The Age of Gold

by H. W. Brands

  After crossing the valley, Perlot’s small band lost their way in the foothills of the Sierra. They encountered an odd pile of dirt, like an overgrown molehill, then another, then a dozen, then a score. “These hillocks became so numerous to the right and left that the trail almost resembled the path in a cemetery; only the tombs and the crosses were lacking.” Each man asked himself the meaning of these strange excavations, when all at once the answer became gruesomely clear. “We saw a piece of clothing hanging out from one of these graves; we approached and saw that some animal, in digging, had exposed the leg of a corpse buried fully clothed. Instinctively, we pushed the earth back with our feet, having no other instrument, and covered this half-devoured leg.” Perlot later learned that the dead, who numbered three or four hundred, had starved the previous winter after heavy rains had prevented provisions from reaching the Mariposa mines and the miners had waited too long before coming out. That they were buried, if only after a fashion, owed at least partly to a plea Perlot discovered nailed to the trunk of an oak. “It was written in longhand, in English, in French, and in Spanish. It begged the passersby, whether they were arriving at the placers or returning to the coast, to be so good as to bury the dead they might encounter on their way. ‘God has willed,’ it said, ‘that civilization should begin, in this place, with this duty which a man owes to his kind, to his brother, in order that he may never forget it. Every man believing in a God knows that to bury the dead is a duty. I entreat you to fulfill it, you who are civilized.’”

  After further struggle, Perlot and his friends reached the Mariposa. They were exhausted, hungry, and destitute. They wished to gather gold but lacked the money to purchase pans and shovels. Having left France with the dream of becoming independently wealthy, they found themselves reduced to wage labor. “We were mercenaries,” Perlot lamented. “We no longer belonged to ourselves.”

  Instead they belonged to a trio named McDonald, Thomson, and Dick, who—without asking leave of Frémont—were setting up a long-tom. The group’s first task was excavating a ditch to the device. The labor was backbreaking. “Two workers threw out the dirt, one to the right, the other to the left; the two others, placed in the middle, threw it from the other side of the trench which was only four feet wide; when a stone or a rock was too big, it was rolled to one side or else was allowed to fall into the trench.” After two days the excavation was finished and the washing began. Shovelful by shovelful, Perlot and his companions threw the dirt they had excavated into the long-tom, where the diverted water coursed over it. Their bosses collected the gold that caught in the bottom, and on Saturday evening, at the end of a backbreaking week, Perlot and the others received their pay: for each man, a little more than half an ounce of gold for each day worked.

  LABORING FOR WAGES wasn’t what Perlot had intended, but it kept body and soul together. Not every argonaut was so lucky. Hugh Heiskell, after conquering the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Humboldt River, the Carson Desert, and the Sierra Nevada, died at the very entrance to the goldfields. Doubtless the fatigue and unbalanced diet of the overland journey had lowered his resistance to disease; certainly the unsanitary conditions at Weaverville, the first gold camp many of the emigrants encountered, and the place where Heiskell and his Tennessee company decided to winter, were the source of the infection that claimed him. Cholera was the likely culprit, although the single account of Heiskell’s death—a letter written by his cousin Tyler, who had gone for supplies to Sacramento, the town that was gathering beside Sutter’s Fort—prevents a positive identification of the cause of death. “I did not see him during his illness, nor did I know but what he was well till I got back from Sacramento,” Tyler explained to Hugh’s parents. “The distance is 60 miles, and the means of communication in no regular way, and any message or note seldom reaches its destination. He had the medical attention of Dr. White, whom I consider inferior to no other, but availed not to saving his life. The attention of a good nurse was wanting to some extent, though his friends who were with him did all they could—most of them being sick.”

  Tyler assured Hugh’s parents that their son had met his end bravely. “He was conscious that his time had come for him ‘to depart hence and be no more on earth forever,’ and remarked but a short time before he expired, ‘Doc, I will die.’” (Obviously Tyler had this from White.) “Though it is the severest affliction in human life,’tis a consolation to Christian parents to know and be assured that an affectionate son, though dead and far from his home and friends, was prepared to meet the dreaded hour.”

