wc 
 
 ii 
 
 
 
 m^m 
 
 Km. I 
 
 '(jCX'^^St'^S^ 
 
 ^(t&C^KLL-JS^li 
 
 
 "m. 
 
 ^ '"icc^ 
 
 
 ^^cc««K^^$^.* 
 
 <rCQi 
 
N A ^\^ 
 
 > :> 
 
 
 . Iliiia Lib. 
 
 ■■ — ^*->"^; 
 
 THE ROBERT E. COWi^N COLL 
 
 I'RKSKNTKI) T<1 thk 
 
 NIVERStTY OF CALIpSrNIH 
 
 2..1iU.NIUM^iaN 
 
 'flccesf 
 
 > 
 
 ) > 
 
 ) 
 
 > 
 
 ;/> 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 » 
 
 > 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 i> 
 
 > 
 
 > 
 
 )) 
 
 > > o 
 
 
'i^^w yyy^m my% ^i^)^. 
 '^^M.-yy^yyii^yyy)ty>my^y) >y>~y 
 
 !>S^ yy m> :^ 55:^ :^:S .33 i>:i 
 
 pymmm>p) 
 
 )^mm^y)iyj>'jmyM 
 
WHEI^E TO FlflD THE]V[. 
 
 f Baker's celebrated Oration at the Burial of Broderick, 
 [1859], so often referred to and sought for, can be found only in 
 " Representative Men of the Pacific." 
 
 h^ 1 McDouGAi,i.'s sportive remarks on drink in the United States 
 
 /Senate, unparalleled for dignified humor, although they may "make 
 the judicious grieve ;" also his nobler thoughts and statelier sen- 
 tences on the death of Baker, can be found only in this book. 
 
 Thos. Starr King's Lecture on Temperance [i860], his 
 Masonic Oration [1863], and his moving words at the Burial of 
 Baker [1861], live only in this now rare work. 
 
 Baker's beautiful "Atlantic Cable Address," contain- 
 ing his memorable Apostrophe to Science and his oft-quoted 
 allusion to the Comet of 1858, has not perished, but is preserved 
 only in the " California Scrap-Book." 
 
 A fine address [Agricultural Fair], by Newton Booth, 
 Thos. Starr King's inspiring lecture on Yosemite, and other 
 superior productions, are in the Scrap-Book only. 
 
 A necdotes and Reminiscences of the Notable Men of the Far 
 
 West Bar, are told only in " Bench and Bar in California." 
 
 No other book contains a graphic account, by an eye-witness, 
 
 of the great Broderick-Terry Duel, [San Francisco, 1859.] 
 
 " A novel is nowhere in comparison with this book," writes Dr. Bonte, 
 of the State University. 
 
 Striking thoughts on many themes, carefully selected from 
 California Writers and Speakers, are brought together only in 
 the " California Anthology." It is here that 
 
 "Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er. 
 
 Scatters from her pictured urn 
 Thoughts that breathe and words that burn." 
 
 These works are by the undersigned, and are sold free of 
 postage for $5 per book, except the "Anthology," which is 
 $3.50. Address 
 
 OSCAR TT. SHUCK, 
 509 Kearny Street, San Francisco, Cal. 
 

c:^V^t^t^ c:^ c/^ 
 
REPRESENTATIVE AND LEADING 
 
 MEN OF THE PACIFIC 
 
 BEIXO 
 
 ORIGINAL SKETCHES 
 
 LIVES AXn CHARACTERS OP THE PRINCIPAL MEN', LIVING AND DECEASED, OF THE PACIFIC 
 STATES AND TERRITORIES — PIONEERS, POLlflCIANS, LAWYERS, DOCTORS, MERCHANTS, 
 
 ORATORS, AND DIVINES TO WHICH ARE ADDED THEIR SPEECHES, ADDRESSES, 
 
 ORATIONS, EULOGIES, LECTURES, AND POEMS, UPON A VARIETY 
 OF SUBJECTS, INCLUDING THE HAPPIEST FORENSIC EFFORTS 
 
 AND OTHER TOPULAR ORATORS. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 O S C A 3^ T . SHUCK 
 
 Compiler of the "California Scrap Book." 
 
 Embellished with Handsome Steel Portraits. 
 
 They came— the Foundcs of a State, 
 
 The men with spirit brave and free, 
 Who snatched the magic wand of Fate 
 
 And shaped their own high destiny. — J. T. Goodman. 
 
 No species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than Biography. — Langhorne. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 BACON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS, 
 
 No. 536 Clay Street, between Montgomery and Sansome. 
 I 870. 
 
iS^Ol 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 BACON AND COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the District 
 
 of California. 
 
/ o 
 
 93 C 
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM T. COLEMAN, ESO. 
 
 OF YONKERS, V NEWr YORK 
 
 A CALIFORNIA PIONEER OF 1849, 
 
 AND, FOR MAKY YEARS, A LEADING MERCHANT OF THE 
 
 Pftv0i)0Ui$ 0f the pacific, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED IN TOKEN OF THE REGARD ENTERTAINED FOR HIS CHARACTER BY 
 
 The Editor^. 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 The Editor has long entertained the behef, that a vol- 
 ume of biographical sketches of men who have attained 
 an honorable prominence in the young commonwealths of 
 the Pacific would be received with favor by the reading 
 public, as containing not only notices of leading charac- 
 ters, but also a condensed history of the remarkable times 
 in which the infancy of those States was cast. 
 
 Such a volume he now lays before the people. He has 
 improved upon his original design, by incorporating into 
 the work a large number of Speeches, Orations, Poems, 
 etc., delivered at various times and places throughout the 
 Pacific States ; which, in his judgment, render the work 
 highly attractive, interesting and valuable. 
 
 The volume will be found to contain twenty-four 
 Speeches, Orations and Addresses ; six Poems, and fifty- 
 nine Biographical Sketches. Of the latter a few are not 
 original, and it is necessary to say a word concerning 
 them. 
 
 That of Gen. E. D. Baker, by Hon. Edward Stanly, 
 was not written by that gentleman for this work, but is 
 taken from his Eulogy, delivered in San Francisco, in 
 1 86 1. This chaste production reappears here, with some 
 changes which the Editor deemed important, and which 
 the Author will no doubt excuse. 
 
 From Gen. Cullum's " Army Register " were procured 
 the necessary data for the sketch of Gen. Stevens. 
 
b PREFACE. 
 
 The notice of James King of William is taken almost 
 entirely from a brief biography of him, issued in pam- 
 phlet shortly after his death. The original sketch has 
 received many important corrections from the pen of a 
 gentleman of San Francisco, who was intimate with 
 Mr. King, but who thinks it unnecessary that his name 
 should appear. 
 
 The notice of Col. A. M. Pico is inserted, with a few 
 slight alterations, as it first appeared in the San Francisco 
 *'News Letter" of 1869. 
 
 The article on Delazon Smith is taken from the New 
 York " Democratic Review " of i860. 
 
 The interesting narrative of Gen. Sutter's early move- 
 ments in California was first embodied in a petition sub- 
 mitted to Congress on behalf of the old veteran several 
 years ago, praying the nation to repair his heavy losses 
 suffered at the hands of the " settlers " of 1849. 
 
 The name of the writer of each of the other sketches 
 will be found at the head of the proper notice, except in 
 a few instances, in which, by the author's particular re- 
 quest, his name is not given. 
 
 Although the Editor claims no credit for the manner 
 in which he has performed his task, yet he is proudly 
 conscious of the fact that he is giving to the world a 
 work of beauty and merit; for (and who will gainsay it.^^) 
 no volume enriched with selections from the master- 
 pieces of Baker, McDougall, Randolph and T. Starr 
 King, can be other than useful and meritorious. 
 
 O. T. S. 
 San Francisco, Cal., February, 1870. 
 
3sc 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 Title of Article. Xame op Acthok. Page. 
 
 John A. Sctter 1 1 
 
 Jose Axtoxio De La Gieura Alfred Robimon 2o 
 
 PiERSox B. Reading 29 
 
 Lelaxd Stanford W. E. Brown S5 
 
 John Bigler The Editor 47 
 
 Edward Dickinson Bakek Hon. Edicard Staidy 63 
 
 Poem to a Wave Col. E. D. Baker 1Z 
 
 Apostrophe to Science " " " V4 
 
 Eloquent Allusion to the Comet of 1858 " " " 74 
 
 Tribute to Freedom " " " 76 
 
 Address at the Burial of Baker Rev. T. Stai-r King 80 
 
 Matthew P. Deady Harvey W. Scott 85 
 
 Extract from Address to Portland Law Association. ..Jiulae J/. P. Deady .105 
 
 Junipero Serra Ill 
 
 George Gordon B. P. Avery 115 
 
 Remarks on the Life and Genius of Robert Burns George Gordon 117 
 
 Matthew Hall McAllister Henry E. HlgMon 129 
 
 Joseph G. Baldwin J. G. Howard 135 
 
 Cornelius K. Garrison William V. Wells 143 
 
 Messaj^e to the Common Council of San Francisco ( 1 853) C. K. Garrison 147 
 
 Thomas Starr King .165 
 
 Telegram to the People of California on the Death of 
 
 Thomas Starr King Rev. H. W. Belloies 174 
 
 Resolutions of Unitarian Church of San Francisco, in 
 
 regard to Death of Thomas Starr King 175 
 
 Address on the Life and Services of T. Starr King Robert B. Swain 177 
 
 Poem on Death of T. StaiT King John G. Whittier 206 
 
 Lecture on Temperance Rev. T. Starr King 207 
 
 Masonic Oration " " " ....211 
 
 Charles E. De Long The Editor 219 
 
 Mariano Guadalupe Yallejo. Col. C. E. Pickett 225 
 
 Elias S. Cooper Dr. L. C. Lane 237 
 
 Poem on Death of Dr. Cooper T. G. Spear 246 
 
 Joseph W. Winans TJie Editor 249 
 
 "The Golden Wedding." Hon. J. W. Winans 254 
 
 The Dignity of Labor " " " 255 
 
 " Mundus"— A Poem " " " ....268 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Title of Article. Name of Author. Page. 
 
 Gkorge L. Woods Calvin B. McDonald. . 2T1 
 
 Frank Tilford 77ie IJditor 211 
 
 The History, Genius and Resources of Ireland Hon. Frank Tilford. . .288 
 
 Caleb T. Fay The Editor 303 
 
 William I. Ferguson " " 319 
 
 Reminiscences of Ferguson Hon. W. H. Herndon. . 320 
 
 Remarks on Death of Ferguson Col. E. D. Baker 32Y 
 
 Discourse" " " " Rev. J. A. Benton 332 
 
 Kdward J. C. Kewex J. G. Howard 341 
 
 Oration before California Pioneers (1854) Col. E. J. G. Keicen... . 346 
 
 Charles Westjuoreland B. P. Avery 361 
 
 Eugene Casserly 365 
 
 Eulogy on Daniel Webster Hon. E. Casserly 370 
 
 Henry Wager Halleck ■. Judge T. W. Freelon. . . 375 
 
 David C. Broderick 385 
 
 Account of the Duel between David S. Terry and 
 
 David C. Broderick 393 
 
 Funeral Oration over Body of David C. Broderick Col. E. D. Baker 398 
 
 Eloquent Protest against the " Code of Honor." " " " 402 
 
 Isaac N. Roop Jtidge A. T. Bruce 405 
 
 Thomas H. Selby , William V. Wells 411 
 
 James Nisbet 421 
 
 Franklin Tutiiill 425 
 
 Serranus Clinton Hastings T. P. Madden 433 
 
 James Willis Nesmitu The Editor 439 
 
 Speech on the Bill to Establish a Branch Mint in 
 
 Oregon , Hon. J. W. Kesmith 443 
 
 Samuel Brannan William V. Wills 455 
 
 Philip Legget Edwards Robert E. Draper .461 
 
 Hugh Campbell Murray The Editor 473 
 
 Remarks on Death of Judge Murray Judge Wm. T. Wallace. All 
 
 Do. do. Judge David S. Terry. .478 
 
 Henry M. Gray Wdliam V. Wells 479 
 
 Masonic Oration Dr. H. M. Gray 486 
 
 Tod Robinson 77i.e Editor 495 
 
 Isaac Inoalls Stevens " " 499 
 
 .Ti: AN Bautista Alvarado 503 
 
 Thompsom Campbell lion. F. F. Taylor 509 ' 
 
 John B. Weller 21ie Editor 515 
 
 Cornelius Cole 523 
 
 John R. McConnkll William H. Rhodes 529 
 
 Ogden Hoffman The Editor 63^^. 
 
 Isaac Rowell , Calvin B. McDonald. . . 539 
 
 Nathaniel Bennett T/ie Editor 545 
 
 Oration on the Admission of California into the Union 
 
 1650 Judge y. Bennett 553 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Title of Article. . Name of Author. Page 
 James King of William 563 
 
 Prize Poem on Death of James King of William WiUkan H. Rhodes. . . .SVQ 
 
 Joseph C. Tucker WW.aua V. Welh 581 
 
 Edmund Randolph WiU'uuu II. Rhodes 591 
 
 Address on the History of California (1860) lion. Edmund Randolph.h^^ 
 
 Milton S. Latham Judge Gaven D. Hall. . 609 
 
 Robert B. Swain William V. Wells 615 
 
 Remarks on the Operations of the Society for improv- 
 ing the Condition of the Poor Robert B. Sicain 621 
 
 Frederick F. Low William V. Wells 625 
 
 Antonio Maria Pico 631 
 
 William Morris Stewart 635 
 
 Hugh P. Gallagher I). F. D 645 
 
 Lecture on Rome Rev. II. P. Gallagher. . 659 
 
 Henry Huntley Haight 663 
 
 Address on the Completion of the Pacific Railroad. . . Gov. If. H. Haight 667 
 
 Delazon Smith 677 
 
 Stephen Johnson Field The Editor 685 
 
 James A. McDougall William H. Rhodes. . . .689 
 
 Remarks on Death of Col. E. D. P.aker Gen. j: A. McDougall. mo 
 
 Remarks on the Sale of Li»iuors iu the National Capitol 
 
 Building " " " .700 
 
LIST OF EMBELLISHMENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 1. HOX. THOMAS H. SELBY Frontispiece 
 
 2. EX-GOY. LELAND STANFORD 35 
 
 3. SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849 51 
 
 4. GEN. E. D. BAKER 63 
 
 5. HON. C. K. GARRISON 143 
 
 6. REY. THOMAS STARR KING 165 
 
 1. HON. CHARLES E. DE LONG. 219 
 
 8. HON. JOSEPH W. WINANS 249 
 
 9. HON. CALEB T. FAY 303 
 
 10. COL. E. J. C. KEWEN 341 
 
 11. GEN. H. W. HALLECK 3'75 
 
 12. JUDGE S. C. HASTINGS 433 
 
 13. SAMUEL BRANNAN, Esq 455 
 
 14. DR. H. M. GRAY 479 
 
 15. GEN. ISAAC L STEVENS 499 
 
 16. EX-GOV. JOHN B. WELLER 516 
 
 17. HON. CORNELIUS COLE 528 
 
 18. DR. ISAAC ROWELL 539 'vu^" 
 
 19. DR. J. C. TUCKER.... 581 
 
 20. ROBERT B. SWAIN, Esq 615 
 
 21. GOV. H. H. HAIGHT 663 
 
 22. DELAZON SMITH, Esq 611 
 
 23. GEN. J. A. McDOUGALL. 689 
 

 JOHN A. SUTTER.* 
 
 GEx. Sutter was born March 1st, 1803, in the Grand 
 Ducliy of Baden, where his early boyhood was 
 passed. His father, who was a clergyman of the Luther- 
 an Church, afterwards removed to Switzerland, and 
 settled there with his family. He purchased for himself 
 and heirs the rights and immunities of Swiss citizenship. 
 The statement, in the volume entitled ''Annals of San 
 Francisco," that ''John A. Sutter was the son of a Swiss 
 of the canton Berne," is incorrect. Our subject received 
 a good education, both civil and military. 
 
 Early in life he married a Bernese lady, and was 
 blessed with several children. At the age of thirty-one, 
 he determined to gratify a desire he had long cherished, 
 to emigrate to the United States. Xot knowing whether 
 or not he should settle permanently in the "Great 
 Eepublic," he concluded to leave his family behind him. 
 He arrived at New York in July, 1834. After visiting 
 several of the Western States, he settled in Missouri, 
 and there resided for several years. At St. Charles, 
 Missouri, he made, before the proper tribunal, his dec- 
 laration to become a citizen of the United States. During 
 his residence in Missouri, he made a short visit to New_ 
 Mexico, where) he met with many trappers and hunters, 
 returned from Upper California, whose glowing descrip- 
 tions confirmed his previous impressions, and excited 
 within his breast an ardent desire to behold and wander 
 over the rich lands and beautiful valleys, to breathe the 
 pure air and enjoy the unrivalled climate, of that then 
 almost unknown region. Upon returning to Missouri, 
 
 * For explanatory note, see Preface. 
 
12 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 he determined to reach the Pacific by joining some one 
 of the trapping expeditions of the American or English 
 Fur Companies. But great obstacles were to be sur- 
 mounted, and long years were" to intervene, before his 
 feet would rest upon the virgin soil of California. On 
 the first day of April, 1838, the General was enabled, for 
 the first time, to connect himself with a trapping ex- 
 pedition. On that day, he left the Missouri with Captain 
 Tripp of the American Fur Company, and travelled with 
 his party to their rendezvous in the Rocky Mountains. 
 There he parted with the expedition, and with six horse- 
 men, crossed the mountains, and after encountering the 
 usual lot of dangers and hardships, arrived at Fort 
 Vancouver. 
 
 Having before learned that there was no known land- 
 communication with California from the valleys of the 
 Columbia or Willamette in winter, and there being then 
 a vessel of the Hudson Bay Company ready to sail from 
 Fort Yancouver to the Sandwich Islands, Gen. Sutter 
 took passage in her, hoping to find at the islands some 
 means of conveyance to California. Only one of the 
 men who had remained with him thus far, consented to 
 accompany him. On reaching the islands, he found no 
 prospect of a conveyance, and after remaining five 
 months, as the only means of accomplishing his purpose, 
 he shipped as supercargo, without pay, on an English 
 vessel, chartered by a party of Americans, bound for 
 Sitka. 
 
 After discharging his cargo at the latter place to the 
 full satisfaction of the charterers. Gen. Sutter, with their 
 authority, directed his vessel southw^ard, and sailed down 
 the Pacific Coast, encountering heavy gales. He was 
 driven into the bay of San Francisco in distress, and on 
 tlie second day of July, 1839 — -just five years after the 
 date of his arrival in New York from Switzerland — 
 anchored his little craft opposite Yerba Buena, now San 
 Francisco. 
 
 He was immediately waited upon by a Mexican official, 
 with an armed force, and ordered to leave without delay, 
 the officer informing him that Monterey was the ''port 
 
JOHN A. SUTTER. 13 
 
 of entry." He succeeded, however, in obtaining permis- 
 sion to remain fort3'-eight hours to get supplies. 
 
 A few days later, upon arriving at the ''port of 
 entry," Gen. Sutter waited upon Governor Alvarado and 
 communicated to him his desire to settle in Upper Cali- 
 fornia, on the Sacramento. Gov. Alvarado expressed 
 himself much gratified upon learning his visitor's wish, 
 particularly when he understood his desire to settle on 
 the Sacramento ; saying the Indians in that quarter were 
 very hostile, and would not permit any whites to settle 
 there ; that they robbed the inhabitants of San Jose and 
 the lower settlements of their horses, cattle, etc. He 
 readily gave Gen. Sutter a passport, with power to settle 
 any territory he should deem suitable for his colony and 
 purposes, and requested him to return to Monterey in 
 one year from that time, when his Mexican citizenship 
 would be acknowledged, and he would receive a "grant" 
 for the land he might solicit. 
 
 Thereupon, the General returned to Yerba Buena and 
 chartered a schooner, with some small boats, and started 
 upon an exploring expedition on the Sacramento river. 
 
 Upon diligent inquiry, he could not find any one at Yerba 
 Buena who had ever seen the Sacramento rker^ or who could 
 describe to him where he could find its mouth ; the 
 people of that place only professed to know that some 
 large river emptied into one of the connected bays lying 
 northerly from their town. Gen. Sutter consumed eight 
 dwi>^ in the effort to find the mouth of that river. 
 
 AiUT finding it, and ascending the river to a point 
 about ten miles below the place where Sacramento city 
 now stands, he encountered the first large party of In- 
 dians; there were about two hundred of them, all armed 
 and painted for war ; they exhibited every mark of hos- 
 tility, save an actual outbreak. Fortunately, there were 
 two among them who understood Spanish, and with 
 whom the General engaged in conversation. He quieted 
 them by assurances tliat there were no Spaniards (against 
 whom they were particularly exasperated) in his party : 
 that lie wished to settle in their country, and trade with 
 them. He showed them his agricultural implements and 
 
14 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 commodities of trade, which he had provided for the 
 purpose, and proposed to make a sort of treaty with 
 them. He furthermore explained to them the advan- 
 tages which they could mutually derive from each other. 
 Pleased with these assurances, they became contented, 
 the crowd dispersed, and the two who spoke the Spanish 
 language accompanied the General and his party as far as 
 the mouth of Feather river, to show them the country.^ 
 All other parties of Indians seen, fled at the sight of the 
 vessel and boats. 
 
 Parting with his two Indian interpreters and guides 
 at the mouth of the Feather river. Gen. Sutter ascended 
 the latter stream a considerable distance, when a few of 
 his white men became alarmed at the surrounding dangers, 
 and insisted upon returning, which the General was con- 
 strained to do. 
 
 On his descent, he entered the mouth of the Ameri- 
 can river, and on the 15th day of August, 1839, landed 
 at the point on the south bank of that stream where he 
 afterwards established his tannery, in the present bounds 
 of Sacramento city. On the following morning, after 
 landing all his effects, he informed the disaffected whites 
 that all who wished to return to Yerba Buena could do 
 so ; that the Kanakas were willing to remain, and that he 
 had resolved to do so, if alone. Three of the whites 
 determined to leave, and he put them in possession of 
 the schooner, with instructions to deliver her to her 
 owners. They set sail for Yerba Buena the same day. 
 
 Three weeks thereafter. Gen. Sutter removed to the 
 spot upon which he afterwards erected Fort Siitter. 
 This old Sacramento landmark is still standing, but its 
 weather-beaten walls are crumbling into dust; no hand 
 is ready to strengthen and protect them, and not long 
 will the venerable structure remind the early pioneer of 
 the virgin days when the discovery of gold had not yet 
 given the land over as a prey to the adventurous and the 
 lawless. 
 
 In the early days of the settlement, Gen. Sutter en- 
 countered many troubles with tlie Indians, who organ- 
 ized secret expeditions, as he afterwards learned, to 
 
JOHN A. SUTTER. 15 
 
 destroy him and his party; but, directed by an over- 
 ruling Providence, he defeated or frustrated all their 
 machinations, and those who were at first his greatest 
 enemies, came to be his best and most steadfast friends. 
 
 The General now devoted himself energetically to 
 agriculture and stock-raising. It will be seen that he 
 became very wealthy and prosperous. 
 
 4n: the fall of the year 1839, he purchased of Senor 
 Martinez, who resided not far from San Francisco bay, 
 three hundred head of cattle, thirty horses, and thirty 
 mares. During that fall, eight more white men joined 
 his colony. When he commenced those improvements 
 that resulted in the erection of Sutter's Fort and his 
 establishment there, he had much trouble in procuring 
 suitable lumber and timber. He floated some down the 
 Amepcan from the mountains, and was also compelled 
 to send to Bodega on the sea-coast, a distance of several 
 hundred miles. 
 
 In August, 1840, he was joined by the five men who 
 crossed the Rocky Mountains with him, and whom he 
 had left in Oregon. His colony now numbered twenty- 
 five men, seventeen whites and eight Kanakas. During 
 the fall of this year, the Mokelumne Indians became 
 troublesome by stealing the live-stock of the settlers; 
 they even threatened the destruction of the settlement, 
 and compelled Gen. Sutter, by their acts and menaces, 
 to make open war against them. He marched with his 
 forces thirty miles in the night-time to the camp of the 
 Indians, (where they were concentrating large forces for 
 a movement against him) and attacked them — some two 
 hundred warriors — with such effect that they retreated, 
 and being hotly pursued, they sued for peace, which was 
 readily granted, and ever afterwards mutually main- 
 tained. 
 
 Shortly after this encounter. Gen. Sutter purchased 
 one thousand more head of cattle and seventy-five horses 
 and mares. His colony continued to increase by the 
 addition of every foreigner, Americans and others, who 
 came into the country: they sought his place as one of 
 security. 
 
16 REPRESENT ATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The trappers he furnished with supplies, and pur- 
 chased or received in exchange their furs ; the mechanics 
 and laborers he either employed or procured them work. 
 
 In June, 1841, he revisited Monterey, the capital, 
 where he was declared a Mexican citizen, and received 
 from Gov. Alvarado a ''grant" for his land by the name 
 of ''New Helvetia," a survey of which he had caused to 
 be made before that time. 
 
 Thereupon, he was honored with a commission from 
 the Govenor, of " Representante del govierno en las fron- 
 teras del norte y encargado de la justicia." 
 
 Soon after his return to his settlement, he was visited 
 by Captain Ringgold, of the United States Exploring 
 Expedition, under Commodore Wilkes, with officers and 
 men, and about the same time, by Mr. Alexander RotchefF, 
 Governor of the Russian possessions, "Ross & Bodega," 
 who, during his stay, offered to sell to Gen. Sutter the 
 Russian possessions, settlements, and ranches of Ross 
 & Bodega. The terms were such as induced him to start 
 with Rotcheflf for those possessions and examine the 
 same ; after which he made the purchase of the land and 
 posessions for the sum of $30,000 — the personal property 
 for a few thousand dollars more. The live-stock then 
 consisted of over 2,000 head of cattle, over 1,000 head 
 of horses, 50 or more mules, and over 2,000 head of 
 sheep, the greater part of which were driven to New 
 Helvetia, the residue left on the premises in the charge 
 of an agent whom he kept on the property to hold pos- 
 session of the same. 
 
 This increase of his resources, together with the 
 natural increase of his stock, besides several smaller lots 
 purchased from other parties, enabled him the more 
 rapidly to advance his settlement and improvements. 
 
 In the year 1844, he petitioned Govenor Manuel 
 Micheltorena for the grant or purchase of the " sobrante," 
 or surplus, over the first eleven leagues of the land within 
 the bounds of the survey accompanying the Alvarado 
 grant, which the Governor agreed to let him have ; but, 
 for causes growing out of political troubles then disturb- 
 ing the public repose, the grant was nut liually executed 
 
JOHN A. SUTTER 1 7 
 
 until the 5tli day of February a. d. 1845; during which 
 time he had rendered valuable military services, and ad- 
 vanced to the Government large amounts of property and 
 outlays, exceeding in value the sum of $8,000, to enable 
 it to suppress the Castro rebellion; in consideration of 
 all which he acquired, by purchase and personal services, 
 the lands called the ''sobrante," or surplus. 
 
 At that time he also received from the last named 
 Governor, the commission of " Commandante militar de 
 las fronteras del norte y encargado de la justicia." After 
 this time the war between the United States and Mexico 
 came on; and although Gen. Sutter was an officer under 
 the Mexican Government, and bound to it by his al- 
 legiance, yet, upon all occasions, such was his respect 
 toward the citizens and the institutions of the United 
 States, that whenever any party of American citizens, 
 civil or in military service, visited him, his unbounded 
 hospitalities were uniformly and cordially extended to 
 them; and when the country surrendered to American 
 forces, the General, who had for some time been con- 
 vinced of the instability of the Mexican Government, 
 upon request, did, on the 11th of July, 1846, hoist the 
 American flag with good heart, accompanied by a salute 
 of artillery from the guns of his fort. 
 
 Soon after. Lieutenant Missroon, of the United States 
 Navy, came up and organized a garrison for Sutter's Fort, 
 principally out of his former forces, of whites and Indians, 
 and gave to Gen. Sutter the command, which he main- 
 tained until peace returned. He was then appointed by 
 Commodore Stockton Alcalde of the District, and by Gen. 
 Kearny Indian Agent, with a salary of $750 per annum; 
 but a single trip in the discharge of his duty as Indian 
 Agent cost him $1,600, which induced him to resign that 
 office. 
 
 Gen. Sutter was now in the fall tide of prosperity. 
 His , settlement continued to grow and his property to 
 accumulate until the latter part of January, 1848. lie 
 had then completed his establishment at the fort; had 
 performed all the conditions of his grants of land; had, 
 at an expense of at least $25,000, cut a race of three 
 2 
 
\ 
 
 18 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 miles in length and nearly completed a flouring mill, for 
 the benefit of himself and the country, near the present 
 town of Brighton; had expended towards the erection 
 of a saw-mill near the town of Coloma about $10,000: 
 had sown over a thousand acres of land in wheat, which 
 promised a yield of over 40,000 bushels, and had made 
 preparations for other crops; was then the owner of 
 about 8,000 head of cattle, over 2,000 head of horses 
 and mules, over 2,000 head of sheep, and over 1,000 
 head of hogs; and was in the undisturbed, undisputed 
 and quiet possession of the extensive lands granted him 
 by the Mexican Government. From the centre of his 
 broad domain cOuld be seen, as far as the eye could 
 stretch on every hand, a prospect to gladden the heart 
 of the husbandman. But a sad change was about to 
 take place in the affairs of the old Pioneer: a grand 
 event was about to transpire, which, while it would 
 delight and electriiy the world at large, was yet destined 
 to check the growth of the settlement at Sutter's Fort 
 and cast a blight upon its prosperity. Gen. Sutter's 
 mills were soon to cease their operations, his laborers 
 and mechanics were soon to desert him, his possessions, 
 his riches, his hopes, were soon to be scattered and 
 destroyed before the impetuous charge of the gold- 
 hunters. 
 
 On the night of the 28th of January, 1848, James W. 
 Marshall, the millwright employed upon the saw-mill 
 before mentioned, arrived at the Fort from the moun- 
 tains, and informed Gen. Sutter that he had found in the 
 mill-race dug for the saw-mill, some pieces of metal 
 having the appearance of gold, which he exhibited, and 
 which, upon application of the proper test, was found to 
 be, indeed, gold. 
 
 Marshall, one day, having allowed the whole body of 
 water to rush through the tail-race of the mill for the 
 purpose of making some alterations in it, observed, while 
 walking along the bank of the stream early in the follow- 
 ing morning, numerous glistening particles among the 
 sand and gravel, which had been carried off by the force 
 of the increased body of water. Collecting several 
 
JOHN A. SUTTER. 19 
 
 pieces, he hastened to his employer — and the great dis- 
 covery was soon known. 
 
 As soon as he could prepare himself, the General re- 
 turned with Marshall to the mill, where he remained 
 until the 5th day of February, during which time he 
 became satisfied of the existence of abundance of gold 
 at that place. All the hands there at work were in Gen. 
 Sutter's employ: he urged them not to speak of the dis- 
 covery until he could return to his fort and have his 
 grist-mill finished, which would require six weeks longer, 
 and secure hands to finish planting his crops ; for" if the 
 discovery should be known all his hands would desert 
 him. 
 
 He returned to his fort, but at the end of a week or 
 ten days a rumor had existed that a gold mine had been 
 discovered at Sutter's mill: it rapidly spread, and soon 
 the reality was known to all. Its subsequent history is 
 largely intermingled with the history of the times. The 
 immediate effect was that Gen. Sutter was deserted by 
 all his mechanics and laborers — white, Kanaka, and 
 Indian. The mills thus deserted became a dead loss: he 
 could not hire labor to further plant or mature his crops 
 or reap but a ^mall part after the grain had ripened. 
 Few hands were willing to work for even an ounce of 
 gold a day: the industrious could make more than that 
 in the mines. Consequent to this discovery there was an 
 immense immigration, composed of all classes of men, 
 many of whom seemed to have no idea of the rights of 
 property 
 
 The treaty between the United States and Mexico 
 guaranteed to the Mexican who should remain in the 
 country a protection of his property. Gen. Sutter re- 
 garded himself doubly entitled to that protection, either 
 as a Mexican or as a citizen of the United States, (which 
 latter he became by virtue of that conquest and his 
 original declaration) and that he held a strong claim 
 upon his country's justice. 
 
 His property was respected for a season ; but when 
 the great flood of immigration which poured into Cali- 
 fornia in the years 1849 and 1850, found that money 
 
I 
 
 20 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 could be made by other means than mining, many of the 
 new-comers forcibly entered upon his land and com- 
 menced cutting and selling his wood and using his grass, 
 under the plea that his land was vacant and unappro- 
 priated land of the United States. Lawyers were found 
 who sustained them in their trespass and advocated their 
 rights, although there were none who came from any 
 part of Christendom who had not heard of the General's 
 claims and large landed estates, the full justice given to 
 and recognition of which by the Mexican Government is 
 shown by the following fact: When Don Andres Castil- 
 lero, a senator from Mexico, visited Gen. Sutter, in com- 
 pany with the Californian authorities, they offered him, 
 by authority and in the name of the Mexican Govern- 
 ment, either the sum of $100,000, or the property of the 
 mission of San Jose, with the live-stock thereon, and 
 orders for cash on the Custom-House, in exchange for 
 New Helvetia. Both of these then very handsome offers 
 were declined, contrary to the advice of the late Pi^rson 
 B. Reading and others, for the reason that, by giving up 
 that point, New Helvetia, considered to be, and called 
 by the Mexicans ^'La Have de la California" — kr^y to 
 California — the American citizens and other immigrants 
 would have lost all protection which Gen. Sutter's then 
 cojisiderable power and position vouchsafed to them. 
 
 Another class of men, without any pretext but that 
 of power and address, commenced stealing his horses 
 and butchering his cattle, hogs, and sheep: the first were 
 taken off some distance and exchanged or sold: the 
 meat was sold to the immigrants. Up to the first day 
 of January, 1852, the settlers, under the pretence of 
 preemption claims, had occupied all his landb capable 
 of settlement or appropriation ; and the other class had 
 stolen all his horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and hogs, save 
 a small portion used and sold by Gen. Sutter himself. 
 One party of five men of this second class, during the 
 high waters of 1849-50, when his cattle were partly sur- 
 rounded by water near the Sacramento river, on his lands 
 in Sutter county, killed and sold the beef of enough of them 
 to derive $60,000; after which they left for "the States." 
 
JOHN A. SUTTER. 21 
 
 Having beheld his power decline and his riches take 
 wings, Gen. Sutter removed to the west bank of the 
 Feather river, and took up his residence on Hock Farm. 
 Here, in the midst of his family, which had recently ar- 
 rived from Europe, *he led the quiet, useful life of a 
 farmer, in the county which bears his name. He has 
 patiently devoted many long years to efforts to regain 
 some portion of that opulence which his energy won, and 
 which he continued to enjoy, until the event occurred 
 which enriched his country and impoverished him. He 
 is now at Washington, where he has been for a consider- 
 able time, engaged in pressing his claims upon the 
 general government, for remuneration for the losses and 
 injuries he sustained at the hands of the immigrants 
 of '49. 
 
 Gen. Sutter is strongly attached to California, and as 
 soon as his business duties permit, he expects to return, 
 and pass, in the peaceful pursuits of husbandry, amid the 
 scenes of his former prosperity, the sunset of his life. 
 

 JOSE ANTONIO DE LA GUERRA. 
 
 ^Y ^;l.FI\ED JlOBINSON.* 
 
 DON Jose Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega was born in 
 Fo vales, in the province of Santander, Spain, A. D. 
 1776. He emigrated to Mexico in 1778, where, soon 
 after his arrival, he entered the mercantile house of his 
 uncle, Don Pedro Noriega, a wealthy gentleman residing 
 in the capital,- with the intention of becoming a merchant; 
 but finding the business unsuited to his taste, and being 
 ambitious of distinction, and desirous of serving his 
 country and sovereign, he obtained, in 1798, the appoint- 
 ment of cadet in the Royal Army. In 1800, he was 
 promoted ensign to the company then stationed at Mon- 
 terey, Upper California, where he arrived the following 
 year. In 1804, he married the daughter of Don Raim un- 
 do Carillo, Commandante of the Presidio of Santa Bar- 
 bara. In 1806, he was again promoted, and received the 
 commission of lieutenant in the company stationed at 
 Santa Barbara. In 1810, he was named ^' Habitado Gen- 
 eral" of both Upper and Lower California, and imme- 
 diately embarked with his family for San Bias, on his 
 way to the city of Mexico. On his landing, he was 
 taken prisoner by the curate, Mercado, a partisan of Hi- 
 dalgo in the revolution of that time, and carried to Istlan, 
 where he fortunately escaped from the cruel assassination 
 of his fellow-prisoners. 
 
 The revolution of Hidalgo having deprived him of his 
 office, he remained some time in Tepic, where he served 
 
 * For forty-one years a resident of California. 
 
24 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 as Ayudante Mayor in the army there stationed, much to 
 the satisfaction of the government. In 1811, he return- 
 ed with his family to California. For several years 
 thereafter he held command of the troops quartered at San 
 Diego. 
 
 In 1817, he was promoted captain and commandante 
 of the company stationed at Santa Barbara. Thither, in 
 that year, he repaired with his family. In 1819, he 
 again went to Mexico as Habitado General. After a 
 short official service, the revolution of 1821 caused him 
 to return to California. 
 
 Upon his return, he forwarded to the Mexican Repub- 
 lican government his resignation. It was not accepted. 
 The President, Guadaloupe Victoria, feeling the great 
 need for his services, continued him in the command at 
 Santa Barbara. 
 
 In 1828, he was named Diputado to the General Con- 
 gress of Mexico, but did not fill the office, in consequence 
 of his seat having been already taken and occupied by 
 the ^' Suplente," Don Gervasio Arguello. He returned to 
 California the following year, in a vessel which he pur- 
 chased and loaded with an assorted cargo. 
 
 He embarked with him as passengers, Abel Stearns, 
 Sherman Peck, and a Scot named Kinloch. Mr. Stearns' 
 visit to California was to receive a large grant of land 
 which his partner had obtained from the Mexican govern- 
 ment, and to make arrangements for opening the same to 
 American colonization. 
 
 It was in July, 1829, when they landed at Monterey. 
 Their arrival caused considerable commotion and excite- 
 .ment among the Spanish population which, at that time, 
 /inhabited the little town. After passing a few days of 
 sfeasting and enjoyment among his friends and old com- 
 /panions, Don Jose took leave of them and started over- 
 land for San Francisco, (Yerba Buena). He dispatched 
 his vessel to meet him at the last named place. On his 
 route, he was received at the different missions at which 
 he tarried with all the respect and attention due his rank, 
 by the ringing of bells and firing of guns. In conse- 
 quence of his great intimacy and friendship with the old 
 
JOSE ANTONIO DE LE GUERRA. 25 
 
 Fathers then at the head of the missionary establishments, 
 he was enabled to negotiate very im.portant and satisfac- 
 tory sales, and soon disposed of his entire cargo. 
 
 On reaching San Francisco he found his vessel awaiting 
 him. He immediately discharged his merchandise and 
 set sail for Santa Barbara. His vessel was stranded in 
 attempting to enter the narrow inlet near that port, but 
 all on board were saved and reached their destination. 
 
 From that time, Don Joae lived almost entirely at home 
 in the midst of his family, devoting himself to their wel- 
 fare and happiness. He took no active part in the political 
 troubles and frequent revolutions of his country, except 
 as a counsellor and mediator, in which capacity, from his 
 great reputation as a man of unspotted integrity, patriot- 
 ism, humanity and wealth, he wielded immense influence 
 in California. 
 
 All the people of Santa Barbara looked up to him as 
 the patriarch of their little community. On every emer- 
 gency, to him they resorted for advice and succor. 
 Oftentimes, during the periodical visitation of earthquakes 
 in that region, men and women, with their children, 
 would encamp on the square of ground upon which stood 
 his noble mansion, and there remain until their fears 
 subsided, subsisting the while on his hospitality and 
 generosity. It seemed as if they considered his person 
 endowed with supernatural grace. To their simple minds 
 his presence was a sufiicient guaranty for their protection. 
 
 The children of the little settlement were taught to 
 revere him. As they passed the door of his dwelling 
 they would remove their hats and give the customary 
 obeisance, in the same manner as they did when passing 
 the entrance to their religious sanctuaries. 
 
 Don Jose's family was extensive, and at his death, 
 which occurred in February, 1858, he left behind him 
 over one hundred descendants. 
 
 Several of his sons made themselves conspicuous in 
 the history of California under the Mexican dynasty. 
 Since its annexation to the United States, Don Pablo de 
 la Guerra and Don Antonio Maria de la Guerra have 
 represented their county in the State Senate. The 
 
26 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 tbriiicr is District Judge of the Judicial District compris- 
 ing Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The 
 daughters of the old gentleman were all married to for- 
 eigners. The eldest was the wife of Wm. E. P. Hartwell, 
 once a celebrated merchant and connected with the house 
 of John Beggs & Co., of Lima, when considerable traffic 
 was carried on in the country in the purchase of hides 
 imd tallow. The second daughter espoused Don Manuel 
 Jiineno, who, at the time of the surrender of the Mexican 
 power, was secretary to the Governor then commanding 
 in California. She afterwards married Dr. James L. Ord, 
 brother of Major General Ord, of the U. S. Army. The 
 third married Alfred Robinson, of Boston, and the young- 
 est married, first, Don Cesareo Laitillade, after whose death 
 she became the wife of Don Caspar Oreiia — both of her 
 husbands being natives of Spain. 
 
 Don Jose's residence was invariably resorted to by 
 strangers w^ho visited California in those early days, when 
 the name of the now prosperous and powerful State was 
 seldom heard spoken beyond her own limits. The excel- 
 lencies of his table, and the noble hospitality which he 
 extended to his numerous guests, are yet fondly remem- 
 bered by the few survivors who partook of his bounty. 
 
 Doiia M. Antonia, his wife, added to the charms of his 
 establishment, and her ladylike manners and amiability 
 of character were admired by all. An American lady 
 who visited California in 1832, in speaking of the many 
 good qualities of Dona Maria Antonia, observed that 
 there were two things supremely exquisite in California 
 — one of which was the grape, and the other the lady of 
 Don Jos^ de la Guerra y Noriega. 
 
 At times when the political disturbances which agi- 
 tated the country were most annoying, Don Jose would 
 frequently exclaim: " Cuando vendran los Americanos para 
 tomar posesion de este pais? — When will the Americans 
 come to take possession of this country?" He had an 
 extraordinary aversion to the Mexican government, and 
 was ready to welcome any change which promised to put 
 an end to the repeated political convulsions harassing 
 the people and ruining the country. Therefore, when 
 
JOSE ANTONIO BE LA GUERRA. 27 
 
 war commenced between the United States and Mexico, 
 his ardent love of permanent peace, order and prosperity 
 moved him to call down the blessings of heaven upon the 
 American arms, whose success he predicted. He lived to 
 see the issue of that great conflict, and its happy effects 
 upon the interests and prosperity of his adopted land. 
 It may be said of him, truthfully, paradoxical as the 
 expression may seem, that he w^as a man of true patriot- 
 ism, yet beheld his country conquered without regret. 
 When the American flag was unfurled over his own home, 
 he greeted the triumphant banner as the symbol of justice 
 and peace. 
 
 At his death, the whole town turned out to do homage 
 to his remains, which were followed to the grave by the 
 largest funeral procession that had ever been seen in 
 Santa Barbara. Many an old veteran, companion of his 
 youth, was seen, whose cheeks were moistened wdth tears 
 of regret, and whose feeble gait indicated that he, too, 
 would soon be laid by the side of the virtuous and up- 
 right old pioneer. 
 
PIERSON B. READING 
 
 This noble iDioneer died on Ms farm in Shasta County, Cali- 
 fornia, in May, 1868. The sad announcement of his death was 
 heard with profound regret throughout the State. In San Fran- 
 cisco, the Society of California Pioneers, at its monthly meeting in 
 June, 1868, appointed PmLip A. Roach, Joseph W. Winaxs, Lewis 
 CuNxiNGHAM, ARCHIBALD H. GiLLESPiE and Jacob R. Sxyder, a com- 
 mittee to prepare resolutions in respect to the memory of the 
 deceased. This committee, in the discharge of their duty, made 
 commendable effoiis to obtain from every available source, infor- 
 mation concerning the life and services of the dead pioneer. It is 
 matter for deep regret that the labors of the committee were not 
 followed by gTeater success. 
 
 The Editor, knowing the energetic exertions made by the 
 committee, concluded it would be futile to endeavor to procure any 
 further infoimation in regard to ]\L\jor Reading's career than that 
 given by them in their report, which is on file in the office of the 
 Society. He therefore reproduces, in a permanent form, this brief 
 record of a life, 
 
 "Precious in the memorial of the jusf 
 
 #bituarH of §xmm §* ffaflmg. 
 
 THE undersigned, Committee appointed by the Society 
 of California Pioneers, at its regular monthly meet- 
 ing of June, 1868, to prepare suitable resolutions to the 
 memory of Pierson B. Reading, lately deceased, beg leave 
 to ask attention to the narrative they have endeavored to 
 prepare to the best of their ability, in the discharge of 
 the sad duty confided to their friendship. 
 
 The various works which at times have been publish- 
 ed upon California have been carefully examined by this 
 
30 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Committee in the discharge of its sad task, and the result 
 has been attended with a sincere regret that, in respect to 
 the deceased, as also in regard to many who have preced- 
 ed him to regions beyond the tomb, scarcely a record of 
 events in which they so actively participated can now be 
 found. 
 
 The Committee have endeavored to obtain from parties 
 now living, who crossed the plains at the same time as the 
 deceased, and of those who participated in the events 
 which induced the settlement of our people in this region, 
 and led to its acquisition by our government, a knowledge 
 of the incidents which would prove of interest to our fel- 
 low-members, and be worthy of record for the future 
 compiler of the annals of our times; but those efforts, we 
 say with regret, have been attended with trifling success. 
 
 The reliable details which are now presented, were 
 principally furnished by the Hon. John Bidwell, Major 
 Jacob R. Snyder, and Major A. H. Gillespie, gentlemen 
 whose intimate social relations with the deceased have 
 enabled them to bear witness to the noble imj)ulses of 
 character which marked his intercourse with his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 The sad intelligence of the death of Major Reading, an- 
 nounced by telegraph, elicited from various journals pub- 
 lished in this State, tributes of respect to his memory ; all 
 united in mentioning the noble qualities which in an em- 
 inent degree distinguished his mind and heart; and from 
 those sources, in addition to the friendly remembrances 
 of the gentlemen herein mentioned, may be compiled the 
 story of his sojourn among us. 
 
 PiERSON B. Reading was born in New Jersey, 26th of 
 November, 1816, and died at his ranch, Buena Ventura, 
 in Shasta County, on the 29th of May, 1868, aged fifty- 
 one years and six months. For about a quarter of a century 
 he had occupied a prominent position in California. In 
 1843, he crossed the plains in company with the late Sam'l 
 J. Hensley, and some twenty-five others, and from that 
 period was thoroughly identified with this region of the 
 Continent. The route by which the party arrived is 
 thus described by Hon. J. Bidwell: 
 
PIERSON B. READING. 31 
 
 *'The road by which they had come, had never to my 
 knowledge been visited or traversed by any save the most 
 savage Indian tribes; namely, from Fort Boise, on Snake 
 river, to the Sacramento valley via the upper Sacramento 
 to Pitt river. The hostility as well as courage of those 
 savages is well known ; but I may refer to the conflicts 
 with them of Fremont in 1846, of the lamented Captain 
 Warner in 1849, and of Gen. Crook in 1867." 
 
 In 1844, Reading entered the service of Gen Sutter, 
 and was at the Fort when Fremont first arrived in Cali- 
 fornia, in the spring of that year. In 1845, he was left 
 in sole charge, while Sutter marched with all his forces to 
 assist Micheltorena in quelling the insurrection, headed by 
 Castro and Alvarado. The former had shown his par- 
 tiality for Americans by granting them lands, and this 
 led to the espousal of his cause by our people. Reading, 
 in 1846, had received a grant in what is now known as 
 Shasta County. Later in 1845 he visited, on a hunting 
 and trapping expedition, nearly all the northern part of 
 California, the western part of Nevada, as also Southern 
 Oregon. He afterwards extensively engaged in trapping 
 — the seasons of 1845 and '46 — on the lower Sacramento 
 and San Joaquin rivers. In all these dangerous expedi- 
 tions, his intelligence, bravery, and imposing personal ap- 
 pearance exercised over the hostile Indians a command- 
 ing influence, that protected himself and party not only 
 from hostile attack, but also secured their friendly aid in 
 all his undertakings. 
 
 When it became probable that war would be declared 
 against Mexico, Reading enlisted under Fremont; and on 
 the organization of the California Battalion by Col. Stock- 
 ton, was appointed Paymaster, with the rank of Major, 
 and served until the close of the war in this country. 
 After its termination, Reading returned to his ranch in 
 Shasta, which he made his permanent home. 
 
 In the events preceding and accompanying the acqui- 
 sition of this territory, the knowledge and experience of 
 Reading were of great advantage to the government; and 
 that the flag of our Union instead of that of another na- 
 tion now waves over it, is in a great measure due to those 
 
32 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC, 
 
 early pioneers who entered California before the existence 
 of gold in its soil was even surmised. 
 
 In 1848, Reading was among the first to visit the 
 scene of Marshall's gold discovery — Coloma — and shortly 
 after engaged extensively in prospecting for gold, making 
 discoveries in Shasta, at the head waters of the Trinity, 
 and prospecting that river until he became satisfied that 
 the gold region extended to the Pacific Ocean. A por- 
 tion of these explorations were made in company with 
 Jacob R. Snyder. A large number of Indians were 
 worked with great success, until all were disabled by 
 sickness. In 1849, with Hensley and Snyder, Reading en- 
 gaged extensively in commercial business in Sacramento, 
 and continued in the firm until 1850. 
 
 In the fall of 1849, Major Reading fitted out an expe- 
 dition to discover the bay into which he supposed the 
 Trinity and Klamath rivers must empty. The bark Jo- 
 sephine, in which the party sailed, was driven by a storm 
 far out of her course to the northwest of Vancouver's 
 Island, and had to return. Others subsequently acting 
 on the idea, discovered and called the bay after the 
 world-renowned traveler Humboldt, by whose name it is 
 now known. 
 
 In 1850, Major Reading visited Washington, to settle 
 his accounts as paymaster of the California Battalion. 
 The disbursement exceeded $166,000 and had been kept 
 with such neatness and accuracy, supported by vouchers, 
 that the Auditor complimented them as being the best of 
 any presented during the war. 
 
 While in the States on this occasion, he visited his old 
 home, Vicksburg, where in 1837, he had succumbed to the 
 crisis which caused such wide-spread ruin among the 
 merchants of the Southwest. His object was to pay in 
 gold the principal and interest of his long outstanding 
 and almost forgotten obligations. This he did to the ex- 
 tent of $60,000 — an instance of commercial integrity of 
 which our own State has reason to be proud. 
 
 In 1851, Major Reading was the candidate of the Whig 
 party for Governor of California, which exalted position he 
 failed to obtain only by a few votes. Since then he was 
 
PIERSON B. READING. 3B 
 
 frequently invited to become a candidate for political 
 positions, but declined. 
 
 For many years previous to his decease, agriculture, 
 with a view of developing the interest of the State, oc- 
 cupied his attention. In 1856, Major Reading married 
 in Washington, Miss Fanny Washington, who, with five 
 children, is left to mourn the death of their beloved pro- 
 tector. The Committee having, to the best of their abil- 
 ity, presented all the incidents they could obtain regard- 
 ing the life of their late friend and companion, now ask 
 leave to present appropriate resolutions of respect for the 
 consideration of the Society. 
 
 Whereas^ it has pleased Divine Providence to termin- 
 ate the earthly career of our friend and companion. Pier- 
 son B. Reading, by which event our Society has sustain- 
 ed an irreparable loss, and the State been deprived of one 
 of its valuable citizens, who was deservedly regarded by 
 our people as a man of the highest worth and severest 
 rectitude of character. Be it 
 
 Resolved^ That in the decease of Pierson B. Reading, 
 frequently a chosen officer of our Society, we have sus- 
 tained a bereavement, whose only consolation will be 
 found in the remembrance of the noble traits of heart and 
 mind, which marked his intercourse with his fellow men^ 
 Possessed of the most courteous manners ; of enlarged 
 views; and of a highly cultivated mind, united with pro- 
 bity of character, and the most dauntless bravery, he 
 deserves that upon the tomb containing his ashes be 
 inscribed the words that properly typify his life — Read- 
 ing, Tlie Pioneer. 
 
 Resolved^ That the report of the Committee be pub- 
 lished — that this preamble and resolution be engrossed, 
 and a copy sent to the widow of our deceased friend and 
 companion, over whose welfare and that of her children, 
 we invoke the guardianship of our merciful Father. 
 Philip A. Roach, Lewis Cunningham, 
 
 Joseph W. Winans, Arch'd H. Gillespie, 
 
 Jacob R. Snyder. 
 3 
 

l!^^^^^:i.€x^/^ ^ 
 
LELAND STANFORD 
 
 LELAND Stanford, eighth Governor of California, and 
 President of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, 
 was born in the County of Albany, State of New York, 
 March 9th, 1824. His ancestors were English. They 
 settled in the valley of the Mohawk about the beginning 
 of the last century, and for several generations were 
 classed among the substantial and thrifty farmers of that 
 region. His father, Josiah Stanford, was a prominent citi- 
 zen of Albany County, where he lived for many years, 
 cultivating and improving the old, homestead farm, called 
 Elm Grove, on the stage road between Albany and Sche- 
 nectady. His family consisted of seven sons, of whom 
 Leland, the subject of this sketch, was the fourth — and 
 one daughter who died in her infancy. Being in the 
 prime of his life at the time that He Witt Clinton had 
 successfully urged upon the people of New York his great 
 project of canal navigation between the Hudson river and 
 the lakes, the mind of Mr. Stanford was keenly alive to 
 the importance of the enterprise, and he watched with 
 absorbing interest the completion, in 1825, of the exten- 
 sive work. This was the beginning of that great system 
 of internal improvements which has made the State of 
 New York an empire within itself. 
 
 A little later the practicability of railroads as a means 
 of expeditious transit was freely discussed, but not until 
 1829, when the success of steam locomotives upon the 
 Liverpool and Manchester road was established, did any 
 
36 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 project of the kind find much favor among business men 
 in the United States. About this period a scheme was 
 set on footj and a charter obtained from the Legislature of 
 New York, to build a railroad from Albany, to the old 
 Dutch town of Schenectady. The project, at the outset, 
 had but few friends among the farmers ; but Mr. Stanford, 
 satisfied in his own mind that the lands of Elm Grovt 
 and of all the valley would be doubled in value by the 
 advent of the road, became one of its warmest advocates, 
 and argued its advantages with all the vigor of which he 
 was capable. The work was finally commenced, and Mr. 
 Stanford, leaving the duties of the farm to be attended 
 to by his. elder sons, took large contracts for grading 
 the line, and pushed them forward with characteristic 
 rapidity and success. 
 
 During this time Leland was attending school near 
 his father's farm, and doubtless watched, in the intervals 
 of his lessons, the progress of the, to him, novel work 
 which was being prosecuted in the neighborhood. He lit- 
 tle dreamed in those youthful days, that his manhood 
 would be devoted to a kindred enterprise, the magnitude 
 of which would attract the attention of the civilized world. 
 Confined in his boyhood's experience to the limits of his 
 own county, the shores of the great lakes, but a few hun- 
 dred miles away, were to him the distant West. The 
 country between the Mississippi and the Rocky mountains, 
 was looked upon as a vast unknown region, inhabited only 
 by Indians, while the unexplored ranges and plains beyond 
 seemed as inaccessible and as inhospitable as the frozen 
 solitudes of Siberia. The Erie canal, which was then 
 floating the products of the lake shore to the waiters of 
 the Hudson, had, in its infancy, been looked upon with 
 distrust by some of the most sagacious business men of 
 that period ; and yet, ere the boys of that day had matured 
 into manhood, those distant and solitary plains had been 
 explored, the ranges of mountains had been pierced and 
 made to yield hundreds of millions of precious metals, 
 and a new empire had been battled for, occupied and peo- 
 pled, on the Pacific coast ; while the wants of commerce 
 had demanded and secured railroad communication be- 
 
LELAND ST^TORD. ST 
 
 tween the two oceans that make the Eastern and Western 
 boundaries "of the United States. 
 
 Until the age of twenty, Leland's time was divided 
 between his studies and the occupations incident to a farm 
 life. He then commenced the study of law, and in 1845, 
 removed to the city of Albany, and entered the office of 
 Wheaton, Doolittle & Hadley, prominent members of the 
 legal profession in that city. Early in 1848, he determ- 
 ined to seek in the Western country a desirable location 
 for the practice of law. He visited various localities in 
 the vicinity of the lakes, and finally settled at Port Wash- 
 ington, in the State of Wisconsin. Here he remained for 
 the period of four years, and while here, in 1850, was 
 married to Miss Jane Lathrop, daughter of Dyer Lathrop, 
 a merchant of Albany, whose family had been among the 
 early settlers of that town. Soon after Leland's arrival 
 at Port Washington the reported discoveries of fabulous 
 mineral wealth in California were a constant theme of the 
 newspapers in the West, and the eyes of half the young 
 men in the land, of all trades and professions, were eagerly 
 turned towards the alluring deposits of the Pacific slope. 
 Five of his brothers had arrived upon the banks of the 
 Sacramento, and were successfully engaged in mining and 
 in trade. They, and hundreds of others of his friends, 
 were anxious that Leland should join them ; but he had 
 selected a residence in the growing State of Wisconsin, 
 and his temperament w^as not so sanguine as to cause him 
 so soon to give up the comforts of a permanent home, 
 which he was just beginning to enjoy. 
 
 It was not therefore until the Spring of 1852, that he 
 came to the determination to push his fortunes in the new 
 field to which so many of his friends had been attracted, 
 and where so niany of them had met with success. He 
 arrived in California, July 12th, 1852, and at once proceed- 
 ed to the interior, being determined to examine into, and 
 to engage by himself in, practical mining. He tried a 
 number of locations in various parts of the State, and at 
 length settled at Michigan Bluff, on the American river 
 in Placer County. With his mining interests at this point, 
 and the mercantile house with which he was connected in 
 
38 EEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 company with his brothers at Sacramento, he soon fomid 
 himself possessed of a rapidly growing and lucrative busi- 
 ness. He has never entirely relinquished his mining in- 
 terests in California, although for some years they have re- 
 ceived but a small share of his personal attention. 
 
 In the earlier years of his manhood, Mr. Stanford was, 
 by instinct, by education, and by association, a Whig. 
 While the great free soil movement was gathering strength 
 in the land, he became strenuous in its advocacy and earn- 
 est in its support. He was among the few leading spir- 
 its who formed the Republican party in California, and by 
 giving freely of his time and of his means, he made his 
 influence felt in the campaign of 1856, when a gallant 
 fight was made by that party, against fearful odds, in the 
 Golden State. In Sacramento, the capital of the State, it 
 was in those days considered an act of temerity to attend 
 a free soil meeting, and speakers were hooted at, pelted, 
 and driven from the stand, who dared to utter sentiments 
 not in accordance with those held by the then dominant 
 party. The State, from its organization, had been under 
 the control of the Southern wing of the democracy, and it 
 was up-hill work to establish a new political party, which 
 if successful must result in the entire overthrow of the 
 one in power. But the destinies of the great freedom-lov- 
 ing organization were in the hands of men who were 
 undaunted by defeat. Without losing courage by the 
 result of the National canvas of 1856, they determined 
 to organize for the State election in 1857. At this time 
 Mr. Stanford was the candidate of the Republican party 
 for the office of State Treasurer^ but the whole ticket was 
 defeated. In 1859, he was nominated for Governor and 
 again defeated. In 1861, the Republicans, confident of 
 their strength, determined upon a vigorous canvass. Mr. 
 Stanford was absent in Washington during the summer, 
 but among the many names mentioned for the nomination, 
 his was most prominent. Soon after his return, the Con- 
 vention assembled at Sacramento, and upon the first ballot 
 he received the nomination. The contest that followed 
 was the most exciting one the State had yet seen. With 
 two other candidates in the field, he ran nearly six thous- 
 
LELAND STANFORD. 39 
 
 and votes ahead of his ticket, and was elected by a popu- 
 lar vote nearly equal to that of his two opponents com- 
 bined. The result was as follows, in a vote of 119,730 : 
 
 Stanford, Republican, received 66,036 ; 
 
 Conness, Douglas Democrat, received 30,944 ; 
 
 McConnell, Administration Democrat, received 32,750. 
 
 Having thus been called upon as a political candidate 
 to traverse the State twice, without a hope of being elected, 
 he was now rewarded, after a third most thorough and 
 exhausting canvass, by a success undoubtedly beyond his 
 expectations. In January, 1862, the Governor was in- 
 augurated at Sacramento, and assumed the duties of his 
 office at a critical period in State as well as national affairs. 
 The country w^as in the midst of an internal war, the 
 magnitude of which startled the people and paralyzed the 
 various industries of the land. There had been few 
 daring enough to predict its inception — none far-seeing 
 enough to foretell how it would end. The mutterings of 
 the impending conflict had been for a long time borne 
 upon every breeze, and the shock of battle that followed 
 the bursting storm was earnest and deadly. The election 
 in California, the previous fall, had been watched with 
 peculiar interest by both the contending parties. The 
 Secessionists of the South were sanguine that the democ- 
 racy could not be driven from the stronghold they had 
 occupied so long ; while the loyal men of the North, hop- 
 ing almost against hope itself, were earnest in their aspir- 
 ations that California might declare herself on the side 
 of justice and of right. Mr. Stanford had spent much 
 time subsequent to Mr. Lincoln's inauguration at the na- 
 tional Capital, and had been cordially received as a leading 
 and representative republican of the Pacific Coast. Among 
 the few who visited the President without seeking office 
 at his hands, he very soon won Mr. Lincoln's regard, and 
 became his principal adviser in the difficult task of distrib- 
 uting the official patronage in California. His nomina- 
 tion to the office of Governor and his triumphant election, 
 were hailed therefore with delight by all who were connect- 
 ed with the National Republican administration. 
 
 To the deplorable condition of the nation at the com- 
 
40 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 mencement of the year 1862, was added a local calamity 
 which devastated the fairest portions of California. A 
 flood unexampled in its destructiveness was, on the very 
 day of the inauguration of the new Governor, sweeping 
 through the streets of Sacramento and hurrying its dread 
 volume of waters over a territory hundreds of miles in 
 extent. Lives were lost, houses were submerged, farms 
 were destroyed, roads and bridges were carried away, till 
 it seemed as if the very genius of disaster had taken within 
 its baneful grasp the destinies of the State. The beauti- 
 ful homes and gardens of the Capital city were desolated 
 in a day. The Governor and the Legislature were obliged 
 to go to and from the place of the inaugural ceremonies in 
 boats. The latter immediately resolved upon a removal to 
 San Francisco, and the Governor was obliged to transfer 
 his office to the same place. 
 
 It was under adverse circumstances such as these, that 
 the first Republican administration of California entered 
 upon its career, with Governor Stanford at its head. He 
 had, however, been long known throughout the State as a 
 successful merchant and miner, and it was believed that 
 he would exhibit in the management of public affairs the 
 same sound sense he had brought to bear upon his private 
 business. Nor were the people who elected him deceived 
 in their choice. He gave his entire attention to the new 
 duties that devolved upon him ; he maintained frequent 
 and unreserved correspondence with the heads of all the 
 Departments at Washington ; thus holding California in 
 close and sympathetic relations with the central govern- 
 ment. In this way, with the aid of a constituency actu- 
 ated by the highest and noblest patriotism, the Governor 
 had the proud satisfaction of seeing California occupy a 
 front rank among the sisterhood of loyal States. At the 
 close of his administration, the Legislature bestowed up- 
 on him the unusual compliment of a concurrent resolu- 
 tion, passed by a unanimous vote of all parties, in which 
 it was ^^ Resolved by the Assembly, the Senate concurring 
 That the thanks of the people of California are merited, 
 and are hereby tendered to Leland Stanford, for the able, 
 upright, and faithful manner in which he has discharged 
 
LELAND STANFORD. 41 
 
 the duties of Governor of the State of California, for the 
 past two years." 
 
 Among the most prominent events of Governor Stan- 
 ford's administration, may be ranked the commencement 
 of the great continental thoroughfare which connects the 
 Pacific coast with the vast net-work of rail roads that 
 bind together and cement in commercial bonds the Atlan- 
 tic States. The construction of this important work had 
 for years been a favorite scheme in the Governor's mind. 
 He was convinced of the practicability of the ^enterprise, 
 and it was his greatest desire that California should take 
 the initiative steps to secure to the Nation the magnifi- 
 cent results of the noble work. The general idea of a 
 railroad across the continent cannot be looked upon as 
 original with any one person in the land. The project 
 was the result of a national sentiment rather than of in- 
 dividual sagacity. Hundreds of persons had, during the 
 previous twenty years, suggested as many different plans 
 for a Pacific railroad ; but nothing of a practical nature 
 was ever consummated, because no united and persistent 
 effort was brought to bear upon the project. From ses- 
 sion to session. Congress had been beseiged by parties with 
 visionary schemes that looked to national aid, and to that 
 alone, to build the entire road ; but not until 1861 and 
 1862 was any feasible and definite plan presented upon 
 which to base legislative action. During these years, a 
 few wealthy men of Sacramento, the capital of California, 
 resolved to take the matter in hand, and to furnish all the 
 money required to make the necessary preliminary survey. 
 They were all men of first rate business capacity, who 
 had been subject to the vicissitudes of mercantile life in 
 California, who had witnessed its fires and floods, and 
 who had finally realized comfortable fortunes for them- 
 selves and families. As business men, they examined into 
 and considered this gigantic scheme from a business point 
 of view ; and being themselves satisfied of its ultimate 
 success, they determined to show their confidence by 
 risking their entire fortunes in the enterprise. 
 
 Leland Stanford, and his associates, Messrs. Crocker, 
 Huntington, and Hopkins, thus enjoy the proud preemi- 
 
42 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 nence of being the first parties in the United States to 
 give this project to the country, in a tangible shape. 
 They employed at their own expense the best engineering 
 talent that could be procured, to make surveys over the 
 various passes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This frown- 
 ing range of snow-capped summits had been considered 
 an insurmountable barrier to the passage of a locomo- 
 tive. Its storms to the emigrant, like the cyclone to the 
 mariner, were looked upon with unmitigated dread ; and 
 the w^inter winds that swept through its deep gorges, and 
 whistled among its peaks, seemed laden with a bold defi- 
 ance that forbade the encroachments of engineering skill. 
 Reaching, upon its lowest pass, an elevation of seven 
 thousand feet, within a distance of less than eighty miles, 
 the idea of a locomotive, climbing hour after hour with 
 heavy trains the steep ascent, could only be entertained 
 by earnest, sanguine, and practical minds. The summit 
 once attained, the descent upon the eastern slope was 
 scarcely less difficult, to the clesert plain beyond. Here 
 was a large scope of barren country, without wood and 
 almost without water, hundreds of miles in extent, with 
 no population to welcome the approach of the iron track. 
 With difficulties of such a character staring them in 
 the face, these Sacramentans, few in number, but mighty 
 in faith, with Leland Stanford at their head, came to the 
 determination to commence the work. A practical route 
 had been found to and over the summit, with no grade 
 exceeding one hundred and five feet to the mile. Fre- 
 quent meetings of conference were held at the residences 
 of Mr. Stanford and Mr. Huntington, and a bill was at 
 length drafted by them which formed the basis of, and 
 was in a great measure identical with, the Pacific Railroad 
 Act, which finally passed through Congress, and under 
 which nearly two thousand miles of railroad have since 
 been constructed. 
 
 Much as these few energetic men had accomplished in 
 the incipient stages of this great enterprise, they found 
 that difficulties multiplied when they came to the practi- 
 cal workings of their project. No aid could be obtained 
 from Congress, until forty miles of road and telegraph 
 
LELAND STANFORD. 43 
 
 were completed and in good working condition. To grade 
 this forty miles, to bridge the wide and rapid American 
 River, to purchase iron for the track, and rolling stock 
 for its equipment, was no easy task to be accomplished by 
 half a dozen citizens of a small inland city of California. 
 They had unlimited faith, however, in the ultimate success 
 of their undertaking, and were willing to pledge all they 
 were worth to ensure its success. In 1861, a charter was 
 obtained from the Legislature of California, under which 
 a meeting of stockholders was at once held. Leland 
 Stanford was elected President of the Corporation, and 
 C. P. Huntington, Yice President; positions which they 
 have both held from that time to the present. On the 
 22d day of February, 1863, Governor Stanford, in the 
 presence of the State Legislature and of a large concourse 
 of citizens, shovelled the first earth, and commenced the 
 Pacific Railroad grade.* From that day, work upon the 
 line has not been delayed for a single week. Obstacles 
 of a serious character were constantly met, but were as 
 speedily surmounted. The war for the preservation of 
 the Union was at its height. The fate of the Nation was 
 hanging in a balance which occasional successes, and oc- 
 casional reverses, kept constantly swinging to and fro. 
 The national finances were disarranged, the national credit 
 was at a low ebb, and capitalists throughout the country 
 were exceedingly distrustful of untried schemes. Rival 
 enterprises, or those that were considered rival, met the 
 projectors of this national work in the money markets to 
 which they applied, and sought to neutralize their efforts 
 to obtain capital by misrepresenting their intentions, and 
 by discrediting their integrity. 
 
 Toll roads over the Sierras, the owners of which the 
 Washoe traffic had converted into millionaires, were ar- 
 rayed against the new and more expeditious route, which 
 would, when completed, destroy the profits of the old ones. 
 Strange as it may appear, in a State the very existence 
 of which would seem to depend upon a Pacific Railway, a 
 
 *In liis address, upon this occasion, Governor Stanford predicted that the Pa- 
 cific Raiboad would be completed in 1870. The result has more than verified 
 his prediction. 
 
44 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 violent, unscrupulous, and unyielding anti-railroad cabal 
 was evolved from the various opposing interests that were 
 at this time in the full tide of success. Large amounts 
 of money were raised to litigate the Central Pacific 
 Company at every stage of their progress, and to foHow 
 them with annoying law suits from court to court. These 
 embarrassments only seemed to increase the ardor of those 
 who had determined to push the work. The vice-presi- 
 dent of the company, Mr. Huntington, established him- 
 self in N^ew York, as the financial and purchasing agent of 
 the enterprise, and was early recognized as one of the 
 most prominent and successful financiers of that great 
 moneyed centre. The amount of iron, rolling stock, and 
 material necessary to be purchased, and to be kept con- 
 stantly on the way, was immense ; but although it had to 
 traverse more than half the length of two oceans, the cal- 
 culations of its departure from New York and of its arrival 
 at the wharves of Sacramento, were careful and exact, 
 and the supply never failed to be at hand when wanted 
 upon the road. 
 
 While the public were apathetic, or at best indifferent, 
 the managers of the work at the California end were ac- 
 tive and on the alert. Always keeping within the require- 
 ments of the Act of Congress, as to grades and curves, 
 and as to the general character of the work, they never- 
 theless found at the termination of each year a greater 
 amount of roadway completed than was stipulated by 
 government. On the 25th day of N^ov ember, 1867, the 
 Summit tunnel was opened, and work was in a good state 
 of progress upon a dozen other tunnels between that 
 point and the Truckee river. Meanwhile, a sufficient 
 quantity of iron, locomotives and cars, for more than forty 
 miles of road, had actually been hauled by teams over a 
 portion of the mountains, so that in the spring of 1868, 
 the Central Pacific Company were enabled to lay track 
 from the East and from the West, until a connection was 
 made near the Summit on the 17th of June of that year. 
 When, a year or two previous, the laying of a mile of 
 track per day was promised, railroad men in all parts of 
 the world wondered at the extravagant proposition ; yet 
 
LELAND STANFORD. 45 
 
 two and three miles became an ordinary day's work dur- 
 ing 1868 and 1869, and upon one occasion a distance of 
 ten and a quarter miles of track were laid in one day 
 between dawn and dark. Thus the great work progressed 
 without cessation, and at a rate of progress that, in its ear- 
 lier days, would have been counted as marvelous. Early 
 in 1869 the through line was completed, and a connection 
 made with the Union Pacific road. 
 
 We have dwelt upon this great enterprise in connec- 
 tion with our sketch of Governor Stanford, because he 
 has been identified with it from its earliest inception to 
 the present time. Elected from the first as its highest 
 executive officer, he has attended faithfully to its inter- 
 ests, and has given to the project some of the best years 
 of his life. Now that the w^ork is accomplished, he is 
 directing his attention to similar enterprises of less mag- 
 nitude perhaps, but still important in the development 
 of the resources of his adopted State. 
 
 Governor Stanford, in his public and private life, 
 may truly be regarded as one of California's representative 
 men. Arriving upon these shores at an early period, with 
 but moderate means at his command, he at once assumed 
 a prominent position among the merchants and business 
 men of the new State. Without those brilliant attain- 
 ments which are sometimes the result of a thorough col- 
 legiate education, he has at his command a generous fund 
 of useful knowledge ; and he has rarely been at fault in 
 his judgement of others, or in his estimate of important 
 measures, whether connected with his official, or his 
 business career. Never backward in asserting his prin- 
 ciples, he is 3'et willing to defer to the opinions of others; 
 and in his intercourse with men, his object seems to be 
 to gain information upon all points at issue. 
 
 Physically, he is larger than the average of men. 
 Having been inured to labor in the open air in his boy- 
 hood, and having avoided, during his whole life, excesses 
 of all kinds, he is at the present time capable of bearing 
 an amount of bodily fatigue, and of travel without rest, 
 that few men could endure. With a retentive memor}^ 
 for facts and details, a keen perception of affairs, and 
 
 
46 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 quick reasoning powers, he yet arrives at conclusions by 
 patient mental labor. Not easily excited, nor over san- 
 guine in temperament, he readily grasps large schemes, 
 and usually works out his plans to a successful consumma- 
 tion. His favorite theory in judging of others is, that all 
 men are possessed of good qualities, and that our esti- 
 mate of individuals whom w^e do not thoroughly know, 
 is generally below the standard which their merits de- 
 serve. In consequence of his firm belief in this theory, 
 he is charitable towards the faults of others — never har- 
 boring revengeful feelings, and never indulging in long- 
 time resentments. In considering matters relating ex- 
 clusively to business, he is reticent to a degree ; but he 
 is at all times a conscientious and willing listener. 
 Where some men strive by labored argument to convince, 
 he strives to convince by the ceaseless assiduity with 
 which he labors to accomplish results. In social life, he 
 is unreserved in his conversation, earnest in his hospital- 
 ity, warm in his friendship, and cordial in his intercourse 
 with all. 
 
JOHN BIGLER 
 
 fr THE ^DITOR 
 
 JOHN BiGLER, who was SO prominent and active in the 
 early settlement and development of California, and 
 who has played so conspicuous a part in the political 
 history of the State, was born near Carlisle, Pennsyl- 
 vania, the seat of Dickinson College, January 8th, 1805. 
 
 He is of German descent. The family has been 
 established in America for more than a century. Both 
 the paternal and maternal grandfather of John Bigler 
 fought under Gen. Morgan in the Revolutionary war. 
 His father was a farmer: for many years he was engaged 
 in the milling business in Cumberland and Perry coun- 
 ties, Pennsylvania. During the noted '' Whisky Re- 
 bellion" in the western part of that State, 1791, 1794, he 
 was a private soldier under Gen. Washington. 
 
 John was the eldest of five sons. The Pennsylvania 
 statesman, William Bigler, is a younger brother. John 
 entered college at Carlisle ; but soon after he commenced 
 his studies, his father removed to Mercer county, north 
 of Pittsburg, and placed him in a printer's office in that 
 city, where, for a few years, he applied himself to "the 
 art preservative of all arts." After the expiration of his 
 apprenticeship, in 1827, he removed to Belief onte. Centre 
 county, and took editorial charge of the Centre County 
 Democrat. He continued the editing as well as the pub- 
 lishing of this journal from 1827 until 1832. In 1828, 
 though but a youth, he advocated with zeal and efficiency 
 the election of Gen. Jackson, for whom his county gave 
 a majority of more than sixteen hundred votes. He then 
 commenced the study of law, which he pursued until 
 
48 EEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 1840, when he was admitted to the bar. Thereupon lie 
 entered on the practice of his profession, devoting to it 
 his whole time for several years. We next find him 
 practicing at Mount Sterling, Illinois, whither he had re- 
 moved with his family. On April 2d, 1849, he left the 
 Prairie State to emigrate overland to California. He had 
 with him his wife and only living child, a daughter of 
 tender years. 
 
 This little family were accompanied b}^ several of 
 their neighbors, who were also burning to behold the 
 land of promise. On the 30th of April, the party, num- 
 bering less than twenty persons, assembled at St. Joseph, 
 Missouri. From this place the adventurous company 
 started on the 9th of May. 
 
 '^On that day," to use the language of Gov. Bigler 
 himself, in his Address to the Sacramento Pioneers in 
 1865, ''the long journey was commenced in good earnest, 
 and with a fixed determination on the part of all to meet 
 difficulties to be overcome, dangers to be encountered, 
 and privations to be endured, with inflexible fidelity to 
 each other, and as far as possible refi^ain from expressions 
 calculated to cause discontent or discouragement." 
 
 Mr. Bigler had fully entered upon his pilgrimage to a 
 land where high honors awaited him, and was surrounded 
 by cheerful and happy companions ; but his heart was 
 heavy with sorrow. His wife, who had refused to part 
 with him, was in delicate health, his daughter was a mere 
 child, as stated, and these frail charges he was taking 
 with him on a long and perilous journey. Besides, he 
 was leaving behind him the mouldering form of an only 
 and dearly beloved son, whom death had but recently 
 wrested from his bosom and given to the grave. He had 
 shaken off despondency, but could not free himself from 
 gloomy thoughts. 
 
 Gov. Bigler has given a detailed account of his weary 
 march overland, in the address before alluded to. He 
 did his full share of hard work throughout the entire 
 journey. He drove his own ox-team across the plains, 
 and stood guard regularly over the train of wagons. On 
 many occasions, when he was greatly fatigued, or in need 
 
JOHN BIGLER. 49 
 
 of sleep, his wife would relieve him; and in addition to 
 standing guard, she would often assist in yoking the 
 oxen to the wagons. 
 
 When about twenty-five miles east of the upper 
 crossing of the Sweetwater, the Governor's party were 
 overtaken by Wm. T. Coleman. This gentleman had, 
 two days previous, left his train with others to go upon 
 a hunting tour: he had become bewildered in the hills, 
 and for some length of time had not tasted food. His 
 new acquaintances had the pleasure of supplying his 
 wants, and he was enabled to move forward in search of 
 his companions. The accidental meeting of these two 
 men, in the heart of the trackless desert, could not have 
 been more friendly, nor their parting more cordial, even 
 if the veil had been lifted from the future, and their sub- 
 sequent eminence disclosed to them. What pleasurable 
 emotions must be awakened in the breasts of the suc- 
 cessful politician and the merchant prince, whenever their 
 thoughts recur to that brief interview! 
 
 Mr. Bigler and family at length arrived in Sacramento, 
 August 31st, 1849; his wife and daughter being, it is 
 said, the first white female emigrants to Sacramento. 
 
 Upon his arrival, finding there was no call for his 
 legal services in the new, unsettled community, and being 
 in want of immediate funds to make his family comfort- 
 able, Mr. Bigler determined to resort to manual labor. 
 He took off his coat, or rather Icept off his coat, and 
 sought employment. He soon obtained a situation in 
 the store of an auctioneer, named Stevens, where he 
 worked for some time. Xext, he engaged in the wood 
 trade, cutting his wood in the country, near Sacramento, 
 and carrying it into the city for sale. After prosecuting 
 this business for some time, he contracted with a Sacra- 
 mento merchant to make a number of calico comforters 
 for beds. In addition to his other compensation, he re- 
 ceived from his employer sufficient calico to furnish his 
 wife and daughter with much-needed dresses. 
 
 After completing the comforter contract, he was for 
 some time employed in unloading the river steamers on 
 their arrival, for which he received pay at the rate of hvo 
 4 
 
50 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 dollars per Iwur. By such laborious pursuits as these he 
 maintained himself and family in comparative comfort. 
 Nor was he less esteemed by his neighbors, because of 
 his honest toil. The pioneers, nearly all of them, were 
 engaged in actual physical labor, without regard to former 
 associations or professional pursuits. Labor was their 
 acknowledged king. 
 
 The time had now arrived when our subject was to 
 abandon his humble occupations. About the middle of 
 October, 1849, he was notified by Mr. Charles Sackett, on 
 behalf of the citizens, that he had been nominated at a 
 public meeting as a candidate for the Assembly. The 
 Sacramento legislative district then extended from the 
 Cosumnes river to the Oregon line, and from the Coast 
 Range to the line then dividing California and Utah. 
 This district was then entitled to four senators and nine 
 assemblymen. The election was a general one, and took 
 place November 13th, 1849. 
 
 The candidates for Governor were Peter H. Burnett, 
 afterwards Supreme Judge of the State, and now President 
 of the Pacific Bank, San Francisco ; John W. Geary, the 
 late distinguished Governor of Pennslyvania ; Gen. John 
 
 A. Sutter, and others. The first named gentleman received 
 a large majority of the votes cast. John McDougal was 
 elected Lieutenant Governor, and Geo. W. Wright and 
 Edward Gilbert were chosen members of Congress. In 
 the Sacramento legislative district, John Bidwell, Thomas 
 J. Green, Henry E. Robinson, and Elisha Crosby, were 
 elected senators, and Dr. T. J. White, Elisha W. McKinstry, 
 (the present able County Judge of San Francisco) George 
 
 B. Tingley, John Bigler, P. B. Cornwall, John F. Williams, 
 E. Card well, T. J. Hughes, and Madison Walthall, assem- 
 blymen. 
 
 Before the Legislature assembled, the rainy season set 
 in, and Sacramento was almost deluged. The citizens at 
 that early day were very poorly sheltered from the wintry 
 weather. Much suffering was the consequence. Mr. 
 Bigler and family were compelled to endure trials and 
 privations which it had never been their misfortune to 
 meet before, even on the uninhabited desert wastes where 
 

JOHN BIGLER. 51 
 
 they had so often encamped. The roof of their cloth tene- 
 ment admitted the rain. It was necessary to suspend an 
 umbrella over their heads at night, in order to turn aside 
 the rain from their faces. Every morning, for more than 
 two weeks, the floor of their tent was flooded. Every 
 morning, for that length of time, their little cooking stove 
 was taken out and emptied of its liquid contents. Their 
 bedstead was four forked sticks, driven into the ground, 
 with two round willow poles forming the railing; short 
 poles, extended crosswise, served as bedcords. 
 
 The first State Legislature convened at the capital, San 
 Jose, on December 15th, 1849, to complete the organization 
 of the State government. On December 12th, Mr. Bigler 
 left Sacramento with his family for San Jose on a pro- 
 peller, the steamer McKim. Arriving at San Francisco 
 at night, in the midst of a tempest, they could not land 
 till morning, when, they were put into small boats and 
 taken ashore at a point on Clay street, between Mont- 
 gomery and Sansome — the waters of the bay reaching to 
 that point at that time. 
 
 The streets of the metropolis were almost impassable. 
 Mr. Bigler had to wander for several hours in search of 
 lodgings. Finally, in a despairing mood, he applied to 
 the keeper of a restaurant, James Hagan, who allowed the 
 little party to occupy an upper room, unfurnished, except 
 with an old straw mattrass. The Governor asserts that 
 never, in his life, was he more grateful for a favor than 
 for the privilege of occupying this humble apartment. 
 He afterwards remembered the circumstance to his bene- 
 factor's advantage, by inducing Gov. Burnett to bestow 
 upon Hagan a lucrative office. 
 
 The next day, he took passage on the Mint^ a little 
 steamer bound for the ^' Embarcadero," fiYe or six miles 
 from San Jose. He soon found himself and family in the 
 midst of unexpected peril, more fearful than any that had 
 ever before encompassed them. About three hours after 
 the frail craft had commenced her vo3'age, she was over- 
 taken by a terrific storm. The captain, engineer and crew, 
 being inexperienced, became panic-stricken and aban- 
 doned their posts. Their conduct added to the con- 
 
62 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 sternation of the passengj^s, most of whom were motion- 
 less with terror. On board of the threatened boat were 
 a majority of the senators elect^ ten or twelve assembly- 
 men, and the Lieutenant Governor. Commander Selim 
 Wood worth, a senator elect, was among the passengers. 
 This gentleman, upon witnessing the pusillanimous con- 
 duct of the officers and crew, rushed to the wheel and 
 ordered the engineer and fireman to resume their places. 
 He stated to a friend standing near him, that there was 
 room for hope unless the boat overturned in changing 
 her course. In turning, the vessel shipped water, which 
 flooded her cabin to the depth of ten or twelve inches. 
 But the new captain's noble purpose was effected, and the 
 prow of the Mint headed for San Francisco, where her 
 passengers were soon landed. Most of them refused to 
 take passage again upon the insecure vessel, and went 
 overland to the capital ; but Mr. Bigler .had no choice — he 
 had paid his fare, and for want of funds was compelled 
 to run the chances of shipwreck. Fortunately, however, 
 the next day beamed clear and bright; the broad, beautiful 
 bay was in perfect repose ; and the voyage was made with- 
 out the recurrence of a single unpleasant incident. 
 
 The first Legislature of the State of California con- 
 vened at San Jose, December 16th, 1849. The Lieutenant 
 Grovernor elect, Hon. John McDougal, took the chair as 
 President of the Senate, and Dr. Thos. J. White of Sac- 
 ramento was chosen Speaker of the Assembly. On the 
 20th day of December, 1849, Peter H. Burnett was in- 
 augurated first Governor of California. On the same 
 day two United States Senators were elected — John C. 
 Fremont on the first, and Wm. M. Gwin on the third 
 ballot. December 22d, in joint convention of the two 
 houses, Richard Roman was elected State Treasurer, 
 John S. Houston, Comptroller, E. J. C. Kewen, Attorney 
 General, Charlies J. Whiting, Surveyor General, S. C. 
 Hastings, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Henry 
 A. Lyons and Nathaniel Bennett, Associate Justices. 
 This being accomplished, the late Edmund Randolph and 
 John Bigler were appointed a committee, on the part of 
 the assembly, to wait on the Provisional Governor, Gen. 
 
JOHN BIGLER. 63 
 
 Riley, and inform him "' that a State government, repub- 
 lican in form, had been fully organized for California; 
 and that the representatives of the people would be 
 pleased to hear and respectfully consider any and all sug- 
 gestions which he might believe himself authorized to 
 make." 
 
 The committee waited upon Gen. Riley and made 
 their address. The General's reply was brief and sig- 
 nificant. He trusted that the committee were as happy 
 in being the chosen agents of the new State, as he was 
 in being relieved from all cares and responsibilities con- 
 nected therewith. The committee then interrogated Gen. 
 Riley as to the '' Civil Fund," and^his willingness to pay 
 into the State treasury the funds collected by officers of 
 the United States army and navy on importations, with- 
 out authority of law — an amount sufficient to defray the 
 expenses of the new government until a revenue system 
 could be matured, and the collection of government dues 
 commenced in pursuance thereof. The prompt reply was, 
 that, instead of acceding to the request of the committee, 
 the Provisional Governor would pay every cent of the 
 so-called Civil Fund into the national treasury. This re- 
 sponse was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. Gen. 
 Riley had previously paid the expenses of the Constitu- 
 tional Convention, in full, out of the '' Civil Fund." 
 
 Messrs. Randolph and Bigler, on behalf of the Assem- 
 bly, claimed that this action of the General left his 
 refusal to pay the balance of the '' Civil Fund" into the 
 State treasury without plausible excuse. Moreover, the 
 members of the Constitutional Convention, before pro- 
 ceeding to the work of framing a State Constitution, had 
 received assurances that the remainder of the funds, col- 
 lected as stated, would be paid into the State treasury as 
 soon as the State government was fully organized and 
 that fact officially reported. It is not now definitely 
 known whether or not Gen. Riley had promised directly 
 to pay over the ^' Fund" to the State. It is certain, how- 
 ever, that prominent members of the Constitutional Con- 
 vention informed the State authorities elect, that the 
 General had assured them that he would do so. It is very 
 
54 REPRESENTATrV^E MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 probable that Gen. Riley's action was based upon advices 
 received by him from the authorities at Washington. 
 However, he refused to pay over to the State the ^' Civil 
 Fund," as expected, and his refusal left the new govern- 
 ment in a very embarrassing and awkward plight. An 
 empty treasury rendered immediate action necessary on 
 the part of the Legislature. 
 
 Rashness and thoughtlessness have been attributed to 
 the pioneers, in forming a State government without hav- 
 ing first provided means for meeting, in part, accruing 
 expenses; and their conduct has been imputed to the in- 
 fluence of ambitious men who looked to a State govern- 
 ment for preferment and fortune. These charges are 
 unjust. The necessities of the time forced the pioneers 
 to take the action they did. Grov. Bigler publicly stated, 
 in the address alluded to, that he hnew the belief was general 
 that the '^ Civil Fund" — over one million three hundred thou- 
 sand dollars — would be passed to the State authorities; and 
 that this belief induced hundreds to favor State organiza- 
 tion who would otherwise have opposed it. 
 
 In addition to thi^, the course pursued by the pio- 
 neers finds vindication in the failure of Congress to 
 establish a Territorial government for California — many 
 believing that without a State government, anarchy would 
 ensue. The Provisional government had been found in- 
 adequate. The people of the southern part of the State, 
 as well as those of Napa, Sonoma, and Solano, regarded 
 the movement to frame a State constitution as prema- 
 ture; and the vote upon the question must have been 
 very close in the Constitutional Convention, but for the 
 assurances before stated in regard to the ^' Civil Fund." 
 
 To provide means to sustain the State government, the 
 Legislature, in its unpleasant and trying position, determ- 
 ined to authorize the issuance of bonds, hesirmg three per 
 cent, per month interest. Mr. Bigler, while he freely ad- 
 mitted that the plan adopted by the Legislature was not 
 without justification, yet warmly opposed it, believing its 
 consequences would prove disastrous. 
 
 On the 10th day of January, 1850, Mr. Bigler was 
 chosen speaker pro tern, of the Assembly ; and on the 6th 
 
JOHN BIGLER. 55 
 
 day of February following, he was unanimously elected 
 Speaker, Dr. White having resigned that position. 
 
 In the first Legislature, nearly every State in the Union 
 was represented. Judge De La Guerra and Gen. Yallejo 
 were the native Californian members. In this body, no 
 senator or assemblymen possessed a white shirt or a fur 
 hat; all wore ^^flop" hats and ^'hickory" shirts, as they 
 were termed. An English artist took crayon sketches 
 of all the members of both houses. They were creditable 
 likenesses, and were seen a few years ago in one of the 
 principal museums of London. 
 
 In January, 1850, Mr. Bigler introduced and procured 
 the passage by the Legislature of joint resolutions favoring 
 the construction of the Pacific Railroad. These resolu- 
 tions are here inserted, as matter of historic interest. 
 They read as follows : 
 
 '' Joint Resolutions in relation to a National Railroad 
 from the Pacific Ocean to the Jlfississippi River. 
 
 ^' 1st. Be it resolved by the Senate and Assembly of the 
 State of California, that our senators in Congress be in- 
 structed, and our representatives requested, to urge upon 
 Congress the importance of authorizing, as soon as prac- 
 ticable, the construction of a IS^'ational Railroad from the 
 Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River. 
 
 '' 2d. Resolved^ That they be further instructed to urge 
 upon the national government, with a view to facilitate 
 the great work contemplated in the first resolution, the 
 immediate organization of an efficient engineer corps, to 
 make complete surveys and explorations of the several 
 routes which have been recommended to public notice as 
 practicable for the line of said road. 
 
 '^ 3d. Resolvedj That his Excellency the Governor be 
 requested to forward to each of our senators and repre- 
 sentatives in Congress a certified copy of the foregoing 
 joint resolutions. 
 
 John Bigler, 
 
 Speaker of the Assembly. 
 John McDougal, 
 
 President of the Senate. 
 
 San Jose, March 11th, 1850." 
 
 Statutes of Cahfornia^ 1st session, (1850) page 465. 
 
56 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 During this session of the Legislature, Mr. Bigler also 
 gave his earnest advocacy to the Homestead law. 
 
 The first Legislature was popularly known as the 
 ^' Legislature of a Thousand Drinks'' ; and before this body 
 of faithful, hard-working old pioneers is dismissed from 
 notice, the origin of the merry appellative will be ex- 
 plained. There is an incorrect popular notion that this 
 title was appropriate to the character and habits of the 
 legislators. Gen. Green, a senator from Sacramento, who 
 had rented a room adjoining the Senate chamber, before 
 the latter had been set apart for the use of the State, 
 w^as in the habit, after the daily adjournment of the two 
 houses, of inviting his friends to his apartment to par- 
 take of choice old Bourbon, of which he had a supply. 
 Tliis invitation was uniformly given in a loud and happy 
 tone of voice, and invariably in these liberal words: 
 ^^ Walk m^ gentlemen! walk in! and take a thousand drinks f 
 The genial, generous senator could not have foreseen 
 that, in coming years, his thoughtless words would be 
 quoted to the disparagement of his sober colleagues. 
 
 In the fall of 1850, Mr. Bigler was a second time 
 elected a member of the Assembly— this time represent- 
 ing Sacramento county, the first legislature having divided 
 the State into counties. Upon the meeting of the Legis- 
 lature in January, 1851, he was again chosen Speaker of 
 the Assembly. 
 
 In the following summer, he received the Democratic 
 nomination for the office of Governor, to which, in the 
 succeeding fall, he was elected by the people; his com- 
 petitor being the late Major Pierson B. Reading, the 
 Whig candidate. 
 
 In January, 1852, Mr. Bigler entered upon his guber- 
 natorial duties, and served out his term of two years. 
 In the fall of 1853, he was again elected Governor by the 
 Democracy, and served out his second term of two years 
 from January 1st, 1854. 
 
 In the fall of 1855, he was, for the third time, the 
 chosen standard-bearer of his party for the high office 
 which he had held for nearly four years. This time, he 
 met his first political defeat — together with the entire 
 
JOHN BIGLER. 57 
 
 Democratic ticket — at the hands of the Native American 
 or Know-Nothing party, marshalled under the leadership 
 of J. xvTeely Johnson, now Judge of the Supreme Court 
 of Nevada. 
 
 Released from the responsibilities of public trust, 
 which had engrossed his time and attention ever since 
 his first election to the Assembly in 1849, a period of six 
 years, Grov. Bigler availed himself of this first recess in 
 his public life to visit his native State. While there, the 
 presidential campaign of 1856 opened with that vigor 
 and asperity which marked its continuance. The Dem- 
 ocracy had placed in the field an honored and favorite 
 son of Pennsylvania. Their chief opponent, the Repub- 
 lican party, rallied (and, for a new party, with unex- 
 ampled spirit) under the standard of one of the first 
 United States senators from California. The last-named 
 organization, destined to control the government unin- 
 terruptedly for so many years, was struggling to wrest 
 the administration of national affairs from the Democracy 
 four years in advance of the appointed time. 
 
 All men looked to Pennsylvania as the battle-ground 
 where the result must be decided. The contest was 
 bitter. Grov. Bigler, devotedly attached to his party, 
 which had given him distinction in the State of his 
 adoption, took the stump in behalf of that party in the 
 State of his nativity. He labored untiringly throughout 
 the campaign, and at its conclusion, had the pleasure of 
 seeing the Keystone State, by a tremendous majority, 
 cast her vote for the chosen leader of his party ; a result 
 he aided very materially to secure. The Democracy of 
 that great Commonwealth, through the leading Demo- 
 cratic papers of the State, gratefully acknowledged the 
 efficiency of the services rendered in their behalf by 
 their distinguished visitor. 
 
 But two weeks had clasped after the presidential 
 election when Gov. Bigler returned to California, and set- 
 tled at Sacramento, his old home. However, he was to 
 remain only a short time in private life. President 
 Buchanan had not been in office a month, when he ap- 
 pointed Gov. Bigler Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 
58 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Chile. This was the 
 first compliment of the kind ever paid to a citizen of the 
 United States on the Pacific coast; though Gen. Pierce 
 had, before the close of his term of office, tendered to 
 Gov. Bigler, first, the mission to Portugal, and afterwards 
 that to Sweden and Norway, both of which he declined. 
 His appointment as minister to Chile was confirmed by the 
 Senate, and he soon left California for Washington, whence 
 shortly after he departed with his family upon his mission. 
 He continued to discharge the duties of this position 
 throughout the full term of President Buchanan's ad- 
 ministration. While minister to Chile, he settled the cele- 
 brated ''Macedonian Claim" against that country, which 
 had been pending ever since its first presentation by 
 Commodore Porter, in 1820. 
 
 He also settled the case of the whaler Franklin^ which 
 had been the subject of unpleasant dispute for more 
 than twenty years; and adjusted the murder case of 
 Horatio Gates Jones, one of the most important and per- 
 plexing ever acted upon by an American minister. 
 
 During his ministerial career, he was influential in 
 obtaining a test of American and British locomotives on 
 the Chile railroads, which resulted in the complete triumph 
 of American mechanical skill and the superiority of 
 American locomotives. 
 
 In 1861, upon the arrival of Mr. Lincoln's appointee 
 to the Chile mission. Gov. Bigler returned to California. 
 He found his party in a decided minority, and struggling 
 to maintain its organization. In 1862, he accepted a 
 nomination for Congress. The Second Congressional 
 District, which embraces Sacramento county, was over- 
 whelmingly Republican. The Democratic candidate and 
 his friends had no expectations of success. He made the 
 canvass solely to aid in keeping the party organization 
 intact. Of course, his defeat followed. 
 
 Since his return from Chile, Gov. Bigler has been en- 
 gaged in the practice of law in Sacramento, where he has 
 held a homestead for twenty years. A part of this time 
 he was a member of the law-firm of Coffroth, Bigler & 
 Spaulding. Since 1862, he has not been before the 
 
JOHy BIGLER. -•^*" 59 
 
 people as a candidate for office: he has, however, been 
 conspicuous in State conventions, and was a delegate from 
 California to the national conventions which nominated 
 Geo. B. McClellan and Horatio Seymour for the Presi- 
 dency. 
 
 In October, 1867, Gov. Bigler was appointed by 
 President Johnson one of the commissioners to examine 
 and pass upon the work of the Central Pacific Railroad 
 Company, his associates being Hon. Thomas J. Henley 
 and Frank Denver. No happier selection could have 
 been made than that of John Bigler. Ever since he 
 pushed his weary way across the cheerless prairies that 
 stretch between the Sacramento and Missouri rivers, he 
 has felt the necessity and urged the construction of the 
 great continental highway. When a representative of 
 the people, early in 1850, as already shown, he com- 
 menced the clear and satisfactory record he has made for 
 himself upon this great question, so long a matter of 
 deep anxiety to Californians. During his visit to the 
 East in 1856, while a witness and an actor in a mighty 
 political contest, he was ever zealous in his efforts to 
 remove any objection urged against the feasibility of the 
 construction of the Pacific Railroad. In the Daily Penn- 
 sylvanian^ a Philadelphia newspaper, of November 20th, 
 1856, appeared the following^^ 
 
 " In his recent visit to our State, Gov. Bigler every- 
 where, in public speeches and in private conversations^ 
 expressed the opinion that, in the construction of this 
 great work, no greater difficulties would have to be en- 
 countered than were so successfully overcome in the con- 
 struction of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad. No one 
 more fully appreciates the immense advantages that would 
 result from its completion than Gov. John Bigler. From 
 its inception to the present hour, he has been an un- 
 faltering advocate of this gigantic enterprise." 
 
 The great undertaking has at last been consummated, 
 and a considerable portion of it under Gov. Bigler's im- 
 mediate supervision. California, in the nineteenth year 
 of her sovereignty, has been linked to the older States 
 with iron bonds by the hand of skilled labor, and in this 
 
60 RFPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 union the dream of our pioneers has been fulfilled and 
 the hopes of our people realized ! 
 
 During his long residence at Sacramento, Grov. Bigler 
 has been a witness of all the many trying ordeals through 
 which that afflicted but enterprising city has passed. He 
 has seen the mountain torrents, leaping from a hundred 
 sources, unite their raging waters, and expanding into 
 the strength and volume of an ocean, sweep with resist- 
 less energy over and around her; he has seen the fire- 
 king again and again envelop her habitations in his 
 consuming arms; he has repeatedly exposed his life in 
 the performance of noble deeds, when plague and pesti- 
 lence made her hearthstones desolate. 
 
 When the Asiatic cholera aj)peared in Sacramento, in 
 the fall of 1850, Gov. Bigler immediately devoted him- 
 self to unremitting efforts for relieving the sick and 
 burying the dead. The 28th of October w^as a day of 
 sadness and terror; the deaths by cholera on that day 
 numbered ninety. The alarm was so great that a sufficient 
 force to dig graves and give burial to the victims could 
 not be obtained. On the afternoon of that day, Gov. 
 Bigler remained at the city cemetery until dark. The 
 last three bodies interred were consigned to the grave by 
 Gov. Bigler and an assistant, to accomplish which the 
 Governor was compelled to get down into the earth ancl 
 arrange the coffins in their narrow home. 
 
 The account of Dr. Morse, (now a leading physician 
 of San Francisco) which was copied in the Illustrated His- 
 tory of Sacrainento^ pays this just tribute to the man whose 
 daring and kindness of heart attracted the attention and 
 gratitude of his fellow-men: 
 
 ''We will mention one name, our motive for which 
 w^ill be readily acknowledged more as the extortion of 
 truth than the result of partisan partiality. That name 
 is John Bigler, the present Governor of California. This 
 man, with strong impulses of sympathy, could be seen 
 in every refuge of distress that concealed the miseries 
 of the dying and the destitute. With a lump of gum- 
 camphor as large as a moderate-sized inkstand, now in 
 his pocket and anon at his nostrils, he braved every scene 
 
JOHN BIGLER. 61 
 
 of danger that was presented, and with his own hands 
 administered relief to his suffering and uncared-for 
 fellow-beings." 
 
 Where is the man — the political opponent, even — who 
 would not eagerly follow the writer, did he allow his pen 
 to dwell in glowing eulogy upon this bright chapter in 
 the life of John Bigler ? 
 
 It will be seen that, during the best part of his life. 
 Gov. Bigler" has been actively engaged in the discharge 
 of public duties. He is strictly a party man. He has the 
 credit of being a very shrewd politician and a keen judge 
 of men. To the fortunes of his party he has ever adhered 
 with unfailing devotion. In the vigor of discipline and 
 the flush of triumph, he has led its columns to new 
 achievements and attainment of great ends; and when 
 misfortune overtook and disaster appalled, he has rallied 
 its scattered legions and dauntlessly flaunted its banner 
 in the face of the foe. 
 
 And the party to which he has so steadfastly clung, 
 has ever delighted to do him honor. Twice a member of 
 the Assembly ; twice Speaker of that body ; twice Governor 
 of the State; a third time a candidate for that office; for 
 four years United States Minister to Chile; again the 
 candidate of his party for Congress; three times an ac- 
 credited delegate to the National Democratic Convention ; 
 he can feel, in the sunset of his natural and political life, 
 that his party has not been unmindful of his labors in its 
 cause. That party yet proudly points to the consistency 
 of his public life, and the qualities which adorn his charac- 
 ter as a man. 
 
 Gov. Bigler has always been the acknowledged friend 
 of the poor and laboring classes. He has uniformly striven 
 to elevate them, and ameliorate their condition. His en- 
 tire public life has been signalized by patient fidelity to 
 their interests and claims. He has not forgotten the past, 
 with its solemn teachings. He is proud of labor, proud 
 of the masses who live by labor, and proud that he him- 
 self has been compelled to labor. 
 
 Not success, not wealth, not rich estates, not grandeur, 
 nor fame, nor the applause of the world, could make him 
 
62 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 forget the humble walks he trod in youth. As was said 
 of ''nature's sternest painter, yet the best," "the ameni- 
 ties of the refined society which he enjoys in mature 
 manhood never occupy his imagination so much as the 
 reminiscences of struggle, suffering, passion and disaster 
 with which his youth was familiar." 
 
%, 
 
 (m^o^mm^w^ fs,)c iBAii^ii[fS. 
 
 [CommiPsioncdMaioi- Creueral ni\ftr his death] 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 
 
 EDWARD Dickinson Baker was born in London, in 1811. 
 His parents emigrated to the United States, and 
 came to Philadelphia in 1816. They were highly re- 
 spectable persons, of energy, good sense, and accom- 
 plished education. Upon the arrival of his parents in 
 Philadelphia they taught school for a few years, success- 
 fully, at a time when that city was probably the most 
 renowned of any in the Union for the excellence of its 
 institutions of learning, and the ability of its distinguished 
 citizens. His early lessons of religion were interwoven 
 by his excellent parents with classical lore, and his taste 
 bent to the purest models, and his precocious genius 
 gratified in its thirst for books. His father had heard 
 and read of our great government, founded by Washing- 
 ton and his compatriots, and regarded it as the noblest 
 work of human wisdom and virtue, the most munificent 
 spectacle of human happiness ever presented to the vision 
 of man. The old man had seen sparks of irrepressible 
 genius in his darling boy, and sought a theatre, upon 
 which, without resting ingloriously under the shadow of 
 a titled name, without ^'the boast of heraldry," his son 
 could make his mark upon the page of history. To the 
 enduring honor of the old man, be it remembered, that 
 notwithstanding his devotion to learning, he taught his 
 children that labor was honorable; and for awhile our 
 lamented hero worked at the trade of a cabinet-maker. 
 But though to work as St. Paul did with his own hands 
 
 * For explanatory note, see Preface. 
 
