INFORMATION WANTED.

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Europe by wars and revolutions, which disturbed all the regions from the Sicilies in the south to Ireland and Denmark in the north; in the United States, by the late war with Mexico, and the consequent acquisition of immense vacant and inviting territories. This especially had given zest to the spirit of adventure so long fostered in the States by the constant westward advance of settlements; and the news from the Pacific served really to intensify the feeling and give it a definite and common direction. The country was moreover in a highly prosperous condition, with an abundance of money, which had attracted a large immigration, and disbanded armies from Mexico had cast adrift a host of men without fixed aim, to whom a far less potent incentive than the present would have been all-sufficient. And so from Maine to Texas the noise of preparation for travel was heard in every town. The name of California was in every mouth; it was the current theme for conversation and song, for plays and sermons. Every scrap of information concerning the country was eagerly devoured. Old works that touched upon it, or even upon the regions adjoining, were dragged from dusty hiding-places, and eager purchase made of guide-books from the busy pen of cabinet travellers. 12 Old, staid, conservative men and

12 Among the publications of the hour were: California, and the Way to Get there; with the Official Documents Relating to the Gold Region. By J. Ely Sherwood, New York, 1848. This for the outside title. The second title says California, her Wealth and Resources; with Many Interesting Facts respecting the Climate and People. Following a letter dated Sutter's Fort, Aug. 11, 1848, giving the experiences of a digger, are a few pages smattering of Mexican life. Then come Larkin's letters to Buchanan, and Mason's report, everywhere printed. All that portion of the president's message which relates to California' is next given; after which we have a 'Description of the Gold Region,' in which there is no description whatever, a letter of Walter Colton, extracts from the N. Y. Journal of Commerce and Sun, further correspondence and description, and the memorial of Aspinwall, Stephens, and Chauncey to congress on a proposed Pacific railway. On the last page of the cover are printed from the N. Y. Herald Practical Suggestions to Persons about to Cross the Isthmus of Panamá.' The whole comprises an 8vo pamphlet of 40 pages, exclusive of the cover. The following year the work assumes a 12mo form of 98 pages in a paper cover, and is called The Pocket-Guide to California; A Sea and Land Route-Book, Containing a Full Description of the El Dorado, its Agricultural Resources, Commercial Advantages, and Mineral Wealth; including a Chapter on Gold Formations; with the Congressional Map, and the Various Routes and Distances to the Gold Regions. To Which is Added

women caught the infection, despite press and pulpit warnings. After a parting knell of exhortation for calm and contentment, even ministers and editors shelved their books and papers to join foremost in the throng. Hitherto small though sure profits dwindled into insignificance under the new aspect, and the trader closed his ledger to depart; and so the toiling farmer, whose mortgage loomed above the growing family, the briefless lawyer, the starving student, the quack, the idler, the harlot, the gambler, the henpecked husband, the disgraced; with many earnest, enterprising, honest men and devoted women. These and others turned their faces westward, resolved to stake their all upon a cast; their swift thoughts, like the arrow of Acestes, taking fire as they flew. Stories exaggerated by inflamed imaginations broke the calm of a million hearts, and tore families asunder, leaving

