Chapter II: Part 2

We saw, at once, how it was to be done, and also the necessity of
keeping the boat “stern on” to the sea; for the instant the sea should
strike upon her broad-side or quarter, she would be driven up
broad-side on, and capsized. We pulled strongly in, and as soon as we
felt that the sea had got hold of us and was carrying us in with the
speed of a race-horse, we threw the oars as far from the boat as we
could, and took hold of the gunwale, ready to spring out and seize her
when she struck, the officer using his utmost strength to keep her
stern on. We were shot up upon the beach like an arrow from a bow, and
seizing the boat, ran her up high and dry, and soon picked up our
oars, and stood by her, ready for the captain to come down.

Finding that the captain did not come immediately, we put our oars in
the boat, and leaving one to watch it, walked about the beach to see
what we could of the place. The beach is nearly a mile in length
between the two points, and of smooth sand. We had taken the only good
landing-place, which is in the middle; it being more stony toward the
ends. It is about twenty yards in width from high-water mark to a
slight bank at which the soil begins, and so hard that it is a
favorite place for running horses. It was growing dark, so that we
could just distinguish the dim outlines of the two vessels in the
offing; and the great seas were rolling in, in regular lines, growing
larger and larger as they approached the shore, and hanging over the
beach upon which they were to break, when their tops would curl over
and turn white with foam, and, beginning at one extreme of the line,
break rapidly to the other, as a long card-house falls when the
children knock down the cards at one end.

The Sandwich Islanders, in the meantime, had turned their boat round,
and ran her down into the water, and were loading her with hides and
tallow. As this was the work in which we were soon to be engaged, we
looked on with some curiosity. They ran the boat into the water so far
that every large sea might float her, and two of them, with their
trousers rolled up, stood by the bows, one on each side, keeping her
in her right position. This was hard work; for beside the force they
had to use upon the boat, the large seas nearly took them off their
legs. The others were running from the boat to the bank, upon which,
out of the reach of the water, was a pile of dry bullocks’ hides,
doubled lengthwise in the middle, and nearly as stiff as boards. These
they took upon their heads, one or two at a time, and carried down to
the boat, where one of their number stowed them away. They were
obliged to carry them on their heads, to keep them out of the water,
and we observed that they had on thick woolen caps. “Look here, Bill,
and see what you’re coming to!” said one of our men to another who
stood by the boat. “Well, D——,” said the second mate to me, “this does
not look much like Cambridge college, does it? This is what I call
‘_head work_’.” To tell the truth, it did not look very encouraging.

A Day with the Cow Column

The following account of life on the Oregon Trail was written by Jesse Applegate, who traveled West in 1843 with an emigrant train of 60 wagons and thousands of cattle. Perhaps 500 persons journeyed with this caravan, which was well organized and well led, a bigger and better equipped expedition than the one Parkman met three years later. Here is a typical day on the trail:

Jesse Applegate Herds Cattle on the Oregon Trail

It is four o’clock A.M.; the sentinels on duty have discharged their
rifles—the signal that the hours of sleep are over; and every wagon
and tent is pouring forth its night tenants, and slow-kindling smokes
begin largely to rise and float away upon the morning air. Sixty men
start from the corral, spreading as they make through the vast herd of
cattle and horses that form a semi-circle around the encampment, the
most distant perhaps two miles away.

The herders pass to the extreme verge and carefully examine for trails
beyond, to see that none of the animals have strayed or been stolen
during the night. This morning no trails lead beyond the outside
animals in sight, and by five o’clock the herders begin to contract
the great moving circle and the well-trained animals move slowly
toward camp, clipping here and there a thistle or a tempting bunch of
grass on the way. In about an hour five thousand animals are close up
to the encampment, and the teamsters are busy selecting their teams
and driving them inside the “corral” to be yoked. The corral is a
circle one hundred yards deep, formed with wagons connected strongly
with each other, the wagon in the rear being connected with the wagon
in front by its tongue and ox chains. It is a strong barrier that the
most vicious ox cannot break, and in case of an attack of the Sioux
would be no contemptible entrenchment.

From six to seven o’clock is a busy time; breakfast is to be eaten,
the tents struck, the wagons loaded, and the teams yoked and brought
up in readiness to be attached to their respective wagons. All know
when, at seven o’clock, the signal to march sounds, that those not
ready to take their proper places in the line of march must fall into
the dusty rear for the day.

At seven the bugle sounds and the party moves out, led by the pilot and his guards. Meantime, a group of young men form a hunting party to look for buffalo. It is from the viewpoint of the hunters on the bluffs of the river that we next see the emigrant train:

We are full six miles away from the line of march; though everything
is dwarfed by distance, it is seen distinctly. The caravan has been
about two hours in motion and is now as widely extended as a prudent
regard for safety will permit. First, near the bank of the shining
river, is a company of horsemen; they seem to have found an
obstruction, for the main body has halted while three or four ride
rapidly along the bank of the creek or slough. They are hunting a
favorable crossing for the wagons; while we look they have succeeded;
it has apparently required no work to make it passable, for all but
one of the party have passed on and he has raised a flag, no doubt a
signal to the wagons to steer their course to where he stands. The
leading teamster sees him though he is yet two miles off, and steers
his course directly towards him, all the wagons following in his
track. They (the wagons) form a line three quarters of a mile in
length; some of the teamsters ride upon the front of their wagons,
some march beside their teams; scattered along the line companies of
women and children are taking exercise on foot; they gather bouquets
of rare and beautiful flowers that line the way; near them stalks a
stately greyhound or an Irish wolf dog, apparently proud of keeping
watch and ward over his master’s wife and children.

