Recollections of a Pioneer

by J. W. Gibson

We didn't expect to find much of a city, but were hardly prepared for what we found. We stretched our tent, turned our cattle out to graze and prepared for a rest. It was a delightful place. I never saw finer grass nor finer water, and we still had plenty to eat. Toward the close of the day I went down to where the sail boat was being unloaded. Four or five men were carrying provisions—flour, bacon, pickled pork, sugar, coffee, rice—in fact everything substantial to eat, out of the boat and throwing it upon the bank among the grape vines. I saw no owner. There were no police and nobody seemed to be afraid of thieves. They were not afraid either of rain, for none could be expected at that season of the year. Nor was there even any dew. Everything seemed to be safe both day and night.

Our lean old cattle fattened fast and in a little while we could hardly recognize them. It was a joy to see them eat and drink and rest after the hardships they had endured. The poor things had suffered even more than the men.

About the first of September we started back to the mines. Twenty miles up the American River we each took up a claim and went to work. Everything was placer mining. Each man had his pan and with it and the water of the river, he washed the gravel away from the loose gold. We worked there several weeks and so far as we could see, exhausted the gold that was in our claims. We found on estimating the result of our work that each man had averaged about sixteen dollars a day for every day he had worked.

About the time our claims were exhausted, we were surprised to meet Russell Hill, a cousin of mine, who had worked his way down from Oregon to Sacramento by way of Shasta City, and learning at Sacramento that we were up the American River, had come on up to see us. He had left his home in Iowa the year before and had gone to Oregon. He told us he had stopped a few days at Shasta City and believed it to be a better mining place than the American River, and urged us to go there. Accordingly we yoked up our oxen and packed our belongings into the wagons again and started. When we reached Sacramento City this time, it was not necessary to ask where the city was. The whole valley was covered with tents and lunch stands. There must have been several thousand people there. They had come in from everywhere, off the plains by caravan, up the river from San Francisco by boat, and from every other place in the world, it seemed to me. There were as yet no houses. People, men mostly, lived in tents and the lunch counters consisted of the sideboards of the wagons laid upon poles supported by forks driven in the ground. Meals were a uniform price, $1.00, but lodging was free. Just spread your blanket down on the grass anywhere and make yourself at home.

Shasta City is two hundred miles up Sacramento River and a little northwest of Sacramento City. Knight's Landing, near the mouth of Feather River, was our first stop of any consequence. We went up Feather River to where Marysville now stands and thence in a northwesterly direction back into the Sacramento Valley. This valley is about an average of twenty-five miles in width and at that time there were no towns or even camps upon it and consequently I can give little account of our progress. I only recall that about every twenty miles we came upon a ranch occupied by a few families of Spaniards. These Spaniards had made slaves of the Digger Indians who lived in mounds or huts covered with earth. The Indians raised wheat and gathered it in cane baskets. They then rubbed the wheat out of the straw and beat it into flour. These Indians went almost naked and lived, themselves, on salmon, acorns, grapes and grasshoppers. They were the most disgusting mortals I have ever seen in my life. When we passed the huts or mounds in which they lived, the pappooses would dart back into them exactly like prairie dogs. I asked an old Spaniard why he kept these filthy Indians around him, and he said they protected him from the wild Indians.

The whole valley was covered by abundant vegetation and was full of wild herds of Spanish horses and thousands of wild Spanish cattle. It was also full of many savage wild animals, grizzly, brown and black bear, California lions, panthers, wolves, wild cats and badgers. There was an abundance also of elk, deer and antelope, and we never lacked for fresh venison.

We reached Shasta late in September, and like Sacramento City, found everything but the city. One or two log cabins and a few tents made up the sum of all the improvements. We put in a few days looking over the situation and viewing prospects for getting gold and decided to spend the winter there. This made it necessary for us to look immediately into our stock of provisions, and upon going through it we found that we had hardly enough to last us. Nothing could be done but go back to Sacramento and secure an additional supply, and brother William and a man by the name of Gleason, from Iowa, who had made the trip with us up the river, started back with one wagon and four yoke of oxen. We stretched our tent and stored all the provisions we had in it in such a way as to protect them, and brother William and Gleason bade us good by.

This trip meant four hundred miles more of hardship and danger, and we hated very much to see them leave, but nothing else could be done. The boys made the trip down without trouble, so they reported upon their return, but on the way back the rainy season set in and swelled the rivers so that they were past fording much of the time. The trip ought to have been made easily in twenty-five or thirty days, but it occupied from the latter part of September until Christmas.

Hard as this trip was upon the two who made it, their sufferings were hardly to be compared to the condition of brother James and myself. We had but a small tent in which to shelter both ourselves and our provisions and such meagre equipment as we had hauled across the plains. We had been alone but a few days when brother James was taken down with the scurvy. About the 10th of October the rain set in and continued almost in a steady downpour for about three weeks. Everything was completely soaked. It was next to impossible to find fuel enough to start a fire. I had to take care of brother James and keep changing the provisions to prevent them from spoiling, had to dry the blankets and clothing three or four times a day. In all, I don't think I averaged more than two hours sleep out of the whole twenty-four during this period of continued rain. I battled along the best I could, and at the end of about three weeks it ceased to rain so hard.