USA > California > Tuolumne County > A history of Tuolumne County, California : compiled from the most authentic records > Part 36
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THOMAS J. EVANS.
Mr. Evans, whose birth occurred in Rhode Island, and whose early years were spent in Massachusetts, came to
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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY.
California in the spring of 1858. Proceeding first to the northern mines, he finally came to Tuolumne in 1860, and settled at Yankee Hill, near Columbia, and remained there until 1863. In that year he removed to Sonora, and has claimed that place as a residence ever since. Constantly engaged in mining since his arrival, he has made himself conspicuous as a discoverer and owner of quartz mines, several of which, under his management, having become valuable properties.
DOCTOR C. E. BLAKE.
This gentleman, whose portrait appears in this work, is of good English stock, the records of his ancestry dating back to the sixteenth century, at which time they inhabited Little Baddow, in Essex, England. It is recorded that William Blake, of that family, came to America in 1630, and, settling at Dorchester, in Massachusetts, became the progenitor of the numerous Blakes of New England. In the language of the chronicler of that day, he " possessed an ample estate." In direct line between him and the sub- ject of this sketch stand the names of Edward, Ebenezer, Ebenezer the second, and Luther, who were respectively great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, and father of their living descendant. Of these, the grand- father, born in 1732, was a man of note. In early life a soldier, he served in the French and Indian wars preceding the Revolution, much of the time being under the imme- diate command of George Washington. He fought val- iantly at the engagement known as Braddock's Defeat, where the Father of his Country first evinced his talent for command.
There is in the possession of the present Dr. Blake a curious relic-a powder-horn-which belonged to his wår-
Daniel Dewell
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APPENDIX.
rior ancestor, inscribed with the name of Ebenezer Blake and the words "Fort Cumberland," a post of great im- portance in that war. . Ebenezer Blake's sons, Eleazer and Luther, were both men of prominence. The former, styled Deacon, and so regarded in the traditions of the family, was an active participant in the Revolutionary war, serving therein six years, and taking part in the siege of Boston, the hanging of Andre, and other occurrences which are now of historical interest. As before mentioned, the father of C. E. Blake was Luther, who was born in 1775.
Dr. Blake was born in Massachusetts, in 1828, on No- vember 22d. He came to California by way of New Orleans and Panama, leaving the former place on the steamer Fal- con, in company with Dr. Gwin, Gregory Yale, and others who have since become well known in this State. Being detained for some weeks at Panama, on account of the lack of transportation, it was only by taking passage on a sailing vessel that he, with a large number of fellow-passengers, were enabled even then to reach San Francisco. Asit was, the passage occupied seventy days, and was full of inci- dent, inconveniences and discomforts, even sufferings, arising from insufficient food and water. To such a state of desperation were the passengers driven, that a pros- pective mutiny was in progress during the whole voyage. Finally arriving in San Francisco on January 10, 1850, the Doctor proceeded to Sacramento and secured employment in painting the now historic steamer Senator, then lying at that city. During that year he visited the mines at Foster's Bar and Trinity, at the latter region a " boom " being in progress. In September, 1850, he arrived in Tuolumne County. His first labors were in digging a ditch in Sonora, near the business house of Page, Bacon & Co., and he was so fortunate as to strike a rich lead, while engaged on the ditch, which was the first considerable find yet discovered.
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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY.
The Doctor relates that in one day, the six who were part- ners took out twelve pounds of gold.
Beginning in 1851 to practice dentistry, the Doctor opened the first dental office in Sonora, on the ground where the old adobe building afterwards rose, adjoining the present store of O'Brien. During the half dozen years of his stay in Sonora, the Doctor made frequent changes of his place of business, as were made necessary by the fires which ravaged the town, burning the gentleman's office three or four times. Leaving Sonora in 1857, he has re- sided since in San Francisco, practicing his profession.
The Doctor's family consists of his wife, who was born Miss Laura Hands, and is a native of New York, and their five children: Alfred E., born October 16, 1861; Sherman T., born November 21, 1864; Louis S., born April 10, 1866; Laura May, born June 29, 1867; and Robert Johnson, born July 20, 1875.
WILLIAM A. DUCHOW.
