USA > California > Amador County > History of Amador County, California, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 17
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BULL AND BEAR FIGHT.
In the days when Calaveras and Amador were one, the population of the ancient eapital were wont to amuse themselves with bull and bear fights. Sun- day, by eustom, was the day set apart for these exhibitions, for, on that day, everybody eame to town. A large portion of the population was Span- ish, and anything pertaining to the fighting of bulls would draw out the full Mexiean population, señors señoras, and señoritas. Spanish eattle were plenti- ful, and there were plenty of men who had been trained to handle them; but bears, real grizzlies, were not so easily eaught and handled.' They were valued all the way from one to four thousand dol- lars; consequently, when a real grizzly was eaught and eaged, he was generally given an unfair advan- tage. The bull was lassoed just before the fight, his horns sawed off, and the fight pretty well taken out of him before he was turned into the ring. On one oeeasion, the miners, and other speetators, got rampant over the way in which a steer was sae- rificed, " without any fight at all worth speaking of." Unfortunately, for the exhibitors, the bull-pen elose by had several fieree, untamed, and undaunted steers, any one of which felt amply able to avenge their slaughtered companion. One of them espe- cially attraeted the notiee of the spectators. He would have filled the old Mosaic requirements, being perfeet in all his parts. Lithe as a eat, his horns long and slender, he eommeneed bounding around his limited arena as soon as he heard the bellowings of his less able companero, that was being chawed and cluwed in the hug of the grizzly.
The vaqueros were ordered to turn the anxious steer into the pen, a hundred revolvers being drawn to enforee the request. The proprietors knew that business was on hand, unless the request was aeceded to, as the grizzly was sure to be shot, and, perhaps, some of their own number, too. There was no alter- native, and they turned the anxious fellow in, though
they expected the bear would be slain in a short time. The bull eame in, proud and defiant, gave a snort of eontempt, whirled his tail high in the air, lowered his head, and made a charge. His majesty seemed not to be aware of any unusual company, and looked as plaeid and serene as though he had just made an ample dinner of young and tender pig, and was going to take his daily afternoon nap. He received the bull with his usual affectionate hug, the bull's horns passing each side of his body. He eaught the bull by the baek of the neek with his mouth, and with the aid of his forepaws, held him firmly to his bosom, using his hind feet with terri- ble effeet on the bulls neek and sides. One ear was stripped off in a twinkling. Every dig of those terrible elaws left gaping wounds, while the bull seemed utterly powerless to inflict any damage on the bear. About five minutes of this kind of one- sided fighting, served to eonvinee the bull that he was not so invineible after all. His bellowings of defianee changed to notes of rage, and then to terror, and finally to eries for merey; the last howls being so loud as to be heard a mile away. After punishing the bull for a while, the bear, entertaining no malice, magnanimously let the bull loose, which, blinded by blood and rage, made a charge at the pieket-fenee, which separated him from the specta- tors, and went through it, seattering the erowd in every direction, like a whirlwind. A dozen vaqueros mounted their horses and started after him. Down through the town went the bull, eharging with his bloody head at every gathering of men, until he got to the elothing stores, kept by the Jews. The bright red shirts attraeting his attention, he demolished these places one after another, monareh of all around, until the vaqueros sueeeeded in getting their lariats around his horns and legs, eurbing the further exhibition of his varying moods of temper. It is unnecessary to say that the several aets of the exhi- bition were highly satisfactory to the erowd, the general verdiet being, "That thar bar's some, you bet."
It was not always the ease that the bear whipped the bull. In early days, a bear and bull fight was advertised to come off at Coloma. No Spanish bulls being at hand, a lazy, good-natured old fellow, that erossed the plains some years previously, and had sinee lounged around the streets at will, was selected to fight the bear, mueh to the disgust of the assem- bled multitude. The fight was very short, the bull killing the bear in two or three minutes, by goring him through. In this instanee, as in the one before related, the victory was won by the eool and wary, the victorious bull retiring from the contest, seem- ingly uneonseious of any unusual event.
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HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
CHAPTER XVII. DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE MINERS.
Exaggerated Accounts of Bret Harte and Joaquin Miller-Cook- ing and Washing-Hawks, Squirrels, Quails, and Other Game for Food - Getting Supper Under Difficulties - Laundry Affairs-Prevalence of Vermin-The Sanguinary Flea-Miners' Flea Trap-Fleas versus Bed-bugs-Rats and Other Animals - Visits of Snakes - A Romantie Affair Spoiled by a Skunk.
