863, he was ordered by the secretary of war to proceed to the frontier of Ari- zona and New Mexico and there organize a cavalry regiment for the Confed- erate service. At Chihuahua he learned that thirty-two Californians had come from San Francisco to Mazatlan and wanted to join the Confederates. He swore them into service and marched them to the Arizona border and thence to Chihuahua, where he met the president of Mexico, who expressed sympathy for the Confederate cause and received him with great hospitality.
January 21, 1864, Colonel Robinson and his thirty-two recruits from California fought a party of Indians at Sivello, near Del Norte, and were repulsed and he was wounded in the right side. His men retreated, his horse was shot under him and he fought so desperately on foot that he won the title of "the demon." One of his men returned on a big mule to rescue him, and he mounted behind the soldier and the latter was shot dead as the mule dashed forward. Colonel Robinson held the dead soldier before him on the saddle, and as he urged his mule forward to rejoin his men he was shot in the side by the gun of an enemy hidden in the bushes, the muzzle of which almost touched him and the powder from which burned his flesh around the wound, and when he reached a place of safety he found that his overcoat had fourteen bullet-holes in it! They escaped to the desert, but other troubles followed fast. Treatment for his wound was necessary and he remained with an escort of four men and sent the rest of his command to Fort Clark. Eighteen days after the fight at Sivello, he and his guard were cap- tured by the Mexican imperial army, charged with being spies, and might have been punished as such but for the intervention of the Confederate consul at Monterey. The capture was a mercy to them, however, as they had previously been in an almost starving condition, and Colonel Robinson had saved their lives by killing his horse, on which they had subsisted for fourteen days. It was not until thirty days after the battle that they reached Fort Duncon, Texas, and at that time Colonel Robinson was barely ahle to report for duty. In 1865 he surrendered to General Andrews at Shreveport. Louisiana, the last Confederate officer to lay down his arms, and received his parole of honor and transportation to St. Louis, Missouri, where he had relatives living.
At St. Louis he met Dr. Tweddle and was employed by him to go to New Brunswick and report on a copper mine there. After spending four
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months in New Brunswick he went to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and accepted the superintendency of the mines of the Pittsburg & Sonora Mining Com- pany in Sinaloa, Mexico. War in Mexico put a stop to mining for the time being, and he returned to California and thence to the Comstock in Nevada. Next the White Pine excitement claimed his attention until he was drawn into the Diamond-mine excitement, and was one of twenty-one picked men sent out by the promoters of the Diamond-mine swindle to endure the hardships of a trip with pack mules through Colorado and New Mexico and into the Arizona desert. In 1883, while exploring between Rio Puerco and the Little Colorado river, in Arizona, he discovered a petrified forest and took several tous of petrified wood to San Francisco, specimens of which are on exhibition at the Academy of Sciences. Next he became the superintendent of the celebrated Mono mine, at Dry Canyon, Utah, which in eighteen months paid dividends amounting to six hundred thousand dol- lars and was sold for as much more.
Returning to California, he worked mines in this state and in Nevada, with more or less success. In 1879 he was one of the purchasers of the Esperanza or Boston mine, in Calaveras county, California, which he oper- ated for some time. In April, 1892, he was elected the superintendent of the Alaska Coal Company, whose mines are on Kachamack Bay, Alaska. Within three months after his arrival there, he loaded the vessel by which he had gone out with fourteen hundred tons of coal, which was the first brought from Alaska to San Francisco. Since then he has been the super- intendent of the Esperanza mine, the mines of the Hexter Gold Mining Company and the mines of the Emerson Gold Mining Company, with head- quarters at Mokelumne Hill.
Colonel Robinson, as he is familiarly known, was promoted from a captaincy to the office of lieutenant colonel for desperate valor on the field of battle and those who know how faithfully he served the Confederate cause know how well he earned his honorable title. His whole command had been either killed or captured and he had been shot in the breast and left on the field for dead, but he recovered consciousness during the night and with great difficulty made his way to the headquarters of General Bragg, to whom he gave information which saved his army from defeat. In poli- tics he is a Democrat, influential in party councils, and he is a prominent Mason.
