About the first of March, the long and severe winter broke up, and, tired of our winter quarters, our party made a division of the remaining provisions and cooking utensils, broke up housekeeping, and most of us started for the Middle Fork. Our travel was not diversified by anything new or strange, and, upon striking the river, we proceeded up it about eighteen miles above the “Spanish Bar” to a bar opposite the “Big Bar,” where we pitched our camp, constructed a machine, and commenced operations.
The soil on this bar was exceedingly sandy, and the surface was covered with huge imbedded rocks, which required an immense amount of severe manual labour to remove. Below this was a red gravel, which was united with gold, the washing of which turned out about four ounces per day to each man. I was again dreaming of fortune and success, when my hopes were blasted by an attack of a terrible scourge that wrought destruction through the northern mines during the winter of 1848. I allude to the land scurvy. The exposed and unaccustomed life of two-thirds of the miners, and their entire subsistence upon salt meat, without any mixture of vegetable matter, had produced this disease, which was experienced more or less by at least one-half of the miners within my knowledge. Its symptoms and progress may not be uninteresting. It was first noticed in the “Dry Diggings,” where, about the middle of February, many persons were rendered unable to walk by swellings of the lower limbs, and severe pains in them. It was at first supposed to be rheumatism, and was treated as such. But it withstood the most powerful applications used in that complaint, and was finally decided to be scurvy. So long as the circumstances which caused it continued, the disease made rapid progress. Many, who could obtain no vegetables, or vegetable acids, lingered out a miserable existence and died,—while others, fortunate enough to reach the settlements where potatoes and acids could be procured, recovered. I noticed its first attack upon myself by swelling and bleeding of the gums, which was followed by a swelling of both legs below the knee, which rendered me unable to walk; and for three weeks I was laid up in my tent, obliged to feed upon the very articles that had caused the disease, and growing daily weaker, without any reasonable prospect of relief. There were, at that time, about eight hundred persons at work on the river, and hoping to get some medicine, I despatched one of my companions one morning, with instructions to procure me, if possible, a dose of salts, and to pay for it any price that should be asked. He returned at night with the consoling news that he had failed, having found only two persons who had brought the article with them, and they refused to sell it at any price.
I was almost in despair: with only a blanket between myself and the damp, cold earth, and a thin canvass to protect me from the burning sun by day, and the heavy dews by night, I lay day after day enduring the most intense suffering from pain in my limbs, which were now becoming more swollen, and were turning completely black. Above me rose those formidable hills which I must ascend ere I could obtain relief. I believe I should have died, had not accident discovered the best remedy that could have been produced. In the second week of my illness, one of our party, in descending the hill on which he had been deer-hunting, found near its base, and strewn along the foot-track, a quantity of beans which sprouted from the ground, and were in leaf. Some one, in descending the hill with a bag of them on his back, had probably dropped them. My companion gathered a quantity and brought them into camp. I had them boiled, and lived entirely on them for several days, at the same time using a decoction of the bark of the Spruce tree. These seemed to operate magically, and in a week after commencing the use of them, I found myself able to walk,—and as soon as my strength was partially restored, I ascended the hill, and with two companions walked into Culoma, and by living principally upon a vegetable diet, which I procured by paying three dollars per pound for potatoes, in a very short time I recovered.
I found matters very much changed at Culoma; the little settlement of three houses had grown into a large town. Buildings were being erected in all parts of it, and hundreds of tents whitened the plain. The steamer Oregon had just arrived at San Francisco on her first trip upward from Panama; and the fleet of sailing vessels loaded with passengers, attracted by the report of the gold discovery in the United States, had begun to arrive. All sorts of people, from the polished Broadway dandy, who never handled an instrument heavier than a whalebone walking-stick, to the sturdy labourer who had spent his life in wielding the pickaxe and the shovel, had come to California, and all for one common object,—to dig gold; and one class was as enthusiastic, and anticipated as good success, as the other. As there were no such accommodations as hotels at Culoma, everybody was living in tents, cooking their own provisions, and getting ready to pack up and proceed to the Middle Fork. Some of them had commenced working on the banks of the South Fork in the immediate vicinity of the mill, and could be daily seen sweating (for the weather by this time had become exceedingly warm) under a load of tools sufficient to dig a whole canal, on their way to, or coming from their places of labour. As I have before said, very little gold has been found in the vicinity of the mill,—and the gold-diggers there, at that time, were rewarded by not more than five dollars per day.
