USA > California > Nevada County > Bean's history and directory of Nevada County, California. Containing a complete history of the county, with sketches of the various towns and mining camps also, full statistics of mining and all other industrial resources > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
The discovery that the gravel range above the town was remarkably rich, was made by some miners working up to the head of a ravine and finding the dirt paid into the hill. The whole range, wherever gravel was seen on the surface, was immediately staked off in claims, and shafts went down by the hundred. A town called Coyoteville sprang up on the gravel hills, well endowed with saloons and monte-banks, and flourished for a year or two exceedingly. Its site was on the eastern end of Lost Hill, and is now almost washed away; but here miners growing rich congregated, politicians flocked, and noisy demagogues brayed to indifferent or ignorant listeners.
Coyoteville did not take its name from the coyote, but from the new mode of. mining just then adopted, which was that of drifting or " coyoteing " out the richest of the dirt, leaving holes in which an unsophisticated stran- ger might have supposed animals burrowed. The yield of the old river bed was immense, and scarcely credible at the present day, and such was the reputation of the place, that it is variously estimated from six to sixteen
BRISTOL'S MEDICINES AT SPENCE'S.
THE ONLY PLACE TO GET CHEAP DRY GOODS IS AT A GOLDSMITH'S.
80
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
thousand miners came to Nevada during the year 1850. The rush was so great that a large town grew up as if by magic. Hundreds of stores and other buildings were erected, and the Americans, knowing little of the seasons of the country, except as the previous winter gave them experience, prepared for another rainy season of severity. Large quantities of goods purchased at high rates were packed and hauled to the town ; but, no rain came. The mines could not be worked for want of water. One ditch had been completed early in the year, from Musketo Creek to old Coyote Hill, and another from Little Deer Creek to Phelps Hill. The supply of water was limited. The Rock Creek ditch, completed in December, 1850, was nine miles in length and, for the times, a tremendous enterprise. Without water from the clouds the ditches could furnish but little. A dry season was, to use an Irishism, the rainy season of 1850-51. Hundreds of miners became disgusted and left the place. There was general depression; goods went down in price, and merchants "went up " for all they were worth.
During the summer of 1850, the rush of population to the place made a lively demand for lumber, and two or three mills were erected. The price of lumber was $200 per thousand fcet. The same summer, a Metho- dist society was organized by Rev. Isaac Owens, and a shell of a building erected for religious and other public purposes, somewhere above the site of the present Congregational Church. Before that time, and even after, street preaching was not uncommon. In Mr. Sargent's sketch of Nevada, published in 1856, we find the following lively account of an incident which brings up early scenes with remarkable freshness :
Before the erection of the church, the preachers often held service on the streets, to an attentive crowd; who left their work almost invariably on the Sabbath, and congregated in town. A large crowd, drawn from the gambling and drinking saloons, then in full glory, and from the stores and hotels, would respectfully listen to the exhortations of the preachers, and then disperse to their business or pleasures. We remember a singular scene in October, 1850, which illustrates the manners of the times. An earnest exhorter was singing his opening hymn to a crowd. A short dis- tance below an auctioneer was expatiating on the merits of a mule to a smaller audience. A few rods up the street a Swiss girl was turning a hand organ, accom- panied by another with a tamborine. A drunken fellow was attempting "auld lang syne," in the style of the preacher. Some ten wagoners, from Sacramento, were dispensing their goods at retail in the short street, and the varieties of the day were otherwise embellished by a savage dog fight, that appeared for a few moments to be the greatest attraction.
The gambling saloons of that period were the most popular places of resort. If one desired to meet an acquaintance, in one of these saloons would he most likely find the object of his search. They were the foci of the mining and trading population, and particularly on the Sabbath. All the games of chance ever invented were tried in these saloons, but monte,
FINE CLOTHING, (CALIFORNIA MAKE) AT BANNER BROTHERS.