He was married March 23, 1873. to Miss Pauline H. Conway, a daughter of Dr. Conway, of San Francisco, who like Colonel Robinson's father was a "forty-niner," and brought eleven children to the Golden state, but who also brought a slave girl named Melvina, who at the Doctor's death chose to live with Mrs. Robinson and has since been a faithful servant in the Colonel's family. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson have had six children, two of whom died in infaney. Their son Bryan, who died at the age of twenty years, June 7, 1900, was a young man of much promise and popularity. The surviving children are William Thomas, Jr., Mae Belle ( Mrs. William Werle), and Ida, who is a member of her father's household. Mrs. Rob-
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inson was born at Los Angeles, California, in 1852. The family have a pleasant home at Mokelumne Hill and are held in high esteen by a wide circle of acquaintances.
PYAM BARTLETT BACON.
Not only has the subject of this review witnessed the growth of Cal- ifornia from a wild country with only a few white inhabitants to a rich agricultural, fruit-growing and mining country containing good homes inhab- ited by an industrious, prosperous and intelligent and progressive people, but has also participated in and assisted the slow, persistent work of develop- ment which was necessary to produce the change which is so complete that it has come to be popularly referred to as magical.
P. B. Bacon, better known as Pike Bacon, was born in Warrentown, Ohio, on the 23d day of April. A. D. 1834, and descended from English and German ancestry. His grandfather emigrated from England to America, becoming one of the early settlers of Kentucky. When the country became engaged in the second war with Great Britain he joined the American forces and fought in what is popularly known as the war of 1812. His son, John Bacon, the father of our subject, was born in Kentucky, in 1806, and mar- ried Miss Theressa Bartlett, a descendant of an old English and German family of large wealth. He engaged in dealing in produce and died in 1838, at the early age of thirty-two years, leaving a widow and four chil- dren,-three sons and a daughter, all of whom survive. For her second husband the mother chose Captain David Green, the captain of a large steamboat plying on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In 1853 the family came to California, making the journey by way of the isthmus of Panama, where they took passage on the Tennessee. Two vessels left the isthmus at the same time, and were soon joined by the third, when they participated in a free-for-all race for the Golden Gate. Two of them reached the Golden Gate before the fog set in, but the one which carried Mr. Bacon's family was unfortunate enough to be in the rear and so dense was the fog that the captain mistook the entrance to the Golden Gate and ran on the rocks. The passengers were safely landed and the next day were taken to San Fran- cisco in tugs. The Tennessee became a total wreck.
The Bacon family proceeded at once from San Francisco to Tuolumne county where Captain Green and his stepsons engaged in placer-mining at Nigger Gulch, a short distance from Columbia. They got very little gold from the first pan, and, their money supply being limited, it was necessary that they work hard and find a good claim in order to provide for their support. Prices were very high, potatoes, pork and beans selling at thirty- seven and one-half cents per pound. Therefore they removed up to another gulch, where they began to take out from ten to thirty flollars per day to the man, notwithstanding the fact they were compelled to pay ten dollars per day for water, and even then it was very scarce.
Here one of the first questions on riparian rights arose. . At the head
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of this gulch was a spring of water which had been flumed out by a miner named Jones and used below for mining purposes. A certain miner informed the Bacon Brothers that the custom was that all waters in a gulch or creek belonged to the miners who were working in the said gulch or creek. Upon this information the Bacon Brothers removed Jones' flume at the head of the gulch, causing a free-for-all fight between the Jones crowd and the Ba- con Brothers, the latter driving the former from the gulch. The question was afterward settled by a mass meeting of five hundred miners, convened at the store at Gold Springs, where the water question was decided in favor of the Bacon Brothers. The same question was involved in a suit in the superior court of this county as late as 1899, in the case of Grant Brothers vs. Jarboe et al., wherein the testimony of P. B. Bacon was used to establish the right of certain waters used by the Gold Spring Marble Company.
