USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs : also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 27
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boxes carried away the gravel and rocks, the gold remaining in the riffles. Quicksilver was placed between the riffles to catch the fine gold. The gold amalgamated with quicksilver was cleaned out of the boxes at the end of the day's work and separated from the quicksilver in a re- tort. These were the principal methods of mining used by the argonauts. The machinery and ap- pliances were simple and inexpensive. Hy- draulic mining came in later, when larger cap- ital was required and the mines had fallen into the hands of corporations.
When the news spread throughout the states of the wonderful "finds" of gold in California, the crudest ideas prevailed in regard to how the precious metal was to be extracted from the earth. Gold mining was an almost un- known industry in the United States. Only in a few obscure districts of North Caro- lina and Georgia had gold been found, and but very few people outside of these dis- tricts had ever visited the mines. Not one in ten thousand of those who joined the rush to California in 1849 had ever seen a grain of virgin gold. The idea prevailed among the gold seekers that the gold being found in grains it could be winnowed from the sand and earth in which it was found like wheat is separated from chaff. Imbued with this idea Yankee ingenuity set to work to invent labor-saving machines that would accomplish the work quickly and enrich the miner proportionally. The ships that bore the argonauts from their native land car- ried out a variety of these gold machines, all guaranteed to wrest from the most secret re- cesses the auriferous deposits in nature's treasure vaults. These machines were of all varieties and patterns. They were made of cop- per, iron, zinc and brass. Some were operated by means of a crank, others had two cranks, while others were worked with a treadle. Some required that the operator should stand, others allowed the miner to sit in an arm chair and work in comfort.
Haskins, in his "Argonauts of California," describes one of these machines that was brought around the Horn in the ship he came on: "It was in the shape of a huge fanning mill, with sieves properly arranged for sorting
the gold ready for bottling. All chunks too large for the bottle would be consigned to the pork barrel." (The question of bringing home the gold in bottles or barrels had been seriously discussed and decided in favor of barrels be- cause these could be rolled and thus save cost of transportation from the mines.)
"This immense machine which, during our passage, excited the envy and jealousy of all who had not the means and opportunity of se- curing a similar one required, of course, the services of a hired man to turn the crank, whilst the proprietor would be busily engaged in shov- eling in pay dirt and pumping water; the greater portion of the time, however, being required, as was firmly believed, in corking the bottles and fitting the heads in the barrels. This ma- chine was owned by a Mr. Allen of Cambridge, Mass., who had brought with him a colored servant to manage and control the crank por- tion of the invaluable institution.
"Upon landing we found lying on the sand and half buried in the mud hundreds of similar machines, bearing silent witness at once to the value of our gold saving machines without the necessity of a trial."
Nor was it the argonaut alone who came by sea that brought these machines. Some of these wonderful inventions were hauled across the plains in wagons, their owners often sacri- ficing the necessities of life to save the prized machine. And, when, after infinite toil and trou- ble, they had landed their prize in the mines, they were chagrined to find it the subject of jest and ridicule by those who had some experience in mining.
The gold rush came early in the history of California placer mining. The story of a rich strike would often depopulate a mining camp in a few hours. Even a bare rumor of rich dig- gings in some indefinite locality would send scores of miners tramping off on a wild goose chase into the mountains. Some of these rushes originated through fake stories circu- lated for sinister purpose; others were caused by exaggerated stories of real discoveries.
One of the most famous fakes of early days was the Gold Lake rush of 1850. This wonder- ful lake was supposed to be located about two
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hundred miles northeast of Marysville, on the divide between the Feather and the Yuba rivers. The Sacramento Transcript of June 19, 1850, says: "We are informed by a gentleman from Marysville that it is currently reported there that the Indians upon this lake use gold for their commonest purposes; that they have a ready way of knocking out square blocks, which they use for seats and couches upon which to place their beds, which are simply bundles of wild oats, which grow so profusely in all sections of the state. According to report also they use for fishhooks crooked pieces of gold and kill their game with arrows made of the same material. They are reported to be thunderstruck at the movements of the whites and their eagerness to collect and hoard the materials of the very ground upon which they tread.
