USA > California > A picture of pioneer times in California, illustrated with anecdotes and stores taken from real life > Part 18
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When Johnny got in one of his talkative moods he always said he came to San Francisco in a pirate ship; that she anchored near Saucelito, and that her captain was murdered by his first officer and one of his sailors in a desperate fight on shore, on a cliff of high land that he used to point out, a mile or so west of the old watering place of Saucelito, and about half way be- tween there and Point Caballo, where the United States has since erected a fortification. This cliff we used to call " Pirates' Point."
In company with a friend, I paid a visit to this spot many years ago, and again very lately. It is about eighty or one hundred feet above the water of the bay. When first I saw it, I should think it extended out about forty yards further than it does now. It then shelved out over the bay, resting, it seemed, securely on a huge rock. A luxurious growth of grass and wild flowers covered the ground, beneath a grove of young oaks, making the location romantic and unsurpassingly beautiful. On the very outer edge stood an old oak tree, yielding, in its life- long struggle with the merciless prevailing west wind, until its half bare branches almost touched the ground. This was the tree that was so connected with the murder that saved Minnie's and her brother's lives. When I saw it on the first visit, there was a piece of rope, said to have been part of the one used by the infuriated mate, yet fastened around its trunk. On my recent visit I discovered that the great supporting rock had given way, perhaps shaken from its bed by some of our earthquake shocks; and with it had gone a large piece of the point. The other surroundings are all exactly as of old. I found the name " Brown" cut in the bark of one of the little oaks yet standing near the edge of the cliff as it is now shaped. I mused over it a moment. " Yes; Brown was the name of Lusk's friend, lost, as
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we supposed, in the Blue Bell. Can it be that he escaped, after all, and, impelled by some unaccountable influence, had come to visit this spot and cut his name on that tree." Though I re- jected this idea as absurd, yet, as I walked away from the cliff, a queer, mysterious feeling seemed to come over me, which it took hours to shake off.
Should any of my fair readers, when roaming in that beautiful and romantic neighborhood, be incited to visit " Pirates' Point," they will recognize it by the mysterious name cut in the little oak. But let their visit be in the bright, warm sunshine of springtime, when, as they cross the rippling, crystal little brook at the foot of the hill, from which the point makes out over the bay, they will be charmed to kneel and drink of its invigorating and inspiring waters. Yes; when every bush they pass is all music, so filled is it with the sweet notes of the California linnet and meadow lark. Yes; let their visit be when the ground be- neath their feet is covered with a carpet woven of wild flowers and luxuriant grass, and more beautiful than ever came from Eastern loom. Then will their imagination bring before them Minnie, in all her beauty of person, covered with the priceless jewels of truth, fidelity and unwavering trust in God, that so lit up the gloom in the darkest hour of trial, and guided her own and her brother's steps in safety through every difficulty that beset their pioneer life. No, they must not visit that spot in the somber months of the year, or when, at the approach of night, it is mantled in a gloomy fog, rushing in from the lonesome sea; for then their imagination could only picture a frightful scene of strife and murder, made inexpressibly hideous by the low mut- tered curses and imprecations they would fancy they heard uttered by the murderers and the murdered, above which would seem in sight the dark eyes of Lizzie Lawson, fixed with unrelenting gaze on her false lover, as her father dragged him step by step to the fearful cliff. Yes; and as they turned away frightened by. the vision, the gloom on that spot is sure to bring to the imagina- tion, they would fancy they heard the cry of anguish from poor Agnes Ward's spirit, as her child was forced by an unpitying hand to the dark doom he so well deserved.
I did not draw on my imagination for Minnie's escape from the gamblers on the Sacramento river steamer. It was related to me by Jim Becket, at one time prince of sports in San Fran- cisco. Just before he left the State he sauntered one morning into
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my place of business. He looked sad and gloomy. I said, as I looked up from the box of goods I was packing:
" Why, Jim, you look as if you had just come from a fu- neral."
" Worse than that," said he.
" Why, what is up, Jim ? You generally look happy. What can have happened you ?"