Next comes a band of horses; two or three men or boys follow them, the
docile and sagacious animals scarce needing this attention, for they
have learned to follow in the rear of the wagons, and know that at
noon they will be allowed to graze and rest. Their knowledge of time
seems as accurate as of the place they are to occupy in the line, and
even a full-blown thistle will scarcely tempt them to straggle or halt
until the dinner hour has arrived. Not so with the large herd of
horned beasts that bring up the rear; lazy, selfish and unsocial, it
has been a task to get them in motion; the strong, always ready to
domineer over the weak, halt in front and forbid the weaker to pass
them. They seem to move only in fear of the driver’s whip; though in
the morning full to repletion, they have not been driven an hour
before their hunger and thirst seem to indicate a fast of days’
duration. Through all the long day their greed is never satisfied, nor
their thirst quenched, nor is there a moment of relaxation of the
tedious and vexatious labors of their drivers, although to all others
the march furnishes some season of relaxation or enjoyment. For the
cow-drivers there is none....

The pilot, by measuring the ground and timing the speed of the wagons
and the walk of his horses, has determined the rate of each, so as to
enable him to select the nooning place, as near as the requisite grass
and water can be had at the end of five hours’ travel of the wagons.
Today, the ground being favorable, little time has been lost in
preparing the road, so that he and his pioneers are at the nooning
place an hour in advance of the wagons, which time is spent in
preparing convenient watering places for the animals and digging
little wells near the bank of the Platte. As the teams are not
unyoked, but simply turned loose from the wagons, a corral is not
formed at noon, but the wagons are drawn up in columns, four abreast,
the leading wagon of each platoon on the left—the platoons being
formed with that view. This brings friends together at noon as well as
at night....

It is now one o’clock; the bugle has sounded, and the caravan has
resumed its westward journey. It is in the same order, but the evening
is far less animated than the morning march; a drowsiness has fallen
apparently on man and beast; teamsters drop asleep on their perches
and even when walking by their teams, and the words of command are now
addressed to the slowly creeping oxen in the softened tenor of women
or the piping treble of children, while the snares of teamsters make a
droning accompaniment.

As the sun goes down, the pilot halts the column for the night. The evening meal is prepared, watches are set, and another day of the march comes to an end.

The Donner Party Starves

The hardships of the trail took their toll from the west-bound settlers. The Donner party, which left Illinois in the summer of 1846, reached the Sierras in October after the winter snows had begun. Marooned at what is now Donner Lake, this group slowly starved to death until only 48 out of the original 87 were left when rescue parties broke through to them in February. Some of them even turned to cannibalism to survive. The following narrative, which does not mention cannibalism, nonetheless tells vividly of the ordeal of that terrible winter. The author is Virginia Reed Murphy, who was a child at the time of the ordeal.

Virginia Reed Murphy Survives a Terrible Ordeal

Snow was already falling, although it was only the last week in
October. Winter had set in a month earlier than usual. All trails and
roads were covered, and our only guide was the summit, which it seemed
we would never reach. Despair drove many nearly frantic. Each family
tried to cross the mountains but found it impossible. When it was seen
that the wagons could not be dragged through the snow, their goods and
provisions were packed on oxen and another start was made, men and
women walking in snow up to their waists, carrying their children in
their arms and trying to drive their cattle. The Indians said they
could find no road; so a halt was called, and Stanton went ahead with
the guides and came back and reported that we could get across if we
kept right on, but that it would be impossible if [_more_] snow fell.
He was in favor of a forced march until the other side of the summit
should be reached, but some of our party were so tired and exhausted
with the day’s labor that they declared they could not take another
step; so the few who knew the danger that the night might bring
yielded to the many, and we camped within three miles of the summit.

That night came the dreaded snow. Around the campfires under the trees
great feathery flakes came whirling down. The air was so full of them
that one could see objects only a few feet away.... With heavy hearts
we turned back to a cabin that had been built ... on the shore of a
lake, since known as Donner Lake. The Donners were camped in Alder
Creek Valley below the lake.... The snow came on so suddenly that they
had no time to build cabins, but hastily put up brush sheds, covering
them with pine boughs....

Many attempts were made to cross the mountains, but all who tried were
driven back by the pitiless storms. Finally a party was organized,
since known as the “Forlorn Hope.” They made snowshoes, and fifteen
started—ten men and five women—but only seven lived to reach
California; eight men perished. They were over a month on the way, and
the horrors endured by that Forlorn Hope no pen can describe nor
imagination conceive....

