BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 O 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 

 iiiJ 
 
 
 By 
 
 Capt. 
 
 John 
 
 L 
 
 Lewis 
 
 
Mill J, IEMS 
 KISIR OLD 
 
 
 book 
 th< 
 
 < 'a phi in John I. 
 
 '"is. has been published and sent, 
 the hook reviewers. The volume' 
 small and contains the manv inci- I 
 "' "- vveu-known westerner's [ 
 
 is prominent among 
 authors and literary i, 
 g written several volumes 
 etr" - 1 ---* 
 
 t 
 
 Points Out His "Squatte 
 Claim" He sold for 
 $T\ 2. 
 
 bo fc* fie is cf OS e JViend of! 
 ;i MiHen and has visited the' 
 ierr;j it, mt . .,-> 1 n 
 
 . 
 
 ' 
 r nty lnfirmary - 
 
 forty 
 
 the 
 
 man\ 
 
 l^-wis' historx .,r 
 present time tells 
 
 Periences in cros!ng the 'western^, 
 
 aina during- the early ! 5 fr 8 an d hisf 
 
 ^^^--''^-n-u'yjauntsan.on^i 1 ; 
 
 ; u ' l!(1 ; s r this state duHng the 
 
 m ' M ' r . <lays - is intefesting ]-eadin 
 
 aptjjin Lewis was in San Jose 
 
 > |n his way to Paradise v;ilVv.j; 
 
 of his 
 
 *i^ 
 
 his 
 
 Wn TOUnd 
 
 Ills hilt <r -fu 26K Which fa-H Dfli 
 
 ll - t >- in LilQ- JlllI.S. 
 
 the^ traUs"of d th he G VJ 1 reta ^ ne ^' ma^ a c 
 -' - tun 6 W3ll *s a selection o: 
 
 one time a mem- 
 I the Sa^^rZt I ",r SSi , ng Ve ' 
 
 the sole inhabitants of U ^ tte cf Uh Wer 
 hill region <n *>,^^^ ^^ Leandro i 
 
 frier 
 
 I itpd ' KTr"*+u 1 ' w<:;HUA " ivillie r, and was vis, 
 itea oy thn nopt ?n v.4 t. 
 
 <es m ms home in Butt^ 
 
 |rs-?=-".";| 
 si5 ? l.-4 
 IW^SSHil^ 
 
My Garden of Roses 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 Or the 'Footnotes of Life 
 
r- 
 
 111 
 le 
 it 
 
 ie 
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 id 
 
 " MY GARDEN OF ROSES 
 
 "My 
 
 of 
 
 T 
 J. 
 
 a 
 
 r, 
 
 Roses,' is 
 
 r by our 
 
 Lewis, of Biggs It 
 
 i PgpPbyand an ac- 
 of travel over the plain 
 from the east to California. Fol- 
 lowing the argosy is an interest 
 ing story of the trials and 
 struggles of a mining camp 
 Throughout all the boo^theS 
 a quamt philosophy and a happy 
 strain of content with the goods 
 the gods provide. Mr . Lew ^ in _ s 
 dulges his poetic vein at inter- 
 vals and the thought and the dic- 
 
 Mr fcH ing u and a PPealin: 
 
 to VhJ f r^r* 8 , born ' accordir 
 
 is J tle book ' Ma rch 1; 
 
 Tr, IS^Q re r n count y, Indians 
 
 n ,-i Mr> Le ^is started fc 
 
 California, in company 
 
 Martin and Daniel M 
 
 ine motive power for thei 
 
 waogns was a long string o 
 
 oxen Ihey fell in & with Cap 
 
 tain Smith's train and contin 
 
 ued throught he dangerous In 
 
 dian country in their company 
 
 Buffalo were seen by the mil 
 
 lions, sometimes being necessary 
 
 to turn .aside to let a great herd 
 
 JciSS. 
 
 Copyright by JOHN I. LEWIS. 
 (New Edition) 
 
EM 
 
 
 A queen would abdicate her throne 
 To reach the heights of nature's own. 
 
 When trouble come 
 
 There was but one, 
 She stands the oak as well as vine; 
 This dearest darling wife of mine. 
 
 FT <i 3 
 
 
ii 
 
 FIDDLE 
 ftT PORJOLft FE1E 
 
 Pioneer of Butte County in 
 
 Bay City, Ready for the 
 
 Big Festival. 
 
 Special to the Union. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11. CaptainJ 
 ,ewis has come to town for the . 
 >ortola. Captain John I. Lewis is his 
 ame in full and he lives at Paradise, , 
 Butte county. He is 79 years old, 
 he just couldn't resist the call of the j 
 arnival. He says so himself. 
 
 He is a retired rancher, but he is 
 more besides. For one thing he Is dou- 
 bly a pioneer he came across the 
 plains twice by ox team. For another, 
 ie was a close friend of Joaquin Mil- 
 ler, and one of his most cheri'shed me- 
 mentoes is a photograph of himself ta- 
 ken at Miller's side at the latter's home 
 at The Heights. And besides, he is a 
 non tiddler. Fiddler is thejjgrjg, 
 not violinist. Captain Lewis 
 taken first prizes at the state fair witfc 
 nis fiddle and is proud of it. 
 
 Mthough he was born in 1834, in In- 
 diana, h e looks every inch a pioneei 
 He came across the plans for the 1 
 time in 1853, and again in I860, thj| 
 latter year being captain of his ox] 
 team, "in that capacity he walked oJ| 
 ran three miles for every mile of 
 trail '+ 
 
 a bit 
 open 
 
 sides all these 
 
 nnr< derring-d 
 of a poet. 
 
 chjafactftristjcs of 
 
 C; 
 
 which he 
 
 his in h< 
 
 bis love r 
 
 ;t wa known to L! 
 od in it. 1.1 nd.- 
 arden of >: 
 told his 1 life history a? interes' 
 story as any to. be found in Bret Harte. 
 After paying- San Francisco a brief 
 visit he started to jog- on- down the pe- 
 ninsula to San Jose, to visit his son, W 
 L. Lewis. Pie will stay there a 'few 
 days, and then come back to the rity 
 for the Portola. Pie 'spends most oi hill 
 time in an open wagon. 
 
 Up in Butte' county he has four other 
 sons, and it would be hard to tell 
 whether he is prouder of any o f his 
 vnried attributes than he is of his fam- 
 Hy. 
 
 tney? 
 
 PIDL DANDIES. 
 
 ! They ^Wc. - lose oldtime fid- 
 
 dlers. 'They played the tunes that 
 your great-grandmother used to 
 : dance by, and your grandmother, : 
 I you are not so very young. Old Ca^ 
 tain Lewis from Indiana, 83 years 
 old, who got the most applause last . 
 night, must have been playing that 
 same old hune for the last 50 years. 
 
 It was almost a tie between him 
 and McClellan, 74 years old, who was 
 born in Nova Scotia. 
 
 "Those old boys had a great tim 
 as Billy Jordan put it, after he h 
 "let 'er go." Billy was one of t 
 chief attractions of the "Fiddl 
 Conten"' special feature this we. 
 
 :*iio: the em4y professional of the 1 
 Billy is ,the ladies' special tr< 
 The vete-ran prize-fight announcer 
 not often a ppeared before a "mi 
 audience. } 3ut he did his stunt wl 
 out any *sli ow of embarrassment 
 Introduced . each fiddler with the s 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I tried to leave out everything that 
 didn't comport with the title of my book. 
 I will not chronicle man's inhumanity to 
 man. Everything in this world goes to 
 the highest bidder ; then pay the price and 
 be a man. I want to share the profits of 
 my little book with both Caroline Rachel 
 Miller and my girl in the shipwreck. 
 
 Be brief, my child, be brief, be brief; 
 \Ye swung our scythe, we bound our 
 
 sheaf ; 
 
 We ploughed our corn, we fed our kine, 
 And drove our team with a single line. 
 
As friends we meet in Seattle town; 
 In the red-glared West, where the sun 
 goes down. 
 
 Good, cheer, my child ! do not repine ! 
 
 'Tis the year of our Lord, nineteen 
 
 hundred and nine; 
 Yukon, Seattle, where 
 
 A summer solstice in a land of fir. 
 But should you chance to go away, 
 
 Someone will ask, then you wall say : 
 "I bring this little souvenir 
 
 From Captain Lewis, the old pioneer." 
 
Stanza First. 
 
 Young Jewelled City by the Golden Gate 
 From every nation, from every State, 
 We come, we come to celebrate 
 And climb on the P. P. I. E. band wagon 
 O the joke was complete when we walked 
 
 up the street to climb on the 
 P. P. I. E. Band Wagon. 
 
 Stanza Second 
 
 O the most wonderful things in the most 
 
 wondrous fair, 
 
 Go see them all and guess what they are ; 
 But the grandest of all are the faces we 
 
 greet ; 
 When we climb on the P. P. I. E. Band 
 
 Wagon. 
 O the joke was complete when we walked 
 
 up the street to climb on the 
 P. P. I. E. Band Wagon. 
 
Stanza Third 
 
 O the Zone, the Zone, with her talent in 
 
 State, 
 
 Her torid, her frigid, her more temperate 
 Go visit each star in her colors so rare, 
 When you climb on the P. P. I. E. Band 
 
 Wagon. 
 O the joke was complete when we walked 
 
 up the street to climb on the 
 P. P. I. E. Band Wagon. 
 
 Stanza Fourth 
 
 In long, long, after years 
 
 Perchance, perchance our children will 
 
 greet, 
 When and where did your parents first 
 
 meet ? 
 
 Down on the P. P. I. E, Band Wagon. 
 O the joke was complete when we walked 
 
 up the street to climb on the 
 P. P. I. E. Band Wagon. 
 
My Souvenir Page. 
 
 Our world is made up of degrees, 
 The best of the day is the dawn. 
 I address this page to the B's 
 To Beauty, to Brains and to Brawn. 
 
 The great Sea has married the Ocean 
 Made one by Gotheals, the High Priest. 
 A world lifts a hand in devotion. 
 Their darlingest first-born is peace. 
 
 Two souls did meet two souls so lonely 
 
 apart, 
 
 Two souls did greet, 
 Yes here is my hand and my heart. 
 More precious than sister and brother 
 Two souls that were born for each other-- 
 Adolphus and Placiadia of late 
 To unite in Peace every nation and every 
 
 state. 
 
