USA > California > Sacramento County > History of Sacramento County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, 1913 > Part 37
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"This was the only road built in California where the people did not know anything about it. I kept the engine out on the old Jackson road, and used to sneak in in the morning with the engineer and fireman and again at night to bring them back, the men boarding on the road, so no one knew anything about it. I built the first movable cook-house in this part of the country for the men to board in, and bought pro- visions from the ranchers, who let the men sleep in their barns and out- buildings. My men were stevedores, who knew nothing but how to work, and I pushed things lively. Engineer Pope was running the engine, and was sparking Sam Rich's adopted daughter. Some days we laid a half mile and some days a mile of track, as we could get material. Old Page was owner of the Lake House then and would not let us grade across his land, so we had to lay the rails on the ground after the matter was fixed, and then haul dirt in for a roadbed. The trouble was adjusted afterwards. When the track was all finished I ran an excursion train over the road to Freeport. I stopped along the road and invited the farmers' families to get aboard. Then a re- porter got hold of it and published an account of the road, so the people found out what I had been doing.
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"People nowadays do not realize the conditions that prevailed in early days. At the time of the '62 flood I went to Elk Grove, sick. The water was all over the country and they had to run a steamboat to Routier's to bring supplies for the people. There was only one sack of flour at Elk Grove, and George Bates had that and divided it with his neighbors. That was what is known as old Elk Grove now; the present Elk Grove was not in existence until after the railroad was built. You can judge how the water covered the country when they built a harge at Buckner's at old Elk Grove, right on the upper Stockton road, to go to Stockton for supplies.
"Robinson asked me if I could work, and I told him yes. There was very little hay in the country for the horses and it was hard to get at that. I went over to Deterding's and paid $40 a ton for some old, rotten hay. The roads were awful, and teams were stalled every- where. I went over to Salisbury's and engaged some hay at $40, to be delivered to me the next morning, and when I went after it the fellow told me he had sold it for $45, so I had my trouble for my pains. I could not get to Florin or Perkins, as the water was too high.
"The high water washed away a part of the Sacramento Valley railroad tracks, and the ties and rails were scattered all over the country. I began gathering them up, and it was a job to get them out of the mud with the teams. Where Agricultural Park is, was covered with railroad iron, and iron was iron in those days, when it had to come 'round the Horn.' Robinson came to my camp where the Buffalo brewery stands and asked me, 'how much iron have you got ?' 'All there is here,' I answered. 'That is not enough,' says he. I kept on gathering it up, and was going along by Gerber's, near the hospital, and saw some railroad iron in the mud. They had held a fair out at Buck Harrigan's that year. So I hauled it out with the teams, and it was hard work. I found a good deal had floated down there on the slough that runs through the county hospital grounds. Still we were short of iron. 'Tear up the sidetrack at Brighton,' said Robinson. 'I won't do it,' said I. 'There are a lot of rails at Buck Harrigan's that I will get.' 'Go to it,' said he. A good many bosses would have discharged me for answering that way, but I never worked under a better boss than Robinson.
"When they built the S street sewer a few years ago, they found some rails under ground, and one of the men said there must have been a track there in the early days, but I told him the rails came there during the flood. Romeo Carroll built a corral out that way by splitting ties and driving them into the ground endways. I asked him where he got them and where I could find the rails, but he only laughed, and would not tell me. There are lots of rails today buried in the slough that runs through the William Curtis place.
"It was tough on the people when everything was flooded so. All the box cars were full of families, and the water stood all about them.
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You couldn't see the wheels or the trucks. I was afraid they would go down and be washed away, so I got the two engines; the Garrison was in front and the Robinson behind. We cut the train in two parts and ran half of it out across the break between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. The water was running through fast, and I got stringers across and anchored them with anchors from the vessels on the river. Then I dumped in two carloads of cobbles that were to have been shipped to San Francisco for paving streets. When that was done, we had connection made from Sixteenth to Twenty-first street so that we conld transfer our Folsom passengers. I was afraid the other part would go before we could get it out, but we saved it.