For the satisfaction of curious women who wish to know how their fathers and brothers man- aged housekeeping, we have added this chapter. Men who never tried pioneer life, and have no pros- pect or necessity of trying it, may omit reading this altogether, or forever hold their peace. Many exag- gerated stories are in circulation concerning the habits and characters of our early settlers. Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, and a score of other writers, have taken some odd sample of humanity, added some impossible qualities, and set him up to be laughed at, or perhaps admired; when the fact is, the caricature is about as near the original as the Indian maiden of romance is to the filthy squaw that would eat the raw entrails of a horse or bullock without adding anything to the dirt, that already ornamented her hands and face. The '49er is represented as hav- ing pounds of dust loose in his pockets, which he passed out by the handful for whisky or whatever struck his fancy; as carrying an arsenal of knives and revolvers which he was wont to use on the slightest provocation-" rough but generous, brave, and kind." While it is true that an ideal '49er occa- sionally made an appearance in those days-for it is almost impossible to draw a monster, physical, moral, or intellectual, that has not some familiar features-the fact is, that the mass of the people had no resemblance to the ideals of Bret Harte or Joaquin Miller. They were sober, industrious, and energetic men, who toiled as men with ambition and strength can toil. The labor these men performed in dam- ming and turning rivers, or tunneling mountains, was not the spurt of enthusiasm born of whisky. Many of the men had families at home whose letters were looked for with the most eager interest. The younger men, who had not families, had ties perhaps equally as strong. The exceptions, which have given such a false character to the '49er, were unprin- cipled adventurers from every State and nation, gam- blers in bad repute, even among their own kind, frontiersmen who acknowledged no law, and fugi- tives from justice everywhere. This was the class that made a vigilance committee necessary in San Francisco in 1850 and 1856; which occasionally aroused the wrath of the mass of miners by robbing or killing a peaceable citizen. The description of this class is not the object of this chapter; they have already, in the hundred books which have been written of them, had more notice than they deserved. The substantial, honorable, and indus- trious must now claim our attention.
When the lucky prospector had found a paying claim, the next thing was to set up his household. From two to four was the usual number of the mess. The Summers were long and dry, and there was no discomfort in sleeping out of doors. But even in Summer a house, though humble it might be, had many advantages over a tent for comfort and secu- rity. A stray horse or ox would sometimes get into the flour-sack or bread-sack, upset the sugar, or make a mess of the table-ware. Wandering Indians would pilfer small things, or take away clothing which might be left within reach; but in a cabin things were tolerably secure from depredation. A site for a cabin was selected where wood and water were abundant. These things, as well as the pres- ence of gold, often determined the location of a future town. Bottle Spring (Jackson), Double Springs, Mnd Springs, Diamond Springs, and Cold Springs, at once suggest their origin. In the earlier days, log-cabins were soon put up, for suitable logs were found everywhere. Though these cabins are in the dust-passed into history-there is no need of describing them, as the books are full of the " settlers' log cabin," and no boy of the present gen- eration, who has arrived to the age of ten, would need instruction in building one.
In the western settlements a floor made of hewn timbers (puncheons) was usual, but the ground served for a floor, and was considered good enough for a man. The sleeping places were as various as the minds of men. Sometimes a kind of dais, or elevation of two or three feet, was made on one side of the cabin, where the men, wrapped in their blank- ets, slept with their feet to the fire. Generally, bunks were made by putting a second log in the cabin at a proper elevation and distance from the sides, and nailing potato or gunny sacks across from one to the other, making in the same way a second tier of bunks, if necessary. Some fern leaves or coarse hay on these sacks, with blankets, made a comfortable bed. A good fire-place was necessary. Most of the mining was in water, necessarily involv- ing wet clothes. A rousing fire, especially in Winter, was necessary to " get dried out." Some of these fire- places would be six feet across, and built of granite or slate rocks, as each abounded. There was not much hewing done to make them fit. When the structure had been carried up four or five feet, an oak log was laid across as a mantle-piece, and on this the chimney, generally made of sticks or small poles plastered with mud, was built. A couple of rocks served for rests for the backlog and forestick. A shelf or two of shakes, or sometimes an open box in which pickles or candles had come around the HIorn, would serve for a cupboard to keep a few tin plates, and cups, and two or three cans containing salt, pepper, and soda. A table of moderate size was also made of shakes, sometimes movable, but oftener nailed fast to the side of the house. Those who crossed the plains would often take the tail-gate of
Charles Green
Mrs Charles Green
LITH. BRITTON A REY . 6.4.
