USA > California > Placer County > History of Placer county, California > Part 81
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MINING ON THE RIVER.
The rush to the river had been too early-in April and May-at a time when the water was high, and therefore all the gold that could be got, eame either from the higher bars or from pits, to work which required bailing of water. The consequence was that before the water in the river became low enough to work advantageously, most of the men left in search of other diggings, leaving along the stream on the bars, in their abandoned camps, everything they had taken in there but the clothing they wore (generally of buckskin), and their blankets. Angust 1, 1849, there were not more than twenty white men from Barnes' Bar to Green Valley working upon the North Fork, and six of these were former Hudson Bay Company employees, at work in the bed of the stream just above the Giant's Gap. Some very fair stocks of goods had been put in store at Alder Grove abont the time the exodus of the miners from the river began, and the traders were disappointed at the turn that affairs had taken. Sears & Miller, who had a large assortment of goods suited only for the Indian trade, immediately began to hire them to work, and from about July Ist to the middle of September employed an average of fifty Indians a day, whom they kept panning out upon the river bars, and in this way accumulated a great deal of gold.
THE PIONEER SETTLERS.
Among the Oregonians who came to Alder Grove in May, 1849, was E. T. Mendenball, who had left a
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HISTORY OF PLACER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
young wife and babe eneamped among the sand dunes of Happy Valley, San Francisco, while he went mountainward to spy out a home for himself and them. He learned from experience that the mines upon the North Fork were good, and at the same time looked with very favorable eyes upon the pristine beauties of the valley in which were located Alder Grove and the Upper Corral. Here he deter- mined to set up his altar, gather around him his household gods, and establish a home in the wilder- ness of California. With this laudable intention, about the middle of the summer he proceeded to San Francisco, and soon thereafter had his wife, infant, and what few articles of indispensable house- hold material were at hand en route for the mount- ains.
Thus, on the 28th of July, 1849, on the deck of the little schooner Sea Witch, in the harbor of San Francisco, did the writer first encounter them. With the other passengers were two more Oregonians. a Mr. MeLeod (an old-time Hudson Bay employee) and a Mr. Atwood, both of whom were " old miners," having worked on the Stanislaus in 1848, and having been back to Oregon, were now just on their return to remain during the season of '49. How natural it was for the young novice to listen to the tales of these " old miners," and become captivated to ingra- tiate himself into their esteem, to that extent that they would allow him to accompany them to the diggings, where, profiting by their large experience, fortune might soon be accumulated.
LANDING AT SACRAMENTO.
The Sea Witch made her landing under a big sycamore tree in front of the future city of Sacra- mento, on the morning of July 29th, having had a remarkably quiek passage, and preparations were im- mediately made for transportation to the mines. An Oregon man owning a team was finally found, who would, for thirty-five cents a pound, deliver the outfit at Alder Grove, and he was speedily engaged. With- out remarkable incident the place was reached on the 3d of August, and Mr. Mendenhall at once entered into possession of what proved to be for many years his future home. Immediately setting to work he put up his little tent, built a booth of poles with cross pieces covered with brush, and forth- with the first hotel of the place was established, where, for one dollar and a half, the wayfarer would be served with bacon and beans, bread, and pie made of dried fruit-all the delicacies then obtainable- from the hand of the pioneer white woman of that whole region, Mrs. Mendenhall.
FIRST PROSPECTING EXPERIENCE.
Atwood and MeLeod, with their protege, mean- while prospected every bar upon the North Fork, from Barnes to the forks of the river above Green Valley. The two first-named, during the previous summer, had luckily been possessed of big diggings,
from which, inexperienced as they were they had realized $20,000 to $25,000 each. Consequently their ideas were quite exalted, and no common diggings would suit them.
The river banks were almost untouched and were rich everywhere, but with the heavy, deep tin pans supplied by the Hudson Bay Company, these men would pan ont in the presence of their companion, and obtaining no more than twenty-five cents to one dollar and a half a pan, would invariably say " wake kloshe, kultus," hit the bottom of the vessel a kiek with their toe and consign the gold again to the stream. They didn't want the fine dust; they were seeking chunks which were doubtless higher up in the mountains. In this manner was that rich stream condemned by these two " old miners " clear np to the forks, near which point the six old mountaineers were at work, and who told the little party it would be unsafe to go farther, for they believed from what they had seen that there were fully a thousand Indians scattered upon the streams but a short distance above, and as quite a party of them had been met at Cold Springs in coming up, who were impudent and sauey, MeLeod and Atwood coneluded they would go over to Feather River, which they did.
