Lights and shadows of life on the Pacific Coast

Front matter

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF

S.D.WOODS

Class Pgfc/

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Voyage to San Francisco Around Cape Horn in 1849 ..... i

II. The Strenuous Life of Early Days in

Chapter I VOYAGE TO SAN FRANCISCO AROUND CAPE HORN IN 1849

M

Y father was a Presbyterian clergyman, of Puritan strain. DeHcate health drove him, a young man, from the rigors of Massachusetts to the climate of Florida and thence to Alabama.

In his wanderings among the healing warmths of the south, in York District, South Carolina, he met the gentle woman who became my mother, and was his helpmate in his work on the Pacific.

In the early summer of 1849, the Board of Domestic Missions of the Presbyterian Church, desiring to establish stations of that denomination upon the shores of the Pacific, represented by the then almost unknown land of California, sent three ministers to California — Albert Williams to San Francisco; Sylvester Woodbridge to Benicia (shortly thereafter capital of the State, now a sleepy-hollow village reposing upon the slopes of the hills which lie northward of Carquinez Straits) and my father, James Woods, to the city of Stockton, then an important distributing point for the southern mines.

I

Our family consisted of my father, my mother and four children.

The principal tide of travel at this time from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast was by mule trail across the Isthmus of Panama. The inconveniences of transportation; the terrible threat of the climate and the inability to secure any comforts made this trip from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast, for such a family, practically impossible.

Well we remember looking from the high windows of some now unknown hotel, down in that portion of the city about Wall Street, near Bowling Green, when we first saw the City of New York. We were but three years of age, and yet to this day we recall the' impression made by the clustered buildings which stretched between the East and the Hudson Rivers.

Lying at anchor in the East River lay a little Dutchbuilt bark, destined for San Francisco. The name, we remember to this day, was Alice Tarleton. She was a rude vessel, with no lines of beauty, but many of strength. Her timbers were after the manner of the Dutch, in the manufacture of their furniture, mortised together. This fact, doubtless, makes it possible for us in 1909 to recite the story of that voyage, for her experiences in the Atlantic and at Cape Horn were almost a tragedy of the seas, for none but a strongly constructed sea-craft could have weathered the tremendous storms which smote her from time to time on that eventful voyage.

From New York to San Francisco required eight months of tedious crawling across the seas, when not in combat with merciless storms. Memory does not

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recall much of the trip until we reached the City of Rio Janeiro, but the vision there disclosed to our youthful eyes was so exquisite, that a permanent impression was made, and we are able perfectly, at the end of these long years, altho many exciting instances have intervened, to accurately describe the city and its environments, together with many scenes which occurred there during our stay, as well as the storm which drove us for terrible days and more terrible nights, during two weeks, almost to the shores of Africa.

Our sea trail was almost identical with that of the splendid fleet, which, led by "Fighting Bob," made the trip from Hampton Roads to San Francisco, and, under the leadership of other gallant naval officers, made safely the circuit of the globe. If this great white fleet, pride of the nation, the glory of navy building, had encountered the terrible storm which our little bark did at Cape Horn, doubtless the history of its voyage would have been different, and the ribs of some of the great battle-ships would be lying upon the shores of the southern seas, and many a gallant seaman would have "sunk to sleep with monstrous shapes that haunt the deep."

As we attempted to round the Horn, we encountered a storm which lasted for two weeks, driving us day and night almost continuously submerged under roaring seas, until our little bark settled into calm, and we found ourselves within eight hundred miles of the Cape of Good Hope. Our cargo had shifted and we* were compelled to return to Rio Janeiro to readjust it. This readjustment required the taking out and replacing of the entire cargo, which took six weeks. It was during these weeks that the beauty of the wonderful bay, the splendor of the marvelous city, the glory of the towering mountains, were made permanent in our youthful mind; not only these, but the human features peculiar to that southern capital. We can to this day recall the deep blue waters which have no duplicate in all the world; the beautiful city throned at the base and along the slopes of a jutting branch of the Andes; the perfect southern skies and sea. Blue bay, bluer sky, wondrous hill slopes and splendid city are still the parts of a living vision, after fifty years.

