“Kind nature once bestowed upon a household in Unadilla a dear girl baby as another link in the unending chain of organized life in human form. While yet in her infant years an elder brother, grown to manhood, gave her as an evidence of his interest in her welfare an infant specimen of the canine species for a companion and plaything. The two became almost inseparable, by day and by night. Years passed, and their love and friendship strengthened.

“When the child arrived at the proper age to require the pedagogue’s aid in the development of her intellectual faculties, the little white bundle of animated wool would be seen in constant daily attendance upon her, going to and from the school room, during the hours of study, reclining under her seat and by her side during recitations. Upon arrival home at the close of the day’s session he would bound into the house with the happiest possible expression of laughing face and wagging bushy tail, fully understood by the parents as saying ‘One more day of faithful protection for your child.’

“Such were his characteristics of faithfulness and gentleness that both teachers and scholars recognized his claims to an exception in school rules; he was allowed free entrance and occupancy of the general school room. But age and its attendant infirmities which have no respect for any human or other being, gave at last the final decree of change which we call death and Daisy has gone where all good dogs go.”[81]]

For the following few years up to 1847, I had a full share of patronage, but in consequence of the scarcity of money in circulation, the original load diminished slowly. In 1845 I had found and married my present wife in Yankeeland, Connecticut. Here allow me to perform the most grateful and pleasing duty of my life and say that to her unselfish, and devoted efforts for my interests, I am largely indebted for any measure of success I have attained in life. She had a strong affection for her native State and place of birth. I knew that my ledger showed I had more than enough to balance my obligations. Confident that there was an inviting field at her old home, I decided to emigrate to Connecticut, and in 1847 sold out to Dr. Odell,[82] and left Unadilla as I supposed for good—so little do we know what the future has in store for us. I located first in the town of Southington, Hartford County. The year following I bought a house and lot in Plainville, four miles north and a promising town of recent origin. Here I considered myself a permanent fixture and was building up a good practice when the whole course of my life was changed for a year. The scene was shifted to the tropics and then to California, in the course of which I nearly lost my life.

IV.
PANAMA AND CALIFORNIA.
1849.

In 1848 the news of finding gold in California was a prominent feature of newspapers all over the country. A fever for emigration to the mines spread with unheard of rapidity throughout the civilized world. Companies were being formed everywhere.[83] California was the only topic of interest. The question of how to get there was a knotty one; there were no railroads, and the Rocky Mountains, with an intervening, desolate, unexplored barren waste, offered apparently unsurmountable obstacles to an overland route. There was no course other than a voyage around Cape Horn—a six to ten months’ trip—or across the Isthmus of Panama, taking the chances of a vessel from that point—at that time a bye place rarely visited by sailing vessels. There were not vessels enough afloat to take the multitude anxious to make the venture.

A comic entertainment was put on the stage of one of the New York theatres in Broadway showing “Mose trying to go to California.”[84] I witnessed its performance while waiting to sail for the Isthmus with the company to which I was attached. It was exceedingly amusing. “Mose,” the leading character, was so strikingly like one of our company that we dubbed him “Mose” and he is still known by that name by the old members of the company, five of whom are still living. We have for several years had an annual meeting and a barbecued lamb dinner in a very romantic locality in Connecticut, beside a charming sheet of water, called Compounce Pond, under a high steep ledge of granite rocks, where we meet, with a few choice friends, and renew our experience in California gold digging.

Our company as organized consisted of eight men afterward taking in two more, one of whom was “Mose.” We had a capital of $4,000 invested in part in an outfit, including a years’ supply of provisions, and a twenty gallon cask of brandy which we kept full by putting in water whenever a draft was made upon it. We finally sold that brandy and water in Sacramento for $108. The original cost was $20.[85] We bought our tickets in New York for passage from Panama to San Francisco, on the steamer California[86] on her second trip from Panama. She was the first steamer sent out from New York by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to San Francisco, and was billed to be due at Panama the 1st day of March, 1849, to make her second trip.

We took passage from New York on a sailing vessel, her name “Abrasia”—which was sent down by the Panama Railroad Company with supplies for making the preliminary survey of the road now running across the Isthmus.[87] She was lightly loaded with freight and the members of our company were the only passengers. We had a bouncing trip. The second day out from New York, just after striking the Gulf Stream, we encountered a terrific storm of wind and rain which lasted five days, the wind blowing right in our teeth and one day it was so violent that we were obliged to run on our back track 150 miles, under bare poles.