USA > California > San Benito County > History of San Benito County, California : with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, farms, residences, public buildings, factories, hotels, business houses, schools, churches, and mines : with biographical sketches of prominent citizens > Part 11
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The Donner Brothers, with their families, hastily constructed a brush shed in Alder Creek valley, six or seven miles from the lake.
The Mr. Donner who had charge of one company, was an
Illinoisian, sixty years of age, a man of high respectability and abundant means. His wife was a woman of education and refinement, and much younger than he.
Of course these were soon utterly destitute of food, for they could not tell where the cattle were buried, and there was no hope of game on a desert so piled with snow that nothing without wings coull move. The number of those who were thus storm-stayed, at the very threshold of the land whose winters are one long spring, was cighty, of whom thirty were females, and several, chillren. Much of the time the tops of the cabins were below the snow level.
FORLORN HOPE PARTY.
It was six weeks after the halt was made that a party of fifteen, ineluding five women and two Indians who acted as guides, sct out on snow-shoes to cross the mountains, and give notice to the people of the California settlements of the condi- tion of their friends. At first the snow was so light and feathery that even in snow-shoes they sank nearly a foot at every step. On the second day they crossed the " divide," finding the snow at the summit twelve feet deep. Pushing forward with the courage of despair, they made from four to cight miles a day.
Within a week they got entirely out of provisions; and three of them, succumbing to cold, weariness, and starvation, had died. Then a heavy snow-storm came on, which compelled them to lie still, buried between their blankets under the snow, for thirty-six hours. By the evening of the tenth day three more had died, and the living had been four days without food. The horrid alternative was accepted-they took the flesh from the bones of their dead, remained in camp two days to dry it, and then pushed on.
Ou New Years, the sixteenth day since leaving Truckee lake, they were toiling up a steep mountain. Their feet were frozen. Every step was marked with blood. On the second of January, their food again gave out. On the third, they had nothing to eat but the strings of their suow-shoes. On the fourth, the Indians eloped, justly suspicious that they might be sacrificed for food. On the fifth, they shot a dleer, and that day one of their number died. Soon after three others died, and every death now eked out the existence of the survivors. On the seventeenth, all gave out, and concluded their wanderings useless, except ono. He, guided by two friendly Indians. dragged himself on till he reached Johnson's Ranch on Bear river, the first settlement on the western slope of the Sierras, when relief was sent back as soon as possible, and the remaining six survivors were brought in next day. It. had been thirty- two days since they left Donner lake, No tongue can tell, no pen portray, the awful suffering, the terrible and appalling straits, as well as the noble deeds of heroism that characterized this march of death. The eternal mountains, whose granite
55
THE TRAGIC FATE OF THE DONNER PARTY.
faces bore witness to their sufferings, are fit monuments to mark the last resting-plaec of this heroic party.
RELIEF PARTIES FITTED OUT.
The story that there were immigrants perishing on the other side of the snowy barrier ran swiftly down the Sacramento valley to New Helvetia, and Captain Sutter, at his own expense, fitted out an expedition of men and of mules ladened with provisions, to eross the mountains and relieve them. It ran on to San Francisco, and the people, rallying in public meeting raised fifteen hundred dollars, and with it fitted out another expedition. The naval commandant of the port fitted out still others.
The first of the relief parties, under Captain J. P. Tueker, reached Truckee lake ou the nineteenth of February. Ten of the people in the nearest camp were dead. For four weeks those who were still alive had fed only on bullocks' hides. At Donner's eamp they had but one hide remaining. The visitors left a small supply of provisions with the twenty-nine whom they could not take with them, and started back with the remainder. Four of the children they carried on their backs.
Second of the relief parties, under J. F. Reed, reached Truckee lake on the first of March. They immediately started back with seventeen of the sufferers; but, a heavy snow-storm overtaking them, they left all, except three of the children, on the road. The third party, under John Stark, went after those who were left on the way; found three of them dead, and the rest sustaining life by feelling on the flesh of the dead.
The last relief party reached Donner's eamp late in April, when the snows had melted so that the earth appeared in spots. The main cabin was empty, but some miles distant they found the last survivor of all lying on the cabin floor smoking his pipe. "He was ferocious in aspect, savage and repulsive in manner. His camp-kettle was over the fire and in it his meal of human flesh preparing. The stripped bones of his fellow- sufferers lay around him. He refused to return with the party, and only consented when he saw there was no escape."
