Ocean to Ocean on Horseback

Leaving Elko, I pushed on for thirty miles. The pastures and meadows, with isolated cottages, were soon passed and I reached Palisade in the evening, a village of 250 inhabitants. Remained here for the night. For the last two hundred miles the road had been a gradual descent and the change of temperature was very perceptible. Palisade is a growing little place with a population of about 400 souls. It is located about half-way down a canyon, whose rocky, perpendicular walls give it a singular but picturesque appearance.

My mustang carried me forty-one miles next day, to Argentina, where I rested. This village is located in the midst of alkali flats and seemed to me an unattractive place for a residence. Continuing my journey along the foot of Reese River Mountain, I soon found myself at Battle Mountain, at the junction of Reese River and Humboldt valleys. The town of Battle Mountain has several stores, a public hall, a good school house and an excellent hotel; with increasing trade. The mountain from which the town derives its name is about three miles south of the latter and is said to have been the scene of a conflict between a party of emigrants and a band of Indians.

Golconda was reached on the evening of the following day – four hundred and seventy-eight miles from San Francisco. Here are gold and silver mines, but the place was small and calls for no further remark. Remounted at sunrise the following morning and rode to Winnemucca, the county-seat of Humboldt County. The town has a fine brick Court House, together with several stores, a hotel, shops and a school house.

Reached Humboldt the following day, where I was reminded that I was still in the land of civilization. Stopped at the Humboldt House, a most comfortable hostelry, its surroundings recalling my home in the East. Humboldt is the business centre of several mining districts and has a bright prospect before it.

Lovelocks, the next point reached, is also on the Central Pacific Railroad. It is a grazing region, and large herds of cattle are fattened upon the rich native grasses. Leaving Lovelocks, I found myself again on a barren desert, covered in places with salt and alkali deposits. Another station in the midst of this desert is Hot Springs. Pushing forward I reached Desert, three hundred and thirty-five miles from San Francisco. The village is rightly named, for it is, in truth, a dreary place. I was much relieved on reaching Wadsworth, a town of about 700 inhabitants, and only three hundred and twenty-eight miles from the end of my journey. Some large stores here do a flourishing business. There are also several good hotels, in one of which I was soon comfortably housed. For several days I had seen nothing but dreary, monotonous plains, and now, almost another world opened to my view – a world of beauty and sublimity. It was with reluctance I left Wadsworth and crossed the Truckee River. The trees, green meadows, comfortable farmhouses, and well-tilled fields, were pleasant to look upon, and with the prospect of soon reaching my final destination, I rode on, and crossed the boundary into California.

Truckee, although within the State of California, is in the Sierra Nevada, one hundred and twenty-one miles from Sacramento. The village is handsomely built, the surroundings picturesque and finely timbered, and there is a line of stages running to the beautiful Lakes Tahoe and Donner.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ALONG THE SACRAMENTO

From Truckee I rode along the line of the Central Pacific Railroad, stopping for the night at villages intermediate between Truckee and Sacramento, the principal of which were Summit, Colfax and Auburn. Summit is the highest point of the pass through which the railroad crosses the Sierra Nevada, its height above sea-level being 7,042 feet. The population was only a little over one hundred. Colfax, fifty-four miles from Sacramento, had a population of nearly six hundred, mostly employed in the gold mines in the vicinity. Auburn, thirty-six miles from Sacramento, is also a gold-mining village. Its population was given me as over 1,200. Two weekly papers are published here, and three hotels offer good accommodations to tourists and others. Sacramento was reached November twenty-first, and here I found myself within a hundred miles of my destination.

California has the Pacific Ocean for its western boundary. Along the seaboard lies the Coast Range of mountains, while for an eastern boundary of the State stretch the Sierras. Between these two chains lies many a hill, yet, in the main, the whole interior of the State is a great depression, called the Valley of California. The northern portion is called again the Sacramento Valley; the southern, the Valley of San Joaquin, both named for the streams that water them.

The inhabitants are a motley set; English, Celts, Spaniards, Mexicans, Indians, and above all the man from the eastern part of the United States, leaving his impress on all, Americanizing all.

