Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-09-30
GOING HOME. !

graves, heaps OIL SrdVoi, prospect nOlcS ana
battered old picks, shovels, toms, rockers,
boots. broken bottles and so on The whole
land would have been as quiet and empty
up there as a dead mans hand.
But years later, when men left Califor
MIA, still fortune hunting, and went to the
northern mines, they somehow forgot all
about the old world, and when fortune
found them they came back to California
to live and to die. There was nothing,
however, very dramatic in this short, safe
return from the northern mines in the
days of stages, steamers and railroads
back to the Golden Gate. Still it was an
event and was enjoyed by all most heart
lily in each camp. And it always seemed
to me that the men who took the deepest
and tenderest interest in the ''going home'
of one of their number were the very men
who were most helpless and most incapa-
BILE Of reaching this one desired end.
I know that when it began to be whis-
pered about that Fred Adams, of Canyon
City, had made his ''pile'' and was going
home there was joy in the heart of many a
gray headed man who knew right well it
would never be said of him that he had
made his pile and that he was "going
home" And when Fred Adams quietly
slipped out Of camp down to friends
house and staid all night and weighed
his gold dust there on the butchers scales
before starting at daybreak the next morn
ing, and when the news came back to town
that the dust weighed well nigh to hun
dred pounds, tell you there were tears of
delight in many an old mans eyes at
thought of Fred's good fortune We
called him Fred Adams up there, but
his name is Judge Adams by title and
right, and he is now one of the rich big
lawyers of San Francisco.
The first "going home' ever saw was
on Humbug creek, northern California. in
the winter of 1854. tell you it took men
of grit to get there. The towards had
never started there, and the weak died on
the way, SO they were a powerful and Sc
lect lot of men, and it took nerve, time
and dust, too, to get away from there
Think of it! Ten miles on foot over
mountain of snow to Yreka, then hundreds
of miles through the savages by mule to
Portland, then a sailing vessel to San
Francisco, then the steamer Panama, New
Orleans, up the Mississippi, and so on.
had been blown into this canyon at the
forks of the Humbug, as a bird, by the
winter storms, and had to bridge over
mighty hard place as cook for my board.
But the provisions gave out pretty soon
and I had to go. Then Frank Campbell,
brother of the late BARLEY Campbell,
dramatist and member of the legislature
when last heard from, got me a place to
sit up with a miner, who had been hurt in
slide. I got no wages, but as had to sit
up at night and SO didn't need bed, and
as the man was too badly hurt to eat the
meals sent him from the hotel, / did not
suffer, but soon made friends with The
poor man by reading to him. Lots of
miners used to drop in after night and
smoke and listen. The book was Harrison
Ainsworth's novels all bound up together,
''Dick Turpin," Jack Sheppard" and SO
on Never had man or boy such listeners
And when 1, thirty years later, told dear old
Ainsworth in London how he had been read
and listened to in the heart of the Sierras
he nearly crushed my hand in his two
hands. But this is scattering birdshot.
Let us go forward.
It is marvellous how ignorant those men
were. They were from what was then the
"border," largely Missourians, and
doubt if one-half Of them could write their
names. know right well what 1 say, for
wrote many letters for them. OF course
there were other men there from other
countries. Pat Flanagan, for instance,
who kept the store. From France do you
say2 No, he was a white Irishman, with
very black beard, and now is the rich
and influential president of the Coos Bay
bank. He was very popular then, as he is
still, reckon, and seeing the dismal igno
rance of the miners he and Frank Camp
bell set committee to work to get up
''public library" And this is one of its
methods: The secretary tackled up the fol
lowing notice on the door of the saloon
known as The Howlin Wilderness:
"KnoW all men that emmy book in this
ere camp belongs to the publick library
except the holy bibel, and emmy man found
gilty Of taking emmy book except said bibel
will be hung for horse stealing SO help me
god (Sighned) The ibrarion of bored Of
directors and secretary of said library"
The result was, preacher who went
away as provisions got short left behind
copy of Josephus. This made three
books in the library now, and Pat Elan
nigan employed me at $3.50 a day, or
rather an hour, for the man could not
stand more, to go up the creek and read
Josephus, to sick miner there. sYou
see he has got the scurvy and rheumatism
and consumption; Pm afraid he's pretty
Sick" said Pat pathetically as we ap-
preached the low little cabin under the
dark fir trees on the hillside.
''Is Josephus the short for Joseph"
asked the long, slim and bony man, who
lay there with his big, bent and knotty
feet sticking far out from under the blan-
kets and over the pole that served for a
footboard.
"Yis, yis, sorr; Josephus is the shorrut
for Joseph, Zeke, moi boy"
'tIs ita Well, by gum! Say, know all
ebout that ere book, sort O. religiouslike:
| jist suit you, see now; and I'd like to hear
1t again; jist suit you, see now" and he
looked long and meditatively at his queer,
twisted toes that were trying to climb up
on top of one another away down yonder
beyond the other end of the narrow little
bed Of fir boughs and blankets in the dark
corner of the cabin. Then for the third
time he said, talking in a whisper to those
curious and multitudinous toes, "Jist suit
you, see now"
And so l read from Josephus, and the
next day wrote letter for him to his
Little sister at home, to Savannah Landing
| Mo-, and signed Ezekiel Wells, for although
he had two brothers with him, young
brothers, who were busy cleaning up" III
the claim, and faithful, loving brothers
they were, too, not one of them knew ever
SO much of books as the alphabet.
Let it be noted as we go along that near
ly all these men were sJernly honest, and
they all had more or less knowledge of the
Bible; many of them, so per cent. more
than now, had Bible names. 1t is very
curious, thing worth noting, else
would not bother to set it down; but
reckon they must have brought these
names and this tradition of Holy Writ al
the way through generations from Vir
ginia and the Carolinas.
In about week the two younger broth
ers got all cleaned up in the claim down
in the gorge under the cabin. and theil
friend Flanagan weighed and brought
them back their dust, cleaned of black
sand and stray bits of clinging quartz and
pyrites of iron, nearly $1,000. Not much
it is true, for three men. But the long
slim creature in the corner, who by this
time was pretty well doubled up, all except
the persistent and ever moving feet
stopped coughing long enough, as they sci
the dust in the goldpan by his bedside, tt
say, "Boys. divide up and go home"
Il.