Most of them had brought with them some one of the many newfangled machines that were manufactured in the United States, after the reports of the gold discovery reached there, like the razors of Pindar, “to sell.” They were of all imaginable shapes and sizes, some of them appearing most admirably adapted to the churning of butter. These were tried and found to fail, and have so far been invariably abandoned for the common rocker, which is, as I have before said, the best machine to be used in connexion with mere manual labour. Many of the new-comers were most wofully disappointed at the appearance of things, finding that gold, instead of lying scattered in “big lumps” over the earth’s surface, was only to be obtained by the most severe toil.
About this time, reports were daily arriving at the settlements of outrages committed by Indians upon whites in the vicinity of the North and Middle Forks. A report which afterwards proved to be strictly correct, came to the mill, that a party of Indians had descended to the camp of five white men on the North Fork, while the latter were engaged in labour, had broken the locks of their rifles which were in their tents, and then fallen upon and cruelly beaten and murdered them. A large party, headed by John Greenwood, a son of the celebrated mountaineer, was immediately mustered at the mill, and started in pursuit of the Indians, and tracked them to a large Indian rancheria on Weaver’s Creek. This they attacked, and after killing about twenty of them, took thirty prisoners, and marched to the mill. Here they underwent a trial, and six of them, having been proved to have been connected with the party who killed the white men, were sentenced to be shot. They were taken out in the afternoon after their arrival, followed by a strong guard, and, as was anticipated, a little distance ahead being allowed them, they ran. They had no sooner started than the unerring aim of twenty mountaineers’ rifles was upon them, and the next moment five of the six lay weltering in their blood. Soon after this, several expeditions were fitted out, who scoured the country in quest of Indians, until now a redskin is scarcely ever seen in the inhabited portion of the northern mining region. Their rancherias are deserted, the graves of their ancestors are left to be desecrated by the white man’s foot-print, and they have gone,—some of them to seek a home beyond the rugged crest of the Sierra Nevada, while others have emigrated to the valley of the Tulares, and the whole race is fast becoming extinct.
After having remained some time at the mill, I returned to my old residence at Weaver’s Creek. I found it deserted; the opening of the warm spring weather had drawn away the entire population, both of our settlement and the “Dry Diggings,” to the richer placers of the golden rivers. I remained but a few days, when I proceeded to Sacramento City.
CHAPTER VIII.
Extent and Richness of the Gold Region of Upper California—Are the “Gold-washings” inexhaustible?—A Home for the Starving Millions of Europe and the Labouring Men of America—Suicidal Policy of our Military Governors—Union of Capital, Labour, and Skill—A Word to Capitalists—Joint-stock Companies—The Gold-bearing Quartz of the Sierra—Experience of Hon. G. W. Wright—Extraordinary Results of pulverizing Quartz Rock—The Gold Mines of Georgia—Steam Engines and Stamping Machines—Growth of Sacramento and San Francisco.
The gold region of Upper California is embraced in the country on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, and extending over an already explored space of six hundred miles. Within the last six months, explorations have been made as far south as King’s River, which flows into the Great Tulare Lake. Above this are the Stanislaus, Mokelunne, Tuolumne, and Mariposa, all tributaries of the San Joaquin, and upon all of which gold has been found, and daily the southern portion of the gold region is becoming more known. The two great streams, which with their tributaries, fence in the present gold region, are the Sacramento and San Joaquin. The most probable theory, however, in regard to the extent of the gold region, is, that it is in the whole range of mountains, extending from the Sierra Nevada, or rather the branches thereof, through Upper California, Mexico, Peru, and Chili, although it is positive that there are nowhere in the course of the range, such extensive and rich gold-washings as are found between the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. Many years before the discovery of gold at Sutler’s Mill, a placer had been wrought at San Bernadino, about thirty miles southeast of the town of Santa Barbara. The gold was of the same character as that of the upper region, although found in much smaller quantities, and it is well known that for many years extensive gold placers have been wrought in the province of Sonora, one of the northern departments of Mexico.