Sutter's Fort, as already explained, was founded in 1839, very near the junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, by a Swiss named John A. Sutter. It stood on a small hill, skirted by a creek which falls into the American River near its junction with the Sacramento, and overlooked a vast extent of ditch-enclosed fields, and park stock ranges, broken by groves and belts of timber. The settlement consisted of the Fort and an old adobe house, called the hospital. A garden of eight or ten acres, filled with vegetables and tropical fruits, surrounded the Fort, cattle covered the plains and boats were tied to the wharves.

Sutter's confirmed grant contained eleven leagues.

The Fort, so called, was a parallelogram. Its walls were of adobe, its dimensions five hundred by one hundred and fifty feet. It had loop-holes, bastions at the angles, and twelve cannon.

Inside of the walls were granaries, warehouses, storehouses, shops, and in the centre of it all the house of the commander, the potentate, Sutter. His house was rough, "Bare rafters and unpanelled walls." Many of the rooms were roughly furnished, crude benches and deal tables. Fine China bowls did duty for both cups and plates, and silver spoons were the only luxury which marked the service of the meals.

For his private apartments Sutter obtained from the Russians a clumsy set of California laurel furniture.

In front of his house, yet within the stockade, was a tiny square containing one brass gun, by which, day and night, paced a sentry, stopping only at the belfry post to chime the hours.

The Fort was a business centre. In it was located a blacksmith, a carpenter, and a general variety and liquor store. Prices were booming. Four dollars were charged for shoeing a horse. Wheat sold for one dollar per bushel, peas for a dollar and a half per bushel.

A sort of gravel road led to the spot, over which horses galloped, and heavy wagons rolled.

Sutter owned twelve thousand cattle, two thousand horses and mules, from one thousand to fifteen hundred sheep, and two thousand hogs.

This unique Fort was "the capital of the vast interior valley, pregnant with approaching importance."

In 1846, Sutter staked out the town of Sutterville, three miles below the Fort on the Sacramento, and built the first house there. His example was shortly followed by a man named Zims, who erected the first real brick structure in the State.

The Fort and town kept up regular communication with San Francisco by means of a twenty-ton sloop owned by Sutter, and manned by a few savages in his employ.

There was a ferry at the Fort, which consisted of a single canoe handled by an Indian.

The strangest of populations gathered about the settlement. Emigrants were there, many Mormons among them. Native Californians were there, wearing sombreros, sashes, and jingling spurs. Half-subdued Indians abounded, wrapped in their blankets, and decked with beads and feathers. While here and there appeared a shrewd Yankee, come across mountains of snow and rocks to seek his fortune.

The climate of Sacramento is charming, the average temperature in winter being 45°; that in summer 69°. The thermometer does not vary ten degrees between night and day. The sea breezes are constant, leaving rarely an uncooled night. Rainfall is a tenth less than on the Atlantic Coast. Early autumn finds this region dry and arid; its small streams dried up, the green fields sere, the weeds snapping like glass.

The winter rain begins in November, after six months of clear weather, and under its grateful ministry the region "buds and blossoms like the rose."

John A. Sutter, potentate of the region, in 1847, needed lumber, and therefore needed a saw-mill. His neighbors wanted lumber, too, and there would be a good market for it in San Francisco. Therefore a saw-mill would be profitable; but no trees suitable for this purpose could be found short of the foot-hills. Consequently the foot-hills were selected as the spot upon which he would build.

He engaged a motley company of all nationalities to erect his mill, appointing James Wilson Marshall, a native of New Jersey, as superintendent of the venture.

In August they started for their new field of enterprise, taking their belongings in Mexican ox-carts, and driving a flock of sheep before them for food.

By New Year's day, 1848, the mill frame was up.