64 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 is honorable among all men, yet the Almighty has given 
 men different gifts. Baker's genius could not be cramped 
 by the persistent continuance of an occupation in which 
 he could attain the highest excellence in a few years. 
 To chain such a mind as he had to any such occupation, 
 would be as idle as to attempt to persuade the bird of 
 Jove to quit towering '4n his pride of place," and soaring 
 aloft above the clouds, and adopt the habits of our useful 
 domestic fowls. It could not be.' It was the ^'Divinity 
 that stirred within him," and whispered that he was born 
 to illustrate great principles by his mental efforts, and to 
 die gloriously, as he did die, in the noblest struggle that 
 ever animated the soul of a patriot-hero. 
 
 I can imagine that sensible father holding the hand of 
 his hope and joy as he walked through the streets of the 
 patriotic Quaker city. Here he showed him the house 
 where Washington dwelt, and the church in which the 
 august father of his country knelt in worship before the 
 Lord of lords and King of kings. Here he visited Indepen- 
 dence Hall. Here he took him to the grave of Franklin, and 
 in answer to the inquiries of childish curiosity, he would 
 say : ^^ Washington, my son, was a great and good man, 
 honored by the brave and good throughout the civilized 
 world ; he served his country faithfully through a long 
 and bloody war, and founded here, amid unexampled diffi- 
 culties, a great and glorious Union, whose laws insure 
 protection to the honest foreigner and welcome him to 
 an equal participation in its rewards and honors. He 
 earned the title, nobler far than that of King or Empe- 
 ror — the Father of his Country. Study his precepts and 
 venerate his character. Benjamin Franklin was poor in 
 early life, worked with his own hands, and by industry 
 became one of the most distinguished men on earth, 
 itoger Sherman was a shoemaker, but honest and indus- 
 trious, and was honored by his fellow citizens and earned 
 immortality. He, like Washington and Franklin, was a 
 signer of the Declaration of Independence. These illus- 
 trious men, with their patriotic brethren from the ice- 
 bound region of the distant North, and the sunny clime 
 of the South, pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 65 
 
 honor to the achievement of Independence. Remember 
 their example — be true to that country which they hon- 
 ored, which honored them, and may honor you, if you 
 will. This immortal struggle was one in which patriots 
 of all the States participated. At the battle of German- 
 town, Nash, from North Carolina, that State the first to 
 declare her Independence, (then peopled by thousands, as 
 now by tens of thousands, of good men and true,) here 
 fell a martyr in the cause of Freedom. On the other 
 side of this majestic river — the Delaware, which Wash- 
 ington crossed, disregarding the terrible inclemencies of 
 a northern winter — on the other side, is the State of New 
 Jersey, every foot of whose sod is a soldier's sepulchre. 
 There Mercer of Virginia fell, another martyr to Free- 
 dom's cause. Be true to the memory of these men. 
 You are not by birth, but by choice can be, a fellow-citi- 
 zen of this heaven-blessed Union. The prayers and hopes 
 of your father and mother are that you will prove true to 
 this, now your country, to its institutions, to the cause of 
 Freedom. " 
 
 This early teaching made a deep and lasting impres- 
 sion on the heart and mind of the patriot-soldier. These 
 early lessons seem ever to have been the pillar of fire 
 that guided his course in his public career. When Col. 
 Baker was still a boy, his father died in Philadelphia. In 
 1828 he left that city, and seeking a home in the great 
 West, he went to Carrolton, Illinois, where he borrowed 
 books and commenced the study of the law. May I say, 
 without intruding in the holy precincts of family sorrow, 
 he went attended by a mother's prayers and counsels. 
 That mother still survives, at the advanced age of 82 
 years, (1861). She is as remarkable now for the spright- 
 liness and vigor of her intellect, as she was in earlier life 
 for her accomplishments and rare endowments. Venera- 
 ble woman ! 
 
 "While you reverse our nature's kindlier doom, 
 Pour forth a mother's sorrow on his tomb. 
 
 Millions of patriot hearts sympathise in your sorrow. 
 Look for comfort to Him who alone can give it — who 
 
66 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 '^doeth all things well." May this calamity, while it 
 'loosens another one of the bonds that bind you to the 
 earth, divest the common fate of one more of its terrors, 
 and create through the hope of re-union another aspira- 
 tion for a better life beyond the grave. " 
 
 In 1832 he was a Major in what is known as the 
 Black Plawk war. 
 
 By the diligent exertion of his extraordinary abilities, 
 he soon attained a high rank in his profession — and this 
 is no slight praise, for there were '^giants in the land in 
 those days. " Hardin, Douglas, Lincoln and Logan were 
 his rivals and friends, and acknowledged his prowess. 
 For ten years consecutively he was a member of the 
 Legislature of the State of Illinois. In December, 1845, 
 he entered the House of Bepresentative from the Spring- 
 field District in Illinois, a member of the 29th Congress. 
 During this Congress, war existed with Mexico, and Baker 
 left his place in the House, went to Illinois and raised the 
 4th Regiment organized in that State. He went with his 
 regiment to the deadly banks of the Bio Grande, and 
 entered the command of Gen. Taylor. In December, 
 1846, he returned from Mexico on urgent public business, 
 and in the House of Representative, delivered a speech 
 remarkable for its force and intense patriotic feeling, 
 which subdued •'partizan opposition and produced the 
 fruits he desired, of additional appropriation for the com- 
 fort of the soldiers in the field. After this visit to the 
 seat of Government he resigned his seat in Congress and 
 returned immediately to Mexico. His regiment was or- 
 dered to Yera Cruz, where he participated in the capture 
 of the Castle of San Juan de Ulloa. Very soon after- 
 wards he was at the battle of Cerro Gordo, where the 
 gallant Gen. Shields was wounded severely, and Baker, 
 having charge of the attacking column, took the com- 
 mand. History has told us the story of the good conduct 
 of the Colonel who commanded the 4th Illinois Regiment, 
 in that terrible but glorious day. After the war was 
 ended, he returned to Illinois, and was honored by that 
 State with a sword, in grateful recognition of his valuable 
 services. 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 6T 
 
 In 1849, while a resident of what w^as called the Sanga- 
 mon or Springfield District, he was urged by his party 
 friends to come to the Galena District, then strongly, and 
 to any other person but Baker, overwdielmingly Demo- 
 cratic. If any other man had attempted such an enter- 
 prise, he would have been regarded as a Don Quixote. 
 But he was always self-reliant. He had, if not all the 
 ambition, the courage and genius of Julius Cossar. He 
 commenced there to advocate those principles to which 
 through his life he had been attached, with unfaltering de- 
 votion. He went with the sling of Freedom and the peb- 
 ble of Truth, and the giant Democracy fell before him. 
 He served in the 31st Congress as a member from the 
 Galena District. He was not a candidate again, and his 
 voice not being heard, the Galena District was again de- 
 cidedly Democratic. 
 
 In 1851, his fervid spirit, always seeking some difficult 
 and hazardous exploit, induced him to embark in the en- 
 terprize of superintending the construction of the Pana- 
 ma Railroad. Here he managed a large body of men, 
 and here he was revelling in the belief that he w^as open- 
 ing a way to a land of wines and fig-trees, of pome- 
 granates, a land of oil, olive and honey — opening the road 
 for his countrymen in all parts of the Union, to a land 
 forever consecrated to freedom. In that pestiferous clim- 
 ate,, in 'Hhose poisonous fields with rank luxuriance 
 crowned," under 
 
 Those blazing suns that dai-t a downward ray. 
 And fiercely shed intolerable day, 
 
 he was comforting his soul with the assurance that he 
 was removing obstructions from the paths of free labor, 
 that here, on this our blessed shore, it might have its 
 proudest resting-place. Nothing but a strong constitu- 
 tion strengthened by the most exemplary temperance, a 
 '^ frame of adamant, a soul of fire," and an indomitable 
 will sustained him under the effects of the Panama fever, 
 which troubled him for several years. 
 
 In June, 1852, he arrived in California. Here he soon 
 attained a high rank in the profession of the law. Many 
 
68 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 pages of this volume might be filled in recounting his 
 many triumphs among eminent men at the bar. The 
 country well knows how pre-eminently great he was in 
 cases of life and death — how irresistible he was, when he 
 entranced juries by the magic of his eloquence, and de- 
 prived men of their reason as he overwhelmed them in 
 admiration of his transcendent genius. By universal 
 consent he was regarded as having no rival in this branch 
 of his profession. It would be a grateful task to me, and 
 a most agreeable one, to dwell upon the beauties of many 
 of his published speeches. Who but Baker could draw 
 such houses in old Music Hall, as Webster alone could 
 summon in Faneuil Hall? Who could call alike the stu- 
 dent and the mechanic to hear him discourse on the ad- 
 vantages of free labor and the duty of government to pro- 
 tect and encourage it ? Who could dim the eye of beauty 
 with a tear of sympathy and soften the heart of the mi- 
 ser in one and the same effort, while he pleaded the cause 
 of benevolence and heavenly charity? Who like him 
 could call the miner from digging gold, the farmer from 
 his plow, the man of business from his work, while he 
 talked as one inspired of the thousand blessings of our 
 Union, and the greatness that awaited us in the future? 
 To those who have thus heard him, how "stale, flat and 
 unprofitable" must be the effort of any other ! How of- 
 ten, when we have thus heard him, with a heart overflow- 
 ing with patriotism, and an eye of fire, when he spoke of 
 the inestimable value of our Constitution and Union, of 
 our mission among the nations of the earth, when he 
 seemed to "stoop to touch the loftiest thought" which 
 other men would toil laboriously to reach, have we 
 thought he appeared to be the very personification of 
 the apostrophe of the great poet of nature to man : 
 "How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties ; in form 
 and moving, how express and admirable ; in apprehension, 
 how like a god !" 
 
 He remained in California until February, 1860. Then 
 he attempted and achieved what no other man but E. D. 
 Baker could have performed. He had for years scatter- 
 ed the seeds which he saw had at last promised to bring 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 69 
 
 forth good fruit in California, when he determined to per- 
 form in Oregon, upon a larger scale, what he had done in 
 Illinois. Many who heard of his intentions, prophesied 
 he was going on a ^'sleeveless errand," that he was a 
 Quixotic Hotspur who imagined ''it were an easy leap 
 to pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon. " But 
 he went to Oregon. He drew crowds to hear him. In 
 a little more than six months he appeared again among 
 us, on his. way to Washington City, Senator from Oregon ! 
 It was, in evil conflict, like that of Julius Csesar in arms 
 over Pharnaces, as described by himself, Venij vidi^ vici — 
 If ''Peace hath her victories as well as War, " where is 
 the conqueror whose laurels will not pale their ineflPectual 
 glories, before those of Baker? His success in the Gale- 
 na District of Illinois and in Oregon is unequaled by any- 
 thing that ever occurred in the history of our country. 
 
 He took his seat in the Senate in December, 1860. 
 Much was expected of him ; he did not disappoint the 
 hopes of his friends. In January, 1861, in answer to the 
 talented Benjamin, the skillful and accomplished orator 
 of "high exploit" in the Senate — "a fairer person lost 
 not heaven" — he made a speech celebrated for strength 
 of argument, logical power and majestic eloquence, 
 which would have honored the Senate in the days of Web- 
 ster, Clay and Crittenden. He was beyond comparison 
 the foremost man in debate in that illustrious body, the 
 Senate of the United States. It might have been expect- 
 ed, as it was ardently hoped by his countrymen, that here 
 he would remain, and enjoy the fruits of an honorable 
 ambition. But no ; it was ordered otherwise b}^ fate. 
 The ruling passion of his soul, that "made his ambition 
 virtue" — an unconquerable wish to serve and save his 
 country, drowned all selfish suggestions of individual 
 comfort. In his own glowing words in the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, in 1850, "I have bared my bosom to the 
 battles on the Northwestern frontier in my youth, and on 
 the Southwestern frontier in my manhood ; and if the 
 time should come when disunion rules the hour, and dis- 
 cord is to reign supreme, I shall again be ready to give 
 the best blood in my veins to my country's cause." 
 
70 REPRESENTATIVE IklEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The time had come, and he was ready to do at the can- 
 non's mouth what he had professed in the halls of Con- 
 gress. His noble soul was on the side of his country in 
 the dreadful contest brought about by desperate and 
 wicked ambition. His voice in the. Senate and in the 
 public assemblies stirred the hearts of his countrymen to 
 rally in support of the best Government ever seen by 
 man. After the adjournment of Congress he attended a 
 public meeting in New York, in April, 1861, probably the 
 largest ever held in our country, and there, amid the 
 learned and able men of that great city, he stimulated 
 the public mind and aroused his countrymen to renewed 
 efforts in behalf of our Union. It was there he spoke by 
 the side of the lion-hearted, the patriotic Dickinson — 
 himself remarkable for strength of intellect and great 
 power of oratory — who at a speech in Brooklyn, New 
 York, thus speaks of our friend : 
 
 Alas, poor Baker ! He was swifter than an eagle ! He was 
 stronger than a lion ! and the very soul of bravery and manly 
 daring. He spoke by my side at the great Union Square meeting 
 in April, and his words of fiery and patriotic eloquence yet ring 
 upon my ear. And has that noble heart ceased to throb — that 
 pulse to play? Has that beaming eye been closed in death? Has 
 that tongue of eloquence been silenced for ever? Yes, but he has 
 died in the cause of humanity — 
 
 "Whether on the scaffold high, 
 Or in the army's van. 
 The fittest place for man to die 
 Is where he dies for man \" 
 
 He raised a regiment and led them on in their coim- 
 try's cause. It is not necessary now to discuss why the 
 result of the battle of Edward's Ferry was not different. 
 To Baker's fame it is all right. He fell in the cause of 
 human liberty, in defense of the Union, in defense of his 
 country. He fell with his ^'back to the field, his face to 
 the foe," and long as Liberty has a votary on earth, as 
 long as the name of Washington is revered among men, 
 and his principles cherished by his countrymen, so long 
 will the name of Baker be remembered with gratitude 
 and admiration. 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 71 
 
 No man who knew Baker, can doubt the sincerity and 
 noble disinterestedness of his attachment to his political 
 principles. In Illinois^ in California, against overwhelm- 
 ing numbers, unseduced by the syren song promising 
 promotion, he kept on the even tenor of his way. 
 As a statesman, he w^as never suspected in the days of 
 highest party excitement, of trimming his sails to catch 
 the breeze of popular applause. He did not purpose to 
 embark with his friends on the '^ smooth surface of a 
 summer sea," and leave them when the winds whistled 
 and the billows roared. lie was 
 
 Constant as the Northern Star, 
 Of whose true, fixed and resting quality 
 There is no fellow in the firmament. 
 
 In political contests, when armed with the conscious- 
 ness of being right, as at the cannon's mouth, he never 
 feared to encounter any adversary, or ever thought of 
 consequences to himself. He went into political contests 
 as he did to the field of battle, where mortal engines 
 '^ immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit." 
 
 On the morning of the fatal 21st of October, 1861, 
 when he crossed the Potomac, he went to perform his du- 
 ty to the ^Svhole country, of which he was a devoted and 
 affectionate son." He thought he was right, and in the 
 path of duty ; and I can imagine as he stood on the banks 
 of the Potomac, whose rushing waters red with patriotic 
 blood, were in a few hours to dash their moaning waves 
 on Mount Vernon's shore, with a full knowledge of the 
 danger of death before him, he had in his mind the noble 
 thoughts to which he gave utterance in the Senate on the 
 2d of January previous. ''Right and duty are always 
 majestic ideas. They march an invisible guard in the 
 van of all true progress ; they animate the loftiest spirit 
 in the public assemblies ; they nerve the arm of the war- 
 rior ; they kindle the soul of the statesman and tlie 
 imagination of the poet ; they sweeten every reward ; 
 they console every defeat. Sir, they are of themselves 
 an indissoluble chain which binds feeble, erring humanity 
 to the eternal throne of God. " 
 
72 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 In private life he was most amiable and affectionate. 
 I am indebted to the Rev. Thomas H. Pearne of Port- 
 land, Oregon, who thus speaks of an incident which illus- 
 trates the strength of his filial affection and duty. After 
 his election as Senator, he addressed a letter to his mother : 
 
 It was the first he was to send bearing the Senatorial frank. 
 "Who so fitting a recipient of that first letter as that aged mother? 
 On the way to the post-office with the letter in hand, conversing 
 with a friend, he remarked with fond pride, that his mother, then 
 more than 80 years of age, was a woman of strong, cultivated mind ; 
 that she had often taken down his speeches in short-hand, which 
 she wrote with elegance and rapidity; that she was a beautiful 
 writer, and that she still retained in vigor her mental faculties. As 
 the son Avas transmitting this evidence of his success to his mother, 
 and recounting' her virtues and excellencies, his eyes filled with tears, 
 which coursed their way down his cheeks. In itself the incident 
 is trivial, yet it illustrates two things — the influence of that strong- 
 minded, intelligent mother in training her son for greatness and 
 usefulness, and the generous tide of sympathy which beat in his 
 manly heart. 
 
 He had as much unworldliness as Goldsmith ; no love 
 of filthy lucre ever fovmd a resting-place in his heart. 
 For years I have known him well, and part of the time 
 vas associated with him in business, and I never heard a 
 profane word or irreverent expression from his lips. He 
 never uttered or wrote a line that could impair the celes- 
 tial comfort of a Christian's hope. As a man, he was 
 possessed of that most excellent gift, charity, towards all 
 who differed with him ; he never indulged in bitterness 
 of speech towards political opponents, nor towards those 
 who had done him personal wrong. I have never known 
 a man in public life whose heart more abounded in gen- 
 erous philanthropy for all mankind. He exhibited this 
 feeling at the bar, when he was conscious of his superi- 
 ority over a younger or feebler adversary. He would 
 have manifested the same generosity had he been victori- 
 ous in the last battle of his life, and deserved the eulogi- 
 um pronounced by him on Gen. Taylor: ^' Nor, sir, can 
 we forget that in the flush of victory, the gentle heart 
 stayed the bold hand, while the conquering soldier offered 
 sacrifice on the altar of pity, amid all the exultation of 
 triumph." 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 73 
 
 He had talents that only needed cultivation to have 
 insured him distinction, as a poet. 
 
 The following poem is given as an illustration of his 
 poetical powers. It was sent from Washington City to 
 the Philadelphia Press^ (shortly after Col. Baker's death,) 
 by Col. Forney, with these comments. 
 
 i0m Irj} (E0L §afen\ 
 
 "In my comments upon the lamented Colonel Baker I stated 
 that, in addition to his many other intellectual gifts, he was a fine 
 poet — a remark that was received by many with surprise. I am 
 permitted to publish one of his fugitive pieces, written by him 
 twelve years ago, and now in possession of an intimate friend in 
 this ciij. Observe how the last verse applies to his fate :" 
 
 TO A WAVE. 
 
 Dost thou seek a star with thy swelling crest, 
 
 wave, that leavest thy mother's breast? 
 Dost thou leap from the prisoned depths below 
 In scorn of their calm and constant flow? 
 
 Or art thou seeking some distant land 
 To die in murmurs upon the strand? 
 
 Hast thou tales to tell of pearl-lit deep, 
 Where the wave-whelmed mariner rocks in sleep? 
 Canst thou speak of navies that sunk in pride 
 Ere the roll of their thunder in echo died? 
 What trophies, what banners, are floating free 
 In the shadowy depths of that silent sea? 
 
 It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar, 
 Of banner, or mariner, ship or star ; 
 It were vain to seek in thy stormy face 
 Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace. 
 Thou art swelling high, thou art hashing free, 
 How vain are the questions we ask of thee ! 
 
 1 too am a wave on a stormy sea ; 
 
 I too am a wanderer, driven like thee ; 
 
 I too am seeking a distant land 
 
 To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand. 
 
 For the land I seek is a waveless shore, 
 
 And they who once reach it shall wander no more. 
 
 It has fallen to the lot of few men to be distinguished 
 at the bar, in popular assemblies, in the Senate, and in 
 the tented field. Viewed in this light, Baker's fame is 
 the ''tall cliff whose awful form" overshadows other men 
 
74 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIEia 
 
 of his day. The practice of the law sharpens the intel- 
 lect, but narrows its powers of comprehension. It had 
 no unfavorable mfluence on his genius. The great Erskine, 
 unrivalled in his day in the forum, disappointed the hopes 
 of all when he sat in Parliament. But Baker was an 
 Erskine at the bar and a Chatham in the Senate. The 
 magnificent Burke, whose splendid diction grows better 
 by time, had no power to stir men's blood as Baker had. 
 Excepting our own Webster, no man of modern times has 
 been so successful as Baker in the forum, in the Senate, and 
 before popular assemblies. I have already referred to his 
 surprising power in addressing audiences of literary or 
 benevolent character. Which of us tbat heard or read 
 his speech on the occasion of celebrating the laying of 
 the Atlantic cable, in 1858, can ever forget his beautiful 
 apostrophe to science ? — 
 
 Oil Science, tliou though t-clad leader of the company of i)ure 
 and great souls that toil for their race and love their kind ! 
 Measurer of the depths of earth and the recesses of heaven ! 
 Apostle of civilization, hand-maid of religion, teacher of human 
 equality and human right, per})etual witness for the Divine wis- 
 dom, be ever, as now, the great minister of peace ! Let thy starry 
 brow and benign front still gleam in the van of progress, brighter 
 than the sword of the conqueror, and welcome as the light of 
 heaven. 
 
 Who can forget his reference on the same occasion to 
 the magniiicent comet, then kindling the admiration of all 
 beholders in its pathway of celestial glory ? — 
 
 "But even while we assemble to mark the deed and rejoice at 
 its completion, the Almighty, as if to impress us with our weakness 
 when compared with his j)ower, has set a new signal of his reign in 
 heaven. If to-night, fellow-citizens, you will look out from the 
 glare of your illuminated city into the northwestern heavens, jou 
 will perceive low down on the edge of the horizon a bright stranger 
 pursuing its i^ath across the sky. Amid the starry hosts that keep 
 their watch, it shines, attended by a brighter pomji and followed 
 by a broader train. No living man has gazed upon its splendors 
 before. No watchful votary of science has traced its course for 
 nearly ten generations. It is more than 300 years since its ap- 
 proach was visible from our planet. When last it came it startled 
 an Emperor on his throne, and while the superstition of his age 
 taught him to perceive in its presence a herald and a doom, his 
 pride saw in its flaming course and fiery train the announcement 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 75 
 
 that his own light was about to be extinguished. In common with 
 the lowest of his subjects, he read omens of destruction in the 
 baleful heavens, and prepared himself for a fate which alike awaits 
 the mightiest and the meanest. Thanks to the present condition 
 of scientific knowledge, we read the heavens with a far clearer 
 jDerception. We see in the predicted return of the rushing, blazing, 
 comet through the sky, the march of a heavenly messenger along 
 its appointed way and around its predestined orbit. For 300 years 
 he has traveled amid the regions of infinite space. "Lone, wan- 
 dering, but not lost, " he has left behind him shining suns, blazing 
 stars and gleaming constellations, now nearer the eternal throne, 
 and again on the confines of the universe — he returns with visage 
 radiant and benign; he returns with unimpeded march and un- 
 obstructed way; he returns, the majestic, swift electric telegraph 
 of the Almighty, bearing upon his flaming front the tidings that 
 throughout the universe there is still peace and order ; that amid 
 the immeasurable dominions of the Great King, His rule is still 
 perfect ; that suns and stars and systems tread their endless circle 
 and obey the eternal law. 
 
 Are not these thoughts rays of immortality which cast 
 a bright halo around the fame of Baker ? He had errors 
 — what mortal has not ? — he was conscious of them, and 
 repented of them in sackcloth and ashes. But who can 
 think of the early career of this foreign-born boy, de- 
 prived by Almighty dispensation of a father's care when 
 a child of tender years ; of his noble struggles against 
 poverty ; of his wonderful acquirements while working 
 with his own hands ; of his extraordinary attainments 
 under the most depressing circumstances on a western 
 frontier ; of his great virtues in the domestic relations 
 of life ; of his gentle and charitable heart ; of his patriotic 
 soul devoted to his whole country, full of fiery zeal in the 
 cause of liberty, yet untainted by the poison of fanaticism 
 which corrupts the heart and clouds the mind ; above all, 
 of his steady, unfaltering devotion to his country, in 
 peace and in war ; of his patriotic life and glorious death 
 — who can think of these, and refuse to say with the 
 friend now attempting with tremulous diffidence to weave 
 a modest garland around his brow, in doing these fair 
 rites of tenderness — 
 
 Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to Heaven ! 
 Let thy errors sleep with thee in the grave 
 But not remembered in thy epitaph ! 
 
<b REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF TPIE PACIFIC. 
 
 A few weeks after his election to the United States 
 Senate, in 1860, Gen. Baker, while m route to Washington, 
 addressed a very large mass meeting in San Francisco, 
 convened under the auspices of the Republican State 
 Central Committee. His speech on this occasion was re- 
 garded by very many of his admirers as the greatest ef- 
 fort of his life, although delivered without preparation. 
 It was reported in full, and extensively circulated as a 
 campaign document. Near the close of the speech oc- 
 curred this impassioned tribute to Freedom ; 
 
 "Here, then, long years ago, I took my stand by Freedom, and 
 where in youth my feet were planted, there my manhood and my 
 age shall march. And, for one, I am not ashamed of Freedom. 
 I know her power; I rejoice in her majesty; I walk beneath her 
 banner ; I glory in her strength. I have seen her again and again 
 struck down on a hundred chosen fields of battle. I have seen her 
 friends fly from her. I have seen her foes gather around her. 
 I have seen them bind her to the stake. I have seen them give her 
 ashes to the winds, regathering them again, that they might scatter 
 them yet more widely. But when they turned to exult, I have seen 
 her again meet them, face to face, clad in complete steel, and 
 brandishing in her strong' right hand a flaming sword, red with 
 insufferable light. And, therefore, I take courage. The people 
 gather around her once more. The Genius of America will at last 
 lead her sons to Freedom." 
 
 We honor him especially for the self-immolating 
 spirit which led him, like Curtius, to plunge in the gulf 
 in the hope of saving his country. He was not impelled 
 by any dream of wild ambition. ]!^ot being born in the 
 Atlantic States, he could not be President. He had 
 attained the highest station, in his opinion, on earth ; 
 a station, as he said, ^'more exalted than that of a Roman 
 Senator, Consul, Proconsul or Emperor." He had ob- 
 tained the position of the first debater in the Senate. 
 His friend with whom he had played in childhood, ''his 
 own familiar friend" with whom he had taken sweet 
 counsel, had become President of the United States. 
 That friend still loved him and rejoiced at his success. 
 He could have passed an easy and luxurious life on the 
 primrose path of Senatorial dignity and influence. But 
 his country was in danger — he took no thought of liim- 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 77 
 
 self. He "loved the name of honor more than he feared 
 death." I honor his memory especially that notwith- 
 standing his life-long zeal in the cause of liberty, he was 
 true to "the Constitution and all its compromises," as he 
 proclaimed again and again in his public addresses. lie 
 was animated by no sectional hostility, but regarded our 
 Union "as less a work of human prudence than of 
 Providential interposition." In the spirit of a disciple of 
 Washington, as a friend of Webster and Clay, he said : 
 
 "Let the laws be maintained and the Union preserved, at what- 
 ever cost. By whatever constitutional process, through whatever 
 of darkness or danger there may be, let us proceed in the broad 
 luminous path of duty, till danger's troubled night be passed and 
 the star of peace returns. " 
 
 At the Union Mass Meeting in New York City, May 
 20th, 1861, Gen. Baker thus concluded a speech of great 
 eloquence and power : 
 
 And if, from the far Pacific, a voice feebler than the feeblest 
 murmur upon its shore may be heard to give you courage and hoj)e 
 in the contest, that voice is yours to-day. And if a man whose hair 
 is gray, who is well nigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, may 
 pledge himself on such an occasion, and in such an audience, let 
 me say, as my last word, that when amid sheeted fire and flame, I 
 saw and led the hosts of New York as they charged in contest upon 
 a foreign soil for the honor of your flag ; so again, if Providence 
 shall will it, this feeble hand shall draw a sword never yet 
 dishonored — not to fight for distant honor in a foreign land, but to 
 fight for country, for home, for law, for government, for con- 
 stitution, for right, for freedom, for humanity, and in the hope that 
 the banner of my country may advance, and wheresoever that 
 banner waves, there glory may pursue and freedom be established. 
 
 It would be unjust to his memory and to his coun- 
 trymen to whom his memory will ever be dear, to omit 
 to speak of his funeral oration over the dead body of a 
 Senator from California, who died "tangled in the mesh- 
 es of the code of honor. " I have read no effort of that 
 character, called out by such an event, so admirable, so 
 touching, so worthy the sweet eloquence of Baker. 
 That one effort should crown him with immortality. 
 Baker was a brave man. He has proved it often. He 
 had, as an honorable colleague said in the House of Rep- 
 
78 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 resentatives — '^ in the battles of his country carved the 
 evidence of his devotion to his government," and gave 
 there proof of his courage. He proved it on the bloody 
 field of Cerro Gordo, when he was praised by the greatest 
 of living soldiers for his fine behavior and success. He 
 has proved it by his death. Yet he knew that dueling 
 was a sin. He knew it deserved reprobation and was un- 
 hallowed by any or all of the illustrious names who had 
 yielded to its requirements under the tyranny of a bar- 
 barous public opinion. He gave his unqualified condem- 
 nation to a code which offers ''to personal vindictiveness 
 a life due only to a country, a family and to God. " Bro- 
 derick had many good qualities that excited Baker's ad- 
 miration. Both w^ere self-made men ; both had risen 
 from poverty to the highest position. Let Baker's de- 
 nunciation of this unchristian, barbarous code be remem- 
 bered to his undying honor : 
 
 To-day I renew my protest ; to-day I utter yours. The code of 
 honor is a delusion and a snare. It palters the hope of a true 
 courage and binds it at the feet of crafty and cruel skill. It 
 surrounds its victim with the pomp and grace of the procession, 
 but leaves him bleeding on the altar. It substitutes cold and 
 deliberate preparation for courageous and manly impulse, and arms 
 the one to disarm the other. It may prevent fraud between 
 practiced duelists — who should be forever without its pale — but it 
 makes the mere "trick of the weapon" superior to the noblest 
 cause and the truest courage. Its picture of equality is a lie. It is 
 equal in all the form, it is unjust in all the substance. The habitue 
 of arms, the early training, the frontier life, the bloody war, the 
 sectional custom, the life of leisure, all these are advantages which 
 no negotiations can neutralize and no courage can overcome. 
 
 There was a moral courage and sublimity in it that 
 has a fadeless lustre, reflected by his glorious death. 
 Not far from each other- 
 where Ocean tells its rushing waves 
 To murmur dirges round their graves — 
 
 these two distinguished men will repose in Lone Moun- 
 tain cemetery until the trump of the Archangel shall 
 sound and ' 'summon this mortal to put on immortality." 
 Let their monuments arise to meet the eye of the ocean- 
 worn exile as he comes near this haven of rest. Let 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 79 
 
 them tell the traveler, as the landscape fades from his 
 sight on leaving our gorgeous land, that "the paths of 
 glory lead but to the grave. " Let parents of unnumber- 
 ed generations encourage their children to love that coun- 
 try for which Baker died — to cherish our Government 
 and its institutions, which can thus advance the humblest 
 of her sons. There let them rest, honored for their vir- 
 tues, respected for their public services, mourned by thou- 
 sands of all nations now present who will unite with us 
 in saying ; 
 
 How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
 By all their country's wishes blest ! 
 When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
 Eeturns to deck their hallowed mould, 
 She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
 Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 
 
 By fairy hands their knell is rung. 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
 There Honor comes, a pilgrim grey. 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; 
 And Freedom shall awhile repair 
 To dwell a weeping hermit there ! 
 
 Farewell, gallant spirit ! While thy death in trumpet 
 tones tells us "God only is great," may it increase our 
 devotion for the Omnipotent Almighty, who out of the dust 
 could create such a being as thou wast. May it increase 
 our gratitude that our lot is cast under a government, for 
 whose preservation you poured out the best blood in 
 your veins. Though the sad heart-moving words, "earth 
 to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," have been pro- 
 nounced over thy earthly remains, yet in your own burn- 
 ing words — and what more ajopropriate ornament for the 
 bier of him who earned the title of the " Gray Eagle of Re- 
 publicanism," than a plume from his own wing, a "feather 
 that adorned the royal bird and supported his flight?" — 
 
 Your thoughts will remain. They will go forward and conquer. 
 They are gathering now into a stream. They are spreading into a 
 rushing, boiling and bounding river. They are controlling men's 
 minds. They are maturing lives. They are kindling men's words. 
 They are freeing men's souls. And as surely as the great pro- 
 cession of Heaven's host above us moves each in its appointed place 
 
80 REPRESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and orbit, so surely shall the j)roud i^rinciples of human right and 
 freedom prevail. 
 
 And hereafter, when the " banner of Freedom streams 
 proudly to the wind in honor of victory — when peace 
 o'er the world extends her olive wand" — when the great 
 and good are remembered, you will not be forgotten. 
 We will remember the man ''of foreign birth who laid 
 down his life for the land of his adoption." When the 
 roll is called of Freedom's great martyrs, your sacrifices, 
 your fidelity to liberty, will be remembered, and ten 
 thousand times ten thousand patriot tongues shall say of 
 you, as it was said of another soldier in another struggle, 
 ''Fallen upon the field of honor." 
 
 ''But the last word must be spoken, and the imperi- 
 ous mandate of death must be fulfilled. Patriot- warrior, 
 farewell ! Thus, oh brave heart ! we leave thee to thy 
 rest. Thus, surrounded by tens of thousands, we leave 
 thee to the equal grave. As in life, no other voice among 
 us so rung its trumpet tones upon the ear of freemen, so 
 in death its echoes will reverberate amid our mountains 
 and our valleys, until truth and valor cease to appeal to 
 the human heart." 
 
 ^Mxm at §tv. mx0^. Mm pwg, 
 
 Delivered at the Grave in Lone Mountain Cemetery, 
 San Francisco, previous to the Interment of Col. 
 Baker's Body. 
 
 The story of our great friend's life has been eloquent- 
 ly told. We have borne him now to the home of the 
 dead, to the Cemetery which, after fit services of prayer, 
 he devoted in a tender and thrilling speech, to its hallow- 
 ed purposes. In that address, he said: ''Within these 
 grounds public reverence and gratitude shall build the 
 tombs of warriors and statesmen * * * who have given 
 all their lives and their best thoughts to their country." 
 Could he forecast, seven years ago, any such fulfillment of 
 those words as this hour reveals? He confessed the con- 
 viction before he went into the battle which bereaved us, 
 
ED-^VARD DICKINSON BAKER. 81 
 
 that his last hour was near. Could any slight shadow of 
 his destiny have been thrown across his path, as he stood 
 here when these grounds were dedicated, and looked over 
 slopes unfurrowed then by the plowshare of death? 
 
 His words were prophetic. Yes, warrior and states- 
 man, wise in council, graceful and electric as few have 
 been in speech, ardent and vigorous in debate, but nobler 
 than for all these qualities by the devotion which promp- 
 ted thee to give more than thy wisdom, more than thy 
 energy and weight in the hall of senatorial discussion, 
 more than the fervor of thy tongue and the fire of thy 
 eagle eye in the great assemblies of the people — even the 
 blood of thy indomitable heart — when thy country call- 
 ed with a cry of peril, — we receive thee with tears and 
 pride. We find thee dearer than when thou camest to 
 speak to us in the full tide of life and vigor. Thy wounds 
 through which th}^ life was poured are not ''dumb 
 mouths, " but eloquent with the intense and perpetual 
 appeal of thy soul. We receive thee to ''reverence and 
 gratitude, " as we lay thee gently to thy sleep ; and we 
 pledge to thee, not only a monument that shall hold thy 
 name, but a memorial in the hearts of a grateful people, 
 so long as the Pacific moans near thy resting-place, and a 
 fame eminent among the heroes of the Republic so long as 
 the mountains shall feed the Oregon ! The poet tells us, in 
 pathetic cadence, that the paths of glory lead but to the 
 grave. But this is true only in the superficial sense. It is 
 true that the famous and the obscure, the devoted and the 
 ignoble, "alike await the inevitable hour." But the path 
 of true glory does not end in the grave. It passes through 
 it to larger opportunities of service. Do not believe or 
 feel that we are burying Edward Baker. A great nature 
 is a seed. "It is sown a natural body ; it is raised a spir- 
 itual body. " It germinates thus in this world as well as 
 in the other. Was Warren buried when he fell on the 
 field of a defeat, pierced through the brain, at the com- 
 mencement of the Revolution, by a bullet that put the 
 land in mourning? No ; the monument that has been 
 raised where his blood reddened the sod, granite though 
 it be in a hundred courses, is a feeble witness of the per- 
 6 
 
82 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACTFTC. 
 
 manence and influence of his spirit among the American 
 people. He mounted into literature from the moment 
 that he fell : he began to move the soul of a great com- 
 munity ; and part of the principle and enthusiasm of 
 Massachusetts to-day is clue to his sacrifice, to the pre- 
 sence of his spirit as a power in the life of the State. 
 
 Did Montgomery lose his influence as a force in the 
 Revolution because he died without victory, on its thresh- 
 old, pierced with three wounds, before Quebec? Phil- 
 adelphia was in tears for him, as it has been for our hero ; 
 his eulogies were uttered by the most eloquent tongues 
 of America and Britain, and a thrill of his power beats 
 in the volumes of our history, and runs yet through the 
 onset of every Irish brigade beneath the American ban- 
 ner, which he planted on Montreal, 
 
 Did Lawrence die when his breath expired in the de- 
 feat on the sea, after his exclamation, "Don't give up the 
 ship !" What victorious captain in that naval war shed 
 forth such power ? Plis spirit soared and touched every 
 flag on every frigate, to make its red more commanding 
 and its stars flame brighter ; it went abroad in songs, and 
 every sailor felt him and feels him now as an inspiration. 
 
 God is giving us new heroes to be enthroned w^ith 
 those of the earlier struggles. Before our greatest vic- 
 tories come, He gives us, as in former years, names to rally 
 for, and examples to inflame us with the old and the un- 
 conquerable fire. Ellsworth, Lyon, Winthrop, Bakerj our 
 patriots who have fallen in ill-success, will hallow our 
 new contest, and exert wider influence as spirit-heroes 
 than over their regiments and battalions, while they shall 
 ascend to a more tender honor in the nation's memory 
 and gratitude. 
 
 And other avenues of service than those of the earth 
 are opened for such as he whom we are waiting to lay in 
 the tomb. "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, " 
 saith the Sacred Word. Grod has higher uses for such 
 spirits. In the Father's house are many mansions ; and 
 Christ hath prepared the place for all ranks of mortals for 
 whom he died. The mysteries of the other world are not 
 revealed. The principles of judgment, the tests of accept - 
 
EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER. 83 
 
 ance and of the Supreme eminence are unfolded. Intel- 
 lect, genius, knowledge, faith, shall be as nothing before 
 humility, sacrifice, charity. But in the uses of charity 
 the fiery tongue, the furnished mind, the unquailing heart, 
 shall have ample opportunities, and ampler than here. 
 Paul goes to an immense service still as an Apostle ; New- 
 ton to reflect from grander heavens a vaster light. As 
 we shut the door of the tomb of genius, let it be with 
 gratitude to God for its splendor here, and with a hope 
 for its future that swells our bosom, though its outline be 
 dim. 
 
 And let us not be tempted, in view of the sudden 
 close of our gifted friend's career, in any sad and skeptical 
 spirit, to say, ''What shadows w^e are, and what shadows 
 we pursue!" The soul is not a shadow. The body is. 
 Genius is not a shadow. It is a substance. Patriotism 
 is not a shadow. It is light. Great purposes, and the 
 spirit that counts death nothing in contrast with honor 
 and the welfare of our country, — these are the witnesses 
 that man is not a passing vapor, but an immortal spirit. 
 
 Husband and father, brother and friend. Senator and 
 soldier, genius and hero, we give thee, not to the grave 
 and gloom — we give thee to God, to thy place in the 
 country's heart, and to the great services that may await 
 thee in the world of dawn beyond the sunset, with tears, 
 with affection, with gratitude, and with prayer. 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 
 
 ^Y JIaI^EY y/. ^COTT, 
 EDITOB OF "the OBEGONIAN." 
 
 The rise of American communities and their forma- 
 tion into States have given opportunity for the growth 
 and development of many of our most noted and useful 
 public men. 
 
 The man who has borne a prominent part in establish- 
 ing one of the States of our American Union, who has 
 been instrumental in giving direction to its growth and 
 distinctiveness to its character, and who has largely as- 
 sisted in infusing a spirit of independence and self- 
 reliance, as well as a moral and practical progressive 
 energy into its development — such a man is sure of an 
 honorable and permanent place in our history. All our 
 States have those who are thus held in remembrance, and 
 their history forms a large part of the general history of 
 the country. To illustrate this, particular names need 
 not be recounted. Every one who studies the history 
 of the origin of the several States, readily selects the 
 individuals whose influence has given them the dis- 
 tinguishing characteristics which they as communities 
 possess. 
 
 The person who acquaints himself with the history 
 of Oregon will assign to Judge Deady a leading place 
 among those who are entitled to be regarded as the repre- 
 sentative men of the Pacific Coast. A residence of twenty 
 
86 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 years' duration, the greater part of which has been spent 
 in active participation in the affairs of the Territory and 
 State, has enabled him to exert a remarkable influence 
 upon the thought, the habits, the jurisprudence, and the 
 general interests of this rising commonwealth. Few men 
 have ever more thoroughly impressed their ideas upon a 
 large community than he has done. He came to Oregon 
 at a time when the various elements of society, which 
 had been drawn together from localities separated widely 
 from each other by customs as well as by distance, had 
 met and begun to coalesce; and taking them in this 
 transition state, he has been largely instrumental in 
 moulding them into their present form. Possessing 
 many, though not all, of the qualities necessary for a 
 leading public character, he has often been able to guide 
 and direct where he has not had power to absolutely 
 control. His extensive learning, his ready judgment, 
 his clear perception of the whole relations of a subject, 
 with the ability to state his opinions in a consistent and 
 convincing manner, have always given him influence and 
 power; and while he is lacking in certain elements of 
 character which enable some men to achieve a very high 
 popularity, he possesses those solid qualities which al- 
 ways command respect, and which, in general, enable 
 their possessor to make a more enduring impression upon 
 the public thought than is made by many whose praises 
 are continually on the popular tongue. 
 
 Matthew P. Heady was born May 12, 1824, in Talbot 
 county, Maryland, nine miles from Easton. He is of 
 Irish and English extraction. His father was a man of 
 education, and a schoolmaster by profession. His parents 
 were married in Baltimore, his mother's native place, 
 where they mainly resided until the year 1828, when 
 they removed to Wheeling, Yirginia. Here his father 
 had charge of the Lancasterian Academy, a public school 
 conducted upon the monitorial system of the celebrated 
 English Quaker, Joseph Lancaster, and in this school 
 Matthew took his first lessons in the '' hornbook and 
 ferule." 
 
 In 1833, the family returned to Baltimore on a visit. 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 87 
 
 On the return to Wheeling, Matthew's mother died and 
 was buried in May, 1834, near Burkettsville, in western 
 Maryland. Thenceforward, Matthew was thrown for the 
 most part upon his own resources and impulses for his 
 progress through the world and the direction of it. 
 During the summer of 1834, he attended school at 
 Fredericktown, Maryland. In the autumn of the same 
 year, he returned to Baltimore and entered his grand- 
 father's store, where he remained until the spring of 
 1836, when he returned to his father in Wheeling. Here 
 he went to school, and was employed in a music store 
 until 1838, when he removed with his father to Belmont 
 county, Ohio. There he lived and labored upon his 
 father's farm for about three years, when he voluntarily 
 left home and went to Barnesville, Ohio, to learn the 
 trade of blacksmithing. With the exception of six 
 months, during which he attended the Barnesville Aca- 
 demy, he wrought at the anvil for the next four years, 
 when his engagement with his employer closed. During 
 this period, he became a skillful mechanic. Besides the 
 physical development and hardiness which these years 
 of wholesome labor gave him, he obtained at the same 
 time a knowledge of men and things in the practical 
 affairs of life which no amount of mere school culture 
 could have bestowed. 
 
 In this country, where every man must make his own 
 way to fortune, and where '' self-made men," to adopt a 
 trite phrase, are the only ones who win position and hold 
 it, the man whose early life is one of severe struggles, 
 has, in general, a great advantage over those who might 
 seem to be more favored by fortune. He who has accus- 
 tomed himself in early life to meet difficulties and sur- 
 mount them, acquires a courage and a steadfastness 
 which will serve him better than any patrimonial estate: 
 for no Mian, in a country like ours, where competition 
 is so great, and where continued success depends on ab- 
 solute merit, can sustain himself for a day after he relaxes 
 his effort and loses faith in himself. In Troilus and 
 CressickL^ Ulysses, remonstrating with Achilles for his in- 
 activity, says; 
 
88 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Perseverance, dear my lord. 
 Keeps honor bright: To have done, is to hang 
 Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
 In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; 
 For honor travels in a strait so narrow. 
 Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path; 
 For emulation hath a thousand sons 
 That one by one pursue. If you give way, 
 Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, 
 Like to an entered tide they all rush by. 
 And leave you hindmost. 
 
 Grit and pluck are good words to describe the quali- 
 ties which are indispensable to every American. And 
 there is nothing which gives these qualities a better 
 development than the necessity which compels a man to 
 obtain a practical knowledge of what labor is, and causes 
 him to commence to build upon this solid foundation of 
 all human improvement. Most of our public men have 
 had preparatory discipline in the school of labor, and 
 tliis has generally been not the least valuable part of 
 their education and training for public duty. Such a 
 beginning is almost necessary to Americanize our public 
 men. But none except low minds attempt to make par- 
 ticular merit of it. There has been as much mean dema- 
 gogism on this point as on almost any other. A great 
 writer says: ''There is no qualification for public place 
 but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive. Wher- 
 ever they are found, they have in whatever state, condi- 
 tion, profession or trade, the passport of Heaven to 
 human place and honor. Woe to the country that would 
 madly and impiously reject the service of the talents and 
 virtues, civil, military or religious, that are given to grace 
 and serve it; woe to that country, too, that passing into 
 the opposite extreme, considers a low education, a mean, 
 contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary occupa- 
 tion, as a preferable title to lead and command." 
 
 After his apprenticeship closed, Matthew pursued his 
 studies in an academy six months longer. This was the 
 end of his school days. He therefore never had the 
 advantages which a collegiate education would have given 
 him; but the person who obtains any idea of the extent 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 89 
 
 of his learning, the accuracy of his information, his taste 
 and discrimination in literature, and his knowledge of 
 matters which are generally learned only in the schools, 
 would readily suppose that he had prepared the way for 
 this culture by a thorough course of college study. 
 
 But though he had labored patiently and with a steady 
 purpose for several years in making himself master of a 
 trade, he did not pursue it further; and after leaving 
 school, in obedience to that principle which attracts so 
 many of our young men towards literary instead of 
 mechanical pursuits and leads them to commence with 
 the study of the law, he began to apply himself with a 
 view of acquiring a knowledge of that profession. This 
 was in the winter of 1845-6, and he w^as now twenty-one 
 years old. While thus engaged, he had recourse to that 
 common expedient of our young men who are making their 
 way in the world — he taught school. He continued the 
 study of the law with William Kennon, Sr., of St. Clair s- 
 ville, Ohio, since on the Supreme Bench of that State. 
 In October, 1847, he was admitted to the bar of the 
 Supreme Court of Ohio, and practiced law in St. Clairs- 
 ville until the beginning of the year 1849, when he took 
 the idea of removing to Oregon. His old friend. Judge 
 Kennon, had long entertained the project of coming to 
 the Yalley of Wallamet. In his dreams, here was a spot 
 ^^ like those Hesperian gardens famed of old;" and he in- 
 spired those about him with his own enthusiasm in regard 
 to a place so fair and so romantic. About this time, the 
 discovery of gold in California set all the adventurous 
 spirits of the country agog for the shores of the Pacific. 
 Several young men of St. Clairsville made preparations 
 for the western march, and Mr. Deady, sharing the gene- 
 ral love for adventure, resolved to join them. They set 
 out about the beginning of the year 1849, but proceeded 
 no further in company than Leavenworth. At that place 
 Mr. Deady joined a Government train and continued with 
 it as far as Fort Kearney, where he fell in with a Pay- 
 master of the United States Army, who was coming over 
 the plains with an escort to Oregon. He joined this 
 party and reached the Dalles, then the farthest outpost 
 
90 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of Oregon civilization, on the 7th of November, 1849. 
 His friend, Judge Kennon, who had first directed his 
 mind hither, never visited Oregon. Mr. Deady had set 
 out for '^The West" with twenty dollars in his pocket; 
 and various small debts which he was unable to pay when 
 he started, he discharged with money which he earned in 
 teaching school during the winter after his arrival. 
 
 In those days, the man who came to Oregon never 
 considered his journey ended until he had reached 
 Oregon city. Following the general fashion, Mr. Deady 
 went to that place, and after a few days' sojourn there, 
 departed for Yamhill county. 
 
 On the plains near Fort Hall, his party had fallen in 
 w^ith some Yamhill people, and traveled in company with 
 them for the remainder of the journey. The acquaint- 
 ance thus formed was the means of leading him to Ore- 
 gon's historic county, Yamhill. He reached Lafayette, 
 the capital of that county, and then one of the principal 
 towns in Oregon, on the 13th December. During the 
 winter, he had recourse to the old employment of school 
 teaching. 
 
 In 1850, he commenced practicing law, and almost 
 immediately became well and favorably known. At that 
 time, and for several years thereafter, Lafayette w^as an 
 important business point; and Mr. Deady was not a man 
 to go into such a community and remain unknown and 
 unnoticed. In the general election in June of tliat year, 
 though he had been only six months in the Territory, he 
 was chosen a member of the Lower House of the Oregon 
 Legislature. He distinguished himself as a member of 
 the House Judiciary Committee, and the next year (1851) 
 was elected a member of the Territorial Council. Here 
 the position of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee 
 was assigned him. A special session of the Legislature 
 was held in July, 1852, and the abilities he had already 
 displayed in that body caused him to be elected President 
 of the council. Thus he became a " growing man" from 
 his first appearance in public life ; and from that time his 
 reputation and influence have been increasing steadily, 
 as he has had opportunities to make himself known. 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 91 
 
 Until 1853, he continued to practice law in Yamhill 
 county. 
 
 He married, in June, 1852, Lucy, eldest daughter of 
 Robert Henderson, Esq., of Yamhill. Four children 
 have been born to them, two of whom are now living. 
 
 In the spring of 1853, he received his first appoint- 
 ment to a judicial position, being made an Associate 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Ore- 
 gon. His colleagues on the bench were Hon. Geo. H. 
 Williams, Chief Justice, now a United States senator 
 from Oregon, and Hon. Cyrus Olney, now a resident of 
 Astoria, and still one of the most active and influential 
 citizens of the State. 
 
 Judge Deady held his first term of Court at Hills- 
 boro, Washington county, in July, 1853. That county 
 then included the city of Portland and the present 
 county of Multnomah. But as he had chosen the 
 Southern Judicial District of the Territory, comprising 
 the counties south of Wallamet Yalley, he soon removed 
 to that section. He took a land claim in Douglas county, 
 ten miles from Roseburg, and established his residence 
 thereon. For the next five years, his life was an active 
 and laborious one. Besides attending to his official 
 duties, he made a farm, performing a large part of the 
 labor with his own hands. As a considerable portion 
 of his time was necessarily passed in comparative quiet 
 and solitude, he had here a rare opportunity for reading, 
 reflection, and study; and possessing a small, though 
 very good collection of authors in law, politics, and lite- 
 rature, he here gave his mind its permanent cast, and 
 developed that vigor and breadth of understanding which 
 he has evinced in his subsequent life. He has thus fur- 
 nished another proof of the fact that intellectual develop- 
 ment is best promoted in the midst of labors and in op- 
 position to difficulties. Such is our nature that in order 
 to make progress, we demand resistance and opposition. 
 '^ Difficulty," says Burke, '^ is good for man." 
 
 When Judge Deady went to southern Oregon, society 
 there was in an unsettled state, resulting from the new- 
 ness of the country, the migratory character of the popu- 
 
92 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 lation, and the various incidents belonging to a com- 
 munity hitherto almost wholly devoted to mining and its 
 kindred pursuits. There was much bustle and activity 
 about the mines and in the principal towns; and for four 
 or live years there had been a steady trade and inter- 
 course with the Wallamet Yalley and through the Umpqua 
 river with California. The people hitherto, as is still the 
 case in similar communities, had been governed mainly 
 by their own local laws and regulations. It therefore 
 devolved on Judge Deady to settle and administer the 
 general principles of law among them. This necessitated 
 great diligence and labor, and the exercise of much pa- 
 tience. He performed his duties with credit to himself 
 and advantage to that portion of the Territory; and 
 while he thus did much to give a consistent and per- 
 manent form to the jurisprudence of Oregon, he greatly 
 enhanced his own reputation, and grew steadily and 
 firmly in the confidence of those who knew him. 
 
 The subject of a State Government now began to be 
 agitated. For several years successively it was submitted 
 to the people of the Territory and rejected by them ; but at 
 length it was carried, and at the general election in June, 
 1857, members were chosen to meet in convention for 
 the purpose of framing a constitution to be submitted 
 to the people for their adoption or rejection. Judge 
 Deady was elected a member of this convention from 
 Douglas county. The members assembled at Salem in 
 Au9;ust, 1857. The conspicuous abilities of Judge Deady 
 designated him as the person to be chosen to preside over 
 the deliberations of the convention. He was therefore 
 chosen President of that body, and took a leading part 
 in framing the present constitution of Oregon. The 
 labor of the convention was mainly performed in the 
 Committee of the Whole, where he was always on the 
 floor, participating in the discussions and assisting to give 
 form to the constitution. Many parts of that instrument 
 were either suggested by him or modified by his hand. 
 He procured the insertion of the clause in relation to 
 suffrage, which requires persons of foreign birth to 
 declare their intention to become citizens one year before 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. . 93 
 
 they are allowed to vote, a measure which is necessary 
 in every State to insure the purity of elections. Others 
 wished to allow the privilege of suffrage to every person 
 of foreign birth who had been six months in the State, 
 immediately upon his declaration of intention to become 
 a citizen ; a policy which opens a wide door for fraud, as 
 it offers an inducement to persons to declare their inten- 
 tion to assume citizenship for the special purpose of 
 voting, and puts it in the power of politicians to make 
 use of them on special occasions to exercise an undue 
 influence in elections. By his efforts, also, the official 
 terms of Justices of the Supreme Court were made six 
 years instead of four. In the convention there were 
 those wdio advocated annual sessions of the Legislature 
 and the election of the Governor and officers of the 
 Administrative Department every two years. Judge 
 Deady advocated biennial sessions of the Legislature and 
 official tenures for these officers of four years' duration, 
 and his views were adopted. He was an earnest advo- 
 cate of those provisions of the constitution which secure 
 the State against the creation of large indebtedness, pre- 
 vent the legislature from lending the credit of the State 
 to any corporation, and prohibit counties, cities, and 
 towns from subscribing money to corporate bodies, or 
 creating excessive liabilities. Experience has shown that 
 for an infant State these are wholesome restrictions. He 
 opposed those clauses of the constitution which attempt 
 to prevent the coming of Chinese and persons of African 
 descent into the State, holding that such attempts to 
 restrict intercourse were in conflict with the constitution 
 of the United States ; and it is proper to add that time 
 has fully sustained his position. To present a statement 
 of his w^hole agency in forming the constitution of Ore- 
 gon, it would be necessary to give a review of that en- 
 tire instrument; a review which would protract this 
 sketch to a length that would, perhaps, be tedious to the 
 general reader. After a session of six weeks, the conven- 
 tion perfected the constitution, adopted it as a whole, sub- 
 mitted it to the people, and adjourned. On the adjourn- 
 ment, the President addressed the convention as follows : 
 
 
94 K REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ^^I congratulate you upon the conclusion of your 
 labors in so short a time, and with so little consequent 
 expense to the country. For myself, while objecting to 
 some of the provisions of this constitution, and looking 
 to changes in time that will improve it, I accept it as it 
 is. In reference to the question as to whether we are 
 prepared to become a State, I have not been so sanguine 
 as some individuals. Upon the questions of numbers 
 and wealth, I think we are amply prepared. But a coun- 
 try requires age and maturity to prepare it to become an 
 independent State and government. It is for the coun- 
 try to determine that question. For myself, I am willing 
 to vote to enter into this new form of government, and 
 the best reward I can wish you is that your constituents 
 may approve your labors." 
 
 The constitution thus submitted to the people was 
 adopted by a considerable majority at the next regular 
 election, which took place in June, 1858. 
 
 Judge Deady still held his official position on the 
 bench in southern Oregon during the years 1857-68. 
 At the general election in June, 1858 — the first election 
 held in Oregon for State officers — he was chosen without 
 opposition as Justice of the Supreme Court for the 
 Southern District of the State. The tender of this 
 office by the unanimous vote of the people by whom his 
 character as a man and qualities as a judge were best 
 known, was a very flattering testimonial. He did not, 
 however, accept the position ; for when the State was ad- 
 mitted into the Union in February, 1859, he was ap- 
 pointed Justice of the United States District Court for 
 the District of Oregon. The interval which elapsed be- 
 tween the surrender of his former position and the as- 
 sumption of his new duties gave him an opportunity to 
 visit the Eastern States. His tour extended to Washing- 
 ton and the principal cities, and enabled him to revisit 
 his old friends and the scenes of his early life. He re- 
 turned to Oregon after a tour of a few months, sold his 
 farm in the Umpqua Valley, and in autumn of 1860 re- 
 moved to Portland, where he has ever since resided. 
 
 He was now in a position which gave his powers :i 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 95 
 
 higher and a wider range. Being released from the 
 merely statutory and mechanical labors which had 
 hitherto devolved upon him in a judicial station, his 
 pursuits were now of a nature much more congenial to 
 his mind. His new position brought him to some extent 
 within the domain of public and constitutional law; and 
 on all occasions when his duties have required him to 
 treat these higher questions, he has accjuitted himself in 
 an able and successful manner. To the performance of 
 the duties of his new station, he brought mature intel- 
 lectual powers, a mind ripened by study and impregnated 
 with the original principles of jurisprudence, and a judg- 
 ment thoroughly trained, cultivated, and self-reliant. 
 Besides his purely legal attainments, he was well-versed 
 in the multifarious learning which can be made subsidiary 
 to the uses of a man occupying his position. 
 
 In 1860, the Legislature appointed three commission- 
 ers to prepare a complete Code of Civil Procedure for 
 Oregon. One of these commis^oners declined to serve, 
 and Judge Deady was appointed to act in his place. The 
 other two commissioners bore but a small part in the 
 work, which was performed almost wholly by Judge 
 Deady. In 1862, the Code was reported to the Leg- 
 islature, and so well was it received that only one or 
 two amendments, and they of trifling importance, were 
 made in the whole work. The Code was enacted by the 
 Legislature, and still remains, almost without alteration 
 from the form in which it was originally adopted, the 
 Code of Civil Procedure for Oregon. 
 
 At the session of 1862, the Legislature appointed 
 Judge Deady to prepare a Code of Criminal Procedure 
 for the State, to be reported to the Legislature at the 
 next biennial session. His appointment to this work 
 was a mark of approbation for his past labors, and a tes- 
 timonial of the high confidence that was reposed in hiy 
 ability for the new task. He prepared the Code, reported 
 it to the Legislature, and it was passed without amend- 
 ment. He was in attendance at these two sessions of 
 the Legislature (1862 and 1864) to explain and settle 
 any points which might be raised against portions of his 
 
96 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC- 
 
 work ; and his success is attested by the manner in which 
 that body promptly enacted the Codes ahiiost as they 
 came from his hands. The preparation of these two 
 works was a very laborious task. To ^x upon and settle 
 a method for all legal proceedings, to make the work 
 comprehensive and yet not redundant, and to adapt it to 
 the wants of the people of a new State whose business 
 pursuits and general interests required to be fully con- 
 sidered, was a labor of no small magnitude. That Judge 
 Deady succeeded well is sufficiently established by the 
 fact that after an experience of some years no material 
 changes have been made in the Codes as first reported 
 by him. 
 
 Since 1854, no attempt had been made to arrange 
 and codify the laws of Oregon. From that time, the 
 laws had been continually increasing in bulk and in- 
 tricacy. Each successive Legislature had enacted such 
 laws as real or imaginary wants, changing purposes or 
 temporary caprice seemed to require. Some acts were 
 continually undergoing amendment ; other acts and parts 
 of acts were as continually being repealed and reenacted, 
 and additions were steadily making to the body of the 
 laws. The whole was, of course, in great confusion. It 
 was extremely difficult to know what the law was, and 
 the change from a Territorial to a State Government, 
 with the attempt to continue in force the old laws under 
 the new regime^ made the confusion and difficulty still 
 greater. The Legislature resolved to provide a remedy. 
 In October, 1864, the Governor was authorized to appoint 
 a Commissioner ^' to collect, in the order and method of a 
 Code, all the general laws of Oregon in force, under their 
 appropriate heads, with marginal notes and references, as 
 also a syllabus of each section at the beginning of each 
 chapter or title, as the case may be, with a well digested 
 alphabetical index of the whole." As had been contem- 
 plated, Judge Deady was appointed to perform this im- 
 portant work. It necessitated great research and labor, 
 and employed a large portion of his time for the space 
 of two years. He personally superintended the passage 
 of the work through the press, which added largely +o 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 97 
 
 the labor of the compilation. A brief extract from the 
 preface may be given here: 
 
 '^ No labor has been spared to make this work what 
 the Assembly intended — a complete compilation of ' all 
 the general laws of Oregon,' arranged ^ in the order and 
 method of a Code.' The reader may. never appreciate 
 the trouble and dijB&culty involved in the compilation, in 
 a codified form, of the scattered and oft-amended statutes 
 of the State and Territory, covering a period of ten years 
 of almost annual legislation. The change in the nomen- 
 clature of offices and officers, and the new distribution 
 of their powers and duties, caused by the transition from 
 a Territorial to a State Government, made the labor of 
 compiling the statutes of the former period almost equal 
 to re-drafting them." 
 
 The result of the compiler's labors was a volume of 
 eleven hundred pages, in which the whole laws of Oregon 
 were for the first time brought into an accessible and 
 convenient shape. The compilation was accompanied 
 with extensive and valuable annotations and references^ 
 and the whole was arranged in a systematic manner, 
 making probably the most complete volume of the kind 
 ever published on the Pacific Coast. It does honor to 
 the name of its compiler and annotator, and " Deady's 
 Code" has often been spoken of with high favor and 
 appreciation in places remote from Oregon. 
 
 For several years, beginning in 1862, Judge Deady 
 furnished '' Oregon Correspondence" for the San Fran- 
 cisco Bulletin. He wrote thirty or forty letters a year, in 
 which Oregon affairs and current topics generally were 
 discussed in an original and attractive manner. These 
 letters did much to bring Oregon into prominent notice 
 in California and elsewhere. A pressure of official duties 
 caused the discontinuance of the correspondence in 186 G. 
 
 In February, 1867, Judge Deady was called to San 
 Francisco to hold a term of the United States Circuit 
 Court, in the absence of Justice Field of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. Prior to that time. Judge 
 Deady had been known in California, but the bench and 
 the bar of that State, with few exceptions, had no per- 
 
98; REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 sonal acquaintance with him. The duties that devolved 
 on him in holding this term of Court were of a very 
 delicate and difficult nature. The celebrated McCall- 
 McDowell case was to be tried at this term; and it was a 
 case which, from its nature and the circumstances at- 
 tending it, had attracted very wide attention. The im- 
 portance of the case, the interest that attached to it, and 
 the comment it received, justify in this place a brief 
 account of its origin and of the trial, together with a 
 concise statement of the opinion of the Court and the 
 principles on which that opinion was founded. 
 
 McCall was arrested in April, 1865, in an interior 
 county of California, by order of G-eneral McDowell, for 
 publicly rejoicing over the assassination of President 
 Lincoln. Captain Douglas made the arrest. The prisoner 
 was kept in custody for a short time at Fort Alcatraz, and 
 then discharged. Some time afterwards, he brought an 
 action in a California Court for damages against General 
 McDowell and Captain Douglas, but the case was soon 
 transferred to the Circuit Court of the United States. 
 It was tried without a jury. The Court held that as 
 Captain Douglas had acted under the immediate orders 
 of General McDowell, he was protected against an action 
 for damages, and that General McDowell was solely re- 
 sponsible. The case was heard, and the Court awarded 
 McCall damages in the sum of six hundred and thirty- 
 five dollars. These damages were intended to be merely 
 compensatory; and in rendering the judgment, the Court 
 took into consideration the number of days the plaintiff 
 was under arrest, with his loss of time and expenses. It 
 was stated in the opinion, that the language of McCall 
 which provoked the arrest was ''gross and incendiary," 
 and/' well calculated at that moment of intense public 
 feeling and anxiety to have brought harm upon the com- 
 munity." Yet the speaking of the words " was not 
 technically a crime." 
 
 The defence maintained that the act of Congress of 
 March, 1863, authorizing the President to suspend the 
 privilege of the writ of habeas corpus^ and declaring that 
 any order by the President for arrest and imprisonmoat 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 99 
 
 in the cases specified should be a sufficient defence to 
 any action for prosecution, together with the Act of May, 
 1866, to indemnify all persons for any act done during 
 the rebellion by order of the President or Secretary of 
 War, afforded General McDowell complete defence against 
 the prosecution. The plaintiff asserted that these acts 
 of Congress were unconstitutional and void, and therefore 
 that they afforded no defence. The Court held that 
 Congress has power to suspend the privilege of the writ 
 of habeas corpus^ and in an elaborate argument showed 
 that the Act of March, 1863, was constitutional and valid. 
 The President was entrusted with power to enforce this 
 act, and any order from him within its purview would, by 
 the terms of the act, have been a good and sufficient 
 defence to an action. But the Court found that, as a 
 matter of fact, no order had been issued by the President 
 to General McDowell to make such arrests, and that the 
 latter therefore acted solely on his own responsibility in 
 arresting McCall. The Court accordingly held that this 
 arrest did not come within the purview of the Act of 
 March, 1863, and that the proceeding was consequently 
 without the sanction of law. General McDowell's action 
 was Tiot taken in obedience to the orders of a superior, 
 and therefore he could not plead in defence the act of 
 Congress. '^ The power of arbitrary arrest," says the 
 opinion, '4s a very dangerous one. In the hands of im- 
 proper persons, it would be liable to very great abuse. 
 If every officer throughout the United States during the 
 suspension of the habeas corpus is authorized to arrest and 
 imprison whom he will, (as aiders and abetters) without 
 further orders from the President or those to whom he 
 has specially committed such authority, the state of 
 things that would follow can better be imagined than 
 described." 
 
 To protect the liberty of the citizen, and at the same 
 time to take due care for the public safety, is, in times 
 of great civil commotion, like those through which we 
 had just passed, a matter of extreme difficulty for the 
 persons who are entrusted with the civil and military ad- 
 ministration. It is clear to everybody now that the arrest 
 
100 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of such persons as McCall for their expressions of exulta- 
 tion on the occasion of the assassination of President 
 Lincoln, was not indispensably necessary for the public 
 safety ; yet when those arrests were made this fact was 
 not known. The people were not aware of the extent 
 of the danger, and in view of what had transpired, it was 
 natural for them to take alarm when men in all parts of 
 the country were heard shouting in exultation because 
 the head of the Government had been struck down by 
 the hand of an assassin. That such persons should, in 
 some instances, have been arrested, is not a matter of 
 surprise. Candid men must allow that under all the 
 circumstances of that period of suspense, of doubt, of 
 calamity, of sorrow and of righteous anger, the author- 
 ities showed singular leniency toward those who so far 
 forgot what was due to the sense of the country, to their 
 own honor and to good citizenship, as to express a tur- 
 bulent joy at the perpetration of so great a crime. But 
 the Court could not judicially consider these things. It 
 found that utterances like those which McCall was proven 
 to have made, however indecent in themselves or how- 
 ever offensive to a right-thinking community, did not 
 constitute a crime; therefore, the person using such 
 language was not liable to arrest or to legal punishment. 
 That an ofi&cer who had simply arrested such person, 
 under circumstances like these, without doing him other 
 injury, ought to be protected against a subsequent action 
 for damages, most people would probably think proper 
 and just; but the Court, whose duty it was to declare 
 and administer the law, had not this option. Judge 
 Deady evidently felt the weight of considerations like 
 these, as he remarked in his closing paragraph that, 
 ^'Congress might relieve a meritorious officer against a 
 loss incurred in the discharge of his duty to the public; 
 but in this tribunal, whose only function is to administer 
 the law, the defendant must be held liable for the legal 
 consequences of his act." 
 
 By a large portion of the California press and public, 
 this opinion was at the time very severely criticised. 
 Others, however, did it justice, and recognized the un- 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 101 
 
 questionable principles of law on which it was founded. 
 Subsequently, it was generally acknowledged that the 
 opinion was based on legal principles which could not be 
 shaken. The ruling of the Court upon the point relating 
 to the responsibility of officers making such arrests was 
 virtually recognized as correct by an act of Congress, 
 passed in March, 1867, declaring that all officers and 
 other persons making such arrests should be held, prima 
 fack^ to have acted under the orders of the President. 
 
 At the same term of Court, Judge Deady rendered 
 an opinion relating to the law of copyright, which touches 
 an important branch of that subject, and strikes a sound 
 principle in determining what sort of productions ought 
 to be protected by copyrights and patents, for the use 
 and benefit of authors and inventors. 
 
 Every patent and copyright is in the nature of a 
 monopoly, and the Constitution and laws of the United 
 States contemplate that privileges like these shall be 
 granted only for useful purposes. The language of the 
 Constitution is that these exclusive rights may be se- 
 cured to authors and inventors '' to promote the progress 
 of science and the useful arts." But it would seem that 
 the practice has gone far beyond the plain intention of 
 the Constitution, since this protection is granted for 
 almost every trifle, no matter how simple or common. 
 Every gimcrack is protected by a patent, and by such 
 protection large fortunes innumerable have been made; 
 while many of the most useful discoveries have had no 
 protection at all under the laws, and the persons making 
 them, unable to obtain security for their rights, have 
 lived and died in poverty. The case considered and de- 
 cided on this occasion, grew out of a controversy about 
 two dramatic compositions, or rather representations, in 
 San Francisco. It was claimed that a certain so-called 
 dramatic composition, known as the Black Rook, was an 
 imitation or copy of another known as the Black Crook^ 
 which last composition had the priority of copyright. 
 The person who claimed the exclusive right to exhibit 
 the Black Crook in the State of California applied for an 
 injunction to restrain the exhibition of the Black Book, 
 
102 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 It was very clear that one of the plays or spectacles was 
 a colorable imitation of the other, and the circumstances 
 tended strongly to show that the Black Crook was the 
 original, and the Black Rook the imitation or copy. It 
 appeared, however, that the person claiming the ex- 
 clusive right to exhibit the Black Crook in California had 
 no literary property in that so-called composition, as he 
 was neither the author, assignee, nor donee. How he 
 had obtained possession of his copy did not appear, but 
 he could produce no proof of legal ownership. There- 
 fore he could not enjoin the other party from the use of 
 the copy known as the Black Rook. To obtain an in- ■ 
 junction preventing another from infringing upon a copy- 
 right or patent, the person applying for such injunction 
 must himself have ownership or property in the com- 
 position or invention, or stand in the relation of agent 
 or attorney of the owner. As the person who was ex- 
 hibiting the Black Crook could produce no evidence of 
 ownership or legal interest in the play, his application 
 for an injunction against his rivals was denied. In- 
 cidentally, the Court remarked that it was question- 
 able whether such productions as these two plays were 
 legally entitled to copyright. The laws require of dra- 
 matic compositions that, to entitle them to copyright, 
 they shall be " suited for public representation." As 
 such exhibitions as those which on this occasion had 
 carried their controversy into Court, promote neither 
 ^' the progress of science nor the useful arts," it would 
 clearly appear that it is not within the constitutional 
 power of Congress to encourage their production, and 
 that they ought not to have the protection of the law 
 of copyrights. Both plays were in fact little else than 
 lascivious spectacles ; and while the Court did not pre- 
 tend to be the conservator of morals in this respect — 
 rightly declaring that the regulation of such matters is 
 the business of the local Legislatures — it asserted that 
 the protection of such exhibitions is not one of the ob- 
 jects intended to be secured under the Constitution and 
 laws. This is a sound principle. It is clearly the intent 
 of the laws that exclusive privileges should be granted 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 103 
 
 to authors and inventors for useful purposes only. It 
 degrades this high constitutional power to invoke it to 
 protect frivolous discoveries and meretricious exhibitions. 
 
 In the Avery-Bigler case, which the Court considered 
 and passed upon at this term, there was a general dis- 
 cussion of the subject of official tenures under the Fed- 
 eral Constitution and laws, and of the power to make 
 removals from office. This case also attracted very gen- 
 eral attention, not only in California but throughout the 
 whole country, and did much to hasten the passage of 
 the Tenure-of-Office Act by Congress. In his opinion, 
 Judge Deady made a very clear exposition of the con- 
 stitutional principles which govern appointments and 
 removals, and thus elucidated a subject which, a short 
 time afterwards, became a matter of very general dis- 
 cussion through the public press and among politicians. 
 
 His conduct and ability on the bench were highly 
 approved by the able bar of San Francisco. It was the 
 first time the members of that bar had had opportunity 
 to become well acquainted with him; and after the term 
 had closed, they testified their appreciation of his abilities 
 and their respect for his character in the following pre- 
 amble . and resolution, adopted ''at a meeting of the 
 members of the bar practicing in the United States 
 Courts," and presented by the Honorable Thompson 
 Campbell: 
 
 Whereas, the Honorable M. P. Deady, United States District 
 Judge for the District of Oregon, has. by the allotment of the United 
 States Supreme Court, presided over the United States Circuit Court 
 for the District of California during the present term, and for the 
 first time been brought into contact with the members of the Cali- 
 fornia bar; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That upon Judge Deady's departure from aniong us 
 to return to his own District, the members of the bar of California 
 desire to express their thanks to him for the cheerfulness and readi- 
 ness which he has exhibited in the disposal of a large nuraber of 
 important cases, and that they must bear testimony to the judicial 
 courtesy, ability, and learning with which he has performed his 
 judicial duties, and has won for himself the respect, esteem, and 
 confidence not only of ourselves, but of the public. 
 
 Thompson Campbell, Chairman. 
 Geoege E. Whitney, Secretary. ^ 
 
 San Francisco, April 26th, 1867. 
 
104 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Almost the whole of Judge Deady's time is now taken 
 up with his official duties. His labors in his own District 
 have been steadily increasing for several years, and he 
 devotes himself to his work with unceasing application. 
 He never contents himself with a partial investigation 
 or exposition of a subject. During the last five years, 
 he has written and published, in the course of his official 
 duties, elaborate opinions on a great variety of legal 
 subjects, and his pen is now extensively employed in this 
 way. 
 
 He was called to San Francisco again in February, 
 1868, to hold another term of the United States Circuit 
 Court. It will be sufficient to say that on this occasion 
 he sustained the reputation he had before established. 
 
 Judge Deady is a close observer of all passing events. 
 Nothing escapes his attention. It is not too much to 
 say that he is regarded as an authority in Oregon affairs, 
 and that his opinions on public questions are consulted 
 and treated with respect by the people of his State. He 
 never attempted to acquire the art of extemporaneous 
 public speaking. His mental constitution and habits are 
 not such as would lead him to engage in it, or enable 
 him to be successful before popular assemblages. He is 
 too much like the man that Antony professed to be — 
 that is, '^a plain, blunt man," who '' speaks right on." 
 He has no patience with small expedients and temporary 
 fetches. But though he is not a man who is likely to 
 acquire a showy and noisy popularity, he will always 
 command public respect ; and it is well, known to those 
 who know him intimately that no man more fully sym- 
 pathizes with popular progress. In his estimates of men. 
 he is chai-itable and generous, and for all young men he 
 has words of encouragement. His political views are 
 thoroughly national, and he believes with Marshall and 
 Jackson that the Constitution of the United States forms 
 a Grovernment, and that it confers powers enough to con- 
 stitute and maintain a nation. His mind is deeply im- 
 bued with the philosophy of history, and readily seizes 
 upon the principles which underlie great political and 
 social movements. His erudition is not merely of the 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 105 
 
 showy kind, but it is discriminating, far-reaching, and 
 comprehensive. His proper place is a judicial position, 
 and it may be truly said that he is a man who has found 
 his ''sphere" in life. All admit that as a jurist he 
 deservedly holds a high rank. He has explored the 
 original sources of legal learning, and traced the many 
 streams from their fountains to their confluence and ex- 
 pansion into the great system which forms the body of 
 our jurisprudence. He is not slavishly attached to old 
 forms; on the contrary, he has done much to eliminate 
 useless rubbish of this sort from the jurisprudence of 
 Oregon. But he has a genuine attachment and even en- 
 thusiasm for the simple and liberal spirit of the element- 
 ary principles of the common law. He has done much 
 to promote a study of this system and inculcate a respect 
 and reverence for it. The tendency of his mind in this 
 regard cannot be better shown than by a paragraph or 
 two from an address delivered by him in 1866 before the 
 Portland Law Association, a society of young lawyers in 
 the city where he resides: 
 
 I urge you not to remain satisfied with such a knowledge as may 
 be gleaned from the modern codes and practice reports. Now, in 
 the freshness and -vigor of youth, turn your faces to the past and ex- 
 plore the fields of the common law. As you become conversant 
 with its history, imbued with its spirit, and familiar with its terms 
 and expressions, this will become a labor of love, and a permanent 
 source of profit and delight. It will enlarge your understandings 
 and enrich your minds. Get learning first, and riches afterwards. 
 
 Most of the great cases, which have arisen in the courts of the 
 United States, have involved piinciples and the application of rules 
 which had their root and origin far back in the life of the common 
 law. Without a thorough knowledge and familiarity with these, the 
 great advocates, who won imperishable fame in the trial of these 
 causes, would have been comparatively unknovvm as lawj^ers, however 
 great and commanding their native ability. 
 
 One word more. Now-a-days, it is the fashion in some quarters 
 to sneer at the common law, as a relic of feudalismand barbarism, and 
 to point to the ci^dl law as the proper source from whence to draw 
 the jurisprudence of a highly civilized and refined people. But I 
 caution you to beware of this spirit, and be not persuaded by it. I 
 admit that the civil law is a great system, and the outgrowth of a great 
 people. Upon the subject of contracts and kindred matters, most 
 prominent in a purely commercial age, it furnishes a refined and en- 
 lightened rule of construction and enforcement. As the people who 
 
106 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 have the common law for their inheritance, both in England and 
 America, have become devoted to commerce, and increased in 
 wealth and luxury, they have gradually enriched their jurispru- 
 dence by assimilations from the civil code. But the law of the 
 Roman Empire is not conducive as a whole to the preservation of 
 personal freedom and independence. It knows nothing of a free 
 representative government, in which the people are continually 
 trained to deliberate upon the public affairs and assist in the admin- 
 istration of the laws. Its principles, procedure and spirit are best 
 adapted to a condition of things, where society is divided into an 
 Emperor and his subjects — the former having an unlimited power 
 of command, and the other only the duty of blind and unquestion- 
 ing obedience. It knows no authority paramount to the will of the 
 prince. 
 
 The laws of a people react upon them, and mould their charac- 
 ter and opinions. The common law people — the English race- 
 wherever they go, establish limited governments, with Parliaments 
 and juries; but the people of the civil law — the Latin race — always 
 come under some modification of the empire, in which the will of 
 the prince, emperor or chieftain, is the only and supreme law. 
 
 In so far, then, as we discard the fundamental principles of the 
 common law and adopt those of the civil, we are paving the way for 
 the political and social condition of the Eoman Empire, in the age 
 of the Caesars — both good and bad. Probably this is the innate 
 tendency and inevitable result of our Republic, with our diversified 
 and agglomerated population and ever-widening territory. 
 
 But be this as it may, the common law is the source and panoply 
 of all those features of our system which distinguish us from the 
 subjects of absolute governments, ancient or modern, either by mon- 
 archs or majorities. It was made by freemen for freemen, and so 
 long as you think these distinctions between it and the civil law 
 worth preserving, you should cherish it in private, and exalt it in 
 public. 
 
 As a writer, Judge Deady is ready, correct, and 
 forcible, and the power of his pen is acknowledged by 
 all who are acquainted with its productions. Nor are his 
 best efforts in composition confined altogether to the 
 ^^ more weighty matters of the law." A single illustra- 
 tion of his readiness and spirit as a writer may be given. 
 In October, 1864, he was attending the session of the 
 Legislature, then engaged in considering and passing the 
 Code of Criminal Procedure, reported by him. The news 
 of the death of General Russell, then lately killed in 
 battle under Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, had 
 just reached Salem. Russell before the war had been 
 stationed in Oregon, and had many friends and acquaint- 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 107 
 
 ances in that State. A member of the Assembly intro- 
 duced a series of resolutions eulogistic of the deceased 
 and commemorative of his life and services. The resolu- 
 tions were pitched on a high key, and among other things 
 the expression in Measure for Measure^ '^ to lie in cold ob- 
 struction/' was quoted. Some prosy wags took hold of 
 the resolutions, and were disposed to laugh them down 
 as hifalutin. At the request of their author, Judge Deady 
 wrote and published as editorial the following brief article 
 in the Daily Statesman of the 6th October. It is pre- 
 sented here as a fair specimen of his off-hand composi- 
 tion: 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 The Assembly has before it a joint resolution to the memory of 
 the late General Eussell, long commander at Fort Yamhill, and 
 lately killed in battle under Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. A 
 printed copy of the resolution lies before us. "We rather like it. 
 As befits the occasion, it has the ring of the trumpet and a touch of 
 true poetic fire. When a generous people desire "to honor the 
 patriot dead," or "to encourage their gallant living," their language 
 should rise above the prosy platitudes of a constable's writ, or an 
 inventory of goods and chattels. Cold chronology or genealogy 
 may properly speak of George Washington as an individual who was 
 born, lived, and died in America, and came to be President of the 
 United States. But the orator, the poet, and the painter, seeing in 
 him a model and a mark for his countrymen in all ages, hallow him 
 by the power of genius, and make him the "Father of his Coun- 
 try^" — "First in war, fiirst in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
 countrymen." 
 
 If you would have men die for their country, remember those 
 who thus die. Let the memorial of the brave departed be such as 
 to warm the hearts and elevate the aspirations of those who come 
 after them. The dream of obtaining a monument among the illus- 
 trious dead of Westminster Abbey has done more to maintain the 
 dominion, prowess, and prosperity of England than all the gold of 
 her commerce, twice told and repeated. 
 
 Thus Rome deified the dead and inspired the living, until, with 
 
 -brave Horatius^ 
 
 The captain of the gate, 
 
 a Roman was ever ready to sacrifice himself for his country^ ex- 
 claiming: 
 
 How can a man die better 
 Than by facing fearful odds. 
 
 For the ashes of his fathers. 
 And the temples of his gods ? 
 
108 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The resolution is couched in the language of eulogy, and so it 
 should be. This is no time to stop to count the spots on the sun, 
 but to paint the radiant orb in full light. Let all that is mortal 
 of our countryman "lie in cold obstruction," but let our memorial 
 be not only worthy of his death and the cause he gave his life for, 
 but a peerless crown, to be worn again by the living, now and to 
 come. 
 
 Judge Deady is thoroughly an Oregon man. He 
 takes pride in his State, and believes in asserting her 
 dignity and maintaining her importance as an independ- 
 ent community. The subjoined extract from an article 
 which he wrote for a leading New England publication 
 in the year 1867, furnishes some illustration of this: 
 
 As a people, we are much inclined to be satisfied with our own 
 approval, and are not disposed to count or feed voraciously upon the 
 applause of the outside world. Conscious of being in the possession 
 of the best country and climate on the continent of America, and 
 not wishing to "sell out," upon any terms short of a billet for "that 
 better land," we are quite indifferent about advertising ourselves or 
 our belongings. Unlike some of our speculative neighbors, we are 
 not at all anxious to get rid of our bargain, or failing in this, to in- 
 duce others to come forward and share our lot. But mistake me not. 
 If any good folk see proper, without provocation or temptation upon 
 our part, to visit or migrate to this modern Goshen of ours, we will 
 welcome them in a plain way, and mayhap love and trust them when 
 we have tried them and found them to our liking. More than this 
 our amour propre will not allow. 
 
 And now, having offered meet incense to our proud provincialism, 
 I may as well admit that lean see no harm, but haply some good, in 
 giving you far off New Englanders an occasional reminder that our 
 " lines are cast in pleasant places," and that here in the valley of the 
 Wallamet, and in the gorges and glens of its two enclosing and pro- 
 tecting mountain ranges, is growing slowly and surely the seat of 
 future empire and wealth. Excuse me if I draw it mild, and write 
 with the brake hard down. I dare not be as eulogistic as I might. 
 I do not wish to make you discontented with your lot. However 
 you may now regret it, you are not to blame because the Mayflower 
 was driven by adverse fortune to land your amiable ancestors upon 
 Cape Cod, while this country might have been had for the taking. 
 Nevertheless, it seems probable that at no distant day the prolific 
 Paddy will, by sheer increase of numbers, compel you frigid people 
 to relaunch the ark of your progenitors and voyage forth to seek a 
 new location for the Yankee nation. In such an event, the mistake 
 of the Mayflower may be corrected. The adventurous Angles and 
 Northmen, you know, tarried in the north of Europe for generations 
 before they found their final home on the island of Britain. When 
 your penates and pumpkin seeds are all safely on board and under 
 
MATTHEW P. DEADY. 
 
 the hatches, give your Palinurus sailing directions for the coast of 
 Oregon. Once here, where wood and iron, wool and water-power 
 are both indigenous and inexhaustible, you will find an admirable 
 opening for the use of your national talents, both constructive and 
 destructive. 
 
 The physical constitution of Judge Deady is remark- 
 ably good. His figure is large, well proportioned, and 
 fully developed. He is now in middle life, and it may 
 reasonably be expected that he has before him many 
 years more of activity and usefulness. 
 
JUNIPERO SERRA. 
 
 ^F^M THE ^LTA pALIFOI^NIA, OF pCT. 3 1ST, 1862. 
 
 JUNIPERO Serra, the founder of the Missions which 
 were the first settlements of civilized man in Califor- 
 nia, was born on the Island of Majorca, part of the king- 
 dom of Spain, on the 24th of November, 1713. At the 
 age of sixteen, he became a Monk of the order of St. 
 Francis, and the new name of Junipero was then substi- 
 tuted for his baptismal name of Miguel Jose. 
 
 After entering the convent, he went through a col- 
 legiate course of study, and before he had received the 
 degree of Doctor, was appointed lecturer upon phi- 
 losophy. He became a noted preacher, and was frequent- 
 ly invited to visit the larger towns of his native Island 
 in that capacity. Junipero was thirty-six years of age 
 when he determined to become a missionary in the New 
 World. In 1749, he crossed the ocean in company with a 
 number of brother Franciscan Monks, among them sev- 
 eral who afterwards came with him to California. He 
 remained but a short time in the city of Mexico, and was 
 soon sent a Missionary to the Indians in the Sierra Madre, 
 in the district now known as the State of San Luis 
 Potosi. He spent nine years there, and then returned 
 to the city of Mexico, where he stayed for seven years, 
 in the convent of San Fernando. 
 
 In 1767, when he was fifty-four years of age, he was 
 appointed to the charge of the Missions to be established 
 in Upper California. He arrived at San Diego in 1769, 
 and with the exception of one journey to Mexico, he 
 spent all the remainder of his life here. He died at the 
 Mission of Carmel, near Monterey, on the 28th of August, 
 1784, aged seventy-one years. Our knowledge of his 
 
112 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 character is derived almost exclusively from his biogra- 
 phy by Palou, who was also a native of Majorca, a broth- 
 er Franciscan Monk, had been his disciple, came across 
 the Atlantic with him, was his associate in the College of 
 San Fernando," his companion in the expedition to Cal- 
 ifornia, his successor in the Presidency of the Mission of 
 Old California, his subordinate afterward in New Califor- 
 nia, his attendant at his death-bed, and his nearest friend 
 for forty years or more. Under the circumstances, Palou 
 had a right to record the life of his preceptor and supe- 
 rior. Junipero Serra, as we ascertain his character di- 
 rectly and inferentially in his biography, was a man to 
 whom his religion was everything. All his actions were 
 governed by the ever present and predominant idea that 
 life is a brief probation, trembling between eternal per- 
 dition on the one side, and salvation on the other. Earth, 
 for its own sake, had no joys for him. His soul did not 
 recognize this life as its home. He turned with dislike 
 from nearly all those sources of pleasure in which the 
 polished society of our age delights. As a Monk he had, 
 in boyhood, renounced the joys of love, and the attrac- 
 tions of woman's society. The conversation of his own 
 sex was not a source of amusement. He was habitually 
 serious. Laughter was inconsistent with the terrible 
 responsibilities of this probationary existence. ISTot a 
 joke or a jovial action is recorded of him. He delighted 
 in no joyous books. Art or poetry never served to sharp- 
 en his wits, lighten his spirits or solace his weary mo- 
 ments. The sweet devotional poems of Fray Luis de 
 Leon, and the delicate humor of Cervantes, notwithstand- 
 ing the perfect piety of both, were equally strange to him. 
 He knew nothing of the science and philosophy which 
 threw all enlightened nations into fermentation a hun- 
 dred years ago. The rights of man and the birth of 
 chemistry did not withdraw his fixed gaze from the other 
 world, which formed the constant subject of his contem- 
 plation. It was not sufficient for him to abstain from posi- 
 tive pleasure ; he considered it his duty to inflict upon 
 himself bitter pain. He ate little, avoided meat and 
 wine, preferred fruit and fish, never complained of the 
 quality of his food, nor sought to have it more savory. 
 
JUNIPERO SERRA. 113 
 
 He often lashed himself with ropes, sometimes of wire ; 
 he was in the habit of beating himself in the breast with 
 stones, and at times he put a burning torch to his breast. 
 These things he did while preaching or at the close of his 
 sermons, his purpose being, as his biographer says, ''not 
 only to punish himself, but also to move his auditory to 
 penitence for their own sins." We translate the follow- 
 ing incident which occurred during a sermon which he 
 delivered in Mexico, — the precise date and place are not 
 given. Imitating his devout San Francisco Solano, he drew 
 out a chain and letting his habit fall below his shoulders, 
 after having exhorted his auditory to penance, he began 
 to beat himself so cruelly that all the spectators were 
 moved to tears, and one man rising up from among them, 
 went with all haste to the pulpit and took the chain from 
 the penitent father, came down with it to the platform of 
 the presbiterio, and following the example of the vener- 
 able preacher, he bared himself to the waist and began to 
 do public penance, saying, with tears and sobs, ''I am the 
 sinner, ungrateful to God, who ought to do penance for 
 my many sins, and not the father who is a saint." So 
 cruel and pitiless were the blows, that, in the sight of all 
 the people, he fell down, they supposing him to be dead. 
 The last unction and sacrament were administered to him 
 there, and soon after that he died. We may believe with 
 pious faith, that his soul is enjoying the presence of God. 
 Serra and his biographer did not receive the Protestant 
 doctrine, that there have been no miracles since the apos- 
 tolic age. They imagined that the power possessed by 
 the chief disciples of Jesus had been inherited by the 
 Catholic priests of their time, and they saw wonders where 
 their contemporary clergymen, like Conyers, Middleton, 
 and Priestly, saw nothing save natural mistakes. Palou 
 records the following story, with unquestioning faith : — 
 When Serra was traveling with a party of missionaries 
 through the province of Huasteca, in Mexico, many of 
 the villagers did not go to hear the word of God at the 
 first village where they stopped ; but scarcely had the 
 fathers left the place when it was visited by an epi- 
 demic, which carried away sixty villagers, all of whom, as 
 
114 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the curate of the place wrote to the reverend father Juni- 
 pero, were persons who had not gone to hear the mis- 
 sionaries. The rumor of the epidemic having gone abroad, 
 the people in other villages were dissatisfied with their 
 curates for admitting the missionaries ; but when they 
 heard that only those died who did not listen to the ser- 
 mon, they became very punctual, not only the villagers 
 but the country people dwelling upon ranches many 
 leagues distant. Their apostolic labors having been fin- 
 ished, they were upon their way back, and at the end of a 
 few days' journey, when the sun was about to set, they 
 knew not where to spend the night, and considered it cer- 
 tain that they must sleep upon the open plain. They 
 were thinking about this when they saw near the road a 
 house, whither they went and solicited lodging. They 
 found a venerable man, with his wife and child, who re- 
 ceived them with much kindness and attention, and gave 
 them supper. . In the morning the Fathers thanked their 
 hosts, and taking leave, pursued their way. After hav- 
 ing gone a little distance, they met some muleteers, who 
 asked them where they had passed the night. When the 
 place was described, the muleteers declared there was no 
 house or ranch near the road or within many leagues. 
 The missionaries attributed to Divine Providence the 
 favor of that hospitality, and believed without doubt that 
 those hosts were Jesus, Mary and Joseph, reflecting not 
 only about the order and cleanness of the house (though 
 poor,) and the affectionate kindness with which they had 
 been received, but also about the extraordinary internal 
 consolation which their hearts had felt there. Serra's 
 religious conviction found in him a congenial mental con- 
 stitution. He was even-tempered, temperate, obedient, 
 zealous, kindly in speech, humble and quiet. His cowl 
 covered neither greed, guile, hypocrisy, nor pride. He 
 had no quarrels and made no enemies. He sought to be 
 11 monk, and he was one in sincerity. Probably few have 
 approached nearer to the ideal perfection of a monkish life 
 than he. Even those who think that he made great mis- 
 takes of judgment in regard to the nature of existence 
 and the duties of man to society, must admire his earn- 
 est, honest and good character. 
 
GEORGE GORDON 
 
 ONE of the most able and useful citizens of California, 
 from 1849 to 1869, was George Gordon, who died so 
 recently as May 22d in the latter year, aged about 60. 
 He was a man of great practical sagacity and enterprise, 
 and joined to an original mind, strengthened by varied 
 culture and observation, much public spirit and energy 
 of will. Few men have so directly contributed to build 
 up San Francisco, or have taken so large a share in 
 advancing its material interests. Mr. Gordon was a 
 Scotchman, and one of the best examples of his vigorous, 
 thoughtful and thrifty race. He came to California in 
 1849, leading the first company through from New York 
 by the Nicaragua transit route, and bringing at the same 
 time, by the vessel which he chartered, a cargo of lumber. 
 He published a description of this route and his trip, 
 which was marked by his usual graphic power as a writer. 
 On his arrival in this city he immediately engaged in me- 
 chanical and mercantile pursuits. In 1850, he built 
 Howison's Pier, one of the earliest wharves. In 1852, he 
 erected the first block of iron buildings, on Front street, 
 between Clay and Washington. In 1851, he had formed 
 a partnership with Mr. Steen, and the firm established the 
 third iron foundry in the city. Not long after this he 
 bought six 100-vara lots in a body, bounded by Second, 
 Third, Bryant and Brannan Streets, and laid out South 
 Park, the first attempt to establish urban recreation 
 grounds. It was not so successful as he had expected, 
 pecuniarily, although it was eventually surrounded by 
 
116 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 buildings, and is still very attractively cultivated as a 
 private park. In 1857, he founded the San Francisco 
 and Pacific Sugar Refinery, and was a principal owner and 
 manager in it at the time of his death. This enterprise 
 created a business which has since assumed very large 
 proportions and become one of the leading manufacturing 
 interests of the State. Mr. Gordon took some steps to 
 introduce beet sugar making, and made researches on the 
 subject during a visit to Europe, which suggested a series 
 of interesting publications. His plan was abandoned 
 for some reason, but the new industry was undertaken 
 by others and has since been put in successful operation. 
 He was always anxious to suggest or encourage new 
 industries, and wrote and spoke frequently in behalf of 
 such, displaying much ability as a political economist and 
 a writer. During nearly the whole period of his active 
 life in San Francisco, he contributed, at frequent inter- 
 vals, to the leading newspapers, articles over his own 
 name, treating on a variety of topics of practical interest, 
 on which his well-informed mind and clear, logical method 
 of statement always threw light. In reference to the 
 once famous bulkhead question, he wrote a series of 
 remarkably able articles. A powerful effort was being 
 made to give the improvement and control of the whole 
 city front into the hands of a few individuals, and the 
 impolicy of this proposition was strikingly shown by the 
 facts and arguments of Mr. Grordon. In 1859, he wrote 
 a series of articles relative to taxing mortgages, which 
 were admitted to be the ablest publications on that sub- 
 ject. He also furnished to the press many valuable 
 communications on the subject of street grades, advanc- 
 ing views of controlling force. On the occurrence of the 
 great earthquake, in October, 1868, he published a plan 
 of building for protection against such shocks, which was 
 the most striking and practicable of all the suggestions 
 on that subject, and which has in some instances been 
 adopted by builders. He took a leading part in organiz- 
 ing the Earthquake Committee, which has been engaged 
 for some months past in investigating the phenomena 
 and effects of earthquakes, and the methods of protective 
 
GEORGE GORDON. 117 
 
 architecture. He would have framed the report of this 
 Committee but for his sickness and death. The loss of 
 such a suggestive and earnest mind to a young State was 
 justly regarded as an unusual one, and caused a feeling 
 of profound regret throughout the city, where he was 
 best known and appreciated. The Chamber of Commerce, 
 of which he was an active and influential member, did 
 honor to his memory in a series of resolutions aptly 
 characterizing" his merits, and attended his funeral in a 
 body. The British Benevolent and St. Andrew's Socie- 
 ties, of which he was also a member, gave similar evidences 
 of esteem. Two hundred and fifty of his workmen passed 
 resolutions of respect, and joined the long procession of 
 dignitaries and citizens that followed him to his grave. 
 He belonged to the same class of creating and leading 
 minds as Wilson Flint and Capt. Osborn, who went before 
 him. Like them, he was interested in everything likely 
 to promote the manufacturing, commercial and agricul- 
 tural interests of the State, and applied his fortune and 
 his pen liberally in the direction of his opinions. As 
 was said of him by R. B. Swain, at the Chamber of 
 Commerce meeting, he combined the qualities of a suc- 
 cessful business man with high attainments in literature, 
 a rare mechanical skill, a cultivated taste in art, and a 
 general knowledge of science. With a disposition to 
 theorize and suggest, he yet had the capacity to apply 
 practically his theories and the disposition to work out 
 his ideas. Indeed, he was too hard a worker, and laid 
 the foundations of the disease which carried him off by 
 excessive labor and application. 
 
 fmavfes fit ^mp ^axAm, 
 
 At the Oriental Hotel, San Francisco, upon the occasion 
 OF the Celebrating of the Centennial Anniversary of 
 THE Birth-day of Robert Burns. 
 
 This day one hundred years ago, a small house stood 
 on the roadside near the town of Ayre ; it was in a newly 
 planted market garden of some six or seven acres; the 
 
118 REPRESENTRTIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 land was leased by a thrifty, hard working, newly mar- 
 ried, north Scotsman. The humble cottage had been 
 built by his own hands; love and poverty furnished it, 
 and in it, one day, a century ago, the young wife bore 
 the gardener a son. To her side the rustic mother fond- 
 ly nestled her first born, and the grave husbandman with 
 love and pride bent over them both; few things could 
 have increased their pleasure. But little did they think 
 that when a hundred years had passed, that day, that 
 cottage, and they themselves, would be celebrated all 
 over the world, because of that new born boy. Yes, so 
 it is: that day was January 25th, 1759. The boy was 
 Robert Burns, the peasant poet of Scotland, the chief 
 bard of a land of song. 
 
 The father of the boy appears to have been one of a 
 class of which our country is justly proud. A man of 
 tireless industry, unwearied perseverance, inflexible integ- 
 rity, independent in spirit, with a heart deeply devotional 
 before his Maker, though perhaps not abounding in char- 
 ity in matters of opinion, economical almost to parsimony 
 of comforts to himself, but liberal almost beyond his 
 means to educate his children. He was poor even, for a 
 small Scottish farmer of those days. As his family in- 
 creased, he took a farm at a rent of £40 a year. ''It was 
 the very poorest soil," says Gilbert Burns, ''I know of in 
 a state of cultivation." He was not successful. Adver- 
 sity, like a black shadow, followed the good man's steps 
 — followed his young brood on to the sterile farm. The 
 crops failed, the cattle died. The dark night was upon 
 him and his little ones. I know nothing more touching 
 than the recital of Gilbert Burns. ''To the bufietings of 
 misfortune we could only oppose hard labor and the most 
 rigid economy. We lived sparingly. For several years 
 butchers' meat was a stranger in the house. Every 
 member of the family worked on the farm to the utmost 
 of their strength. My brother (our poet) at the age of 
 thirteen, assisted to thresh the crop, and at fifteen was 
 principal laborer on the farm; for we had no hired ser- 
 vant, male or female. The anguish of mind we felt at 
 our tender years, under these straits and difficulties, was 
 
GEORGE GORDON. 119 
 
 very great." And Robert says, in a letter to Dr. Moore, 
 "My father's master died, and we fell into the hands of a 
 factor ; my indignation yet boils at the scoundrel's 
 insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in 
 tears." 
 
 Brave old father, brave boys! they toiled well and no- 
 bly — but it was bitter toil ; and hard struggles had they 
 to bar the door on the wolf that snarled at their lintels 
 for many a year ; begrudging them the poor morsels that 
 kept soul and body together, and the few clothes that 
 covered them. After awhile the old man took another 
 farm, on which the family seems to have done better; but 
 after several years, having no written lease, a dispute 
 arose with the owner, which resulted in the ruin of the 
 occupant. The old man lived to know he was ruined: 
 but he escaped the consequent execution. Death shel- 
 tered him. 
 
 Such were the scenes amongst which the youthful 
 poet first felt within him the stirrings of the mighty 
 spirit which "wakes to ecstacy the living lyre." Hardly 
 fed — for even at twenty-two, when his condition had im- 
 proved, and he had so risen in the world as to be learning 
 a trade as a flax dresser, we find him lodging at a shill- 
 ing a week, and writing to his father to say "that his 
 meal was nearly out." We have no doubt porridge and 
 oat cake formed the staples of his banquets. Poorly 
 clothed — for when on the farm he speaks of his "clout- 
 erly ploughboy carcase, bare at both extremes in all 
 weathers," — head regardless of bonnet, feet disdainful of 
 sho«s — with but few books, and not more than a sound 
 country education, and borne down by continual poverty; 
 we cannot but wonder how first was kindJed within him 
 that glorious fervor of feeling, which, after smouldering 
 in his bosom for awhile, burst out in strains of a pathos 
 so sweet, a humor so exquisite, of a spirit so fiery, so in- 
 spiring and exuberant — free as the wind sweeping through 
 his native heather, tender as twilight of the summer eve. 
 What fed the passionate emotions of his soul, and gave 
 them that overmastering strength which in after years 
 developed itself in deathless song? Whence came that 
 
120 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 tumultuous love of his^ that soft well-spring of gentleness, 
 that delicate glow of fancy, that high range of thought, 
 that buoyant wealth of fun, that instant perception of 
 the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sombre and the grand; 
 and that wondrous power of change, which sent every 
 varying sensation and perception sweeping through his 
 mind — from whence he scattered them, like showers of 
 diamond dust, through his poems ? 
 
 Whence came they? Ask of Him who made the dia- 
 mond and the sandstone — the gorgeous flower and the 
 humble grass — the stars and the clouds. It was as if the 
 Espiritu Santu of the torrid zone, magnificent in foliage, 
 and superb in its flower with the dovelike petal, had 
 been transplanted to the miserable northern soil of that 
 hungry farm, and had there taken strange root, and be- 
 come invigorated and imbued by northern force and 
 freedom, had been fed and not killed by their stormy 
 blasts; and while it retained the luxuriance and bloom 
 of its native tropics, caught the rugged strength and en- 
 ergy of its new home, growing amongst its bleak rocks 
 and on its thin soil a thing of power and beauty — a liv- 
 ing exponent of the deep and passionate impulses which 
 slumber in the grave and practical hearts of Scotland. 
 
