Daniel Knower

“ Our new good chain was attached to our bad chain, and the captain had let out all our chain to free us from the other vessel, so we were actually hanging by our bad chain in the open roadstead, not in the protection of a harbor, and liable to drag our anchor or break our chain and be wrecked; but we could do nothing more than submit to our fate. I thought I would get into my berth and try and get to sleep, and, if I found myself alive in the morning, we might be saved. I did sleep, and when I awoke it was daylight. The gale was subsiding. We had dragged our anchor. ”

“ In San Francisco the sun would rise in a clear sky every morning and there would be a perfect calm; by 11 A.M. there would be a little breeze; by 2 or 3 o'clock, a gale. When the sun set the wind would subside and there would be a perfect calm again. Every day would be the same, month after month. What was almost a gale on the coast would be a gentle breeze up in the mining district, in the interior. The next day that air would be displaced by another gale from over the thousand miles of ocean, for it is impossible to imagine any other country with purer air. ”

“ I want to try to paint to the mind of the reader the condition of California at that time, and the views of the pioneers in those days. I am doing it in the form of a personal narrative, as it enables me more distinctly to recall to my mind the events of those days in which I was a participant. Such fluctuations of fortune as then occurred, the world never saw before in the same space of time, and probably never will again, where common labor was $16 per day. ”

“ Broderick headed the Northern sentiment; Gwin, who had been a United States Marshal in Mississippi, the Southern. I met him often. He would come into a bar-room and say: "I did not come here to dig gold, but to represent you in the United States Senate." He would then say: "Come up all, and take a drink." I thought that was a strange way to inspire the people with the idea that he was the proper person to represent them in the United States Senate. He was elected, with Colonel Freemont, the first two United States Senators from California. ”

“ I have dug gold in the cellar of the brewery in San Francisco. I think most all the soil of that part of California is impregnated with gold. But the point is to find it in sufficient quantities to pay to dig it. As an illustration, if you knew that in a certain piece of ground there was $5,000 worth of gold, and it cost you $10,000 to wash all the ground to get it, of course that land would have no gold value. I found at Coloma that my friends had left the Dutch bar and gone to the middle fork of the American river, some distance from there. ”

“ How the gold came there is one of the mysteries of nature. One theory is, that the Sierra Nevada mountains were once the banks of the Pacific ocean, and all California had been thrown up from the bottom of the sea from that depth where gold was a part of the formation of the earth, in connection with quartz, and as all gold appears in a molten state, which would go to corroborate this theory. ”

“ The professional bull-fighters got their red flags and drew the bull off, and the greaser escaped, and seemed to be surprised at the excitement of the audience. They succeeded in getting the bull out, and dragging out the dead horse, and letting in a less ferocious one. The same performance was gone through with him, as already described, except that this one was conquered. At last, when the bull pitched at the man, he holds his sword in such a way that the weight of the animal comes on it, and passes between his foreshoulders and penetrates his heart. ”

“ Lumber was selling as high as from three to four hundred dollars per thousand feet in San Francisco at that time. But I was making certain of a good profit and running no risk of what might happen in the future.
I had another offer of a number of lots on Stockton street, the next street above the plaza in the heart of the city, for six of the smaller ones, which, if I had consummated, would have made my fortune. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, if taken at the flood tide, leads on to fortune, or, if not seized, are forever lost." ”

“ I entered in a bond, with myself, that if I were ever on a jury I would never show any mercy to a thief.
As we were sailing along many ships and schooners came in sight. We were evidently nearing the great port of New York. The land of Staten Island soon came in sight covered with snow. It was late in the fall. It was the first I had seen since my departure from the same port, except on the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Here ends my personal adventures of the days of the Forty-niners, to be continued by the peroration on California. ”

“ The foundation of the fortunes of many bankers and wealthy capitalists of the East were made in California in the days of the Forty-niners. Mill, the owner of the great building at the corner of Broadway and Wall street, the ground on which it stands costing a million, who is many times a millionaire, went from Sing Sing, in this State, a poor boy in 1849. Armour, the great millionaire cattle dealer of Chicago, made his first money there in those days, which laid the foundation of his great fortune, and many others I can recall to mind too numerous to mention. ”

“ At one time Spain owned all South America, Mexico, California, Louisiana and Florida. Panama was the only port of entry on the Pacific coast, and controlled its commerce. As you enter the gates of the walled city there is a chapel just inside, where the lights are always burning on its altars. The first thing on entering all good Catholics enter, kneel and make their devotions, seeking the protection of the patron saint of the city. ”

“ The Northern Pacific coast was then almost unpopulated. California a territory three times as large as New York and Oregon and the State of Washington, all now being cultivated and containing large and populous cities, and railroads connecting them with the East. Why that country should have remained uninhabited for untold ages, where universal stillness must have prevailed as far as human activity is concerned, is one of the unfathomable mysteries of nature. ”

“ One of the passengers who came up with me, a tailor, from Salem, Mass., asked me if I would not give him a free passage back on the vessel to San Francisco; that he wanted to try to get home; he was discouraged. I said to him you have traveled eighteen thousand miles to get to the gold mines, and now you are within half a day of them and want to go home without trying your fortune. If you do go, you will never forgive yourself, but go to the mines and try your luck; then, if you are discouraged and want to go back, I will give you a free passage, as we have no passengers on our return trip. ”