t
FASHIONABLE MILLINERY GOODS ALWAYS ON HAND AT GOLDSMITH'S.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
81
faro, roulette, vingt-et-un and poker were the favorite games for gamblers. Thousands worked hard during the day and with success, only to spend the last grain of dust at the tables or bars of the alluring gambling hells at night. Conspicuous objects in one of these places were rows of tables, on which were heaped Mexican doubloons and dollars, with an occasional nugget and bag of dust to top off the pile. Around these tables were crowded men in gray or blue shirts, pants more or less begrimed with auriferous mud, boots with ample length of legs drawn over the pants, and slouched hats, staking their dust and intensely awaiting the turn of a card that should double their fortune. An occasional woman of easy virtue was seen sandwiched in among the rough miners and trying too her luck at monte. The ring of the money on the tables, the announcements of the man at the roulette wheel, the cursing of the disappointed at their bad fortune, and the continual calls for " bar-keep," rendered the scene one rarely to be met with except in California. Now and then a row would suddenly break out, pistols were drawn and bar tumblers flew with an abandon only surpassed by the shooting meteors of November, 1833. And then, such a getting out of doors, and such swift forgetfulness that the saloon would be again thronged and the games going on in fifteen minutes, as if nothing had occurred !
The town of Nevada had grown so much during the year 1850, that not less than two hundred and fifty buildings were occupied when the following year commenced ; not to mention the cabins and tents that were spread over a space two miles in diameter, having the town for its center. The winter of 1850-51 was marked by considerable activity in mining the gravel hills, water having been supplied in fair quantities by the Musketo, Rock and Deer Creek ditches. Long toms and sluice extensions were brought into use and with desirable results.
It was while Nevada seemed on the high road to prosperity, that on the 11th of March, 1851, incendiaries applied the torch to the young city of the forest, and laid one-half its stores and houses in ashes. The business part of the town was entirely consumed. The stocks of goods were large, but the flames were so rapid that but little could be saved. The pine trees standing among the buildings caught and flamed to the tops, casting brands over the town, spreading the conflagration. The fire commenced at two o'clock in the morning, and before the sun rose, property estimated in value at a half million dollars was swept away.
As in the case of all burnt California cities, the ashes of Nevada only acted upon her growth like guano upon vegetable life, Scarcely were the embers cold when buildings went up on every hand, and so rapid was the progress that in one month scarcely a vestige of the fire remained. In
J
SPENCE'S SEIDLITZ POWDERS, AT SPENCE'S, NEVADA.
SAVINGS BANK, DEPOSIT FOR DRY GOODS AT A. GOLDSMITH'S.
82
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
April, appeared in the new-built town a newspaper, the Journal, the first publication of the kind in the mining region of the State except the Sonora Herald.
About the same time an election for officers of a grand city government, which had been provided for by an act of the Legislature, was held, and the city began its career with a Mayor, ten Aldermen, and a liberal supply of all other officials. Moses F. Hoit was elected the first Mayor. The city government was maintained less than a year, when the people, almost to a man, demanded a change-they had had King Stork long enough-and the Legislature came to. their relief. The city was more than $8,000 in debt, which was never paid. The excitement about quartz which prevailed early in this year and until the collapse of some magnificent enterprises the year after, had some influence in the organization of an extensive city gov- ernment. It was thought that the fountain head of all the gold had been struck in two or three veins of quartz, below the town on Deer Creek, and while the lucky proprietors were growing wild over anticipations of tons of gold to be taken from the rock by new and effective processes, the men of the town who had no interest in Gold Tunnels and Bunker Hills proceeded to obtain for themselves the next best thing, an office each, which, by a fiction of courtesy, was called honorable, but designed to be principally noted for emolument. The government was tried, while the quartz schemes were on trial, and all collapsed together, leaving half the community indulg- ing in gloomy forebodings about the fate of the whole.
The hopes of the quartz operators were based on the pretended discoveries of one Dr. Rogers, who maintained that quartz was of a porous or cellular structure, but that the interstices between the crystals were not large enough in the natural state to allow the particles of gold to drop out. By the expansion of heat the pores were opened and the metal had free egress either in its cooled or melted form. A large chimney, or furnace, was con- structed at great expense, a mammoth wheel erected, and on Deer Creek, about a mile below the town, on the present site of what is known as Soggs's mill, the grand experiment of extracting gold from the rock by the new process was conducted. Wood and coal in large quantities were procured. A large iron reservoir, filled with water, laid at the bottom of the chimney to receive the precious metal as it loosened and fell from the rock. The chimney was filled with alternate layers of fuel and quartz of a beautiful skimmed milk color. The fire was kindled at the bottom of the furnace, . and as the mass lowered, more wood and rock were added at the top. The millionaires, in expectancy, were on hand night and day, for who can sleep when such a princely fortune is to be harvested ? The savant who was testing his discovery on a large scale, for a snug salary, rode up occasionally
BANNER BROTHERS KEEP EVERY VARIETY OF CALIFORNIA MADE BLANKETS.