THIE MINING LESSON LEARNED.
'The novice who had thus far followed the fortunes of the two "old miners," concluded that he had learned all they had to impart; he was footsore and fagged out by much travel, after having been long penned up on ship-board, and bethought him of a shady spot away down in the gorge by the water, where, in a shallow hole the gravel yielded what they called a dollar and a half a pan. He would not go to Feather; nor did he. On the contrary he would revisit his ideal spot to mine, and there attempt his virgin effort at digging for gold.
The place was on the North Fork of the Ameri- can, nearly opposite Cold ( now Mountain ) Spring, upon the southern side of the river. There he picked up a rocker dug out of a log, with no apron, and with a riddle made of rawhide, and some other rude tools that had been left by the earlier Oregon men, and with these wrought until the rain of the 9th of October of that year admonished him of the liability of being cut off from the lower world, and a repeti- tion of the storm a few days later determined him in hurrying his departure to some point further down the stream. For a month past there had been other men on the bar -- two brothers named Higgins, and a man named Frick, all from Mt. Pleasant, lowa. The last work done at this place with the old dugout rocker, by the original loeator, yielded a little over three ounces in three hours. The whole plant was then presented to the Higgins' brothers and Frick, who were partners, and the former owner turned his footsteps from the place forever, and climbed the hill with no little load of blankets and gold-dust.
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GENEROSITY AND GRATITUDE.
The new owners worked the bar with great suc- cess until the rains in November compelled them to leave it. They then went to Deer Creek, and were among the first locators of claims on Gold Run (not the Gold Run of Placer County), a little stream overlain then with deep muck and grass- covered soil, which emptied into Deer Creek oppo- site the present town of Nevada City, from the south. In making locations there they did not forget the one who had given them their start upon the North Fork, but located ground for him also, and sent word of their action; but not being able to get to it in time, and the great rush there a little later, which rendered it impossible for the locators to hold it without representation, made it unavailable.
The following spring, in witnessing its working, the one for whom the Higgins boys located the ground frequently saw a "panikin," holding about a pint, full of gold as a half day's work of two men with a rocker-the top dirt having been stripped off previously.
SEEKING SHELTER.
As the winter of 1849 approached, men began to leave the river, as at other points, and gather at the settlements on the ridges, and Alder Grove became quite populous. Before the rains had fairly set in, Mr. Mendenhall had completed a double log house-he occupying one part as a hotel and Charles L. King and Horatio Hoskins the other portion as a store. In September John D. Egbert, Robert S. Egbert, and Oliver Egbert had arrived and located in the vicinity, the two latter settling down to mining, making shakes, and doing all sorts of work, while the former, having a commercial turn, devoted his time to teaming and trading. It was not long before the Egbert Brothers had a cabin filled with miners' supplies, and were ready to trade in those or any other article going. Pierson, meantime, had been busy laying in stores, and had several ox- teams running over the road freighting from Sac- ramento. Sears & Miller sold their store in Novem- ber to David Fairehild and M. D. Fairchild, father and son, and the little community, with all of these sources of supply to draw upon, seemed to be well-prepared for the winter before them.
INDIANS.
As there were many beautiful little valleys upon the divide between Auburn and Illinoistown, and as the locality reached the altitude where grew the sugar-pine. as well as being the home of the black oak, and there being an abundance of game, it was a favorite abiding-place of the Indians, and scores of little knolls overlooking the small valleys spoken of were covered with the circular-shaped huts, constructed mainly of bark. Cords of the long cones of the sugar-pine were stacked up near these villages, with the seed, or nut, still in them,
which were only shelled when required-their natural cell affording better protection from the effects of rain by the closing up of the scales of the bnr by dampness upon the outside, than any method the Indians had adopted for their preserva- tion. Immense caches of manzanita were also made. Large cribs were built of small-sized logs, filled with acorns and covered with bark. These were the main winter stores of the aborigines, and were then an adjunct to every cluster of wigwams, and the quantities gathered and stored were astonishing.