In 1856 the Bacon Brothers and a miner named John Stockdale erected and built the first hydraulic used in Tuohunne county, which was constructed as follows: A flume was run into the branches of a large oak tree; at the end of the flume a large funnel made of canvas was nailed and fastened to the branches to receive the water; the pipe consisted of canvas sewed together with a nozzle at the end; and when the water was turned in the pipe line gave the appearance of a large sea serpent, twisting in a thousand differ- ent ways. This was due to the different styles of sewing. When the full force of the water was turned in, the man at the nozzle gave the boys an exhibition of the clown in a circus, the force being so great as to throw him all over the claim, and taking the combined efforts of three men to hold the bucking machine down. However, the work was accomplished, all hydraulic hose being made after this pattern until finally supplanted by rubber hose.
Captain Green and his stepsons continued to engage in mining until the big fire in Columbia, in 1857, when they ( except the subject of this review) assumed charge and control of the City Hotel at Sonora, also the manage- ment of the stage route from Sonora to Stockton. The subject of this review then accepted a clerkship in the general merchandise store at Columbia and continued in that employment for three and one-half years, first as salesman. after which he purchased an interest in the business, continuing the same until May, 1865. During this time he was appointed the first agent for giant powder in this county, by the firm of Bandman, Neilsen & Company, who were the first manufacturers of giant powder in the state, their place of business being at San Francisco, California. Mr. Bacon marle the first test of this powder in the placer claim owned and worked by Schwartz & Company near Columbia. A large rock weighing about forty tons was drilled into and about five pounds of powder used, breaking the rock in a thousand pieces. This test demonstrated the fact that giant powder was far ahead of the black powder then in use, and was afterward universally used by the miners.
In 1865 Mr. Bacon became interested in the hardware store in Sonora now run by J. J. Collins, having exchanged his interest in the Columbia
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store for the same and remaining at the Sonora store for a year. He then returned to Columbia and became the sole proprietor of the mercantile estab- lishment with which he was formerly connected, and which he continued to run and manage until 1872. He was very successful, carrying on a large business, which brought him an excellent financial return. He was also the postmaster for four years, receiving his appointment under the administration of President Andrew Johnson. He was also elected a member on the Repub- lican ticket to the California state legislature, overcoming a large Democratic majority then in this county. He served for one term in that position, with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. In 1873 he removed to San Francisco and occupied a position in the United States mint. until 1876. Subsequently he owned and operated a blacksmith and car- riage business on Howard street in San Francisco, but later sold that enter- prise and resumed mining in old Tuolumne. He is now the sole owner of the Joe Hooker Consolidated Mine above Soulsbyville. In 1889 he removed to Sonora, becoming identified with its business affairs as hardware and grocery merchant, buving out the firm with which he had formerly been con- nected in 1865. He carried on this store until 1896, since which time he has given his undivided attention to his mining interests.
In February, 1865, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Bacon and Miss Marion Helen Bowne, a native of New York but reared in the state of Michigan, and a daughter of John Bowne, a pioneer of that state. Two sons have been born of this marriage,-John Bowne and Charles Gorham Bacon. Mrs. Bacon departed this life on the 15th day of November, 1899. after a married life of thirty-four years, proving to her husband a most faithful companion and helpmate. To her children she was a loving and indulgent mother and to those who had the pleasure of her acquaintance she was a faithful friend.
Mr. Bacon is a member of both branches of the I. O. O. F., and is also a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. His first presiden- tial vote was cast for Stephen A. Douglas, but since that time he has been a reliable and loyal advocate of the Republican party. He has a good home in Sonora, and is highly respected in this portion of the state as a straightfor- ward and enterprising business man and a citizen whose devotion to the public good is widely recognized. He has left the impress of his individuality not only on the industrial and commercial interests of this section of the state but also on the legislation of California, and has borne no unimportant part in shaping the policy and advancement of the state.
