Although we have seen much doing there in the previous year, and the earliest comers were the true pioneers, the great rush to the gold region took place in 1849, upon the first news being spread throughout the States. It is therefore from that year that the history of the gold fever is usually dated.
So great was the demand for shipping, that even old whale-ships were fitted up to carry three or four hundred passengers round Cape Horn. Even these were quickly crowded with emigrants. But ere long the demand for vessels that would show greater speed gave rise to new models in ship-building; and to this cause we owe the fast clipper ships which sometimes sailed from New York to San Francisco in eighty-seven days.
At first it was much the fashion for men to go in companies formed in their own neighborhoods. Those who could not go themselves would club together and send a substitute, as men may own shares in a ship or a machine, the substitute being allowed to keep a certain share of the profits of his own labor.
Then, again, a novel appearance was given to the streets of our seaport towns by the daily presence in them of men dressed in red woollen shirts, slouch hats, and cowhide boots,—men wearing pistols and dirks, or carrying rifles,—whom it was not easy to know for peaceful citizens just turned out of their farms or workshops or counting-houses. Nor was the emigration confined to the bone and sinew of society only. Men of every walk in life were drawn into it. A scholar might have a day-laborer for his companion. Larkin has told us how this worked in the mines. The one purpose to dig for gold quickly put all on an equal footing, for in making labor the sole means of wealth, as in the beginning it was, the common laborer had become the peer of the most learned scholar in the land. Hence every ship and every caravan carried its little republic of equality. And hence society seemed going back into its original elements, as if gold were the magnet attracting all else to itself.
The sailing of many ships, full freighted with eager gold-seekers, was followed in the early spring by the march of thousands across the plains. Like colonies of migratory ants the long line of wagons crept along the roads leading to the South Pass and Rio Grande. At Salt Lake City, which we have just seen founded, the weary emigrants tarried a while to recruit their failing animals for the dreaded passage of the desert; then to the road again to struggle ever on through the parched valleys, where their gaunt beasts died of thirst, or up the granite sides of the Sierras, where they dropped from exhaustion, till the Sacramento Valley was reached at last, and Shasta Peak burst on their enraptured sight. Hundreds perished by the way, and long after the march for gold in 1849 might be traced by the abandoned wagons or dead animals that strewed its path.
Many reached Panama by way of the Chagres River, whose course led up to the mountain chain dividing the waters of the Atlantic from those of the Pacific. Day by day a motley fleet of dug-out canoes might have been seen toiling with pole and oar against the swift current of this mountain stream. At the head of boat navigation, in an open spot, under the high mountains, a few cocoanut palms lifted tufts of graceful foliage above a clump of miserable huts, whose owners were of mixed Spanish and Indian blood. This was on the route the Spaniards had discovered in 1513. This was Gorgona.
Taking mules at Gorgona the emigrants crossed the mountains to the Pacific, which they here closely approach. At the ancient city of Panama, interesting only as a specimen of that older civilization which had run its course, several thousand Americans[1] were soon waiting for vessels to take them on to California. Every crazy hulk that would float had been taken up by earlier comers. So these people had to stay at Panama through the sickly season, though the deadly fever of the country was daily thinning their ranks of the bravest and best. Thus months of weary waiting must pass before these people could set foot in the land of gold.
When they did reach it[2] they found San Francisco[3] a city of tents and shanties scattered about a group of barren, wind-swept sand-hills. In the basin below, formed by the curving shore, a fleet of deserted ships rode at anchor. Farther off rose the little island of Yerba Buena,[4] and still farther, beyond the leagues of glittering water, the rugged wall of the Coast Range grandly enclosed the bay in its encircling arm.
To this picture now add the hurry and confusion which the beach showed at all hours of the day, and we shall get a rapid glimpse at the humble beginnings of the destined mart of the Pacific. Those tents on the beach were the warehouses of the future metropolis; those on the hills were the abodes of its wealthiest citizens.
Should we follow the swarm of boats seen every hour pushing off from the beach for the mines, they would lead us to the two great inland waterways of the country. On the spot where Sutter had made his landing-place another city had sprung into being. This was Sacramento. On the San Joaquin, where Weber had made a home in 1844, Stockton was growing up. These were the two great depots for the mines north and south.
By the beginning of the new year (1849) the population of California had run up to twenty-five thousand. The winter months, or, as we should say of this region, the rainy season, everywhere brought great suffering to the badly-housed and ill-fed emigrants, many of whom reached the mines in a state of destitution. There were many things even gold could not buy or wealth command. Men who had both were glad to get acorns to live on. Many died this first winter. With the coming of spring the depleted ranks were more than filled by new arrivals, and when January came round again the pioneers of 1849 were a hundred thousand.
[1] Two Thousand Americans. "In settling an island the first building erected by a Spaniard will be a church; by a Frenchman, a fort; by a Dutchman, a warehouse; and by an Englishman, an alehouse." To this it should be added that an American would start a newspaper. The detained Americans having found at Panama an unused printing-office started a paper called the "Star," of which John A. Lewis of Boston was editor.
[2] When They did reach it. The schooner Phœnix was a hundred and fifteen days making the passage; the Two Friends, five and a half months going from Panama to San Francisco.
[3] San Francisco: named for St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, which founded the California missions. See legend of his preaching to the birds. The Mission of San Francisco was situated two miles from the landing-place on the bay, where the present city of the name was begun. At this landing a custom-house was established, and the place called Yerba Buena (see Note 4). The missionaries chose the little Dolores Valley because it was the sunniest and warmest part of the peninsula.
[4] Yerba Buena; first name of San Francisco (see Note 3); meaning good herb: now continued in the island. A vine with a small white flower, common to California.