The misery endured during those four months at Donner Lake in our
little dark cabins under the snow would fill pages and make the
coldest heart ache. Christmas was near, but to the starving its memory
gave no comfort. It came and passed without observance, but my mother
had determined weeks before that her children should have a treat on
this one day. She had laid away a few dried apples, some beans, a bit
of tripe, and a small piece of bacon. When this hoarded store was
brought out, the delight of the little ones knew no bounds. The
cooking was watched carefully, and when we sat down to our Christmas
dinner, Mother said, “Children, eat slowly, for this one day you can
have all you wish.”...

The storms would often last ten days at a time, and we would have to
cut chips from the logs inside which formed our cabins in order to
start a fire. We could scarcely walk, and the men had hardly strength
to procure wood. We would drag ourselves through the snow from one
cabin to another, and some mornings snow would have to be shoveled out
of the fireplace before a fire could be made. Poor little children
were crying with hunger, and mothers were crying because they had so
little to give to their children. We seldom thought of bread, we had
been without it so long....

Time dragged slowly along till we were no longer on short allowance
but were simply starving. My mother determined to make an effort to
cross the mountains. She could not see her children die without trying
to get them food. It was hard to leave them, but she felt that it must
be done. She told them she would bring them bread, so they were
willing to stay, and with no guide but a compass we started—my mother,
Eliza, Milt Elliot, and myself. Milt wore snow-shoes, and we followed
in his tracks. We were five days in the mountains; Eliza gave out the
first day and had to return, but we kept on and climbed one high
mountain after another only to see others higher still ahead. Often I
would have to crawl up the mountains, being too tired to walk ... we
were compelled to return, and just in time, for that night a storm
came on, the most fearful of the winter, and we should have perished
had we not been in the cabins.

We now had nothing to eat but raw hides, and they were on the roof of
the cabin to keep out the snow; when prepared for cooking and boiled
they were simply a pot of glue. When the hides were taken off our
cabin and we were left without shelter, Mr. Breen gave us a home with
his family, and Mrs. Breen prolonged my life by slipping me little
bits of meat now and then when she discovered that I could not eat the
hide. Death had already claimed many in our party, and it seemed as
though relief never would reach us. Baylis Williams, who had been in
delicate health before we left Springfield, was the first to die; he
passed away before starvation had really set in....

On his arrival at Sutter’s Fort my father [_the author’s father had
led a second and successful effort to cross the mountains to get
help_] made known the situation of the emigrants, and Captain Sutter
offered at once to do everything possible for their relief. He
furnished horses and provisions, and my father and Mr. McClutchen
started for the mountains, coming as far as possible with horses and
then with packs on their backs proceeding on foot; but they were
finally compelled to return. Captain Sutter was not surprised at their
defeat. He stated that there were no able-bodied men in that vicinity,
all having gone down the country with Frémont to fight the Mexicans.
He advised my father to go to Yerba Buena, now San Francisco, and make
his case known to the naval officer in command. My father was in fact
conducting parties there—when the seven members of the Forlorn Hope
arrived from across the mountains. Their famished faces told the
story. Cattle were killed and men were up all night, drying beef and
making flour by hand mills, nearly two hundred pounds being made in
one night, and a party of seven, commanded by Captain Reasen P.
Tucker, were sent to our relief by Captain Sutter and the alcalde, Mr.
Sinclair. On the evening of February 19, 1847, they reached our
cabins, where all were starving. They shouted to attract attention.
Mr. Breen clambered up the icy steps from our cabin, and soon we heard
the blessed words, “Relief, thank God, relief!”

Mark Twain Rides the Overland Stage

The career of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) as a river pilot ended when the Civil War stopped steamboat traffic on the Mississippi. He then joined his brother, who was going to Carson City, Nevada, to be secretary to the governor of the territory. The brothers took a steamboat to St. Joseph, Missouri, where they caught the Overland Stage. Sam Clemens’ account of his trip to Nevada is a memorable picture of stagecoach travel across the prairies and mountains just eight years before the railroads made the Overland Stage obsolete. Here is a selection from _Roughing It_:

A Memorable Account of Stagecoach Travel from _Roughing It_

It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length
on the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide
wastes of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an
expectant look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the
form of a tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled along at a
spanking gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a
most exhilarating way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the
pattering of the horses’ hoofs, the cracking of the driver’s whip, and
his “Hi-yi! g’lang!” were music; the spinning ground and the waltzing
trees appeared to give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack
up and look after us with interest, or envy, or something; and as we
lay and smoked the pipe of peace and compared all this luxury with the
years of tiresome city life that had gone before it, we felt that
there was only one complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and
we had found it.

After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three
climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have
our bed for a nap. And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay
down on my face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron
railing, and slept for an hour more. That will give one an appreciable
idea of those matchless roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip
a fast hold of the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only
swings and sways, no grip is necessary. Overland drivers and
conductors used to sit in their places and sleep thirty or forty
minutes at a time, on good roads, while spinning along at the rate of
eight or ten miles an hour. I saw them do it, often. There was no
danger about it; a sleeping man _will_ seize the irons in time when
the coach jolts. These men were hard worked, and it was not possible
for them to stay awake all the time.

