Heroes of California; the story of the founders of the Golden state as narrated by themselves or gleaned from other sources

Front matter

I

GEORGE WHMTON JAMES

SIACING IN 1849, IN THE SIERRAS OK CALIFORNIA. Reproduced by permission from the painting by Gutzon Borglum.

Introduction

"DRAVE and heroic deeds have always thrilled the ■*^ minds of others to emulation. A great deed is an inspiration for other great deeds. Bravery and heroism are as contagious as cowardice and fear. The habit of the mind should be towards right, regardless of all consequences. The brave man knows nothing of consequences; he does his duty and leaves consequences to take care of themselves.

During all ages it has been recognized that nothing stimulates most men to heroism and nobility so much as the example of their fellows. From all time the acts of the noble and brave have been recited to incite to emulation those who listen. All war songs have this origin, and Napoleon could think of nothing more powerful to say, when his soldiers were about to fight in the presence of the sphinx and p}Tamids of the Nile, than: ** Forty centuries gaze down upon you."

This principle is recognized, also, in the Scriptural records, where, to stimulate converts of the Christian faith to live the new life demanded of them, the writer, after recounting the wonderful deeds of the heroes of the past, added these words: "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us."

vi HEROES OF CALIFORNIA

As all need constant inspiration to noble endeavor, and as Californians especially have many " witnesses " who proved themselves great and heroic souls in the past, it has been my aim to present in these pages a series of pictures of their heroism, hoping that my readers may thereby be encouraged to emulate them in spirit, if not in deed.

Wherever possible, the original narrators have been allowed to tell the stories in their own words. I wish to stimulate to a fuller reading and larger knowledge of original sources. California has a greater wealth of such literature than any other section of the United States, and it should be better known. Parents are urged to point out to their children, and teachers, also, to their students, the pleasure and profit that can be gained by further readings on the lines I have here suggested. In the last chapter, references may be found to books and magazines which give these fuller particulars. The time will soon come, I hope, when every school library in the State will possess the following books, which might be regarded as the California classics: Palou's "Life of Serra," — a good translation is needed and doubtless will be forthcoming ere long; Parker Winship's translation of the Castaiieda narrative of the Coronado expedition; a good history of the California Franciscan missions; my own *' In and Out of the Old Missions," until a better book makes its appearance; Pattie's Narrative; McGlashan's "History of the Donner Party;" the " Story of Virginia Reed Murphy; " Manly's " Death Valley in '49," and the various magazine articles on the

INTRODUCTION vii

subject; Bonner's " Life of James Beckwourth," Hittell's " Life of James Capen Adams," the " Life of Kit Carson," with General and Mrs. Fremont's various works; a good hfe of Thomas Starr King; Mrs. Carr's " The Iron Way; " the " Life and Services of Judge Field; " books on the Comstock Lode and the Sutro Tunnel; " Ramona " and the "Life of Helen Hunt Jackson;" Clarence King's "Mountaineering in California; " a sketch of James Lick's Life; William Smythe's " The Conquest of Arid America," the " Life and Work of Stephen M. White; " Edwin Markham's story of how he came to write " The Man with the Hoe; " Muir's " Mountains of California; " Harwood's " Life of Burbank," and the Century Magazine's series of articles on "• California Before and After the Gold Discovery."

The neglect to provide these books is a proof of imdifference to the wonderfully inspiring and thrilling stories contained therein. Students will revel in them, more than in novels, if they are led to see the spirit in which they are written. How shall they read, however, when they are not even aware of their existence.

If the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West would take hold of this matter with one-tenth of the energy displayed by their pioneer ancestors, the thing would be done in less than a year, and with this noble aim these organizations w^ould do more good to the rising generation than any other one thing they could accomplish.

I trust it is not necessary to assure my readers that viii HEROES OF CALIFORNIA

I have no thought that I have exhausted the Hst of Cahfornia's heroes and heroines. I have v^ritten of those whose acts have impressed me, those who have stood out as " beacon lights " in my reading. I doubt not, however, that many readers will wish that this, or that, or the other character who has loomed up as heroic to them, should have found a place in these pages. So that, were the list to be revised, possibly a hundred more names, each as worthy as those I have selected, could be added. In this is one of my great satisfactions. I confidently hope some such awakening will be the result of the publication of this book, and that the columns of our newspapers will contain many admirable stories of heroism that I have overlooked. Thus the good work will go on, and the youth of our Golden State be quickened to higher and nobler endeavor and greater achievement because of the emulation that will be stimulated by the recital of these noble deeds of the past.