His home is where hurricanes blow ter- 
 rific 
 
 She is more fair and her home Pacific 
 His age only 19 
 While hers is barely 15. 
 He stands a god so lithe and straight 
 Yes we are gods and can create 
 She seems a star in Peace or War. 
 On such a splendid starry night, 
 Who would not be a satellite? 
 
 When the Frenchman chose that he go 
 
 wooing 
 
 She chanted low "There's nothing doing.*' 
 When our own Roosevelt placed his pen, 
 O, there was something* doing then 
 One shrill screech of the Eagle's scream 
 Had changed to real a wondrous dream. 
 
 On San Francisco's shores 
 Where she used to stray 
 
A woi Icl has met to celebrate their nuptial 
 
 day 
 
 On other shores in other lands 
 Perchance you'll clasp with gentle hands. 
 
 I bring this little Souvenir 
 
 From Capt. Lewis, the old Pioneer. 
 
 Captain Lezvis, 
 
 Lone Oak. 
 
My Garden of Roses 
 
 ~ ^*r 
 
 I was born in Warren County, In- 
 diana, March 15, 1834, in a log cabin. 
 There was a cluster of log cabins and the 
 old block house was there ; the cabin was 
 built of hickory logs, and old Hickory 
 was born the I5th day of March. There 
 was more expected of me than the or- 
 dinary boy baby. The first I remember 
 both grandfathers and uncles were there. 
 Grandfather Lewis was born in Alber- 
 marle County, Virginia. He was a fol- 
 lower of Fox, the first Quaker, and a rel- 
 ative of Captain Lewis, the explorer. 
 Grandfather Statzell was a Pennsylvania 
 German; both grandfathers were soldiers 
 in the war of 1812. The old Bible was 
 our guide. My mother read poetry and 
 
14 
 
 told us about the great authors. I soon 
 learned to read for myself. I can repeat 
 passages from the poets I love all day 
 long. 
 
 Warren County lies on the border land 
 between Grand Prairie, running west 
 through Illinois, Iowa and still beyond, 
 and the woodland running to the Atlan- 
 tic, the two Pine Creeks, Big Pine and 
 Little Pine, named from the pine trees 
 growing on the banks. 
 
 Does the pine trees stand by the mill now ? 
 Has the creek where we swam gone dry? 
 Does the wild flowers bloom on the hill 
 
 now ? 
 
 Does the bluff by the dam look so high ? 
 Does the girls that we loved look so gay 
 
 now ? 
 
 Has time told the tale without a sigh? 
 Would she sing us a song of to-day now ? 
 Would she sing as in days gone by ? 
 
u 
 
i6 
 
 The beautiful groves, Parrish Grove, 
 and her sisters, White Oak Grove, North 
 and West Hickory Groves, Walnut Grove 
 and the legends that surround them. 
 Parrish, the great chief of the Kick- 
 apoos, his daughter Princess Lalala, used 
 to wander in the wood and over the 
 plain while she wandered with her proper 
 escort beyond the Wabash. She was led 
 captive by a Prince of the Tippecanoes 
 and never returned. No doubt she was 
 woeed honorably and was the wife of a 
 Prince, but Parrish was dissatisfied that 
 no one else should go beyond the Wabash 
 to revel in the woods. He created an 
 Arbor D'ay, and all of the young men 
 and maidens came in spring time and 
 planted trees that rival the groves of 
 Daphne. 
 
February 15, 1853, Martin and Daniel 
 McDade and myself, with our oxen and 
 ; wagons well fitted for the trip, started to 
 cross the plains to California. We camped 
 the first night in Parish Grove. We 
 crossed the Missouri River the first of 
 May. 
 
 Alert my boys, you are now in a land 
 Where the only law is your own strong 
 hand. 
 
 Going up the Platte River, the season 
 was very wet. We were in Captain 
 Smith's train. The Elk Horn fork of the 
 Platte River was overflowed ; we made 
 three canoes of the small timber that grew 
 on the banks, and bolted them together, 
 with a rope tried to a tree on either side. 
 Three men started on a trial trip. About 
 half way across the boat turned turtle 
 and two men were drowned, one swam 
 ashore. There was a very large emi- 
 
i8 
 
 g-ration that year. Thousands of cattle 
 in droves ; we could see the same on the 
 south side of the river, before we reached 
 Laramie. I think I saw more than a mil- 
 lion buffalo. They came from the south, 
 crossed the river and traveled north. We 
 often stopped our train to let them pass. 
 We saw only a few above Laramie. By 
 an agreement with the McDade brothers 
 we walked all the way across the plains 
 to save our team. We drove team cav 
 about, one day on, two days off; we 
 often went in to the hills north of the 
 Platte Valley with our rifles; brought in 
 deer, antelope, hare and grouse. Often 
 we didn't get back to the road until 12 
 o'clock at night. The wolves would sur- 
 round us and travel along with us, a 
 dozen or more together ; they had a way 
 of cracking their teeth that made nigl t 
 hideous. 
 
19 
 
 From every State in the Union we 
 were fellow travelers that created a sort 
 of Freemasonry, in passing and repass- 
 ing we became acquainted with a great 
 many people. We spent the evenings 
 visiting; the old violin would be brought 
 in to play. We often danced cotillions on 
 the green. I had often heard of the sim- 
 ple life of the Indian in our rambles. 
 North of the road, sometimes ten miles 
 out, we never saw his habitation. The 
 Oiliahas, the Pawnees and the Sioux 
 would come in from the hills on their 
 ponies with a friendly salute. On one 
 occasion we met 500 Sioux. They were 
 on a sort of dress parade; they looked as 
 near alike as so many shot dropped from 
 the same tower ; six feet tall with Roman 
 features with no care of the morrow. 
 Why did Pope call him Poor Lo? While 
 
20 
 
 I pen these lines rememberance makes me 
 glad, and we have substituted, 
 These lords of the plains, 
 With more bullion than brains. 
 We have passed Laramie and the wet 
 season that makes our picnic more pleas- 
 ant. On over the Black Hills, up the 
 Sweetwater River, to the Independence 
 Rock, named by Captain King on 4th of 
 July, forty-nine. Independence Rock 
 covers about three acres. It is a sort of 
 porphyry, easy carved with a jack knife. 
 When we passed there in 1860 the sur- 
 face 1 was covered with names and dates: 
 carved there by the traveler. If time has 
 not effaced these names I will propose to 
 the association for the preservation of 
 old land marks to petition President 
 Roosevelt to set it aside for a national 
 museum. The Devil's Gate, near Inde- 
 pendence Rock, is a perpendicular cut, 
 
21 
 
 about 300 feet high, where Sweetwater 
 River passes through. The Pacific 
 Springs on the summit of the South Pass 
 of the Rocky Mountains, and here are 
 two roads that diverge so wide. Rachel, 
 your people are going to Oregon; my 
 people are going to California. We have 
 walked more than a thousand miles to- 
 gether. Yes, we can correspond; your 
 address will be Oregon, mine will be 
 California. Good-bye, Rachel. 
 
22 
 
 
 Rachel, we have walked more than 
 
 a thousand miles together. 
 Some days were bright, 
 
 While other days some clouds did 
 
 gather. 
 'Tis years and years, did I falter, did 
 
 we part. 
 Oh, no! I held this image in my 
 
 heart. 
 
23 
 
 Out west, through the sagebrush 1 
 walked all alone. I address this page to 
 Rachel Miller, Oregon, On Over Green 
 River, down Echo and Emigrant Can- 
 yons, in Great Salt Lake Valley. GreLt 
 Salt Lake City was a small town then. 
 Here we met the Mormon and his two 
 wives, as they glided around at their do- 
 mestic affairs. I wondered what they are 
 thinking about. The Mormon was sup- 
 posed to be unfriendly to the traveler. On 
 up the valley, through the mountains to 
 City Rocks. City Rocks is a cluster of 
 buttes or peaks that show the freaks in 
 nature. 
 
 On down the Humboldt Canyon, down 
 the river to the sink. From the sink of 
 the Humboldt to the Carson River is 
 forty miles of heavy sand. We started 
 from the sink at 3 o'clock in the after- 
 noon, drove all night, arrived at the Car- 
 
24 
 
 son River next day at noon. Here we 
 met the enterprising Yankee. He had 
 laid his squatter's claim and fenced it 
 with a tow string fence and charged us 
 12 1-2 cents a pound for hay. Up Car- 
 son Canyon, this is the roughest road we 
 have found since we left the Missouri 
 River. On over the Sierras, through the 
 Carson Pass to Hangtown, now Placer- 
 ville. The State of California is now at 
 its best. 
 
The beardless youth. 
 
 I was a beardless youth in that proud 
 throng of fair women and bearded men 
 who braved the savage and the desert 
 sands, climbed over the mountains down 
 into these beautiful valleys, fresh from 
 the hands of God. I have passed the high 
 
26 
 
 noon of life. I have pitched my tent in 
 the twilight now; my lamp light is the 
 after glow; life's sun is sinking low, so 
 low I saw some stars when my sun went 
 down. It was before the reign of Em- 
 peror Norton; we had failed to re-locate 
 gold lake. News came from the far 
 north, the first from out the State, how 
 that gold nuggets were blocking the chan- 
 nels of Frazer River, like flake ice on the 
 Mississippi. We took passage on the old 
 Ellinita, a small sailor of the Columbus 
 model. About one hundred of us who 
 had scraped bedrock before, and about 
 twenty-five English sailors : a man and 
 his wife and their daughter, a very pretty 
 girl about 18 years old. I have noticed 
 when there is only one girl in camp she 
 is always a very pretty girl. We left 
 the wharf in the evening and anchored 
 in the bay. When the sailors began to 
 
27 
 
 pump the water out of the ship, one man 
 said this .old tub shall never sink me; he 
 rolled his blankets and took a boat for 
 shore. I said hold on, pard, till I roll 
 my blankets, and I'll go along. But 
 Rusty says good ships as well as bad ones, 
 have to be pumped out, and I didn't want 
 to be called nervous. The lucky man for- 
 feited his ticket and I got the 1 full benefit 
 of mine. It was one of San Francisco's 
 fairest May mornings. With our backs 
 to the sun, our faces to the sea, in a sort 
 of quiet way we set sail for our Klondike. 
 
