I stayed overnight at San Jose at the house of a friend, a stanch Southern sympathizer, who had been advised by wire that he might expect a guest by the late train. The next morning bright and early I left with a companion and a stout team for Santa Cruz. On the outskirts of that town—pardon me, city—my companion left me late in the afternoon, directing me to a house of accommodation kept by a man I knew, of strong “secesh” proclivities.
I passed into the waiting room, where a number of men were standing. The proprietor received me with evident agitation and invited me to a room upstairs. “Mr. Harpending,” he said, “the sheriff has received a telegram from the United States Marshal to detain you if you pass this way. He will hear of the arrival of a stranger, answering your description, as a number saw you enter my house. But”—and here he ripped out an awful oath, none of your feeble modern profanity—“I will send for some of the boys and we will have one devil of a fight before he takes you.”
I could see that the man was capable of anything desperate—I excused myself for a moment to get my luggage, slipped down stairs to the waiting room, took the small handbag that contained my personal belongings, went out the rear door and took the road toward Gilroy on foot. I hadn’t any plan in view—just walked on well into the night until I was exhausted with fatigue and lack of food.
“Youth will not be denied,” is an old saying. I passed a house where the lights were still burning and determined to seek a place of shelter. I knocked at the door. To my astonishment and joy, it was opened by a man called Clark, of Southern birth, whom I had met several times in San Francisco.
Clark received me like a long-lost brother, roused the household, had an old-fashioned Southern meal prepared that made me think of home, and an hour later I was sound asleep in a comfortable bed, safe among friends.
The next evening Mr. Clark accompanied me to Gilroy, where I was concealed in the hotel of a mutual friend for two days, waiting for a southbound stage that journeyed across the mountains to the San Joaquin Valley and thence to Visalia in Tulare County.
There were two passengers on the stage when I boarded it, a gentleman called Byington and his friend, Thomas Staples. Byington’s son was afterward District Attorney of San Francisco for several years. The gentleman recognized me at once and as we traveled along I found that he wasn’t a half-bad secessionist himself. He told me that he and his friend were bound to inspect a mine in which they were interested at a place called Kernville, about 125 miles southeast of Visalia. He advised me that it was a notable locality to “hole up” and avoid observation indefinitely; that the “ville,” in fact, comprised only a few shacks, appurtenant to the mine, which was just in the early stages of development.
It was in the winter of 1864—the winter of the awful drought when scarce a drop of rain fell in California. The weather was like midsummer. The great valley then only had a few straggling settlements. The vast prospect was unbroken save when here and there a miniature whirlwind in the distance raised a spiral of sand skyward from the parched ground, or where a band of dust-laden, half-famished sheep, staggered on toward the mountains to escape from a universal desolation. What a different prospect now. To one who saw those unbroken solitudes, that are to-day among the busiest haunts of men, with fine cities, railroads, power lines, immense systems of irrigation, intensive agriculture, oil fields—everything in short that goes to make prosperity and a high civilization,—nothing is more impressive of what a few brief decades of enterprise can bring forth.
As there was a small military post at Visalia, when we neared that town I made a detour on foot and joined Messrs. Byington and Staples to the eastward. We reached Kern without any noteworthy incident. The place was exactly as Mr. Byington described it—a collection of slab shacks to shelter a few men engaged on development work on the mine. This was known as the “Big Blue.” It was an immense ledge of bluish quartz, and was enjoying a boom on the San Francisco stock market. Byington was a type of the Californians of the ’60s, who were ready to go into any mining stock venture, almost to the extent of their fortunes, without knowing anything more about the actual business than so many cottontail rabbits. At his request, I examined the “Big Blue,” and didn’t like the looks of things at all. The superintendent raved about the richness of the ore, showed us fabulous assays, but there, staring us in the face, was a stamp mill that hadn’t turned a wheel for months. I satisfied myself that while there were here and there small bunches of ore, sufficient to furnish seductive looking assays, the general vein matter was far too low to be worked to a profit. As for the outlook, that was another thing. The mine might prove to be rich at a greater depth, but the chances were at least 50 to 1 that it wouldn’t. I advised Byington to unload his stock while he could, which he did to his great advantage. A few months later, “Big Blue” stock certificates weren’t worth picking up in the street. Nevertheless, “Big Blue” was the inspiration for several later mining camp crazes. Among others, Senator J. P. Jones of Nevada dropped a good-sized fortune in it.
I became known at Kernville, and as people were traveling to and fro, it was certain that my retreat would soon be common property to my enemies as well as my friends; so I decided to seek solitude and efface myself. With three companions of a roving nature, we struck out for the mountains and for some time enjoyed the delightful, care-free bohemian existence that cannot be found in many places outside of California.