goldfields

Another letter from Dr. John Townsend to his wife:

Peyeys Ranch  August 16^th 1848

Dearest

I embrace the opportunity of writing by Mr. Norris. Yesterday Moses arrived at our camp, He is in partnership with Larkin and Green. He has two machines I think he will come to work on the Ubo day after tomorrow. I and Buchanan intend going up the Ubo to look for richer digings. The box you sent by Foster has not yet arrived but it is on the road.

I do not know what to think of buying a house. I fear it will put us too much in debt. We had better rent. If I continue in the mines I intend to have you with me.

Try and get along as well as you can. I may come home when you least expect me.

I enjoy good health but am very thin in flesh. I hope your health will continue pretty good. Write to me every opportunity. The Gold mines, spell mines. Direct to me at the Falls of Ubo.

Your dearest  J. Townsend

Moses Schallenberger was Mrs. Townsend’s younger brother. In 1844, when the Murphy-Townsend-Stevens party came to California, he was 18 years old. When the party abandoned some of their wagons at Donner Lake, he stayed behind to guard them over the winter. He survived by trapping and eating foxes.

Larkin and Green were Thomas O. Larkin and Talbot H. Green, merchant partners at Monterey. Larkin served as consul for the U.S. government.

I am sure I am misreading the name of that ranch, but I don’t know what it is, even though I think I’ve seen it mentioned in other letters somewhere. Any suggestions?

Dr. John Townsend came to California in 1844 with the Murphy-Townsend-Stevens wagon train, the first to bring wagons all the way over the Sierras. He was the first qualified physician in California and the first non-Mexican alcalde of San Francisco.

When gold was discovered he went to the goldfields in search of wealth. Here is a letter written to his wife from his camp “at the falls of Ubo River.” (No one was sure how to spell the name of the river — later they settled on spelling it Yuba.)

Dearest I received your letter by Farnham today, and by Brannan yesterday. I regret exceedingly that I have had neither ink nor paper to write. I wrote you by Stetson one month ago or more, and he certainly did not take it to you. I also wrote by Mr. Davis and Foster ten days ago which you will certainly receive. Buchanan and I are working still on our claim at the falls of Ubo, We have no hands and are working very hard ourselves. Some days we make fifty dollars a piece, and other days twenty-five dollars. We have now seventeen hundred dollars between us, and we hope in a few days to have one thousand a piece.

How could you who have known me so long believe that indifference or carelessness could induce me not to write. Judge when I tell you that I have not only three days since received my Trunk. I could get no account of it. I was out of shirts and all my clothes were worn out, and I never expected to hear of the trunk in the world as many trunks were lost. But I had no paper to write to any one about it. I could neither buy paper or shirts. Dr. Fourgeaud has been very sick of fever a[t] Johnsons I have be[en] called to see him twice as his wife did not expect him to live. I suppose she did not expect to want favours of me when she treated you as she did about Eliza.

I do not expect to return under one month as I shall probably quit for the winter. A great many have returned to San Francisco and I hope you will be able to buy some wood. Try and manage as well as you can I want to bring home all the gold that I possibly can.

Mr. O’Farrel is waiting for this and will speed it on its way but is not going to San Francisco. I will write when I can and do be satisfied with that I think you are doing well to walk in the morning for your health. Take good care of yourself dearest as all my gain would only be my curse if ill should come of you.

Yours as ever, J. Townsend

Mrs. Townsend was pregnant at the time with their first child, which explains his concern for her health.

I think these letters from the gold rush are so interesting. They tell us whether or not the miners had hired Indian workers, how much money they were making, and how much trouble it was to get supplies.  He mentions places: Johnson’s Ranch (Wheatland) and Cordua’s Ranch (Marysville).

This letter is held by The Society of California Pioneers at the Presidio. There are more Townsend papers in the San Jose Public Library.

For Christmas my daughter gave me a book in the Lakeside Classics series. These books are a bibliophile’s and librarian’s dream, and being a librarian and a bit of a bibliophile, I fell in love with the first one I saw, which was Revolutionary Days by Princess Julia Cantacuzene née Grant (but hers is another story).

For over one hundred years R.R. Donnelly and Sons of Chicago, a publishing firm that has grown to be a communications giant, has printed a book at Christmas time as a gift to their employees and clients. The books in the Lakeside Classics series are mostly first-person narratives of American history, often from works that are out of print and not easily obtainable.

Each book is an example of fine printing — cloth bound, gold embossed, with a sewn binding. The small size, about 5″ by 8″, feels pleasant in the hand. Everything about the book is good quality — the paper, the typography, the illustrations. These books are a sheer pleasure to read.

And which book did my daughter give me? A Bidwell book, of course. In 1928 the Lakeside Press published Echoes of the Past in California, by John Bidwell, together with another California classic, In Camp and Cabin, by Rev. John Steele. In future posts I will tell you something about John Steele and his adventures in California.

Several of the Lakeside Classic books deal with California history, including the one other volume that I own, From Mexican Days to the Gold Rush: Memoirs of James Wilson Marshall and Edward Gould Buffum Who Grew Up with California (1993).  Just reading some of the titles in the series is enough to make a history lover drool: Six Years with the Texas Rangers by James B. Gillett, Across the Plains in Forty-nine by Reuben Cole Shaw, War-Path and Bivouac by John F. Finerty, A Frontier Doctor by Henry F. Hoyt, and Hell among the Yearlings by Edmund Randolph.

Seek them out in libraries and used bookstores, and enjoy reading!

Every Friday the Association for Northern California Historical Research — ANCHR — posts an audio clip on Facebook from Dr. Hector Lee on northern California folklore and history. This one is about William B. Ide, participant in the Bear Flag Revolt and first president of the Republic of California.