 We were out for the stuff, 
 
 A kind of metal where the Klondike 
 
 flows, 
 And no mortal has ere found enough. 
 
 It was soon evident that the boundary 
 dispute must be settled between the Am- 
 ericans and the English sailors. We were 
 all full of Pat-Riot-Ism. At last the bat- 
 
28 
 
 tie was on. There was enough of us to 
 form the ring and our English cousins 
 could look over our shoulders like a hus- 
 band after his wife had been declared a 
 sole trader. Our Forrest City boy won, 
 and the Isle of San Juan was ours by con- 
 quest. We were startled by the Captain 
 and his two mates trying to put the cook 
 in irons. The cook was a big, strong 
 fellow. The mate's held his arms while 
 the Captain tried to shoot, but his pistol 
 failed to go. The passengers interfered 
 to save life. The cook went down in the 
 forecastle with the sailors ; it was a go as 
 you please from this on. There was no 
 more meals served; we were allowed ac- 
 cess to the ship's store of pickled pork 
 and flour. What huge white cloud is 
 that? It is a squall and in the mists of 
 that squall we had run almost on top a 
 big sharp rock. Wei were so near I could 
 
29 
 
 have tossed a ball on it as easy as throw- 
 ing down to the second. I didn't know 
 but it was a common thing for ships to 
 flounder around among the rocks before 
 striking the main channel, but when I saw 
 our old French Captain, a brunette of a 
 very pronounced type with white cheeks 
 and trembling lips, standing on deck, giv- 
 ing orders to the sailors to tack ship, I 
 knew we had come very near striking 
 bedrock. 
 
 Two men are down sick. Our doctor 
 called it the small pox, and when it didn't 
 kill he pronounced it Japanese measles. I 
 asked the doctor if he thought we were 
 near enough the coast of Japan to catch 
 the measles. He said he thought we were. 
 AYe are now long ovef due; we are now 
 in the dreaded calm belt; we have been 
 on an allowance of one pint of water for 
 days. This morning we are told there is 
 
30 
 
 no more water aboard; we held a miner's 
 meeting and appointed a committee of 
 "'where are we at." I was one of the 
 committee; we were instructed to use 
 'diplomacy, that masterful art which en- 
 ables weak nations to live by the side of 
 the strong, and which has made it pos- 
 sible for man to live with woman. Cap- 
 tain, this is a regularly appointed commit- 
 tee from your passengers to consult with 
 you about the best means of escaping this 
 horrible fate. We are willing to cancel 
 our ticket for Victoria. We are willing 
 to go back to San Francisco, Sandwich 
 Islands, Japan or Siberia. We didn't like 
 to be serious; we cracked some jokes. I 
 asked the Captain when he thought the 
 wind would blow. I would not pose as a 
 funny man. Yu-kon never tell where the 
 fool goes out and the fun comes in. It's 
 none' of your business; I am running this 
 
3' 
 
 ship. We made our report; it was a sad 
 disappointment ; we will throw him over- 
 board; we will hang him to the yard arm. 
 The days went by; each day we sent in 
 another committee more fierce and threat- 
 ening. I will say in deference to the 
 French nation, he never surrendered. 
 Talk about sulking in your tent. I think 
 old Achilles must have been a naturalized 
 Frenchman. It has been the puzzle of my 
 life why we continued our war on the 
 old Captain, and why he didn't tell us 
 where we were. He could have told us 
 anything. I gave an enterprising fellow 
 four bits for a flap- jack made of flour 
 mixed with water dipped from the Pacific 
 Ocean. One bite was enough. Don't 
 never go to sea and perish in a calm. 
 There is a grandeur in the storm that 
 makes heroes of us all. Each day we have 
 the same 1 scene; praying, sulking and 
 
3 2 
 
 cursing; and in my delirium I saw the 
 same old sun rise and go down in the sea. 
 It takes me so long to die. Are we get- 
 ting a square deal? While some of the 
 boys stood by with revolvers in hand to 
 keep order Rusty and I went down in the 
 ship to ransack for water. We found one 
 barrel partly filled with water. We soon 
 lifted it bodily to the deck. Our first mate 
 was an Englishman with a small head and 
 shrill piping voice. He stood in the back- 
 ground harping on the majesty of the 
 law, and the penalty for mutiny. English- 
 like he was always around next day pull- 
 ing the scab off. Our second mate was a 
 thoroughbred American, one of those kind 
 of fellows who would bet on the metal 
 in a caseknife, and while we took that last 
 drink that long afternoon in June, I saw 
 more than a hundred cups tipped to my 
 girl, and I wasn't jealous. Let Penelope's 
 
33 
 
 suitors no longer stand as masters of 
 revelry. I was the youngest man aboard 
 and perhaps the best looking and one of 
 the chief mutineers, and I watched for a 
 glance of her eye, and I was going to say, 
 but she was looking the other w r ay. Since 
 I left my old home, perhaps courtship has 
 been reduced to a science; is not love-mak- 
 ing older than the classics ; is not little 
 cupid older than the schoolmaster ? Who 
 ever heard .of a scientific courtship, but 
 then I have not even tipped my hat to a 
 girl for years-. Such gross neglect and all 
 for gold. 
 
 Your gold that caused so many joys and 
 
 groans, 
 Is only fit for paving stones. 
 
Waiting for me to sow my wild oats 
 
 Did I go, did I dare, did I do? 
 She reminds me of one so fair 
 This beauty of Butte. 
 
35 
 
 And haven't I a girl back home wait- 
 ing for me to sow my wild oats? But 
 perhaps she, too, is in some sort of a ship- 
 wreck with another fellow; but then I'm 
 not making love; I am only submitting 
 to circumstances, and from that circum- 
 stancial love a race might spring who 
 would live on almost indefinitely; no more 
 use for the Osier snuffbox, and our chief 
 magistrate stew no more 1 . There would 
 be no more danger of puncturing your 
 tire; no one would get tired. No, I will 
 wait until we have rolled the last man 
 overboard, even to the old Captain, and 
 then I will have an open field and our 
 marriage will be made certain. The sun 
 gees do\vn, he seems to set more slowly, 
 the sea is smooth as ever. We go below, 
 not to sleep, but to shut our eyes against 
 this horrible fate. Early one morning old 
 Calaveras came flying clown stairs. O 
 
36 
 
 boys, the wind is blowing and you never 
 saw anything skute so in all your life. 
 Old Calaveras was from Calaveras Coun- 
 ty, and formerly from Arkansas, so you 
 may know^ about how he looked. The 
 wind blew on for days. No one said a 
 word for fear of breaking the spell. At 
 last the old Captain came out of his den 
 with his glasses, and says land, Cape Flat- 
 tery. In a few hours every eye was sat- 
 isfied; a change came over the faces of the 
 I was going to say dying. No one 
 seemed to want to molest the Captain. 
 Every estimate of gladness must be made 
 by comparison. Columbus discovered a 
 new world, but we were permitted to re- 
 turn to the old, and now instead of trying 
 to invent excuses to our God for a 
 privilege in another world we began to 
 rebuild in this. As we sailed up the 
 Straits of Fuca the scene was a delightful 
 
37 
 
 one. The evergreen pines grew down to 
 the water's edge. The snow topped hills 
 beyond, the sun had lost his furnace glare. 
 Even old ocean seemed to resume his 
 friendly place in nature, and my girl, I 
 never saw my darling more, but when I 
 struck the danger line I began to cast 
 about for a substitute. Alas, how many 
 of us go through life with a bare sub- 
 stitute. 
 
My Girl in the Shipwreck. 
 
 Well, when the final explanation is 
 made is will appear that one pure soul 
 stood as ransom for us all. 
 
39 
 
 When I arrived in San Francisco from 
 the north I took passage on a Pacific Mail 
 steamer for New York. The passengers 
 were mostly young men, who had made 
 their stake and were going back to their 
 old homes. One young man was brought 
 aboard by his friends, suffering from 
 delirium tremens. After two days out he 
 died. After his body was properly pre- 
 pared the ship was stopped. Some pas- 
 sengers read from the Bible, the body 
 was sunk in the ocean. As the ship moved 
 on I thought of the contrast. He had 
 g*one the pace and here is the result. While 
 I was permitted to journey on with per- 
 fect health of body and mind, with all of 
 the high hopes of one returning to his 
 old home after an absence of years. We 
 have passed the Isthmus. Off Cape Hat- 
 teras the storm is raging. I thought of 
 the lo^s of the Central America only two 
 
40 
 
 years before. Four of the boys were from 
 our camp Pine Grove, Sierra County. 
 Three of the boys went down with the 
 ship. The late William Ede was the first 
 man rescued by the Norwegian bark that 
 rescued thirty of the passengers. Over 
 400 went down with the ship. Our ship 
 was equal to the task. After I reached 
 home I met Caroline Lofland here in Per- 
 rish Grove. We made a bargain that has 
 stood the test for more 1 than forty-seven 
 years. We were married January 23, 
 1860. We were soon on our road to Cali- 
 fornia. When we crossed the Missouri 
 River I \vas chosen captain of our train. 
 
The captain of our train. 
 
42 
 
 I must lock out for wood, water and 
 grass. I must settle all disputes. I is- 
 sued no code of laws. I settled each case 
 as it came up. My authority is absolute. 
 I am more than Captain, I am King, and 
 Caroline is my Queen. I had two divorce 
 cases. Mrs. C. was the aggressor. I 
 parleyed with her; I always had patience 
 to plead with a woman. After riding in 
 her neighbor's wagon three or four days, 
 she went back to her husband satisfied. 
 The next case was more difficult. Mr. 
 R. was the aggressor. I argued with 
 him ; he' was on his honeymoon, as well as 
 1 on mine. His wife was one of the pret- 
 tiest women I ever saw; tall and splen- 
 didly balanced; the artist would choose 
 her from a million as his model. And her 
 voice, so 1 sweet and harmonious. The 
 voice is one of the best gifts from God to 
 man. Why don't we have schools for 
 
44 
 
 training the voice to talk as well as sing. 
 ?\Ir. R , there are no women in Calif or- 
 hia, and what a trump you are trying to 
 discard. He still stood pat. Finally Mr. 
 R we will soon be in Brigham Young's 
 territory, then I will be entitled to two 
 wives ; I will take her, she will be mine. 
 That settled it ; he wouldn't stand for that. 
 There are very few travelers on the plains 
 this year. We see only a few buffalo this 
 year all going north, as they went be- 
 fore. I had learned to throw the' Mexican 
 riatta in the Sacramento Valley. We con- 
 cluded I should throw the rope on a buf- 
 falo and we would put him in the yoke 
 with old Buck. Mounted on Brown Alice, 
 I gave chase. I made two or three passes 
 at him when he ran into a deep washout. 
 The buffalo went into the cut twenty feet 
 below. I came so near going on top or 
 him it took all of the fun out of me. 
 
