I was satisfied with San Francisco, with my interest in the lumber yards, and with my partnership with Colonel Stevenson on the North Beach. My interest in my brig, when it came down, and my prospective interest in what was to be the city of Toulom, and my associations with Mr. R., who was building the first brewery on the Pacific, which I was backing up with my indorsement, and I was to have one-third interest when it was completed, if I wanted it, at first cost, looked like a very favorable investment for me at that time. I was living an active and enterprising life, with bright hopes of future fortune. One morning when I went down to the North Beach I found there had been a house erected on our land in the night. I, of course, informed the colonel at once. He informed me it was a man by the name of Colton, who pretended to have a title under what he called the "Colton Grant," and that it was bogus, and that he had the building erected to try and force his title. The colonel said he would see the judge of the court in the city, and get an order for its removal. In about two hours he sent a messenger with an order from the judge authorizing us to remove it. He instructed me to employ all the men that were necessary, and have the material removed from the premises and he would pay the bill, which I did, and our title was not disputed after that.
I had never been on a trip to Stockton, and I had chartered the freight capacity of the brig to a man for $1,800. He was to put in it all the freight he chose to. I thought it would not be for his interest to overload it. If the vessel sunk there was no insurance—his cargo would be a total loss. I had reserved the deck and the passenger room. The conditions of the charter were that the freight was to be delivered in Stockton by a certain date or I was to forfeit the $1,800. The freight was aboard; he had loaded the vessel deeper than I had expected. I had a number of passengers at $15 each. They were to furnish their own provisions, but to have the privileges of the cooking stove on deck. The vessel was anchored out in the bay, to sail at 2 P.M., when the tide was most favorable. I had a new chain for the anchor, and the captain said he wanted a kedge anchor for safety, so I ordered one from McCondery & Co., for $35, on condition that, without fail, they would have it on board before 2 P.M. We were all on board by 1 o'clock, waiting for the favorable tide, to start. At 1:30 no anchor and the bay was very rough. The captain said it would not come, they would not venture out in that sea in a small boat. I said it would be there certain, I knew my man. Sure enough, in a few moments we could just see a boat in the distance, two men rowing and one guiding the rudder. They came alongside and we had the anchor aboard in five minutes. In the stern was Mr. Watson, one of the firm. He said he was afraid to trust his men in that sea for fear they would fail to deliver it. The profit on it to them was only $3.50, and it was a very wealthy firm, but they had pledged their word to me that they would have it there at that time. (Would that there were more of such honorable men.) We hoisted anchor, the tide in our favor and a stiff breeze blowing. We passed out of the bay of San Francisco into the bay of Los Angles, and crossed that into the Straits of Benica, which is four miles long and connects with Suisan bay. The Straits of Benica was a perfectly safe anchorage. It was approaching night, and blowing almost a gale. I was in hopes and expected that the captain would come to anchor in the straits and wait until morning before venturing out into the Suisan bay, which was twenty miles across to the mouth of the San Joaquin river, where we were bound. The bay was almost like the open sea; you could get out of sight of land. I think he would have come to anchor if I, the owner, had not been on board, and had not urged upon him the importance of having the vessel in Stockton in time. As he was the captain I felt sensitive about interfering with his business, and had hoped and expected, all the way through the straits, that he would come to anchor, and not undertake to cross the bay that night. Darkness was setting in, but he did not come to anchor. The gale increased to a hurricane; all sails were taken in, and we were scudding under bare poles, and had a lantern hung up in the rigging. The captain came to me and said, loaded as we were, we could not live in that gale; he would have to seek a place to anchor on the side of the bay. I said to him, he was the captain. The line was thrown out every few minutes. At last we found sounding, and the anchor was cast. We had been there but a short time before another vessel, more than twice as large as ours, came aside of us, with a heavy deck-load of lumber, and got entangled in our anchor chain, and kept drawing us nearer to them. If they had struck our vessel we knew we were lost. They would have sunk us at once. Seven times they came down on us and each time, by superhuman efforts, we warded the blow, all hands and passengers doing their best, fully realizing the danger they were in. It seems to me that I hear now the oaths of the captain of the other vessel rising above the sounds of the terrific hurricane as he was ordering his men, for they, too, were in danger if they collided with us. Of course, he was on the bare poles. As he came on us the eighth time they hoisted their jib sail. As the wind struck it, it seemed to lift their vessel out of the water, and, thank God, we were freed from it. It was forty-five years ago, and, as I write, it all lives before me as visible as if it were yesterday. The captain of the other vessel had seen our light, and, supposing we were in the right channel, had followed us. We had escaped what seemed almost certain death, but were not out of danger. Our new good chain was attached to our bad chain, and the captain had let out all our chain to free us from the other vessel, so we were actually hanging by our bad chain in the open roadstead, not in the protection of a harbor, and liable to drag our anchor or break our chain and be wrecked; but we could do nothing more than submit to our fate. I thought I would get into my berth and try and get to sleep, and, if I found myself alive in the morning, we might be saved. I did sleep, and when I awoke it was daylight. The gale was subsiding. We had dragged our anchor. The bow of our brig was very sharp; the banks were soft mud, and we had struck it with such force that we were wedged in. The tide was low and we were almost out of water. We fortunately had struck the land with our bow, and that was what saved us. If we had struck with the side of the vessel we would have been wrecked. So, ever since we had been freed from the other vessel, we had been in safety and did not know it. We waited for the tide to rise and then got our kedge anchor out and pulled