If you enjoy this clip, and can’t wait for more, subscribe to the ANCHR Facebook page and get another Folklore Friday post every Friday.

Hector Lee (1908-1992) was a professor of folklore who began his career at Chico State University and then transferred to Sonoma State. He was a nationally known authority on the folklore of the American West and his collections of tales appeared not only in books, but on radio and television as well. The clips presented on the ANCHR Facebook page come from the files of CSUChico Meriam Library Special Collections, who have given permission to share them.

The year 1847 ended with the greatest expectations and it seemed that the following year would crown my success. Around my dwelling, whose doors were never locked, the former wilderness had changed into gardens and large fields of various kinds of grain. The antelope and deer had been replaced by large herds of cattle and horses which grazed unhampered and unguarded. Even the wild Indians appeared to be not unimpressionable by culture and civilization. With my Indians I always lived in peaceful and harmonious relations. What they lost by my cattle as to acorns, grass seeds, etc., I replaced with wheat, corn, melons, etc., which I planted and shared with them.
Almost in all directions I now had neighbors, so that the social relations were considerably improved. In addition, I enjoyed the greatest freedom which any human being could enjoy and was frequently in a position to give the deciding vote in a judgment over life and death. Then gold was found in my district and my great hopes came to naught.

So wrote Theodore Cordua in his memoir of life in California. His hard work and energy had paid off. He had a large successful ranch, far-reaching business interests, good neighbors, and above all, freedom to act as he pleased.

He wrote to friends in Germany, recommending that they come to California and share in the bounty. But his invitations went unheeded, although he was ready and willing to help any German immigrants with land, cattle, and implements. He later lamented:

Had I had only a few honest Mecklenburgers in my employ or in my district for neighbors! How we could have been the happiest and richest people, not by digging for gold but by the possession of land, by agriculture, and cattle raising!

The dreams of founding a German colony in the Sacramento Valley, and the reality of his prosperous agricultural empire, all came crashing down with the Gold Rush. His employees ran off to the goldfields, but he felt constrained to stay at New Mecklenburg and guard his holdings. Goldseekers flocked to his ranch, ate his food, burnt his fuel, destroyed his land.

Charles Covillaud

He decided what he needed was a partner, someone to help him hold down the land and supply cattle to the mining camps. He went into partnership with Charles Covillaud, a Frenchman whom he had formerly employed as a cooper. Covillaud had a trading post where he sold goods to miners and Indians, which would provide a market for Cordua’s beef.

In 1848 Charles Covillaud married Mary Murphy, a survivor of the Donner Party, and named the town that grew up on Cordua’s ranch Marysville, after her. She was 17 when she married Covillaud, and it was her second marriage (but that is a tale for another time.)

Looking to get out from under the burden of his failing ranch, Theodore Cordua sold the other half to Michael Nye (who had come to California with John Bidwell) and William Foster. Taking the profit, he became once again a merchant and bought goods to sell in the goldfields. He also had high expectations for his lots in Suttersville. Less subject to flooding than Sacramento City, Suttersville was poised to prosper as a gateway to the gold regions, but it never took off, and his investment was worthless.

Everything went wrong for Cordua. Gold deposited in a bank was stolen, his trading post on the Yuba River burnt to the ground, fires in San Francisco destroyed other buildings, mules and horses disappeared, expenses were high and debts went unpaid. He took to drink, wandered from place to place looking for opportunity, and despaired of ever again finding wealth in California.

He finally gave up on California in May 1852 and took ship for Honolulu. He lived in Hawaii for several years, and then returned to Germany in 1856. There he dreamed of starting anew in some foreign land, perhaps at Vancouver Island. But before he could journey again he died in Germany in October, 1857. He was 61 years old.

On January 8, 1850 it commenced raining in the Sacramento Valley. The rain continued for ten days, and this after an already wet winter, with rains that began in October 1849.

Sacramento City, built on the riverside where the American and Sacramento Rivers joined, was inundated, with water extending a mile inland from the embarcadero. The streets were filled with water, tents and buildings were swept away, and thousands of dollars of merchandise were lost.

Here are a few quotations from an eyewitness report which appeared in the Daily Alta California, 16 January 1850:

Long before noon hundreds of boats were crossing every street, far and near, and bearing to the several vessels that lay at the river’s bank, women and children, the sick and the feeble; and as they arrived, the owners of the vessels were ready to offer them prompt aid and every comfort in their power; and when they were safely landed upon the decks, the shout of joy went up to heaven in loud cheers from those who landed them, for their safety, and these shouts were echoed back by the hundreds of voices that were in the surrounding boats, and within hearing of the response. During the entire day and until night, this work of humanity and mercy went on.

As an evidence of the power of the current, the new and valuable brick building, corner of J and 3d street, built at great cost by the Messrs. Merritt, having walls nearly or quite 18 inches in thickness, was undermined, and fell with a heavy crash, carrying with it the next store, Messrs. Massett & Brewsters, with which it fell into the flood a mass of ruin. The large iron store on K street, was lifted from its position, carried into the street, and then overthrown, and various others shared the same fate.

The City Hotel, where so many of our friends have enjoyed the excellent fare that was always provided by the proprietors, was so completely submerged as to compel the boarders to enter by boats, at the second story, the first being completely under water.

The full article can be read at the California Digital Newspaper Collection web page.

For the 49ers, this was their first winter in California. They had no idea whether this was normal or not. By 1862, when the floods were even more extensive than those of 1850, they knew that flooding at least once a decade was going to be the norm.