USA > California > A picture of pioneer times in California, illustrated with anecdotes and stores taken from real life > Part 11
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told him to take what he wanted, and when he had made his selections I would tell him what he had to pay. He did as I told him, and I went on with my business. In one part of our store there was a room curtained off, where my partner slept, and occupied as a private apartment. In a few moments the miner turned to me, and asked if he could go into this room to fit the clothes he had selected. I answered " Yes," without even looking at him, or knowing what he had picked out. Being in one constant rush of business that morning, I completely for- got all about this man after he went into the room. In two or three hours afterwards I stepped from the store to help to un- load a wagon bringing in new goods. When I returned I was surprised to find an almost elegantly dressed gentleman stand- ing in the store, waiting for me. I supposed he had just come in, and yet I was puzzled as to how he could have passed me at the store door. He was dressed far better than it was usual for any one to dress in San Francisco at that time. He had on a land- some black coat and brown pants and vest, a handsome white shirt with black necktie, a pair of fine boots, a nice new hat, though not a stovepipe, yet a stylish one compared to the usual miner's slouched hat. He was newly and neatly shaved.
I saluted him with considerable deference, but of course with evident wonderment in my manner, for I was puzzling myself to think where the mischief such a man could come from. The stranger, I thought, half smiled, but answered my salutation and inquiry as to what I could do for him, by saying: "Nothing, thank you; I merely stepped in to ask the way to the Postoffice." " Oh," I said, "I suppose you have just arrived; what ship did you come in ? I did not know we had had an arrival this morning." " I came across the plains," said my visitor. I looked at him from head to foot, but for the life of me I could not make him out. I said to myself: " How on earth did this fellow get into the store, and I not see him;" but, giving it up as a California riddle, I gave him the direction to the Postoffice. He bowed, and thanked me with uncommon cordiality, adding, while lie reached out his hand, that he hoped some day to be able to show his sense of the favor I had done him. I took his hand and looked at him, completely mystified. As he shook my hand he continued, with a laughing expression in his handsome eyes: " Oh, by the way, did you see a rough looking fellow, one of those red-shirted miners, come this way this morning ? He
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wanted to get a new pair of pants. I thought he might have have bought them at your store. He is a friend of mine. I must be off to join him; so good-by." And he turned slowly to leave. For the first time the rough, red-shirted miner I had told to go into the room came into my mind. "Why, yes," I said: "I do recollect now." " Oh, you do recollect such a fel- low, then ?" " Can it be possible ?" said I, as the whole truth flashed on my mind. " Yes, that hat is of our stock. That coat, those pants are ours. That pair of boots are of our extra fine ones." We now both went into a hearty fit of laughing, from which we did not recover for some minutes. It appeared that while I was engaged in waiting on other customers, this miner had selected a full suit from head to foot, and when he went into the room he found water, soap and razor, all ready to his hand, so he just went to work and completely metamorphosed himself, while I had forgotten him altogether. We went together to the room where he had dressed, and from under his clothes he drew a buckskin sack, containing five thousand dollars in gold-dust. After weighing out the price of his clothes he tied up the sack and deposited it in our safe. I found that he was from the State of Virginia, and that he and his brother had come across the plains some months before, stopped at the first placer mine they had come to, and made this amount. He had come down to San Francisco for his letters from home, and to make some purchases as a matter of speculation in the mines. He was some twenty-three years of age, a perfect gentleman, and well educated. After a talk with me, he went for his letters to the Postoffice, and soon came back with a large package from father, mother, sisters and brothers. So far as he had read they were all well, and he was in fine spirits. He retired to our private room to read them. On his reappearance, I feared he had found bad news, as his eyes were red and he looked flushed. " No, no," said he; " they are all first rate, and a favorite sister has married a dear friend of ours; but a fellow who has been away off in the mountains and plains, as I have, without having had a word from home, cannot get such letters as these and be a stick or a stone, you know." We continued fast friends while he remained in the State; that was until 1854, when he returned home with a handsome fortune made in business in the interior.