Many an interesting chapter might have been written on the quiet and almost unknown heroism of pioneer physicians, preachers, priests, sisters of charity, nuns, and teachers of the early days. California's history is full of the deeds of heroic men who regarded their own lives not at all in the face of every kind of danger, — snow storms, sand storms, cloudbursts, floods, falling trees, hostile Indians, wild animals and cruel and bloodthirsty banditti. Bret Harte has given some vivid pictures of them, which, creatures of his own imagination though they be, were yet largely true to fact and convey a generally accurate idea of the spirit

INTRODUCTION ix

of the times. Books by the dozen might be written, all worthy of careful perusal, telling of the incredible hardships endured by patient and silent nuns and sisters of charity as they engaged in their humanitarian work of educating the young, relieving the distressed, caring for the sick, and reclaiming the wayward in those early days, before comfortable homes were provided for themselves. And the pioneer priests and preachers of all churches and creeds! "What an army of self-sacrificing heroes were they, whose names and histories will never be fully recorded on earth. Riding to and fro over mountains, plains and desert, their lives in constant jeopardy, preaching in the open air, in saloons, in dance-halls, anywhere, so long as they could get a hearing, fearlessly counselling men against the vices they loved and urging them to live the virtues they hated, the pioneer minister of the gospel performed tasks which were not for weaklings. Only men strong, physically, mentally and spiritually, were capable of doing their work, and doing it well, for scepticism and infidelity often went hand in hand with profligacy and vice, and it was no uncommon thing for men inflamed with evil passions and intoxicated with liquor to threaten the lives of those who dared rebuke their vices and incite them to purer and holier living.

The pioneer teachers, too, who endured poverty, isolation, and weary heart- longings in their zeal to educate the growing youth of the new California, — what a debt the State and country owes to them.

It will be noticed that I have no chapter on John xii HEROES OF CALIFORNIA

of his own faith. In Beckwourth's book there are statements in regard to his sale of Hquor to Indians. If Beckwourth were aHve to-day and were to do business in the manner there described, I would hasten to the nearest court and swear out a warrant for his arrest, and urge the officials to see that he received severe punishment. Yet his bravery is worthy of emulation; as also is that of James Capen Adams, whose hunting instincts do not seem at all commendable to me. Pattie was a braA'e and heroic character, yet his trapping of animals for their fur I regard as inhuman and cruel, and I believe such trapping should be suppressed by law. I also think that he showed too great a readiness to shoot Indians, and to take revenge upon all Indians for the crimes of some. I look up with great respect to the commanding genius of Judge Field, yet some of the decisions which he rendered do not meet my sense of justice; and I can see in the acts of the " Big Four," who created the Central Pacific Railway, many things that lay them open to censure and condenmation.

So, my young and older readers, do not take my praise as indiscriminate. Look for the good in men, — as I have done in the examples here presented — and extol, honor and emulate that; the things that are weak or evil ignore and avoid.

I do not claim that all the extracts I have made are literature, — that they possess that pure literary quality which sets them above the common wTiting of ordinary men, — but I do claim that none of them are bad, from the literary standpoint; and, what to me is

INTRODUCTION xiii

better than the mere choice and arrangement of the words is that they are all good from the standpoint of the spirit. They contain the fire, the energy, the life, the sparkle of living men. In them is no conjuring up of fictitious emotion while quietly seated in a comfortable library, surrounded by every luxury. The men and women who wrote the stories from which these extracts were taken, lived the life, and therefore are entitled to all the respect and attention which the human heart natiurally confers upon the actual doer of things, as differentiated from the mere dreamer or writer about them.

If this book helps to arouse thought, excite desire for further study of the lives of the pioneers, builders and heroes of the State, and stimulate longing to be filled with their heroic spirit, so that the rising generation may bring to the problems that will confront them, and the work they must accomplish, the same energy, bravery, self-sacrifice, self-discipline, high endeavor and exalted purpose shown in the past, then, indeed, will the time, thought and energy spent in its arrangement be more than repaid, and its author fully gratified.

Pasadena, August, 1910.

Contents

CHAPTER PACK

I. The Dauntless Hero-Explorer, Alar-

90N I

Chapter I The Dauntless Hero - Explorer, Alarcon

TWO names are intimately associated with the discovery of the mouth of the Colorado River, which forms the boundary line between the southern portions of Arizona and California. These names are Ulloa and Alarfon. The stories of their respective voyages have often been told, yet the important difference in the spirit of the two explorers Jhas not been emphasized as it should be.