“ Many of Colonel Stevenson's regiment had been recruited in that city. Soon these rumors were exaggerated. It was said that barrels of gold were dug by individuals named. Soon the excitement extended all over the country, and the only barrier to wealth, it seemed, was the difficulty of getting to the Eldorado. Why the discovery of gold there should have produced so much excitement cannot be fathomed. It seemed an era in human affairs, like the Crusades and other events of great importance that occur. ”

“ The early pioneers had some conflict with the Indians in the interior of the country. Five Oregon men were massacred by them when engaged in digging gold, but a terrible retribution was visited upon those Indians concerned in it by the enraged Forty-niners. The Indians, at first, had nothing but bows and arrows, and, of course, could not compete with rifles. Several other small engagements were rumored, but they soon gave up all contests with the whites, for they saw it was useless. There was an acorn that was quite plenty in California, being longer than ours, but not of a bitter taste. ”

“ Knower, who is to start for California by the Crescent City via Panama, is about to ship to that place twelve houses, complete and ready to put up on arrival at San Francisco. The venture is a costly one, the freight on the material approaching the cost of as many frame buildings in this quarter, and the projector, we think, has managed the speculation with great foresight and judgment. The best timber has been selected, and the best work men employed, and a plan of architecture pursued, which is supposed to offer the greatest advantages with the most economical expenditures of material. ”

“ We passed out of the bay of San Francisco into the bay of Los Angles, and crossed that into the Straits of Benica, which is four miles long and connects with Suisan bay. The Straits of Benica was a perfectly safe anchorage. It was approaching night, and blowing almost a gale. I was in hopes and expected that the captain would come to anchor in the straits and wait until morning before venturing out into the Suisan bay, which was twenty miles across to the mouth of the San Joaquin river, where we were bound. The bay was almost like the open sea; you could get out of sight of land. ”

“ There is very little chance for a sailing vessel from there until they get west several hundred miles, and strike the trade winds. The chances were better with the sailing vessel to start from New York and go around Cape Horn. So the only hope seemed to be the steamer with its sixty tickets and with from one thousand to fifteen hundred passengers waiting to buy them, all seeking to bring some influence to bear to secure one. I saw in the office of the steamer agent a young man, the book-keeper, whom I took a fancy to, and sought his acquaintance. ”

“ Intelligence reaches us of the death of Abraham Schell, at his home at Knight's Ferry, California, in the early part of February. Mr. Schell was seventy-six years old, and was a native of this county, having been born in the town of Wright. At the time of the gold excitement in 1849 he was in the mercantile business in Albany, but sold out and joining a company of friends journeyed to California, where he invested his means to good advantage and became highly successful, amassing a large fortune. ”

“ Panama is a healthy city to those acclimated, facing a beautiful bay, unlike Chagres, on this side of the Isthmus of Darien, which is the most unhealthy spot on this continent. Excuse this diversion, I must get back to my subject, the days of the forty-niners.
I stopped at the American Hotel. I was somewhat in a dilapidated condition from the experiences of my trip from Chagres. The waiter in my room at the hotel took the best of care of me. I soon found he was no ordinary waiter. He had resigned a position in Washington of $2,000 a year to go to the gold Eldorado. ”

“ I was finally myself taken down with the Panama fever, lay unconscious and unnoticed in my room at the hotel for a long time, and then came to and found myself burning with the raging fever, had a doctor sent for, and after a time recovered so I could venture out. In the meantime, the steamer Panama had arrived, and its day of sailing for San Francisco announced. Zackary, Nelson & Co. had issued an order that the sixty tickets would be put up to be drawn for. Those having the winning numbers could have the privilege of purchasing them; that they must register their names on such a day. ”

“ It is understood that a considerable number of American citizens are now settled on the Sacramento river, near Sutter's establishment, called "Nueva Helvetia," who are well disposed toward the United States. Should you, on your arrival in the country, find this to be the true state of things there, you are authorized to organize and receive into the service of the United States such portion of these citizens as you may think useful to aid you to hold the possession of the country. ”

“ The duties of the custom-house ought, at once, to be reduced to such a rate as may be barely sufficient to maintain the necessary officers without yielding any revenue to the government. You may assure the people of these provinces that it is the wish and design of the United States to provide for them a free government with the least possible delay, similar to that which exists in our territories. ”

“ There was a Mexican law that in any village in that country a person had a right to settle on one hundred veras of land so many feet, about three hundred, and if he put up any kind of a building on it, and held undisputed possession for one year, he could go to the alcalde, and by paying $16, get a good and valid title. When the lots became so valuable in San Francisco, after the gold was discovered, many lots based on those kinds of grants became very valuable two or three years after the discovery of gold. ”

“ I came across a brig that had been running to Sacramento, but was condemned as a foreign bottom, when Collier, the collector, arrived there, a short time before, and extended the marine laws of the United States over California. The captain and crew were aboard. The captain was an Englishman; the crew, cosmopolitan—a Hindostan, a Mexican named Edwin Jesus, an English sailor and an American. I inquired of the captain about the history of the vessel. ”

“ We had not fuel enough to keep steam up all night, and we would be on the broad Pacific ocean, six thousand miles across, without the remotest possibility of meeting any other vessel, without any control of our steamer, subject to be driven in any direction. I heard the mate talking to the captain about the propriety of wrecking the vessel and saving what lives they could, although we were in sight of land. The captain said the under-tow was so great that none could be saved in that way. It is twice as great on the Pacific as the Atlantic. There were no female passengers. ”

“ While all did not succeed, as they never do in any human enterprise, some got discouraged, others fell by the way and laid down and died from disappointment, yet others more than realized their most fabulous conception of wealth. ”