By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the Big Blue and
Little Sandy; thence about a mile, and entered Nebraska. About a mile
further on, we came to the Big Sandy—one hundred and eighty miles from
St. Joseph.

As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we made
preparation for bed. We stirred up the hard leather letter-sacks, and
the knotty canvas bags of printed matter (knotty and uneven because of
projecting ends and corners of magazines, boxes and books). We stirred
them up and redisposed them in such a way as to make our bed as level
as possible. And we _did_ improve it, too, though after all our work
it had an upheaved and billowy look about it, like a little piece of a
stormy sea. Next we hunted up our boots from odd nooks among the
mail-bags where they had settled, and put them on. Then we got down
our coats, vests, pantaloons and heavy woolen shirts, from the
arm-loops where they had been swinging all day, and clothed ourselves
in them—for, there being no ladies either at the stations or in the
coach, and the weather being hot, we had looked to our comfort by
stripping to our under-clothing, at nine o’clock in the morning. All
things being now ready, we stowed the uneasy Dictionary where it would
lie as quiet as possible, and placed the water-canteens and pistols
where we could find them in the dark. Then we smoked a final pipe, and
swapped a final yarn; after which, we put the pipes, tobacco and bag
of coin in snug holes and caves among the mail-bags, and then fastened
down the coach curtains all around, and made the place as “dark as the
inside of a cow,” as the conductor phrased it in his picturesque way.
It was certainly as dark as any place could be—nothing was even dimly
visible in it. And finally, we rolled ourselves up like silk-worms,
each person in his own blanket, and sank peacefully to sleep.

Whenever the stage stopped to change horses, we would wake up, and try
to recollect where we were—and succeed—and in a minute or two the
stage would be off again, and we likewise. We began to get into
country, now, threaded here and there with little streams. These had
high, steep banks on each side, and every time we flew down one bank
and scrambled up the other, our party inside got mixed somewhat. First
we would all be down in a pile at the forward end of the stage, nearly
in a sitting posture, and in a second we would shoot to the other end,
and stand on our heads. And we would sprawl and kick, too, and ward
off ends and corners of mailbags that came lumbering over us and about
us; and as the dust rose from the tumult, we would all sneeze in
chorus, and the majority of us would grumble, and probably say some
hasty thing, like: “Take your elbow out of my ribs!—can’t you quit
crowding?”

Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the
Unabridged Dictionary would come too; and every time it came it
damaged somebody. One trip it “barked” the Secretary’s elbow; the next
trip it hurt me in the stomach, and the third it tilted Bemis’s nose
up till he could look down his nostrils—he said. The pistols and coin
soon settled to the bottom, but the pipes, pipe-stems, tobacco and
canteens clattered and floundered after the Dictionary every time it
made an assault on us, and aided and abetted the book by spilling
tobacco in our eyes, and water down our backs.

Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night. It wore
gradually away, and when at last a cold gray light was visible through
the puckers and chinks in the curtains, we yawned and stretched with
satisfaction, shed our cocoons, and felt that we had slept as much as
was necessary. By and by, as the sun rose up and warmed the world, we
pulled off our clothes and got ready for breakfast. We were just
pleasantly in time, for five minutes afterward the driver sent the
weird music of his bugle winding over the grassy solitudes, and
presently we detected a low hut or two in the distance. Then the
rattling of the coach, the clatter of our six horses’ hoofs, and the
driver’s crisp commands, awoke to a louder and stronger emphasis, and
we went sweeping down on the station at our smartest speed. _It was
fascinating—that old Overland stagecoaching._

The Coming of the Railroad

One of the dramatic events of American history took place at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869. On that day a golden spike was driven into the last stretch of track, and for the first time the East and West were linked by a railroad. After the spike-driving ceremony, the engineer of the Central Pacific, which had started east from San Francisco, and the engineer of the Union Pacific, which had been built west from the Mississippi, ran their engines up until they touched. Then they shook hands and broke champagne bottles over each other’s locomotive. There were speeches before and after, as gangs of Irish and Chinese laborers joined governors, railroad dignitaries and other notables in celebrating the momentous occasion.

Walt Whitman Writes of the Continental Railroad

To Walt Whitman this event had a highly emotional significance. It came in the same year that the Suez Canal was opened, and to Whitman the two events marked a great step forward in the advance of civilization. In his poem, “A Passage to India,” Whitman writes of the continental railroad:

I see over my own continent the Pacific railroad surmounting every
barrier,
I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte carrying
freight and passengers,
I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill
steam-whistle,
I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the
world,
I cross the Laramie plains, I note the rocks in grotesque shapes, the
buttes,
I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions, the barren, colorless,
sage-deserts,
I see in glimpses afar or towering immediately above me the great
mountains, I see the Wind river and the Wahsatch
mountains,
I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest, I pass the
Promontory, I ascend the Nevadas,
I scan the noble Elk mountain and wind around its base,
I see the Humboldt range, I thread the valley and cross the river,
I see the clear waters of lake Tahoe, I see forests of majestic pines,
Or crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchanting
mirages of waters and meadows,
Marking through these and after all, in duplicate slender lines,
Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,
Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,
The road between Europe and Asia.