  FATE IS OFTEN ARBITRARY, but Heiskell’s death epitomized the unusual arbitrariness of life in Gold Rush California. A man could surmount every challenge of the two-thousand-mile trail and still be felled at the mouth of the mines. All he had to show for his courage and perseverance was a stone over his grave; all his loved ones had, if they were lucky, was a letter recounting his final moments.

  Heiskell’s death also revealed the abysmal living conditions in the mining camps. Like Heiskell, most of the overlanders went more or less straight to the mines from the trail, and so the mining camps—as the towns that sprang up around the placers were called—represented their first encounter with community life in California. But this was community life of a kind none had experienced in the East. The populations of the camps were less transient than that of San Francisco—these, after all, were destinations, not a way station—but they were unsettled just the same. The frenzy to be digging was even more compelling than in San Francisco, for before the argonauts’ very eyes the best placers were being snatched up. To waste a moment for such mundane chores as washing clothes, building latrines, or even cooking decent meals was to jeopardize all they had struggled so hard to accomplish. Tomorrow we bathe; today we dig.

  The result was predictable: regular outbreaks of disease, made worse by the weariness and reduced resistance of those who had been so long under strain. Cholera was familiar, but no less deadly for its familiarity. Scurvy and other diet-deficiency diseases became common. And when the miners got sick, they could hardly count on medical attention. Hugh Heiskell was fortunate to have a physician look after him, even if Dr. White’s ministrations failed to prevent his death. Doctors willing to be doctors were as hard to find in the mining camps as chambermaids at the coast; like nearly everyone else who had come west, they wanted to look for gold. When they did deign to see patients, their services were very expensive. “Physicians are all making fortunes in this country,” one miner moaned. “They will hardly look at a man’s tongue for less than an ounce of gold! I have known doctors, although they are scarcly worthy of the title (for most of them here are quacks), charge a patient as much as $100 for one visit and prescription.”

  The high price of services was mirrored by the high price of goods. One of the most salient aspects of mining camp life, and the one that provoked the most consistent complaints from the miners, was the exorbitant cost of food and other essentials of life. Tom Archer, reflecting on his experiences in a camp near the Mariposa, explained, “The price of provisions had become so high that our paltry earnings were not nearly sufficient to pay for the food we required to keep us alive. Flour was $1 a lb., pork the same, Chilian jerky (dried beef) half a dollar to 75 cents, tea $5, coffee $3, frijoles (dried beans) about half a dollar, and everything else in the same proportion.” Archer and a partner worked for three months, spent every dollar they made in the diggings on bare necessities, and still found themselves $500 in debt. (Camp merchants didn’t usually operate on credit, but the one Archer patronized knew his brother and felt obliged to give Tom a hand.)

  The high prices in the camps reflected the high cost of transporting goods there; they also reflected the ability of merchants to exploit the shortages created by the huge influx of customers. Vicente Pérez Rosales, traveling via New Helvetia en route to the mines, noted the success of the man who got the rush going. Near the fort, Pérez explained, was “a large store with a huge sign that read ‘Brannan a
nd Company.’” The proprietor was “the possessor of one of the securest fortunes in California at that period,” for he had what everyone needed, and charged what the traffic would bear. “The store, situated right on the road to the placers, was admirably supplied with all that could be desired for the tasks incidental to mining. I say nothing about prices, since they gave the retailer only the infinitesimal profit of five hundred or a thousand per cent or so.” (Brannan’s success naturally elicited envy in those required to pay the prices he demanded. Pérez couldn’t resist relating the conventional wisdom about Brannan’s flagging Mormonism: “It seems that he had no sooner won his wealth than he discarded his religion without replacing it by another, although gossip had it that in order to hush his conscience he frequently said prayers to Saint Polygamy.”)