J. Bowne Bacon was born September 17, 1865. In July after her mar- riage Mrs. Bacon returned to New York, by the isthmus route, the voyage being a most unpleasant one, for she was sick the entire trip. At Little Falls, New York, occurred the birth of his first son. After spending about ten months in New York and Michigan visiting, she returned to California, cross- ing the plains from Atchison. Kansas, to Placerville, California, by the over- land stage route. J. Bowne Bacon is at present in charge of the Keltz group of mines near the Stanislaus river, which are owned by a Scotch syndicate;
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and is also the owner of many undeveloped mining properties. He still retains his position and appointment as deputy assessor but at present is not in active service. He is a most pleasing young man and has inherited strong traces of his father's keen business ability.
Charles Gorham Bacon, the second son, was born in Columbia, Tuolumne county, on March 25, A. D. 1868. He is at present the manager and secretary of the Sonora Land & Mining Abstract Bureau, which is the leading abstract bureau of the county, and working under the two most approved abstract systems, namely the Rice and the Durfee, and having a complete transcript of all the records of the county. He is also the manager and an owner of the B. B. B. Stone Company, the quarry being located about four miles north of Sonora. The granite produced from this quarry has been pronounced by the best experts as excelling all other granite in this state for monumental pur- poses and equal to the Barre ( Vermont ) stone, which is considered the best in the United States.
He is an agreeable young man, strong in his friendships, having inher- ited these traits of his mother, and ,in business the character of his father.
THOMAS MILLER.
The vast majority of California's citizens can scarcely realize what prob- lems met the pioneers of 1849 as they came to the Pacific coast from the east, with its thriving towns, cities and villages, containing all known com- forts. They found here a region of wild forests and unbroken lands, mile after mile of which has not yet been traversed by white men. With the incom- ing tide of humanity there sprang up a collection of mining camps. Many of the men hoped here rapidly to gain a fortune. They were people who came from good homes in the east and who had due regard for the rights and privileges of others; but there also came to the state during the subsequent years, a lawless element, determined to gain a living and to acquire wealth by robbery and violence, no crime being too atrocious for their perpetration. However, the men of worth at length brought into subjection this lawless element and succeeded in laying the foundation for a commonwealth which is now the pride of the nation. Mr. Miller arrived here a young man full of hope and courage, of vigor, energy and determination. He is now the only sur- viving pioneer settler of Angel's Camp, having outlived all who came to the town in the days of its earliest development.
He was born in New York city, on the 29th of February, 1824. His father. John Miller, was a native of Ireland and was educated for the priest- hood, but changed his plans on entering the church and was united in mar- riage to Miss Mary Duffey, a native of the Emerald Isle. Unto them were born four children. Mr. Miller is now the only survivor of the family. The father died when Thomas was only six years of age, and the mother passed away four years later, so that he was left an orphan when only ten years old. A Mrs. Baker, a Scotch-Irish lady, took him to her home and there he remained two years, after which he entered upon an apprenticeship to the
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ship carpenter's trade, following that pursuit for two years. However, he was possessed of a spirit of adventure and courage and connected himself with the crew of a pilot boat in New York harbor. The last pilot boat on which he sailed proved to be too light for the heavy seas which she had to encounter. Her captain was washed overboard and the others had a narrow escape from death, so that all of the crew abandoned the vessel and Mr. Miller went to sea on the ship Sutton, of New York, on which he sailed for two years. He was afterward a steward on a number of different vessels, which visited ports in various parts of the world. He sailed for nine years, without experiencing even the smallest accident, and in 1849 he made the voyage around Cape Horn on the Harriet Lawrence, landing at San Francisco in December, 1849.