This person was Louis Keseberg, who has been execrated as a cannibal, and whose motive in remaining behind has been aseribed to plunder. Never until now has he' made any attempt to refute these stories. He says :-
" For nearly two months I was alone in that dismal cabin. * * * Five of my companions had died in my eabin, and their stark and ghastly bodies lay there day and night, seemingly gazing at me with their glazed and staring eyes. I was too weak to move them had I tried. I endured a thousand deaths. To have one's suffering prolonged inch by inch; to be deserted, forsaken, hopeless; to see that loathsome food ever before my eyes was almost too much for human endurance."
For two months he lived there entirely alone, boiling the
flesh of his dead companions. When the last relief party came they found him the sole survivor.
If he were guilty of the erimes charged to him he has cer- taiuly paid the penalty. To use his own words: "Wherever I have gone people have cried, ' Stone him ! stone him ?' Even httle children in the streets have mocked me aud thrown stones at me as I passed. Only a man conscious of his own innocence would not have succumbed to the terrible things which have been said of me-would not have committed suicide. Mortifi- cation, disgrace, disaster, and unheard-of misfortune have fol- lowed and overwhelmed me."
Keseberg has lost several fortunes, and is now living in poverty at Brighton, Sacramento county, with two idiotie children.
FATE OF DONNER AND WIFE.
When the third relief party arrived at Donner lake, the sole survivors at Alder Creek were George Conner, the Captain of the company, and his heroie wife, whose devotion to her dying husband caused her own death during the last and fearful days of waiting for the fourth relief. George Donner knew he was dying, and urged his wife to save her life and go with her little ones with the third relief, but she refused. Nothing was more heart-rending than hier sad parting with her beloved little ones, who wound their childish arms lovingly around her neck and besought her with mingled tears and kisses to join them. But duty prevailed over affection, and she retraced the weary dis- tance to die with him whom she had promised to love and honor to the end.
Mrs. Douner was the last to die. Her husband's body, care- fully laid out and wrapped in a sheet, was found in his tent. Circumstances led to the suspicion that the survivor (Keseberg) had killed Mrs. Donner for her flesh and her money; and when "he was threatened with hanging, and the rope tightened around his neek, he produced over five hundred dollars in gold, which, probably, he had appropriated from her store."
STRANGE AND EVENTFUL DREAM.
George Yount was the pioneer settler of Napa county. He dreamed that a party of immigrants were snow-bound in the Sierra Nevadas, high up in the mountains, where they were suffering the most distressing privations from cold and want of food. The locality where his dream had placed these unhappy mortals, he had never visited, yet so clear was his vision that he described the sheet of water surrounded by lofty peaks, deep-covered with snow, while on every hand towering pine trees reared their heads far above the limitless waste. In his sleep he saw the hungry human beings ravenously tear the Hesh from the bones of their fellow creatures, slain to satisfy their eraving appetites, in the midst of a gloomy desolation. He dreamed his dream on three successive nights, after which he related it to others, among whom were a few who had
56
EARLY DISCOVERIES OF GOLD.
been on hunting expeditions to the Sierras. These wished for a precise description of the scene foreshadowed to him. They recognized the Truckee, now the Donner lake. On the strength of this recognition Mr. Yount fitted ont a search expedition, and, with these men as guides, went to the place indicated; and, prodigious to relate, was one of the successful relieving parties to reach the ill-fated Donner party.
SCENE OF THE DISASTER.
Of the eighty-seven persons who reached Donner lake, only forty-eight escaped. Of these twenty-six are known to be living in this State and in Oregon.
The best description of the scene of the disaster was given by Edwin Bryant, who accompanied General Kearney's expe- dition in 1847 to bury the remains. . He says: "Near the principal cabins I saw two hodies entire, with the exception that the abdomens had been ent open and the entrails extracted. The flesh had been either wasted by famine or evaporated by exposure to the dry atmosphere, and they presented the appear- ance of mummies. Strewn around the cabins were dislocated and broken skulls (in some instances sawed asunder with care, for the purpose of extracting the brains), human skeletons, in short, in every variety of mutilation. A more revolting and appalling spectacle I never witnessed. The cabins were burned, the bodies buried, and now there is nothing to mark the place save the tall stumps, from ten to twenty feet in height, which surround some of the rocks on the lake's shore."
The Discovery of Gold.