45 
 
 We have come to the lands of the 
 Sioux. When the chief came in camp this 
 morning, this is my first effort at diplo- 
 macy. He was born a Prince, while my 
 authority is the result of a free ballot and 
 a fair count. He is a splendid specimen 
 of a splendid race. Six feet tall, while I 
 am only five feet nine. While he looked 
 down and I looked up I did almost com- 
 plain. 
 
 When he took me' by the hand, his 
 hands were soft as a woman's are, while 
 mine are rough from excessive toil. Surely 
 what w T e call civilization does bring 
 drudgery. I assured him we had plenty 
 of provisions ; that my little band would 
 not wantonly destroy any of his game. 
 He took the golden bracelet off his own 
 arm and placed it on Caroline's arm. 
 
4 6 
 
 Take this ringlet, then you'll know 
 As friends you come, friends you go. 
 I place this token in her hand, 
 The Sioux will see and understand. 
 
 When we came opposite Chimney Rock 
 several of the bo} r s waded the river to in- 
 spect it. My curiosity didn' f go so far. 
 Chimney Rock is the greatest natural 
 curiosity I ever saw ; it rises two or three 
 hundred feet high in a land where there 
 is no rock, and looks like an old chimney 
 in a burnt district. The Platte River is 
 a muddy stream, one mile wide, three feet 
 deep, with quicksand bottom. While our 
 statesmen are talking war at Washington 
 that broke out in less than a year, the 
 Indians become more warlike. We form- 
 ed an alliance with Captain Thomson and 
 Captain McFarlaine. We now had sixty 
 wagons. Captain McFarlaine was the 
 ranking officer. When we camped near 
 
47 
 
 Fort Bridger a renegade Mormon shot 
 Mr. Harris and rode away on Brown 
 Alice. I went to the Commander of the 
 Fort. He said they had a man named 
 Bender who does their trailing- ; he would 
 send him over to the camp next morning. 
 When he came he was about the fiercest 
 looking frontiersman I ever saw, and then 
 the chase, forty miles through the moun- 
 tains, before he came to the road, and 
 then the battle and burial by the Half 
 Way Rock in Echo Canyon. 
 
 While we traveled up Great Salt Lake 
 Valley we w r ere often told we would have 
 to surrender to the Mormon authorities, 
 the man who ran down the boy bandit. 
 We would have resisted any attempt at 
 arrest. On through the mountains down 
 the Humboldt Valley we had a splendid 
 time. Each night we formed the horse- 
 shoe corral. After our cattle had their 
 
4 8 
 
 grass they are placed in the corral. Two 
 men guard the open space and two men 
 scout on the outside. One man persisted 
 in tying his horses to his wagon outside 
 of the corral. One night they were stolen 
 by the Indians. We took the Honey Lake 
 route. At Deep Hole Springs we met 
 Colonel Lander, afterwards General Lan- 
 der, who was wounded at the battle of 
 Balls Bluff, and died of his wounds. One 
 of Mr. Cs big boys rode away on a very 
 fine mare. Mr. C wanted Colonel Lan- 
 der to bring him back; he said he would. 
 When his troopers stood in line;- bring- 
 that man back dead or alive. Of course 
 the family wouldn't stand for that kind 
 of a man hunt. We are now in the Sacra- 
 mento Valley. Caroline soon learned to 
 rock the cradle. We now have a large 
 family and a host of ^rand-children. 
 
49 
 
 \Yhen I visited the old camp at Pine 
 Grove and Rowland Flat, the hydraulic 
 had washed away the gravel, and as I 
 stood on the bedrock below, and gazed into 
 space above, I thought of a great many 
 happenings that took place more than fifty 
 years ago. It was here W. B. S. kept 
 the world appraised of the success of our 
 mines. Green Fore'st sought the bubble 
 fame, writing literature. It was here the 
 duel between Tom Phant and Lue Hart 
 was never fought. Hart was a dead shot. 
 I went to Sam Morse, Phant' s second. 
 Sam, can't you get Phant out of this 
 honorably without a fight. O, we will 
 never fight until we are outmaneuvered. 
 Hart was the challenger. Tom had the 
 choice of distance and weapons ; he chose 
 the Wabash Shaft one hundred feet deep, 
 the weapons a bucket full of rocks, and 
 
50 
 
 Hart must go to the bottom of the shaft. 
 He didn't have the heart to go down. 
 
 On Christmas day, 1854, Dick Richard- 
 son gave me a pan of gravel shoveled off 
 the bed rock in his claim as a Christmas 
 present. It panned out ten ounces and 
 two dollars. The premium on the fine- 
 ness of the gold made it worth about $200. 
 Tom Eaves had just arrived from old 
 Kentucky. He sat around his brother's 
 store and looked so docile. One morning 
 Fay Anderson, who kept store about two 
 hundred yards up street, came down when 
 he said something that didn't suit young- 
 Eaves. He whipped out a long knife. An- 
 derson ran for his store; it was the best 
 footrace I ever saw. 
 
 Mr. Blair had come from Boston look- 
 ing for material to write a book. Says I 
 am glad I saw that; I might have got 
 counterfeited. 
 
Lew Wharton, Jake Gould and I lo- 
 cated 800 feet running to the summit at 
 Table Rock. The district laws only pro- 
 vided for 100 feet square. Our conten- 1 
 tion was we were prospecting for a new 
 channel back in the mountain. We had 
 gone to a heavy expense, bought a twenty- 
 five horse power engine in San Francisco, 
 slid it down the Slate Creek Canyon on 
 the lap of a tree, put it on wheels, and 
 pulled it on the ridge with a block and 
 tackle. We ran an incline tunnel 365 feet, 
 45 feet pitch. Before we got down with 
 our tunnel the miners had located all of 
 our claim except our hundred feet square, 
 according to the laws of the district. One 
 company, headed by the late P. J. White, 
 twice elected Sheriff of Sierra County, 
 and twice elected Sheriff of San Francisco 
 County, went to work. Four of our boys 
 went up and drove them off and threw 
 
their tools down the mountain. They said 
 we had taken the advantage of them; that 
 we were armed. O'ur foreman agreed to 
 fight them next day, eight men on each 
 side, with Colt's revolvers. The Colt's 
 pistol was as deadly fifty years ago as it 
 is to-day. While they were practicing 
 down near the Birmingham Hotel, we are 
 making ready for the battle to-morrow. 
 The priest happened in fom San Fan- 
 cisco, and persuaded them to keep the 
 peace. I want to thank the priest for 
 what he did. I didn't want to fight. I 
 was only with men who did want to fight. 
 On the 1 5th of November, 1857, when we 
 went down the incline at 4 o'clock in the 
 afternoon, I says, "Kinney, I am going to 
 wash a pan of dirt from the bedrock be- 
 fore our shift is out." "Q yes, you are al- 
 ways going to do something great." I 
 could tell by the color of the water we 
 
53 
 
 were near the bedrock. By 12 o'clock we 
 had sent up eight carloads of gravel and 
 eighty carloads of water, eighty buckets 
 each. The quartz boulders lay on the soft 
 slate bedrock as if they had been placed 
 there as paving stones. I turned one over, 
 took a pan of dirt, washed it carlessly in 
 the water that was coming in. It panned 
 out about one dollar. It was the first time 
 the blue lead was found north of Forest 
 City. We called our company the Bright 
 Star. Two years later the company was 
 reorganized under the name of Union. 
 They bought the Ganargua claim 1200 
 feet. The Union Company worked from 
 fifty to one hundred men day and night 
 for more than twenty-five years, and took 
 out $25,000,000. The lead was worked 
 by the Pittsburg, Hawkeye, Monumental, 
 Empire and Bonanza, yielding $60,000,- 
 ooo. 
 
54 
 
 Here was perhaps the only snowshoe 
 club ever organized. They had regular 
 meetings, gave large purses. The snow- 
 shoe is a runner six inches wide, six to 
 twelve feet long. Each man had a secret 
 dope to put on the bottom of his shoes 
 to make them the slickest. The San Fran- 
 cisco dailies sent reporters to report their 
 speed. They found them going faster 
 than man had ever gone before. On one 
 occasion Snowshoe Thompson, after win- 
 ning the purse, deliberately walked on the 
 summit of Sugarloaf Mountain, buckled 
 on his shoes. Here is a mountain that 
 pitches fifty feet in one hundred. No 
 snowshoe man would ever think of mak- 
 ing the attempt, and does he know of the 
 late slide and the awful chasm rent. A 
 shriek, he is off; a moment later Snow- 
 shoe Thompson was seen in the mists be- 
 low, slowing up with his balance pole. 
 
55 
 
 Old Jim Beckwith often came over 
 from the valley to tell of his exploits. 
 He was half black and hr^f white, and 
 awful gassy in camp. 
 
 White Headed Ross, the man of mys- 
 tery, rode out like a plumed knight and al- 
 ways in the night, and afterwards a trust- 
 ed policeman in Marysville. Captain 
 Walker, brother of the filibuster in 
 Nicaragua, had his recruiting office here. 
 John Elder, a partner in the Bright Star, 
 enlisted. I went with him down to the 
 Irwin Hotel the evening before. He must 
 start next morning; he went to bid his 
 girl good-bye. "Oh, John, why don't you 
 stay with me?" "I promised Captain Wal- 
 ker." "Oh, John, you promised me." I 
 soon saw this is no place for me. I met 
 R. Y. Jackson, who runs the saddletrain 
 that Mr. Elder must take next morning. 
 He didn't know of the heartache. Mr. El- 
 
56 
 
 der never returned. O cruel, cruel war, 
 we pray to the prince of peace and we pen- 
 sion the red hand of war. 
 