Practical Advice to Voyagers. New York, J. E. Sherwood, publisher and proprietor; California, Berford & Co., and C. W. Holden, San Francisco, 1849. This is a work of more pretensions than the first edition. The first 19 pages are geographical, in the compilation of which Bryant and others are freely drawn from. Letters from Folsom to Quartermaster Jesup, printed originally in the Washington Globe, are added. Thirty-one pages of advertisements were secured, which are at once characteristic and interesting, The Union India Rubber Company, beside portable boats and wagon-floats, offers tents, blankets, and all kinds of clothing. Californians are urged to insure their lives and have their daguerreotypes taken before starting. Then there are Californian houses, sheet-iron cottages of the most substantial character, at three days' notice, built in sections; oil-cloth roofs at thirty cents per square yard;' bags, matches, boots, drugs, guns, beside outfits comprising every conceiv able thing to wear, mess hampers, and provisions. Haven & Livingston advertise their express, Thomas Kensett & Co., and Wells, Miller, & Provost, their preserved fresh provisions; E. N. Kent, tests for gold; half a dozen their gold washers, and fifty others fifty other things. By advertising U. S. passports, Alfred Wheeler intimates that they are necessary. A. Zuruatuza, through his agents, John Bell at Vera Cruz and A. Patrullo, New York, gives notice of the pleasantest and shortest route to California through Mexico.' With neither author's name nor date, but probably in Dec. 1848, was issued at Boston, California Gold Regions, With a Full Account of its Mineral Resources; How to Get there and What to Take; the Expense, the Time, and the Various Routes, etc. Anything at hand, printed letters, newspaper articles, and compilations from old books, were thrown in to make up the 48 pages of this publication. Yet another book appeared in Dec. 1848, The Gold Regions of California, etc., edited by G. G. Foster, 80 pages, 8vo, with a map; the fullest and most valuable eastern publication on Cal. of that year. Beside the official reports so often referred to, there is a letter from A. Ten Eyck, dated S. F., Sept. 1st, and one from C. Allyn dated Monterey, Sept. 15th. There are also extracts from Cal. and eastern newspapers, and from Greenhow, Darby, Wilkes, Cutts, Mofras, Emory, and Farnham.

STIMULATION OF INDUSTRIES.

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sorrowing mothers, pining wives, neglected children, with poverty and sorrow to swell their anguish; the departed meanwhile bent on the struggle with fortune, faithful or faithless; a few to be successful, but a far greater number to sink disappointed into nameless

graves.

And still the gossips and the prophets raved, and newspapers talked loudly and learnedly of California and her gold-fields, assisting to sustain the excitement. 13 It is no exaggeration to say that, in the great seaport towns at least, the course of ordinary business was almost thrown out of its channels. "Bakers keep their ovens hot," breaks forth Greeley, "night and day, turning out immense quantities of ship-bread without supplying the demand; the provision stores of all kinds are besieged by orders. Manufacturers of rubber goods, rifles, pistols, bowieknives, etc., can scarcely supply the demand." All sorts of labor-saving machines were invented to facilitate the separation of the gold from gravel and soil. Patented machines, cranks, pumps, overshot wheel attachments, engines, dredges for river-beds, supposed to be full of gold, and even diving-bells, were made and sold. Everything needful in the land of gold, or what sellers could make the buyers believe would be needed, sold freely at high prices. Everything in the shape of hull and masts was overhauled and made ready for sea. Steamships, clippers, schooners, and brigs sprang from the stocks as if by the magician's wand, and the wharves were alive with busy workers. The streets were thronged with hurrying, bustling purchasers, most of them conspicuous in travelling attire of significant aspect, rough loose coats and blanket robes meeting high hunting-boots, and shaded by huge felt hats of sombre color. A large proportion

13 It is coming-nay, at hand,' cried Horace Greeley, in the N. Y. Tribune; 'there is no doubt of it. We are on the brink of the Age of Gold! We look for an addition, within the next four years, equal to at least one thousand millions of dollars to the general aggregate of gold in circulation and use throughout the world. This is almost inevitable."

bore the stamp of countrymen or villagers, who had formed parties of from ten to over a hundred members, the better to face the perils magnified by distance, and to assist one another in the common object. The immediate purpose, however, was to combine for the purchase of machinery and outfit, and for reduced passage rates. Indeed, the greater part of the emigrants were in associations, limited in number by district clanship, or by shares ranging as high as $1,000 each, which in such a case implied the purchase of the vessel, laden with wooden houses in sections, with mills and other machinery, and with goods for trade. In some instances the outfit was provided by a few men; perhaps a family stinted itself to send one of its members, often a scapegrace resolved upon a new life; or money was contributed by more cautious stayers-at-home for proxies, on condition of heavy repayment, or labor, or shares in profits;15 but as a rule, obligations broke under the strain of varied attractions on the scene, and debtors were lost in the throng of the mines.1 The associations were too unwieldy and

14

14 Among the many instances of such associations is the one entitled Kennebec Trading and Mining Co., which sailed in the Obed Mitchel from N. Bedford on March 31, 1849, arrived at S. F. on Sept. 17th, laid out the town of New York, placed the steamer Gov. Dana for river traffic, opened a sawmill, etc. Boynton's MS., 1 et seq. The Mattapan and Cal. Trading and Mining Co., of 42 members, left Boston in the Ann. Strout's recollections, in S. F. Post, July 14, 1877; the Linda Mining and Dredging Assoc. started in the bark Linda, with a steamboat and a dredger, the latter for scooping up the metal. Other notable companies were those by the Edward Everett, of 152 members, which left Boston in Dec. 1848; Robert Browne, which left New York in Feb. 249, with 200 passengers; the Matthewson party, from New York, in March; the Warren party of 30 members, from New York, in Feb.; the Mary Jane party. One party of seven left Nantucket in Dec. 1849, in the Mary and Emma, of only 44 tons, and arrived safely after 149 days. Others were known by the names of the town or county in which they organized, as Utica, Albany, Buffalo. See details of outfit, passage, etc., in Warren's Dust and Foam, 12 et seq.; Matthewson's Statement, MS., 1-3; Cerruti's Ramblings, MS., 94, and later MS. references; also recollections printed in different journals, as San José Pioneer, Dec. 8, 1877, etc.; Sac. Record-Union, July 7, 1875, Nov. 26, 1878, etc.; Shasta Courier, March 25, 1865, March 16, 1867; Stockton Indep., Nov. 1, 1873; Alta Cal., passim; Placer Times, Apr. 28, 1849; Brown's Statement, MS., 1; Hunt's Merch. Mag., xxx. 55-64, xxxii. 354-5; Larkin's Doc., vi. 185, 198, etc.

15 Crosby, Events Cal., MS., 26, was deputed by others to report on the field.

16 Large sums were recklessly advanced to individuals as well as societies by rich men, stricken by the fever, but declining to go in person. Probably

OVERLAND TRAVEL.

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too hastily organized, with little knowledge of members and requirements, the best men being most eager to escape the yoke.

The

The overland route was the first to suggest itself, in accordance with American pioneer usage, but this could not be attempted during winter. The sea was always open, and presented, moreover, a presumably swifter course, with less preparations for outfit. way round Cape Horn was well understood by the coast-dwellers, who formed the pioneers in this movement, familiar as they were with the trading vessels and whalers following that circuit, along the path opened by Magellan, and linked to the explorations of Cortés and Cabrillo. There were also the short-cuts across Panamá, Nicaragua, and Mexico, now becoming familiar to the people of the United States through the agitation for easy access to the newly acquired possessions on the Pacific. For all these vessels offered themselves; and in November 1848 the movement began with the departure of several vessels. In December it had attained the dimensions of a rush. From New York, Boston, Salem, Norfolk, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, between the 14th of December, 1848, and the 18th of January, 1849, departed 61 sailing vessels, averaging 50 passengers each, to say nothing of those sent from Charleston, New Orleans, and other ports. Sixty ships were announced to sail from New York in the month of February 1849, 70 from Philadelphia and Boston, and 11 from New Bedford. The hegira continued throughout the year, and during the winter of 1849 and the spring of 1850

nine out of ten of such loans were lost, less through actual dishonesty than through the extravagant habits among miners, who improvidently reckoned on a future rich find for such demands. Few of the companies held together, even till Cal. was reached; none that I have ever heard of accomplished anything, as an original body, in the mines or towns. If they did not quarrel on the way and separate at any cost, as was generally the case, they found on reaching Cal. that a company had no place there. Every miner was for himself, and so it was with mechanics and laborers, who, if willing to work for wages, received such dazzling offers as to upset all previous calculations and intents. See Ashley's Journey, MS., 223, etc.