Samuel Bowles Travels on the Union Pacific

During the summer before the railroad was finished, the editor of the Springfield, Massachusetts, _Republican_, Samuel Bowles, visited the West. He traveled over the Union Pacific from Omaha, which he noted had become a boom town since he had visited it last in 1865. He describes his ride along the same route followed by the Oregon Trail and the Overland Stage.

The day’s ride grows monotonous. The road is as straight as an arrow.
Every dozen or fifteen miles is a station—two or three sheds, and a
waterspout and wood-pile; every one hundred miles or so a home or a
division depot, with shops, eating-house, “saloons” uncounted, a store
or two, a few cultivated acres, and the invariable half-a-dozen seedy,
staring loafers, that are a sort of fungi indigenous to American
railways. We yawn over the unchanging landscape and the unvarying
model of the stations, and lounge and read by day, and go to bed early
at night. But the clear, dry air charms; the half dozen soldiers
hurriedly marshalled into line at each station, as the train comes up,
suggest that the Indian question is not disposed of yet; we catch a
glimpse of antelopes in the distance; and we watch the holes of the
prairie dogs for their piquant little owners and their traditional
companions of owls and snakes—but never see the snakes.

The Plains proper and the first day’s ride end at Cheyenne, five
hundred and sixteen miles from Omaha. Here a branch road goes off
south a hundred miles to Denver, where it connects with the St. Louis
or Eastern Division of the Pacific road. Cheyenne is also a great
railroad work and supply shop, as becomes its location adjoining the
mountain and winter-exposed section of the road.

He continued on across Wyoming to the end of the line, which then was crossing the high, arid tablelands near Rawlins. He saw the track laid over the Continental Divide and marveled at the speed with which the job was being accomplished. By the next May the construction crews had laid another 250 miles of track to complete the work.

Within this desert of the mountains, the divide of the continent
occurs both on the old stage road and the new Railroad line; and here,
in the summer of 1868, we witnessed the building of the track over the
parting of the waters. The last rail on the Atlantic slope and the
first on the Pacific were laid in our presence; and Governor Bross
pinned them down with stalwart blows upon their spikes. As yet, still,
no mountains appear in the path of the track, and it winds easily
along through these rolling sand-hills, occasionally helped over a
deep dry gulch, and spanning a feeble or possible river. But the whole
section is mountainously high, from seven thousand to eight thousand
feet above the sea level.

We witnessed here the fabulous speed with which the Railroad was
built. Through the two or three hundred miles beyond were scattered
ten to fifteen thousand men in great gangs preparing the road bed;
plows, scrapers, shovels, picks and carts; and, among the rocks,
drills and powder were doing the grading as rapidly as men could stand
and move with their tools. Long trains brought up to the end of the
completed track loads of ties and rails; the former were transferred
to teams, sent one or two miles ahead, and put in place upon the
grade. Then rails and spikes were reloaded on platform cars, these
pushed up to the last previously laid rail, and with an automatic
movement and a celerity that were wonderful, practiced hands dropped
the fresh rails one after another on the ties exactly in line, huge
sledges sent the spikes home, the car rolled on, and the operation was
repeated; while every few minutes the long heavy train behind sent out
a puff from its locomotive, and caught up with its load of material
the advancing work. The only limit, inside of eight miles in
twenty-four hours, to the rapidity with which the track could thus be
laid, was the power of the road behind to bring forward the materials.

As the Railroad marched thus rapidly across the broad Continent of
plain and mountain, there was improvised a rough and temporary town at
its every public stopping-place. As this was changed every thirty or
forty days, these settlements were of the most perishable
materials—canvas tents, plain board shanties, and turf-hovels—pulled
down and sent forward for a new career, or deserted as worthless, at
every grand movement of the Railroad company. Only a small proportion
of their populations had aught to do with the road, or any legitimate
occupation. Most were the hangers-on around the disbursements of such
a gigantic work, catching the drippings from the feast in any and
every form that it was possible to reach them. Restaurant and saloon
keepers, gamblers, desperadoes of every grade, the vilest of men and
of women made up this “Hell on Wheels,” as it was most aptly termed.

When we were on the line, this congregation of scum and wickedness was
within the Desert section, and was called Benton. One to two thousand
men, and a dozen or two women were encamped on the alkali plain in
tents and board shanties; not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of
grass was visible; the dust ankle deep as we walked through it, and so
fine and volatile that the slightest breeze loaded the air with it,
irritating every sense and poisoning half of them; a village of a few
variety stores and shops, and many restaurants and grog-shops; by day
disgusting, by night dangerous; almost everybody dirty, many filthy,
and with the marks of lowest vice; averaging a murder a day; gambling
and drinking, hurdy-gurdy dancing and the vilest of sexual commerce,
the chief business and pastime of the hours—this was Benton. Like its
predecessors, it fairly festered in corruption, disorder and death,
and would have rotted, even in this dry air, had it outlasted a brief
sixty-day life. But in a few weeks its tents were struck, its shanties
razed, and with their dwellers moved on fifty or a hundred miles
farther to repeat their life for another brief day. Where these people
came from originally; where they went to when the road was finished,
and their occupation was over, were both puzzles too intricate for me.
Hell would appear to have been raked to furnish them; and to it they
must have naturally returned after graduating here, fitted for its ...
most diabolical service.

