"Lower Bar Mokelumne River," illustration for Eldorado..., 1868. Larger.
During California's Gold Rush, the American dream indeed came true for some lucky argonauts. Not surprising, though, that sudden wealth could also bring sudden changes.
Journalist and travel writer Bayard Taylor was fascinated by the changes that occurred in some forty-niners when their American dream became their California reality.
During the few days I spent on the Mokelumne, I had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with many curious characteristics and incidents of mining life. It would have been an interesting study for a philosopher, to note the different effects which sudden enrichment produced upon different persons, especially those whose lives had previously been passed in the midst of poverty and privation. The most profound scholar in human nature might here have learned something which all his previous wisdom and experience could never teach. It was not precisely the development of new qualities in the man, but the exhibition of changes and contrasts of character, unexpected and almost unaccountable. The world-old moral of gold was completely falsified. Those who were unused to labor, whose daily ounce or two seemed a poor recompense for weary muscles and flagging spirits, might carefully hoard their gains; but they whose hardy fibre grappled with the tough earth as naturally as if it knew no fitter play, and made the coarse gravel and rocky strata yield up their precious grains, were as profuse as princes and as open-hearted as philanthropists. Weather-beaten tars, wiry, delving Irishmen, and stalwart foresters from the wilds of Missouri, became a race of sybarites and epicureans. Secure in possessing the "Open SesamÈî to the exhaustless treasury under their feet, they gave free rein to every whim or impulse which could possibly be gratified.
"Monterey Bay," hand-colored engraving, artist unknown, c. 1850. Larger.
Sacramento politics can seem like a pretty grim business, consisting more of conflict than cooperation. Proof, if ever we needed it, that good beginnings only stretch so far.
The members of the Convention may have made some blunders in the course of their deliberations; there may be some objectionable clauses in the Constitution they have framed. But where was there ever a body convened under such peculiar circumstances?—where was ever such harmony evolved out of so wonderful, so dangerous, so magnificent a chaos? The elements of which the Convention was composed were no less various, and in some respects antagonistic, than those combined in the mining population. . . . Yet the courtesies of debate have never been wantonly violated, and the result of every conflict of opinion has been a quiet acquiescence on the part of the minority. Now, at the conclusion, the only feeling is that of general joy and congratulation.
"Bayard Taylor," engraving by Rufus W. Griswold, 1856. Larger.
California's Gold Rush lured men of all professions to the West Coast. The man sifting sand on your left could have been your doctor; the man sweating to your right could have been the lawyer whose services you couldn't afford.
Reporter Bayard Taylor was alert to the personal histories of California miners, inviting his readers to appreciate the odd assortment of men that formed Gold Rush society.
Among the number of miners scattered through the different gulches, I met daily with men of education and intelligence, from all parts of the United States. It was never safe to presume on a personís character, from his dress or appearance. A rough, dirty, sunburnt fellow, with unshorn beard, quarrying away for life at the bottom of some rocky hole, might be a graduate of one of the first colleges in the country, and a man of genuine refinement and taste. I found plenty of men who were not outwardly distinguishable from the inveterate trapper or mountaineer, but who, a year before, had been patient-less physicians, brief-less lawyers and half-starved editors. It was this infusion of intelligence which gave the gold-hunting communities, notwithstanding their barbaric exterior and mode of life, an order and individual security which at first sight seemed little less than marvelous.
"Post Office, San Francisco, California," lithograph by Wm. Endicott, c 1850. Larger.
Thanks to email, Facebook, and Twitter, we expect personal updates in real time. Early Californians had to wait for news, but that didn't make them any less anxious.
In 1850, crowds gathered in front of the San Francisco post office after thousands letters arrived on the ship Panama. Writer Bayard Taylor compared the impatient group to an army preparing for battle.
The Panama's mail-bags reached the Office about nine o'clock. The doors were instantly closed, the windows darkened, and every preparation made for a long siege. The attack from without commenced about the same time. There were knocks on the doors, taps on the windows, and beseeching calls at all corners of the house. The interior was well lighted; the bags were emptied on the floor, and ten pairs of hands engaged in the assortment and distribution of their contents. The work went on rapidly and noiselessly as the night passed away, but with the first streak of daylight the attack commenced again. Every avenue of entrance was barricaded; the crowd was told through the keyhole that the Office would be opened that day to no one: but it all availed nothing.
As Bayard Taylor reported in his travelogue Eldorado, San Franciscans finally received their letters and packages from afar, but not until a week after post office workers began sorting.
"Santa Clara Valley Ranchos," cartographer, date unknown. Larger.
The gentle, rolling terrain of California's grass-covered flat lands has been likened by countless travelers to a fanciful, inland sea. Gold Rush journalist Bayard Taylor, however, put his own stamp on this timeless conceit.
Sent to California in 1849 by venerable newspaper man Horace Greely, Taylor was charged with reporting on gold rush conditions for the New York Tribune. Here, Taylor seems to float across the Santa Clara Valley, on his way to the San Joaquin.
I never felt a more thorough, exhilarating sense of freedom than when first fairly afloat on these vast and beautiful plains. With the mule as my shallop, urged steadily onward past the tranquil isles and long promontories of timber; drinking, with a delight that almost made it a flavor of the palate, the soft, elastic, fragrant air; cut off, for the time, from every irksome requirement of civilization, and cast loose, like a stray, unshackled spirit, on the bosom of a new earth, I seemed to take a fresh and more perfect lease of existence. The mind was in exquisite harmony with the outer world, and the same sensuous thrill of Life vibrated through each. The mountains showed themselves through the magical screen of the haze; far on our left the bay made a faint, glimmering line, like a rod of light, cutting off the hardly-seen hills beyond it from the world; and on all sides, from among the glossy clumps of bay and evergreen oaks, the chirrup and cheery whistle of birds rang upon the air.
Bayard Taylor has been called the most accomplished travel writer of his era. He authored over forty volumes, including the immortal Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire, which still provides one of our best glimpses of Gold Rush California.
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