1894
Dedicated to
Colonel Jonathan Stevenson,
Colonel John C. Freemont, and
Captain John A. Sutter,
The three pre-eminent pioneers
of California.
[Illustration: Daniel Knower.]
The discovery of gold in California, in 1848, with
its other mineral resources, including the Alamada
quicksilver mine at San Jose, which is an article
of first necessity in working gold or silver ore; and
the great silver mines of Nevada, in 1860, the Comstock
lode, in which, in ten years, from five to eight hundred
millions of gold and silver were taken out, a larger
amount than was ever taken from one locality before,
the Alamada quicksilver mine being the second most
productive of any in the world, the one in Spain being
the largest, said to be owned by the Rothschilds.
Its effect upon the general prosperity and development
of our country has been immense, almost incalculable.
Before these discoveries the amount of gold in the
United States was estimated at about seventy millions,
now it is conceded to be seven hundred millions.
The Northern Pacific coast was then almost unpopulated.
California a territory three times as large as New
York and Oregon and the State of Washington, all now
being cultivated and containing large and populous
cities, and railroads connecting them with the East.
Why that country should have remained uninhabited
for untold ages, where universal stillness must have
prevailed as far as human activity is concerned, is
one of the unfathomable mysteries of nature. It
is only one hundred and twenty-five years since the
Bay of San Francisco was first discovered, one of
the grandest harbors in the world, being land-locked,
extending thirty miles, where all the vessels of the
world could anchor in safety. The early pioneers
of those two years immediately after the gold was
discovered (of which I am writing) are passing away.
As Ossian says, “People are like the waves of
the ocean, like the leafs of woody marvin that pass
away in the rustling blast, and other leaves lift up
their green heads.” There is probably not
five per cent of the population of California to-day,
of those days, scenes and events of which I have tried
to portray. Another generation have taken their
places who can know but little of those times except
by tradition. I, being one of the pioneers, felt
it a duty, or an inspiration seemed to come over me
as an obligation I owed to myself and compatriots
of those times, to do what I could to perpetuate the
memory of them to some extent in the history of our
country as far as I had the ability to do it.
The author.
The California Pioneer Society was organized in August,
1850. The photograph of their building appears
on the cover of this book, W.D.M. Howard was
their first president. Among their early presidents,
and prominent in the days of Forty-niners, were Samuel
Branan, Thomas Larkins, Wm. D. Farewell, and James
Lick—who liberally endowed it.