As to the female portion of the inhabitants of San Francisco, in July, 1849, we found many nice families already here. Some
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had come overland, some from Oregon, among whom Governor Burnett's charming family was remarkable. That family of chil- dren, then so interesting to us '49ers, stand to-day, deservedly, first among the first in social position, an honor to the noble mother who never faltered in courage and devotion, amid all the privations of a pioneer life. Some families had come by ships that had reached there before ours, notably the Architect, from New Orleans; the Grey Hound and Grey Eagle, from Baltimore and Philadelphia; some, long before, in the Brooklyn, from New York, and some who had come with Colonel Stevenson's New York volunteers; some from the Sandwich Islands, and some from Chile; notably among those from the last named was the accomplished family of Doctor Poett, no small addition to our society, the eldest daughter soon becoming the wife of Mr. Wm. D. M. Howard, one of our most prominent old-time pioneers. In all these I only refer to American or European families; but, be- sides the American ladies of good family, there were at that time several families of the first respectability who were natives of Chile, though it is to be regretted that many of those left the State a few years later and returned to Chile. From this it will be seen that we had quite a good beginning for a family circle in July, '49. The American lady who, perhaps, drew the most at- tention at that time in all San Francisco was the wife of Frank Ward. Mr. Ward was then the foremost merchant in San Fran- cisco. Mrs. Ward came with her husband from New York; I think in the latter part of 1848. She was of one of the very first families of her native State. She was young, beautiful and most charming in her manners. She was self-sacrificing and unremit- ting in her attentions to other American ladies, who were then arriving every day. But soon came the sad news that Mrs. Ward was dangerously sick, to be followed quickly with the mournful tidings of her death. The death of twenty of her first male citizens would not have made San Francisco half so lone- some and sad as did the death of this one loved and valued lady. Mr. Ward then lived in, for those days, a handsome house on the corner of Stockton and Green streets, the same Mr. Plume, the banker, afterward occupied. The house stands there yet, and I never pass the spot without drawing a sigh in sorrow for the early death of that pioneer lady ; and, as I look at the door, I can in imagination again see her smile of hearty welcome to , us newcomers of '49, ... From this time out
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families increased rapidly, making the place feel like our old ac- customed American home. A little later began to appear in our streets excessively dressed women of another class. At first they were few in number, but in 1850 they became very numer- ous, and made themselves conspicuous in every way they could, They were every day to be seen on horseback in twos, fours, and sometimes sixes. Men living by gambling and politics did not hesitate to consort openly with them. At the opening of 1851 there was, perhaps, one woman of this class for every nineteen well-conducted women in San Francisco ; certainly not more than that proportion. Yet they made themselves so conspic- uous and kept themselves so constantly on parade that one just arriving in the city might get the idea that the proportion of the bad to the good was much larger. These lost creatures were the only class of women known to the authors of the " Annals," it should appear from their book. The virtuous wives, daughters and sisters of '49ers, who were from morning until late at night harl at work at their household duties, seldom having time for ever a visit to each other, they ignore altogether, and leave the impression that there was no such class of pioneers. There was very little furniture to be had at that time in San Francisco. This gave our lady friends a great deal of trouble; but it was sunrising how ingeniously they managed to overcome the diffi- cult;, and make their tents, shanties or houses look neatly fur- nishel with the few articles they were able to obtain. One even- ing I called on a lady friend-a Mrs. T .- who lived in a little shanty that stood in the sand hills above Kearny street, in Cali- fonia street, then unopened. Everything was as neat as a baby houe, and I was surprised to see in the apartment they called the sitting room " what looked like a handsome sofa, covered with rown linen in the neatest style. I could not help saying : " Where did you get that sofa, Mrs. T .? " " Oh, that is a secret," she sal, while she and her husband both laughed. The hus- band en said : "I am prouder of that sofa than if it came from Nw York's most fashionable furniture store." As he spoke he shovd me that the sofa was contrived out of a long box sad- dlery hil been imported in. In a few evenings after this I called Oanother lady friend, a Mrs. W., a girl yet in years. When Wvere eating a supper of her cooking I told the story of Mrs. T.'sfa. " Well," said Mr. W., "please look at my wife's work-thottoman you are seated on." I did so, and found it
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was fashioned out of a sugar barrel cut down and covered with carpet, making it look like a handsome ottoman, that would have passed in any room. Such, my young readers, were your moth - ers-the women of '49. Patient, frugal, unselfish and hard working, you cannot be too proud of them.
