Chapter IV: Part 4

During that time there were various visionary reports of new discoveries of gold regions, one of a lake that the sands of its banks were rich with gold. All you had to do, to make your fortune, was to wash it out, which produced quite a sensation, and parties were organized to go there, but they never found it. The next year after the purchase of my brig, there were small steamers constructed to run to Stockton, and they had already some sailing vessels put on, built there, and the price of freight had commenced falling, and I thought I had better sell my vessel while I could get a good price for it. There was a man who came to me and said he wanted to buy it; that he had been a captain of a boat on Lake Erie. I stated to him my price for it. He said that was not out of the way, but he would like to try it one trip before closing the purchase, and referred me to a mercantile house there as his reference. They said he had run vessels for them on Lake Erie when they were doing business in Buffalo. I concluded that was entirely satisfactory; that that had evidently been his regular business. He said he wanted to employ all his own hands. I had the vessel, at the time, half loaded with freight, which I turned over to him. I paid my men and discharged them, and told them the vessel was about to change owners, and put him in full possession of it. Of course I had nothing more to do with it until he returned from the trip to Stockton; then I expected he would close the purchase as he said that the price was satisfactory to him. After a few weeks I commenced looking for the return of my brig, but it did not come. Finally I heard a rumor that the captain had left the vessel at Stockton, but did not believe it, but thought that some accident might have happened. I had borrowed a spy-glass to investigate the bay. I could have recognized my vessel by the red streak around it. Finally, after it had been gone long enough to make several trips, I discovered it at anchor in the bay. I went and supplied myself with money, in case it should prove true that the captain had left the vessel, to pay his men in full before they got ashore, because the vessel was liable for their wages, whoever might have employed them; so I hired a boat to row me out to it. I met a man on the deck that seemed to be in command. I inquired of him where the captain was. He said he had run away. I spoke to him in a sharp tone of voice and said, how do you know that? He said, because I saw him on the back of a mule going over the plain. Then he asked me, are you the owner? I said, yes. Then I said, you have all got your pay before he went; I did not employ you. He said, some of them have got some.

As you seem to be in command, I suppose you have kept an account of how it stands. He said, "Come down in the cabin and I will show it to you." I said, "It was hard on me to be robbed of all my freight money, but it was also hard for them to be cheated out of their hard earnings, and I would see what I could do for them." He presented the statement of what each man had received and what was due them. I was surprised at his correctness. I said: It seems all right and I would pay them, which I did, and took their receipt. I was afraid if they went ashore and found the vessel was liable for their wages they might make any kind of demands, so I got possession of my vessel again, very much damaged. Before leaving the port he had let the steamer _Senator_ run into the bows of the vessel, and it cost me $700 to have it repaired, ship carpenters' wages being $20 per day, payable in gold. The events which I had anticipated of the decline of that kind of property had come, and, after it was repaired, I put it up at auction and sold it, so that rascal cost me several thousand dollars. Such was life in California in the days of the Forty-niners.

Having some leisure I thought I would take a trip up the mining regions, and make a visit to my old friends there. More than a year had passed, and greater changes had taken place than would have occurred in any other country in many years. The population of California increased one hundred thousand the first year after the discovery of the gold, which had accounted for the great changes which had taken place since my previous trip. I went up on the steamer _Senator_ to Sacramento, which had become quite a city, and the next morning started for Coloma in a stage full of passengers, drawn by mules. I took a seat aside of the driver. I got in conversation with the driver. I asked him what pay he received? He said, only $450 per month and his board. I asked him if he had driven stages before? He said, yes, out of Boston. I said, at what wages? He said, $14 a month. I said that there was a big difference between that and $450. He said, yes, but that this was his last trip. He took a party of three up only a few weeks ago, and he brought them down yesterday, and they had between $3,000 and $4,000 apiece, and he was not going to waste his time driving for $450 a month. He was going to the mines the next day. It was quite probable that the party referred to had made an unusual lucky strike, for I had met parties that had done the same thing. I had had in my hands at one time, in San Francisco, a piece of solid gold metal, something in the shape of the cover of a sugar loaf, that was worth $4,500, found by a couple of green Irishmen. They inquired of some miners in the interior where was a good place to dig. The miners said in fun, dig there in that sand bank behind you. The Irishmen took them up in earnest and went to digging. In a short time they found that chunk of gold, where no experienced miner would think of digging.