We remember many human things, as tho it were but yesterday, among which were seventy thousand native troops, half clothed, who were reviewed in the streets of the city by the Emperor. We recall the occasion; the appearance and the lack of proper garbing of the troops, but can not quite recall the reason of the review.

Our deep respect for the Catholic Church had its birth in a visit to one of the great cathedrals, where roof and walls and altar were by noble art made spiritually suggestive to the heart and imagination of the simple worshipers. No pews invited the worshiper, but princess and beggar knelt side by side under the swelling dome and worshiped at a common altar without distinction of person or purpose. This democracy of religion imprest itself upon our youthful mind, never to be lost.

On the slopes of the mountain near the city we wandered at will by the courtesy of their keepers

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amid the foliage of the imperial gardens. The bloom and fragrance of tropical foliage, semi-tropical tree and shrub, and the tree life of the temperate zone intermingled, made these gardens a dream of beauty.

In the presence of all this beauty there occurred, on our ship's decks, one of the minor tragedies of the world — a tragedy minor because it did not affect the world generally, but to the poor victim, it was the tragedy of the universe. A young man, of brilliant attainments and of an honored family in New York, had been sent on the trip for the purpose of winning him from a habit which has enslaved hosts of great men. Across the Atlantic, after the terrible storm, he came with us back to Rio Janeiro. Shore leave was fatal, and on a beautiful afternoon, amid all the beauty of the bay, mountain and sky, he was brought upon the deck of the little bark to die of delirium tremens. On a radiant afternoon, amid the contortions of his inflamed imagination, his eyes closed forever. What could be more in contrast with the sweetness of the things about us, than this young man, in the glory of his manhood, dying in terror amid the beauty of the world?

After the readjustment of the cargo, our little bark again breasted the seas and finally succeeded in rounding the Cape. It was a case in those days of rounding the Cape. The navigators of the world had not yet fully determined the presence of dangerous rocks and treacherous shores, and the safe navigator rounded the Cape, as a matter of precaution, hugging the frozen shores of the Antarctic Circle, rather than the dark shores of Tierra del Fuego, through the straits.

Through the stress of storms, the burning heat of pulseless calms, our little bark, for several months more, fought its way along the western shore of the Continent, until in February, 1850, it entered the Golden Gate, and cast its anchor in the Bay of San Francisco.

In my nurse's arms I was carried to the mainland of California from a boat, which landed at what is now the corner of Montgomery and Jackson Streets, in the present city.

The city was but a conglomerate of rude buildings, massed about a civic center, where now is Portsmouth Square, and from whence, in straggling groups, rude cabins and white tents dotted the slope of Telegraph Hill, Clay Street Hill and Russian Hill. The western limit of the city was inside of what is now Powell Street and the southern limit far north of present Market Street.

Gold had been discovered ; a restless fever was in the blood of men and the streets of the crude little city pulsed with the excitement of men drawn from all parts of the United States and all quarters of the globe. It was an incongruous group, made up of all -types, colors, faiths and conditions, actuated by a common purpose and one hope. Among these were men afterwards famed as jurists, statesmen, poets and scholars.

Perhaps in no similar exterior boundaries was ever gathered together a group of men in which was exhibited more of splendid physique, matchless courage, lofty genius and aspiring ambition. Names then unknown afterwards in all departments of life made the

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world's pages of history luminous by splendid achievements. The good woman commanded a reverence never more intensely exprest among men. Men were lonely for the companionship of women, were hungry for the sweetness of home life, and on this verge of the world thirsted for the sweetness of pure womanhood. It was the glory of the early California days that a good woman could travel from one end of the city to the other at any hour of the day or night, protected by her own sweetness, and every man whom she met constituted himself, while she was within his presence, and as long as she was within his horizon, her special guardian.

Men were real in those fine days. Sham had slim chance to succeed when met by the strenuous honesty of men who knew that they were moral beings and acted up to their knowledge. The community weighed and branded men, and this brand was the badge by which their fellows recognized them. The terrible outbreak of 1856 against wrong and wrong-doing and the heroic work of the Vigilance Committee was the volcanic expression of the passionate love of the people of the young city for justice and civic righteousness. There was moral strength and beauty in the lives of those who made up its citizenship.

Chapter II THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF EARLY DAYS IN STOCKTON

A WILD current was in the blood of men in the days -^^ of 1850; an indifference to alL things except gold, a restless energy was the mood of men, who in other places, and under other conditions, would have been sedate. All were young; many of rare qualities of mind. Moral restraints were relaxed; home was beyond the mountains or across the seas, and the sweet influence of the fireside, which ordinarily held men obedient to fine action, was lacking. Men in the mass were reckless, actuated only by the excitement of their environment. San Francisco was the sole seaport of the State, and Sacramento and Stockton the inland distributing points for the mines, then the seat of all the activities of the State. Sacramento occupied the site of Sutter's Fort, and was an aspiring village, from which radiated all of the trade of the northern mines; while Stockton, then an ambitious town, rivaled Sacramento in its volume of trade with the southern mines.

Men who were afterwards prominent in political life — lawyers, doctors and merchant princes — were engaged in toil with their hands. No distinction existed ; men were ranked by their fellows by what they could do, and what they did. Life was robust, and the relaxing pleasures intense. Intellect was at high tide, and passion at a white heat.

Men in the main were honest, generous and brave. Crime, except by violence, was seldom committed, and petty offenses were the abomination of men who dealt only with large things in a big way. Murder might be condoned, while mere thefts were frequently punished by death. The population had so far come from the States, and the foreigner had but little part in the early possession of California.

Stockton was a typical town, and its daily life an expression of life everywhere. The "survival of the fittest" was the ruling law, and constituted the equation of endeavor among men. The strong asked no quarter from the strong, but a patient kindliness was extended to the weak. The crowd wrought, fought, gambled, lived and died, for gold. To-day might be a comedy, to-morrow a tragedy. In and out of the streets of the little city a human tide ebbed and flowed, moving always to the canyons and slopes and ravines of the hills and mountains, where were the gold deposits. No man stopt long enough to view the beauty of the pastoral lands that spread out under the blue skies ; none dreamed of the orchard or vineyard, or of a home in the radiance. These were no part of the hope of the restless throng rushing to the mines. However, in it all was the germ of the future — of the present splendid empire of product and population, which is now a romance and a commonwealth.

lo LIFE ON THE PACIFIC COAST

To a boy of five years, the restless activity was fascinating, and many a day the school-bell called in vain to tardy feet, that lingered among the moving panorama — great twenty-mule teams, drawing immense wagons, popularly called ''prairie schooners," loaded with tons of provisions to feed the miners in the hills ; pack-trains, loaded for the remoter places, reached only by trail ; the patient burro lazily pacing along with the prospector's outfit, and now and then the slowmoving ox-team of the incoming immigrant, just in from the plains, dusty and picturesque, the peculiar type of men "all the way from Pike." "John Chinaman" had reached the land, and now and then moved in and out of the kaleidoscopic scene, and sometimes "Mary," his consort, was seen with him, adding, with her fantastic garb and headgear, an Oriental cast to the picture.

There was tragedy and death. The brilliance of their hopes blinded many a sedate conscience. Memories of the quiet and charm of the Eastern home became clouded and indistinct amid the temptations of this enticing life. Never before in the history of the world had there been such a promise to the expectations of men, and the very flower of the land was here, to wrest riches from the abundant earth.

The late comer in these days of commerce — days of occupations which deal with the earth as a producer of grain, the apple, the orange and the grape — ^has but little conception of how abundant gold was in the early days. It has been said, and it is doubtless with rare exception true, that during some time in his life in California, every man who worked in the mines had

EARLY DAYS IN STOCKTON ii

in his hands, as the fruit of his toil, at least sufficient to have constituted a competence, beyond his dream, when he started from his Eastern home.

Men wrought as individuals, not in combination. The partnership was a frequent relation, but the corporate form of action had not yet been adopted, and while ordinarily great fortunes were not made, individual competency was accomplished, and this condition exhibited the marvelous extent of the goldproducing areas, from the Siskiyous, standing between Oregon and California, to the Mexican line. Gold was in abundance everywhere — in the ravines, in the low-lying foothills, in the slopes of the lofty mountains, in the beds of rivers. It had been sown as the sower casts his grain.

The deep ledge deposits disclosed by later explorations were not a source of wealth in the early days; under the grass-roots were the nuggets and fine gold. As illustrating this, it is a matter of history that at Shaw's Flat, a lovely little valley lying just to the northwest of the town of Sonora, in Tuolumne County, and covering not more than two hundred acres, there was a harvest of over one hundred million dollars. While this particular spot perhaps yielded more than any other like area, it was typical of the entire goldproducing area, whose aggregate ran into hundreds of millions.

'The days of old, the days of gold, the days of '49" are not the words of a song only, but the expression of a historical fact. The world stretched forth its hands into this treasure-house, and its children gathered without stint.

As a part of all were the lights and shadows of human experience; lights that were blinding, shadows that were impenetrable; joy and sorrow, hope and despair. Experience rose to the highest moral expression, or descended into the depths of despair. Vice and virtue, honor and dishonor, were daily companions, for the limitation of daily life did not permit of segregation, and it was as with the Old Guard at Waterloo — each must care for himself. To some this condition was a lifting force, to others the pressure was downwards — the good became better, and the bad worse. This was the inevitable. It may be that it was no more inevitable than it is in these days, for still the moral grind goes on, some rising, some falling, day by day.

The most terrible of all things occurring in those days were individual cases of crime, involving some of the finest types of the young. Many a gray-haired "Mother in Israel," in the sanctuary of her Eastern home, sat by the old cradle of her first-born and sang "Where is my wandering boy to-night?" to which refrain came an answer never. Her boy was in his grave, slain by a bullet, or dying at the end of the strangling rope on the gallows. As a boy, I well remember two striking examples of both.

One beautiful Sunday morning, while my father and I were passing down the street on the way to church, we heard a shot and saw a rushing crowd. A young man in the flush of his powers had been shot down, while sitting in a bootblack stand, by another young man, with whom he had had a quarrel during the previous night, over the gambling table. There were no words, just a shot, and a dead man was lying in his blood, Hfting to the radiance of a perfect day a stilled, white face. The young man was a gambler, associated with one of the leading saloons of the town. He was popular, and the gamblers desired that he should have a Christian burial, and my father was solicited to perform the rites over him. It was a peculiar funeral. There was no place in the little town where such a service could be held, so the saloon was closed, and, standing upon the billiard table, my father officiated in pathetic service over some mother's son. Whether she ever heard of her son's death I do not know ; I remember, however, another occasion on which my father officiated, of which the mother never knew.

Horse-stealing in these days was punishable by death. A young man about twenty-five years of age, a splendid specimen of vigorous manhood, of high order of intellect and attainments, had become the leader of a band of horse-thieves, operating about Stockton. The operations of the gang were concealed for many months, but finally the officers of the law succeeded in running them to cover, and found them camped in a little grove near the city, from which as a base ' they carried on their depredations. No one knew the real name of the leader. He was only "Mountain Jim." Associated with him, as one of his lieutenants, was a man of low instincts, vile and desperate, known as "Dutch Fred." The main gang escaped, but these two were taken, tried and sentenced to death. My father, after the sentence, attended these men in jail, and did what he was called upon as a minister to do in order to prepare them morally for death.

Dutch Fred refused to accept advice or counsel, declaring that he wanted to die as he had lived. With Mountain Jim it was different. His terrible doom, the recollections of home and mother, softened his spirit, and the memories of his youth made him approachable and penitent, and he sought fervently for forgiveness and died penitent. Before the execution he gave to my father a statement of his early life, of his career, and the name of his people, prominent in the Eastern States, but asked that this be kept secret, for he did not wish them to know that he had died a felon. That secret was kept.

I will never forget the day of the execution, and perhaps no such scene was ever enacted in any place outside of California. The gallows were in open view ; the execution was public, and throngs were present. From the jail to the gallows the condemned men rode upon their coffins on a common dray. Mountain Jim, stately, handsome, brave and penitent, died like a man. The other, true to his low instincts, died according to his ideas of life, and as the spring was touched, which landed him in Eternity, shouted to the crowd "Here we go, girls," and thus the brutal wretch faced the issues of the Hereafter.

Another tragedy, involving the death of a brilliant young man, stirred the little city to its depths. Two young journalists, Taber and Mansfield, were engaged in the conduct of rival journals. At first they were friendly, drawn together by community of attainments and interests, As time progressed, however, the rivalry of business and other interests brought about a separation of friendship, and this finally drifted into deadly hate. In the columns of their respective papers, daily they abused each other in the most violent terms, until the newspaper war attracted universal attention, and raised the expectation of every one to the pending tragedy which occurred as a result of this rivalry and hate. The matter became so heated and the danger of deadly collision so immediate, that men of prominence in the community, mutual friends of both, endeavored by every persuasion to heal the breach, and to prevent the conclusion which happened not long afterwards. After a particularly violent attack made by one upon the other, they met upon a street of the city, and, without any discussion, fought a deadly duel. Mansfield was shot down by Tabor, while Tabor escaped unharmed. The story of this tragedy became a national story, as the matters involved in the controversy were of political moment, and the brilliant character of the young men had made them known among newspaper men. The name of Mansfield became celebrated afterwards by reason of the fact that he was the father of Josie Mansfield, whose relations with Jim Fisk in New York brought about his untimely end at the hands of Stokes. At this time, she was a beautiful little schoolgirl, fair of face, and fascinating in manner. The prophecy of her future triumphs over men through her beauty was in her form. Her life was also a tragedy, for, after her career in New York, wild and reckless, and bringing about by her coquettish arts, the tragedy referred to, it was only a few days ago, in one of the daily papers I read that in some little Western town, as a charge upon the public charity, she, a gray-haired, broken woman, was closing her life, with terrible memories, without hope, without friends.

In the administration of justice, as justice was called in those days, there was a rude indifference to the forms of law, and frequently men were arrested, tried by "J^dge Lynch," and executed, without any proof such as is now required to satisfy a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, often no actual evidence of the commission of crime was required, and the whole matter was frequently determined by the passion of the moment. In such trials, often, liquor had more to do with the trial and execution than the judgment of rational men. One of these trials, which fortunately did not reach execution, illustrates the danger to a suspected man in the presence of such rough-and-ready justice, A young man had come into the city a stranger. He had every evidence of character and culture, but unfortunately he was a stranger. There had been a small band of cattle stolen from near the city, within a day or two of his arrival. I can not recall that there were any special reasons why he should have been suspected of this theft. That he was a stranger and no one knew of his former whereabouts was reason sufficient, and the conclusion was quickly reached that he must be the man who had stolen the cattle. He was arrested, given the form of one of these "Judge Lynch" trials, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was eloquent ; had much personal charm and magnetism. He pleaded with the committee who composed the court, and said that if they would give him time, he would prove beyond all question that he had had nothing to do with the theft, and in fact was far away from the scene at the time the theft was committed. Some soberer men were moved by the young man's plea, and said there was no reason for great haste in the execution, and that as long as he was secure in the possession of the committee, he should have this opportunity. Several days passed and finally the young man was able to prove beyond any peradventure that he was not gn^ilty, and was many miles distant from the scene of the theft, on his way from some distant point to the city of Stockton at the time ; and he was given his liberty and became a valued member of the community.

Many such trials took place in different sections of California, and doubtless many an innocent man was sent to his death by unjust suspicion.

Among the young men in Stockton at this time there were two restless spirits, moved more by the love of adventure than a desire for riches. One of these was Henry Crabb, a handsome, resolute, soldierly fellow, inspired by a great ambition to establish somewhere in the West a little empire of his own. He was a magnetic talker; of great persuasiveness. Going among the young men of the town, who had no particular vocation and who had not yet gone to the mines, he gathered a band as ambitious and resolute as himself, and they, with Crabb as their leader, departed from Stockton on a filibustering scheme, into some territory belonging to Mexico. The enterprise was fraught with great danger, and resulted in disaster. Crabb and his followers were captured by the Mexicans, and, without trial, shot as unlawful invaders of the country. The main features of the story I can not recall, but as it floated up out of the Mexican territory I remember it as full of pathos and tragedy.

William Walker, who was afterwards famous as a filibuster leader in Nicaragua, was also for a time resident in Stockton. He gathered about him a few spirits like himself, and enlarging his band in other portions of the country, went with his followers into Nicaragua, and there met with failure; he and his followers were executed as brigands. So ended the warlike enterprises of these daring and desperate young men, endowed with more ambition than wisdom.

A large number of Mexicans, men and women, were a part of the population of the little town, many of non-law-abiding habits. Most of the women were given to the fandango; the man to marauding, altho many of them were honest miners and came into the country with honest purpose. Among these honest miners was a young Mexican who afterwards became one of the most famous bandits of his day — ^Joaquin Murrieta, whose name, within a few years of the time of which I write, was a terror to the entire State, a daring, desperate, picturesque criminal. He banded together a number of the most desperate and vicious criminals in the world, one of whom, his chief lieutenant, was known as "Three-Fingered Jack."

Their depredations were confined to no special part of the country; they roamed at will, struck one point and another almost as the lightning does, with wonderful rapidity in movements, eluding always the hand of the law, until in 1863, Colonel Harry Love, aided by Sheriff Henry Morse, with a band of determined men, drove Joaquin, by which name he was generally known, and his gang, into a corner, at Tuhare Lake, and after a terrible gun-fight killed both Joaquin and Three-Fingered Jack, captured others, and thus broke up the gang. That Joaquin was killed has been a matter of dispute, but in any event he was not heard of again. The story of Joaquin's career was peculiar and pathetic. He was driven to his desperate courses by an act of injustice on the part of some Americans who had taken into their hands the punishment of some minor offense which they, without proof, charged to Joaquin, and of which he was guiltless. He was found guilty by a "Lynch law" committee and sentenced to be stript and whipt, and he, mutilated, disgraced and dishonored, was turned loose and ordered to leave the country. The indignity and humiliation turned the hitherto kindly spirit into a burning furnace of hate, made him the foe of the American, and led him into a career of crime that has been perhaps nowhere, for its romantic desperation, equaled in the world. He was of a most daring nature, and in his marauding expeditions exhibited the wildest courage; took the most desperate chances. It was his habit to appear at points unattended, and after flirting with the senoritas at the fandango halls, carousing with his friends, practically doing whatever he chose, announce himself as Joaquin, mount his horse, and often, amid a shower of bullets, escape to his next scene of adventure. Many thousands of dollars worth of property was taken, and many lives sacrificed by him and his men, always ready to fight with the hated American.