83
GOLDSMITH ALWAYS KEEPS THE BEST ASSORTMENT OF LADIES' UNDERWEAR,
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
and gave his orders with the air of a General of Division. His employers bowed obsequiously and obeyed his high behests. At last, after tons upon tons of rock had passed through the fiery furnace, one night when the vulgar crowd who had no soul for science or pluck for mighty enterprises, had departed, there was a congregation of Astors in expectation around the blazing monument of Nevada's "Bunker Hill." The cauldron beneath must be about running over, they suggested, and it would be well to take out a few millions to give place for more. A stout armed individual soon made way to the precious deposits. He scraped the bottom and returned with a pan of cinders and ashes ! The bubble had burst, and so had a number of the richest men, a few hours before, the world had ever seen.
Dr. Rogers left the place, and so did a great many others, in complete disgust. Quartz was pronounced a humbug, and the fate of Nevada sealed. Houses were deserted, elap-boards hung dangling by one nail, and men went about the comparatively lonely streets congratulating themselves that they were not so poor as to own property in such a doomed city.
While the quartz excitement was up, in 1851, Hamlet Davis fixed up an upper story, on the corner of Broad and Pine streets, where Captain Kidd's huge brick building now stands, for theatrical uses. Here a Dr. Robinson, whose forte was making up songs with local hits, and a dramatic company, first held forth to a crowded room, week after week. It was the first attempt at tragedy in the mountains, unless we count the bear and bull fights borrowed of the Mexicans, as such, and drew amazingly. Mr. and Mrs. Stark gave the miners a taste of their quality in August, but for one night. The place was then, and for years after, a sort of paradise for actors. So great was the popularity of dramatic entertainments, and so small " Dramatic Hall," that another theater was erected in the Autumn on piles over Deer Creek, and called the Jenny Lind. It was a pretty looking structure for its time, and well patronized during the winter. But in the March of that gloomy year, 1852, on the 6th day of the month, after a terrible storm of several days of wind and rain, a log came down the swollen torrent of Deer Creek, carried away the Main street bridge, which, in turn knocked the theater from its foundations, together with a boarding house, and all took a voyage down the creek together, a mass of floating lumber.
During the flush times of 1851, early in the year, a postoffice was estab- lished in Nevada, and mails arrived at stated periods. Benjamin Blanton was the first postmaster. His office was on the site of Mrs. Maria Hill's brick dwelling, near the Court House. Nevada became the center for the distribution of mail matter, and here, when the Atlantic mail arrived, might be seen crowds in line awaiting their turn to inquire for a letter from friends " at home." The office of postmaster was supposed to be a fat one
E. F. SPENCE, PRACTICAL DRUGGIST, NEVADA.
GOLDSMITH UNDERSELLS ALL OTHER DRY GOODS HOUSES.
84
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
in those early days, the perquisites and stealings being on a liberal scale. It is not known how much the first postmaster came out of the office with, but the importation of fast stock soon after his short term of a few months closed, seemed to show that the means for his temporal comfort had been well supplied. " Wake-up-Jake" was a celebrated horse in his time, brought to the State under the auspices of the first postmaster of Nevada.
After the fire of 1851, for several years, the prominent gambling saloons of the town were the " Empire " and " Barker's Exchange," both located on lower Main street, and facing each other. They were large, and for the period, very good wooden buildings. These places were occupied for legiti- mate business before the fire of 1856 came and swept every thing before it. The Court House was a small wooden building near Sanford's store, on Broad street, till 1854, when the present site was purchased. The jail was a log structure nearly opposite the old Court House, and nearly on the site of the city calaboose. The selection of the site of the present Court House was owing to rivalry of streets. Broad street was supposed to desire the Court House located somewhere near the Methodist Church. To thwart the wishes of Broad street, a number of persons on Main street raised nearly all the money to purchase the plot of ground on which the Court House and jail now stand.
