The Gold Hunters. J.D. Borthwick
long as ships by the hundred lay idle at their docks because sailors would rather take their chances in the mines than a steady wage of two or three hundred dollars a month, there was bound to be reckless extravagance and wild dissipation. Most of the miners were young men, too active, ebullient, vivacious, for quiet amusements in their hours of leisure. There was no home life nor anything to suggest it. In 1850 only two per cent, of the population of the mining counties were women, and probably most of these were of loose character. There was no standard of respectability to be lived up to. So long as a man did not interfere with the rights of others, he was perfectly free, if he chose, to go to the devil in his own way. Against the toil and hardships of the mining-field, against the gloom of disappointment or the wild elation of success, human nature demanded a counterpoise of some sort—and the only places in all the wide land where the miner could find comfort, luxury, gaiety, were the saloons and gambling-houses.
There being no sheriffs or policemen worthy the name, every man went armed, prepared at an instant’s notice to redress his own real or fancied grievances. Shootings and stabbings were frequent, though in much less number actually than such conditions might be expected to provoke—most men think twice before stirring up trouble in a company where everybody carries a loaded gun and knows how to use it. Formal law was powerless, through corrupt or inefficient officers, to keep in check the many scoundrels and desperadoes that infested the cities and the diggings; so the miners themselves administered summary justice by means of extemporized courts, and for high crimes were prompt to inflict the highest punishment after the verdict of Judge Lynch. It is undeniable that, in a pioneer society, such rough-and-ready justice was a necessity and that its effects were salutary.
Yet when the first fever of excitement had passed away, when the richest placers were exhausted, when men settled down from prospecting and “rushes” to the steady work of mining on a business basis, it is wonderful how quickly the social order changed for the better. Miners returning to San Francisco after a year’s absence scarcely recognized the place. Substantial buildings of brick and stone were replacing the tinder-boxes that had been swept away by one “great fire” after another—dressed granite for some of them was even imported from China! Streets that had been rubbish-heaps and quagmires were orderly and clean. A large number of respectable women had arrived in California, and their influence was immediately noticeable in the refinement of dress and decorum of the men. Places of rational amusement had sprung up—clubs, reading-rooms, theaters—which replaced in great measure the gambling-houses. In very many instances a quiet domestic life had supplanted the old-time roistering in saloons. Few, if any, cities ever showed such rapid progress in manners and morals as well as in material things.
Many narratives have been published by men who participated in the stirring events of early California. From among them I have chosen, after long research, one written by a British artist, Mr. J. D. Borthwick, and issued in Edinburgh in 1857. The original book is now rare and sought for by collectors of western Americana. It is here reprinted in full, with certain errors corrected. I do not know of another story by an actual miner that is so well written and so true to that wonderful life in the Days of Gold.
Horace Kephart.
October, 1916.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction 5
CHAPTER
I. On to the Gold Fields 15
II. Across the Isthmus 38
III. A City in the Making 53
IV. Life at High Speed 73
V. Off for the Mines 99
VI. Looking for Gold 116
VII. Indians and Chinamen 130
VIII. Miners’ Law 146
IX. Gold is Where You Find It 160
X. Ursus Horribilis 173
XI. On the Trail 185
XII. Sitters for Portraits 195
XIII. On the Way to Downieville 208
XIV. The Reason for Lynch Law 216
XV. Growing Over Night 227
XVI. A Band of Wanderers 241
XVII. Chinese in the Early Days 252
XVIII. Down With the Flood 262
XIX. A Bull and Bear Fight 271
XX. A Mountain of Gold 286
XXI. In Lighter Mood 297
XXII. Sonora and the Mexicans 306
XXIII. Bull Fighting 316
XXIV. A City Burned 325
XXV. The Day We Celebrate 333
XXVI. Frenchmen in the Mines 342
XXVII. The Resourceful Americans 353
The Gold Hunters
CHAPTER I
ON TO THE GOLD FIELDS
A
BOUT the beginning of the year 1851, the rage for emigration to California from the United States was at its height. All sorts and conditions of men, old, young, and middle-aged, allured by the hope of acquiring sudden wealth, and fascinated with the adventure and excitement of a life in California, were relinquishing their existing pursuits and associations to commence a totally new existence in the land of gold.
The rush of eager gold-hunters was so great that the Panama Steamship Company’s office in New York used to be perfectly mobbed for a day and a night previous to the day appointed for selling tickets for their steamers. Sailing vessels were despatched for Chagres almost daily, carrying crowds of passengers, while numbers went by the different routes through Mexico, and others chose the easier, but more tedious, passage round Cape Horn.
The emigration from the Western States, was naturally very large, the inhabitants being a class of men whose lives are spent in clearing the wild forests of the West, and gradually driving the Indian from his hunting-ground.
Of these western-frontier men it is often said, that they are never satisfied if there is any white man between them and sundown. They are constantly moving westward; for as the wild Indian is forced to retire before them, so they, in their turn, shrinking from the signs of civilization which their own labors cause to appear around them, have to plunge deeper into the forest, in search of that wild border-life which has such charms for all who have ever experienced it.
To men of this sort, the accounts of such a country as California, thousands of miles to the westward of them, were peculiarly attractive; and so great was the emigration, that many parts of the Western States were nearly depopulated. The route followed by these people was overland, across the plains, which was the most congenial to their tastes, and the most convenient for them, as, besides being already so far to the westward, they were also provided with the necessary wagons and oxen for the journey. For the sake of mutual protection against the Indians, they traveled in trains of a dozen or more wagons, carrying the women and children and provisions, accompanied by a proportionate number of men, some on horses or mules, and others on foot.
In May, 1851, I happened to be residing in New York, and was seized with the California fever. My preparations were very soon made, and a day or two afterwards I found myself on board a small barque about to sail for Chagres with a load of California emigrants. Our vessel was little more than two hundred tons, and was entirely devoted to the accommodation of passengers. The ballast was covered with a temporary deck, and the whole interior of the ship formed a saloon, round which were built three tiers of berths: a very rough extempore table and benches completed the furniture. There was no invidious distinction of cabin and steerage passengers—in fact, excepting the captain’s room, there was nothing which could be called a cabin in the ship. But all were in good spirits, and so much engrossed with thoughts of California that there was little disposition to grumble at the rough-and-ready style of our accommodation. For my own part, I knew I should have to rough it in California, and