He then went on to tell me that he had just come back from a visit to a lady to whom he had once been of great service. I became interested, and asked him to come into my private office and tell me all about it. I always liked this man. I never was in his gambling room, or turned a card with him in my life, but somehow he fancied me and did nearly all his private business through me, and then he always advised me 'never to touch a card.' So it was natural I should like him, particularly as I always found him strictly honorable and truthful in all business transactions. After we were seated and had lit our cigars he gave the story of Minnie's escape, as I have given it in the story, concluding with:
"Well, I have just been to Oregon, and, finding where she was living with her husband, I wrote a line from Portland to know if a visit from a man like me would be agreeable. In reply I got a letter from her husband with as cordial an invi- tation as if he was my brother. So the next day I took the steamer for his locality, and they met me at the landing with a carriage and the warmest welcome. For a whole week they treated me, at their beautiful home, as if I was a prince and a brother, too. I tell you, Grey," he continued, "that week gave me a taste of Heaven, and I grew more disgusted at my way of life than I ever was before. Yet Minnie; yes, I call her Minnie, for she refused to let me call her anything else, never directly asked me to change to a better mode of living, but somehow everything she did for me and said to me seemed to ask me to do so. She taught her beautiful little child to call me "Uncle James." On leaving, they brought me back to the land- ing in their carriage, and we parted, I suppose, never to meet again, as I am about to return to Baltimore, and I feel miser- able ever since I left them; yes, miserable to think how un- worthy I was to be so treated by the most beautiful, the most intelligent, and the best woman in America, and by her hus- band, who is as good a man as she is a woman."
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Very soon after this conversation Becket left the State. I rec- ollect seeing his name in the Eastern newspapers as connected with large bets on President Buchanan's election, and later still we heard of his death. Poor Jim! If he had his grave faults, he had many redeeming points as well.
In concluding this recital of the facts upon which my stories are woven, I will state that the character of Lusk cannot be classed as fictitious, for an Englishman of fine personal appearance and good education, claiming a parentage exactly such as that of Lusk, figured among the Sydney men, in 1851, in San Francisco, and disappeared, no one knows where or how.
CHAPTER XVI.
A CALIFORNIA MISER-A SPECULATION IN HOGS-A MARRIAGE OF A BASH- FUL WOMAN-A LIFE SAVED BY NEW YORK LAW-A LAWYER'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN COURT-A GOOD SPEECH RESERVED-SQUATTERS DIS- PERSED BY REFUSING TO TALK-A CASE WON BY USING AN IRISH AUTHORITY-A "DIVIDE" WITH ROBBERS AND LAWYERS-DAN MURPHY LOSES HIS CASH.
The people of California are admitted by all to be remarkable for their liberality in their expenditure of wealth. They are liberal to all sorts of charities, to churches and schools. They are liberal in small matters as well as in large. The collections taken up at a church on Sundays in San Francisco would as- tonish the vestry people of any church in New England, or even in New York. In San Francisco, in old times a "quarter" or a "half" was the least dropped into the contribution-box on Sun- days. No man in California ever used a nickel, much less a cop- per cent; and many of you, my young readers, I presume have never seen either; ten cents being generally the lowest coin in use among us.
In all my experience I only knew one miser in California, and that was John P. Davidson. It was strange, too, that Davidson was a miser, for he was born in Ireland, and from early boyhood was brought up in Kentucky-two countries proverbial for lavish hospitality and open-handed liberality. He was so well known in early times to many in San Francisco, that a little of his his- tory, I think, is worth giving, particularly as it will help out my picture of pioneer days in some essential points.
Davidson was tall, and rather a good looking man; tolerably well educated, and was, at one time, captain of a fine steamer on the Mississippi river. He was of a decidedly religious turn of mind, and this put some of his acts of questionable lionesty in a ludicrous point of view to lookers on. The truth was that his miserly, grasping disposition so controlled him that he found it
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hard to keep himself honest, and sometimes he failed in doing so outright. While in San Francisco he was a member of Rev. Mr. Williams' Presbyterian church, and always very regular in his attendance on Sundays; but somehow he never recollected to have a coin in his pocket for the contribution box, though some- what a rich man.
