Across the river could also be seen at this time, the name of John T. Little in large letters, on the side of an extensive warehouse. This, with other various signs, informed the mining community that here could be found all kinds of mining supplies, and that the highest price was paid for gold dust. Following the road past Mr. Little’s store, up over the mountain towards the middle fork of the American River, we found several camps where rich mines had been discovered. At Coloma down towards the old mill was the store of Shannon & Cady, and near to this were the stores of Perkins & Co., Tailor & Co., and also the gun and ammunition store of F. Beckhart. Of the business men, there are now living Thomas & Young, W. T. Coleman, Mr. Darlington, who is at the present time in business at Placerville; Mr. Thorndike; Judge Russell: Mr. Caples, Mr. Price, and I think, Mr. Brewster, all of Hangtown. Mr. J. T. Little and Mr. Beckhart are both residing at the present time also in San Francisco, and no doubt many of the early business men are yet living in the East, or in some remote corner of the earth.
Of the physicians who were residing in the mining regions at this early day, a number of them are yet living; and as far as I know these are Dr. Bacon of Coloma; Dr. Clark, who is now residing at Stockton; Dr. Worthen, and I was informed that Dr. Ober is at the present time living east of the Rockies. We found also in the town five or six physicians, among the most prominent of whom were Dr. Wakefield, Dr. Kunkler, Dr. Ober, and Dr. Worthen, who is at the present time engaged in his profession and residing in the same old locality. There were Dr. Rankin, also, who had an extensive practice, and Dr. Clark.
In connection with Dr. Rankin, an amusing incident which occurred in the fall of ’49 may not be out of place here. The doctor was a Southerner by birth, and one of the old school, as his style of dress, which consisted of a white fur plug hat, blue coat with brass buttons, a buff-colored vest with trowsers to match, indicated. Upon certain occasions he sported a frill shirt front as well. Dressed in this style, he went one day astride his favorite Bucephalus, to visit a patient a few miles from town. It had been raining recently, and the road upon which he was travelling was house deep with soft yellow mud. He passed on his way a tall, large, raw-boned Scotchman, carrying upon his shoulder a sack of flour, and as he passed the pedestrian the doctor remarked that wallowing through the deep mud with a load like that must be tough work.
“Well,” retorted the Scotchman, “and that’s me ain business; and hed I ye doon here, me mon, I wad wallow ye in the mud, too.”
“You would, would you,” says the doctor, at the same time leaping from his horse, and landing knee-deep in the mud alongside of the Scotchman.
The latter laid down his burden upon a log, and seizing the doctor by the nape of the neck and seat of his pants, he raised him up and dropped him in the deepest part of a mud-hole. The doctor wasn’t long in getting out, and mounting his horse was soon on his way home, remarking to the valiant Scot as he turned to leave:
“Well, now, Scotty, you done that weel.”
“It was about sixteen years afterwards that the doctor was sitting in the bar-room of the What Cheer House, in Sacramento City, and in company with a few others, talking of old times. During the conversation he related how the tall Scotchman had rolled him in the yellow mud, and how he looked as though he had been run through a miner’s ground sluice. Sitting tipped back in a chair at the side of the room was an old farmer, half asleep, but listening very attentively to the reminiscences of old times. When the doctor commenced relating the incident as above, the old farmer raised upon his feet, and at the conclusion stepped up, and placing his hand upon the Doctor’s shoulder, remarked:
“Yas, doc’, and ye told me, ye remember, that I doon it weel, too.”