"Prentice Mulford," photographed by Needham portraits, 1877. Larger.
Environmentally conscious Californians may believe trash and litter are relatively recent ills. But the work of Gold Rush humorist Prentice Mulford tells a different story.
In "California Culinary Experiences," Mulford treats of the various food fads that accompanied the "human avalanche" that swept over Gold Rush California—and he includes a look at what the avalance left in its wake.
The canned oysters of those days were as destructive as cannister shot. They penetrated everywhere. In remote and seldom-visited valleys of the Sierras, I have grown solemn over the supposition that mine were the first footsteps which had ever indented the soil. And then I have turned but to behold the gaping, ripped, and jagged mouth of one of those inevitable tin cylinders scattered like dew over the land, and labeled "Cove Oysters." One of our prominent officials, giving evidence in a suit relative to the disputed possession of a mining claim in a remote district, when asked what, in the absence of a house or shaft, he would consider to be indications of the former presence of miners, answered: "Empty oyster cans and empty bottles."
Prentice Mulford's "California Culinary Experiences" appeared in an 1869 issue of the Overland Monthly.
Morality in Pies
From "California Culinary Experiences," 1869. Read Online
Although sometimes absent, social skills were certainly prized in Early California, but the mark of a true gentleman was his skill in baking a perfect pie.
In the mid-nineteenth century, writer Prentice Mulford tasted all of California's culinary offerings, from pork and beans to canned oysters. But pies, he felt, brought real culture to rough and tumble California.
.. . . those who first ventured on pies were men possessed in some degree of taste and refinement. . . .
The early pie-makers of our State were men who as soon as possible slept in sheets instead of blankets, who were skilled in washing linen, who went in clean attire on Sundays, and who subscribed for magazines and newspapers.. On remote bars and gulches such men have kept households of incredible neatness, their cabins sheltered under the evergreen oak, with clear rivulets from the mountain gorges running past the door, with clothes-lines precisely hung with shirts and sheets, with gauze covered meat safe hoisted high in the branches of the overshadowing trees, protecting those pies from intruding and omnivorous ground squirrels and inquisitive yellow-jackets; while about their door-way the hard, clean-swept red earth resembled a well-worn brick pavement. There is morality in pies.
Prentice Mulford's observations on pies appeared in an 1869 issue of the Overland Monthly.
"Prentice Mulford's Story - Life By Land and Sea," first edition title page, 1889. Larger.
City folks often live with a familiar irony: the more neighbors you have, the less well you know them. That's a lesson that California's forty-niners learned first hand.
Humorist Prentice Mulford came to California in 1856 and worked at a variety of jobs during his stay. But even after he eventually returned East, he marveled at how much better he knew folks on the sparsely settled California frontier.
Here in New York I cross night and morning on a ferry with five hundred people, and of these 495 do not speak or know each other. . . .
There is no doctor's shop where the impromptu symposium meets daily in the back room, as ours did at Doc Lampson's in Montezuma, or Baker's in Jamestown, or Dr. Walker's in Sonora. . . . There's no printing office and editorial room all in one on the ground floor whereinto the "Camp Senate," lawyer, Judge, doctor, merchant and other citizens may daily repair in the summer's twilight, tilted back in the old hacked arm chairs on the front portico, and discuss the situation as we used to with A. N. Francisco of the Union Democrat in Sonora, and as I presume the relics of antiquity and "'49" do at that same office today.
. . . men of individuality, character, and originality met there. They had something to say. Many of them had little to do, and, perhaps, for that very reason their minds the quicker took note of so many of those little peculiarities of human nature, which when told, or hinted, or suggested prove the sauce piquant to conversation.
A favorite humorist and lecturer, Prentice Mulford published his memoir, Life by Land and See, in 1889.
"Bodie Schoolhouse, Green & Mono Streets, Bodie, Mono County, CA," photographed by Historic American Buildings Survey, 1933. Larger.
Since early days, Californians have taken justifiable pride in their commitment to public education. Part of that commitment has always been assuring that those who teach in our schools are well-prepared educators, a process that even Gold Rush humorist Prentice Mulford couldn't escape.
Mulford had been an early arrival at the California gold fields, but having little success as a miner, he turned to other pursuits. One of them was writing. In the following tale, Mulford tells of the rigorous examination he endured in order to have the job of Jamestown schoolmaster.
It was legally necessary . . . that I should be examined as to my ability by the school trustees. These were Dr. D., Bill K., a saloonkeeper, and Tom J., a miner. I knew that in geography I was rusty and in mathematics musty.
Before the doctor lay one thin book. It turned out to be a spelling book. The doctor opened it, glared on me leisurely and finally said: "Spell cat." I did so. "Spell hat." I spelled. "Rat," said the doctor, with a look of explosive fierceness and in a tone an octave higher. I spelled, and then remarked: "But doctor, you surely must know that I can spell words of one syllable?" "I don't," he shouted, and propounded "mat" for me to spell, with an increase of energy in his voice, and so went on until I had so spelled long enough to amuse him and the other trustee triflers. Then he shut the book, saying: "Young man, you'll do for our camp. I wouldn't teach that school for $5,000 a year; and there are two boys you'll have for scholars that I advise you to kill, if possible, the first week. Let's all go over and take a drink."
It's doubtful that Mulford had to murder any of his students, but no doubt attaches to the continued capacity of his humorous memoir to amuse.
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