Mining being considered the paramount interest of the county, the miners indulged in great latitude of action, sluicing away roads and bridges, cutting channels impassable for teams, undermining houses, washing away yards, etc. It is remembered that a couple of miners commencing sinking a shaft in Main street nearly in front of the South Yuba Canal Company's office, then the great business point of the town; a citizen expostulated with them, but only received for answer, that there was " no law against digging in the streets," and they were going to dig. "Then I'll make a law," said the citizen, and walking into his store he brought out a revolver, and a precedent was established then and there, that miners could not dig up the streets of Nevada.
About this time (it is of little importance the exact date) Nevada elected a Justice of the Peace in the person of one Ezekiel Dougherty. " Uncle Zeke" has left on the memory of men several of his remarkable sayings, one or two of which we will relate. A fellow was examined before Uncle Zeke, charged with horse stealing. Several witnesses were sworn who tes- tified against the prisoner quite strongly. It looked like a plain case. The counsel for the prisoner, Judge B-, rose and addressed the Court, " May it please your honor," said he, "I now propose to introduce a few witnesses to establish the good character of my client." "What the h-1," said Uncle Zeke, "is the use of trying to prove his good character when it is
BANNER BROTHERS, BUY THEIR GOODS FOR CASH, AND CAN AFFORD TO SELL CHEAP.
BRUSSELS, TWO AND THREE-PLY CARPETS AT GOLDSMITH S.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
85
already proven he is a d-d thief!" On another occasion, under like cir- cumstances, in a criminal case, the evidence was all in, the prosecution had spoken and Uncle Zeke was fatigued. Judge B- arose, and hanging his right hand to his left by means of hooks made of the little fingers, prepared for an argument. " Your Honor," said he in opening, " Your Honor, it is a presumption of law that a man is innocent until he is proven guilty." Unele Zeke, uneasily twisting in his chair, interrupted : " Yes, but Judge B- there is another presumption of law, that a Justice of the Peace is not bottomed with cast iron. You can go on with your speech, but I am going after my bitters right now !"
Judge B- was an honest old man, perfectly innocent of a joke and incapable of severity. On one occasion a young lawyer had given him an excoriation in Court. When the Court adjourned the County Clerk, sitting by the stove with Judge B- at a hotel, remarked in a sympathizing way, that "counsel was rather severe in his remarks." "Yes," replied the Judge, " but wasn't I severe on him in reply ?" The Clerk, who was present in Court all the time, did not remember of hearing any caustic remarks from Judge B ---- , and inquired : " Did you come back at him ?' "I rather think I did," said the Judge ; " you know he called me a petti- fogger." "Yes, and Judge, what did you say to that ?" "I just emphat- ically told him I wasn't !" So kind and amiable was the old man that to dispute the assertion of his opponent relative to his own character was, in his view, remarkable severity.
While relating ancedotes, I may as well mention, that at a little later period there came to Nevada the excentric Francis J. Dunn, and run out his shingle as Attorney and Counselor at Law. " Frank" was good in his profession, praticing at two kinds of bars with equal distinction. He is dead now, poor fellow, but his monotonous way of speaking still lingers in the memories of many, and is often imitated. Frank was one day address- ing a Justice in Court, who has recently figured in San Francisco as a prisoner accused of extortion in office. The rulings of the Justice did not suit Frank, and staring in the face of the Court, he said in his peculiar drawl, " Your Honor's a fool," but suddenly he apologized with, "your Honor, I take that back, for in the language of a celebrated poet, the truth shouldn't be spoken at all times !" "In -the language of a celebrated poet " was a favorite phrase with Frank. On another occasion, Frank was earnestly endeavoring to make the same Court comprehend some proposition of law, and warming up he worked himself to the Justice's desk, and pick- ing up a law book he emphasized his sentences by pounding said book furiously upon the desk. The Court, with great seriousness and an air of injured dignity, interrupted : "Mr. Dunn, you musn't pound my desk
LUBIN'S EXTRACTS AT SPENCE'S, NEVADA.
86
BEST ASSORTMENT OF OIL CLOTH AT GOLDSMITH'S.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
so !" "I will pound your desk," drawled Frank ; "you're an old man, but you can send around some of your big boys for satisfaction !" and Frank went on making a tilt-hammer of the law volume. We have had some extraordinary Justices in Nevada, but not more remarkable, perhaps, than the town adjoining the one of my boyhood, one of whose 'Squires decided that oats were not grain, and brought up his wife on a charge of contempt for calling him " an old leather-head."