RESIDENCE OF CHARLES GREEN, PLYMOUTH, AMADOR C.9 CAL.
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DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE MINERS.
the wagon for this purpose. A frying-pan, coffee- pot, Dutch-oven, and water-bucket completed the list of household utensils. As the miners became prosperous, a soup-kettle for boiling potatoes, and also for heating water to wash their clothes on a Sunday was added. Somewhere in a corner was a roll of paper, with pen and ink, with which to cor- respond with the folks at home. Cooking was some- times donc turn-about for a week, and sometimes seemed to fall to the lot of the best-natured one of the crowd, the others bringing wood and water by way of offset. Not much attempt was made at neatness, and oftentimes one had to console himself with eating only his own dirt, for there were camps where the dishes were not washed for months. Sometimes a little hot coffee turned on a plate would take off the last-formed dirt; but washing dishes- the everlasting bane of woman's housekeeping-was, if possible, more repugnant to man, and was frequently omitted; it made the gold-pan greasy (the miner's prospecting-pan served for washing dishes as well as gold, also as a bread-pan, and wash-tub on Sunday); there was no time to stop after breakfast, and they worked so late that they could not delay supper for the dishes to be washed, and so they were left from day to day. The cooking was a simple matter, boiling potatoes, making coffee, frying slap-jacks and meat, being the usual routine. Bread ?- yes, I am going to tell you about that. All sorts of bread but good bread, were made at first. The miners knew that their wives and mothers put in soda, so they put in soda. Some of them brought dried yeast across the plains, and undertook to make raised bread, but as a general thing miners' bread was but sorry, sad stuff. The most successful plan was to keep a can of sour batter (flour and water mixed),. with which to mix the bread, neutralizing the excess of acid with soda. Some of the miners became quite expert with this, judging to a nicety the exact amount of soda required. Dough mixed in this way and set in the sun, would soon raise, and, if the soda was rightly proportioned, was palatable and whole- some. The sour batter was splendid for slap jacks! The old story that a California miner could toss his slap-jack up a chimney, run out doors, and catch it as it came down, right side up, is too old to be re- peated; but it is a fact that they would turn the slap- jacks with a dexterous flip flop of the frying-pan, though when the batter was made stiff enough to stand this kind of usage, the cake would answer for half-soling a boot. The better way was to have two frying-pans, and turn the cakes by gently upsetting the contents of one into the other. Thirty years' experience and observation suggest no improvement on this method.
Practice made many of the miners expert cooks. New methods of cooking were sought out, and new dishes invented. Think of using a dry-goods box for an oven, and baking a pig or shoulder of pork in it! No trick at all. Drive down a stake or two, 10
and on them make a small scaffold, on which to place your roast; now build a very small fire of hard wood, at such a distance away that a moderate sized dry-goods box will cover it all, and your arrangements are complete. The fire will need re- plenishing once or twice, and in two or three hours, according to the size of the roast, you may take it out, donc in a rich gold color, with a flavor unat- tainable by any other method. Steaks were roasted before a fire, or smothered, when sufficiently fried by the ordinary process, in a stiff batter, and the whole baked like a batch of biscuit, making a kind of meat pic. Game sometimes entered into the miner's bill of fare. Quails, rabbits, hares, coons, squirrels, and hawks, were all converted into food, as well as deer and bear. Some Frenchmen in 1852, during a time of scarcity, killed and eat a coyote, but their account of his good qualities was not such as to induce others to try the experiment. In 1851, some miners getting out of both money and meat, shot a young and fine-looking hawk. He was fat, and, the flesh looking toothsome, they cooked him, and reported that "he was better nor a chicken." Some neighbors tricd the same experiment, but, unfortunately, killed the old fellow that was pre- served from drowning a great many years ago, through the kindness of one of our forefathers. His flesh was about the color and consistency of sole- leather, and after boiling him for three days in the vain attempt to reduce his body to an catable con- dition, he was cast away. Even the rice with which he was boiled acquired no hawk flavor, which induced one of the miners to remark, "They's much difference 'n hawks as 'n women" A second trial re- .sulted in a splendid dish, and after that hawks learned to avoid that settlement. On Christmas- day, 1852, a company of miners got up a big dinner. They put a fine large hawk in the center of a Dutch- oven, about twenty quails around it, and around them, potatoes. Some slices of salt pork on the hawk and quails, seasoned the birds, and tempered the upper heat of the oven. The hawk was pro- nounced the best of all. The Winter of 1852-53, was perhaps the roughest time ever seen in California. The long spell of high water utterly prevented the transportation of provisions from the cities, and there was much want, though no actual cases of starvation. Many mon lived for weeks on boiled barley. Beans, without even a ham-bone to season them, furnished, in some cases, the only food for weeks. At one camp, a pork rind was borrowed from one house to another, to grease the frying-pan for slap-jacks.
