Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1876-09-02
HAWKINS, BAR.
The Sole Survivor of ita Original
Eight Hundred.
Y. WHIFMORE.
Publisher and Proprietor


Eight Hundred.
San Francisco Golden Era.
The palmy days of river mining
are long past. Streams such as the
Mokelumne, Stanislaus, Tuolumne
and Merced, lined twenty years ago
for forty miles with the miners
tents and cabins, now flow on
ward to the sea unvexed and quite
deserted. The Chinaman dug the
last gold. Even he has departed.
A few lingering white men, old,
gray and grizzled - the relics Of
"49 who speak of events in
their Eastern boyhood homes as
though they were of yesterday, still
remain, gathering the golden CLEAN
ihgs on some bar, once the resi-
dence Of many hundreds. Rotting
log cabins, and rough, blackened
stone chimneys mark the site of
once prosperous camps, Gloomy,
barn-ike stores, the doors and
windows shut and barred, are occa-
sionally seen standing amid piles of
powders, the surrounding lodges
washed bare of soil. Even the deer
and grizzly are resumng haunts
from which they were driven TWEEN
ty years ago. Solitary graye-stOnes
are on the red hill-side8. Look at
Hawkins Bar on the Tuolumne.
Twenty-Five years ago it boasted Of
500 inhabitants. There were tents,
cabins, hotels, saloons, stores, gam
blers, billiards, elections, rows,
shootings, justices courts, lawsuits,
pack trains coming and going and
great wagons laden with mercban-
disc creaking down the steep hill,
and all the sights and sounds which
civilization brings in its train dis
turbing the primeval quiet of nm.
told centuries. OF this, only Van
dam and his cabin now remain.
Vandam is an old New Yorker.
He is of the New York of thirty
years ago. Of the New York cen
tering about Madison square and
the Fifth Avenue Hotel he
knows nothing. Vandam was one
of the pioneer seven who first
settled the. Bar. Not ten yards
from his cabin door is the camp
graveyard. Few lying in that
little plat died a natural death.
and Yandam helped to bury
most of them, Ministers not be-
ing accessible, he has in some cases
read the burial service. AS he OK.
pressed it, he was "bound to see
them buried decently." Vandam
| is one of the curiosities of Califor-
MIA gold digging. He is destined
to strike it rich once in three years
Between these intervals he grubI
on the deserted banks for seventy
five cents a day. Wealth and Van,
dam soon part company, The dis
solving agency is whisky. He saw
Hawkins Bar in its golden infancy:
again, in its zenith of prosperity
he will not desert it in its decay
lie has seen it dwindle from hun
dreds of houses to a hundred, from
d hundred to fifty; from fifty to ten
He has seen store after store shut
up, the post-ofiice deliver It's last
letter; the last trial before the last
Hawkins Bar magistrate. He has
beheld the stock of the only remain
ing storekeeper dwindle down to q
few sacks Of flour and a barrel o
whisky. Then che last merchant
of Hawkins Bar had folded up BIZ
cash book, big with unpaid charges
and stolen mournfully away. Thel
the last store was torn down. A
billiard table was left. 1t was toe
heavy to be dragged up the hill. l
stood for years out Of doors. Thl
cushions rotted, the bed warped
rank weeds sprang up around it
| In the winter Of 1862 there cam
a great food, Every cabin saw
Vandam's was swept Off The ba
was covered two feet deep in sand
Then everybody left but Vandan
and that exposed and cueless bill
lard table. lutwO years the quick
ly-springing vegetation had coverel
the soil deposited by the river witt
a jungle Of chaparral No mari
!now of mans presence left saw