I have dug gold in the cellar of the brewery in San Francisco. I think most all the soil of that part of California is impregnated with gold. But the point is to find it in sufficient quantities to pay to dig it. As an illustration, if you knew that in a certain piece of ground there was $5,000 worth of gold, and it cost you $10,000 to wash all the ground to get it, of course that land would have no gold value. I found at Coloma that my friends had left the Dutch bar and gone to the middle fork of the American river, some distance from there. I got directions how to get there and started on foot. Toward night I met a young man who had just came overland and had separated that day from his party to get work in the mining camp. I told him where I was going, and that he had better go with me, and that he could get from $10 to $16 per day to work for other parties, or to join two others and work a claim for himself, which he did. So as it was getting toward night, we camped under a tree and slept until morning, and took a fresh start. That day we found the middle fork of the American river and my friends. The river was sunk way down in the earth. It seemed almost a mile down to the water where they were to work. It was quite a large mining place. The excitement there every day was when the "dummy" went into the river. It was a diving armor that had been used in the gulf of Lower California to go down in the deep waters to hunt for pearls, and had been bought by a party of five, each putting in $800, making $4,000, expecting to make their fortunes by getting into the deep water of the gold rivers. (As I have shown before, the torrents and force of the currents had prevented any gold from ever lodging there.) Every day at such an hour, it was announced that the "dummy" was a going in the river. The other miners quit their work to see it, and the proprietors of the "dummy" always treated the crowd in the most lavish manner. Its credit was good for any store bills. Its always treating the crowd had made it popular, and nobody would trade with the storekeeper who would not trust it, so it was death to the prosperity of the storekeeper, whether he trusted it or not. They never got any gold while there through "dummy," and when he left to go further down the river to try another place, the main storekeeper there lost $800 by trusting it, which broke him. These stores were tents, to supply immediate wants of the miners. I never heard of "dummy" afterward. I have no doubt he operated on all the store tents until he came to grief like all evil-doers.

The productiveness of the gold rivers had not diminished any that I could perceive. I talked to a man who had been off a little ways to prospect in another place. I asked him what luck? He said, there was nothing there. I said, was there no gold? He said; yes, there was some, but of no value. He said a man could make $10 a day, and who was a going to waste their time on that. My visit over, I returned to San Francisco. My friend R.'s brewery was not completed. I was informed he had been borrowing money from a Jew at twenty per cent a month. It was no use for me to back him any more, however valuable it might be, if completed, and I had no doubt there was a fortune in it, but neither he nor I had the capital to do it.

I had some other financial entangling matters, and I was afraid if I kept on with them I might get broke, and the only way I saw of getting out with them was to announce that I was going to leave, and going down to Relago, Central America.

There was an English steamer advertised to sail for that port and Panama. I thought I would go for sixty days and then return and commence again and manage my affairs in a more conservative way, and what I could control. Well I closed my matters out the best I could and engaged my passage on the steamer for Relago. There was considerable excitement at this time about the Nicaragua route. The above place would be the terminus on the Pacific coast, and, consequently, a place of importance. As I had missed it in trading six of my houses for lots in San Francisco, there might be a chance to get some there in advance of any rise on them. Any way, I wanted to get out of my entangling alliances and take a fresh start. The night before I sailed Mr. Brady (Colonel Stevenson's son-in-law) came to me and said the colonel did not like to have me go. I told him I had paid my passage, $200. He said the colonel understood that. He put his hand in his vest pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. He said, here is the $200, which he told me to give you, so you will not lose any thing by not going. There was once a lady, the wife of one of the officers of his regiment, who arrived there, expecting to meet her husband, but he was up in the country. The colonel asked me to go down to the steamer and meet her, and escort her to a boarding-house to stay until her husband arrived, which I did. I told him that she was short of funds, having expected to meet her husband. He gave me $150 and told me to give it to her, as if I loaned it to her, and when her husband paid me I could return it to him. I mention these little incidents to show that whatever faults he may have had, he was the most generous of friends.

Colonels Stevenson, Freemont and Captain Sutter will stand pre-eminent in the future history of the State as its most prominent founders.

