Humboldt County

History

History of Humboldt County California - Historic Record Co., Los Angeles, 1915

CHAPTER IX:
Life and Times in the Early Fifties

        One of the first things that impresses one who talks with an intelligent pioneer of '49 or '50 who retains a vivid recollection of "the days of old, the days of gold, the days of forty-nine" is that he was in the very morning of life when he crossed the plains or rounded the Horn. The picture of a company of young men, each a bold soldier of fortune, is the inevitable impression left on the investigator after interviewing a pioneer, whether he came to Sutter creek in 1849 or to Humboldt county in the early '50s.

        John Carr gives a vivid account of those who were his associates in those times, in his entertaining Pioneer Days in California. He tells the reader that he was always amused when he read the wholly incorrect accounts of pioneer days, as set forth by writers of later years. Their story books and newspaper articles were often illustrated by woodcuts of "rockers" and "long toms," while the portraits or cuts of the miners themselves were such that he sometimes imagined that the miners must be disturbed in their graves. It will be interesting to quote him, thus : "I sometimes think that, if it were allowed to the spirit of man to come back to this world, some outraged miner who sleeps his last sleep on the mountain side, or in the flats of California, would rise from his grave and haunt the artist who drew such caricatures of the early Californian miners. Most of the miners that I see in the woodcuts appear to be old, haggard looking men, with bent backs, slouch hats, and wrinkled faces, more like the picture of the tramp of 1890 than the honest miner of 1850.

        "As a rule the first immigrants that came to California were young men--­the very flower, physically speaking, of the United States; and the pictures in the modern woodcuts no more represent them than they do Chinese. It has been my endeavor to give a correct history of the times and doings of the men and women of the past who were the pioneers of our civilization and who planted American manners, customs, and laws in the great state of California."

        The sturdy young men who blazed the way for civilization in Humboldt county met with many hardships among the Indians and beasts of the forests. Not only so, but they had almost no social life. There were neither women nor children in the North until 1851, when Mrs. Joseph Ewing, long thereafter a resident of Eureka, had the honor of being the first woman to arrive in Trinity county. She became popular with "the boys" and was looked upon as the mother of the camp. She and her husband started the United States hotel and were followed by Richard Johnson and his wife, who lived for many years in the Bear River country. They also started a hostelry which they called Sidney Mill.

        Boys were also a rarity. The writer remembers talking with an old man of the name David Dean, a resident of Freshwater, who said he was the first boy who ever saw Eureka. He came from the East with his parents when very young. "I attracted as much attention as a circus," he said, "as some of the men followed me around as if they had never seen a boy before. They all treated me well."

        There was a rude form of justice, accompanied by force. It seems that about until the summer of 1851 nobody paid much attention to either politics or civil law. The miners made their own laws, civil and criminal. It seems that the Legislature of '50 and '51 passed the act creating Trinity county. Carr tells us that Shasta county was then the most northerly county of the state, and very little attention was paid to the state laws there. Under the act creating Trinity county, the whole of the territory embracing Trinity, Humboldt, Old Klamath and Del Norte, was embraced within the limits of Trinity. Nobody cared much about nor paid much attention to the act of the Legislature until the middle of the summer, when a crowd of men were seen riding into Weaverville by the astonished natives.

        Mr. Carr says : "They did not look like miners, and looked too honest to be gamblers. The query was, 'who were they?' We were not long in suspense, for they announced themselves as candidates for the offices of the newly made county of Trinity. They were residents around Humboldt Bay."

        It seems that Blanchard ran for county judge, C. F. Ricks for county clerk, John A. Whaley for assessor, Tom Bell for county treasurer, Dixon for sheriff, John A. Lyle and John H. Harper for senator, McMillan for the Legislature. The list was almost complete. It was then that Mr. Ricks began his memorable fight for the county seat. He was anxious to get the vote for Eureka, and Whaley for Arcata or Union Town, as it was then called, made the other fight. Bucksport had many friends, but it did not amount to very much in the contest.

        It is interesting to go back to those early times for evidences of the social life and economic conditions in general. It seems that in those early days the United States mails were very uncertain and very costly, but whenever new mines were discovered or a new camp was located it is said that some enterprising person would go around and obtain all the names of the people in the camp. Soon thereafter he would start a pony express and it was not much trouble to induce each man to take some kind of a newspaper. It is said that the Western men would usually take the Missouri Republican or the Louisville Courier-Journal, while the Eastern men took the New York Herald or the New York Tribune. The newspapers sold for fifty cents each, and the postage on each letter was $1. Men did not begrudge the $1 and were glad to receive mail at that price. It is said that one could seldom go into a miner's tent or cabin without finding some of the newspapers mentioned.

        The houses of those times were very crude. From four to six men were usually found in each habitation, and the same number were usually present at each "mess." Honesty was the rule, the only trouble, or almost the only trouble about property, being the theft of small articles now and then by wandering Indians. It was this habit of stealing among the Indians, in part, which caused a great deal of bitter warfare in later years.

        It was common to see stray horses and oxen wandering around camp. Sometimes they would upset the unprotected barrels of sugar and flour, or play havoc with the food, much to the amusement or disgust of the miners, according to the plentifulness of the aforesaid articles. But as there was generally a great scarcity, the funny side of the situation did not appeal to the miners until some years thereafter.

        The single house of a miner, often situated near a spring or creek, was frequently the forerunner of a town. Those houses were hardly worthy of the name, being crude and having no floors except the earth itself. The beds were usually made of logs, which were squared so as to be comfortable, and lined with gunny bags or potato sacks. Fern leaves and hay were frequently used to spread over the log and soften it for a bed. The covering was of blankets, and on this the miners were rather comfortable and would have remained so but for the habits of those who did not use sufficient water and precaution with themselves, for which reason many of the camps were infested with vermin.

        One of the comforting features of those houses consisted of large fireplaces, which, in cold weather, always had roaring fires. They were built usually of granite or slate and were very capacious, being at least six feet wide. This great size enabled them to accommodate good sized logs and saved the miners and others of the camp from cutting the wood very short.

        Frying pans were frequent and flapjacks were common. The camp men frequently took turn about as to the cooking, or frequently one who was more good-natured than the others, or who was an expert at the culinary game, presided as cook. When a man would act as cook he was usually given good service by the others, who would bring him water and do the washing of the dishes. Sometimes it was a great problem to find good food aside from the flapjacks and hardtacks of old times, but frequently quail, rabbit, coon, squirrel, deer, and hare were found. At times the meat was so scarce that miners, feeling a great desire for it, would eat coyote or even in some instances, a hawk. This condition was rare, however, and few of the old-time miners can recall times so hard as this.

        One of the great perils in many camps was from rattlesnakes, which were very numerous. A snake would cause consternation in a camp where bruin and the wild lions of the hills would be laughed at or hunted to death.

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.