I must not stop relating anecdotes till I have paid my respects to a cer- tain Constable, of ten or more years ago. Fred. Burmeister was not the most brilliant genius that ever filled a Constable's office even. His Dutch modes of expression rendered him interesting. One day he returned an execution with "satisfied " written on the back. The Justice called his attention to the fact and demanded the money. "De man didn't bay me no money," said Fred. "But, you have written on the back of this paper 'satisfied,' and I want the money that satisfied it," said the Justice. " Vell, now Chudge, dat ish all wrong; it should have been dissatisfied !"
Blue Tent was of more importance at this carly period than since, as a point for supplies. The firm of Lindsey & Dick was established there, and by the use of a pack train distributed an immense amount of goods all over the remoter mining districts of the county.
Twelve buildings were consumed by fire in Nevada on the 7th of Sep- tember, 1852. The fire originated in the kitchen of the National Hotel, which was located on the site of Dingley's marble shop, at the foot of Main and Broad streets. Luckily, the fire did not communicate with the build- ings across Deer Creek, or the whole town might have been consumed. The storms in December of that year rendered the roads so impassable that goods rose to about the highest rates known before. Freight was worth from Marysville ten cents a pound. The year closed one of the remarkable ones in the history of Nevada, for mining had been brought to something of a science, nearly all the improvements known in placer mining having been introduced.
The year 1853 is noted for the building of the first brick structure in Nevada. This was a store, erected by Hamlet Davis on part of the site now occupied by the large building of Captain Kidd, on Broad street. The next year, the brick building known as Mulford's old banking house, and several others, were built. On the 5th of October, 1853, the first tele- graphic message flashed along the wires to Nevada.
The town was again incorporated, under a general incorporation law. Concert Hall was erected by L. P. Frisbie, on the site of the present gas works, and in that building, and its successor after the fire of 1856, appeared nearly all the celebrated actors who visited the coast.
THE LEADING CLOTHING STORE IN THE MOUNTAINS IS BANNER BROTHERS, NEVADA.
87
A. GOLDSMITHI KEEPS THE VERY BEST KIDD GLOVES.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
The history of those days would not be complete without mentioning " Bourbon Lodge" and its inhabitants. James Fitz-James built the " Lodge " and surrounded himself with a few congenial spirits, some of whom are around to tell their own tales in far more complete style than I am able to do. Fitz-James's library was a remarkable one, every volume having a cork in it. We can never forget the nights made melodious by the inmates of the "Lodge" singing "John I. Sherwood," and that melancholy ditty about " an old woman and her three sons, Jeffrey, Jeemes and John. "Good things" happened in those days. We cannot refrain from mentioning one of the many. Ned B- was a candidate. One
Colonel R-, during the canvass, was quite thick with Ned's opponent. Being an old-line Whig, he apologized to Ned, and intimated that on the score of old acquaintance alone he was running with the Democratic candi- date. But, when the time for action came, he said with a wink, they ·would find he couldn't forget his old principles. The Colonel professed to be very adroit and successful in managing the Irish. Ned made a "rap" with the Colonel to go up to Dooling's Point, where were congregated about a hundred Irishmen, and furnished a horse and spending money-so the story goes. Accordingly, Colonel R -- was seen on election day astride of one of the best nags in town, setting out early for Dooling's Point, twenty miles distant, to control the Irish vote in that precinct for a Whig candidate. It was a exciting day, and a long one to those interested. Ned stationed himself in the outskirts of the town to watch for the return of the Colonel in the evening. The tired steed was seen to approach. B- shouted in the dark : " Colonel, is that you ?" The horse stopped, and the Colonel recounted the events of the day. It was an up-hill job, he said, at Dooling's. The thing had been fixed up mighty strong there. However, he made a pretty good day's work of it considering. He stayed there till all was " to rights," he said, and then rode over to Orleans Flat to set the boys right there. " At which place did you vote ?" inquired Ned, "Well, to set the boys a pattern, I voted at Dooling's," replied the Colonel. The returns came in the next day-ninety-eight straight votes for D-, Ned's competitor, and " nary one" for Ned, whereupon the joke was on him for understanding human nature so poorly in election times as to em- ploy a man to make Whig votes among the Irish, who hadn't influence enough to control his own.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.