 I had climbed the Oakland Heights to 
 visit Joaquin Miller, the poet, at his home. 
 Here is the man who could give utterance. 
 I had traveled the same road, dreamed the 
 same dreams. Mr. Miller, as I under- 
 stand, you belong to the whole world, 
 and I have come to look after my share. 
 I would much rather visit you now than 
 visit your tomb when you are dead. 
 "Touch hands that are flesh and can feel/ 7 
 
 I am going over the ridge to visit my 
 old camp in Sawmill Canyon, where I 
 camped more than fifty years ago. Be 
 back precisely at 3 o'clock. We are going 
 to have a Modoc barbecue. My invited 
 guest is Miss Lagrange, who handles the 
 
57 
 
 coin at the San Francisco Mint. When 
 the banquet was over I tuned the old 
 violin. 
 
 "Amid the strings his fingers strayed, 
 And an uncertain warbling made; 
 And oft he shook his hoary head, 
 But when he caught the measure wild, 
 The old man raised his face and smiled; 
 And lighted up his faded eye, 
 With all a poet's ecstacy." 
 
3. < - M 
 
 -s:gg H 
 
 *o r?~ s o |T{ 
 
 S p-^o 
 
 s-wS 3. 
 
59 
 
 I warmed up on Auld Lang Syne and 
 when I played The Arkansas Traveler, 
 that's enough to make old Davie Crocket 
 raise up from his grave. I shook hands 
 with mother and Mr. Miller and promised 
 to return at least once every year as long 
 as I could climb the heights. As each 
 season returned I climbed the Heights and 
 partook of Mr. Miller's hospitality. We 
 are the invited guests now, my brother 
 and I. The sweet meats placed on a stick 
 and held over the coals by the deft hand 
 of Gertrude Boyle. 
 
 Yes, our passions in youth presage, 
 Virtue and truth in old age. 
 Would you abandon a thought 
 
 for lack of a rhyme 
 When the heart is o'er wrought ? 
 Would you think it a crime. To make 
 
 love to one so tender in years. 
 Would you call it a sin when we mingle 
 
 our tears? 
 "Half yearning for something that might 
 
 have been." 
 
6o 
 
 Among the guests are Mr. Whitaker, 
 the novelist; Mr. Saville, the composer; 
 Dr. Wilson, the philosopher. 
 
 The philosopher with his quill and his 
 
 mind as pure as snow, 
 A nation can appreciate the seed of truth 
 
 you sow. 
 Man's noble nature will never truant 
 
 prove, 
 
 While the pen outranks the sword. 
 While we circle the banquet table mother 
 
 is gone. 
 "There have been tears and breaking 
 
 hearts for thee. 
 And mine were nothing, had I such to 
 
 give; 
 But when I stood beneath the fresh, green 
 
 tree; 
 Which living waves where thou didst 
 
 cease to live ; 
 
 And saw around me the wide field revive. 
 With fruits and fertile promise and the 
 
 spring. 
 
6i 
 
 Come forth her work of gladness to con- 
 trive ; 
 
 With all her reckless birds upon the wing, 
 I turned from all she brought to those she 
 could not bring." 
 
 While we played on the old violins and 
 the Burgundy went round, here is a toast 
 to the Grand Old Chief, so my brother. 
 
 No mountain so high but he has climbed 
 
 it; 
 
 No ocean so wide but he has crossed it; 
 My words are true, I must be brief, 
 And here's a toast to the Grand Old 
 
 Chief. 
 
 We are now on sacred ground and I am 
 one of the invited guests. I must be equal 
 to the task. 
 
 Yes, this world is wide, 
 Yet our Savior is our guide; 
 And sweet heaven is our goal. 
 While we journey along, 
 
62 
 
 When we listen to song, 
 
 Our Grand Old Chief ranks them all. 
 
 Farewell for awhile. 
 
 How I outmaneuvered Tom Bell. Like 
 Joaquin Murietta, he camped in the woods 
 with his band. I met him at the Knox- 
 ville Hotel on the Rabbit Creek road. As 
 they filed out of the canyon ten mounted 
 men with pack mules loaded with camp 
 equipage, guns and revolvers. A little 
 boy about 3 years old was playing on the 
 floor. See them robbers? They are our 
 robbers. I only had $300 in my pocket. 
 I didn't think it would go round. While 
 they stood by the washstand washing for 
 dinner I stood among them, "And re- 
 turned the chief his haughty stare/' When 
 they had all filed in to dinner I ran into 
 the woods and took my dinner at the 
 Woodville House. 
 
63 
 
 How to tell the time of night by the 
 dipper or pointers. When you plume 
 your airship for San Francisco in 1913, 
 go out to-night and take your bearing on 
 the pointers to the north star; they make 
 one revolution every twenty-four hours. 
 One extra revolution every twelve months, 
 less two minutes. 
 
6 4 
 The Poet of the Sierras 
 
 They who are taught in the Atlantic 
 
 school 
 
 To climb fame's tottering tower by rule; 
 They will not recognize at best 
 They have a brother in the West ; 
 But he who dares his breast to bare 
 To the envious critics sneer; 
 His sword, his shield, his coat of mail ; 
 Is the pen and desk where so many fail. 
 Our productive shores where few have 
 
 tread 
 
 A world now comes to us for bread. 
 We ask why not some genius rise, 
 Who can commune with our cloudless 
 
 skies. 
 
 But skies like ours they have never seen. 
 And they will hear from us again 
 Our golden range, the laurel glen, 
 Are fields so rare for the poet's pen. 
 
65 
 The Confidence Man. 
 
 My wife while ironing fell dead on the 
 
 floor, 
 The fire burned down my house and left 
 
 me out door 
 My children are hungry and their mother 
 
 is dead; 
 I beg you for money to buy them some 
 
 bread. 
 Although I am a stranger and in a strange 
 
 land. . 
 Ere I fall by the wayside, oh, lend me a 
 
 hand. 
 Tears fell from our eyes like an Oregon 
 
 rain. 
 
 As he told his sad story over again. 
 Oh bring us glad tidings of fortunes 
 
 more kind, 
 Tell not such sad stories to prey on our 
 
 minds ; 
 Sing songs of bright prospects, of wealth 
 
 and of fame. 
 
66 
 
 Of heroes still living with no blot on their 
 
 names. 
 Aye, stranger, beware of death's darkest 
 
 night, 
 When the wrongs of this world must all 
 
 be made right. 
 When this body lies mouldering beneath 
 
 the cold clods, 
 Instead of lying to mortals we must tell 
 
 truths to the Gods. 
 
6; 
 The Boy Bandit's Monument. 
 
 He had wounded one of our compan- 
 ions, and rode away on Brown Alice, tlie 
 pride of the plains. We still had a mount 
 for two. 
 
 The first, the fiercest and the best, 
 A splendid sample of the West. 
 And when they reined their steeds in line 
 A sort of chill would reach your spine. 
 He was so fair ; he was so young, 
 The dark locks o'er his shoulders hung ; 
 And from the mildness of his eyes, 
 You might suspect a maid in disguise. 
 Alert my boys, you are now in a land 
 Where the only law is your own strong 
 
 hand. 
 On, on over the hilltop, down, down v\(. 
 
 go, 
 Down on to the plain where the cactus 
 
 grows 
 There is no trail. By the tracks in the 
 
 sand, 
 
68 
 
 Instead of one bandit we are pursuing a 
 band. 
 
 O life, O death, which will it be, 
 
 We fight, there is no referee. 
 
 When the smoke cleared away, his com- 
 rades had fled, 
 
 But the young boy bandit lay silent and 
 dead. 
 
 Down Echo Canyon by the halfway rock, 
 In his lonely grave his body reposes. 
 I lay this wreath his fate to mock 
 Plucked from my garden of roses. 
 
69 
 The County of Butte. 
 
 Where seed wheat grows in dry seasun, 
 
 Where the hog never dies that will root, 
 Where the orange tree blooms without 
 freezing, 
 
 O, come to the county of Butte. 
 Reach out and take things that lay round 
 you, 
 
 Sell the old and buy things that are 
 
 new, 
 The pace that we make may astound you, 
 
 O come where the clovers first grew. 
 We have harnessed the winds and the 
 waters, 
 
 Two blades now where one only grew, 
 The voice of her sons and her daughters, 
 
 Awake while they are pleading to you. 
 In winter snows fall on the mountain, 
 
 In summer they crystal as dew 
 O, come to the evergreen fountain, 
 
 We all toss a beckon to vou. 
 
Under the Christmas Tree. 
 
 This emblem we have seen to-day, 
 
 Was seen in truth and sorrow, 
 And some of us who watch and pray, 
 
 May be with Christ to-morrow. 
 Existence is a pleasant dream, 
 
 When we feel our sins forgiven, 
 
 'Tis seldom we meet here to sing, 
 'Tis all a song in heaven, 
 
 My race is run, I've scarce began. 
 The work I see before me, 
 I've blazed the way for some other one 
 
 to build the road to glory. 
 And when I'm floating on the breeze, 
 
 To the place where God don't time me, 
 I'll only wonder who can please 
 
 The world I left behind me. 
 
The River. 
 
 Soft blows the breeze by the river. 
 
 Fanning imagination to a flame, 
 T'was the little running brook in the 
 mountains, 
 
 Tis the river in the valley on the plain, 
 We have lived, we have loved by the 
 river, 
 
 And our love was not lavished in vain; 
 The song birds sing songs on the river, 
 
 And our fancy reverberates again, 
 Who would pollute the clear river, 
 
 Bequeath it, no never a stain; 
 The wild flowers bloom on the river, 
 
 And in season they blossom again. 
 
When my wife was visiting her sister 
 in the State of Ohio, she wrote such splen- 
 did descriptions of her old home. 
 
 Sweet mother, the birds surround our 
 
 door, 
 And they sing their songs as they sung 
 
 before ; 
 
 These very birds seem to recognize, 
 You are not in heaven, but in paradise. 
 
 Aunt Sarah Wing wanted me to write 
 a verse for her. 
 