Mr. Duchow, who may be regarded as a typical journal- ist of the State, after many years passed in the active life incident to his craft, came to reside in Sonora in 1872. The impelling cause of his residence in the county seat was the establishment of that deserving and ably directed sheet the Tuolumne Independent, in 1872. Previous to this his journalistic career had been varied. Coming from Salem, Massachusetts, his birthplace, some thirty years ago, he settled at Columbia and engaged in newspaper work, type- setting and editing, his first venture being upon the Co- lumbia Gazette. During the years in which the brothers Duchow (John C. and William A.) conducted the Gazette and Southern Mines Advertiser, and afterwards the equally able and well conducted Tuolumne Courier, the flush times
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APPENDIX.
of Columbia were passed, and many incidents are narrated by Mr. Duchow which show his intimate knowledge and participation in the stirring affairs of that epoch. Leaving Columbia in 1859, Mr. Duchow became foreman of the Daily Argus and Weekly Democrat, papers published in Stockton. Later he lived for a while in San Francisco, working as printer, and then taking a contract to issue a paper for Aleck Montgomery in Napa. In San Francisco he became one of the proprietors of the San Francisco Times, a newspaper which was run by an association of printers. Frank M. Pixley, the present brilliant editor of the Argonaut, was editor of their sheet. Later on Mr. Du- chow went to Santa Cruz, interesting himself in the Senti- nel, of that place. Later still, the Pajaro Times, a paper published at Watsonville, engrossed his care. This, the largest country sheet published in California, was run by the firm of McQuillan, Kearney and Duchow, and did & thriving business, succeeding even beyond the anticipations of the proprietors.
After five years spent in Alameda, Mr. Duchow returned to Tuolumne, engaging in the publication of the Indepen- dent with his brother, John Duchow, previously oftentimes mentioned as connected with the newspapers of Columbia, and respecting whom it may be said that no living journal- ist has ever maintained a more upright and consistent course, struggling always to the utmost of his powers to uphold the purity of his newspaper and to elevate the con- dition of his fellow citizens.
Mr. W. A. Duchow married in Monterey county Miss Mettre Whitlock, daughter of Dr. Whitlock, now of Inyo County. The pair have five children-Earl M., Daisy, Wil- liam A., Harvey G. and Raphael.
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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY.
JOHN B. STETSON.
Mr. Stetson, whose portrait is presented herein, was born in Kingston, Massachusetts, on the 27th of March, 1831. He came to California in 1852, arriving in San Francisco in September. Somewhat later in that year, he arrived at Shaw's Flat, in Tuolumne county, afterwards entering into business at Columbia as a dealer in hard- ware; his firm being known as Osgood & Stetson. Re- maining in Columbia until 1860, the firm then removed to San Francisco and opened a store where the Occidental Hotel now stands, continuing in the hardware business. In 1877, his partner having retired, Mr. Stetson conducted the business alone for one year, at the end of that time forming a partnership with others under the designation of Holbrook, Merrill & Stetson. The business house of this great firm is now No. 225 Market street.
Mr. Stetson is a man of family, having four children- Sarah F., Nellie M., Albert L. and Harry N. Mrs. Stet- son, formerly Miss Maria Slack, is a native of Pennsyl- vania.
The gentleman, like many of the former settlers of Tuol- umne County, carries in his memory a very large store of reminiscences of the early days. Among these recollections, some relating to the time of his stay at Shaw's Flat are pe- culiarly interesting. It is related that during the time in which he there resided he held the office of constable, as- sisting in the capture of Ned McCaulley, who murdered Bond, an account of which has been given. The circum- stances of the capture not having been mentioned, place may be given here. The slayer had, previous to the kill- ing, been engaged in an assault, for which he had been brought before Judge Drake at the Flat, and allowed to go on his promise to return later, when sentence would be pronounced. This somewhat loose way of transacting af-
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APPENDIX.
fairs had a painful result, for it gave the desperado an op- portunity of seeking the quarrel which led to such a lamentable result. When the murder took place, Mr. Stetson set out to apprehend McCaulley, but was unable to ascertain his whereabouts, because none of the neighbors cared to win the enmity of his gang. At last a half-breed secretly gave the desired information, and, securing help, Mr. Stetson proceeded in the gloom of the evening, and apprehended the murderer, who was awaiting the arrival of his friends, who were expected to bring him money wherewith to make his escape from the vicinity.
