A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country Part 2

One becomes acutely sensitive to the "atmosphere" of these places, after a few days upon the road, for each has a distinctive individuality in spite of the fact that it was mid-day in midsummer, gloom seemed to pervade the streets and to be characteristic of its inhabitants. With the exception of an attempt to get into telephonic communication with a friend at Placerville, I lost not a moment in the town.

On reaching Drytown, three miles north of Amador, I noted the thermometer stood at 110 degrees in the shade on the watered porch of the hotel, and deciding there was a certain risk attendant on walking in such heat, determined to make the best of what was anything but a pleasant situation, and go no farther. Drytown, in the modern application of the first syllable, is a misnomer, the "town" consisting chiefly of the hotel with accompanying bar, and a saloon across the way!

Drytown was in existence as early as 1849, and was visited in October of that year by Bayard Taylor. He says: "I found a population of from two to three hundred, established for the winter. The village was laid out with some regularity and had taverns, stores, butchers' shops and monte tables." One cannot but smile at the idea of "monte tables" in connection with the Drytown of to-day; pitiful as is the reflection that men had braved the hards.h.i.+ps of the desert and toiled to the waist in water for gold, only to throw it recklessly in the laps of professional gamblers.

The Exchange Hotel, a wooden building dating back to 1858, stands on the site of the original hotel, built in 1851 and burned in 1857. Upon the front porch is a well furnis.h.i.+ng cold, pure water. I found this to be the most acceptable feature of several of the old hostelries. The well and the swinging sign over the entrance suggested the wayside inn of rural England; more especially as the surrounding country carries out the idea, being gently undulating and well timbered.

The following evening I put up at Nashville, on the North Fork of the Cosumnes River and well over the borders of El Dorado county, pa.s.sing Plymouth en route. Plymouth, on the map, appeared to be a place of some importance, but a closer inspection proved that--in spite of its breezy name--it would take the spirits of a Mark Tapley to withstand its discouraging surroundings. Plymouth is "living in hopes," an English syndicate having an option on certain mining properties in the vicinity; but Nashville is frankly "out of business."

At Nashville, in fact, I had some difficulty in securing "bed and lodging." There appeared to be only three families in this once flouris.h.i.+ng camp. Strange as it may seem, money appears to be no object to people in these sequestered places. You have "to make good," and in this instance it required not a little tact and diplomacy.

I arrived at Placerville the following day. Due to taking a road not shown on my map, I went several miles astray and for some few hours was immersed in wild, chaparral-covered mountains, with evidences on all hands of deserted mines; finally crossing a divide at an elevation of two thousand feet and descending into the valley where slumbers the little town of El Dorado, formerly bearing the less attractive designation "Mud Springs." This t.i.tle, though lacking in euphony, was more in keeping with actual conditions, since the valley is noted for its springs, and Diamond Springs, a mile or two north, is quite a summer resort. Nor is there any indication of the precious metal anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Placerville. Plate18]

In Placerville--known as "Hangtown" in the Bret Harte days--I registered at the Cary House, which once had the honor of entertaining no less a personage than Horace Greeley. It was here he terminated his celebrated stage ride with Hank Monk. I found that my friend Harold Edward Smith had gone to Coloma, eight miles on the road to Auburn, and had left a note saying he would wait for me there the following morning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cary House. Plate19]

Chapter IV

J. H. Bradley and the Cary House. Ruins of Coloma. James W. Marshall and His Pathetic End.

More than any other town, Placerville gave a suggestion of the olden times. "John Oakhurst" and "Jack Hamlin" would still be in their element, as witness the following scene:

In the card room back of the bar, in a certain hotel, a "little game"

was in progress. A big, blond giant, with curly hair and clean-cut features--indeed he could have posed as a model for Praxiteles--arose nonchalantly from the table as I entered, and swept the stakes into a capacious pocket. An angry murmur of disapproval came from the sitters, and one man muttered something about "quitting the game a winner." With a hand on each hip, the giant swept the disgruntled upturned faces with a comprehensive glance, and drawled: "I'll admit there's something wrong in mine, gentlemen, or I wouldn't be here, see?" He waited a moment and amid silence pa.s.sed slowly through the barroom to the sidewalk, seated himself, stretched his long legs and placidly gazed across the street.