Toward the end of November the Indians began to get impudent and saucy. They were more numer- ous than the whites; they were, of right, no doubt, the natural lords of the heritage; the country had been occupied by their ancestors away back to a time beyond the memory of the oldest among them, and they soon began to look upon the interloping gold-diggers as legitimate subjects of plunder. A slight castigation for a few instances of palpable theft made them avoid the settlement. When any would come, it would only be an old man or two, accompanied, perhaps, by several urchins of the tribe, but "signs" of a great many could be seen at any time just at the outskirts of the place, which circumstance was looked upon as an unfavorable indication of their good feeling and intentions.
DASTARDLY ROBBERY AND BLOODLESS BATTLE.
Finally, about the second week of December, dur- ing the temporary absence of the proprietors, who had gone to Auburn, the Indians broke into the store, at the lower end of the valley, and carried off or destroyed nearly everything that was portable, except liquors, which at that time they never drank. For several nights they continued these visits, and no one came to make them afraid. But just at dusk on the evening of the 15th of December, 1849, during the prevalence of a heavy storm, which had been incessant during the day, the proprietors of the store approached the place with five pack-animals laden with additional supplies. A smoke issning from a hole in the shake roof, instead of coming through the chimney, first attracted their attention. A bar was spiked to the logs on the outside, across the door, as they had left it six days before.
Listening for a moment, suppressed sounds of merriment were heard in the Indian dialect. It was no time for parleying, but one for action. The howling storm without, and the darkening pall of night had more terrors to the fatigued and hungry white men than the arrow points of the exuberant savages within. The barricade was wrenched from off the door, which was suddenly thrown open, and two drenched and storm-chilled angry white men confronted more than a score of comfortably condi- tioned Indians, surprised at their feast. The fire they had made under the place they had entered prevented escape in that way, and their only oppor- tunity was to flee through the door.
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A rifle barrel was poised before them, its aim direeted at the most prominent one, and the trigger sprung. The hammer struck a cap rendered harm- less by the dampness, and a savage lite was pro- longed. A pistol was then jerked from a scabbard un- derneath the outer garments, levelled and attempted to be fired, but the damp had penetrated to the per- cussion upon that, too, and made ineffective. The fist was next tried, and several fleeing Indians rolled upon the sleet-covered ground as they came in a body over the threshhold of the door. Their bows were all unstrung, and the suddenness and fierceness of the attack had frightened the Indians so that they were glad to escape, without attempt- ing their use, not knowing the number of their assailants.
. The mules were unpacked and tethered for the night, the fire removed to the ample hearth, and the hole in the roof patched up. Supper got and eaten, and clothing dried, the two occupants of the cabin sought the repose of their blankets. Not long after that the noise of men tramping around them, and the voices of white men, re-assured them. It was a a party from the upper end of the valley, who, having noticed the depredations during the day, and know- ing the owners to be absent, had come down armed intending to chastise the intruders, but upon learn- ing of the state of affairs returned to their homes after an hour or two.
PURSUIT OF THE INDIANS.
Morning came, and not a mule was found where the previous night they had been securely fastened, and the tell-tale tracks showed but too plainly where they had gone. The Indians had taken them. Fol- lowing up their trail, a couple of miles brought the pursuer to a place where one of them had been killed, though not a particle of the animal remained, only the offal emptied from the entrails. Returning to the town, the citizens were informed, and several men volunteered to follow up the trail and attempt the recovery of those yet alive.
Of this party Mr. Pierson was one, and the trail had not been long followed before it became appar- ent that the Indians had taken some oxen as well as mules, and if so they were cattle belonging to Pier- son. Though the animals at first had been driven, or led, singly and circuitously, upon nearing the strongholds of the Indians the tracks augmented and the trail became more marked. Places were found where other animals had been slaughtered, and the flesh packed away on the backs of Indians. Pierson was furious over his loss.
FIRST MILITARY COMPANY ORGANIZED.