Gold had been discovered by Marshall and all was excitement. He, too, decided to join in the search for the precious metal and went to Stockton, whence he proceeded to Angel's Camp. There were only two log cabins in the town at the time of his arrival. Placer mines were being opened in every direction and Mr. Miller took a claim on Angel's creek, near the present site of the town. The men were all novices at mining, but they soon learned how to prosecute their search for gold and how to separate it from the sand and drift so that they could take out an ounce a day. Some of the men, thinking that a good day's work, would abandon their labor when that amount was secured : but others got from two to three ounces daily. Mr. Miller made his largest find in Dead Horse Gulch, where he obtained a six-ounce nugget, and the same day he took out four ounces additional. He continued to engage in mining most of the time until 1856, spending three years in that way on Indian creek, in partnership with Dr. Kelley. Subsequently he purchased a quartz mine for two hundred dollars and also bought one hundred and sixty acres of land at Albany Flat. He purchased oxen and tools and turned his attention to farming, which he carried on with success. He had also taken up five hundred acres of land, which now lies near the corporation limits of the town of Angels', and this he has subdivided, selling a part of it. On the tract a fine high-school building has recently been erected near the humble residence of the respected pioneer who for a half century has resided here. He has sold other lots, but still has a number of valuable ones. In 1863 he disposed of his farm and has since engaged in lending money, in which he has met with excellent success, being careful in placing his loans, treating those with whom he does business with much consideration, so that he has been very fortunate in receiving the interest money and in finally getting back the principal.
In early life Mr. Miller was a Methodist, but later he came disgusted with what he considered the miserly manner in which the members of the church contributed to its support. He therefore absented himself and attended the Catholic church, where he saw much more liberal giving. He therefore resolved to return to the faith of his fathers, was confirmed and is now a devout communicant of the Catholic church. He has ever been a liberal contributor to movements and measures which he believed to be of public good and would prove of benefit to the town. Hle has been a life-long Dem-
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ocrat in his political affiliations, but has never sought or desired office, nor has he joined any fraternal societies. He has ever favored law and order and is an excellent representative of the good and brave men who came to California in 1849. He has depended upon his own resources, and by following honor- able business methods and manifesting untiring industry he has worked his way upward until he is now the possessor of a fortune.
JOHN E. MANLOVE.
John Edward Manlove owns and operates one of the fine farms of Brighton township, Sacramento county, and he has taken the lead in many departments of agricultural and horicultural labor. He was born at his present home,-the beautiful old farmstead which his father located,-Sep- tember 9, 1861. His ancestry can be traced back to colonial days, for prior to the Revolution Christopher Manlove was commissioned surgeon to his Majes- ty's Hospital on the 5th of August, 1761, during the reign of George III., king of England, by General Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British troops in this country. Accordingly he left his home in Yorkshire, England, and crossed the Atlantic, taking up his abode in New Jersey and a few years later removed to Virginia. It was fifteen years after his arrival before the Decla- ration of Independence was written. He was married in Petersburg and resided there until his death. He had five sous and five daughters, his third child being John Manlove, who was born in Dinwiddie county, Virginia, on a plantation adjoining the city of Petersburg, and became the grandfather of our subject. He was reared to manhood in his native locality, studied medi- cine under the direction of his father and was a prominent physician of Din- widdie county for about twenty years or until his death in 1825. He mar- ried Ann King, who was also born in Virginia and survived him about thir- ty-five years, her death occurring in 1857. Their only son, William Stark Manlove, was born December 9, 1824, at the old Virginia homestead in Din- widdie county. His elementary education was acquired in private schools, and was supplemented by an academic course and by study in the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Subsequently he attended medical lectures and afterward a course in the medical department of University of Pennsyl- vania at Philadelphia, being graduated in 1847. He practiced his profession in Virginia until 1849, when he joined a stock company of about one hun- dred and twenty-five members which was being organized in Richmond for a trip to California during the gold excitement. A committee was sent to New York to purchase a vessel and the Mary Ann became the property of the company, was brought to Richmond, there loaded with supplies and in March embarked on the long journey around Cape Horn. Four days later the vessel sprung a leak and from that time until they reached Rio Janeiro they had to keep a gang of men pumping, the passengers assisting the sailors in their arduous task. They experienced severe storms, but at times the voyage was most delightful, and the last day of September they arrived at San Francisco.
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