USA > California > Humboldt County > History of Humboldt County, California : with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, farms, residences, public buildings, factories, hotels, business houses, schools, churches, etc., from original drawings, including biographical sketches > Part 14
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REVIEW OF THE GOLDEN ERA OF 1849.
SAN FRANCISCO ON SUNDAY.
Sunday in the time of the mining excitement differed little from other days. Banks were open; expresses were running; stores were open for the most part; auctioneers were crying their wares, and the town was full of business and noise. Gambling saloons were thronged day and night. The plaza was surrounded with them on two sides, and partly on a third. Music of every sort was heard from them, sometimes of the finest kind, and now and then the noise of violence and the sound of pistol shots. The whole city was a strange and almost bewildering scene to a stranger.
THE GOLDEN ERA OF 1849.
" The ' fall of' '40 aud the spring of '50' is the era of Califor- nia history, which the pioneer always speaks of with warmth. It was the free-and-easy age when everybody was flush, and fortune, if not in the palm, was only just beyond the grasp of all. Men lived chietly in tents, or in cabins scarcely more dur- able, and behaved themselves like a generation of bachelors. The family was beyond the mountains; the restraints of soci- ety had not yet arriveil. Men threw off the masks they had lived behind and appeared out in their true character. A few did not discharge the consciences and convictions they brought with them. More rollicked in a perfect freedom from those bonds which good men cheerfully assume in settled society for the good of tho greater number. Some afterwards resumed their temperate, steady habits, but hosts were wrecked before the period of their license expired.
" Vory rarely did men on their arrival in the country, begin to work at their old trade or profession. To the mines first. If fortune favored, they soon quit for more congenial employ- ment. If she frowned, they might depart disgusted, if they were able; but oftener, from sheer inability to leave the busi- ness, they kept on, drifting from bar to bar, living fast, reck- less, improvident, half-civilized lives; comparatively rich to- day, poor to-morrow; tormented with rheumatisms and agues, remembering dimly the joys of the old homestead; nearly weaned from the friends at home, who, because they were never heard from, soon became like dead men in their memory; seeing little of women and nothing of churches; self-reliant, yet satisfied that there was nowhere any 'show' for them; full of enterprise iu the direct line of their business, aud utterly lost in the threshold of any other; genial companions, morbidly craving after newspapers; good fellows, but short-lived."
A REVIEW OF EVENTS.
At this day it seems strange that the news of this great dis- covery did not fly abroad more swiftly than it did. It would not seem so very strange, however, if it could be remembered how very improbable the truth of the gold stories then were.
And it appeared to be most improbable, that if gold was really found, it would be in quantities sufficient to pay for go-
ing after it. People were a little slow to commit themselves, at first, respecting it. Even as late as May 24, 18+5, a corre- »pondent writing in the Californian, a paper then published in San Francisco, expressed the opinion of some people thus :-- " What evil effects may not result from this mania, and the consequent abandonment of all useful pursuits, in a wild-goose chase after goll ?"
A good many people, far and near, looked upon the matter in this light for some time. The slowness with which the news traveled in the beginning, is seen in this :-
Monterey, theu the seat of government, is not more than four or five days' travel from the place where gold was first discovered. The discovery took place not later than the 1st of February, 1848. Aud yet Alcalde Walter Colton says, in his journal uuder date, May 29th, "Our town was startled out
ALCALDE COLTON MEETS THE MINER. (See next page.)
of its quiet dreams to-day by the announcement that gold had been discovered on the American Fork."
If it took four months for the news of the discovery of gold to travel as far as Monterey, the capital town of the country, it is not surprising that it hardly got over to the Atlantic States within the year 1848. There was then an express that adver- tised to take letters through to Independence, Missouri, in sixty days, at fifty cents apicce.
If the gold news had been thoroughly credited here, it might have been published all through the East by the first of May ; but it was not. In the carly fall of 1848, however, the rumor began to get abroad there, through private sources. At first it was laughed at, and those who credited it at all had no idea that gold existed here in sufficient quantities to be worth dig- ging
ALCALDE COLTON'S VISIT TO THE MINES.
Walter Colton, the alcalde of Monterey, and writer of " Three Years in California," hearing of the discovery of gold, visited the mines. From his descriptions we gain an insight into those days. We copy his journal for a few days :-
$
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SCENES AND INCIDENTS IN THE GOLD MINES.