 From the age of sixteen until his twenty-sixth year, 
 when his first volume was published under the modest 
 title of ^' Poems Chiefly Scottish," we find him with hardy 
 industry turning his hand to various labor; the plow, 
 the scythe and the flail, at which he had few equals and 
 feared no competitors, always stood between him and 
 want. His leisure, he intended to devote with hearty 
 good will to the acquisition of useful information ; but 
 his practical resolutions were forever upset, by the way- 
 ward impulses of the imprisoned spirit within him. 
 Worldly motives prompted him to walk steadily in paths 
 of routine ; but he was irresistibly lifted off his feet by 
 the wings of song, which were unconsciously growing 
 out of his soul. Prudence called him to the affairs of 
 life — inspiration swept him into the regions of imagina- 
 tion. There was a continual struggle between his sense 
 of duty and an overwhelming effluence which flooded his 
 
GEORGE GORDON. 121 
 
 mind. He walked through a bleak, sterile glen ; hard 
 toiling, poorly fed, scantily clothed ; with clouds lower- 
 ing above him, and chilly blasts around him, but all 
 ablaze within. The light would burst through • and it 
 illumed the cold glen, and gilded the rocks, and set the 
 very clouds aglow. 
 
 During these years, Burns was frequently subject to 
 fits of profound melancholy. This phenomenon is a very 
 usual accompaniment of the northern imagination. It is 
 the mist which ever and anon envelopes the rugged grand- 
 eur of its form — the relapse consequent upon states of 
 high mental exhilaration — the harp, unstrung after it has 
 been intensely strained, and widely swept. Whether 
 this melancholy was a consequence, or a cause, of the 
 exquisite tenderness of the muse of Burns, we will not 
 inquire ; but they were intimately connected. As the 
 mist condenses, and waters the grass and floAvers on the 
 mountain side, softening and freshening their beauty ; 
 the melancholy of the poet bathes the imagery of his 
 songs with touching grace and gentleness. These dark 
 spells give the minstrelsy of Burns that intermittent 
 character, which distinguishes innate and heaven-bestowed 
 genius from mere educational and acquired dexterity. 
 They come like mighty frosts, congealing the outward 
 issues of his song, but leaving the hidden springs open. 
 The visible current disappears, but the waters accumu- 
 late within. By and by, something occurs which sets 
 them seething as in a cauldron. His passions as he him- 
 self says, would rage like so many devils, until they 
 found vent in song. Internal heat thaws the mute and 
 frozen channels, and away dart the pent-up waters, spark- 
 ling and alive ; dashing with vivid force and glistening 
 with every color under heaven. 
 
 About his twenty-sixth year, he collected and pub- 
 lished his first volume of poems, which left him a moder- 
 ate profit, but did not improve his circumstances. He 
 became very poor — ^'Hungry ruin had him in the wind" 
 — and despairing of better days at home, had all but em- 
 barked to the West Indies as overseer of an estate there. 
 Fortunately his friends interposed, and he was enabled to 
 
122 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 visit Edinburgh, where his fame amongst the reading cir- 
 cles had preceded him. Here he got amongst ''souls of 
 a finer mould/' published a second edition of his poems, 
 took a tour through some portions of Scotland, and after 
 six months of absence, invested with a growing fame, 
 and a good deal improved in a pecuniary sense, he return- 
 ed home to his mother and sisters, at Mossgiel, to bless 
 them with his little affluence, and make them happy in 
 his honorable renown. 
 
 There is a fine moral beauty in the faithful tenderness 
 displayed by Burns to his mother and family. The in- 
 cense of the world did not intoxicate him. His head 
 turned to his old home. He lighted it with his fame, and 
 succored it with his savings. Let us imitate our national 
 bard, and aye think of the old home ! If, in the race of 
 life, we have won worldly gear, let us share our blessings 
 with those loving hearts who tenderly nourished us when 
 we had none but them to shield our helplessness. Kow 
 has come the day of reciprocation. Now debtors, we 
 can discharge in part that early debt, to which we owe 
 our being and our success, with its long arrear of interest. 
 Now men, rejoicing in our strength, let us be all the world 
 to those dear hearts, who were once all the world to us ; 
 and sanctify our manhood with our earliest loves. Let us 
 not forget ; lest when we are old and feeble, our own 
 loved little ones, working out the justice of God, leave us 
 forsaken. If we can mingle our love and our abundance 
 on the modest altars of our boyhood's hearth, and be 
 high priests there and manly ministrants, there is noth- 
 ing in this world and haply but little in the next, from 
 which the incense of so pure a joy shall rise. 
 
 We, in distant California, glory in Burns. Let us do 
 as he did. Let us not be niggard of loving letters to 
 those who never begrudged loving words to us. What if 
 we have to forego some festive scene, or burn some mid- 
 night oil ; are there not those who have forborne pleasures 
 for us, upon whose tired faces for our sakes the watcher's 
 rushlight has shed its pallid rays? Nor let letters con- 
 tent us. Let substantial mementoes of our love adorn 
 our early homes, little or much as we can — but always 
 
GEORGE GORDON. 123 
 
 something. Haply the few dollars, or the few hundreds, 
 though little to us, would be mickle to ours. The fire 
 might burn more cheery ; the winter's cold more cosily 
 be shut out : the summer sun more pleasantly enjoyed 
 because of our care. The mere money would be the least 
 joy. There would be a lustre about every poor guinea 
 not born of gold. The real sterling would not be that of 
 the marts of commerce. It would be recoined money, 
 stamped and burnished in the mint of a son or brother's 
 love. It will fill their little purses and their big hearts 
 at the same moment, because "our Rab sent it." 
 
 Burns, after his return home, made another tour ; we 
 find him with an easy, natural grace and nobleness, visit- 
 ing the eminent, the wealthy and the titled. The Duke 
 of Athol, the Dutchess of Gordon, the Earl of Glencairn, 
 honored themselves by inviting him as their guest. After 
 six more busy and eventful months, during which he set- 
 tled with publishers, and found himself master of the im- 
 posing sum of £500, and a constantly gathering fame, he 
 returned home once more — gave his brother Gilbert a 
 share of his riches, and with the rest started in life as a 
 farmer at Ellisland, with a reversionary interest of a place 
 in the excise ; a thing which undoubtedly did him much 
 mischief. 
 
 At this time he married the object of his early and 
 continued love. He had become famous and compara- 
 tively rich, since he first loved the humble peasant girl 
 whom he married. Highborn beauty had smiled on him, 
 and no doubt lit up many a temporary flame in his tin- 
 dery composition. Wealth and refinement had courted 
 him ; and he was not a spirit to be insensible to their 
 blandishments. But his generous and real heart turns to 
 his early love, with a faith that had not quailed before 
 frowns of poverty, which comparative ajffluence could not 
 shake, and which the syren song and brilliant future of 
 fame could not seduce. So should it be ! His is a das- 
 tard heart, which would plight his troth to some loving 
 being ere he goes forth on the crusade of life ; but would 
 belie its vow should he return laden with spoils. The 
 Muse of Burns still continued to pour out, with a more or 
 
124 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 less abundance her lyric strains. He caught his inspira- 
 tion in the walks of daily life, amongst his own class, 
 and from the nature in which he lived and had his being. 
 The wings on which he soared were love and humor ; his 
 flights were through the free air, and were guided by a fine 
 moral sense. He was not sublime ; but beyond any poet, 
 he comes home to the heart, he leads us into the quiet 
 sunlight. The sweet smell of nature salutes us, and the 
 fresh dew hangs trembling on his leaves and flowers. By 
 the rippling streams, on banks and braes and heathery 
 knolls, in the green dell and along the moorland edge, he 
 takes us. Sometimes his spirit apostrophises the storm, 
 as it sways the lofty pine, and sweeps through the forest 
 with a mighty sigh ; but generally it bathes in its tender 
 light something that he can love. His pet sheep, poor 
 Maillie, receives him ^'wi' her kindly bleat;" his auld 
 mare, Maggie, getting a new year feed of corn ; the little 
 mousie rinnin' from her desolated nest in the stubble ; the 
 ^' daisy, wee modest crimson tippit flower" — all come in 
 for a share of his glowing kindness. He lifts the latch of 
 a theekitt cottage. His eye beams on the patriarchal sire, 
 the kindly wife and mother, the blazing ingle, and the 
 open Bible. He watches the bairns as they come drop- 
 ping in ''Frae service out among the farmers roun," with 
 Jenny and her bashful lover amongst them ; the plaintive 
 psalm and the solemn prayer ascend to heaven ; and the 
 poet's full heart bursts into song. The actors in that 
 scene have long passed away ; the husband and the father 
 prays no more ; the bairns have lived and toiled and now 
 rest ; haply the very cottage has crumbled into dust ; but 
 the scene itself remains. The genius of song shone upon 
 it one Saturday night, and by its own transcendant rays 
 transferred it to imperishable plates — flattered in nothing, 
 nor in aught imperfect — but as it was, a group of humble 
 life, drawn with such exquisite truth, that it will stand as 
 long as family love and prayer endure. This touches our 
 hearts. 
 
 His own heart is swelling full and over, ''and ilka bird 
 and ilka tree" receives its share. But if a bonnie lassie 
 comes along, as to the queen of love, he turns to her ; and 
 
GEORGE GORDON. 125 
 
 investing her with royal robes, woven by his own ardent 
 imagination, pours at her feet the very essence of his devo- 
 tion and worship. She dies perhaps — it matters not — he 
 sees her beyond the stars, and in a transport of passionate 
 longing, throws himself on the sod, agonized by the dis- 
 tance which separates them, and breathes forth his elo- 
 quent soul to '^ Mary in Heaven." He is not long sombre. 
 Sorrow having found vent in song, like spring clouds 
 after their moisture is discharged in rain, disappears, and 
 the sun comes forth again. With the change, his exuber- 
 ant humor, second only to his love, comes out and dis- 
 ports itself. He addresses ^' The Deil," and tells of '' Tam 
 O'Shanter," — ''a louse on a lady's bonnet," calls out his 
 fun and wisdom. And where nothing better happens to 
 evoke his quaint humor, it even spends itself on "The 
 Toothache," and a ''Tax Collector's demand." His pas- 
 sionate heart and his redundant fancy, continually com- 
 mingle and effervesce in a tumult of poetry ; pregnant 
 with the tonic of high moral purpose and the spirit of 
 freedom, it has furnished a glorious intellectual beverage 
 to our generations past — is as grateful to our palates to- 
 day, as it was to those of our forefathers. 
 
 The farm at Ellisland did not answer. He was courted 
 and caressed by persons in station far above him, and the 
 labor of the farm became distasteful. He unfortunately 
 had been procured an office in the excise, to which he 
 looked in case the farm failed. Doubtless the sternness 
 of necessity, had he not had this office in view, would 
 have caused such attention as would have made the farm 
 successful. He received the place, the emoluments of 
 which were some £70 per annum. This position brought 
 him in contact with profitless company, and induced hab- 
 its of intemperance. It hampered his noble indepen- 
 dence of spirit. His views, right or wrong were opposed 
 to the government, and as he expressed them freely, he 
 was threatened with dismissal. He defended himself 
 with his accustomed eloquent spirit ; and though he did 
 not lose his place, his promotion was refused. He felt 
 like a caged eagle, and he beat in vain against his bars. 
 His condition preyed on his mind, and he drank more 
 deeply than before. 
 
126 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Fearless truth has to crouch, under the more imperious 
 need for bread. The carcase is maintained by the slavery 
 of the spirit. Poor Burns felt the chain, and 'Hhe iron 
 entered his soul;" but death shortty delivered him. 
 
 Is there no hand-^vriting on the wall at this high fes- 
 tival? Shall we exalt in our poet's glory and take no 
 warning from his closing days — He whom Scotland loved 
 is smitten by Scotland's vice, and shall we not cry out? 
 We make no apology for hanging a national warning at 
 half-mast, upon the lofty monument of the poet's renown 
 — of draping his glory with our mourning and regret. 
 Not with words of blame, but in the accents of sorrow, 
 would we recall the spectacle of that spirit of beauty, de- 
 graded and dragged captive by animal appetite — of that 
 glorious effluent of divinity, obscured and polluted by the 
 craving fiend of strong drink. Gloom and poverty sadly 
 curtained his dying couch. 
 
 Scotland's earth received her wa3rv^^ard son at the age 
 of thirty-seven, to his last rest; and men woke to the 
 consciousness that a splendid genius had come like a me- 
 teor amongst them, and had passed away. A life check- 
 ered with the brightest lights, and the somberest shades, 
 had merged into eternity. But he had sunk himself into 
 the hearts of the people, and they loved him. We may 
 safely say that no poet of any people has been so deeply 
 loved as Burns — a man full of faults, but more gloriously 
 full of virtues. His fame has become so knit with his 
 country, that to love Scotland is to love her peasant bard. 
 
 Rest thee, noble, leal heart — faithful and impulsive 
 spirit, rest! Long enough hadst thou lived for fame. 
 Thou cam'st like a comet, but though thy nucleus disap- 
 peared in a brief space, thy track, full of radiance, re- 
 mains transfixed in glory in the heavens, and is added to 
 our perpetual constellations. Star after star has since 
 appeared ; a crowd of orbs now gem our skies ; but in its 
 soft and tender light thy glory still remains, undimmed 
 by time or contrast. Thou hast taken thy place amongst 
 the choral band of Poets, who in all time have chanted 
 the songs of Humanity, and have given utterance to its 
 loves, its hopes, its triumphs, and despairs, — to its pas- 
 
GEORGE GORDON. 127 
 
 sions stormy as winter on the summit of Benvoirlich, or 
 soft as summer on the Banks of Doon. Thy voice is 
 heard as a sweet tenor — scarce heard indeed when the 
 swell of mighty notes prevail, when Milton's superb bass 
 rolls out, as from the unseen spheres; when again the 
 martial recitative of Scott, or Byron's sonorous baritone 
 peel forth — bnt ever and anon, stealing on the ear with 
 a quiet melody; clear, simple, and true, which searches 
 and plays amongst the tendrils of our nature, stirring the 
 fountains of tenderness within us, until the unbidden 
 tears come forth, and our touched hearts acknowledge a 
 master's power. No more wilt thou sing the songs of 
 freedom, and of love, and of humble life — no more catch 
 up the ancient melodies and ballads of thy country, and 
 transmit them clothed with new and living beauty. 
 
 But a nation's tongues take up thy strains; they go, 
 wandering in pathos and power, through the valleys and 
 amongst the hills of thy native land, waking her echoes 
 and sinking into the hearts of her people, softening them 
 and making them brave — they are prolonged beyond her 
 narrow bounds, and carried wherever her sons wander, 
 till the airs thou hast immortalized encircle the earth — and 
 at this moment will ascend from almost every clime a 
 spontaneous thank-offering to the Great Source of all 
 poetry, in gratitude that He woke thy glowing minstrelsy. 
 
MATTHEW HALL MCALLISTER 
 
 PY j^ENI^Y p. JilGHTON. 
 
 f I iHis eminent gentleman was born m ;:^avannah, (ieorgia, 
 X on the twenty-sixth clay of November, in the year 
 eighteen hundred, and died at San Francisco, California, 
 on the nineteenth day of December, eighteen hundred 
 and sixty-five. He was educated at Princeton College, 
 New Jersey, and bred to the law, in which honorable 
 profession, for three generations, members of his family 
 have achieved distinction. After his admission to the 
 Bar, he practiced successfully in the City of Savannah 
 for twenty-nine years ; and during the Administration of 
 John Quincy Adams, filled the post of United States At- 
 torney for the Southern District of Georgia, which had 
 been previously held by his father, Matthew McAllister, 
 under the appointment of General Washington. For many 
 years, Judge McAllister was so fully occupied by the labo- 
 rious duties connected with his extensive and lucrative 
 practice, that he took no conspicuous part in public 
 affairs ; but when, in eighteen hundred and thirty-two, 
 the attempt was made to graft the revolutionary doctrine 
 of nullification upon the policy of the South, he boldly 
 ranged himself with the defenders of the Union and the 
 Constitution, and in the heated discussions which occured 
 during that period, exhibited a breadth of knowledge, 
 a logical power, and a fervid eloquence, which soon mark- 
 ed him for a popular leader. At the age of thirty-five, 
 he was one of the most prominent and influential mem- 
 bers of the Legislature of Georgia, and subsequently, 
 for five successive years, represented Savannah in the 
 9 
 
130 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 higher branch of that body, during which time^ in the 
 face of a vigorous and persistent opposition, he effected 
 a radical and most beneficial change in the judicial sys- 
 tem of the State, by the establishment of the Court for 
 the Correction of Errors. 
 
 In eighteen hundred and forty-five, he became the Dem- 
 ocratic candidate for the Governorship of Georgia, and 
 though his party was in a hopeless minority, such was his 
 personal popularity, that he was defeated only by a small 
 vote; and three years afterwards, represented his native 
 State as one of the delegates at large, in the National Dem- 
 ocratic Convention which nominated General Cass for 
 the Presidency. In eighteen hundred and fifty, he mi- 
 grated to California, and practiced law in San Francisco 
 with remarkable success until eighteen hundred and fifty- 
 three, when he temporarily returned to Georgia. At this 
 period, the Legislature of that State were engaged in the 
 selection of an United States Senator, and upon the arriv- 
 al of Judge McAllister, notwithstanding the fact that he 
 had permanently identified himself with the interests of 
 the Pacific Coast, he was nominated by his friends, and 
 out of one hundred and eleven votes, which were neces- 
 sary to a choice, he obtained the extraordinary number 
 of ninety- three. So emphatic a compliment has been rarely 
 paid to any man, however eminent, under similar circum- 
 ;stances. In eighteen hundred and fifty-five, upon the 
 (Organization of the first Circuit Court for the Pacific 
 States, he received the appointment of Presiding Judge, 
 which position he retained until eighteen hundred and 
 sixty-two, when failing health compelled him to resign ; 
 and, after forty years spent in arduous labor and rewarded 
 by honorable achievements, he retired into that private 
 station from which it pleased God that he should never 
 again emerge. 
 
 Thus have been summarily stated a few of the leading 
 facts in the life of this distinguished man, of whose ca- 
 reer, it may be justly said : ''sic itur ad astral Of his 
 intellectual and moral qualities it may be generally ob- 
 served, that he possessed in happy combination the shrewd 
 practical sense, the keen and analytical power, and the 
 
MATTHEW HALL MCALLISTER. 131 
 
 strong moral feeling, which characterized his Scottish 
 ancestry, and the glowing imagination and the chivalrous 
 honor which grow out of aristocratic systems and ripen 
 under tropical skies. His learning was both extensive 
 and varied ; his style, whether in speaking or in writing, 
 clear and rich ; and his language apt and precise. His 
 manners were of the old school, so gentle and so courtly 
 that they won for him affection and commanded for him 
 respect. He was kind and generous to all with whom he 
 came in contact, and young practitioners especially, who, 
 in their early struggles, are often chilled and wounded by 
 the frosty patronage, the trampling jealousy, or the hard 
 severity, of their seniors, ever found in him a discriminat- 
 ing adviser and a sympathizing friend. 
 
 Illustrations of the correctness of these remarks might 
 be numerously cited, were not brevity part of the design 
 of this sketch. Among those bearing on his professional 
 standing, may be recalled the celebrated case of Kennedy 
 vs. The Georgia State Bank, reported in the eighth volume 
 of Howard's Reports of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, which Judge McAllister argued against Daniel 
 Webster and other eminent lawyers, and in which he was 
 victorious. His argument in this case fully exhibits the 
 vigor of his mind and the profundity of his research, 
 which were even more strikingly displayed after he had 
 reached the Bench, in an opinion which received the un- 
 usual honor of being formally adopted by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. These, however, are but two 
 examples out of many that might be selected from the 
 product of his industry within the wide circle in which 
 he moved. 
 
 But perhaps the most valuable services which Judge 
 McAllister rendered to his country and to mankind, were 
 in connection with the development of the great commu- 
 nities which fringe the Pacific Ocean, and which, within 
 twenty years, have fulfilled the prophecy of Bishop Berke- 
 ley by carrying civilization to its extreme western limit. 
 In this practical age, in which facts multiply with unex- 
 ampled rapidity, and the minds of men are profoundly 
 occupied with their own immediate concerns, we are apt 
 
1S2 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 to overlook the importance of contemporary events in 
 their relation to the future ; but history has always placed 
 the founders of States among the most illustrious of our 
 race, and to this class the subject of these observations 
 emphatically belonged. The head of a large and distin- 
 guished family, at an advanced age, surrounded by asso- 
 ciations from which it must have been most difficult for 
 him to escape, he severed the ties which bound him to 
 his native State, crossed a continent, and in a country 
 scarcely redeemed from barbarism and exceptional in all 
 its conditions, established centres of usefulness and of 
 influence, which have most powerfully contributed to the 
 rapid, but symmetrical and steady, progress that has 
 attracted to the Pacific Coast the wondering admiration 
 of the world. Not only this, but in his place on the 
 Bench, with great questions to decide, in the solution of 
 which he was almost unassisted by precedent, he most 
 actively and beneficially participated in the just applica- 
 tion of legal principles to anomalous and intricate com- 
 bination of fact, and thus rendered to society, perhaps 
 the greatest benefit that wisdom and learning can confer. 
 The single volume of his opinions, edited by one of his 
 sons, is a monument to his memory which will excite the 
 attention and respect of future generations, and the utility 
 of which will be coextensive with the existence of the 
 Union. 
 
 The death of Judge McAllister was sudden but not 
 unexpected. In the various Courts of San Francisco — 
 Municipal, State, and Federal — the usual honors were 
 paid to his memory, and were accompanied by eulogies, 
 both from the Bench and from the Bar, more than ordi- 
 narily earnest and impressive. The funeral ceremonies 
 were rendered highly imposing by the number, the respect- 
 ability, and the sincerity, of those by whom they were 
 witnessed. 
 
 To those who enjoyed the advantage of a personal 
 acquaintance with Judge McAllister, especially to the 
 narrow circle where his inner life was spent, there are 
 other thoughts and other feelings suggested by his death, 
 which are best unuttered. ^^Quis talia fando . tem^eret a 
 
MATTHEW HALL MCALLISTER. 133 
 
 lachrymis.'' With reverential tenderness he was commit- 
 ted to the peace and serenity of the tomb. There, in 
 that beautiful cemetery, overlooking the Pacific, where 
 the war of our hard and struggling life cannot penetrate, 
 and where the western breezes make soft music amidst 
 the graves of the unforgotten dead, he shall calmly and 
 securely sleep, while in the metropolis of California his 
 descendants shall worthily transmit his lofty virtues and 
 his intellectual fame, and throughout the Pacific Coast, 
 society, ever expanding and ever improving, shall per- 
 manently feel the impulse of his labors, and shall preserve 
 his name on the roll of its most illustrious Pioneers. 
 
JOSEPH G. BALDWIN 
 
 ^Y f p. ^OWARD, 
 AUTHOB OF THE "BliOVE PAPEIiS." 
 
 THE father of Joseph G. Baldwin, a native of Connec- 
 ticut, emigrated to Virginia at an early period of his 
 life; and after a few years' residence in his adopted State, 
 married a lady of his own name from Maryland, whose 
 uncle subsequently became very distinguished in the 
 judicial annals of Virginia. That father still lives at 
 Lynchburg. Born at Staunton, in the county of Augusta, 
 on the 22d of January, 1815, we find young Joseph, at 
 the tender age of twelve, developing unusual business 
 precocity and earnest self-reliance in the performance of 
 the arduous and responsible duties of a Deputy District 
 Court Clerk in his native town. Still further illustrating 
 his youthful energy and early mental capacity, we hear 
 of his assuming the entire editorial control of a popular 
 newspaper, at Buchanan, in the county of Rockbridge, at 
 the very boyish period of seventeen. And it may be here 
 remarked with propriety, that no better instance can be 
 adduced than the individual now under review, of the 
 tendency of our peculiar institutions to foster and reward 
 the unaided efforts of the emulous offspring of compara- 
 tive indigence. 
 
 How he acquired his legal knowledge, save by night 
 vigils, cannot be told ; but a comparative lad of but nine- 
 teen years of age, he is next seen at DeKalb, in the Stiite 
 
136 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC, 
 
 of Mississippi, springing into legal notoriety^ and the 
 caressed and intimate associate of such luminaries as 
 Wiley P. Harris and J. T. Harrison, and that marvel of 
 modern oratory, S. S. Prentiss. Between him and the 
 latter arose upon the instant an enduring regard, stronger 
 than the ties of brotherhood. It was the sudden meet- 
 ing of kindred genius — the blending and coalescing of 
 two master-spirits. It was wonderful, the strange affec- 
 tion that knit so indissolubly together those two nervous 
 minds. It was just as the great advocate was embarking 
 at Xew Orleans to breathe his last in his loved IS^atchez. 
 He turned away from the coterie of almost worshiping 
 ones who surrounded him, to his devoted friend, Colonel 
 Alexander Walker of the Delta. ''Alec, be sure," said 
 he in that melting voice of his, "to write my love to 
 Joe Baldwin. / have written my last on earth. A great 
 man is Joe. He has no superior as writer and lawyer. 
 He comes the nearest to my idea of an universal genius." 
 It was the tribute of dying worth to living excellence. 
 
 At twenty-one, young Baldwin repaired to Sumpter 
 county, in the State of Alabama, continuing the practice 
 of his profession with renewed zest and extraordinary 
 success, until summoned by the voice of the people to 
 the State legislative councils. In '44, he acquired much 
 oratorical reputation as an electoral canvasser on the 
 Whig ticket; and in 1849 was defeated by Col. S. W. 
 Inge for Congress, by 250 votes; yet establishing his per- 
 sonal popularity in that violent Democratic State by 
 securing the suffrage of every county in his district but 
 one. 
 
 At that time, the practice of the law in that 
 section of the country was somewhat peculiar. The 
 attorney was in the habit of traversing his entire 
 judicial circuit. The termination of this protracted 
 itinerancy left him but a scant space of some two or 
 three months for devotion to his home clientage. It was 
 during one of those hurried intervals, and while fretted 
 with an extensive and lucrative practice, that he in- 
 dicted by snatches and at candle light, that series of 
 sketches now so popularly known under the soubriquet 
 
JOSEPH G. BALDWIN. 137 
 
 of The Flush Times of Alabama. I regard it almost a 
 matter of supererogation to descant upon the merits of 
 this production, now so generally diffused throughout 
 our land. Its title and class of topics, somewhat repug- 
 nant to the staid and scholarly mind, would associate il 
 with that careless, and roistering and rollicking, mass of 
 ephemeral exudings with which the press has teemed for 
 several past years. Its perusal dissipates such disparag- 
 ing notion. That it was hastily composed is no argument 
 against its intrinsic worth. It was the first literary essay 
 of a mind crowded with thought and replete with ex- 
 quisite imagery — the primitive yield of a rich virgin 
 soil — the gleeful bubbling of a full, and till then undis- 
 turbed fountain. Occasionally descending into the pro- 
 vincialisms and sectional eccentricities of a class with 
 whom the author was brought in contact, the reader is 
 never annoyed with tameness or startled by vulgarity. 
 There is a genial and bounding mirthfulness throughout, 
 with no offensive or wounding syllable. He riots in 
 ludicrous delight, with the peculiarities of the nomadic 
 bar, and yet so hearty and refined are his strokes of 
 humor, that he enhances his victims in our estimation. 
 There is nothing of that gross caricature in the Flush 
 Times that so pleases the unlettered crowd. It would be 
 difficult not to admire old Chasm in his fierce battle 
 against the legal fledgling. While venting such gall as 
 never issued from the mouth of Timon, he maintains the 
 dignity of a veteran lawyer, and interweaves the most 
 apposite and learned quotations in his classical and 
 scathing invective. Apart from the emanations of con- 
 vulsing wit that scintillate and sparkle along each page, 
 this work has a higher charm of pure, classic diction. 
 It contains no violation of the most rigid literary taste, 
 or the most elevated chastity of thought ; and it almost 
 groans under its affluence of cunning fantasies of lan- 
 guage, and merry conceits, and adroit suddenness of sit- 
 uations. 
 
 There is one serious effort in the collection that be- 
 comes extremely pathetic as we recall the relations that 
 existed between the writer and the subject. A survivor 
 
138 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 is portraying the attributes of his deceased friend ; and 
 it required just such a golden pen to trace the bright 
 and glowing theme. They had been companions; and 
 many a time and oft had pierced the drowsy ear of night 
 with their chaste but uproarious hilarity. It may be a 
 defect of both taste and judgment on my part, but for 
 purity of style and richness and copiousness of illustra- 
 tion and sententious analysis of character, I have en- 
 countered nothing superior in the English language to 
 Judge Baldwin's essay on the life of S. S. Prentiss. It 
 is a dense repertoire of salient thought enveloped in 
 spotless Saxon robe; and yet the writer scarcely ever 
 crossed the portals of a hedge school-house. 
 
 He has written another work, of a character so di- 
 vergent from his humorous essays that it puzzles us to 
 conceive them the issue of the same brain. His '' Party 
 Leaders" is a careful and philosophic product of his ma- 
 turer years. A reviewer, who would mould public opinion 
 to his behests, once pronounced its style ''ambitious." 
 It was the sneer of envy and malicious detraction. The 
 language of this superior treatise especially embodies the 
 elements of nervousness and simplicity, while the ar- 
 rangement and marshaling of his facts develop the 
 highest order of logic. I am more than willing to rest 
 the literary fame of my deceased friend upon this single 
 production. It has already noiselessly crept into the 
 classics of the day, and has received the stamp of merit 
 from English approbation. Not, perhaps, in the dis- 
 jointed times of the present, but the future statesman 
 will garner it up as the most reliable contemporaneous 
 biography of those great spirits who thought and acted 
 for the rude masses of our generation ; and it will be- 
 come his encyclopaedia from which to cull pregnant 
 political facts that would otherwise have glided into 
 oblivion. He will ponder over its close analysis and 
 amazing fertility of thought, and award that due com-- 
 mendation to its brilliant author, of which our people 
 are somewhat chary. 
 
 Judge Baldwin was extremely careless of his literary 
 reputation. Penning with utmost ease and facility, he 
 
JOSEPH G. BALDWIN. 139 
 
 adopted no method, but wrote only when ^' in the mood;" 
 and he strewed his prolific manuscripts around with the 
 recklessness of a spoiled child, the playthings of which 
 he was weary. I know, however, that had he not been 
 summoned away, he would have devoted himself to the 
 master effort of his life. He had already amassed the 
 materials for a philosophic history of this portion of the 
 Pacific coast. With wealth sufiicient for literary retiracy, 
 engirt on all sides with admiring and loving friends, and 
 in the full flush and vigor of his powers, it might well be 
 augured that he would achieve something of honor to the 
 age. But the great and good God willed otherwise. 
 
 It now becomes necessary to say something of his legal 
 attainments and forensic ability. It is a very stupid error 
 of the illiterate that the limited mental constitution of a 
 man does not permit excellence in more than one intel- 
 lectual pursuit ; and hence their loathness to intrust litiga- 
 tion to a lawyer who is detected in anything that savors 
 of abstract intellectual pursuits. But the vast learning 
 and continuous writing of Cicero debarred him not from 
 his patrons^ nor impaired his powers of oratory. It is 
 learning that gilds and renders attractive the drudging 
 professions; and hence the illustration of Macaulay on 
 this very matter that the fleet ostrich employs its wings 
 as well as feet. 
 
 Contending against a voice by no means attractive and 
 a physique ill adapted to the graces of the higher rank 
 of oratorical efforts. Judge Baldwin had at his command 
 forcible and terse and pointed language, that never failed 
 to arrest the attention of both judge and jury. 
 
 In another connection, allusion has been made to the 
 severe logical cast of his mind, and yet, with the rarest 
 versatility and relief, while avoiding all attempts at rheto- 
 rical flourish, he would bring to bear the most inimitable 
 and exquisite powers of illustration. About the most 
 arid and uninviting legal abstraction, he would weave some 
 happy simile or anecdotal coincidence that would captivate 
 the understanding of the most obtuse. 
 
 In 1853, Mr. Baldwin left Alabama, reaching California 
 iu th^ early part of 1854. 
 
140 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 With a mind stored with every phase of legal learning, 
 both as counsellor and advocate, he had achieved dis- 
 tinction in his olden home ; and it is not surprising there- 
 fore, that in the new State of California he should rank 
 at once among the most eminent of the bar of San Fran- 
 cisco. His success was commensurate with his marked 
 ability. His professional prominence secured him the 
 position of a seat upon the Supreme Bench, to which he 
 was elevated by the voice of the people, in the fall of the 
 year 1858. 
 
 The manner in which he discharged the duties and 
 responsibilities of this new and untried sphere mounts 
 into the marvelous and borders upon the realms of fable. 
 At the outset of his judicial career, there was a constantly 
 increasing calendar that had already swollen to the fright- 
 ful number of near 600 causes — an Augean stable of 
 diverse and intricate litigation that might well appall the 
 most herculean Judge. At the termination of his term 
 of office, the portentous calendar was cleared; and it is 
 within bounds to say that four-fifths of the serried and 
 confused mass had passed through his laborious hands — 
 an amount of continuous toil unexampled in the annals 
 of judicature. More than any other of our Supreme 
 Judiciary, has he contributed to elucidate our infant sys- 
 tem of laws and the novel and perplexing questions that 
 have sprung up under our peculiar situation and varied 
 pursuits. He combined unwonted industry with most 
 consummate ability. His adjudications are models of 
 clear and logical perception, and reveal the most ex- 
 tensive research, and stringent power of analysis, and 
 copious and refined illustration, and are characterized by 
 grace of style, and scholarly learning and sound deduc- 
 tion. In little while, he reared his name among the most 
 distinguished and erudite of the jurists of the land. 
 
 The State of California should be very proud of Judge 
 Baldwin. He has been intimately and prominently as- 
 sociated with her history for the last ten years. Even 
 his salient and epigrammatic wit, generally so transitory, 
 is interwoven and will become traditionary with the 
 striking events that provoked its flashing. 
 
JOSEPH G. BALDWIN. 141 
 
 The manners of Judge Baldwin were of a frank and 
 simple nature, with a sweet intrusiveness of social tem- 
 perament that disarmed all reserve and beckoned im- 
 mediate companionship. He united the highest order of 
 conversational powers to the fascination of his exhaustless 
 flow of racy and pungent humor ; and yet had he a manli- 
 ness of character ' and a stern sense of right and a high 
 principle of honor that won the esteem of the great and 
 good with whom he was brought in contact. Such as he 
 could never foster a sordid feeling. His pockets were 
 ever open to every charitable appeal. He esteemed 
 his race, and his checkered career is marked at each 
 footfall with the most passionate affections. Towards 
 those he loved he manifested the tenderness of girl- 
 hood. I have seen the big tear-drop course down his 
 cheek as he would mount in glowing panegyric upon his 
 great political chieftain, Henry Clay. He has gone to 
 his long home, leaving no enmity behind. As son and 
 husband and father he was the idol of devoted love. It 
 was only a few weeks before his death that he buried a 
 darling boy; but they met again in the spirit-land. It is 
 almost wrong to weep at the final departure of such a man. 
 Upon his garments rests not a stain. He is in bliss and 
 with his God : would we recall him to a life that at best 
 is full of sorrows ? 
 
:7EL .1771 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON 
 
 • 4. ■■- -• 
 
 THIS gentleman was born on the Hudson river, near 
 West Point, on the 1st ddj of March, 1809. His 
 ancestors were Hollanders, and among the first settlers 
 of New Amsterdam: on the father's side the Garrisons 
 and Coverts, and on the mother's the Kingslands and the 
 Schuylers — among the earliest of the old Knickerbocker 
 families. His father, Oliver Garrison, was at one time a 
 large capitalist, but lost his property when Cornelius was 
 quite young. The latter, at the age of thirteen, left his 
 home and found employment in the carrying trade on the 
 Hudson river, following this occupation during the busi- 
 ness season for about three years. Alive to the value and 
 necessity of an education, he diligently applied himself 
 throughout the winter months when the navigation of 
 the river was suspended, to study at a country school. 
 At the request of his mother, he abandoned the river and 
 went to New York city, to learn architecture and the 
 building trade. He remained in New York three years. 
 The knowledge which he acquired of architecture during 
 that period was extensive, and valuable to him in the 
 years which immediately followed. 
 
 At the age of nineteen, young Garrison removed to 
 Canada, where for five or six years he was actively engaged 
 in the erection of buildings, and the constructing of 
 
144 IlEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 steamboats on the great lakes. During his residence 
 there, he became a married man, espousing a lady of 
 Buffalo, New York. 
 
 In Canada, Mr. Garrison acquired the reputation, 
 which he has ever since enjoyed, of being a reliable, 
 clear-headed, and sagacious business man. The Upper 
 Canada Company — one of the wealthiest in England, and 
 owning extensive possessions — gave to him the general 
 super v^ision of the Company's affairs in the province ; a 
 trust upon which he entered, but which he soon surren- 
 dered, owing to the threatened outbreak of hostilities 
 between England and the United States, growing out 
 of the border difficulties existing at the time. Having 
 led an active life in Canada for nearly six years, Mr. 
 Garrison returned to the United States, and went to 
 the Southwest, where he long followed the same busi- 
 ness he had so successfully prosecuted in the British 
 provinces, and was also engaged in several other im- 
 portant mercantile enterprises connected with steam 
 navigation on the Mississippi. 
 
 About the time of the discovery of gold in California, 
 Mr. Garrison removed to Panama, where he established 
 a commercial and banking house. This enterprise was 
 the most successful of any which had thus far engaged 
 his attention. In the latter part of the year 1852, being 
 then on a visit to New York city, with a view to estab- 
 lish there a branch of his Panama house, our subject 
 accepted an offer made him by the Nicaragua Steamship 
 Company, to take the San Francisco agency of their line 
 of vessels. 
 
 A sketch of Mr. Garrison's seven years' residence in 
 California would almost involve a history of San Fran- 
 cisco during that period. He landed in that city 
 when the newly-established Nicaragua Steamship Line 
 was rapidly declining under inefficient management, 
 and had fallen into disrepute by the terrible calamities 
 of the Independence and 8. 8. Leivis. The Mail Steamship 
 Company, with its splendidly equipp^sd line under the 
 able direction of Captain Knight, was in the full tide of 
 success, and it seemed that the rival line, growing more 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON, 145 
 
 and more unpopular with each new disaster, must soon 
 pass out of existence. Mr. Garrison arrived, March 
 23d, 1853, on the steamer Sierra J^evada, with a salary of 
 $60,000 per annum, and $25,000 additional, as the agent 
 of sundry Insurance Companies. The effect of his ad- 
 ministrative ability upon the fortunes of the Nicaragua 
 Transit Company was immediate. From being on the 
 verge of dissolution, it sprang, as if by magic, into life and 
 prosperity. The new agent promptly reorganized the 
 service in every department; recommended the building 
 of several fast ocean steamships, which in due time made 
 their appearance around Cape Horn, he, in some instances, 
 having a proprietary interest in the steamers and placing 
 them on the line as an individual enterprise. Imbuing 
 the Company in New York with his own indomitable 
 energy, he induced Yanderbilt to establish a line of ser- 
 viceable steamers on the inland waters of Nicaragua. An 
 excellent road was constructed from San Juan del Sur to 
 Virgin Bay, and the navigation of the San Juan River was 
 improved. At the same time he made a strong bid for 
 carrying the mails — letters being taken free to induce 
 patronage to that route — and finally, an equal portion of 
 the treasure shipment was secured. The traveling public 
 admitted that ^'a power in the land" had appeared, and 
 the Nicaragua route was transformed, from a condition of 
 apathy and decay, into vigorous prosperity, mainly by the 
 energy and will of one man. The steamship competition 
 of that day has never been paralleled in the history of 
 ocean navigation. Its influence extended far and wide, 
 and the rivalry, strained to the utmost tension of con- 
 flicting moneyed interests, gave a tone to every department 
 of business on the Pacific coast. 
 
 About six months after his arrival^ and perhaps before 
 lie had come to fully understand his adopted State, Mr. 
 Garrison was elected Mayor of San Francisco. He might 
 fairly have claimed exemption from additional burthens, 
 considering the herculean task he had undertaken in the 
 sphere of his legitimate business. The distinction was 
 wholly unsought by one whose tastes and occupations 
 through life had been outside of the political arena. 
 10 
 
146 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 His immediate predecessors, Messrs. Harris and Brenham, 
 had filled the Mayoralty with marked ability and success, 
 and it may be supposed that he entered upon his duties 
 with some misgivings as to his qualifications for a field 
 thus new and untried. It was soon evident, however, that 
 the same sound judgment and executive talent that could 
 grasp and prosperously control steamship lines and bank- 
 ing institutions, could with equal facility administer the 
 affairs of a community. His inaugural address, delivered 
 in October, 1853, to the two branches of the Common 
 Council, was a model of plain, unpretending common 
 sense, abounding in practical suggestions, going straight 
 to the point, and quite devoid of flourish or attempt at 
 oratorical display. He acknowledged the weight of the 
 responsibility, and pledged himself to devote his best 
 energies to the interests of the city. 
 
 A month later, he submitted a message, which may 
 challenge any paper of the kind, in sound business ideas 
 and financial propositions. It contained the germs of 
 what became, years afterwards, the rallying cries of re- 
 form in the administration of the city government. The 
 first outspoken denunciation in any official document, of 
 the disgraceful public gambling then prevalent in the many 
 saloons in San Francisco, and the first rebuke of Sunday 
 theatricals, with a recommendation for ordinances for 
 their suppression, are found in this message. And it was 
 not merely a verbal protest against the evils described. 
 Mr. Garrison never ceased to wage war against them until 
 the desired reforms were completely effected. The crime 
 of a public gambling hell has never blackened the fame 
 of San Francisco since Mayor Grarrison's term. For this 
 act alone he is entitled to the gratitude of all who respect 
 morality, decency and good order. The first proposal of 
 an Industrial School for juvenile delinquents, who should 
 thus be separated from contact with the hardened crim- 
 inals in the cells of the city prison; the earliest sugges- 
 tions of a tariff of hack fares for the protection of strangers 
 from extortion ; the taxation of non-resident capital, 
 millions of which were enjoying all the protection and 
 benefits of Government without contributing in the least 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 147 
 
 to its maintenance; the building of substantial, well- 
 ventilated school houses in place of the shanties then 
 used in various districts — these, among other proposals 
 equally sensible and at that time novel, were embodied 
 in the message. There was also a plain and compre- 
 hensive statement of the city indebtedness, with well- 
 digested plans for its liquidation, and placing the public 
 finances upon a healthy basis — all showing that an earnest 
 and thorough-going business man was at the helm. 
 
 This message is here inserted, nearly in full. A1-" 
 though a lengthy document, yet it possesses great his- 
 toric value, and no San Franciscan should neglect a 
 careful perusal of its sound, practical suggestions, and 
 the interesting view which it presents of the condition 
 of the various departments of the city government, six- 
 teen years ago. 
 
 Message op Mayor Garrison, delivered to the Common 
 Council of the City of San Francisco, Xov. 15, 1853. 
 
 To the Honorable the Common Council of the City of San Francisco. 
 
 Gentlemen: — In fulfilment of a duty enjoined on me 
 by the charter of the city, and a promise made at the 
 time of my induction into office, I beg leave respectfully 
 to communicate to you the following statement of the 
 indebtedness of the cit}^, and its financial condition, on 
 the 22d of the past month, together with the estimated 
 receipts and disbursements for the remainder of the fiscal 
 year. I have also appended my views, founded upon a 
 thorough examination of all the ramifications of the 
 government, in regard to the evils and abuses which 
 have so long existed in the conduct of our municipal 
 afiairs, with the hope and conviction that the Common 
 Council will cooperate with me in making the corrections 
 which are necessary to the well-guarding of the public 
 treasury from abuses, the just and economical adminis- 
 tration of its finances, and high-toned credit of the city. 
 
 As will be seen from the following table, the entire 
 indebtedness of the city, on the 22d day of October, 
 1853, was as follows; 
 
148 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Funded Debt $1,500,000 00 
 
 City Warrants unpaid Juty 1, 1853 $215,647 47 
 
 City Warrants issued from July 1 to Oct. 5, 1853 217,953 84 
 
 City Warrants issued from Oct. 5 to Oct. 22, 1853 23,021 78 
 
 $456,623 09 
 
 Less received by Ft. Matthewson from treasurer, to Oct. 
 
 5, 1853 $58,890 34 
 
 Less received by S. E. Harris. from treasurer, to Oct, 22, 
 
 1853 95,597 40, 
 
 •$154,487 74 
 
 $302,135 35 
 Warrants issued on account Jenny Lind Building, July 
 
 1, 1852 $31,804 94 
 
 Mortgage held by M. Dore 27,792 19 
 
 $59,597 13 
 Less amount canceled by treasiu-er 5,593 33 
 
 $54,003 80 
 
 Supposed amount of 3 per cent, scrip outstanding, prin- 
 cipal and accrued interest $120,000 00 
 
 Sundry bills in bands of ComiDtroUer, unpaid 14,052 75 
 
 $134,852 75 
 
 Total Floating Debt, Oct. 22, 1853 490,191 80 
 
 Total indebtedness, Funded and Floating $1,990,191 80 
 
 By an ordinance of the Common Council, passed on 
 tlie 5th of September, 1853, the Mayor, Comptroller, and 
 Treasurer were authorized to issue bonds of the city 
 sufficient to obtain an amount equal to its floating in- 
 debtness, with an additional sum of three hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars, ($350,000) for school, hospital, 
 and fire purposes. In accordance with the provisions of 
 such ordinance, proposals were advertised for, to be re- 
 ceived and opened by the officers empowered on the 
 25th of the past month, they reserving to themselves 
 the right of rejection; and although it is a matter of 
 regret that bids w^ere received for only a portion of the 
 amount, and at figures which would not justify their 
 acceptance, no difficulty is apprehended in disposing of 
 the whole amount authorized and required, at an early 
 day, at prices within the bounds of reason, and approxi- 
 mate to their intrinsic value. Upon the accomplishment 
 of the sale, the present floating debt will be extinguished. 
 The funded debt will then amount to the sum of about 
 $2,350,000 — the early reduction of which amount will 
 be produced by the provisions of the ordinance requiring 
 the annual raising by taxation, in addition to the amount 
 levied for other purposes, of a sum sufficient to pay the 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 149 
 
 interestj and one-twelfth of the principal, of the new 
 issue, together with the sum of fifty thousand dollars 
 annually raised for the liquidation of the ten per cents., 
 and the obtainment of interest upon the said amounts 
 yearly invested. 
 
 The extinction of her floating debt will enable the 
 city hereafter, if due regard is had to economy, to meet 
 all her liabilities in cash, thus ridding her of the scrip 
 system of payment, and resulting in a saving of at least 
 twenty-five per cent, in her ordinary expenditures. The 
 city treasury alone has been the sufierer from the past 
 mode of discharging her obligations. 
 
 The scrip system, founded as it was in corruption, 
 has exercised an influence not only detrimental to the 
 treasury, but pernicious in its eff"ects upon the public 
 ofiicers and the people. It has led to speculations, ex- 
 travagancies, and malfeasance in the public departments, 
 and exposed the treasury to ruinous abuses, resulting in 
 a debasement of the city credit to a bankrupt state. A 
 credit system, such as this has been, if persevered in, 
 will sink us so deep in embarrassment, as to call forth 
 the just indignation of our people, and remain a stigma 
 upon our Legislature for ever. I congratulate the Coun- 
 cil upon the prospect of a speedy removal of this in- 
 cubus from the body corporate, and the elevation of our 
 credit beyond the reach of speculation and the fluctua- 
 tion of the street. 
 
 The expenses of the city from July 1 to October 22, 
 as per Comptroller's statement, amounted to the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 Warrants issued, - - - $240,975 62 
 Bills not audited, - - - 14,052 37 
 
 A portion of which has not been paid by the Treasurer. 
 
 The Mayor then submits a lengthy detailed statement 
 of the condition of the city's finances, giving the receipts 
 and expenditures from the commencement of the fiscal 
 year, July 1, 1853, to October 23d, 1853, and also an 
 estimate of the resources and expenses for the remainder 
 of the fiscal year, embracing a formidable array of figures 
 which would, perhaps, fail to interest the general reader. 
 
150 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 It will be noted that there is an increase, this year, 
 of $143,000, in the amount of taxes levied over the 
 preceding year. While this increase is commented upon, 
 and complaint founded upon it, it should be borne in mind 
 that a most liberal estimate has been placed upon the 
 property subject to taxation, by the valuations of the As- 
 sessors, a fact well known to every tax-paying citizen. 
 
 The whole amount returned by the Assessors this year, 
 as liable to taxation, is $28,500,000. No one who is the 
 least conversant with the subject, can deny that the 
 amount should be nearer $40,000,000; a closer ap- 
 proximation to which should be reached by the officers, 
 upon whom the duty devolves, thereby reducing the per 
 centage to its proper standard. It should also be re- 
 membered that our city is growing and extending rapidly, 
 and new calls are constantly made upon her for the means 
 of necessary improvements, increasing as we are, daily, in 
 population, and being compelled to accede the privileges 
 and benefits of government to a larger number of citizens, 
 over a wider extent of jurisdiction, a reduction in the 
 present amount of taxation cannot be looked for. 
 
 Our citizens, when complaining of the burdens of 
 taxation, and comparing them with other cities, should 
 not forget that while they are paying to the support of 
 their government, two per cent, upon their property, at 
 very low valuations, they are paying much less than the 
 citizens of any other city on the continent, perhaps in the 
 world, in comparison to the relative value of money and 
 the enormous revenues derived from real estate. In our 
 sister cities, the property-holder willingly submits to the 
 imposition of a tax of one per cent, upon his estate, while 
 the revenue he receives from it seldom exceeds six per 
 cent, per annum. Here, where the revenue derived from 
 money and property is from five to six times as great, 
 and the tax levied only double in per cent., the common 
 and popular cry of onerous taxation is not, certainly, 
 founded on fact or good reasoning. At the same time, 
 it is your duty, and I shall make it my especial duty, to 
 see that our citizens are not called upon to pay more 
 than is actually required to carry on the government 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 151 
 
 justly and economically; hesitating to open new sources 
 of expenditure, unless actually necessary to the proper 
 and good government of our city. 
 
 I would recommend that early measures be taken to 
 procure authority from the Legislature for the taxation of 
 non-resident capital, millions of which is now invested in 
 this city, enjoying all the benefits and protection of the 
 government in its employment, without contributing in 
 the least for the cost of its maintenance, thus throwing 
 an amount of taxation upon our people which they should 
 not in justice be called upon to bear. The importance 
 of this matter must be obvious to all, and I trust it will 
 receive your early and serious attention. 
 
 A great falling off in the receipts of the city from 
 licenses has taken place this year, in consequence of 
 the defects in the license law. Without undertaking to 
 enter into the question of the justice or legality of the 
 provisions demurred to, I would suggest that your im- 
 mediate attention should be given to the subject, and 
 prompt and decided steps taken to remedy the evils com- 
 plained of, and save the treasury from the great loss that 
 must en-sue if the present provisions of the law are in- 
 sisted upon. 
 
 It is a source of pride and satisfaction to me, as it must 
 be to you and our citizens at large, to know that the 
 interest upon the Funded Debt was promptly paid on the 
 1st instant; in addition to which the sum of fifty thousand 
 dollars has been paid over to the Commissioners on ac- 
 count of the redemption of the bonds. 
 
 The punctual payment of our interest has imparted an 
 increased confidence to holders, and enhanced our credit 
 at home and abroad. 
 
 The greater portion of the contracts entered into by 
 the city, for the construction of wharves on the city front, 
 have been complied with, and the majority of them are 
 paying a revenue to the city. 
 
 There are litigations pending in connection with a 
 portion of them, which it is hoped will soon reach 
 favorable terminations. 
 
 Monuments of man's enterprise and the commercial 
 
152 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 greatness of our city, they cannot but excite in us feelings 
 of pride and admiration. 
 
 The work of grading, planking, and improving our 
 public streets, has been for some time in prosecution. It 
 is to be regretted that a commencement had not been 
 earlier made, and more vigorous efforts used towards 
 comj^letion before the setting in of the wet season. 
 
 A tardiness has been manifested in the fulfilment of 
 contracts, which merits and should receive the condemna- 
 tion of the department, and subject the delinquent con- 
 tractors to forfeiture of their contracts. 
 
 Many abuses have existed in this department of the 
 government; contracts have been loosely, and in some 
 cases, illegally entered into, involving the expenditure of 
 immense sums of money, and conflicting with the rights 
 and privileges of citizens. It is due to the property- 
 owners and to the interests of the city, that the attention 
 of the Council should be given to a thorough investiga- 
 tion and remodeling of the contract system, in order to 
 preserve the city from the expense of endless litigations, 
 which must ensue if the contracts are not properly and 
 legally entered into and complied with. 
 The total amount of assessments levied for 
 
 street improvements, is - - - $927,444 21 
 Of -which the city pays for crossings, - 127,643 21 
 
 Amount to be borne by property-owners, $709,801 00 
 Of which has been suspended for your in- 
 vestigation, ----- 524^379 71 
 Should your investigations prove that these -contracts 
 cannot be sustained by law, and that the city and the 
 property-owners are liable to be drawn into collision in 
 consequence, I would recommend that new lettings be. 
 made in due form, payable in cash, and the amounts re- 
 duced from the credit to the cash system, thus saving a 
 large amount to the owners of property, while the con- 
 tractors will not suffer, but rather gnin by the change. 
 
 It is worthy of your consideration v^hether a cor- 
 responding reduction cannot be made in the expenses of 
 the other departments, whicji I have no doubt can be 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 153 
 
 effected without doing the least possible injustice, or re- 
 ducing the actual compensation of any person. 
 
 The contingent fund, which now reaches annually an 
 enormous amount, needs your attention and examination. 
 It is this fund from which generally spring the leakages 
 of large corporations, and the Council cannot be too 
 jealous of its continued increase. 
 
 I would recommend that vigorous measures be adopted 
 for the immediate recovery of the claims held by the city 
 for unpaid assessments, a large amount of which has been 
 allowed to sleep for a long time past, without any means 
 being taken to enforce their collection. 
 
 I would also recommend an early sale of the city 
 property other than that required for city purposes. The 
 wealth of the city in propert}^ now wrongfully detained 
 from her by other parties is sufficient, if made available, 
 to liquidate her whole indebtedness, create a fund ample 
 for the purposes of education, and remove all fears of 
 future embarrassment. Measures should be taken to 
 place her in possession of her just rights, which have 
 been so long neglected and withheld from her. There is 
 no good reason why she should be deprived of the bene- 
 fits of so much wealth, and others be permitted, without 
 the shadow of right, to enjoy its revenues, while she is 
 groaning under the burdens of indebtedness. 
 
 The condition of our public schools is such as to call 
 for the most prompt and effective action of the Common 
 Council. 
 
 It seems that this branch of the public service has 
 not received that attention and fostering care which its 
 great importance demands. I regret to find that while 
 lavish appropriations have heretofore been made for, and 
 unscrupulously squandered on, other branches of the 
 government, our schools — the nurseries of the future 
 greatness of oin- people — have been inexcusably neglected. 
 
 The buildings in which the children of our city are 
 daily congregated for purposes of instruction, are totally 
 unfit for the uses intended. Mere shanties, erected with- 
 out regard to health, convenience, or moral fitness of 
 locality, they are disgraceful to the city and the times, 
 
154 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC, 
 
 and entirely inadequate to the requirements and spirit 
 of that system of education which has long been the ad- 
 miration of the world ^ and to which we must look for 
 the perpetuity of our nationality. 
 
 The world knows, and I trust we not only know but 
 feel, that popular education is the guiding-star of the 
 Republic, the secret of American greatness: therefore, to 
 neglect it is criminal — to bend all our energies to its 
 most complete perfection is our duty. 
 
 I would impress upon you the great necessity of 
 speedy steps being taken for the erection and furnishing 
 of suitable buildings, of substantial construction, well 
 ventilated, and adapted to the healthful and proper edu- 
 cation of the children of the city. There are portions 
 of the School Lands now used for other and improper 
 purposes: these should be immediately reclaimed and 
 devoted entirely to the purposes for which they were 
 designed. The buildings should be properly fenced, and 
 playgrounds should also be set apart for the children in 
 the intervals of study, as care should be taken of their 
 physical health as well as their mental culture. 
 
 The amount of $100,000, upon the negotiation of the 
 new issue of bonds, will be devoted to school purposes. 
 This sum will do much towards the accomplishment of 
 the desired end, and place our common schools in a con- 
 dition that will reflect honor and lustre upon the system, 
 instead of being, as at present, ineflPective in its opera- 
 tion and reproachful to the city. It is only to be re- 
 gretted that your predecessors had not a more enlarged 
 idea of the educational system, and had not set apart a 
 greater sum for this purpose. 
 
 The want of an asylum or House of Refuge for juv- 
 enile delinquents is severely felt, and the establishment 
 of a properly organized institution for their confinement 
 and reformation, should engage your warmest sympathies 
 and early action. The present mode of consigning our 
 youthful criminals to the cells of the city prison, is pro- 
 ductive of the most pernicious effects to them and to the 
 community at large. Thrown in contact, as they now 
 are, with the vicious and the hardened, they emerge from 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 155 
 
 their place of durance only to enter upon new scenes of 
 vice and pursue bolder degrees of crime. The establish- 
 ment of a House of Industry for their benefit, I think, is 
 deserving of your serious attention, not only as guardians 
 of the public weal, but as philanthropists and enlight- 
 ened men. 
 
 The ladies of San Francisco, with that benevolence 
 and laudable zeal which is so characteristic of their sex, 
 I am happy to be able to say, have taken the orphan 
 children of our city under their especial care and protec- 
 tion. A commodious building for their accommodation 
 has nearly reached completion, raised altogether by their 
 commendable industry and exertions. 
 
 If there is any thing calculated to excite our warmest 
 sympathies, and bring into life the purest feelings of 
 man's nature, it is the condition of the lone orphan, 
 especially in this distant land, where he is often left with 
 no parent hand to guide him through the mazes of a city's 
 wilderness, no parent's tongue to teach him the destinies 
 he was born to. We cannot award too high a meed of 
 praise to those ladies who have so nobly, diligently, and 
 successfully labored in the orphan's behalf. 
 
 The condition of our public streets is a subject of 
 serious complaint. Health and cleanliness demand that 
 means should be taken to stringently enforce the city 
 ordinances, and to prevent our thoroughfares being made 
 the common depositories for refuse and garbage, and to 
 secure the infliction and rigid collections of fines for 
 every violation of those ordinances. The occupants of 
 the different markets within the city should be compelled 
 to remove all their refuse matter beyond the city limits, 
 thus preserving some degree of cleanliness in those local- 
 ities. It is due to our constituents that some regard 
 should be paid to their health and comfort ; and although 
 the condition of the treasury will not warrant the ex- 
 penditure of large sums for the purpose, an honest at- 
 tempt, at least, should be made to mitigate, as far as 
 possible, the evils of which just complaint is made. I 
 would suggest that inquiries be instituted to ascertain the 
 expense of keeping the streets in good condition. 
 
156 EEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The temporary suspension of the works of the Mount- 
 ain Lake Water Company, in their present advanced 
 state, is to be deplored. That such an important under- 
 taking has not met with more earnest encouragement 
 and pecuniary aid, is unfortunate. I am happy, however, 
 to be able to say that there is every prospect of an early 
 resumption of their work, and of an abundant supply 
 of pure and wholesome water being introduced into the 
 city. The projectors of this enterprise are entitled to 
 the gratitude of the community for the public spirit 
 which has guided their endeavors to procure for our 
 citizens benefits so decided and invaluable. 
 
 The works of the San Francisco Gas Company are 
 reaching a speedy consummation. The laying of pipes 
 through the streets has for some days been in progress, 
 and in a few weeks we shall be enjoying another of the 
 fruits of a concentrated and well-directed use of capital. 
 
 I would urge upon your honorable body the import- 
 ance of some plan being adopted for the improvement 
 of the public Plaza, and would recommend its being 
 properly graded, curbed, and enclosed with a neat and 
 substantial railing ; sodding and ornamenting it in such a 
 manner as will render it an agreeable promenade instead 
 of its remaining, as it now is and has long been, a public 
 nuisance and disgrace. The plan of loaning the parks 
 of the city for purposes of private speculation and gain, 
 merits, I think, the condemnation of us all. 
 
 The condition of the Fire Department is a source of 
 pride and gratification. It numbers thirteen engines, 
 thirteen hose carriages, and three hook and ladder com- 
 panies, all in a complete state of effective organization, 
 with twelve hundred names of members upon the rolls 
 of the' department. 
 
 I cannot too highly commend the honorable zeal with 
 which the members of this department respond to the 
 frequent calls for their services, and their great fidelity 
 to the trust reposed in them. Millions of dollars' worth 
 of property has been saved to us by their prompt and 
 united action, and a sentiment of pride and confidence 
 imparted to the public mind, reflecting honor upon the 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 157 
 
 one and engendering a feeling of security in the other. 
 As the members of this department devote their valuable 
 services to the city, without pay or reward, hazarding, 
 and too often sacrificing their lives, in the performance 
 of their arduous duties, they deserve and should recei\e 
 our warmest acknowledgement and fostering care. Meas- 
 ures should at once be taken for the constt-uction of 
 buildings suitable for the accommodation of their appar- 
 atus, and the purchase of new engines, in accordance with 
 the provisions of the ordinance authorizing the setting 
 apart a portion of the proceeds of the further issue of 
 bonds for that purpose. 
 
 In the estimate for the expenses of this department 
 will be found included an item of $7,000 for the con- 
 struction of seven new cisterns, which are needed in cer- 
 tain portions of the city, now deprived of the protection 
 they furnish, in cases of conflagration. I would recom- 
 mend that an appropriation be made for the immediate 
 building of the number specified. Those now in use, 
 numbering thirty-eight, with the proposed addition, it is 
 thought, will furnish an ample supply of water to meet the 
 requirements of the department in ordinary emergencies. 
 
 A prolific source of complaint on the part of our cit- 
 izens and strangers who are daily landing on our shores, 
 is found in the system of extortion practiced by the 
 licensed hack-drivers of the city. I would, therefore, re- 
 commend that a tariff of fair and remunerative rates be 
 established for the conveyance of persons from one portion 
 of the city to another, and that penalties should be en- 
 acted and rigidly enforced in all cases of violation; thus 
 securing to the honest hackman his just compensation, 
 and relieving our citizens and strangers from the annoy- 
 ances and exactions that they have heretofore been com- 
 pelled to submit to. 
 
 I would call the attention of the Common Council to 
 the open and public manner in which gambling is carried 
 on in this city; and, although I cannot look to the ex- 
 tinguishment of this vice from the community at the 
 present day, I would recommend that some means be 
 taken to hide this source of human misery and shame 
 
158 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 from the public gaze. As now openly practiced, its 
 effects are most demoralizing upon the community, not 
 only drawing into the threads of its nets those in high 
 standing, tempting the hardy toiler from the paths of 
 honest labor, but germinating and encouraging in the 
 youth of our city habits of indolence and desires fo^ dis- 
 honest gain, that lay the foundations and nurse the 
 promptings of crime. 
 
 Sunday evening theatricals, I think, in this enlight- 
 ened age, call for a rebuke at the hands of the city gov- 
 ernment, and I would recommend that an ordinance be 
 adopted for the prevention of their enactment. As a 
 man to be great must be good, so a city and a people 
 must observe the dictates of morality, if it is their am- 
 bition to rise to the high summits of human glory. It is 
 to be hoped that the right-thinking portion of our com- 
 munity will lend their example and influence to the 
 exterminating of habits and customs which are inclined 
 to smother or destroy the best impulses of our nature. 
 No nobler sight can greet the eye of man than could be 
 witnessed from the hill-tops that surround us — a people 
 the most industrious and enterprising upon the face of 
 the globe; resting, as they here can rest, in the midst of 
 plenitude and peace, from the labors of the week; re- 
 buking so signally the acts of lawlessness and disorder, 
 showing some degree of thankfulness for the blessings 
 which are here so abundant, and asserting so effectively 
 the power and greatness of free government. 
 
 In conclusion, I cannot resist the opportunity of con- 
 gratulating you and my fellow-citizens upon the rapid 
 growth of our city, the great improvements constantly 
 being made in the extent and architecture of our build- 
 ings, the public spirit and private enterprise so visible in 
 every street, affording, as they do, such substantial proofs 
 of our increasing wealth and prosperity. No city of a 
 century can boast finer structures than now grace this 
 city of a day. The world cannot afford such evidences 
 of the power of mind over matter as the eye constantly 
 rests upon here. 
 
 The certain and early building of the great Pacific 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 159 
 
 Railroad, which has not only agitated the public mind 
 of this city, but also of the older States of the Union, 
 will at no distant day bring us in close proximity to the 
 heart of our Union. Its want is not only felt here, but 
 in New York, the commercial centre of the Eepublic. 
 There, the golden ores which we have dug from our 
 mountains, and washed from our river banks, could soon 
 be given to the smelter, to be rolled into rails (golden 
 rails they will prove to California and to the United 
 States) to be stretched across the Plains, uniting the two 
 great emporiums of the western world. 
 
 In connection with the Pacific Railroad, I would re- 
 mark that a company has lately been organized in this 
 city, composed of gentlemen of wealth and enterprise, 
 for the formation of a line of steamers, to ply between 
 San Francisco and the ports of China, with every en- 
 couragement of its being carried into active operation; 
 thus not only connecting us directly with the Celestial 
 Empire, but, by means of steamers now placed on the 
 route from Honolulu to the Isles of the Pacific, making 
 this the port of entry to the whole trade with the Indies 
 and the Pacific. Even now, our exports are more than 
 equal to the entire cotton crop of the Southern States, 
 hitherto the principal staple our whole country has de- 
 pended on for the payment of her indebtedness abroad, 
 the place of which we have in a great measure supplied, 
 and, without doubt, saved the nation from, dishonor abroad 
 and bankruptcy at home. 
 
 The telegraph wires are already skirting our hillsides 
 and leaping our valleys, connecting us with the cities of 
 the interior, and drawing them into closer harmony and 
 conmiunication with the metropolis. 
 
 Great and wonderful as has been the sudden growth 
 of San Francisco, progressing, as she is, rapidly in all 
 the arts of peace, and enjoying so many of the fruits of 
 science — faithful and enlightened legislation, and the 
 liberal education of the generation who are to succeed 
 us, will alone secure to her the brilliant future that is 
 promised. 
 
 San Feancisco, Nov. 15, 1853. 
 
160 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The cause of education in California owes much to 
 the substantial aid extended by Mr. Garrison. When 
 money was delayed at the proper source for the building 
 of school-houses, and work had ceased, he advanced the 
 required sums from his own resources. And his sym- 
 pathies have always been with the poor and lowly. He 
 established the first African school in San Francisco, 
 holding at that early day that, as the negroes were 
 eventually to become citizens, the proper way to prepare 
 them for that condition was by education. ■ 
 
 Two great subjects, especially interesting to his emi- 
 nently practical turn of mind, Avere never lost sight of — 
 a steamship line to China and Australia, and the explora- 
 tion of a route for the Pacific Railroad. Not long after 
 assuming the duties of his office, he urged public action 
 to these points, and he was repeatedly a member of com- 
 mittees appointed to report to public meetings on the subject 
 of a railroad. His name heads the list of subscribers to 
 this object. He was also the first cash subscriber in a 
 large amount to build a telegraph line over the Sierras, to 
 demonstrate the feasibility of an overland telegraph line 
 between San Francisco and New York. 
 
 There can scarcely be mentioned a charitable enterprise 
 in those days to which Mr. Garrison was not a liberal con- 
 tributor. It is typical of the man that, during the whole 
 of his term as Mayor, he served the public gratuitously — 
 having at the close of that term drawn a check for the 
 entire amount of his salary, which he divided equally 
 between the Catholic and Protestant Orphan Asylums. 
 The Ladies' Relief Society, the Mercantile Library Asso- 
 ciation, of which he was created a life member, and many 
 churches, were the richer for his open-handed donations, 
 while innumerable indigent applicants for a free passage 
 in his steamers joyfully acknowledged his broadcast and 
 never -failing benevolence. In the early years of the 
 California fever, hundreds of destitute people, continually 
 collecting at Panama, were gratuitously forwarded thence 
 to San Francisco at a personal expense to him of many 
 thousands of dollars. 
 
 In September, 1853, Mr. Garrison headed a move- 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 161 
 
 merit in San Francisco of the former citizens of Louisi- 
 ana, to take measures to relieve their fellow-citizens of 
 New Orleans who were suffering from the dreadful 
 ravages of yellow fever, which in that year exceeded in 
 virulence any thing then known. During the month of 
 August, there had been 5,229 deaths. The appeal was 
 eloquent and forcible. Mr. Garrison contributed lavishly 
 to this charity; and the Germans, vrho held a special 
 meeting to adopt measures for the relief of their fellow- 
 countrymen who were being decimated by the destroyer, 
 passed a vote of thanks to Mr. Garrison for his friendly 
 offer to remit all the funds free of charge to New Orleans. 
 An instance, out of many of a similar kind, may be 
 selected as exhibiting Mr. Garrison's peculiarly decisive 
 manner of dealing with circumstances. During his term 
 as Mayor, a noted speculator and his gang, iu April, 1854, 
 commenced driving a line of piles, by night, across the 
 dock from the end of Long wharf, to that of Clay street 
 wharf, thereby obstructing navigation, injuring the har- 
 bor, and jeopardizing the city's title to property of im- 
 mense value. Shortly after midnight, Mr. Garrison, having 
 been informed of the facts, repaired to the spot, and the 
 exciting scene that ensued is still fresh in the memory 
 of those who witnessed it. He found the police force 
 overawed by the defiant bearing of the parties. The 
 Marshal refused to obey the Mayor's orders to arrest the 
 rioters, ostensibly on the ground that the authority was 
 insufficient. Upon this, Mr. Garrison, acting with his cus- 
 tomary resolution, took the affair into his own hands, met 
 the desperadoes with their own weapons, regardless of 
 threats, and, it is sufficient to say, he summarily termin- 
 ated the lawless proceedings, amid the cheers of the great 
 crowd who had collected upon the wharves awaiting the 
 event. The example was highly beneficial as a prec- 
 edent for subsequent occasions of a like nature. In July 
 following, a similar scene occurred on Montgomery street, 
 where an attempt was made to fence off Merchant street. 
 The Marshal having again refused to obey the Mayor's 
 orders to arrest the parties, Mr. Garrison assumed the 
 personal responsibility, had the obstruction instantly torn 
 
162 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 down, and on the following day, impeached the Marshal, 
 who was soon o.fter removed from office by unaminoua 
 vote of the Common Council. 
 
 In the year 1859, Mr. Garrison returned to the At- 
 lantic States, and settled in New York city. There he 
 became at once known as a bold and successful financier — • 
 a man of vigorous grasp and comprehensive views — the 
 weight of his character and business sagacity being felt 
 in the heaviest transactions of the times. He is to-day 
 one of the leading steamship proprietors in the United 
 States, being the principal owner in many ocean steamers. 
 
 Now, when our national commerce is languishing 
 under discouragements which few capitalists are willing 
 to encounter, Mr. Garrison continues to maintain the 
 only United States steamship company with which the 
 Grovernment has a mail contract carrying the American 
 flag on the Atlantic ocean — the important line between 
 New York and Brazil. During the late war, he camo 
 promptly with all his remarkable energies to the support 
 of the Grovernment, and with his steamships rendered 
 eminent services to the cause of the Union. It was at 
 this trying epoch that his sterling patriotism was particu- 
 larly displayed. When the cause looked the most gloomy, 
 and capital began to hesitate, he fitted out, mainly 
 by his own exertions, Butler's Ship-Island expedition, 
 and became personally responsible in England for the 
 principal part of its armament. This was formally ac- 
 knowledged by Mr. Lincoln, Secretary Seward, Mr. Sum- 
 ner, and other prominent members of Congress. 
 
 After an absence from California of about ten years, 
 the Commodore, who, in times past, had taken so con- 
 spicuous a part in ocean steam navigation, especially be- 
 tween San Francisco and New York, and on the Pacific 
 coast, was among the earliest to make the railroad trip 
 across the continent. His visit to the metropolis of the 
 Pacific was not merely to seek pleasure and recreation, 
 but also to build substantial improvements upon his real 
 estate, principally in the vicinity of the city front. 
 Some of the most valuable structures in that part of 
 San Francisco have been erected by him, and a consider- 
 able portion of his immense fortune, amounting to sev- 
 
CORNELIUS K. GARRISON. 1G3 
 
 eral millions of dollars, is invested in the scene of his 
 former business transactions. 
 
 The Commodore, on his arrival in San Francisco, was 
 met on all sides by the congratulations of his many friends 
 on his evident good health, and kind wishes for its long 
 continuance followed him on his return to New York. 
 
 Just one week prior to his departure from San Fran- 
 cisco, he received the following invitation, which, it will 
 be seen, was signed by the leading professional and 
 business men of the city: 
 
 San Francisco, August lOth, 1869. 
 Hon. C. K Garrison — Dear Sir: In token of the veiy great re- 
 gard we entertain for you, both on account of your public services 
 and private benefices to the citizens of San Francsico, we, your old 
 friends and associates, beg to ask your acceptance of a farewell 
 dinner, to be given at the Maison Doree, on Monday evening, 
 August 16th, at seven o'clock. 
 
 A. J. Bowie, M. D., Charles E. McLane, 
 
 Edmond L. Goold, William Alvord, 
 
 Peter F. Doling, L. L. Robinson, 
 
 Hon. Henry A. Lyon, O. Eldridge, 
 
 James H. Baird, Hon. Delos Lake, 
 
 Benj. M. Hartshorne, Thomas H. Selby 
 
 John T. Boyd, Hall McAllister, ' 
 
 William C. Ralston, Joseph P. Hoge, 
 
 L Friedlander, S. M. Wilson, 
 
 D. O. Mills, Charles Mayne, 
 
 E. V. Joice, Hon. Eugene Sullivan, 
 
 F. J. Weeks, F. L. A. Pioche, 
 Joseph A. Donohoe, A. B. Forbes, 
 Lafayette Maynard, John Benson, 
 Lloyd Tevis, George H. Howard, 
 Jesse Holladay, * William Norris, 
 
 J. G. Eastland, H. P. Wakelee. 
 
 Gen. E. D. Keyes, 
 
 This invitation was accepted, and the banquet was 
 served with the most sumptuous and elegant appoint- 
 ments. Hon. Ogden Hoffman, United States District 
 Judge ; His Excellency Governor Haight, and Hon. Frank 
 McCoppin, Mayor of the city, were present as invited 
 guests. Dr. A. J. Bowie presided, and made the follow- 
 ing address : 
 
 Gentlemen: This banquet to-night, to the Hon. C. K. Gan'ison, 
 was prompted by a desire on the part of Mr. Garrison's friends to 
 convey to him, first, their full recognition of the great services he 
 had rendered to this community, in behalf of immigration to 
 
164 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 our city and State; but more especially because of his personal en- 
 dearment to the early surviving settlers and residents of the city of 
 San Francisco. AVe can scarcely hope, however much we may desire 
 it, that Mr. Garrison wdll again venture to encounter the toil of 
 another visit to our city, which w^e know he loves so w^ell, and to 
 whose development and growth he has contributed so largely; and 
 therefore, at one and the same moment, we proclaim our pleasure 
 at receiving him and our regret at parting, by bidding him at this 
 banquet, all hail and farewell ! 
 
 To which Mr. Garrison replied as follows : 
 
 Gentlemen : I am filled wath the greatest and truest emotion at 
 this most unexpected and flattering entertainment on the part of my 
 old friends. If I had required any incentive beyond what had been 
 supplied by my past relations with California, this spectacle of so 
 much worth and intelligence w^ould urge me still fuiiher in hope 
 and effort to develop the interests of this mighty country. Gentle- 
 men, my heart is too full of gratitude for this splendid ovation to 
 permit me to do aught else but beg you will accept the poverty of 
 my language to express my full feelings of gratitude. 
 
 Messrs. Judge Delos Lake, Judge Lyons, Gen. E. D. 
 Keyes, W. C. Ealston, Charles E. McLane, Hall McAllis- 
 ter, Joseph P. Hoge, J. G. Eastland, and others, followed 
 in remarks pertinent to the occasion, and were happy 
 in allusions to reminiscences in connection with the past 
 efforts of their guest toward the development of Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 Mr. Garrison's distinguished success in commercial 
 affairs is due, not more to his unconquerable energy, than 
 to an unbending integrity manifested in all the relations 
 of life. His w^ord is proverbially as good as his bond. 
 Conservative and tolerant in his intercourse with men, 
 his friendships have always been warm and intimate, and 
 are life-long. An especially prepossessing address and 
 good conversational powers, added to great firmness and 
 force of character, have generally enabled him to in- 
 fluence others and impress them with the soundness of 
 his views. Left early in life to provide for himself, he 
 has been emphatically the architect of his own fortunes. 
 In looking back upon his business career, he enjoys the 
 well-earned consciousness of having contributed largely 
 to the material prosperity of the country, while hundreds 
 unremembered by him still cherish the memory of his 
 charitable deeds and whole-souled generosity. 
 
^ 
 
 UII7S 
 
 OF TB 
 
 o» 
 
 feyoE«"k^ 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 THE Editor desires to assure the public that he has left 
 no stone unturned in the effort to obtain an original 
 sketch of Rev. Thomas Starr King. The career of this 
 man was so brilliant and eventful — in the brief compass 
 of forty years, he accomplished such mighty purposes — 
 that his life and deeds deserve to be chronicled by a gifted 
 and practiced pen, entirely familiar and in harmony with 
 the theme. 
 
 For the purpose of securing such a sketch, the Editor 
 approached or communicated with many of the most pol- 
 ished and effective writers of the Pacific — and also of the 
 Atlantic States — and in so doing, exhausted the list of 
 those whom he knew to be intimate friends and admirers 
 of Mr. King, when living, and whom he considered com- 
 petent to the task. 
 
 All, for various reasons, declined to furnish the desired 
 sketch. Having had only a casual introduction to Mr. 
 King a few years before his death, and not having enjoyed 
 any intimacy with him ; and moreover, knowing nothing 
 of his career prior to his arrival in California, the Editor 
 felt his incapacity to treat the subject properly, and had 
 nearly concluded that his work would have to be given 
 to the public in an incomplete state, owing to the omission 
 of a biographical notice of this truly representative man. 
 But a short time before the manuscript was placed in the 
 hands of the printer, he was presented with an address 
 read a few days after the decease of Mr. King before the 
 Unitarian Society, of which he was Pastor, by a prom- 
 inent citizen of San Francisco, who had for several years 
 been a warm personal friend of Mr. King, and who had 
 received from his dying lips the injunction : ''Keep my 
 
166 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 memory green." This gentleman was then, as he had for 
 some years previously been, a well known merchant, and 
 also Superintendent of the United States Branch Mint of 
 San Francisco. The description of the death scene of 
 Mr. King, of which the author was an unhappy witness, 
 is fraught with absorbing and melancholy interest. 
 
 This address, however, discloses no information con- 
 cerning Mr. King's ancestry, birth, boyhood, or any por- 
 tion of his career passed prior to his arrival in California, 
 but the San Francisco Bulletin^ on the day of Mr. King's 
 death, contained an ably-written editorial, eulogistic of 
 his splendid talents and his great services to the State. 
 And the local columns of that journal gave a brief notice 
 of his life, on the same day, and, a few days later, con- 
 tained a full account of the solemn ceremonies and im- 
 pressive scenes attending his burial. 
 
 These articles in the Bulletin newspaper, and the ad- 
 dress alluded to, together make up a faithful and inter- 
 esting history of Mr. King ; and the Editor gives place 
 to them here, in lieu of an original sketch, confident that 
 they will be accepted by an appreciative public as a wor- 
 thy memorial of his life and services. 
 
 From the San Francisco Fvening Bulletin j March 4:tK 1864, 
 
 The ANNOUNCEMENT of the death of the Rev. Thomas 
 Starr King startles the community, and shocks it like 
 the loss of a great battle or tidings of a sudden and un- 
 dreamed-of public calamity. Certainly no other man on 
 the Pacific Coast would be missed so much. San Fran- 
 cisco has lost one of her chief attractions ; the State, its 
 noblest orator ; the country, one of her ablest defenders. 
 Mr. King had been less than four years in California, yet 
 in that short time he had done so much and so identified 
 himself with its best interests, that scarcely one public 
 institution or enterprise of philanthropy exists here 
 which will not feel that it has lost a champion. He was 
 a vast power which any struggling good work could com- 
 mand. The most erudite and the least cultivated were 
 alike charmed by the eloquence of his popular addresses. 
 
THO^ilAS STARR KING. 167 
 
 He warmed the coldest audience into enthusiasm. Some 
 said it was his musical voice ; some that it was his genial 
 manner ; some that it was his tact in feeling his audience 
 and humoring it until every fraction of it was '4n sym- 
 pathy" with him, when he boldly led off to the point he 
 had in view ; some, in more general terms, that it was his 
 commanding genius ; some that it was the merits of his 
 cause, which it was his gift to lift up and present in its 
 best light, that accounted for his sway over the multitude ; 
 but on this all agree, friends and opponents, that while 
 the matter was in his hands there was no gainsaying him. 
 Few public speakers were bold enough of choice to follow 
 with a speech after he had spoken ; and if he were an- 
 nounced, the audience was never satisfied till his turn 
 came. 
 
 Mr. King had grown immensely as a public speaker 
 since he left the East. He brought with him a most en- 
 viable reputation as a literary lecturer, a polished, bril- 
 liant writer and preacher. Those who knew him con- 
 gratulated California on his coming ; they said he would 
 do for our landscape and our land what he had done for 
 New Hampshire; for his White Hills^ their Legends^ Land- 
 scapes and Poetry^ had made the White Mountains classical, 
 and brought them within the circle of all Eastern sum- 
 mer tourists. The most sanguine never imagined that he 
 would become the power that he quickly proved himself 
 at the sterner, harder duties that engage men who lay the 
 foundations of States. He used to say, soon after he 
 arrived here, and when he found how much greater would 
 be his influence with this people if he could speak as well 
 extempore as he wrote, that he would give anything if he 
 had the ability to ^' think on his feet." ^'Beecher has it," 
 said he ; ''his thoughts come trooping in never so swiftly, 
 so orderly, and in such force as while on his feet with a 
 great audience before him — every upturned face is his ally 
 in marshaling his grand thoughts ; but I can't." Few men 
 at the height of their fame venture the experiment of a 
 new style of address. He ventured, and every one who 
 has heard his later off-hand speeches will testify how 
 speedily he acquired the faculty which he coveted — of 
 
168 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 thinking on his feet — his best things flashing into his own 
 mind apparently the instant that they flashed through it 
 into his audience. Mr. King introduced himself to the 
 San Francisco community by a course of lectures deliv- 
 ered one each week in the First Congregational Church, 
 which was crowded to its utmost capacity to hear them. 
 It is safe to say that fifteen minutes after he began the 
 delivery of the first one, his position as an incomparable 
 lecturer was established. That series had been delivered 
 at the East. Each one of them was a perfect gem in its 
 way. Not a sentence in one of them but gleamed with 
 beauty. The rare and dainty imagination of the lecturer 
 discovered itself in every phrase, and showed him a poet 
 in the disguise of prose. The skeptical said it was very 
 pretty writing certainly, but they doubted his depth. The 
 lectures that Mr. King wrote here were of altogether a 
 different order. He availed himself of that injunction 
 of the rhetoricians, not to be too evenly excellent in 
 your style. He polished his sentences less, he waited no 
 longer on fine fancies ; he argued more ; he dropped down 
 to good plain talk for minutes together in his addresses; 
 and then, when his hearers were rested, he blazed out 
 with passages that swept away all thoughts but of the one 
 topic that possessed him. 
 
 Thomas Starr King was born in New York, Decem- 
 ber 16th, 1824. His father was a Universalist minister, 
 settled in 1834 over a congregation in Charlestown, Mass. 
 At the time of his father's death, Mr. King was preparing 
 to enter Harvard College, but this event left the family 
 in a manner dependent upon him for support, and from 
 the age of twelve to twenty, he was employed either as 
 a clerk or school teacher. All this while he was an 
 ardent student; scarcely were the regular duties of the 
 day done, than the interregnum found him at his desk; 
 and midnight looked in upon him deep in books, theologi- 
 cal studies claiming his attention mainly. Following the 
 bent of his mind, he devoted himself to the ministry, 
 preaching his first sermon in the town of Woburn, in 
 September, 1845. He subsequently preached at Charles- 
 town to the congregation of which his father liad charge. 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 169 
 
 In 1848, at the age of twenty-four, he was called to pre- 
 side over the Hollis street Unitarian Church, in Boston. 
 The church at this time was very much divided, so much 
 so that it was feared that harmony could not be restored. 
 Under the ministry of the energetic young pastor, how- 
 ever, peace once more came to its councils; the church 
 grew rapidly in strength; and when Mr. King left, it en- 
 joyed a prosperity unprecedented in its history. The 
 same genial and sympathetic manners which won him 
 the affections of the whole people of this city, as well as 
 of his immediate congregation, endeared him to the con- 
 gregation of which he had charge in Boston ; and when 
 he announced to the latter his intention of changing his 
 residence and making this coast the scene of his future 
 labors, a storm of regrets and remonstrances arose which 
 would have made a weaker man change his purpose. He 
 received the call from the Unitarian Society of this city 
 early in the year of 1860, and sailed from Boston in the 
 month of April. In a letter to his Hollis street Church, 
 informing them of the call to San Francisco, he gave 
 two reasons for his acceptance of it. One was his failing 
 health, which made a change of climate necessary; the 
 other, and the principal one, a desire to do the will of 
 his Master. 
 
 He identified himself at once with California and its 
 people, urging their interests on all occasions with a zeal 
 and persistence which could not have been exceeded had 
 he been one of the first settlers of the country. He 
 looked beyond the pulpit, and mingled much with men — 
 touching life at nearly all points. The agricultural and 
 mineral resources of our State claimed a large share of 
 his attention, and his lectures, illustrated by quaint humor 
 as well as by deep and practical knowledge of his texts, 
 are fresh as the sound of words spoken yesterday in the 
 ears of our people. His was one of those lovable natures, 
 which warm to all men, and in consequence his circle of 
 friends was only bounded by his acquaintance — it is 
 questionable if he ever had an enemy among all who 
 knew him, even those who differed from him in theologi- 
 cal views yielding to the magnetic sway of his voice and 
 
170 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 manner. He did not think that the pulpit, the prow of 
 the world, should be shut out from pointing the way in 
 politics when great principles are involved, and early in 
 the war he pronounced against the rebellion and the issues 
 upon which it was conducted. In this respect he has 
 wielded a powerful influence, lending his aid to the pre- 
 servation of harmony in a State which at the outset 
 seemed likely to be divided, carrying the masses with him 
 by that energy and eloquence which was given him as a 
 birthright, and of which only the hand of Death could 
 rob him. 
 
 Mr. King's energy has an eminent illustration in the 
 history of his pastoral labors. He found the Unitarian 
 Society some $20,000 in debt, small in numbers and fee- 
 ble in strength. In less than a year the whole debt was 
 paid, and the society was in a flourishing condition ; be- 
 fore four years had expired a new church was built for him^ 
 costing $90,000 — to which he Iiimself was the largest 
 contributor, giving from his own pocket $7,000 to the 
 church and in furniture. Barely had the building been 
 completed when the pastor was taken away. This seems 
 irreconcilable with faith, but the ways of Providence are 
 often inscrutable. His physical health, never very robust, 
 suffered much from his arduous labors, and particularly 
 from the exertions which he put forth to insure the com- 
 pletion of this church and its freedom from debt. For 
 two or three months before his death, it was evident that 
 he was not so well as usual, and he had frequently spoken 
 of the necessity of giving up all literary labor. He 
 thought it would be impossible for him to endure another 
 year of work, and they were already agitating the ques- 
 tion of who should fill his pulpit while he took a year's 
 respite from labor in travel. 
 
 Just before his sickness he had a dream which he nar- 
 rated to a friend at the time, remarking that it made 
 more impression on him than he cared to confess. In 
 his dream he thought he was shaving himself, and the ra- 
 zor, slipping, gashed his throat. Physicians who were 
 called told him he could not live ten minutes. He ar- 
 gued the case with them — holding the edges of the wound 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. I7l 
 
 together with his hand — telling them neither the windpipe 
 nor any of the arteries were severed, and that he could 
 recover if they would only stop the bleeding. They said 
 it was useless, however, and that he must prepare to die. 
 The dream was probably induced by the pain which had 
 already begun to settle in his throat. 
 
 About two weeks before his death he first complained 
 of not feeling well, and of some trouble with his throat. 
 His friends urged him to be more careful, and not expose 
 himself to the air ; but he thought it was only an ordi- 
 nary case of sore throat, and declined to confine himself 
 or call in the aid of a physician until Friday, Feb. 26th. 
 In the evening he had his regular reception, and between 
 10 and 11 o'clock went down to a social gathering at the 
 church, though still suffering. On Saturday evening he 
 had invited a number of friends to supper, but when even- 
 ing came he was unable to appear at table. While sup- 
 per was going on, however, a bridal-party came to be mar- 
 ried. Mr. King had received no previous intimation of 
 such a visit, and sent down asking to be excused, saying 
 that he was sick and confined to his bed. The party re- 
 plied that they had set their hearts on being married by 
 Mr. King, and would come up to his bedside sooner than 
 be defeated in their desire. With that spirit of self-sac- 
 rifice for which he was so remarkable, he then said he 
 would get up and go down into the parlor. He did so, 
 and went through the ceremony ; but though it was per- 
 formed in a very few minutes, he was so weak at its con- 
 clusion that he had to be assisted up to his room. 
 
 From the San Francisco Evening Bulletin^ March 7th, 1864. 
 
 Thomas Starr King dead had a larger congregation 
 than he ever had living. At 9 o'clock in the morning 
 the doors of the church were opened, and until noon- 
 time a congregation numbered by thousands and com- 
 prised of all religious denominations, poured through the 
 aisles, bending over the burial-case where the former 
 pastor lay with hands crossed in dumb prayer — listening 
 to the mute but eloquent sermon of the upturned face 
 
172 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and lips set in eternal supplication. Loving hands had 
 festooned the church with wreaths of Egyptian lilies — 
 those flowers which with their single petal, waxen white, 
 suggest the tomb, and all the sad thoughts and ceremon- 
 ies that attend even the greenest grave — National banners, 
 their bright stars clouded with crape and their crimson 
 stripes veiled, draped the altar and threw their folds over 
 the coffin ; the mantle of patriotism which fell upon his 
 shoulders in life, enveloping and shrouding the form 
 wdthin in death. The apron of the Order of which he 
 was Grand Orator, and other signs and symbols of the 
 Masonic craft, were there ; flowers of the rarest odor shed 
 their perfume over the body, and on the breast lay a chap- 
 let of spring violets, placed there by the request of a lady 
 once a resident of this city, now dwelling at the East,*'^ 
 who telegraphed on Saturday to one who, like her, loved 
 the deceased: ^^ Put violets for me on our dear friend who 
 rests." It was a kindly thought, prompted by the grace- 
 ful tenderness of a woman's heart ; the flowers will be 
 fragrant in the grave as the memory of the deceased is in 
 the hearts of his friends — and these are only numbered 
 by the city's population. 
 
 A military guard detailed for the duty was stationed 
 in and about the church, preserving order among the 
 dense crowd, which so early as noon-time began to throng 
 about the doors. The butts of muskets rang on the mar- 
 ble floors beneath which one was to sleep who believed 
 that Christians may wear armor when the cause is just, 
 and prayer be helmeted and mailed, if the vindication of 
 great human principles demands it. It is safe to say that 
 such an immense assemblage has not been seen before in 
 this city for many years. The congregation first passed 
 into the church, and found their accustomed pews; the 
 Governor and other State and Governmental dignitaries 
 were seated, and then the main doors were thrown open 
 for the reception of as many others as the church could 
 contain. Not a square inch of floor was left in body, or 
 aisle, that was not pressed by some foot. The gallery 
 
 * Mrs. Gen. J. C. Fremont. 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 173 
 
 groaned with its great human freight like a ship at sea, 
 on whose decks a mad weight of water has leaped; and so 
 crowded looked the faces in that great bracket of life 
 affixed to the walls, that the effect was stereoscopic and 
 all seemed to resolve themselves into one. So densely 
 were the audience packed that several ladies fainted 
 away, and even men struggled to the doors for air. But 
 there was no exit ; for lobby, vestibule, and even the 
 street for a block or more was packed with human wedges. 
 So thick was the crowd outside that the street was only 
 passed with difficulty after long and tedious urging. It 
 was like bees, swarming on the outside of a hive; while 
 through Stockton street, north and south, a tide of peo- 
 ple going and coming, flowed in one continuous wave. 
 
 The services began at 2 o'clock, with a voluntary on 
 the organ, by Mr. Trenkle. A most impressive scene was 
 afforded. The solemn notes swelled through the church 
 in a plaintive, mournful psalm ; the instrument seemed 
 for the moment to have a human heart within its walls, 
 wailing its grief in sounds that were like the falling of 
 tears. In the front pews of the church sat the Masons, 
 each wearing an acacia sprig, and the habiliments of the 
 Order. Through the stained glass of the ceiling and the 
 sides, and the great rose-window at the end of the church, 
 the afternoon sun sifted its mellow rays like a benedic- 
 tion, crowning the coffin and altar with a glory of light 
 and color. Minute guns from Alcatraz mingled their 
 heavy bass with the notes of the organ — soon a nearer 
 battery in Union Square took up the burden, and there 
 was an anthem of cannon swelling with its grand diapason 
 the solemnity of the services. This is said to be the 
 first time in the history of the country that minute guns 
 have been fired by order of the Government in honor of 
 a civilian who never held a public position. 
 
 The 39th Psalm was chanted by the choir, and follow- 
 ing this the Rev. Mr. Kittredge read the 23d Psalm — 
 the one which Mr. King repeated on his death-bed. The 
 Grand Master then commenced to read the impressive 
 burial service of the Masonic ritual, choir and organ 
 chanting the responses. The first prayer of the ritual 
 
174 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 was offered by Mr. Kittredge; and the remainder of the 
 service, slightly varied in accordance with the unusual 
 burying-place, was read by the Grand Master. At the 
 proper interval in the service the vault beneath the altar 
 was opened, and amid a voluntary from the organ, the cof- 
 fin was lowered down to its last resting-place, the Secretary 
 of the Lodge dropping his roll upon it, and the Grand 
 Master his acacia branch. The last prayer of the ritual 
 was off*ered by the Rev. J. D. Blain, benediction was of- 
 fered by Mr. Kittredge, the Masonic Brotherhood filing 
 past the vault flung into it the acacia sprig emblem 
 which each wore on his breast, the ceremonies were 
 ended, and the great crowd went out into the streets and 
 to their homes. 
 
 Besides the anthems by the full choir, solos, ^^ Hcncyuj 
 that my Redeemer Uveth,'' and " Gome, ye disconsolate ,'' 
 were sung, the former by Mrs. Grotjan, the latter by Mrs. 
 Leach. All through the city, during the day, with 
 scarcely an exception, at all the principal buildings, and 
 also at the forts, and army headquarters, national flags 
 were at half-mast; and colors at the residences of nearly 
 all the foreign Consuls were similarly lowered. Most of 
 the American shipping in harbor lowered its bunting, and 
 the foreign shipping, almost to a vessel, followed the ex- 
 ample, the flags of Hamburg, Columbia, Russia, France 
 and Great Britain being among the others thus displayed. 
 On board the only war vessel in port, the Russian steamer 
 BogatyrCj the Russian ensign, lowered from the peak, 
 stood at half-mast during the day. If anything can miti- 
 gate the grief of his friends for his death, some flowers of 
 consolation may surely be plucked from the fact that he 
 was thus universally mourned. The following telegram 
 was received from the Rev. Dr. Bellows : 
 
 New York, March 5th, 1864. 
 To the People of California, — The sad tidings of to-day 
 have broken our hearts. Thousands here will weep with 
 you over his bier. You have had our brightest, our 
 noblest, our best — and he has lived and died, in the full- 
 ness of his manhood, in your service. Who shall fill his 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 175 
 
 place on the platform, in the pulpit, in the hearts of a 
 million of friends ? 
 
 His full, quick, penetrative mind, winged with fancy 
 and with restlessness in the service of truth, liberty and 
 righteousness — his soul glowing with natural sympathy. 
 Christian patriotism, universal philanthropy ; his every 
 action made to utter and diffuse the noble, inspiring con- 
 victions of his pure, loving nature ; his eye the window 
 of an open, honest, fervent soul — his whole character 
 ''made up of every creature's best ;" strong and gentle, 
 generous and prudent, aspiring and modest, controlling 
 and deferential, "the people's darling, yet unspoiled by 
 praise ;" knowing the world and its ways, yet clean of 
 its stains ; pious without sanctimony — what but his own 
 living, undying confidence in the absolute goodness of 
 God can enable us to sustain such a measureless loss ? 
 The mountains he loved and praised are henceforth his 
 monuments and his mourners. The White Hills and the 
 Sierra Nevada are, to-day, wrapped in his shroud. His 
 dirge will be perpetually heard in their forests. 
 
 Farewell, genial, generous, faithful and beloved friend! 
 Thou hast gone from those who loved thee well, to One 
 who loves thee best. God comfort thy family, thy flock, 
 thy broken-hearted friends on both sides of a continent. 
 
 At a meeting of the congregation of the First Unita- 
 rian Society held at their church on Geary Street, on the 
 evening of March 15th, 1864, the following resolutions 
 were offered, viz : 
 
 It having pleased the Most High God to draw closer 
 to His side His servant, our greatly beloved and honored 
 pastor, Thomas Starr King, and inasmuch as this requisi- 
 tion, coming to him in the plenitude of fame, intellect, 
 and usefulness, found him still "happy, resigned, trust- 
 ful," it becomes us as Christian brethren to restrain the 
 natural, but selfish impulses of grief, accepting the chalice 
 commended to our lips, and bowing humbly to the Om- 
 nipotent will. Therefore be it 
 
176 REPRESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Resolved^ That in the sublime spectacle of the death- 
 bed of Thomas Starr King, we recognize a filll and tri- 
 umphant vindication of his faith as a teacher and his 
 works as a man. 
 
 Resolved^ That though it hath seemed fit to the Al- 
 mighty to remove his mortal presence from among us, the 
 subtle influence of his piety and genius still exists, and 
 continues to transfuse and possess us; and that although 
 the pulpit of the church he has adorned remains empty, 
 an emanation of his goodness still obtains in the pulpit 
 of each man's heart, swaying and controlling its impulses, 
 directing and guiding its promptings, and preaching '' with 
 the tongue of men and angels." 
 
 Resolved^ That his ministration of this Society has 
 been vital, creative and enduring ; that it has been uni- 
 formly characterized by ceaseless toil and unabated zeal, 
 even to the sacrifice of health and the precipitation of 
 death — by an eloquence earnest, truthful and convincing 
 — by erudition thorough, complete and reliable — by fervor, 
 boldness and originality that have attached the lukewarm 
 and indifferent — by a humanity that was broad, catholic, 
 all- sympathizing and tolerant — by a gentleness that was 
 winning without being weak — by a force that was decis- 
 ive in results, though unfelt in its processes — and by 
 those rare, indefinable social graces and courtesies which, 
 as they were not beneath the Guest of the bride of Cana, 
 are the attributes of a Christian gentleman. 
 
 Resolved^ That as citizens of this republic we deplore, 
 with the nation, the loss of a courageous heart and bril- 
 liant intellect ever ready to battle in its defense, and that 
 we deeply sympathize with the wounded soldiers in bat- 
 tle-fields and hospitals, who will miss the priceless aid of 
 him who yearned to them out of the brimming fullness 
 of his patriotism, charity, and love. 
 
 Resolved, That we tenderly sympathize with the deep 
 affliction of that family circle of which he was the life 
 and light — offering to the stricken widow what consola- 
 tion may be derived from the assurance, that a commu- 
 nity are partners in her sorrow ; to his widowed mother 
 and kindred in a distant part of our country, the expres- 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 177 
 
 sion of our unfeigned grief, that they are bereaved of the 
 wise counsels and affectionate solicitude of a noble son 
 and brother; and to the fatherless children, the undying 
 record of his fame as an inheritance and example to them 
 forever. 
 
 Previous to their passage, Mr. R. B. Swain rose and 
 said : 
 
 Before the resolutions are adopted, I cannot refrain 
 from bearing my testimony to the purity of Mr. King's 
 life, and offering to his memory the tribute of my pro- 
 found admiration of his character, his genius, and his tal- 
 ents. I was early brought in contact with him — first by 
 correspondence before his arrival, and afterwards as a co- 
 laborer, though comparatively a humble one, in the cause 
 of the church and of liberal Christianity. Knowing him 
 so intimately, I have taken some pains to reduce to writ- 
 ing the thoughts that have occurred to me in reference to 
 his lit'o and his early death, in order that I may present 
 them in a regular and consecutive form. For what re- 
 lates to our beloved pastor, should now be the property 
 of the Society over which he presided, and of which he 
 was the life and light. His sayings and doings — his acts 
 of mercy — his goodness of heart, constantly prompting 
 him to deeds of charity — his transcendent genius, which 
 shone forth most brilliantly in the privacy of social and 
 familiar relations — his innate purity of character — his 
 unsellishness, which made him ambitious to sacrifice his 
 own comfort to promote the comfort of others — his hu- 
 mility, which rendered him incapable of knowing his own 
 goodness and greatness, and oftentimes led him to esti- 
 mate too feebly his own powers — liis reverence, wliicl' 
 carried his soul above the transitory things of earth, and 
 gave him aspirations towards Heaven and his God ; — all 
 these constitute an endowment of priceless memories be- 
 queathed to the Society in whose service he so faitlifully 
 labored, and for which he died. In the few remarks I 
 have to offer upon the resolutions, I shall confine myself 
 12 
 
178 REPRESENTATIVE MEls OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 chiefly to narrative ; but I would not, if I could, with- 
 hold the repeated expression of my love of him as a man, 
 a patriot, and a Christian — the most pure in his thoughts, 
 the most unseliish in his character, with whom it has 
 been my good fortune to be associated. 
 
 I said I first knew Mr. King through correspondence. 
 After the departure of our former pastor, Mr. Cutler, and 
 during the temporary ministration of Mr. Buckingham, 
 the Board of Trustees negotiated, through friends at the 
 East, for a permanent pastor. We were slightly encour- 
 aged to believe that Mr. King, then presiding over the 
 Hollis Street Society in Boston, might be induced to come 
 here; and through a Committee of the Board, Mr. Brooks 
 and Mr. Lambert, who were fortunately in Boston at that 
 time, negotiations were opened with him upon the sub- 
 ject. I must confess that I had but little hope that he 
 could be secured for this Society — for I knew how he 
 was loved and prized by his own parishioners, for whom 
 he had done such essential service during a period of ten 
 years, and how his fame and reputation as a divine and 
 lecturer were as wide as the continent itself. But we be- 
 lieved that he would have a great field here ; and were 
 encouraged to hope that his comparative j^outh, his spirit 
 of self-sacrifice, and the necessity of seeking a new field 
 of labor to renew his i^hysical energies, vv^hich had been 
 much exhausted by study and over-exertion, would tempt 
 him to listen, at least, to our call, and perhaps to adopt 
 for a season this vigorous and prosperous State as the 
 field of his labors. Fortunate, indeed, was it for this So- 
 ciety, and fortunate for California, that he came. With- 
 out him, who can now. say what would, to-day, have been 
 our condition? Who can now say that we would not 
 have been hurled into the vortex of secession, or that 
 there would not have been inaugurated the scheme of a 
 Pacific Rc»)ublic, for which our delegation in Congress 
 were manoeuvering, and which would have made this hap- 
 py, peaceful State, a scene of fire and blood, between the 
 , contending fury of loyalty and treason ? 
 
 Mr. King's first communication, in answer to our call^ 
 "was made in the month of September, 1859, to the Com- 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 179 
 
 mittee then in Boston. It is an admirable illustration of 
 his frankness and candor, and although a private letter, 
 there are no good reasons why the most of it should not 
 be read here. His peculiar sincerity and earnestness are 
 stamped in every line. Dr. Bellows, who, I am proud to 
 say, was my pastor for many years in New York, had been 
 commissioned, in conjunction with the Committee, to ob- 
 tain a pastor for us — but they had been enjoined to make 
 application to no man whose fame was not already secured, 
 and whose name was not eminent among the ministers of 
 our faith — for it was certain that with any feebler man, 
 our then tottering Society would become bankrupt and 
 ruined, perhaps forever. How well the task was per- 
 formed, let the present condition of our Society, and in- 
 deed, let the prosperity of our State, to-day, answer. 
 Aided by the powerful influence of Dr. Bellows, negotia- 
 tions were opened with Mr. King dired. At that time his 
 own Society, to which he had devotedly attached himself, 
 was claiming a continuation of his services, and a Com- 
 mittee from a strong Society in Cincinnati were clamor- 
 ing loudly for him to remove thither, and become their 
 pastor, offering inducements which no ordinary man — no 
 sdjish man — could have resisted. As Chairman of the 
 Board of Trustees, the correspondence fell to me. Facts 
 and figures as to our prospects were sent to Dr. Bellows. 
 Nothing very flattering as to the past could be present- 
 ed; but our prospects, with a strong man, were set forth 
 in brilliant colors. It seemed quite certain that there 
 was a large field for the growth of our faith in this State, 
 under the leadership of such a man as Mr. King proved 
 to be, and our claims were pushed with all possible zeal, 
 and even with audacity. 
 
 The letter which I now propose to read to you, con- 
 vinced us that Mr. King, of all n^en, was best adapted to 
 our wants ; and notwithstanding he was constrained to an- 
 swer our call in the negative, we refused to abide by his 
 decision. The letter is as follows : — 
 
 My Dear Sir: I was on the point of writing to you in 
 Brattleboro, when your letter of this morning came. 
 