A narrative of personal experience of one who lived on the south branch of Dry creek, in 1852, will give an idea of the troubles of that year :-
" It had been raining for about six weeks, and our claim had been four feet under water for a month. There were no gulches there that would pay, and we had been waiting for the rain to cease until every bit
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HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
of provision of any description was gone, as well as money or dust. Something had to be done, even if the rain was coming down in torrents. There were four of ns, one Yankee, two young married men from Illinois, and a man who had served in the United States army in the Seminole war, and, also as a volunteer in the Mexican war. We shouldered our pick, shovel, and rocker, and started up towards Indian gulch. After going a short distance, one of the Illinoisians got to thinking of his young wife, and the pleasures of home compared with this country, and, overcome by his feelings, burst into a blubber of despair, and started on the run for the cabin, where he was found at night hovering over the cold ashes of the fire-place, the fire totally extinguished by his floods of tears.
" At the head of Indian gulch we found some pay- ing dirt. We went to work, and by dint of ground sluicing, rocking and panning, about four o'clock we had, probably, an ounce of dust. With this I started to Fiddletown to buy a supper for the boys. An ounce of gold dust, in 1881, will buy almost a year's provisions for a man, but in 1852 (flour at one hun- dred dollars per barrel, and meat seventy-five cents per pound), it was not much. After standing and aheming awhile, I remarked that I thought the rain would hold up shortly, so that provisions would get cheaper; believed that I would buy but a small quantity to-night, etc. Mr. Wingo, the gentlemanly trader, did not seem to notice my embarrassment, but politely sold me the little dab of flour and a piece of meat, which went down into the corner of the sack out of sight. I started for the cabin, dark- ness coming rapidly on, and the rain still falling. The creeks were now nearly waist deep, but I safely got through them all until I got to Dry creek. The log on which I crossed in the morning was gone, and the water was running high over the banks. Two or three hundred yards away was the cabin, and I knew, by the bright light shining through the cracks of the door, that a big fire had been built to cook our suppers, out of the proceeds of our day's work, and to dry our clothes, soaked by twelve hours' rain. A council of war was called, and all attainable information regarding roads, bridges, and ferries, called for. The creek was nowhere fordable; that proposition was disposed of without delay. One witness, or member of the council, had an indistinet recollection of having seen a tree across the creek a mile or two below, some days since, but could not vouch for its being there at present. This being the only information attainable, the com- mander ordered a change of base, to the possible bridge. Down the creek, in utter darkness, over rocks and bushes, stumbling and falling, and after an hour's hard work, the bridge was found. It was a cedar tree, the butt resting on the stump, the large top reaching to the opposite shore, and the middle sagged down so that the water was running, perhaps, two feet deep over the trunk, and threaten- ing every moment to sweep the tree off its moorings; for, standing on its upper end, I could feel it sway- ing to the movement of the water. But the sub- merged part had limbs standing up out of the stream, and a charge in force across the bridge was ordered, with this caution, ' My boy, if you go overboard, the boys will go without their suppers.' The opposite bank was gained in safety, by feeling the way and holding to the limbs; and, an hour later, some bread and fried pork, and a roaring fire, brought us to a comfortable condition, and gave us the spirit to laugh at all our troubles."
LAUNDRY AFFAIRS.