 Dear sister, a song is a flow of the soul, 
 'Tis a tale of love that's ne'er half been 
 
 told; 
 
 'Tis the essence of truth, 
 'Tis a truce in the strife, 
 'Tis a pleasure in youth, 
 Dear sister, a song is the triumph of life. 
 
73 
 Written In My Daughter's Album. 
 
 You ask me to write you a song, 
 
 It were wrong for me to refuse, 
 How glad I would help you along, 
 
 So let you this lesson peruse ; 
 So in brief, when time and grief, 
 
 One ne'er waits on the other, 
 Has lain away till the judgment clay, 
 
 Your father and your mother. 
 Sometime in spring when fields are green, 
 
 You will go and seek your brother, 
 And say, O rare was the paternal care 
 
 Of our father and our mother. 
 
74 
 Written In a Young Lady's Album. 
 
 Beauty and youth are emblems of truth, 
 
 How fondly we linger with these; 
 
 So in old age we'll turn back to youth's 
 
 page 
 
 With experience to teach and to please. 
 'Tis a lesson to learn that young spirits 
 
 may yearn, 
 
 With fancies that never can be ; 
 'Tis the wish of your friend that your 
 
 bark to the end 
 Ever may float on smooth seas. 
 
75 
 My Man With the Hoe. 
 
 Where, O where, is the poor man with 
 the hoe, 
 
 He has left his fields and family dear, 
 Gone down the street to play pedro 
 
 For a glass of wine or Lagerbeer. 
 Why, O why, did the man who found 
 him, 
 
 Like the fat cow go; 
 With his little world around him, 
 
 And get lost in the slums of Chicago. 
 You may sing of brotherly love, 
 
 Of a heart that goes. out to the poor, 
 Yet genius despises a Muggins, 
 
 And would turn him away from her 
 door. 
 
7 6 
 San Francisco. 
 
 "Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?" 
 
 San Francisco, fair city by the Golden 
 
 Gate, 
 
 I saw thy Colmans, Brannans, all 
 Who made thee great before thy fall, 
 Did fate decree before thy birth, 
 That some dread demon belch forth a 
 
 flame 
 To wither, blast and blot thy name from 
 
 off the earth; 
 
 May thy good angel at thy second birth, 
 Escort and guide the more splendid far, 
 Than all the cities of the earth. 
 
77 
 Miscelaneous. 
 
 Do the pine trees stand by the mill now ? 
 
 Oh, 110, they have passed away; 
 For the cycle of time to their trunks have 
 
 been laid 
 And like the old mill they sleep in the 
 
 shade 
 Of the minds that are passing away. 
 
 Is the creek where we swam gone dry, 
 
 now ? 
 
 Oh, no, it is running still 
 But it has not the twists and the turns 
 
 that it had 
 
 When it ran the grand old mill. 
 The clam is all gone; the buttments all 
 
 hauled away, 
 
 And the headgates are only a shadow, 
 And haven't got long to stay. 
 
 Do the wild flowers bloom on the hill, 
 
 now ? 
 Oh, no, it is bare and brown. 
 
But come to the place in the springtime, 
 And some pansies may be found. 
 
 Do the bluffs by the dam look so high ? 
 
 Oh, no, they only look flat, 
 For I have stood at the foot of Mt 
 
 Shasta, 
 
 And these bluffs don't look high as a 
 gnat. 
 
 Do the girls that we loved look so gay? 
 Oh, no, who are left are wrinkled and 
 
 gray. 
 
 Some are mothers and some grandmoth- 
 ers, 
 
 While others have passed away. 
 G. N. Blanchard. 
 
 There are some adventures and acci- 
 dents that, after the danger is over, we 
 would not have blotted from our lives. 
 
 On Pine Grove Hill, Sierra County, in 
 1854, I was drifting underground while 
 Dich Richardson went outside with a 
 wheel-barrow load of gravel. Our breast 
 
79 
 
 caved in covering me up. It was a des- 
 perate struggle to extricate myself from 
 the cave. The gravel kept falling so fast 
 that I didn't dare to run from the cave 
 to the main tunnel forty feet away. I 
 was next to solid bank, but I must climb 
 the loose gravel. I could hear the rescu- 
 ers cheer. I am not in danger of losing 
 my life. If the cave don't go to the sur- 
 face fifty feet up, the rescuers will reach 
 me from the main tunnel. In three hours' 
 time it went to the surface. I crawled out 
 of a dungeon and \valked in the broad 
 blazes of daylight. 
 
 In the Bright Star, at Rowland Flat, I 
 got in the car to go down the incline, 365 
 feet to the level below, while the tender 
 pushed the car to the slope, 45 feet pitch. 
 The ram's horn hook came unhooked, un- 
 noticed by the tender. The ride was a 
 whirlwind, but I came out unhurt. 
 
 Three years ago when the powder 
 works blew up on McKeiver hill in North 
 
So 
 
 Berkeley, we went up to see. The police 
 were driving the people back. There will 
 be another explosion heavier than the 
 first. I fell in with Mr. Atcheson, a Ber- 
 keley policeman. We lay behind a little 
 levee or dump. The explosion came. It 
 drove us back like the arrow. I will not 
 try to describe the effects of the chemists 
 crucibles over the elements. In about ten 
 seconds a cinder weighing about two 
 ounces hit me on the head. Mr. Atcheson 
 led me bleeding away. Dr. Hawkins 
 said : "Yes, a glancing blow. You would 
 not have lived to tell the tale had it hit 
 you squarely on the head." 
 
 If you haven't a bank, start a bank ac- 
 count at once. The bank is a necessary 
 part of our civilization. The bank is 
 where the lender and borrower meet. The 
 bank is where the boom farmer goes; the 
 stock broker ; in fact, every margin dealer 
 goes to the bank. Here are some figures 
 in interest. I sold a squatter's title to a 
 quarter section of land situated where the 
 
8i 
 
 Alameda County Hospital now stands, to 
 Joseph C. J. Moore, now of Linkville, 
 Oregon; took his note for $112.00 on 
 June ist, 1854; interest at 5 per cent per 
 month, compound monthly. Here are the 
 figures : 
 
 I believe in the old saying that "com- 
 petition is the life of trade." The Social- 
 ist would have you believe that competi- 
 tion is ruining our civilization. When we 
 were young men in the mines in the 
 Sierras in the early '5o's, my partner and 
 I both received letters from our girls that 
 read nearly alike. The tone of our cor- 
 respondence must now change. "I am 
 
 the happy wife of Mr. ." I said, 
 
 "Sam has won the prize/' while my part- 
 ner, poor fellow, he didn't believe in com- 
 petition and pined away and died. I 
 will not venture a phophecy as to the 
 future of our cities. I believe individual 
 effort will drive all associate capital from 
 the field. I take my hat off to the young 
 
82 
 
 men of our country who are digging the 
 irrigation canals and placing the family 
 on the ten-acre field. 
 
 Where the orange tree blooms ; 
 
 Where the pineapple grows ; 
 Where the date and the palm trees rise; 
 
 Where the tall peaks stand 
 All covered with snows, 
 
 That reaches to the skies. 
 
 Our Sacramento Valley home has per- 
 haps the most beautiful view in the world. 
 Ten miles north of the Butte mountains; 
 Mt. Shasta lies nearly two hundred miles 
 to the north; the summit of the Coast 
 range lies nearly seventy-five miles away 
 to the west ; while the Sierras lie nearly 
 seventy-five miles away to the east. With 
 her peaks and ridges, Sierra, Buttes ; Fir- 
 cap Table Rock; Mt. Fillmore; Pilot 
 Peak; Lassen Buttes; running north to 
 Mt. Shasta, so the Coast range with her 
 Three Brothers in the northwest where 
 the sun goes down in mid summer; with 
 
<L> 
 
 fj 
 
 M 
 
84 
 
 her peaks and niches she must pass and 
 re-pass before she returns next summer. 
 One would suppose old Sol would start 
 south next day after reaching his destina- 
 tion in the north, but he seems to linger 
 in one little niche in the mountains for 
 several days. The Butte mountains lie 
 in the center of the Sacramento Valley. It 
 looks like the great moulder had finished 
 the Coast range and started to cross the 
 valley and had spilled them from his ladle. 
 All of these mountains can be seen on a 
 clear day, and we have more clear days 
 than cloudy ones. It is clear to-day, and 
 both the Coast and Sierras are white with 
 snow. 
 
 Man will disappoint you while nature 
 still holds you in her charm. 
 
 I am glad the young man called my 
 name. I am perhaps the oldest inhabitant 
 and ought to be the best authority. I met 
 the Shaeffers, Pitts and Posies, on this 
 ridge more than fifty years ago, long be- 
 
85 
 
 fore the name of Biggs. With this splen- 
 did hall; you have the swiftest fire com- 
 pany on the coast; your municipal light 
 and water supply; your splendid library 
 built with conscience money ; your palatial 
 residences; and your Ladies' Improve- 
 ment Club that has planted trees on every 
 line. But listen to the other side. 
 
 We sometimes seem to sell our souls, 
 And while we worship and weigh our 
 
 gold, 
 We oft neglect our patriarchs, 
 
 And bow and scrape to our money 
 sharks. 
 
 You have a little republic forty by sixty 
 rods, where the majority is supposed to 
 rule. You have entered into a combina- 
 tion and the success of that combination 
 depends upon the debauch of your own 
 sons. Your capitalist has built the dread 
 saloon with your ten petitioners, and each 
 petitioner's name ought to be written on 
 the rainbow in the heavens. You have 
 
86 
 
 granted a license to the dopist to sell his 
 dope. It is unlawful for him to sell his 
 dope without your license. You have fifty 
 dollars a month to your share, a princely 
 sum. You have four murders to your 
 share, four murders and the midnight 
 brawl. Would you have it more ? There 
 is no peace. You must fight for dope 
 or decency. You would murder me for 
 what I say, and I must kill in self-defense. 
 But why recount these horrors while we 
 still have hope. 
 
 Go dry your town, thus scrouged for 
 
 years ; 
 
 And dry your wives' and mothers' tears. 
 No heartache then, nor grief nor groans; 
 Nor, "Mother, why don't pa come home?" 
 