"I worked for Colonel Wilson in '59 and '60 on the Marysville road; Montague was the engineer. The road only got to Lincoln, and was sold to the Central Pacific, which road had hard times, and there is more than one little bit of interesting history concerning it that but very few know. Before it got to Newcastle it was out of money, and C. P. Huntington was sent to Boston to try to make a raise. On the steamer, going to Boston, was Judge Slauson, a Boston attorney, and as Huntington had also come from Boston, they became good friends. Some of Slanson's clients, moneyed men of that city, had become involved in a deal whereby they stood to lose $7,000,000, or thereabouts, and he had been sent for to go east and help them out. Huntington confided to Slanson the financial difficulties of the road and asked him to get his clients to buy ont the promoters. 'They have money,' said he, 'and can carry it on and win out and make money. We will sell out the road to them, rolling stock and all, for $1,500,000.' Slauson told his clients, but they said they knew nothing about railroading, and they stood to lose $7,000,000 already. Slauson bundled them off to Europe, where papers could not be served on them, and saved them $4,500,000. Then he got busy among his friends and raised $250,000 for Mr. Huntington on second mortgage bonds. As soon as he received the money the company began to work again and built the road to Clipper Gap. Then the change came and the mountains were brought down to Roseville and they got their $48,000 a mile. The first thing they did after they got money was to buy Sam Brannan's mortgage and foreclose on the California Central. Charles Crocker bought one share of the stock for the purpose and served an injunction on Robinson to prevent his taking the rails on the Auburn road. My father and Stanford were very friendly, and they held three meetings in my father's house at Folsom with the Sacramento Valley railroad people before the California Pacific started from Sac- ramento. Robinson wanted to have one director on the board if they bought the road, but they would not consent. Finally the purchase was made. My father paid the Valley road the first money it ever received for freight, when it brought him up a ton of seed wheat for $1.50, the regular rate being established at $3.
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"The other day Tom McConnell, of McConnell station, was in here to see me, and we had a chat about the old days. McConnell settled at Garden Valley, on the Georgetown road near Greenwood and Johntown. He started a store there and cultivated a garden, from which the place took its name. He raised potatoes and sold them to the miners for thirty cents a pound. Such things were high in those days. He came down to Sacramento one day and stepped into a store where Charlie Grimm was having an auction. A lot of cotton shirts were being sold and he bought the whole lot for five cents apiece and took them home: It cost two bits. in those days to get a shirt washed. He told the miners he would sell them the shirts for two bits, and they concluded it was better to wear a shirt a couple of weeks and throw it away than to pay for having it washed, so he sold all his shirts and got the reputation of being the cheapest storekeeper to buy of in that country.
"In the winter of '52-53, the rains were very heavy and the bot- tom dropped out of the roads, and a great many teams were laid up along the road. Flour was selling at fifty cents a pound. Some freighters got within three miles of Garden Valley and got stalled. McConnell went down and bought their flour for thirty cents and sold it to the miners for forty cents. 'I was lucky,' said he; 'I just got rid of it when it came down to twenty-five cents.' For a time the price of all kinds of merchandise was low except picks and shovels, and McConnell said he never got more than $5 apiece for picks and $10 for shovels."
THE FIRST BALL
The following tale of a historic event by "Forty-Niner" relates the incidents surrounding the first ball given in the county and was published in the '70s in the Record-Union, and will prove of interest as depicting the shifts to which those inclined to shine in "sassiety" in those days were reduced in order to make items for the social column. The narrator says :
"In my brief history of this place (Mormon Island) as appeared in your issue of the 12th, I neglected to give you a statement of the manner we enjoyed ourselves in those good and jolly old days of '49. We had our social gathering once each month, after 'the ball,' how- ever. The first ball ever given in Sacramento county was given here, and was the most difficult to make a success and the most amusing. It will be well remembered by two of the residents of your city, and two of San Francisco, when they refresh their memory. A full and true insight as to the management of such affairs at that early time will be a treat to your readers, especially to those who are 'high- toned' this present day, if they had been present as spectators to witness those hale and buxom maidens with short dresses, gray woolen stockings, and brogans, soles one-half inch thick. How they did langh
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and sing and grow fat under such innocent and moral enjoyment.