180 EEPKtSENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 It has been impossible for me to reply at an earlier 
 date. I have been very busy consulting intimate friends, 
 obtaining information, and forecasting the trouble, difficul- 
 ty, and losses of uprooting myself and family here, while 
 not a little time has been absorbed in studying my own 
 inclinations, heart, and resources, for such duties as the 
 post in San Francisco would demand. 
 
 The result of all my inquiries, consultations and re- 
 flections, stands thus: 1st. Very grave doubts as to the 
 ability of the parish to pay the salary named to me. Gen- 
 tlemen who know the Unitarian Society there pretty well, 
 have assured friends of mine that the parish is not unit- 
 ed — that there are a great many great draw-backs to the 
 popularity of a liberal faith in the city, and that with a 
 debt of $12,400 on which the Society pay 12 per cent, 
 interest, and a floating debt of $1000, no man with tal- 
 ents less electrical than Chapin's, Beecher's, or Dr. Bel- 
 lows', could put the parish in a condition to pay such a 
 salary. And I am assured that I could not live in San 
 Francisco — being myself a very poor economist — for less 
 than $5000, at least, with my family. 
 
 I fmd that I must sacrifice nearly $2000 on house and 
 furniture and books, if I uproot here. Then there is the 
 expense of removal with my wife and daughter; then the 
 cost of setting up anew out there, the return expenses, 
 and the new housekeeping costs, two or three years hence, 
 if I come back. 
 
 The risks are very great. I am a poor man ; I have 
 worked very hard for ten years, have had heavy extra 
 expenses, which still continue, and can not afford to 
 give up such certainties as are before me here, for the 
 ventures of so distant a field of labor. Every year my 
 lecture opportunities enlarge. I should abandon that 
 field in going to San Francisco, and might not be able to 
 reenter it so favorably. 
 
 Then beyond all this, I have misgivings as to my qual- 
 ification for such work as your Society needs, to fill the 
 Church with numbers and enthusiasm. I am not extem- 
 pore enough — electric enough — so I fear. You need a 
 temperament like Dr. Bellows', or a stirring preacher like 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 181 
 
 Chapin, to enable the parish to fulfill such promises as 
 Mr. Swain's note to me contained. From all that I have 
 heard and thought, therefore, I dare not trust to my power 
 of infusing ability enough in the parish to produce the 
 requisite receipts. I have too much at stake. 
 
 Yet I feel very strongly the attractions of the field. 
 If I could properly go to San Francisco on a smaller sal- 
 ary, I would gladly do so, and work to the best of my 
 pov/er for the good of your parish and our noble cause. 
 Or if I could have gone out to California on the invitation 
 of the Mercantile Library Association, last spring, inde- 
 pendently of the parish, and preached in the city and 
 surveyed the field for lecturing, I could possibly have 
 found firm ground for an affirmative reply to your call. 
 
 But as the whole subject has shaped itself, since my 
 inquiries and serious thought, and with the firm convic- 
 tion tliat many of the inducements must prove illusory, 
 nothing seems to be left to me, at present, but to decline 
 the call. Several of my own parishioners were disposed, 
 at first, to the movement; and would be still if they were 
 convinced that the basis is firm. But they cannot advise 
 me, otherwise than against it, as matters look to them 
 now. I have told you frankly my whole mind, and I can 
 only offer you, with sincere thanks for your kindness and 
 complimentary call, my cordial cooperation in obtaining 
 a man who can prudently go on a smaller salary than 
 would be necessary for me. 
 
 With cordial regards, believe me, 
 
 Faithfully 3^our&, 
 
 T. S. KING. 
 
 This letter contained one single paragraph upon which 
 we felt that we could hang a hope of success; and accord- 
 ingly, by return of mail, the Trustees dispatched to Dr. 
 Bellows such documents as removed from Mr. King's 
 mind all doubts as to his true duty. He accepted promptly 
 — as promptly as he did everything when convinced of the 
 path in which he should tread. By an early mail, a letter 
 was received from Mr. Lambert, one of our Committee, 
 enclosing a note to him from Mr. King, as follows: — 
 
182 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Boston, January 2d, 1860. 
 
 My Dear Friend : I hasten to say that I have written 
 my resignation to the Hollis Street Parish, which will be 
 offered this evening. To-morrow, I shall write to the 
 Committee in San Francisco, so that the letter shall go 
 by the mail of the 6th. Probably I shall stay there, if 
 I live, two years. I have no time for further particulars 
 this morning. 
 
 I hope 1 have made no mistake in deciding to go so 
 far without going permanently. But trusting and pray- 
 ing that I may be of service to the noble brethren and 
 the good cause in San Francisco, and pledging to you all 
 my power to that end, during my stay there, I am, with 
 cordial thanks for all your kindness, sincerely yours, 
 
 T. S. KING. 
 
 The following steamer brought Mr. King's letter of 
 acceptance — so noble, so frank, that it should ever be 
 preserved in the archives of this Society as a memento of 
 his goodness, and an enduring monument of his liberal, 
 self-sacrificing spirit. 
 
 Boston, January 3d, 1860. 
 R. B. Swain, Chairman of Trustees 
 
 of Unitarian Parish San Francisco: 
 
 My Dear Sir: As I am now addressing you for the 
 first time, in my reply to many kind and important com- 
 munications, it is proper that I should explain to you my 
 long silence. When your letters and documents of Nov. 
 3d reached me, I had just received a very urgent call to 
 remove to Cincinnati, to take charge of a Society recently 
 organized there. I had not anticipated such a response 
 to my letter to Mr. Brooks, as your parish so generously 
 returned. I supposed that the correspondence had ceas- 
 ed. Mr. Lambert was in quest of another minister for 
 you, and as the movement in Cincinnati was backed by 
 strong letters from prominent Unitarian clergymen, I 
 found myself not a little embarrassed when your new call 
 came, by the confiicting claims of your city, Cincinnati, 
 and l^oston. To add to my perplexity, I had engaged to 
 lecture two weeks in December in the heart of New York 
 State, which time was practically lost to me. 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 183 
 
 On Saturday last, December 31st. I made my decision 
 to go to San Francisco, and on Sunday communicated it 
 to my Society here. Yesterday I wrote a letter of resig- 
 nation, which v/as read to a very full meeting of parish- 
 ioners last evening. A large Committee was chosen to 
 confer with me, and to ask me so to change the form of my 
 withdrawal, as to accept leave of absence for fifteen 
 months from the first of April, leaving it for the future 
 to determine whether or not my connection with the So- 
 ciety should be finally dissolved. 
 
 The reasons for requesting this were: that the parish 
 would be seriously shaken by an absolute withdrawal so 
 suddenly; that I could not be sure of liking a residence 
 in California more than a year; that my family might be 
 anxious to return ; that you might be dissatisfied with my 
 service and prefer not to continue the arrangement; that 
 if I should return so soon they would like to have the 
 first claim to a resettlement ; and that, if I should be 
 wanted in San Francisco, and decide to remain longer 
 with you, the devoted friends I leave in the Ilo^lis Street 
 Society could bear the separation better, if it should be 
 gradually made. 
 
 The tone of the large meeting w^as so kindly; — not a 
 voice or vote dissenting — and the reasons for my- leaving 
 at all for California were so generously appreciated, that 
 although the action of the parishioners was an entire 
 surprise to me, I could not refuse assent to their request. 
 
 But I beg you to understand that I am not pledged or 
 bound in the least, by the form in w^hich the separation 
 from Boston is made. I shall go to you with as much 
 freedom as if I had never been settled in the East. Your 
 generous guarantee offers me a salary for one, two, or three 
 years, at my option. I accept the call for a 3'ear, to be 
 your pastor during that period. If, before its cloce, I see 
 clearly that I ought to remain longer, a letter to Bor^on, 
 staling the fact, will release me from any obligation. 
 And if, during that time, the Society here desire to en- 
 gage another mmister, nothing but a letter to me is need- 
 ed to give them the moral right to do so. 
 
 I have been thus explicit that you may know in exact 
 
184 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 terms, and in detail, the state of the case. I ought to say, 
 also, that Mr. Lambert wrote to me from New York, on 
 December 28th, that it would be advisable for me to go, 
 even if I should know beforehand that I could remain 
 only a year. 
 
 But now, my dear sir, let me speak through you to the 
 Trustees and the Society, unhampered by any details of 
 business. I thank you most cordially for your strong 
 and generous invitation. From the first moment when I 
 received the call, last September, I was attracted to ac- 
 cept it for a time, that I might try and be of service in 
 your fresh and promising field. My only regret is that 
 any pecuniary questions have intruded to disturb the 
 nobler considerations which should govern a clergyman's 
 choice. It was my necessities that dictated the particu- 
 lars in the letter to Mr. Brooks, and I did not deem that 
 the letter would be sent to your city. I shall go to you 
 in the hope of using all the powers that may be continu- 
 ed to me, for your permanent strength as a liberal Chris- 
 tian parish. My great ambition in life is, to serve the 
 cause of Christianity as represented by the noblest souls 
 of all the liberal Christian parties. I am not conscious 
 of any gifts, either of thought or speech, that can make 
 my presence with you so desirable as you seem to think ; 
 but, if I can be of service by cooperating with you, in 
 laying deeper the foundations and lifting higher the walls 
 of our faith in your city, whose civilization is weaving 
 out of the most various, and in many respects, the best 
 threads of the American character, I shall have reason 
 always to bless Providence for a rich privilege. 
 
 It is doubtful if I can leave here with my family be- 
 fore the 6th of April, but of this I shall know in a v/eek 
 or two; as soon as I can possibly go to you, ycA\ may be 
 sure of my presence, and before we meet on the Pacific 
 coast, let me ask you to accept a cordial general greeting, 
 as brethren and friends, invoking for all of you health, 
 prosperity, and every inward blessing of the perfect Pro- 
 vidence. 
 
 In Christian bonds, your servant and friend, 
 
 TH. STARR KING. 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 185 
 
 Accompanying this letter was a private note to my- 
 self, a portion of which belongs to the history of the 
 times. 
 
 Boston, January odj 1860. 
 
 My Dear AIr. Swain : I sent yesterday my official 
 answer to the generous call of your Society, with the 
 reasons for its delay. 
 
 You will see that I shall hardly be able to leave be- 
 fore the 5th April. I have many lecture engagements to 
 fulfill between this and March. I cannot relinquish them, 
 for I shall need the money they will furnish to pay the 
 expenses of removal and clear a few debts here. I am 
 sorry that I am not in a condition to start at once. 
 
 May I ask you to inform me if there is a room that 
 could be used as a minister's writing-room in your 
 church building. 
 
 I have not time to reply by this mail to the in-^atation 
 of the Mercantile Library Association, but will do so in a 
 few days. Of course I shall be glad to lecture for them 
 at the time best suited to their convenience, and as to 
 terms, will not fear that we shall disagree. 
 
 Cordially, yours, T. S. KING. 
 
 This letter electrified the Society and gladdened the 
 hearts of the community ; for the fame of Mr. King, as a 
 scholar and a divine, had long before reached this side of 
 the continent, and the public rejoiced that a great addi- 
 tion was to be made to our stock of talent and energy. 
 The future of our Society was no longer a question of 
 doubt, and weeks before the arrival of Mr. King, every 
 pew in our church was taken, and we were at once placed 
 upon a permanent and prosperous footing. 
 
 He left Boston on the 5th of April, 1860, but before 
 his arrival several letters were received from him, from 
 two of which I will make extracts. 
 
 Boston, March 4th, 1860. 
 My Dear Friend: Let me thank you cordially, though 
 it must be hurriedly, for your kind and most interesting 
 communications of the last mail. It gives me joy to 
 
186 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 learn that the tidings of the acceptance were so gener- 
 ously echoed. You seem to be anxious that I shall not 
 doubt of the readiness of the Society to second all my 
 labors and confirm my hopes. 
 
 Be assured, my friend, that I have no fringe or thread 
 of skepticism on any such point. My only fear is lest 
 you should be disappointed when I arrive, and find that 
 your anticipations outrun any possible performance 
 from me. 
 
 Would that I could have made arrangements to leave 
 to-morrow. I had engaged my rooms in the Baltic for 
 April 5th, and now she and the Atlantic are withdrawn. 
 We must go in the Yanderbilt line, with prices raised to 
 $200 a ticket. This is reasonable enough — but I should 
 like to have had the advantage of the low fares, and es- 
 pecially of the better boats. 
 
 We cannot learn yet, either, whether or not April 5th 
 will be one of the leaving days, under the new arrange- 
 ment. Probably it will, but no advertisements are made, 
 and no tickets sold so far ahead. We hope that the 
 Northern Light will sail on that day. If I could have 
 foreknown the present combination, you would see we, 
 instead of this note, by the boat that takes this. 
 
 Dr. Bellows very kindly sent me your letter to him. 
 I read its passages with practical interest. I expect to 
 like California, and all of you, much better than you will 
 return the feeling. 
 
 I am troubled in spirit a little as to our friend Buck- 
 ingham. I hope that he can find preacliing occupation that 
 will be advantageous in the State, and shall be glad to as- 
 sist him in any enterprise that will open such opportunity. 
 
 You can hardly appreciate the pressure on my time 
 and thoaghts of the last few weeks. A pile of letters 
 now lies unanswered, for which I can get no leisure. 
 This will account for my delay in rcpl\ang formally to 
 the Mercantile Library invitation. They can choose 
 their own time for four lectures. Of course, T cannot 
 hear from you in reply to this note. The next mail will 
 probably gladden mo v/ith a commimication from you. 
 I am, gratefully, your friend, T. S. Kili G» 
 
THOMAS STAER KING. 187 
 
 Boston, March 19th, 1850. 
 
 My Dear Friend: I send a word by this steamer, al- 
 though there is nothing of special moment that calls for 
 a letter. 
 
 It has not been in my power to arrange for leaving 
 earlier than April 5th. The Northern Light is announced 
 for that date. 
 
 Next Sunday I am to preach my farewell sermon in 
 Boston. The parish behave more nobly to me than I 
 could have dreamed it possible. Their conduct, so large- 
 minded and considerate, smooths my removal, while it 
 attaches me still stronger to such friends by the heart- 
 fibres. 
 
 Drs. Bellows and Osgood have arranged for a public 
 Unitarian breakfast-party for me in New York, the day 
 before we sail. This is in honor of the faithful breth- 
 ren in San Francisco, so I hope you will feel proud on 
 April 4th. 
 
 In the hope of finding you well when I reach you, 
 and not quite sick of your bargain, I am, cordially, yours, 
 
 T. S. KING. 
 
 What followed upon his arrival is familiar to every 
 person present. The Society gi^ew in numbers, strength 
 and enthusiasm. Mr. King at once ingratiated himself in 
 the affections of the people. Answering a call from the 
 Mercantile Library Association for a course of four lec- 
 tures, he drew around him crowds, the like of which had 
 never before been known in this city. Notwithstanding 
 he was paid liberally by the Association, the lectures 
 added largely to the treasury of that Institution, and he 
 was invited to deliver a second course, which he was com- 
 pelled to decline, from a sense of duty to this Society. 
 What has been the history of our Church since then, is a 
 matter of record. During the first year of his ministra- 
 tion, a debt of $20,000, which had been a halter about 
 our necks, and which had threatened to strangle us, was 
 extinguished. Not satisfied with this success, which 
 surpassed the most sanguine expectations of the Society, 
 he pursued his labors unremittingly. Ilis active, ardent 
 
ibo REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 spirit kii(jw no bounds, and he continued his efforts with- 
 out any thoughts of self, but with an eye single to the 
 best interests of those in whose cause he devoted the most 
 of his time and talents. It soon became apparent that his 
 field was too small, and that a larger church, more cen- 
 trally located, was essentially necessary. To the erection 
 of such a church, which should at once be an ornament 
 to the city, an honor to the Society, and a true represen- 
 tative of our strength, he devoted all his energies. He 
 started the call by a liberal subscription himself; he lent 
 to the cause all the momentum of his sanguine, ardent 
 nature ; he enlisted others in its support by his example 
 and his persuasive and convincing appeals. How well 
 he succeeded for ^^s•, let this magnificent edifice, so beau- 
 tiful, so tasteful, so grand, attest. What was the result 
 to Jmnselfj let that grave answer. For I solemnly believe, 
 that to his devoted care and anxiety and toil in the erec- 
 tion of this building, may be attributed much of that 
 physical debility which undermined his constitution and 
 shortened his days. He gave us the church with his life. 
 He gave us a temple, elegant in its proportions, ample in 
 its accommodations, and pleasing to the taste and refine- 
 ment of the people. But the organ he so liberally 
 donated to the Society w^as used to sound his requiem, the 
 pulpit he adorned is his mausoleum, and the Church is 
 his own enduring monument, consecrated forever to the 
 memory of his goodness, his affection to his Society, and 
 his undying name. 
 
 Mr. King, as if possessed of the gift of prescience, had 
 long entertained the belief that he would never reach the 
 age of forty. He said but little upon the subject — but a 
 short time after his arrival here, he addressed an interest- 
 ing communication to me upon the affairs of the Church, 
 in which this idea was constantly interwoven. It ap- 
 peared as if it were his desire to place his impressions 
 upon record — and so strong were these feelings, that he 
 was the more anxious to put the affairs of the Church 
 upon a safe foundation immediately, and complete the 
 work which he had begun. Some who did not know him, 
 attributed this anxiety to a determination on his part to 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 189 
 
 leave the State at an early da}^ I am sure he had no in- 
 tention of leaving us permanently. A few months ago, 
 he unfolded to me all his plans, and he then statii^d that 
 he was desirous of visiting Europe, and particularly Ger- 
 many, for purposes of education ; that if he could leave 
 here for a period of two years, for travel abroad, and im- 
 prove his mind and health, he would be glad to return 
 and remain. If the Liberal Christians thought best to 
 build him another and smaller Church, he would be quite 
 content to preach. If not, and they were satisfied with 
 the minister who should be installed during his absence, 
 he would devote himself to literary pursuits, to preaching 
 occasionally, and to advancing our cause and the cause of 
 public charities throughout the State. But I must read 
 the letter to which I have alluded. 
 
 San Francisco, August 16th, 1800. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Swain : I have thought very seriously 
 since Tuesday evening, of the objects and results of the 
 meeting of the Trustees at my house, and I venture to 
 trouble you with some lines, which had better be written 
 than spoken. 
 
 I regret to learn that the debt remaining against the 
 parish is so large as $8,000, and I cannot help feeling some 
 serious concern in relation to it. My special object in 
 sending you this note is to learn if any way can be opened 
 by me that will lead to the liquidation of it, or a large por- 
 tion of it, this fall. 
 
 What moves me more powerfully, is the apprehension 
 I have begun to feel as to my health. 
 
 Six or eight months before leaving Boston, I beran to 
 be conscious that my health was insecure. I could not 
 bear the thought of a long season of invalid-ism, rnd a 
 long experience of lying-upon-the-shelf-itiveness ; and so 
 I was more strongly impelled, to California, by the hope 
 and belief that I could help the brethren and the cause 
 here by labor that would not exhaust my lessened strength, 
 while the climate would repair the damage, and possibly 
 fill the fountain with an unusual store of vitality. 
 
 It is useless for me to shut my eyes to the fact that I 
 
190 REPEESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 am not so well as I was when in Boston. I experience 
 strange debility, and singular pains and numbness in the 
 brain. For writing purposes I am nearly worthless- — and 
 the symptoms are the more serious from the fact, that my 
 father's constitution (which in most respects I seem to 
 have inherited) snapped at about thirty-six. He was 
 a very strong man till then, but broke thus earl}^, was 
 good for nothing for three or four years, and died at 
 forty- one. 
 
 ISTow, I desire to be of essential service to the parish 
 here, by my visit. I cannot be unless your debt is wiped 
 out. If I shall not grow stronger this fall aud winter, I 
 must return East next spring, to stop all ministerial work 
 — ^perhaps, to cease all work on this planet — and it would 
 be a very bad thing to leave you then, with four or five 
 thousand dollars of debt to be paid. 
 
 Can I not, think you, start some plan for paying off so 
 large a portion of it this fall, that there will certainly he 
 none remaining next spring? Then you would be on the safe 
 side ; and if my health should improve, and I can stay 
 with you longer, another period of service would bear the 
 more fruit. Would any proposition from me, in a sermon, 
 towards such a result, be out of place? Of course, I 
 should breathe no word of my real motive, as to my state 
 of health. I do not wish you to mention it. I have not 
 even told my wife these fears, and she does not know 
 that I write this letter. Yet I am so impressed with the 
 suspicion that my constitution is impaired, that I feel it 
 my duty to consult with some one as to this matter of the 
 debt, and the future of the parish — and with whom so 
 properly as with you ? 
 
 Do not allow yourself to be worried, or even seriously 
 alarmed, by what I say. Look at my fears, as I do for 
 the present, in a business light, and tell me what can be 
 done, and how best done to put the parish out of danger. 
 I am perfectly willing to take the matter out of the Trus- 
 tees' hands, if you say so, and try my luck from the 
 pulpit in reducing the debt. 
 
 In everything I say about my strength, I am under- 
 stating rather than overstating. Some days I do not 
 
THOMAS STARR KING, 191 
 
 seem to have a thimble-full of vitality ; but with what I 
 have, I am wholly your friend, T. S. KING. 
 
 P. S.— Do not reply to this by peny we can talk as 
 well. 
 
 I seized an early opportunity to have an interview 
 upon the subject of the letter. His thoughts were alto- 
 gether with reference to the prosperity of the Society, and 
 the danger of his breaking down, and leaving us to carry 
 the heavy burden of a debt. I endeavored to dispel his 
 fears in regard to his health, and inquired why such a 
 presentiment had possessed him. He said it was no pre- 
 sentiment^ but an inwrought conviction; that the conviction 
 was well based on physiological grounds ; that he enter- 
 tained no fears of death ; that but for his anxiety in 
 regard to his family, he could hail the approach of death 
 with pleasure ; that his life had been one of great toil 
 from his earliest boyhood ; that he had looked forward 
 to each approaching year as a season when rest would be 
 vouchsafed to him, but it never came. Every year 
 brought new cares, new responsibilities, new labors, and 
 he had come to the conclusion that there was to be no 
 rest for him on this globe. He again said, that but for 
 his anxiety for his family, he would, therefore, be glad to 
 enjoy the perpetual rest which could only be found be- 
 yond the grave. 
 
 Mr. King's labors were immense. He never lost a 
 moment. He knew how to economize time. But his 
 time was much broken by constant demands upon his 
 chr.rity and kindness. Every claimant found a respectful 
 audience, however pressing his duties, and no deserving 
 one was turned awa}^ unsatisfied. His charities were en- 
 tirely unostentatious, and oftentimes stealthily bestowed ; 
 so stealthily that not even the members of his own house- 
 hold, nor his best friends were informed of them. I am 
 sure that he took a secret delight in unheralded acts of 
 kindness, and that he found sufficient commendation in 
 the silent approval of his own heart. One of our own 
 parishioners has informed me, since his death, that he 
 
 'nifiVBE:iT7, 
 
192 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 has been paid hundreds of dollars by Mr. King for wood 
 that he has ordered for suffering families — and another 
 has also stated to me that he had sent large quantities of 
 the necessaries of life, such as flour, sugar, etc., to dif- 
 ferent sections of the cit}^, by direction of Mr. King, for 
 the poor and needy. These quiet deeds of charity had a 
 peculiar charm to him. But he was discreet in the be- 
 stowal of his favors. I know that Mr. King took much 
 time to inquire into the merits of each case, and that he 
 was seldom deceived. He took a hroad view of suffering. 
 When cases were presented to him, the sufferer lu^ged of 
 course only the selfish side. Mr. King saw all around and 
 through it, and took an intellectual as well as a Christian 
 view. The sufferer might seek to obtain relief from im- 
 mediate wants — Mr. King thought of his degradation, of 
 his wounded pride, the poverty-stricken spirit, and what 
 might be his usefulness to society if raised from the 
 '' Slough of Despond " to a position of prosperity. And 
 so he gauged the extent of his charities, for he seldom 
 stopped to reflect upon the amplitude of his own purse. 
 
 By reason of these constant drafts upon Mr. King's 
 attention, the execution of some of his most important 
 labors was impeded and sadly interrupted. While the 
 rest of the world was enjoying the repose of sleep, he was 
 laboring. He was compelled to use the midnight hours 
 for much of his literary work, and I have frequently 
 known him to flnish his morning sermon fifteen minutes 
 before the church services commenced. His most elo- 
 quent perorations have been written, watch in hand, but 
 a few minutes previous to the delivery of the exordiums. 
 
 In spite of these perpetual claims upon his time he 
 w^as, nevertheless, a thorough student ; not a library in 
 San Francisco, of any note, either public or private, th at 
 he had not consulted. His perceptions were so active, 
 his intuitions so keen, and his memory so retentive, that 
 he understood, appreciated and learned instantly. He 
 never ceased to study. Circumstances prevented him 
 from completing his college course, but he none the less 
 qualified himself for his degrees, which were bestowed 
 upon him, without solicitation, by Harvard University. 
 
THOMAS STAER KING, 193 
 
 One. of the newspaper writers says that " Mr. King's 
 scholarship was not deep, nor extensive, not even in 
 theology." And another says: " Not favored with college 
 or university advantages, he was thoroughly and carefully 
 read in the literature of his own language." These 
 writers evidently did not know whereof they affirmed. 
 They have imbibed the error common to college gradu- 
 ates, of supposing that a man without an Alma Mater 
 cannot be a scholar. Mr. King was so much the more 
 deep and profovMd in his scholarship. He had no college 
 education to fall back upon, but he continued his re- 
 searches until he died. He was thoroughly conversant 
 with the Greek, Latin and Hebrew languages, and under- 
 stood well the French and German. But he hated 
 pedantry. He never obtruded his knowledge upon the 
 observation of others, and in conversation or public 
 speech, seldom, if ever, quoted from the classics. 
 
 No one who remembers his famous controversy, a few 
 years since, with a distinguished divine and an apostate 
 from the Unitarian faith, in Boston, can doubt his schol- 
 arship. No one who knew him intimately will deny that 
 he had mastered several of the modern languages. In 
 the case of the controversy to wdiich I have alluded, a 
 question arose as to the correct translation in the English 
 Bible of certain passages from the Greek and Hebrew. 
 His antagonist, than whom, it was supposed, no riper 
 scholar lived in Boston, under-estimated entirely the 
 powers of his opponent. So completely did Mr. King 
 annihilate him, that he sought the editor of the paper in 
 which the argunaent was conducted, on Sunday ; confessed 
 his error, and implored him, with tears in his eyes, to 
 spare him. 
 
 His acquaintance w^ith the French language was 
 perfect. He never used a translation when he could 
 procure the original ; and as to the depth of theology, 
 those may safely question it who never crossed swords 
 or measured lances with him. Probably a more thor- 
 oughly learned Biblical scholar never entered a pulpit. 
 And yet, Mr. King was modest in his pretensions ; he 
 underrated himself; his humility was so great, that he 
 13 
 
194 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 never correctly appreciated his own abilities. If he was 
 praised, he thought himself undeserving ; if blamed, or 
 severely criticised, he was ready to believe that he was 
 justly open to criticism or censure. Singular as the state- 
 ment may seem to many here, he was extremely sensitive 
 to praise or blame; he enjoyed the first less, and suffered 
 from the second more, than most mortals. 
 
 Although Mr. King preferred to labor in the field of 
 literature, for which his tastes and habits best adapted 
 him, his sympathies for humanity were so broad, his love 
 of country so intense, and his patriotism so ardent, that 
 upon the breaking out of the rebellion he at once ar- 
 rayed himself against treason and traitors. At a time 
 when all the people were stunned by the development of 
 the designs of the enemies of our country, Mr. King 
 commenced to exhort from the pulpit and the forum. 
 He rose to the majesty of the occasion. His eloquence 
 was never more fervent, never more convincing. The 
 position to be taken by California among the States was 
 deemed doubtful. What was termed Southern chivalry 
 had, since her admission into the family of States, always 
 exercised political and social control. ]^ow it became 
 rampant. Loyalty was only a latent, not an active senti- 
 ment. It was uncertain whether Unionism, a Pacific Re- 
 public, or Secessionism would prevail. The masses were 
 undecided and wanted a leader. At this critical moment, 
 and as if by the direct interposition of the Almighty, 
 Mr. King stepped into the breach and became the cham- 
 f)ion of his country. Taking the Constitution and Wash- 
 ington for his texts, he went forth appealing to the peo- 
 ple. They had not before been taught their duty. They 
 had been waiting to be told what course to pursue. He 
 at once directed and controlled public sentiment. He 
 lost no opportunity to strike a blow at the rebellion. 
 Visiting different sections of the State, he kindled the 
 fires of patriotism wherever he went, by his matchless 
 eloquence and unanswerable arguments. 
 
 Not the least o^ Mr. King's efforts were his labors in 
 the cause of the United States Sanitary Commission. He 
 early understood and appreciated the vast good which 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 195 
 
 that organization was capable of doing. He considered 
 it the grandest and most magnificent scheme of charity 
 the world had ever known, and he labored faithfully to 
 promote its interests. Conceiving that the isolation of 
 California had deprived the people of the State of the 
 opportunity of assisting the Government in the suppres- 
 sion of the rebellion, he thought that no better channel 
 could be afforded to loyal citizens to manifest their devo- 
 tion to their countr} than by contributing their money to 
 the Treasury of the Commission. Who does not remem- 
 ber his magnetic speeches in Piatt's Hall, and the liber- 
 ality with which the people, within a few days, poured 
 out their hundreds of thousands? For the purpose of 
 keeping loyalty alive, and also for the purpose of advanc- 
 ing the cause of the Commission, he traveled through 
 nearly every section of the State. He visited Oregon, 
 N^evada and Washington Territories, and even extended 
 his journey to Vancouver. Wherever he went his in- 
 fluence was felt, and the people liberally and willingly 
 poured their money into the Treasury of that organiz- 
 ation. I would not detract from the generous and 
 well-timed efforts of those self-sacrificing gentlemen who 
 cooperated with him in his herculean labors, but I ex- 
 aggerate nothing when I say, that to him, more than to 
 all others, is due the glory of contributing so princely an 
 amount to the Treasury of the Commission, that Califor- 
 nia now stands foremost in the sisterhood of States, upon 
 the score of generosity. He was just preparing another 
 campaign in the interior, when he was stricken ill. 
 
 I have a large correspondence from him, written while 
 engaged in his patriotic travels. When absent from the 
 city, and relieved of the cares incident to the life of a 
 clergyman, he seemed to be particularly happy. He 
 would derive inspiration from nature. His spirits, al- 
 ways cheerful, were, on such occasions, exuberant, and 
 oftentimes rollicking. Although the tone of the letters 
 I now propose to present does not exactly accord with 
 the sadness that now pervades this congregation, I cannot 
 refrain from reading some of them here. They present a 
 phase of the character of our dear pastor, which you have 
 
196 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 all enjoyedj and which was one element through which 
 he reached the heart of the people. His genial disposi- 
 tion, his love of humor, and his passionate fondness of 
 Nature, never failed to shine brightly when engaged in 
 correspondence. 
 
 Early in 1861, he traveled through the northern part 
 of the State, delivering patriotic lectures. From Yreka 
 he wrote me as follows : — 
 
 Yreka, May 29th, 1861. 
 
 Here I am, perched on the top of the State, where I 
 can almost toss a copper or a ''five-cent piece" over to 
 the Yankees in Oregon — but I shan't try it, for fear of 
 corrupting their Union principles. 
 
 My health is very good. The journey has been quite 
 fatiguing. From Shasta to Yreka we were twenty- seven 
 hours on the road, and I had an outside seat day and 
 night without a shawl. But I am all right, and my brain 
 has settled again right side up, I believe. 
 
 The weather was very cloudy from Monday, when I 
 started, till last Sunday. Then from Shasta town I caught 
 the first view of Shasta Butte; it was just after sunrise, 
 and the view was glorious indeed. I preached after the 
 vision for a Methodist minis -.er, and ought to have 
 preached well ; but am afraid I didn't. 
 
 To-night I am to speak in a village with the sweet 
 name of 'Dead Wood," and to-morrow I shall dine and 
 sleep at your brother's, in Scott Valley, and speak in the 
 evening at the very important and cultivated settlement 
 of "Hough and Ready." "Scott's Bar" wants me. 
 "Horsetown" is after me. " Mugginsville," bids high. 
 " Oro Fino," applies with a long petition of names. "Mad 
 Mule" has not yet sent in a request, nor "Piety Hill," 
 nor "Modesty Gulch," but doubtless they will be heard 
 from in due time. The Union sentiment is strong, but the 
 seccessionists are watchful and not in despair. 
 
 Yesterday I devoted to a study of Mt. Shasta. I had 
 it in view for ton hours, and sucked it in as an anaconda 
 does a calf. It is glorious beyond expression — it far ex- 
 ceeds my conception of its probable grandeur. I am 
 glad that I called my book the "White Hills.'' To-day is 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 197 
 
 very cloudy, and this mountain is shrouded to the base. 
 Yesterday was the first perfect day that has been here 
 in a fortnight, so I was truly favored. You should by 
 all means see Shasta, and the Scott Yalley, where your 
 brothers live. The whole region is sublime. I shall have 
 lots to report to you on my return. I hope your preach- 
 ing has been good and well attended. 
 
 With cordial regards, believe me sincerely yours, 
 
 T. S. KING. 
 
 The following year he again visited the northern part 
 of the State. During the journey, he frequently addressed 
 me. I will read one characteristic letter. 
 
 Yreka, July 21st, 1862. 
 
 I have received your telegram to-day, for which, except 
 your paying for it, please accept my thanks. I ordered 
 the word to be sent to you — "Answer paid here." If 
 you received it and still paid, you did a mean thing, 
 which can't be settled till I return. 
 
 It is quite hot here to-day, but as it is not 100° no- 
 body calls it hot; anywhere in the nineties, even 99° is 
 moderate — a hundred is hot. We rode all night of Satur- 
 day through from Shasta here, making the trip in twenty- 
 eight hours. The journey from here will be terribly 
 hard, and I almost regret that I made the overland trial. 
 From Jacksonville, where we go to-morrow, to Salem, 
 will be as tough as it can be — it will take three or four 
 days. I doubt if I shall have time to see all I wish to 
 of Oregon and Puget Sound. It will take me another 
 week to reach Portland, and I begin to fear that I shall 
 have to abandon the whole Puget Sound and Yictoria ex- 
 pedition. And the expenses are simply frightful — it 
 cost me over eighty dollars for passage from Marysville to 
 Shasta town, and if I travel through part of Oregon by 
 extras, as I must, sixty dollars a day wdll be the low^est I 
 can do it for, and I have purchased through tickets 
 besides. 
 
 We have seen Mt. Shasta to-day. He is splendid, but 
 not so glorious as last year, for he has not so much snow 
 
198 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 as then ; but it is a magnificent sight indeed. I shall drive 
 out again at sunset to see him, and then come in to lec- 
 ture here once more. In spite of secession and Great- 
 house they will have a lecture again. I didn't wish to, 
 and am sorry that I consented. 
 
 I hope the church plans are finished, and the working 
 near at hand. Good word to everybody. From your 
 friend. T. S. KING. 
 
 P. S.— Tell W. M. that it lifted a load from me to learn 
 that his father is brighter. Give my sincere sympathy 
 and greeting to the good Captain. T. S. K. 
 
 His last expedition to the country appeared to in- 
 vigorate him more than ever. His spirits ran unusually 
 exultant. 
 
 Lake Bigler, June 5th, 1863. 
 I arrived here this forenoon, about ten o'clock. The 
 stage ride from Folsom to Placerville was very hard ; but 
 we took an extra from Placerville on and found it delight- 
 ful. The scenery is nobler than I anticipated, and the 
 situation of the Lake is certainly one of the wonders and 
 masterpieces of scenery belonging to our insignificant 
 little globe. It is of no use to attempt to describe it — I 
 will tell you about it when I return. There should be a 
 law compelling all Californians to visit the Lake on pain 
 of — being transported to the East. It will be a great 
 benefit to me, I am sure, to breathe the keen invigorating 
 air for a few days, eat trout by the hundred weight, hear 
 the roar of the wind through the noble pines, and look 
 at the abundant snow on the superb peaks over the in- 
 land sea. I don't feel as though I ever had a head — and 
 this in two or three hours. 
 
 Yours, sincerely, T. S. K. 
 
 I will cull extracts from one more letter written while 
 on this tour, which illustrate not only his exultation of 
 spirits when relieved of professional duties, but also how 
 his best thoughts were always of his parish. 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 199 
 
 Lake Tahoe, June 25th^ 1863. 
 Ever since Eve ate the apple, clothing has been nec- 
 essary to the human race, and J. C. M. (admirable man) 
 became an indispensable element in civilization. I wore 
 my best clothes in Nevada, and my extreme hope now is 
 to induce them to hold together till I can get back. But 
 if I address the citizens Fourth of July, I must be de- 
 cently clad. So for a commission for J. C. M. If he has 
 my measure, let him make me at once a coat, vest and 
 pants — black. I would like to have the coat a JMth larger 
 than the former one, which was a little too short in the 
 waist and tightish under the arms. It fitted too wdl. I 
 hate to have a man give me Jits. When a secessionist 
 comes in, let M. do his best in that line. If Mr. M. can 
 make the clothes to be ready on the morning of July 
 Fourth, and will make them first rate^ I will wear a pla- 
 card during the delivery of the oration: "Buy all your 
 clothes of J. C. M., one of the best men on the Pacific." 
 Will you carry the message to him at once? 
 
 The weather is glorious here. A friend went out be- 
 fore sunrise and caught four large trout, one of which I 
 ate for breakfast. I have received a noble hymn from 
 Bartol for the dedication of the church. 
 
 I feel ashamed not to be home; for next Sunday, yet 
 cannot help feeling that it is wise to stay. The next four 
 months will try my constitution more than any similar 
 period of my life, and I believe the entire rest here will 
 be profit to the parish. 
 
 Tell Georgie there are three young eagles here which 
 were taken from a nest in a high tree last week. They 
 have great claws and splendid eyes. How he would like 
 to see them ! and I wish he could. If I could send one 
 of them to him in this letter I would, but I am afraid he 
 would stick his sharp bill through the paper before reach- 
 ing Sutter street. 
 
 Your friend always, T. S. KING. 
 
 I have no doubt that his constant studies and his 
 anxieties and unrest here undermined his constitution, 
 and, as the resolutions say, precipitated his death. I can 
 
200 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 never forget the last time I saw him out of his own house, 
 the Friday before he died. He appeared much depressed 
 in spirits — complained of aching bones and a sore throat, 
 and said that he felt like a sponge squeezed dry. Not 
 being well, he was particularly seyisitive that day — was un- 
 usually thoughtful and sad. When we parted, he express- 
 ed a fear that he would not be able to preach on Sunday, 
 and felt deep regret at the thought, for he had made con- 
 siderable preparation for the vesper service, which he de- 
 clared would be the richest of all; and then, he said, he 
 had several important notices to give — particularly the 
 one in regard to the social gatherings on Wednesday, in 
 which he took so deep an interest, and of the success 
 of which he was so very proud. '^But," said he, as we 
 separated, ''come around in the morning, before you go 
 down." He returned to his home never to leave it, save 
 when his spirit took its flight to regions beyond the stars. 
 Morning came, and Mr. King was perceptibly worse. He 
 had changed materially, and I saw that he was a sick man. 
 I did not, however, appreciate the extent of his illness 
 until the following evening — Saturday. He had invited 
 two or three friends to his house to take a cup of tea and 
 pass the evening. Finding himself unable to be person- 
 ally present, he sent to me to request that I would join 
 them at the table. I knew that Mr. King must indeed 
 be very feeble to deprive himself of the pleasure of the 
 society of his own invited guests — and he was feeble. 
 While we were at supper, a bridal party came unexpect- 
 edly. Here his spirit of self-sacrifice shone out resplend- 
 ently, for although he was too much prostrated to see 
 his personal friends, he yielded to the urgent solicitations 
 of these strangers, who he begged would excuse him; 
 arose from what proved to be the bed of death, dressed 
 himself and came down the stairs to perform the mar- 
 riage ceremony. 
 
 The wedding ought to be doubly sanctified to the bride 
 and groom for the heroic spirit of kindness and generosity 
 which prompted him, under such circumstances, to per- 
 form the ceremony — the last professional act of his life. 
 
 After the ceremony, we met in the hall. He looked 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 201 
 
 wretchedly. He was on his way to his bed, from which 
 he was never to rise. Still he was cheerful, expressed his 
 regret that he could not remain longer with his friends, 
 and indulged in a few pleasantries before leaving. 
 
 From that time the disease "crept on with slow and 
 steady pace." On Wednesday, his physician, in view of 
 the great value of his life to his family and the country, 
 advised with some of his friends as to the propriety of a 
 consultation. It was then apparent that Mr. King's life 
 was in danger. On Thursday, there seemed to be a change 
 for the better, and it was evident the disease was mas- 
 tered ; but he was suffering from great physical prostra- 
 tion and exhaustion of the vital energies. If the usual 
 tone of his system could be restored and strength given 
 him,, there would be no doubt of his recovery. But this 
 was not to be. That evening, alarming symptoms mani- 
 fested themselves. He rallied, however, and passed a 
 tolerably comfortable night, sleeping well and breathing 
 with comparative ease. We were all much encouraged, 
 and believed the worst was passed. It was only the calm 
 that precedes the storm — a lull in the fury of the disease 
 preparatory to a last desperate onset. For, on Friday 
 morning, just before six o'clock, while I was standing by 
 the bed-side with the physician, who also had been with 
 him all the night, a perceptible change took place in his 
 appearance which told too plainly that the time for parting 
 had come — that the angel of death was there, and that 
 our dearly loved pastor and friend would soon pass "be- 
 yond the sightless verge of this land of tombs." 
 
 The scene that then followed no pen can desribe — no 
 imagination can conceive. Mr. King had achieved many 
 triumphs for us by his toil and genius. The time had 
 now come for him to achieve the crowning triumph of all 
 — a triumph of his religion — a triumph over death, and 
 a vindication of his life and character. 
 
 Dr. Eckel approached the bedside for the purpose of 
 informing him that he could not long survive. But Mr. 
 King, who had watched the progress of his disease with 
 all the precision of a scientific observer, and all the cool- 
 ness of a disinterested spectator, though not without 
 
202 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 solicitude, had discovered the change, and anticipated him 
 by inquiring as to the character of this new synipton, 
 and whether he could survive it. When told that he 
 could not, there was not the slightest evidence of agita- 
 tion. He calmly and inquiringly looked in the doctor's 
 face, and asked how long he thought he could live ; as if 
 he desired to know as nearly as possible how much time 
 was allowed him on earth to make the necessary prepara- 
 tion. When told but a half an hour, he immediately 
 replied, ^'I wish to make my will." Remembering that 
 he had told me at some time that he had left a will in 
 Boston, I answered, ''Have you not a will already, Mr. 
 King?" He promptly replied that his '' little boy was not 
 then born." 
 
 Some little time was consumed in preparing to write 
 by his bed-side, during which he appeared to be sinking 
 rapidly. I feared his life would not be spared until he 
 could sign the document. But when the preparations 
 were made, the power of his will became manifest. Then 
 commenced a desperate struggle to sustain life until his 
 temporal arrangements were completed ; for although he 
 had not been able to speak louder than a whisper, he now, 
 by a strong effort, raised his voice to nearly its ordinary 
 pitch, and clearly and forcibly enunciated his wishes, say- 
 ing no more than was necessary, and leaving unsaid noth- 
 ing. Having finished this task, he seemed to be much 
 exhausted. I approaced his bed-side with the will in my 
 hand, that it might be read to him previous to signature. 
 He had then apparently relapsed into a comatose state. 
 I said, ''Mr. King, can you hear me?" He opened his 
 eyes with a smile and said, "Read on." Turning his 
 head slightly, in order to catch every word, he answered, 
 at the end of each paragraph, "all right." And when the 
 reading was concluded, and he was asked if anything more 
 was to be added, he replied, "No, it is just as I want it." 
 Waiting a moment as if in thought, he then said, "Add 
 that all other wills are hereby revoked ; you know I have 
 another will in Boston." We who had not death staring 
 us in the face, had failed to detect this omission of so 
 vital a clause. He was more calm than any of us. He 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 203 
 
 was raised in bed, in order that he might sign the docu- 
 ment. With a book for his desk, he took the pen with a 
 steady hand, deliberately dipped it in the ink, and, to the 
 astonishment of all around, wrote his name (which even 
 a well man could not easily write surrounded by such dif- 
 ficulties) with a firmness and rapidity and ease not sur- 
 passed even by himself. He looked carefully at the sig- 
 nature when finished, punctuated it as usual, reached the 
 pen to one who was standing by, and ''laid him down 
 to die." 
 
 Recovering in a minute from the exhaustion of the 
 effort, he began to bid farewell to those around him. 
 The scene was sublime beyond description. A cordial 
 smile played upon his features. As one by one ap- 
 proached the bedside of the dying man. he extended 
 his hand to them heartily. To one he said, ''Good- 
 bye, Colonel;" and, seizing him with both hands, he added 
 — "God bless you." To an attached domestic he said: 
 " Good bye, Sarah — I thank you for all you have done 
 for us." To the faithful nurse, " Good bye, Kathreen — 
 take good care of Fretzie." 
 
 He appeared to have no thoughts of self, but was 
 speaking words of cheerfulness and consolation to those 
 around him, to the last moment. He whispered to his 
 wife, "Be sure and tell Dr. Eckel I think that he has 
 done everything that a human agent could possibly do 
 for me." He expressed to her his wishes as to the dis- 
 position of his manuscripts, and spoke freely with her 
 upon all points in relation to the family. He said, "Do 
 not weep for me, I know it's right. I wish I could make 
 you feel so. I wish I could describe my feelings. It 
 is strange ! I feel all the privileges and greatness of the 
 future." To his friend, Mr. Low, he said: "I see a great 
 future before me. It already looks grand, beautiful. I 
 am passing away fast. My feelings are strange." It was 
 evident that Mr. King was watching with intellectual inter- 
 est the approach of death, and the passage beyond this 
 vale of tears. The condition and mysteries of the future 
 state had been a subject of passionate study and relig- 
 ious speculation for many years. He knew that they 
 
204 KEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 were now all to be revealed to hiin in a few minutes, and 
 I am persuaded that his spirit soared exultant at the 
 thought. His wife asked him if he had any particular 
 message for friends at home. He replied: "Tell them I 
 went lovingly, trustfully, and peacefully. A few mo- 
 ments later he said, as if dating his own death: ''To-d^ly 
 is the fourth of March; sad news will go over the wires 
 to-day." 
 
 I approached his bedside — he extended his hand to 
 me, and said, with a sweet smile playing upon his features, 
 ^'Good-bye, Swain; keep my memory green. I wish you 
 to say to my Society, that it is my earnest desire that 
 they pay the debt upon the Church, and not leave the 
 burden to be carried by my successor. I had rather they 
 would do this than erect a tomb- stone at my grave. Let 
 the Church, free of debt, be my monument. I want no 
 better. Tell them these were my last icords^ and say 
 ^ Good-bye' to all of them for me." 
 
 After this he seemed to be quiet a moment, as if 
 sleeping. I spoke to him and said: ''Mr. King, are you 
 happy?" Turning his head slightly and looking at me 
 with his bright, full eyes, he answered: ''Yes; happy, 
 resigned, trustful." 
 
 "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. 
 
 "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he 
 leadeth me beside the still waters. 
 
 "He restore th my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of 
 righteousness for his name's sake. 
 
 " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
 of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art with me ; thy 
 rod, and thy staff, they comfort me. 
 
 "Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of 
 mine enemies ; thou anointest mine head with oil ; my cup 
 runneth over. 
 
 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the 
 days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the 
 Lord forever." 
 
 If I had the tongue of an angel, I could not depict 
 the triumphant glory of this scene. His voice was raised 
 to a loud tone, and he lifted his hand and pointed his 
 
5' ' 
 
 17 
 
 THOMAS STAER KING. '^^''4^^205 
 
 ^ 
 
 finger with that peculiar gesture so characteristic of him 
 in the pulpit. He did not pronounce this Psalm in rhap- 
 sody — nothing of the kind — it was said calmly and delib- 
 erately and thoughtfully. The Psalm is an expression of 
 confidence in God's grace; and what more appropriate 
 reply could be made to the inquiry if he was happy ? It 
 was a spontaneous and incidental outpouring, and but 
 for such a question, would probably never have been 
 uttered. 
 
 His charming little boy, not quite two years of age, 
 was brought to his bedside. He saluted him by saying 
 ^'Beautiful boy," and his last act was to throw a good- 
 bye kiss to him as he was taken from the room. In a 
 few moments he had passed away, like a child falling 
 asleep. He said he had no pain whatever, but continued 
 to breathe slower and slower, and without a pang or 
 a struggle closed his eyes, and ceased to live on earth. 
 
 In giving you this narrative, I have simply performed 
 what I consider to be a duty. I hope that I have not 
 tired the patience of this congregation. My relations 
 with Mr. King were at first professional, in the capacity 
 of Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Subsequently, 
 these relations were absorbed in the higher and more 
 sacred relations of one who loved and honored him. 
 
 During the whole of my intercourse with him, I never 
 knew him to utter a selfish thought, or do a selfish act, 
 or one, rightly interpreted, that could be tortured to mean 
 selfish. His language was always pure and refined, and 
 he never uttered a sentiment in my presence that would 
 be unfit for the most fastidious ear. He is now gone to 
 reap the reward of his works in Heaven. "Let us fondly 
 think of him, and aspire towards him, and pray for a purer 
 soul, that we may mount to his celestial circle at last." 
 In the faith that there is to be meeting and recognition 
 of friends hereafter, his friend Alger, whom he so loved 
 and honored, eloquently says : "The death of friends will 
 come as a message from the Great Father — a message 
 solemn, yet kind— laden, indeed, with natural sadness, 
 but heightened with sure promise, and followed by 
 Heavenly compensations. If tears flow, they flow not in 
 
206 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 scalding bitterness from the Marah fountain of despair, 
 but in chastened joy from the smitten rock of faith." 
 
 The following Poem may very appropriately follow 
 the foregoing sketch of Thomas Starr King's life. It is 
 from the pen of his especial friend, John Gr. Whitier. 
 
 Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest — 
 
 The flowers of Eien round thee blowing! 
 And, on thy ear, the murmurs blest 
 
 Of Shiloh's waters softly flowing! 
 Beneath that Tree of Life which gives 
 To all the earth its healing leaves — 
 In the white robe of angels clad. 
 
 And wandering by that sacred river, 
 "Whose streams of holiness make glad, 
 
 The City of our God forever! 
 
 Noblest of spirits ! not for thee 
 
 Our tears are shed — our sighs are given : 
 "Why mourn to know thou art a free 
 
 Partaker of the joys of Heaven ? 
 Finished thy work, and kept thy faith 
 In Christian firmness unto death: 
 And beautiful, as sky and earth, 
 
 When Autumn's sun is downward going. 
 The blessed memory of thy worth 
 
 Around thy place of slumber glowing! 
 
 But woe for us ! who linger still 
 
 With feebler strength and hearts less lowly 
 And minds less steadfast to the will 
 
 Of Him, whose every work is holy ! 
 For not like thine is crucified 
 The spirit of our human pride : 
 And at the bondsman's tale of woe. 
 
 And for the outcast and forsaken, 
 Not warm like thine, but cold and slow. 
 
 Our weaker sympathies awaken. 
 
 Oh, for the death the righteous die ! 
 
 An end like Autumn's day declining. 
 On human hearts as on the sky. 
 
 With holier, tenderer beauty shining: 
 As to the parting soul were given 
 The radiance of an opening Heaven ! 
 As if that pure and blessed light, 
 
 From off the Eternal Altar flowing. 
 Were bathing in its upward flight, 
 
 The spirit to its worship going. 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 207 
 
 ^^(tur^ 0i §a\ ^Itasi. ^tmx png, 
 
 Delivered before the -Dashaway Association of San 
 Francisco, July 10th, 1860. 
 
 I have always considered it a high privilege to address or speak 
 in behalf of so noble an association as the one before me, or of any- 
 subject connected with its condition and progress. It is not my 
 intention to speak of the great principle endorsed and honored by 
 the Dashaways, nor of the abstract and moral grounds of total ab- 
 stinence. I purpose attempting no panoramic sketch of dissipa- 
 tion — no grouping and massing of its unknown effects. I prefer to 
 address myself more to the fresh and practical effect — and it were 
 well, if in every phase of the social fabric we all did the same. I would 
 rejoice if in every village and hamlet of this State the gifted man of 
 eloquence could be heard cursing the spirit of Drink and Kuin, his 
 words a tissue of its woes, presenting in hideous aspect the unsat- 
 isfied cravings, the unquieted doubts and fears, the tottering pros- 
 perity, the undermined strength, the blighted hopes, the defeated 
 aspirations, the seared promise, the ruined happiness, and the fear- 
 ful woes engendered and fostered and quickened by that abhorrent 
 Spirit which has sapped the vigor of our great nation, whose his- 
 tory talks of so many prominent men whose minds have wavered 
 and their reason fled; of sages whose towering intellects have be- 
 come but as grand and imposing ruins before it; of the throne of 
 reason with its delicate nerve of conscience befogged and bewil- 
 dered; of war, and duelling, and lust, and murder; of the teeming 
 scaffold, the insidious disease, the frightful insanity, the drivelling 
 idiocy; of the wasted field, the dilapidated house, the scanty board, 
 the untenanted hall, and the husband-deserted hearih, with the 
 heart-weary wife sitting shivering beside it; of the forsaken child- 
 ren, so interesting in their very tenderness of helplessness — that 
 Spirit less scrupulous than the majesty of Denmark 1 But it re- 
 quires something more than the eloquence which vindicates and 
 sustains and fructifies an intangible principle to stay the evil — 
 something better than the most vigorous descriptions of all I have 
 imagined — something which wastes no influence that can possibly 
 be excited — something which shall do more than a score of the 
 most eloquent orators — organized action ! An organization is far 
 greater than an idea, for a principle is always connected with it; 
 but it is a corporeal idea — a principle in action ! and what is 
 grander in the domain of awful effects? Until thus clothed, an 
 idea is powerless, and bears about the same analogy to its active 
 operations as does a shadowy ghost to a sturdy man. To illustrate 
 the matter I will tell a short anecdote. Twenty years ago, in Bos- 
 ton, lived a man — an artist, a dear friend of mine — who was very 
 fond in his youth of talking to a most eloquent preacher, the fame 
 
208 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of whose fiery genius was spread abroad throughout the continent. 
 One night they were sitting talking together in the luxuriantly 
 furnished parlor upon the Divine's favorite theme — the dignity of 
 human nature. He was discoursing more particularly of what a 
 true Christian spirit should do for the abandoned, the outcast and 
 the desolate. Suddenly, in the midst of his converse — in the 
 richest paths of the grand fields of philanthropy^ he had opened to 
 the entranced vision of the artist — the door-bell rang violently! 
 The servant came up hastily, and said a man had forced himself 
 into the house and demanded to see the preacher. Together, he 
 and the artist went out to see the strange visitor, who had forced 
 his way into the house in an intoxicated state. He said he was 
 starving, aud begged the preacher to give him wherewithal to sup- 
 port life. Here was a man drunken, shivering with cold, famished 
 with hunger, and begging sustenance — a rough worm to hide in 
 the rich cocoon of a preacher's elegant mansion. But his delicate 
 sensibilities shrank from this rude contact with the actual, and he 
 exclaimed, dolefully: "What shall I do with this man?" — then, 
 * ' I will send for an officer, to take him to the station-house. " 
 "Stay," cried my artist friend, who had been wondering at his 
 strange conduct and inconsistency; " I did not listen to your in- 
 terrupted discourse without becoming deeply impressed by the 
 sublimity of benevolence and good-fellowship between man and 
 man, so gorgeously developed by your glowing tongue. It taught 
 me my duty. I will take the man." 
 
 So, taking him by the hand, he led him from the imaginative 
 philanthropist, who had shrunk nervously back from this one atom 
 of degradation, took him to a restaurant, gave him a bowl of highly 
 prosaic clam soup, and gave him bed and board in his house till he 
 obtained work. Here was a bit of organizing power put in work- 
 ing order by an idea. 
 
 To drunkenness, a banded and fierce wordy opposition is not 
 enough. Society wants more. Neither can the evil be overthrown 
 by the strong force of social pressure, unaided. New forces must 
 start. A new corj)orate body is needed to act against the corporate 
 despotism of drunkenness. This barrier is the Dashaway Associa- 
 tion, which gives, in its Home for the Inebriate, protection and 
 nutriment, and thus holds out organic temptations to the drunk- 
 ard to forsake his career of excesses. A great many people are 
 contented with the recoil of their sensibilities from evil. From de- 
 grading companionships they shrink back. This is the natural 
 tendency of moral characters who separate themselves from the 
 worthless and depraved; and so we see streaks of good and bad in 
 all nature — in nations and in cities — like the stratifications of the 
 earth's geological formation. This tendency is governed by the 
 great law of retribution — of punishment and reward — of life and 
 death. Christianity works at right angles with these strata, and, 
 coming in contact with all, stakes the organic fibres of a better 
 nature to work against the bad, and she does it by the word lle- 
 demption, and by the method Grace. Every parish is composed of 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 209 
 
 an aggregated idea, differing from other parishes — and even **the 
 Word " is a stratified Revelation. But if this cold classification — 
 this sedimentary process — goes on the good and bad in associated 
 districts, diverging from the great centre, and rapidly separating 
 and keeping as thoroughl}^ apart from each other as do the Amer- 
 icans and Chinese, where will it end ? Redemption by sympathy 
 of classes — that is the binding link now being forged by the Dasha- 
 away, and that is eminently Christian. This Association is actu- 
 ated by the proper principle, and pursues the proper course. It 
 pledges itself, not others, and indulges in no denouncement of 
 others, but looks with the sacred eye of Pity at the debased of so- 
 ciety, and beaming with the bright purity of Benevolence, takes 
 him by the hand. 
 
 This Association is composed of all classes, and consequently 
 the silent appeals made by practical workings are responded to by 
 all grades. Its progress has been astonishing — like the great 
 Washingtonian movement, which, twenty years ago, swept like a 
 whirlwind through the country" — arousing from its lethargj', and 
 awaking from its latent inertness, the burning spirit of eloquence, 
 till now slumbering in the brains or closeted in the thick-tongued 
 and besotted victim of the hellish vice which his own voice was now 
 raised, trumpet-toned, to crush. Every here and there, through- 
 out the States, sprang up an intellectual and lire-endowed orator 
 — like a Lazarus bursting his own bonds, and going forth to preach 
 to others suasion and sympathy, rather than law. But the seasoii 
 of revival soon fled. And so it is ever, that the seasons when men 
 are used as pipes through which to blow the Divine breath of In- 
 spiration are short, and soon pass away. Extraordinary success 
 always brings extraordinary trials in its brilliant train which must 
 be met with becoming fortitude. From what I have seen and 
 heard and read of the operations of your society, since my anival 
 in this city, I should judge that the first excitement is over, and 
 the enthusiasm of principle may now be created to advantage. 
 The Twelve Apostles were each representatives of different charac- 
 ters, for Jesus knew that by choosing them he must, to accomplish 
 his aim of regenerating all, take types of the different classes. Else 
 he would fail to reach their sympathies. Peter, James and John, 
 the three most loved and favored of them all — how diverse in posi- 
 tion, character, style and temperament were they ! In their inter- 
 course with the people they touched three separate keys — initial 
 notes, which were no more alike than are the deep, hoarse tones of 
 the trombone to the silvery sweetness of the flute. If one tried to 
 be the other it would be as jarring as the note a on the piano in- 
 sisting on sounding e ! 
 
 One thing you should be careful of. Be not too easily swayed 
 from your original plan by the evil whispering of those who would 
 prove your ruin. Some say you are not strict enough — others that 
 you have resolved to keep alive an uncompromising spirit. It is 
 impossible to please all. Keep on in your own way, (as originally 
 marked out by you) in that broad missionary spirit which has en- 
 
 14 
 
210 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 nobled your association. The plan could not, I think, "be better. 
 You have steered clear of creeds, obtained the respect and admira- 
 tion of nearly all, and incurred the animosity of none. You keep 
 the common Sabbath, assembling to hear your preachers, and lend- 
 ing additional sanctity to the day by the confirmation of those who 
 have passed the period of their probationary trial. Your institu- 
 tion, as it now stands, is a great and splendid spectacle — a new and 
 magnificent effect ! Guard it, then, with most sedulous vigilance; 
 and if you do, the novel and glorious movement must prove a last- 
 ing impulse of practical results. Now is the time, if ever, to stand 
 firm. 
 
 The Home for the Inebriate, a part of your admirable organism, 
 must be carried on. State aid should be invoked. It is now in its 
 mere infancy, and must be raised to a vigorous maturity. It was 
 honor enough for any convention of brains to devise the plan, shown 
 by its excellent working to be perfect; and I think, by every con- 
 sideration of justice, of honor and of duty, (regardless of mercy) 
 the Legislature is bound to foster such an institution. The State 
 provides asylums for the insane, the deaf, dumb and blind. In- 
 sanity is a disease. Medical men agree that the appetite for liquor 
 is a disease, requiring medical treatment. How can the State re- 
 fuse that bounty which will foster an institution whose workings 
 will save the State expense in others ? You have long borne the 
 onerous burthen of its support. Eaise private subscriptions, ask 
 church collections to support it in the mean time — till you gain 
 State aid — and scarcely one, I trust, will refuse ; for crowd all the 
 godliest churches of the universe together, those walls which gleam 
 with the loftiest lustre of Christianity, and the supreme church — the 
 Home of the Inebriate — would burn with the richest tinge ! 
 
 There is, too, it seems to me, a fine opportunity for your asso- 
 ciation to confer another immeasurable benefit upon society. Men- 
 tal culture is painfully neglected in our land. It makes me sad to 
 think of the feebleness of intellect exhibited by us. A well select- 
 ed library, free to all, would indeed be a boon to the masses. What 
 new and fascinating fields do libraries offer for intellectual rambles ! 
 The young men of the present day, of all classes, are lamentably 
 ignorant. Their mental powers after their school days, are wofully 
 neglected. They are false and perilous traitors to themselves. 
 True, they do much newspaper reading, and there is much to ad- 
 mire and profit in many newspapers; but after all, it is mere desul- 
 tory reading. The period between youth and marriage is the 
 noblest time for reading and storing the mind with the riches of 
 literature — which can best be done by a properly systematized 
 course of pleasurable study — a path lifting the student out of the 
 consciousness of the mere animal, making him lose and forget his 
 taste for sensualities. Literary matter may not create character, 
 but it may influence it. Genius, a gift often connected with erratic 
 fire, is ever hungry for intellectual food; but because it has in some 
 cases floated down to depravity, is no argument against indulging 
 the mental appetite. Libraries open up to us the delicate organiza- 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 211 
 
 tion of the brain, the wonderful formation of the eye, and their 
 perfect connection ; the strange meaning of the hand, the scratches 
 upon the rocks, the marvelous beauties of the flower, the mysteries 
 of the ocean, the land, the clouds, the air, and the stany wonders 
 of the heavens ! We have some collections to be proud of— the 
 Mercantile Library, and Odd Fellows' Hall, and Mechanics' Insti- 
 tute — and I think every man as he passes those structures in his 
 street walk, should breathe a small prayer for the blessings con- 
 ferred by them. Your library rooms may be made a mossy foun- 
 tain of knowledge, so vastly greater than desultory addresses. 
 And then the long autumn and winter evenings are coming on 
 apace. Perilous times for the young men ! Tempt them with the 
 garnered mental treasures of astronomy, botany, chemistry, and all 
 the arts and sciences. It is written that oiu- first parents were 
 tempted by the Serpent with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, 
 but alas, I fear that the men of now, would have to work hard to 
 reach the elevation of Adam's fall ! 
 
 In the brawny chest and muscular arm of Heenan there is some- 
 thing to admire, something more than a mere idea; and the batter- 
 ing of a human face is not half so disfiguring as the traces of one 
 night's orgie. Milton has made fiends interesting, and even mur- 
 der and war may be woven into readable shape ; but there is no 
 room for so debased a form as the Demon of Alcohol in Mn^TON's 
 Pandemonium — a form more sickening than the grizzly terror which 
 guarded the portals of Hell. 
 
 #rat((Jtt by §tv, mn. ^im §m0. 
 
 Delivered before the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted 
 Masons of California, at its Annual Communication, 
 May, a. l. 5863. 
 
 Most Worshipful Grand' Master and Brethren of the Grand Lodge: 
 
 In offering salutation to you, witH cordial thanks for the honor 
 and privilege connected with the office and duty you have entrust- 
 ed to me, I shall only attempt briefly, in the discharge of that duty, 
 to note two or three points of harmony and correspondence between 
 the structure and working of our Order and the handiwork of the 
 Almighty in the external world. 
 
 We belong to the great Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons. 
 The implements of our Craft, however, are no longer for operative 
 toil. We do not now, as part of our covenant, set fast the Doric 
 pillar, nor release from marble the ornament of the Corinthian 
 capital. We no longer sketch the complications of Gothic piles, 
 and cement the buttresses of haughty towers, and carry up, course 
 by course, the aspiring stones of pinnacles. The tools of the Craft 
 
212 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 are representative now of speculative truth, and speak to the inward 
 eye of laws and duties that make life noble and character symmet- 
 rical and strong. Yet, though we build no structures such as our 
 ancient brethren reared; though the temples in which we meet are 
 not the monuments of our own proficiency in the art whose instru- 
 ments we cherish; we are builders and preservers in a richer sense ; 
 for our Order itself grows stronger and more precious with years, 
 and its uses are more varied and beautiful with the lapse of time. 
 
 The Masonic organization is far more remarkable and wonderful 
 than the noblest edifice it ever added to the landscape of history. 
 Let us pause, brethren, on the word ''organization." That is 
 the great word of the world. The Almighty is the Oi^ganizer. He 
 creates elements in order to mingle and fraternize them in com- 
 position and products. In the original chaos, matter was unor- 
 ganized. The process of death is dis-organization. All the marvels 
 of beauty, all the victories of life, are exhibitions and triumphs 
 of organizing force. The most fascinating chapters of science are 
 those whch unveil to us the vast fields w4iich the forces traverse 
 that sustain the highest forms of life upon the globe. 
 
 A crystalized gem is the most attractive form of solid matter, 
 because more thought and skill are expended in its structure than 
 in any other stony combination of atoms. A flower is of a higher 
 order of charm, for more various and more subtile elements are 
 wrought into its composite loveliness ; and then the provisions for 
 the growth and support of the flower affect us more profoundly still 
 — the mixture of the air, the various powers hidden in the sun-ray, 
 the alternation of daylight and gloom, the laws of evaporation and 
 of clouds, and the currents in the air that carry moisture from zone 
 to zone for the nutriment of vegetation. "VVe soon find in nature 
 tJiat no element or force exists unrelated. It is in harness with 
 other elements for a common labor, and an interchange of service 
 for a common end. Organization is the idea which science impresses 
 upon us as the secret of life, health, power and beauty in her realm. 
 An organized product can appear only from forces of nature, which 
 are the movements of the Divine will. Man can arrange, manu- 
 facture, weave, forge, adjust, refine ; but he cannot organize as na- 
 ture does. He can make machines through which the forces of na- 
 ture will play for cunning ends ; but he cannot conjure the principle 
 of his life into any mould of his making. He can start shuttles 
 that will weave a carpet for the reception room of a palace in one 
 loom ; but he can build no mill, he can start no laboratory, where 
 the warp and woof of the banana leaf can be plaited. He can tell 
 how the sugar is secreted in the veins of a clover blossom ; but he 
 cannot make the clover seed. And you might as well ask the wisest 
 scientific man to fashion a world, as to create one of the green 
 needles which a pine tree produces by the million, or one of the 
 innumerable blades of grass. 
 
 But the great glory of organization is when it is revealed in hu- 
 man life. The highest structure of the creative art is the body of 
 man, representing in its complexity and the friendly partnership of 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 213 
 
 its powers, the system and coordination whicli society should attain; 
 and it is a marked epoch in histoiy when a new movement is made 
 which succeeds in organizing men widely and permanently for no- 
 ble and beneficent ends. 
 
 We are not intended to be separate, private persons, but rather 
 fibres, fingers, and limbs. The aim of religion is not to i^erfect us as 
 persons, looking at each of us apart from others. The Creator 
 does not propose to polish souls like so many pins, — each one 
 dropping off clean and shiny, with no more organic relations to 
 each other than pins have on a card. We are made to be rather 
 like the steel, the iron, and the brass, which are compacted into an 
 engine, where no modest bolt or rivet is placed so that it does not 
 somehow contribute to the motion, or increase the efficiency of the 
 organism. 
 
 In savage life, men are slightly organized. A savage tribe is 
 like a heap of sand ; the atoms are distinct ; they are aggregated, 
 not combined ; no beautiful product springs from them ; and the 
 first wind of disaster blows them away. A half-civilized nation is 
 but slightly organized, so far as noble purposes and high senti- 
 ments are concerned. Progress is marked by wider, higher, finer 
 developments, issuing from the combination and copartnership of 
 souls. There can be no such things as justice, until men, in large 
 masses, are rightly related to each other. There can be no pros- 
 perity in a community until the majority of its people are so or- 
 ganized that their minds receive training, and their energies are 
 unfettered. There can be no happiness except as the result of 
 proper relations permanently established between the different 
 classes or strata of the social world. 
 
 *'No man liveth to himself." "Whether one member suffer, all 
 the members suffer with it ; or one member be honored, all the 
 members rejoice with it." " How good and how pleasant it is for 
 brethren to dwell together in unity !" When a compacted unity of 
 living beings is seen, one of the most precious objects for which 
 the world was built is attained. A large and well ordered family is 
 such a jewel. A neighborhood at peace, and free from scandal, is 
 — or, rather I should say, would be — a still more precious jewel 
 of the same quality. A State, a Nation, so constructed that the 
 forces of all ranks of its inhabitants should be brought into play, 
 and the rights of all ranks should be saved from pressure, would 
 be a more marvelous and a more inspiring structure than the ma- 
 terial order and harmony of our solid globe. 
 
 It is in the light of this principle that the value and nobleness 
 of Masonry appear. I say again, that no edifice which our ancient 
 brethren reared was equal to the living structure of which they and 
 we are portions. How often we read, or hear with pride, that in 
 the building of the first temple, the stones were made ready before 
 they were brought together; so that there was neither hammer, nor 
 ax, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was building- ! 
 What is that to the growth of our Order itself? How quiet the 
 process, yet how constant ! Who hears the noise of it? Who sees, 
 
214 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 or knows, when the sound timber and the approved stones are 
 brought together, and fitted, and lifted to their place amidst the 
 roar, and strife, and selfishness of the world? Yet, in thousands 
 of towns and cities of the world: in all its zones: in almost all 
 communities and tongues of men, this work, in substantial sameness 
 of method and pledge, is going on. The Temple of Solomon must 
 stand as it was built. It could not enlarge itself. It could not 
 bud with smaller temples, and then take them in under a widening 
 roof or a swelling dome. Neither, when some of its pillars decayed, 
 could it restore its own decrease, as the living cedars of Lebanon 
 repair their wastes and renew their leaves. But our conscious tem- 
 ple does all this, and noiselessly. It fills in its losses; it enlarges 
 its sweep and sway; it does it. through men of all conditions, and 
 classes, and races; and still it stands in its old proportions, though 
 in greater amplitude — symmetrical, mysterious, sublime. 
 
 This is the most remarkable social organization of the world. 
 None on the globe, with half so many elements in its composition, 
 is so old. We are told of late that excavations made under modern 
 Jerusalem disclose remnants of the old city in various periods of 
 its history. Portions of the massive masonry of the time of Solo- 
 mon are uncovered. Above these appear fragments of the work of 
 Zerubbabel. On a higher historic stratum are specimens of work- 
 manship from the age of Herod the Great; and still above these, 
 but below the level of the present city, are remains of the construc- 
 tive toil ordered by Justinian. We delight to feel, brethren, that 
 the past, measured by as many ages, is under us ; but it is not be- 
 neath us in a broken symmetry, and a dead grandeur, as under Jeru- 
 salem. It is rather beneath us as the roots are beneath a tree, and 
 as the central rings are hidden in the trunk. They give power and 
 pith to the structure still. They are part of its present majesty, 
 sources of its living vigor, prophecies of its future strength. 
 
 We should take satisfaction, brethren — nay, a noble pride — in 
 the consciousness of the age and vastness of our organization. If a 
 stone in St. Peter's could be conscious, or any portion of the wall, 
 or spire, of Strasburg Cathedral, do you not think that it would 
 rejoice in its position; that it would be exultant over its partnership 
 with other stones in rearing the grandeur of such a pile for such 
 worthy uses? If any fragment of such an edifice could be con- 
 scious, and did not feel any pride, or any privilege, in its position 
 and its call, would its indifference be a merit, or a shame rather? 
 
 How shall it be with us ? Shall we not feel that there is dignity, 
 that there is privilege, in being living fibres of an organization which 
 has passed from one era of the world to another; which is older 
 than the oldest empire of Christendom; which has on its roll names 
 that sparkle in history like the sovereign stars; and which exists, 
 not for purposes of private aggrandizement, or the selfish joy of its 
 members, but to give deeper root to good principles in the world, 
 and to diffuse the spirit of peace and order? If a Mason is not 
 grateful and glad over his fellowship, it is because he does not ap- 
 preciate the value in the world of the organization of good. 
 
THOMAS BTARR KING. 215 
 
 The idea of organization is connected wdth the idea of order. 
 And here, also, Masoniy reflects to us, or rather illustrates in a 
 higher form, the wisdom breathed by the Great Architect through 
 nature. It is said that order is heaven's first law. It is no less 
 tiTie, brethren, that it is earth's first privilege. It is the condition 
 of beauty, of liberty, and of peace. 
 
 Think how the principle of order for all the orbs of the solar 
 system is hidden in the sun. The tremendous power of his gravi- 
 tation reaches thousands of millions of miles, and hampers the 
 self-will — the centrifugal force — of mighty Jui)iter; of Uranus with 
 his staff of moons; of cold, and distant, and invisible Neptune. 
 There's a Grand Lodge for you, in which these separate Masters 
 are held in check by the Most AVorshipful Grand Master's power ! 
 Nay, they tell us now of a central sun around which all other suns, 
 those fixed stars of the firmanent, bend and sweep. If this sug- 
 gests p.n argument by analogy in favor of a World Congress of Ma- 
 sons, with a Grand Lodge of Nations, and a Sujoreme Master, 
 whose power runs over seas and across continents, girdling the 
 earth like a magnetic stream, I leave it to be discussed by the Com- 
 mittee on Correspondence, in the next volume of our Grand Secre- 
 tary's admirable reports. But in the case of our planetaiy system, 
 is it any hardship that our separate globes are so strictl}^ under 
 rule, and pay obeisance to the sun? Is it not their chief blessing, 
 their sovereign pidvilege ? What if the order were less strict and 
 punctual; what if the force in these globes, that chafes under the 
 central rein, and champs its curb, should be triumphant for a day? 
 What if the earth should gain liberty against the pull of the sun ? 
 Beauty from that moment would begin to wither; fertility would 
 begin to shrivel. The hour of seeming freedom would be the 
 dawn of anarchy; for the sun's rule and apparent despotism is only 
 the ctern and beneficent condition of perpetual harmony, bounty 
 and joy. 
 
 Everywhere, order is the great interest. What humanity needs is 
 the fulfillment of these indications of nature : freedom with order; 
 a proper consciousness of worth in every breast; a recognition by 
 each man of the worth and claims of every other; and an acknow- 
 ledgment by all of a common and controlling law. This idea of 
 order, fulfilled in the architecture of nature, is committed as a 
 trust to our fraternity, and the j)roper reverence for it is poured out 
 continually through the influence of our hallowed bonds. 
 
 For every country that influence is silently wholesome. In 
 lands where "the spirit of society doe.3 not recognize sufficiently the 
 worth of man, but pays too much homage to rank and name, our 
 Order quietly fosters the principle of the equality of privilege and 
 lesponsibiliLy under the laws of everlasting justice; and, without 
 being revolutionary, it upholds the honor of human nature, and 
 patiently rebukes desx^otic arrogance and aristocratic scorn. In 
 our own country, its service is of a difi'erent kind. We need more 
 respect for authority; less self-will; a deep sense of the sacredness 
 of law, and education in the habits, manners, and feeUng of defer- 
 
216 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ence and loyalty. The rupture of our National Unity, for a time, 
 with its tremendous costs in treasure, blood and agony, is in part 
 the revelation, in part the penalty, in part, perhaps, through the 
 severe benelicence of God, the cure of our chronic insubordination 
 of character to the authority and sanctity of high principles, which 
 has unfitted us, all over the land, to handle the sacred responsibili- 
 ties and delicate trusts of imperial statesmanship and continental 
 government. Whatever will teach our people reverence, decorum, 
 respect for others in the utterance and defence of opinion, sub- 
 mission to constituted authority with dignity and grace, will be 
 medicine for our trouble, and will prepare for us a better future. I 
 believe that the Order of Masonry, the quiet efficiency of its or- 
 ganism, the regard for forms it fosters, the love of order it induces 
 and deepens, the graceful habits of submission it educates, and the 
 sacredness it pours around organic law and the seats of authority, 
 are a prominent portion of the bonds of civilization in our country, 
 and an immense blessing when we consider our natural perils. 
 
 Brethren, let us cherish the duties and trusts of our Fraternity 
 for this good influence that it so naturally and liberally expends. 
 Let us resolve as part of our duty to the Creator, the source of or- 
 der and law, to drink more deeply of the springs within our enclos- 
 ure, whose issue is healing and reviving. In the maintenance of 
 the bond and customs of our Order is the pledge of our prosperity, as 
 well as the assurance of our service. Order has limits. Let us con- 
 tinue to guard sacredly our limits; to suffer no transgression of 
 them. What a power is represented in the men who have gathered 
 within this temple, during the present week, to superintend our 
 general interests and interpret and apply our law ! What harmony 
 has prevailed here, what decorum of speech, what promj)tness in 
 duty, what efficiency in j^rotecting and guarding the common good ! 
 A visitor from outside our fellowship, suddenly brought in here to 
 look, for a moment, at the representative men thus gathered from 
 all sections of our State domain, and to observe, by one glance, 
 the quiet power embodied in the assembly, might imagine, if sud- 
 denly taken out again, that there could be something perilous to the 
 i:)ublic welfare in the association, by secret ties, of so many men of 
 such varied abilit}^ working in seclusion from public criticism and 
 without passion. He would feel secure again by knowing that it is 
 only by keeping rigidly to the work of fostering the interests of the 
 Order, that the dignity, the calm, the freedom from passion, the effic- 
 iency, are manifest or possible. Let any other question be intruded 
 here, and there could be no detriment to public interests; for our 
 harmony would break. Volcanic flame and blackness would burst 
 through the lofty and snowy peace. By keeping within our limits 
 alone are we prosperous and orderly; and within our limits our pros- 
 perity is the welfare of the community, the good of the State, the 
 strengthening of civilization. Eejoice, brethren, in your privilege; 
 wall off from intrusion the garden of order you have received; and 
 guard the book of your Constitution with the Tyler's sword. 
 
 Organization and Order! In preserving these, we are in har- 
 
THOMAS STARR KING. 217 
 
 mony with the will and work of the Sovereign Architect, published 
 in the harmony, dignity, and peace of nature. And one other word 
 must be spoken, so familiar, so precious, to the Masonic ear and 
 heart. You anticipate what it is — Char if y. In nature, which speaks 
 the wisdom and character of the Invisible Spirit, organization is 
 not for the sake of Avisdom and skill chiefly — order is not for the 
 sake of law and obedience chiefly — but all for the sake of Charity. 
 There is harmony and stability that there may be breadth of boun- 
 ty, constanc}^ in giving wherever there is need. Within every dis- 
 trict of nature there is beneficence to all the need within that 
 district, and then a pouring out of alms into a general fund of boun- 
 ty and cheer. 
 
 Every mountain upholds and supports the herbage on its slopes, 
 and sends off rills to carr^' down soil to the vales and plains, while 
 they feed herbage there. You cannot find a tree, or plant, or flower, 
 that lives for itself. The animal world breathes out gases for the 
 vegetable kingdom, and then the vegetable world exhales or stores 
 up some elements essential to animal health and vigor. The car- 
 bonic acid we breathe out here, and which is poison to us, blown 
 eastward by our west winds, may be greedily taken up, a few days 
 hence, by vineyards on the slopes of the Sierra, and returned to us 
 in the sweetness of the grape. The Equator "sends greeting" to 
 the Arctic zone by the warm Gulf stream that flows near the Polar 
 coasts to soften their winds. The Poles return a colder stream and 
 add an embassy of icebergs, too, to temper the fierce heats. Sel- 
 fishness is condemned by the still harmonies of the creation. Per- 
 fect order issues out of interwoven service. 
 
 Do we ever get tired of the toils and tax of charity ? Suppose 
 the sun did. What does he receive in homage or obedience from the 
 orbs that swing round him, in comparison with what he gives — all 
 his light, all his heat, all his vitality for the blessing of fourscore 
 worlds ? Shall we complain of the demand upon our treasuries, or 
 our private purses, for the sacred funds of the Masonic Board- of 
 Eelief ? What if the sea grumbled at the assessment which the 
 mighty sun — the Most Worshipful Grand Master of the system — 
 levies on his substance ! Every day the sun touches its stores with 
 its wand of light and says, give, give. And it obeys. Evaporation 
 is its tax constantly demanded, constantly given. Remember, 
 brethren, that every cloud you see, whether stretched in a beautiful 
 bar across the east at sunrise, or hanging in pomp over the gorgeous 
 pavilion of the retiring day, is part of the contribution for the 
 general relief of nature assessed by the lordly sun. The water 
 which the ocean keeps is salt. Pour a bucket of it on a hill of corn, 
 or a garden bed, and it kills it. The water which the ocean gives 
 is fresh, and descends in blessing, after it rides in beauty or majesty 
 on the viewless couriers of the air. Nature tells us that to "give is 
 to live." 
 
 Society is struggling up to reach the order which nature thus 
 indicates. Civilization is yet in its infancy. There is no town, no 
 village of Christendom yet, where the bounty of nature to all the 
 
 'ufi7Eb.,:;tt; 
 
 osr 
 
218 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 needy is fulfilled. Let us be grateful, brethren, that within our 
 fellowship, charity is organized, as well as law and peace. Our 
 treasury has no avarice in it. The oil poured upon our head flows 
 to the end of the beard and the garment's hem. 
 
 How good and how precious it is for brethren to dwell in such 
 unity ! May it continue, brothers, and widen through our fidelity 
 and service and beneficence ! God preserve our organization, guard 
 our order, inspire our beneficence, and grant that, a centuiy hence, 
 our successors may meet here to enjoy in a larger fellowship the 
 result of our faithfulness, and with a Nation not sundered, but pre- 
 sided over by one Grand Master, heir of the virtues, the hope, and 
 the blessing of Washington ! 
 
CHARLES E. DE LONG 
 
 ,pY THE pDITOR 
 
 THIS popular favorite of the Silver State was born at 
 Beekmansville, Dutchess county, N'ew York, August 
 13, 1832. His ancestors arrived in America from France 
 about the year 1780. It was his father's wish (himself 
 a farmer) that he should follow the noble pursuits of 
 husbandr}^; accordingly, Charles worked upon his father's 
 farm until his boyhood had almost passed, and he began 
 to think and act for himself. He received a common 
 school education. Before he had completed his studies, 
 or prepared himself for any profession or trade, he de- 
 termined to strike for an easily acquired fortune in the 
 far West. 
 
 . Though yet a boy, unacquainted with the world, un- 
 accustomed even to the harsh accents of a stranger's 
 voice, the love of adventure — natural attribute of youth — 
 was so strong in his breast, that the exciting reports from 
 the Pacific shores were sufficient to persuade him away 
 from the old homestead, and tempt him to new and 
 distant regions. 
 
 Mr. DeLong arrived in California June 5, 1850, and 
 settled in Yuba county; which county, in after years, 
 honored him with many trusts, and where he remained 
 until his final departure from the State, in 1863. 
 
 Immediately after his arrival in Yuba county, the 
 young man, then only eighteen years of age, went reso- 
 
220 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 lutely to work. He was no stranger to manual exertion : 
 his father had taught him the true nobility of labor. 
 For years he followed the fortunes of mining life : being 
 not only young, but of diminutive stature, his childish 
 form w^as daily seen bending in arduous toil. 
 
 From 1850 to 1856, Mr. DeLong engaged in a variety 
 of occupations. As the writer has heard him say, in 
 conversation among his friends, ^'I followed mining, 
 store-keeping, bar-tending, and almost everything else, 
 for a livelihood, until, in 1856, having failed in a mer- 
 cantile business I was engaged in at Young's Hill, Yuba 
 county, California, I turned my attention to the study 
 and practice of the law." 
 
 Mr. DeLong did not attend any law lectures or law- 
 school, for such evidences of civilization were lacking in 
 his section of the country. He studied in the woods; 
 and being of quick perception, and possessed of a natural 
 aptitude for the ^'accumulating science," he progressed 
 rapidly, and when he thought he could pass a creditable 
 examination, he presented himself before the District 
 Court of Yuba county, and was admitted to practice as 
 an attorney and counselor-at-law. He then opened a 
 law office in Marysville, the principal town in northern 
 California, and entered upon the practice at a time when 
 litigation was rife, and when the Marysville bar embraced 
 many of the first legal minds of the State — Field, Mit- 
 chell, McQuade, Barbour, Reardon, Lindley, and others. 
 
 In the fall of 1857, Mr. DeLong was elected to the 
 lower branch of the State Legislature, from Yuba county, 
 on the Democratic ticket. He took his seat at the be- 
 ginning of the session, in January, 1858. During the 
 session of the Legislature in that year, he appeared before 
 the Supreme Court of California, sitting at Sacramento, 
 and was admitted to practice in all the courts of the State. 
 The next year, he was reelected to the Assembly, on the 
 Anti-Leconipton Democratic ticket — the Legislature con- 
 vening on the first Monday of January, 1859. In the fall 
 of 1859, he was nominated by the Douglas Democrats for 
 State Senator, for the term commencing in January, 1860, 
 but was defeated by Hon. H. P. Watkins. In the fall of 
 
CHARLES E. DE LONG. 221 
 
 the latter year, he was again nominated for the State 
 Senate by the same party, and was elected, defeating 
 Hon. X. E. Whitesides, formerly Speaker of the Assem- 
 bly, and once his colleague in that body. 
 
 Mr. DeLong held this position two years. He entered 
 the Senate on the first Monday in January, 1861, and, on 
 the 18th day of that month, introduced into the Senate 
 resolutions in regard to the then troubled state of the 
 Union. 
 
 These resolutions were the first of a great many of 
 similar nature, sustaining the Federal Government, re- 
 pudiating the suggestion of a Pacific Republic, and 
 urging coercion on the part of the general government 
 against the seceding States. Messrs. Edgerton, Watson, 
 Burbank, and others, having offered substitutes, or addi- 
 tional resolutions, upon the subject, the entire file was 
 referred to the Committee on Federal Relations. Upon 
 the report of that committee, a lengthy and spirited 
 debate ensued, in which Mr. DeLong joined. His speech 
 upon the occasion was pronounced by the leading news- 
 paper of the State, ''well-considered and forcible;" and, 
 for argumentative power and eloquence, was equalled 
 only by the brilliant efforts of Edgerton and Thornton. 
 
 On the 23d of the same month, Mr. DeLong presented 
 in the Senate a petition from a large number of his con- 
 stituents, praying that the resolutions of censure against 
 Senator Broderick (for refusing to resign, in obedience 
 to the request of a previous Legislature) be expunged 
 from the journals of the two houses. 
 
 During his term as a senator, the " Corporation Act" 
 and other leading measures received Mr. DeLong' s serious 
 attention. The journals of the Senate and the files of 
 the Sacramento Union will attest his industry and his use- 
 fulness as a legislator. 
 
 In the fall of 1862, Mr. DeLong was again nominated 
 by his party as a candidate for the State Senate, but was 
 defeated, and in May, 1863, removed to "Washoe." The 
 great flood of the previous year had swept over the entire 
 valley of the Sacramento, and erected everywhere its 
 mournful monuments. The practice of law in Marysville 
 
222 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 had declined to barrenness, and business of all kinds in 
 that once proud, thrifty, and beautiful city, was utterly 
 stagnant. The afficted populace were fleeing from the 
 wide-spread desolation, and seeking new homes and fresh 
 fields of enterprise. A silver star was rising in the east, 
 whose happy light refreshed the dejected multitudes. 
 Washoe was the word of hope and promise. The fab- 
 ulous wealth of the newly-discovered mines, and the 
 conflicting interests of the claim.ants, had called into 
 being a vast world of litigation, such as no diligent votary 
 of law had ever dreamed of beholding. The enormous 
 fees received by the pioneer lawyers of Washoe had ex- 
 cited the wonder and cupidity of attorneys throughout 
 California, and towards the beginning of the year 1864, 
 the bar of Virginia city numbered about one hundred 
 practitioners. Mr. DeLong arrived in that place before 
 the lawyers' silver harvest had been fully gathered, and 
 soon formed a partnership with Mr. D. W. Perley, now a 
 leading member of the profession at White Pine. He 
 found upon his arrival that he had been preceded by 
 many of his friends and former constituents, citizens of 
 Yuba county. Being an old miner, he was at home amid 
 the restless mass around him. His experience as a miner 
 and as a lawyer, his close application to business, his 
 fidelity to his clients, soon gave him a prominent place 
 and a lucrative practice at the Virginia bar. 
 
 In 1864, Mr. DeLong was elected a member (from 
 Storey county) of the Constitutional Convention which 
 framed the present Constitution of Nevada. At the 
 election of United States senators in that year, he was a 
 prominent candidate for that high position. The first 
 ballot stood: Stewart, 32; DeLong, 24; Nye, 23. On 
 the next day, Messrs. Stewart and Nye were chosen. 
 Mr. DeLong bore his defeat with patience, and continued 
 his practice in Virginia city. 
 
 In 1865, the law-firm of Perley & DeLong was dis- 
 solved, the latter entering into partnership with Judge 
 Lewis Aldrich, formerly of San Francisco. 
 
 In January, 1868, Mr. DeLong was again brought 
 forward as a candidate for the United States Senate. 
 
CHARLES E. BELONG. 223 
 
 Messrs. Nj^e, Winters, and Fitch, were also candidates. 
 Twenty-nine votes were necessary to elect, and Mr. 
 DeLong received twenty-seven: then, by the withdrawal 
 of Messrs. Winters and Fitch in favor of Gov. Nye, the 
 latter was elected. 
 
 In the convention w^hich nominated Gen. Grant for 
 the Presidency, Mr. DeLong was chairman of the Nevada 
 delegation, and was placed on the Committee on Platform 
 and Resolutions. He was one of the sub-committee of 
 six that drafted the platform of the Union Republican 
 party of 1868. He is a member of the National Repub- 
 lican Committee, and one of the executive committee 
 from the Pacific coast. He has also for several years 
 been chairman of the Republican State Central Commit- 
 tee of Nevada, holding that position until shortly before 
 his departure for Japan as Minister Resident of the United 
 States. He took an active part in the election of Gen. 
 Grant, having been chosen one of the presidential electors 
 of the State of Nevada, and afterwards, by his associates, 
 selected as messenger to carry the vote of the State to 
 Washington. 
 
 In the fall of 1868, Mr. DeLong removed to the new 
 mining region of White Pine, establishing himself at 
 Treasure City, in partnership with Judge Lewis Aldrich, 
 Hon. J. S. Slauson, and Mr. Thomas Wren. 
 
 Gen. Grant, shortly after his inauguration as Presi- 
 dent, in 1869, tendered to our subject the appointment 
 of Minister Resident of the United States at Japan. 
 The appointment being confirmed by the United States 
 Senate, was accepted by Mr. DeLong, who, after devoting 
 several months to the proper arrangement of his business 
 affairs, departed upon his mission in September, 1869, 
 accompanied by his family. 
 
 In 1862, Mr. DeLong married Miss Elida F. Yineyard, 
 yoimgest daughter of Col. James F. Yineyard, then a 
 senator from Los Angeles, by whom he has several living 
 children. 
 
 Mr. DeLong is an indefatigable student, and a close 
 reader not only of legal but poetic and miscellaneous 
 writers. He is a man of genial temper, frank in his 
 
224 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 manners, fond of humor, and gifted with the rare faculty 
 of attaching to himself sincere friends wherever he goes. 
 His tastes and active temperament especially fit him for 
 the practice of his profession in a mining community. 
 His fame as a lawyer is firmly established in iNevada. 
 He is a graceful speaker, is decidedly entertaining in 
 conversation, and delights to tell or listen to an 
 anecdote. 
 
 In Mr. DeLong's case, success has been the test of 
 merit. He has won fortune and position by solitary, 
 unaided study and effort. He came to California a boy, 
 vdthout friends, means, or experience. By patient in- 
 dustry, and the pursuit of an honest, straightforward 
 course, he has battled with the disadvantages and checks 
 of youth, poverty, and inexperience, and conquered 
 them. Few men have overcome greater obstacles — 
 none are more worthy of achieved success. 
 
MARIANO GUADALUPE VALLEJO. 
 
 By pHAS. p. J^CKETT. 
 
 BEFORE proceeding to sketch a condensed biography 
 of the most distinguished of living Hispano- 
 Californians, a short allusion to his ancestry will be 
 of interest, as well as appropriate to the subject. The 
 Vallojo family — all claiming relationship — occupied for 
 many generations a most honorable position in Spain ; 
 and the branches of it which immigrated to America 
 were alike distinguished, chiefly, however, as church 
 dignitaries of the Jesuit Order. A genealogical state- 
 ment or table of these latter was filed in 1806 in the 
 Spanish archives of California. One of the name — Don 
 Alonzo Yallejo — commanded the troops on board the 
 vessel in which the royal commissioner, Bobadillo, came 
 over to take back Columbus a prisoner to Spain. 
 Another was with Cortez in making the conquest of 
 Mexico, and afterwards became Governor of the province 
 of Panuco. The grand-parents of the subject of our 
 history came from the province of Burgos, near the city 
 of Bilbao, in the northern part of Spain, sometime during 
 the early portion of the last century, and settled per- 
 manently in Gaudalajara, Mexico, where Don Ignacio 
 Yallejo, his father, was born. Like the most of the 
 members of the family (including a number of the 
 females) Don Ignacio was educated for holy orders; but 
 taking a dislike to that sober life, and his youthful ima- 
 15 
 
226 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 gination being fired with the spirit of adventure, then so 
 animating the Castilian stock, he managed to quarrel 
 with the officiating clergyman upon the day of his or- 
 dination — threw off, in simulated anger, his sacerdotal 
 vestments, and fled for refuge to the royal standard. 
 The company he joined was upon the eve of departing 
 northward upon that famous propagandizing and ex- 
 ploring expedition which accompanied the historically 
 renowned Father Junipero Serro — founder of the Cali- 
 fornia Missions, and discoverer of the Bay of San Fran- 
 cisco. Landing with him at San Diego in 1769, Don 
 Ignacio traveled, in company with that daring and 
 zealous missionary and other members of the party, over 
 a large portion of the country, soon thereafter going as 
 far north as the valley of Petaluma. As military com- 
 missioner and engineer, he was employed for a number 
 of years in planning and superintending the building of 
 fortifications, laying out the various towns of the terri- 
 tory, and in directing the construction of irrigating canals 
 and the waterworks of the Missions. 
 
 General M. G. Yallejo was born in Monterey, upper 
 California, July, 1808, being the eighth of thirteen child- 
 ren. He was educated at the college there, and entered 
 the military service at the age of sixteen, as a cadet and 
 private secretary to Governor Arguello. Being rapidly 
 promoted, he reached the rank of Brigadier- General in 
 1840. In 1829, as Lieutenant commanding, he was 
 placed in charge of the Korthern Department, which in- 
 cluded all the country to the north of Santa Cruz, having 
 his headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco; in 
 which capacity he remained until 1837, exercising, until 
 1835, both civil and military functions for the section 
 north of San Jose, when, at his own suggestion, Governor 
 Figueroa ordered an election of civil officers for the 
 Partido or District of San Francisco, whose seat of gov- 
 ernment or cabem should be at the Mission of Dolores; 
 which was duly carried into execution, and dates the 
 foundation of the first organization of the character at 
 such important point. 
 
 In the fall of 1829, soon after assuming command of 
 
MARIANO GUADALUPi<J YALLEJO. 227 
 
 his department, a man by the name of Solis inaugurated 
 a revolutionary movement against Gov. Echandea, chiefly 
 because the latter preferred to reside at San Diego, 
 instead of at the capital, Monterey. Yallejo was im- 
 portuned to join the revolutionists, and upon refusing, 
 was confined in the calaboose at Monterey, from which 
 he shortly managed to escape by sea: joined the Gover- 
 nor's forces at San Diego, and met the insurgents near 
 Santa Barbara, where Solis was defeated. 
 
 In 1831, he was elected a member of the Territorial 
 Deputation. At this period, Victoria was Governor, and 
 had rendered himself obnoxious to the Californians by 
 his arbitrary and cruel conduct. Yallejo having been 
 selected by his fellow-deputies to prepare and present 
 articles of impeachment against his Excellency, the lat- 
 ter, during a recess of the session, strove, by tendering 
 him a superior commission and making other friendly 
 overtures, to quash the indictment; but finding the 
 young Lieutenant too true to his California countrymen, 
 to accede to his propositions, he determined to arrest 
 him and the others engaged in the proceedings. This 
 precipitated a revolution in which Victoria was defeated 
 in a battle fought at the Cauenga Pass, near Los Angeles ; 
 after which, the Governor was sent out of the country in 
 an American vessel then lying in the port of San Diego. 
 
 In 1832, he was married to Francisca Benicia Carrillos, 
 by whom he has had seventeen children — ten now living, 
 five of them married — General John B. Frisbie, proprietor 
 of the City of Vallejo, etc., being his eldest son-in-law. 
 In 1834, he was, with Bandini, elected a delegate to the 
 Mexican Congress, but did not attend. 
 
 In 1836, Governor Chico got by the ears with the 
 leading Californians ; was deposed by them, and sent from 
 the country in an American vessel. Just before leaving, 
 he appointed Gutierez his provisional successor, which 
 arrangement was acceded to by the revolutionists. But 
 Gutierez, proceeding to carry into execution the ob- 
 jectionable measures of Chico, the whole country arose 
 in opposition, proclaimed Vallejo General-in-Chief and 
 revolutionary Governor ad interim, who immediately con- 
 
228 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 vened the Territorial Deputation and turned over the 
 reins of civil government to Alvarado, President of that 
 body; retaining, however, the military and, de facto ^ all 
 power in his own hands. In 1838, the supreme govern- 
 ment of Mexico confirmed these revolutionary acts of 
 the jealous, belligerant, and semi-independant Califor- 
 nians; and sent out as Governor, Micheltoreno, clothed 
 with extraordinary prerogatives — being invested with 
 the full powers of the central government. In the ex- 
 ercise of these, he appointed Yallejo military commander 
 of all the territory lying north of the Santa Inez moun- 
 tain, who now had fixed his headquarters at Sonoma, 
 where he has ever since resided. 
 
 In 1844-5, occurred the last revolution of the Cali- 
 fornians among themselves, which ended in expelling 
 Governor Micheltoreno from the country. Yallejo was 
 the leading person in secretly planning the programme 
 and having the pronunciamentos issued to this effect. 
 Foreseeing the result, he wrote to Capt. John A. Sutter, 
 who was organizing the foreign residents in the northern 
 section and a body of Sacramento Indians, to go to the 
 assistance of the Governor, strongly advising him not to 
 take any part in the affair. At the same time, he ad- 
 dressed a communication to Micheltoreno, adjuring him 
 to send back immediately the obnoxious troops and 
 officers he had brought from Mexico with him, and whose 
 characters and conduct solely had arrayed the Califor- 
 nians against him. But his advice was unheeded by 
 both; and upon the surrender of Micheltoreno, Sutter 
 came near losing his life, which was only saved by the 
 joint interposition of the foreigners enlisted upon either 
 side. Vallejo, during the preparation for the conflict, 
 was placed in a very delicate and dangerous position. 
 Being ordered by the Governor to join him with the 
 forces under his command, he refused; alleging as a 
 reason, that he did not wish to make war upon his 
 friends and relations — Alvarado and Castro, the two 
 chief leaders of the revolutionists, being his nephews. 
 The troops stationed at Sonoma and San Francisco were, 
 through the agency of Lieut. Pico, Don Jasper O'Farrell, 
 
MARIANO GUADALUPE VALLEJO. 229 
 
 Capt. Sutter, and others, induced to desert and join the 
 contingent forces of Sutter, then upon the march to 
 cooperate with those of Micheltoreno. Not wishing to 
 take issue with his American and other foreign -born 
 neighbors, Yallejo remained quietly at home, awaiting 
 the termination of the contest. And here, appropriately, 
 may be related the real or paramount inducement for 
 such conduct upon his part. 
 
 After the raising of the American flag at Monterey 
 in 1842, by Commodore Jones, Yallejo became impressed 
 with the conviction that the time was near at hand for 
 what he deemed to be the inevitable destiny of Cali- 
 fornia — annexation to the United States; and thence- 
 forward was shaping his actions so as to conform to that 
 which he was willing should come to pass as soon as 
 possible. In evidence of this, during the month of 
 March, 1846, at the call of Pio Pico — who, as President 
 of the Assembly, had assumed the Governorship upon 
 the expulsion of Micheltoreno — a convention of the 
 leading citizens assembled at Santa Barbara, to take into 
 consideration the future of California. The impression 
 prevailed generally that its loose connection with Mexico 
 was about to be severed; and the important question 
 arose, ''What will then become of us?" There were 
 three parties in this body: one (and the strongest) favor- 
 ing an English Protectorate. The next strongest ad- 
 vocated the erection of an independent Republic, to be 
 maintained under all contingencies; whilst the third — at 
 the head of which was Vallejo — favored the latter project 
 only so far as a temporary arrangement for the purpose 
 of negotiating their transfer into the American Union. 
 Through his machinations, the meeting at Santa Barbara, 
 where the English party prevailed, was unable to obtain 
 a quorum, and so adjourned to Monterey. Here the 
 friends of the various projects met and earnestly dis- 
 cussed this weighty question — the French Consul also 
 approaching various members to propose a French Pro- 
 tectorate, provided they would call upon his government 
 so to act. The leading part in the discussion was taken 
 by Vallejo. He warmly, logically, and ably laid before 
 
230 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the body his views upon the subject. He said they all 
 agreed that Mexico must part with California ; and it was 
 impossible for them to maintain an independent status, 
 since both the United States and Great Britain had fully 
 manifested the intent to seize upon the country at a very^ 
 early period. The only question, therefore, for them to 
 decide and act upon was, into the arms of which of these 
 two powerful nations they should conclude to throw 
 themselves. For his part, laying aside his individual 
 predilection — which had been often expressed — he ad- 
 vised them to make a virtue of necessity, by at once 
 taking steps towards opening negotiations with a view to 
 transferring themselves to the former. He stated that 
 Commodore Jones had assured him in 1842 that it was a 
 foregone conclusion of his country to have California 
 soon at all hazards ; and that his action in then so hastily 
 raising the stars and stripes upon their soil, under the 
 impression that war was waging between the two coun- 
 tries, was in accordance with secret orders to checkmate 
 any such movement that might be made upon the part 
 of the British naval commander. Thomas 0. Larkin, 
 the American Consul, residing then at Monterey, backed 
 up these views of Yallejo, by assuring the members of 
 the convention that so firmly resolved was his govern- 
 ment to possess California, that in the event Great 
 Britain should forestall them by first seizing it, or by 
 their voluntarily transferring themselves in such direc- 
 tion, the United States would eventually obtain the ter- 
 ritory, even though at the cost of a war with that mighty 
 power. The convention came to no definite conclusion, 
 resolving to adjourn for a season and observe the turn 
 of affairs. But the complicated and important events so 
 suddenly precipitated upon the land a few weeks sub- 
 sequently, prevented any further consultation. The long 
 existing jealousy between the northern and the southern 
 sections of the territory had just then bred anew enough 
 bad blood to induce General Castro to organize an armed 
 force in the former, and Governor Pico in the latter, to 
 settle the feud by an appeal to arms. The two armies 
 were marching to the scene of conflict, and about meet- 
 
MARIANO GUADALUPE VALLEJO. 231 
 
 ing near San Luis Obispo, when the startling news arrived 
 that the foreigners had raised an independent banner 
 (the ^'Bear Flag") north of the bay of San Francisco; 
 taken Yallejo and other chief citizens prisoners; fought 
 a battle, defeating the natives, and threatened to carry 
 lire and sword throughout the length and breadth of 
 California, in retaliation for alleged threats made by 
 Castro to drive them all from the country. This at once 
 brought about a reconciliation between the opposing 
 parties, and a resolve to join their forces in order to pro- 
 ceed against the common enemy. But very soon came 
 the still more startling announcement that war existed 
 between the United States and Mexico ; that the fleet of 
 the former had arrived in the bay of Monterey and raised 
 the American flag ov^r the town; that Col. Fremont had 
 got back from the mountains in Oregon, whither Castro 
 had but recently compelled him to flee; that the ''Bear 
 Party" had hauled down their flag, joined their recruits 
 with Fremont, and that the command (rapidly augment- 
 ing) was on the march to cooperate with the navy in 
 effecting a conquest of the country. Castro — now at 
 the head of the Californians, though in sympathy with 
 the British party — was aware of the hopelessness of 
 further opposition, and admitted that the position taken 
 by Yallejo was correct. Encamping in the vicinity of 
 Monterey, he sent word to the Commodore that he was 
 prepared to enter into negotiations for laying down his 
 arms and surrendering the country. But being somewhat 
 cavalierly and most impolitely repulsed, and the near 
 approach of Fremont preventing a renewal of any over- 
 tures, by driving him farther southw^ard, then followed 
 the two wars of the conquest — so wholly and entirely 
 uncalled for, so expensive, and resulting in the loss of a 
 number of lives upon both sides, and the engendering of 
 much bitter feeling, all of which could easily have been 
 avoided, but for the extreme ignorance of the American 
 commanders as to the proper deference and conciliation 
 to be extended to Castilian pride and punctilio. Yallejo 
 remained a prisoner for a number of weeks at Sutter's 
 
232 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Fort ill the Sacramento valley, when he was set at liberty 
 upon parole by the new naval commander. 
 