Fearful of losing his hard-earned power, Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, desired to extend his explorations and incidentally his conquests. His successes had aroused the jealousy of several eminent men, among others, IMendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, who was doing his best to surpass Cortes in achievement. Accordingly, he equipped three vessels and sent them forth from Acapulco, Mexico, under the command of Francisco de Ulloa, with instructions to sail north, and take possession of all new lands discovered, for God and the King of Spain, During this voyage Ulloa discovered the Peninsula of California and the Gulf of California, which he named the Sea of Cortes. While at the head of this gulf he found, as he says: " the sea to run with so great a rage into the land that it was a thing much to be marvelled at ; and -v^-ith the like fury it returned back again with the ebb, during which time we found eleven fathom of water, and the flood and ebb continued from five to six hours."

The following day, Ulloa and the ship's pilot went to the ship's top, and saw the land circling around to the west; and they speculated upon the cause of the ebb and flow of the day before. Lakes were suggested, and some one thought " that some great river there might be the cause thereof."

Instead of exploring this inlet and finding out for himself, Ulloa was content to sail away south. He thus p^o^'ed himself either incompetent for the task that Cortes had given him, in that he did not realize the possible importance of following up the current ; afraid lest he might wreck his vessels; or too lazy to undertake what he knew might require hard work.

It should need little or no comment to show that Ulloa was not possessed of the true spirit; that he was unworthy the high trust reposed in him.

Now let us see the spirit in which Alargon accomplished his task. He was ordered by the Viceroy Mendoza to sail northward with two vessels, and cooperate, as far as possible, with the great land expedition of Coronado, which was being sent out to

THE EXPLORER, ALARgON 3

the discovery of what we now know as Arizona and New Mexico.

In due time he reached the same place described by Ulloa, where the great tide had courted investigation. At once he decided that, as he wrote afterward, " even though I had known I should have lost the ships," he would discover the secret of the Gulf. Accordingly boats were lowered and sent ahead to find a channel, and the ships were taken up until the current was so strong and the shoals so numerous that all three vessels went aground, and were placed in great danger. But even this did not daunt Alarfon. The return of the tide freed the vessels from the sands, and they were anchored in a place of safety. Then he prepared to ascend the river in two of his small boats. Here was a true explorer. Bold yet cautious, determined yet not reckless, full of foresight yet resolute and daring! He prepared for hostile Indians and hardships of every conceivable kind, and, thus equipped, pushed forward up the river for the great distance of eighty-five leagues.

It is needless for our purpose to study his ad\'entures further. His name and memory will always be honored by true Californians as the man who dared, and who, as the result of his daring, is entitled to the honor of being called " the discoverer of the Colorado River."

Chapter II The Watchful Hero-commander, Melchior Diaz

ANOTHER member of the Viceroy's exploring party was Melchior Diaz, who had gone with Coronado into the heart of the country. After Coronado had reached his destination, he despatched Diaz across country to find Alarfon. In due time Diaz reached the Colorado River, followed it down to the Gulf, found that Alarfon had sailed, and then returned up the river to see if any messages had been left by the latter, intending finally to report to Coronado at Cibola. He had several interesting experiences, but the one which I wish were better known is as follows:

While he was on his way up the river, he wished to cross from the Arizona to the California side. He had but twenty-five men and here is the way the historian Castafieda tells the story:

" After they had gone five or six days, it seemed to them as if they could cross on rafts. For this purpose they called together a large number of the natives, who were waiting for a favorable opportunity to make an attack on our men, and when they saw that the strangers wanted to cross, they helped make the rafts with all zeal and diligence, so as to catch them in this way on the water and drown them, or else divide them so that they could not help one another. While the rafts were jM'

ON THE COLORADO RIVER WHICH Al.ARCON ASCENDED.

MUD VOLCANOES IN THE COLORADO DESERT. DIAZ LANDED NEAR HERE.

Page i

MELCHIOR DIAZ 5

being made, a soldier, who had been out around the camp, saw a large number of armed men go across to a mountain, where they were waiting till the soldiers should cross the river. He reported this, and an Indian was quietly shut up, in order to fmd out the truth , . . and he told all the arrangements that had been made. These were, that when our men were crossing and part of them had got over and part were on the river and part were waiting to cross, those who were on the rafts should drown those they were taking across and the rest of their force should make an attack on both sides of the river. If they had had as much discretion and courage as they had had strength and power, the attempt would have succeeded.

" When he knew their plan, the captain had the Indian who had confessed the affair killed secretly, and that night he was thrown into the river with a weight, so that the Indians would not suspect that they were found out. The next day they noticed that our men suspected them, and so they made an attack, shooting showers of arrows, but when the horses began to catch up with them and the lances wounded them without mercy and the musketeers likewise made good shots, they had to leave the plain and take to the mountain, until not a man of them was to be seen. The force then came back and crossed all right, the Indian allies and the Spaniards going across on the rafts and the horses swimming alongside the rafts."