Afterwards, in 1853 and '54, when ladies came to join their husbands in California, they found handsome houses elegantly furnished, all ready for them to walk into and enjoy, yet many of them grumbled and growled at everything. "There was too much wind in San Francisco," " too few amusements," "the walking was bad on account of the sand." And so it was with everything, until some of them actually went off home -- or East, for there was no home for them any more-thus permanently breaking up their families. When I observed this, and thought of the women of '49, I could not help repeating Scott's lines :
" O, woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made, When pain and anguish wring the brow A ministering angel thou!"
On Sundays, in '49 and '50, I often took great pleasure in visiting the churches of the various denominations, just to see what progress we were making in the all-important point d ob- taining a worthy female population; and I used to find myself perfectly astonished at the fast increase of both womm and children. Their universal attendance at church was, too, a striking feature of the women of '49. Every woman and hild in San Francisco, not sick in bed, it seemed to me, attaded some church on Sunday, in the forenoon at least. Of corse I do not allude to the abandoned class when I say this. Apleas- ing picture, too, of religious progress in San Francisco , that time was the total absence of sectarian bitterness, whh too often obstructs the progress of true religion in other contries, and, in fact, even in our Eastern State's. The clergyme of all denominations, in San Francisco - Protestant, Catllic and Jewish-worked, each in his own way, like a band of rothers, ever ready to praise and commend each other on 1 proper occasions. Shoulder to shoulder, they worked, warrg only on vice and immorality. Yet these were the men the Annals " tell us "elbowed their way to the gaming table, and wplushingly
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threw down their gold or silver stake.' Of course there is not a shadow of truth in such a statement.
This good-will between religious people and the untiring activity and zeal of the women, accounts for the wonderful pros- perity of the churches of the various denominations in San Fran- cisco, that I have before drawn attention to.
In July, '49, there was no regular law authority in any part of California. There were Alcaldes, who executed, in old times, an arbitrary authority, but when the Americans came flocking in great numbers, the Alcaldes became loth to claim or exercise much authority. So the people in their primary capacity dealt out justice and decided all disputes, recognizing no appeal to any higher tribunal. This was not like the Vigilance Committeb business of after years. This was the action of the whole people, made necessary by the want of organized law in the land. The good and conservative men of the community were all there, to guide and temper the action of the hasty and reckless. The difficulty with Vigilance Committees is, that most of the cool, wise heads among the people will not join them, and all the bad elements of the community are sure to be foremost in them. The consequence is, their acts have often been cruel and unjust. There is not a county, perhaps, in the whole State, where a cruel murder-and in some cases more than one-has not been com- mitted by the action of Vigilance Committees. Before the meet- ing of the first Legislature in San Jose, I never knew an act of injustice done by the people, when assembled to deal out pun- ishment for crime. Since that time I hardly ever knew of the action of a Vigilance Committee that could be wholly approved by a conservative man. It was wonderful how well we got on in '49, without any sort of government beyond the universally sanctioned action of the people, and I have often since ques- tioned, in my own mind, if we would not have got on just the same ever since, and saved all the money we have paid out for thieving legislation and selfish office-holders. But the gentle- men loafers who wanted the offices could not stand it, so they began to make such a fuss for a State government that Governor Riley had to call the Monterey Convention. Since then we have been tied hand and foot, to be picked by office- holders at their leisure.