Mr. Stetson was at Columbia when the murderer of John Leary met his deserved doom at the hands of the mob, being hanged to the flume. The gentleman relates an anecdote bearing upon this affair. J. L. Hamlin, once Assemblyman, was a man of imposing presence, being over six feet in hight. This gentleman, out of his own sense of fitness and respect for the laws which he had helped to frame, stood up at the hanging, and stretching out his hands, cried out that he thanked God that his soul was free from the blood of the executed man! At this a little fellow stepped forth from the mob, and in a calm voice said to Hamlin that if he uttered another word they would hang him too. The ridiculous part of the story relates to the terrified departure of the moral law- maker, as he rose to a full appreciation of these words and retired from the scene with a velocity that made his coat- tails assume a horizontal position.
CHARLES B. RUTHERFORD.
Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in September, 1835, Mr. Rutherford left there at the age of ten years and settled at Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York.
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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY.
In the schools of that place, the young Rutherford was a classmate of the late Governor Haight of this State. In 1849 he went to San Antonio, Texas, holding there the position of clerk in the Quartermaster's Department of the United States Army. Going to Mexico for a time, he then went to California, getting to San Francisco in October, 1852. Although obtaining remunerative occupa- tion there, he nevertheless left that place in a month or so, going next to Sonora. He arrived there after the great fire, and set up a tent on Washington street, in which he did business, following his occupation of painter. His first work in Sonora was to paint the apparatus of the new hook and ladder company, and which contained one hundred and fifty members, many of whom achieved sub- sequent fame in their several walks of life.
Mr. Rutherford, in the course of his residence in So- nora, erected the brick building now occupied by Dr. Sears; also the pretty brick structure now occupied by Mr. John Cowie as a dwelling-house.
Selling out to Mr. Cady, Mr. Rutherford left Sonora in 1861 and went to San Francisco in 1861, remaining there two years, then spending one year in San Luis Obispo County. He next went to Oakland, and has been a con- stant resident there since, carrying on his painting busi- . ness at No. 1014 Broadway. He has held the office of Pub- lic Administrator of the county for four years. The gentleman is married and has three children.
DOCTOR D. M. BALDWIN.
The account of the principal events of Dr. Baldwin's life runs as follows: Born in Orange County, Vermont, on the 25th day of June, 1820. At a suitable age he entered Dartmouth College, at Hanover, New Hampshire, graduat-
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ing from that renowned institution in due time. Adopting medicine as a profession, and attaining proficiency in that calling, he settled himself in the county of his nativity, and practiced for a time. In 1858 he left his home, and, com- ing to California, located at Columbia in May of that year. The Doctor practiced his profession with good success for nine years, then removing to Oakland, from whence he went, with his wife, in 1875, to Hay Creek in Eastern Or- egon, to engage in stock raising, which he has pursued successfully ever since.
DANIEL SEWELL.
The subject of this sketch was born in Staleybridge, Lan- cashire, England, on June 12, 1836, and came to the United States in October, 1847.
His parents first settled at Wappinger's Falls, Duchess County, New York, he remaining with them until May, 1854, when he was bound as an apprentice to Stephen Armstrong, a carpenter and joiner, in Poughkeepsie, with whom he was connected until June, 1857.
Following this trade for two years in the State of New York, in 1859 Mr. Sewell determined to try his fortunes in California. In September of that year he sailed, and landed in San Francisco about the 29th of the same month. There he stopped only two days, proceeding to Tuolumne County and adopting Sonora as his place of residence.
On April 27, 1861, he became a member of the old Sonora Hose Company, and for fifteen years was identified as one of the most earnest workers in the same. . Of his connec- tion with the Sonora Fire Department, the following facts have been obtained:
Six times Mr. Sewell was elected Secretary of Hose Com- pany No. 1; once Treasurer of the same; twice appointed
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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY.
Secretary of Board of Fire Delegates; three times elected one of the five Trustees of the City of Sonora; five times elected First Assistant Engineer of the Sonora Fire De- partment; and four times Chief Engineer of the same.
To the above flattering record is added the following tribute by a former officer: "Mr. Sewell is a self-made man, having come among us a few years ago as a stranger. By his sterling worth and indomitable perseverance he has endeared himself to his fellow-citizens. During his con- nection with the Fire Department, though the same covers a space of fifteen years, in danger he has never been found absent from his post, nor from our counsels when our in- terests have been at stake."