" 1848 October 12 .- We are camped in the center of the gold mines, in the heart of the richest deposits, where many hundreds are at work. All the gold-diggers were excited by the report that a solid pocket of gold had been found on the Stanislaus. . In half an hour a motley crowd, with crow-bars, pick-axes, spades, and wash-bowls went over the hills in the direction of the new deposit. I remained and picked out from a small crevice of slate rock, a piece weighing a half-ounce.
"October 13 .- I started for the Stanislaus liggings. It was an uproarons life ; the monte-table, with its piles of gold, gliin- mering in the shade. The keeper of the bank was a woman. The Imuk consisted of a pile of gold, weighing, perhaps, a hun- dred pounds. They seemed to play for the excitement, caring little whether they won or lost.
"It was in this ravine that, a few weeks since, the largest lump of gold found in California was discovered. Its weight was twenty-three (23) pounds, and in nearly a pure state. Its discovery shook the whole mines. (Query-Does any one know the name of the finder ?)
"October 14 .- A new deposit was discovered this morning near the falls of the Stanislaus. An Irisbman had gone there to bathe, and in throwing off his clothes, had dropped his knife, which slipped into a crevice, and in getting it, picked up gold- dust. He was soon tracked out, and a storm of picks were splitting the rocks.
PRICES OF PROVISIONS.
" October 15 .- Quite a seusation was produced by the arrival from Stockton of a load of provisions and whisky. The price of the former was: flour, $2 per pound; sugar and coffee, $4. The whisky was $20 per quart. Coffee-pots and sauce-pans were in domand, while one fellow offered $10 to let him suck with a straw from the bung. All were soon in every variety of inebriety.
"October 16 .- I encountered to-day, in a ravine some tbree miles distaut, among the gold washers, a woman from San Jose. She was at work with a large wooden bowl, by the side of a stream. I asked her how loug she bad been there, and how much gold she averaged per day. She replied: " Three weeks, and an ounce."'
"October 18 .-- A German, this morning, picking a hole iu the ground near our camping tree, struck a piece of gold weigh- ing about three ounces. As soon as it was known, some forty picks were flying "into the earth, but not another piece was found. In a ravine, a little girl this morning picked up what she thought a curious stone, and brought it to her mother, who found it a lump of gold, weighing six or seven pounds.
"October 20 .- I encountered this morning, in the person of a Welshman, a marked specimen of the gold-digger. He stood somne six feet eight in his shoes, with giant limbs and frame. A slender strap fasteued his coarse trowsers above his hips, and coufined the flowing bunt of his flannel shirt. A broad-rimmed
hat sbeltered his browny features, while his unsborn beard and hair flowed in tangled confusion to his waist. To his baek was lasbed a blanket and bag of provisions; on one shoulder rested a huge crow-bar, to which was hung a gold wasber and skillet; on the other rested a rifle, a spade, and a pick, from which dangled a cup and a pair of heavy shoes. He recognized me as the magistrate who had once arrested him for breach of the peace. " Well, Alcalde," sail he, "I am glad to see you in these diggings. I wason a buster; you did your duty, and I respect you for it ; and now let me settle the difference between us with a bit of gold; it shall be the first I strike under this bog." Before I could reply, his traps were on the ground, and his pick was tearing up bog after bog. These removed, he struck a layer of clay. "Here she comes," he cjaculated, and turned out a piece of gold that would weigh an ounce or more. " There Alcalde, accept that, and when you reach home have a brace- let made for your good lady." He continued digging around the same place for the hour I remained, but never found another piece-not a particle. No uncommon thing to find only one piece, and never another near it."
THE DESERTED CLAIMS.
Scattered all up and down through the mining districts of California are hundreds of sucb spots as that represented by Colton. Time was when the same place was full of life and activity; when the flume ran ; when the cabins were tenanted ; when the loud voices of men rose, and the sounds of labor kept the birds away that now fly so fearlessly around the tumbling ruins. But the claim gave out, and the miners, gathering their tools together, vamosed for some otber spot, and desolation set in. The unused flume dropped to pieces, ownerless huts became forlorn, and the debris only added to the dismalness of the place. Or wbo knows, some dark deed may have led to the abandonment of the clairu, for surely the spot looks uncanny and gloomy enough for twenty murders.