No history of a county in California would he complete without a record of the rush to this coast at the time of what is so aptly named the " gold fever."
The finding of gold at Coloma by Marshall was not the real discovery of the precious metal in the territory. But the time and circumstances connected with it, together with the exist- ing state of affairs, caused the rapid dissemination of the news. People were ready and eager for some new excitement, and this proved to be the means of satisfying the desire. From all parts of California, the coast, the United States, and in fact the world, poured in vast hordes of gold-seckers. The precions metal had been found in many places.
DR. SANDELS' SEARCH FOR GOLD,
1843 .- Iu the summer of 1843, there came to this coast from England, a very learned gentleman named Dr. Saudels, Ho was a Swede by birth. Soon after his arrival on the coast, the
Doctor visited Captain Sutter. The Captain always thought there must be mineral in the country, and requested Dr. Sandels to go out into the mountains and find him a gold mine; the Doctor discouraged him hy relating his experience in Mex- ico, and the uncertainty of mining operations, as far as his knowledge extended, in Mexico, Brazil, and other parts of South America. He advised Sutter never to think of having any- thing to do with the mines; that the best mine was the soil, which was inexhaustible. However, at Sutter's solicitation, Dr. Sandels went up through his grant to Hock Farm, and thence through the Butte mountains up the Sacramento valley, as far as the location of Chico.
While passing over the black adobe land lying between the Butte mountains and Butte creek, which resemhled the gold wash in Brazil, Dr. Sandels remarked :- "Judging from the Butte mountains, I believe that there is gold in this country, but I do not think there will ever be enough found to pay for the working." Dr. Saudels was hurried, as the vessel upon which he was to take passage was soon to sail, and he could not spare the time to pursue his search to any more definite end.
GEN. BIDWELL KNEW OF GOLD.
1844 .- When General Bidwell was in charge of Hock Farm, in the month of March or April, 1844, a Mexican hy the name of Pablo Gutteirez was with him, having immediate supervision of the Indian vaqueros, taking care of the stock on the plains, " hreaking" wild horses, and performing other duties common to a California rancho. This Mexican had some knowledge of gold mining in Mexico, where he had lived, and after returning from the mountains on Bear river, at the time mentioned, he informed General Bidwell that there was gold up there.
SUTTER'S SAW-MILL.
1847 .- Captain Sutter always had au unconquerable desire for the possession of a saw-mill, by which he could himself furnish the necessary material for the construction of more improved buildlings than the facilities of the country could at that time afford. Around his fort, in 1847, was a person named James W. Marshall, who had a natural taste for mechanical contrivauces, and was able to coustruct, with the few crude tools and appliances at hand, almost any kind of a machine ordinarily desired. It was to this man that Sutter intrusted the erection of the long-contemplated and much-needed saw- inill. The contract was written by Mr. John Bidwell, then Captain Sutter's secretary, and signed by the parties. Marshall started out iu November, 1847, equipped with tools and pro- visions for his mnen. Ho reported the distance of the selected site to be thirty miles, but he ocenpied two weeks in reaching his destinatiou in Coloma. In the course of the winter a dam and race wore inade, but, when the water was let on, the tail-
RESIDENCE OF JESSE ROSS, NEAR HOLLISTER SAN BENITO CO. CAL.
57
MARSHALL'S DISCOVERY OF GOLD.
race was too narrow. To widen and deepen it, Marshall let in a strong current of water directly to the race, which bore a large body of mud and gravel to the foot.
MARSHALL'S DISCOVERY OF GOLD.
1848 .- On the 19th of January, 1848, Marshall observed somne glittering particles in the race, which he was curious enough to examine. He called five carpenters on the mill to see them; but though they talked over the possibility of its being gold, the vision did not inflame them.
One lump weighed about seventeen grains. It was malle- able, heavier than silver, and in all respects resembled gold. About 4 o'clock in the evening Marshall exhibited his find to the circle composing the mill company laborers. Their names were James W. Marshall, P. L. Winmer, Mrs. A. Wimmer, J. Bar- ger, Ira Willis, Sydney Willis, A. Stephens, James Brown, Ezkiah F. Persons, H. Big- ler, Israel Smith, William Johnson, George Evans, C. Bennett and Wil- liam Scott. The conference result- ed in a rejection of the ilea that it was gohl. Mrs. Wimmer tested it by boiling it in strong lye. Mar- shall afterwards tested it with nitric acid. It was gold, sure enough, and the discoverer found its like in all the sur- rounding gulches wherever he dug for it. The secret could not be long kept. It was known at Yerba Buena three months after the discovery,
TWO IMPORTANT EVENTS.