Diaz showed himself a watchful and a prudent captain. He knew he was in a place of danger, and this made him unusually cautious, both for himself and his men. He was alert and thoughtful, and there is little doubt that the soldier who went around the camp and discovered the large force of Indians on the other side, was sent out as a scout by him. The brave and courageous man is not the man who is reckless and indifferent, but the man who, knowing the dangers that surround him, is alert, cautious, watchful and prudent.

Chapter III

THE SELF-SACRIFICING, SELF-DISCIPLINING, PIONEER MISSIONARY- HERO, JUNIPERO SERRA

TN these days of material progress, and with our whole -■■ nation regarding the acquisition of riches as the clearest proof of success, it seems to me that it is well for our youth to look closely into the lives of those men who constructed the foundations upon which our State is built.

Serra was a very simple-hearted man, yet in three special realms he claims the reverent attention of the youth of the State of which he was the first and greatest of a large army of pioneers.

Without entering into tedious details, it is well to recall that Serra was born in 1713, at Petra, in the Island of Majorca — one of the islands of the Mediterranean, under the control of the King of Spain. When he was seventeen he became a noxitiate of the Franciscan Order, and when he took the final vows he assumed the name of Junipero, after the friend and companion of St. Francis of Assisi, who was the founder of the Order of Franciscans.

In due time, he became a professor in one of the colleges and a Doctor of Divinity, He then began to preach, and the simple-minded fervor of so learned a man, combined with his clear-headed way of looking at things, soon brought him great fame as a pulpit orator. He had the wonderful faculty of satisfying the educated and refined as well as the illiterate and vulgar. He reached rich and poor alike. As a teacher he was equally successful. The pathway to fame and honor was clearly open to him. AU he had to do was to continue as he had begun, and there was little he might not have attained. The Church of Rome has never been niggardly in its gifts to its able sons, and here was one who was worthy of her greatest gifts and highest honors. Yet he wilfully and cheerfully turned away from this glowing and alluring pathway, and begged to be sent away over a new, dark, and unknown road — the road to the missionary field among savages, where trials, dangers, difficulties, and possibly death awaited him.

Serra dared to do the thing that appealed to the very highest in his nature. He dared to fling himself in absolute and perfect trust upon God. He had but one aim, — to serve God in blessing the savages to whom he asked to be sent. He dared to be free!

The theology of Dante was a terrible reality to Serra. Only to such an absorption of belief was his work possible. Hell, the awful, material hell Dante so vividly and powerfully portrays, burning with flames of inconceivable torture forever and forever, with all its dire circles of horror for those who were unbelievers in the Christ he worshipped, yawTied, as he thought, before the feet of these untamed and rude natives. If they should be trained into a knowledge of the Church and its saving ordinances by an apostolic guide, they could attain a new hereafter. Purgatory was open, and from thence, duly purged from their sin and ignorance, they might climb into the blessed regions of Paradise. Felicity untold, then, to that man who would brave their savagery, dare their treachery, love them even in their unlovableness, and thus lead them into the fold of the Church.

Who should do it? Should he, Serra, with his soul athirst for great deeds for God, stand by, in order to listen to the applause of the civilized world as his words of burning eloquence pleased their cultured ears, and let some half-hearted, half- in-earnest priest go out to these degraded and needy savages? No! The greater their need and danger, the greater the necessity for speed, power, and earnestness in the one who should go to them. So, begging permission to leave the world and its vain applause, society and its caresses, civihzation and its luxurious comforts, casting all these things behind him, he gladly, joyfully set forth to do his chosen work as missionary.

Such was his burning zeal that four of his close college companions were dominated by the same desire, and in due time these five — ■ Serra, Palou, Crespi, Verges, and Vincens — found themselves at Cadiz ready to ship for Vera Cruz, en route to the City of Mexico, where the College of San Fernando, the head house of the Franciscan Order in the new world, was located.

On the voyage, Serra's boundless devotion and enthusiasm would not let him rest. He recited the mass daily, and then incited the sailors and others lo HEROES OF CALIFORNIA

to come and confess to him, and during long hours into the night he was engaged in this pious duty.

Water was very scarce. Instead of complaining and making matters worse, he took the deprivation as a means of training, and naively remarked, when asked if he did not suffer from thirst :

" Not specially, since I have found out the secret of not feeling thirsty, which is to eat Httle and talk less, so as not to waste the saliva."