I sailed out of the port of San Francisco on the steamer _Ecuador_ for Relago, Central America, expecting to return to California within sixty days. In a few days, out at sea, we began to hear unfavorable rumors about our vessel; that the engineer had left the day before our sailing; that he did not consider it safe to go in it; that it could not carry coal enough to take it to Acapulco, the next coaling place. And we were informed that it was a steamer that had been running from Panama to Valparaiso, and had been bought up by a speculator and sent up to San Francisco as an experiment, to see if it would pay. The officers and men had never been up the coast before, and knew nothing about the port. One day we were startled in mid ocean by the stopping of the engine. We soon found the cause. The captain was about to try his sails so as to save coal (which verified the reports about being short of coal). We made some headway with the sails, but lost it again when the wind subsided, by the currents of the ocean; so that project was abandoned, and after some days we put into the port of San Blas, in Mexico, for fuel. There was no coal there, so we laid in all the wood we could to try and reach Acapulco (here we could not buy any thing with our $5 gold pieces, but they were ready to sell for silver). The cholera had been there, they said, but had left. The priests had had a procession, and, with their incense boxes, had marched through the streets and driven it out. We took in all the wood we could get and started to make the port of Acapulco, the regular coaling port for all the steamers on that coast. It was Sunday P.M. We could raise fuel enough to make only four knots an hour. It was an iron steamer. We were burning what there was of the woodwork of the vessel, for if we could not make the port before dark we were lost. The officers were not acquainted with the coast. We had not fuel enough to keep steam up all night, and we would be on the broad Pacific ocean, six thousand miles across, without the remotest possibility of meeting any other vessel, without any control of our steamer, subject to be driven in any direction. I heard the mate talking to the captain about the propriety of wrecking the vessel and saving what lives they could, although we were in sight of land. The captain said the under-tow was so great that none could be saved in that way. It is twice as great on the Pacific as the Atlantic. There were no female passengers. One man said he had $10,000 in gold with him; if his wife and children only had that he would be content to meet his fate, under the circumstances, but it was hard to leave them without it. All the passengers had more or less gold, or they would not have been returning.

You can imagine with what anxiety we watched every indication of the coast to see if there was any chance of us nearing the port. Finally, toward night, we saw a high projection of land on the coast, and that was predicted that it was the entrance to the port. If we could reach that point before dark, we might be saved. The passengers went to work to break up any thing for the fires that would make steam. The captain made no objections, but told them to burn all woodwork on the vessel to save their lives. At dark we reached the point we had in view, and it was fortunate for us that it was the entrance to the port. As the vessel turned to enter, you could see, coming over the waters of the ocean, a tropical storm, accompanied with wind, thunder and lightning. Twenty minutes later it would have reached us, and we would have been lost. As soon as we got safely in port (and it was very dark), I can hear now, in imagination, the sound of the anchor as it was let down in the water, which assured our entire safety. It thundered and lightninged, and blowing a high gale, which was music in our ears, as we knew we were out of danger, and feeling the supreme gratification of knowing what we had escaped. Blessed to us was the high mountains which surrounded the port. The entrance to it is narrow, but when you get inside it is one of the safest harbors in the world, being perfectly land-locked. The next day opened on a happy lot of passengers. I felt as if I was commencing life anew. We went ashore expecting to be there several days, as they proposed to take in a full supply of coal. This place had been once quite a city, but many years ago had been partly destroyed by an earthquake. It was said that the water went out of the bay most to the tops of the mountains, and then reacted to its usual level in the harbor; that there was a French ship carried up to the sides of the mountains, and when the water reacted, carried back in safety in the harbor. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed, the ruins of which are now visible where the city once extended.

I was introduced to General Alvarado. He was the most prominent man in Mexico, on the Pacific coast, at that time, and afterward became very prominent in the public affairs of his country. On our return to the vessel that evening there was quite an excitement on board. Among the passengers was a party of three who had been quite successful in Sacramento in the bottling of soda and summer beer, and peddling it out through the city. They had picked up by chance an old acquaintance from Waterford who belonged to an aristocratic family there, and by his habits of dissipation was a mortification to them. So when the California excitement broke out, they furnished him the money to go to the gold regions. It would either reform him or they would get rid of him. Of course, such men were no good in California, and he had spent his money and wanted to return. These men came across him and told him they were going to return East in sixty days, and if he would keep straight, and drive one of their wagons for them, they would take him home with them. When they went ashore the first day they left him in charge of their baggage, and promised him that he could go ashore the next. They had their private store of wines and brandy. He had found it and tried it and got full, and treated all the sailors and everybody on board that would drink with him, and was the most popular man on board with the sailors. He repented the next day and begged their forgiveness, and they took him home with them. Like a bad penny, he returned as he was before. Distance did not reform him.

