GOLD FEVER Part Two. Ken Salter
which now gave an alluring glimpse of well-turned ankles as she served Manon’s hearty soups and thick slices of home-made pâtés on freshly baked baguettes to an ever increasing male clientele. Each women now wore a flower in their loose flowing hair to signify they were no longer married or bound to an unappreciative male.
After the fire, my assistant, Georges, took the first paddle-steamer leaving for Panama and was on his way to escort his American fiancé, Nelly Swanson, to San Francisco to thwart her father’s plans to marry her off to an eligible New York bachelor who could help promote the father’s many business interests. He’d received a tear-stained letter from Nelly attesting to her desperate plight. Their shipboard romance on the trip to New York on the Clipper, “Flying Cloud,” and Georges’ departure meant I now had to find another assistant to help in my newly established private detective and notary business serving the legions of French arriving weekly and those already trying their luck in the gold fields.
I decided to head for town, scour the newspapers for the latest efforts of the Committee of Vigilance to apprehend the villains responsible for torching half the city less than six weeks after the last arson that destroyed the main commercial area and most warehouses. I also wanted to seek the advice of our friend, Pierre-Louis, proprietor of Les Bons Amis restaurant on Dupont Street.
The papers teemed with caustic accusations against the Sydney Ducks, who were generally blamed for the fire. The city was now effectively without police or judicial protection. City Hall, the courts and police headquarters all burned in the fire. The Committee of Vigilance was the only organized group that had the backing of the business and professional communities and the capability to arrest, incarcerate, try and execute arsonists and criminals. They were currently detaining 30-40 suspects at their armed headquarters, which had escaped the fire’s wrath.
Judge Campbell sought to thwart the Committee of Vigilance by appointing a new grand jury to investigate the fire and charge criminals. The grand jury was the sole judicial body that was difficult to corrupt or bribe as its members were not randomly selected but appointed from the city’s leading citizens — bankers, merchants and professionals who owned property. Ironically, several members of the new grand jury were also Committee members.
The papers were screaming for the neck of a Sydney Duck, named James Stuart, also known as “English Jim,” who claimed he was Thomas Berdue. He’d been recognized by a Committee member on the street and arrested. He was wanted for the murder of Sheriff Charles Moore in Auburn, California during a robbery attempt in October, 1850. Stuart had been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang in Marysville. He escaped and fled when the rope around his neck broke. Berdue protested adamantly not to be Stuart, but the Committee sent him to Marysville to be quickly retried and hung.
“What do you think of the Stuart affair?” I asked Pierre-Louis when he joined me for an aperitif. “Do they have the right man?”
“Even if they don’t, the guy’s a Duck and in with the gang that torched the city and nearly got my restaurant this time. I say hang ‘em all or deport ‘em; enough’s enough,” Pierre-Louis replied with vehemence.
I explained my dilemma at the loss of my assistant, Georges. “Any ideas how I might find a replacement?” I asked.
“You could always put a help wanted ad in the French sections of the newspapers, but you’d be flooded with unqualified and desperate job seekers. Better to ask people you know and trust,” he replied.
“You’re right as usual. I’ll try to be patient and ask around. I can’t afford to make a mistake.” I was thinking of the latest delivery of several sacks of mail from the French Consulate. I needed someone who could read and sort through the piles of letters addressed to the thousands of French gold seekers who couldn’t read or write or were constantly on the move in search of richer diggings. Most of the letters were addressed to someone “at San Francisco” or simply “in the gold fields.”
My agreement with the consulate required me to match names of emigrants with ship’s manifests provided by the consulate and forward the letters to the groups of French miners working either the northern or southern placers where the consul general had sent the mostly impoverished arrivals. Georges and I had delivered letters to the northern mining camps along the north and south forks of the Yuba River. I would now need to take a similar trip to the southern placers and seek out French miners there.
Hundreds of new immigrants arrived weekly and brought even more letters from mothers, wives, fiancées and other family members desperate to know their loved one was safe and sound and hopefully getting rich. By visiting French mining camps and delivering letters, I made contacts and solicited business for my newly established notary enterprise. For those I couldn’t locate, I sent a letter back to France informing the anxious relative that their loved one arrived safely in San Francisco and had been dispatched by the consulate to join other French miners. For a fee, I promised to try to locate the loved one and deliver the letter and mail a reply. Fortunately, the cost of mailing letters from California to France was only a few cents. The consulate paid me $1.00 for each letter the overwhelmed post office couldn’t deliver or decipher the name of the sender or addressee.
While there was little profit in this activity, it made important contacts I hoped would translate into increased business. I calculated that my offer to locate miners and others who’d not made contact would promote my detective service with those who could afford my daily fee of $64.00 (four ounces of gold) plus expenses. I was reminded of how John Sutter abandoned his wife and kids in Switzerland in order to try his luck first in the Sandwich Islands and then the fertile lands of the Sacramento Valley. I was sure he wasn’t the only scoundrel to seek his fortune in the gold fields while leaving a family and debts behind. Time would tell if my gamble paid off.
I was curious to see how the Italians in the “Little Italy” part of town that burned were making do. Manon had been impressed with the quality of the Italian salumi we had sampled in the trattoria Bella Toscana before the fire. She was considering adding Italian cold cuts and spicy sausage panini and pasta with cheese from Parma to her lunch menu if we could secure a reliable supply at a reasonable price. As the proprietor, Luigi Salterini, spoke French, I was determined to find him and sound him out on the idea.
As I made my way down the burned part of Dupont Street toward Broadway, I had to dodge tenacious carters hauling lumber, bricks and building supplies through the bog the street had become. Reluctant horses bellowed their displeasure at the slippery slog along the once elegant street while their carters whipped, yelled and cursed at their reticent animals. One cart full of barrels of nails and metal doors had broken an axel in a deep pot hole and now blocked half the street with its spilled load and frenzied horses. The gridlock and resulting chaos would be funny if the two carters seeking to pass the accident in opposite directions were not threatening to shoot each other for the right to pass first.
When I reached Pacific Street and the start of “Little Italy,” I was surprised to see that while very little new construction was underway, lots had been cleared of burned structures and debris and were now occupied by Italian merchants selling goods from makeshift stalls — rough-planed lumber supported by barrels to make a stand for merchandise, the bed of a lumber cart, or a tent with makeshift tables and goods stacked on barrels. Each merchant had a tent to stow goods and a shotgun to defend against thieves and squatters during the night.
As I approached Broadway and the area where Luigi Salterini’s trattoria once stood, I hailed a merchant selling olive oil and pasta. “Donde posso trovare Luigi Salterini?” I muttered in halting Italian. The merchant, a bright-eyed, bushy-haired, olive-skinned man in his forties, laughed and waved his arm to indicate down the street somewhere.
I turned left on Broadway, as I remembered when Manon and I first sought out his restaurant after visiting “Little China,” with Manon disguised as an American sailor boy the day the Committee of Vigilance hanged the Sydney Duck, Jenkins, in Portsmouth Square for armed robbery. I strolled along the street pleased to hear the sing-song lyricism and beauty of the Italian language as buyers with colorful baskets haggled the price of the wares for sale.
Salterini was clapping his hands together to ward off the chill