In the morning I had a long talk with Mr. J. H. Bradley, perhaps the best known man in El Dorado County. Though in his eighty-fourth year, his keen brown eyes still retain the fire and light of youth. The vitality of these old pioneers is something marvelous. Mr. Bradley was born in Kentucky, but, as a boy, moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he played marbles with Mark Twain, or Clemens, as he prefers to call him.

In '49, he came across the plains to California. He was on the most friendly terms with Twain and said he a.s.sisted him to learn piloting on the Mississippi; and when Twain came to California, helped him to get a position as compositor with U. E. Hicks, who founded the Sacramento Union. He also knew Horace Greeley intimately, and has a portfolio that once was his property. Five years after Greeley's arrival in Placerville, which was in 1859, Mr. Bradley married Caroline Hicks, who with Phoebe and Rose Carey had acted as secretary to Mr. Greeley.

Mr. Bradley takes no stock in the "keep your seat, Horace!" story. He considers it a fabrication. In his opinion, the romancers--Bret Harte, Mark Twain, et al.--have done California more harm than good. He also has a thinly disguised contempt for "newspaper fellows and magazine writers." Nor does he believe in the "Mother Lode"--that is, in its continuity--in spite of the geologists. He prefers to speak of the "mineral zone." In fine, Mr. Bradley is a man of definite and p.r.o.nounced opinions on any subject you may broach. For that reason, his views, whether you agree with them or not, are always of interest.

Hanging in the office of the Cary House is a clever cartoon, by William Cooper, of Portland, Oregon, ent.i.tled "A mining convention in Placerville;" in which Mr. Bradley is depicted in earnest conversation with a second Mr. Bradley, a third and evidently remonstrant Mr. Bradley intervening, while a fourth and fifth Mr. Bradley, decidedly bored, are hurriedly departing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Mining Convention. Plate04]

Indeed, one glance at Mr. Bradley is enough to convince you that he is a man of unusual force of character. No one introduced me to him. I was merely informed at the Cary House that he was the person to whom I should apply for information concerning the old times. I accordingly started out to look for him and had not proceeded fifty yards when a man, approaching at a distance, arrested my attention. As he drew nearer, I felt positive there could be only one such personage in Placerville, and when he was opposite me, I stopped and said, "How are you, Mr. Bradley?" "That's my name, sir; what do you want?" he replied.

They take life easily in the old mining towns. No wonder the spectacle of a man with a pack on his back caused comment, in that heat, tramping two or three hundred miles for pleasure! Beyond the trivial necessities that bare existence makes imperative, I was not conscious of seeing anyone do anything on the whole trip. Old miners not unnaturally took me for a prospector, and I think I never quite succeeded in convincing them to the contrary.

In Placerville as in Angel's Camp, the evening promenade seems the most important event of the day. Young men and maidens pa.s.s and repa.s.s in an apparently endless chain. The same faces recur so frequently that one begins to take an interest in the little comedy and speculate on the rival attractions of blonde and brunette, and wonder which of the young bloods is the local Beau Brummel. The audience--so to speak--sit on, chairs backed against the walls of the hotels and stores, while many prefer the street itself, and with feet on curb or other coign of vantage, tilt their chairs at most alarming angles. A sort of animated lovers' lane is thus formed, through which the promenaders have to run the gauntlet, and are subjected to a certain amount of criticism.

Everyone knows everyone. Good natured badinage plays like wild-fire, up and down and across the street. Later on, the tinkle of mandolin and guitar is heard far into the night watches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Angel's Hotel. Plate09]

Having determined to reach Auburn--thirty miles away--the next day, I made an early start. Coloma lies at the bottom of the great canon of the South Fork of the American River. Hastening down the grade, in a bend of the road I almost ran into my friend. It seemed a strange meeting this, in the heart of the old mining country, and I think we both gave a perceptible start.