"The second day after my arrival at the Blue Drilling hotel, I borrowed a yeast powder can, holding about half a gill. I started, after my morning meal, for the bank of the river. The sand was liter- ally mixed with gold, as I supposed. I sat me down, exposed to the boiling sun, the thermometer claiming one hundred and seventeen de- grees, and spent the entire day gathering with the point of my knife the scale gold, as I thought, and depositing the same in my miniature tin safe. At sundown it was full, and I thought that a few days of such work would be all I cared for, and return home. I took the result of my day's work to Markham's store to have it weighed and get the coin for the same, but to my astonishment it was nothing more or less than mica. Feeling discouraged, I thought that gold is only sought as a means toward this end. Happiness is the concentration of all riches, and the most perfect happiness of this world is simply to be content.
"My cash account growing short, I had to resort to some strategy to make a raise, so I suggested to the landlord that as winter was fast approaching he ought to have a canvas roof on his building, to pro- tect the health of his patrons. The roof that was on his house would leak when it rained, and the interior of the hotel was dry when it did not rain. Upon my suggestion, he concluded to make the necessary repairs, and I to do the sewing at fifty cents a yard, and when the work was done a grand ball was to be given to pay such an extrav- agant expense. Two gentlemen, then residents of this town (now one is a captain of one of the Sacramento and San Francisco boats, and the other a wealthy and prominent member of the board of brokers of San Francisco), were called upon, and the promised treat was dis- cussed in all its parts. One of these gentlemen suggested that a floor should be laid so that it would be more pleasant for the dancers. I and the landlord objected, he on the ground of unnecessary expense, and I for the reason that the cost would overbalance the receipts; the house would be bankrupt, and I would whistle for my pay. I gained my point by arguing that the ladies' brogans would last longer on a dirt floor than on wood.
"Next in order was discussion as to the proper arrangements to be made on such an important occasion. Our friend, 'now on the river,' suggested the programme, which was concurred in by the com- mittee. Large posters written upon brown wrapping paper, with a blue pencil, were posted in every direction-'Tickets, twenty dollars,' and the 25th of December, 1849-for the first ball ever held in the county of Sacramento.
"A few days before, quite a large immigration from the western states arrived, and it was suggested and proposed that the committee should wait on the female portion and solicit their aid and services in preparing food for the supper, 'as the cook at the hotel could not be trusted, for he was one of those Yankee fellows, and his extravagance
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in preparing the food would surely bust the boss.' We waited upon the ladies, and their excuse was that having just arrived, their whole time would be occupied in the wash tub, bath tub, and the preparation of their outer garments. Our only hope was to solicit the aid of the miners for our supper, and we offered to pay them for their food and premiums for the best meats, bread, cakes and pies; and your cor- respondent was appointed a committee of one to make the award- which was half-price to the dance. That was a smart trick of the landlord, for he knew I would find some excuse for refusing any premiums, as he had an eye for profit, and I for my pay.
"Well, the 25th arrived; the miners brought in their several meats, cakes, pies, etc., each one doing his best to excel the other. At 2 P. M. everything needed for the supper was exhibited for in- spection and awards in the cabin of W. Jones. The first examination was of two fine appearing hams. Premiums were refused in both cases-first, that the hams had not been washed before boiling, and the skin had not been taken off after boiling. The other was a shoulder, but by a neat contrivance about four inches of the leg of a ham had been carefully sawed off and with a wooden peg neatly placed in the shoulder, having the appearance of a genuine ham. Each was paid for his ham at $1 per pound, and they paid for their tickets $20 each. The next examination was the corn beef, which proved to be a chunk of 'salt horse' brought there some two weeks before by a sailor. He was paid for his salt horse and he paid for his ticket, as no premium was awarded him.
"The bread was examined, and it was the unanimous opinion of the committee, at my suggestion, that it was dark. A person could not tell whether he was eating bread or leather. This report soon spread through the town, and an old and venerable Jack Tar had his trunk half full of ship biscuit, which he offered as a substitute, and was accepted. The bread-makers' premium was withheld, and the donor of the biscuits received a pass to the dance at half-price.