One Sunday afternoon Mr. Williams gave out that the follow- ing Sunday a brother clergyman would preach in his pulpit for a charitable object, and requested that every member of his church should come prepared to respond to the call on their liberality, provided they liked the object. The following Sunday I was in my store, with the doors closed, of course, preparing myself for church and my Sunday's walk over the sandhills, when a loud knocking came at the door. I opened it in a hurry. There stood my friend Davidson. He explained to me the re- quest Mr. Williams had made the Sunday before, and said that he was on his way to church, but found he had no money within reach, and requested me to lend him some. I explained that my partner was out with the key of the safe, but added that what I drew from my pocket, some four or five dollars in small change, was at his service, but was, I feared, too small to be of any use to him. In the change, it so happened that there was, to us, the useless little'coin of five cents. "Oh, my dear sir," said David- son, " this is quite sufficient," reaching out his hand as he spoke, and as I supposed for all the change I offered; but no, he placed his forefinger on the little stranger, the five cent piece, and walked off with it with a most satisfied expression of countenance. He evidently admired the size of the coin exceedingly for such an occasion. Late in the afternoon I lay stretched on the coun- ter, my head on some open blankets, for a rest, when again I was aroused by a loud knocking on the store door. I unlocked it, and there stood my friend Davidson with his hand stretched out, and the identical little five cent piece between his forefinger and thumb. "I did not like the object, sir," said he; " no, I did not like the object; so I brought the money back."
It was always said, in San Francisco, that that was the nearest Davidson ever, in his life, came to doing an act of charity that required the outlay of money.
At this time Davidson lived in a room in the second story of a house on Clay street, owned by a Frenchman. His rent was paid one month in advance, in accordance with the universal cus-
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tom in San Francisco at that time. The Frenchman took it into his head to raise the building, so as to enable him to put a new story underneath. One day Davidson returned, after an excur- sion in the city, and to his surprise found the building on serews, and already far on its way up, to let the new part into its place. He, at once, in great indignation, applied to the Frenchman to return him his month's rent. But the Frenchman saw no diffi- culty in Mr. Davidson's getting to his room, for he said he would always furnish him with a ladder, with which he could mount to the front door while the building was undergoing the alteration. Davidson grew furious, but could not think of sacrificing the month's rent; so he remained, and climbed the Frenchman's ladder every day. He kept bachelor's hall and cooked for him- self. One day while engaged in mixing some flour, water and molasses, to make a sort of an impromptu sweetcake, upon which he mostly lived, down came, cracking, the whole building. Poor Davidson! After an hour or so he was dug out of the debris, all unhurt, but all smeared over with flour and molasses. The first thing he observed, on being dragged out, was the little Frenchman capering around him, crying out:
" Oh, Monsieur Davidzon no dead; me one man very glad!"
Davidson looked at him for a moment without speaking, his eyes twinkling out of the flour and molasses with a peculiarly savage ferocity; then he exclaimed:
"You glad ? Well, then, will you now pay me back my month's rent ?"
" Oh, Monsieur Davidzon, me no pay back one dollar. Me one great loss by one transaction here to-day. You one man very lucky, you no dead."
Davidson always spoke of that Frenchman as one of the greatest ruffians on the Continent of America.
Davidson had a great inclination to venture in small specula- tions. He had no head or confidence in himself in such matters, but he found an acquaintance, Mr. Henry Toomy, who was will- ing to put his brains against his (Davidson's) money, and divide net profits equally. In this way Davidson often made hand- somely in little ventures with Toomy. He had one advantage, however, over Toomy, for if they purchased any merchandise that required removal from one part of the city to another, Davidson always did this work himself with a wheelbarrow, after dark, and charged the co-partnership with the full price of the usual
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drayage, which was a very considerable item at that time in San Francisco. Besides, he often lent Toomy money at two per cent. per week, to be compounded every Saturday night; so that, on the whole, his connection with Toomy might be regarded as of a very advantageous character.
It so happened that about this time Davidson fell in with a Doctor Somebody, who had been on a cruise among the South Pacific Islands. This man told Davidson that hogs could be got on those Islands for almost nothing. This aroused Davidson's cupidity to the highest, for at that time hogs commanded thirty cents a pound, live weight, in San Francisco.