The Mining Frontier

The Discovery of Gold

Gold was discovered in January, 1848, on a ranch owned by John Sutter on the American River in northern California. News of the find spread like a prairie fire, and California, which had been a sparsely populated land of cattle ranchers, became the Mecca of goldseekers. Everyone who was lucky enough to be on the Pacific Coast rushed to the foothills of the Sierras to hunt for gold, and as soon as the news reached the East Coast, thousands of emigrants by land and by sea joined the gold rush.

In the years that followed the California gold rush, other rich deposits of precious metals were found elsewhere in the West. The Comstock Lode in Nevada produced a fabulous amount of silver, and later strikes in Colorado made boom towns out of Denver, Cripple Creek, and Central City. Still another gold rush after the Civil War took place in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

In the following selections we offer three glimpses of the rush for precious metals. The first two recount gold-rush days in California; the third deals with the silver bonanza in Nevada.

Walter Colton Describes the Effect of the Discovery

The Reverend Walter Colton, a Congregational minister, arrived in California in 1846 just after the Americans had taken possession of Monterey. He was preaching and serving as alcalde (mayor) of Monterey at the time gold was discovered. The following paragraphs come from his book, _Three Years in California_.

_Monday, May 29, 1848_: Our town was startled out of its quiet dreams
today by the announcement that gold had been discovered on the
American Fork. The men wondered and talked, and the women too; but
neither believed....

_Monday, June 12_: A straggler came in today from the American Fork
bringing a piece of yellow ore weighing an ounce.... But doubts still
hovered on the minds of the great mass. They could not conceive that
such a treasure could have lain there so long undiscovered....

_Tuesday, June 20_: My messenger sent to the mines has returned with
specimens of the gold; he dismounted in a sea of upturned faces. As he
drew forth the yellow lumps from his pockets, and passed them around
among the eager crowd, the doubts, which had lingered till now, fled.
All admitted they were gold, except one old man, who still persisted
they were some Yankee invention, got up to reconcile the people to the
change of flag. The excitement produced was intense; and many were
soon busy in their hasty preparations for a departure to the mines.
The family who had kept house for me caught the moving infection.
Husband and wife were both packing up; the blacksmith dropped his
hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his
sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off
for the mines, some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches,
and one went in a litter. An American woman, who had recently
established a boarding-house here, pulled up stakes, and was off
before her lodgers had even time to pay their bills. Debtors ran, of
course. I have only a community of women left, and a gang of
prisoners, with here and there a soldier, who will give his captain
the slip at the first chance. I don’t blame the fellow a whit; seven
dollars a month, while others are making two or three hundred a day!
that is too much for human nature to stand.

_Saturday, July 15_: The gold fever has reached every servant in
Monterey; none are to be trusted in their engagement beyond a week,
and as for compulsion, it is like attempting to drive fish into a net
with the ocean before them. Gen. Mason, Lieut. Lanman, and myself,
form a mess; we have a house, and all the table furniture and culinary
apparatus requisite; but our servants have run, one after another,
till we are almost in despair: even Sambo, who we thought would stick
by from laziness, if no other cause, ran last night; and this morning,
for the fortieth time, we had to take to the kitchen and cook our own
breakfast. A general of the United States Army, the commander of a
man-of-war, and the Alcalde of Monterey, in a smoking kitchen,
grinding coffee, toasting a herring, and peeling onions!

Eldorado

When the news of the gold strike reached New York, Horace Greeley, editor of the _Tribune_, sent a reporter, Bayard Taylor, to visit the mining camps. Taylor, who later became a well-known poet and travel writer, reached San Francisco by sea in August, 1849. On his way to the diggings he passed through Stockton:

Our first visit to Stockton was made in company, on some of Major
Graham’s choicest horses. A mettled roan _canalo_ fell to my share,
and the gallop of five miles without check was most inspiring. A view
of Stockton was something to be remembered. There, in the heart of
California, where the last winter stood a solitary ranch in the midst
of tule marshes, I found a canvas town of a thousand inhabitants, and
a port with twenty-five vessels at anchor! The mingled noises of labor
around—the click of hammers and the grating of saws—the shouts of
mule-drivers—the jingling of spurs—the jar and jostle of wares in the
tents—almost cheated me into the belief that it was some old
commercial mart, familiar with such sounds for years past. Four
months, only, had sufficed to make the place what it was; and in that
time a wholesale firm established there (one out of a dozen) had done
business to the amount of $100,000. The same party had just purchased
a lot of eighty by one hundred feet, on the principal street, for
$6,000, and the cost of erecting a common one-story clapboard house on
it was $15,000.