"A story is current that a man at Gold Lake saw a large piece of gold floating on the lake which he succeeded in getting ashore. So clear are the waters that another man saw a rock of gold on the bottom. After many ef- forts he succeeded in lassoing the rock. Three days afterward he was seen standing holding on to his rope."
The Placer Times of Marysville reports that the specimens brought into Marysville are of a value from $1,500 down. Ten ounces is re- ported as no unusual yield to the pan. The first party of sixty which started out under guidance of one who had returned successful were assured that they would not get less than $500 each per day. We were told that two hun- dred had left town with a full supply of pro- visions and four hundred mules. Mules and horses have doubled in value. Many places of business are closed. The diggings at the lake are probably the best ever discovered." The Times of June 19 says: "It is reported that up to last Thursday two thousand persons had taken up their journey. Many who were work- ing good claims deserted them for the new dis- covery. Mules and horses were about impos- sible to obtain. Although the truth of the re- port rests on the authority of but two or three who have returned from Gold Lake, yet few are found who doubt the marvelous revelations. A party of Kanakas are said to have wintered
at Gold Lake, subsisting chiefly on the flesh of their animals. They are said to have taken out $75,000 the first week. When a conviction takes such complete possession of a whole com- munity, who are fully conversant with all the exaggerations that have had their day, it is scarcely prudent to utter even a qualified dissent from what is universally believed."
The denouement of the Gold Lake romance may be found in the Transcript of July 1, 1850. "The Gold Lake excitement, so much talked of and acted upon of late, has almost subsided. A crazy man comes in for a share of the re- sponsibility. Another report is that they have found one of the pretended discoverers at Marysville and are about to lynch him. In- deed, we are told that a demonstration against the town is feared by many. People who have returned after traveling some one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles say that they left vast numbers of people roaming between the sources of the Yuba and the Feather rivers."
Scarcely had the deluded argonauts returned from a bootless search for the lake of gold when another rumored discovery of gold fields of fabulous richness sent them rushing off toward the sea coast. Now it was Gold Bluff that lured them away. On the northwest coast of Califor- nia, near the mouth of the Klamath river, precipitous bluffs four hundred feet high mark the coast line of the ocean. A party of pros- pectors in the fall of 1850, who had been up in the Del Norte country, were making their way down to the little trading and trapping sta- tion of Trinidad to procure provisions. On reaching the bluffs, thirty miles above Trinidad, they were astonished to find stretching out be- fore them a beach glittering with golden sands. They could not stop to gather gold; they were starving. So, scraping up a few handfuls of the glittering sands, they hastened on. In due time they reached San Francisco, where they exhibited their sand, which proved to be nearly half gold. The report of the wonderful find was spread by the newspapers and the excitement began. Companies were formed and claims lo- cated at long range. One company of nine locators sent an expert to examine their claims. He, by a careful mathematical calculation, as-
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certained that the claim would yield forty-three million dollars to each partner. As there were fifteen miles of gold beach, the amount of gold in the sands was sufficient to demonetize the precious metal. A laudable desire to benefit the human race possessed some of the claim owners. They formed joint stock companies with shares at $100 each. Gold Bluff mining stock went off like the proverbial hot cakes and pros- pectors went off as rapidly. Within two days after the expert's wonderful story was spread abroad nine ships were fitted out for Gold Bluff. The first to arrive off the Bluff was the vessel containing a party of the original discoverers. In attempting to land in a boat, the boat was upset in the breakers and five of the six occu- pants were drowned, Bertram, the leader of the party making the discovery, alone escaping. The vessel put back to Trinidad and the gold hunters made their way up the coast to the Bluff. But alas for their golden dreams! Where they had hoped to gather gold by the ship load no gold was found. Old ocean had gathered it back into his treasure vaults.
The bubble burst as suddenly as it had ex- panded. And yet there was gold at Gold Bluff and there is gold there yet. If the ocean could be drained or coffer dammed for two hundred miles along the gold coast of northern Califor- nia and Oregon, all the wealth of Alaska would be but the panning out of a prospect hole com- pared to the richness that lies hidden in the sands of Gold Beach. For years after the bursting of the Gold Bluff bubble, when the tide was low, the sands along Gold Beach were mined with profit.