  The high prices aggravated the health problems of the miners, who might have eaten something besides beans and bacon, salt pork and jerky, biscuits and hardtack had the prices been lower. The miners’ health was further eroded by the lack of adequate shelter. At least until the first winter, miners typically camped in canvas tents or brush lean-tos. (Pérez Rosales and his Chilean partners slung serapes over branches.) Although such accommodations sufficed, more or less, during the dry season, the autumn rains invariably caught many miners out. Before they could arrange something more substantial, they got cold and wet and often sick. Their indoor options were sharply circumscribed by what they could afford, which often was nothing better than a spot on the floor of one of the hotels that sprang up in each camp.

  Yet camp life wasn’t without its pleasures. Foremost, of course, was the thrill of a rich strike. Every miner heard of fellows finding placers that paid fabulously—the pair on Weber Creek who collected $17,000 in dust and nuggets in seven days; the six miners (working with fifty Indians) who gathered 273 pounds of gold on the Feather River; the Irishman who took $26,000 out of Sullivan Bar. It was in the nature of such stories that they almost always happened last month or over the next ridge, but they remained sufficiently credible as to keep the miners at their labors, and to keep them hoping that such good fortune might befall them.

  Gambling of other sorts took place in the camps on a more institutionalized basis. Saloons appeared as quickly as the miners, and despite the high cost of living, miners could always find a dollar or two, or ten or a hundred, for booze and cards. Monte and faro were the indoor games of choice, but miners would wager on just about anything: horse races, cockfights, dogfights, bear fights, bear-and-bull fights. Humans fought frequently in the camps, especially after an evening in the saloons; occasionally they wrestled and boxed for the entertainment of paying—and betting—customers. In time, most of the diversions and vices of the outside world found their way to the camps: vaudeville, stage plays, concerts, opera, prostitution. Pretty nearly whatever a man wanted, and could pay for, he could get.

  WHAT WOMEN WANTED, and could get, was another matter. Especially in the early days of the Gold Rush, there weren’t enough women in the mining camps to have much effect on life there. Those who did find themselves in the camps, like Sarah Royce, had to struggle to create a space in an overwhelmingly male world.

  Sarah settled at Weaverville about the same time Hugh Heiskell did. Josiah briefly attempted mining, but amid the crowd in the diggings he had little luck. He decided instead to try his hand as a merchant, having had some experience in the retail trade back east. Taking the last of his and Sarah’s money from the overland journey, he headed down to Sam Bran- nan’s store to purchase supplies.

  In his absence Sarah began to establish a home. Her standards—at least at first—were higher than those of her neighbors. Instead of a tent or lean-to, she wanted a house, with walls and doors. Instead of dinner cooked over a fire and eaten on stumps, she wanted a kitchen with table and chairs. Sketching out her design, she sought to engage some men to build it. But no one would work for her. “All were so absorbed in washing out gold, or hunting for some to wash, that they could not think of doing anything else,” she wrote. She had to settle for a large tent, divided into two rooms: the rear one for living, the front one for the store Josiah opened with a few partners on his return from Sacramento.

  Sarah spent her days in the store, with Mary underfoot or venturing cautiously outside. The experience put Sarah into contact with the full diversity of mining camp life. Several of her neighbor-customers were men of intelligence and education. One was a doctor, another a lawyer, another a scientist. There were merchants, mechanics, farmers, teachers. Each had come to test his luck at mining, driven by a dream of a better life than he could find at home. Often they were touched by the sight of Sarah and Mary, and stole moments on their way to and from the diggings just to watch. “Excuse me, madam,” said one, passing the Royce tent one day. “May I speak to the little girl? We see so few ladies and children in California, and she is about the size of a little sister I left at home.”

  With such folk as these, Sarah might have come into contact back east. “But, mingled with these better sort of men who formed the majority, were others of a different class,” she explained.