For awhile in '49 we were disturbed by the well-remembered organization called the Hounds ; but these fellows were disposed
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of in one day, never again to show themselves, by the united ac- tion and fiat of the whole people. In July, 1849, they were in the zenith of their power in San Francisco. They mostly con- sisted of the worthless members of Col. Stevenson's regiment of New York volunteers, who had been disbanded in Monterey in 1848. They lived by gambling, and they dressed in a flashy, ridiculous style, white vests embroidered beautifully, showy silk neckties, fine cloth coats and pants, the coats often lined with red silk. They gave out that they had taken San Francisco under their protection and were a volunteer police force. On Sundays they paraded the streets with a band of music. Idlers and loafers from among the newcomers joined them, and their numbers looked formidable when on parade. We were all more or less afraid of them, as they were responsible to no one but themselves for their actions, and it was impossible to have confidence in them, for in the main they were scalawags of the first water. From the way the Hounds are spoken of in the " Annals" you would suppose they were a band of robbers from whom no one's property was safe. This was not so. They never stole, or were even suspected of it. If any American, man or woman, was wronged, he or she would find protection by mak- ing application to them. They were cruel and severe towards all but their own countrymen when they undertook to deal out punishment for transgressions of any sort. Though we were every day getting more and more afraid of this volunteer police, as they pretended to be, no one made a movement against them. First, because we did not know our own strength at that time, and, secondly, because every one had too much of his own private business on hand to make it at all prudent or safe for him to meddle in any business of a public nature; so the Hounds were allowed full swing in regulating, as they called it, the government of the city. It was their practice to walk into any store they wished and select such articles as suited their fancy and walk off without paying for them, saying as they left: " This is all right; we will see that your place and property are protected." As matters stood no one dared to object, and so we continued, until one Sunday an American sailor was badly beaten in a row with some Chilenos. At that time there were a large number of Chilenos living in the part of the city known as Clark's Point, and it was here the sailor was beaten. He made his complaint to the Hounds. At once the whole gang
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went to this locality to take revenge. They made an indiscrim- inate attack upon the whole nationality, tearing down their houses and committing all sorts of excesses. Among the houses destroyed was one occupied by an old man, his wife and a beau- tiful young daughter. This family was known to several promi- nent citizens to be good and virtuous in their lives, and were much respected. The Hounds destroyed the house and scattered its contents in the street. Then they took the screaming, frightened young girl, carried her off, and when the unfortunate parents found her she was a swollen corpse from brutality fiends could not rival. This terribly appalling crime seemed to fill the whole atmosphere of San Francisco. Every one appeared to know it almost immediately. Men trembled and sickened, as in a low voice they talked it over to each other. The Hounds themselves seemed to know that there was a cry of vengeance in the very air, for the next morning it was found that many of the worst of them had fled, never again to be seen in San Fran- cisco. Then came the famous meeting of citizens on the Plaza, the first mass meeting ever held in San Francisco. At the hour named in the call every man in the city seemed there. We were all pleased and astonished at our numbers. A volunteer police force was at once established on a good basis, and such of the Hounds as could be found were arrested, tried and banished or placed on board a United States man-of-war, then in port, to be used by the commander as sailors and turned loose at some foreign port. This closed the career of the Hounds in San Fran- cisco. It was their first and last outrage, but its devilish wick- edness showed the true character of the band, and we all felt the greatest relief at their complete suppression.
From the account given of us by the " Annals " you would suppose dishonesty and thieving were characteristic of our whole community from the first day the American immigration began to pour into San Francisco to the day their book was put forth. I assure my readers that never was a more false representation made, for the truth is, that all through '49 and until the mid- Summer months of 1850 there was no such thing known as a theft, either large or small, in San Francisco. Merchants did not fear to leave their goods exposed in the most careless way in their canvas-walled houses and tents, while they went to church or to walk over the hills on Sundays, a common practice with us all in '49 and '50. Even our gold was left in our tents, where it
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could be easily found if looked for, without the least apprehen- sion for its safety. Nor, in all that time. did we lose a dollar's worth of either goods or gold. No; nor did I ever hear of an insult being offered to a virtuous woman. Yet the " Annals" represent that robberies and outrages were so common that no lady could live with safety in San Francisco.