The Kern river excitement in the spring of 1855 surpassed everything that had preceded it. Seven years of mining had skimmed the rich- ness of the placers. The northern and central gold fields of California had been thoroughly prospected. The miners wlio had been accus- tomed to the rich strikes of early years could not content themselves with moderate returns. They were on the qui vive for a rich strike and ready for a rush upon the first report of one. The first discoveries on the Kern river were made in the summer of 1854, but no excitem. followed immediately. During the fall and win-
ter rumors were set afloat of rich strikes on the head waters of that stream. The stories grew as they traveled. One that had a wide circula- tion and was readily accepted ran about as fol- lows: "A Mexican doctor had appeared in Mari- posa loaded down with gold nuggets. He re- ported that he and four companions had found a region paved with gold. The very hills were yellow with outcroppings. While gloating over their wealth and loading it into sacks the In- dians attacked thiem and killed his four com- panions. He escaped with one sack of gold. He proposed to organize a company large enough to exterminate the Indians and then bring out the gold on pack mules." This as well as other stories as improbable were spread broadcast throughout the state. Many of the reports of wonderful strikes were purposely magnified by merchants and dealers in mining supplies who were overstocked with unsalable goods; and by transportation companies with whom busi- ness was slack. Their purpose was accom- plished and the rush was on. It began in Jan- uary, 1855. Every steamer down the coast to Los Angeles was loaded to the guards with adventurers for the mines. The sleepy old metropolis of the cow counties waked up to find itself suddenly transformed into a bustling mining camp. The Southern Californian of Feb- ruary 8, 1855, thus describes the situation: "The road from our valley is literally thronged with people on their way to the mines. Hundreds of people have been leaving not only the city, but every portion of the county. Every descrip- tion of vehicle and animal has been brought into requisition to take the exultant seekers after wealth to the goal of their hopes. Im- mense ten-mule wagons strung out one after another; long trains of pack mules and men mounted and on foot, with picks and shovels; boarding-house keepers with their tents; mer- chants with their stocks of miners' necessaries and gamblers with their 'papers' are constantly leaving for the Kern river mines. The wildest stories are afloat. If the mines turn out $10 a day to the man everybody ought to be satis- fied. The opening of these mines has been a 'dsend to all of us, as the business of the en- "e country was on the point of taking to a
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tree. The great scarcity of money is seen in the present exorbitant rates of interest which it commands; 8, 10 and even 15 per cent a month is freely paid and the supply even at these rates is too meager to meet the demands." As the rush increased our editor grows more jubilant. In his issue of March 7, he throws out these headlines: "Stop the Press! Glorious News from Kern River! Bring Out the Big Gun! There are a thousand gulches rich with gold and room for ten thousand miners. Miners averaged $50 a day. One man with his own hands took out $160 in a day. Five men in ten days took out $4,500."
Another stream of miners and adventurers was pouring into the mines by way of the San Joaquin valley. From Stockton to the Kern river, a distance of three hundred miles, the road was crowded with men on foot, on stages, on horseback and on every form of convey- ance that would take them to the new El Do- rado. In four months five or six thousand men had found their way into the Kern river basin. There was gold there, but not enough to go around. A few struck it rich, the many struck nothing but "hard luck" and the rush out began. Those who had ridden into the valley footed it out, and those who had footed it in on sole leather footed it out on their natural soles.
After the wild frenzy of Kern river, the press of the state congratulated the public with the assurance that the era of wild rushes was past -- "what had been lost in money had been gained in experience." As if prospectors ever profited by experience! Scarcely had the victims of Kern river resumed work in the old creeks and cañons they had deserted to join in the rush when a rumor came, faint at first, but gathering , strength at each repetition, that rich diggings had been struck in the far north. This time it is Frazer river. True, Frazer river is in the British possessions, but what of that? There are enough miners in California to seize the country and hold it until the cream of the mines has been skimmed. Rumors of the richness of mines increased with every arrival of a steamer from the north. Captains, pursers, mates, cooks and waiters all confirmed the sto- ries of rich strikes. Doubters asserted that the
dust and nuggets exhibited had made the trip from San Francisco to Victoria and back. But they were silenced by the assurance that the transportation company was preparing to double the number of its vessels on that route. Com- modore Wright was too smart to run his steam- ers on fake reports, and thus the very thing that should have caused suspicion was used to con- firm the truth of the rumors. The doubters doubted no more, but packed their outfits for Frazer river. California was played out. Where could an honest miner pan out $100 a day in California now? He could do it every day in Frazer; the papers said so. The first notice of the mines was published in March, 1858. The rush began the latter part of April and in four months thirty thousand men, one-sixth of the voting population of the state, had rushed to the mines.
