"An Alcalde at the mines," from Three Years in California, by "Rev. Walter Colton, U.S.N., Late Alcalde of Monterey; Author of "Deck and Port," Etc., Etc."
In gold rush California, justice could be swift, if not always sure, final if not always fair, or at least that's the way it must have seemed to those who faced judgment.
In Ghost Town, G. Ezra Dane conjures the Gold Rush town of Columbia through the character of the "Old-Timer," who recalls the idiosyncrasies of justice that was "final, and no time wasted."
The first alcalde here was Major Sullivan, and his justice was rough and ready. His first case was one where an American miner charged a Mexican with stealing a pair of leggins. The Major found the Mexican guilty and levied a three-ounce fine. But he fined the American one ounce, too, for having the nerve to bother the court with such a trivial case.
Another suit in the alcalde's court was for the return of a mule. The Major ordered it be given back and the defendant pay a one-ounce fine and three ounces costs of court. The defendant returned the mule all right, but hadn't the gold to pay. So the Major made the owner pay. He couldn't sit for nothing, you know.
G. Ezra Dane published Ghost Town, his literary tribute to by-gone California, in 1941.
Our consumer culture teaches us to value our things almost as dearly as we value our lives. In Gold Rush California, such an attitude would have just invited trouble.
In his literary tour-de-force Ghost Town, G. Ezra Dane presents a series of authentic Gold Rush-era stories through the voice of a single narrator, an Old-Timer who sits on a stump and recalls the good old days when trust and hospitality were cardinal virtues.
I don't need anything to die with, and not much to live with; what I have, anyone's welcome to that needs it more than me. That's the way most of us feel up here. . . .
Now the way I see it, if a man takes what he has and hides it away and then some thief finds where it is and breaks in and takes it, well, that's just in the game and what he expected, else he wouldn't have hid it; and the fellow thinks more of his loss than he does of the crime, you know. But if a man leaves his house open from kindness and trust and somebody comes in and eats his grub and then makes away with his gold, that's a different proposition; naturally he's more het up about the crime and abuse than he is about the loss.
G. Ezra Dane—who, along with Carl I. Wheat, helped resurrect the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus—published Ghost Town in 1941.
"Directions for Washing Standard Hygienic Underwear" poster from the 1910s.
California's Gold Rush was itself one of the most improbable stories of its time, so much so that the tall tales that grew out of it were. . . almost believable.
G. Ezra Dane was born well after the Gold Rush, but in Ghost Town he had no trouble spinning a tall tale or two in the voice of an old timer, a character type we all recognize.
Here I set like an old owl or fox amongst the boulders and think of the days and times that used to be. Them days and these! It's like day and night, day and night. Oh, them was the days, I can tell you. Yes, sir, them was the days of great depravation and plenty of whisky. . . .
March 1850, that's when the first miners reached this flat—Dr. Thaddeus Hildreth and his party—and the five of them averaged fifteen pounds of gold for three days. Why, even a lazy man could do pretty well in diggins as rich as that. You take, for instance, one of these first comers, he was even too lazy to wash his drawers. To save himself the work of scrubbing them, he just hem to a limb that overhung a little stream and let them dangle in the water. He figured, you see, that the current would wash them for him overnight. And the next morning when he come to fish them out, lo and b'God! He found his drawers gold-plated.
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