the vessel out off the bank as the tide rose. The sea was very rough, but the gale had subsided, and by 11 o'clock we were entering the mouth of the San Joaquin river in safety. It was forty miles up the river to Stockton. The river was in a valley of Tullieries. The land seemed to be in the course of formation. There was but one tree between the mouth and Stockton, a willow, called the Lone Tree. The only place on its banks where the soil had formed solid enough to produce one, surrounded by hills at that season of the year, covered with beautiful wild flowers. The scenery was magnificent. As the river curved we could see the white sails of other vessels. They looked as if they were in a field. You could not see the water at a little distance, the river being narrow. We could almost jump from our deck to the banks. We felt in perfect safety. Contrasting that with the night before in that terrible hurricane and in the death struggles for our lives, it produced a supreme feeling of ethereal ideal happiness that this earth seemed almost a Paradise. The captain informed me that there was one place on the river where we might have to anchor. It was called the Devil's Elbow. There was a sharp turn in the river and the current was rapid, and we might have to pull the vessel around it; but sometimes, if it was favorable, he could sail around it, and if done successfully, then the vessels that had come to anchor could find no fault; otherwise you had to come to behind the others and take your turn. When we were coming to it, he was at the helm and I at his side, to see what was the best to do. As we approached, we saw several vessels had come to for the purpose of pulling around. The last was a large vessel that the captain said could never get around. If we anchored behind it we might not be able to deliver our freight according to the charter. We had put an English sailor in the hold to let the anchor go, in case we did not succeed, if we gave him the signal to do so. As we came to the place with all sails set, there was a breeze sprung up, filling all the sails. I said to the captain, let her go. As we passed the vessels that had come to anchor there was a howling and yelling from them of derision and anger at us for going by them. Just as we got two-thirds of the way around, the sailor in the hold let the anchor go without orders. He got frightened. If he had not, we would have made it successfully. As it was, we got ahead of all the other vessels, and got to Stockton in ample time. The next morning there was a drove of mules at the side of the brig, and the cargo was being discharged and packed on their backs to be taken to the mining camps, as there were no good roads there in those early days. About all the grain and flour came from Valparaiso and Chili, put up very nicely in fifty and one hundred pound sacks, so it was easy to handle. As soon as all the mules were packed, the head mule, who had on a bell fastened around his neck, which rang as he went, was started first, and all the rest, in single file, followed him, and they were going for the different mining camps in the interior. In two or three days we were unloaded, and we were prepared to return. The freight money was paid to me in gold, at $16 per ounce in full, all being satisfactory to the shipper. I had delivered it within the time specified. One of the passengers who came up with me, a tailor, from Salem, Mass., asked me if I would not give him a free passage back on the vessel to San Francisco; that he wanted to try to get home; he was discouraged. I said to him you have traveled eighteen thousand miles to get to the gold mines, and now you are within half a day of them and want to go home without trying your fortune. If you do go, you will never forgive yourself, but go to the mines and try your luck; then, if you are discouraged and want to go back, I will give you a free passage, as we have no passengers on our return trip.
HOME SICKNESS.
When a person was attacked with it, it seemed the worst kind of malady, as it would take them months to return if they had the money to pay their passage. Many were married men, separated a great distance from their wives and children. Others, young men, who had their engaged ones waiting for them to return, with their fortunes made in the gold mines, to marry them. I can recall several instances where I have known them to lie down and die from despair. I was talking with an old Californian of those days. He said he had once given up and made up his mind to wander off by himself on the mountains and die, which he did. As he lay there in despair, after a while he thought he would look around him, and he saw the hill was covered with every variety of beautiful wild flowers. He said their beauty seemed to refresh and revive his mind, and give him new resolution, and he decided to try his fortune again, and he became successful and returned to the States with a competency.
The early pioneers had some conflict with the Indians in the interior of the country. Five Oregon men were massacred by them when engaged in digging gold, but a terrible retribution was visited upon those Indians concerned in it by the enraged Forty-niners. The Indians, at first, had nothing but bows and arrows, and, of course, could not compete with rifles. Several other small engagements were rumored, but they soon gave up all contests with the whites, for they saw it was useless. There was an acorn that was quite plenty in California, being longer than ours, but not of a bitter taste. The squaws made flour of them. The Digger Indians were the next tribe east of them; they were probably the lowest grade. They would set fire to the prairie grass to burn the grasshoppers, and pick them up and eat them. They deemed them a luxury. The Oregon tribes were a higher grade, a warlike race, and superior in every respect. The highest grade of them, in the United States now, are the Choctaws and Chicksaws that formerly occupied the northern parts of the State of Mississippi. When a young man, I spent three weeks in their nation, travelling alone, and was treated with great hospitality by them. They are quite intelligent, and they have laws and customs as civilized nations. We generally look upon all of them as alike, but such is not the case—there is as great a difference between different tribes as much as between different white nations. The California Indians were not naturally warlike, and when the early pioneers expected any trouble from them, they would appoint a committee to go and see them, and they generally settled their difficulty without any conflicts.
JESUIT MISSION STATIONS.
There were about sixteen Jesuit missionary stations in the country before the discovery of gold, and were there for the purpose of converting the Indians to the Catholic church, and when converted, generally made them work to sustain their missionary establishments.