On the afternoon of January twenty-fourth, Superintendent Marshall was inspecting the tail-race of the mill. There had been a heavy flood, which had previously retreated, and to his surprise Marshall found the ground thickly strewn with a peculiar yellow dust. He stooped down and gathered some of it, remarking quietly, "Boys, I believe I have found a gold mine!" Then he began some simple tests upon the metal. Gold must be heavy. He weighed it. That was all right. Gold must be malleable. He bit and pounded it, and it stood the test. Then he applied aqua fortis to it, and it responded as it should. And so the truth was known at last. It was gold, and the ground was full of it.

Marshall saddled his horse, and dashed over to consult with Sutter, and together they agreed to keep the matter quiet, and if possible to buy up the surrounding land. But how to buy it. That was the question! They leased it from its semi-barbaric owners, paying for it in hats and trinkets, but that title seemed insecure. The Mexican government could no longer give grants. The United States government was appealed to in vain. The answer came that California was held as a conquered province, and no title deed could be executed.

And meantime the precious secret leaked out. Sutter was impelled to write the wonderful news to friends at a distance. All the men at the saw-mill knew of the discovery. One of them, named Bennett, while in a store near Monte del Diablo, pulled out of his pocket a bag of gold dust, exclaiming, "I have something here which will make this the greatest country in the world." The same man took a specimen of the precious metal and showed it at San Francisco. A few days later an intoxicated Swede offered, at a store, to pay for his drink in gold dust. Then a Mormon must tell his fellow-saints of the discovery. So the secret was out, and the precious mystery became public.

Both Sutter and Marshall were backwoodsmen, unsophisticated, child-like, trustful, slow. They hesitated, they faltered, they delayed mining, and they were lost! Before they fully comprehended the matter, the great world had rushed in, and taken possession of the treasure.

In the last issue of The Californian appears this only too true statement: "The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the sea-shore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds to the sordid cry of gold! GOLD!! GOLD!!! while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pick-axes, and the means of transportation to the spot where one man obtained one hundred and twenty-eight dollars' worth of the real stuff in one day's washing, and the average for all concerned is twenty dollars per diem."

In the rush Marshall and Sutter were crushed.

Marshall had little or no money to invest. He was particularly unfortunate in locating his small claims. Worst of all, the miners, knowing him to be the great discoverer, followed him en masse, believing that he knew the secrets of the hills and rivers. The crowds so overwhelmed him, that he had no chance to mine. They even threatened to hang him if he did not lead them to the finest diggings. In a few years after, he died, miserable, broken-hearted, poverty-stricken.

Sutter fared but little better. True, he sold a half-interest in his saw-mill for six thousand dollars, and he gained something from the mining of his Indians, but Sutter's Fort was, for the time being, ruined. Let him tell the story in his own words. He says:

"My grist mill was never finished. Everything was stolen, even the stones. There is a saying that men will steal everything but a mile-stone and a mill-stone. They stole my mill-stones. They stole the bells from the Fort, and gate-weights; the hides they stole, and salmon barrels. I had two hundred barrels which I made for salmon. Some of the cannon at the fort were stolen. * * My property was all left exposed, and at the mercy of the rabble, when gold was discovered. My men all deserted me. I could not shut the gates of my Fort, and keep out the rabble. They would have broken them down. The country swarmed with lawless men. Emigrants drove their stock into my yard, and used my grain with impunity. Expostulation did no good. I was alone. There was no law."

In face of all these disadvantages he struggled on until farm helpers demanded ten dollars per day, then, a hopeless old man, he gave up the struggle, and in 1849, with his Indians, he moved into Hock Farm, little dreaming that his Fort was to be the nucleus for Sacramento, the second city as to size in California.

He retired, but his son took the reins out of the father's feeble hands, and staked out a town around the Old Fort, down to the embarcadero, and along the river front, naming the settlement Sacramento. The streets were laid out eighty feet wide, except the centre one, M street, which was one hundred feet in width. The purchasing of more than four lots by one person was discouraged.

At first Sacramento was a "city of tents, with its future on paper;" but by April of that year, 1849, building lots were selling at from one thousand to three thousand dollars a piece; at that time there were twenty-five or thirty stores upon the embarcadero, and, in the vicinity of the Fort, eight or ten more. There was a hotel, a printing office, bakery, blacksmith's shop, tin-shop, billiard room, and bowling alley.

In that month of April, the city had the honor of becoming a port of entry.

By June of the same year, one hundred houses graced the city.

A few months later the city hotel was completed at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars, and rented to Messrs. Fowler and Fry for five thousand dollars per month.

In 1850, the scourge of cholera broke out, carrying off one-fifth of those remaining in Sacramento. The city was full to overflowing with a transient population. Accommodations were scant and primitive, vice and disorder prevailed. The disease became rampant. Patients at the hospital were charged sixteen dollars per day. Then it was that the order of Odd Fellows came nobly forward, setting to that plague-stricken district an example of charity and philanthropy long to be remembered, and accenting the fact "that simple duty has no place for fear!"

On February 25, 1854, Sacramento was designated as the seat of government of California. The dignity of being the State capital gave new life to the city. Her growth is instanced by the assessment on real estate, which rose from $5,400,000 in 1854, to $13,000,000 in twenty years.

When I rode through, the population was 21,400.

In 1853 the streets were planked, and provided with sewers. In 1854 a gas company was formed. The street railroad came in 1870. There were ten churches in the city as I found it.

The first public school came in 1855, the high school in 1856.

When I was there the city had sustained from time to time about forty daily papers and twenty-four weeklies.

The State Library is a brilliant feature of the place. Various large manufacturing interests thrive in the city. Its commerce is awe-inspiring.

Sacramento sent to the east in one year 90,000,000 pounds of fruit, her entire east-bound shipments being over 130,000,000 pounds.

The annual manufacturing and jobbing trade is over $60,000,000.

Looking at these statistics, one is reminded of the magic tent of Prince Ahmed. At first it was no bigger than a nut-shell. Surely it could hold nothing; but it did. People flocked to it. Surely it could not cover them; – but it did! it did!! The army flocked to it; – but the tent was elastic. It covered all; it sheltered all; it welcomed all.

Has not Sacramento proved itself the magic tent of the Golden Age, ready to cover, shelter, welcome the whole world should occasion require?

From Sacramento to San Francisco my route lay along the eastern shore of the river, and few halts were made between the two cities. I was anxious to reach my final destination, as a feeling of fatigue was now overcoming me, which, however, only served to stimulate and urge me forward. I passed several places that strongly tempted a halt for refreshment and rest, and finally entered the Western Metropolis on the twenty-fourth of November, registering at the Palace Hotel.

CHAPTER XXX.

SAN FRANCISCO AND END OF JOURNEY

San Francisco, the chief city on the Western Coast of North America, is in every respect a wonderful city, not least so in its origin and development. Not very long ago – less than a century – the Pacific Coast was almost an unexplored region. The great State of California – next to Texas, the largest in the Union – now teems with populous cities and new settlements, and produces meat and grain abundantly sufficient for the supply of a large portion of the country. It has a coast line on the Pacific Ocean of seven hundred miles and, extending from the coast, a breadth of three hundred and thirty miles. California has also the most wonderful gold fields of the world. They were discovered in the middle of the last century by the Jesuits, who kept the knowledge a secret.

In 1848, as previously stated, Captain Sutter found gold on the land of one of his farms, and the news of the discovery at once spread. The excitement extended throughout the Union and the "Argonauts of '49" came swarming to the gold fields. People ran about picking up the precious lumps as "hogs in a forest root for ground-nuts." The golden product of 1848, was $10,000,000; 1849, $40,000,000; and that of 1853, $65,000,000.

Silver mining has been attempted in many localities in the State, but generally with poor results. There are valuable deposits of iron ore, coal, copper, tin, platinum, manganese, asphalt, petroleum, lead and zinc. Fruits are abundant, of great size, and are sold in all the Eastern markets.

The constitution of California requires a free school to be supported in each district six months in each year, and the system includes primary and grammar schools, high schools, evening schools, normal schools, technical schools, and the State University, which is free to both sexes, and is a perpetual public trust. The schools of California are justly famous.