[Ill.u.s.tration: American River. Plate05]

[Ill.u.s.tration: American River. Plate20]

It was at Coloma that gold was first discovered in California, by James W. Marshall, January 19, 1848. My companion had been so fortunate on the previous day as to meet Mr. W. H. Hooper, who arrived in Coloma August 8, 1850, and who has lived there practically ever since. Though eighty-three, he is still strong and vigorous. From him my friend elicited some very interesting information in regard to Marshall especially, the substance of which I append from his notes. Mr.

Hooper had known Marshall for many years, and his reminiscences of the discoverer have a touch of pathos bordering on the tragic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ruins of Coloma Plate01]

Marshall, a trapper by trade and frontiersman by inclination, accompanied General Sutter to California, a.s.sisted in the building of Sutter Fort and, on account of his mechanical ability, was sent to Coloma to superintend the erection of a sawmill. It was in the mill-race that he picked up the nugget which made the name "California" the magnet for the world's adventurers. Unaware of the nature of his "find," he took it to Sacramento, where it was declared to be gold. He was implored by General Sutter to keep the mill operatives in ignorance of his discovery, for fear they should desert their work. But how could such a secret be kept, especially by a man of generous and impulsive instincts?

At any rate the news leaked out and the stampede followed.

From Mr. Hooper's account, Marshall was a very human character. Late in life the state legislature granted him a pension of two hundred dollars per month. This sum being far in excess of his actual needs, it followed as a matter of course that his cronies a.s.sisted him in disposing of it.

In fact, "Marshall's pension day" became a local attraction, and the Coloma saloon--still in existence--the rendezvous. These reunions were varied by glorious excursions to Sacramento, his friends in the legislature imploring him to keep away. After two years the pension was cut down to one hundred dollars per mouth and finally was discontinued in toto--a shabby and most undignified procedure. Opposite the saloon, at some little distance, is a conical hill. For many years Marshall, seated on the steps of the porch, had gazed dreamily at its summit.

Shortly before his death, addressing a remnant of the "old guard," he exclaimed: "Boys, when I go, I want you to plant me on the top of that hill." And "planted" he was, with a ten-thousand-dollar monument on top of him!

The poor old fellow died in poverty at Kelsey, near Coloma, August 10, 1885, at the age of seventy-five. It is a sad reflection that a t.i.the of the money spent on the monument would have comforted him in his latter days; for the blow to his pride by the withdrawal of his pension, still more than the actual lack of funds, hastened the end.

Mr. Hooper intimated that the population of Coloma diminished perceptibly after the termination of Marshall's pension. To common with the majority of the old miners, he saved nothing and never profited to any extent by the discovery that will keep his memory alive for centuries to come.

Coloma in its palmy days had a population variously estimated at from five to ten thousand souls, with the usual accompaniment of saloons, dance halls and faro banks. There was a vigorous expulsion of gamblers in the early fifties and an incident occurred which quite possibly supplied the inspiration for Bret Harte's "Outcasts of Poker Flat." A notorious gambler and desperado, and his accomplice, demurred. Whereupon the irate miners placed them on a burro, and with vigorous threats punctuated by a salvo of revolver shots fired over their heads, drove them out of camp. They disappeared over the hill upon which the monument now stands, and were seen no more.

Coloma suffered severely from fires. Little of the old town remains but ruins of stone walls, and here and there an isolated wooden building.

The ruins, however, are not only exceedingly picturesque, being half buried in foliage of beautiful trees, but hold the imagination with a grip that is indescribable. I could willingly have tarried here for days.

But while old Coloma is dead, there is a new Coloma that furnishes an extraordinary contrast. It is a sweet and peaceful little hamlet, situated on the lower benches of the canon, well up out of the river bottom, and is entirely devoted to horticulture. One has read of birds building their nests in the muzzles of old and disused cannon; even that does not suggest a more anomalous a.s.sociation of ideas than the spectacle of a vine-clad cottage shaded by fig trees, basking peacefully in the sun, so close to what was at one time a veritable maelstrom of human pa.s.sions. So far as the new Coloma is concerned, Marshall's discovery might never have been made. Nowhere else will you find a spot where gold and what it stands for would seem to mean so little, Coloma!

It is pa.s.sing strange that a name so sweet and restful should forever be linked with the wildest scramble for gold the world has ever seen!