Well, our next port was Relago my destination. Just after dark one day we got opposite to what, according to the charts, was that port. It was necessary for them to wait until morning before they could undertake to enter it, as they had never been there before, and there were no pilots, and they decided not to let the steam go down, and they concluded that they would sail slowly around in a circle, so as to be opposite to the port in the morning. When morning came it was foggy, and we could not see the land. But they had such confidence in the correctness of their chart that they determined to enter it. Instead of the port, we came to the white caps, dashing against the rocks almost mountains high, and we came within an ace of being dashed to pieces against them. If the engineer had not reversed the movement of the engine the instant he did, we would have been wrecked. The captain was now completely befogged. In a short time he came to me with a paper to sign agreeing to go to Panama. It should cost me nothing extra for my passage there; that the few other passengers for that port had signed it. I thought I had better sign to go anywhere than to take any more chances in that steamer. Come to find out afterward, instead of being opposite the port that morning, we were twenty miles from it, the currents of the ocean having carried us that distance while we were sailing around in a circle, which they had not ciphered on, and thus came so near wrecking us. By chance we saw a sailing vessel. The captain gave orders for the steamer to follow it, and, when we overtook it, we found it was bound for Relago. There was a man on board of it who was acquainted with the port. They got him to come on our steamer and had him pilot us to that port, so I expected to go ashore, and got my baggage in readiness, and, when the time came, had it brought up on deck. They did not enter the port, but came to outside. There were two passengers, it seems, that would not sign the paper to go to Panama, and it was to land them he had come to, and when I went to have my baggage put in the small boat the captain informed me I had signed to go to Panama, and some of the other passengers said I was very foolish to risk my life in that sea in so small a boat. Before I scarcely knew it the boat had pushed off without me, and, consequently, the whole current and course of my life was changed. Upon such little incidents often do the events of human life depend. It may have been fortunate for me that I did not land there.

There was in Nicaragua at the time a filibustering expedition under the command of Captain Walker, who went from California to overthrow the government there by taking sides with the revolutionary movement that had been started, and to get an American control of the government, which I did not approve of, for I considered it a dishonorable movement; but still, if I had landed, they being my countrymen, I might have got mixed up with them. They were conquered and all sentenced to death, and shot. It is barely possible I might have shared their fate. I have often thought since I made a good escape by not landing.

SCENES ON THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

The course of the steamer is frequently in sight of land. The storms I have referred to were tropical storms, lasting but a short time. The ocean is generally very mild all the distance, three thousand five hundred miles from Panama to San Francisco. North of San Francisco the storms are somewhat similar to the Atlantic ocean storms. The passengers on the return trip were in the best of spirits; they were returning home; all of them had been more or less successful in California, and I can recall to my mind many pleasant times we had on board the steamship. The porpoise are very numerous on the Pacific ocean; there were often, for days, schools of them on the sides of the steamer, throwing themselves out of the water, and then diving in again; great numbers, at the same time, seeming like the motion of a revolving wheel. 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 booby 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 passing 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 passed 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 Schell, 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 Schell's vineyard at Knight's Ferry, Cal. We quote from it: 'A characteristic act of Abraham Schell was to give a deed to the entire place and all of its appurtenances, last summer, to Herrick R. Schell, his nephew, who had served him faithfully as assistant and business associate for twenty-six years.' The property conveyed consisted of three thousand acres, upon which Mr. Schell had expended at the time the deed was given a quarter of a million of dollars. We see by the same article that Abraham Schell's landed purchases in that locality, in the early days, amounted to fifteen thousand five hundred and thirty-five acres.

"Mr. Schell 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 assassinated.

"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 competition with slave labor. The Northern element predominated, and California came in a free State. Its first constitution was written by George Washington Sherwood, who was a Democratic member of the New York Legislature from Washington county, and copied after the constitution 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 Schell 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. Schell was one of the former. He was an unconditional Union man in the rebellion, visiting the hospitals of the wounded soldiers, and assisting 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 manuscript 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 Schell, at his home at Knight's Ferry, California, in the early part of February. Mr. Schell 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, amassing 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 institution for the science of astronomy, Leland Stanford's twenty millions to the Alto University of Learning, open to all students, are illustrations 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 sluttish 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.]

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 assured 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 passed 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 assurance of success, you will defer it, as above suggested, until spring. You are left unembarrassed 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 assure 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_.

COLONEL S. N. KEARNEY, _Fort Leavenworth, Missouri._