"Sansage meat came next, but as it had been made of nothing but beef and tallow, it could not be put on the table, as fishballs are prepared for use, so the whole bunch was boiled and served up cold, and a complimentary ticket given him. The cakes were in fine order, sufficient grease having been used to make them palatable. They were accepted, and another $20 was lost. Something had to be done to avoid any further issue of free tickets for the ball, so the committee, taking a wink from me, agreed that the balance of the food should be averaged with that that had been examined except the pies, and they should be passed upon at the table, during supper, when pie was called for. The time did arrive. The first one cut proved to contain dried apples, brought from Boston, thoroughly eaten up with worms, and the black seeds still sticking in them. The crust was fair; he was paid for his pies, but received no pass.
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"The second pie cut had the appearance of being O. K. of the dried peach order. A strong demand was made for peach pie. The first person that took a bite happened to have a false tooth in his head; instantly it fell from his month. An inquiry was at once made as to the canse of all this confusion, and the fault lay in the crust of the pie. It was carefully examined by those of the committee who had sound teeth and found to excel India rubber in toughness. The competitor was at once assessed for the damage done, which was set- tled by paying for the unfortunate gentleman's ticket.
"Our work being done, the question arose as to who should have the honor of presiding over the floor at the dance. My old friend, now of San Francisco, was appointed as boss owing to his having a neat, white, fried shirt to give tone to the occasion. Myself and my Sacramento river friend were appointed as jigger bosses, he having a swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, and I having a neat and clean collar over my woolen shirt, and a neat pair of boots, well greased, which made a good appearance.
"The appearance of the ballroom was all that could be desired except that the managers were guilty of the grave oversight of neglect- ing to provide benches around it for the company. Wheeling planks were soon on hand, and, supported by drygoods boxes, made all satis- fied, and for the better accommodation and comfort of the ladies the landlord kindly allowed his two pairs of blankets to be used to give them the appearance of stuffed benches. The music stand was a shoe box and a three-legged stool on top. The hall was handsomely illum- inated by twelve candles stuck in porter bottles, and secured to the walls of the building with wires and handsomely decorated by the rough but tasteful hands of the miners with miniature flags and ever- greens. All was now ready; the proprietor looked up and down the streets for the coming of the dancers. One fellow told the landlord that in California the people never go to balls until the next day; that joke cost the landlord a cocktail and a steerage cigar. The company began to appear, however, at rather a late hour. Everybody had heard of the grand hall, and everybody wanted to see the crowd in attendance. It was a most singular miscellany, and in some cases the wonder was how the requisite $20 for a ticket was raised.
"If it were desirable, I could critisize the ball pretty freely with- ont being untruthful, but I should lavish ink and exhaust rhetoric in the vain effort to describe the entire success of this first entertain- ment. I dare not do it in print for the sake of my reputation for veracity nor undertake to say how many sighs were lavished upon the managers, the languishing glances that were leveled at them across the hall, what eloquent rhymes were coined to their praise, and how many gallant men risked the perils of a duel for the honor of first attempting to solicit the hand of the fair maidens for a dance. Even the furniture-wheeling planks-appeared to hold high carnival, the
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sofas displaying their elasticity, the candles winking, and the fiddlers sometimes bursting out into such uproarious hilarity that the very strings appeared as if they were struggling to get out of their places.