The Doctor proposed to Davidson to purchase a ship and go for a cargo of those hogs, offering to accompany him for a share of the profits. Davidson feared to venture so large an amount of money in one speculation, but, finding a merchant of the name of West who was willing to put up half the money, the arrangement was made with the Doctor. On looking around for a suitable ship, they found what appeared to be a very fine bark, called the America. She was for sale, and her deck was flush, just the sort of craft, the Doctor said, for the voyage in view. She was owned by two brothers; one was her captain, the other her first officer. They offered her at a very low price, twenty-five hundred dollars. They told Davidson the reason they wanted to sell her, and were willing to take so small an amount, was that they had had a personal difficulty between themselves and wanted to part company, and to do so they must turn the ship into cash. Then the mate told Davidson privately that, if it was agreeable to him, he would like to retain one-third interest in the bark and go to sea in her, in the same position he had when his brother was captain. He cautioned Davidson not to let the brother know of this arrangement, or that he would not consent to let the bark go at so low a figure. Davidson fell into the trap set for him, and bought the bark. After the purchase he waited patiently for the mate to put in his appearance, but he waited in vain, for, on making inquiries, he found that the two brothers had no sooner sold the America than they purchased a fine, new ship for five thousand dollars, and had put to sea once more as captain and mate. The Doctor and Davidson pushed their preparations with energy for the voy- age. Under the Doctor's advice, they purchased a quantity of trashy, cheap goods, to trade to the natives of the Islands for
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hogs; but Davidson and the Doctor did not pull well together, and the more they saw of each other the more they disliked each other
All went well, however, until one day Davidson detected a bottle of strychnine among the Doctor's private stores. David- son now became alarmed, and feared the Doctor had a plot on hand to poison him and take the ship, so he positively refused to let the Doctor go to sea with him. The result was that the Doctor and the captain that he had recommended were both sent adrift, and Davidson, shipping a captain of his own choos- ing, went in search of the hog islands alone. In less than three months the bark America returned with a cargo of oranges and one hundred and seventy-five hogs on the main deck.
Davidson reported to Mr. West that whenever the least rough weather came the America leaked so badly that it was neces- sary to keep the pumps manned nearly all the time, to clear her of water; so, fearing to proceed, they had run into the island of Bora Bora. Here they found oranges, for which they traded the merchandise. There were hogs here also, but for these the na- tives demanded coin, and, though Davidson had fifteen hundred dollars in coin with him, he would not part with it. " For," said he, " that I could save in a boat, if the bark went down, but not so the hogs." The hogs he did get only cost him $175. These he sold to a lawyer named Ryan, somewhat famous as an Irish patriot of 1848. Ryan had made a calculation as to the immense profits of hog raising as the market then stood in California, which dwarfed anything he could hope to make at law, and having the portion of his fortune left after his sacri- fices in the cause of Ireland, unemployed, he invested seventeen hundred and fifty dollars of it in Davidson's hogs.
The morning Ryan was to receive them from Davidson, two very large ones were so sick that they could not get on their feet. Captain Davidson feared Ryan would refuse to receive these two as merchantable, so he called his boy John to help him, and they tied the sick hogs' legs fast together. The bark lay out in the bay a few hundred yards from the wharf, to save wharfage, so Ryan had to take away his hogs in a boat. Just as Davidson had finished tying the legs of the invalids, Ryan came alongside and jumped on deck.
" Good morning, friend Ryan; we have just commenced to tie up the hogs for you," was Davidson's polite salutation.
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" Oh, thank you, Captain," said Ryan; and, turning to his men, continued: " Now, lads, be lively at your work; slide these two big fellows the captain has tied up for us over into the boat first and foremost."
The men did so, and a lot more were tied up and shoved into the boat. On reaching the wharf with this load, Ryan was sur- prised to find that the two hogs Davidson had tied up were dead. Not knowing the man, a faint hope came to poor Ryan that if Davidson saw the hogs dead he would make some deduction; share the loss, perhaps, or something of that sort; so he ordered the dead hogs left in the boat, and returned to the bark. The moment Davidson saw what had happened, he got into a perfect passion of virtuous indignation, exclaiming, as he stamped on the deck furiously :
" Discharge every one of that crew, sir! Discharge every one of them, sir! Stupid rascals, to smother two of your finest animals! How could you have picked up such a crew, Mr. Ryan ? See what a loss it has caused you." Then, drawing close to Ryan, he continued, in an undertone: "Mr. Ryan, what are we coming to? If these men had received a proper religious education, this never would have happened."