It was unsafe for the small party in pursuit to go further. They therefore decided to return to Illi- noistown, report the situation to the inhabitants, and obtain reinforcements. This was done. A public meeting was called and held at Pierson's
store, which resulted in the formation of the pioneer military organization of Placer County, under the euphoneous title of " California Blades." Twenty- one members enrolled, and elected J. W. Gish, Captain.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST THIE SAVAGES.
Arming themselves, not " as the law directs," but as each member best eould-some with United States yagers, others with old-fashioned muzzle- loading rifles, swords of curious pattern, conceived by some fertile brain in the far East and fashioned for the use of some mining company that came across the plains, old cutlasses, single-barreled cav- alry pistols glittering with much brass, Allen's "pep- per-boxes," and such other incongruous weapons.
The day following the organization this company went upon the war-path. Some four or five miles westerly from Illinoistown-the evidences of Indian depredations accumulating as they traveled-while following up a trail, the company came suddenly upon a ridge and surprised and captured an Indian who was evidently there as an outlook to warn the tribe of any approaching enemy. Silently the whites proceeded, and not long after, unheralded, they entered the Indian village, but fired no shots. Alarmed, the Indians vanished in a moment-all but the prisoner and several decrepit ones unable to escape.
Ilere were undoubted evidences of their thefts; mules and cattle hides fresh from the animals were used to cover the bark huts; the meat and bones were found: many goods stolen from the store were in the wigwams, and there were even other articles seen which gave rise to suspicions that they had not been obtained without the murder of their original owner. Besides these were large cribs of acorns, piles of pine cones, and supplies of manzanita. The capture having been effected. the question was then mooted as to what disposition should be made of the captured material. Some argued that there would be no security from Indian raids until they were all driven across Bear River, and to do this their huts and stores must be destroyed; while others, who bad lost nothing, and who had never made fast time over a rough course to the twanging bowstring as it sped a glass-headed shaft in pursuit, thought it would be too inhuman to deprive the savages of their huts so cunningly contrived, and their food so carefully garnered. But the evidences of their raids were palpable; men out alone in the woods had been shot at with arrows, and if not punished, the Indians might construe an act of clemency into cowardice.
The advocates pro and con. seemed to be about evenly divided in the ranks of the " Blades," and they would put the question to vote. The destrue- tionists won by a single vote; and an hour or two later all that remained about that Indian village besides piles of ashes and glowing embers were the stone mortars and pestles used by the squaws in
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pounding into flour the acorns and manzanita, or something equally incombustible-the stolen plunder found there as well as the Indian property.
The same day another eamp was attacked, two men killed, several children taken prisoners, and the village and stores destroyed. From that time on until the following June it was not safe foran Indian to be seen upon that divide. One after another did the " Blades" seek out these villages, destroy them as found, and drive the Indians across Bear River; and the Bear River Indians were rated as the most fierce of all the Digger Tribe.
During the month of January a party of them went down to Auburn, and just about daylight one morning stampeded and drove away over fifty head of oxen from a place in sight of the village, and they were never recovered. About fifty men organized for the pursuit, but dared not attempt it without the co-operation of the " Blades," and therefore came up to Illinoistown and the two companies went out together.
The result was fruitless, for the Auburn Company had fully half its members disabled by sore feet from traveling in snow, and the number being so great that the Indians were forewarned and got out of reach long before the party in pursuit could get at them. Several villages, however, were destroyed, the huts of which were covered with the hides of the stolen cattle. But a single Indian was seen on the whole scont, and he out of reach of gunshot, whoop- ing derisively at the whites.
Not long after this time a party of Indians made a raid from the north side of Bear River into Illi- noistown in the night, and going to Fairchild's place stole apother mule, and leading it to the upper end of the valley where the Egbert Brothers had a store- house filled with provisions, broke into it, loaded the animal and themselves with all sorts of goods and made their escape over the trail to Bear River. Upon reaching the stream, not being able to get the mule aeross, they shot it, but got away with the balance of the plunder. In April they stole more horses from Fairchild, and in pursuing them he and a com- panion forced them to retreat to Bear River, upon the banks of which they killed two animals that they were unable to get into the water-one belong- ing to Pierson (a valuable one) and one to Fairchild.