 May loth. We have started for the 
 Yukon-Seattle Exposition, two hundred 
 miles by the wagon road to San Fran- 
 cisco. The snows are melting in the 
 mountains. The flood waters have covered 
 the roads for miles. The danger sign is 
 
87 
 
 placed in the road. We never take the 
 back track. Mounted on Radium Mc- 
 Kinney, my brother stays in the buggy, 
 I ride out in the flood waters one mile 
 to guard against washouts; return move 
 up the buggy; strip the harness from 
 . Radium ; ride another mile ; return, and 
 another and another. We have reached 
 the bridge. It is dark. We are wet and 
 cold. Ten miles from Bantas and Radium 
 is tired. We have reached Bantas. 'Tis 
 midnight. The public hotel is closed for 
 the day. My brother remembered a Mexi- 
 can family where he had been sheltered 
 when traveling the road before. We rap- 
 ped at the door. Mother and daughter 
 are coon preparing our supper. Here is 
 the old pioneer Mexican family going 
 north, and the old pioneer American 
 family going west, meeting in the desert, 
 like Lew Wallace's three religions. We 
 were soon acquainted, while we dined and 
 listened to family lore. "You remind me 
 most of one I knew so long ago. I am 
 
writing a book and I would like to have 
 your picture to represent my girl in the 
 shipwreck/' She turned to mother. "That 
 is all right. Give him the little Gem you 
 had taken last/ 7 In a few minutes she 
 returned with the name written on the 
 back which she pronounced, Jaunita 
 Gallego. What melody! How poetic! 
 She turned to mother again. "He is a 
 great author. He is writing a book/' 
 Such childish innocence, with thoughts as 
 pure as our nation's earliest intentions. I 
 recalled Byron's line : "O, never talk 
 again to me, of northern climes nor 
 British ladies." 
 
 And Wordsworth line: "Her beauty 
 made me glad" I must paraphrase, "Her 
 beauty made me mad." 
 
 If I w^re to dedicate my little book, it 
 would be to the printers. They are effici- 
 ent and clever people. How long they 
 have been pestered with preachers and 
 poets. Everyone depends upon the printer 
 
89 
 
 for a puff. I once wrote a poem, took it 
 to our home paper. The editor was a 
 good friend of mine. "Oh yes, your 
 poetry has all the merits you claim for it, 
 and I would be glad to print it, but my 
 exchanges w^ould everlastingly bat me for 
 printing home-made poetry/' 
 
 I have passed the three quarter pole. I 
 have kept no diary ; never dipped my pen 
 in ink ; have lived an obscure life. I have 
 kept Byron's line in view, "He who would 
 see the best must be himself u-nseen." 
 Even one of our near neighbors wanted 
 to know of Caroline the other day, how 
 long she had been a widow. 
 
 I have come into the Gazette office in 
 classic Berkeley. I am willing to pay the 
 price. You will punctuate, correct spell- 
 ing and grammar. I kept a lookout for 
 the smile of derision. And didn't Mr. 
 Herman Muller recommend us to the 
 Gazette office the manager, editor, type- 
 writer and the printer ? 
 
3 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 CL 
 
9* 
 
 Do.,, and I will bring our violins and 
 give yon a sample of our music. Mr. 
 Mathews didn't like to deny us. I have 
 confidence now, not in myself, but in the 
 Gazette staff. 
 
 I have always taken a great interest in 
 athletic sports, the poetry of action. Look 
 at the clock work of our great national 
 game, baseball ; a friendly bout with the 
 mits. I am perhaps the only man living 
 that sparred with Yankee Sullivan. I 
 have seen one modern prize fight, a 
 knockout blow on the solar-plexus. How 
 could they have the heart to play so 
 cruel ? 
 
 After our alliance with Captain 
 Thompson and Captain McFailand we 
 often ran foot races, hopped and wrestled. 
 
 England, Ireland and Scotland have 
 been one government for 300 years. They 
 are as distinct as they were 300 years ago. 
 The Englishman believes he is the biggest 
 pebble on the beach. He don't believe in 
 anything but law. I always had the best 
 
results where there is no law. I read an 
 account, a few years ago, of three Eng- 
 lishmen who were blown to sea in a small 
 boat. They were about to starve to 
 death. They concluded to try the can- 
 nibal plan. Two were made into steak. 
 The wind veered, the other fellow came 
 home, told his story; they arrested him; 
 tried him before a jury; found him guilty 
 of double murder and hung him. In 
 concert, Alice Lisle and Elizabeth Gaunt. 
 
 Oh why sing the praises of waves and 
 
 blazes? 
 Oh why sing the praises of blazes and 
 
 waves ? 
 The blazes and waves brought us to our 
 
 graves. 
 
 So with our train. Captain McFar- 
 land was the law. We were rivals still, 
 Doc was the champion wrestler, and 
 champion rifle shot, and killed the first 
 buffalo. 
 
 P. R. Welch was the swiftest runner. 
 
The Champion Wrestler. 
 
94 
 
 Harry Woodruff was drowning- in the 
 icy waters of the Upper Colorado. Lymaii 
 swam in and saved his life. Ed. Harris 
 and Bender ran down the boy bandit. All 
 of these belong to the Lewis wing. 
 
 Captain McFarland was a grand man. 
 In all of my travels I never saw a man 
 better fitted for the difficult position. I 
 stood by when he delivered the lecture to 
 Mr. Button. 
 
 "Reed Dutton left Independence, Ohio, 
 for California in February, 1860. His 
 family consisted of his wife, Emily, 
 Lucelia and Lucina Dutton, Albert 
 Warren and Frank Dutton. They all ar- 
 rived safely at Tomales, Marin Co., in 
 October of the same year. 
 
 The Reed Dutton family had a very 
 narrow escape from massacre while cross- 
 ing Nevada. Late one afternoon he 
 dropped behind the train to repair his 
 wagon, and it was dusk before he re- 
 sumed his journey. He had not gone far 
 when a shot was fired. He whipped ur> 
 
95 
 
 his horses and succeeded in getting out 
 of range. The train also heard the shot 
 and sent aid. An examination showed 
 that the bullet struck the end of the single 
 tree of the wheel horse, splitting it. Mr. 
 Dutton was summoned before the captain 
 that evening* and given a good lecture, 
 and was informed that he must either 
 keep up with the train or drop out all 
 together. It it needless to add that he 
 kept up with the procession after the 
 episode." ALBERT DUTTON. 
 
 Mr. Dutton had allowed himself to 
 straggle behind and was fired on by the 
 Indians from ambush. 
 
 It was at the head waters of the Hum- 
 boldt River a few days after that we had 
 left our favorite cow. After we struck 
 camp. Doc and I rode back four miles 
 to try to nurse her in camp. While we 
 were hunting around among the willows 
 we came within 50 yards of one hundred 
 or more Indians making a barbacue of 
 
9 6 
 
 our cow. Of course we didn't dispute 
 ownership. 
 
 Captain Thompson was no less a dis- 
 ciplinarian, but for myself it was more 
 like shipping chickens by the carload and 
 turning them loose in the car. 
 
 The influence exerted on our state by 
 the people of the "Big Train" as it was 
 called, will never be known. I must men- 
 tion a little romance that happened with 
 one family. Mr. Parker, a young man, 
 his wife and babe, a little girl six 
 months old, they had just settled down 
 in a quiet home. Mr. Parker had some 
 difficulty with another man. While de- 
 fending his honor, the man lost his life. 
 Mr. Parker preferred the woods to the 
 decision of a jury. Mrs. Parker and the 
 babe waited. No word or sign. Mrs. 
 Parker again married. Twenty years. 
 Three camp fires on Wood River, Idaho. 
 Doc has never left the trail. This re- 
 minds me of crossing the plains. What 
 year? 1860; Captain McFarland's train. 
 
97 
 
 Lewis, oh, yes, I remember. The situa- 
 tion seemed awkward, but Doc has long 
 since learned not to ask a direct question. 
 The little babe on the plains is now a 
 beautiful young woman. Mrs. Parker 
 seems to have two husbands. The riddle 
 is solved when Mr. Parker and Mrs. 
 Reamer recognize each other. I will 
 leave it to themselves. The fact is, of the 
 three camp fires, one is Parker's ; one is 
 Reamer's; and one is Doc's. Did I 
 digress ? When I began this page I called 
 up the athlete. Near Rainville, Indiana, 
 in the dooryard of the old Brown home, 
 there stands two stakes fifty-six feet apart, 
 placed there by Mr. Brown's neighbors 
 nearly 70 years ago. The ground is level 
 and Mr. Brown covered the distance, 
 three hops back and forward. We had no 
 athletic clubs. I say to the athletes of to- 
 day, "Go hop fifty-six feet, running start, 
 and we will treat with you." Mr. Brown's 
 contour was of the kangaroo, but nothing 
 like deformitv. His features were like 
 
98 
 
 the Jew. He seemed a Jew without the 
 commercial tact. His eyes were dark ; 
 brows were black and heavy as the buf- 
 falo's mane. He lived on his eighty-acre 
 farm with his young wife and two babes. 
 He did not follow the plow nor engage in 
 any manual labor. He lived by the chase. 
 In fact he was known as "hound John 
 Brown." He was never known to have a 
 hound that would take the back track. It 
 is a fact in nature that there is once in a 
 while a hound that will take the back 
 track. While the author of Ben Hur was 
 taking his first lessons in the little red 
 school house on the east bank of the 
 Wabash, John Brown was making a rec- 
 ord that was to astonish the athlete 
 world. 
 
 The McDade brothers were school- 
 mates of Lew Wallace. In Newtown, 
 Fountain County, Indiana, no one ever 
 knew from whence Mr. Brown came. 
 He might have been a second son of some 
 great English landed estate who did not 
 
99 
 
 like the entailment laws. So our own 
 entailment laws. By will we tie up God's 
 green earth. For generations the Stan- 
 ford will to the Leland Stanford Jr. Uni- 
 versity establishes the rent system for 
 thousands of acres of our fair state. The 
 same fate that builds such splendor in 
 San Mateo creates a wilderness in Butte. 
 
 Young reader, if in these rambling lines 
 I have told some facts or said some things 
 that made you glad, I will be glad. 
 
IOO 
 
 The Old-Time Fiddlers. 
 