"12 M. supper was called. Boards in the center of the hall were placed in their proper position, the old blue drilling roof was used for a table cloth, tin plates and knives and forks were in plenty, and soon the crowd took their standing positions. Be it known that the table was made high enough to compel the hungry crowd to stand, for by such an arrangement they soon got tired and would leave the table with their bunch of fives full of grub, to make room for the steerage patrons. Shortly after eating commenced a colored miner, who had been cook of a whaling ship, entered and graciously donated a plum duff, tapering regularly to a point from a circular base. The handsome donation was thankfully received, but the out- side of the duff had the smell of something very much like perspira- tion, and from its appearance must have been boiled in the sleeve of a shirt. However, the outside was carefully scraped, and not a speck was left for the second table. Supper over, the tables were kicked out doors and dancing renewed. A young maiden was present, named 'The Infant,' fourteen years of age, weight one hundred and eighty-nine ponnds. I asked for the honor of her hand for a polka; her answer was 'yon bet.' The first turn I made, flop I went on the dirt floor ; a clothes brush was in demand, but as none could be found, she took a long-handled broom and swept me off. After this was done, she called alond, 'Here, Jim, finish this dance with me; this fellow can't swing under my weight.' I surrendered, but before they got well started a string on the fiddle broke. The fiddler declared that he could not play any fancy dances without four strings. The polka had to be abandoned, at which I felt a calm satisfaction.
"Well, the ball ran until four o'clock, and only the bass string left. Thus ended the first ball ever given in Sacramento county. I got my pay for my work, and my name is yet Forty-Niner."
In the previous article.alluded to "Forty-Niner" told of customs at the "Blue Drilling" hotel. He says: "I took up my quarters at the hotel made of blue drilling; the polite landlord, at present a resi- dent of your city, bowed me into my room, which consisted of ninety pine poles covered with canvas, and would accommodate forty per- sons, but contained only two pairs of blankets. As soon as one fell asleep, the accommodating landlord would remove the blankets from him for the next customer, and if they were slow to. retire, a glass of '49 Bourbon soon compelled them to. After all were asleep, the land- lord took the blankets from his last patron and went to bed himself, to dream of the many two dollars coming in the next morning for lodging. Many inquiries were made for the hedclothing, but the
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gentlemanly proprietor settled the muss by another cocktail and a steerage cigar (cabin cigars at that time sold for fifty cents each), and all was peace."
CHAPTER XXXIII TOWNSHIP HISTORY
ALABAMA TOWNSHIP
Alabama township was established October 20, 1856, a prior divi- sion of the county having been made February 24, 1851, by the court of sessions, by which eight townships (known as Sacramento, Sutter, San Joaquin, Cosumnes, Brighton, Center, Mississippi and Natoma) were established. It is bounded on the north by Lee and Cosumnes townships, on the west by Dry Creek township and on the south and east by the county line. It was originally part of Cosumnes town- ship and includes township six north, ranges seven and eight east. which he north of Dry Creek, and also a strip from the west side of townships five and six north, range nine east, nearly a mile wide, in this county.
John Sontherland came into this township in 1850 and engaged in stock raising, and Roberts and Chaplin, who were the first ones to raise barley in the township, settled on a ranch near him the same year, and Joshma and William Hewald, adjoining them, also raised grain and hay. In 1851 Ed Thompson, an old sea captain, settled with his family in the township, but afterwards sold his farm to the Goodwin brothers. Soon after selling he had a dispute with a laborer. and calling him out of the house, shot and killed him, then left the country and was never found. Dr. George Elliott settled in 1851 at the crossing of the Stockton road and Dry creek, kept a stage station and hotel, owning the stage line. The place was known as Elliott's station and a postoffice was established there in 1852, Elliott being appointed postmaster. He sold out in 1858, a Mr. Mitchell being ap- pointed to succeed him, until the office was discontinued, when Martin Scott purchased the hotel and moved it.across the creek into San Joaquin county. James M. Short and W. Lords came in 1852, and the former still lives there. Other early settlers previous to 1855 were S. B. Lemon, James Crocker, Thomas H. Fowler, William Mitchell (a large sheep-raiser), Richard White, William H. Young, William Callon, John Bowen and Joshua Bailey. In 1858 Thomas Steele set- tled at what is now known as Clay Station, and a postoffice was estab- lished there in 1878, Steele being postmaster, storekeeper and black- smith. The Sacramento and Stockton stages ran through the town- ship and by the station and hotel kept by Dr. Elliott. The Forest Line Stage Company began running in June, 1869, and ceased in 1876, running from Galt to Mokelumne Hill. George Brusie kept a station
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