Returning to Illinoistown, Pierson was informed of his loss, when he called together the " Blades," with others who volunteered, and went into the last scout of the campaign. Some twenty or more Indi- ans were killed and scalped, and a month later at nearly all of the wayside houses on the road from Illinoistown were scalps on exhibition. Several men (one named James Doane) and quite a number of team animals were shot by the Indians about that time on the wagon road between Auburn and Illi- noistown; but practically the trouble was by this time ended.
A FRONTIER PICTURE.
The foot-hill Indians at that time were a peculiar people. But few of them had ever visited the Mis- sions, though many of the male adults had been to Sutter's Fort. While the females were but sparingly robed, many of the males in summer time went entirely naked.
A few weeks after Mendenhall established his place at Alder Grove, there being nothing more than a tent where his wife and child slept and the booth under which the table was spread, and while Mrs. M. happened to be alone, there suddenly appeared before her six stalwart savages in paris naturalibus demand- ing "bishkit," and thinking her unprotected were quite impertinent. Becoming a little alarmed she approached the tent, looked in and began talking to an imaginary person therein. Upon this the Indi- ans desired to look in also, but she, thinking her only salvation from harm depended upon their not being allowed to do so, seized an old rifle which stood there unloaded and presenting it, drove them off.
At another time there came a big buck well calcu- lated to create a sensation. At this time there had another woman arrived at the place, Mrs. Rachael Griffith, also a young Oregonian. They and two young men were sitting under the booth discussing apple pies and the general news, when in marched the gentleman alluded to. He had, from the cast- away outfit of some gentleman pioneer, procured a plug hat; and from some deserting soldier either stolen or bought a cavalryman's jacket-all blue with gorgeous stripes of red and yellow. These he had donned-and nothing more-and now appeared for the first time in his life before a civilized assemblage in civilized costume, sans shirt, sans pants, sans everything, save and except the tall plug hat and the short jacket of a U. S. dragoon. It was a frontier scene which no artist could correctly trans- fer upon canvas with the expectation of having his picture adorn the modern drawing-room. It was decidedly comieal. There was no escape for either the young men or women. Stoically and with statue-like rigidity stood the Indian, no doubt sup- posing himself the admired of all beholders.
This was too much for human risibilities. A glance from one white man to the other caused a spasmodic relaxation of the facial muscles, which let escape a half-suppressed titter, which was the cause of opening the safety-valves of the entire quartette of throats, and a lond guff-haw broke forth as the women scampered laughing with all their might to the friendly seclusion of the little tent. The noble red man, divining that his appearance had brought him ridicule rather than admiration, without even saying a word or changing his immobile features, contemptuously turned upon his heel and sought the cover of the adjacent forest.
The diet of the primitive Indian, besides the food enumerated in the foregoing pages, was spiced by
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HISTORY OF PLACER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
the larva of various insects, and the tender young clover of spring was devoured by them with immense gusto. The eggs of ants they gathered by bushels; and the maggots found in wasp's nests were an apparent delicacy. To find these they sometimes canght a yellow-jacket and attached to it a spider's web two or three feet long to the loose end of which was fastened a piece of down. This done, the insect would be chased and driven by a troop of yelping nrebins until it sought the nest, generally in the ground, wherenpon it was dug out and the coveted morsel roasted and eaten.
THE CAMP RECEIVES ITS NAME.
How the name Illinoistown stuck to the little set- tlement is past comprehension. Any of the other names which it bore were more euphoneous. Pier- son's store was the place where the "boys" most did congregate and where "speculation" in cards was a predominating feature. Here a meeting was held in December, 1849, and the name fastened npon the locality, though there were probably not to exceed a half-dozen emigrant residents from the State of Illinois. Fully fifty men claimed it as their winter home, and with the opening spring of 1850, came hundreds of men seeking for diggings upon the adja- cent streams and the ridges both upon that and the Iowa Hill divides, and it assumed a business import- ance second only to Auburn, which it maintained for fully fifteen years, or until the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad to Colfax, which place has now completely absorbed it in a commercial point of view.
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