 Under the new regime^ and especially after the be- 
 ginning of the great influx of gold-seekers to the Pacific 
 shore, in 1849, Yallejo assumed a very prominent posi- 
 tion. He was appointed by Commodore Stockton, in 
 January, 1847, a member of a civil body titled the As- 
 sembly, designed to frame a code of laws for the tem- 
 porary governance of the territory. But the grand 
 imbroglio between Commodores Stockton and Shubrick, 
 General Kearney, and Colonels Mason and Fremont, 
 happening about this period, prevented the meeting of 
 such body. As an illustration of the complicated state 
 of affairs brought about by their jealousies and conflict 
 of authority, that even the famous Fremont court martial, 
 which aftervfards sat in Washington, was unable to un- 
 ravel, Yallejo received three communications dated upon 
 the same day, from Stockton, Kearney, and Fremont, 
 respectively, each signing himself ^' Governor and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of California." 
 
 Vallejo, however, acted for a time as Indian Agent 
 north of the Bay, by appointment of General Kearney. 
 
 Early in the year 1849 were inaugurated those ''Dis- 
 trict Legislatures" for affording some sort of temporary 
 civil governments for the country. Ex-Governor Boggs 
 from Missouri and General Yallejo took the leading part 
 in organizing this movement for the Sonoma section, 
 when, on motion of the Governor, and to save the labor 
 and expense of framing a new code, the Missouri statutes 
 were adopted entire, so far as applicable — Boggs, we 
 believe, then possessing the only copy of them in Cali- 
 fornia. But Governor-General Riley's proclamation soon 
 upset these independent movements, and called a general 
 convention for the territory. Yallejo was elected a mem- 
 ber of the body, which, upon assembling, resolved to 
 form a State Constitution. The following year, he was 
 elected a State Senator, and whilst a member, his mag- 
 nificently liberal propositions with reference to locating 
 the permanent seat of government upon his Suscol 
 
MARIANO GUADxyLUPE YALLEJO. 233 
 
 Ranclio, at the site of the present city of Yallejo, were 
 accepted by the Legislature and confirmed by a vote of 
 the people. In compliance with the terms of the agree- 
 ment, he erected a State House or Capitol and various 
 other public buildings, as well as expending large sums 
 otherwise in connection therewith; expecting, besides 
 the great honor of the business (his chief incentive) to 
 reimburse himself from the sale of lots in the new city, 
 and the rise in value of the adjacent lands. The Legis- 
 lature twice met there, but the hotel accommodations 
 not being esteemed sufficient, and certain very strong in- 
 fluences being brought to bear to induce adjournment to 
 Sacramento, the place was finally abandoned as a capital, 
 and Vallejo induced to cancel, upon his part, the contract 
 made with the State, at a loss, as he alleges, of several 
 hundreds of thousands of dollars. And to this heavy 
 damage and the unexpected rejection by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States of his title to that most 
 valuable rancho, may be chiefly ascribed the downfall of 
 his fortunes. 
 
 In January, 1847, Yallejo and Dr. Robert Semple 
 (subsequently taking in T. 0. Larkin as a co-proprietor) 
 laid out upon the same rancho the town site of Benicia, 
 which was first christened Francisca, after the first name 
 of Sefiora Vallejo; but the title of Yerba Buena being 
 soon thereafter officially changed to that of San Fran- 
 cisco, the similarity of the two induced the proprietors — 
 after an angry protest by Semple, through the columns 
 of his paper, the Californian^ against such action upon 
 the part of the Alcalde at Yerba Buena — to adopt Benicia 
 (Yenitia) instead; being the second or middle name of 
 Mrs. Yallejo. 
 
 The General possesses- a handsome residence — "Lach- 
 rymoe Montis" — situated in the edge of the town of 
 Sonoma, built after the plan of Bonaparte's villa at Bor- 
 dentown, IST. J., but is unable to preserve it in proper 
 repair for the lack of sufficient income. Sonoma being 
 selected as the headquarters of the United States army 
 in the fall of 1849, his commodious mansion upon the 
 Plaza, fashioned in the old Hispano-Mexican style, was 
 
234 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 long the almost homelike resort of all its officers, and 
 where many, besides, met with that open-hearted and 
 frank entertainment characteristic of its hospitable pro- 
 prietor. Being, during that period, a gentleman of ample 
 fortune — possessing near thirty leagues of choice land 
 lying immediately around the northern border of the 
 bay of San Francisco, and many thousands of horses and 
 horned cattle — he dispensed his hospitality, as well as 
 rendered much assistance to the newcomers, with a pro- 
 digal and generous hand. In 1865, he made his first 
 visit to the East, and was received with great considera- 
 tion in Washington by his old army and navy acquaint- 
 ances, whom he met there, as also by the leading officials 
 of the government. 
 
 As Mayor and also a Councilman of his home-town, 
 he sought to have its public grounds properly ornamented 
 and improved, proffering to 'bear the larger portion of 
 the expense; but such not being responded to by the 
 new citizens, his plan was only partially carried out. He 
 expended, however, large sums in setting out vineyards 
 and fruit-trees in the immediate vicinity, being the first 
 to start vine-culture and wine-making on the north side 
 of the bay. For several years, his wines and brandies 
 took the first premium at the State Fairs, and at the 
 Mechanics' Fairs in San Francisco. 
 
 Notwithstanding his vicissitudes of life — loss of for- 
 tune, inability to keep pace with the progressive ideas 
 and practices of Young America, and the many harassing 
 cares besides — the General (now over sixty) preserves 
 ir a remarkable manner his youthful appearance and 
 activity. This may be attributed, in part, to a well- 
 developed physique, and active, outdoor exercise all his 
 days, and to the strictly temperate habits he has con- 
 stantly adhered to, rarely partaking of wine or spirits, 
 and being a moderate and fastidious eater. In character 
 he is not alone a pure-blooded Spaniard of the Hidalgo 
 class, but true to many of the leading traits and like- 
 nesses of that grandly historic race; being generous, 
 hospitable, high-spirited, of courtly address and dis- 
 tinguished presence, and possessed with a happy ad- 
 
MARIANO GUADALUPE VALLEJO. 235 
 
 mixture of dignified pride and condescending affability. 
 Like them, in general, his mind dwells much in the 
 regions of romance; is somewhat addicted to idealistic 
 fancies — air-castle building, or the concoction of mag- 
 nificent schemes and projects, difficult of being, or never 
 to be, realized. He is likewise addicted, at times, to 
 that hyperbolical style of phraseology so common to the 
 Spanish character, and which causes many, unacquainted 
 with such peculiar modes of expression, to impute in- 
 tentional want of veracity. And to these amiable quali- 
 ties, and the more materialistic natures of that throng 
 of ^' practically-minded," greedy, grabbing gold -seekers 
 flocking to the Pacific shore, who have so greatly wronged 
 the larger portion of the unsophisticated stock found 
 here, by despoiling them of their heritage, may be at- 
 tributed the^ passing away from his possession of that 
 vast estate once held by him. Proud of the past glories 
 and still prominent position of the Spanish race, the 
 General — who is a fine scholar, especially as an his- 
 torian — loves to dwell upon their close relationship with 
 ancient Rome, and the undeniable fact that Spain, more 
 than any nation of Europe, transmitted the wisdom and 
 the virtues of that august civilization down to and con- 
 nects herself with the modern. Excluded from taking 
 any olSicial or other influential part in American affairs, 
 (with which government he has become much disen- 
 chanted of late years,) he takes a deep interest in ob- 
 serving the revolutionary progress of events in Spain; 
 and is somewhat more than a mere beholder of those 
 transpiring in Mexico, being the trusted counselor and 
 assistant of certain military aspirants and Pronunciadores 
 of this latter perpetually revolutionized and revolution- 
 izing land. 
 
ELIAS S. COOPER 
 
 ^Y y. poOPER J^ANE, JA. p. 
 
 THE life of each illustrious man is a drama, of which 
 the various acts are subjects of the most live- 
 ly interest, when properly detailed by the faithful his- 
 torian. The task of the latter, however, is no easy 
 one, in case he attempts to trace those links which, as 
 fractional parts, unite and truly represent the original. 
 
 Every great man's life, if studied comprehensively, 
 reveals a purpose ; and the historic painter would fall far 
 short of what art claims from him, if, in the imagery of 
 his picture, he omitted the delineation of glimpses of 
 such a purpose, which, like a sunbeam in the background 
 of a painting, illumines and brings into view each point 
 and feature of the picture. Preeminently, in the life of 
 him whose name appears at the head of this sketch, do 
 we observe such an inspiring aim and continued purpose, 
 that, like glory following virtue as its shadow, ''lived 
 with and accompanied him as an ever present genius." 
 Besides the intellectual endowments with which he was 
 gifted, he possessed those of the heart no less unusual. 
 To depict these, with that simplicity of coloring which 
 comports with nature, is no ordinary undertaking. 
 
 Elias Samuel Cooper was born in the southern part 
 of Ohio, in the Miami Valley, one of the most beautiful 
 sections of that State. His father, Jacob Cooper, emi- 
 grated at an early period to the West, from South Caro- 
 lina. 
 
 Every mind, in its growth, finds the elements for its 
 development and ultimate shape, in intrinsic and extrin- 
 
238 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 sic circumstances. A paternal and maternal influence, 
 each strongly defined in character, by precept and exam- 
 ple imparted to young Cooper the inceptive germs of 
 mentality, and added to the same that momentum and 
 accuracy of aim which went directly to the destined 
 point. 
 
 Of the extrinsic circumstances, which, in many cases, 
 far more than is known, gave shape and feature to the 
 youthful mind, may be mentioned the beautiful landscape 
 of hill and valley in which his early home was retired ; 
 these were yet half-covered with those majestic groves — 
 beach, walnut, maple and oak — for which the Ohio val- 
 ley is famous. During his rambles amidst the quiet se- 
 clusion of such scenery, armed with his rifle in quest of 
 game, he formed an attachment for all that pertains to 
 Nature. Amid such scenery and such life, no doubt, 
 were developed those primitive moldings of self-reliance, 
 those habits of independent thought, and power of living 
 within himself, which finally assumed a permanent shape 
 and became the distinguishing traits of his mind in his 
 mature years. Few men have exhibited so large a share 
 as he of that internal self-sustaining power, which enabled 
 him to live independently of those props and supports 
 which are indispensable to most men. 
 
 From the example of an older brother who had enter- 
 ed the medical profession, in which he has won and now 
 holds an enviable position, the younger brother was led 
 naturally to embrace the same calling. The selection of 
 this profession was his own choice, and having once 
 chosen it, he gave himself to its study with all the pas- 
 sionate ardor of youthful enthusiasm. The leading text- 
 books — especially those upon Anatomy — he almost com- 
 mitted to memory ; for this branch of medical science he 
 early exhibited a strong predilection, and its almost end- 
 less details, which are tiresome and difficult of acquire- 
 ment by most students, were mastered by him with that 
 pleasure and eagerness which love for a science always 
 lends to its study. A fondness for Human Anatomy can 
 scarcely exist alone — it naturally leads to Comparative 
 Anatomy, its kindred science ; hence, we find our young 
 
ELIAS S. COOPER. 239 
 
 student soon pushing his investigations in the latter 
 quarter, and learning there those laws which, in the hum- 
 bler grades of animated nature, do not differ from those 
 existing in "the paragon of animals." With no other guide 
 than his own original and all but intuitive genius, he in- 
 stituted a series of most interesting and instructive ex- 
 periments in the ligation of veins and arteries; in refer- 
 ence to the mechanism and function of the various valves ; 
 and the observations then made by him, he found subse- 
 quently of great value in operative surgery. 
 
 The writer has been for several years a medical teacher, 
 and is familiar with the career of many medical students ; 
 yet never did he see such ardent devotion to study, and 
 untiring zeal to master the facts of medical science, as 
 were evinced by his subject. Whenever his mind caught 
 a glimpse of the magnificent array of fact and theory ; of 
 what had been already accomplished, or what remained 
 to be done ; of the list of immortal names which are en- 
 shrined in the archives of medical science ; it awakened 
 and kept aglow in his bosom an impulse of devotion which 
 only expired with the last vibration of his heart. 
 
 His medical collegiate course was commenced at Cin- 
 cinnati, Ohio, and was completed at St. Louis, Missouri. 
 
 His selection of medicine, as a profession, was not at 
 first sanctioned by parental consent; yet the opposition 
 he met with in that quarter never diverted him for a mo- 
 ment from the fond purpose of his heart. His successful 
 career was not long in convincing his father, to whom he 
 was strongly attached, that the young man had made no 
 error in his choice of a profession. 
 
 Dr. Cooper commenced the practice of medicine in a 
 small town in Carroll County, Indiana ; thence he moved 
 to Danville, Hlinois, where, though he had but recently 
 attained his majority, his youth did not prevent him from 
 acquiring a large and lucrative practice. During his stay 
 at Danville, he won his first surgical triumph, in tlie suc- 
 cessful removal of a large portion of the lower jaw of a 
 patient. The self-possession and nerve of which he dis- 
 covered himself the master on this occasion, made him at 
 once determine to adopt surgery as his specialty and 
 
240 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 sphere of action. The field, however, which he occupied 
 was far too small to gratify his ambition ; and hence he 
 soon decided to move to Peoria, in the same State, a 
 place which gave promise of speedily growing into a large 
 city. 
 
 Upon his arrival at Peoria, he commenced a course of 
 private dissections, being convinced that the daily use of 
 the scalpel upon the dead body is the only way of honest- 
 ly and properly qualifying one's self for the practice of 
 surgery; and that, as the mariner can be a successful pi- 
 lot only when, with his own hand, he has dropped the 
 sounding line, and with his own eye noted each depth, 
 and the exact location of each reef and rock, so the sur- 
 geon, in order to avert danger, and shun shipwreck on the 
 strand of ^^ death by misapprehension," must be likewise 
 familiar with the topography of each muscle, nerve^ 
 and blood-vessel in the human microcosm. Our subject 
 was fully alive to these facts; and in order to be amply 
 armed and equipped for each and every emergency which 
 might arise, he devoted himself to practical anatomy with 
 the same zeal and untiring enthusiasm which had charac- 
 terized his earlier studies. He already enjoyed a compe- 
 tency, the fruits of his previous practice, and was enabled 
 to give most of his time for nearlj?- four years to the pros- 
 ecution of his favorite tasks in dissecting. Plis motto 
 was that of the old painter, Apelles : Nulla dies sine li/iea. 
 He allowed no day to pass by, without using his scalpel. 
 His life was then one gala-day of the happiest enthusiasm 
 and devotion to the mastery of the details of the greatest 
 science, without doubt, which has ever interested the 
 human mind, viz: Anatomy, or a knowledge of the con- 
 stituents, form and relations of the parts composing the 
 human body. .Well might Galen, in his pardonable fer- 
 vor, call it '' the noblest hymn which man can chant to 
 the Divinity." 
 
 Some five years after Dr. Cooper's arrival in Peoria, 
 he established a surgical infirmary, where he received 
 and treated all classes of surgical diseases, including those 
 of the eye and ear. The success which attended his prac- 
 tice quickly spread his reputation far beyond his home, 
 
ELIAS S. COOPER. 241 
 
 SO that within two years after the foundation of this insti- 
 tution, patients flocked to him from all portions of Illi- 
 nois, as well as from the adjacent portions of the neigh- 
 boring States of Kentucky, Indiana and Iowa. It was in 
 the treatment for the removal of deformities of the lower 
 limbs and of the defects of the eye, that he became espec- 
 ially famous. 
 
 It was not long, however, before he found that the 
 field which he had chosen was too limited in area; and 
 that, to fully gratify his desire for professional honors and 
 renown, he must select a new location. He debated in 
 his mind whether it were best for him to settle in New 
 York, or to seek one of the cities of the West, which 
 threatened, in a few years, to rival the Metropolis. In 
 the meantime, to more properly qualify himself, and espec- 
 ially, to compare his ideas with those of the masters of 
 the old world, he made a trip to Europe. 
 
 Upon his return to America, he decided to select the 
 Pacific Coast as his future home and sphere of action, and 
 soon afterwards he bade farewell to his Eastern friends 
 and the scenes of his many professional triumphs, and 
 departed for San Francisco, where, early in the year 1855, 
 he began the practice of surgery. 
 
 The profession of medicine was well represented in 
 San Francisco at that time. To illustrate the difficulties 
 under which a new member of the profession labored at 
 the time of Dr. Cooper's arrival, in order that the non- 
 professional reader may have a correct understanding of 
 the same, would be, perhaps, impossible. Suffice it to 
 say, that those who first came founded on the mere fact 
 of prior arrival and earlier residence a claim to prece- 
 dence almost equal to superior caste and prerogative; 
 whence sprung a feeling which viewed with cold distrust, 
 if not positive enmity, any attempt to enter the self-privi- 
 leged ranks. In such a professional circle, a position like 
 that which was due to Dr. Cooper could be attained by 
 no one who was unwilling or unable to meet, battle with, 
 and overcome a well-organized opposition. In our subject 
 were united those traits which most admirably adapted 
 him to wage such a contest, and carry it to a triumphant 
 16 
 
242 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 issue. Few conquerors have known so well as he how 
 to turn to good account the fruits of their victories. 
 Conciliation, like an attending spirit, w^as ever present in 
 his heart, and, as it were, held the pen ready to blot 
 out the record and even the meniorj of each injury which 
 was done him. A most intimate acquaintance with him, 
 and with many incidents in his life, convinced the writer 
 that this trait of character was natural with him, and was 
 not the offspring of policy, which sometimes dictates such 
 a course. It is also true, though it may seem paradoxi- 
 cal, that this conciliatory spirit was coupled with a ready 
 courage for defense, and even for assuming the offensive, 
 when all other means failed ; in fact, nature had endowed 
 him most richly with all the resources of both peace and 
 war; yet it was a rule of his life never to resort to the 
 weapons of the latter until every overture of the former 
 had been rejected. 
 
 As said, he brought with him to this Coast a fine pro- 
 fessional reputation ; for in his western home public opin- 
 ion had long before crowned him with an imperishable 
 wreath of honors, in which were entwined unfading lau- 
 rels of brilliant surgical achievements. In ihis, his newly 
 adopted home, he quickly won new honors, equal to, if not 
 eclipsing, those already attained ; for with a heart which 
 never knew the impulse of fear, and a genius which was 
 only quickened to bolder and more successful effort the 
 greater the difficulties which it had to encounter, it was 
 not long ere his scalpel, guided by the unerring light of 
 superior anatomical knowledge, made for him a pathway 
 wide and straight to the front and head of the profession. 
 It is probable that no medical man in so brief a period 
 ever attained so wide a reputation; — within five years 
 after his arrival, his services were sought for by patients 
 from every valley and mountain town of tliis Coast. 
 
 Among his achievements may be cited several cases of 
 ovariotomy, an operation which had to this time never 
 been performed here ; also ligatures of all the larger ar- 
 teries, including that of the Arteria Innoininata^ in which 
 his essay proved more nearly a success than any previous- 
 ly recorded case ; also the Caesarian Section ; and a great 
 
ELIAS S. COOPER. 243 
 
 number of operations for the union of disunited frac- 
 tures by silver ligatures, together with almost countless 
 cases of exsection of diseased bones. To the unprofes- 
 sional reader it may be remarked, that the older surgeons 
 have as a rule discountenanced all interference with the 
 larger joints; he, however, from a series of operations up- 
 on the lower animals, became convinced, that the ideas 
 which obtained in this domain of surgery were erroneous, 
 and at once, with that boldness which is the heirdom on- 
 ly of great minds, he leaped the barriers which old au- 
 thority had reared around these anatomical regions, and 
 learned with the highest satisfaction that art might safely 
 tread this hitherto consecrated ground ; and thus disease 
 be robbed of some of the trophies which previously, 
 without resistance, had been abandoned to it. In this 
 domain of surgical science, his genius had far outstripped 
 the medical world in general ; and had years been granted 
 to him to consummate the work which he had planned, he 
 would no doubt have been able to prove the truthfulness 
 of the ideas which he held upon this subject. 
 
 Besides the arduous labor which he accomplished in 
 his private practice, he found time to do much more. 
 For example: he was one of the prime founders of the 
 California State Medical Society, and it was in a great 
 measure due to his individual efforts that this society 
 was sustained during its existence. Besides this, he issu- 
 ed a medical journal, — the San Francisco Medical Press, 
 — the columns of which paper were mainly filled with 
 communications from his pen. An examination of this 
 periodical shows the editor to have been a bold and origi- 
 nal thinker, and endued Avith a candor which it would be 
 well if more of the medical profession possessed : — for he 
 was quite as ready to publish the failures as the triumphs 
 of his knife. Besides this publication, he was a contributor 
 to several medical journals published in other sections of 
 the Union. He also retained notes of all his more inter- 
 esting surgical cases, from which he contemplated draw- 
 ing material at some future day for a complete work upon 
 surgery. 
 
 Soon after settling in San Francisco, he conceived* the 
 
244 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 design of founding a school for the education of young 
 men there, who might desire to fit themselves for the 
 medical profession. Aided by several medical gentlemen^ 
 he was the foremost in the establishment of such an in- 
 stitution, viz: the Medical Department of the University 
 of the Pacific, which was organized and commenced opera- 
 tion early in 1859. In this school, he filled the chairs 
 of Anatomy and Surgery. At this institution were gra- 
 duated a number of young men, who have taken high 
 position in the medical fraternity of this Coast. 
 
 As a lecturer he was not endowed with great elo- 
 quence, yet his style was eminently impressive and calcu- 
 lated to fasten his ideas in the mind of the student. His 
 delivery was slow, deliberate, earnest; his sentences were 
 not marred or clouded with superfluous verbiage, but a 
 severe conciseness was the distinguishing characteristic of 
 his lectures; each sentence was keen and pomted, and of 
 axiom-like brevity. 
 
 It was, however, in his character as an operative sur- 
 geon, that he possessed talent superior to most other men. 
 The writer, who was present and assisted him in many of 
 his capital operations, can recall no occasion where diffi- 
 culty, danger or unforeseen complication threw him out 
 of the sphere of his accustomed self-possession ; but with 
 a bold heart, an anatomical knowledge that was never in 
 error, a fertility of invention that could turn to good ac- 
 count each unfavorable contingency, an eye that in a mo- 
 ment could compass the whole field, and a hand that was 
 never seen to tremble, he inspired all who saw him on 
 such occasions with the feeling that they were in the pres- 
 ence. of a great master. No one ever witnessed his oper- 
 ations, and marked the imperturbable self-reliance with 
 which he wielded the knife, but with a feeling of assur- 
 ance that he would accomplish the purpose at which he 
 aimed. Besides, a strongly marked and original person- 
 ality quickly brought his patients into sympathy with 
 him; by virtue of this, as well as the faculty of inspiring 
 his patients with an unwavering belief in their final re- 
 covery, he elfected cures which few others could have 
 done. 
 
ELIAS S. COOPER. 245 
 
 The incessant mental and physical toil to which he 
 subjected himself, began, soon after his arrival in this city, 
 to make serious inroads upon his constitution. Yet the 
 enthusiasm with which he worked, and the deep pleasure 
 s which he derived from his labors, caused him to pass un- 
 I heeded the monitions, which frequent attacks of illness 
 ' gave, that he was rapidly ruining his health. In fact, as 
 [ he told the writer during his last sickness, he had not 
 I passed a day entirely free from pain during the three pre- 
 ceding years. Pain, as the physician knows, if long con- 
 tinued, slowly saps the vital energies; and if to this be 
 added the wasting influence of the most severe, self-im- 
 posed tasks, we cannot wonder that our subject sank and 
 died in the prime of manhood. 
 
 On the 29th of May, 1862, Dr. Cooper was seized 
 with the illness which, with occasional interruptions, 
 marched slowly to the fatal issue, which occurred on the 
 13th of October, ere he had completed his fortieth year. 
 His disease was an extremely obscure and complicated 
 nervous affection. A few days after its commencement 
 he was attacked with amaurosis, or loss of power of the 
 optic nerve, whereby, in the course of one night he be- 
 came totally blind. Under these trying circumstances, 
 his fortitude never forsook him, and when it became ap- 
 parent that his disease must end fatally, with that cool 
 self-possession which had attended and guided him 
 through so many difficulties of his eventful professional 
 career — in fact, showing a genius quite as great for the 
 emergencies of death, as he had exhibibited for those of 
 life, — after the arrangement of his affairs, he turned from 
 the world with apparently as much ease as if he never 
 had here an aspiration or a hope. 
 
 Near the end of life, he was animated with a strong 
 hope of immortality, and on receiving a visit from a 
 friend to whom he was much attached, he said, though so 
 feeble as to be able to pronounce but a word at a time : 
 ^'In ten, twenty, thirty or at most, forty years, you will 
 come too, when we will lay our breasts together in an 
 eternal friendship." 
 
 As his disease had presented so many curious and un- 
 
246 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 usual complications, it was his request, a long time pre- 
 vious to his death, that in the event of his not recovering, 
 a post mortem examination should be held upon his body. 
 This request he repeated to the writer but a short period 
 before his death; he wished it done for two reasons: 
 ''first, that you and my medical friends may discover the 
 cause of my death, which none of us now know; and 
 secondly, that I may not wake up in my grave." 
 
 The examination was made in the manner which he 
 had himself dictated, and the cause of death found to be 
 a wasting of the upper portion of the spinal marrow, and 
 a paucity or defeat of blood ; and was evidently attril3uta- 
 ble to overwork, to which for years he had subjected 
 himself. 
 
 His death awakened everywhere the profoundest feel- 
 ings of sorrow, and his premature departure from this 
 life was a public loss which is still felt; for though the 
 profession is well represented in San Francisco, yet no 
 one has since proved himself by both natural and acquir- 
 ed talents, so truly deserving of the name of the Great 
 Physician, *' by Nature's own right hand anointed." 
 
 Of the numerous obituary notices which at the time 
 of his death appeared in the daily press, the following 
 poem from the pen of T. Gr. Spear, Esq., of San Francisco, 
 is a beautiful and appropriate tribute to his memory and 
 genius. 
 
 "When grief is sobbing o'er life's withered flower 
 To which the perfume can no more return, 
 "Words ne'er avail in that o'erwhelming hour, 
 Nor stay the soul from its eternal bourn; 
 Yet nature speaks a language from the dust, 
 Bevealing friendly oracles sublime, 
 That tell us peace awaits a dying trust 
 In the supernal life transcending time. 
 
 Where art thou, son of science ! bom with zeal 
 To cope with ills in life's corporeal sphere? 
 Where is thy soul benignant, prone to heal 
 Or soothe the pangs of prostrate mortals here? 
 No answer greets us from the stars or waves, 
 Nor echo back the mountains in reply, 
 Nor the green garden-valleys, nor their graves — 
 But, lo! it comes from voiced humanity! 
 
ELI AS S. COOPER. 247 
 
 The form you seek is with its withered clay — 
 
 Inanimate the good physician lies; 
 
 He who recovered lives has passed away — 
 
 A shining light in men's admiring eyes. 
 
 His name is on the starry scroll of time, 
 
 Enrolled benignly with exsective lore: 
 
 Ah ! lost too soon to learning, race and clime. 
 
 His skillful hand shall touch to heal no more ! 
 
 He found a mission that the angels seek — 
 
 To walk 'midst suffering with the power to cheer — 
 
 Recalling health to many a sallow cheek, 
 
 And winning back to courage failing fear. 
 
 His was the skill of genius, rare and just. 
 
 The enthusiast's fervor with the sage's sense— 
 
 And science whispers from his pregnant dust, 
 
 How much she owes his life's art-love intense. 
 
 No snow-crowned peak of knowledge, cold and stem, 
 
 With narrovved defiles and an icy heart, 
 
 "Was he — repelling those who loved to learn 
 
 From the broad realms of educated art; 
 
 But a fair mountain in a genial sky, 
 
 With wooded sides and grassy slopes between. 
 
 And mossy springs at which the passer.fi-by 
 
 Drank, wiser for the grateful Hii^pocrene. 
 
 Brief and brave life ! the warm, high, ample soul, 
 Poised for new efforts, seeing far and clear, 
 Has dropped the scalpel, leaving care and dole 
 For sweet transition to a higher sphere. 
 Look for his eulogy in work well done. 
 In truth subserved by a researchful mind. 
 That fame may spread the triumphs Cooper won 
 While science is progressive with mankind. " 
 
 He was interred in Lone Mountain Cemetery, where 
 his ashes repose beneath a tomb of granite which has the 
 form of an ellipse, surmounted by an obelisk, — the whole 
 being aptly adapted by its durability, severe simplicity of 
 form, and brevity of inscription, to perpetually material- 
 ize the leading features of his mind and character; and at 
 the same time, to express by a single word the fond hope 
 of his life, — for on it the passer-by whose eye turns from 
 one of the most sublime landscapes to the resting-place of 
 the illustrious dead, reads onlj^ this epitaph: 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of Elias S. Cooper, Surgeon. 
 
^C^ at THS -^ 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS 
 
 j3y the Editoi^ 
 
 JOSEPH W. WiNANSJ a pioneer of 1849, and a leading 
 and successful inember of the San Francisco bar, 
 was born in the city of New York, July 18th, 1820, the 
 second of nine children. His ancestors were English 
 and German, but it is necessary to go very far into the 
 past in order to trace them to a European origin. They 
 came to America many years before the Revolutionary 
 war, in which Joseph's grandfather was a soldier in the 
 American army. His son (father of Joseph W.) was a 
 prominent merchant of New York city for forty years. 
 He long since retired from business, having amassed a 
 large fortune. The old gentleman and his wife are still 
 living in that city. Time has dealt leniently with the 
 aged couple, who celebrated their golden wedding some 
 years ago. 
 
 Joseph W. Winans spent his youth in a course of 
 continuous study. Having entered Columbia College at 
 the age of sixteen, he graduated from that worthy in- 
 stitution of learning at the age of twenty. In the same 
 class with him were Hon. A. C. Monson, formerly Judge 
 of the Sixth Judicial District of California, and Hon. 
 Ogden Hoffman, the distinguished Judge of the U. S. 
 District Court for this State. Not resting from his labors, 
 nor pausing in the pursuit of knowledge, young Winans 
 entered immediately on the study of law, to which he 
 
250 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 applied himself for three years. At the end of that 
 time he received his license to practice, and also the 
 degree of A.M., from Columbia College, in the year 1843. 
 
 Armed with this license and this endorsement, Mr. 
 Winans at once devoted himself to his chosen calling. 
 At that time, the ranks of the legal profession in IS^ew 
 York were divided into two classes, attorneys and coun- 
 selors. After practicing for three years ^s an attorney, 
 with satisfactory success, Mr. Winans received his license 
 as a counselor-at-law the year before the adoption of the 
 new constitution of the State of ^^ew York, which 
 abolished the distinction between the two grades. For 
 three years more, he practiced as an attorney and coun- 
 selor at the New York bar. The success which rewarded 
 his labors, in the morning of his life, demonstrated that 
 he had not been unwise in the choice of his profession. 
 
 With all his love of study and his application to 
 business, our subject was not without the natural ardor 
 of youth. He wished to behold new fields. At the age 
 of twenty-nine, in conjunction with a few friends, he 
 purchased a vessel, manned and fitted her for the voyage, 
 and set sail for California, by way of Cape Horn. The 
 vessel landed the party at San Francisco on the 30th day 
 of August, 1849. Resting for a few days in the sand- 
 hills of the Bay City, they turned the prow of their little 
 craft towards the north, and after a few days' sail, ar- 
 rived at Sacramento. The City of the Plains, at that 
 early day, was a vast encampment of tents and rude huts, 
 thronged by a rough and restless multitude, hailing from 
 all parts of the globe — the grand headquarters of the 
 miners of northern and central California. Crowded 
 with the trampling, rushing, struggling mass of adven- 
 turers who filled her streets and her dens of dissipation 
 and crime, the city presented a scene which cannot even 
 be imagined by those who never beheld the motley 
 picture. 
 
 Here Mr. Winans pitched his tent. His journey was 
 at an end. Only a few days were devoted to observation 
 and repose, when he opened a law office and commenced 
 the practice of a science unknown and unrecognized by 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 251 
 
 the lawless throng which surrounded hhn. His course 
 was in striking contrast to that of his fellow-pioneers. 
 The community was mostly composed of miners and 
 gamblers, ^"early every eager immigrant who. in the 
 hot pursuit of the hidden treasure, was content to keep 
 within the bounds of honesty and propriety, upon his 
 arrival sought the mines and went to work as a miner; 
 while a rapidly increasing multitude, not over-scrupulous 
 as to the means or manner of acquiring fortune, attached 
 themselves to the second class or division of the com- 
 munity. This latter class embraced many (a sad, yet 
 curious fact) who had been above suspicion in older and 
 sober communities. In the more laborious, 3^et not much 
 larger, class of miners, could be seen the pale student, 
 the prim shop-clerk, the emaciated teacher, and the deli- 
 cate professional man, grappling with the earth and rocks, 
 side by side with laborers of heavy build and brawny 
 arm. ^orval, when he had come to do *' the happy deed 
 that gilded his humble name," did not look upon the 
 " shepherd's slothful life" with greater disdain than did 
 the doctor and lawyer of '49 feel towards the profession 
 to which his youth was bred, and which had been ac- 
 quired at the cost of so much time, care, and labor. 
 Bent only upon the rapid acquisition of wealth, where- 
 with to return to the old home, the land where profes- 
 sions flourished, this class of men cared only for the 
 mineral riches, and gave no thought to the grand future, 
 of California. To their restless spirits, this fair and 
 fertile region offered no inducements for permanent 
 abode, but was nothing more than a temporary abiding- 
 place for fortune-seekers. 
 
 Our subject, however, be it said to his enduring credit, 
 was not a victim to the general hallucination. He had 
 faith in his new home. That faith assured him that the 
 existing dissolute state of society must ere long give place 
 to law and order, and at times gave him glimpses of a new 
 and mighty empire, which would rear its power upon the 
 Paoific slope, blessed by the influence of American civil- 
 ization, protected by the American arms and the American 
 flag. 
 
252 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 A few months after he commenced practice, Mr. 
 Winans formed a partnership with John G. Hyer, which 
 continued for ten years, and up to the time of Mr. 
 Winans' s removal to San Francisco. The firm of Winans 
 & Hyer was for many years acknowledged as the lead- 
 ing law-firm of the capital. When that city was visited 
 by the most terrible of her many afflictions, the great 
 flood of 1860-'61, Mr. Winans removed with his family to 
 the metropolis. There he soon formed a partnership with 
 Mr. D. P. Belknap, the compiler of the valuable work 
 upon Probate Practice in California. This partnership 
 still continues. 
 
 In politics, Mr. Winans was formerly a Whig. He 
 cherished a deep-seated devotion to the principles of the 
 Whig party. Through the columns of the press, as the 
 editor of several influential journals, and on the stump, 
 as a speaker in many exciting campaigns, he was always 
 ready to do battle for the old party which has passed 
 away. Since the fall of that party, he has uniformly 
 acted with the Republicans. He has never been a seeker 
 after office. He has held many honorable and responsible 
 positions in Sacramento and San Francisco, but has been 
 before the people on only two occasions as a candidate 
 for office; first, in Sacramento, in 1850, when his Whig 
 principles led him to defeat, as the candidate of his party 
 for Recorder or Criminal Judge; second, in San Francisco, 
 in 1865, when he was elected as the Union candidate for 
 School Director of the sixth ward of that city. In 1852, 
 he was elected by the Board of Aldermen of Sacramento, 
 to the position of City Attorney or Corporation Counsel, 
 which he held for several j^ears. 
 
 In 1853, he was elected President of the Pioneer 
 Society of Sacramento, and twice reelected to that place. 
 In 1858, he was chosen President of the Sacramento 
 Library Association. For many years he has been a 
 delegate to the General Convention of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church for the Diocese of California, and in 
 1859 attended the session of that body held at Rich- 
 mond, Virginia, on which occasion he took frequent part 
 in their debates. In 1861, he was appointed by the 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 253 
 
 Legislature one of the trustees of the State Library, 
 and was subsequently chosen by his associates President 
 of the Board. He still occupies this position. In 1864, 
 he was elected President of the Society of California 
 Pioneers of San Francisco; and in 1865, President of the 
 Board of Education of that city. He has been one of 
 the regularly retained counsel for the Union League since 
 its organization in California. 
 
 Mr. Winans wields a vigorous and facile pen. During 
 his residence at Sacramento, notwithstanding his large 
 law practice, he found time to indulge his literary taste. 
 For many years, he edited the Index and TimeSj both 
 papert^ published in Sacramento. He was also for years a 
 frequent contributor to the Sacramento Union. Some of 
 the ablest editorials in that popular journal, which, from 
 time to time, have attracted public attention, are the pro- 
 ductions of his pen. In the columns of that paper have 
 been first submitted to the public eye a great many of his 
 essays and poems, most of them appearing under the nom 
 de plume of '' Glycus." Over this name, and in the edit- 
 orial columns of the leading journals of the State, he 
 has talked so often and familiarly to the reading public, 
 that it is unnecessary here to even refer to his qualities as 
 a writer. 
 
 Mr. Winans is a finished classical scholar. In the 
 course of his life, he has been called upon to deliver 
 lectures and orations before political, benevolent, and 
 other associations of men. He is a fluent speaker, and 
 his manner and gesticulation graceful and earnest. His 
 voice, though not harsh or unpleasant, does injustice to 
 his rich and glowing diction. His power is in his prolific 
 pen, w^hich never tires. A collection of his miscellaneous 
 productions would show him to be one of the most 
 voluminous writers on the Pacific coast. 
 
 In 1864, Mr. Winans married the second daughter of 
 Alexander Badlam, Sr., of Sacramento. He has three 
 living children. 
 
 In his office, he is a hard worker and close student. 
 His firm attachment to the practice of law and his 
 close application to business have secured him at all times 
 
254 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 a handsome business. He is eminently a successful 
 lawyer. Kor has his success been the result of accident: 
 it has been the legitimate fruit of patient toil, and a judi- 
 cious use of his talents. 
 
 To his profession he has ever been loyal, and beneath 
 her banner he has walked for over twenty -five years. 
 His constancy and fidelity to the noblest of sciences, fur- 
 nish a bright example to the army of young men in 
 California who are about entering upon the practice of 
 law. 
 
 THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 BY JOSEPH W. WINANS. 
 
 From mountain springs far, far apart, out in the frozen north, 
 
 Two tender rills, in infant glee, to life and light burst forth; 
 
 And gathering volume as they flowed from their primeval source, 
 
 'Midst constant change of scene and soil held their appointed course. 
 
 Through channels formed by nature's law their destined routes to run. 
 
 They glided on to meet at last and mingle into one. 
 
 Then seaward on its broadening path the shining river sped. 
 
 To gladden every clime through which its fruitful waters spread; 
 
 And further as it swept along, remoter lands to lave, 
 
 Like human progi-ess, it diffused a more enriching wave. 
 
 While through the densely peopled realms it opulently rolled, 
 
 Upon its breast, whose broad expanse the sunlight tinged with gold, 
 
 From ship to shallop many a craft to many a distant shore, 
 
 With life and commerce freighted full, that lordly river bore; 
 
 Down drifting through the dusty land, with fertilizing tide. 
 
 It grew amain a cherished source of luxury and pride; 
 
 Until, where at the marge of earth the sounding sm-ges roar, 
 
 Deep into ocean's dense abyss it plunged for evermore. 
 
 'Twas thus in the good olden time — the time of long ago — 
 
 From separate springs, my parents dear, your lives began to flow; 
 
 Through flowery scenes they coursed along, with ceaseless verdure bright, 
 
 Till, ere youth's halcyon days had fled, love bade them to unite. 
 
 Adown the wide domain of time — that fempire broad and free — 
 
 Your blended lives have flowed along, as river flows to sea. 
 
 Through fifty fluctuating years — a century half told — 
 
 Not like Pactolus' wave, of eld, which ran o'er sands of gold, 
 
 But rather like that grander stream whose waters, as they glide 
 
 From State to State, still stretching on, a continent divide; 
 
 Your mingled destinies, beloved, expanding as they roll. 
 
 Have scattered blessings far and wide while speeding to their goaL 
 
 Full many a gallant argosy, upon its glowing breast, 
 
 The river of your nuptial life has tenderly caressed; 
 
 Down through the baiTcn years has poured its renovating stream, 
 
 Till what were drear and dead before, with life and beauty teem. 
 
 The motley, yet imposing fleet, upon that river borne. 
 
 Is gliding to the happy land whence none shall o'er return; 
 
 With high resolves, and virtues rare, and deeds of noble worth, 
 
 With precious souls which from your own took their immortal birth. 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 255 
 
 All richly freighted for yon shore which lies beyond the main, 
 Whose radiant harbor, when attained, yields everlasting gain. 
 Majestic river! still flow on, and — in thy widening scope — 
 Stiil promise to the futmre give and to the present hope ; 
 Nor haste, until thy bright career of usefulness is o'er, 
 To plunge into that mighty void, upon whose further shore 
 No mortal eye hath ever gazed since being first began, 
 And sorrow-laden earth was made the heritage of man. 
 Avv-hile on thy prohfic course along the sunny land 
 Yet linger ere thy billows seek the dim and misty strand 
 Where ocean waits thy coming with its wierd and solemn song: 
 How short, Time! how short thy reign — Eternity, how long! 
 
 THE DIGOTTY OF LABOR, 
 
 A Lecture delivered before the Mercantile Library Association of San Francisco, 
 on Friday evening, December 28th, 1855. 
 
 BY JOSEPH W. WINANS. 
 
 The world is awakening from its long sleep of ages. The people 
 are shaking off their lethargy, as the lion shakes the dew-drops from 
 his mane. Low, muttering thunders give portent of an earthquake, 
 whose coming shall shake terribly the nations. Thrones are tottering, 
 dynasties downfalling, kingdoms crumbling into dust. The wave of 
 Revolution is sweeping onward, over the wrecks of empire. Earth's 
 millions soon shall own no despot's sway. The people are the rulers. 
 Labor is king ! Mark the world-wonders that were wrought in earlier 
 days, when labor was the serf, and not the lord. Gaze through the 
 earth and down the ages. What girded Babylon, with its tremendous 
 walls ? What reared the pyramids ? What struck a sphynx forth from 
 the solid rock? What built the Parthenon? WTiat stormed the walls 
 of ocean-circled Tyre, the IVIistress of the Seas, and left the billows 
 sporting in her place ? What brought out Jupiter Olympus from the 
 marble, and formed Rhodian Colossus from the brass ? Labor — labor 
 of the arm in him who wrought, labor of the head in him who planned. 
 But though these achievements were the trophies of labor's earlier day, 
 won by the energy and efforts of a few, prouder, far prouder triumphs 
 greet it now, when all mankind acknowledge its supremacy — when 
 every tongue is vocal with its praise — when millions prove its power 
 with the thought and hand. Although the ancient world regarded 
 labor as the instrimient of great designs, yet was it ever stigmatised 
 by low associations and invidious conceptions. Even the Mantuan, 
 who tells us, "Labor conquers all things," calls it " improhus" or 
 base. It Avas reserved for a later age; an age of energy and toil; an 
 age in which the ploughshare overcomes the sword, and the spear is 
 forsaken for the hammer ; an age whose wondrous spread of intelli- 
 gence and freedom has taught man the grandeur of his power and 
 the mightiness of his ambition; an age of which progress is the law, 
 
266 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and development the consequence; it was reserved for suclian age 
 to trample down the prejudices of the olden time and vindicate the 
 majesty of labor. If the lightning's spark, touched to the trembling 
 wires, athwart the continents flings thoughts, like rockets, burning 
 as they fall, so labor strikes from man those powerful displays of 
 physical and mental prowess which electrify the world. 
 
 Contrasted by prominent but individual examples, the present, it 
 is true, has slight advantage over ancient times. AVould you point 
 to the creations of manual contrivance? What later structures over- 
 come in vastness and elaboration the massive masonry of Trajan's 
 bridge, or the stupendous causeway of the Yia Appia? Would you 
 move amid the realms of Art, or scan the works of Intellect? Who 
 but the ancients fashioned and contrived the rich designs of archi- 
 tecture, or brought its forms to such a rare perfection? How many 
 an art of which they were the masters has been lost for ever to the 
 world ! What fabric vies in splendor with the Etruscan vase ? What 
 sybarite novr sleeps on j)urple gorgeous as the Tyrian dye ? What 
 combination of ingredients can reproduce or rival the Corinthian 
 brass? Though Michael Angelo mounts to sublimity and Claude 
 excels in softness, jet did not Zeuxis by his art beguile the very birds 
 of heaven? Is not Parrhasius reputed the Correggio, and Apelles 
 the Raphael of antiquity? Who ventures to contend that the superb 
 creations of Canova or Thorwalsden shame the chiseled splendors of 
 Praxiteles or Phidias ? If England has her Garrick and France her 
 Talma, did not Rome glory in a Roscius? If listening senates hung 
 spell-bound upon the eloquence of Burke and crowded auditories 
 thrilled at the exhortations of Bossuet, did not Isocrates surpass 
 them in refinement, Lysias in elegance, Demosthenes in burning 
 vehemence and force ? What though Shakspeare rules the minds of 
 men vath undisputed sway, has Homer been forgotten? Hath Pin- 
 dar's lyric lost its fire, or Virgil's strain its sweetness, because Milton 
 clothed his song in thunders and Tennyson caught up the music of 
 the spheres? Onward, with measured pomp, in grand battalions, 
 moves the columned language of Macaulay, while the contrasted 
 periods of Cicero sv/ell like an organ on the ear. And so the paral- 
 lel might be prolonged. But herein lies the difference. The ancient 
 world is brilliant in its instances of high preeminence, yet these 
 were isolated and individual, while the mass lay altogether dormant, 
 sunken in ignorance or degradation; but now, the people, prompted 
 by the strong incentives of intelligence and freedom, have begun 
 to v7ork. What a startling change has human progress vvTought! 
 Beforctime the nation was a force, and acted through ifcs chief. The 
 people were the atom-cloments, which, in their combination, made 
 that force, and the earth contained so many moral forces only as it 
 numbered nations. 
 
 Now man, the individual, is in himself a force, an independent 
 force, and the earth has just so many forces as it numbers living, 
 thinking, acting men : for even in this day of unexampled elTort many 
 exist who do not live, many are sentient v^^ho do not think, many con- 
 cern themselves with manifold affairs who do not act! Beforetime 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 
 
 257 
 
 men were thought for by their rulers, and thus became mere agents 
 of a despot's will; now, in the general heritage of independence, 
 man has discerned his right — nay, his divine prerogative — of thinking 
 for himself. No longer moping in the thrall of tyranny or reft of 
 the free franchise of opinion, he has risen into the full stature of 
 his manhood, realised the magnitude of his capacity, and in that 
 knovv'ledgc verified the true nobility of labor; of labor, in its highest 
 form, the union of the physical and mental; labor of the sinewy arm, 
 labor of the burning brain ! So he whose vocation is mechanical is 
 prompted to employ his hours of leisure in the cultivation of the 
 mind; he whose pursuits are mental, to inrigorate his frame by 
 frequent action. And thus, while mind and body act, react upon 
 each other with reciprocal intensity, man, the lord of creation, 
 though " fallen from his high state," without a fetter on his tireless 
 wing, is rising higher, higher, in his Ihght towards the stars. In 
 the deeds of labor are involved the destinies of human nature. It 
 is the source of all excellence, of all attainment; the instrument of 
 progress, the parent of invention; the universal, absolute, all- 
 conqueror, omnipotent in prowess, like Achilles, but with no vul- 
 nerable spot upon the heel. In the language of an eminent econo- 
 mist, ' ' Labor is the talisman that has raised man from the condition 
 of the savage; that has changed the desert and the forest into cul- 
 tivated fields; that has covered the earth with cities and the ocean 
 with ships; that has given us abundance, comfort, and elegance 
 instead of want, misery, and barbarism: 
 
 "All is the gift of industry, whate'er 
 Exalts, embellislies, and renders life 
 Delightful!' " 
 
 ±>eiore mortal man was fashioned from this globe on which he 
 treads, the Divine hand had by its own operations proclaimed the 
 dignity of labor. That Grand Architect who set a universe in mo- 
 tion; who called forth order out of chaos; at whose bidding sprung 
 from realms of darkness those refulgent orbs v/hich move upon their 
 courses through the unmeasured track of space, and down the march 
 of ages; who disclosed the sublime harmonies of nature, and stamped 
 beauty in living radiance upon the features of creation; through six 
 primeval days wrought out His wondrous plan, and the morning 
 stars when they sang together at the earliest dawn of being were 
 jubilant of praise over the consummated work of Deity. Man, the 
 noblest of created things, was designed for perfect happiness in 
 continuous repose, and, but for his wanton disobedience, v/ould still 
 have wandered through the scented groves of Eden and by the 
 margins of its pleasant streams, amidst the ceaseless bloom of 
 flowers and the lulHng melody of fountains — unvext with toil, un- 
 clouded with a care, his every sense pervaded with delight, " all 
 nature beauty to his eye or music to his ear." 
 
 But man fell, and forth went the Divine fiat, " cursed is the 
 ground for thy sake," " in the sweat of thy face shalt thou cat bread 
 until thou return unto the ground." Yet what was thus visited, in 
 
 17 
 
258 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 long entail, on him and his posterity for ever as a seeming curse, was 
 converted instantly by the Supreme Benevolence into a blessing, 
 and labor was ennobled by Omnipotence, the punishment trans- 
 muted to reward through " the dear alchemy of mercy," because it 
 was the lot of that being whom He had created in His image. Thus 
 honored with the sanction and enjoined by the command of Deity, 
 made from the first the destiny of human nature, labor is and ever 
 must be honorable; honorable in all its forms, material or mental; 
 honorable in all its achievements, whether of the hand or brain. It 
 matters not in what department of duty you may act. The very 
 diversity of occupations and pursuits becomes the most efficient 
 means for the advancement of the common good. One, by the aid 
 of microscopes, constructs the most minute contrivances of mech- 
 anism; another, by the strength of brawny arms, shapes to his will 
 the rigid iron. One, delving amid darkness, tears the bright gold 
 from the bowels of the earth; another opens up the globe in smiling 
 furrows, teeming with increase. In the lone midnight, far above 
 the city's murmur, twinkles the scholar's solitary lamp. 
 
 By painful calculation, the astronomer traces out new bodies in 
 the fields of space, which have shone unseen for .centuries; by 
 elaborate experiment, the chemist detects new affinities, and estab- 
 lishes new principles in matter. While the investigations of science 
 are disclosing the abstruse mysteries of nature, the labors of the 
 closet are adding to the sum of human knowledge. If Bacon, by 
 profound analysis, improved the discipline, enlarged the scope of 
 mind, and revealed the subtler forms of intellectual philosophy, 
 Kepler and Leibnitz and D'Alembert achieved results no less im- 
 l^ortant by their researches into the hidden arcana of the universe. 
 Thus the great stream of labor floweth on, bearing the works and 
 treasures of all ages on its breast in rudest crafts and stateliest 
 argosies, hoarding up boundless wealth within its depths, wafting 
 the voyager upon its heaving tides to fame and fortune ! Who is it 
 that thrives among his fellows, and mounts to eminence, and rules 
 the meaner throng? Who but him of the iron will and ceaseless 
 hand; whose mind is eager for the conquest of his purpose; whose 
 frame demands no respite from its toil; who bends him firmly to his 
 "task, while the common eye is hid in slumber, and flinches not for 
 obstacle or opposition; he whose 
 
 " keen spirit 
 Seizes the prompt occasion — makes the thoughts 
 Start into instant action, and at once 
 Plans and performs, resolves and executes." 
 
 Truly saith the Edstem proverb: '*In proportion to one's labor 
 eminence is gained, and he who seeketh eminence passeth sleepless 
 nights. He diveth into the sea who searcheth for pearls, and suc- 
 ceedeth in acquiring lordship. Whoso seeketh eminence without 
 laboring for it, loseth his life in the search of vanity." In every 
 rank of life, in each department of action, labor is indispensable to 
 the attainment of success. Would you speak of the triumphs of 
 genius? What is genius without labor? A meteoric glare that 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 259 
 
 gleams athwart the skies one fitful moment, then vanishes in gloom. 
 What is labor without genius ? The agent and contriver of all that 
 is useful, all that is enduring amongst men. Between labor and 
 genius the contrast is as the fable of the race between the tortoise 
 and the hare — vv^hile one sleeps by the way, the other gains the 
 goal. This dazzles the world with the brilliance of an ineffectual 
 flame, that toileth on unseen, unnoted, and — like the toilings of the 
 coral-line artificers in the secret depths of ocean — rears by minute 
 but constant efforts its stupendous work. Genius is as a crystal 
 cavern pictured on the stage, blazing with scenic decorations, gor- 
 geous with display, yet transient and illusive; a grand effect, wrought 
 by the trickery of meretricious art, magnificent with gaud and tinsel; 
 to enter in and gaze on which the senses are allured by the blandish- 
 ments of music and illumination. But labor is as a cavern in the 
 earth, repulsive and forbidding in its entrance, winding far through 
 narrow, dark, and tortuous paths, yet bursting forth at last into a 
 vast expanse of fretted architraves and glittering stalactites; a bright 
 reality, superbly splendid in the torch's ray, whose slow construc- 
 tion was the work of time, yet whose duration is unending. 
 
 But from the combination of genius with labor, this blended 
 usefulness and brilliance, emanate the loftiest achievements of man- 
 kind; for labor is to genius what the lapidary's skill is to the gem. 
 From the dull, clouded, and distorted mass it shapes a thing of 
 light, whose polished foiTQ blazes with lustre, and emits imperish- 
 able splendor. It is this combination which rears those material 
 and mental fabrics that fill the ages with their praise. It is this 
 which scales the dizzy heights of fame, which penetrates with ships 
 " informed by fire" to oceans' farthest realms, which lights ambition's 
 flaming torch. It is this which gave the vast learning of Aristotle 
 to the world; gave forth those grand old tomes evoked from their 
 literary grave at Scepsis, after a sepulture of three score years. It 
 is this which carved a pathway to the heights of glory with the 
 sword of Austerhtz. It is this which made the earth a race-course 
 for the iron steed, and belted it with the thought-communicating 
 wires. It is this which calls forth intellect from its obscure abode 
 and sends its powers flaming, like the fabled coursers of the sun, 
 through space and time. The myth informs us that ^olus confined 
 the winds within a narrow cave, but when he loosed their chains, 
 they rushed hnpetuously forth and filled the earth with uproar, 
 madly careering over land and sea, sweeping whole navies into 
 wreck, and scourging continents. So in the cavern of the brain 
 man's thought lies darkly hid, but, wrested thence, it seizes earth 
 and vastest realms of space within its grasp. And yet this gift of 
 genius is a far rarer faculty than men suppose. It may be said that 
 what is commonly reputed genius — not the faculty itself, but its 
 mere simulacrum — is but another name for labor, indefatigable, all- 
 contriving labor. Between man and man the powers of mind are 
 nearly on a level. And yet he who cultivates those powers gTOws 
 prominent, perhaps preeminent — nay, oftentimes controls the world, 
 while thousands of his fellows, not less gifted than himself, corrode 
 
260 REPEESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 their talents in the rust of indolence, or stifle them within the coils 
 of pleasure. It is this j)erversion of his nature from its law of 
 labor that deprives man of self-knowledge. Unless disclosed by 
 accident or circumstance, he rarely knows his powers or the reach 
 of his capacity. 
 
 Had not a revolution reddened France with blood, no Robespierre 
 would ever have been thrust upon mankind; had not another revolu- 
 tion wrenched America from England, the Father of his country 
 would have been unknown to fame. Had Danton been a patriot in 
 the cause of American independence, and Lafayette a Eed Republi- 
 can, how different the history of each. Until stung and goaded into 
 vehemence by the scorpion lash of the reviewers, Byron never wrote 
 a genuine poetic line. If Waverly, sent forth as an experiment, 
 had proved a failure, the superb romances of Sir Walter Scott would 
 have been lost unto the world. What rendered Hampden glorious 
 and gave to Sydney deathless immortality, but the tyranny of an 
 oppressive throne? To these, and myriad others of the mighty or 
 renowned, it was the magic wand of circumstance revealed, by an 
 external spark, the fire within, and the spell of labor caused that 
 fire to glow before the nations. True it is, that men have but little 
 knowledge of themselves. The " Gnothiseauton" is as great a 
 problem now as in the days of Thales of Miletus. AVanting the 
 development of labor, the great man lives in ignorance of great- 
 ness, and the mighty man unconscious of his might, and after an 
 inglorious career they both go down into the tomb, as units of the 
 common throng, unhonored and unsung. In the multitudinous 
 congregations of mankind, there is many an undiscovered Pericles 
 or Plato, Wellington or W^ebster, Leverrier or Luther. So thought 
 Gray, when he gazed in fancy on the quiet churchyard, and thus 
 mused : 
 
 ** Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 
 Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed. 
 Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre: 
 Some village Hampden that, with dauntless breast, 
 The pettj'- tyrants of his fields withstood; 
 Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest; 
 Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood!" 
 
 There is far less difference between the capacity than the industry 
 of men. Place all mankind from infancy in a similar career of dis- 
 cipline and training, give them the same facilities, inspire them 
 with a common zeal, and history, no longer dealing with the in- 
 dividual, would grow to be generic in her records. Those splendid 
 instances of greatness which even now shine forth at times in iso- 
 lated grandeur, would lose their prominence were all men conscious 
 of the latent force within them, and by that consciousness impelled 
 to act. The people have begun to realize this mighty truth, and 
 the spirit of the age is prompting them to universal action. Hence 
 the deeds of labor, in all their vast diversity of form and conse- 
 quence, are growing sacred in the popular regard, diffusing know- 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 261 
 
 ledge, leveling disparity, filling the earth with miracles of art and 
 beauty. Thus, as the mass becomes more active and intelligent, 
 those instances decrease where genius mounts to lofty heights above 
 the general level. A single star upon the night is brightly promi- 
 nent, but when the skies are gemmed with myriad orbs, although 
 the brightness is increased, the individuality is lost. 
 
 From the grave of the past ages, whose multitudes were ignorant 
 and servile, the names of the departed great shine singly out, 
 through the surrounding gloom, like torches in a cemetery. But 
 now this princijjle of greatness is diffusive. The people grow gen- 
 erically greats-great through the agency of labor — great in illus- 
 trious deeds — great in the work of handicraft and craft of thought. 
 The world is full of books, the channels of improvement broaden; 
 invention racks herself for new discoveries, and science rises on a 
 bolder wing, until, at last, by the general absorption of individual 
 distinction in the fusion of the mass, is produced an aggregated 
 splendor which illuminates the world, just as particles of light, 
 though separately brilliant, mingle and produce the all-pervading 
 radiance of day. And thus, though fewer instances of isolated 
 greatness stand forth from the throng than in the olden time, the 
 world is far more luminous with energy, intelligence, and action. 
 This general development and cultivation of the human powers con- 
 firms the proposition that the diversity between the abilities of in- 
 dividuals is comparatively limited in its extent. Though the sea 
 mounts up in lofty waves, and sinks in deep abysses, yet these sur- 
 face inequalities cause little variation in its common depth; though 
 the earth rears itself in the grand magnificence of mountains, and 
 bows down in the low humilities of vales, yet, if you stood where 
 Archimedes sought to plant his lever, and gazed upon the glorious 
 orb entire, each mountain would be as the grain of sand, and each 
 valley as the pin-j)oint scratch upon the surface of a school-house 
 globe. So, though human nature in its degeneracy dwindles down 
 into the driveling idiot, and in its elevation soars into the genius, 
 whose lofty frontlet strikes the stars, yet these disparities in their 
 variation from its true measure of equality, are but what billows and 
 abysses are unto the ocean, what vales and mountains are unto the 
 land. For the great princi^Dle of humanity, which underlies man's 
 universal nature, is a world within itself, as perfect as the material 
 orb on which we tread, and the casual deviations from the common 
 standard of capacity, which here and there exist, are but its in- 
 equalities. It is the inactivity of the slothful, the ignorance of the 
 unlearned — not the want of natural endowments — that creates the 
 seeming inequality between man and man. 
 
 Again : labor is needful to invigorate the frame and display the 
 inexliaustible resources of the mind. The idler is a burthen to 
 society. Without aim or purpose in the scale of being, he becomes 
 entirely useless, wretched and degraded. Apply a styptic to the 
 wound, and blood no longer flows; subject the rivers to the north 
 wind's breath, and their currents cease to run. So Indolence con- 
 geals and stagnates all the impulses and energies of human nature. 
 
262 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Beneath its blighting touch the emotions of the heart are stifled, the 
 aspirations of the spirit quenched, afiection withers, and hope 
 ceases to incite. What bitter fruits are gathered from the tree 
 which indolence has planted! AVhat melancholy ivy crowns the 
 walls and hollow echoes murmur through the corridors of its di- 
 lapidated castle ! How stealthily decay creeps into the enclosure, 
 and thorns and brambles overgrow the garden of the sluggard! 
 Idleness has been termed the parent of many vices. It is more : it 
 is the j^rolific sire of all iniquity. Dreary is the doom and dark the 
 pathway of the son of sloth. Mark you the conventional idler, that 
 prominent feature of society, who lounges in saloons, and haunts 
 the dens of dissipation, and prowls around the purlieus of de- 
 pravity; who spends his time in doing nothing, like some scurvy 
 politician, and quarters on the provender of others — what a miser- 
 able thing he stands amid the din and turmoil of this busy world ! 
 There was grandeur in the fall of Lucifer, but his decline calls forth 
 no sentiment of admiration or compassion. It matters not that one 
 be high in station or of gentle blood, for rank gives no immunity 
 from labor. "What right has yonder lordling to riot in indulgence 
 while his humbler fellow toileth on? "Was it for this that God made 
 labor blessed and its burthen sweet to all his creatures; made it 
 their duty and their honor, while he drones through unprofitable 
 years, consuming the industry of others, producing nothing for 
 himself; making vaunt of his gentility, yet leaving not his mark 
 upon the age ? 
 
 *' "When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 Where was then the gentleman?" 
 
 Without labor, youth is degraded to the basest uses, until a 
 career of reckless dissipation and unscrupulous depravity plunges 
 its victim in an early grave; without labor, manhood is precipitated 
 upon crimes and shames, from which its better impulses recoil, and, 
 like a wandering star, strays into the darkness of eternal night; 
 without labor, age itself is oftentimes disquieted and tossed upon a 
 thorny pillow. " Nevertheless," saith the moralist, "to the diligent, 
 labor bringeth blessing; the thought of duty sweeteneth toil, and 
 travail is as pleasure; and the spirit in doing good hath a comfort 
 that is not for the idle; the hardship is transmuted into joy by the 
 dear alchemy of mercy. Labor is good for a man, bracing up his 
 energies to conquest; and without it life is dull, the man perceiving 
 himself useless; for wearily the body groaneth, like a door on rusty 
 hinges, and the grasp of the mind is weakened as the talons of a 
 caged vulture." 
 
 The opulent merchant who retires from a long life of toil to 
 enjoy his affluence amid the voluptuous indulgence of luxury and 
 ease, soon wearies with satiety, and longs again to mingle in the 
 stir and tumult of the mart, and to that longing clings while life 
 endures. So the worn war-horse, in the last extreme Of life, moves 
 languid through his pastures, parted from the trumpet's sound, but 
 when the notes of distant war are borne upon the breeze, he rallies 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 2^ 
 
 all his energies, and bounding madly forward, in that effort dies. 
 Each noble longing in our nature craves, each physical propensity 
 demands, activity. The curse of idleness is a sharper stigma than 
 the brand of Cain. Go to the ant, thou sluggard! AVhile Hannibal 
 toiled on, the gates of Rome were powerless before the whii'lwind 
 of his coming. Lui'ed from his hot pursuit by the seductive bland- 
 ishments of Capua, he lost the empire of the world. Before the 
 resistless march of Alexander everything gave w^ay, until he wept at 
 having nothing left to conquer; yet, suddenly, in the very vigor of 
 his years and the meridian of his glor}% the fatal revelries of Baby- 
 lon swept him into an untimely, ignominious grave. Thus, while 
 idleness is the bane of life, labor is the antidote. For labor is pro- 
 motive of longevity. The great men of the world live on through 
 many years. How venerable are its philosophers, its statesmen, its 
 artificers, its scholars, and its sages! Nestor ruled over three gene- 
 rations of his countrymen. Solon, the great lawgiver of old, and 
 those distinguished jurists of the modern school, Grotius, Mans- 
 field, Marshall, were veterans, whose labors lasted with their lives. 
 Socrates was the wisest of the Greeks, Varro the most learned of 
 the Romans. GoOthe rises stalwart like an Ajax in the ranks of 
 German mind, and Brougham shines the intellectual demi-god of 
 Britain. These all outran in their allotted span the term of three- 
 score years, and will realize their well-earned tribute through the 
 deathless ages of renown. 
 
 Look to the lives and exploits of the sons of toil for labor's 
 grandest eulogy. With indurated frames and spirits energized by 
 action, serene in cheerfulness, suj)reme in health, they fill the func- 
 tions of a high humanity, however lowly or exalted be their station, 
 and pass away at the close of a long life steeped in the glory of 
 their own bright deeds, as the sun goes down in luminous effulgence 
 'neath the w^estern wave. They find no hardship in endurance, but 
 realize that labor is its own reward. Every hour of application is 
 sweetened by the consciousness of what it will produce, and in the 
 thought of toil endured there is abundant recompense. The artisan 
 who rears a stately edifice out of the rude, misshapen heaps of wood 
 and stone around him, transforming them by the spell of labor into 
 a thing of usefulness and beauty, is nobler than a conqueror. As 
 he Avho fashioned it stands gazing on a glorious work perfected, an 
 emanation iixna himself, the creature of his hand, his heart throbs 
 with a livelier emotion of delight than Caesar when a crown was 
 woven for his kingly brow. The sculptor, when he forces out his 
 living thought from the reluctant marble, though his hand be heavy 
 with its toil and his brow humid with its travail, thrills with a 
 prouder joy than he, lord of a thousand statues, who moves 
 superbly through his galleries and contemplates them in the pride 
 of conscious affluence. 
 
 It is this divine propensity of labor which prompts men to per- 
 severe in their designs. A weak or faltering spirit is disconcerted 
 by impediments. But perseverance overcomes all obstacles. It is 
 the application of intense determination to unceasing effort. It 
 
264 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 makes tlie niountain come unto Mahomet. Fixed in resolve, it 
 strag-gles on, though " hills on hills and Alps on Alps arise" before 
 it, and higher, higher mounts aloft unto its purpose, scaling the 
 dizzy pinnacles until it grasps the very skies. When Tamerlane, 
 despoiled and routed, his mighty host dispersed, stole to the shelter 
 of a solitary ruin in the wilderness, and crouching there in abject 
 fear, for one trembling moment gave up all for lost, he chanced to 
 see a spider striving to connect its web with the adjacent wall. For 
 nine and fifty times the patient insect struggled vdth its vain attempt, 
 yet each successive failure proved but the incentive to renewed exer- 
 tion. Such fearful resolution in a creature destitute of reason roused 
 the torjoid warrior from his stupor, and v/hen, with its sixtieth at- 
 tempt, that insect realized success, the giant rose into his loftiest 
 stature, and with his nerves intensely strung to action, swore never 
 again to falter in a purpose or to know a fear. And forth he strode 
 from that gray ruin and that quaint monitor within it, a conqueror 
 in prov/ess and in soul a king. Asia soon trembled with the shock 
 of his resounding arms, and nations owned him lord. 
 
 Such are the triumphs of perseverance, such the lessons it ad- 
 ministers from feeblest agencies. Our daily life is pregnant ynch 
 examples of what can be achieved by those who, though endowed 
 with limited capacities, devote themselves to unremitting toil and 
 flinch not from their purpose; who yearn for no indulgence, yield to 
 no discouragement, but, heedless of the claims of appetite, the long- 
 ings of desire, cling fixedly, like Sinbad's old man of the mountain, 
 unto their pursuit, and bend the force of circumstance unto the 
 rigor of an iron will. Such men accomplish more, far more, than 
 he who flames across the world's horizon, whose name rings, trumpet- 
 toned, upon the voice of fame. The great deeds of the earth are 
 wrought by humble agents, working out obscurely the designs of 
 Providence, v/hile history confines her feeble and imperfect records 
 to the doings of the j)rominent and mighty. Hov»^ seldom are her 
 jDortraitures of nations national, how rarely do her records realize 
 the verity which records should impart! But the triumphs of labor, 
 in this enlightened era, are not restrained to things material and 
 mental : they gather other trophies from the broad fields of religion 
 and philanthropy. In every quarter of the globe the missionaries 
 of the gospel are proclaiming messages of mercy to benighted men. 
 Through seemingly insufferable hardships and insurmountable im- 
 pediments, never faltering in resolve nor flinching from the face of 
 danger, at the sacrifice of all things, oftentimes of life itself, they 
 force their v^ray among barbarous or hostile nations, over rugged 
 mountains and through burning deserts, piercing into climes in- 
 hospitable with malaria and pestilence, or the deadlier scourge of 
 man's unhallowed rage, bearing aloft in their consecrated hands 
 the high commission of their Master, and millions of ever}' 
 lineage and tongue, the scattered descendants of one great pro- 
 genitor, among the continents and through the islands of the sea, 
 are now learning the glad tidings of salvation; while the sacred 
 fire expires upon the altar, the idol tumbles from its shrine, and 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 265 
 
 the impious rites of sacrifice and maceration cease to be performed 
 bj pagan hands. 
 
 In this grand pageant Xavier led the way. His iron nerve 
 flinched not, his firm lip never quivered, nor faltered his inexorable 
 will: he did not shrink from toilings superhuman, from dangers un- 
 exampled, from abasements such as mortal man has never borne 
 before, but dead to every yearning of his nature, crushing under 
 foot all passion and emotion, forced his path through self-imposed 
 privations and imimaginable sufferings, amid every vicissitude of 
 foruune, at one time the idol, at another the scoff of the multitude 
 around him, until seven hundred thousand converts sanctified the 
 name and perpetuated the glory of the great Apostle of the Indies. 
 Nor are the labors of i:hilanthroj)y much less conspicuous. Apostles 
 of humanity are traversing the earth and piercing every zone wherever 
 affliction is in need of solace, ignorance is pining for instruction, or 
 destitution clamors for rehef ; seeking, through the promptings of 
 an unselfish and enlightened charity, to establish the universal 
 brotherhood of man and ameliorate the condition of the race. Trace 
 Howard through his pilgiimage. See him shunning the haunts of 
 luxury, spurning the halls of nobles, to visit the prisoner in his 
 dungeon, the plague-stricken in his lazaretto — rearing cottages for 
 peasants and school-houses for gratuitous instruction; seconding the 
 impulses of a heart keenly alive to every human impulse with the 
 ofierings of a hand abundantly enriched. He went on his high 
 mission to relievo the sufferings and soothe the sorrows of mankind. 
 He made liis bed with the wretched and degi'aded, and paused not 
 in his luminous but melancholy path through the squalor of the 
 prison-house and the infection of the pestilence, until contagion 
 struck him with its blighting fang, and stilled the pulse of that 
 noble heart for ever. 
 
 And she, the gloiy of her sex, who still skirts the lurid track of 
 war, a ministering angel on her chosen errand of benevolence and 
 good, displaying in her character the lofty rirtue, and in her con- 
 duct the generous devotion, of a woman's nature, beaming with 
 tenderness and love, she whose song of life, like that of the night- 
 ingale, whoso name she bears, is sad but full of wondrous music — 
 honored be her work and green her memory for ever! What shall 
 be said of those relief expeditions which have wrought so much for 
 the benefit of man and the extension of discovery; which have 
 opened nevv^ pathways of the sea and found an ever-heaving ocean 
 beyond the realms of circumpolar ice ? What of those bold navi- 
 gators vv^ho have made the circuit of the earth in their adventurous 
 course, at one time lagging with an idle sail beneath the burning 
 sun of torrid climes, at another locked up in dense masses of im- 
 penetrable ice, or buried in the darkness of protracted night; who 
 pursue their journeyings through perils and privations into un- 
 known regions, to explore what still continues undiscovered in the 
 formation and phenomena of this material globe? 
 
 We have thus wandered through the labors of the ancient era 
 
266 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and down the modern time. We have, as it were, strayed through 
 an arbor dense at first with foliage and oppressed with shade, but 
 continually brightening as yre journeyed down its vista towards the 
 clear persj)ective at its end. Into that perspective have vv^e now 
 emerged. It is the glorious, all-pervading, all-achieving present. 
 Now, labor is indeed the king! Drawn from the skies by Franklin's 
 promethean touch the lightning has been yoked by Morse, like a 
 tamed courser, to the thought-conducting car. Upon one continent, 
 the genius of Arkwright played to comfort millions with it3 useful 
 skill; upon another, Whitney wrought his great invention to augment 
 beyond compute its w^ealth and welfare. Up through the realms of 
 air bounds the balloon, down through the ocean depths descends the 
 bell. What Watts devised, Fulton and his successors have applied 
 to subtlest uses, until distant empires clasp each other, and the earth 
 is circled and the cea is knitted to the land by the strange mystery 
 of steam. Through the Atlantic depths a submarine chain cable is 
 advancing to unite the shores of America and Europe. Across v/ide 
 oceans the affiliated nations stretch their hands to mingle in the 
 grasp of fellowship, as the colossal forms of Miriam and the Wan- 
 dering Jew appeared to clasp each other in the gloaming, although 
 parted by a sea. 
 
 The very currents of the air and ocean have been jointly made 
 subservient to the will of man in shortening the routes of naviga- 
 tion; and the stars that blase upon his breast, and the emulous dis- 
 tinctions v/on from royal hands, attest the genius of Lieut. Maury. 
 In shapelier fabrics than of old, looms the architecture of the sea, 
 traced in new forms of speed and beauty by the shij)vmght's nicer 
 skill, and statelier structures rise upon the land, and loftier spires 
 point out the v/ay to Heaven, wrought by the myriad sons of toil. 
 The press wearies with its efforts for the spread of knowledge, the 
 heart pants with its throbbings for the welfare of humanity. 
 Throughout the ranks of universal man, where he still darkles in 
 •the savage and v/hero he shines refulgent in the sage, the work of 
 regeneration goeth on. In the language of a cotemporary: "With- 
 in the last twenty-five years all the principal features of the geo- 
 graphy of our vast interior regions have been accurately determined; 
 the great fields of Central Asia have been traversed in various direc- 
 tions, from Bokhara and Oxus to the Chinese Wall; the half -known 
 river systems of South America have been surveyed; the icy con- 
 tinent around the southern pole has been discovered; the North- 
 west passage, the igniis fatiais of nearly two centuries, is at last 
 found; the Dead Sea is stripped of its fabulous terrors; the course 
 of the Niger is no longer a myth, and the sublime secret of the Nile 
 is about wrested from his keeping; the mountains of the moon, 
 sought for through two thousand years, have been beheld by a 
 Caucasian eye; an English steamer has ascended the Chadda to the 
 frontiers of the great kingdom of Borneo; Leichart and Stuart have 
 penetrated the wilderness of Australia; the Russians have descended 
 from Irkoutsch to the mouth of the Amoor; the antiquated walls of 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. ' 267 
 
 Chinese prejudice have cracked and are fast tumbling down; and 
 the canvas screens which surrounded Japan have been cut bj the 
 sharp edge of American enterprise." 
 
 Behold this lordly pile, the city of your home, rich in its fretted 
 domes, its gorgeous palaces and many chambered mansions, rising 
 like an exhalation from the deep, and looming gTandly in the amber 
 air! Evoked as if by magic, like the Palace of xiladdin; its marts 
 crowded with the merchandise of every clime, its harbor den3e with 
 the navies of all nations, rivaling old Tyre in the magnitude of its 
 commerce, and illumining the western continent with the luster of 
 its arts; a vast community, wherein are mingled the motley denizens 
 of every zone, and from which emanate financial influences that per- 
 vade the globe; what a stupendous monument it is, and will be to 
 all future time of the omnipotence of labor! A spiritual world is 
 bursting on the sense, and though its revelations are steeped in the 
 marvellous and the incredible, yet human foresight dares not proph- 
 esy what wonders of the unseen void are yet to be explored by man. 
 If Newton, while he lived, believed himself a mere gatherer of shells 
 upon the shore of the ocean of intelligence, a bolder generation has 
 arisen which quits that shore, and fearlessly sails forth upon that 
 sea, and 'mid the widely opening wonders of the view, scans with 
 a clearer eye the mysteries of being, as it speeds along to its eternal 
 bourne. But here our task must close. The word of God, the voice 
 of nature, and the monitor within us, all unite in uttering this man- 
 date unto man: "VYork while you may, with all your energies, "for 
 the night cometh soon in which no man can work." In whatever 
 sphere youi* lot is cast, see to it that you do your duty faithfully and 
 well. However subordinate your station, it is honorable if you dig- 
 nify it by the application of your industry, and adorn it with the 
 luster of your virtues. 
 
 " Honor and shame from no condition rise, 
 Act well your part, in that the honor lies." 
 
 There is no condition so subsendent, none so exalted, as to be 
 exempt from its responsibilities, which can no more be shunned 
 with honor than the sentinel in the hour of danger can desert his 
 post, or the monarch sacrifice the welfare of his people. Action is 
 the watchword, and progress the destiny of man. The more stren- 
 uously you labor, the more you magnify your powers and exalt your 
 station. No object in nature is so insignificant as to be without a 
 function. And shall man, the grandest v/ork of all, degenerate into 
 the meanest; become a useless thing, v^^hereall ^ras piu-posed to be 
 useful, and mar the harmony of order by the discord of inaction ? 
 No ! It were as easy to suspend the motion of a planet, without 
 hurling it in ruin from its sphere, as for man without continuous 
 effort to achieve his destiny. This truth has burst like a meteor 
 upon the nations. It startles and illumines. Everywhere, through 
 every channel, among every people, far and wide over the surface 
 of this ponderous globe, are the claims of labor vindicated and en- 
 nobled. A stupendous exposition, convened in annual succession, 
 
2G8 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 at London and New York, and Paris, has brought together, from 
 every land, the industry, resources, and invention of the world. 
 
 There, at that grand high carnival of labor, the nations mingle 
 in a common throng to bend the suppliant knee before its throne. 
 Labor is king! The multitude are shaking off the sloth of ages. 
 The song of labor hath more fascination than the strain the syren 
 sung. This glorious millenium is working out redemption for man- 
 kind, from the thrall of degradation and oppression. The Ishmael- 
 ite shall soon be rescued from the curse of Hagar's offspring. No 
 longer shall the Tartar roam his boundless steppes inactive, nor the 
 Arab prosecute his roving and nomadic life. The tawny Indian on 
 the banks of the Euphrates, and the burnished Ethiop, shall burst 
 the fetters of their mental bondage, and human nature everywhere, 
 through all its ranks and ranges of condition, its varieties of hue 
 and shade, its grades of elevation and debasement, its diversity of 
 tribes and races, shall stand forth redeemed in the golden effulgence 
 of that morn which is dawning on the world's long night of lethargy 
 and error. For this grand consummation be it ours to strive with 
 unremitting toil, and haply even we may have our names emblazoned 
 on the scroll of fame. 
 
 MUNDUS. 
 
 BY JOSEPH W. WINANS. 
 Quid rides?— mutato nomine, de te fdbula narratur. 
 
 "When Juvenal forsook his pen; 
 
 That stern, satiric teacher 
 Left half untold the crimes of men— 
 
 The guilt of human nature. 
 
 From shores by Behring's waters wet, 
 
 To Ind's remotest nation, 
 A soulless, sordid, selfish set, 
 
 Make up Earth's population. 
 
 The troublous tribes of men wiE cease 
 
 From rapine, rage, and riot; 
 When Hyrcan tigers covet peace, 
 
 And Russian wolves are quiet. 
 
 Gigantic wi'ongs, long unrestrained, 
 Have grown completely chronic; 
 
 As Sardian herbs the features trained 
 Into a scowl sardonic 
 
 War spreads its desolating glare 
 From columns densely serried; 
 
 Fierce as the flame that flashes where 
 Euceladus lies buried. 
 
JOSEPH W. WINANS. 
 
 Intestine fetids, with horror nfe, 
 
 Holil bloody saturnalia ; 
 Till Freedom yields to Civil strife, 
 
 As Pompey to Pharsaha. 
 
 The code of morals that prevails 
 
 Amid the social chaos, 
 ■Would shame the conscious Paphian vales, 
 
 And flush the cheek of Lais. 
 
 Unhallowed lust drew Villiers' sword — 
 
 And gallants still are ready 
 To hie from duel with the lord, 
 
 To duet with the hidy. 
 
 Though Virtue, with bold deeds and words, 
 
 Strives good from ill to sever; 
 The poisoned robe of Nessus girds 
 
 Her generous endeavor. 
 
 'T would need a fancy quaint in style, 
 
 \ct gloomier than Dante's, 
 To r>aint the orgies that beguile 
 
 Our now-a-day Bacchantes. 
 
 Contention, schism, and turmoil, 
 
 Arc everywhere in fashion; 
 For Geysers' springs less madly boil, 
 Than boiling human passion. 
 
 'T were easier task to curb misnile 
 
 From tyranny and duress. 
 Than change the rigid Zeno's school 
 
 To that of Epicurus. 
 
 Lean penury, by bloated wealth 
 Is rudely spurned and thvrarted: 
 
 While Lazarus creeps on by stealth, 
 Proud Dives' nod is courted. 
 
 Corruption glimmers through the damp 
 Of pride, and place, and station; 
 
 Like false lights through the Dismal Swampr 
 In fetid exhalation. 
 
 Midst revel, rout, and festal glee, 
 
 All manhood is Ibrgotten; 
 As midst the train of Omphule 
 
 Great Hercules spun cotton. 
 
 The Car of State, through check and clog, 
 
 Ghdes with as free a motion. 
 As ships through the Sirbonian bog. 
 
 Or Pharoah's hosts through ocean. 
 
 Those waters in which statesmen slake 
 Their thirst for greed and glory. 
 
 Are fouler than the Stygian Lake, 
 Or Pontine Marsh of story. 
 
 How dearly valued matters not; 
 
 The friendships that we cherish — 
 ?also as the perjured Sinon's plot — 
 
 In disappointment perish. 
 
 269 
 
270 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Where faith and truth should greenly gi'ow, 
 The heart yields, from its stubble, 
 
 Such harvests only as did flow 
 From England's South Sea Bubble. 
 
 Unstinted bounties still inspire 
 
 A gratitude as glowing, 
 As when fond Scylla slew her sire 
 
 To speed her dainty wooing. 
 
 More victims to the crime of Cain, 
 
 Give desperate solution, 
 Thau gi-aced the tumbril and the wain 
 
 Of Danton's revolution. 
 
 Like Joseph's brethren, brothers strive 
 
 The ties of blood to foster: 
 So once the mild Cambyses strove; 
 
 So strove the gentle Gloster. 
 
 A wanton age is ''Christian'' claimed, 
 
 By catachrese as glaring. 
 As erst the Fates were " Sparers'' named, 
 
 Because they were unsparing. 
 
 What though a meed of fame is due 
 
 To Man's exalted mission; 
 The blandishments of sense subdue 
 
 His loftiest ambition. 
 
 Thus Babylon, with festive charms. 
 
 Entangled Alexander; 
 Thus Capuau arts, not Roman arms, 
 
 Made Hannibal surrender. 
 
 Pale Justice sits, in ermined state, 
 
 With not a stain upon her; 
 Impartial, and immaculate 
 
 As Jeffreys' spotless honor. 
 
 Without delay the Law moves on 
 
 To its completed issue : 
 Penelope thus nimbly spun 
 
 Her web of varied tissue. 
 
 While dissolute desires encroach 
 
 On habits more primeval; 
 What once was Noah's grave reproach, 
 
 Is now a sanctioned evil. 
 
 From farthest East to utmost West; 
 
 From dwarf to giant's stature, 
 Cinme curdles in the human breast; 
 
 Vice venoms human nature. 
 
GEORGE L. WOODS. 
 
 JBY pALVIN p yVlcpONALD. 
 
 GOVERNOR Woods is one of the most distinctive repre- 
 sentative men in the rising commonwealth of 
 Oregon. Indeed, he may be regarded as the most noted 
 and conspicuous among the many really brilliant and 
 able men who give character to that State, possessing 
 that wonderful sorcery of speech which Nature bestows 
 on but few of her children, and w^hich can so easily ad- 
 vance its possessor to renown. Whatever be his other 
 qualifications, Governor Woods is unquestionably the 
 most eloquent orator now living in the Pacific States, 
 and as such is entitled to a conspicuous place among the 
 representative men of the nation. 
 
 George Lemuel Woods, the present Governor of 
 Oregon, was born in Boone county, Missouri, July 30th, 
 1832. He is of Scottish descent, his ancestors having come 
 over to this country in the latter part of the seventeenth 
 century and settled in Virginia. His father was born in 
 Kentucky ; his mother in Tennessee : the former removed 
 to Missouri, and settled there in 1808. The subject of 
 these remarks is the second of four sons, two of whom are 
 dead. He removed from Missouri to the Territory of 
 Oregon in 1847, w^ien only fifteen years old, and has re- 
 sided there ever since, much of the time in w4iat is known 
 as Eastern Oregon, that portion of the State lying east of 
 the Cascade mountains. In April, 1852, he was married, 
 
272 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and began life without means, relying wholly upon his 
 own exertions; taking a homestead upon unimproved 
 Government lands, which he cultivated by his own labor, 
 building houses and barns, fencing and plowing, after the 
 manner of settlers on the border. 
 
 In 1856, having determined to enter a different sphere 
 in life, with a family to be supported, and only a limited 
 common-school education, young Woods sold his property 
 and entered school, intending to prepare himself for the 
 study of the law. and continued his earnest and successful 
 studies until his means were exhausted. Having thus 
 prosecuted his preparatory studies under difficulties, he 
 purchased a small law library : paid for it by working at a 
 carpenter's bench during the day; and studied its con- 
 tents by night, until ready to be admitted to practice. Ilis 
 success at the bar corresponded with his indomitable 
 resolution, and he soon rose to distinction in his district. 
 
 In July, 1863, Gov. Woods' public life commenced 
 by his appointment to the Judgeship of Wasco county, 
 in which capacity he served a year with satisfaction to the 
 community and honor to himself. In March, 1864, he 
 was nominated on the Union Presidential Electoral ticket, 
 and took an active part in that campaign, making known 
 the remarkable powers as a popular orator and stump 
 speaker which have since given him a national distinction. 
 His boldness and eloquence of speech made him the 
 particular mark for his political adversaries in that State, 
 where election campaigns are conducted with great vigor 
 and in the true Western style. In Oregon, opponents, 
 whether candidates or campaigners, travel together, meet 
 face to face, and discuss the issues from hand to hand, 
 sometimes before vast throngs ; and for that sort of discus- 
 sion Woods was admirably prepared through his rapid flow 
 of language, ready wit, and graceful conduct as a speaker. 
 In that memorable campaign, the Democracy selected the 
 Hon. Aaron E. Wait, late Chief Justice of the State, and 
 a gentleman of commanding abilities, while the Union 
 party chose the young and then unknown George L. Woods 
 as their champion. The conflict was fierce and exciting, 
 and Wait was vanquished at every encounter. 
 
GEORGE L. WOODS. 273 
 
 Two years after, Woods was appointed, by the Presi- 
 dent, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Idaho ; 
 but before the arrival of his commission, he was nominated 
 for Governor by the Union State convention of Oregon. 
 The opposing candidate on the Democratic side was the 
 Hon. James L. Kelly, an old and experienced politician, 
 and an eminent lawyer. Again young Woods had a 
 foeman worthy of his steel; the struggle was the most 
 exciting in the history of Oregon politics, and occurred 
 just at the time of President Johnson's rupture with 
 his party, and when the whole country was in a state of 
 unusual excitement. The conflict between the rival 
 champions was resolute and deadly beyond all precedent ; 
 but, as in the previous campaign, and notwithstanding 
 the formidable character of his adversary, Woods was 
 equal to the great occasion, discomfited his opponent at 
 every turn, and was elected. 
 
 During the gubernatorial campaign in California, in 
 1867, the Republican State Central Committee invited 
 Gov. Woods to come to their assistance ; and although in 
 feeble health, he responded at once, traveled and labored 
 incessantly, making thirty speeches in thirty-five consecu- 
 tive nights, of which twenty-six were in the open air and 
 before immense audiences. His popularity was every- 
 where established; no public speaker in that State ever 
 created greater enthusiasm, or won brighter laurels. His 
 speech in the great Union Hall in San Francisco was con- 
 sidered one of the most excellent and powerful ever 
 heard in that city. It is true that on account of an 
 unfortunate division, his party was defeated; but it is 
 believed that the enthusiasm created by the eloquent 
 Oregonian, as much as any other cause, saved the Re- 
 publican party of California from utter demoralization 
 through division and disaster. 
 
 In the winter of 1868, at the solicitation of the 
 Republican State Central Committees of Kew Hampshire 
 and Connecticut, Gov. Woods went to the East and as- 
 sisted in canvassing those States. His success and popu- 
 larity were as great in classic New England as they had 
 been in the distant west of Oregon and California. While 
 18 
 
274 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 more than fifty of the most distinguished orators and 
 stump-speakers of the nation took part in that exciting 
 and desperate canvass, the leading journals of those 
 States referred to the Oregonian as being the most elo- 
 quent and brilliant of them all ; and through such grave 
 testimony, and in the presence of such competition, it was 
 there demonstrated that his fame and popularity are not 
 things belonging only in the Far West. 
 
 In person, Gov. Woods is tall, graceful, and command- 
 ing, with a handsome, cheerful face, which is set off by a 
 full, flowing beard, and manifesting the utmost mental 
 activity. He is one of those positive and magnetic men 
 who draw around them a great number of intimate and 
 devoted friends, and possess about an equal mumber of 
 very decided enemies; but, in his case, these last are the 
 result of political antagonism. His political adversaries 
 in Oregon regard him as their most dangerous and de- 
 structive foe, and on the other hand, his political friends 
 consider him their most steadfast and indomitable cham- 
 pion, who never loses a battle. His manner of speaking 
 is rapid, but distinct and impressive, never using long or 
 high-sounding words or indulging in any extravagance or 
 impropriety of metaphor. He seems to depend on the 
 natural forces of ideas rather than upon the sonorous- 
 ness of words ; and although never written, unless by some 
 very swift reporter at the time of their delivery, his 
 speeches would be considered well adapted to the most 
 refined of lecture-rooms. Although they may be at times 
 insupportably severe, his remarks are never coarse or 
 personally offensive. Perhaps no American orator is 
 capable of a quicker or keener retort, but it is a cut from 
 a rapier, rather than a stroke with a bludgeon. This 
 peculiar style of political fence is one of Woods' strongest 
 points, and is an essential of popular stump speaking in 
 Oregon, where political meetings are actually debates 
 before both sides, of the question, and where the orator 
 is subject to frequent interruptions by his opponent or by 
 some questioner in the audience. Such a thing as a set 
 speech at a political meeting in that State would be one 
 of the most grotesque of absurdities, and an orator with- 
 
GEORGE L. WOODS. 275 
 
 out presence of mind and the capacity to turn an unex- 
 pected question to good account, would be a gentleman 
 to be pitied and a person suitable for immediate emigra- 
 tion. Notwithstanding his rapid utterance, and their 
 sometimes great length, Woods' speeches cannot be called 
 dijffuse in style; on the contrary, they seem to be each 
 an exhaustive argument — an oration complete in all its 
 parts, with a beginning, a middle and an ending, and often 
 containing passages of lofty and surprising beauty, but 
 never extending to empty declamation or the transgres- 
 sion of rhetorical laws. 
 
 The writer of this has heard Gov. Woods many times 
 both in California and Oregon, and is of opinion that as 
 a popular orator, he is the most brilliant and effective now 
 living in either of those States. As an orator, as a patriot, 
 citizen, and man, he is entitled to a high place, not only 
 among the representative men of the Pacific, but of the 
 whole country. The distinction which he has attained 
 under great disadvantages at home, he is capable of main- 
 taing anywhere in the Republic ; and if life and circum- 
 stances permit, his friends may hope to see him in a 
 position as nationally distinctive as that is individual and 
 distinguished which he now bears to his own State. 
 
FRANK TILFORD, 
 
 ^Y THE pDITOR 
 
 FRANK TiLFORD is of Scotch-Irish descent, and a native of 
 Lexington, Kentucky. In the year 1745, a remote 
 ancestor, John Tilford, emigrated with his family from the 
 North of Ireland and settled in the valley of the Shenan- 
 doah. The descendants of this family are now scattered 
 through the Western States. They belong to that hardy 
 race of pioneers, who, after driving the Indian tribes 
 from their hunting grounds in the Mississippi Valley, 
 laid well and deep in their wilderness homes the founda- 
 tions of a free government. 
 
 In the spring of the year 1849, Frank Tilford, then 
 twenty- seven years of age, with a small party of youthful 
 adventurers, started overland for the Pacific. He arrived 
 in California in August of that year , and from that time 
 until now has resided on the Pacific coast. 
 
 In the early days of San Francisco, when the place was 
 a Pueblo, Mr. Tilford was a member of the Ayuntami- 
 ENTO, and in that capacity contributed largely and bene- 
 ficially to the development of the future city. The cause 
 of education received from him earnest attention, and 
 to his exertions we owe the first endowment ever bestow- 
 ed upon a public school in San Francisco. He endeavored, 
 although ineffectually, to procure an appropriation of 
 some of the public lands belonging to the corporation to 
 the establishment of a College of the Pacific. Had the 
 scheme succeeded, we might, years ago, have had on this 
 coast a University richly endowed and ranking with the 
 
278 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 noblest educational institutions of the land. At that 
 time, unfortunately, a large majority of our people lived 
 only for and in the immediate present ; few either appre- 
 ciated or cared for the magnificent future which awaited 
 their adopted State ; and the inevitable result of such in- 
 difference was the failure of all propositions of a public 
 character, which did not promise a speedy remunerative 
 return to the community. 
 
 In May, 1850, Mr. Tilford was elected Recorder, or 
 Criminal Judge, of San Francisco. He held the position 
 for one year. During his term of office, San Francisco 
 was noted for the fierce controversies which prevailed in 
 regard to the title and possession of the lands within her 
 limits. These conflicts, commencing in acts of lawless- 
 ness, ended, too often, in sanguinary violence, and became, 
 therefore, the subjects of investigation in the criminal 
 courts. In all such cases the sympathies of the Judge 
 were with the actual and honest occupant, and the law 
 was administered to protect him against the aggressions 
 of trespassers who sought to obtain possession without 
 the shadow of legal title or equitable claim. The firm 
 yet just course pursued by Recorder Tilford in these 
 troublesome disputes, won for him the esteem and regard 
 of all well-disposed citizens. His re-election to the 
 same position, it was conceded, was certain, had he been 
 a candidate. It so happened, however, that the Demo- 
 cratic party placed Judge Tilford before the people as their 
 candidate for Mayor at the municipal election in April, 
 1851. The nomination was made against the earnest, 
 openly-expressed wishes of the candidate, and finally ac- 
 cepted with great reluctance. The contest was animated, 
 and rendered more interesting as being the first to occur 
 in California on strict partisan issues. The Whig party, 
 then, for the first time, organized, and under the leader- 
 ship of T. Butler King, collector of the port, achieved the 
 most brilliant, and almost the only victory, which ever 
 rewarded its expiring efforts in California. The average 
 majority against the Democratic ticket was not less than 
 one thousand, while the candidate for the mayoralty was 
 defeated by only four hundred votes. 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 2Y9 
 
 Shortly after the election, Judge Tilford formed a 
 law partnership with R. A. Lockwood and Edmund Ran- 
 dolph, two gentlemen of commanding abilities, now de- 
 ceased. This firm instituted a suit which created intense 
 and general excitement — Metcalf vs. Argenti and others — 
 the cause cMre of that day. The plaintiff complained of 
 a trespass committed by the defendants in entering his 
 house and searching the premises. They (the defend- 
 ants) were members of the Vigilance Committee of 1851. 
 The whole case involved the legality and propriety of the 
 action of the Committee. Plaintiff laid his damages at 
 fifty thousand dollars. There were two trials of this cause, 
 but the jury, on both occasions, were unable to agree 
 upon a verdict. 
 
 In the summer of 1851, Judge Tilford visited Oregon 
 and remained some five months in Portland, where he 
 practiced law with considerable success. Feeling, at the 
 end of that short period, that he was out of the pale of 
 civilization — Oregon being but a dreary abiding place 
 eighteen years ago — he returned to San Francisco early 
 in 1852, and resumed the practice. He obtained a high 
 reputation at the bar, but principally as a criminal lawyer. 
 
 From 1852 to 1856, during which time Judge Tilford 
 was practicing law, the San Francisco bar numbered among 
 its criminal lawyers, Col. Baker, Gov. Smith of Virginia, 
 Bailie Peyton, Gov. Foote, Edward F. Marshall, Col. 
 James, and Harry Byrne, now, as then, District Attorney 
 of San Francisco. 
 
 In 1854, he was nominated by the Democracy for 
 Judge of the Superior Court of San Francisco. In that 
 3'ear the Native American party first appeared in Califor- 
 nia as a distinct political organization. '^Towering in its 
 pride of place," it swept all before it and succeeded in 
 electing every one of its nominees. The Whig party was 
 crushed out of existence. The Democracy held together, 
 and although defeated, were not demoralized. 
 
 In 1855, Judge Tilford received the compliment of 
 the nomination, unanimously tendered him by the county 
 convention of his party, for State Senator. He took the 
 field a§[ainst the enemy, before whose power he had fallen 
 
280 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the previous year, and at the fall election was chosen by 
 a majority of twenty-five hundred votes. 
 
 The seventh session of the California legislature was 
 one of unusual interest to the political parties of the 
 State. The Native American party had been successful 
 at the State election and returned a majority of the legis- 
 lature. In the assembly they had the decided control, 
 and in the senate, one majority. The first question which 
 arose was in reference to a joint convention to elect a 
 United States Senator to succeed Wm. M. Gwin, whose 
 term had expired. The Democrats opposed the conven- 
 tion and favored the postponement of the election. Sen- 
 ator Tilford made the only speech on the Democratic 
 side ; taking the ground that the State election had turned 
 on local and personal issues; was no just indication of 
 the popular judgment, and that it would be impolitic, 
 if not disastrous to the public interests, to place in the 
 Senate of the United States the representative of a fac- 
 tion which had no national existence, and whose career 
 was destined to a speedy termination. This speech was 
 published in all the Democratic journals of the State, and 
 was generally accepted as defining the attitude of the 
 Democracy. 
 
 The vote was taken on the motion to indefinitely post- 
 pone the assembly resolution in favor of a joint conven- 
 tion, and the motion was carried — Hon. Wilson Flint 
 acting with the Democratic members. The people of the 
 State, at the election which took place in the fall of 1856, 
 sustained the course pursued by a majority of the senate. 
 
 Another debate of a political character occurred in the 
 senate, important as, in part, the cause and precursor of 
 the fall of the Native American party in California. The 
 assembly, in which that party had a large majority, as 
 stated, had passed a resolution condemning the election 
 of Hon. N. P. Banks to the position of Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives at Washington, for the reason, 
 as alleged, that he was 'Hhe exponent of sectional ideas 
 and principles diametrically opposed to the spirit of the 
 Constitution of the United States." When this resolu- 
 tion came to the senate, the Native American members. 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 281 
 
 after caucus held, unwilling to pass, yet hardly prepared 
 to oppose, resolved on tabling it. The discussion which 
 arose was the most interesting and exciting which, up to 
 that period, had occurred in the California Legislature. 
 Hawks, Senator from San Francisco, and the eloquent 
 Ferguson of Sacramento, favored the tabling of the reso- 
 lution. Senators Mandeville and Tilford urged its pas- 
 sage. The motion to table the resolution was carried by a 
 clear vote ; but in the discussion which preceded the final 
 vote, were sown the seeds of the ultimate dissolution of 
 the Native American party in the State. Upon the fall 
 of that party, a large number transferred allegiance to 
 the victorious enemy, while another very considerable 
 element united with the N'ational Republican party, then 
 about organizing. The speech of Judge Tilford on this 
 resolution was ordered to be published by the Demo- 
 cratic members of the legislature. A comparison will 
 show that this speech embodied the views, in almost the 
 identical language, afterwards set forth in the platform 
 adopted by the convention which at Cincinnati nomina- 
 ted James Buchanan for the Presidency. 
 
 While a senator from San Francisco, Mr. Tilford was 
 a member of the judiciary committee, and during the lat- 
 ter portion of his term was chairman of the same — a po- 
 sition which gave him considerable control in the passage 
 and defeat of bills. No little credit is due to him for re- 
 vising and preparing amendments to the criminal law of 
 the State. He reported two bills for that prupose. which 
 passed the senate, and, with some slight alteration from 
 the assembly, became law. Among other features in these 
 bills, whipping for petit larceny, and the death penalty at 
 the discretion of the jury in cases of robbery and grand 
 larceny, were abolished; the attempt to commit a crime 
 was made punishable, and degrees in murder and other 
 offences were introduced and defined. The views of the 
 author of these measures were set forth in a speech on 
 crimes and punishments, and the argument made that the 
 certainty, not the sefverity of punishment, deterred from the 
 commission of crimes. This speech was printed and ex- 
 tensively circulated, the leading ideas receiving the gen- 
 eral approval of the press and bar. 
 
282 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Judge Tilford often recalls with pride his advocacy of 
 a bill which became a law, to enable aliens to inherit real 
 and personal estate as fully as native born citizens — a 
 measure which, just in itself, has exercised a beneficial 
 influence on the prosperity of the State. He also advo- 
 cated, with zeal and deep interest, a confirmation of 
 the celebrated Yan N^ess Ordinance by the legislature. 
 The measure then failed, but in 1858 was adopted, and is 
 now universally admitted to have been one of the most 
 salutary measures ever passed by a California legislature. 
 
 To Horace Hawes, then a member of the assembly, 
 is undoubtedly due the credit of the Consolidation Bill. 
 It originated with him. Yet, when it came to the senate, 
 it met with a violent opposition, and but for the cordial 
 and active support which it received from Senators Til- 
 ford and Shaw, must have miscarried. 
 
 The property owners of San Francisco at that time 
 will always gratefully remember the constant, persistent 
 opposition which Mr. Tilford made to any and all schemes 
 for the control by individuals or corporations of the har- 
 bor and water front of the city. 
 
 In 1856, Judge Tilford was a candidate before the 
 Democratic State Convention for Congress. His oppo- 
 nent was the Hon. Charles L. Scott, who received the 
 nomination by a small majority. The party in California 
 was then divided into two very distinct elements — the 
 chivalry, or Southern wing, and the more conservative 
 portion, composed of men from all sections of the coun- 
 try and opposed to radicalism in any shape. Judge Til- 
 ford belonged to the latter division. The Federal office- 
 holders acted generally with the chivalry wing; and gave 
 an almost unanimous support to the successful candidate. 
 
 The Legislature which convened on the first Monday 
 in January, 1857, was charged with the duty of electing 
 two United States Senators, in place of Willliam M. Gwin 
 and John B. Weller. The Hon. David C. Broderick was 
 nominated by the Democratic caucus, and elected in joint 
 convention, on the first ballot, to succeed John B. Weller. 
 Judge Tilford was an active, zealous, untiring supporter 
 of Mr. Broderick. He was selected to make the nomina- 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 283 
 
 tion, which he did, accompanying it with a speech which 
 was published and warmly aj)plauded by the friends of 
 the new Senator. 
 
 In 1857, Judge Tilford received from the President 
 the appointment of Naval Officer of the Port of San 
 Francisco, which position he held for the full term of 
 four years. This appointment was made in acknowledg- 
 ment of the many and faithful services rendered by the 
 appointee in behalf of his party. 
 
 Upon retiring from office, and on a final accounting 
 with the Treasury Department, he received not only an 
 acquittance, but an order for money found to be due him 
 — a practical endorsement of double value. 
 
 During his stay in the Naval Office, he participated 
 in every political canvass which occurred in the State. 
 