Necessity compelled every man to do some kind of cooking. The calls of a ravenous stomach three or four times a day could not be disregarded with impunity; but the matter of having clean shirts and beds, though quite as necessary, was not so forcibly called for, and the washing was postponed from one Sunday to another until the traditional washing-day, in many camps, was well-nigh forgotten. A clean shirt was hauled over a dirty one, until the accumu- lations of sweat and red clay would afford a study for a geologist. The blankets, too, were slept in for months, for no miner ever dreamed of having clean sheets, and as for pillows, his boots tucked under his blankets served as a support to his head. When a shirt was changed, the cast-off garment was laid aside, or left in his bunk to be washed at a more con- venient time-which never came. No wonder then that the gray-backed lice, the genuine army vermin, colonized every blanket and shirt. For months respectable men, who would as soon have been accused of stealing as being lousy, went scratching around without a suspicion of the trouble. Poison oak, hives, change of climate, and a hundred other things were supposed to produce the intolerable, persistent itching. When the true cause became known, for sooner or later the discovery was sure to come, the conduct of the victims became amusing. Some would swear, some would cast their clothing away, or perhaps bury it, and purchase an entire new outfit-but the fact was the louse had taken possession of the whole country; like the angel of the apocalypse, he had a foot on the sea and on the dry land; in the store as well as in the cabin. A vigorous war with hot water, on everything that would scald, would exterminate him, though some lazy, and consequently lousy, miners contended that hot water would not kill them. The louse event- ually abandoned the country; but whether from the neater habits of the miners, or the coming of the avenger,
THE FIERCE SANGUINARY FLEA,
Is still an open question. Between 1851 and '53, contemporaneous with the irruption of the rat, the flea fought his way into every camp, and held the fort, too, against all enemies. If unwashed shirts and blankets were favorable to the existence of myriads of gray-backs, not less so was the swarming lice for the flea, for he made meat and drink of them. Ilot water had no terrors for the flea; he was out and off before a garment would go into the water. During the day he made his home in the dust floor of the cabin, and at night sallied out of his lair, thirsting for blood. And he must be a good sleeper indeed, who could close his eyes in slumber, while hundreds of lancets were puncturing his cuticle. Sometimes a cabin was abandoned on account of them. A person happening to come in would have hundreds crawling on his pants in a few minutes.
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DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE MINERS.
Sometimes a man would leave his cabin and blankets and sleep on the naked ground on the outside to get rid of his persistent bed-fellows.
THE MINERS' FLEA-TRAP.
If necessity is the mother of invention, the flea- trap was a' sure corollary. It was a simple and effective affair. It was known that fleas would gather around a light; taking advantage of this habit, the miners would set a lighted candle on the floor, and around it set their pans with a small quantity of slippery soap-suds in each. The flea would fall in, struggle vigorously for awhile to get out, and finally drown. A tablespoonful of the rascals in the morning was considered a satisfactory cateh. Later the bed-bugs drove out, to some extent, the flea, and still hold the land. The good housewife is often reduced to despair by the per- sistence of these unweleome tenants of her rooms, who neither pay rent nor vacate.
The following artiele, from the Oakland Times, is eommended to the attention of housekeepers who are still in the thick of the doubtful and unequal eontest :-
" Stoekton is celebrated for its mosquitoes, Saera- mento for its bed-bugs, San Francisco for its rats, and Oakland for its fleas. They are larger and there are more of them; they can jump further and higher, bite oftener and deeper, than any fleas in the world. They are more persistent than a book agent, and hold with a tighter grip than a money-lender. They swarm everywhere-in the streets, the stores, and the public places. Everybody 'has 'em bad.' The young and the old, the tender and the tough, alike are meat for them .. If you wish to say a compli- mentary thing to a lady, ten to one a flea will bite you where it is impossible to scratch, while, likely, the lady, troubled in the same way, will manifest impatience. Do not misjudge her, or be discouraged. " You may fancy that your neighbor in the cars has the itch; no such thing; only the irrepressible fica. Flea-catching is one of the accomplishments of our belles. They never disrobe without taking a hunt, and boast of the numbers they slay. Even the sanctuary is invaded by them; in fact, the church flea is the most ravenous of' all. Starved during the week, he has an extraordinary appetite when the Sabbath comes. No bells calling a laboring man to his dinner ever brought such joy as the Sunday chimes do to the fasting flea. How he rushes to the attack as the people take their seats! How the vic- tims writhe and squirm as the flea plunges his jaws into them! Preachers unaccustomed to the phenom- enon, imagine it to be the sword of the spirit bring- ing sinners to a lively sense of their condition, and they lay on and spare not. Fleas, reverend sir; nothing more.
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