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which California was ceded to the United States, was concluded in Mexico, on February 2, 1848. It proves to have been on that very day, the second of February, 1848, that, here in California, Marshall rides in from Sotter's Mill, situated at what is now Coloma, forty miles to Sutter's Fort, his horse in a foam and himself all bespattered with mud; and finding Captain Sutter alone, takes from his pocket a pouch from which he pours upon the table about an ounce of yellow grains of metal, which he
thought would prove to be gold. It did prove to be gold, and there was a great deal more where that came from. General Bidwell writes: "I myself first took the news to San Frau- cisco. I went by way of Sonoma. I told General Vallejo. He told me to say to Sutter ' that he hoped the gold would flow into his purse as the waters through his mnill-race.'"
WHAT MIGHT ILAVE BEEN.
We cannot observe the coincidence of the date of this great discovery, with that of the negotiation of the treaty of peace with Mexico, by which California was acquired by the United States, without thinking, What if the gold discovery had come first? What if the events of the war had postponed the con- clusion of peace for a few months? What if Mexico had heard the news before agreeing upon terms? What if Mexico's large creditor, England, had also learned that there was a- bundance of gold here in California ? Who can tell when, in that case, there would have been pcace, and upon what terms, and with what disposi- tion of territory ?
SUTTER'S MILL, WHERE GOLD WAS DISCOVERED.
THE DISCOVERY DOUBTED.
In the bar room at Weber's Hotel in San Jose, one day in February, 1848, a man came in, and to pay for | something he had purchased, offered some gold-dust, saying that gold had been discovered at Sutter's Mill on American river, and all were going to work. The people were very incredulous and would not believe the story. An old Georgia miner said that what the inan had was really gold, and requested him to investi- gate the matter. When he arrived at Sutter's Mill, he asked Sut- ter regarding it, and the Captain assured him that it was a cer- tainty, and that a man could make five dollars a day. He carried the news to San Jose and the place was almost deserted, every one hastening to the mines.
The people were suspicious regarding the quality and amount of the gold. As the weeks passed, confidence was gained and the belief that there might possibly be precious minerals in other localities was strengthened.
Prospectors gradually pushed out beyond the narrow limits of the first mining district, and thus commenced the opening
58
FIRST DISCOVERY OF GOLD NOT CREDITED.
up of the vast mining fields of California and the Pacific coast.
A SPECK OF GOLD.
A Frenchman fishing in a prospect hole for frogs for bis breakfast, at Mokelnmne Hill in November, 1848, discovered a speck of gold on the side of the excavation, which he dug out with his pocket-knife and sold for $2,150.
Three sailors who had deserted took out $10,000 in five days on Weber ercek. Such strokes of good fortune turued all classes into miners, including the lawyers, doctors and preachers.
The exports of gold-dust in exchange for produce aud merchandise amounted to $500,000 by the 25th of September. The ruling price of gold-dust was $15 per ounce, though its intrinsic value was from $19 to $20.
MERCHANTS REFUSE GOLD-DUST.
A meeting of citizens, presided over by T. M. Leavenworth and addressed by Samuel Brannan, passed resolutions in Sep- tember not to patronize merchants wbo refused to take gold- dust at $16 per ounce. A memorial was also sent from San Francisco to Congress in that month for a branch mint here. It stated, among other things, the opinion that by July 1, 1849, $5,500,000 worth of dust at $16 per ounce would be taken out of the mines. The figures were millions too low.
ADVANCE IN REAL ESTATE.
Real estate in San Francisco took a sudden rise. A lot on Montgomery street, near Washington, sold in July for $10,000, and was resold in November with a shanty on it for $27,000. Lots in Sacramento, or New Helvetia, also came up to fabulous prices that winter. By the month of October the rush from Oregon caused the Oregon city papers to stop publication. In December, the Kanakas and Sonorians came in swarms. A Honolulu letter, November 11th, said :-
" Such another excitement as the news from California cre- ated here the world never saw. I think not less than five hundred persons will leave before January 1st, and if the news continues good, the whole foreign population except mission- aries will go."