 When, in 1860, the memorable division took place in 
 the ranks of the Democratic party resulting in the nomi- 
 nation of Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckenridge, 
 Judge Tilford' s earnest wish and efforts were for a reiin- 
 ion of the party in California. He endeavored to pre- 
 vail upon the party leaders to j^resent but one electoral 
 ticket to the people. The candidates for presidential 
 electors were to cast the vote of the State as a majority 
 of the ballots they received might indicate the preference 
 of the masses of the party. This plan failing. Judge 
 Tilford then gave his support to Breckenridge. He can- 
 vassed the State with unflagging spirit, although his views 
 did not entirely coincide with those of either wing of the 
 party. He had always opposed secession as unconstitu- 
 tional, wrong in theory and pernicious in practice. On 
 the other hand, in common with a large number of the 
 leading statesmen and journals of the North, he believed 
 coercion a dangerous remedy, liable to terminate in the 
 subversion of States' rights and the centralization of 
 power — that, while the Federal government had the un- 
 doubted right to maintain and defend its own existence, 
 imminent danger to popular liberty was to be appre- 
 hended from standing armies and military dictatorship. 
 When it became apparent that an amicable adjustment of 
 our national difficulties was impossible, that the- issue was 
 
284 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 to be presented to the arbitrament of the sword — he felt 
 it his duty to sustain the government under which he 
 lived and to which he owed allegiance. 
 
 In the same year, a committee was appointed by the 
 San Francisco leaders of the Breckenridge branch of the 
 Democracy, to prepare an Address to the people of the 
 State, vindicating the course of the Baltimore Convention 
 in nominating Breckenridge, and the claims of their can- 
 didate to popular support. This committee consisted of 
 Hon. 0. C. Pratt, since Judge of the 12th Judicial Dis- 
 trict, Hon. R,. Augustus Thompson, formerly a member 
 of Congress from Virginia, and Mr. Tilford. The address 
 prepared and published by these gentlemen, set forth very 
 ably and eloquently all the positions which the press and 
 speakers of the Breckenridge wing afterwards sustained. 
 
 From 1861 to 1863, Judge Tilford was not engaged in 
 the practice of his profession; and, although feeling a 
 profound interest iu the events progressing in the Atlan- 
 tic States, abstained from any active participation in 
 politics. 
 
 In the fall of the latter year he removed to the then 
 Territory of I^evada, and entered again on his professional 
 labors. 
 
 In 1864, he was elected Superintendent of Public In- 
 struction in Storey County, and acted in that capacity 
 until the adoption of the State Constitution placed the 
 control of the public schools in other hands. Shortly 
 afterwards he was appointed City Attorney of Virginia 
 City, and retained by a Board of Aldermen politically 
 opposed to him. One incident in his career in Nevada is 
 particularly worthy of mention. It occurred in the sum- 
 mer of 1864. In August of that year, a concerted and 
 general uprising of the miners of the Virginia District 
 took place, caused by an attempt to reduce their wages. 
 Labor was suspended. Threats of violence were freely 
 made against the Superintendent of the Gould & Curry 
 mine. At one time there appeared serious danger of a 
 wide destruction of property by the multitude. The 
 procession, numbering three to four thousand strong, 
 marched through the streets of Virginia, and finally as- 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 285 
 
 sembled in front of the International Hotel. At the earn- 
 est request of Mr. Stewart; now United States Senator, 
 and other prominent citizens, Judge Tilford consented 
 to address the exasperated crowd. His remarks were 
 well-timed, well-received, and had a very happy effect. 
 The people gradually dispersed, and the whole proceed- 
 ing ended harmlessly. 
 
 In the spring of 1866, Mr. Tilford, feeling satisfied 
 that there was no prospect of a revival of prosperity in 
 Virginia City, sought a new and more promising locality. 
 
 At that time, the Excelsior Mining District, in Ne- 
 vada county, California, engrossed a considerable share 
 of public attention, and was believed to be one of the 
 richest mineral regions on the Pacific Coast. He was 
 then, and for some time past had been, largely interested 
 in the mines of that section. Thither he removed in 
 May, and opened a law office in the town of Meadow 
 Lake, in connection with J. C. Foster, Esq. The district 
 proved a runious failure. The character and peculiar 
 formation of the ledges, the vast amount of rebellious 
 sulphurets in the metalliferous lodes, and more than all, 
 the length of the winter, which, in this mountainous re- 
 gion, extends over eight months, united to disappoint the 
 expectations of thousands, who had invested their means 
 in the mines of the locality. While residing at '^ Meadow 
 Lake," Mr. Tilford edited the ^'/Swri," an independent 
 newspaper. He also prepared an elaborate description of 
 the mines, and history of mining operations, in Excelsior ; 
 giving an account of the discovery, settlement, resources, 
 scenery and prospects of this romantic section of country. 
 This interesting narrative first appeared in Bean's Direc- 
 tory of Nevada county, (1866) and also, in a condensed 
 form, in the California Scrap Book (1869). It is replete 
 with valuable knowledge concerning an extensive and al- 
 most unknown region, (remarkable for its mineral rich- 
 ness as well as the beauty and grandeur of its scenery) 
 and being written in very attractive style, will repay 
 attentive perusal. 
 
 In the summer of 1866, the Democratic convention 
 of Nevada county met at Grass Valley. Hearing that an 
 
286 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 effort would be made to give him some place on the ticket, 
 and having abandoned the field of politics, Judge Tilford 
 addressed a letter to the convention, declining any nomi- 
 nation. The convention, however, aware of his popu- 
 larity and abilities as a public speaker, unanimously nomi- 
 nated him for State Senator. At the urgent request of 
 some of the most prominent Democrats of the county, he 
 accepted the nomination. No one supposed his election 
 was possible. Nevada county had been, and was stil] 
 claimed as, the banner county of the Republican party. 
 Mr. Lincoln's majority in 1864, was over twelve hundred. 
 At the judicial election in 1865, the Republican nominee 
 for Supreme Judge received one thousand majority. 
 Judge Tilford entered the canvass, and addressed the 
 people almost every night in the months of July and Au- 
 gust, visiting nearly every town, village and mining camp 
 in that populous county — from the summit of the Sierras 
 where the reign of winter is unbroken, to the valleys 
 where flowers are in continual bloom. His meetings were 
 large — the people never stayed at home when Tilford was 
 announced to speak. His political enemies confess, that, 
 in the conduct of this campaign, he made the most gal- 
 lant fight ever witnessed in Nevada county, while his 
 friends were enthusiastic in their expressions of admira- 
 tion. His opponent was Hon. E. W. Roberts, who, on 
 the official count, was shown to be elected by a majority 
 of ninety-one out of a total vote exceeding ^V6 thousand. 
 
 When the legislature met at Sacramento in Decem- 
 ber, 1867, Judge Tilford' s name was brought forward by 
 many of his friends as a candidate for United States Sena- 
 tor, and submitted to the Democratic legislative caucus. 
 The universal esteem in which he was held by the people 
 of his county was shown in the fact that, before the Dem- 
 ocratic caucus had agreed upon a candidate for Senator, 
 all the Democratic and Republican papers of Nevada 
 county advocated his nomination and election. 
 
 In November, 1867, he returned to his first home 
 on the Pacific Coast, San Francisco, where he formed a 
 partnership with Tully R. Wise, formerly United States 
 District Attorney, and applied himself diligently to his 
 
FRANK TILFORD- 287 
 
 profession. In the Presidential election of 1868, he 
 supported Seymour and Blair. He retains firmly the 
 principles cherished through his entire political career. 
 
 Judge Tilford occupied a prominent place in the 
 gifted band of orators whose appeals were wont, in the 
 olden times, to thrill and electrify the hearts of the multi- 
 tude; whose contests have become famous and whose 
 achievements have passed into the history of the State. 
 The voices of Baker, Ferguson, Hawks and Griffith, in 
 life so eloquent, have long been hushed. Tilford remains 
 among the few who not only w^itnessed their triumphs, 
 but gathered laurels with them on the field of debate. 
 He often recurs, with proud emotion, to his old compan- 
 ionship with those gallant spirits. As a political debater 
 and popular speaker he has few equals in California. His 
 prepared addresses to literary and benevolent^ associa- 
 tions, of which he has delivered many, are ripe and artis- 
 tic productions. His command of language is remarka- 
 ble and he is always effective in addressing a jury. 
 
 At this time Mr. Tilford is in the White Pine district, 
 actively, and we trust, profitably, engaged in conducting 
 litigation. His home is, however, still in San Francisco, 
 and thither he expects, at no distant day, to return and 
 spend the remainder of his life. 
 
 Frank Tilford has retired from the political arena. 
 The conflicts of party and the contests of politicians pos- 
 sess no attractions for him. Hereafter, he will devote 
 his talents and energies to professional pursuits, which, 
 if less exciting, are in their results more satisfactory than 
 the toils or triumphs of a partisan. In one respect he 
 has been ever consistent, and to one aspiration always 
 true — his devotion to the advancement, and confidence 
 in the grand destinies, of the Pacific Coast. 
 
 A glorious commonwealth of States, extending along 
 the shores of the Pacific, from the Arctic circle to Pana- 
 ma, united by a common interest, with free institutions, 
 a homogeneous population, and in the enjoyment of a 
 degree of prosperity unparalleled in history, is now, and 
 has been for the last twenty years, the cherished hope 
 and day-dream of his existence. 
 
288 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 #«ati0tt % |. MiUmA, 
 
 At the Metropolitan Theatre, San Francisco, March 
 17th, 1863, ON the History, Resources and Genius 
 of Ireland. 
 
 More than fourteen centuries have passed since the Saint whose 
 venerated memory endears to our hearts the day we celebrate, car- 
 ried the Cross of our Redeemer to the shores of Ireland. Never 
 had heaven ordained a nobler Apostle, or sublimer mission. Thirty 
 years before, the Saint had escaped by flight from servitude in the 
 Island he was now revisiting. He returns to the scene of his youth- 
 ful captivity, with no recollection of wrongs unavenged — ^with no 
 purpose of signalizing by fire and sword the triumphs of a Con- 
 queror. No martial music awakens the echoes of the lonely coast — 
 no army with banners salute him as their Chieftain — no retinue of 
 steel-clad warriors draw their glittering blades at his command. 
 Twenty men, eminent for their wisdom and sanctity, and armed 
 only with the insignia of their priestly office, accompanied the holy 
 man. Attended by these faithful disciples, and inspired by the 
 power which had so often illumined his spirit in the sleepless vigils 
 of the night, the Apostle of God went forth with unfaltering step, 
 to encounter the Pagan host. The contest was soon decided ; nor 
 was the result doubtful. Wherever the voice of the Sainted Sage 
 was heard, the temples of Idolatry were deserted, and their priests 
 fled in dismay from the ensanguined altars. It is not my purpose 
 to comment on the life of the Apostle; learned divines have alrea- 
 dy on this day, and on other occasions, eloquently performed that 
 duty. Permit me, however, to dwell for a moment on one trait in 
 the character of the revolution that St. Patrick inaugurated, which 
 excites our special wonder, and deserves to be inscribed in golden 
 letters on the pages of the world's history. It is the truth that dur- 
 ing his entire mission, from the day he arrived in Leinster until 
 the hour of his death, more than sixty years afterwards, not a life 
 was sacrificed, nor a pang inflicted, to secure the imperishable, yet 
 peaceful victories of the Cross. For thirteen centuries the Irish 
 people have observed this day as a national anniversary. At the 
 present hour the representatives of that race, in almost every coun- 
 try on the inhabitable globe, are celebrating the occasion with sol- 
 emn rites or joyous festivities. 
 
 On the banks of the Shannon, in the mines of Australia, amid 
 the orange groves of the Tropics, in the ruined cities of the Orient, 
 and under the shade of the primeval forests which fringe the waters 
 of the Mississippi, thousands of eyes will beam with rapture as they 
 behold unfurled to the breeze, and radiant in the bright light of 
 heaven, that symbol of nationality and emblem of freedom, the 
 ancient banner of the "Harp and Sunburst." Thousands of gen- 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 289 
 
 erous hearts will throb with exultation, as thej recall the glorious 
 memories of the Emerald Isle; memories, musical and immortal as 
 the leaves of the Tooba tree which blooms only in the garden of 
 Paradise, and "whose scent is the breath of eternity." The his- 
 tory of Ireland ! — the very words awaken feelings unutterable in 
 the heart of the exile. What intellect can do justice to the theme? 
 As the rainbow is formed by the tears of the clouds and the rays of 
 the sun, so are the annals of Erin colored and varied; now by the 
 tears of sorrow, now by the flashes of wit and sunshine of joy. 
 
 But we have assembled not merely to jDlease the imagination 
 with visions of national renown, or glowing images of a cloudless 
 future. Eeality and truth exact other duties. The occasion irre- 
 sistibly suggests to the reflective mind, thoughts and inquiries of a 
 more serious character. Ireland was once not only independent, 
 but one of the most powerful governments of Europe. Will she 
 regain her ancient position ? History teaches the melancholy truth 
 that nations often rise like stars on the horizon of time, glitter 
 awhile in the zenith of their glory, pass away and disappear in the 
 gloom of darkling centuries. On the shores and in the deserts of 
 Asia, and amid the forests of America, empires have flourished 
 whose names have perished from the earth, and whose tombs are 
 the only monuments which the hand of remorseless time has spared. 
 The renown of Greece and Rome suiwives only in the pages of 
 the historian. Florence, Venice and Genoa, were once gems in the 
 diadem of modern Europe; they are now subjugated dependencies 
 of Austria. Is Ireland doomed to be the Pleiad lost among the 
 nations of our era? Canada, Australia, and the West Indies have 
 their colonial parliaments, are exempt from Imperial taxes, and in- 
 dependent in all but the name; while Ireland is a province of Eng- 
 land: — a mere appendage of the British crown. Regarding alone 
 her present situation, it is difficult to realize that she has been a 
 Kingdom, potent in arms and munificently endowed with all the 
 elements of national prosperity. Yet it is true, that during the 
 first twelve centuries of the Christian era, the Island was famous 
 throughout the civilized world, for its treasures of gold and silver, 
 its manufactures, institutions of learning, and advancements in the 
 arts and sciences. In the sixth century, missionaries from Ireland 
 traversed France, Switzerland and Germany, establishing churches 
 and monasteries in every country they visited. When the legions 
 of Rome carried the standard of the empire in triumph from the 
 Euphrates to the Atlantic, and from the Mediterranean to the North 
 Sea, the land of Erin maintained its liberties, and alone defied the 
 armies of Caesar and his successors. In the tenth century, while 
 the remainder of Europe was enveloped in a night of profound ig- 
 norance, the Island was regarded and has been happily styled, "A 
 beacon of learning in the West. " Without pausing at present to 
 investigate the causes which have reduced a brave and chivalrous 
 peoj^le to a condition of vassalage, let us inquire: Has Ireland the 
 resources, physical, moral and intellectual, to support in this age 
 the rank of an independent nation? In the first place, her insular 
 
 19 
 
290 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC . 
 
 position is no ordinary advantage for defensive purposes. England 
 in her wars witli various Continental Powers, for the last four hun- 
 dred years, has experienced the benefit of this isolation. The At- 
 lantic, as a barrier of defense between the States of America and 
 the sovereignties of Euro23e, is worth to the former, millions of 
 bayonets. The population of Ireland, twenty years ago, was some 
 eight millions, two hundred thousand souls; and this number, (since 
 reduced by emigration and other causes) we may reasonably as- 
 sume she can always maintain. The Island contains an area of 
 thirty -five thousand, five hundred and twelve square miles; of which 
 there are fourteen millions, five hundred thousand acres of excellent 
 arable land. The fruits and cereals of the temperate zone reward 
 the labors of the husbandman more certainly and plenteously than 
 in any other country on the Eastern Hemisphere. The fertility of 
 the soil, like the beauty of the scenery, is proverbial, and has won 
 for the Emerald Isle the proud appellation of the Eden of the west 
 of Europe. Extensive coal formations abound in each of the four 
 provinces. Mines of lead, copper, and iron — indeed, of all the met- 
 als required in manufactures and the useful arts — are found in 
 almost every part of the Island. More than a hundred streams, ris- 
 ing in the mountains of the interior, intersect the land, expanding 
 at places into magnificent lakes, enriching the soil by annual over- 
 flows, and affording an amount of power for manufacturing purposes 
 greater than that of England and Scotland combined. Beneficent 
 nature has completed her favors to Ireland, by bestowing on it a 
 mild and salubrious climate; the vapory winds from the Atlantic, 
 the music of whose surging billows forever resounds from its 
 shores, temper equally the vigor of winter, and the fervor of the 
 summer solstice : so many and varied are the resources of this fa- 
 vored land, that it would require hours to recite them. The view 
 suggested is all that the occasion j^ermits. Other nations, vvith 
 material advantages incomparably less, have achieved independ- 
 ence, and an honorable name among the powers of the earth. In 
 our own age Belgium has separated from Holland; Greece has been 
 rescued from the Ottoman Empire ; Mexico and the States of South 
 America have carved with their swords the way to freedom. Por- 
 tugal, in the sixteenth century, was for a time subjugated by 
 Spain : a few determined sj)irits at Lisbon initiated a revolt which 
 overthrew the Spanish domination, and secured the liberties of 
 their country. Switzerland, with less than half the territory of 
 Ireland, with no treasures and without an army, valiantly and suc- 
 cessfuly warred with Austria for her independence. In vain the 
 Imperial hordes invaded the indomitable Cantons: swifter than the 
 mountain torrent leaps to the plains; more terrible than the Alpine 
 avalanche; the brave Swiss dashed upon the legions of tyranny and 
 drove them, reeling and shattered, from the sacred soil of Switzer- 
 land. Noble Switzerland ! home of Tell : land of song, of art, and 
 literature : the spirit of liberty reigns amid the snows of thy eter- 
 nal glaciers, and looks down with brow serene, and undaunted 
 eye, on the frowning despotisms which surround her. With ex- 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 291 
 
 amples so encouraging, why need we despair of the ultimate destiny 
 of Ireland? With means so ample at her command, what shall 
 prevent her from assuming that proud station among the powers of 
 the world, which she held for more than a thousand years, under 
 heV ancient monarchs? It may be asked, has the spirit of her peo- 
 ple declined? have ages of oppression withered the energy, tal- 
 ent, and indomitable valor of former days? Lord Bacon wisely 
 observes: "Walled towns, stored arsenals and armories, goodly 
 races of horses, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, 
 and the like; all this is but a sheep in the lion's skin, except the 
 breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike." No 
 one familiar with the annals and literature of Ireland for the last 
 two centuries; no one who has followed, by the light of impartial 
 history, the course of her people since their dispersion over the 
 earth, can doubt the moral worth or intellectual vigor of her sons 
 and daughters, their love of country, and devotion to freedom. 
 No one can doubt that, animated by such principles, they are capa- 
 ble of performing deeds of heroic daring, and of suffering with 
 uncomplaining fortitude all the ills of life, or terrors of death. 
 There are many who affect to believe the heartless sentiment of a 
 celebrated writer, that "Nations deserve their fate whatever it may 
 be"; who regard all errors as crimes, and any misfortune as the 
 just sequence of our actions. Arguments are of no avail with such 
 casuists. 
 
 Let all who delight to trace the character of a nation in the 
 qualities of its popular leaders — -and human wisdom has devised no 
 safer rule of judgment — dwell for a moment on the lives of some 
 of the illustrious men, who by their actions or writings have reflect- 
 ed an ineffaceable lustre on the Irish name. Summoned by memo- 
 ry's magical wand, they appear in procession before us, not as the 
 shadowy pageant of a dream, but like unto men with earnest, liv- 
 ing souls. They speak, they move again upon the stage of their 
 glory. Their words of matchless eloquence ring in the deep cham- 
 bers of our hearts, and their immortal deeds thrill with ecstacy the 
 life-currents as they course through our veins. First i^ Dean 
 Swift — 
 
 "Swift, the wonder of tis age — : 
 Statesman, yet patriot; priest, yet sage." 
 
 The eccentric satirist, the dreaded wit, of Queen Anne's reign, al- 
 though false to his "Stella," is always true to his native land. 
 There, too, is Steene, one of the most sublime and pathetic of 
 writers; and here Steele, the friend of Addison, and famous as an 
 essayist in a period justly denominated the Augustan era of Eng- 
 lish literature. Near them is Goldsmith, the sweetest poet of his 
 or any age — in whose Deserted Village Ibreathes the very soul of 
 poetry, and whose inimitable Vicar of Wakefield has been translat- 
 ed into all the languages of modern Europe. Burke, with his 
 thoughtful eye, and majestic person, approaches. He discourses 
 on the "Sublime and Beautiful," or peradventure, lifting the veil 
 
292 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 which conceals the future from our vision, points to the Colonies 
 on the distant shores of America, and predicts that ere another 
 century has elapsed, they will rise into mighty Republics. Sib 
 Philip Francis draws nigh; he holds in his hand a pen bright as 
 the spear of Ithuriel, and although his face is masked and averted, 
 we hail him as the scourge of tyrants — the undoubted author of 
 the * 'Letters of Junius." Here, too, is Moore, over whose natal 
 hour the Genii of Erin presided. His immortal harp is bedecked 
 with roses, and at his touch, pours on the enchanted air all the 
 melodies of his native Isle. The poet, through every vicissitude of 
 life, was devoted to the liberty and glory of Ireland. He never 
 forgot or deserted her. His own beautiful lines will apply to 
 himself — 
 
 "Xand of song! said the warrior bard, 
 
 Though all the world betrays her; 
 
 One sword at least thy rights shall guard, 
 
 One faithful harp shall praise thee." 
 
 And now Sheridan is before us — ill fated son of genius; the com- 
 panion of nobles yet the friend of the people. Ages may expu-e 
 before the world shall feel again the ardent glow of an intellect as 
 brilliant and versatile as that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 
 
 We stand at last in the august presence of Henry Grattan, the 
 peerless orator and inflexible patriot. "While in the prime of life, 
 he aided, by his commanding intellect and overpowering eloquence, 
 to achieve the independence of his native land; but alas, the days 
 of her freedom were evanescent, and his eyes, dimmed with age 
 and sorrow, were doomed to witness the passage of the misnamed 
 *'Act of Union," a measure which sullied the honor of England, 
 and wrested from Ireland her natural and inherent rights. Even 
 in that hour of a nation's anguish, when gloom shrouded all hearts, 
 his words were redolent of hope and encouragement. In his last 
 and noblest speech in the Irish House of Commons, we read these 
 memorable words: "Liberty may repair her golden beams, and 
 with redoubled heart, animate the country. * * * I do not give up 
 the country; I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead. Though in 
 her tomb she lies, helpless and motionless, still, there is on her 
 lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beautv. 
 
 "Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet, 
 Is crimson on thy lips and in thy cheek, 
 And death's pale flag is not advanced there. " 
 
 ' * While a plank of the vessel sticks together I will not leave her. Let 
 the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the light barque of his 
 faith with every new breath of wind; I will remain anchored here, 
 with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her freedom, 
 faithful to her fall." After Grattan, appear Flood, Curran, Phil- 
 lips, Shell, amidst a host of illustrious intellects celebrated as ora- 
 tors, statesmen, or jurists, distinguished in the various arts and 
 sciences. But happier, if not greater than these — than all who pre- 
 ceded him — arises before us the world-renowned Liberator, Daniel 
 
PRANK TILFORD. 293 
 
 O'CoNNELL. Viewed after this interval of time, and at a place so re- 
 mote from the scene where they occurred, the incidents of his life 
 bear the semblance of romance, rather than realities of historical 
 truth. He was descended from a Sept which, for six centuries, had 
 opposed on the field, and in the council, the oppression of Eng- 
 land. His name and lineage consecrated him to his country's ser- 
 vice. From the year seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, until 
 death terminated his labors and canonized his memory, O'Connell 
 led the vanguard of patriots who had dedicated their lives and for- 
 tunes to the accomplishment of Irish independence and Catholic 
 emancipation. It would require hours to unfold the record of his 
 speeches and triumphs. His heart knew not what it was to fear or 
 to despond, and his career was fortunate, as his disposition was 
 happy. He enjoyed the felicity, rarely allotted to the Reformers of 
 any age, of living to see the fruition of many of his labors, and 
 hearing, in the approving voice of his contemporaries, the *'A11 
 Hail" of generations yet unborn. His highest eulogium is express- 
 ed in the truthful words, that for whatever measure of liberty or 
 prosperity Ireland this day enjoys, she is more indebted to Daniel 
 O'CoNNELL than to any other man, living or dead. But, alas ! in this 
 procession of orators, poets, heroes, and sages, we behold one whose 
 tragic fate has been the theme of song and eloquence in every clime. 
 Beneath an uninscribed tomb, in the lonely and deserted church of 
 St. Michael, reposes the noblest martyr that ever perished in Free- 
 dom's cause — Robert Emmet. "We review the story of his life with 
 melancholy pleasure. Em;met, when only twenty-four years of age, 
 visited France as the agent of the Society of United Irishmen. Na- 
 poleon, then first Consul of the Republic, was in the meridian of 
 his fame. No reverses had obscured the glory of Areola and Mar- 
 engo, and fate had cast no ominous shadow on the pathway of the 
 "Liberator of Italy." The advocates of liberty naturally regarded 
 him as their friend and the protector of their cause. Emmet had 
 an interview with the first Consul. What was the purport of 
 the conference has never been known, but we may imagine the 
 scene. "We see Napoleon, as he turns to the young enthusiast his 
 marble brow, and bends on him his deep and unfathomable eyes. 
 "We see Emmet as he unrolls the map of Ireland, and indicates the 
 points of attack or defence. We hear the low, earnest tones of his 
 musical voice, when he assures the ruler of France that a million 
 of enslaved men in Ireland await with fiery impatience the signal 
 of revolt; they want from France arms — only arms — give them wea- 
 pons, and they will trust to God and their own good swords for de- 
 liverance. His face is resplendent with enthusiasm, as he foretells 
 the future of his beloved country; her ancient liberties regained; 
 her arts and commerce revived; the grateful ally of France; the 
 unrelenting foe to England's aggressions. 
 
 A year has rolled away, and the scene changes from a palace to a 
 prison. The insurrection of the fatal and ever-memorable night of 
 the twenty-third of July had failed, and no ray of hope illumined the 
 darkness of despotism. He, who only a few months ago was the 
 
294 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. . 
 
 honored visitor of the Republican Court of France^ is now the in- 
 mate of a narrow cell, by the world forsaken, and with no other 
 companion than his watchful guards. It is night, and the prison 
 lamp sheds a dubious gleam through the dungeon. On the pale, 
 thoughtful face of the captive is the imj)ress of deep, varying emo- 
 tions. Of what does the doomed man dream ? Is it of the home 
 and associates of his boyhood's careless hours, of the green mead- 
 ows which he shall never more behold ; of the mountain lakes, on 
 whose shores he has so often gathered the wild flowers of his native 
 land ; of the rivers whose murmuring music shall never again en- 
 chant his ear? or is it of his approaching trial, and the gloomy shad- 
 ows that lie beyond ? Far different is the subject of his thoughts. 
 On the little table before him is a lock of braided hair, the gift of 
 one on whom he had lavished the affection of his generous nature ; 
 of one who never deserted him in the darkest period of his advers- 
 ity ; and whose heart, in after years like a crystal stream, mirrored 
 her young hero's image. He had prized the gift in happier days ; 
 and now he treasured it as the last relic of a love, pure and radiant 
 as the light of the morning star. The trial of Emmet ; the vindic- 
 tive temper of Lord Norbury, the judge who presided over the 
 court; the eloquent defence of the prisoner, and his more than 
 Spartan firmness ; form an instructive page in the history of Ire- 
 land. He was condemned. His youth, his genius, and the moral 
 sublimity of his character, were unavailing to alter the stern resolve 
 of the government. The sanguinary policy of England demanded 
 a noble victim; and the sacrifice was decreed. He died on the 
 scaffold in the twenty-fifth year of his age. Calm and unmoved, 
 his heroic soul passed from time to eternity — from earth to heaven. 
 
 * ' Tis come — his liour of maTtyrdom 
 In freedom's sacred cause is come ; 
 And though his life hath passed away, 
 Like lightning on a stormy day, 
 Yet shall his death-hour leave a track 
 Of glory permanent and bright, 
 To which the brave of aftertimes, 
 The suffering brave, shall long look back 
 With proud regi-et, and by its hght 
 Watch through the hours of slavery's night 
 For vengeance on the oppressor's crimes." 
 
 The record of distinguished j^ersonages who have illustrated the 
 name and character of Ireland, is not confined to the British Em- 
 pire. The race of Erin has been scattered over the globe, and al- 
 most every country of the civilized world has profited by its labor, 
 energy and talent. All the nations of modern Europe will attest 
 the fact. Our own country has been in a preeminent degree the 
 theatre on which natives of Ireland and their descendants have ex- 
 hibited some of the noblest qualities of humanity. In the revolu- 
 tionary war no class of our citizens was more active, or made great- 
 er sacrifices of fortune and life. Seven of the fifty -six signers of 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 295 
 
 the Declaration of Independence were of Irish origin; ainong them 
 Charles Can-oil of Carrollton. The names of at least two Irishmen 
 of revolution aiy memory are entitled to the veneration of all who 
 claim any share in the inheritance of American libert3^ One of 
 them is Kichard Montgomery, the protomartyr of tlie war of inde- 
 pendence. When hostilities commenced he was in the vigor of 
 manhood, in affluence, dwelling in a home embellished with all the 
 luxuries of wealth and refinement of taste, and endeared to him 
 through the tenderest affections. He sacrificed every enjoyment at 
 the summons of his adopted countiy. As you are aware, Mont- 
 gomery commanded a division of the American army in the attack 
 on Quebec, the last night of the year seventeen hundred and seven- 
 ty-five. The scene must have been grand and awe-inspiring. 
 The frozen river, rocks and trees were draped in a snowy mantle; 
 dense clouds enveloped the sky; the wind sighed like a funeral 
 dirge through the leafless forest^nature's lament for the gallant 
 men who were marching with firm step to inevitable death. By 
 daylight Montgomery's division reached a height known as Diamond 
 Point, and here the engagement commenced. At the first discharge 
 of the enemy's guns Montgomery fell, mortally wounded. Several 
 hours aftersvards a party of English soldiers found the dead body of 
 the American commander. The unconquerable spirit of the hero 
 was manifested in death, for his frozen hand still grasped the 
 sword, and pointed towards the fortress of Quebec. Forty years 
 after his death Montgomery's remains were interred in Trinity. 
 Church, New York. The highest honors, civil and military', were 
 rendered to his memory^, but his noblest elegy is found in the 
 record of his death. 
 
 Another man of the revolution is entitled to our especial admi- 
 ration — Commodore John Barry, a native of county Wexford, 
 Ireland. He commanded the first vessel of war that ever sailed un- 
 der the United States flag, and has been styled the ' ' Tartar of the 
 American Navy. '' Volumes could not speak more in his praise than 
 is contained in one incident of his career. Lord Howe endeavored 
 to entice him from his allegiance to the United States, by the offer 
 of an immense bribe in money, and a command of a British ship 
 of the line. His answer was in these words : "Sir, I have devoted 
 myself to the cause of my country, and not the value or command 
 of the whole British fleet can seduce me from it. " A noble senti- 
 ment ; and the man who uttered it deserves a lofty niche in the 
 Pantheon of History. 
 
 Permit only a single additional allusion to an American citizen 
 of Irish extraction. He was a young and humble soldier of the 
 revolution. In the second war of independence his sword flashed 
 in victory upon the plains of Chalmette. His tomb in the peaceful 
 shade of the Hermitage, has become the Mecca of American pil- 
 grims. In future ages, when monuments shall be erected to the 
 memory of heroes who loved and served their country, on the tall- 
 est column will be inscribed the simple and unadorned, yet resist- 
 less, name of "Andrew Jackson." The Irish as a people, have 
 
296 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC, 
 
 been remarkable from the earliest period for their aptitude as sol- 
 diers. The impulsive ardor and quickness of intellect which they 
 exhibit in the social relations of life, eminently fit them to learn the 
 arts and discipline of war, and impel them onward in the hour of 
 strife with fervent and irrepressible zeal. Does not history confirm 
 the truth of the assertion? After the treaty of Limerick, in sixteen 
 hundred and ninety-one, the gallant Sarsfield and some four thous- 
 and of his companions, despairing of liberty in their native land, 
 migrated to other countries in Europe. The exodus continued dur- 
 ing the eighteenth century. Nearly all these exiles adopted a mili- 
 tary career, and were formed into regiments and brigades under 
 Irish commanders. They performed prodigies of valor in the ar- 
 mies of Austria, France and Prussia. 
 
 A learned historian who wrote in the last century, estimates the 
 number of Irishmen that have died in the military service of France 
 at six hundred thousand. When Maria Theresa, Queen of Hunga- 
 ry, instituted fifty crosses of the legion to be given to men who 
 should most distinguish themselves in her wars, forty-six were won 
 and worn by natives of Ireland. At the battle of Fontenoy in 
 seventeen hundred and forty-five, the ready sagacity of an Irish 
 general, seconded by the gallantry of his troops, secured a magnifi- 
 cent triumph for the House of Bourbon, and saved from subjuga- 
 tion the country of his adoption. "Within the last fifty years, the 
 soldiers of the Emerald Isle have inscribed the renown of their 
 prowess and resistless courage on the plains of Waterloo and the 
 crumbling walls of Sebastopol. 
 
 We have now traversed a wide track of history, and glanced 
 at some of the prominent events and illustrious names that are 
 radiant links in the chain which unites the sad yet glorious 
 past to the living present of Ireland. Nearly all the persons men- 
 tioned sprang from the ranks of the people, and may be deemed 
 representative men of the day and generation in which they liv- 
 ed. In their respective careers we trace much of the genius and 
 weakness, errors and virtues, of the Irish character. Universal 
 experience teaches us the lesson that we must judge of a nation 
 by the qualities of its popular leaders. Thus I'rance, in the last 
 seventy-five years, has experienced the throes of three great revo- 
 lutions, and the ruling spirits who conducted the several move- 
 ments dilTer not more widely, than did the temper and intelligence 
 of the French at the date of these revolutions. In Eobespierre, 
 Danton, Leinthon, and Murat, we have types of the fierce and 
 sanguinar}^ disposition of the French populace toward the close of 
 the eighteenth century; while in Lafayette, and his compeers in 
 eighteen hundred and thirty, and still later in Cavaignac and La- 
 martine, we have representatives of the higher intelligence and 
 purer morality of the same nation. How many centuries must 
 elapse before Eussia will produce a Goldsmith, a Sheridan, a Burke, 
 or an Emmet? Certainly the Irish, as a people, are not imbued 
 with the qualities — sordid virtues, if the term may be allowed — of a 
 purely trading community. A prudent regard for the accumulation 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 297 
 
 of wealth and worldly wisdom are not among their distinguishing 
 traits; but in the absence of such qualities, we find 'pietj, hospi- 
 tality, charity for the afflicted, love of country, devotion to liberty, 
 a contempt for death, and fidelity to their moral and honorable 
 obligations, at every place and in all classes in Ireland. These are 
 the virtues which a Cato or Lycurgus would cherish in a race, and 
 constitute the basis of independence and a grand nationality. A 
 country may be rich in mines of gold and silver — in all the treas- 
 VLres of earth and sea; its navies may ride the billows of every 
 ocean from the polar circles to the equator; iron-clad citadels and 
 immense armies protect its frontiers; yet, unless the noble qualities, 
 the more exalted virtues we hava recited, enter into and foiTu the 
 national character, it can never preserve liberty and tranquilhty at 
 home, enjoy an enduring prosperity, or repel the aggressions of 
 mere warlike nations. 
 
 But why comment further on the elements of Irish character? 
 You who have sprung from, or resided amongst the noble peasantry 
 of the Emerald Isle, and all in whose veins there is a drop of Milesian 
 blood, must feel that in their inmost hearts are altars where live 
 the glowing embers of the sacred flame which has shed the halo of 
 an immortal renown on the pathways of Erin. We have seen that 
 Ireland possesses an ample population and all the physical resources 
 needed to maintain the rank of an independent government. His- 
 tory demonstrates that her people are endowed with a degree of ca- 
 pacity, intelligence and virtue that will compare favorably with any 
 nation of ancient or modern times. One question alone remains for 
 consideration — have the people of Ireland ever surrendered to the 
 English Government their natural and inherent rights, or have they 
 committed any act whereby they justly forfeited their claim to na- 
 tionality? The advocates of Irish independence base their argu- 
 ments upon a platform of indisputable facts. They point to the 
 Declaration of Independence made by the Irish House of Commons 
 on the IGth of April, 1782, and ratified the same year by the King 
 and Parliament of Great Britain. They ask when and where did 
 Ireland sunender that Magna Charta of her freedom, or rehnquish 
 to England the privileges acknowledged and secured by it? 
 
 It is a proud satisfaction to review the circumstances which pre- 
 ceded and attended the Act of Independence. England was en- 
 gaged in a war with Spain and France; the fleets of the latter power 
 infested the channel and seas which surround the British coast. 
 The result of the American war had not only wrested from Eng- 
 land the fairer portion of her domains in the New World, but had 
 seriously impaired the prestige of her ancient military renown. 
 The debt of the Empire had been largely augmented, its resources 
 diminished, and taxes of every description ruinously multiplied. 
 Everywhere in the British dominions was a restless and rebelious 
 spirit which boded evil to the trembling house of Hanover. This 
 was the hour of England's necessity — and here was Ireland's oppor- 
 tunity. The people of Ireland instantly seized upon the occasion. 
 Never did a nation exhibit a more determined zeal in the cause of 
 
298 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Liberty. The streets of the Metropolis presented a truly gorgeous 
 appearance on the day which witnessed the Declaration of Irish In- 
 dependence. Learned societies and civil associations, with banners 
 and suitable devices, marched along the principal avenues to assem- 
 ble in compact array before the Hall of the National Assembly; 
 Battalions of the Irish volunteers, splendidly armed and uniformed, 
 escorted the civil procession. The Eeverend Clergy, Protestant and 
 Catholic, walked in the ranks of the people, and hallowed the occa- 
 sion with prayers and benedictions. A sublime scene was presented 
 in the House of Commons. An immense gallery, supported by Tus- 
 can pillars, surrounded the Chamber. Here was gathered the elite 
 of the beauty and chivalry of Ireland. In the rotunda, below, the 
 representatives of the Kingdom were assembled. It was a solemn 
 hour in the life-time of a nation. A step was to be taken towards 
 freedom. An act was meditated, which if resisted by the Govern- 
 ment, entailed on the land all the horrors of war. In success there 
 was permanent glory; in failure irretrievable disaster. The illustri- 
 ous Grrattan was by general consent the leader of the patriots. Af- 
 ter an oration which has been pronounced the most luminous, bril- 
 liant and effective ever delivered in an Irish assembly, he concluded 
 by moving in the address to the King, a declaration to the effect 
 that Ireland could be bound only by laws enacted by an Irish Parlia- 
 ment. It was carried without a dissenting voice, and ratified the 
 same year by the English Government. In the first month of the 
 subsequent year, the Imperial Parliament, in order to' remove all 
 doubt on the subject, enacted a statute whereby it was solemnly de- 
 clared : ' ' The right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound on- 
 ly by the laws enacted by his Majesty and Parliament of Ireland, 
 in all cases whatever, shall be, and is hereby declared to be, estab- 
 lished and ascertained forever, and shall at no time hereafter be 
 questioned, or questionable. " 
 
 "We percieve in these measures all the essential elements of a 
 treaty, a compact between distinct and sovereign nations, an act by 
 which England recognized the independence of Ireland, and re- 
 nounced forever all Legislative pretension. For eighteen years af- 
 ter the passage of this celebrated measure, the Island enjoyed an 
 interval of tranquillity, liberty and prosperity. But, alas ! the days 
 of Erin's happiness were numbered. This repose was only the 
 treacherous calm that precedes the tempest — the unnatural sleep 
 which ends in final dissolution. The Imperial Government, under 
 the administration of William Pitt, had resolved to subvert the lib- 
 erties and destroy the nationality of Ireland. The awakened culti- 
 vation, growing manufactures, and expanding trade of Ireland, 
 competed too successfully with similar j)ursuits in England. Lord 
 Cornwallis was then Viceroy, and Lord Castlereagh, afterwards 
 Marquis of Londonderry, Secretary of State for Ireland. Cornwal- 
 lis was noted only as a courageous, but unsuccessful soldier, who 
 had command in America and the East Indies; Castlereagh distin- 
 guished as a man of commanding presence and seductive address, 
 with a consummate talent for intrigue and diplomacy. Such were 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 299 
 
 the men whom the English Minister selected to devise means for 
 the subversion of Irish Independence. Their vocation was the 
 same, but on the award of impartial history the infamy of one far 
 exceeds am^ odium which may be attached to the other. The Lord 
 Lieutenant was a native of England, and naturally regarded the 
 interest of that Kingdom and the wishes of "Majesty," as para- 
 mount considerations. Then, too, as a soldier, his first duty was 
 obedience to the orders of his government. But for Castle- 
 reagh, charity can devise no apology. He was a native of the Is- 
 land, had been a patriot, was a nobleman whose wealth placed him 
 above all sordid temptation, and whose ancestral honors identified 
 him with the glory and liberties of his country. Wickedly, delib- 
 erately, and with a resolution which never faltered, Castlereagh 
 labored to subvert the freedom of Ireland. He succeeded ! Yet a 
 signal retribution awaited him even in this life. In after years, 
 conscience harrowed his soul and allowed him no repose. In parlia- 
 ment, at the banquet, in the Court, amid scenes of splendor and 
 gayety, spectres of his murdered victims pursued the wretch; in his 
 slumbers he heard the curses of the country he betrayed, and a voice 
 bade him, like the tyrant of Scotland, *' sleep no more." The 
 means which the Lord Lieutenant and his Secretary adopted to 
 effect the passage through the Irish Parliament of the "Act of Uni- 
 on, " were just such as might have been exj)ected, and are familiar 
 to all who have studied the annals of that period. Intimidation 
 and bribery constituted their entire system. The first was intended 
 for the nation at large. In pursuance of the project, the standing 
 army was suddenly increased from fifty thousand to one hundred 
 and seventy thousand men. A reign of terror was inaugurated on 
 the ruins of constitutional liberty. The writ of habeas corpus vv^as 
 suspended, and martial law declared at the pleasure of the Lord 
 Lieutenant; public meetings were often dispersed at the point of 
 the bayonet; persons were arrested without judgment of court or 
 process of law, and incarcerated in loathsome dungeons until death 
 released them, or the caprice of their tyrants opened their prison 
 gates. An army of informers and spies, issuing from the Vice Roy- 
 al Palace in Dublin, swanned through the land, and diffused over 
 all circles of society an atmosphere of dread and susj)icion. We 
 learn that during two yeai-s which immediately i^receded, and in the 
 course of the six years subsequent to the "Act of Union," more 
 than one hundred thousand persons, accused of political offences, 
 died in prison and upon the scaffold, or were transported in convict 
 ships to the penal settlement of Australia. We shudder at the ex- 
 cesses of revolutionary France; we mourn over the fallen liberties 
 of Poland; we execrate the cruelties of Austria to the States of 
 Italy and Hungary; but we forget that in our own age the govern- 
 ment of his most Christian Majesty, George III inflicted on the 
 people of Ireland atrocities beside which the cruelties of Russia and 
 Austria appear like gracious deeds of mercy. While armed force 
 was used to overawe the popular mind, and coerce the nation into 
 submission, the subtle arts of corruption were applied to the nobles 
 
300 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and the Irish. House of Commons. Immense sums of money, rang- 
 ing from ten thousand to twenty thousand pounds sterling, were 
 paid for the vote of a single borough in Parliament. Of the one 
 hundred and eighty members who voted in the House for the Union, 
 history has perpetuated the names of more than one hundred and 
 forty who were bribed, and the price which each received for the 
 desertion of his God, the betrayal of his country, and the sacrilice 
 of his honor. The act to establish a * 'Legislative Union between 
 Great Britain and Ireland,'' was adopted. By the passage of it, the 
 Magna Chai^ta of Irish liberty was annulled, the independence of the 
 nation was abrogated, and the entire legislation of the Kingdom 
 transferred to the Parliament at Westminister. No impai-tial rea- 
 soner will contend that a statute wrested by intimidation and fraud 
 from a reluctant nation, carries with it any moral sanction. It is a 
 principle of jurisprudence, acknowledged by the law of nations and 
 maintained in the municipal code of every enlightened people, that 
 fraud or violence annuls all obligations; their taint, like the touch 
 of the leper, is mortal and incurable. From the day of its passage 
 until the present hour, Ireland has never forgotten the means that 
 were employed to procure the "Union," nor abated her opposition 
 to the measure. The cherished ambition of O'Connell's heart was 
 to repeal it. Russell and Emmet sacrificed their lives to destroy it; 
 and fifty years later. Smith O'Brien and his noble associates suffered 
 banishment rather than submit to it. Ireland has seen since the 
 enactment of the law, and traceable directly to the malign influence 
 of it, her manufactures perish, her trade decline, her revenues 
 drained from their native shore, and her children driven from their 
 homes by the demons of want and penury to wander over the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 The last and most terrible misery which the Union has inflicted 
 on unhappy Ireland, occurred within our own recollection. Who 
 can forget the wretchedness of Ireland in the years of her famine. 
 Who will forget that the English Government was warned months 
 in advance of the impending calamity; and that the statesmen of 
 Ireland petitioned the Court and Cabinet of St. James to prohibit 
 the export of cereals from the Island, and that the peasants and la- 
 boring men entreated their Imperial tyrants for relief; not for alms 
 but for work, and the means of supporting life as the wages? The 
 appeal was unheeded. At first the deaths were few, then increasing, 
 until each revolving day beheld the corpses of hundreds, who fam- 
 ished from absolute want and the diseases attendant on it. Then 
 Ireland, the Niobe of nations, forsaken by her rulers, smitten by the 
 rod of famine and the breath of pestilence, uttered a cry of anguish 
 at which the world grew pale. 
 
 We need not linger on those days and scenes of unparalleled 
 suffering. We know, however, that they form only a chapter in the 
 annals of English connection with Ireland, and that every page of 
 the volume is replete with acts of violence and misgovernmeni 
 The footprints of the Norman and Saxon may be traced in blood 
 on the shores of Erin. Every mountain, glen, or moldering ruin 
 
FRANK TILFORD. 301 
 
 in the Emerald Isle bears a legend, and a memory of the remorseless 
 invader. The traditions and plaintive songs of the people breathe 
 of glories depai-ted and wrongs unforgiven. The iniined shrines of 
 her deserted churches, and the graves of her martyred heroes, 
 speak to Ireland of woe and oppression. Shall they speak in vain? 
 Shall the home of Sheridan and Grattan, of CuiTan and Moore, 
 remain forever a province of England, and the heritage of the spoil- 
 er? Forbid it Earth ! Forbid it Heaven ! No : by the memoiy of 
 her ancient renown, by the accumulated vrrong of centuries, by all 
 that is sacred in the past, or welcome in the future, let us swear 
 that Erin shall yet be free. The hour may be deferred, but come it 
 must, when the fiery cross shall speed through the Island, and sum- 
 mon its warlike clans to rally around the standard of the Harp and 
 Sunburst. Then, when the beacon fires of liberty illume the dark- 
 ness of night, and cast their cadence far across the waters of the 
 Atlantic, let Meagher, Corcoran, Shields and Mitchel, erase from 
 their swords every stain of fratricidal strife, and lead the embattled 
 hosts of their countryTnen to the rescue of Ireland. A hundred 
 thousand Irish soldiers, disciplined in the wars of America and an- 
 imated by the sacred love of freedom, will vanquish the legions of 
 England, as the Simoom overwhelms the Caravans of the desert. 
 
 Natives of the Emerald Isle : whose hearts so often wander from 
 these tranquil shores — to the scenes of your childhood, and the 
 homes of your fathers, prepare for the day that is dawning. All 
 have a solemn duty to perform. 
 
 Parents from the Emerald Isle : teach your children to venerate 
 and cherish the name of Ireland; learn them the songs, ballads and 
 traditions of your native land, and entwine around their youthful 
 hearts devotion to the liberties of America, and the memories of 
 Erin. 
 
 Maidens of the Emerald Isle: when in the twilight hour you 
 chant a vesper hymn to the Virgin, or when in holy church your 
 prayers ascend as grateful incense to Heaven, mingle with your ori- 
 sons a prayer that Erin may yet be free ! 
 
 Friends of Ireland : remember that discord in council and divis- 
 sion in action, have been deadlier foes to the Island than golden 
 bribes or hostile bayonets — enemies fatal and pernicious as was: 
 
 "The fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe." 
 
 Banish, then, personal jealousies, sectional differences, and labor 
 with earnest and united minds for the emancipation of Ireland. 
 
 Citizen soldiers ! when the wires shall flash across the continent 
 the glorious intelligence that the Irish armies of the Atlantic are 
 moving in the cause of Erin's Independence stand prepared to un- 
 furl your banners, unsheath your gleaming blades, and march to the 
 deliverance of your native land. When the etorm of conflict shall 
 
302 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIPIC. 
 
 rage, and the clash of arms resound from the earth to the skies — 
 when the green flag of Ireland waves in triumph above the Red 
 Cross of St. George, may the column of the Pacific lead the van- 
 guard of liberty, and their swords flash in the foremost ranks 
 of victory. 
 
 And oh ! in future ages, when the warrior bards shall strike their 
 golden harps, and sing of battles fought and triumphs won in free- 
 dom's holy cause, may their noblest song consecrate to immortal 
 fame the names and deeds of the Irish volunteers of California. • 
 
^^ 
 
 
 *?^ 
 
-«■. 
 
CALEB T. FAY. 
 
 By the ^ditoi^ 
 
 FROM the date of the admission of California into the 
 Union until a very recent period, this gentleman has 
 been engaged in the' successful prosecution of mercantile 
 pursuits in the cities of Sacramento and San Francisco. 
 His ancestors werfe /among the ^ early Massachusetts pio- 
 neers, and settled in the Eastern pai*t^of that State about 
 the year 1640. His father was a nuerchant and farmer, 
 and qualified all his sons for both occupations. 
 
 Caleb T. Fay was the fifth son of eight children, hav- 
 ing six brothers and a sister. He was born at Southbor- 
 ough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, on the 13th day 
 of April, 1821. He worked on his father's farm and at- 
 tended a common school and academy until he attained 
 majority; he then entered upon mercantile business, to 
 which he applied himself for seven years. When he was 
 twenty- eight years of age, the ''fever" consequent upon 
 the discovery of gold in California, began to rage in Mas- 
 sachusetts with nearly as much violence as in New York; 
 and, yielding to its influence, Mr. Fay left Boston early 
 in the spring of 1849, bound for the Pacific by way of 
 Cape. Horn. He felt that he was taking leave of the 
 ''land of steady habits, " to struggle amid a multitude of 
 adventurous men, intoxicated by excitement and spurred 
 bythe ardent desire for gain, to return, after a few years' 
 hardships, with or without fortune, to his and his fa- 
 ther's home. 
 
304 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 He little thought he was to be one of the pioneers of 
 a great empire, to whose development his efforts, in com- 
 ing years, would be devoted; particularly, when he re- 
 flected that, twenty-one years before his departure, a ship 
 had sailed out of Boston harbor bound for Monterey, Cal- 
 ifornia, manned by American seamen and commanded by 
 American officers. Verily does the record of our Pio- 
 neers reach far back into the Past. 
 
 After six months' sailing on the Ocean — a period so 
 long that he had become almost reconciled to his " home 
 on the deep" — Mr. Fay arrived at San Francisco on the 
 same day that the representatives of the people, in Con- 
 gress assembled, welcomed California into the family of 
 federal States. He did not tarry at the Bay City, but 
 pushed on up the Sacramento river to the city of that 
 name. There he immediately opened a house for the 
 transaction of the business of buying and selling merchan- 
 dise on commission. This business he followed in Sacra- 
 mento for two years ; at the end of that time moving to 
 San Francisco, where he has ever since resided. 
 
 During his residence at Sacramento, Mr. Fay, on ac- 
 count of his exemplary habits, and strict attention to bus- 
 iness, was universally esteemed as a merchant of shrewd- 
 ness and foresight, and a man of strict integrity. He 
 maintained his popularity, notwithstanding he bore the 
 name of abolitionist — a title not very acceptable in those 
 days. The following incident will be found interesting, 
 as explaining the reason why this name was given him. 
 
 It will be remembered that, upon the admission of Cal- 
 ifornia into the Union as a free-labor State, owners of 
 slaves then in the State were allowed by law a limited time 
 within which they might remove their slaves. Sometime 
 in 1851 a slaveholder advertised in the Sacramento pa- 
 pers that he had for sale a negro man for whom he was 
 willing to take one hundred dollars ; that he would be for 
 sale for a certain number of days, and that, if the negro 
 were not purchased in that time, he would be sent back 
 to Alabama to continue a life of bondage ; — adding to the 
 announcement the statement that those gentlemen who 
 favored the abolition of slavery and professed so much 
 
CALEB T. FAY. 305 
 
 sympathy for the negro would now have an opportunity 
 to show their philanthropy and generosity. 
 
 Mr. Fay, upon reading the advertisement, determined 
 to liberate the darkey. He saw Mr. Winans. his attorney, 
 now a lawyer of San Francisco, and showed him the no- 
 tice—stating to him that he proposed to buy the negro 
 as soon as he would prepare the necessary papers. Mr. 
 Winans asked to be ^^M into that speculation^^' '*Yery well," 
 said Mr. Fay, ^'I am ready to pay the entire sum, but if 
 you really wish to join me, we will both pay an equal 
 amount, and let the fellow go free." Mr. Winans pre- 
 pared the proper document and the two gentlemen — 
 practical abolitionists — waited on the ''massa," paid the 
 full sum asked, and bade ''Julius CaBsar" go on his way 
 rejoicing. 
 
 This transaction became generally known, and a great 
 many people believed that a man who gave money 
 to liberate one slave^ would go to any lengths to abolish 
 slavery. They styled Mr. Fay an abolitionist, and indeed 
 he was one, but not in the contracted sense the term then 
 denoted. He always hated slavery, yet was entirely free 
 from prejudice against the Southern people. He hailed 
 them as ''Americans, one and all." It was not for the 
 humiliation of the slave-holding population, but for the 
 destruction of the "peculiar institution," that he prayed. 
 In a speech delivered many years after the transaction 
 just mentioned, Mr. Fay used these terse and compact 
 expressions. : 
 
 "It has been said that I am an abolitionist. To this 
 I answer, I believe in the doctrines taught by Thomas 
 Jefferson, the apostle of liberty, and I endorse the Decla- 
 ration of Independence. I believe in the dignity and 
 honor of free labor, and repudiate slave labor as degrad- 
 ing and unjust both to white and black ; I believe in the 
 Divine right of self-government, and that submission to 
 the will of the majority is loyal t}^ to liberty, while a re- 
 bellion against a constitutional majority is a strike for 
 despotism. I believe Andrew Jackson's words when he 
 swore, by the Eternal, that rebellion in South Carolina 
 should be crushed. But I do not now advocate and never 
 20 
 
306 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 have advocated, an invasion of the constitutional rights 
 of the South. I endorse the language of Henry Clay who 
 said ^that slavery should never be extended by any 
 act, word or vote of his.' I believe that if the seceded 
 States had presented their grievances to Congress, in a 
 respectful, legitimate, constitutional manner — their griev- 
 ances, if genuine, would have been respectfully heard, 
 and either satisfactorily redressed, or silenced by peaceful 
 separation. But a dictatorial war-policy has been inaugu- 
 rated by the secessionists, and they must abide the conse- 
 quences. Our National flag must again float upon the 
 towers of thirty-four States — for this is the will of the 
 sovereign people. These are my sentiments in short 
 hand. Whatever name they entitle me to, I am willing 
 to accept." 
 
 Upon his removal to San Francisco, Mr. Fay con- 
 tinued the business of commission merchant for seven 
 or eight years. He always attended closely to his bus- 
 iness duties, and was rewarded with considerable suc- 
 cess ; however, his mercantile employments, though fully 
 discharged, never monopolized his time. He watched 
 with interest the course of public men, the progress of 
 political parties, and events of national importance. His 
 opinions on public measures, though generally in advance 
 of public sentiment, were always expressed candidly and 
 firmly. From early manhood he had been friendly to 
 the free soil movement. When the Republican party 
 was organized in California, it owed its efficiency in a 
 great degree to his help and countenance. 
 
 In 1860, Mr. Fay received the Republican nomination 
 for Mayor of San Francisco. At the time, as had been 
 the case for several years previously, the municipal gov- 
 ernment was entirely controlled by the powerful organi- 
 zation known as the '^People's Party." Mr. Fay had 
 been an active supporter of this party, as well as thou- 
 sands of other Republicans who did not desire that poli- 
 tics should enter at all into the local elections. But the 
 more enthusiastic and resolute of the Republicans deter- 
 mined to maintain their party organization intact, and go 
 before the people with a full ticket nominated on the Re- 
 
CALEB T. FAY. 307 
 
 publican platform. Mr. Fay, as stated, was nominated 
 for Mayor. In his letter of acceptance, the nominee gave, 
 as the reason for leaving the People's Party organization, 
 '^the low abuse that has been heaped upon high-minded, 
 honorable Republicans who happen to differ in opinion 
 with the People's Party relative to local nominations." 
 He further^ suggests that the question : Are you a repub- 
 lican ? be put to the People's nominee, Mr. Teschemacher. 
 If he answers that he is a Republican, then, ''I will not run as 
 a candidate against a Republican possessing the ability 
 and integrity of the People's nominee." The question 
 was formally put to Mr. Teschemacher, who returned an 
 evasive answer. Thereupon Mr. Fay led his little battal- 
 ion into the field, and as was expected, was mercilessly 
 slaughtered by superior numbers. 
 
 The following year, the Republicans, proud of their 
 leader's conduct in the last election, again placed him 
 before the people as a candidate for Mayor, but the result 
 was a second defeat at the hands of the old foe. 
 
 Mr. Fay represented San Francisco in the lower branch 
 of the California Legislature, in the winter of 1861-62. 
 He entered the halls of legislation with RefoRxM as his 
 motto. At that time nearly every State official was (in 
 Mr. Fay's opinion, at least) receiving compensation far 
 beyond his due. Upon the organization of the Assembly, 
 Mr. Fay suggested the idea, and procured the appoint- 
 ment of a Retrenchment Committee, of which he became 
 the chairman. He immediately submitted to this com- 
 mittee a bill which he had prepared, to reduce the pay 
 of State officers, members of the Legislature, Judges, 
 Clerks, &c., looking to a sweeping reduction in govern- 
 ment expenditures. 
 
 This bill was approved by the committee and intro- 
 duced into the Assembly. Upon its consideration, a se- 
 vere struggle ensued between the champions and enemies 
 of reform. The author of the measure labored untiringly 
 to secure its passage. The difficulties and embarrassments 
 with which he had to contend, were enough to discourage 
 
308 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and even appall a heart less stout and determined. There 
 was an organized and powerful opposition to the measure, 
 and during its pendency, influential and interested office- 
 holders from every part of the State visited the Capital, and 
 gave their time and means to defeat the bill. The odds 
 were too heavy and could not be withstood. Although 
 the bill once passed the Assembly, it was reconsidered, 
 and failed to become a law. 
 
 Another important bill, prepared and introduced by 
 Mr. Fay, was the Act to create Townships throughout the 
 State, and to regulate and define the powers and duties 
 of Township officers. The State Constitution had pro- 
 vided for the creation of townships throughout the State, 
 but hitherto the Legislature had failed to carry out this 
 plain provision of the Constitution. Mr. Fay brought 
 the matter before the Retrenchment Committee, and 
 through his exertions, the bill became a law. The new 
 order of things created by this measure, the decided ad- 
 vantages and benefits resulting therefrom to the people- 
 particularly to those who dwell in counties of extended 
 area — are so necessary and indispensable, that it is mat- 
 ter for wonder that this bill did not become a law years 
 prior to its passage. 
 
 Mr. Fay also introduced an Act to-amend the Crim- 
 inal Practice Act, so as to admit colored testimony in 
 criminal cases, which passed the Assembly but was lost 
 in the Democratic Senate. He took the lead in advocacy 
 of this measure and made an able argument in its behalf. 
 
 But, perhaps, the most important measure submitted 
 to the Legislature by Mr. Fay, was the Act entitled ''An 
 Act for the disposition and improvement of the Water 
 Front of the City and County of San Francisco, and for 
 the accommodation of the Shipping and Commerce of the 
 Port of San Francisco." He conceived the happy idea 
 of making the valuable water front of the City a source 
 of perpetual profit to the City and State. This extensive 
 property was yielding a mere pittance, annually, while 
 uncler Mr. Fay's bill it could not but yield hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars. It will not be too much to say that 
 this measure was great in its conception and noble in its 
 
CALEB T. FAY. 309 
 
 design. But as had been the case in the effort to reduce 
 the salaries of State officials, so it was in this ; the author 
 of the bill was brought into inevitable conflict with a host 
 of interested parties who had private ends to promote, 
 and who proved too formidable to be overcome. The 
 bill was defeated at that session of the Legislature, but 
 was again introduced during the following session by Mr. 
 Oulton, and passed into a law. It is generally known by 
 the name of the ^'Oulton Bill." 
 
 To show the public importance and advantage of this 
 measure, it is only necessary to state that, before its pas- 
 sage, the income derived by the City from its wharves 
 and property along the City front, only amounted to about 
 fifteen thousand dollars per annum; and since its enact- 
 ment, the receipts from the same source have averaged 
 annually over four hwidred thousand dollars! 
 
 In an interesting notice of Mr. Fay's legislative record, 
 the San Francisco Evening Bulletin^ of May 30th, 1862, al- 
 ternately extols and depreciates its subject. It states 
 among other things, that, ''Mr. Fay can unquestionably 
 be classed among the working and talking class, two char- 
 acteristics not often united in one person. He probably 
 performed more hard labor, in committee and out of it, 
 than any other member of the Assembly — certainly of the 
 delegation; and we might also add, to less practical pur- 
 pose. He was, from the commencement to the end of the 
 session, untiring in industry; but there is, unfortunately, 
 an impracticable or crotchety vein in his character, which 
 seriously militates against his usefulness to his constitu- 
 ents or to the State at large." 
 
 It is very easy to understand how a reputation for 
 impracticability could be acquired by a man who entered 
 the California Legislature eight years ago, resolute in the 
 purpose to promote the public weal at the sacrifice of all 
 private ends and ambition. 
 
 The writer has no desire to attribute to his subject 
 qualities greater than those he really possesses — at the 
 same time, it is his province and duty to credit him with 
 all his virtues, even if it forces him to join issue with a 
 journal of no less respectability and influence than that 
 
BIO REPRESENTATIVE IdJEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 named above. The charge that Caleb T. Fay is imprac- 
 tical in his ideas, certainly can have no stable foundation. 
 The son of a laborious, practical and successful farmer 
 and merchant, inured to toil from his early boyhood, ac- 
 customed to deal with facts and figures through a long 
 and prosperous mercantile career, he has had no time to 
 dream ^ or yield to the influence of Utopian views. It has 
 been stated that his excellent measure for the general re- 
 duction of salaries of ofiice could and would have passed 
 the Legislature, if the members of that body had been 
 exempted from its provisions; and that the hope of re- 
 election moved the representatives of the people to de- 
 feat the bill. To this it may be conclusively answered, 
 that Mr. Fay could not concede this point to the hopeful 
 aspirants for future honors, simply because the concession 
 would have been grounded upon personal interest. There 
 was as much cause for reducing the pay of legislators as 
 that of the Governor, or any other officer of the State ; and 
 had Mr. Fay specially excepted the former from the oper- 
 ations of his bill, his immediate constituency , and the 
 people at large would have justly suspected his good faith. 
 Being universally recognized as an active and leading 
 Republican, and having in the Presidential campaign of 
 1860 labored earnestly to secure the election of Mr. Lin- 
 coln, the latter, upon the organization of the Internal 
 Revenue Department in 1862, appointed Mr. Fay to the 
 position of Assessor of Internal Revenue for the First Dis- 
 trict of California. He assumed the duties of the office 
 in August, 1862, and served through Mr. Lincoln's first 
 term of office; and it is but just to say that he was one 
 of the most efficient and popular Federal officers that 
 ever held place as a civil appointment under the LTnited 
 States' Government in California; his practical business 
 tact and experience reduced the chaotic Internal Revenue 
 workings to a proper system in his District. But about 
 the time of Mr. Lincoln's assassination, Mr. Fay was re- 
 moved at the instance of Commissioner Lewis, who was 
 influenced by designing men, and who yielded to their 
 misrepresentations, thereby doing injustice to a faith- 
 ful public servant. Commissioner Lewis, however, was 
 
CALEB T. FAY. 311 
 
 subsequently magnanimous enough to state to a Commit- 
 tee of Merchants appointed to inquire into the cause 
 of the removal — that while declining to give the reason 
 for the same, he assured them there were no charges af- 
 fecting Mr. Fay's character or personal integrity — while 
 the committee of investigation eulogized his conduct of 
 the Assessor's office as just, upright and able in every 
 respect. 
 
 In 1863, while holding the position of Assessor, Mr. 
 Fay was brought forward as a candidate for Congress be- 
 fore the Union Convention. The names submitted to 
 that body were those of Caleb T. Fay, R. F. Perkins, 
 (since deceased) and Cornelius Cole, since U. S. Senator. 
 On the first ballot, Mr. Fay received the highest vote 
 (101). On a subsequent ballot, Messrs. Perkins and 
 Cole united their forces, and Mr. Cole was nominated. 
 
 Immediately upon leaving the office of Assessor, Mr. 
 Fay was elected by the trustees of the Union Insurance 
 Company of San Francisco, to the responsible position of 
 President of that wealthy and flourishing institution. He 
 entered at once upon his new duties. 
 
 We now approach the proudest page, perhaps, in Mr. 
 Fay's historj, to record his connection with the Merchants' 
 Exchange Association of San Francisco. The merchants 
 of San Francisco had, up to the time of the erection of 
 the Merchants Exchange building, been depived of the 
 practical commercial benefits arising from a convenient, 
 central, local rendezvous, where they could successfully 
 inaugurate a regular 'change hsour, and hold daily meet- 
 ings for business and social conference; where accurate 
 and reliable bulletin market reports could always be 
 found : where information from all parts of the world, by 
 means of newspapers, ships, and the electric telegraph, 
 would be promptly disclosed. Such institutions are 
 deemed indispensable to commercial prosperity in other 
 large cities, and it is remarkable that San Francisco re- 
 mained for so many eventful years without an Exchange, 
 owned and controlled by her business men. 
 
 In the spring of 1866, while he was yet President of 
 the Union Insurance Company, Mr. Fay determined to 
 
312 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 consult with enterprising business men of the city, with 
 a view to taking the initiatory steps towards the erection 
 of a Merchants' Exchange. He waited upon Mr. Jona- 
 than Hunt, President of the Pacific Insurance Company, 
 who became his earliest coadjutor in the work. Messrs. 
 Fay and Hunt then enlisted Mr. Wm. C. Ralston, the 
 eminent banker, in the enterprise, who, in his usual 
 prompt style offered to furnish temporarily all the money 
 needful to secure the purchase of sufficient land. Mr. 
 Fay called a meeting of prominent merchants and capital- 
 ists at the office of the Union Insurance Company, which 
 was well attended, and resulted in a determination to 
 push the work to completion. Messrs. Thomas H. Selbv, 
 R. G. Sneath, Lloyd Tevis, W. C. Talbot, L. Sachs, Sam- 
 uel Brannan, J. W. Stow, R. B. Swain, and many other 
 wealthy men, gave their money and influence to the work. 
 The result was the incorporation, in June, 1866, of the 
 Merchants' Exchange Association, with a capital stock 
 of $250,000. Subscriptions to the amount of one half 
 of this entire sum were obtained by Mr. Fay himself. A 
 valuable lot of land, beautifully situated, was immediately 
 purchased, and the erection of the present elegant build- 
 ing of the Association was commenced. This structure 
 stands on the south side of California street, and extends 
 from Leidesdorff street to within a few feet of Montgom- 
 ery street, in the very heart of the commercial centre. Ic 
 was finished in 1867, and this brief description of it ap- 
 peared in Langley's City Direo^.ory of San Francisco, 
 shortly after its completion. "The Nev/ Merchants' Ex- 
 change, corner California and Leidesdorff streets, is the 
 largest and one of the most elegant structures in the city. 
 The front on California street consists of basement, three 
 stories and attic — surmounted by a clock tower. The 
 basement is constructed of solid cut granite, which rises 
 about six feet above the side-walk. The first story is in 
 the pure Doric style, the second in Ionic, and the third 
 in highly-ornamented Corinthian. The attics are in mod- 
 ernized-mediaeval, if such a term implies the adaptation 
 of old styles to new purposes. The whole is surmounted 
 by a heavy balustrade, divided by colossal Etruscan vases. 
 
CALEB T. FAY. 313 
 
 above which rises the lofty clock tower which has four 
 large dials that afford the "time o'day" to the residents 
 of a large portion of the city; the great height of the tow- 
 er — one hundred and twenty feet above the side-walk — 
 making it a conspicuous object. Each of the stories on 
 this point recede about ten feet, forming extensive bal- 
 conies, surrounded with balustrades, and vases, which 
 impart to the building a peculiar appearance of massive- 
 ness and strength. The front on Leidesdorff street is in 
 the same style, but less ornamental and without recesses. 
 All the ornamental work on the exterior is made of cast 
 iron ; the whole being painted a pale drab, and sprinkled 
 with Monterey sand, which gives the building the ap- 
 pearance of being made of stone. The interior of this 
 magnificent structure has been fitted up to correspond 
 with its exterior. The total cost of the building, without 
 the lot, has been $190,000." 
 
 The cost of this superb edifice, and the ground it oc- 
 cupies, amounted to the sum of $350,000. It is truly a 
 noble monument to the liberality and enterprise of the 
 men who erected it, and an enduring evidence of the prac- 
 tical \visdom of Caleb T, Fay. 
 
 In the summer of 1868, Mr. Fay resigned his place 
 as President of the Union Insurance Company, in order 
 to accept the nomination tendered him by the National 
 Republican organization for Governor of California. 
 Henry H. Haight had already received the Democratic 
 nomination for that ofl&ce, and Geo. C. Gorham had been 
 appointed by a Convention called in the interest of the 
 Union party. But said Convention was organized by the 
 admission of sixty-three delegates from San Francisco, ap- 
 pointed outside of the Union party by a league called 
 Eight-Hour Men , unknown and unrecognized by any po- 
 litical party. The Republicans being thus practically ig- 
 nored and excluded from the Convention, at once called 
 another State Convention, and nominated Mr. Fay. Al- 
 though having no chance for an election, he entered the 
 canvass with his accustomed zeal, and conducted him- 
 self throughout with the dignity becoming his position. 
 In this triangular contest, which was perhaps the most in- 
 
314 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 teresting, exciting, and bitter political campaign ever 
 conducted in California, the Democratic candidate was 
 elected. The purpose of this volume will not permit a 
 discussion of the principles of the parties, or the merits of 
 the candidates then before the people. The course taken 
 by Mr. Fay was the plain path of duty which his judgment 
 and his conscience directed him to pursue. 
 
 In his letter accepting the nomination for Governor, 
 Mr. Fay used this language : 
 
 ^' Since 1848, at which time I cast my first Presidential 
 vote to sustain the Free Soil candidates of that campaign, 
 I have been identified, and have worked with the National 
 Radical party, having for its objects the freedom, advance- 
 ment and elevation of the masses of the people. I cannot 
 consent that the Union party, with which 1 have acted in 
 this State since its formation, shall take a backward step, 
 as is manifest in the adoption of its cowardly platform of 
 June 12th, and its tame submission to conspirators against 
 the popular will, without entering my protest and decla- 
 ration, that if it does go back I will not go with it. I 
 will consent to belong only to a party that is progressive. 
 The times demand that we should pierce the veil of frothy 
 stump-declamation, and look at the political situation as 
 it is in our midst: but principles must claim our attention, 
 not men ; for men are the creatures of an hour — to-day 
 they live, perhaps powerful, proud, boastful and defiant — 
 to-morrow they are dead and forgotten; but principles 
 are imperishable. The foundations of all government 
 should be laid deep and solid, upon the rock of impartial 
 justice to the governed. It is the business of political 
 leaders to keep burnished and bright before the people, by 
 living faith and practice, all the essential principles of 
 government; and when the leaders of a Government or 
 party fall short of this sacred mission, they are useless 
 lumber, or parasites upon the body politic, and may ex- 
 pect the people to repudiate their leadership. Moiiarchs 
 claim a divine right to rule over people by virtue of su- 
 perior wisdom concentrated in themselves, to govern; or 
 in other words, they believe that minorities should rule. 
 The slaveholders of our country were advocates of the 
 
CALEB T. FAY, 315 
 
 same principle, and endeavored to perpetuate it upon 
 our soil at the point of the bayonet. To put down and 
 destroy this heresy cost half a million lives, and three 
 thousand million of dollars that are yet to be earned and 
 wrung from the sons of toil. Republics claim the right 
 of the majority to rule. They believe in the wisdom and 
 justice of numbers, which is the key to their government 
 arch. Remove that key, and the republican fabric reared 
 by our fathers, and cemented by the blood of our broth- 
 ers, falls, a chaotic and shapeless mass of political ruin; 
 hence, any innovation upon the vital principles in our 
 political fabric, from whatever source it may come, should 
 be looked upon as treason to our republican faith, and 
 should be met at the threshold wherever it appears, and 
 destroyed, whether it be in the camp of armed traitors, 
 open political enemies, or disguised in the habiliments of 
 political friends. The government of the majority neces- 
 sarily involves the enfranchisement of the masses. There 
 are three ways of violating this republican charter of lib- 
 erty; one is by armed rebellion of the minority, another 
 is disfranchisement by law, and still another is by such 
 low cunning, deceit, fraud, bribery and corruption in po- 
 litical circles, as to set aside the manifest will of the peo- 
 ple. The latter mode of disfranchisement is the present 
 working condition of the machinery of the Union party 
 of California ; and those who have followed it faithfully 
 in time past, in its march through the sea of blood, 
 to sustain the majority principle, are now commanded 
 and entreated to indorse this treachery to our political 
 faith, and by so doing become participants in this high 
 political crime. Others may do it if they will, IwiE not; 
 for I hold that since slavery is destroyed, there is no form 
 of usurpation now so dangerous to American liberty as 
 plottings of unscrupulous demagogues to foist themselves 
 into power against the manifest will of the masses." 
 
 In a speech delivered just before the close of the cam- 
 paign, at the State House in Sacramento, Mr. Fay ad- 
 dressed himself to the questions of National Taxation, 
 Reconstruction, Suffrage, Internal Improvement, Corpora- 
 tions, the Union and the Republican parties, and other 
 
316 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 topics of absorbing interest, in such an able and states- 
 manlike manner as to call forth the universal approbation 
 of the true men of the Republican organization, and to 
 elicit the following endorsement from the principal news- 
 paper of the Capital, the Sacramento Union, a journal hav- 
 ing, perhaps, the widest circulation of any published on 
 the Pacific Coast. 
 
 '^ A Speech fit for a Governor. — The speech of Caleb 
 T. Fay, delivered in the city on Wednesday evening, and 
 printed in yesterday's Union^ is one fit for a gentleman 
 aspiring to the G-overnorship of California, to make. By 
 means of the daily and weekly Union it will reach at least 
 twenty-five thousand readers, to each and all of whom 
 we commend it for earnest and thoughtful perusal. It is 
 a document that would honor the highest republican 
 statesmanship, and is filled with maxims which ought to 
 sink deep into the hearts of the people. A straightfor- 
 ward and honest man, who cares nothing for office merely 
 for its own sake, but who at the same time, conscious of 
 the manifold ills which afflict the State, cherishes an hon- 
 orable ambition to be placed in a position where he can 
 greatly assist in their amelioration, and live and act for 
 the good of his fellow men, Mr. Fay resorts to none of 
 the tricks and subterfuges of the professed politician, but 
 presents his views on public matters with all the frank- 
 ness of a private citizen and all the unconcern of conse- 
 quences which might be expected from a philosopher. 
 He sets out with the just theory that public men in this 
 country are properly the servants of the people, to light- 
 en their burdens and direct them in the way of govern- 
 ment without oppression by the rich or peculation on the 
 part of officials. He appeals, as he can so well afford to 
 appeal, to his past record on the important questions of 
 labor, economy in administration, retrenchment in ex- 
 penditure, and honesty in officials." 
 
 In the last presidential election, Mr. Fay gave a cheer- 
 ful support to the successful candidate. His time is now 
 mostly devoted to the development of a valuable mine of 
 iron ore, discovered a few years ago, in Sierra County, 
 and located, according to Professor Richthofew who ex- 
 
CALEB T. FAY, 317 
 
 amined it, '' about twelve miles E. N. E. of the city of 
 Downieville, and a few miles nortli of the culminating rocky 
 summits of the Sierra Buttes." A careful and scientific 
 examination of this mine has established the fact, (attest- 
 ed by no less an authority than Professor H. Schrotter, 
 of Vienna) that the ore which it yields contains an aver- 
 age of sixty per cent, of pure iron, and is equal to the 
 best Swedish ores; and gives the further assurance, that 
 California is not only rich in gold and copper, but also 
 in what is really the most useful, if not the most precious 
 of metals. 
 
 Having become largely interested in the ownership 
 of these valuable deposits, and being confident that they 
 can be made available for the purpose of manufacturing 
 iron, Mr. Fay looks forward hopefully to the time when 
 from this branch of metallurgy will spring a new industry 
 which will not only amply reward his own patient efforts, 
 but augment, in a wonderful degree, the wealth of the 
 State. 
 
 Mr. Fay's residence is still at San Francisco, where he 
 expects to pass the remainder of his life. 
 
-II?! 
 
 WILLIAM I. FERGUSON 
 
 By the Editoi^ 
 
 THE history of political parties in California is illus- 
 trated with the genius of brilliant and ambitious 
 minds from every section of the American Union: and 
 of these it is noteworthy that a large and disproportion- 
 ate number, prior to their advent in California, exercised 
 a conspicuous leadership in public affairs in Illinois. 
 Baker, McDougall, Ferguson, Campbell, Hoge, Hardy, 
 Pratt — these are but a few of the ardent spirits sent 
 forth by the Prairie State to the shores of the Pacific, 
 endowed with the charms of oratory, strengthened by 
 enlightened experience, and learned in the science of 
 law. 
 
 William I. Ferguson was born May 9th, 1825, at 
 Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, the native State of his 
 father and mother. His grand - parents came to the 
 United States from Ireland. His father, Benjamin F., 
 was a carpenter and builder. William was the oldest of 
 six children. When he was ten years of age, his parents 
 removed to Springfield, Illinois, where his father died, 
 and where his mother, sisters, and two brothers, now 
 reside. 
 
 William received a common-school education. After 
 leaving school, he clerked for a short time in a store; 
 then, having determined to prepare himself for the bar, 
 he applied himself closely for some years to the study 
 
320 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF TEE PACIFIC. 
 
 of law in the offices of Judge Logan, Col. E. D. Baker, 
 and other prominent lawyers of Springfield. He received 
 his license to practice before he attained his majority, 
 and soon obtained a good business. Politics, as well as 
 law, had a charm for him. When he was a very young 
 man, he became noted as an eloquent and forcible 
 speaker. He had been raised a Whig, but, on becoming 
 a voter, espoused the Democratic cause. He was several 
 times elected city attorney of Springfield, and his name 
 was placed on the Democratic electoral ticket in the 
 presidential election of 1848, he then being only twenty- 
 three years of age. In 1850 he was a candidate for the 
 State Legislature, and ran far ahead of his ticket; but 
 was defeated, there being at that time a very large Whig 
 majority in his district. 
 
 The editor has received the following reminiscences 
 of Mr. Ferguson, from Mr. W. H. Herndon, a leading 
 lawyer of Springfield, formerly a law partner of Presi- 
 dent Lincoln. Mr. Herndon wrote his narrative hastily, 
 intending only to furnish data for this sketch, without 
 expecting that his language would be adopted by the 
 editor : 
 
 Spbingfield, IU., March 20th, 1869. 
 Oscar T, ^huck, Esq., 
 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Dear Sir: — I knew Hon. William I. Ferguson as early as 1836, 
 when he was going to school. I .sold his father Gillies' Greece for 
 William to read. He read it well and with admiration, and was 
 enthusiastic over its contents. He was fond of good history. About 
 the year 1835, '6, or '1 , I was president of a young men's debating 
 society in Springfield, Illinois Ferguson joined it, and he soon 
 assumed a leadership in it. He was a number-one talker in the 
 society. He generally studied his subject well, would converse with 
 older heads, read books and papers, and thus became well informed 
 on the subject under debate. He admired conversation more than 
 reading. He would absorb all that was said; would assimilate it, 
 digest and use it. I do not think he loved mathematics at school; 
 but grammar and rhetoric were favorite studies. He was a close 
 reader of Byron, Shakspeare, and Milton. AVilliam was an open- 
 hearted, spontaneous young man; would go to any lengths for a 
 friend, even when a mere lad. He did not love to fight with boys; 
 had too much good-will and sense. About the year 1837 or 1838, 
 he was a clerk in a store in Springfield, owned by Bell «& Speed, 
 where he remained about one year. This occupation was decidedly 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 321 
 
 distasteful to him; his active brain and impulsive nature yearned for 
 nobler employments. His father then put him to learn the car- 
 penter's trade, but the boy was still unsatisfied. When pushing the 
 jack-jjlane at his trade, he embraced every leisure moment to creep 
 down into the shavings and read history or poetry. About this 
 time, his friends thought he must die with the consumption. How- 
 ever, by keei^ingin the open air, and taking much physical exercise, 
 he got well. In the year 1842, he went into the law ofiice of Hon. 
 y. T. Logan of Springfield; he received his license in 1843. He 
 and Hon. David Logan, now of Oregon, son of Hon. S. T. Logan, 
 read law at the same time and place. They were boys of much 
 promise, because they had by nature large minds, and were studious, 
 determined, and patient. Ferguson, upon being admitted, went 
 into an extensive practice at once. He was social and beloved. He 
 knew how to attract and tie men to him. He was more of a thinker 
 than a reader; was a great absorber of what was said in conversa- 
 tion. He soon came to be the first ciiminal lavvycr at the Sangamon 
 bar, among such men as Lincoln, Logan, Baker, McDougal, Bledsoe, 
 Stuart, and others. I have watched the young man in a hard case 
 with admii-ation: he was calm and self-possessed, knowing his case 
 thoroughly. His leading characteristic, in mind, was his quick, ex- 
 cellent judgment. His reason vv'as no better than that of a thousand 
 other men. His intuitive judgments were admii'able, keen, coiTect, 
 and quick as lightning. He told vrhat the law was when heaiing it 
 discussed, even before it was decided by the Court. He caught 
 liints how to manage his case by closely watching the ideas of op- 
 posing attorneys. Ferguson intuitively knew that the op])osite at- 
 torney's side was antagonistic to his. Hence he never vras at a loss 
 to know how to manage a case, for a defendant especially. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson was chosen in this city on the Fourth of July, 1840, 
 to be the orator of the day, over such men as Lincoln, Logan, and 
 others. His oration was truly eloquent: it was finely, grandly elo- 
 quent. He gained great honor on. that occasion. I forgot to say 
 that one of William's habits was to read aloud, and walk the room, 
 when so doing, backwards and forwards : he loved to read orations — 
 Greek, Eoman, Englisli, and American. He was when about say 
 from sixteen to twenty-two, always repeating them: he vrould go 
 into the deep woods and there speak to a tree, or to me as well as 
 others of his friends. In politics he was raised a Whig: he turned 
 Democrat about 1844. 
 
 On one occasion he and I were going to court in Christian county. 
 Hon. David Davis was judge of what may be called the Sangamon 
 District or Cii'cuit. On the road we heard that Judge Davds was too 
 ill to attend Court. "Hush," said young Ferguson, "and we'll 
 have some fun : we'll tell the people that we are authorized to hold 
 Court for Judge Davis." So we rode to the count}^ seat, and after 
 breakfast in the morning Ferguson had Court open, as aiipeared to 
 the crowd, in a legitimate way. The Sheriff knew no better, nor 
 did the clerk, nor the lawyers. I kept still — said nothing. One 
 lawyer made a motion, and during the time it was being argued, 
 
 21 
 
322 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 some one behaved rather badly. Young Ferguson said : * ' Mr. Clerk, 
 
 fine Mr. one dollar for contempt of Court, in making too 
 
 much noise and for keeping his hat on in the court-room." The 
 man walked ujd; paid his fine with some grumbling. Two or three 
 fines in addition were thus imposed. Probably four or five dollars 
 were collected in this way. In about one or two hours, Ferguson 
 rose up in the chair and said: "Mr. Clerk, Court's adjourned. 
 Let's go and have a general froKc with the fine-money— a big, old- 
 fashioned spree." Then it was first discovered that it was a sham 
 court. The people were wild in their fun, and those that paid the 
 fines enjoyed the joke more than all others. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 W. H. Hekndon. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson left Illinois on the 26tli day of Sep- 
 tember^ 1852, for Texas. He resided in Dallas county in 
 the latter State, until the following spring, and then 
 started overland for California, where he arrived in the 
 summer of 1853. After residing for a few months at 
 Marysville, he located permanently at Sacramento, and 
 entered upon the practice of his profession. Possessed 
 of a fine knowledge of law, of affable manners, and a very 
 generous and kind disposition, his popularity soon became 
 as great as his ambition, (which was unlimited) and pro- 
 cured him as- much business as he could possibly attend 
 to. He loved, but was not wedded to, his profession, 
 although he distinguished himself as a criminal lawyer. 
 He sought to make it a stepping-stone to political prefer- 
 ment; and cherished an honorable zeal to shine in the 
 councils of the State and nation. He had an insatiable 
 thirst for fame. He cared but little for money. The 
 fluctuations in real estate, and the rise and fall of stocks, 
 never cost him a sigh or gave him any concern. The 
 records of the County Recorder of Sacramento county 
 do not once reveal his name as the purchaser or vendor 
 of a single inch of ground. He lived and moved in the 
 midst of a restless throng, crazed by the eager desire for 
 gain, but himself callous to the allurements of mammon. 
 The example of indifference to the acquisition of wealth 
 in an age of speculators and in a community of fortune- 
 hunters, was novel and striking. 
 
 In 1855, Ferguson was nominated by the Native 
 American or Know-Nothing party for State senator. His 
 
WILLIAM! I. FERGUSON. 323 
 
 Democratic competitor was his first law-partner in Sacra- 
 mento, ^Ym. S. Long. At the election, Ferguson received 
 3,437 votes to 2,592 cast for Long. 
 
 On entering the Senate, he w^as appointed chairman 
 of the Judiciary Committee, and at once became a 
 leading member of that body. The Legislature was 
 called upon during that session to elect a United States 
 senator. In the lower branch, the new party had a large 
 preponderance, while in the Senate their majority was 
 only one. Hon. Wilson Flint, one of the hold-over San 
 Francisco senators, was kno^vn to be in sympathy with the 
 Know-N^othings or Native Americans, and in company 
 with Henry S. Foote, had stumped the State in 1850 for 
 that party, and the votes of that party had been cast in a 
 body for him, and aided his election to the State Senate. 
 Therefore, his vote was relied upon for the American 
 nominee for United States senator. It was the pur- 
 pose of the Know-Nothing senators to go into joint con- 
 vention, without first holding a caucus ; but, as Mr. Flint 
 declared he would not vote for the choice of the majority 
 unless that choice were indicated by a caucus, the original 
 intention was changed and a caucus was held. In a speech 
 delivered in the Senate, January 15th, 1856, and which 
 was reported in the Sacramento JJnion^ Mr. Flint, in 
 explaining his connection with the Native American party, 
 used these words: ''I assure the party to which I hold 
 allegiance, that I am prepared at any time to abide the 
 result of a caucus." 
 
 At that time, it will be remembered, it required a 
 majority of both branches of the Legislature to bring on 
 the election of a United States senator. Seeing how 
 evenly balanced the two parties were in the Senate, David 
 C. Broderick was making herculean exertions to have the 
 election postponed until the next session of the Legislature, 
 when he hoped to secure the prize himself. The caucus 
 of the dominant party had many sittings, in the endeavor 
 to agree upon a candidate. Mr. Ferguson himself received 
 a large vote for the high position. The principal can- 
 didate, however, was Hon. Henry S. Foote, and upon him 
 the caucus at last combined. That gentleman would have 
 
324 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACTFIC. 
 
 been chosen, in a day or two thereafter, as the represent- 
 ative of the State of California in the United States 
 Senate, but for the unexpected defection of Willson Flint, 
 who refused, in the most stubborn and determined man- 
 ner, to support the caucus nominee. Ferguson warmly 
 endorsed the nomination, and was unable to restrain the 
 impetuosity of his feelings against Flint. As he was 
 master of satire and invective, he astounded the Senate, 
 and even those who knew him best, by the withering 
 anathemas which he hurled at the head of " the recreant." 
 But the Senate refused, by a majority of one, to go into 
 joint convention with the Assembly, and Broclerick's 
 star again ascended the political heavens. 
 
 In the fall of 1856, in the middle of his senatorial 
 term, Ferguson openly renounced the Know-Nothing 
 Order, and was welcomed back, with many joyous dem- 
 onstrations, into tho Democratic ranks. A committee of 
 prominent Know-Nothings waited upon him and demanded 
 his'*resignation. He agreed that, if his vote, should be 
 necessary to decide the choice of a United States senator 
 at the next session of the Legislature, he would resign, 
 in time for the people of Sacramento county to elect his 
 successor — intending in that event to go before the 
 public as a candidate for reelection ; but as that exigency 
 4.id not arise, he served out his term. At the next ses- 
 sion both branches of the Legislature had Democratic 
 maiorities, and early in the session, Broderick was elected 
 to the United States Senate, Ferguson voting for him. 
 
 In 1857, Ferguson was nominated by the Democracy 
 as his successor in the Senate, and was reelected. The 
 contest was bitter and hotly contested. The vote stood: 
 Ferguson, Democratic, 2,746; Brewster, American, 2,502; 
 Nixon, Republican, 934. 
 
 The session commenced on the first Monday in Janu- 
 ary, 3 858. About two months before the Legislature 
 adjourned, occurred the memorable rupture between 
 Douglas and Buchanan, and. Ferguson promptly announced 
 his sympathy with the former. Towards the close of the 
 session, he delivered an elaborate speech on ^' Squatter 
 Sovereignty," which was an impassioned vindication of 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 325 
 
 the views of the Illinois statesman, and replete with 
 energetic and eloquent censure of the administration of 
 James Buchanan. This speech was, perhaps, the most 
 logical, finished, and effective of all his forensic efforts. 
 
 In August, 1858, Ferguson made a visit to San Fran- 
 cisco, and there became involved in a personal dispute 
 v/ith Hon. George Pen Johnston, which resulted in a 
 duel being fought between them at Angel Island, in San 
 Francisco Bay, on the 21st day of that month — the 
 weapons being pistols, and Ferguson being the challenged 
 party. At the fourth fire, the latter received his ad- 
 versary's ball in his right thigh, and was carried from the 
 field — Johnston being slightly wounded in the left wrist. 
 When his phj^sicians examined Ferguson's wound soon 
 after its infliction, they informed him of its serious nature, 
 and notified him that, unless the leg were amputated, the 
 chances were a thousand to one against his recovery. He 
 replied that he would not lose his leg for all California, 
 and that he would take the solitary chance. The surgeons, 
 therefore, rendered him such assistance as they could give, 
 and did not resort to amputation until September 14th, 
 when Ferguson's condition made a further and minute 
 examination necessary; whereupon, it became evident 
 that amputation furnished the only hope for life. The 
 patient at last yielded to the advice of his friends. He 
 stated to those in attendance that he did not expect to 
 survive, and requested that if the people of Sacramento 
 asked for his body, it should be given to them, that he 
 might be '' buried in the county which had honored him 
 with a seat in the Senate." 
 
 At about half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, 
 Doctors Angle, Sawyer, Rowell, Coit, and Gray, after ad- 
 ministering chloroform, commenced the operation of 
 amputating the limb. This was performed in a short 
 time ; but his long and painful confinement had enfeebled 
 him to the last degree, and he could stand no more. 
 Before the operation was complete, his spirit was disen- 
 thralled from its shattered earthly tenement, and gone 
 (the writer, who loved him, devoutly trusts) to a sinless 
 world. 
 
326 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC 
 
 It was then seen how tenderly he was beloved by the 
 people of Sacramento. Only a day before his decease, 
 the telegraph had announced that he was better, and 
 the intelligence of his death spread a deep gloom over 
 the capital. A large delegation of Sacramentans met 
 the party in charge of the remains at Benicia, and 
 escorted them to Sacramento, where the body was lain 
 in state in the Senate chamber of the capitol building 
 throughout the following day. Thousands of the citizens 
 of Sacramento county visited the State House, to behold 
 for the last time the noble brow and form of him whose 
 nervous eloquence had so often, in that very building, 
 delighted and entranced them. 
 
 On the 16th day of September, after an impressive 
 discourse by Rev. J. A. Benton, and a eulogy by Col. E. 
 D. Baker, a very large concourse followed the remains 
 to the grave. At the time of his death, he had one 
 year more to serve as a State senator, and was a promi- 
 nent aspirant for congressional honors. 
 
 The writer, for good cause, will not continue this 
 sketch further. When Ferguson felt that he must soon 
 die, he said to those who watched by his bedside: "My 
 friend Baker has known me best in life : ask him, if he 
 will, to speak of me when I am dead." He could not 
 have entrusted his memory to the keeping of a better 
 friend than the eloquent old man whose voice always fell 
 upon enraj^tured ears. Col. Baker fulfilled the sad trust 
 committed to him, and spoke in pathetic terms of the 
 virtues, talents, frailties, and ambition of the promising 
 young man whom he had known since his early boyhood. 
 The writer, therefore, drops his pen, and hastens to refer 
 the reader to Col. Baker's Eulogy, which immediately 
 ifollows this sketch, and which in turn is followed by Mr. 
 Benton's Discourse. 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 327 
 
 EEIMAUKS ON THE DEATH OF WM. I. FERGUSON, 
 
 Delivered in the Assembly Chamber, Sacramento, Cal., September 16th, 1858. 
 
 BY COL. E. D. BAKER. 
 
 The intense interest which is apparent in this crowded auditory 
 too well evinces the mournful character of the ceremony we are 
 about to perfoi-m. Wherever death may invade the precincts of 
 life, whether in the loftiest or lowliest home, there is a tear for all 
 who fall; there is a mourner for even the meanest and the most 
 humble; but when beyond the deep impression which the change 
 from life to death produces in all good minds — when beyond this we 
 know that an eminent citizen is stricken down in the full vigor of 
 his manhood and in the pride of his intellectual power, the impres- 
 sion is deeplj' mournfid. And when to this we add that those who 
 loved him in life, vrhose servant and representative he was, have 
 gathered around his bier to-day to accompany him to his last resting 
 place on earth, the impression is not merely mournful, but painful. 
 And when we add to this that the man we mourn died by the hand 
 of violence — suddenly- — in a peaceful land, away from his own 
 friends, the joainful impression becomes an overwhelming soitow. 
 
 At the personal request of our departed friend, it has been assigned 
 to me to say a fev/ Vv^ords upon this occasion. 
 
 I have perhaps known him longer than anybody here. I have 
 known him, more particularly in his early youth, perhaps better 
 than any one here assembled. I have watched the bud, the blovv, 
 the fruit, and lastly the untimely decay; and while I desii-e to speak 
 of him as he himself would wish to be spoken of; while I do not 
 mean that jiersonal friendship shall warp my judgment or lead me 
 to say as his friend any thing unduly in his praise, so also, on the 
 other hand, shall I say nothing against him or others that is unjust 
 or unkind. 
 
 The gentleman whose remains you are about to consign to his 
 last resting place until the trump of the Archangel shall sound , was 
 a native of the State of Pennsylvania. I knew his father well; a 
 respectable, worthy, honest man: a mechanic by pursuit, intelligent, 
 relf -reliant, and in everj- respect honorable. 
 
 The young man was ambitious from his boyhood. He sought 
 the profession of the law, not merely for itself, but as an opening 
 that would lead to what he considered were higher and more noble 
 jDOsitions. 
 
 He was fitted for the study of law by nature. He was then what 
 you knew him but lately — bold, self-reliant, earnest, brilliant, elo- 
 quent, a good judge of human nature, kind, generous, making 
 friends everywhere, placable in his resentments, easily appeased, 
 and a true friend. He read law not only with me, but also with far 
 more able men, and he formed his judgment of public affairs while 
 honored with the friendship of Douglas, his opponent Lincoln, John 
 
B28 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 J. Hardin, who won a deathless name at Bnena Vista, Judge Logan, 
 and many others who are the pride and boast of the Mississippi 
 Valley. He was early distinguished in his own State. He was very 
 young, and he had those contests among his own friends which are 
 peculiar to politics; and there had the reverses and crosses v»ithont 
 which no man is worth much. The success v/hich he achieved here 
 had its foundation laid in defeat, and I think I may say that most 
 of Avhat he knew as a politician he had learned in the school of 
 adversity — 
 
 "That stern teacher of the human breast." 
 
 It is not good for a man to be always successful, either in private 
 or public life, No man's character can be formed without trial and 
 suffering, and our departed friend showed b}^ his course of conduct 
 that he could cndiire temporary defeat, confident of the ultimate 
 success of the right — j^erhaps not the less confident of his power to 
 achieve success. Ho was a successful candidate upon the Demo- 
 cratic ticket for presidential elector in 1848. He w^as as renow^ned 
 in his own State, as a debater, as he wacj here; he had (and that is 
 saying a great deal) as many friends there as he had here; he 
 deserved them there, as he deserved them here, by his fidelity to his 
 friends, high personal qualities, courage, intellect, brilliancy — by 
 those qualities which rendered him so dear to many of you now 
 before me. 
 
 He came here, and what he wiig" here you know better than I. 
 You knevv^ him v/ell, for he served you. You knew him well, for he 
 ever strove for your approbation, and loved you living, and loved you 
 dying. He had a great many qualities that make a successful poli- 
 tician, not merely in the personal sense of the word, but in a higher 
 sense, the achievement of great deeds, and the advancement of great 
 principles. 
 
 These halls have been the witnesses of many of his triumphs. 
 As was well remarked by a contemporary newspaper, he hardly ever 
 undertook that which, when he set himself earnestly to work, he 
 did not accomplish. He had the determination to succeed — that 
 knowledge of mankind — that control over other men's minds — that 
 kindly manner, those generous impulses for all — that love for 
 humanity — those qu-alities of mind which, if they called forth grave 
 defects, also called forth gTeat virtues. And these are in most of 
 the departments of life the great elements of success. Mere intel- 
 lect, except in the closet, does but little : the qualities of mind, of 
 mere abstract vdsdom, which distinguished a Newton or a LaPlace, 
 would do but little at Vv'ashington. It is the same both in private 
 and public life. A knowledge of the human heart; a readiness of 
 resources; kindness of heart; fidelity in friendship — will effect more 
 than mere abstract wisdom, and must be combined with it in order 
 to render that wisdom of avail. These, and all these, our friend 
 had. 
 
 You know how well he served you; and those who knew him 
 best, knew how ardently he desired your approbation, how earnestly" 
 he strove to win it. 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 329 
 
 There is more than one thing in his legislative career which 
 deserves notice, and not the least is the manner of his death. Pie 
 died poor — not poor in the common sense of the term, but poor as 
 was Aristides vv-hen he was buried at the expense of the citizens 
 of Athens. Amongst all his papers, there is not found the trace of 
 a speculation. He had no property — no resources; hh poverty, if 
 remarkable, was honorable. In a land where conniption is said to 
 be rife, the more especially in legislative bodies, and which, w^hether 
 the charge is true or false, is proverbially liable to corrupting influ- 
 ences, it seems impossible that he used the vast power he po: :s9£sed 
 for aught excejDt the public interest and welfare. And this alone 
 would be a proud epitaph to record upon his tombstone. Ho vras a 
 man of undoubted courage, as his death proved. I am not here to 
 speak of its manner. I am not here to discuss the subject of duel- 
 ing. If I were, it would be to utter my unqualified condemnation 
 of the code which offers to personal vindictiveness a life due only 
 to a country, a family, and to God. If I were, under any circum- 
 stances, an advocate for a duel, it should be at least a fau', equal, 
 and honorable duel. If, as was said by an eloquent advocate in its 
 favor, " it was the light of past ages which shed its radiance upon 
 the hill-tops of civilization, although its light might be lost in the 
 dark shade of the yalle^^s below;" if even I held this view, I should 
 still maintain that a duel should be fair and equal; that skill should 
 not be matched against ignorance, practical training against its ab- 
 sence. And while I am in no sense to be understood as expressing 
 an opinion as to the late duel, knowing nothing of the matter my- 
 self, yet I do say that no duel should stand the test of public opinion, 
 independent of the law, except the great element of equality is there. 
 In the pursuits of common life, no one not trained to a profession 
 is supposed to be a match for a professional man in the duties of 
 his profession. I am no match for a physician in any matters con- 
 nected with his pursuits, nor would the physician be a match for me 
 in a legal argiunent. The soldier is no fair match for the civilian, 
 when the latter has not been trained to the use of anns; nor, al- 
 though his courage is equal, and he may have a profound conviction 
 that he is right, will, therefore, the contest be rendered equal and 
 just. I rejDcat that I do not make these remarks intending thereby 
 to reflect upon the character of the late duel. Personally, I know 
 nothing more than what I and you all have heard. Whether it was 
 fair or unfair, it is not my province to inquire. I am denouncing 
 the system itself, for it loses annually hundreds of valuable lives, 
 and in the present state of civilization, it does no good, profits 
 nothing, arrests no evil, but impels a thousand e^ils; but above all, 
 do I protest against any contests of this nature where, in skill, 
 knowledge of weapons, or from any cause, the parties are not equals 
 in all the conditions of that stern debate. The friend whose loss 
 we deplore was undoubtedly a man of courage. Whatever may be 
 said with respect to the code of dueling — whatever may be said as 
 to his motives — his conduct on the field was in all respects what his 
 friends expected. He stood four fires, at a distance of scarcely 
 
330 REPEESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 twenty feet, witH a conviction that there was a strong determination 
 to take his life — that the. matter should be carried to an extremity — 
 and that, too, when, until the day before, he had never fired a pistol 
 off in his life. But courage is shown not merely in action, but in 
 endurance. A woman may show the higher quality of courage in 
 many instances where many men would fail. A brave man — a really 
 brave man — shows his courage no less in endurance than in action. 
 It is a higher, a greater quality to suffer than to do; and in this 
 respect our friend was no way defective. He bore a long and pain- 
 ful confinement — he bore a severe operation — he saw his hold upon 
 life unclasping day by day, hour by hour; and amidst it all, neither 
 his resolution nor his cheerfulness, faltered for an instant. When 
 he lay helpless, looking back uj)on the errors (and who has not 
 errors?) of his life, he seemed to recall them for lessons of instruc- 
 tion and warning for the future; and when he knew he must die, 
 he arrayed himself for the last contest, to die as became a man, 
 amid all sweet and pious and holy recollections. He died with no 
 vindictive passion in his heart. He died with words of affection upon 
 his lips. He died with the thoughts of his mother present to his 
 soul. He left this world with the thoughts of home and mother. 
 He left with words of forgiveness and kindness. His last act of 
 consciousness was an act of prayer. 
 
 Oh! Affection, Forgiveness, Faith! ye are mighty spirits. Ye 
 are powerful angels. And the soul that in its dying moments trusts 
 to these, cannot be far from the gates of heaven, whatever the past 
 life may have been. However passion or excitement maj^ have led 
 a soul astray, if at the last and final hour it returns to the lessons 
 of a mother's love, of a father's care-^if it learns the great lesson 
 of forgiveness to its enemies — if at the last moment it can utter these 
 words: "Father of life and light and love!" — these shall be winged 
 angels — troops of blessed spirits — that will bear the fainting, wounded 
 soul to the blessed abodes, and for ever guard it against despair. 
 Oh, my friends! those mighty gates built by the Almighty to guard 
 the entrance to the unseen world, will not open at the battle-axe of 
 the conqueror; they will not roll back if all the artillery of earth 
 were to thunder forth a demand, which, indeed, would be lost in 
 the infinite regions of eternal space! but they will open with 
 thoughts of affection, with forgiveness of injuries, and with prayer. 
 
 But I am not here to speak of the virtues of the departed alone. 
 He had his defects; they were great; they were marked; but they 
 w^ere incident to his career and his character. He was, by nature 
 and habit, a j)olitician; and of all callings, that of a politician is the 
 most illusive and unsatisfactory : it kindles the mind in a state of 
 constant excitement: it is a constant struggle, which is frequently 
 injurious in its effects; and our friend, with all his fine qualities, 
 was no exception to the rule. Let him that is without sin cast the 
 first stone. Of how many can we say that no greater defect can be 
 recorded? Of him who is dead, what worse can be said? He was 
 honorable, honest, loving, generous, placable; and if amid his virtues, 
 there were some defects, they are but to be mentioned to be forgiven 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 331 
 
 and forgotten. Fellow-citizens, the words I utter I should not deem 
 complete if I did not, before I close, utter a word of warning. The . 
 most powerful intellect, the most amiable qualities, may be shaded 
 by a love for excitement and the evils which the life of a politician 
 is but too apt to engender. What Ferguson was, we know. What 
 he might have been, if he had conquered himself, who can tell? 
 The inspired book says that ' ' he that ruleth his own spirit is greater 
 than him that taketh a city," and if our departed friend could have 
 conquered himself, who could have stayed the resistless course of 
 his bright intellect? It should be a warning to us all, grey heads 
 as well as to young men. All should remember that the i^ursuit of 
 politics is delusive and full of temptation. No man should forget 
 the duty he owes to his country, but all should remember that they 
 owe a duty to themselves. When men — I refer now more j^articu- 
 larly to young men — see a great statesman stand forth in the midst 
 of a listening Senate, and mark the stamp which he makes upon the 
 public mind and upon the i^olicy of the country by the force of his 
 intellectual vigor, they are apt to forget the labors by which that 
 proud position has been achieved — to forget how many have sought 
 to attain such a lofty position and have failed; and to forget that he 
 who is now filling their minds with admiration, may be on the eve 
 of a sudden fall ! Politics should not be the pursuit, I mean the 
 only pursuit, of any man. Representative honors, official station, 
 should only be the occasional reward, or the occasional sacrifice; 
 and if, forgetting this rule, young men attempt to make politics theu' 
 only hope, with the probability that in many cases they will fail, and 
 that if successful, they will surely be exposed to a thousand tempta- 
 tions: if they love excitement for its own sake — the noisy meetings, 
 the conventions, the elections — this love for excitement will grow 
 upon them, and they will soon be on the high road to ruin. 
 
