“Well,” said the Colonel, “what was your brother’s name?”
“His name was William B. Richards.”
“Well,” rejoined the Colonel, “that is my name.”
Sure enough, this Colonel with whom he had crossed the plains was the long-lost brother!
It was the habit, or custom rather, in early days to give to each man a certain nickname by which he was usually known, his real name being, as a general rule, unknown, or even unasked for. “Whar air you from?” was the main question and the information most desired, and usually decided his nickname.
Here were “Old Pike,” “Big and Little Pike,” “Old Kentuck,” “Texas Jack,” “Texas Jim,” “Old Arkansas”; if Scotch, he was “Sandy,” or “Scotty”; if from the East, “Little or Big Yank,” and their mining locations would in some cases, also decide their names. There were “French Flat Pete,” “Sandy Hill Mike,” “Poverty Point Jim,” ad infinitum.
On one occasion, a young miner returned to his Eastern home for a visit, and one day, while visiting at some family acquaintances with his parents at a distance, upon looking over some daguerrotypes lying on the tables, he remarked that one of them resembled very much a young man with whom he had worked, and who was at present living in the same place, Mocklmne Hill, in a cabin near his. He could not tell the name, but he went by the name of Jack, and one day, being in his cabin, saw a book upon the table, and found upon looking at it, that it was the “Pilgrims Progress,” on the fly leaf of which was written the name of Elizabeth Andrews.
“Oh, Oh!” said a young lady present, “that is my brother, John Andrews, and we haven’t heard from him for nearly 15 years, and were afraid that some accident had happened to him somewhere.”
After the commencement of the rainy season, in the fall of ’51, the river miners flocked into the placer mining districts. Other arrivals from across the waters, soon swelled the population in all of the various mining camps. Gambling in all of its various forms became again the principal amusement. Barrooms and gambling-houses vied with each other in furnishing their patrons with the finest and loudest music, and bands could be heard playing in all of them during the greater portion of the evening, and until the wee sma’ hours of the morning. The professionals were as a general rule Southerners by birth, hailing from New Orleans, Louisville, Memphis, Richmond and St. Louis; whilst only occasionally would be found a sport claiming Boston or New York as his birthplace. Many of this class were men of good education and abilities, and many of them descendants of respectable families as well. They had been accustomed from childhood to associate with this class in their native cities, and therefore inherited or acquired the gambling trait of character. It is of course well understood that all men who gamble for money are necessarily very bad characters; but the professional gambler of early days formed, in many instances, an exception to this general rule, and should not be confounded with the lower ten-cent ante poker gambler found bumming and loafing around the gambling places of to-day. Among this former class were as many good, honest and square-dealing men as could generally be found among those engaged in any other business, and they were, as a rule, more charitable, being always ready to contribute their share, and a little more too, towards assisting those who were in distress.
A lady with two daughters arrived in the mines late in the autumn of ’49, her husband having died on the plains during the journey. They were in a very destitute condition and among strangers in a strange land, without a single acquaintance in the State, as far as they knew. Her great desire was to return to their Eastern home, and to enable them to do so newly-found friends used every effort, endeavoring, among the miners and business men of the town, to raise sufficient money for the purpose; but not enough money, however, could be collected. Some one mentioned the circumstance in one of the gambling houses, and one gambler, Lucky Bill, whose sad fate I have before mentioned, who was present, remarked: