California, 1849-1913 | Page 6

ounces of very coarse gold. Now we were on the bedrock and the next thing to do was to start three drifts in as many directions. This called for two more men to work the drifts, and a man with his team to haul the dirt to the water, while I stood at the windless and watched both ends. This went on for one week. When I washed out my dirt, paid off my help and other expenses, I had two dollars and a half for myself.
About this time I was feeling a little blue and I gave directions for each man in the drifts to start drifts to the left at the end of each drift. This was done, and we went on for another week as before, and this time I came out about one hundred dollars ahead. About this time a couple of miners came along and offered me thirteen hundred dollars for my claim, and I sold it, took the dust and went to Sacramento and sent it to my father in Vermont. That paid up for all the money that I had borrowed, and made things quite easy at home.
Now, I am mining again with cradle, pick, shovel and pan in gulches, on the flats, in the river and on the banks, with miner's luck, up and down, most of the time down. However, "pluck" was always the watchword with me. I floated some of the time in water, some of the time in the air, some of the time on dry land, it did not make much difference with me at that time where I was. I was at home wherever night overtook me. But finally I got tired of that and began to look about and think of home and "the girl I left behind me."

Home Again. Married. Return to California.
In the spring of '52 I left San Francisco on the steamer "Independence" via the "Nicaragua route" for New York, arrived there in course of a month, and took train for Boston, where I found my father from Vermont with a carload of horses. This was clover for me. We remained there a week or ten days, then left for home. The "girl I left behind" was a Vermont lady but was visiting a sister in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the spring of 1853 I went on to Ohio to see the "girl I left behind me," and married the "girl I had left behind me." We then went to Vermont, where we remained until the year of 1854. In the summer of this year I had the second attack of the "California fever." I called in Dr. Hichman and he diagnosed my case, and pronounced it fatal, and said there was no medicine known to science that would help me, that I must go, so I took the "girl I left behind me" and started for San Francisco.

Vigilance Committee of 1865.
On my return to San Francisco it did not take me long to discover that the city was wide open to all sorts of crime from murder, to petty theft. In a very short time I became interested in the Pacific Iron Works, and paid very little attention to what else was going on around me until the spring of '56. Here was a poise of the scales, corruption and murder on one side, with honesty and good government on the other. Which shall be the balance of power, the first or the last?
On May 14th, 1856, James King, editor of the "Evening Bulletin," was shot by Jas. P. Casey on the corner of Washington and Montgomery streets. He lingered along for a few days and died. This was too much for the people and proved the entering wedge for a second vigilance committee. During the first 36 hours after the shooting there were 2,600 names enrolled on the committee's books. Of that number, I am proud to say, I was the 96th member, and the membership increased until it amounted to over 7,000.

Shooting of Gen. Richardson.
I will first relate a crime that had happened the November previous (November 17, 1855), in which Charles Cora had shot and killed General William H. Richardson, United States Marshal for the Northern District of California. These men had a quarrel on the evening of November 17th, 1855, between 6 and 7 o'clock, which resulted in the death of General Richardson by being shot dead on the spot in front of Fox & O'Connor's store on Clay street, between Montgomery and Leidesdorff streets, by Cora. Shortly after this Cora was arrested and placed in custody of the City Marshal. There was talk of lynching, but no resort was had to violence. Mr. Samuel Brannan delivered an exciting speech, and resolutions were declared to have the law enforced