 If any one is determined to achieve distinction in politics, let him 
 first obtain a competency in some trade, profession, or pursuit, and 
 then, even if unsuccessful in politics, the misstep will not be irre- 
 trievable. But, young men, do not be beguiled by the example of 
 our Ferguson, even if you possess his splendid talents — even if you 
 could achieve the success he did : look at the end! There he lies in 
 a bloody grave. Let your habits be fixed. "Let all the ends thou 
 aimest at be thy country's and thy God's." 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I have said what I supposed this occasion most 
 required. If I had been told sixteen years ago that it would be my 
 fortune to stand by the bloody grave of my young friend, in the city 
 of Sacramento on the Pacific coast, I could scarcely have believed it 
 had an angel from heaven told me so; for at that time there was no 
 civilized Pacific coast. Then Ms course was unmarked, and my 
 future was so marked out, that it would seem but little less than a 
 miracle that I should stand here, by his dying request, to offer a few 
 poor remarks over his bier, before he is laid to rest in the place he 
 loved so well — in the city named after the sweeping Sacramento. 
 But who can tell what a day may bring forth ? Here we see the 
 sudden, untimely end of one who was amiable, gifted, and who was 
 
332 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 looking forward to a long career of lionor and fame. And perhaps 
 it may be my lot to be shortly laid in the grave ; and perhaps in this 
 assembly some one may be called npon to address some remarks 
 over my poor lifeless body — even as I have been called upon on the 
 present occasion; and if this should be so, I pray that that friend 
 may accord to me as much of praise and as little of blame as will 
 be consistent with the truth. 
 
 In conclusion, I would remark that I have no words sufficient to 
 express my own personal regret. I have lost a warm personal friend. 
 I may find others, but I shall not be able to find friends that I have 
 loved in other years. I shall not often find those to whom I can, as 
 I could to him, talk of the old familiar times and the lessons I taught 
 him in early life — of the virtues and example of his parents — of his 
 mother's, his poor afflicted mother's affection and love — of his old 
 contests — his old hopes, so often broken. I shall not often find 
 friends like these, nor can the breach which death has made be so 
 easily repaired. 
 
 Let me hope, for myself and us all, that w^hen we have filled our 
 allotted space in this world; when we are attended by weeping friends, 
 for the purpose of removing us to our last resting place, that it shall 
 not be said of us that we have lived without purpose, but that we 
 have gathered friends in the days of our manhood; that we have 
 left fruits to bloom when we have departed. 
 
 DISCOUESE ON THE DEATH OF HON. WM. I. FERGUSON, 
 
 DeUvered in the Congregational Churcli, Sacramento, Cal,, Sept. 16th, 1858. 
 BY KEV. J. A. BENTON. 
 
 "Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters: as a man falleth 
 before -kicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept again over him." — 
 II. Samuel, iii. 34. 
 
 The worst has been realized. The poor mangled corse of our 
 senator lies before us. Others may have felt the same : I certainly 
 have feared from the first, that it would come to this, and have so 
 expressed myself within a few days. For such were the antecedents, 
 the circumstances, and the shock of the wound he received, that 
 they would have imperiled the life of the most robust man; and they 
 rendered it almost certain that a temperament and a constitution like 
 his, so slender and delicate, would not long survive. And there are 
 many who have been incredulous regarding the reports of his im- 
 proved condition, as knowing they were premature; because the 
 worst stage of the difficulty was not passed, nor the point of danger 
 turned. When the time for decision came, a careful examination 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. ot'J 
 
 showed the wound gangrenous, and the parts adjacent moribund. 
 Speedy amputation of the limb afforded the only hope of life ; and 
 even that was dim. And such was the severity of the x:roceeding, 
 though the sufferer was under the influence of ansesthetics, and such 
 his physical i)rostration, that his powers did not rally again nor his 
 senses return. And so his eyes were closed upon the light of life, 
 and he passed unconsciously away. 
 
 We shall look upon him no more. Three or four short weeks 
 have sufficed . for all this. A month ago the deceased was here 
 among his friends, in his usual health, vigor, and activity. Ho was 
 uncommonly spmted, cheerful, and energetic. He was in his ele- 
 ment; in the exercise of some of his peculiar faculties, which always 
 came out with remarkable force in the midst of a political excitement. 
 He went to San Francisco to remain, as he supposed, but a fcv/ days. 
 There he fell into a personal and political controversy; gave some 
 offence to hi3 opponent; was challenged to mortal combat; stooped to 
 the acceptance of the proposal; fell at the foiuih fire, and v.as car- 
 ried from the field badly wounded. After four v/eeks' absence, and 
 three of lingeiing and sufieiing — of alternating hopes and fears — 
 he is with us once again; but only in these lifeless remains, which 
 have come to be garnered, as treasures, in the burying place of those 
 who in his life had dehghted to do him honor. 
 
 It saddens us to know that we shall no more loo]: on his familiar 
 features, eo finely chiseled, so exquisitely moulded, so handsomely 
 combined, so vivacious in theu* play, and so expressive of the varied 
 emotions of the soul. The full brain that wrought under that fine 
 brow and capacious forehead, throbs no more. AVc cannot see 
 again the rare head and face that, but for an early thinning out of 
 the hair, had been more than beautiful: they were even grand. 
 The hands, the feet, the skin, the movement, the tone, as well as 
 the features, all were expressive of fine sensibilities, genius, and 
 character. None could behold him and not be impressed. None 
 could turn away and quickly lose that image from hia meinoiy. 
 
 It saddens us more to think in what a conflict our senator came 
 to his untimely end, and by what a i^rocess our community has been 
 deprived of his services in the coming years. 
 
 From the Christian standpoint, no duel can ever be justified; nor 
 anyi^arty thereto. This is conceded on every hand, and so i^ositively 
 that it never is expected that a professing Christian will ever send 
 or accept a challenge; and he is always exempted from the operation 
 of the " code of honor" without loss of reputation, or the disparage- 
 ment of his spirit, bravery, or courage. 
 
 From the standpoint of society, there is offered somewhat that 
 may palliate, if it cannot justify, the practice of dueling. It is al- 
 leged that there are some personal offences of which the civil law 
 takes no cognizance, or against which it affords no adequate protec- 
 tion; that, therefore, there must be some social law, to the usages 
 of which such cases shall be referred; and that the " code of honor" 
 is such law, and the practice of dueling the best method of arbitra- 
 ment yet discovered. To support these allegations, the instances 
 
384 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 brought forward are those in which the law^s of a State are not out- 
 wardly violated, while yet the oifenders exhibit such an injurious, 
 overbearing, and contumelious spirit, such studied insult, such 
 malicious hate, and such fiendish passion, that, without quick resent- 
 ment and revenge, the offended parties could no longer hold up their 
 heads, or move in theu' accustomed circles, except with danger of 
 being rejected, disparaged, and despised, or meet the offending 
 parties on terms of equality, and with proper feeling of self-respect 
 and complacence. 
 
 There is not time now to controvert these statements in full, on 
 the basis of reason and common sense. I shall only say that the 
 edge of all these allegations is turned by the fact that men have 
 met such offences, have refused to fight duels, and have really lost 
 nothing by the course they took; but rather have risen in the gene- 
 ral estimate, and held a loftier social position ever afterward than 
 would otherwise have been possible. The one brief reason, patent 
 to all men of sense is, that the man of high spirit, great courage, 
 and lofty character, can display his qualities without resorting to 
 the duel; and one who has them not, will never bring away from the 
 dueling ground any thing more of these qualities than their grim 
 and ghastly shadows. But if we even assume that there are times 
 when the duel is a necessity, and occasions on which it is allowable 
 to have recourse to it, it is certain that all occasions are not fit ones, 
 and that many personal offences ought to be excluded from the 
 number that are actionable under the " code of honor." There are 
 such exclusions; and some offences are regarded as unworthy of a 
 settlement on the field of honor. Yet, all sensible men must admit, 
 even those who justify dueling in extreme cases, that matters trifling 
 and contemptible are in our day far too frequently made the basis 
 of a challenge, and that the whole matter needs a reformation. 
 
 Now, admitting for the moment that some occasions may justify 
 dueling, I afiirm that political differences, and the disturbances, 
 disputes, and imputations growing out of them, are not sufficient 
 occasions. They spring out of impulse, hot blood, the excitement 
 of the moment, and are always to be taken with abatement, and men 
 can endure them for a time without serious loss or damage; and 
 when days are past, they will be withdrawn and apologized for by 
 any with whom it is worth while for a man to associate. Political 
 differences there must be. Disputes and bickerings will occur. 
 Epigram, repartee, the shaft of wit, will fly, and may sting. Accu- 
 sations will arise; recriminations be made, and imputations hurled. " 
 These are unavoidable incidents to the existence of parties and the 
 freedom of debate. They grow in some measure out of our institu- 
 tions and our social state, and they ought to be permitted and 
 allowed licenses, for which no one is answerable except at the bar 
 of public opinion. They ought not to be regarded as insults, or as 
 touching the tender parts of character, or as really derogatory to a 
 man's reputation. And there ought to be a combined effort, if not 
 to suppress dueling, at least to banish all political troubles and their 
 outgrowths from the operation of the dueling code. A determined 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 335 
 
 and persistent effort might accomplish this. For there is no good 
 reason why our political differences, or animosities even, should be 
 carried beyond their proper arena, and allowed to invade the social 
 circle and disturb the harmonies of domestic life. It is time we 
 learned a wider toleration of these differences, and forbade their 
 entrance into the common walks of life. Till we do, opinion is not 
 free, and the conduct of life in ci^il matters is subjected to a social 
 inquisition, if not a tyranny, as impolitic as it is unjust. 
 
 I say these things, because this duel grew primarily out of a 
 political difference and discussion in the midst of asocial scene. It 
 is only the latest, and not the first duel fought in oui' State, that has 
 had a similar origin and a political significance. If I am not mis- 
 taken, political reasons were at the bottom of the duels between 
 Denver and Gilbert, Broderick and Smith, Gwin and McCorkle, 
 Washington and Washburn — others, also, it may be — and finally, 
 Johnston and Ferguson. Of these, the first and the last onh' were 
 fatal to one of the parties in each. And God grant that it may be 
 years and generations before our annals shall be blotted with the 
 record, and our soil stained with the blood of another fatal duel: and 
 that we may never more hear of a resort to so ciniel an arbitrator as 
 this for the settlement of difficulties arising out of the ever-changing 
 phases of political strife and political affaii's! As I am not familiar 
 with the intricacies of the "code of honor," nor conversant with the 
 details of proceedings under it, I do not feel competent to ciiticize 
 the transactions of the case which just now has had so lamentable a 
 result. Bat I may say that the contest might have terminated sooner, 
 and otherwise, without disparagement to either of the parties. Three 
 exchanges of shots were as good proof of personal qualities as a dozen 
 could have been. And I agree with the i^erson who had the loading 
 of the pistols, that then, at the most, after the third fire, when the 
 deceased had only escaped the loss of the lower part of the face by 
 the momentary elevation of the chin, it was time to have done. But 
 the demand for satisfaction was not yet met; and the fourth fire laid 
 our young senator low, and has brought him hither, at lengih, 
 "bound hand and foot in his grave-clothes." 
 
 W^e will turn now to oiu' text and its application. A long contest 
 had been going on between the house of Saul and the house of David 
 for supremacy in Israel. Abner was a prominent leader in the house 
 of Saul, as Joab and his brothers were in the house of Da^dd. In 
 process of time, after having fought many battles for the house of 
 Saul, in one of which he had slain Asahel, Joab's brother, Abner 
 became alienated from his old party and foiTaer associates, and re- 
 solved to transfer his allegiance to the house of David He had 
 visited the head of the new party; had made his negotiations; and 
 had gone away, in peace, to consummate the aiTangement. On his 
 way homeward at the well of Sirah, Abner was overtaken by mes- 
 sengers from David's premier (to which transaction the king was not 
 privj') requii-ing his return to Hebron. He went back with the mes- 
 sengers to the city gates. There he was met by Joab, who drew him 
 aside as if to speak with him peaceably and in quiet. Then taking 
 
336 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 him at a disadvantage, when Abner was suspecting no harm, Joab 
 thrust a dagger in his side, and slew him. Eesentment against 
 Abner for the past was one of the motives to the deed; and perhaps 
 a jealousy of him for the future, lest himself might be overshadowed 
 by one eo eminent, was another. Such a death, of such a man, took 
 the people by surprise. The sensation was deep and wide. The 
 feeling roee almost to indignation, and the profoundest sorrov/ filled 
 all Hebron. And David said to all the people that were with him, 
 " Eend your clothes, and gird you with sackcloth, and mourn before 
 Abner." And King David himself followed the bier. And they 
 burled Abner in Hebron; and the king lifted up his voice and wept 
 at the grave of Abner; and all the people vfept. And the king la- 
 mented over Abner and said : Died Abner as the fool dieth ? Thy 
 hands were not bound, nor thy feet put in fetters: as a man lalleth 
 before Vvicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept again 
 over him. And when all the people came to cause David to eat 
 meat while it was yet day, David sware, saying, God do so to me, 
 and more also, if I taste bread, or aught else, till the sun be down. 
 And ail the people underritood that day that it was not in the heart 
 of the king to slay Abner. And the king said unto his servants, 
 Know ye not that there is a j)rince and a great man fallen this day 
 in Israel? And I am this day weak, though anointed king, and 
 these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too hard for me." The analogy 
 betvveen the scenes here described and these which we witness to- 
 day, will not hold in all the particulars, but at some poin':s it is a 
 striking one. Here lies the body of one v/ho has had a prominent 
 place and run a brilliant career. As a public man, he has belonged 
 to different and opposing j)arties. The transfer of allegiance from 
 one to another has created some enmities, given rise to some jeal- 
 ousies, and left memories that only v/aited for their opportunity to 
 render themselves formidable. He vvas alike eminent with what- 
 ever party he acted, and could not fail to be regarded by any part}'' 
 as an acquisition. He was a great man, and a kind of prince among 
 political aspirants : he was held in esteem and honored by the masses 
 of the people. He fell in the midst of life, when new honors and 
 a fresh career vv-ere apparently awaiting him. He fell by the hands 
 of one who should have been the very last man to shed his blood; 
 and in death he is mourned by rulers and people, who gather with a 
 common sorrow to follow him to his grave and v^^eep at his tomb. 
 In these respects, certainly, the person v/hose obsequies we observe 
 to-day resembles the man concerning whom my text had utterance. 
 And vv'e, too, are weak this day, though clothed with power; and 
 these modern sons of Zeruiah have been too hard for us. 
 
 Our friend, whom with lamentations we are here to bury, has 
 been for three years one of our senators in the State Legislature, 
 and is the lirsfc one in our history who has died during his term of 
 office. He was fitted in many ways for a leader, and had those 
 social qualities, that pleasing presence, that fascination of manner, 
 that humor, j)leasantry, and wit, that fluency of speech, that raci- 
 ness of otyle, that gift of eloquence, and that power of command 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 337 
 
 which always raise a man to a kind of supremacy over the masses 
 of the people. He had a singular insight, a ready tact, skill to meet 
 emergencies, confidence in his own unfailing resources, and that 
 determination to suffer no defeat which is always sure to win success. 
 His mind was naturally cool, clear, and bright in its action, and his 
 intellect was one of a high order. And those who have heard him 
 most at the bar, in the Senate chamber, and before the people, are 
 the ones that have the highest opinion of his abilities, and give him 
 exalted praise. As a public man, he has made as few mistakes, and 
 given as little offence, as any one who has ever held the same office 
 among us; and, in the estimate of many, he has rendered as much 
 service to this community and to the State as any one of our various 
 senators ever has. 
 
 In private life, Mr. Ferguson had faults: they were well known: 
 he confessed them : he attempted to conceal nothing. In his frank 
 and generous natiu'e, there was nought mean, furtive, or under- 
 hand. His eccentricities were numerous, and were all his own; and 
 his methods were such as to throw a charm around habits and prac- 
 tices that in other men would have been accounted gross or 
 offensive. 
 
 The pravity of some men is unimpassioned, steady, bitter, of set 
 purpose, in foresight of consequences, and void of the wish to be 
 other than it is, or to do better. The pravity of others is impulsive, 
 genial, passionate, with, no look towards consequences, stealing upon 
 them through sensibilities delicately strung, that wave and vibrate 
 as with some ethereal touch; and finally lift the swell and wake the 
 storm which sweep the men away. And their language always is: 
 *'When we would do good, evil is present with us." To this latter 
 class belonged our friend; and fairness demands that we allow what- 
 ever abatement of censure such a temperament entitles him to. His 
 convictions were right, his feelings not calloused, and his whole 
 moral nature quick and sensitive; so that he could never attempt to 
 justify himself in his indulgences, nor cease to condemn himself for 
 his wrongs. 
 
 It can do no harm now to refer to a fact already known to some, 
 that may have had something to do with not a few of the eccen- 
 tricities that have marked our friend's brief life. He was the sub- 
 ject, some years ago, of one of those disappointments which, now 
 and then, permanently wound the affections, darken the path, sad- 
 den the life, blight the hopes, and mar the prospects of young men 
 in the outset of their career. Such a misfortune is peculiarly dis- 
 astrous in its effects upon some natures; and while it is wept over 
 in the other sex, in ours it is commonl}^ the theme of mirth. How 
 seriously it was felt by the deceased, and to what extent it affected 
 him for the worse, we shall never know with precision; but the more 
 I have thought of it, the more I am convinced that its influence was 
 considerable. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, a bright light is quenched; another star has 
 fallen from our sky; one more shall we miss from among the coun- 
 
 22 
 
338 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 tenances that shine on us; another form of pride and power is 
 turning back to ashes before our eyes. 
 
 "We are here in the presence of Death, and of Him who is greater 
 than Death; without whose permission the grim messenger had not 
 been here to gather this form beneath his dark wings. It seems hard 
 to mere mortal thought, that one should die thus, in the prime of 
 his manhood, in the maturing season of his faculties, with high heart 
 and hopes bright, with greener laurels yet before him, with the pur- 
 pose to win a name on wider fields, and lead a life that should carry 
 joy into the bosom of the household whence he wandered. But this 
 life is cut off; these purposes are thwarted, and these hopes have 
 perished. 
 
 StiU, heaven is over us, and God is gracious. And though at 
 last, death came suddenly upon the departed, it came not quite un- 
 expectedly; and we may hope that changes were going on within 
 him, and that some preparation for another world was making as he 
 lay through those long days and nights, thinking, planning, re- 
 solving, and often giving utterance to his longing to lead a different 
 life, and be a better man. 
 
 Standing here by these motionless limbs, how unconsciously rises 
 to our lips the prayer of the Psalmist : " O my God, take me not 
 away in the midst of my days : spare me a little before I go hence 
 and be seen no more." And while we thus indulge our sorrow and 
 give expression to grief, let us remember that there are other hearts 
 that will bleed and other eyes that will be wet with tears, weeks after 
 our mourning shall have somewhat abated its intensity. To the 
 widow's God let us commend the mother who is so early bereaved of 
 the son whom she may have loved to regard as the support and 
 solace of her declining years. Let us pray for the welfare of sister 
 and brothers, who shall never again welcome to their homes the de- 
 parted one, or fold him in their fond embrace. The Lord be gracious 
 to them, that their sun go not down at noonday, nor their hopes and 
 plans of life be suddenly broken and scattered. 
 
 Ye rulers of the State ! Magistrates, Legislators, and Judges ! this 
 scene admonishes you. How short is human life — how many our 
 exposures — how unreliable our prospects, and how closely the deepest 
 shadows are edged upon the spot where the brightest sunlight falls ! 
 The night comes. Do what you have to accomplish : redeem all your 
 pledges; endear yourselves unto the people who have so generously 
 trusted you, by the heartiness and value of your services; and render 
 all due homage unto Him before whose tribunal your acts and lives 
 must pass in solemn review. 
 
 Need I point you, young men, to this lifeless clay, and bid you 
 remember that you know not what a day may bring forth? Voices 
 from within are making themselves heard to-day. Heed them, and 
 do not forget. Learn by what affections, generosities, activities, and 
 virtues you may commend yourselves to the common regard and love 
 of men. Understand, also, by what indulgences and passions one 
 may mar his life and work toward the undoing of himself. Deplore 
 
WILLIAM I. FERGUSON. 339 
 
 the follies and vices of other men, and harbor not the same in your 
 own bosoms. Be ever mindful of Him who rules in pro\adence, 
 without whose notice not a sparrow falls, and break not his wise laws. 
 In your sin and sorrow, go to Him with whom is forgiveness, the 
 world's blest Kedeemer. And as you would fain be adjudged by 
 Him to blessing and honor in the great day of assize, live ye so 
 that He cannot but say, "Well done: enter into my joy.'' 
 
 '* So live, that wlien thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan which moves 
 To that nn sterious realm where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death. 
 Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 Nay, more : Live so that ye may rise toward the rapturous triumph 
 of Him who said, in full view of his exit from the world: "The time 
 of my departure is at hand : I have fought a good fight : I have 
 finished my course: I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid 
 up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous 
 Judge, shall give me at that day." 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 
 
 Author of the "Blove Papkbs." 
 
 11 HIS gentleman's father, Captain Kewen, a native of 
 - the Emerald Isle, emigrated to the United States a 
 short time previous to our last war with England, and ac- 
 quired much military distinction at the battle of Kew 
 Orleans. Locating a trading post upon the Tombigbee 
 in 1820, in a region almost uninhabited save by savages, 
 he succeeded in a very few years iii accumulating a large 
 fortune. By his marriage wdth a Miss Weaver, an accom- 
 plished lady from Tennessee, he had issue three sons, the 
 eldest of whom, and the sole survivor, is our present 
 subject. 
 
 Captain Kewen forfeited his life in a duel, leaving be- 
 hind him a brilliant reputation as a soldier, and an un- 
 spotted name for integrity. 
 
 Edward J. C. Kew^en was born at Columbus, Mississip- 
 pi, Nov. 2d, 1825. At thirteen years of age he became a 
 student in the Wesleyan University, located at Middle- 
 town, Conn. He had been there some three years, when 
 the untoward speculations of his guardian hurried him to 
 his Mississippi home ; and he arrived there to learn that his 
 once princely inheritance had dwindled down to a mere pit- 
 tance. Thus reduced from affluence to comparative pov- 
 erty, with his two younger brothers dependent upon his 
 exertions for subsistence, he resolved upon the profession 
 of the law. He betook himself to solitary study, with a 
 
342 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 persistence and assiduity almost unprecedented in those 
 of his extreme youth. 
 
 He had reached the age of nineteen, with but few ac- 
 quaintances and associations in his native town. This was 
 in 1844, in the midst of a most exciting political contest. 
 By some means he was selected to deliver the opening 
 address before what was then styled a " Clay Club." His 
 primal effort on that occasion acquired for him at once 
 an extraordinary reputation for oratory. His extreme 
 youth, peculiarity of style, copiousness of diction, earn- 
 estness and polish of manner, gave him sudden and 
 unwonted fame. He was seized upon by the leading 
 spirits of the party to which he belonged, in a section of 
 country distinguished for its eloquent men, as one of 
 their most efficient speakers, and dispatched to remote 
 sections. 
 
 The writer of the present notice has heard an inci- 
 dent illustrative of young Kewen's daring and fervid 
 elocution. At a prominent point in his native State the 
 people of both parties had m^assed together to enjoy bar- 
 bacued provisions and the attrition of oratory. Two 
 whole days had passed away in the social and politieal 
 revel, but very much to the discomfiture of Whig doc- 
 trines. Such giants as Geo. R. Clayton and H. L. Harris 
 and Jno. B. Cobb, from unaccountable reasons, had failed 
 to present themselves to efFulge upon the beauties and 
 strength of a protective tariff and other germane Whig 
 topics. In despair, and at the very finale of the meeting, 
 the young stranger Kewen, a beardless boy, was reluct- 
 antly thrown before them. He had now some experience, 
 it is true, in public declamation, and youth has its mag- 
 netism and sympathy; yet, they say astonishment soon 
 melted into earnest admiration, and the comparative boy 
 ran away with the hearts and the judgments of the serried 
 crowd. Regardless of party discrimination, they did a 
 strange thing for that region. They seized hold of the 
 juvenile orator as he finished his glowing peroration, and 
 bore him around upon their shoulders, and would not be 
 content until he had given them another specimen of his 
 eloquence the same night in a neighboring court-house. 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 343 
 
 Such triumplis are very rare. After the election of 
 1844, Mr. Kewen became the editor of the Columbus 
 Whig^ and remained in- that occupation for two years. 
 
 Removing to St. Louis, Mo., for the purpose of prac- 
 ticing law, and meeting with peculiar success, we find him 
 again upon the hustings after the nomination of Zachary 
 Taylor for the Presidency. The papers of that day teem 
 with the most extravagant encomiums upon his orator- 
 ical abilities. In commendation of his forensic efforts, 
 partizanship lost its rancor, for praise flew equally from 
 his opponents as his friends. In his fervid pilgrimage he 
 traversed several of the Middle and Southern States. 
 
 The reader of this sketch has already detected in its 
 subject a peculiar restlessness so characteristic of men of 
 his ardent temperament, and will not be surprised to 
 learn that he became one of the innumerable throng that 
 hurried to this western El Dorado some twenty years ago. 
 
 Perhaps the blind boy, Dan Cupid, was one of the im- 
 pelling causes of his sudden migration. It is very cer- 
 tain that he fell in with the caravan of Dr. T.' J. White 
 and family, and meandered across the "plains" in their 
 companionshij^, and became the fortunate husband of 
 the Doctor's accomplished daughter upon their arrival at 
 Sacramento, December 10th, 1849. 
 
 It would seem that his fame as an orator had anteceded 
 him. Some occasion prompting it, he was summoned to 
 the rostrum the very day his w^eary footsteps first traversed 
 the then primitive city of Sacramento; and his instan- 
 taneous popularity was evinced by his election to the 
 responsible office of Attorney- General by the State Legis- 
 lature soon after his advent upon our coast. This office 
 he resigned, as it compelled his residence at a distance 
 from his adopted city, in which he had sprung into a lu- 
 crative practice in his profession. 
 
 If other evidences of moral and physical courage were 
 wanting, his character in this respect was especially man- 
 ifest in his enlistment against the Squatters, who, at that 
 early period of our history had banded in murderous 
 clans. Under threats of assassination, he boldly repaired 
 to one of their convocations on the Levee, and succeeded 
 
344 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 by the audacity of his tongue in dispersing the threaten- 
 ing and insurrectionary crowd. 
 
 In May, 1851, he was nominated as a candidate on the 
 Whig ticket for Congress; and it was in that canvass 
 that he displayed the full maturity and strength of his 
 peculiar powers. Often speaking several times during 
 the same day, he seemed exhaustless in mind and body. 
 Though unsuccessful, the small majority obtained by his 
 opponent was a high compliment to the zeal and elo- 
 quence of Col. Kewen in a State Democratic at the time 
 by many thousands. 
 
 Leaving Sacramento in the summer of 1852, for San 
 Francisco, he practiced his profession in the latter city 
 with eminent success, until his restless and daring mind 
 drove him into a new career. His brother, A. L. Kewen^ 
 second in command to Col. Walker, was shot and killed 
 in the first battle of Rivas, Nicaragua, in June, 1855. 
 Thomas, the youngest of the three, had died the preced- 
 ing year on the Island of Tabogo in the province of Pan- 
 ama. Alone in the world, and we may naturally suppose, 
 brooding in deepest melancholy over the early death of 
 his only and loved kindred, it is not surprising that one 
 of his ardent and generous impulses would seek relief in 
 the first daring enterprise that offered. He was an inti- 
 mate friend of Col. W^alker, and had hitherto resisted his 
 earnest importunities to embark in his wild adventure. 
 Walker, now the military head of the new government, 
 welcomed him with open arms, and at once commissioned 
 him as the financial agent of the Republic; and it was not 
 long before he became a member of a judicial tribunal 
 organized to adjust the rival claims of Yanderbilt and 
 Garrison & Morgan. The result of the deliberations of 
 that body was, that Yanderbilt was indebted to the Rivas- 
 Walker government to the amount of one half million of 
 dollars. Pending the decision, were fought the memora- 
 ble battles of Rivas, Massaya and Granada, in each of which 
 Col. Kewen took an active part as aid to Gen, Walker. 
 Though disapproving the measure, Col. Kewen was in- 
 structed to take possession of the steamers belonging to 
 Commodore Yanderbilt, plying on Lake Nicaragua. That 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 345 
 
 arbitrary and impolitic act, in which he was made the im- 
 willing agent, resulted in the disastrous consequences that 
 he predicted to his superior. It drove the powerful cap- 
 italist to collide with the authorities of Costa Rica, and 
 eventually caused the ruin of the Walker dynasty. 
 
 The Colonel was now dispatched upon an embassy to 
 the Southern States of our Union for additional means 
 and forces. Establishing his head quarters at Augusta, 
 Georgia, he soon succeeded in rallying about him a force 
 of eight hundred men, completely equipped with ample 
 supplies of provisions. The enthusiasm with which he 
 was greeted and the ready response made to his persuas- 
 ive appeals, are part of the history of our country. He 
 had just negotiated with his former friends. Garrison & 
 Morgan, the conveyance to their destination of his forces 
 and implements, when the news reached him of the cap- 
 ture of Walker by Com. Paulding, under instructions from 
 Washington. And so terminated the Rivas- Walker gov- 
 ernment, and with it were dashed the hopes of its most 
 efficient and brilliant supporter. 
 
 In December, 1857, the Colonel returned to San Fran- 
 cisco, and in January of the succeeding year became a citi- 
 zen of Los Angeles, where he has since resided. In his new 
 abode the people have once elected him to the office of 
 District Attorney, and have twice dispatched him to the 
 lower branch of our State Legislature. In the Presiden- 
 tial campaign of 1868, he was complimented with the high- 
 est number of votes as an elector on the Democratic 
 ticket. 
 
 We have thus sketched in brief the leading incidents 
 in the life of one of our most prominent citizens. Per- 
 haps no man is so thoroughly known within our State 
 limits as Col. E. J. C. Kewen. Of manners peculiarly 
 genial, and a temperament ardent, enthusiastic and rest- 
 less, and impulses generous and noble, and a tested cour- 
 age more often mettlesome than discreet; charitable to 
 profusion, he is essentially the finest type of his combined 
 Celtic and Mississippi origin. Such men often provoke 
 enmities, but only to melt into enduring friendships. 
 
 His oratorical abilities, so eminently peculiar, have 
 
346 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 often been condemned by those most fascinated by tbeir 
 display. Criticism has always been launched at eccen- 
 tricity. The scholar, while he wonders, condemns the 
 strange affluence of diction that floats before him in such 
 luxuriant profusion. Seldom before did man have such 
 command of language. It is as exuberant as the month- 
 ly growth of the tropics — as gushing as the warble of the 
 wild bird. Under proper control, and with the woof of log- 
 ic, it is the richest gift of intelligence. Those that heard the 
 Colonel ten years ago, and wondered at and deplored this 
 wild luxuriance, will now admire how he has subjected 
 this verbal wealth to logical control. Had Colonel Kew- 
 en confined himself, without political and other deviation, 
 to his profession, there is no doubt he would have attained 
 in it the rarest eminence. He possesses strong reasoning 
 abilities. He will yet, if his life be spared, and his am- 
 bition so lead him, occupy prominent positions in the 
 councils of our country. He has not reached the full 
 fruition of his powers. He has a reputation unequalled 
 upon our coast as an advocate and a public declaimer. 
 The storms of his life are over. Practising his profession, 
 at Los Angeles, and surrounded, at his beautiful home at 
 Lake Vineyard by his accomplished wife and his little 
 ones, he is ever found the amiable and polished and hos- 
 pitable gentleman. 
 
 #mti0tt % §. §. §. ^mm^ 
 
 Delivered before the Society of California Pioneers, 
 San Francisco, Sept. 9th, 1854. 
 
 3fr. President and Gentlemen of the Society of California Pioneers : 
 
 Antiquity comes to us revealed through the marvelous but fas- 
 cinating illuminations of tradition and fable. We look back to the 
 classic period of the reign of Olympian deities as to a dream of en- 
 chantment, or a vision of romance, The achievements of men and 
 heroes under the auspicious protection of favoring gods, have elic- 
 ited the admiration, invoked the envy, and challenged the emula- 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 347 
 
 tion of the heatlien world. The establisment of vast empires and 
 the foundation of mighty cities are also among the beatific visions of 
 the fabulous ages. Imagination reverts to those periods of magnifi- 
 cent progress, and while it revels in bacchanalian wantonness amid 
 the attractive recollections of the past, the mind becomes amazed, 
 and confidence is startled by the suggestions of pagan incredulity. 
 The infant days of the world are indeed regarded with peculiar 
 feeling. All that is bright and glowing, all that is enchanting and 
 beautiful, and all that is miraculous, we have been accustomed to 
 associate with the earlier records of mankind. The charm of in- 
 fatuation lingers around the story of Ulysses and the Trojan settle- 
 ment under the blue skies of Italy, and delightful are the recollections 
 recurring to the period when Ilion resisted the shock of Agamem- 
 non's arms, and distant Colchis became the destination of the 
 freighted Argos. 
 
 In our own country, and in our own history, too, can we look 
 back as to a classic era. The strange but eventful history of Fer- 
 nando de Soto, the marvelous and ambitious projects of Juan Ponce 
 de Leon, the fascinating story of Pocahontas, and the singular vi- 
 cissitudes in the fortunes of Raleigh, seem but the embellishments 
 of fancy, the dreams of fiction, the glowing colorings and splendid 
 creations of modern romance. Around them, as around the funeral 
 games of Patroclus and Anchises ; around them as around the allure- 
 ments of Calypso and the fascinations of Armida ; gathers the fabu- 
 lousness of antiquity. 
 
 But brighter than the felicitous visions of the Greek, more mag- 
 nificent than the fancies of the Roman, more glorious than the 
 dreams of the bards of Castile, and more thrilling than the early 
 marvels of American history, is the strange, the electrifying truth 
 — outsplendoring romance — of the acquisition, the growth and 
 greatness of the golden Dorado of the Pacific. Antiquity evolves 
 from its mysterious realms no parallel, tradition stands dumb, and 
 fable is confounded by the reality of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The Ninth day of September, eighteen hundred and fifty, dawn- 
 ed upon the nativity of California and witnessed its baptism into 
 the sisterhood of republics. 
 
 The hibernation and slumber of ages had kept it a sealed mys- 
 tery to the universe. Among the almost forgotten explorations of 
 adventurous navigators, we had caught an indistinct idea of a sterile 
 country, sullenly ranging itself along the eastern front of the Pa- 
 cific. Like the barrenness of El Ghor, which extended from the 
 Elanitic Gulf to the Dead Sea, its sterility was imagined to reach 
 from Humboldt Bay to the Gila. It slept under the seeming curse 
 of desolation in the inglorious repose of careless and unheeding 
 centui'ies. "Wild beasts upon its moujitains, browsing herds in its 
 valleys, the sullen whoop of the Aboriginal, and trained exploits 
 with the lasso, were its only evidences of vitality. Its hills were 
 not, even in superstitious imagination, the habitations of oreads, 
 nor its fountains the abodes of nymphs, nor its btreams, nor plains, 
 nor mountains, the haunts of any of the genii of fable. 
 
o45 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 It was a country destitute of romantic associations, destitute of 
 traditional fame, destitute of the throbbing arteries of enterprise 
 and ambition, and impoverished of all that ennobles, all that dig- 
 nifies, all that makes chaste and adorns society and man. Buried in 
 its wild and distant seclusion, immovable and passionless as the 
 Egyptian Sphynx, like it, it seemed destined to "stare right on, 
 with calm, eternal eyes," the monument of irreclaimable sterility 
 and barbarism. 
 
 How marvelous the mutations of a few years! In the whole 
 range of philosophy there is no subject for contemplation more sub- 
 lime, in history nothing more wonderful, nothing as startling, 
 nothing as analogous. The recesses of its occlusion were invaded by 
 a spirit, which at once, as if by magic, dispelled the enveloping 
 darkness of ages, disturbed the dreamless sleep of centuries, and 
 penetrating the haunts of superstition and oppression, dissipated 
 and destroyed them, as fluids glide into the fissures of rocks, and 
 expanding by congelation heave them from their foundations or 
 rend them into atoms. 
 
 The illustrations of that spirit are around us to-day. They are 
 visible in every object we see, they are incorporated in every sound 
 we hear. It is the spirit of American progress, the spirit of Ameri- 
 can freedom. 
 
 Before the sanguinary war which rescued California from the 
 despotism of degenerate Mexico, before the ratification of the trea- 
 ty of Queretaro, the pioneer from the valley of the Mississippi had 
 stood upon the summit of the mountain of rocks, had traversed the 
 burning deserts of Pah-Utah, had braved the dangers of the Sier- 
 ras, and penetrated the forests of the Occident. Then it was that 
 the vagrant fancy of the poet might have been deemed the inspira- 
 tion of prophecy : 
 
 **A star is trembling on the horizon's verge : 
 That star shall glow and broaden on the night 
 Until it hangs divine and beautiful 
 In the proud zenith." 
 
 War was not necessary to the attainment of this land of gold. 
 Treaties might have facilitated but could not have prevented its ac- 
 quisition. The foot of the Anglo Saxon had already pressed the 
 soil which, like the Hebrew Chieftain shorn of his locks, reposed 
 in sensuality and despotism, and destiny decreed what human pow- 
 er was impotent to avert. The explorations of the Pioneer devel- 
 oped the magnitude of the country, the fertility of its soil, the 
 fecundity of its productions, the nature and abundance of its re- 
 sources. A new light darted on the American mind, a new impulse 
 was given to American enterprise, and the genius of progress ex- 
 panded its vision westward to the Pacific. The land that had been 
 forgotten for ages, the land that was despised of nations, the land 
 that was fibreless, and soulless, and baiTen in histoiy, became the 
 alluring goal of adventure, the fascinating destination of ambition. 
 
 Like the South American hunter who, carelessly plucking a root 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 349 
 
 from the earth, discovered beneath a glittering mine of untold 
 wealth, the Pacific adventurer, toiling in the channel of an un- 
 promising stream, chanced upon a nugget of sparkling gold, in 
 which was destined the revelation of exhaustless treasures, in which 
 had reposed the secret of nearly two thousand years, and from 
 which was evolved the flattering promise of unparalleled greatness. 
 At once a mighty throng of pilgrims turned their faces towards the 
 setting sun, and gazed upon that declining luminary as resting up- 
 on the Mecca of their worship. The land that had slept under the 
 shadow of barbarian oppression had become resplendent with the 
 light of promise, brilliant with the hope of freedom, and radiant 
 with the destinies of humanity. Over barren plains and scorching 
 saharas, over sterile hills, through valleys fragrant with flowers and 
 embosoming refreshing streams, along the defiles of rugged moun- 
 tains, and over the summits of snow-capped Sierras, the tide of emi- 
 gration incessantly flowed. The wave of population fertilized the 
 neglected shore of the Pacific, and it now teems with populous life, 
 with *'fair women and brave men," with all the emblems of great- 
 ness, with all the insignia of permanent prosperity. 
 
 How difterent, too, the aspects of nature from the blank sterility 
 with which it was invested by our primitive imaginations. 
 
 In the history of Greece, we are enchanted with the descriptions 
 of consecrated groves; we read with rapture of azure mountains, of 
 flowing plains, of golden isles, and sunny fountains; but beneath 
 this western sky are revealed as splendid attributes of nature as ev- 
 er attracted the eye of the Grecian in the palmiest period of his 
 country's glory. Ionia never boasted of fairer skies, Italy never 
 rejoiced in a firmament more deeply blue, France never produced 
 the luscious grape in more luxuriance, and never exhibited greener 
 fields or more exuberant gardens; Germany never revealed sublimer 
 forests, and Switzerland grander mountains, nor more romantic 
 scenery than meets the gaze of the wanderer on the Pacific slope. 
 But lovelier than the cerulean of its skies, more to be prized than 
 the estuaries of its coast, sublimer than the undulations of its sur- 
 face, greater than the exuberance of its products, more magnificent 
 than the sublimity of its mountains, the placidity of its lakes, the 
 abruptness and grandeur of its scenery, is the symmetrical edifice 
 of its republican construction. Virtue and industry form the basis 
 of its morality, shrewdness, wisdom and sagacity the distinguishing 
 features of its mind, simplicity the proof of social excellence, and 
 progress the aim and end of its political aspirations. 
 
 A few years have wrought indeed a wondrous change in this land 
 of gold. The past is like a dream, and the present seems almost 
 the illusion of enchantment. The lamp of Aladdin was not more 
 efficacious in the sudden erection of gorgeous palaces, than has 
 been the magic of human industry in creating out of shapeless 
 sites palatial cities, and from reluctant soils flowering fields and 
 exuberant gardens. Antiquity has been revived in more than pris- 
 tine splendor. Its buried cities, with their temples far-reaching to- 
 wards Heaven, with their magnificent pillars, their ornamental 
 
350 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 columns, their chariots speeding through busy thoroughfares with 
 steeds fiery as those of Diomedes; their fountains playing and 
 sparkling in the sun-light, and all their glittering wealth of costly 
 luxuries and elegant refinements, have been disinterred and gor- 
 geomjly reproduced in this auriferous land. The spirit of necro- 
 mancy has been abroad, and in obedience to its conjurations, 
 mountains have been leveled, valleys have been unlifted, streams 
 have been diverted from their channels, forests metamorphosed in- 
 to cities, plains compelled to groan under the weight of vegetation, 
 and the wilderness made to blossom as a rose, and dispense fra- 
 grance as a garden. Sanctuaries for worship, shrines for holy 
 chalices, temples for learning, marts for commerce, and lists for the 
 tourney of enterprise and ambition, are among, too, the gorgeous 
 creations and glorious fruitage of the magical incantation. 
 
 Such is the unornamented picture of California to-day. The 
 Poet was prophetic. The "star that trembled on the horizon's 
 verge" has *' glowed and broadened on the night," and "hangs di- 
 vine and beautiful in the proud zenith,'' an illumination to the 
 world, and a planet of hope to mankind. It is the Bethlehemic star 
 of promise to the involuntary servitors of despotism, under the re- 
 splendent light of which the gloomy night of absolute sovereignty 
 will be dissipated, and bowed heads will be uplifted, and manacled 
 limbs will be unloosened, and broken hearts will be healed in the 
 glorious and exulting consciousness of disenthralment. 
 
 The splendid consummation of the acquisition of California was 
 not the result of accident. It was the effect of the slow, steady, 
 but certain operation of a principle coeval with time and ever in- 
 stinct with vitality. It was this principle which six hundred years 
 ago, impelled our ancestors to ol3tain from King John, at Eunny- 
 mede, a charter of liberties. It was this principle which in the 
 revolution of 1688, wrested from the throne the concession of a 
 declaration of rights in the people. It was this principle which in- 
 spired the Genoese adventurer with the belief of the existence of a 
 new continent. From the time when, concealed from observation 
 under the canopy of night, he kept unremitting vigil, and with 
 faint heart and despairing hope ranged his anxious eye along the 
 dusky horizon in search even of the vaguest indications of land, 
 when the gun from the Pinta gave the joyous signal of the discove- 
 ry of the New "World, until now, this principle has been steadily 
 working, and gradually but inevitably consummating its magnifi- 
 cent mission. Its illustration was seen and its influence felt in the 
 expedition of the Mayflower. It was visible in the concerted action 
 of the American colonies, in the solemn proclamation of sovereign- 
 ty in the people, in the successful struggle to maintain that declar- 
 ation, in the subsequent formation of thirteen separate independ- 
 encies into a confederated government, and in all the successive 
 extensions to the territorial dominion of our wide and expanding 
 republic. 
 
 It is the grand, the sublime, the regenerating principle of de- 
 mocracy. 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 351 
 
 The immaculateness of that principle has not been without its 
 infidels and its scoffers. We have been told that the plain, the sol- 
 id and quiet mass of the people can never be benefited by an extend- 
 ed government. "We have been pointed to the results of National 
 cupidity, as giving little of glory or dominion to the architects, the 
 builders and preservers of a country. "We have been reminded that 
 only the senators, the consuls and emperors of the buried nations 
 of the past have reaped the harvest of splendor enriched with the 
 people's blood. "We are not blind to the truths, nor unheedful of 
 the admonitions of history. "We know that the dependency of Me- 
 dea was made by Cyrus the head of a magnificent empire, and that 
 as the military power was strengthened, the people of Persia sank 
 to the degraded level of the subjugated nations. Carthage too, am- 
 bitious of sovereignty, lengthened her sway until the cord of domin- 
 ion was rent in fragments. The spirit of constitutional freedom 
 was suffered to decay, and its people became a part of the com- 
 mon degradation that fell upon the shattered provinces, owing to 
 the fresh-risen sway of the sword. In later times, the invincible 
 Mahommed and his successors traversed vast regions and establish- 
 ed splendid governments, but Arabia shrank back again into pover- 
 ty and barbarism. The same result followed the Venetian and 
 Genoese conquests in the Levant. Turkey conquered, and her tur- 
 baned subjects became a nation of slaves. The acquisitions of 
 Spain under Charles the Fifth converted the Castilian court into an 
 absolute tjTanny. Portugal, whose dominions once almost girded 
 the earth, fell, crushed by k kindred destiny, and wherever the spir- 
 it of conquest or territorial aggrandizement has not been governed 
 by a saving and qualifying principle, the government has strength- 
 ened into despotism, and the people have been debased into 
 servitude. 
 
 The beautiful fabric of American government remains not only 
 unimpaired by territorial acqusitions and the magnificence of do- 
 minion, but stands more majestic from each additional gem of its 
 glistening diadem of sovereignty, and more invincible from its ac- 
 cumulated sublimities. Bursting into existence through the devel- 
 opment of an imperishable principle, growing, spreading, magnifying 
 into colossal greatness and palatial beauty under its vivifying influ- 
 ence, it is destined, under the auspices of the same great immuta- 
 ble principle, to refute forever the dogma of the skeptic, and the 
 insane predictions of political vaticinators. It will stand the monu- 
 ment of ancestral wisdom — adamantine and eternal as the pyramids 
 of antiquity — magnificent in design, glorious in consummation, bril- 
 liant in progress, colossal in grandeur, luxuriant in mental develop- 
 ment, and breathing refinements which, like the pendulating flower 
 gardens of oriental sumptuousness, will diffuse a fragrance that will 
 float forever in the atmosphere of histoiy. Experience concedes, 
 Truth acknowledges, and Philosophy as she traces upon the horo- 
 scope of nations the shadowy presages of their destiny, admits this 
 ultimate result to be the vision of reality and not the pleasing 
 dream of enthusiasm. 
 
352 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The latest and most important development of the principle of 
 Bepubliean progress, is the incorporation of the Pacific coast into 
 the fraternity of free governments. Anterior to its acquisition, the 
 history of California was a stupendous blank, which, like the 
 sphynx upon the Egyptian sands, gave no response to the question- 
 ings of the curious, and revealed nothing for the enlightenment of 
 mankind. To-day, it is a compendium of all that is marvelous in 
 history, all that is beautiful in romance, and all that is miraculous 
 in reality. 
 
 What shall be its future? 
 
 We have already said that the physical aspect and properties of 
 the country are all that the most exacting imagination could desire. 
 It presents a brilliant and enchanting prospect. It is unsurpassed 
 in the loveliness of its landscapes. It is unsurpassed in the 
 sublimity of its crowded assemblages of hills and valleys. It is 
 unsurpassed in the magnitude of its trees, beneath the umbrageous 
 dome of whose foliage a Sybarite might repose in coveted luxuri- 
 ousness. It is unsurpassed in the beauty of its flowers, diffusing 
 aromatic odors and freighting the air with delicious fragrance. It 
 is unsurpassed in the fantastic groupings of its mountains, exuber- 
 ant with verdure, beneath which lie buried the untold treasures of 
 past and prospective ages. 
 
 It is not, however, its physical properties alone, which consti- 
 tute a state. Nor is it magnificent cities, with their adornments of 
 temples, and columns, and majestic shrines, and glittering man- 
 sions, and winged palaces of the ocean. It is men — noble, high- 
 minded men, governed by principle, controlled by patriotism, by 
 high resolves, and a lofty and unsullied ambition, which constitute 
 a prosperous commonwealth. It requires something more too, than 
 the manual capacity to build magnificent structures, to subdue for- 
 ests and mountains, to reclaim morasses, to cultivate fields, and to 
 guide to their destinations the peerles clippers of our bays. The 
 theory of our government rests on the solid substratum of mind; its 
 prosperity depends on the growth of its intellect, on the sublimity 
 of the virtues and the universality of the intelligence of its people. 
 
 "Life's more than the quick round of blood — 
 
 It is a great spirit and a busy heart." 
 "We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 
 Who thinks most — feels the noblest — acts the best." 
 
 As Americans, we can proudly and exultingly point to a galaxy 
 of great names, whose genius has lit up fires of thought, the illumi- 
 nations of which have not been limited to our own borders, but 
 have extended across the broad expanse of ocean, and shone with 
 competing lustre upon the favorite shrines of trans-Atlantic intel- 
 lect. Genius of every land, in every form of development, has 
 hailed and recognized in the western hemisphere its similitude, its 
 immortal counterpart. The eloquence which has conferred an im- 
 mortality on Westminster, has resounded with equal celebrity with- 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 353 
 
 in the walls of the American Capitol. The bursts of inspired 
 oratory which have swayed the mind and heart of France, as the 
 moon governs the currents and tides of the<>cean, have also, in our 
 land, consecrated to fame names as brilliant as ever went down the 
 tide of time on the historic page. It matters not, whether in Sci- 
 ence, or Philosophy, in Arts or in Literatm-e, the mind of America 
 has grappled with the great intellects of the world, and the conflict 
 has served to eternize its renown. The melodies exuberant with 
 poetic images, inspired by the golden sunsets of Italy ; the songs 
 like those of the Teon Poet, so full of life, of sprightliness and 
 joy, which receive their colorings from the vine-clad gardens of 
 beautiful France ; the sweet verses that sounded a sweeter music 
 tJian the "murmurs of the living brooks" under the inspired mins- 
 trelsy of the Bard of Rydal Mount, have been re-created in as ad- 
 mirable forms, and with the same weird powers of enchantment 
 beneath our own gorgeous skies, so full of inspiring beauty and 
 magnificence. America boasts indeed no Elizabethan Age of Lit- 
 erature, but the foundations of her literary fame are as fixed as the 
 eternal gi-anite of her mountains, and its superstructure and its 
 spires pointing hopeftdly towards Heaven reflect the glory of its 
 ever-shining stars. 
 
 The physical attributes of our Republic favor the loftiest devel- 
 opments of mind. There is scarcely anything in nature that exceeds 
 the gTandeur of American scenery. In the sublimity of its aspects, 
 in the solemn heights of its mountains, in the verdure of its plains, 
 in the beauty of its forests, in the diversities of its climate, the 
 freshness of its fountains, the sparkling flow of its streamlets, and 
 in the beautifully gliding currents of its rivers, there is inspiration 
 as deep and fervid as ever visited the wanderer upon Parnassian 
 heights, or loiterer lingering with ecstatic vision around the Castal- 
 ian fountain. The magnificent properties of the physical world 
 have stimulated the pride, the faith, the hope and ambition of 
 American intellect. It has done much, but there is yet infinitely 
 more to accomplish. The field has only been entered, not explored 
 The mountains continue to loom up in solemn grandeur, with their 
 summits like that of Tabor, crowned with an eternal sun, or conceal- 
 ed in snow, and mist and cloud. The valleys are still emerald with 
 verdure. The plains sparkle with the wealth and effuse the aroma 
 of blooming flowers. The brooks flow by in babbling sweetness. 
 The rivulet plays in fantastic eddies and laughingly leaps onward in 
 its course. The majestic rivers puis ae their sinuous windings, and 
 each and every object in nature invites enterprise, and freshness, 
 and spirit in the domain of liigh thought, which shall revive a litera- 
 ture nobler than that which flourished in the golden age of Augus- 
 tus, and more brilliant than shone on England's fame from the 
 illustrious precincts of Twickenham, Keswick and Newstead Abbey. 
 
 The accession of California to our government enlarges the 
 sphere of productive thought — extends the already expansive field 
 of literary enterprise. Its mountains inlaid with gold, its canons 
 with precious gems, its placers brilliant with ores of priceless value, 
 
 23 
 
354 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 its plains sparkling with auriferous sands, its rivers imbeddiTig the 
 costliest minerals, its valleys fertile with the wonderful productions 
 of the vegetable kingdom, and its bays floating on their bosoms the 
 argosies of an unrivaled commerce, all act as incentives to the cul- 
 tivation of mind, and invoke the loftiest thoughts and noblest im- 
 pulses of the patriotic soul. 
 
 But alas ! the idol of California worship has been a lifeless, tune- 
 less, Plutonian statue. There has been exhibited little adoration of 
 the Deities which preside over the destinies of Literature, Science 
 and Philosophy. The lust of gain, and not the thirst of the immor- 
 tal spirit that pants after high thoughts and Promethean inspirations, 
 has been the guiding, governing and insatiable passion of the young- 
 est and fairest in the sisterhood of states. Its conflicts have hith- 
 erto resulted in sordid achievements, and its aspirations have look- 
 ed only to the ignoble triumphs of which the accumulation of pelf 
 is the consummation and the goal. No lofty enthusiasm has yet 
 awakened into existence an order of intellectual Palestrae, who, with 
 a constancy as enduring as martyr's faith, would drink draughts of 
 perennial freshness from the classic fountains of the Past, and re- 
 vive by their learning, their wisdom, and their genius, the glory and 
 renown of the ancient Academe, 
 
 It is a sad reflection that the only lesson our people have studied 
 with earnestness and practiced with assiduity, is lago's advice to 
 Roderigo — "put money in thy purse." 
 
 The first flush and fever of the excitement has passed away. The 
 madness that engrossed the energies, and absorbed the soul, has 
 lost something of its direful paroxysm. The infatuation, which 
 seized the heart and subsidized the brain, is relaxing its tyrannous 
 hold, and glimpses of returning reason are beginning to be revealed. 
 The dawn of a better day is approaching. Over the darkness of the 
 prevailing despotism a pale star trembles on the brow of the awak- 
 ening morn. It is the planet which heralds the rising and culmi- 
 nation of the sun of Literature. While the busy hum of Plutonian 
 worship is sounding along the thoroughfares, in the mart, and else- 
 where, where the spirits of avarice "most do congregate,'' there are 
 some who, shunning the crowd of mammon idolaters, with patient 
 vigil and unwearying toil, are planting the seeds of thought, which 
 will germinate and blossom, and bring forth fruit more precious 
 than the golde^i apple of the Hesperides — fruit delectable to the 
 intellectual taste of man, and worthy the refection of the Gods. 
 
 "Let me make the songs of a people and you may make their 
 laws," was the cunning and sagacious aphorism of Fletcher, of Sal- 
 toune. The power of literature represents indeed the potent virtue 
 of the minstrelsy of Adphion — the moral efficacy of the lyrics of Or- 
 pheus. By a single poem of his own the wise Solon of Greece in- 
 fused that spirit into Athenians before which Salamis was reduced 
 to shapeless ruin and consigned to inscrutable oblivion. The hymns 
 and invocations of ancient bards, Hesiod with his theogony, and the 
 blind old harper of Scio with his Illiad, his Odyssey and his songs, 
 created laws, systematised religions, gave animation to symbols, 
 
EDWARD J- C. KEWEN, 355 
 
 personality to immaterial substances, and consciousness to the in- 
 visible attributes of nature. Once a caliph of Persia pointed to his 
 scimitar and his bands of trained seryitors as the only legitimate 
 arbiters of disputed succession. "This," said he " is my pedigree 
 and these its supporters and its proofs. " A free government points 
 alone to the mind and morality of its sons as the only equitable 
 foundation of public or private sovereignty. The intellectual and 
 moral spirit of our government will abide upon the earth as the re- 
 deeming spirit of after times, and v^ill be transmitted from one 
 generation to another like the inextinguishable fire of the Grecian 
 temples, till all the nations are filled with its meridian-like resplen- 
 dence. 
 
 This is not the Utopian vagary of fancy. In the consummation 
 of this magnificent destiny California will be pre-eminently instru- 
 mental. The splendid reality of free government has already been 
 demonstrated by the example of America, and an impulse given to 
 its eternal principle of regeneration which has rescued the millions 
 of France from the yoke of feudalism, which has given' to unhappy 
 Ireland the relief of partial emancipation, which has agitated Eng- 
 land with the purifying fires of revolution, and which has involved 
 the whole of Europe in convulsions for the fruition of republican 
 happiness. The admission of California has brought us in social 
 and commercial contact with nations whose centuiy-silent portals 
 are opening at the magic of our behest, and revealing to our acqui- 
 sition the treasures they have so long incontinently concealed. 
 Hither have flocked the emigrant bands of Asia. Hither have sped 
 the Mogul and Mongolian. Hither the Malay of Sumatra and the 
 Hindoo of the Ganges. Hither have wandered the inhabitants 
 from the frozen regions of the Neva and the Baltic, and the turban- 
 ed denizens from the banks of the Bosphorus and the Danube, and 
 hither are turned the anxious eye and aspiring hope of the millions 
 of Japan, of the East Indian Archipelago, and the islands of the 
 sea. This fantastic grouping of humanity, this motley assemblage 
 of contrary characters and antagonistic creeds, gives the most cheer- 
 ing promise of the dawn of universal freedom. Thrown in contin- 
 ual contact with the votaries of republican enlightenment, forced by 
 the necessity of their position into a familiarity with the character of 
 our people, our laws, our institutions and our government, they be- 
 come imbued with thoughts, feelings and principles which are trans- 
 mitted to the homes of foi-mer seclusion, and made the germs of so- 
 cial, moral and political emancipation. This fusion of so many 
 op230site qualities into the American alembic is the source of more 
 legitimate power over the despotisms of earth and the treasures of 
 the world than ever was symbolized to catholic faith by the key or 
 the crown of St. Peter. 
 
 In olden times the defences of imperial Rome were broken down 
 and desolated by the brutal horde of the Gothic conqueror, and the 
 savage Attila brandished his gleaming sword in triumph over the 
 "Eternal City." The last pale light which glimmered from its capi- 
 tol for the renovation of man, was extinguished by the inundation of 
 
356 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 barbarian victors, and by the dastard infamy of the degenerate Ko- 
 man. That twinkling illumination was revived in the tragedy of 
 Yorktown, and from the American capitol its rays, dimly extending 
 over thirteen independent sovereignties, have gradually glowed and 
 broadened until the whole ocean-bound continent basks in the inef- 
 fable splendor of their noontide effulgence. Eeversing too, the 
 precedent of Boman degTadation, its brightness preserved like a 
 vestal flame, has dazzled the heathen in his blindness, has subdued 
 the ravaging spirit of the Goth, has caused to be mutilated the 
 century-grown defences of superstitious occlusion, and is permeat- 
 ing with lightning speed, and with the efficacy of lightning terrors, 
 the shadowy dominions of the hoary despotisms of the Orient. Glo- 
 rious in prospective is the destiny of our Kepublic. 
 
 But enough of inquiry of the past, enough of speculation as to 
 the future glory and dominion of America. The present with its 
 train of alluring associations, demands our thoughts and exacts a 
 tributary offering. I am surrounded by a pageant rivaling in 
 splendor the triumphal celebrations of Eome in its pride of power, 
 and in its haughtiness of supremacy. This glittering pageant is 
 more than an empty parade — more than an idle exhibition. It re- 
 presents the vanguard of civilization and freedom on the Pacific 
 shore. It commemorates the transplantation of Kepublican princi- 
 ples in the remote regions of the Occident. It is composed of stout 
 hearts and sinewy arms, of men of brilliant courage, adventurous 
 daring, stern resolves, intrepid energy and fearless enterprise — at- 
 tributes which everywhere distinguish the Pioneees of EepuiBlican 
 Progkess. It is significant of the achievement of greater results 
 then ever were contemplated by Czar of Russia or Turkish Sultan 
 as the fruit of extended empire. It is a proud and happy pageant 
 of enlightened freemen exulting in the triumph and growth of the 
 ever vital and regenerating principle of democracy. 
 
 It was indeed a period of patriotic exultation when California, 
 the dependency of a degenerate empire, was rescued from the 
 grasp of degrading sovereignty, and with its mountains of gold, 
 and its hills and its valleys, and its streams and its rivers, all im- 
 pregnated with glittering wealth, became incorporated into the sis- 
 terhood of American States. The pride, the glory and exultation 
 of the achievement belong to the intrepid explorers of the moun- 
 tains, the pioneers of the desert and the wilderness. Inspired by a 
 lofty courage, moved by a Providential inspiration, and sustained 
 by an unfaltering confidence, the pioneer severed himself from the 
 endearing associations of home and kindred, from native ties, from 
 tender memories of affection, from all his cherished household gods, 
 and launched forth into an untrodden field of exploration, adven- 
 ture and enterprise. Over arid plains beneath a scorching sun, 
 over valleys and hills, mountains and rocks, and waterless wastes 
 and burning sands, unawed by pestilence, unterrified by menacing 
 dangers, and fearlessly combating the horrible spectres of want, 
 and hunger and destitution, he "kept his onward course towards 
 where the burning axle of the chariot of day is bathed in the cool- 
 
EDWARD J. C. KEWEN. 357 
 
 ing waters of the western ocean. Despite the eminent ]3eril which 
 environed his pathway, despite the toil, the heart-sickness, the 
 w^eariness and exhaustion, his soul was steadfast and invincible. 
 Like the Alpine adventurer to whom "Excelsior '' was the enlivening 
 magic of recuperation, the visions of freedom, and fame, and for- 
 tune, were the magical revivers of the exhausted and failing ener- 
 gies of the dauntless pioneer. 
 
 At length, like Moses on the summit of Pisgah, he stands upon 
 the snowy heights of the Sierras, and his eyes sparkle, his brain 
 reels with tumultuous pleasures, his bosom heaves with ecstatic 
 emotion, and his noble soul expands with patriotic enthusiasm as 
 he catches a glimpse of the far-off Canaan of his imagination — the 
 golden land of jDromise. More fortunate than the law-giver of Is- 
 rael, an angry God has not arrested his footsteps, nor doomed him 
 to perish, in view of the alliu'ing goal of his ambition. With fresh 
 courage and revived hope he is again amid the defiles and fastnesses 
 of danger-haunted mountains, with steady eye and patient steps, 
 and perseveiing toil, pursuing his undeviating track. Calmly, ma- 
 jesticallv, with proud heart and defiant energy, he subdues every 
 opposing obstacle, overcomes every difficulty, conquers every peril, 
 and at last with triumph on his brow and exultation in his heart, he 
 plants his foot upon the coveted shore and dedicates it to God, to 
 Freedom and his Native Land. 
 
 In the histories of past ages and nations, there are names that 
 will live in enduring remembrance while freedom exists on earth. 
 The virtues and patriotism of Epaminondas perpetuate his name as 
 the brightest that adorns the history of Theban Independence. 
 The courage of Hannibal, whose conquering legions traversed the 
 Alps, and overswept the classic plains of Italy, is indelibly associa- 
 ted with the unforgotten glory of Carthage. With Athens is iden- 
 tified f^ galaxy of her brilliant sons, and clusters of constellated 
 names adorn the coronal of Roman fame. But in the cycle of com- 
 ing years, when the pen of the historian shall trace the origin and 
 settlement of this occidental commonwealth, shall depict the virtues, 
 the sufferings, privations, fortitude and intrepidity at the basis of 
 the achievement, shall describe the mighty impulse it has given to 
 the progress of free government and extension of free principles, 
 and shall glisten the truthful page with the names of the heroic 
 founders of its fame, there is none that will gem the record with a 
 purer or more enduring lustre than the name of the immortal Sut- 
 TEK — the illustrious Original of California Pioneers. 
 
 In the immigrant throng aspiring for the western bourne, there 
 came other than manly forms and brawny arms, and hearts of iron 
 will and fierce determination. The perilous travel, the waterless 
 desert, the fatiguing sands, the exhausting ascent, the fear, the 
 doubt, the trembling hope and final exultation, were destined not 
 for man alone. Nor was the desertion of home, nor the abandon- 
 ment of friends, nor the relinquishment of ties that rend the heart, 
 the bitter fruit alone of manly privation. There were gentle be- 
 ings, with loving hearts and melting eyes, and faces fair as the 
 
358 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC, 
 
 lioiiris of the Moslem's Eden, wlio, rising superior to the wilfull- 
 ness of Orpah, and betraying the self-sacrificing devotion of Kuth, 
 exclaimed each to the treasured object of worldly affection, and 
 hojpe, and trust — "Whither thou goest, I will go; where thou lodg- 
 est, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and th}' God my 
 God. " It was a pure, a sublime, an exalted devotion — a devotion 
 not unlike that of Mary's at the sepulchre of the Redeemer. Tiu:n- 
 ing for ever their fascinated gaze from the cherished haunts of na- 
 tivity, with confidence, and courage, and heroism, they too, follow- 
 ed the illumination of the star of empire, alluring them to the 
 unexplored regions of the west. Fatigue did not discourage them, 
 suffering did not dismay, sickness did not appall, peril did not inti- 
 midate. Emboldened by a lofty spirit, sustained by a noble pride, 
 and encouraged by a fond ambition, they encountered with boldness 
 the miseries of privation, the horrors of pestilence, the gloomy and 
 foreboding apparitions of famine and death. There are recollec- 
 tions at which the heart recoils. There are scenes at the contem- 
 plation of which the soul shrinks in unutterable anguish, the warm 
 blood freezes in its veins, and the quiet brain becomes distraught 
 with intensest agony. The pen is inadequate to portray — the tongue 
 is powerless to utter the appalling reminiscences that make up the 
 record of woman's experience, or the patience and fortitude with 
 which she endured it all, in the ultimate hope of becoming a moth- 
 er of an unborn Eepublic. The toil, the tribulation, the sorrow 
 and suffering have passed, and some — a few only — of the fair relics 
 of the toilsome adventure, are gazing upon the enchanting spectacle 
 of to-day — so like the illusory splendors of a sommer dream — with 
 joyous looks and beaming countenances, and hearts lifted with 
 gratitude to the Dispenser of every earthly benefaction. In our 
 hearts we greet them, in our heai-ts we bless them, and with grate- 
 ful emotions extend to them the chief homage of this jubilant an- 
 niversary. 
 
 To you, fellow Pioneers, a word of congratulation and I have 
 done. 
 
 This palatial city of San Francisco, with its luxurious mansions, 
 its granite palaces and its costly marts of commerce, is the glorious 
 fruitage of your adventure. The subdued waters of its bay, the ex- 
 tended lines of its quays, the busy hum of its thoroughfares, the 
 exliibitions everywhere visible of its taste, its opulence and refine- 
 ment, are the splendid creations and magnificent testimonials of 
 your enterprise. Scourged as it has been by the devastating flame, 
 retarded by natural obstacles, and at times inundated by swarms of 
 lawless banditti, it has never been diverted from its onward pro- 
 gress, nor ceased to be the monarch wonder of the world. Like a 
 young Titan, it has humbled the rugged wilderness, has upheaved 
 the seated hills from their foundations, and with a conqueror's step 
 has advanced along the pathway of progress like a prince to a 
 throne. Its harbor glistens with a forest of masts belonging to the 
 ships of every nation, which have poured and are pouring upon oui 
 shores the accumulated riches of the East, and vaster treasures from 
 
EDWARD J. C. KETTEN. 359 
 
 every clime than ever freighted the galleons of Spain or the argo- 
 sies of Venice. 
 
 Champollion taught the world to decipher the hieroglyphics on 
 the ohelisk the tombs and temples of Egj-pt, but a higher gloiy 
 was reserved for the Pioneers of the Pacific, by whom was destined 
 the revelation to mankind of its unavailing search of centuries — the 
 western route to the commerce of the Indies and of the islands of 
 the Eastern Archipelago. Coincident with the exhumation of gold- 
 en treasures from the bleak summits of the Sierras, was the contri- 
 bution to our shore of the riches of China and Japan, and the 
 remote Islands of the Pacific waste of waters. One other acquisi- 
 tion and the glory of San Francisco will have reached its zenith. 
 "When the veins and arteries of commercial life shall permeate the 
 broad expanse that separates the Golden Gate from the Atlantic, 
 then will its magnificent destiny proclaim it the commercial metro- 
 polis of the woiid, outrivaling in commerce, in arts, in science and 
 literature the renown of antiquity, and the boasted pretensions of 
 modern greatness. If this sublime consummation is defeated, free- 
 dom will be deprived of its brightest hope, and a crime will be 
 perpetrated against the social and political necessities of humanity, 
 more wicked than that which classic fable has punished with the 
 naked rock and the gnawing vulture. Promote this glorious enter- 
 prise, and the swelling splendors and far-reaching fame of this 
 mighty continent will be imperishable monuments to the memory 
 of the Pioneers of Freedom and Destiny. 
 
CHARLES WESTMORELAND 
 
 THE name which heads this article was that of one 
 of the most genial and pleasant men who ever 
 devoted themselves earnestly to a good cause. Charles 
 Westmoreland was born in Georgia, in 1829, of good 
 ancestry. He was liberally educated, and possessed 
 qualities which would have made him a popular leader 
 in his native State; but his manhood had hardly begun 
 when, in 1853, he came to California. After a brief 
 trial at the hazards of mining, which every one made in 
 those days, he turned his attention to law, literature, and 
 politics. He was first prominently known as State Sen- 
 ator from Placer county, having been elected to that 
 office on the Know-Nothing ticket in 1855. He was the 
 youngest member af the Senate at that time, except 
 Burton, of Nevada, being only twenty-six years old. 
 His Know-Nothingism was only a temporary cloak for 
 hostility to State-Rights Democracy, and after the dis- 
 memberment of the party, he allied himself with the 
 Free- Soil Democracy of California under the leadership 
 of Broderick, to whom he was warmly attached. 
 
 During his term in the Senate, he was intimate with 
 the lamented Ferguson, who was killed in a duel with 
 George Pen Johnston in 1859, and eloquently mourned 
 by Col. E. D. Baker. Both were men of brilliant qual- 
 ities and too social habits, though Westmoreland sub- 
 
362 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 sequently led a more prudent life, and had made sure 
 of an honorable career. 
 
 Subsequently to his legislative career, Westmoreland 
 tried his professional fortunes in Oregon, where he made 
 the acquaintance of most of the leading men of the day. 
 He had returned to California before the rebellion broke 
 out, and when that event occurred was residing in Shasta. 
 As editor of the Courier^ a v/eekly newspaper in that 
 town, he distinguished himself by the strong Union 
 ground he took, and by the vigor, wit, and sarcasm with 
 which he assailed the Peace Democracy. Although a 
 Southerner born, and with a wife and child behind him 
 in Georgia, he never hesitated in his allegiance to the 
 cause of the Republic, and was restrained by no pre- 
 judices born of ^'the peculiar institution." 
 
 After the election in 1861, when the Union men of 
 the State were divided in rival organizations, he lent his 
 influence to the movement for a consolidation of the 
 loyal vote, and was largely instrumental in carrying the 
 War Democrats of his county into the Union party which 
 was formed in the spring of 1862. When leaders like 
 John Conness seemed inclined to hold aloof from the 
 movement, afraid of losing their personal consequence, 
 he aided it with patriotic enthusiasm. 
 
 During the winter of 1862 and spring of 1863, he 
 was associate editor of the MarysvUle Appeal, a conspicuous 
 and influential Republican daily. After the nomination 
 of the Union State ticket in 1863, he took charge of the 
 San Francisco Republic, a warm campaign paper founded 
 on the ruins of the old Herald. 
 
 At the first session of the Legislature which met 
 under the amended constitution, in December, 1863, he 
 was elected by the Union members of the Senate Secre- 
 tary of their body, in recognitipn of his services to the 
 Union cause. During the Presidential campaign of 1864 
 he was Secretary of the Union State Central Committee, 
 in which position he contributed materially to organize the 
 efficient canvass by which California was carried for Lincoln. 
 
 After returning from a short trip to Washington, he 
 established himself in the legal profession at Areata, 
 
CHARLES WESTMORELAND. 363 
 
 Humboldt county, continuing to be always an active 
 Union partisan, and using both his voice and pen in 
 defence of the most advanced Republican principles. 
 
 He was elected to the Assembly of 1867-8, and was 
 the leader of the Republican minority in that body, de- 
 fending his party ideas and measures in the face of a 
 triumphant majority, with ready ability and eloquence. 
 
 He was a competitor with Chancellor Hartson for the 
 Congressional nomination in the Northern District, in 
 1868. Failing of that nomination, he accepted a place 
 on the Grant electoral ticket, and stumped his district 
 until the close of the campaign. He was elected mes- 
 senger to carry the vote of the State to Washington, and 
 left San Francisco upon that honorable errand by the 
 steamship Montana^ September 4th, 1868. This was 
 during the height of the memorable small-pox epidemic. 
 He had contracted the disease, which developed itself on 
 the voyage, and carried him to his grave at Panama, on 
 the 25th of December. His friend William B. Carr car- 
 ried the electoral vote to Washington by his appointment. 
 Mr. Westmoreland was apparently in the best health when 
 he left San Francisco. • His tall and ample form, his 
 rosy cheeks and fair complexion, his genial smile and 
 gay conversation, seemed to be the indices of a satisfied 
 mind, looking forward to an honorable career. He ex- 
 pected to meet a motherless son for the first time in 
 many years, after a separation painfully prolonged by 
 the war at the South. But it was not to be. That boy 
 is now the ward of his father's friend, George C. Gorham, 
 Secretary of the United States Senate. Congress passed 
 a resolution appropriating for the orphan the money his 
 father would have received as messenger. Westmoreland 
 was possessed of a pleasing eloquence, both as speaker and 
 writer. He was a witty and genial companion, a man of 
 strong opinions and original expressions, and an en- 
 thusiastic idealist on the subject of equal rights and human 
 progress. His untimely death was widely regretted. His 
 former neighbors in Northern California have made ar- 
 rangements to erect a monument over his remains in 
 their distant place of rest. 
 
EUGENE CASSERLY 
 
 EUGENE Casserly, Senator of the United States from 
 California, was born at Mullingar, county of West- 
 meath) Ireland, in 1822. His family was a branch of the 
 O'Connors, and was formerly known as the O'Connor 
 Casserlys, from a marked personal characteristic in one 
 of his progenitors. His father and grandfather were 
 both schoolmasters, and the latter a man of considerable 
 influence among his neighbors and countrymen, with 
 whom he took an active part in the Rebellion of '98, 
 being at the head of one of the insurgent lodges whose 
 ramiiications permeated the middle and southern portions 
 of the island at that time. He suffered severely in per- 
 son on the disastrous termination of the attempt at In- 
 dependence, and narrowly escaped with life. 
 
 Patrick Sarsfield Casserly, the father of the subject 
 of the present sketch, emigrated to the United States in 
 1824, bringing with him his family, consisting of his wife 
 and little Eugene, then two years old. It is reported, 
 we believe with truth, that the father went directly from 
 the ship to the Court-room to take the preliminary steps 
 towards becoming a citizen of his adopted country, be- 
 fore he had even prepared a resting-place for his family. 
 Immediately thereafter, he resumed the practice of his 
 profession, and for many years was at the head of a well 
 known educational establishment in New York city. He 
 was a man of superior intelligence and culture, and was 
 known as one of the best classical scholars of his day in 
 the United States. He personally supervised the educa- 
 
366 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 tion of his family, and being an enthusiast in classical 
 studies, he commenced to instill the rudiments of Greek 
 and Latin into the minds of his children at a very early 
 age. Thus Eugene was studying Greek at five years of 
 age — a period when few children now-a-days have com- 
 menced the study of their mother -tongue. The boy 
 showed wonderful aptitude for the task, however, and 
 progressed in his studies so rapidly that at a very early 
 age he was enabled to render material assistance to his 
 father in compiling and editing a number of classical 
 educational works, with which the name of the parent is 
 honorably connected. For a number of years — in fact, 
 until he closely approached manhood — Mr. Casserly as- 
 sisted his father in the conduct of his school ; but when 
 he touched twenty, or thereabouts, he determined to 
 launch into the world on his own account and carve out 
 his own career. 
 
 At the time we speak of, young Casserly' s character 
 and literary attainments had attracted the attention of a 
 number of influential persons, prominent among whom 
 was Dr. Hughes, then Bishop, and subsequently Arch- 
 bishop of ]^ew York, who was his early, steadfast, and 
 most judicious friend. When, therefore, he had deter- 
 mined to commence the battle of life, he found friends 
 not unwilling to aid him, and although the conflict was 
 at first a hard one, success soon began to smile upon his 
 efforts. 
 
 Mr. Casserly' s first attempts were directed to journal- 
 ism, and he obtained the position of editor of the 
 FreemariJs Journal^ then struggling for the position it has 
 since obtained as the leading Irish Catholic journal of 
 the metropolis. His marked ability soon told on the 
 fortunes of that paper, and in a short time he succeeded 
 in placing it on a permanent basis. At the same time, 
 he contributed freely to many of the leading journals of 
 New York, Boston, and Washington, and became well 
 known to the editorial fraternity as a rising member of 
 the profession, and there can be no doubt that had he 
 continued in it, he would long since have attained to 
 eminence therein. His ambition, however, led him in 
 
EUGENE CASSERLY, 367 
 
 another direction ; and while yet engaged in the duties 
 of editor, he entered himself as a student at law in the 
 office of Mr. John Bigelow, then a leading member of 
 the Kew York bar, subsequently one of the editors of the 
 Evening Post, and more recently Minister to France from 
 the United States. He was admitted to the bar in 1844, 
 and was shortly afterwards chosen attorney of the cor- 
 poration of New York city, a position of considerable 
 emolument and patronage. 
 
 The '^ California fever," which prevailed so extensively 
 throughout the Atlantic States in 1849, did not spare 
 our young advocate, who hoped to find in a new country 
 a shorter road to fame and fortune than that worn by so 
 many wearied feet in the old States. In July, 1850, he 
 started by the Panama route, and arrived in San Fran- 
 cisco in August of that year. The field of journalism 
 promising well at the time, he brought to San Francisco 
 the materials of a printing office, and in a short time 
 after his arrival, in connection with Mr. Benjamin R. 
 Buckalew, he started the Public Balance^ a daily paper, 
 which soon acquired in a particular manner the con- 
 fidence of the community. His partner, however, was 
 an uncongenial spirit, and after a few months of success- 
 ful efibrt, they separated, Mr. Casserly changing the name 
 of the paper to the True Balance^ and subsequently to the 
 Standard. At this time he was elected State Printer by 
 the Legislature then in session, the first that met under 
 the American flag. Business prospered, and the future 
 looked bright, when the disastrous fire of May 3d and 
 4th, 1851, swept his whole property away in a night. 
 His library alone was saved. Without means, but with 
 a courageous heart, he faced the world anew. 
 
 Mr. Casserly now determined to devote himself per- 
 manently to the law, and from this resolution he never 
 afterwards swerved. His success was rapid and constant, 
 and for many years, if not the leader, he certainly was 
 second to no one practicing at the California bar. 
 
 In early manhood, Mr. Casserly connected himself 
 with the Democratic party of the United States, affiliating 
 himself with the advanced wing of the organization then 
 
368 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 led by Silas Wright of N"ew York. He lias always been 
 an active member of the party in California^ as in fact he 
 was one of its founders, and continued one of its most 
 approved counsellors. This was particularly the case in 
 the dark days towards the close of the great civil war, 
 when at times it seemed as if the party, in the face of 
 constant and overwhelming defeat, was doomed to anni- 
 hilation. It is hardly saying too much to assert that its 
 preservation and its succeeding triumphs on the Pacific 
 coast were due to the indomitable pluck and perseverance 
 of Mr. Casserly, who would never consent to an abandon- 
 ment of the struggle, even when it seemed most hopeless. 
 When the troubles which eventually led to the out- 
 break of the great civil war first began to overshadow the 
 land, Mr. Casserly threw his whole influence into the scale 
 of peace ; nor did he ever relax his efi'orts, urging stren- 
 uously and with all his power the necessity for concession 
 on both sides, and the propriety especially of granting 
 to the Southern States the guarantees they demanded. 
 When, however, war was actually inaugurated, he promptly 
 took his place by the flag under whose folds he had been 
 placed in infancy by his father, and no less strenuously 
 urged the necessity for supporting the Government with 
 every man and dollar in the land. He lent his powerful 
 aid in preventing the State of California from drifting 
 into the vortex of secession that at one time threatened. 
 He took an active part in the organization of the Sanitary 
 Commission, an organization instituted to care for the 
 wounded soldiers in the field. While thus doing his ut- 
 most to secure the supremacy of the Grovernment, he 
 nevertheless always pronounced in favor of holding the 
 administration strictly to the cause for which the war 
 was prosecuted — the restoration of the supremacy of the 
 flag under the constitution, frowning at all attempts to 
 engraft other and extraneous issues upon the struggle. 
 He warmly advocated the election of Gen. McClellan to 
 the Presidency in 1864, standing firmly on his "platform," 
 that the war must be prosecuted to an honorable peace, 
 but that peace once established, the States in rebellion 
 should be at once restored to their position in the Union, 
 
EUGENE CASSERLY. 369 
 
 with all the rights and guarantees they held under the 
 constitution. 
 
 Although the Democracy failed to elect their can- 
 didate in 1864^ the wisdom of Mr. Casserly's policy in 
 putting the party on a patriotic constitutional basis was 
 apparent within a comparatively short period, when that 
 party achieved a complete triumph in the election of 
 Governor Haight — a triumph which in turn placed Mr. 
 Casserly in the most honorable position in the gift of the 
 people of California. Immediately on the assembling of 
 the Legislature in 1867, (the first in which the Democrats 
 had held a majority for many years) he was brought for- 
 ward as a candidate for the United States Senate, and, 
 after a spirited contest, was elected b}^ a large majority in 
 December of that year, to serve for six years from March 
 4th, 1869, on which day he was sworn into office and took 
 his seat. 
 
 Mr. Casserly is a ripe scholar, a proficient in several 
 foreign languages, and a master of his own. He is one 
 of the best classical scholars on the Pacific, and is a Mas- 
 ter of Arts of Georgetown College, D. C, an institution 
 remarkably chary of its honors. He is a pleasing speaker, 
 although not what could be called a popular orator, his 
 voice lacking the volume requisite for addressing large 
 open-air audiences, and the severity of his taste restrict- 
 ing him from the flights which many less gifted speakers 
 attempt with ease. In a moderate-sized chamber he is 
 very effective, and is always a close and exhaustive logic- 
 ian. Some of his efforts at the bar are models in their 
 way, and he is admirably adapted to the field he now oc- 
 cupies in the Senate of the United States. 
 
 He is a man of medium height, with a well-knit 
 frame, and a clear, though deep-set brown eye. The size 
 and conformation of his head indicate a large and well- 
 balanced brain ; while his temperament is ardent yet well 
 restrained. His hair is prematurely white. His private 
 life is as spotless as his public character, and no better 
 testimonial to his worth need be sought for than the fact 
 that his selection to the Senate was hailed by the best 
 men of both parties as a triumph of intelligence and 
 24 
 
370 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Virtue, and that a partisan press — more violent in its 
 bigotry perhaps than any in the Union — was silent, or 
 spoke but to say that his party dare not reject him. With 
 the exception of the positions of Corporation Attorney 
 in New York and State Printer in California, both of 
 which were strictly in the line of his professional duties, 
 Mr. Casserly never sought nor held public office prior to 
 his election to the Senate. 
 
 In 1854, at San Francisco, Mr. Casserly married 
 Teresa, daughter of the late John Doyle, Esq., one of 
 the oldest and most respected merchants of N'ew York 
 city. By her he has issue, two sons and a daughter. 
 Mr. Casserly' s mother and several brothers are living in 
 !N'ew York. 
 
 BY HON. EUGENE CASSEKLY. 
 
 At the opening of the Superior Court of San Francisco, Nov. 22d, 1852 — ^the 
 news of the death of Daniel Webster having just reached California — Eugene 
 Casserly, Esq., on behalf of the bar, arose and delivered the following tribute to 
 the memory of the great American lawyer and statesman, 
 
 Ma.y it PLEASE YOUR Honor: In accordance with an observance 
 prompted by the best impulse of our nature, and sanctioned by an 
 honorable usage, I have to move that this Court adjourn for this day, 
 without the transaction of business, out of respect for the genius, serv- 
 ices, and memory of Daniel Webster. When, on the night before 
 last, the deep signal-gun of the steamship broke, amid the storm and 
 darkness of midnight, upon our silent city, it was a far less startling 
 sound than the tidings which it announced, sudden, heavy, sad, of 
 an event that is nothing less than a national disaster. " Death (it is 
 said) loves a shining mark," and of late his unemng shafts have been 
 launched fast and frequent into the lessening circle qf the statesmen 
 and patriots, of whom Webster was among the greatest and the last. 
 It was but the other day that the solemn funeral obsequies filled the 
 city with gloom, and the long procession flowed through the streets; 
 and still the sable badges of mourning, conspicuous in all the public 
 places, and in these Court-rooms, and about the judgment-seats, speak 
 the people's love and sorrow for another illustrious man — the con- 
 temporary of Daniel Webster — ^his associate in the Halls of Congress, 
 
EUGENE CASSERLY. 371 
 
 and through long years of signal public services his compeer and 
 friend, Henry Clay, of Kentucky. Again and again, while the heart 
 of the nation is still swelling with that great bereavement, comes 
 another blow: one by one Death takes them, and as each of that 
 shining band falls, the sound shakes the land even to this far Pacific 
 shore. One after another they have gone from among us, to be for- 
 evermore with the spirits of the just made perfect; but when Daniel 
 Webster is taken, there is left an aching void of grief, dismay and 
 desolation, by which we may know how gxeat was the space he filled 
 in the thoughts and affections of his country. 
 
 Mr. Webster was, in the best sense of the words, a self-made 
 man, and his success in the very highest stations is a splendid tribute, 
 not less to the equality of our institutions, than to his own exalted 
 powers. Born in the fourth year after the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, amid the sterile hills and deep forests of New Hampshire — 
 his father, a captain in Stark's company — Daniel Webster, a poor 
 boy, with no advantages of education except what he could glean 
 from the humble village schools of New England; owing nothing to 
 connection, nothing to position, nothing to opportunity — except that 
 which genius makes for itself — rose by swift ascents through all the 
 grades of success and honor, as a lawyer, a legislator, a senator, an 
 ambassador, a chief minister of the Cabinet, until his greatness be- 
 came a part of his country's growth, and penetrated into every 
 quarter of Europe; so that when " the inevitable hour" came to him. 
 after he had passed the limit of age allotted to man, he sank, ripe in 
 years and fame, in the fullness of his dignities and renown. In the 
 course of a public life of forty years and upwards, during which his 
 powers of mind and force of character permitted him to take no 
 second part, it may be there have been measures of his upon which 
 his countr;yTnen will differ in their judgment. But the sincerity of 
 his purpose, the rectitude of his principles, the dignity of his 
 manhood, who can justly arraign? Who can say with trutli that his 
 intellect — the mightiest among men — was not ever guided by pat- 
 riotism; or that in the service of his country his great soul ever 
 harbored one mean or disloyal thought — one wish that was not de- 
 voted to her welfare and her glory? 
 
 Among the loftiest minds of the nation, he filled fitly the highest 
 place. During his career in the Senate of the United States, his 
 associates were such men as Clay and Calhoun, Benton and Wright, 
 and many more of inferior, but still of great, power and reputation. 
 It was a galaxy of worth and intellect, where stars of less than the 
 first magnitude '' paled their ineffectual fires," and were lost. But 
 Webster still shone the brightest there; he "led the starry host." 
 His intellect, ca^Dacious and powerful, grasped the questions, and 
 wielded them at will. His logic was like the touch of Ithuriel's spear, 
 and the march of his rhetoric was like the swell of the sea. His 
 eloquence, disdaining the ornaments and the meretricious aids with 
 which weaker natures seek to hide their poverty, rose like his native 
 mountains, in simple, severe, self-sustaining strength and majesty, 
 lifting all subjects which it embraced oiit of the fogs and mists 
 
372 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of a lower sphere into the clear sunshine and free- air of a higher 
 heaven. 
 
 But, if your Honor pleases, it was in our own profession — as a 
 lawyer — that we love to contemplate him. Most worthily did he 
 represent the true dignity and excellence of the law; and in it did he 
 achieve the first and the most unquestioned of his triumphs. Here, 
 also, he won his last. His speech for the prosecution in the famous 
 Crowninshield case, is a classic in our schools; and in the great case 
 of the Dartmouth College, before the highest judicial tribunal of the 
 land, he brought the whole vigor of his intellect, his resistless logic 
 and commanding eloquence, to the vindication and establishment of 
 the provision in the Constitution of the United States guaranteeing 
 the inviolability of contracts. But, however great these or any other 
 of his legal arguments may have been, it is conceded that the last 
 occasion of his appearance at the bar, in the Goodyear Patent case, 
 betrayed no abatement of his powers. To the last he was still him- 
 self — still the first of living lawyers. Like the orb of day, though 
 past his meridian, he shone to the last with undiminished light and 
 majesty; or rather, like some mighty river as it nears the ocean, his 
 intellect, verging to Eternity, flowed on in wider and more placid 
 grandeur. 
 
 Great as a lawyer, as a Senator, as an Ambassador clothed with 
 powers and responsibilities the most august, as the Chief Minister 
 of the Cabinet at Washington, conducting the gravest and most 
 difficult relations with foreign powers, and administering the highest 
 executive functions with character, talent, and dignity — it w^as never- 
 theless his peculiar glory that he was the Champion and Expounder 
 of the Constitution. Here, his heart and intellect found their most 
 acceptable exercise, and here, great though they were, they found an 
 ample field. He brought to the task a rare combination of qualities 
 — an intellect trained to its utmost development in the conflict of 
 the bar and the Senate — a wealth of historical knowledge and il- 
 lustration — a fervor of patriotism — an earnestness and a power of 
 eloquence, which fitted him to be the interpreter and guardian of the 
 charter of our rights as a confederation, and which nothing could 
 withstand. However men might differ from him, as to some of his 
 conclusions upon the exciting questions which have divided the 
 country — none could deny to him this preeminence and this trust. 
 It was a sacred duty, and in more than one time of gloom and trial, 
 right well did he do his work. And behold his reward — a reward 
 to minds like his more grateful than any honors, any office, any 
 Presidency. He had the gratitude of his countrymen, and he lived 
 to see the Union and Constitution he had done so much to guard and 
 sustain, growing greater and stronger to the last hour of his Hfe. 
 
 In his own grand language, and in happy fulfilment of the prayer 
 so devoutly expressed in the peroration of his speech, in reply to 
 Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, in the Senate, in January, 1830: 
 
 " When his eyes turned to behold for the last time the sun in 
 heaven, he did not see him shining on the broken and dishonored frag- 
 ments of our once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, 
 
EUGENE CASSERLY. 373 
 
 belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched in fraternal 
 blood. Rather did their last feeble and lingering glance behold the 
 gorgeous ensign of the RepubHc, now known and honored through- 
 out the whole earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
 streaming in their original lustre : not a stripe erased or polluted, 
 nor a single star obscured — bearing for its motto no such miserable 
 interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of 
 delusion and folly, ' Liberty first and Union afterwards;' but er^'ery- 
 where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its 
 ample folds, as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in 
 every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to 
 exery true American heart. Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one 
 and inseparable." 
 
 Forty years, with a genius and patriotism not often equalled, had 
 he served his country and his countrymen, when from the highest 
 place in the Cabinat and its weighty cares, he withdrew for a brief 
 period into the repose and retirement of his farm at Marshfield. 
 Even then, his last official act was to avert the collision threatened on 
 our norihem waters, between this country and the greatest of earthly 
 powers beside. Even there, in that refuge, death found him out, 
 and with remorseless hand took from us all of Daniel AVebster that 
 would die. 
 
 It is past! A good and a faithful servant, he has fought his last 
 fight on earth. His spirit has returned to Him who gave it. There 
 is a lamentation and a gloom in the land. In the highest realms of 
 intellect, where he ruled with supreme dominion, there is a void. 
 The place that has known him shall know him no more. No more 
 shall he shine in the front of the worth, the intellect, and the 
 patriotism of the nation. No more, amid "listening senates," or 
 among the rulers of the people, shall be seen the majesty of his 
 presence, his Olympian head, " the front of Jove himself." No more 
 shall his eloquence sway with magic power the hearts of men. 
 No more shall his master hand, with conscious strength, guide the 
 helm of aifairs. No more in the thick and troubled night shall his 
 country look to the light of his genius as to her guiding star; in vain 
 shall she with sad inquiry explore the darkening firmament, whence 
 that bright planet has disappeared, making it to suffer a disastrous 
 eclipse ! 
 
 But, no; let me be pardoned these words. It is not for such as 
 Daniel Webster to die and be ^no more. In that solemn moment 
 between time and eternity, when the soul of man just about to shake 
 off its earthly trammels, pierces with new sight into the future, on 
 the brink of which it hovers, his soul, endowed with this prophetic 
 sense, gave it utterance in the words, " I still live!" 
 
 Yes, he still lives, in his great example and his magnificent serv- 
 ices, in his genius and his patriotism, of which the light and glory 
 are still over the whole land, and will be with us always to guide, to 
 encourage, and to exalt — lives in the heart of his country, and in 
 whatever else of her is most immortal, in her history and her renown, 
 in her freedom, in her greatness, and in eternal destiny — ^lives, while 
 
374 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the mountains stand and the rivers flow — lives, while the Union and 
 the Constitution live, never to die until they fall, and the very name 
 of the Kepublic is blotted from the earth. 
 
 But, if your Honor please, why should I say more? "What man, 
 with words, can add to the greatness of Daniel Webster, of Massa- 
 chusetts, of New England, of the Union, of the w^orld; or why 
 should I, with my feeble rushlight, seek to show forth the meridian 
 effulgence ? From a task too great for my powers, I willingly escape, 
 and move that this Court adjourn for the day. 
 


 V^- 
 
 
HENRY WAGER HALLECK 
 
 ^Y ^UDGE J. y/. J^REELON. 
 
 MAJOR General Henry. Wager Halleck, U. S. Army, 
 was born on the banks of the Mohawk River, at 
 Westville, Oneida County, State of New York, in 1815. 
 He is a lineal descendant from Peter Halleck, one of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, who landed at Halleck' s Neck, Southold, 
 in 1640, and settled within the limits of Aquebogue, near 
 Mattituck. •. 
 
 The family name* in England is Holly Oak, and Fitz 
 Greene Halleck, the poet, traced back the lineage to the 
 Percy family. The Genefal's grandfather. Deacon Gabez, 
 changed the spelling of the faiiiily,,name from Hallock to 
 Halleck — the orthography adopted also by that branch 
 of the family from which Fitz Greene Halleck descended. 
 The subject of this biographical notice does not, however, 
 claim any interest in the Mount Halak territory annexed 
 by Joshua, and which the poet used to claim as the orig- 
 inal homestead of his Puritan ancestors. 
 
 General Halleck' s father, Joseph, was a Lieutenant in 
 the war of 1812, and a civil magistrate in his county for 
 some thirty years. His mother was the daughter of Hen- 
 ry Wager, of Oneida County, New York. He was a man 
 of strong sense, and filled many legislative and political 
 positions with credit. His father came from Baden Bad- 
 en and settled on the Hudson River. The old mansion, 
 with its gable end towards the street, built of bricks im- 
 ported from Holland, is still standing in Columbia Coun- 
 ty. The name was originally spelled, as it still is, in Ger- 
 many, Waghner. 
 
 The subject of this sketch, after a preliminary academi- 
 
376 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 cal education, and a brief residence at Union College, New 
 York, entered the Military Academy in 1835, nominated 
 by the late Judge Beardsley, then Member of Congress, 
 and was graduated and promoted as Second Lieutenant of 
 Engineers in 1839 — ranking third in a class of thirty-one 
 cadets. During his furlough, he returned to, and com- 
 pleted his studies at, Union College. From his graduation 
 till 1844 he was on duty as Assistant Professor of Engi- 
 neering, at the Academy, and employed on the fortifica- 
 tions in 'New York harbor. In 1845 he made an extend- 
 ed tour in Europe, examining into the various military 
 establishments of the principal States. After his return, 
 he delivered a series of lectures before the Lowell Insti- 
 tute, of Boston, on Military Art and Science. 
 
 In the summer of 1846 he was sent^ via Cape Horn, 
 to the Pacific Coast, and was actively employed both in 
 civil and military capacities during the Mexican war. For 
 gallant conduct in the affairs of Palos, Prietos and Urias, 
 Mexico, November 19th and 20th, 1847, he was breveted 
 a Captain. He was subsequently distinguished in the 
 affairs of San Antonio and Todos Santos, Lower Califor- 
 nia, March 16th and 30th, 1848. At the former place, 
 with a small detachment of mounted volunteers with 
 whom he had made a forced march from La Paz, he sur- 
 prised and defeated a Mexican garrison of several hun- 
 dred men, capturing two officers and other prisoners, the 
 colors and official records ; destroying arms and ammuni- 
 tion, and returning to his post within thirty hours, during 
 which he had accomplished these results and a march of 
 one hundred and twenty miles. At Todos Santos he led 
 the attack with two companies of the New York Volun- 
 teers, and "for his assistance as Chief of Staff," and "for 
 the able manner in which he led on the attack," he was 
 specially commended in the official report of his com- 
 manding officer. 
 
 Captain Halleck also acted as Aid-de-Camp to Commo- 
 dore Shubrick in the naval and military operations along 
 the Mexican coast, and in that capacity participated in 
 the capture of Mazatlan, of which place he was made 
 Lieutenant Governor. He is closely identified with the 
 
HENRY WAGER HALLECK. 377 
 
 early history of California, acting as Secretary of State 
 under the military governments of Generals Mason and 
 Riley, and during the same period as Auditor of the Rev- 
 enues. He was a prominent member of the Convention 
 assembled in 1849 to form a State Constitution; and as 
 an active member of the drafting committee, had an im- 
 portant part in the preparation of that instrument ; being 
 distinguished also for his able and determined opposition 
 against all attempts to engraft African slavery upon this 
 State. Between the years 1850 and 1854, he was on duty 
 as Judge Advocate and Inspector and Engineer of Light- 
 houses on this coast. Having attained the rank of Cap- 
 tain of Engineers, he resigned from the army. In 1854 he 
 entered into the practice of law in San Francisco, and was 
 fur many years the senior partner of one of the largest law- 
 firms in California. He was Director General of the ^^ew 
 Almaden Quicksilver Mine, 1850-61; President of the 
 Pacific and Atlantic Railroad from San Francisco to San 
 Jose, 1855, and Major General of Militia, 1860-61. 
 
 Soon after the breaking out of civil war he returned 
 into the army, being appointed on the recommendation 
 of Lieut. Gen. Scott, a Major General, August 17th, 
 1861. From November of same year till March, 1862, he 
 was in command of the Department of the Missouri, hold- 
 ing also a commission as Major General of Missouri Mili- 
 tia. During this period he was actively engaged in re- 
 constructing a chaotic department in which materiel was 
 wanting and the personnel was demoralized, and in direct- 
 ing offensive operations against the enemy. He had 
 the principal direction of the military movements result- 
 ing in the successful campaigns of the West, commenc- 
 ing in February, 1862. 
 
 In March, 1862, General Halleck assumed command of 
 the Department of the Mississippi, and in the following 
 month took immediate command of the army before Cor- 
 inth. The investment of this place was, under his per- 
 sonal direction, conducted to a successful issue, notwith- 
 standing obstacles almost insurmountable. Deficient in 
 the means of transportation, he advanced over and in 
 roads nearly impassable, and through forests that might 
 
378 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 have been deemed impenetrable by any other troops than 
 those under his command. 
 
 After the unfortunate termination of General McClel- 
 lan's campaign, resulting in the withdrawal of an heroic 
 army from the front of Richmond to the banks of the 
 James, the President decided to call a soldier to Wash- 
 ington, to assume, under his direction, a general control 
 over all the armies of the United States. General Hal- 
 leck was selected by the administration for this purpose, 
 and was at once summoned to Washington. But, being 
 fully aware that the position would involve grave respon- 
 sibilities — without corresponding powers to direct — and 
 that therein he would find the duties extremely arduous, 
 harassing, and utterly thankless, he asked that he might 
 be allowed to remain with his own troops. The Presi- 
 dent's order, however, succeeded the invitation, and the 
 General cheerfully entered upon the duties of his new 
 position, assuming command of the army in July, 1862. 
 He thus sacrificed the opportunity for reaping personally 
 the results which followed the operations initiated and, to 
 a great extent, conceived by him, and which were so glo- 
 riously executed by our Western armies. He was in 
 command of the army till March, 1864, when he was re- 
 lieved at his own request, and in view of General Grant's 
 promotion to the grade of Lieutenant General. He then, 
 at the urgent request of the President and at the desire 
 of General Grant and the Secretary of War, remained at 
 Washington and acted as Chief of Staff of the Army till 
 cessation of hostilities. The duties of this position, anom- 
 alous in our service, were, inasmuch as the General-in- 
 Chief was permitted to take the field, essentially the same 
 as those that he had been permitted to exercise as com- 
 manding general. The embarrassments were somewhat 
 increased, while the power of individual action was even 
 more restrained. In view of his own experience at Army 
 Headquarters he advised General Grant to remain away 
 from the stronghold of the politicians, and to seek safety 
 from their mines under the fire of Lee's Army. In this 
 advice he was most cordially sustained by the brilliant 
 Sherman. 
 
HENRY WAGER HALLECK. 379 
 
 Upon General Grant's return to Washington, after re- 
 ceiving General Lee's surrender, General Halleckwas sent 
 to Richmond in command of the Military Division of the 
 James, and was specially charged with the reeestablish- 
 ment, so far as practicable, of loyal civil government in 
 Virginia. In July, 1865, he was assigned to command of 
 the Military Division of the Pacific, and returned to his 
 home and assumed that command in August of same 
 year. 
 
 The General is the author of a work on "Bitumen: 
 its varieties, properties, and uses," 1841 ; of "Elements of 
 Military Art and Science," 1846 — and a second edition, 
 "with critical notes on the Mexican and Crimean Wars," 
 1858; of "A Collection of Mining Laws of Spain and 
 Mexico," 1859 ; of a work on " International Law, or rules 
 regulating the intercourse of States in Peace and War," 
 1861, and of "A Treatise on International Law and the 
 Laws of War, prepared for the use of Schools and Col- 
 leges," 1866. Translator and Editor of " De Fooz on 
 the Law of Mines, with introductory remarks," 1860; 
 and of " General Jomini's Life of Napoleon," with notes, 
 1864. 
 
 The Degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by 
 Union College in 1843, and that of LL. D. in 1862. 
 His published works alone are enough to make a reputa- 
 tion for any reasonable man, and will always remain a 
 monument of his learning and industry. They are con- 
 stantly quoted as authority in the Courts. We have heard 
 one Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States 
 say that upon the "rules of war" the Supreme Court 
 considered General Halleck as "the best authority." 
 But his double life of civillian and soldier has been so 
 full, so crowded, we may say, that his authorship seems 
 almost a secondary thing in his history. 
 
 In September, 1848, he was appointed Professor of 
 Engineering in "Lawrence's Scientific School" of Har- 
 vard University, Massachusetts, which appointment he 
 declined. 
 
 General Halleck has been one of the best abused men 
 in the country. As General-in-Chief he was forced to 
 
380 EEPRESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 occupy a position misunderstood, even in the army. It 
 was one of responsibility without power. He had no 
 authority to act otherwise than was approved by the 
 President and the Secretary of War. He could simply 
 advise them, and then act as they saw best; the nation 
 holding him responsible for the simple execution, in good 
 faith, of orders that were oftentimes in direct conflict with 
 his own judgment. When General Grant succeeded him 
 the people had become heartily tired of the mixed Direc- 
 tory, and Congress conferred upon that General powers 
 that had never been granted to his predecessors. 
 
 General Halleck exhibited a commendable spirit of 
 self-sacrifice in remaining in Washington as Grant's chief- 
 of-stafiP, after his own experience of the annoyances sur- 
 rounding an army Headquarters so inconveniently near 
 the seat of Government. 
 
