The record-union., 1892-01-30
REUNION OF 'FORTY-NINERS.
Banquet of the Boston Branch of the
Association.
California Gold Seekers of Olden Days
Celebrate the Times of the Pio-
neers by Dinner in Boston.

From the misty sunrise to the rainy
| sunset yesterday, all day flag, with the
figure of grizzly bear in its center.
tioated over the Revere House, says the
Boston Herald of the 18th.
To some of those who saw it the flag
was full Of freminiscence and stirred them
with the memory Of the days and scenes
long past; for yesterday was the forty
fourth anniversary of the discovery Of
gold in California, and the day was cele-
brated by the annual reunion and ban
quet of the New England Associated Cali
fornia Pioneers of 40 in the Revere
House, where they have often met be-
fore.
Three score and ten and seven sat down
to the long banquet table. There We're
! those among them who had long, white
hair and patriarchal boards; men with
hollows under their eyes, with promi-
nent cheek bones and wrinkled foreheads
-men marked with hardship and priva-
| ton. On their fingers We're sometimes
| rings OF very yellow gold, and some had
rough nuggets of the precious metal for
! their watch charms and scarf pins.
| These were the members of the aSsocia-
| ton, the gate to which is narrow as the
needles eye, for no man may be mem
Der who did not go to California in '49.
THE CRADLE-RoCKERS.
But the members were not all who
We're there. While they We're rocking
| the cradle on the banks of the Yuba and
Sacramento, their wives did their part by
rocking the cradle at home. And last
| night the wives were present with their
white-haired husbands. The gold which
| the miners rocked from their cradles
! hung on watch-chainS or adorned scarf
but the gold which the wives rocked in
! the cradles in the East sat between father
and mother at the banquet board last
night, in pretty dresses and with flower
! trimmed hair.
! 1t was an attractive table at which they
sat. Long lines of flowers wound from
| plate to plate, snilaX climbed about the
casters, and flags adorned the walls. The
house certainly did its part toward giving
! the association good dinner and pleas
ant place in which to eat it.
| Samuel Snow, the President, intro
duced the speakers. In his opening
! speech he expressed in prose, and at a
little greater length, the sentiment which
| Secretary George 6. Spur put neatly into
verse on the programme, as follows:
Beneath Sierra's frowning cliffs,
Beneath her tow'ring pines,
They sang and rocked the cradle there,
Way back in '49.
| Again they meet in '92
With locks as white as snow
And sing the same old songs they sang
Some 40 years ago.
And ere they pass a fond adieu,
They drink one cup OF wine
To days of DID, to days of gold,
To days of '49.
THE TYPICAL FoRTY-NINER.
| President Snow talked of the typical
'49er as he appears on the new seal of the
association. ou may be surprised that
you perceive about him." said he, mo
! indication of personal negligence, nor of
| dissipation, nor of ruffianism. He is no
outcast Of Poker Flat, nor of Roaring
| Camp, nor of any other of the impossible
| creations with which Bret Harte and his
| fellow-romancers, and some more preten-
tious writers, have beguiled and misIed a
/ later generation. There are no marks of
Incidence about him. He isn't an eight
| hour nor a ten-hour man; but from June
| to December his days work begins with
! the dawn, and ends only with the fading
| twilight.
TWO KINDS OF MINERS.
Nowadays, when they open a new
mine, l am told the first equipment pro-
cured is a dozen arm m-chairs and a roll
| top desk and book full of steel engrav-
ings whereon to certify the subscription
! of other peoples money. The chairs are
! filled as speedily as possible with the fat
test men who can be brought in: their
| hands hold their own pocket books with
a tight grasp, but the eye of each man is
on the pocket-bool of his neighbor.
But our forty-niner, as you see him in
our seal, stands alone-bold, independ-
ent, self-reliant.
"1f he had not been bold, he would not
| be a forty-niner. He would have waited
until the elections had settled the fight
ing questions, and till the steamers made
sure connections, and, perhaps, till the
railroad was built and vestibuled trains
made prospecting comfortable and agree
able. Then ne might have been pioneer
Of the modern kind-latter-day saint-as
| somebody has said.
"Io the admonition, Go forward; be
strong, and be OF good courage, our seal
adds the words, and thou shalt bear the
honor won by manly quality
A claim and prophesy; a claim that
| the forty-nlner, taken collectively, the
| ideal forty miner, as we love to picture
him in our imaginations, did go forward
and contend with the difficulties around
him with such strength and courage and
| success as entities him to the gratitude OF
his countrymen, and a prophesy that,
| when in due time all that he did, and the
| manner of his doing it, shall be known
and understood, an honorable place shall
| be accorded to the forty miner of Califor-
MA not Tar DeIOW tne Pllgrlm OF New
| England"
Secretary George c. Spur followed
President Snow. He spoke of the
GROWTH AND PRESENT STANDING
Of the association and of its future. 'sBe.
ginning, as it did," he said, scarcely
three years ago, with only twenty mem
bers, it starts the present year with an
even hundred living members. There is
not a 'tenderfoot' nor 'half-breed nor a
| 'latter-day saint in it's ranks 1t com
prises the solid wheat without the chaff-
little band of survivors of period in
the worlds history the most illustrious
and the most dramatic known to civilized
man. The society stands conspicuous
above all others Of its character along the
| Atlantic seaboard.
But our society is short-liyed So
ciety. as every man present must know