The Adventures of a Forty-niner Part 4

Occasionally we would hear the cry, "There she blows;" a jet of water being thrown up many feet high in the air--a sperm whale had come up to breathe. We frequently saw flying fish. One day there was a school of them landed on the steamer; they are similar to other fish, except having wings, but not of a very large size. At another time a b.o.o.by bird came on the steamer. It got its name from its stupidity. We frequently saw them on the water, floating on a piece of board or a stick of wood; sailors say they have seen them five hundred miles out to sea in that way. This one you could take up and handle; it made no resistance. On the coast of Central America we saw two mountain peaks of great height, standing out, individually, like the Pyramids, said to be extinct volcanoes that were thrown up from the internal fires of the earth, and which, at one time, belched forth melted lava and fire.

We arrived safe in Panama. I was so near home that I thought I might as well return and see my friends, and take a fresh start for California, and try my fortune once more. They had commenced building the railroad over the Isthmus, but it was not completed, so we crossed over to Cruize, the head of navigation on the Chagres river, and went down that to its mouth, and there took the steamer _Georgia_ for New York, commanded by Captain Porter, of the United States navy--the man who had control of the vessels in going down the Mississippi river and successfully pa.s.sing Vicksburg, which had so much to do with its capture. He was a perfect gentleman, and commanded your admiration with the skill of his management of the vessel. There were on the vessel well-dressed pickpockets, who went from New York to the Isthmus, to return by the steamers to the city, for the chances of robbing the returning Californians of their gold dust, as all of them had more or less of it on their persons. One unfortunate victim of their wiles appealed strongly to my sympathies. He was an English sailor, and had been two or three years up in the gold mines, and had $3,000 or $4,000 in gold dust in a buckskin bag on his person. He showed it to me. I advised him to deposit it with the purser for safety; that I had done so with mine. He said they could not rob him. He was about the happiest man I ever saw. He was richer, in feeling, than the Vanderbilts. He said he had a wife and children in Liverpool, and would take the first steamer from New York for that port. He said he had not seen his family for several years, and now that he had the gold he could make them all happy. He was in the steerage. A few days after I heard he was sick. He had fainted. Some parties had helped him up; evidently pickpockets had taken that opportunity to rob him; his gold was all gone. I explained his case to Captain Porter, but nothing could be done. There was no way to identify his gold dust from any other; it was all alike. When he arrived in New York, he would have to go to the hospital until he got well enough to ship on some other vessel for $14 per month, and not be able to return to his wife and children with his gold, and make them happy, while these black-hearted villainsillians were spending his money, his hard earnings of years. I entered in a bond, with myself, that if I were ever on a jury I would never show any mercy to a thief.

As we were sailing along many ships and schooners came in sight. We were evidently nearing the great port of New York. The land of Staten Island soon came in sight covered with snow. It was late in the fall. It was the first I had seen since my departure from the same port, except on the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Here ends my personal adventures of the days of the Forty-niners, to be continued by the peroration on California.

PERORATION.

On my return, in looking over my finances, I was no poorer than when I left. It must be evident to the reader that I had acquired no wealth to astonish my friends with my riches, which was the visionary expectation of the early pioneers to the gold Eldorado. I have been writing from personal recollections of events that occurred forty-five years ago. Of course, there was nothing in my enterprises, or the little fluctuations of fortune that would be of particular interest to any one; but in the form of a personal narrative, it was the only way I could recall vividly to my mind, the events of so long ago. There were a series of articles published in the _Century_ magazine two years ago, which I read with great interest, for they were truthful, but no book has ever been published that took in fully those two years when common labor was $16 per day, payable in gold. Such an event was never known to occur before, and probably never will again. I have not drawn on my imagination in the least in this narrative. I have simply attempted to portray from memory events that actually occurred under my own observation. Any Forty-niner will concede the truth of my narrative. I did not return to California as I had expected. Cupid's arrow pierced my heart in the person of a young lady, and sealed my fate. I had a cottage built in the quiet and beautiful valley of Schoharie, where I have pa.s.sed more than thirty years of happy married life. While not possessing the wealth of the successful pioneer, I have been content.

"A MONUMENT TO JACOB A.L. FISHER, A UNION SOLDIER.