The news did continue good, and they came, some mission- aries included. Soon there came up from the inines complaints of outrage and lawlessness, mostly against Kanakas and other foreigners. How well they were founded, to what they led, and how they were suddenly and summarily silenced, is a story that covers a very interesting part of the history of California and the progress of civilization in America.
On the 29th of May the Californian issued a slip stating that its further publication, for the present, would cease, because nearly all its patrons had gone to the mines.
SAN FRANCISCO DESERTED.
A month later there were but five persons-women and
childreu-left in Yerba Buena. The first rush was for Sutter's Mill, since christened Coloma, or Culluma, after a tribe of Indians who lived in that region. From there they scattered in all directions. A large stream of them went over to Weber creek, that empties into the Amerieau some ten or twelve miles below Coloma. Others went up or down the river. Some, inore adventurous, crossed the ridge over to the north and middle forks of the American.
By the close of June the discoveries had extended to all the forks of the American, Weber creek, Hangtown creek, the Cosumnes (known then as the Makosume), the Mokelumne, Tuolumne, the Yuba (from uvas, or yuras-grape), called in 1848 the " Yuba," or " Ajuba," and Feather river. On July 15th the editor of the Californian returned and issued the first number of his paper after its suspension. It contained a description of the mines from personal observation. He said :- " The country from the Ajuba (Yuba) to the San Joaquin, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles, and from the base toward the summit of the mountains, as far as Snow Hill [meaning Nevada], about seventy miles, has been explored and gold found on every part. There are now probably three thousand people, including Indians, engaged in collecting gold. The amount collected by each man ranges from $10 to $350 per day. The publisher of this paper collected with the aid of a shovel, pick, aud a tin pan, from $44 to $128 per day -- averaging $100. The gross amount collected may exceed $600,000; of which amount our merchants have received about $250,000, all for goods, and in eight weeks. The largest piece known to be found weighs eight pounds."
NUMBER OF MINERS IN AUGUST.
1848 .- On the 14th of August the number of white miuers was estimated at four thousand. Many of them were of Stephenson's Regiment and the disbanded Mormon Battalion. The Californiun remarked on that day that " when a man with his pan or basket does not average $30 to $40 a day, he moves to another place."
Four thousand ounces a day was the estimated production of the mines five months after the secret leaked out. In April the price of flour here was $4 per hundred. In August it had risen to $16. All other subsistenee supplies rose in the same proportion. Here is part of a letter from Sonoma, to the Cul- ifornian, August 14th :-
" I have heard from one of our citizens who has been at the placers only a few weeks, and collected $1,500, still averaging $100 a day. Another, who shut up his hotel here some five or six weeks since, has returned with $2,200, collected with a spade, pick, and Indian basket. A man and his wife and boy collected $500 in one day."
Sam Brannan laid exclusive claim to Mormon Island, in the American, about twenty-eight miles above its mouth, and levied
59
THE GRAND RUSH FOR THE GOLD MINES.
a royalty of thirty per cent on all the gold taken there by the Mormons, who paid it for a while, but refused after they came to a better understanding of the rules of the mines. By Sep- tember the news had spread to Oregon and the southern coast, and on the 2d of that month the Californian notes that one hundred and twenty-five persons had arrived in town " by ship" since August 26th. In the "Dry Diggings" near Auburn-during the month of August, one man got $16,000 out of five cart-loads of dirt. In the same diggings a good inany were collecting from $800 to $1,500 a day.
In the fall of 1848, John Murphy, now of San Jose, discov- ered Murphy's Camp Diggings in Calaveras, and some soldiers of Stephenson's Regiment discovered Rich Gulch at Mokelumne Hill. That winter one miner at Murphy's realized $80,000. It was common report that John Murphy, who miued a num- ber of Indiaus ou wages, had collected over $1,500,000 iu gold- dust before the close of the wet season of 1848.
The following notice of the discovery is from the Culifor- niten, of San Francisco, on the 19th of April, 1848 :-
NEW GOLD MINE .- It is stated that a new gold mine has been discovered on the American Fork of the Sacramento, sup- posed to be [it was not] on the land of William A. Leidesdorff, Esq., of this place. A specimen of the gold has been exhibited and is represented to be very pure.
May opened with accounts of new discoverics. The Cali- forniun of May 3d said :- " Seven men, with picks and spades, gathered $1,600 worth in fifteen days." That was a little more than $15 per man per day. On the 17th of May the same paper said :-
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