In 1857 Mr. Sewell, in New York, joined the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows. Withdrawing from the Eastern Lodge in 1861, he became a member of Sonora Lodge No. 10, passing through the various offices, and in the years of 1876 and 1879 represented his Lodge in the Grand Lodge of California. In 1862 he associated himself with Bald Mountain Encampment No. 4 of the same order, from time to time filling the different official places in the same, and at the time of his departure for the Bay City held the posi- tion of Scribe.
Mr. Sewell was three times appointed City Clerk by the Board of Trustees of the City of Sonora, resigning the of- fice in August, 1879, the date of his removal of business to San Francisco.
While in Sonora, for four years he was a contractor and builder, relinquishing that occupation to succeed W. H. Rulofson, the well known photographer. In the latter branch of business he was quite successful, but in August, 1879, concluded to remove to San Francisco, where he bought an interest in the New York Gallery, on Third street, continuing there at the present time.
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APPENDIX.
During his residence in Tuolumne County, when the public welfare was concerned, few names were more promi- nent than that of Daniel Sewell. It may also be mentioned that he was one of the Committee to receive subscriptions for the opening of the road from Sonora to Groveland, by way of Wards' Ferry, this being a direct route to Yosemite.
In 1864 Mr. Sewell married Lucie Elvira Worden, and has four children: Daniel R., Lillie Eldora, Dell Elvira, and Nettie Mira, all of them born in Sonora.
PRENTICE MULFORD.
Mr. Mulford writes as follows: "You ask me for my biography. I could write you a much more interesting biography, were it not to be published until after I am dead. I should not like to face my own truthful biography. Very few really truthful biographies are ever written. What men write of themselves, or have written for them, is generally a veneer over the hideous truth. It is a re- spectable, conventional dummy, stuffed with skillful eva- sions, if not with downright lies, that is furnished for the edification of the public. It is sad to think of such biogra- phies which cumber our histories, our village libraries, and even our Sunday schools.
Out of consideration, then, for the public weal, and out of deference to public opinion, I am compelled to suppress much that might be of absorbing interest in my truthful biography, and send you only these, the mutilated remains.
" I was born in Sag Harbor, on the east end of Long Island, State of New York, April 5th, A. D. 1834. I was not born exactly as I would like to have been, and could I have been previously consulted might have suggested several alterations and improvements, especially as regards tastes,
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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY.
temper, temperament and facial conformation. However, I am thankful I was born a man, or at least a boy.
" At the age of 21 I shipped as a boy on the clipper Wizard, bound from New York for San Francisco, and thence to China. Before that I had tried several callings and failed in all. My father dying when I was 16, I, the only son, became substantially landlord of the hotel which he kept. I ran this establishment into bankruptcy in four years. Then I essayed an education as a teacher, at the State Normal School, and sickened of that after six months' experience. I clerked in New York city for a year, and was discharged for general incapacity. Then I went 'Out West' into an Illinois land office, where a course of fever and ague discharged me. Returning East, I concluded, that as the land would not hold me, I would try the sea. Hence the Wizard. The sea would not accept me. On arriving in San Francisco, the captain called. me into his cabin, informed me that I was not 'cut out for a sailor,' paid me my wages, and sent me ashore to cumber the ground of California. 1 counted eggs a few months for a living in the warehouse of the Farallone Egg Company, and then shipped as cook on a whaling schooner bound for the lagoons of the coast of Southern California. I could cook a very little, and I could not cook a great deal. The result was, that the twenty men composing the officers and crew of the schooner fared hard for the first three months on very hard fare. Culinarily, I was not a Blot, but rather a blot on a noble profession. At the expiration of three months, I had become so far versed in my calling that the usual profanity on account of 'spoiled grub' attendant on every meal was lessened one half, and before the voyage was up some entire meals were eaten without a curse in- voked on my head. The voyage lasted a year. My share of the proceeds amounted to $250, which I put in circula-
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APPENDIX.