Ryan at once gave up all hope of Davidson's sharing any loss in the matter; so, heaving a sigh, he ordered the boatman to dump his two big beauties into the bay. Poor Ryan was Da- vidson's victim in another particular. The day he purchased the hogs from Davidson, they were counted out for him and paid for. There were just one hundred and seventy-five in all, but soon afterwards a sow gave birth to seven pigs. Five of them were remarkably fine little fellows, while the two others were the veriest little runts that ever disgusted a farmer. Now, the ques- tion was, Who did these pigs belong to ? After a short, earnest dis- cussion on this interesting point with his boy John, Captain David- son came to the conclusion that the pigs belonged to himself.
" Yes, John," he concluded, " as you so intelligently remark, the pigs undoubtedly belong to me, for Mr. Ryan only had counted out to him one hundred and seventy-five head, and can, therefore, have no right to more than that number; yes, that is clear; but, John, we will not be ungenerous in this matter, we will leave him those two small ones, for I always prefer to lean against myself when there is any sort of doubt, and that should be the rule of life with every honest man, John; don't forget that, my boy."
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The morning the delivery was to be made Davidson ordered John to stow away the five fat little pigs below decks; not to hide them from Ryan, he told John, but to prevent them being hurt in the rush of catching the large hogs. Ryan was surprised and mortified to find that one of his finest looking sows had such a miserable product, but Davidson consoled him by suggesting that it might be owing to the fact that the sow was not much of a sailor, and had been too long fed on yams.
With the last load of hogs Davidson went on shore, but before leaving the bark he whispered to John to bring the little pigs up and let them loose on deck. John did so, and the consequence was, every one of them fell down the hatchway, and they all lay dead on the lower deck when Davidson returned. As he looked down the hatchway he seemed very sad and thoughtful; then, calling John, he said, in a solemn warning tone of voice: " Boy, look down there. Let the fate of these pigs be a warning to you through all your future life, never to covet your neighbor's prop- erty. I now see that in justice these pigs belong to poor Ryan. Yes, John; the truth is, providentially, made plain to me when it is too late. Throw them overboard, boy. Throw them over, John, and say no more about it."
To get rid of the oranges was now Davidson's great trouble. It so happened that six or seven other cargoes of oranges had arrived in port the same day with the bark America, so that there was a perfect glut of oranges in the market. Conspicuous among these I recollect one that was owned by Colonel Gift and his son. Their vessel lay at " Long Wharf," at the foot of Commercial street. The Colonel's son had gone to sea with their craft, in- tent on another sort of return cargo altogether, but, like David- son, he was tempted to bring oranges. This mistake of the son was condemned by the father in that characteristic emphatic language that has made the Colonel so notorious in California. You could hear his voice a quarter of a mile off in comments on his son's unwise selection of a cargo, and as you drew near you found him walking excitedly up and down the wharf, using lan- guage original, and so peculiarly profane, that it attracted a large crowd of boys, who followed him with shouts of laughing applause.
The fruit dealers, in the face of this glut in the market, de- clined to purchase any amount of oranges. In this dilemma a young lawyer, just arrived from New York, whose talents and
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ability in his profession have since made him one of our wealthiest citizens, came to the rescue, at Mr. West's solicitation. He got the leading fruit men into council, and persuaded them that "a corner " could be made on oranges. The thing looked possible, so a committee was appointed to ascertain how many thousand oranges were sold daily in San Francisco, and at the same time to find out the amount of oranges in the hands of the im- porters. When this committee called on the bark America, and asked Davidson how many oranges he had sold within the last twenty-four hours, instead of answering them directly he turned to his boy John, and said: "John, we have sold ten thousand oranges to-day, more or less; have we not, John ?" " Aye, aye, sir; ten thousand, more or less," was John's prompt answer. So the bark America was reported to have sold ten thousand oranges that day, when the fact was, she had not sold more than ten dozen, for almost as many bits, to boys visiting the bark. It is to be presumed that the committee got about as accurate information from all the other ships. The result was, that the fruit men combined, and offered all the ships nineteen dollars per thousand for their oranges, which was gladly ac- cepted. The oranges had all to be picked over before delivering them, and this had to be done, per contract, within two weeks. All the ships but the bark America offered two dollars a day for hands to pick over the oranges. Davidson hunted up little boys, whom he hired " to pick oranges " at fifteen dollars per month.
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