163 A Forty-Niner (1849-50)
Our general rendezvous was to be at St. Joseph on the Mississippi, from which we intended to take our departure. I had engaged men, purchased cattle and a wagon, and subsequently laid in my supplies for the trip at St. Louis. My wagon I shipped by water to St. Joseph and sent my cattle across the country about the middle of March, to meet me at the place of rendezvous, in April.
[May 31.] Our desire to be upon the road induced us to be stirring early and we were moving as soon as our cattle had eaten their fill, when a drive of a mile placed us upon the great thoroughfare of the gold seekers. For miles, to the extent of vision, an animated mass of beings broke upon our view. Long trains of wagons with their white covers were moving slowly along, a multitude of horsemen were prancing on the road, companies of men were traveling on foot. And although the scene was not a gorgeous one, yet the display of banners from many wagons and the multitude of armed men looked as if a mighty army was on its march. And in a few moments we took our station in the line, a component part of the motley throng of gold seekers who were leaving home and friends far behind to encounter the peril of mountain and plain.
[June 30.] On leaving the Missouri, nearly every train was an organized company with general regulations for mutual safety and with a captain chosen by themselves as a nominal head. On reaching the South Pass, we found that the great majority had either divided or broken up entirely, making independent and helter-skelter marches towards California.
[August 10.] Reports began to reach us of hard roads ahead: that there was no grass at the Sink or place where the river disappears in the sands of the desert and that from that place a desert of sand with water but once in forty-five miles had to be crossed. In our worn-out condition this looked discouraging and it was with a kind of dread that we looked to the passage of that sandy plain. At the same time an indefinite tale was circulated among the emigrants that a new road had been discovered by which the Sacramento might be reached in a shorter distance, avoiding altogether the dreaded desert and that there was plenty of grass and water on the route.
[August 11.] There were a great many men daily passing who, having worn down their cattle and mules, had abandoned their wagons and were trying to get through as they might. Our own cattle had been prudently driven and were still in good condition to perform the journey. Although our stock of provisions was getting low, we felt that under any circumstances we could get through and we were not discouraged.
[August 16.] Beyond us, far as we could see, was a barren waste without a blade of grass or a drop of water for thirty miles at least. Instead of avoiding the desert, instead of the promised water, grass, and a better road we were in fact upon a more dreary and wider waste without either grass or water and with a harder road before us.
[August 17.] As I walked on slowly and with effort, I encountered a great many animals perishing for want of food and water on the desert plain. Some would be just gasping for breath, others unable to stand would issue low moans as I came up, showing intense agony. My sympathies were excited at their sufferings, yet instead of affording them aid I was a subject for relief myself.
High above the plain in the direction of our road, a black, bare mountain reared its head. And ten miles this side the plain was flat, composed of baked earth without a sign of vegetation and in many places covered with incrustations of salt. Pits had been sunk in moist places but the water was salt as brine and utterly useless. The train had passed me in the night and our cattle traveled steadily without faltering, reaching the spring about nine o’clock in the morning after traveling nearly forty hours without food or water. If ever a cup of coffee and slice of bacon was relished by man, it was by me that morning on arriving at the encampment a little after ten. We found this to be an oasis in the desert. A large hot spring, nearly three rods in diameter and very deep irrigated about twenty acres of ground — the water cooling as it ran off.
From the mouth of Nelson’s Creek to its source, men were at work in digging. Sometimes the stream was turned from its bed and the channel worked. In other places wing dams were thrown out and the bed partially worked, while in some the banks only were dug. Some of these, as is the case everywhere in the mines, paid well. Some fair wages, while many were failures. One evening while waiting for my second supply of goods, I strolled by a deserted camp. I was attracted to the ruins of a shanty, by observing the effigy of a man standing upright in an old, torn shirt, a pair of ragged pantaloons, and boots which looked as if they had been clambering over rocks since they were made. On the shirt was inscribed in a good business hand, “My claim failed — will you pay the taxes?” (an allusion to the tax on foreigners). Appended to the figure was a paper bearing the following words: “Californians — Oh, Californians, look at me! Once fat and saucy as a privateersman, but now — look ye — a miserable skeleton. In a word, I am a used-up man.”
Ludicrous as it may appear, it was a truthful commentary on the efforts of hundreds of poor fellows in the “golden land”. This company had penetrated the mountain snows with infinite labor in the early part of the season, enduring hardships of no ordinary character. Had patiently toiled for weeks, living on the coarsest fare. Had spent time and money in building a dam and digging a race through rocks to drain off the water. Endured wet and cold in the chilling atmosphere of the country and when the last stone was turned at the very close of all this labor, they did not find a single cent to reward them for their toil and privations. And what was still more aggravating, a small wing dam on the very claim below them yielded several thousand dollars. Having paid out their money and lost their labor, they were compelled to abandon the claim and search for other diggings where the result might be precisely the same.
The population of Independence represented almost every state in the Union while France, England, Ireland, Germany, and even Bohemia had their delegates. As soon as breakfast was dispatched, all hands were engaged in digging and washing gold in the banks or in the bed of the stream. When evening came, large fires were built around which the miners congregated, some engrossed with thoughts of home and friends, some to talk of new discoveries and richer diggings somewhere else. Or sometimes a subject of debate was started and the evening was whiled away in pleasant and often instructive discussion while many for whom this kind of recreation had not excitement enough resorted to dealing monte on a small scale, thus either exciting or keeping up a passion for play. Some weeks were passed in this way under the clear blue sky of the mountains and many had made respectable piles. I highly enjoyed the wild scenery and quite as well the wild life we were leading, for there were many accomplished and intelligent men and a subject for amusement or debate was rarely wanting. As for ceremony or dress, it gave us no trouble. We were all alike. At length a monte dealer arrived with a respectable bank.
A change had been gradually coming over many of our people and for three or four days several industrious men had commenced drinking. And after the monte bank was set up it seemed as if the long smothered fire burst forth into a flame. Labor with few exceptions seemed suspended and a great many miners spent their time in riot and debauchery. The monte dealer who in his way was a gentleman and honorable according to the notions of that class of men, won in two nights three thousand dollars! When he had collected his taxes on our bar, he went to Onion Valley and lost in one night four thousand. Exemplifying the fact that a gambler may be rich today and a beggar tomorrow.
Source: Alonzo Delano, Life on the Plains and among the Diggings (1854), 14-351. https://archive.org/details/americanhistoryt00ivunse/page/42/mode/2up