Chapter V

Auburn to Nevada City Via Colfax and Gra.s.s Valley. Ben Taylor and His Home

After surmounting the canon of the South Fork of the American River, you gradually enter a open country, the outskirts of the great deciduous fruit belt in Placer County, which supplies New York and Chicago with choice plums, peaches and pears. About three miles from Auburn, the road plunges into one of the deepest canons of the Sierras, at the bottom of which the Middle and North Forks of the American River unite. Just below the junction, the river is spanned by a long suspension bridge. Auburn is remarkably situated in that one sees nothing of it until the rim of the canon is reached, at least a thousand feet above the river. Thus there are no outskirts and you plunge at once into the business streets, pa.s.sing the station of the Central Pacific Railway, which line skirts the edge of the canon on a heavy grade.

I had accomplished a good thirty miles but that did not prevent me from accompanying my friend on a long and protracted hunt for comfortable quarters in which to eat and spend the night. There was quite an attractive hotel near the railroad, but actuated by a desire to see something of the town, which we found to be more than usually drawn out, we pa.s.sed it with lingering regret. Whether by chance or instinct, we drifted to the ruins of the old hotel, now in process of reconstruction, and were comfortably housed in a wooden annex.

Auburn marks the western verge of the mineral zone, but in the fifties there were, rich placer diggings in the immediate vicinity. There are some remarkably solid buildings of that period, in the old portion of the town, which, as customary, is situated in the bottom of the winding valley or ravine. Practically a new town, called "East Auburn," has been started on higher ground, and a fight is on to move the post office; but the people in the hollow having the voting strength, hang on to it like grim death. Along the edge of the American River canon and commanding a magnificent view, are the homes of the local aristocracy. In christening Auburn, it is scarcely credible that the pioneers had in mind Goldsmith's "loveliest village of the Plain;" nor, keeping the old town in view, is the t.i.tle remarkably applicable today.

Our next objective point being Colfax, distant in a north-easterly direction only fifteen miles, we made a leisurely inspection of the town and vicinity in the morning. The old town proved of absorbing interest to my friend, and we became separated while he was hunting up subjects for the camera. Having a free and easy working scheme in such matters, after a few minutes' search, I gave up the quest and started alone on the road to Colfax.

A few miles out, I met a man with a rifle on his shoulder, leading a burro bearing a pack-saddle laden in the most scientific manner with probably all his worldly possessions, the pick and shovel plainly denoting a prospector. A water bucket on one side of the animal was so adjusted that the bottom was uppermost; on the top of the bucket sat a little fox-terrier, his eyes fixed steadfastly on his master. I paused a moment, possessed with a strong desire to take a snap shot of this remarkable equipment, but the man with the gun gave me a glance that settled the matter. His was not a bad face--far from it--but the features were stern and set, the cheeks furrowed with deep lines that bespoke hards.h.i.+p and fatigue in the struggle with Nature and the elements. That glance out of the tail of his eye meant: "Let me alone and I will let you alone, but let me alone!"

Taciturnity becomes habitual to men accustomed to vast solitudes. Even on such a tramp as I had undertaken, in which I frequently walked for miles without sight or sound of a human being, I began to realize how ba.n.a.l and aimless is conventional conversation. Under such conditions you feel yourself in sympathy with the man who says nothing unless he has something to say, and who, in turn, expects the same restriction of speech from you.

I was seated on the porch of the store at Applegate, disposing of a frugal lunch consisting of raisins and crackers, when my friend hove in sight. After a private inspection of the store's possibilities, with a little smile, the meaning of which I well understood from many similar experiences, he sat down beside me and without a word tackled the somewhat uninviting repast, to which with a wave of the hand I invited him. I may say here that Mr. Smith is a veteran and inveterate "hiker."

I doubt very much whether any man in California has seen as much of this magnificent State as he, certainly not on foot; as a consequence he is accustomed to a ready acceptance of things as they are. Applegate, about midway between Auburn and Colfax, is an alleged "summer resort." It did not appeal to us as especially attractive, the view, at any rate from the road, being extremely limited and lacking any distinctive features.