 (From the Woman's Home Companion.) 
 
 On the low hills that hedge in the 
 swamp stretches of the Illinois Kankakee ; 
 in the valley of Indiana's Lost River; in 
 the Wisconsin woodlands, and in the 
 Kentucky bluegrass pastures are found 
 the homes of the old-time fiddlers. There 
 are no young- fiddlers in this middle-wes- 
 tern country. The young fiddlers are all 
 violinists; save the mark! This land of 
 prairie, pasture and forest was prolific of 
 fiddlers. Their race is nearing its end, 
 and when it is fairly run a regret will 
 linger in the hearts of those who know 
 these ancient players, like that felt when 
 the strains of one of their pathetic melo- 
 dies passes from fiddle and bow. 
 
 There are enough of them left, how- 
 ever, to make up goodly gatherings twice 
 a year in different parts of their home 
 states, when they meet to engage in hon- 
 
101 
 
 ored "old fiddlers" contests. These con- 
 tests smack of the Western soil. They 
 are peculiar to the prairie country and to 
 a small part of Kentucky and Wisconsin. 
 The old snowy-headed men who compete 
 for prizes at these meetings have no new 
 music. Their tunes in the main have been 
 handed down to them, father to son, from 
 the days when the first tide of humanity 
 swelled over the Allegheny Mountains 
 and spread to the land beyond. The 
 quality of their music is Nature's own. 
 Through it all the cardinal whistles, the 
 quail calls and the tufted titmouse pipes. 
 
 BANCROTI 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
IO2 
 
 My California. 
 
 California with her songs of the Ocean, 
 Pronounced by the waves of the Sea; 
 I linger a time in devotion, 
 Then drew a rein for mountain and tree. 
 
 Refrain : 
 
 O, the winds and the waves with their 
 
 bluster, 
 
 In winter as cold as neglect. 
 A summer's sun still sheds his soft luster, 
 Tho many's the. ship they have wrecked. 
 
 Protected by the Solons of a nation, 
 Tall Sequoias majestically stand. 
 Tall fir trees take up their station 
 A wild wood, fantastically grand. 
 
 Refrain : 
 
 Through the wild wood long ago where 
 
 we wandered 
 I loved her she said she loved me. 
 
103 
 
 Life's springtime together we've squan- 
 dered. 
 
 The pale moon now shines down through 
 the trees. 
 
 Where the sunbeam reaches clown his 
 
 long fingers 
 
 'Tis noonday, yet matchless as morn. 
 'Tis noonday yet twilight still lingers, 
 Like sunset when time was first born. 
 
 Refrain : 
 
 Through the wildwood long* ago where 
 we wandered, 
 
 I loved her she said she loved me. 
 
 Life's springtime together we've squan- 
 dered. 
 
 The pale moon now shines down through 
 the trees. 
 
 Where loves are so rare and requited 
 O land where the poppies first grew 
 To youths that were fair, were united 
 This, this is the land of the few. 
 
IO4 
 Refrain : 
 
 Through the wildwood long ago where 
 we wandered. 
 
 I loved her she said she loved me. 
 
 Life's springtime together we've squan- 
 dered. 
 
 The pale moon now shines down through 
 the trees. 
 
 Turn backward turn back to the ocean, 
 Where wave chases wave on the sand. 
 A song of perpetual motion 
 As they rolled on when time first began. 
 
 Refrain : 
 
 O, the winds and the waves with their 
 
 bluster 
 
 In winter as cold as neglect. 
 A summer's sun still sheds his soft luster 
 Tho many's the ship they have wrecked. 
 
My Yosemite. 
 
 High terraced walls of rock and tree 
 Here are the Falls of Yosemite 
 A very mine of mystery 
 You almost feel that you have flown 
 From some old world and this is Heaven 
 and all your own. 
 
 Take no pen picture of the place 
 
 Enough to wander here to trace 
 
 The Alpine features of her face 
 
 El Capitan, a name given by man 
 
 The angeles call the sentinel 
 
 To guard the secrets of this dell 
 
 And to watch and hold as you would hold 
 
 The very secrets of your soul 
 
 I look in vain for Indian name or scroll 
 
 Of cryptic song or any sign 
 
 Of prince or princess who had come to 
 
 behold 
 
 And worshipped at thy shrine 
 IVrchance Wawona came this way 
 To celebrate her nuptial clay 
 
io6 
 
 Like Princess Lallala upon another throne 
 The name of her lover chief may ne'er be 
 
 known 
 
 I sing my simple song, of thee 
 To those who loved thee 
 And to those who ne'er, like me, shall 
 
 chance to wander here. 
 
 (Lone Oak.) 
 
iGONAUT OF 
 PARADISE GOES 
 TO S.F. PORTOLA 
 
 LN FRANCISCO, Oct. 6. Captain 
 is has come to town for the Porto- 
 iaptain John I. Lewis is his name in 
 
 and he lives at Paradise, Butte 
 ity. He is seventy-nine years old, 
 he just couldn't resist the call of 
 carnival. He says so himself. 
 * is a retired rancher, but he is 
 3 V-esides. For one thing- he is doub- 
 pioneer he came across the plains 
 e by ox team. For another, he was 
 se friend of Joaquiri Miller and one 
 is most cherished memetoes is a 
 ograph of himself taken at Miller's 
 
 at the latter's home at "The 
 iits." And besides, he is a cham- 
 
 fiddler. Fiddler is the term not 
 nist. Captain Lewis has taken first 
 js at the State Fair -with his fiddle 
 is proud of it. 
 
 5 called at the Portola headquar- 
 to say that he was ready to do all 
 mid to help make the October cel- 
 tion a big- success. He pulled up in 
 : of the Underwood building, where 
 lesta headquarters are, in a little 
 
 wagon, which he uses when on the 
 and that is a good part of the 
 
 He sleeps in the open, M making his. 
 quarters in his rig; and incident- 
 to this habit he attributes his lon- 
 
 y. 
 
 Captain Lewis is a bit of a poet. He 
 has published a little volume of verse 
 j which he likes to give to his friends. 
 In homely rhyme he has expressed his 
 love of the open- West, as it was known 
 to the bygone generation; and in it, 
 under the title of "My Garden of Ro- 
 ses." he has told his life history, as in- 
 teresting a story as any to be found in 
 Bret Harte. 
 
 After paying San Francisco a brief 
 visit he went to San Jose, to visit his 
 son, W. L. Lewis. He will stay there a 
 few days and then come back to the 
 city for the Portola. 
 
 Up in Butte county he has four other 
 sons; and it would be hard to tell 
 whether he is prouder of any of his va- 
 ried attributes than he is of his fam- 
 ily. 
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN LEWIS, 
 
 Captain John I. Lews, whose home is 
 at Paradise, Butte county, has come 
 here for the Admission Day festivities. 
 He has his own conveyance, and drove 
 all the way to Santa Rosa. Captain 
 Lewis is an interesting man, and is a 
 pioneer of '53. He came here to "see 
 the boys," he says. The Captain is an 
 author, and has with him a very neat 
 little illustrated booklet entitled, "My 
 i^n of Roses." It tells of pioneei 
 nd will be read with Interest, 
 paid the Press Democrat 
 uit call on thursda^' 
 
 iwr 
 
INEER WO; ', ARE 
 
 yisi;, / BY LEWIS. 
 
 Time Fiddler Afldslesl to 
 Virginia Reel. 
 
 though not officially declared by 
 press or management of the Fair, 
 ladies of the Pioneer booth took 
 )on themselves last evening- to de- 
 3 for a revival of the Pioneer's 
 which was the feature of last 
 nesday evening, and the result was 
 greatest of possible successes. 
 st was added to the occasion by 
 presence of Captain John I. Lewis, 
 Idler the days of '49, who fur- 
 3d music for many a mining town 
 e hall in that good old time. The 
 ain brought his fiddle witli him 
 played for a Virginia reel, while 
 ladies and small f the booth 
 
 ed and he tapp n .e with the 
 of his^owhide 1 
 
 Captain a musician 
 
 ,. no mem consequence, but he is 
 
 I also a poet, and through his book 
 
 i "My Garden of Roses/ has won a 
 
 statewide reputation. He was a very 
 
 close friend of Joaquin Miller and a 
 
 notable member of California's earli- 
 
 est literary colony. 
 
 He is now approaching his eightieth 
 birthday. He has a clear blue eye and 
 a long white bard, just enough tang- 
 gle to hint at earner and hardier days. 
 Lewis makes strenuous objection to be- 
 ing termed a "violinist." He declares 
 himself a "fiddler'; of the old school. 
 He will have non^Br the catchy tunes 
 of the day, but is well satisfied with 
 the good old airs that our grandmoth- 
 ers knew. 
 
 In an old - time fiddlers contest in 
 
 :onnection with the Pioneers' Day 
 
 conducted by Miss Kathryn Cole at 
 
 the State Pair a year ago, Captain 
 
 Lewis won first prize 
 
 HUNTS GOLD, 
 
 "ant. John Lewis ..^,^ 
 n Trip Through Ixu 
 
 Capt- ;n John i. Lew 
 >S t has reached San 
 
 S.^ 
 
 :>hr> T, Lewis, who wo-ri _u 101 ^. 
 led Jack Barton, i Pov/litz prairie 
 'one years ago and went down the 
 rlitz river on hia way to California in 
 anoe laden with wheat, paying his 
 the same as on a steamboat, was in 
 city last Sunday on his way home 
 a Seattle. He now lives at Biggs-,- in 
 te County, California. He -was 
 itly impressed with the way this re- 
 i has improved since he last saw it, 
 -e than half a centuary ago. He is 
 ing a little booK which he wrote some 
 e ago, and says he is having the time 
 tiis life. He is accompanied by a 
 
 > POETRY 
 
 F"rom Wag-- 
 -f Valleys. 
 
 v pioneer of 
 sco again 
 ""on on th 
 .o and Sa 
 
 y^ars old, and 
 
 ings thing of beauty and poetry 
 and says that he would not exchan^' 
 his wealth with Rockefeller. . 
 
 He Is on his way to visit his old 
 
 !ew a oems MlUer and submlt to ' 
 book, "^l^^f (TJn 6 o? RoaeJ?'* M * 
 
X'* 
 
 m