The effect of the craze was disastrous to busi- ness in California. Farms were abandoned and crops lost for want of hands to harvest them. Rich claims in old diggings were sold for a trifle of their value. Lots on Montgomery street that a few years later were worth $1,500 a front foot were sold for $100. Real estate in the interior towns was sacrificed at 50 to 75 per cent less than it was worth before the rush began. But a halt was called in the mad rush. The returns were not coming in satisfactorily. By the mid- dle of July less than $100,000 in dust had reached San Francisco, only about $3 for each man who had gone to the diggings. There was gold there and plenty of it, so those interested in keeping up the excitement said: "The Frazer river is high; wait till it subsides." But it did not subside, and it has not subsided since. If the Frazer did not subside the excitement did, and that suddenly. Those who had money enough or could borrow from their friends got away at once. Those who had none hung around Victoria and New Westminster until they were shipped back at the government's ex- pense. The Frazer river craze was the last of the mad, unreasoning "gold rushes." The Washoe excitement of '59 and the "Ho! for Idaho of 1863-64" had some of the characteristics of the early gold rushes, but they soon settled down to steady business and the yield from these fairly
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recompensed those who were frugal and indus- trious.
Never before perhaps among civilized people was there witnessed such a universal leveling as occurred in the first years of the mining ex- citement in California. "As the labor required was physical instead of mental, the usual supe- riority of head workers over hand workers dis- appeared entirely. Men who had been gov- ernors and legislators and judges in the old states worked by the side of outlaws and con- victs; scholars and students by the side of men who could not read or write; those who had been masters by the side of those who had been slaves; old social distinctions were obliterated; everybody did business on his own account, and not one man in ten was the employe and much less the servant of another. Social distinctions appeared to be entirely obliterated and no man was considered inferior to another. The hard- fisted, unshaven and patch-covered miner was on terms of perfect equality with the well- dressed lawyer, surgeon or merchant; and in general conferences, discussions and even con-
versations the most weather-beaten and strongly marked face, or, in other words, the man who had seen and experienced the most, notwith- standing his wild and tattered attire, was lis- tened to with more attention and respectful con- sideration than the man of polished speech and striking antithesis. One reason of this was that in those days the roughest-looking man not infre- quently knew more than anybody else of what was wanted to be known, and the raggedest man not infrequently was the most influential and sometimes the richest man in the locality."*
This independent spirit was characteristic of the men of '48 and '49. Then nearly everybody was honest and theft was almost unknown. With the advent of the criminal element in 1850 and later there came a change. Before that a pan of gold dust could be left in an open tent unguarded, but with the coming of the Sydney ducks from Australia and men of their class it became necessary to guard property with sedu- lous care.
* Hittell's History of California, Vol. III.
CHAPTER XXVI. SAN FRANCISCO.
I N 1835 Capt. William A. Richardson built the first house on the Yerba Buena cove. It was a shanty of rough board, which he replaced a year later with an adobe building. He was granted a lot in 1836 and his building stood near what is now the corner of Dupont and Clay streets. Richardson had settled at Sausalito in 1822. He was an Englishman by birth and was one of the first foreigners to settle in California.