"_Interview with Doctor Knower, who has Charge of It--Some Interesting Reminiscences of Forty-niners._

"A monument to be erected in the Old Stone Fort Cemetery to Jacob A.L.

Fisher, a Union soldier, by Abraham Sch.e.l.l, his uncle, of California.

"A draft of the above monument is before us. It is quite an affair, about twenty-seven feet high, with a full length statue of a soldier on top. It is now being constructed in Des Moines, Iowa, to be shipped by the 1st of May, and unveiled on the 4th day of July, 1894, with appropriate ceremonies. Dr. Knower, in 76, in laying the corner-stone to the David Williams State monument, gave the grandest celebration that ever occurred in this county. This one he expects to rely to a great extent on the local army organizations of the county, as this honor paid to one of their compatriots in arms is an honor to them.

"We have before us a copy of the Stockton (Cal.) _Evening Mail_ of November 9, 1893, containing a seven column article descriptive of Abraham Sch.e.l.l's vineyard at Knight's Ferry, Cal. We quote from it: 'A characteristic act of Abraham Sch.e.l.l was to give a deed to the entire place and all of its appurtenances, last summer, to Herrick R. Sch.e.l.l, his nephew, who had served him faithfully as a.s.sistant and business a.s.sociate for twenty-six years.' The property conveyed consisted of three thousand acres, upon which Mr. Sch.e.l.l had expended at the time the deed was given a quarter of a million of dollars. We see by the same article that Abraham Sch.e.l.l's landed purchases in that locality, in the early days, amounted to fifteen thousand five hundred and thirty-five acres.

"Mr. Sch.e.l.l joined a company formed by Dr. Knower (who made an investment in it, and was then a resident of Albany), which sailed on the ship _Tarolinton_ from the port of New York, on the 13th of January, 1849. The doctor, the following spring, shipped from Albany, twelve houses around Cape Horn, the freight on which was $5,000, he going by the way of the Isthmus, arriving in San Francisco on the 25th of September, 1849. On the steamer going up from Panama was Judge Terry, of Louisiana, who killed United States Senator Broderick in a duel, and who was years afterward a.s.sa.s.sinated.

"In these early days there was a contest between Northern and Southern pioneers whether California should come in the Union a free or a slave State. Broderick, a Democrat from the city of New York, represented the Northern sentiment, and was supported by the Whigs of the State. Common labor at that time was $16 per day, payable in gold. It was more from pride than from any thing to do with the moral question of slavery. They did not want to come in compet.i.tion with slave labor. The Northern element predominated, and California came in a free State. Its first const.i.tution was written by George Washington Sherwood, who was a Democratic member of the New York Legislature from Washington county, and copied after the const.i.tution of this State.

"California may be said to be the child of the State of New York; her citizens may be said to have been pre-eminent in its development and present greatness.

"Abraham Sch.e.l.l was born in Gallupville, and proposes to be buried in the neighboring village of Middleburgh, his wife's native place, where he has erected a monument.

"They say that all Forty-niners who remained in California either became millionaires or paupers. It seems that Mr. Sch.e.l.l was one of the former.

He was an unconditional Union man in the rebellion, visiting the hospitals of the wounded soldiers, and a.s.sisting them by his means, and the erection of this monument to his nephew for his services in that war is but in accord with his acts of patriotism at that time."

The above article inspired this undertaking at this time. I expected to find my friend on at the dedication of the monument, and thought I would have the ma.n.u.script ready on his arrival and submit it to him, and propose to have him go in partnership with me in its publication, and have him revise it with me. He was a man of high literary attainments, and an experienced Forty-niner, who could have added many important events to it that did not come under my observation. He was wealthy, and had the means to bring it properly before the public.

DEATH OF A FORMER SCHOHARIAN.

Intelligence reaches us of the death of Abraham Sch.e.l.l, at his home at Knight's Ferry, California, in the early part of February. Mr. Sch.e.l.l was seventy-six years old, and was a native of this county, having been born in the town of Wright. At the time of the gold excitement in 1849 he was in the mercantile business in Albany, but sold out and joining a company of friends journeyed to California, where he invested his means to good advantage and became highly successful, ama.s.sing a large fortune. His vineyards and their product have long been celebrated. A man of independent thought and fine literary attainments, he was one of the sons of Schoharie county, whose enterprise and intellectual culture we may take just pride in.