On their arrival at Vera Cruz, the officials had provided saddle animals to carry the whole band of missionaries over the three hundred mile stretch between that city and the City of Mexico. Few people would have seen in this anything but the most reasonable provision for their safe transportation. But Serra, with an eye absolutely single to the work he wished to do, and to which he had sacredly devoted his life, found in it an opportunity for self-discipline. He talked with his companion, Palou, persuaded him into agreement, and then begged his superiors to allow them to walk! When asked for his reasons, he explained that he was sent to labor among the most degraded and hostile of savage tribes, where hardship and severe labor would be his daily experience. He desired that every act of his life should be an act of conscious self-discipline, preparation, training for everything that might be before him.

Permission was given, and he and his colleague, without provisions or guide, started forth on that long tramp, determined to rely solely on Providence and the goodness of the people whom they should meet.

JUNIPERO SERRA ii

Of his life in Mexico prior to the time he was sent forth as the padre presidente of the Cahfornia missions there is not room here to speak. Sufifice it to say that he did his highest duty with earnest enthusiasm and fervent zeal. In a later work I hope fully to present the whole life and labors of Serra.

When the Jesuits were expelled from the missions of Lower California in 1767 Serra was put in charge of the Franciscans who were sent in their places. Then the onward and upward move to the colonization and missionization of Upper California was decided upon and Serra was required to take charge of this work. Hence he became the first of the army of California pioneers to whom the Golden State never tires of doing honor.

It is hard for us of to-day to realize what it meant for Serra to come to California. He left congenial work, devoted associates, loving friends, honor, applause, fame and advancement in the eyes of men, to bury himself in the unexplored wilds of a new country.

In his own land he had been one of the most popular and appreciated preachers, honored and beloved. Here, the best that can be said is that he received the half adoring reverence of a part of the ignorant, though rudely affectionate aborigines to whom he came to minister, while the remainder bore him open hostility and bitter hatred. Even those who gave him their allegiance did not have the faintest comprehension of what he was endeavoring to do for them, and he had to humor their whims and caprices, their prejudices and superstitions, as a mother humors her petulant and self-willed child.

Here was a pioneer, indeed, in that he had no home to come to. His home had to be in his own soul. In one sense, he had not where to lay his head, for there were no homes — in the way in which we use the word — in the land to which he came. There were only the rude, open, wicker-work or tule shacks of the aborigines, full of filth and vermin, and foul with the accumulated odors of the uncleanness of many seasons. The hard but hospitable bosom of Mother Earth became his pallet; like Jacob, he used a stone for a pillow; the open air was his coverlet, and the ineffable blue of the sky, pictured with moon, planets, stars and Milky Way, his ceiling; the howling of coyotes, the wild shriek of the panther, the growl of the grizzly, the hoot of the owl, the soft cooing of the mourning dove, and all the queer, soothing, startling, conflicting night sounds of trees, shrubs, insects, birds and beasts became the varied orchestra that sang him to sleep, or quickened his waking hours.

He was a pioneer, indeed, in that he came to no settled community where materials for the erection of homes and churches were to be purchased. Everything was in the raw state. He had to hew the trees, saw the lumber, make the bricks, follow every shift and device that necessity became the mother of, ere he could begin to build, and then, — who was to build for him. He became his own architect, contractor and master-mason, and the human material he had to work with and train to do his bidding was even worse than the raw physical material of which the structures were to be erected. Untrained, uncouth, undisciplined savages, who, for centuries, had followed their own will, were practically all upon whom he could call. They were unused to control, impatient of restraint, incompetent to use their hands and eyes in strange labor, unable to see the necessity for care in doing what they were told to do, shiftless, unreliable and crafty in escaping from work they disliked. It is not easy for the ordinary man to imagine the sublime and exalted faith, the fearless and urgeful courage, the tireless and undaunted energy that could' undertake the building of such majestic missions under these disadvantageous conditions. And it must be remembered that Serra and his coadjutors did not come to a people who were in sympathy with his beliefs, his faith, his Church. With even a small band of believing adherents to rely upon, the fight would not have been so hard, but he had to instruct, convert, win his people while they were working for him, or even before they would begin to work, and in either case this added a gigantic obstacle to anything like rapid progress.

To make even nominal Christians of these conservative and superstitious Indians was in itself a great achievement, but to do it, and at the same time lead them to perform steady labor and become reliable workmen in the face of their dislike to confining work and teach them obedience and submission to restraint, was a task requiring genius and tact of a very high order. Such genius and tact Serra must have possessed, for he achieved the results, and not, as many believe, by sheer force of arms and the exercise of miHtary control. It is true that he had a small band of soldiers as escort and guard, but what was such a handful compared with the thousands of brave, fearless and warlike aborigines, had they been driven by cruel treatment to open hostility and defiance of an authority they had not yet learned to fear?