Jacob P. Leese, an American, in partnership with Spear & Hinckley, obtained a lot in 1836 and built a house and store near that of Captain Richardson. There is a tradition that Mr. Leese began his store building on the first of July and finished it at ten o'clock on the morning of July 4, and for a house warming celebrated the glorious Fourth in a style that astonished the natives up and down the coast. The house was sixty feet long and twenty-five broad, and, if
completed in three days, Mr. Leese certainly de- serves the credit of having eclipsed some of the remarkable feats in house building that were performed after the great fires of San Francisco in the early '50s. Mr. Leese and his neighbor, Captain Richardson, invited all the high-toned Spanish families for a hundred miles around to the celebration. The Mexican and American flags floated over the building and two six- pounders fired salutes. At five o'clock the guests sat down to a sumptuous dinner which lasted, toasts and all, till 10 o'clock, and then came dancing; and, as Mr. Leese remarks in his diary: "Our Fourth ended on the evening of the fifth." Mr. Leese was an energetic person. He built a house in three days, gave a Fourth of July celebration that lasted two days, and inside of a week had a store opened and was doing a thriving business with his late guests. He fell in love with the same energy that he did busi-
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ness. Among the guests at his 4th of July celebration were the Vallejos, the nabobs of Sonoma. Leese courted one of the girls and in a few months after the celebration married her. Their daughter, Rosalie Leese, was the first child born in Yerba Buena. Such was the be- ginning of San Francisco.
This settlement was on a crescent-shaped cove that lay between Clark's Point and the Rincon. The locality was known as Yerba Buena (good herb), a species of mint to which the native Cal- ifornians attributed many medicinal virtues. The peninsula still bore the name that had been applied to it when the mission and presidio were founded, San Francisco. Yerba Buena was a local appellation and applied only to the little hamlet that had grown up on the cove. This settlement, although under the Mexican government, was not a Mexican town. The foreign element, the American predominating, had always been in the ascendency. At the time of the conquest, among its two hundred inhab- itants, were representatives of almost every civ- ilized nation on the globe. It was a cosmopol- itan town. In a very short time after the con- quest it began to take on a new growth and was recognized as the coming metropolis of Califor- nia. The curving beach of the cove at one point (Jackson street) crossed the present line of Montgomery street.
Richardson and Leese had built their stores and warehouses back from the beach because of a Mexican law that prohibited the building of a house on the beach where no custom house ex- isted. All houses had to be built back a certain number of varas from high-water mark. This regulation was made to prevent smuggling. Be- tween the shore line of the cove and anchorage there was a long stretch of shallow water. This made transportation of goods from ship to shore very inconvenient and expensive. With the advent of the Americans and the inaugura- tion of a more progressive era it became neces- sary for the convenient landing of ships and for the discharging and receiving of their cargoes that the beach front of the town should be im- proved by building wharves and docks. The dif- ficulty was to find the means to do this. The general government of the United States could
not undertake it. The war with Mexico was still in progress. The only available way was to sell off beach lots to private parties, but who was to give title was the question. Edwin Bry- ant, February 22, 1847, had succeeded Wash- ington Bartlett as alcalde. Bryant was a pro- gressive man, and, recognizing the necessity of improvement in the shipping facilities of the town, he urged General Kearny, the acting governor, to relinquish, on the part of the gen- eral government, its claim to the beach lands in front of the town in favor of the municipality under certain conditions. General Kearny really had no authority to relinquish the claim of the general government to the land, for the simple reason that the general government had not perfected a claim. The country was held as conquered territory. Mexico had made no concession of the land by treaty. It was not certain that California would be ceded to the United States. Under Mexican law the gov- ernor of the territory, under certain conditions, had the right to make grants, and General Kear- ny, assuming the power given a Mexican gov- ernor, issued the following decree: "I, Brig .- Gen. S. W. Kearny, Governor of California, by virtue of authority in me vested by the Pres- ident of the United States of America, do hereby ; grant, convey, and release unto the Town of San Francisco, the people or corporate authorities thereof, all the right, title and interest of the Government of the United States and of the Territory of California in and to the Beach and Water Lots on the East front of said Town of San Francisco included between the points known as the Rincon and Fort Montgomery, excepting such lots as may be selected for the use of the United States Government by the senior officers of the army and navy now there; provided, the said ground hereby ceded shall be divided into lots and sold by public auction to the highest bidder, after three months' notice previously given; the proceeds of said sale to be for the benefit of the town of San Francisco. Given at Monterey, capital of California, this Ioth day of March, 1847, and the seventy-first year of the independence of the United States."
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