His remains are deposited in a vault there, to be brought here in the spring by his nephew, and interred in their final resting place in the cemetery at Middleburgh, where he has a $2,000 monument erected.

We learn from Dr. Knower that the proposed monument to his nephew at Old Stone Fort will undoubtedly be erected, as it has been contracted for, but the full details he will not be posted on until the arrival of the nephew in the spring.

The above will show that death, which plays an important hand in the events of human life, intervened; so I have gone on alone and submit it to the public, such as it is. I hope and trust it may meet the approval of all Californians, more particularly of those of the days to which it refers. If they will give their approval, it will add to the happiness and gratification of one of their compatriots of those early days of the pioneers and founders of the State of California. What California has become since, we, at that time, had no realization of. Instead of conceiving it an utter impossibility of ever building one railroad across the continent, we now have five. Instead of conceiving the idea that it would never be an agricultural country, it may be said to be the vineyard and wine producing country of the world, and it has a greater variety of productions than most any other land.

The city of San Francisco, when I first entered it, had not as many good buildings as a common eastern village. Now it has a population of nearly four hundred thousand, and edifices that cost millions. It has produced more millionaires, from persons that went there poor, than any other country before in the history of the world, and more money has been donated to science and education by those successful pioneers, who were the creators of their own fortune in the same time, than all the rest of the world in the past forty-five years, since the days of the Forty-niners.

Lick's inst.i.tution for the science of astronomy, Leland Stanford's twenty millions to the Alto University of Learning, open to all students, are ill.u.s.trations of the above statements.

The foundation of the fortunes of many bankers and wealthy capitalists of the East were made in California in the days of the Forty-niners.

Mill, the owner of the great building at the corner of Broadway and Wall street, the ground on which it stands costing a million, who is many times a millionaire, went from Sing Sing, in this State, a poor boy in 1849. Armour, the great millionaire cattle dealer of Chicago, made his first money there in those days, which laid the foundation of his great fortune, and many others I can recall to mind too numerous to mention.

While all did not succeed, as they never do in any human enterprise, some got discouraged, others fell by the way and laid down and died from disappointment, yet others more than realized their most fabulous conception of wealth. I was told when I was a boy if I went where the sun set and dug for gold I would find it. When I became a man I went three thousand miles in the direction of the sun setting and dug and found gold. It is not a dream, for as I close this writing I see on my little finger a gold ring made from the gold I there dug, which has been there for forty-five years. It is so fine that it has been wearing away, and it is not more than one-fourth the size it was when I first put it on, and time is likewise wearing on me, and it will probably last as long as I do, and we will disappear together, as Shakespeare says, "besmeared with s.l.u.ttish time."

THE END.

APPENDIX.

It was the brains and statesmanship of Wm. L. Marcy, when he was secretary of war under President Polk, that inaugurated and generaled the movements that resulted in our securing possession of California--by his expeditions, sent by sea and by land, of regular forces, followed by the volunteer regiment of one thousand men, under the command of Col.

Jonathan Stevenson, as the following able State paper indicates:

[Confidential.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: W.L. Marcy]

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, _June_ 3, 1846.

SIR.--I herewith send you a copy of my letter to the governor of Missouri for an additional force of one thousand mounted men. The object of thus adding to the force under your command is not, as you will perceive, fully set forth in that letter, for the reason that it is deemed prudent that it should not, at this time, become a matter of public notoriety; but to you it is proper and necessary that it should be stated.

It has been decided by the president to be of the greatest importance in the pending war with Mexico to take the earliest possession of Upper California. An expedition with that view is hereby ordered, and you are designated to command it. To enable you to be in sufficient force to conduct it successfully this additional force of a thousand mounted men has been provided, to follow you in the direction of Santa Fe, to be under your orders or the officer you may leave in command at Santa Fe.

It cannot be determined how far this additional force will be behind that designated for the Santa Fe expedition, but it will not probably be more than a few weeks. When you arrive at Santa Fe with the force already called, and shall have taken possession of it, you may find yourself in a condition to garrison it with a small part of your command (as the additional force will soon be at that place), and with the remainder, press forward to California. In that case you will make such arrangements as to being followed by the reinforcements before mentioned, as in your judgment may be deemed safe and prudent. I need not say to you that in case you conquer Santa Fe (and with it will be included the department of the State of New Mexico), it will be important to provide for retaining safe possession of it. Should you deem it prudent to have still more troops for the accomplishment of the object herein designated, you will lose no time in communicating that opinion on that point, and all others connected with the enterprise, to this department. Indeed you are hereby authorized to make a direct requisition for it upon the governor of Missouri.