FIRST DISCOVERIES OF GOLD.
The first actually known of the metals was the reported discov- ery, as early as 1802, of silver at Alizal, in Monterey County. In 1825, Jedediab S. Smith, at the head of a party of Ameri- can trappers, while crossing the Sierra Nevada in the vicinity of Mono Lake, "found placer gold in quantities and brought much of it with him to the encampment on Green River."
This is the first known discovery of gold in California, and much of the honor that is showered upon James W. Marshal, should properly fall upon this intrepid and enterprising pioneer trapper, Jedediah S. Smith.
In 1828, at San Isador, in San Diego County, and in 1833, in the western limits of Santa Clara County, gold was also found.
Gold placers were discovered in 1841, by a Canadian, near the Mission of San Fernando, forty-five miles nortbeast of Los Angeles, and were worked until 1848, in a small way, yielding some $6,000 annually.
ISLAND MILL.
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W.W. ELLIOTT & CO. LITH. 619 MONTGOMERY ST. S. F.
MILL PROPERTY OF D.R. JONES & CO.
RES.OF D.R.JONES, COR.4!" & H. STS. EUREKA
EUREKA MILL.
A. BacThatcan,
& CO.EUREKA, HUMBOLDT CO. CAL.
•
ORGANIZATION OF STATE GOVERNMENT.
Organization of the Government.
1846 .- Thomas O. Larkin, the American Consul at Monte- rey, who under instructions had gained a great amount of in- fluence among the leading native Californians, suggested and eansed the issuance of a circular by Governor Pico, in May. 1846, calling a convention of thirty of the inore prominent men in the country. This assemblage was to discuss the condition of affairs and to petition the Mexican authorities for an im- proved government ; if the request met with a refusal, the ter- ritory was to be sold to some other power. The tendency of this discussion would be towards the transfer of the territory to the United States. The convention did not meet, however, as events trauspired which precluded the possibility of a peace- ful transfer. Lieut. John C. Fremont arrived in that year, and soon became embroiled in a wordy conflict with the authori- ties, and Ide and his party declared a revolution at Sonoma as heretofore mentioned.
The more intelligent settlers of California saw at an early day the urgent necessity of a regular constitution and laws. The pro- visional government existing since the conquest of 1847 was but a temporary affair and by no means able to satisfy the wants of a great, growing, and dangerous population which had now so strangely and suddenly gathered together. The inhab- itants could not wait the slow movements of Congress. At- tempts were made by the citizens of San Francisco, Sonoma, and San Jose to form legislatures for themselves, which they invested with supreme authority. It was quickly found that these independent legislative bodies came into collision with each other, and nothing less than a general constitution would be satisfactory to the people.
Great meetings for these purposes were held at San Jose, San Francisco, Monterey, Sonoma, and other places, in the months of December and January, 1848-49. It was resolved that dele- gates be chosen by popular election from all parts of the State to meet at San Jose. These delegates were to form a Consti- tution. These movements were general on the part of all eiti- zens, and no partizan feeling was shown in the matter.
CONVENTION CALLED AT MONTEREY.
1849 .- While the people were thus working out for them- selves this great problem, the then great Military Governor, General Riley, saw fit to issue on the 3d of June, 1849, a proc- lauation calling a Convention to meet at Monterey on the 1st oľ September, to frame a Constitution.
These delegates were forty-eight in number, and while they represented all parts of the State, they were also representa- tives of every State in the Union. They were men not much used to those deliberations expected of such a body, hut they determined to do their duty in the best possible manner.
The delegates, at their first regular meeting on the 4th of
September, chose, hy a large majority of votes, Dr. Robert Semple as President of the Convention; Capt. William G. Marey was then appointed Secretary, and the other necessary offices were properly filled up. After rather more than a month's constant labor and discussion, the existing Constitu- tion of California was drafted, and finally adopted hy the Con- vention.
THE FIRST STATE CONSTITUTION.
This document was formed after the model of the most approved State Constitutions of the Union, and was framed in striet accordance with the most liberal and independent opiu- ions of the age.
On the 13th of October, 1849, the delegates signed the instrument, and a salute of thirty-one guns was fired.
