Gold Seekers of 49

Gold Seekers of '49, by Edwin L.
Sabin

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Title: Gold Seekers of '49
Author: Edwin L. Sabin
Illustrator: Charles H. Stephens
Release Date: October 25, 2007 [EBook #23192]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLD
SEEKERS OF '49 ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: "You stole those papers"]

GOLD SEEKERS OF '49
HOW IN THE YEAR 1849 CHARLEY ADAMS AND HIS FATHER
SET OUT FOR FAR CALIFORNIA, THERE TO FIND A GOLD
MINE; HOW THEY CROSSED THE TROPICAL ISTHMUS OF
PANAMA, BY CANOE AND BY MULE TO THE PACIFIC SIDE;
HOW THEY LANDED AT LAST IN WONDERFUL SAN
FRANCISCO, AND WHAT BEFELL THEM THERE AND IN THE
HIGH SIERRAS; RELATING HOW THEY ENCOUNTERED
FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE IN THAT NEW LAND PEOPLED
FROM EVERY QUARTER OF THE GLOBE
BY
EDWIN L. SABIN
AUTHOR OF "WITH CARSON AND FRÉMONT," "ON THE
PLAINS WITH CUSTER," "BUFFALO BILL AND THE
OVERLAND TRAIL," ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CHARLES H. STEPHENS
AND MAPS

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

TO
THE AMERICAN BOY
AND
THIS WONDERFUL LAND WHICH IS HIS
IN WHICH TO GROW AND PROSPER

Part of God's providence it was to found A Nation's bulwark on this
chosen ground; Not Jesuit's zeal nor pioneer's unrest Planted these
pickets in the distant West, But He who first the Nation's fate forecast
Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past, Rock-ribbed and
guarded till the coming time Should fit the people for their work
sublime; When a new Moses with his rod of steel Smote the tall cliffs
with one wide-ringing peal, And the old miracle in record told To the
new Nation was revealed in gold. --BRET HARTE

FOREWORD
It has taken Americans to build the Panama Canal, and it took the
Americans to build California. These are two great feats of which we
Americans of the United States may well be proud: the building of that
canal, in the strange tropics 2000 miles away across the water, and the
up-rearing of a mighty State, under equally strange conditions, 2000
miles away across plains and mountains.
On the Isthmus men of many nationalities combined like a vast family;
each man, from laborer to engineer, doing his stint, without favoritism
and without graft, toward the big result. So in California likewise a
people collected from practically all the world became Americans
together under the Flag, and working shoulder to shoulder--rich and
poor, old and young, educated and uneducated, no matter what their

manner of life previously--they joined forces to make California worthy
of being a State in the Union.
So hurrah for the Panama Canal, built by American methods which
encourage every man to do his share; and hurrah for California, raised
to Statehood upon the foundation of American equality!
The discovery of gold in California was hailed as an occasion for
getting rich quick; but its purpose proved to be the development of
character. It seems a long, long way back to Forty-nine, when across
the Isthmus and across the plains thousands of men--yes, and not a few
women and children--pluckily forged ahead, bound for the Land of
Gold. Some made their fortunes, but the best that any of them achieved
lay in the towns that they founded, the laws that they enacted, the
homes that they established, and the realization that these things were
of more importance than the mere frenzy for quick wealth.
In not many years the completion of the Canal will also seem a long,
long way back. We Americans will have turned to some other
marvelous accomplishment, but the Canal will continue to exist as a
monument to American energy and democracy.
So we who share in that California which our elders made, by railroad
and canal hurried so comfortably over the trails that they toilsomely
opened in years agone, have a great deal to think about and a great deal
of which to be proud.
EDWIN L. SABIN
CALIFORNIA, June 1, 1915.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
THE

STORY OF CALIFORNIA THE PANAMA CANAL I. THE
MYSTERIOUS STRANGER II. HURRAH FOR THE GOLDEN
WEST III. AN UNWELCOME COMPANION IV. A FRIEND IN
NEED V. AN ATTACK BY THE ENEMY VI. THE LANDING AT
THE ISTHMUS VII. A RACE UP THE RIVER VIII. A TRICK--AND
ITS CONSEQUENCES IX. TIT FOR TAT X. ALMOST LEFT
BEHIND XI. CHARLEY LOSES OUT XII. CALIFORNIA HO! XIII.
INTO THE GOLDEN