In the late summer months of 1850, the Sydney immigration began to pour into San Francisco. Then a change came; for London's best educated house-robbers found unsuspecting San Francisco an easy place in which to practice their old tricks, and they were not slow to improve so inviting a field. Our officials were engaged altogether in plundering the city of its landed property and the treasury of every dollar paid into it by the tax- payers, so they took no notice of these Sydney thieves, or, if they did arrest one occasionally, he was sure to be acquitted. This state of things continued, only getting from bad to worse, until February, 1851, at which time all the well-disposed business inhabitants of the city became sensible that something must be done, or that they must abandon the city to the office-holders and Sydney thieves, who seemed to be in collusion to rob and murder us all. Many urged the formation of a Vigilance Com- mittee, to be composed of the best citizens, for the sole object of helping the well-disposed officers of the law to bring criminals to justice, or to expose and bring to punishment the law officers who neglected or refused to do their duty; but men of the Sam Brannan stamp called for violence and blood, and in the temper of the people they found a large number of their way of thinking. So the famous Vigilance Committee of 1851 was formed. Many did not join the Committee, yet did not say much against it, as they hardly knew what was best under the circumstances. In their very first move, if they had followed Sam Brannan's advice, urged in many speeches, they would have hanged a man named Burduc, who was perfectly innocent of the charge made against him. Luckily, however, there were many men of cool judgment and high moral standing in the Committee, who checked the wild, reckless element led on by Brannan and such men. This saved the Committee from a terrible mistake. The proceed- ings of the Committee were generally moderate and conducted with decency and decorum, and all they did was approved of by a large majority of the people, up to the Sunday on which they took Whittaker and Mckenzie from the County Jail and hanged
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them in the way they did; for brutal levity characterized the whole proceeding at the place of execution, which shocked the thinking, law abiding members of the community. Three- fourths of the people of San Francisco denounced the whole proceeding as unnecessary and unwarrantable. The morning after the execution great numbers who had heretofore sub- scribed liberally to the funds of the Committee refused to pay another dollar. From that day the Committee was virtually abolished. That frightful, bloody scene was their last appear- ance in public, for they had lost the confidence of the commu- nity. The Brannan crowd struggled for a while to keep them- selves before the public, but public opinion drove them out of sight. There were hundreds of men who connected themselves with this Vigilance Committee, either by giving money to its treasury or by direct personal service, that did so with the utmost reluctance, and regretted that they were, as they conscientiously believed, compelled to do as they did. This sort of men, when the Committee disbanded, wanted as little said about it as pos- sible. They said: "If, on the whole, we have done good, all right. We took a fearful responsibility on ourselves; let no one ever follow our example and do the like. If your officials be- come wicked, reform them within the laws and constitution. Our government, with its frequent elections, is formed with that view. Be a little patient; in the end it will be far better than a Vigi- lance Committee."
The doings of this '51 Vigilance Committee give material for a chapter in the history of California's great city that it were far better was never written; or, if written, the task should have been left to the pen of some truthful, conservative historian. But, instead of that, we find it written up in the " Annals " in the same glowing, irreligious, piratical style that pervades the whole book from cover to cover. The result of the proceedings of the Committee was undoubtedly to bring a sense of safety to the inhabitants of the city and a relief from a position that was in- tolerable. But it was that sort of a feeling of safety that one might have who, to escape the grasp of a grizzly bear, flies to the protection of a wild bull. While the grizzly is in sight, the bull is an agreeable companion; but, alas, what a fearful position to be in when the bull has driven the bear out of sight! This illus- tration is fair, because it is found out of the question to con- duct the operations of a Vigilance Committee without the active
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