tion, on landing, as quickly as possible. Then I went to the mines. I was landed in Tuolumne County with $18 in my pocket and a sailor's bag of clothing, which, among other things, contained seven vests. It is a truth, that unless a man allows his clothes to wear out equally, his vests will always inconveniently accumulate. A single vest will outlive five pairs of pantaloons. My first service to the community in Tuolumne was rendered at the Golden Ranch, a locality three miles from Don Pedro's Bar and three from Hawkins', where the life was knocked out of Mexican cows a year old, called calves, and other septua- genarian, long-horned cattle, whose flesh was termed beef. For a few weeks I peddled this beef to the miners of Tuolumne. One day the horse ran away and discharged the entire freight of beef in the panniers on the golden sands of California. I picked the steaks up as they fell, stacked them in piles on the road, caught the horse, re- loaded him, led him to the muddy river, washed the beef, and left it, per custom, at the miners' cabins. Next day I was discharged. Then I served a short time at the grocery and boarding-house of my esteemed friend, Robert E. Gardi- ner, at Hawkins' Bar. After allowing another horse, packed with provisions for a mining company, to get away from me and wreck the entire load, I sought other fields of labor. I worked a bank or surface mining claim for two years, at Swett's Bar. It did not pay regularly, perhaps owing to my own irregularities. In 1860 I left this claim and at- tempted the education of the turbulent youth of James- town. I went to Jamestown full of good intentions, but was unable to carry them out; Jamestown at that time held too many 'good fellows.' They were recreative. enter- taining, genial and congenial, abounding in character, in- dividuality, eccentricity, wit, humor, and a keen sense of the ludicrous. Ten of the Jamestown men of those days
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HISTORY OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY.
were equivalent to a hundred ordinary mortals. I must mention among these J. Y. Dixon, the Postmaster and Ex- press Agent, a Louisianian, well educated, and who appre- ciated and enjoyed unwritten volumes attendant on the exhibition of the strange medley of character about him; Dr. Dodge, a gifted man, whose wit and humor inclined to the satanic order; the Sutton brothers-Virginians- who could fiddle or shoot with equal skill; Horace Jones, poor fellow, killed by a cave in Table Mountain Tunnel, who would come to camp and remain sometimes a fortnight lest he should ' lose a point;' Charley Keefe, saloon- keeper and constable, who had a broad smile for every- body; Jacob Snyder, 'The Count,' who was reputed to have spoken tolerable English when he first settled in Jamestown, but became more unintelligible every year; S. B. Minor, an expert in drollery and practical joking, who, as pure and simple good company, Dixon used to say, was worth one hundred dollars a month to any one able to afford him; William Lancaster, an original of the originals, and a standing contradiction to all the laws laid down by the advocates of cold water as a means of health; Charles Carroll Brown, a gifted son of Maryland, afterwards Dis- trict Attorney, a born orator, a brilliant writer, and always full of original and eccentric conception and humor; Bax- ter, a companionable man, afterwards stabbed to death in the old Sonora Placer Hotel; A. B. Preston, Justice of the Peace, mine owner and speculator; James Lunt, Jailer under Jim Stuart, a whole-souled fellow; James Stuart, himself, former Sheriff of the county, who, coming to Jamestown to escape the pressure of political cares conse- quent on a residence in Sonora, built for himself a cottage where everybody went who could not get accommodated at the Jamestown hotels, and where three often slept in James Stuart's wide French bed while the host took to
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APPENDIX.
the floor; Elton Baker, druggist, a gentleman and man of refined sensibility and taste.
" Such was the ' crowd,' or rather its nucleus, at James- town. There were at times accessions from outlying camps, but the names I mention above were its pillars, its salt. Combined, theirs was an intellectual menagerie. Their acts, their sayings, and their history, would, if prop- erly chronicled, make a notable book. It needs a Dickens or Thackaray to bestow them in the proper setting.
" After teaching in the District School at Jamestown I resigned, probably just in time to avoid being discharged by the Trustees. The trouble was not that I was too fond of conviviality, but I had then sufficient control over my- self in the use of the only element then extant in James- town to put things on a convivial footing. However, all this was indirectly a good thing. Living more correctly, I might have retained the favor of the Trustees, and so have lived and died teaching school. I am sure that all things taken together work for our good.
" Ceasing to be a pedagogue, I again became a miner, and again betook myself to the banks of the Tuolumne. Bank diggings had then not quite given out. I made from six bits to a dollar per day. About this time, owing to the success of the copper mines at Copperopolis, a copper fever broke out in fuolumne. I took it. I became very quickly a copper 'expert.' I discovered any number of copper mines, ranging from Don Pedro's Bar to Sonora. They were valuable mines-to sell. This copper fever and my few discoveries, whose value was based far more on anticipation than reality, fired me with a grand scheme. I organized a company to take up all the ground showing ' indications' of copper that we could hold. 'Indications ' meant a green or blue stain on the outcropping ledge, or the presence of the sulphuret, carbonates or oxides of cop-
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