Upper California was discovered in 1538 by a Spanish navigator. In 1578, Sir Francis Drake visited it and gave it the name of New Albion. The Spaniards planted the first colony in 1768. The territory was purchased from Mexico by the United States in 1847 for $15,000,000. A constitution was adopted in the same year, and in 1850, California, without ever having been under a territorial government, was admitted into the Union as a State.

The progress of California has been of the most substantial character. Gold mining has become a staple industry, but in the agricultural capabilities of her soil lie the possibilities of her greatest wealth. Among the most valuable of her industries in the future will be those of the orchard and the vineyard. The grape growers of the State can now sell their grapes with as much certainty as the farmer his wheat. There is sent to the Atlantic coast more wine than is imported from France, the heretofore wine market of the world.

In Central California a little peninsula juts out from the main land, a great harbor is on one side, a great ocean on the other. The lofty mountains, lower just here, form, as it were, a natural gateway to the great interior beyond.

Here, in 1836, an American named John P. Lease settled, and here, in time, a little town called San Francisco grew up around him. Two miles to the south loomed up the antiquated building of the Catholic Mission Dolores, with its pretty old gardens. The opposite shores of the bay presented a most beautiful park-like expanse: the native lawn, brilliant with flowers and dotted by eastward bending oaks, watered by the creeks of the Alameda, San Lorenzo, San Leandro, and their tributaries, and enclosed by the spurs of the Diablo Mountains.

San Francisco was on the soil of Mexico, under the flag of Anàhuac, governed by an Alcalde and a sapient council, yet the spirit of the United States breathed in it, built its stout wooden houses, and thronged its busy wharves. Animated by this spirit, it was destined to become the metropolis of the Pacific, one of the noted cities of the globe.

Before the "Golden Age," while California was a peaceful settlement, of no especial importance, it was said that around San Francisco Bay there was raw material enough, of different types, to develop a new race.

San Francisco was not in the gold region, but it was the gate to that region.

Two weeks after Marshall first discovered the precious metal, a bag of it was brought to the city for analysis, and one day early in May, 1848, "Samuel Brennan, the Mormon leader, held a bottle of gold dust in one hand, and jubilantly swinging his hat in the other, passed through the streets of San Francisco shouting, 'Gold! Gold!! Gold!!! from the American River!'"

This started the enthusiasm, the fever, the madness for gold.

Carson writes his sensations when first looking upon a well-filled bag of gold dust. He says:

"A frenzy seized my soul, unbidden my legs performed some entirely new movements of polka steps. * * Houses were too small for me to stay in. I was soon in the street in search of necessary outfits; piles of gold rose up before me at every step."

All yielded more or less to the subtle influence of the malady. Men hastened to arrange their affairs, dissolving partnerships, disposing of real estate, and converting other effects into ready means for departure.

Stores were rummaged for miners' tools.

One man offered as high as fifty dollars for a shovel. By the middle of June, San Francisco was without male population. The once bustling little town looked as if struck by a plague. Sessions of the town council were at an end. There were no church services. Stores were closed. Newspapers dropped out of existence. Merchandise lay unhandled on the docks. The sailors deserted the ships that lay at anchor in the bay.

One day a Peruvian bark came to anchor in the port. Amazed at the desolation which he beheld, the captain inquired the cause. He was answered, "Everybody has gone northward, where the valleys and mountains are of gold." Instantly upon hearing this marvellous assertion his own crew joined the innumerable throng.

The San Francisco Star of May 27, 1848, says:

"Stores are closed and places of business vacated, a large number of houses are tenantless, various kinds of mechanical labor suspended or given up entirely, and nowhere the pleasant hum of industry salutes the ear as of late. * * Everything in San Francisco wears a desolate and sombre look; everywhere all is dull, monotonous, dead."

Apparently the Californian of that day was thoroughly imbued with the saying of the Cyclops, "The wise know nothing worth worshipping but wealth."

The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was incorporated in 1847, to sail from New York to New Orleans and Chagres, and from Panama to such Pacific port as the Secretary of the Navy might designate. Later, when the existence of gold in her mines made California the cynosure of all eyes, San Francisco was decided upon as the western terminus of the route.