The house in which the delegates met was a large, hand- some two-story stone erection, called " Colton Hall." and was, perhaps, the best fitted for their purposes of any building in the country. It was erected by Walter Colton, who was the Alcalde of Mouterey, having heen appointed by Commodore Stockton July 28, 1846. The building is still standing in a good state of preservation.
The Constitution was submitted to the people and was adopted on the 13th of November, a Governor heing elected at the same time :-
For the Constitution. 12,064
Against the Constitution.
811
For Governor, Peter H. Burnett. . 6,716
W. Scott Sherwood 3,188
J. W. Geary 1,475
.. John A. Sutter. 2,201
..
William M. Stewart. 719
Total vote ou Constitution 12,875
Total vote for Governor 14,299
This vote was light, and was chiefly cast at San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento, and the mines most convenient to the latter places. The miners were moving about from place to place, were scat- tered along the rivers and in the mountains, and on account of the limited facilities for communication and the short time hetween the adjournment of the Convention and the day of the election, there was no opportunity offered to thousands to exercise the right of franchise on this occasion, hut they gladly acquiesced in the decision of their countrymen.
FIRST CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE.
On Saturday, the 15th of December, 1849, the first Leg- islature of the State of California met at San Jose. The Assembly occupied the second story of the State House, but the lower portion, which was designed for the Senate Cham- ber, not being ready, the latter hody held their sittings, for a short period, in the house of Isaac Branham, on the southwest corner of Market Plaza. The State House proper was a building
MEETING OF THE FIRST LEGISLATURE.
sixty-five feet long, forty feet wide, two stories high and adorned with a piazza in front. The upper story was simply a large room with a stairway leading thereto. This was the Assembly Chamber. The lower story was divided into four rooms; the largest, 20x40 feet, was designed for the Senate Chamber, and the others were used by the Secretary of State and the various committees. The building was destroyed by fire on the 29th of April, 1853, at four o'clock in the morning.
SOLONS DISSATISFIED WITH SAN JOSE,
On the first day of the first legislative session only six Sen- ators were present, and perhaps twice as many Assemblymen. On Sunday, Governor Riley and Secretary Halleck arrived, and by Monday nearly all the members were present. Num- ber of members: Senate, 16; Assembly, 36. Total, 52. No sooner was the Legislature fairly organized than the members began to growl about their accommodations. They didn't like the legislative building, and swore terribly, between drinks, at the accommodations of the town generally. Many of the solons expressed a desire to move the Capitol from San Jose immediately. On the 19th instant George B. Tingley, a member of the House from Sacramento, offered a bill to tbe effect that the Legislature remove the Capitol at once to Mon- terey. The bill passed its first reading and was laid over for further action.
FIRST STATE SENATORS ELECTED.
On the 20th Governor Riley resigned his gubernatorial office, and by his order, dated Headquarters Tenth Military Department, Sau Jose, California, December 20, 1849, (Order No. 41), Capt. H. W. Halleck, afterwards a General in the war of the Rebellion, was relieved as Secretary of State. On the same day Gov. Peter Burnett was sworn by K. H. Dimick, Judge of the Court of First Instance.
The same day, also, Col. J. C. Fremont received a majority of six votes, and Dr. M. Gwin a majority of two for Senators of the United States. The respective candidates for the United States Seuate kept ranches, as they were termed; that is, they kept open house. All wbo entered drank free and freely. Under the circumstances they could afford to. Every man who drank of course wished that the owner of the establishment might be the successful candidate for the Senate. That wish would be expressed half a dozen times a day in as many differ- ent houses. A great deal of solicitude would be indicated just about the time for drinks.
FIRST INAUGURAL BALL.
On the evening of the 27th the citizens of San Jose, having become somewhat alarmed at the continued grumbling of the strangers within their gates, determined that it was nec- essary to do something to content the assembled wisdom of the State, and accordingly arranged for a grand ball, which was given in the Assembly Chamber. As ladies were very
scarce, the country about was literally ' raked," to use the expression of the historian of that period, "for señoritas," and their red and yellow flannel petticoats so variegated the whirl of the dance that the American-dressed ladies, and in fact the solons themselves, were actually bewildered, and finally captivated, for, as the record further states, "now and then was given a sly wink of the eye between some American ladics, and between them and a friend of the other sex, as the señori- tas, bewitching and graceful in motion, glided by with a cap- tured member." But, notwithstanding this rivalry, the first California inaugural ball was a success. "The dance went on as merry as a marriage bell. All were in high glee. Spirits were plenty. Some hovered where you saw them not, but the sound thereof was not lost."
