members of that pioneer company." This was the first working of the southern mines, that afterwards yielded their millions and resounded to the busy clatter of thousands of rockers.

The discoverer of gold on the celebrated Yuba river was Jonas Spect, who, on the twenty-fourth of April, 1848, encamped at Knight's Landing, on the Sacramento river, on his way from San Francisco to Johnson's ranch to join a party being made up for an overland journey to the States. He relates his discovery as follows:

"Up to this time there had been no excitement about the gold-diggings; but at that place we were overtaken by Spaniards, who were on their way to Sutter's mill to dig gold, and they reported stories of fabulously rich diggings. After discussing the matter we changed our course to the gold-mines, and hurried on, arriving at the mill on the thirtieth of April. It was true that several rich strikes had been made, but the miners then at work did not average two and one-half dollars per day. Marshall and Sutter claimed the land and rented the mines. Every one supposed gold was confined to that particular locality. We did not engage in mining, and concluded to resume our journey across the plains. On our return trip we learned that gold had been found on Mormon island; but we took no further notice of it, and on the twelfth of May arrived at Johnson's ranch. We found one man there awaiting our arrival, but we expected many others in a short time. We waited until about the twenty-fifth, when we learned that there was another rush to the mines, and then vanished all prospect of any company crossing the mountains that summer. My partner left for the American river, and I proposed to Johnson that we should prospect for gold on Bear river. We went some distance up the stream and spent three days in search without any satisfactory results. I then suggested to Johnson that he should send his Indian with me, and I would prospect the Yuba river, as that stream was about the size of the south fork of the American river. We prepared the outfit, and on the first of June we struck the river, near Long bar. After a good deal of prospecting I succeeded in raising color.' That night I camped in Timbuctoo ravine, a little above where we first found gold. The next day, June second, I continued prospecting up the stream, finding a little gold, but not enough to pay. The Indian was well acquainted, and he piloted me up to the location of Rose bar, where we met a large number of Indians, all entirely nude and eating clover. I prospected on the bar and found some gold, but not sufficient to be remunerative. Greatly discouraged, I started on my return home. When I arrived at a point on the Yuba river, a little above Timbuctoo ravine, I washed some of the dirt and found three lumps of gold, worth about seven dollars. I pitched my tent here on the night of June second, and sent the Indian home for supplies. In about a week I moved down on the creek and remained there until November twentieth, when I left the mines forever. June third, the next day after the location of my camp, Michael Nye and William Foster came up the creek prospecting for gold."

Since then the name Yuba has become as familiar as a household word and dear to the heart of every old Californian. Many a partaker of the excitements of those early days, quietly sitting in his eastern home, wishes himself again on the banks of the swift-rushing Yuba, but, alas, would he recognize in its mud-burdened waters the crystal home of the salmon he knew so long ago?

About the first of March, some six weeks after the discovery at Coloma, John Bidwell went from his ranch on Chico creek to Sacramento. There the wonderful tale was related to him, and pieces of the precious metal exhibited in confirmation. Some of this he took with him to San Francisco, and the result, as has been related, was the inauguration of mining on the American river. A few days later, having visited Coloma, he returned to his home, satisfied that all the gold in California was not to be found on the American river. On his way home, therefore, he camped for the night on the bank of Feather river, where the town of Hamilton was afterwards laid out. Here was a broad gravel-bar, on which, while supper was being prepared, he washed a few pans of dirt, and obtained a small quantity of

light scale-gold, harbinger of the vast fortunes lying in that stream awaiting the pick, shovel and pan of the early miner.

He went to his home and immediately fitted out an expedition, composed chiefly of Indians, and prospected the river, finding gold in large quantities. His camping-place is still known as Bidwell's bar, and was for a time the county-seat and most important place in Butte county. Here he established a trading-post, and commenced a highly profitable trade with the natives, who soon learned that the "yellow stuff" in these streams, where they and their fathers had fished for years, was valued by the whites, and could be exchanged for such desirable articles as beads, sugar, blankets, etc.

Bidwell's success in finding gold brought to the river all the settlers in the upper end of the valley, each one accompanied by a score or more of Indians, who did the mining under direction of their employers, their wages being plenty of meat to eat and trinkets of little value. Of these Potter, from the Farwell grant, settled at Potter's bar, on the north fork; Neal at the place on the main stream afterwards known as Adamstown, directly opposite Long bar; Davis, from Lassen's ranch, on the main Feather river, near Thompson's flat, just below the mouth of Morris ravine. Others came in later and worked at various points along the stream, the majority of them aided by Indians, and nearly all securing a fortune.

Such was the manner in which gold was discovered on those marvelously rich streams, and in that first year nearly every man in California paid a visit to some of the mines. Crops were permitted to rot in the fields, buildings were left incompleted, and all the avenues of industry were deserted-men even refusing to work for fifteen dollars a day, so great was their eagerness to get to the mines. From Oregon and along the coast a great many arrived that fall to seek the yellow treasure, and hundreds worked in the mines, became rich or disgusted, and abandoned them forever, before the advance guard of that army of Argonauts of 1849 began to make its appearance. Such an one was David Parks, who worked on the celebrated Parks' bar, on Yuba river, returned east and arrived in New Orleans early in the spring of 1849, to meet the first tide of emigration and to enthuse them with the sight of eighty-five thousand dollars in gold-dust, that he had brought back with him. When these, the forty-niners, began to arrive, they went to the streams on which gold had been found and commenced to work. Soon they were in such numbers that claims were not plentiful enough on the bars then being worked. Farther up the streams they pressed, finding new and rich diggings on every bar, ravine, gulch and creek, until in a year there was scarcely a stream in the heart of the Sierra that had not its quota of industrious miners.

To what is generally known as the Trinity excitement we must look for the development of the mines in the northern section of the state. In 1858, Maj. Pearson B. Reading, the old trapper and pioneer Californian, gave the following account of the first mining in northern California. At the time he named it, Trinity river was not an unknown stream to the trappers of the Hudson Bay Company, who were familiar with every stream of consequence in this portion of the state; that they had ever given it a name, however, is uncertain; if so, it is unknown to history

"In the spring of 1845, I left Sutter's fort for the purpose of trapping the waters of upper California and Oregon. My party consisted of thirty men, with one hundred head of horses. In the month of May, I crossed the mountains from the Sacramento river, near a point now called the Backbone; in about twenty miles' travel reached the banks of a large stream, which I called the Trinity, supposing it led into Trinity bay, as marked on the old Spanish charts. I remained on the river about three weeks, engaged in trapping beaver and otter; found the Indians very numerous, but friendly-disposed. On leaving the Trinity I crossed the mountains at a point which led me to the Sacramento river, about ten miles below the soda springs. I then passed into the Shasta and Klamath settlements, prosecuting my hunt. Having been successful, returned in the fall to Sutter's fort.

"In the month of July, 1848, I crossed the mountains of the Coast Range, at the head of middle Cottonwood creek; struck the Trinity at what is now called Reading's bar; prospected for two days, and found the bars rich in gold; returned to my house on Cottonwood, and in ten days fitted out an expedition for mining purposes; crossed the mountains where the trail passed about two years since from Shasta to Weaver.

After

"My party consisted of three white men, one Delaware, one Walla Walla, one Chinook and about sixty Indians from the Sacramento valley. With this force I worked the bar bearing my name. I had with me one hundred and twenty head of cattle, with an abundant supply of other provisions. about six weeks' work, parties came in from Oregon, who at once protested against my Indian labor. I then left the stream and returned to my home, where I have since remained, in the enjoyment of the tranquil life of a farmer."

Oregonians could not have disturbed him in 1848, as news of the gold discovery did not reach Oregon until September of that year, and Mr. Reading has, perhaps, placed his mining expedition one year too early, and should have said in 1849, or else he went back again the next year something that his language implies, though it does not positively state, he did not do. At all events, he did go to Trinity river in the summer of 1849, for a report of his trip was given by the Placer Times, of Sacramento, in August of that year. In June, 1849, Major Reading started from his ranch with a small party for the purpose of exploring this stream. They went up Clear creek and then crossed the mountains to the river, going up the stream some distance and finding gold in abundance. About the first of August they returned to the Sacramento valley and reported that they had made forty dollars per day to the man, for the few days they had worked. They also laid considerable stress on the fact that, in crossing the summit, they had camped one night above the snow line.

The effect of such a statement as this can well be imagined. Emigrants were then coming down from Oregon, or entering the upper end of the Sacramento valley by the Lassen route from across the plains, and, while most of these preferred to go on to the well-known mines farther south, a few were venturesome enough to cross the high mountains to Trinity river. In this way quite a number of miners gathered and worked on the banks of the Trinity in the fall of 1849. The reports sent out and brought out by these men created quite a fever of excitement, but the fears of the rigors of winter were so great that few dared to go into the mountains until spring, and the majority of those who were on the river in the fall went back to the valley for the same reason.

The error made by Major Reading, in supposing that the river he had named Trinity flowed into the old Trinidad bay of the Spanish explorers, was communicated to others, and became the general opinion. It was then conceived that the best route to the mines must be to go to Trinidad bay in a vessel and thence up the river to the mines. All that was known of the bay was the record of the explorers and the indication of such a place at an indefinite point on the northern coast. To find Trinidad bay, then, became the next and the all-absorbing question. It had been discovered by an exploring expedition, consisting of a frigate commanded by Bruno Ezerta and a sloop under Juan de la Quadra Y. Bodega, on the eleventh of June, 1775. This was the Sunday of the Holy Trinity, and the bay was named Trindad in consequence. As the bay discovered by the Americans and named Trinidad is an open roadstead, and scarcely deserves the name of bay, it is possible that the one the Spaniards christened Trinidad was the one known to us as *Humboldt bay.

* In regard to the knowledge the trappers had of this region, Mr. Meek writes as follows:

ETNA, Siskiyou Co., Cal., January 4, 1882.

MR. H. L. WELLS-Dear Sir: As regards the early history of Humboldt bay, it is very clear that the first exploration along that coast, and within the bay itself, was made by Mr. William G. Ray, a factor of the Hudson Bay Company, who was sent down the coast from Vancouver to attempt the establishment of one or more stations on the coast,

As early as March, 1848, a call was made in San Francisco for a public meeting to take steps to re-discover and explore Trinidad bay, to see what kind of a harbor it presented, and what was the character of the country tributary to it. The announcement of the gold discovery at Sutter's mill, however, put an end to all such designs, and the matter lay in abeyance until the reports from the Trinity mines revived it.

In the month of November, 1849, two parties left the Trinity mines to discover the desired harbor. One of these went over to the Sacramento valley, and down to San Francisco, where they commenced fitting out a sea expedition. The other party, consisting of Josiah Gregg, L. K. Wood, D. A. Buck, Van Dusen, J. B. Truesdall, C. C. Southard, Isaac Wilson and T. Sebing, followed down the Trinity to the Bald hills, and then crossed over to the coast, thus failing to discover the fact that the Trinity did not empty into the ocean direct. They came upon the coast at Mad river, which was so named by them because Gregg flew into a passion there, when some of the party wanted to abandon the enterprise and not go up the coast a few miles to examine a bay the Indians told them lay in that direction. They had endured many hardships on the mountains, and now gladly accepted the fish the Indians offered them. As directed by the natives, they went up the coast and discovered a bay about fifteen miles long and eight wide, supposing the river and bay to be the Trinity and the Trinidad. These were, in reality, Mad river and Trinidad bay. From this point they traveled south inland, and soon came upon a stream whence they found Indians taking fish in great abundance. They named the stream Eel river, and continued up its banks and through the Coast Range to Sonoma, reaching there some time in February. The news that Trinidad bay had been discoverd spread like wildfire, and a dozen expeditions began to fit out, a few by land but most of them by sea, some of them having members of the late exploring party connected with them, and some "going it blind" on general principles.

Meanwhile, the other party that had come down to San Francisco in November, had chartered the brig Cameo, and sailed on the ninth of December. They utterly failed to find any such bay, and returned with the report that Trinidad was a myth, only to be greeted by the appearance of the land party and the assurance that it certainly did exist. Away sailed the Cameo again, followed by the others as rapidly as they could be gotten ready.

Up and down the coast they sailed, meeting with numerous adventures and mishaps, but failing utterly to find any bay. Some of them returned with reports of their ill success, claiming the bay to be a myth, while others still maintained the search. The return of the unsuccessful searchers did not restrain others from attempting the voyage. Ships sailed loaded with adventurers, some of them being on the coöperative plan, while others charged from fifty to one hundred dollars for passengers. In this way the Cameo, Sierra Nevada, James R. Whiting, Isabel, Arabian, General Morgan, Hector, California, Paragon, Laura Virginia, Jacob M. Ryerson, Malleroy, Galinda, and Petapsco, had all gone in search of the mysterious bay by the first of April, 1850, at which time news of its discovery reached San Francisco from passengers of the Cameo, the first to sail and the first to discover, though not till three months afterwards, the long-sought harbor. On the sixteenth of March, 1850, the Cameo rounded to off Trinidad heads, and sent a boat's crew to examine a point that made out into the sea. This crew, among whom about the year 1830 or 1831. He entered this bay (being under the impression that it was Drake's bay), passing close under the bluff called Table bluff, and discovered what he named Clearwater bay, on account of the purity of its waters. On landing he found the Indians so hostile that no permanent station was established at that time, whereupon he sailed farther south and established a post at Drake's bay, which is there yet, I believe. This same Mr. Ray, as good a man as ever lived, at the beginning of the Mexican war, being still an employee of the Hudson Bay Company, took sides with the Americans in the contest, contrary to the wishes of his employers, for which action he was cashiered. This disgrace preyed upon his mind to such an extent that he committed suicide in his own house in San Francisco, and was buried in the garden of the old establishment, from whence his remains have been removed to a cemetery. Yours truly, STEPHEN H. MEEK.