  Roughly-reared frontier men, almost as ignorant of civilized life as savages. Reckless bravados, carrying their characters in their faces and demeanor, even when under the restraints imposed by policy. All these and more were represented in the crowd who used to come for their meat and other provisions in the early morning hours. There were even some Indians, who were washing out gold in the neighboring ravines, and who used to come with the others to buy provisions. It was a motley assembly, and they kept two or three of us very busy; for payments were made almost exclusively in gold-dust, and it took longer to weigh that than it would have done to receive coin and give change. But coin was very rare in the mines at that time, so we had our little gold scales and weights, and I soon became quite expert in handling them.

  Sarah avoided the rougher aspects of camp life whenever possible. She eschewed liquor and gambling. But she couldn’t keep entirely clear of the rowdiness. Like many camps, Weaverville was situated on two sides of a canyon. On the slope opposite the Royce residence was a saloon. At night the revelers regularly interrupted her and Josiah’s slumber, but one evening in particular stuck in her memory. “That was past midnight, one rainy, dark night, when we were startled from sleep by a loud shout, followed by various outcries, several running footsteps, and three or four pistol shots.” She and Josiah peered through the dimness to discern the cause of the shooting, but buildings and trees blocked the view. “The next morning we were told by one who had inquired, that a gambler who had lost several times, and saw himself about to lose again, had snatched all the money from the table by a sudden movement, and fled out into the darkness before any one had been aware of his intentions. Then, two or three had followed with shots; but he had escaped them.”

  In some cases the boisterousness reflected nothing more than the need of men, mostly young, who spent long days at hard labor, to blow off steam. In other cases, however, it appeared—to Sarah, at any rate—to indicate an undercurrent of discontent and sadness that ran through the camp.

  Discontent: for most of them had come to California with the hope of becoming easily and rapidly rich, and so, when they had to toil for days before finding gold, and, when they had found it, had to work hard in order to wash out their “ounce a day,” and then discovered that the necessaries of life were so scarce it took much of their proceeds to pay their way, they murmured, and some of them cursed the country, calling it a “God forsaken land,” while a larger number bitterly condemned their own folly in having left comfortable homes and moderate business chances, for so many hardships and uncertainties.

  The sadness had a different tone.

  The sounds of sadness were deeper and more distressing than those of mere discontent, for they were caused by sickness and death. Many ended their journey across the plains utterly prostrated by over-exertion, and too often poisoned by unwholesome food and want of cleanliness.

&
nbsp; Some of Sarah’s neighbors, a crew from Missouri, had traversed the continent without once removing their clothes, not even their boots, and subsisting the whole time on salt meat and hardtack. “Of course disease claimed them as natural prey.” One died soon after arrival; the rest fell critically ill.

  So did others more fastidious (including Hugh Heiskell, although Sarah seems not to have known him by name). Josiah contracted cholera upon his return from Sacramento. Sarah herself came down with the disease several days later. But through good luck, and perhaps because their strength had revived somewhat since reaching Weaverville, both survived.

  TOM ARCHER FOUND life in California to be almost as arbitrary as Hugh Heiskell did, although in Archer’s case it was his friend Ned Hawkins who paid the ultimate price. Archer and Hawkins might have been excused for thinking all of Australia had come to California. Their ship had hardly anchored in the cove of San Francisco when a boat from a vessel out of Hobart dropped by to wish g’day. After conversing with Archer for some time, one of the Hobarters asked him his name. Upon being told, this fellow declared that he had been thinking that Archer looked familiar: Archer’s very brother was the captain of the Hobart ship. “I soon found myself on board the Harriet Nathan of Hobart Town,” Archer afterward told his children, “shaking hands with her captain, your Uncle John, whose surprise at seeing me was, as may be imagined, very great.” Ned Hawkins ran into a brother- in-law, a man named Bertelsen who, though a nautical novice, had recently been promoted to first mate of another Australian craft when the entire regular crew abandoned ship for the mines.