He continued by mule from Stockton to the diggings on the Mokelumne River, some forty miles away. He was lodged in an open-air hotel which consisted of two log tables, one for eating, the other for gambling. The morning after arriving he inspected the mining operations:

I slept soundly that night on the dining-table, and went down early to
the river, where I found the party of ten bailing out the water which
had leaked into the riverbed during the night. They were standing in
the sun, and had two hours’ hard work before they could begin to wash.
Again the prospect looked uninviting, but when I went there again
towards noon, one of them was scraping up the sand from the bed with
his knife, and throwing it into a basin, the bottom of which glittered
with gold. Every knifeful brought out a quantity of grains and scales,
some of which were as large as the fingernail. At last a two-ounce
lump fell plump into the pan, and the diggers, now in the best
possible humor, went on with their work with great alacrity. Their
forenoon’s digging amounted to nearly six pounds [_an ounce of gold in
California was then worth exactly $16.00_]. It is only by such
operations as these, through associated labor, that great profits are
to be made in those districts which have been visited by the first
eager horde of gold-hunters. The deposits most easily reached are soon
exhausted by the crowd, and the labor required to carry on further
work successfully deters single individuals from attempting it. Those
who, retaining their health, return home disappointed say they have
been humbugged about the gold, when in fact they have humbugged
themselves about the work. If anyone expects to dig treasures out of
the earth, in California, without severe labor, he is woefully
mistaken. Of all classes of men, those who pave streets and quarry
limestone are best adapted for gold-diggers.

One of the principal mining operators at the Mokelumne River site, Dr. Gillette, told Taylor how he and a companion struck it rich in a particular gulch nearby:

One day at noon, while resting in the shade of a tree, Dr. G. took a
pick and began carelessly turning up the ground. Almost on the
surface, he struck and threw out a lump of gold of about two pounds’
weight. Inspired by this unexpected result, they both went to work,
laboring all that day and the next, and even using part of the night
to quarry out the heavy pieces of rock. At the end of the second day
they went to the village on the Upper Bar and weighed their profits,
which amounted to fourteen pounds! They started again the third
morning under pretense of hunting, but were suspected and followed by
the other diggers, who came upon them just as they commenced work. The
news rapidly spread, and there was soon a large number of men on the
spot, some of whom obtained several pounds per day, at the start. The
gulch had been well dug up for the large lumps, but there was still
great wealth in the earth and sand, and several operators only waited
for the wet season to work it in a systematic manner.

The next day Colonel Lyons, Dr. Gillette, and myself set out on a
visit to the scene of these rich discoveries. Climbing up the rocky
bottom of the gulch, as by a staircase, for four miles, we found
nearly every part of it dug up and turned over by the picks of the
miners. Deep holes, sunk between the solid strata or into the
precipitous sides of the mountains, showed where veins of the metal
had been struck and followed as long as they yielded lumps large
enough to pay for the labor. The loose earth, which they had
excavated, was full of fine gold, and only needed washing out. A
number of Sonorians were engaged in dry-washing this refuse sand—work
which requires no little skill, and would soon kill any other men than
these lank and skinny Arabs of the West. Their mode of work is as
follows: Gathering the loose dry sand in bowls, they raise it to their
heads and slowly pour it upon a blanket spread at their feet.
Repeating this several times, and throwing out the worthless pieces of
rock, they reduce the dust to about half its bulk; then, balancing the
bowl on one hand, by a quick, dexterous motion of the other they cause
it to revolve, at the same time throwing its contents into the air and
catching them as they fall. In this manner everything is finally
winnowed away except the heavier grains of sand mixed with gold, which
is carefully separated by the breath. It is a laborious occupation,
and one which, fortunately, the American diggers have not attempted.
This breathing the fine dust from day to day, under a more than torrid
sun, would soon impair the strongest lungs.

We found many persons at work in the higher part of the gulch,
searching for veins and pockets of gold, in the holes which had
already produced their first harvest. Some of these gleaners,
following the lodes abandoned by others as exhausted, into the sides
of the mountain, were well repaid for their perseverance. Others,
again, had been working for days without finding anything. Those who
understood the business obtained from one to four ounces daily. Their
only tools were the crowbar, pick, and knife, and many of them,
following the veins under strata of rock which lay deep below the
surface, were obliged to work while lying flat on their backs, in
cramped and narrow holes.

Mark Twain Doesn’t Strike It Rich

As Bayard Taylor suggests in the preceding narrative, not all fortune seekers in the mining camps succeeded in finding gold or silver. Many were unlucky or unwilling to work hard and returned home disillusioned. Most of them stayed in California, however, and became farmers or city workers. Thus the West Coast was settled before many states farther east. Sam Clemens, who tried his hand at prospecting, was not a very serious miner and found his gold when he turned his western experiences into literary material, such as _Roughing It_, from which the next selection comes. Here he tells how he almost got rich.