THE NOTED LEGISLATURE.
Speaking of the appellation applied to the first body of Cal- ifornia law-makers, i.e., " The Legislatureof a Thousand Drinks," the same quaint writer says, " with no disrespect for the mem- bers of that body, I never heard one of them deny that the baptismal name was improperly bestowed upon them. They were good drinkers-they drank like men. If they could not stand the ceremony on any particular occasion they would lie down to it with becoming grace. I knew one to be laid out with a white shect spread over him, and six lighted candles around him. He appeared to be in the spirit land. He was really on land with the spirits in him-too full for utterance. But to do justice to this body of men, there were but a very few among them who were given to drinking babitually, and as for official labor, they performed probably more than any subsequent legislative body of the State in the same given time.
In the State House there was many a trick played, many a joke passed, the recollection of which produces a smile upon tbe faces of those who witnessed them. It was not infre- quently that as a person was walking up stairs with a lighted candle, a sbot from a revolver would extinguish it. Then what sbouts of laughter rang through the building at the scared indi- vidual. Those who fired were inarksmen; their aim was true and they knew it."
THE FANDANGO PATRONIZED.
Speaking of the way in which these gay and festive legisla- tors passed their evenings, a writer says: " The almost nightly amusement was the fandango. There were some respectable ones, and some which at this day would not be called respect- able. The term might be considered relative in its significa- tion. It depended a good deal on the spirit of the times and the notion of the attendant of such places. Those fandangos, where the members kept their hats on and treated their part- ners after each dance, were not considered of a bigh-toned character (modern members will please bear this in mind).
There were frequent parties where a little more gentility was exbibited. In truth, considering the times and the coun-
71
ACTS AND AMUSEMENTS OF EARLY LEGISLATORS.
try, they were very agrecable. The difference in language, in some degree prohibited a free exchange of ideas between the two sexes when the Americans were in excess. But then, what one could not say in so many words be imagined, guessed, or inade signs, and, on the whole, the parties were novel and interesting.
AMUSEMENTS FOR THE MEMBERS.
The grand out-door amusements were the bull and bear fights. They took place sometimes on St. James, and some- times on Market Square. Sunday was the usual day for bull- fights.
On the 3d day of February tho legislators were enter- tained by a great exhibition of a fellow-inan putting hinself on a level with a beast. In the month of March there was a good deal of amusement, mixed with a considerable amount of excitement.
It was reported all over the Capital that gold had been dis- covered in the bed of Coyote Creek. There was a general rush. Picks, shovels, crow-bars and pans had a large sale. Members of the Legislature, officials, clerks, and lobbyists con- cluded suddenly to change their vocation. Even the sixteen dollars per day which they had voted themselves was no induce- ment to keep them away from Coyote Creek. But they soon came back again, and half of those who went away would never own it after the excitement was over. Beyond the above interesting and presumably prominent facts history gives ns very little concerning the meeting of our first Legislature except that the session lasted 129 days, an adjourninent having been effected on the 22d of April, 1850.
SECOND SESSION OF LEGISLATURE.
1851 .- The Second Legislature assembled on the Gth of January, 1851. On the 8th tho Governor tendered his resignation to the Legislature, and John McDougal was sworn in as his successor. Tho question of the removal of the capital from San Jose was one of the important ones of tho session, so much so that the citizens of San Jose were remarkably active in catering to the wislies of the muembers of the legis- lativo body. They offered extravagant bids of land for the capital grounds, promised all manner of buildings and accom- modations, and even took the State serip in payment for Leg- islators' board. But it was of no use.
Vallejo was determined to have tbe capital, and began brib- ing members right and left with all the city lots they wanted. The act of removal was passed February 14th, and after that date the Legislators had to suffer. The people refused to take State scrip for San Jose board, charged double prices for every- thing; and wben, on the 16th of May, the Solons finally pulled up stakes and left, there was not thrown after tbem the traditional old shoe, but an assorted lot of mongrel oaths and Mexican maledictions greeted tbem on their long-wished-for departure.
REMOVALS OF THE CAPITAL.
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