It is known that a large body of Mormon emigrants are en route to California for the purpose of settling in that country. You are desired to use all proper means to have a good understanding with them, to the end that the United States may have their co-operation in taking possession of and holding that country. It has been suggested here that many of these Mormons would willingly enter into the service of the United States and aid us in our expedition against California. You are hereby authorized to muster into service such as can be induced to volunteer; not, however, to a number exceeding one-third of your entire force. Should they enter the service they will be paid as other volunteers, and you can allow them to designate, so far as it can be properly done, the persons to act as officers thereof. It is understood that a considerable number of American citizens are now settled on the Sacramento river, near Sutter's establishment, called "Nueva Helvetia,"

who are well disposed toward the United States. Should you, on your arrival in the country, find this to be the true state of things there, you are authorized to organize and receive into the service of the United States such portion of these citizens as you may think useful to aid you to hold the possession of the country. You will in that case allow them, so far as you shall judge proper, to select their own officers. A large discretionary power is invested in you in regard to these matters, as well as to all others, in relation to the expedition confided to your command.

The choice of routes by which you will enter California will be left to your better knowledge and ampler means of getting accurate information.

We are a.s.sured that a southern route (called the Caravan route, by which the wild horses are brought from that country into New Mexico) is practicable, and it is suggested as not improbable that it can be pa.s.sed over in the winter months, or at least late in autumn. It is hoped that this information may prove to be correct.

In regard to routes; the practicability of procuring needful supplies for men and animals, and transporting baggage is a point to be well considered. Should the president be disappointed in his cherished hope that you will be able to reach the interior of Upper California before winter, you are then desired to make the best arrangement you can for sustaining your forces during the winter, and for an early movement in the spring. Though it is very desirable that the expedition should reach California this season (and the president does not doubt you will make every possible effort to accomplish this object), yet if, in your judgment, it cannot be undertaken with a reasonable a.s.surance of success, you will defer it, as above suggested, until spring. You are left unembarra.s.sed by any specific directions in the matter.

It is expected that the naval forces of the United States which are now, or will soon be in the Pacific, will be in possession of all the towns on the seacoast, and will co-operate with you in the conquest of California. Arms, ordnance, munitions of war, and provisions to be used in that country, will be sent by sea to our squadron in the Pacific for the use of the land forces.

Should you conquer and take possession of New Mexico and Upper California, or considerable places in either, you will establish temporary civil government therein, abolishing all arbitrary restrictions that may exist, so far as it may be done with safety.

In performing this duty, it would be wise and prudent to continue in their employment all such of the existing officers as are known to be friendly to the United States, and will take the oath of allegiance to them. The duties of the custom-house ought, at once, to be reduced to such a rate as may be barely sufficient to maintain the necessary officers without yielding any revenue to the government. You may a.s.sure the people of these provinces that it is the wish and design of the United States to provide for them a free government with the least possible delay, similar to that which exists in our territories. They will then be called on to exercise the rights of freemen in electing their own representatives to the territorial legislature. It is foreseen that what relates to the civil government will be a difficult and unpleasant part of your duty, and much must necessarily be left to your own discretion. In your whole conduct you will act in such a manner as best to conciliate the inhabitants and render them friendly to the United States.

It is desirable that the usual trade between the citizens of the United States and the Mexican provinces should be continued, as far as practicable, under the changed condition of things between the two countries. In consequence of extending your expedition into California it may be proper that you should increase your supply for goods to be distributed as presents to the Indians. The United States superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis will aid you in procuring these goods. You will be furnished with a proclamation in the Spanish language, to be issued by you and circulated among the Mexican people on your entering into or approaching their country. You will use your utmost endeavors to have the pledges and promises therein contained carried out to the utmost extent.

I am directed by the president to say that the rank of brevet brigadier-general will be conferred on you as soon as you commence your movement toward California, and sent round to you by sea or over the country, or to the care of the commandant of our squadron in the Pacific. In that way cannon, arms, ammunition and supplies for the land forces will be sent to you.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W.L. MARCY,

_Secretary of War_.