I confess, without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver
lying all about the ground. I expected to see it glittering in the sun
on the mountain summits. I said nothing about this, for some instinct
told me that I might possibly have an exaggerated idea about it, and
so if I betrayed my thought I might bring derision upon myself. Yet I
was as perfectly satisfied in my own mind as I could be of anything,
that I was going to gather up, in a day or two, or at furthest a week
or two, silver enough to make me satisfactorily wealthy—and so my
fancy was already busy with plans for spending this money. The first
opportunity that offered, I sauntered carelessly away from the cabin,
keeping an eye on the other boys, and stopping and contemplating the
sky when they seemed to be observing me; but as soon as the coast was
manifestly clear, I fled away as guiltily as a thief might have done
and never halted till I was far beyond sight and call.

Then I began my search with a feverish excitement that was brimful of
expectation—almost of certainty. I crawled about the ground, seizing
and examining bits of stone, blowing the dust from them or rubbing
them on my clothes, and then peering at them with anxious hope.
Presently I found a bright fragment and my heart bounded! I hid behind
a boulder and polished it and scrutinized it with a nervous eagerness
and a delight that was more pronounced than absolute certainty itself
could have afforded. The more I examined the fragment the more I was
convinced that I had found the door to fortune. I marked the spot and
carried away my specimen. Up and down the rugged mountain side I
searched, with always increasing interest and always augmenting
gratitude that I had come to Humboldt and come in time. Of all the
experiences of my life, this secret search among the hidden treasures
of silver-land was the nearest to unmarred ecstasy. It was a delirious
revel.

By and by, in the bed of a shallow rivulet, I found a deposit of
shining yellow scales, and my breath almost forsook me! A gold mine,
and in my simplicity I had been content with vulgar silver! I was so
excited that I half believed my overwrought imagination was deceiving
me. Then a fear came upon me that people might be observing me and
would guess my secret. Moved by this thought, I made a circuit of the
place, and ascended a knoll to reconnoiter. Solitude. No creature was
near. Then I returned to my mine, fortifying myself against possible
disappointment, but my fears were groundless—the shining scales were
still there. I set about scooping them out, and for an hour I toiled
down the windings of the stream and robbed its bed. But at last the
descending sun warned me to give up the quest, and I turned homeward
laden with wealth. As I walked along I could not help smiling at the
thought of my being so excited over my fragment of silver when a
nobler metal was almost under my nose. In this little time the former
had so fallen in my estimation that once or twice I was on the point
of throwing it away.

The boys were as hungry as usual, but I could eat nothing. Neither
could I talk. I was full of dreams and far away. Their conversation
interrupted the flow of my fancy somewhat, and annoyed me a little,
too. I despised the sordid and commonplace things they talked about.
But as they proceeded, it began to amuse me. It grew to be rare fun to
hear them planning their poor little economies and sighing over
possible privations and distresses when a gold mine, all our own, lay
within sight of the cabin and I could point it out at any moment.
Smothered hilarity began to oppress me, presently. It was hard to
resist the impulse to burst out with exultation and reveal everything;
but I did resist. I said within myself that I would filter the great
news through my lips calmly and be serene as a summer morning while I
watched its effect in their faces. I said:

“Where have you all been?”

“Prospecting.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? What do you think of the country?”

“Can’t tell, yet,” said Mr. Ballou, who was an old gold miner, and had
likewise had considerable experience among the silver mines.

“Well, haven’t you formed any sort of opinion?”

“Yes, a sort of a one. It’s fair enough here, maybe, but over-rated.
Seven-thousand-dollar ledges are scarce, though. That Sheba may be
rich enough, but we don’t own it; and besides, the rock is so full of
base metals that all the science in the world can’t work it. We’ll not
starve, here, but we’ll not get rich, I’m afraid.”

“So you think the prospect is pretty poor?”

“No name for it!”

“Well, we’d better go back, hadn’t we?”

“Oh, not yet—of course not. We’ll try it a riffle, first.”

“Suppose, now—this is merely a supposition, you know—suppose you could
find a ledge that would yield, say, a hundred and fifty dollars a
ton—would that satisfy you?”

“Try us once!” from the whole party.

“Or suppose—merely a supposition, of course—suppose you were to find a
ledge that would yield two thousand dollars a ton—would _that_ satisfy
you?”

“Here—what do you mean? What are you coming at? Is there some mystery
behind all this?”

“Never mind. I am not saying anything. You know perfectly well there
are no rich mines here—of course you do. Because you have been around
and examined for yourselves. Anybody would know that, that had been
around. But just for the sake of argument, suppose—in a kind of
general way—suppose some person were to tell you that
two-thousand-dollar ledges were simply contemptible—contemptible,
understand—and that right yonder in sight of this very cabin there
were piles of pure gold and pure silver—oceans of it—enough to make
you all rich in twenty-four hours! Come!”

“I should say he was as crazy as a loon!” said old Ballou, but wild
with excitement, nevertheless.

“Gentlemen,” said I, “I don’t say anything—_I_ haven’t been around,
you know, and of course don’t know anything—but all I ask of you is to
cast your eye on _that_, for instance, and tell me what you think of
it!” and I tossed my treasure before them.

There was an eager scramble for it, and a closing of heads together
over it under the candle-light. Then old Ballou said: