Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-01-02
THE DAILY REC0RD-UNI0N.
OUINTUPLE EDITION.
IFor tho New Years RECORD UNIos.l
EARLY DAYS.
PERSONAL AND INDUSTRIAL REMINIs-
cENCEs OF CALIFORNIA.
The Ventures and adventures of a Pioneer
Progress of Agriculture in this
State from 1s49 to 1881.
by / N. Hoag.l

that took the California fever. From the
very first the indications were that it
would prove fatal, and the sequel proved
that the indications were not deceptive. 1t
was in the city of Rochester, New York,
in the Supreme Court of the State, and
Justices Thomas A. Johnson, Samuel h.
Seldom and Henry Wells were on the
bench. Myself and six others were appli-
cants for admission to practice as attor-
news. solicitors and counselors in all the
Courts of the State, and we had all been
successful. I was farmers boy and had
been brought up to an outdoor active life
on the farm, and the too close confinement
in law Office had been doing serious dam
age to my health. The California gold
fields and prospect of wealth acquired in
a few years, or perhaps months or days,
were more alluring than entering upon
struggle for eminence and superiority in a
profession already too well filled. The
efforts of my family and friends to change
my determination to become a gold
miner in
THE NEW FL DORADO
Therefore proved unavailing, and the oath
day of that month found me one of COM
pany of ten that had been organized in the
village Of Palmyra, in that State, and on
the way to the city of New York, en- route
by the isthmus across TO California. Our
company was organized in accordance with
the prevailing fashion of the times, s. for
mutual protection and mutual assistance,
and with view to community OF inter-
est and profit in the new enterprises to be
prosecuted on the shores of the Pacific.
We laid in full equipment of mining
tools and machinery of the most approved
styles, and provisions for two years. the
greater portion of which we shipped
around the Horn, reserying sufficient for
,sbou. three nonvns TO take with US across
the isthmus and to the mines. Failing to
obtain tickets by steamer, as we intended,
we secured passage to Chsgres on brig at
$40 each, and lett New York on the 13t1
of February. On the 26th we were in
Chagres, and on the lst of March our COM
pany, with bag and baggage, were on our
way up the Chagres river in three canoes
manned and propelled by natives. Passing
over the many annoying and
LUDIcRoUs INCIDENTS
OF the voyage up the river, we arrived at
Gorgona after three days journey. We
secured the conveyance of our baggage to
Panama at the rate OF Sc hundred pounds,
and ON the 10th of March were all in com.
Portable quarters in the old city of the 18TH
mus. Luckily, as we then thought, we Sc
cured passage to San Francisco on a
British bark, the Colony, for 5000 each
person, baggage included, and on the Goth,
after having taken in water at the Island
of Toboga, we set sail for our destination
San Francisco. On that little bark there
were huddled together one hundred and
seventy passengers-enough, at least, to
make US near neighbors. The engagement
of all was for passage and board at 800
each, making the receipts of the vessel for
the trip S34, 000 We all anticipated a
quick passage, of perhaps forty days; but
our Captain, being unacquainted with the
navigation of the Pacific, Rugged the coast,
instead of going out to sea and taking adj
vantage of the trade-winds, and we were
consequently ninety-nine days on the voy.
age, arriving in San Francisco on the Both
day of June.
UPON OUR ARRIVAL
In San Francisco, not one moment was to
be lost: the feeling of each one of our CON-
pany was that he had already lost fortune
of thousands, and perhaps millions, IN con-
sequence of the detention during the long
voyage on shipboard. We therefore
secured passage that very night for Sacra-
mento on small schooner. This being
done, all made provision for square meal
all round, and the chief and universally
relished article of that meal was a Califor.
MIA salmon, baked and prepared especially
for our company by the cook of the schoon-
er. Our lassage up the Sacran e lto was
she of the quickest ever made by sail. We
crossed the bay and reached Steamboat
slough that evening, where, notwithstand-
ing the mosquitoes, which seemed the
largest and most voracious we had ever
encountered, we laid by over night, and
arrived at Sacramento the next day, July
Ist, at u o'clock. Our trip up the river
being made in the daytime, we had good
opportunity to view the river itself and the
scenery along its banks. The water was
as clear and colorless as water could be
so clear, indeed that we could see shoals of
fish sporting in it to the very bottom,
twenty to thirty feet deep. The banks were
mostly bluffy and steep, and from twenty to
twenty-five feet above the water, and were
overhung by large, branching oak and syc-
amore trees, and were covered by a dense
thieket of young oak, wild roses, black
berry and other bushes. We saw not one
dwelling in the whole distance. Nature
reveled in her own
BEAUTY AND SOLITUDE.
The present beautiful city of Sacramento
and capital of the State was then mere
landing place or embarcadero-a collection
of tents and canvas houses. There were
but two or three houses made of any other
material. We pitched our tent somewhere
about where the corner of and Second
streets now is, and then began to consider
the practical questions of going to and work
ing in the mines as a company. These ques-
tions were soon solved by the dissolution
of the company by mutual consent, but
with the best of feeling by each member
towards all the others. The ID Of July was a
busy day in recognizing smaller companies
and buying outfits for the mines. We had
shovels and picks, but each squad pur.
chased mining cradle at a cost of about
500 each, and prospecting pans at from
SO to $40 each, and the next day all the
Palmyra Company were off for the mines
in one direction or another. The squad
with which l cast my destiny numbered
four. I. Underhill, j. w. Myrick, DIR
S. Smith and myself, and we shipped oul
goods and tent for Horseshoe Bar, on tht
American river. We camped on the nigh
of the Sd of July at the ford near the ole
Norris residence. This was then
A BEAUTIFUL AND LOVELY SPOT.
The landscape was one of the finest | hae
ever beheld. White and live oaks, no
high, but large and branching, dotted th'
plains as far as the eye could reach to th'
north and east, while south and west W.
could trace the courses of two magnificent
rivers by their borders of primeval forests
That night we slept on soft beds supplied
by the uncropped natural grasses, which
everywhere covered the soil, and in tn,
morning forded the American river, which
was of hard, gravely bottom, the waite
being clear and sparkling. On that day
saw and dug my first gold from its natura