 The General has certainly betrayed none of the pro- 
 fessional jealousy supposed to be characteristic of military 
 men, and which has impaired the usefulness of some of 
 our most prominent soldiers. It was he that first discov- 
 ered and nourished the war-like qualities of Sheridan. 
 It was he that recommended, first, Buell and Grant, and 
 then C. F. Smith for promotion as Major Generals of Volun- 
 teers — Badeau being mistaken in asserting that Smith was 
 recommended before Grant. He was also an earnest ad- 
 vocate of the claims of Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Meade, 
 and McPherson, for promotion in the regular army. 
 During the war he was in most cordial cooperation with 
 these distinguished men. 
 
 It was Halleck that sustained Grant while in difficulties, 
 both after Fort Donelson and after Pittsburg Landing. 
 On the latter occasion the steady support of his command- 
 ing General was of vital importance to the present Chief 
 Magistrate. The pressure brought upon General Halleck 
 by the President, Secretary of War, and several of the 
 Western Governors, for the removal of Grant from all 
 command, was almost irresistible. To save him from be- 
 ing absolutely shelved. General Halleck placed him sec- 
 ond in command to himself, it being impossible to con- 
 tinue him at that time of popular prejudice in command 
 
HEXRY WAGER HALLECK. 381 
 
 of one of the armies. These circumstances have been 
 gravely misrepresented by Badeau in his life of Grant. 
 It is not true that Halleck ever issued orders for Banks 
 to supersede Grant at Yicksburg. Such action ^Yas un- 
 doubtedly discussed by his superiors, but General Halleck 
 had no desire to see Grant superseded. 
 
 Again, just before the battle of Nashville, General 
 Grant becoming impatient at the apparent slowness of 
 Thomas' movements, directed that he should be relieved; 
 but Halleck' s faith in Thomas was so strong that, al- 
 though entirely unsupported by the Administration in 
 such action, he assumed the responsibility of withholding 
 the order. A glorious victory was the result of the op- 
 portunity thus preserved to General Thomas. 
 
 The friends of McClellan charged his removal from 
 command to Halleck's influence; but although urged by 
 the Secretary of War, and nearly the entire Cabinet, to 
 join with them in recommending that change, he refused 
 to comply. 
 
 Neither was General Halleck responsible for the ap- 
 pointment to or removal from command of Burnside or 
 Hooker. When it was determined, however, to relieve 
 the latter, the General recommended Meade as his suc- 
 cessor. 
 
 General Halleck married, in 1855, a granddaughter of 
 Alexander Hamilton, and daughter of John C. Hamilton, 
 Author of '^History of the Republic of the United States," 
 ^'Life of Hamilton," ''Works of Hamilton," etc. He has 
 only one child, a son, now thirteen years old. The General 
 is a very wealthy man, having made his fortune out of the 
 professional emoluments of his practice of law in Califor- 
 nia. His firm, owdng in a great degree, to the knowledge 
 of the Mexican language, and titles, and customs acquired 
 during his early residence on the Pacific by the General, 
 did probably the largest and most profitable land business 
 in procuring the confirmation of Spanish grants, ever 
 done in the United States by one law firm. 
 
 In June, 1869, under orders from headquarters at 
 Washington, General Halleck relinquished to General 
 Thomas the command of the Department of the Pacific, 
 
382 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and assumed that of the Department of the South^ with 
 headquarters at Louisville, Kentucky, where he is now 
 stationed. He lives in a style becoming his position and 
 means, but entirely without ostentation — cautious, wise, 
 of untiring industry, of great research — having at com- 
 mand vast stores of patiently-acquired information upon 
 almost all subjects. Conservative and just by nature, he 
 is calculated to be a safe adviser, and we trust and be- 
 lieve that his days of useful service are only commenced. 
 He showed, when a young man, in the actions with the 
 enemy in Lower California and Mexico, that impetuous 
 personal bravery so befitting the young soldier, and indeed 
 so necessary to make up the perfect commander. At 
 West Point, in matters of discipline especially, he was 
 always looked upon, even when a boy, as an authority, 
 and his boyish decisions are even yet quoted at the 
 "Point." 
 
 The portrait accompanying this sketch gives a fair 
 idea of his personal appearance, and justifies the soubri- 
 quet given him by his soldiers, of "Old Brains." He is 
 about 5 feet 11 inches in height, and weighs about 190 
 pounds. His smile is very genial, and his whole bearing 
 is courteous and dignified. 
 
 General Halleck belongs peculiarly to California, and 
 is identified with its history; he owes it almost all, and 
 it owes him much. Until the breaking out of the civil 
 war, he always voted with the Democratic party, and his 
 sympathies are with that party, except inasmuch as they 
 have been changed by the events of the war. When 
 peace was declared between the United States and Mex- 
 ico, General Halleck was perhaps the most influential and 
 best known man in California ; but he is not fitted for the 
 arts of the successful politician, otherwise he would un- 
 doubtedly have been sent as one of our first Senators to 
 the National Capital. As it was he received 18 votes 
 for U. S. Senator, which were almost enough to elect. 
 He is a member of the Society of California Pioneers, and 
 is President of the Society of Veterans of the Mexican 
 War, an organization in which he seems to take much 
 interest. His home is in California, and we may well be 
 
HENRY WAGER HALLECK. 383 
 
 glad that we have so sagacious and so able a man ready- 
 in war or in peace to aid and to guide us. This is not 
 the time to discuss his qualities as the great general, nor 
 are we qualified for the task ; but w^e may be permitted 
 to say that it is by no means proven, that under the same 
 circumstances he would not have been the equal of the 
 best soldiers the war has produced. 
 
 One Napoleonic quality, we certainly know he pos- 
 sessed in a high degree — the power of judging and choos- 
 ing men. Always, from the first, he recognized the lofty 
 military merit of such men as McClellan, Sherman, Lee, 
 Thomas, and others, and the qualities of that most suc- 
 cessful of all of them — our present President. 
 
 History will do justice to the great services he ren- 
 dered his country, while performing his arduous and deli- 
 cate duties at Washington during the war. His negative 
 services were, perhaps, even more valuable than his pos- 
 itive. Officially associated with civillians claiming to un- 
 derstand the whole art of war, whose policies and plans 
 were constantly changing, a ''break" and a balance-wheel 
 were both absolutely needed. We believe that General 
 Halleck was the right man in the right place at the right 
 time, and did as much as any human being could do under 
 those anomalous and fearful circumstances ; and posterity, 
 when all is known, will honor him for what he prevented 
 as well as for what he accomplished. 
 
 
DAYID C. BRODERICK. 
 
 IT is a remarkable absurdity for an American biography 
 to commence with the humbleness of the birth of its 
 subject. In this land, it is doubtful if the scion of any 
 family can show a coat-of-arms with quarterings sufficient 
 to entitle him to Maltese knighthood, or satisfactory to 
 an Austrian chamberlain. Almost all family lines, pre- 
 tentious or honest, will be found not only '' waxed at the 
 other end," but nearer still to the gentle propositus, ''by 
 some plebeian vocation." There is something ridiculous 
 in the long, barren lines of Ebenezers and Ezekiels hung 
 about the loins of Mayflower progenitors that, like the 
 strings of dried fruit in a New England kitchen, form the 
 pride of the inglorious but not mute Puritan genealogical 
 minds. It is not how long the trailing root has crept 
 below the shallow soil, but how high the oak towers 
 above, that measures our admiration of ancestral qualifi- 
 cations. 
 
 Nor is gentility south of Mason and Dixon's line sub- 
 stantial enough to bear the pruning of a heraldic visita- 
 tion. American agrarianism has proved too much for 
 primogeniture and landed chiefs; and Sir Bernard Burke 
 would look with no small degree of suspicion at even the 
 most flourishing family tree, however illustrated by Vir- 
 ginian generosity or the punctiliousness of South Caro- 
 linian honor. 
 
 David Colbrith Broderick. therefore, need not pite- 
 ously and in forma pauperis claim additional credit for 
 obstacles surmounted by him as a poor man in a land 
 25 
 
386 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 where all start alike comparatively equally light in purse 
 and family influence. 
 
 One fact, however, might be noted: he was of Irish 
 extraction. 'No Yankee angularity marred and narrowed 
 his soul at the outset in life ; no Calvinistic superstition or 
 bigotry barred his mind to generous impressions ; no New 
 England twang marred or prejudiced his tongue. He was 
 not obliged to carry the pro-slavery burden about, like a 
 hereditary hump, to be guarded from insult and injury. 
 He could therefore assume the character of a national 
 man with, more sincerity than most of those who were his 
 coadjutors in political life. Not stunted by New England 
 barrenness, nor rendered perverse by Southern impetu- 
 osity, Broderick may well be considered fortunate in his 
 breeding, in spite of the apparent disadvantages of im- 
 perfect education and a youth of toil. 
 
 He v/as born in the city of Washington, under the 
 very shadow, as it were, of the Capitol, on the fourth 
 day of February, 1820. His parents were Irish — his father 
 a stonecutter. In Broderick' s sixth year, the family 
 moved to New York city, where they settled permanently. 
 
 Broderick received but little instruction in those days. 
 Even before his father's death, which occurred in his 
 fourteenth year, he had learned to assist in the occupa- 
 tion his parent pursued. In his seventeenth year, he was 
 apprenticed regularly to the trade, and followed it sys- 
 tematically for some years. 
 
 At that period, as well by reason of the necessity 
 which proud poverty must meet to battle with the world, 
 as from the fact that he was an elder brother, and as such 
 had boyish battles to fight, and boyish airs of command 
 to aftect, he acqinred w^hat might be termed an honest 
 arrogance, not founded in conceit or egotism, but which 
 was a characteristic of physical temperament rather than 
 of his mind. It became part of his manner, as year by 
 year the circumstances which elicited it were changed in 
 character but not in force. But Broderick was a veritable 
 leader of men. Neither want of polish or wealth could 
 deprive him of his place in society, or prevent his stand- 
 ing forth a Saul among his brethren. 
 
DAVID C. ERODERICK. 387 
 
 Accident, more than any personal taste, made him a 
 publican. In 1841, he kept a place called " Subterranean 
 Hall;" and the year after, another, known as '' Republican 
 Hall." This employment, however, must have been a 
 mere makeshift, such as every man in California, how- 
 ever prosperous, has at times been obliged to seize — a 
 sudden and disagreeable refuge from the storms of pov- 
 erty. He was meanw^hile rapidly working his way through 
 the temporary crust of ignorance, and making himself 
 respected and understood among his fellows. 
 
 At that time, the Democratic party in New York and 
 elsew^here was gradually falling into two ranks, marked 
 by the energy of different generations — the Old Hunkers 
 and the Young Democracy. To the latter, Broderick 
 was joined; and with it, in the local politics, he soon 
 became identified. 
 
 He also was prominent in the Fire organization, and 
 was actively engaged as foreman in the Howard Engine 
 Company No. 34, corner of Christopher and Hudson 
 streets, in his District. 
 
 To the routine mind of the East that bends round- 
 shouldered over its ledger, and stares through its well- 
 to-do spectacles with disfavor at organized rufiianism, as 
 embodied in a volunteer Fire Department, there is some- 
 thing inexplicable in the idea that it should form a power 
 in the State ; that there should step forth from its ranks 
 men of moral courage, of heroic wills, of promptness in 
 speech and action, rendering their possessors no mean 
 antagonists in forensic dispute. Yet it was from such 
 sources that no small part of the power of the senatorial 
 ex-mason sprung, and by it that his character was some- 
 what tinctured. His command over men was not the 
 suave, polished, silvery-tongued utterance of cloistered 
 scholarship, nor the crafty hammering of ^ the special 
 legal pleader: it was rather the hoarse, startling outcry 
 that thrilled through the fireman's trumpet, and that 
 found its result in the instantaneous comprehension of 
 his hearers, and their almost involuntary acquiescence 
 therein. 
 
 In 1842, Broderick's mother died; and two years 
 
388 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 after, his only brother, Richard, who had just been ap- 
 pointed to the United States Naval School, was killed by 
 the chance explosion of an old bomb that had been 
 thrown among the refuse iron of a foundry on Charleston 
 street, New York. Thus Broderick was without a rela- 
 tive in this country; and the solitariness of his bereaved 
 condition cast a melancholy almost bordering on morose- 
 ness over his whole manner and character. 
 
 It was during these years that he gathered the ele- 
 ments of political strength that never after deserted him. 
 Party friends, better fortuned as to literary and historic 
 learning, then opened their social circles and library doors 
 to him, and the opportunities thus offered were seized 
 and intelligently used by him to measurably repair the 
 gaps left by early neglect. Though, so to speak, of a 
 rude and unkempt turn as to bookish training, yet Brod- 
 erick was not a man utterly void of any culture of even 
 the highest order. However he may have found the 
 favorable time and circumstances, he read and appre- 
 ciated the highest and most sesthetic poets of his time 
 with an understanding that would have done honor to 
 the mellowest scholarship of the old country. 
 
 Such a man, with an earnest eye for knowledge, alive 
 to the thoughts and passions of great ones gone by, does 
 far more satisfactory honor to the book from which lie 
 receives instruction, to the page of history which he 
 searches, or to the bard in whom he finds the expression 
 of his heart, than the lazy saunterer through sterile text- 
 books, leaning on the crutches of grammatical discipline, 
 pushed and lifted along by weary instructors, until in due 
 time the barren academic degree drops into his lap like a 
 rotten windfall, for which he himself has not striven, and 
 which he has not deserved. 
 
 The Parthenon of Broderick' s intellect was never 
 finished. It was continually shooting up into new col- 
 umns that gave promise at some future day of approxi- 
 mate perfection ; and had his life been as long as those 
 of the average of English or even American statesmen, 
 we may well consider that its progressive and expanding 
 condition would have brought an old age tempered with 
 
DAVID C. BRODEHICK. 389 
 
 all the refinement, as well of books as of polite conversa- 
 tion and communion. 
 
 In the year 1846, Broderick made his first loDg politi- 
 cal stride forwards. He was nominated for Congress by 
 the Young Democracy of his District; and though de- 
 feated, the fight only showed the partisan strength and 
 personal popularity then grasped by him. 
 
 In June, 1849, Broderick arrived in California, and 
 was for some time employed in the Assay Office or Mint 
 carried on by Samuel W. Haight on Clay street. Mr. 
 Broderick, though working as an operative in Mr. Haight's 
 establishment, became a candidate for the seat in the 
 State Senate left vacant by the election of the Hon. 
 Nathaniel Bennett to the Supreme Bench, and was 
 elected, and served as well the partial as the succeeding 
 full term. 
 
 His experience and tact in the matter of a volunteer 
 fire department became very acceptable to the new city 
 in those days of conflagrations; and he, together with 
 George W. Green, an ancient friend of the Atlantic side, 
 organized the first fire company in San Francisco, (Em- 
 pire Company, No. 1,) and became its foreman, with Mr. 
 Green for assistant. 
 
 He received a flattering evidence of his success as a 
 practical legislator at this time. On the resignation of 
 Governor Burnett, and Lieutenant Governor McDougal 
 becoming acting Governor, Mr. Broderick became Presi- 
 dent of the Senate, a position which he filled well, and 
 on the resignation of McDougal, a short time previous to 
 the expiration of his term, Mr. Broderick became virtu- 
 ally Governor of the State. 
 
 When Broderick was a State Senator, the election of 
 United States Senator became a duty of that Legislature, 
 and Broderick received a warm Democratic support from 
 his colleagues; but the caucus held showed one more 
 vote for Mr. Weller, and Broderick cast his vote at the 
 election for his rival. 
 
 Broderick now became a private citizen, and by steadi- 
 ness, tact, and ability, acquired a fortune sufficient to 
 
390 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 place him at liberty to gratify his ambition in public 
 life. 
 
 He entered into the party struggles of the time, 
 bringing an energy and political tact that oftentimes in- 
 sured the success of his friends, otherwise doubtful. 
 
 Yet his method of concentrating his political forces 
 had nothing in it of the creeping style of trams and 
 snares. He made no concessions. He was no trimmer, 
 to yield to strength what weakness could not have ob- 
 tained. He planned with the political board fully con- 
 sidered, and his victories were as rigid as a game of chess. 
 No humble follower dared to intervene with variations 
 of the mode of attack or defence. The leader was the 
 same doiiiineering spirit who knew how to defend in 
 boyish days his weaker brother, and now stood by politi- 
 cal or personal friend against political or personal foe, 
 unflinching and unchanging. 
 
 Broderick wished a seat in the United States Senate. 
 It was a glorious ambition for one who as a boy had 
 known so much of the muddy side of life, and who had 
 now reached a pinnacle from which he might survey the 
 future, and choose the road preferable to him. 
 
 Broderick' s method of attaining his end brought upon 
 him all the personal and political hostility that for the 
 rest of his life closed about him. 
 
 Year after year, the Legislature met, now at Benicia, 
 now at Sacramento ; caucuses were held ; test votes were 
 cast; and Broderick failed to grasp the coveted honors, 
 retreating, however, only with the consciousness of no 
 defeat suffered. Now, it was his bitterest antagonist, 
 Dr. Gwin, now, it was Senator Foote that led a fragment- 
 ary opposition. 
 
 Broderick may have been wrong in all these fiery 
 political struggles. Ambition of every description has 
 its selfish side, at which attacks can be made, and the 
 citadel of its success forced. But the tenacity of the 
 man had something so honest about it, so frank and 
 glorious, that we, who sit and ponder to-day over the 
 battle which the single-hearted hero carried on — the 
 
DAVID C. BRODERICK. 391 
 
 harshness, the vindictiveness, and the hates of which 
 have hardly yet been healed — cannot but feel rejoiced at 
 the final success that crowned Broderick in 1856 with 
 senatorial honors. 
 
 In March, 1857, he took his seat in the Senate. The 
 early months of Broderick' s senatorial career were vexed 
 with troubles as to the distribution of patronage on the 
 Pacific coast. He was virtually divested of the influence 
 which he should have wielded at Washington, backed, as 
 he was, by so fair a support to employ in the interests of 
 the Buchanan administration, then struggling to maintain 
 an undivided party more Southern in its affection than 
 practicable in its projects. The political enemies who 
 had been defeated in California were entrenched in the 
 Capitol. To them, the ground was familiar. Their leader 
 was conversant with every nook and corner from which 
 place or profit might be acquired for his adherents; 
 while Broderick stood alone, coldly received by the 
 Government, and utterly unable to do that for his friends 
 and party which a senator elected as he had been would 
 be entitled to expect. In short, the power of official 
 recommendation, without which a United States Senator 
 is little more than a member of a grandiloquent debating 
 society, had been snatched from Broderick by the ad- 
 ministration, and delivered entirely and exclusively to 
 Senator Gwin and the party whose exponent he was. 
 
 Mr. Broderick differed from the administration upon 
 the great issue at that time between the two divisions of 
 the Democratic party. He was an advocate of the doc- 
 trine or dogma of popular territorial sovereignty as 
 enunciated by Mr. Douglas. The wisdom of that theory 
 has never been tested. It is not for us to say that its 
 expounders were correct in whole or in part ; nor, on the 
 other hand, has the fiercest opponent the logical privilege 
 to proclaim it false. The Gordian knot has since been 
 rudely sundered by the civil war; and it is useless to-day 
 to follow out the strands and measure the strength and 
 tortuousness of every filament. 
 
 To us, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Broderick can be nothing 
 but prophets, uninspired perhaps, but honest, who cried 
 
392 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE' PACIFIC. 
 
 aloud, whose words were not regarded, and whose pro- 
 phetic mission was assailed with a bitterness and violence 
 that succeeding years should hasten to forget. 
 
 Though unsupported by friends or party, Mr. Brod- 
 erick won the national respect in his short career in the 
 Senate. It is pleasant to find the patriarchal Seward on 
 the one hand, and the fiery Toombs on the other, join in 
 frank commendations of their young colleague's character 
 when the resolutions of respect for his memory were in- 
 troduced at the next session. 
 
 He returned to California to renew the battle which 
 his enemies now backed by administration patronage, 
 waged against him. 
 
 There is a physical sort of fervor about a Californian 
 political campaign. The materiality of the daily life of 
 the Pacific seems to swell and writhe about the forensic 
 disputants. Force claims its place as an element of the 
 fiery logic ; and words are rather the damascene flowers 
 upon the sabre than the steel itself. 
 
 It was such a canvass that Broderick undertook in 
 1859. It was an abnormal excitement that at that time 
 drove forth his. every utterance in defence of his views 
 on the question^ of the day. 
 
 A thorough gymnast wrought up to a pitch of physical 
 excitement feels but imperfectly the scratches and bruises 
 that to an unhealthy frame are serious injuries. He 
 gives and takes severe blows that are misprised, because 
 his exuberant health will, he knows, bring a rapid 
 healing. 
 
 To the political advocate, who steps trained and 
 warned upon the platform to struggle for ambitious grati- 
 fication, the same kind of indiff*erence should be expected 
 morally. The antagonist who comes up at each fresh 
 encounter with no smile on his face, and with rancor 
 growing in his bosom, violates the laws of the political 
 ring, and should be ruled out. 
 
 Broderick was abused in the harshest manner by his 
 political opponents. Expressions of contempt were 
 showered on him with a disregard for any personal 
 feelings or personal purity that he might have claimed. 
 
DAVID C. BRODERICK. 393 
 
 On the 24th of June, 1859, the Hon. David S. Terry, 
 then the senior Judge on the bench of the Supreme 
 Court, delivered a speech at Sacramento, eulogistic of 
 the Buchanan party and its principles, and claiming it 
 and them as the only really Democratic and consistent 
 organization, followed with a sharp criticism of the Re- 
 publican party; and animadverting to the Douglas party 
 in the State, used the following language: 
 
 What other party have we opposed to us? A miserable remnant 
 of a faction sailing under false colors, trj^ng to obtain votes under 
 false pretences. They have no distinction: they are entitled to none. 
 They are the followers of one man — the personal chattels of a single 
 individual whom they are ashamed of. They belong, body and 
 breeches, to David C. Broderick. They are yet ashamed to ac- 
 knowledge their master, and are calling themselves, forsooth, Douglas 
 Democrats, when it is known — w^ell known to them as to us — that 
 the gallant senator from Illinois, whose voice has always been heard 
 in the advocacy of Democratic principles, who is not now disunited 
 from the Democratic party, has no affiliation with them, no feeling 
 in common with them. 
 
 When Broderick read this speech at the table of the 
 International Hotel, he was hurt at the contemptuous 
 tone in which he himself was alluded to as the party 
 leader; and in the presence of the assembled company 
 gave way to a burst of bitterness as to Judge Terry, from 
 whom he had expected a kinder mode of expression. Mr. 
 D. W. Perley, a partner of Terry's, took up the defence 
 of his friend, and offered to challenge Broderick, who, 
 in a note, refused a hostile meeting with Mr. Perley, 
 or any one else, until after the political campaign was 
 ended. 
 
 The political canvass, in which Broderick and his ad- 
 herents were unsuccessful, was closed ; but unfortunately 
 the hasty and violent remarks made by Broderick, when 
 stung by Judge Terry's sneer, were not forgotten. 
 
 On the 8th of September, 1859, Judge Terry wrote 
 to Broderick, referring to language used by him at the 
 International Hotel two months previously. This note 
 to Perley, declining a meeting until the campaign was 
 over, had been published, and the time having elapsed, 
 Judge Terry took the earliest opportunity to demand, 
 
394 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 through his friend Calhoun Benham^ a retraction of the 
 offending remarks. 
 
 To this letter, Mr. Broderick made immediate answer, 
 requesting particular mention of the language deemed 
 offensive, in order to prevent future misrepresentation. 
 
 A letter followed from Judge Terry, stating that the 
 remarks alluded to were in substance as follows: ^^ I have 
 heretofore considered and spoken of Judge Terry as the only 
 honest man on the Supreme Court Bench ^ but I now take it cdl 
 hackr The retraction of language calculated to reflect 
 upon his character as an officer or a gentleman was again 
 demanded by Judge Terry. 
 
 To this Broderick replied that his words were occa- 
 sioned by offensive allusions concerning him made by 
 Judge Terry in the convention at Sacramento, and that 
 as nearly as possible the language he (Broderick) used 
 was as follows: '"^During Judge Terry's incarceration hy the 
 Vigilance Committee^ I paid two hundred dollars a iveek to sup- 
 port a newspaper in his defence. I have also stated, heretofore, 
 that I considered him the only honest man on the Supreme Bench, 
 hut I take it all hack^ Ko retraction was made, and he 
 added that Judge Terry himself was the proper one to 
 decide whether this language afforded grounds for offence. 
 
 This letter was followed by one from Judge Terry, 
 demanding, through his friend Mr. Benham, the satisfac- 
 tion usual among gentlemen. Mr. Broderick named Hon. 
 J. C. McKibbin and D. D. Colton as his friends on the 
 occasion, and the terms of the meeting were arranged. 
 
 On the 12th of September, they met at the Lake 
 House Ranch, near Laguna Merced, about six miles from 
 San Francisco, and were arrested. No offence having as 
 yet been committed. Police Judge Coon released the 
 parties, and the meeting took place the next day, near 
 the same locality. 
 
 Some sixty or seventy persons witnessed the duel. 
 The morning was a clear, bright, sunny one, and a little 
 after six o'clock both parties arrived on the spot. 
 
 Mr. Broderick was attended by Hon. J. C. McKibbin 
 and D. D. Colton, his seconds, and Dr. Loehr as surgeon; 
 while Judge Terry was accompanied by Calhoun Benham 
 
DAVID C. BRODERICK. 395 
 
 and Col. Thomas Hayes as seconds, and Drs. Hammond 
 and Aylette as his surgeons. 
 
 Both seemed in good spirits, standing apart in con- 
 versation with their attendants. The weapons used were 
 eight-inch Belgium pistols, both set with hair-triggers, 
 and the distance marked off ten paces. In pursuance 
 of the arrangements of the day before, the choice of 
 ground belonged to Mr. Broderick and the selection of 
 the pistols to Judge Terry. 
 
 When the articles of the meeting were first drawn 
 up, it was objected to on the part of Judge Terry that 
 the word 'Tire!" was not to be followed by the usual 
 ''One — Two — Three!" but by simply the words " One — 
 Two!" The friends of Broderick, however, insisted upon 
 this article remaining as it was, and the point was carried. 
 
 The code dudio being read aloud, the contestants took 
 their places. While Broderick' s position seemed careless 
 and somewhat awkward, that of his adversary was rather 
 studied and his manner cooler. 
 
 Just before seven o'clock, the words, "Fire! — One! 
 Two!" were spoken. Broderick raised his weapon, but 
 it exploded before he could take aim, probably owing to 
 the delicate touch of the hair-trigger, the ball from his 
 pistol striking the ground only four or five paces in ad- 
 vance of where he stood. 
 
 A moment later, Judge Terry fired, the ball from his 
 pistol striking Broderick full in the right breast, causing 
 him to fall before his seconds could reach him. 
 
 He was taken to the house of his friend, L. Haskell, 
 Esq., at Black Point, and visited there by many friends. 
 The best of medical attention could do little for him. 
 His sufferings were great, and about nine o'clock of 
 Friday morning, September 16th, he died. 
 
 All the various Courts, Federal, State, and Municipal, 
 adjourned upon hearing of the death of David C. Brod- 
 erick. 
 
 The feeling throughout the city and the State was 
 intense, and many public men paid tribute to the dis- 
 tinguished senator's memory by eloquent words of praise 
 and regret. 
 
396 REPEESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The committee having in charge the arrangements 
 connected with the funeral, refused the kind offer of 
 General Haven to furnish a military escort, deeming it 
 better that the ceremonies should be strictly of a civic 
 character. His body lay until his burial in the Union 
 Hotel on the Plaza, and was visited by almost every 
 citizen, and shown marks of respectful attention by all. 
 
 The funeral took place on the afternoon of Sunday, 
 the 18th of September. Col. Baker was selected to 
 deliver the funeral eulogy, and Broderick's remains were 
 escorted to Lone Mountain Cemetery by an immense 
 assemblage, who showed the feelings of deeply seated 
 regard and sorrow. The city was draped in mourning, 
 the flags on buildings and in the harbor were at half-mast, 
 and every thing wore a solemn and impressive appearance. 
 
 The train of events which seemed to make the death 
 of the Senator the irresistible necessity of the tragedy, 
 pointed to Dr. Gwin rather than to Judge Terry as his 
 veritable opponent. It was not on the same plane with 
 Terry that Broderick's acts were projected. The offence 
 rankling between them was an episode rather than the 
 absorbing emotion ; and the frightful unities of the 
 drama would seem to have been better met, had Gwin 
 rather than Terry pointed the fatal pistol that finished 
 the career of our hero. 
 
 The duel that closed the life of Broderick has been 
 the theme of much political and personal scandal, affect- 
 ing the characters and standing of the prominent men of 
 the ultra wing of the party of which Broderick was the 
 partial expositor in the State of California. 
 
 The minutest details of the combat have been sifted 
 to find material for exciting paragraphs in the journals; 
 and even a sort of superstitious glamor has been thrown 
 about the remote cause of the strife. 
 
 But the issues can be narrowed down to a few propo- 
 sitions : It is wrong to engage in duels ; Broderick com- 
 mitted the ^vrong; it is wrong to use language for which 
 nothing but a personal meeting can atone; Broderick 
 used such language. Hp attempted to evade the meeting 
 with a dignity, far different from cowardice; but failing 
 
DAVID C. BRODERICK. 397 
 
 to do SO, went out like the brave heart that he was, fear- 
 lessly, seriously, with no mean repinings, no mawkish 
 sentiment, no driveling about the morality of the act, 
 and met his death, dealt under the code which he himself 
 had recognized, and at other times invoked. Whether 
 one pattern of pistol has a mechanical advantage or disad- 
 vantage over another; whether one combatant has a 
 steadier eye or hand or more or less skill than another, 
 are questions that cannot be raised on the field of 
 rencontre without turning prudence into something worse. 
 Broderick scorned to raise such quibbles himself, and 
 this is no place for their discussion. 
 
 A little more generosity in pressing home the offence, 
 a little less anxiety for the vulgar satisfaction of the day, 
 a grander peering into futurity to see the dim reflection 
 that the years threw back of the motives and feelings that 
 then urged him in his course, would have cast no stain 
 and given ground for no mean imputation on the personal 
 character or courage of his antagonist. The bitter poli- 
 tical strife that followed in after years, between North 
 and South, would have swallowed up in a more catholic 
 struggle the feverish hostilities that in those times ex- 
 ploded fitfully in California, between the impetuous 
 spirits of either faction. 
 
 The bravery which led Broderick out to a meeting, from 
 which it was the sum of possibilities that he could not 
 return alive, was the same fire that a few years after blazed 
 in the heart of one of his eulogists at the fatal cannon's 
 mouth on the field of battle. It is the spirit that has 
 made the Californian the boyish hero among his peers of 
 the other States — reckless of his risks, ready to resent 
 injuries, and obedient to the law,, only when that law was 
 in keeping with its original purpose, and not the foi^tifi- 
 cation planted about greater wrong. 
 
 Broderick was, in the broadest sense of the hackneyed 
 phrase, a representative man. In him could be marked 
 the effect of the fullest liberty upon an Irish intellect. 
 The weight of ignorance, poverty, and sorrow once flung 
 from him, there was no mark of the shackles left. There 
 
398 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 was as much of the sovereignty of will about his mental 
 actions as ever developed from a royal cradle. 
 
 Sprung from a race from whom prosperity, mental 
 improvement, and creed almost have been snatched, 
 instead of being a cringing follower in the wake of others' 
 errors, Broderick was more thoughtful of the interests of 
 true republicanism, more considerate and unswerving in 
 his regard for the interests of his fellows, a nobler citizen 
 in fact than more pretentious children of the Republic, 
 w^ho used the lap of the national mother as a ground 
 whereon to battle for their toys of theories — unsubstantial 
 products of fallacious sentiment. He acknowledged all 
 the defects and failings which could possibly be ascribed 
 to him; and having thus stripped himself of every conceit 
 and pretension not in accordance with the character upon 
 which he was to build his life, and having accepted the 
 position into which circumstances had thrown him, with 
 all its asperities, he marched forward upon a career of 
 pure glory, closed as in the days of ancient chivalry on 
 the field of battle. 
 
 Delivered over the dead body of David C. Broderick, 
 AT Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, on the 18th 
 of September, 1859. 
 
 Citizens of California: 
 
 A Senator lies dead in our midst ! He is wrapped in ;i bloody 
 shroud, and we, to whom his toils and cares were given, a:e about 
 to bear him to the place appointed for all the living. It is not fit 
 that such a man should pass to the tomb unheralded; it i^ not fit 
 that such a Life should steal unnoticed to its close; it is not fit that 
 such a death should call forth no rebuke, or be followed by no 
 public lamentation. It is this conviction which impels the gather- 
 ing of this assemblage. We are here of every station and pursuit, 
 of every creed and character, each in his capacity of citizen, to swell 
 the mournful tribute which the majesty of the people offers; to the 
 unreplying dead. He lies to-day surrounded by little of funeral 
 
DAVID C. B RODERICK. 399 
 
 pomp. No banners droop above the bier, no melancholy music 
 floats upon the reluctant air. The hopes of high-hearted friends 
 droop like fading flowers upon his breast, and the struggling sigh 
 compels the tear in eyes that seldom weep. Around him are those 
 who have known him best and loved him longest ; who have shared 
 the triumph, and endured the defeat. Near him are the gravest 
 and noblest of the State, possessed by a grief at once earnest and' 
 sincere ; while beyond, the masses of the people whom he loved, 
 and for whom his life was given, gather like a thunder-cloud of 
 swelling and indignant grief. 
 
 In such a presence, fellow-citizens, let us linger for a moment 
 at the portals of the tomb, whose shadowy arches vibrate to the 
 public heart, to speak a few brief words of the man, of his life, and 
 of his death. 
 
 Mr. Broderick was born in the District of Columbia, in 1819. 
 He was of Irish descent, and of obscure and respectable parentage; 
 he had little of early advantages, and never summoned to his aid 
 a complete and finished education. His boyhood and his early 
 manhood were passed in the City of New York, and the loss of his 
 father early stimulated him to the efibrts which maintained his sur- 
 viving mother and brother, and served also to fix and form his 
 character even in his boyhood. His love for his mother was his 
 first and most distinctive trait of character, and when his brother 
 died — an early and sudden death — the shock gave a serious and re- 
 flective cast to his habits and his thoughts, which marked them to 
 the last hour of his life. 
 
 He was always filled with pride, and energy, and ambition — his 
 pride was in the manliness and force of his character, and no man 
 had more reason than he for such pride. His energy was manifest 
 in the most resolute struggles with poverty and obscurity, and his 
 ambition impelled him to seek a foremost place in the great race for 
 honorable power. 
 
 Up to the time of his arrival in California, his life had been 
 passed amid events incident to such a character. Fearless, self-re- 
 liant, open in his enmities, warm in his friendships, wedded to his 
 opinions, and marching directly to his purpose through and over 
 all opposition, his career was checkered with success and defeat : 
 but even in defeat his energies were strengthened and his character 
 developed. When he reached these shores, his keen observation 
 taught him at once that he trod a broad field, and that a higher 
 career was before him. He had no false pride: sprung from a 
 people and of a race whose vocation was labor, he toiled with his 
 own hands, and sprang at a bound from the workshop to the 
 legislative hall. From that time there congregated around him 
 and against him the elements of success and defeat — strong friend- 
 ships, bitter enmities, high praise, malignant calumnies — but he 
 trod with a free and a proud step that onward path which has led 
 him to glory and the grave. 
 
 It would be idle for me, at this hour and in this place, to speak 
 of all that history with unmitigated praise : it will be idle for his 
 
4.00 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 enemies hereafter to deny his claim to noble virtues and high pur- 
 poses. "When, in the Legislature, he boldly denounced the special 
 legislation which is the curse of a new country, he proved his cour- 
 age and his rectitude. When he opposed the various and some- 
 times successful schemes to strike out the salutary provisions of the 
 Constitution which guarded free labor, he was true to all the bet- 
 ter instincts of his life. When, prompted by ambition and the ad- 
 miration of his friends, he first sought a seat in the Senate of the 
 United States, he aimed by legitimate effort to attain the highest 
 of all earthly positions, and failed with honor. 
 
 It is my duty to say that, in my judgment, when at a later pe- 
 riod he sought to anticipate the Senatorial election, he committed 
 an error which I think he lived to regret. It would have been a 
 violation of the time principles of representative government, which 
 no reason, public or private, could justify, and could never have met 
 the permanent approval of good and wise men. Yet, while I say 
 this over his bier, let me remind you of the temptation to such an 
 error, of the plans and reasons which prompted it — of the many 
 good pur^ooses it was intended to effect. And if ambition, " the 
 last infirmity of noble minds," led him for a moment from the bet- 
 ter path, let me remind you how nobly he regained it. 
 
 It is impossible to speak within the limits of this address, of the 
 events of that session of the Legislature at which he was elected to 
 the Senate of the United States; but some things should not be 
 passed in silence here. The contest betw^een him and the present 
 Senator had been bitter and personal. He had triumphed. He 
 had been wonderfully sustained by his friends, and stood confess- 
 edly ' ' the first in honor and the first in place. '' He yielded to an 
 appeal made to his magnanimity by his foe. If he judged unwisely, 
 he has paid the forfeit well. Never in the history of political war- 
 fare has any j^ublic man been so pursued; never has malignity so 
 exhausted itself. 
 
 Fellow-citizens! the man whose body lies before you was your 
 Senator. From the moment of his election his character has been 
 maligned, his motives attacked, his courage impeached, his pat- 
 riotism assailed. It has been a system tending to one end: and 
 the end is here. What was his crime ? Review his history — con- 
 sider his public acts — weigh his private character — and before the 
 grave encloses him forever, judge between him and his enemies! 
 
 As a man — to be judged in his private relations — who was his 
 superior? It was his boast, and amid the general license of a new 
 country^ it was a proud one, that his most scrutinizing enemy could 
 fix no single act of immorality upon him! Temperate, decorous, 
 self-restrained, he had passed through all the excitements of Cali- 
 fornia, unstained. No man could charge him with broken faith or 
 violated trust; of habits simple and inexpensive, he had no lust of 
 gain. He overreached no man's weakness in a bargain, and with- 
 held from no man his just dues. Never, in the history of the State, 
 has there been a citizen who has borne public relations, more stain- 
 less in all respects than he. 
 
DAVID C. BRODERICK. 401 
 
 But it is not by this standard he is to be judged. He was a 
 public man, and his memory demands a public judgment. What 
 was his public crime? The answer is in his own words : ' '/ die be- 
 cause I loas opposed to a corrupt administration, and the extension of 
 slavery. " Fellow-citizens, they are remarkable words, uttered at -a 
 very remarkable moment: they involve the history of his Sena- 
 torial career, and of its sad and bloody termination . 
 
 When Mr. Broderick entered the Senate, he had been elected 
 at the beginning of a Presidential term as the friend of the Presi- 
 dent elect, having undoubtedly been one of his most influential sup- 
 2)orters. There were unquestionably some things in the exercise 
 of the appointing power which he could have wished otherwise; 
 but he had every reason to remain wdth the Administration, which 
 could be supposed to weigh with a man in his position. He had 
 heartily maintained the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, as set 
 forth in the Cincinnati Platform, and he never wavered in his sup- 
 port till the day of his death. But when in his judgment the Pres- 
 ident betrayed his obligations to his party and countiy — when, in 
 the whole series of acts in relation to Kansas, he proved recreant to 
 his pledges and instructions — when the whole power of the Ad- 
 ministration was brought to bear upon the legislative branch of 
 the Government, in order to force Slavery'' upon an unwilling peo- 
 ple — then, in the high performance of his duty as a Senator, he 
 rebuked the Administration by his voice and his vote, and stood 
 by his principles. It is true, he adopted no half-way measures. 
 He threw the whole weight of his character into the ranks of the 
 Opposition. He endeavored to arouse the people to an indignant 
 sense of the iniquitous tyranny of federal power, and, kindling with 
 the contest, became its fiercest and firmest opponent. Fellow-cit- 
 izens, whatever may have been your political predilections, it is 
 impossible to repress your admiration, as you review the conduct 
 of the man who lies hushed in death before you. You read in his 
 history a glorious imitation of the great popular leaders who have 
 opposed the despotic influences of power in other lands, and in 
 our own. When John Hampden died on Chalgrove field, he sealed 
 his devotion to popular liberty with his blood. The eloquence of 
 Fox found the sources of its inspiration in his love for the peojDle. 
 W^hen Senators conspired against Tiberius Gracchus, and the Tri- 
 bune of the peojDle fell beneath their daggers, it was jDOwer that 
 prompted the crime and demanded the sacrifice. Who can doubt, 
 if your Senator had suiTendered his free thought, and bent in sub- 
 mission to the rule of the Administration — who can doubt that in- 
 stead of resting on a bloody bier, he would have this day been re- 
 posing in the inglorious felicitude of Presidential sunshine ? 
 
 Fellow-citizens, let no man suppose that the death of the emi- 
 nent citizen of whom I speak was caused by any other reason than 
 that to which his own words assign it. It has been long foreshad- 
 owed — it was predicted by his friends — it was threatened by his 
 enemies : it was the consequence of intense i^olitical hatred. His 
 death was a political necessity, poorly veiled beneath the guise of a 
 
 26 
 
402 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 private quarrel. Here, in his own State, among those who mtness- 
 ed the late canvass, who know the contending leaders, among those 
 who know the antagonists on the bloody ground — here, the public 
 conviction is so thoroughly settled, that nothing need be said. Test- 
 ed by the correspondence itself, there was no cause, in morals, in 
 honor, in taste, by any code, by the custom of any civilized land, 
 there was no cause for blood. Let me repeat the story — it is as 
 brief as it is fatal : A Judge of the Supreme Court descends into a 
 political convention — it is just, however, to say that the occasion 
 was to return thanks to his friends for an unsuccessful support.. In 
 a speech bitter and personal he stigmatized Senator Broderick and 
 all his friends in words of contemptuous insult. When Mr. Brod- 
 erick saw that speech, he retorted, saying in substance, that he had 
 heretofore spoken of Judge Terry as an honest man, but that he 
 now took it back. When inquired of, he admitted that he had so 
 said, and connected liis words with Judge Terry's speech as prompt- 
 ing them. So far as Judge Terry personally was concerned, this 
 was the cause of mortal combat ; there was no other. 
 
 In the contest which has just terminated in the State, Mr. 
 Broderick had taken a leading part ; he had been engaged in con- 
 troversies very personal in their nature, because the subjects of pub- 
 lic discussion had involved the character and conduct of many pub- 
 lic and distinguished men. But Judge Terry was not one of these. 
 He was no contestant ; his conduct was not in issue; he had been 
 mentioned but once incidentally — in reply to his own attack — and, 
 except as it might be found in his peculiar traits or peculiar fitness, 
 there was no reason to suppose that he could seek any man's blood. 
 When William of Nassau, the deliverer of Holland, died in the pre- 
 sence of his wife and children, the hand that struck the blow was 
 not nerved by private vengeance. When the fourth Henry passed 
 unharmed amid the dangers of the field of Ivry, to perish in the 
 streets of his capital by the hand of a fanatic, he did not seek to 
 avenge a private grief. An exaggerated sense of personal honor — a 
 weak mind with choleric passions, intense sectional prejudice unit- 
 ed with great confidence in the use of arms — these sometimes serve 
 to stimulate the instruments which accomplish the deepest and dead- 
 liest purpose. 
 
 Fellow-citizens ! One year ago to-day I performed a duty, such 
 as I perform to-day, over the remains of Senator Ferguson, who 
 died as Broderick died, tangled in the meshes of the code of honor. 
 To-day there is another and more eminent sacrifice. To-day I re- 
 new my protest ; to-day I utter yours. The code of honor is a de- 
 lusion and a snare ; it palters with the hope of a true courage and 
 binds it at the feet of crafty and cruel skill. It surrounds its victim 
 with the pomp and grace of the procession, but leaves him bleed- 
 ing on the altar. It substitutes cold and deliberate preparation for 
 courageous and manly impulse, and arms the one to disarm the 
 other ; it may prevent fraud between practiced duelists who should 
 be forever without its pale, but it makes the mere "trick of the 
 weapon " superior to the noblest cause and the truest courage. Its 
 
DAVID C. BRODERICK. 403 
 
 pretence of equality is a lie — it is equal in all the form, it is iinjust 
 in all the substance — the habitude of arms, the early training, the 
 frontier life, the border war, the sectional custom, the life of leisure, 
 all these are advantages which no negotiation can neutralize, and 
 which no courage can overcome. 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, the protest is not only spoken, in your words 
 and in mine — it is written in indelible characters ; it is written in 
 the blood of Gilbert, in the blood of Ferguson, in the blood of 
 Broderick ; and the inscription will not altogether fade. 
 
 With the administration of the code in this particular case, I am 
 not here to deal. Amid passionate grief, let us strive to be just. I 
 give no currency to rumors of which personally I know nothing ; 
 there are other tribunals to which they may well be referred, and 
 this is not one of them. But I am here to say, that whatever in the 
 code of honor or out of it demands or allows a deadly combat 
 where there is not in all things entire and certain equality, is a 
 prostitution of the name, is an evasion of the substance^ and is a 
 shield, blazoned with the name of Chivalry, to cover the malignity 
 of murder. 
 
 And now, as the shadows turn toward the East, and we prepare 
 to bear these poor remains to their silent resting-place, let us not 
 seek to repress the generous pride which prompts a recital of noble 
 deeds and manly virtues. He rose unaided and alone ; he began 
 his career without family or fortune, in the face of difficulties ; he 
 inherited poverty and obscurity : he died a Senator in Congress, 
 having written his name in the history of the great struggle for the 
 rights of the people against the despotism of organization and the 
 corruption of power. He leaves in the hearts of his friends the 
 tenderest and the proudest recollections. He was honest, faithful, 
 earnest, sincere, generous and brave ; he felt in all the great crises 
 of his life that he was a leader in the ranks, that it was his high du- 
 ty to uphold the interests of the masses ; that he could not falter. 
 When he returned from that fatal field, while the dark wing of the 
 Archangel of Death was casting its shadows upon his brow, his 
 greatest anxiety was as to the performance of his duty. He felt 
 that all his strength and all his life belonged to the cause to which 
 he had devoted them. *' Baker," said he — and to me they were his 
 last words — ** Baker, when I was struck I tried to stand firm, but 
 the blow blinded me, and I could not '* I trust it is no shame to my 
 manhood that tears blinded me as he said it. Of his last hour I 
 have no heart to speak. He was the last of his race ; there was no 
 kindred hand to smooth his couch or wipe the death damp from his 
 brow ; but around that dying bed strong men, the friends of early 
 manhood, the devoted adherents of later life, bowed in irrepressible 
 grief, *'and lifted up their voices and wept" 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, the voice of lamentation is not uttered by 
 private friendship alone — the blow that struck his manly breast has 
 touched the heart of a people, and as the sad tidings spread, a 
 general gloom prevails. Who now shall speak for California? — who 
 be the interpreter of the wants of the Pacific coast ? Who can ap- 
 
404 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 peal to the communities of the Atlantic who love free labor ? "Who 
 can speak for masses of men with a passionate love for the classes 
 from whence he sprung? Who can defy the blandishments of 
 power, the insolence of office, the corruption of administrations? 
 What hopes are buried with him in the grave ! 
 
 ** Ah ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 
 Leap from Eurotas' bank, and call us from the tomb ? " 
 
 But the last word must be spoken, and the imperious mandate 
 of Death must be fulfilled. Thus, O brave heart ! we bear thee to 
 thy rest. Thus, surrounded by tens of thousands, we leave thee to 
 the equal grave. As in life, no other voice among us so rung its 
 trumpet blast upon the ear of freemen, so in death its echoes will 
 reverberate amid our mountains and valleys, until truth and valor 
 cease to appeal to the human heart. 
 
 Good friend ! true hero ! hail and farewell. 
 
ISAAC N. ROOP 
 
 By Judge y^ T. jBi^ucE. 
 
 ISAAC Newton Roof was born in Carroll County, Mary- 
 land, on the thirteenth day of March, 1822. His 
 parents were natives of New York city, and of German 
 origin. They lived for some time in the State of Penn- 
 sylvania, and in the year 1790, removed to the State of 
 Maryland. Isaac was reared on a farm, and though his 
 father was wealthy, he enjoyed such limited opportuni- 
 ties for education that, when he left home at the age of 
 eighteen, he could scarcely write his own name. This 
 defect, however, was in due time quite remedied, through 
 the instrumentality of a Miss Nancy Gardiner, a graduate 
 of the Transylvania College, with whom, in December, 
 1840, he established at once the twofold relation of hus- 
 band and pupil. Under her tutorage he received a thor- 
 ough English education, and laid the foundation work 
 for that period of usefulness that succeeded to him in his 
 later years. 
 
 Miss Nancy Gardiner was born in Pennsylvania, 
 December 22d, 1822. In the same year of her marriage, 
 she, with her husband, moved to Ashland County, Ohio. 
 Ten years later she died, leaving. her husband with three 
 children, two sons and a daughter. Both of these sons 
 enlisted in the service of their country, during the late 
 war, and participated in the North-Western campaign 
 under Gen. Rosecrans. The 3^oungest^ Isaiah Roop, was 
 severely wounded at the terrible battle of Stone River, 
 and died from its effects the following year. The re- 
 maining son, John Y. Roop, is now living in the State of 
 
406 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Iowa. The daughter, Mrs. Susan Arnold, came to Cali- 
 fornia in the year 1862. She was much beloved by her 
 father, and has stood by his side to cheer him and ad- 
 minister to his comfort since the day of her meeting him 
 here. She resides in Susanville, Cal., in the home made 
 beautiful by the hand of her illustrious father. On the 
 ninth day of September, 1850, and but a few months after 
 the loss of his wife, Gov. Roop started for California. 
 He arrived in San Francisco on the eighteenth day of 
 October of the same year, and in June following went to 
 Shasta to keep a public house. His first three years in 
 California were spent in Shasta County, in farming and 
 trading. During this period he also held the situation of 
 Postmaster and School Commissioner. He had accumu- 
 lated in that time upwards of fifteen thousand dollars, 
 worth of property, but in June, 1853, lost it all by fire. 
 Stripped of everything but an unconquerable will, and 
 being of an adventurous disposition, he turned his back 
 upon civilized life, and journeying across the Sierras, 
 took up his abode in Honey Lake Valley — at that time 
 a long distance from any settlement, and solely inhabited 
 by Indians. Here he located the land upon which the 
 city of Susanville now stands, built a saw mill near by, 
 and continued to reside here up to the day of his death, 
 February 14th, 1869. During his residence in Honey 
 Lake Valley he was engaged in lumbering, farming and 
 trading, filled many offices of profit and trust, and, to a 
 considerable extent, followed the practice of the law. 
 The beautiful valley first settled by him has grown up 
 into a flourishing county^ and the little village which he 
 laid out has become a large and prosperous commercial 
 town, and the county seat of Lassen County. Honey 
 Lake Valley, as lately as the year 1858, was considered 
 by its settlers as a part of Utah Territory. Becoming in- 
 dignant at the insolence and petty oppressions of the 
 Mormons, these early settlers, with other residents of 
 western Utah, resolved, in the year 1859, to cut loose 
 from all political communication with a people they so 
 heartily despised. Accordingly, a convention was called 
 in July of that year, which, having drafted a Constitution 
 
ISAAC N. ROOP. 407 
 
 for the new territory formed out of this part of Utah, 
 and christened Nevada, the same was adopted by the peo- 
 ple, and an election held in pursuance of its provisions 
 for choosing a Governor and other territorial officers. 
 
 At this election, held on the seventh of September, 
 Isaac N. Roop was chosen Provisional Governor of the 
 proposed territory by nearly a unanimous vote. The 
 first Legislature elected in this new territory met and 
 organized in the town of Genoa, Carson Valley, on the 
 fifteenth of December, 1859. 0. K. Pierson, of Carson 
 city, was elected Speaker, H. S. Thompson, Clerk, and 
 the Hon. J. A. McDougal, Sergeant-at-Arms. To this 
 Legislature Governor Roop delivered his first Message. 
 The Governor adjourned the Legislature to the first Mon- 
 day in January following, whereof he informed the people 
 by proclamation. In that proclamation Governor Roop 
 gave the reasons of the people of the proposed territory 
 for the organization of a provisional government. The 
 proclamation declared that ^^ under Mormon rule they had 
 no protection for life, limb, or property. They had no 
 Courts or County organizations except those controlled 
 by the sworn satellites of the Salt Lake oligarchy. Their 
 political rights were entirely at the will of a clique com- 
 posed of those who were opposed to the first principles 
 of our Constitution and the freedom of the ballot box. 
 Under these circumstances all endeavored to secure relief 
 from these impositions, and believing that a Provisional 
 Government would best assure protection of life, limb, 
 and property, an election was held and all necessary 
 arrangements made for the formation of temporary gov- 
 ernment until Congress should insure justice and pro- 
 tection." 
 
 A short time after, U. S. District Judge Cradlebaugh 
 succeeded in establishing his Court in the new territory; 
 a new Delegate to Congress, in the person of John J. 
 Musser, had been elected and dispatched to Washington; 
 extensive mines were discovered in the Carson Yalley, 
 which caused an influx of population wholly unexpected 
 at the time of the meeting of the convention — and only 
 a portion of the members of the first Legislature were 
 
408 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 present at its first meeting — ^wherefore, in the language 
 of the proclamation, ''I, Isaac N. Roop, Governor of the 
 Provisional Territorial Government of Nevada Territory, 
 believing it to be the wish of the people still to rely upon 
 the sense of justice of Congress, and that it will this 
 session, relieve us from the numerous evils to which we 
 are subjected, do proclaim the session of the Legislature 
 adjourned until the first Monday in January, 1860; and 
 call upon all good citizens to support with all their ener- 
 gies the laws and Government of the United States." 
 During his gubernatorial term many wise measures were 
 adopted for the better security of the early settlers in 
 western Utah, and quite extensive campaigns carried on 
 against the hostile Indians all along the border. He be- 
 came very intimate with Gen. Lander, and was joined by 
 him in many of his efforts for the suppression of Indian 
 outrages upon the early settlers. 
 
 After the formation of the Territory of Nevada, in 
 1861, Governor Roop was elected to the Territorial Sen- 
 ate. There he acquitted himself honorably and won the 
 lasting esteem of the entire population of the Territo- 
 ry. In 1862 he became the leading spirit in a move- 
 ment to join Honey Lake Yalley with the Territory 
 of Nevada. For three or four years previous thereto 
 the boundary line between California and Nevada had 
 been in dispute. During that time many of the citizens 
 of Honey Lake Valley acquiesced in the jurisdiction 
 of Nevada. The Legislature of the Territory passed a 
 bill fixing the boundaries of a new county to be called 
 Roop, so as to include Honey Lake Yalley, having its 
 county seat at Susanville. A conflict of jurisdiction al- 
 most immediately ensued. The Nevada Legislature there- 
 upon appointed three commissioners, R. M. Ford, Jas. W, 
 Nye and I. N. Roop, to present its memorial to the Cali- 
 fornia Legislature, with a view to obtain a change of the 
 boundary line in accordance with the recommendation 
 of Congress. The Legislature of the State of California 
 refused to grant the request, and two years afterward 
 Governor Roop had the satisfaction of seeing Honey 
 Lake and its adjacent sister, Long Valley, erected into a 
 
ISAAC N. ROOP. 409 
 
 separate, independent county government. If he could 
 not succeed in placing his home where it naturally and 
 properly belonged, he had been successful in making it 
 independent of the snows and summits of the Sierras. 
 With this he was partially content, as previous to this 
 time the county seats of the Counties claiming jurisdic- 
 tion over Honey Lake Yalley were separated from it by 
 the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which were impassable 
 two-thirds of the year. At an early day, as soon as a 
 Post Office was established in Susanville, he was ap- 
 pointed its Postmaster, which position he held up to 
 the day of his death. 
 
 In politics. Governor Hoop belonged to the Whig 
 party as long as it had an existence. In 1860 he voted 
 for Stephen A. Douglas. At the outbreak of the civil 
 war in America he heartily espoused the Union cause, and 
 was identified with every movement among his neigh- 
 bors, to render aid and comfort to the soldier in the field. 
 In 1864 he supported Lincoln, both with his voice and 
 his vote. In 1865 he was elected to the office of District 
 Attorney for the County of Lassen, receiving the entire 
 Democratic vote and nearly two-thirds of the Republican 
 vote. In 1867 he was reelected without opposition, 
 From his earliest settlement in the country he took a 
 leading part in all measures tending to the welfare of its 
 citizens, and has had much to do toward shaping the affiiirs 
 of this coast. He was a man of enlarged mind and noble 
 charities, true to his friendships, kind in his disposition, 
 and manly in his character. He possessed the elements 
 of popularity in a high degree, being frank, sociable and 
 courteous, and of unbounded hospitality. Naturally he 
 w^as a man of quick perception, sensitive, high-minded, 
 and of approved courage. Though owner at various times 
 of large property, and surrounded with a rude abundance, 
 such had ever been his liberality in dealing, and so nu- 
 merous his kind offices, that at no time was his condition 
 one of financial independence. He was, moreover, a man 
 of fine physical development, standing nearly six feet 
 high, and w^ell proportioned. He possessed regular fea- 
 tures, and an intelligent, cheerful, good-natured counte- 
 
410 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 nance. His florid complexion and light-blue eyes in- 
 dicated his active temperament and love of out-door 
 pursuits. He died at his residence in Susanville, Feb- 
 ruary fourteenth, 1869, after an illness of six days. He 
 was buried with Masonic honors, and the following ex- 
 tract from the resolutions passed by the Lodge of which 
 he was a member shows the esteem in which he was held, 
 and finds an echo in every heart that knew him. 
 
 " In the death of Isaac N. Koop the Masonic Order has lost an 
 ardent friend, one ever attached to its precepts, one whose heart 
 and hand were ever open to the melting appeals of charity, whose 
 benevolence, knowing no bounds, seemed to embrace the vast sea 
 of humanity, whose generous will extended itself for the good of 
 Masonry, and whose enlarged mind was ever impressed with the 
 controlling tenets, Charity, Belief and Brotherly Love. The be- 
 nevolent impulses, the charitable disposition, the generous prompt- 
 ings — emanations of a noble heart — the persevering will and manly 
 attributes that adorned the intellect and character of Isaac N. 
 Boop, will ever be deeply esteemed, fondly cherished and remem- 
 bered by his brethren of Lassen Lodge. " 
 
THOMAS H. SELBY 
 
 J3y yriLLIAM y. ]^ELLS. 
 
 EXPERIENCE has shown that municipal affairs are never 
 so faithfully administered as when removed from the 
 control of professed politicians. A familiarity with party 
 tactics, which has generally been deemed the stepping- 
 stone to National as well as State official preferment, is 
 not essential to the well-being of a city which requires 
 especially the exercise of common sense, economy, and 
 executive ability. The qualities indispensable to the 
 management of a large commercial firm are not less 
 demanded in the governing head of a community, and the 
 most successful rulers of American cities have been those 
 who were chosen from among business men, irrespective 
 of politics, and solely with reference to honesty and capa- 
 bility. Elected by the right influences, such men have 
 usually been popular while in office, and, retiring, have 
 carried with them the confidence and esteem of their 
 fellow-citizens. 
 
 An illustration of this is found in the present Mayor 
 of San Francisco, who has been for twenty years the head 
 of one of her first commercial houses. Mr. Selby was born 
 and educated in New York city. He was for some time a 
 clerk with A. T. Stewart, having entered that establish- 
 ment at the same time with the afterwards celebrated 
 Cyrus W. Field. At the age of nineteen he was elected, 
 after an exciting campaign, a director of the Mercantile 
 
412 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Library Association, of which he and his young friend 
 Field were members. 
 
 On attaining his majority he commenced business for 
 himself, in New York, and at twenty-five was a partner 
 in an establishment with upwards of forty employes. 
 After a few years the house, yielding to the financial 
 pressure of that period, suspended ; and its affairs having 
 been temporarily arranged, Mr. Selby, taking upon him- 
 self the entire burthen of its debts, joined the tide of 
 humanity then setting towards the Pacific Coast, with the 
 sole and avowed object of paying off the liabilities of the 
 firm. 
 
 Animated by this laudable purpose, the young man 
 landed in San Francisco in August, 1849, and true to 
 his resolve he devoted the proceeds of his business to 
 settling up the indebtedness. The profits of three years 
 of lucrative speculation and trade were thus consumed. 
 Like thousands of others, he had originally intended to 
 return as soon as this obligation had been fulfilled ; but, 
 as it became evident that San Francisco was destined to 
 be one of the world's emporiums — a grand commercial 
 centre, with every inducement for a permanent location — 
 he decided to cast his lot in California. In the summer 
 of 1850 he erected a substantial brick building — still 
 standing — on the north " side of California street, near 
 Montgomery, which was one of the earliest of its kind in 
 the city and attracted much attention at that time as a 
 costly novelty in architecture. Here he established the 
 present house of Thomas H. Selby & Co., and commenced 
 the importation of metals and merchandise, which he has 
 followed until the present time, under the same name 
 and style, in connection with his New York partner, 
 Mr. P. Naylor. One of the most active members of the 
 First Presbyterian Society of San Francisco, he was 
 especially influential in building their church on Stockton 
 street, near Broadway, which was commenced in the fall 
 of 1850. Services had originally been held in a tent, the 
 Rev. Albert Williams officiating. The edifice, completed 
 early in 1851, was destroyed by the great fire of that 
 year, and was rebuilt in the same place. Many of the 
 
THOMAS H. SELBY. 413 
 
 leading members, Mr. Selby among them, withdrew sub- 
 sequently and built the well known Calvary Church, on 
 Bush street, which in turn has disappeared before the 
 march of improvement. His own building was in the 
 desolating track of the fire of 1851, but was saved by the 
 exertions of Mr. Selby, who, with a few others, shut him- 
 self up there, and fought the destroyer with water 
 obtained from a well dug in the basement for just such 
 an emergency. For some time the iron shutters were red 
 hot, and the party would fain have escaped from their 
 perilous position had it been possible ; but by the courage 
 of desperation the building was preserved, and the whirl- 
 wind of flame passed on. 
 
 The preferences of Mr. Selby have usually been averse 
 to politics; but nevertheless, his great personal popularity 
 and evident availability have repeatedly been made use 
 of to draw him into public life, though always against his 
 own earnest protest. In each instance he has been 
 triumphantly elected, and has filled the requirements of 
 the position with the same conscientious fidelity that has 
 ever characterized his actions. The one objection that 
 his friends could name was, that prior to election, he 
 invariably retired from active participation in the contest, 
 and left the issue with the public, shunning all contact 
 with politicians, and failing to exert even the legitimate 
 amount of electioneering influence sanctioned by political 
 usage. His tastes, avoiding the thankless turmoil of 
 public office, leaned rather to the quiet of private life, 
 and the rivalries of trade and commercial pursuits. 
 
 In April, 1851, he was elected Assistant Alderman of 
 the Fifth Ward, and took his seat in the Board a few 
 days after the conflagration above mentioned. As a 
 member of the Common Council, his name appears on 
 many committees, and the record shows that he was one 
 of the most industrious members of the Board. By the 
 terms of the new City Charter, then lately gone into 
 operation, the officers chosen at the annual election in 
 September of that year, were installed soon after ; Mayor 
 Brenham giving place to Dr. Harris, and the old Board 
 vacating for the newly elected one, by decision of the 
 
414 REPRESENTATR^E MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Supreme Court, thus limiting their official term to about 
 six months. 
 
 Released from public duties, Mr. Selby gladly re- 
 turned to his more legitimate business; from which 
 retirement he was again brought forth in the fall of the 
 following year ; when, against his strongest protestations, 
 he was nominated as Alderman of the Fifth Ward, and 
 was, of course, elected by a great majority. He was at that 
 time an '' Old Line Whig," belonging to a party of glorious 
 memories, including in its numbers the most illustrious 
 men of America, but destined, after the defeat of Scott 
 and the death of Clay and Webster, to decline and dis- 
 appear; many of its adherents, like Mr. Selby, eventually 
 joining the Democracy and imparting a leaven of strength 
 and patriotism to that organization. Mr. Selby' s name 
 appeared on nearly all the tickets in the campaign of 
 1852— the "Regular Whig," the '^Independent Whig," 
 the '^ People's Favorite," the "Independent," and the 
 "Union," (the latter composed about equally of Whigs 
 and Democrats.) jSTational, State, county and city candi- 
 dates, from President and Yice-JPresident down to the 
 smallest local officers, were on the same ticket, and were 
 voted for together. In San Francisco alone there were 
 eighty-seven offices to be filled, and for these there were 
 one hundred and eighty candidates in the field. Seven 
 out of eight wards returned Whig Aldermen — a note- 
 worthy fact, considering that the State and county went 
 Democratic — the incoming Legislature having a majority 
 for that party of thirty-four on joint ballot. This result 
 in the election of local officers was due to the great num- 
 ber who voted the Independent ticket; and when, years 
 afterwards, a similar influence elected Mr. Selby to the 
 Mayoralty, it furnished the second instance of his having 
 been chosen to office by a spontaneous popular movement. 
 On the 12th of November, 1852, the new government 
 was duly installed, with C. J. Brenham — elected for the 
 second time — as Mayor. The previous City Council had 
 the summer before purchased the Jenny Lind theatre 
 (the present City Hall) in defiance of the wishes of the 
 people and the veto of Mayor Harris ; and the incoming 
 
THOMAS H. SELBY. 415 
 
 administration held their first session there. The county 
 of San Francisco at that time extended to San Francis- 
 quito Creek, its southern boundary — the present county 
 of San Mateo having been subsequently created. The 
 municipal government proper consisted of the Boards of 
 Aldermen and Assistant Aldermen, while the affairs of 
 the county were especially managed by a Board of Super- 
 visors, (composed partly of the Board of Aldermen) of 
 whom the Mayor was the presiding officer. The newly 
 elected Common Council entered upon their duties with 
 a curious array of complications to contend against. A 
 wide range of local business and city improvements, some 
 beneficial and others concealing corrupt jobs, demanded 
 prompt action to aid or defeat. Yenal legislation at Sac- 
 ramento, to an alarming extent, threatened the prosperity 
 of the city. The gigantic State Prison appropriation; 
 the City Slip Bill; the infamous Extension Project, in- 
 cluding a raid upon the whole tidal front of the city, and 
 a change in the grading from the highlands to the bay; 
 the State printing expenditures, in the payment of which 
 San Francisco was largely interested ; the Stamp Act and 
 Notary Public bills — all designed as exactions upon the 
 property-holders of that city, required clear-headed ability 
 and the devotion of time to counteract their baneful 
 tendency. Other perplexing subjects were soon to arise, 
 such as an amended or new city charter, and the removal 
 of the State capitol. The outgoing City Council had 
 left affairs in the worst possible condition, and the press 
 teemed with denunciations of their acts. Gas and wharf 
 contracts, originating in barefaced favoritism, and a waste- 
 ful use of the public money, both by needless contracts 
 and appropriations, formed the burthen of the articles. 
 
 " There can be no doubt," said a writer of that time, 
 ^^ that during the three years past, there has been more 
 corruption, fraud, and dishonesty in the municipal affairs 
 of this city than in any other city in the world. Ignor- 
 ance, inability, and stupidity, have only been varied with 
 crime, fraud, and corruption. More wicked schemes for 
 personal advancement, without the flimsiest pretext of 
 desire for the public good, have passed our City Council 
 
416 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 tlian any other modern legislative body in Christendom. 
 City hospital — Merchant Street — grading and planking 
 operations — old city hall — funding scheme — water lot 
 legislation — Colton grants — Jenny Lind theatre — each 
 and every one calls to the mind of our old citizens entire 
 chapters of scheming iniquity. * * A city entering upon 
 its career with a richer patrimony than any other of 
 modern times, having, under the Mexican law, a landed 
 property that would have enriched a State, is not only 
 destitute of ornaments and conveniences, but is saddled 
 with a debt of one million six hundred thousand dollars, 
 to anticipate our revenues and grind us with taxes for 
 twenty years to come." The ingenious Peter Smith and 
 Limantour swindles, alarming the community by their 
 magnitude, and involving the titles to most of the valu- 
 able real estate in San Francisco, were rearing their men- 
 acing heads in the courts. Property was insecure, and 
 the public mind harassed by doubts, uncertainties, and 
 conflicting interests. 
 
 Upon the organization of the Board of Aldermen, Mr. 
 Selby was placed on most of the hard-working com- 
 mittees, of some of which he was chairman, and his busi- 
 ness talent and industry were manifest throughout his 
 official term. At that time the Board of Education was 
 composed of the Mayor, one member from each branch 
 of the Common Council, and two citizens at large. Mr. 
 Selby represented this body from the Board of Aldermen, 
 and found ample scope for the advancement of his favorite 
 subject of free public schools. The Board of Education 
 had the appointing of a Superintendent of Public In- 
 struction. Mr. Selby was also especially active in re- 
 organizing the Police Department, a work to which he 
 applied himself at once upon taking his seat. When 
 the Extension Bill was passed by the Assembly in April, 
 1853, and the five Whig members of the San Francisco 
 delegation resigned their seats, he supported them in their 
 appeal to the people, and gave all his energies to reelecting 
 them as an expression of the public sentiment. And the 
 record of those early days points to him invariably as a 
 steadfast and watchful friend of the best interests of the 
 
THOMAS H. SELBY, 417 
 
 city, as he was ever the uncompromising opponent of all 
 schemes for depleting the public treasury. 
 
 One of his first acts in the Board of Aldermen was 
 in defence of the city to the lands covered by the Peter 
 Smith claim. Soon after the induction of the new Com- 
 mon Council into office, the Supreme Court rendered its 
 famous decision adverse to the city in the above-named 
 suit. Public feeling ^vas wrought up to the highest pitch. 
 Mayor Brenham called an extraordinary meeting of the 
 Council, and in a brief message set forth the danger and 
 recommended immediate action. Alderman Selby submit- 
 ted a series of resolutions, which were published in all the 
 newspapers, warning innocent parties against purchasing 
 titles to property under the Peter Smith sales, and giving 
 notice that all titles acquired under them would be con- 
 tested by the city government. The City Attorney was 
 also empowered to act in conjunction with the attorney 
 of the Board of Commissioners of the Funded Debt, in 
 adopting measures for contesting the validity of the title 
 acquired under the sale. This was the commencement 
 of the memorable Peter Smith contest, which, after several 
 years of costly litigation, resulted in favor of the munici- 
 pality. Alderman Selby was the first to strike officially at 
 the ordinance imposing a tax upon every passenger ar- 
 riving at San Francisco, and introduced a resolution for 
 its repeal. He was also instrumental in procuring the 
 donation by the city, in 1853, of a lot at Rincon Point to 
 the United States Government, as a site for a Marine 
 Hospital, and was the originator of the idea of establish- 
 ing '' fire limits," within which wooden buildings could 
 not be erected. His influence against bad legislation was 
 not confined to local affairs, but numerous iniquitous 
 schemes ; among them, the deep-laid plot for dividing the 
 State, found in him a powerful and persistent enemy. 
 Had that measure been successful, slavery would have 
 been introduced into the proposed new State of ^' Southern, 
 California," and the evil effects experienced during the 
 late civil Avar. In short, Mr. Selby brought to the 
 management of public affairs the same shrewdness, sound 
 judgment, and economy that he exerted in his own: and 
 27 
 
418 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 his official record bears the closest examination for the 
 vigor and administrative ability which distinguished it 
 throughout. As at that time he consented with reluct- 
 ance to engage in politics, so in 1869, it was only after 
 repeated solicitation, by the various nominating conven- 
 tions, to which were added the urgent appeals of personal 
 friends, that he was finally induced to become a candidate 
 for the mayoralty, it being generally conceded that no 
 other citizen combined so completely the elements of suc- 
 cess. The result was in keeping with the past, and 
 showed that his personal popularity was not overestimated. 
 He was elected in the face of a combination of partizan 
 engineering and moneyed influence such as has rarely been 
 concentrated against a political candidate. Never defeated 
 before the people, the stamp of success seems to be inevi- 
 tably affixed to every thing with which he is associated. 
 Seventeen years before, when he was elected Alderman, 
 the city contained about 45,000 inhabitants, and polled 
 8,023 votes: in 1869, with a population estimated at 
 about 160,000, the vote was 21,600, a falling off of 4,000 
 from the Presidential vote of the previous year. 
 
 The positions of honor and trust which Mr. Selby has 
 filled in mercantile and social life, it would be difficult 
 to enumerate. President of the Merchants' Exchange, 
 and the first President of the Industrial School Associa- 
 tion, he was foremost in organizing those bodies, and was 
 an active member of the committees that superintended 
 the erection of the buildings for both. President of the 
 Board of Trustees of Calvary Church, and of the City 
 College, a life director of the Mercantile Library Associa- 
 tion, and an establisher and liberal supporter of two 
 seminaries of learning in San Mateo county, his name is 
 honorably connected with the progress of enlightenment 
 and education in California. In a number of instances, 
 he has been appointed executor of valuable estates, and 
 always without bonds. 
 
 /with an activity and healthy vigor of mind and body 
 which honors the most exacting demands on their power 
 of endurance, Mr. Selby systematises his time so as to 
 transact a surprising amount of business. No accumula- 
 
THOMAS H. SELBY. 419 
 
 tion of labor seems to embarrass or annoy him^ wbile a 
 habit of directing the efforts of others enables him to 
 keep every part of the complicated machinery in motion 
 without hurry or confusion. Besides the establishment 
 on California street, which is his financial headquarters, 
 Mr. Selby has branch stores at Marysville and Stockton, 
 with their ramifications extending to all parts of the 
 State. His Silver and Lead Smelting Works at North 
 Beach, San Francisco, which cost $100,000 to erect, are 
 the means of keeping not less than twenty mines in ope- 
 ration in California, Nevada, and Arizona, this being 
 their only market. Ores and crude metal, worth $150,000, 
 may at any time be seen piled up, awaiting reduction at 
 the works, which give constant occupation to about 
 seventy-five men; while, indirectly, several hundred 
 miners are kept employed by this ready consumer of 
 the product of their labor. Add to this another branch 
 of industry, his San Francisco Shot Tower, and some 
 idea may be formed of the extent and variety of his en- 
 gagements. This establishment employs a large number 
 of men, both at the works, and in the mines supplying it 
 with lead. The manufacture of shot in California is due 
 to the energy and persistency of purpose of Mr. Selby, 
 who commenced it amid manifold discouragements, and 
 the general prediction of his failure to compete with the 
 Eastern States. It has proved successful, however, and 
 nearly the whole Pacific coast is supplied from this 
 source, while a powerful impetus is given to California 
 industryTl 
 
 AbrJut thirty miles from San Francisco — ^an hour and 
 a quarter by rail — is the country seat of Mr. Selby — a 
 place of about five hundred acres, and a model of rural 
 attractiveness and high cultivation. The eye is never 
 wearied admiring the landscape of broad fields waving 
 with fertility, blending the richest foliage, tropical in its 
 luxuriance, with a pleasing diversity of grain and pasture 
 land, and the view bounded in the distance by pictur- 
 esque, wood-crowned hills. The estate produces an- 
 nually from five to ten thousand bushels of the cereals, 
 and an orchard — the largest in San Mateo county — ^yields 
 
420 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 two thousand bushels of choice fruits. Amid the continual 
 demands upon his time, Mr. Selby finds leisure for a per- 
 sonal supervision of this extensive property, which, for its 
 genial climate and quiet pastoral beauty, is a favorite 
 resort after the cares of the day, in preference to his city 
 residence. Adorned with every appliance that art and 
 refined taste can suggest, this mansion is the summer re- 
 treat of the family, and while its fortunate proprietor may 
 felicitate himself in the contemplation of a successful and 
 honorable business career, he is equally happy in the 
 companionship of that personal loveliness and amiability 
 wdiich, when they grace the social circle, hallow and 
 endear the sacred name of home. Under Mr. Selby, San 
 Francisco entered upon a new era of prosperity. Con- 
 ciliatory and popular in manners, liberal alike in theory 
 and practice, with a record for integrity that has always 
 stood above the breath of suspicion, and thoroughly con- 
 versant with the requirements of the city where he has 
 spent his best years, he commenced his official duties 
 under the most favorable auspices, and his term as Mayor, 
 when reviewed hereafter, will exhibit the same beneficent 
 motives and practical intelligence that have hitherto 
 guided his actions in the walks of private and public life. 
 
JAMES ISISBET AJJD FRANKLIN TUTHILL. 
 
 IN the month of August, 1865, the San Francisco Even- 
 ing Bulletin chronicled a loss which is quite remarka- 
 ble in the history of journalism on the Pacific coast. 
 Two of its proprietors and leading editors, who had done 
 much to give the paper the high character it still main- 
 tains, were lost to it by death — the one by a dreadful ma- 
 rine disaster on the northern coast, the other by disease on 
 the eastern side of the continent, and both within a few 
 days of each other. James Nisbet, who was long the 
 news and literary editor of the paper, and who deserves a 
 place in this work as the first historian of San Francisco, 
 was lost at sea on the steamship Brother Jonathan ^ July 
 30th, 1865. This vessel was on the way from San Fran- 
 cisco to Victoria, Y. I., with almost two hundred souls on 
 board, when she struck a sunken rock off St. George's 
 Point, eight or ten miles north-west from Crescent City, 
 and went down about forty-five minutes afterwards. All 
 on board were lost except about a score of persons. 
 Among the passengers who perished, besides Mr. Nisbet, 
 were Maj. Gen. George W. Wright, of the United States 
 Army, and wife ; Gen. A. C. Henry, of Washington Ter- 
 ritory ; Major E. W. Eddy, of the United States Army, sev- 
 eral other army and navy officers, and a number of citi- 
 zens of California prominent for worth and talent. Amid 
 the terrible scene transpiring around him at the wreck, 
 and with the horror of sudden death staring him in the 
 face, with hardly a possibility that it would be averted, 
 Mr. Nisbet was calm and thoughtful enough to write out 
 
422 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 a will in pencil, and to address notes of farewell to some 
 of his friends, even remembering some children of whom 
 he was fond by their pet names. The act was character- 
 istic of his unselfish and courageous nature. His remains 
 were recovered, brought to San Francisco, and interred in 
 Lone Mountain Cemetery, where rest those of his former 
 associates on the Bulletin — its founder, James King of 
 Wm., C. J. Bartlett, and C. 0. Gerberding, who preceded 
 him a few years. 
 
 Mr. Msbet was born in Glasgow, Scotland, about the 
 year 1817. His parents were of high respectability and 
 considerable fortune, and he enjoyed during youth every 
 desirable opportunity for that intellectual training which 
 developed his naturally vigorous mind to form a very use- 
 ful character. On arriving at the proper age, he chose 
 the profession of law, and after graduating, traveled over 
 the principal countries of Europe. Subsequently he be- 
 came a partner in a prominent Glasgow firm of lawyers. 
 He was more inclined to seek literary pursuits than to con- 
 tend for the rights of clients in the legal tribunals, and 
 always abstained from appearing as an advocate. His 
 strong tendency to literature is shown by the fact, known 
 to only a few intimate friends, that he was the author of 
 an elaborate and meritorious novel, published before leav- 
 ing Scotland, under the title of The Seige of Palmyra. He 
 always cherished the purpose of devoting himself to some 
 literary work that might give him a permanent reputation. 
 In about the year 1852, having previously lost a consid- 
 erable property by an unfortunate investment in railroad 
 stock, he decided to seek a reparation of his fortune in 
 some remote portion of the world, where there might be 
 better opportunities for profitable personal exertion than 
 in his native land. With this view he first visited Austra- 
 lia, but was disappointed in the aspect of affairs there pre- 
 sented, and after spending a few weeks in inspecting the 
 gold mines, returned to England. A few weeks later he 
 set sail for California, where he arrived in November, 
 1852. In San Francisco he first found employment in 
 writing a work historical and descriptive of this city — the 
 well known Annals of Sari Francisco^ in the authorship of 
 
JAMES NISBET AND FRANKLIN TUTHILL. 423 
 
 which Frank Soule, Esq., and Dr. J. H. Gihon were as- 
 sociated, though Mr. JN'isbet did a large part of the work. 
 The writing for this was very hasty, and he never attach- 
 ed any value to it, although time is giving it considerable 
 interest. While engaged on the Annals his industry, dis- 
 criminating judgment, and power thoroughly to perform 
 great intellectual labor, at once surprised and delighted 
 his employers and associates in the book, one of whom, 
 Mr. Soule, about the same time became part proprietor 
 of a prominent daily newspaper. The California Chronicle^ 
 to which circumstance is due the fact that Mr. Nisbet, 
 while still engaged on the Annals^ was transferred to a 
 desk in the editorial rooms of that paper. He continued 
 in that position until March, 1856, when, at the solicitation 
 of James King of Wm., he accepted a higher position on the 
 Bulletin^ and ultimately became one of its proprietors. 
 For nine years afterward, until the date of his fatal voy- 
 age, he filled the position of supervising editor of the 
 Bulletin^ evincing great industry, taste, judgment and de- 
 votion. He was a purist in the matter of selections and 
 language, a singularly independent critic in literature, 
 music and the drama, and master of a terse, vigorous Eng- 
 lish style. His theory of journalism was above passion 
 and personality, and conformed to the honorable rules 
 which regulate the intercourse of gentlemen. Although 
 he did not write the leading editorials, and never wrote on 
 political topics at all, confining his labors almost exclus- 
 ively to the news desk and the supervision of other de- 
 partments, he used his influence to modify the asperities 
 of contests that the paper could not avoid. Puffery in 
 any degree found in him a stern foe, and he was almost 
 morbidly sensitive lest the paper should be prostituted to 
 unworthy uses, its reading columns made a medium for 
 personal or business matters, or its advertising columns 
 opened to any kind of impurity. He elevated the paper 
 into an ideal institution, with a strict code of morals to 
 which all were made to conform. In his own character 
 he possessed the best elements to maintain the peculiar 
 authority he exercised in the office. He led a pure and 
 chaste life, free from every vice, and was possessed of a 
 
424 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 singularly robust constitution. ^^ His innate love of justice 
 was so great that no personal friendship could tempt him 
 to desert the right or excuse a wrong ; and yet he loved his 
 friends with a devotion that w^as not counterbalanced by 
 hatred for enemies. No journalist of this country was 
 ever so continuously reviled for the faults or pretended 
 faults of others, and yet he would not deviate in the slight- 
 est degree from the straight line to seek redress for an in- 
 jury. Those who made themselves his enemies he wished 
 to forget and dismiss from recollection. If he had a 
 weakness, it was extreme sensitiveness as to his personal 
 honor. He freely confessed that he could never clothe 
 himself in iron mail so as not to feel the effects of unjust 
 criticism — indulgence in which he characterized as pecu- 
 liarly American — and this sensitiveness becoming known 
 to newspaper men generally, served to incite attacks from 
 that class of them who, having no independent reasoning 
 powers or ideas of justice, are ever seeking opportunities 
 for notoriety by stinging whatever innocent and unresist- 
 ing objects can be made to feel their spite." Although, as 
 stated above, he was not one of the leading writers of the 
 paper, and was not responsible for its political course, he 
 was yet held accountable, during several years, for what- 
 ever in its columns provoked animosity, and was made 
 the victim of some of the crudest slander. When he died, 
 his surviving partners said of him : ''It is due to justice 
 that we now admit and chronicle the fact, that any excel- 
 lencies which the Bulletin has heretofore possessed result- 
 ed from Mr. Nisbet's labors more than from those of any 
 other person, while he is perhaps responsible for fewer of 
 its faults than any of the other writers that were imme- 
 diately associated with him. It was his labor that made 
 the Bulletin instructive and attractive in its news and lit- 
 erary departments ; his finishing strokes were seen in al- 
 most every column, all of which he made consistent one 
 with the other. The editorials upon local and national 
 politics and upon the passing topics of the day, many of 
 which have doubtless provoked a multitude of resent- 
 ments, were none of them the production of Mr. Nisbet. 
 He engaged in no strife, assailed no one, was offensive to no 
 
JAMES NISBET AND FRANKLIN TUTHILL. 425 
 
 one, but was useful and serviceable to his partners, of val- 
 ue to the State and country, and an honor to his kind. 
 Such men as Mr. Nisbet, and particularly in the profes- 
 sion which he adorned on this coast, seldom gain appre- 
 ciation or reward from the busy world, that knows so little 
 how much it is their debtor. They devote their lives to 
 constant labors which are the most exacting upon body 
 and brain, and require a large amount of self-abnegation, 
 and their quiet, modest usefulness is disregarded amid the 
 selfish excitements and passions that whirl about them. 
 Happy, indeed, are they if slander and abuse do not dis- 
 turb their still lives, and follow them to the grave. But 
 we believe that in spite of his own sensitive and retiring 
 nature, our departed friend and co-worker was better 
 appreciated in this community than he himself knew, 
 and will be sincerely regretted by all whose natures sym- 
 pathize with what is most pure and lofty in our common 
 humanity." 
 
 Franklin Tuthill, one of Mr. Nisbet's partners and 
 editorial associates in the Bulktin^ died in New York on 
 the 27th of August, 1865 — the same day that the latter's 
 remains were conveyed to their final resting-place in San 
 Francisco. He left this city in October, 1864, for a trip 
 through Europe, hoping to recover from an organic dis- 
 ease which had long preyed upon his health. He return- 
 ed to i^ew York in July, 1865, after a rapid and pleasant 
 journey through England, France, Spain, It-aly, and some 
 of the German States, apparently almost restored to 
 health, and confident of his ability to return at an early 
 day to his editorial post. But while engaged in correct- 
 ing the proofs of his History of California^ which was then 
 being printed in New York, he was seized with a relapse 
 and soon passed away. The BuUeiin published the follow- 
 ing sketch of his life : 
 
 Dr. Tuthill was born April 3d, 1822, in Suffolk county, 
 on the east end of Long Island, of a highly respectable 
 family, which was among the earliest settlers on the Island. 
 
426 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 He entered college when only fourteen years old, and 
 graduated when eighteen. He subsequently studied 
 medicine under such distinguished Professors as the 
 late Yalentine Mott, Sr., Doctors Draper, Revere, and 
 their associates, and graduated at the New York Uni- 
 versity in 1844. He immediately began to practice his 
 profession near his native place, and followed it with 
 success for seven years, taking to it that conscientious 
 devotion to duty, patience, kindness, and nicety of per- 
 ception, which are essential to the character of a good 
 physician, and which in his character were always leading 
 traits. Without the least obtrusiveness or desire for pub- 
 licity. Dr. Tuthill became, through his genial nature, his 
 intelligence, and his zealous attention to the best interests 
 of the community, a very popular man. Although a 
 Whig in politics, he was for five successive years appointed 
 Town Superintendent of Schools by a Democratic Board 
 of Supervisors. In 1860, he was elected by a handsome 
 majority to represent his district in the Assembly of 
 New York, and was the first Whig, with a single excep- 
 tion, ever sent to the Legislature from that ancient strong- 
 hold of Democracy. While in the Legislature, he distin- 
 guished himself by his ability and tact in debate, by his 
 industry, by his i:itegrity amidst much corruption, and by 
 his earnest labors in favor of the revised School Act, a 
 measure of great benefit to the cause of popular educa- 
 tion in the Empire State, the passage of which was large- 
 ly the fruit of his exertions. He was also an earnest and 
 eloquent advocate of the canal enlargement policy, the 
 success of which, despite the strong opposition of the Dem- 
 ocracy at a special legislative session, greatly increased 
 the commerce and wealth of the State. He strove to get 
 through a bill legalizing dissection of the human body, as 
 a means to facilitate anatomical studies, in conformity 
 with the practice in some foreign countries ; but the meas- 
 ure was killed by amendments after it passed the pre- 
 liminary stage in both Houses, though it became a law 
 a year or two later. He made a lengthy report upon an 
 absurd petition to make bleeding in medical practice a 
 penal offence, provoking thereby a spirited discussion in 
 
JAMES NISBET AND FRANKLIN TUTHILL. 427 
 
 the profession at home and abroad, and a slashing review 
 which extended through three numbers of the English 
 Quarterly — an organ of the Chrono-Thermalists. 
 
 While a member of the Legislature, Dr. Tuthill re- 
 moved to New York, intending to resume the practice of 
 medicine in that city; but at the end of a year he fol- 
 lowed his stronger bent to literary pursuits, and became 
 one of the editors of the Daily Times^ in which position 
 he labored until 1859 with peculiar ability and success. 
 Indeed, he developed the most admirable capacity for jour- 
 nalism, and gave to it the best energies of his life. He 
 continued in his new sphere his interest in popular educa- 
 tion, and was an active friend of medical science and of 
 the various benevolent institutions of the city, showing 
 the most liberal feeling in regard to the admission of wo- 
 men to all the advantages of a thorough medical educa- 
 tion aftorded by the clinics and colleges. He was cred- 
 ited with exercising a decided influence upon municipal 
 affairs, and urged with great ability some of most impor- 
 tant measures of public policy, including the new City 
 Hall, the Central Park, and other public improvements. 
 He probably did more by his articles in the Times than 
 any other person to convince the people and the authori- 
 ties of that city of the value and need of a great park, 
 and to induce the action which resulted in creating what 
 is destined to be one of the finest city parks in the world. 
 His facts and arguments were so pertinent and well ar- 
 ranged, his style so pointed, yet graceful and attractive, 
 that whatever he wrote on local topics was sure to be read 
 attentively by all, and to secure through cotemporary 
 journals a wider circulation than even the vast edition of 
 the l^hiies could secure. 
 
 His public spirit and usefulness led to his being elect- 
 ed to the Legislature from New York city in 1858, when 
 he again became conspicuous for his devotion to measures 
 of vital importance to the State, and for the rare grace, 
 tact and ability with which he advocated them in debate. 
 At this time, also, he was among the most earnest of the 
 early Republicans. His instincts were always opposed to 
 slavery, as to every other form of injustice, and he had 
 
428 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 watched with concern the retrogressive policy on this 
 question of the Southern Democracy. His opposition to 
 slavery extension was earnest and radical, without a trace 
 of fanaticism. On this subject he agreed in opinion with 
 that far-sighted and cool-headed statesman, Gov. Seward, 
 whose personal friendship he enjoyed, and of whose poli- 
 cy the Times has always been an able defender. He lived 
 long enough to be gladdened, as over a private joy, at the 
 final and complete removal of the nation's shame, without 
 wrong-doing or rashness on the part of the Government 
 which he loved. 
 
 Dr. Tuthill came to San Francisco, and his connection 
 with the Bulletin commenced, about November, 1859. In 
 January, 1862, he purchased a proprietary interest in the 
 establishment. While he remained in the State he was 
 constantly engaged as a writer of editorials or general-in- 
 formation articles for the second and third pages of this 
 journal, or as legislative correspondent from Sacramento. 
 In whichever capacity he labored, his work was brilliantly 
 executed. His mind sparkled with genius, and his frail 
 physical system obeyed its demands by almost ceaseless la- 
 bor, until, alas ! the body wore out at the early age of 
 forty-three. It seemed as though he could not sleep, for 
 fear some valuable thought might be lost for the want of 
 a ready hand to record it. Coming to California in re- 
 sponse to an invitation from this office, he resolved to 
 make his permanent home here, and at once absorbed the 
 spirit of the country. He speedily made himself familiar 
 with every institution and capability of the State, and 
 within a year after his arrival possessed an amount of his- 
 torical knowledge and local information concerning men 
 and things that would have shamed most pioneers who 
 might have ventured to compare knowledge with him. 
 This intellectual achievement was accomplished by a vast 
 amount of dry and uninviting ''head work." After each 
 day's newspaper labor had been finished, and after his 
 evening entertainments were over, he devoted a large share 
 of the night to poring over the bound files of old Califor- 
 nia newspapers, carefully noting each fact and circum- 
 stance that had historical value, or that could be made 
 
JAMES NISBET AND FRANKLIN TUTHILL. 429 
 
 useful to him as a journalist. He followed up this prac- 
 tice until all the files in the Bulletin office, in the Mer- 
 cantile Library, as well as the mass of bound volumes of 
 newspapers in the State Library at Sacramento, were 
 essentially read through, and their contents treasured in 
 his mind. It was a work of years, mostly performed while 
 others slept. 
 
 The fruits of this labor were largely enjoyed by the 
 BuUetin; but since Dr. Tuthill left California, the fact 
 has been ascertained that he had a higher ambition to 
 gratify than could be gained as a newspaper writer, and 
 which accounts for his persevering investigation. It 
 seems that while he was performing an extraordinary 
 amount of intellectual labor in connection with this jour- 
 nal — and while as an active church member, teacher in 
 the Sunday schools, occasional lecturer before benevolent 
 institutions and temperance societies, his leisure hours 
 were apparently fully employed — he was engaged in still 
 another labor, which absorbed the highest capacities of 
 his mind. He was devoting a certain number of hours 
 each day to collecting materials for and WTiting a history 
 of California. What the scope and design of his history 
 may have been we have no means of knowing, further 
 than the title imports, for he seems to have admitted no 
 one into his confidence on the subject, outside of his 
 family and the publisher whom he consulted. We learn 
 to-day, for the first time, that when Dr. Tuthill left Cali- 
 fornia he took with him the manuscript copy of his 
 history, embracing matter enough for a large volume, 
 which was placed in the hands of the printer in Xew 
 York before he left that city for Europe. While trav- 
 eling in foreign countries, it appears that he visited the 
 principal libraries where manuscripts concerning the early 
 history of California are preserved, and it is presumable 
 that his history is to be enriched and made authentic 
 by much valuable data not hitherto published. After 
 his return to New York from Europe, he was employing 
 his time in superintending the printing of his book, when 
 death terminated his earthly duties. We can assume 
 with certainty, however, that his history is written with 
 
430 REPRESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the same purity, clearness, compactness and grace which 
 characterized his style as a writer for the press, and which 
 lent a charm to everything that came from his pen. 
 
 In our invigorating climate, and surrounded by the 
 fascinating circumstances of life in a new country, he 
 seemed to develop in the course of his newspaper writ- 
 ing a different and higher capacity. The critical reader 
 of the Bulletin's columns while he was employed upon 
 them, will remember the keen wit, the playful fancy, the 
 original and apposite illustrations, the abundant flow of 
 humor, the fund of information, the felicitous use of 
 words, which gave beauty and influence to his daily pro- 
 ductions. These traits were observable in all he did, 
 either as editor, correspondent or reporter. His reports 
 of public meetings, speeches and debates were peculiarly 
 graphic, picturesque and entertaining, giving the very life 
 and spirit of the scenes or utterances reproduced. His 
 happy reports of the earliest lectures and sermons of 
 Thomas Starr King first introduced and popularized on 
 this coast that distinguished man, who acknowledged to 
 Dr. Tuthill how much he esteemed this brilliant labor in 
 his behalf, and who also expressed his admiration for the 
 Doctor's own rare merit as an extemporaneous speaker, in 
 which capacity he was often called upon to serve some 
 charitable, religious or literary institutions in this city. 
 His gifts were fatal to him: for while he was entirely 
 averse to display, and never courted notice in any man- 
 ner, he loved to do with all his might what his heart and 
 intellect prompted, and thus sacrificed the physical vigor 
 that could alone sustain him even at the single task of 
 journalism. 
 
 It is impossible for those who recently labored with 
 Dr. Tuthill in connection with this journal, to adequately 
 express their high appreciation of his character, or the 
 depth of their sorrow at his loss. None but those who 
 knew his pure and guileless nature, his genial ways, his 
 unvarying cheerfulness, his truthfulness, his benevolence, 
 his utter lack of malicious or sinister traits, can under- 
 stand how he was beloved and how keenly his loss is felt. 
 But it is some consolation to reflect that a very large num- 
 
JAMES NISBET AND FRANKLIN TUTHILL. 431 
 
 ber of people in this State knew him personally, many 
 of them intimately — for he was accessible to all — and that 
 they, as well as ourselves, recognized him as a friend, while 
 they appreciated his great value to society, ^^o man in 
 his position could have enjoyed more of public esteem 
 than he had earned. In the church where he regularly 
 attended, and in the private circles drawn around him, he 
 was sincerely beloved. Whatever antagonisms were pro- 
 voked by the course of the BulMin on public questions, 
 never extended to him personally ; and yet he made no 
 concessions of principle or action to win the esteem that 
 everywhere flowed to him, and which we are sure must 
 have been peculiarly grateful to his feelings. His writings 
 and his daily walks were guided by convictions of duty, 
 and his life has been offered on its shrine. 
 
-2ri7BR-IT 
 
rti"" 
 
SERRANUS CLINTON HASTINGS. 
 
 ^Y JhOMAS f*> yVlADDEN. 
 
 THE ancestry of this gentleman can be traced to times 
 far remote. He is a lineal descendant of the Gen- 
 eral of his name who led the Danish forces into England 
 during the Heptarchy. His grandfather emigrated from 
 England to Rhode Island early in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. His father, Robert Collins Hastings, a man of 
 considerable intelligence, was bred a mechanic, but his 
 ardent temper drew him away from his laborious pursuits 
 to a wider field and higher sphere of usefulness. During 
 the War of 1812, he commanded a company of soldiers 
 at Sackett's Harbor. He was conspicuous in the exciting 
 political events of his day, and was a firm friend and sup- 
 porter of DeWitt Clinton. After that noble patron of 
 virtue, learning and labor, he named his son. His wife 
 (mother of S. Clinton) was a Miss Brayton, of the pioneer 
 family of that name, who were the first settlers of Jef- 
 ferson and St. Lawrence counties, New York. 
 
 Serranus Clinton Hastings was born in Jefferson 
 county, New York, Nov. 22d, 1814. In early youth, he 
 passed six years in study at Governeur Academy, At 
 the age of twenty, he became the principal of the Norwich 
 Academy, Chenango county. New York. This position,- 
 after one year's successful teaching, he resigned, having 
 introduced the Hamiltonian system of instruction in the 
 languages, the Angletean system of mathematics, and 
 other branches of education. 
 28 
 
434 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 He commenced the study of law with Charles Thorpe, 
 Esq., of Norwich. In the office of this gentleman he 
 prosecuted his studies only a few months, when, in 1834, 
 he emigrated to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where, in the 
 office of Daniel S. Majors, Esq., he completed his legal 
 studies. He did not enter immediately upon his profes- 
 sional labors. During the bitter presidential contest of 
 1836, he edited the Indiana Signal^ an influential journal 
 which gave a spirited and effective support to Martin Yan 
 Buren. 
 
 In December, 1836, Mr. Hastings resumed his march 
 westward. Arriving at Terre Haute, Indiana, he presented 
 himself to Judge Porter, of the Circuit Court, and stood 
 the test of a severe legal examination at the hands of that 
 able jurist. 
 
 He continued his journey until he reached the Black 
 Hawk Purchase, (now the State of Iowa) and arrived at 
 Burlington in January, 1837. In the following spring he 
 took up his residence on the western bank of the Mis- 
 sissippi, where has since sprung up the city of Muscatine, 
 Iowa. At that time this vast stretch of country was 
 attached to the Territory of Wisconsin for judicial pur- 
 poses. Mr. Hastings now resolved to commence the 
 practice of the profession for which he had prepared him- 
 self. He was examined by Judge Irwin, by whom he was 
 admitted to the bar in 1837. Shortly afterwards, he was 
 commissioned a Justice of the Peace by Gov. Dodge of 
 Wisconsin, with jurisdiction extending over the country 
 lying between Burlington and Davenport, a distance of 
 ninety miles. The western limit of his jurisdiction being 
 undefined, the grasping young magistrate, for his own 
 satisfaction, fixed it at the Pacific Ocean — not having the 
 fear of Mexico before his eyes. He had but one case 
 during his term of office — a criminal charge against a 
 man, who was found guilty by the Justice of stealing $30 
 from a citizen and $3 from the court. The sentence was, 
 that the prisoner be taken to an adjacent grove and tied 
 to an oak tree, and to receive upon his back thirty lashes 
 for the money taken from the citizen and three lashes for 
 the $3 stolen from the court, and to be thence transported 
 
SERRANLTS CLINTON HASTINGS. 435 
 
 across the river to the Illinois shore and banished from 
 the Territory for ever; which sentence, in presence of 
 the court and of all the people, was duly and formally 
 executed. 
 
 On June 12th, 1838, Iowa was erected into a separate 
 Territory. Mr. Hastings became the Democratic candidate 
 of his district for the first Legislature to assemble under 
 the Territorial Grovernment. After a very spirited contest, 
 he was elected. 
 
 From time to time thereafter, and until 1846, (when 
 Iowa was admitted into the Union) Mr. Hastings con- 
 tinued in public life, representing his constituents either 
 in the House or Council. During one of these sessions 
 of the Territorial Legislature, he was elected President 
 of the Council, the duties of which position he dis- 
 charged with great dispatch. During another session, 
 while a member of the Judiciary Committee, and asso- 
 ciated with Hon. James W. Grimes, since United States 
 Senator, he reported from the committee the celebrated 
 statute known in Oregon and Iowa for many years as the 
 Blue Book. This work was accomplished in ninety days, 
 the limit of a legislative session. It was also during one 
 of these sessions that occurred what is known in the 
 history of Iowa as the ^^ Missouri War.'' This ''war" 
 originated in the attempt of the sheriff of Clark county, 
 Missouri, and other Missouri officials, to collect taxes 
 within the territorial limits of Iowa. Gov. Boggs of 
 Missouri and Gov. Lucas of Iowa were the acknowledged 
 and opposing leaders. Mr. Hastings took an active part 
 in this conflict. He left his seat in the Legislature, re- 
 paired to Muscatine, and took command of the ''Mus- 
 catine Dragoons" and three companies of militia. With- 
 out tents or sufficient clothing, with no arms except 
 pistols and bowie-knives, no forage for his animals, and 
 a scanty supply of food for his men, he led his forces in 
 the heart of a stern and bleak winter entirely through 
 the " enemy's country" towards the southern boundary 
 of Missouri. The result of this campaign was the blood- 
 less but glorious capture of the obnoxious sheriff, who 
 was taken triumphantly back to the outraged soil of 
 
436 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Iowa, and lodged in the Muscatine county jail. Before 
 Major Hastings could again cross the Missouri line, where 
 the Missouri forces were preparing to meet him, the 
 difficulties were adjusted and peace fully restored. 
 
 Shortly after the termination of this serio-comic 
 campaign, Major Hastings was appointed on the Gover- 
 nor's staff, with the rank of Major of Militia. 
 
 Early in 1846, a convention of the people of Iowa 
 assembled at the Capitol, and accepted the boundaries 
 proposed by Congress for the new State. Major Hastings 
 was unanimously nominated for Congress, and elected 
 subsequently by the people. 
 
 Iowa being admitted into the Union, December 28th, 
 1846, Major Hastings took his seat as her representative 
 in the Twenty-ninth Congress. With one exception, he 
 was the youngest member of the House of Hepresenta- 
 tives — a body noted for the virtues and talents of its 
 members. John Quincy Adams had not yet been re- 
 moved from the theatre of his great triumphs. Abraham 
 Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, Andrew Johnson, and other 
 bright names, shone on the roll of members. 
 
 In January, 1848, Major Hastings was appointed Chief 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of Iowa. He held this 
 position a little more than one year, when he resigned 
 for the purpose of emigrating to California. He arrived 
 in this State in the spring of 1849, and settled at Benicia. 
 Shortly after his arrival, he was unanimously elected by 
 the Legislature Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and 
 served out his term of two years. 
 
 In 1851, Judge Hastings received the Democratic 
 nomination for Attorney General, to which position he 
 was elected by the people, receiving the highest vote cast 
 at the election, except that given to the candidate for 
 State Treasurer on the same ticket. Major Richard Roman. 
 This vote was considered highly complimentary, as the 
 field was occupied solely by his Whig opponent, who 
 eloquently canvassed the State. At the end of his two 
 years' term of office, he retired to private life, and has not 
 since been before the people as a candidate for office. 
 
 Judge Hastings is a married man, and has eight living 
 
SERRANUS CLINTOX HASTINGS. 437 
 
 children — four boys and four girls. He is a man of nerv- 
 ouSj active temperament, genial manners, and agreeable 
 presence. He is tall in stature and of powerful build, 
 possessing great physical endurance. He is a ready and 
 racy debater, but lays no claims to oratory. He is not 
 particularly adapted to the legal profession, and his nature 
 rebels against the restraints of judicial office. His legal 
 attainments are, however, considerable. He is a fine 
 Latin scholar. His conduct and decisions, as the highest 
 judicial functionary of two States, have been generally 
 commended, and not once, in our presence or to our 
 knowledge, condemned. His conversation is decidedly 
 entertaining, and at times infused with wit and humor. 
 His heart cannot grow old. Politics and finances gene- 
 rally engross his thoughts. 
 
 While wearing the honors and cares of office, whirling 
 in the dizzy round of political agitation, he always hus- 
 banded his resources, and managed his private business 
 affairs with consummate wisdom. He is one of the few 
 pioneers of California who grasped the golden oppor- 
 tunity offered by the flush, exciting times when the State 
 was in her infancy, to lay broad and deep the foundations 
 of their future wealth. His entire career, whether viewed 
 from a political or financial standpoint, has been one of 
 unbroken, almost marvelous success. 
 
 Judge Hastings was the guest of Gov. Seward in his 
 tour of observation through Oregon, Washington, and 
 Alaska, in the summer of 1869; and private duties in- 
 terfered to prevent him accompanying that great friend 
 of the Pacific coast in his journey through our sister 
 Republic. He is addicted to travel, and, since he left 
 public office, the greater part of his time which could be 
 spared from the proper conducting of his children's edu- 
 cation and the management of his estates, has been spent 
 in extended visits to the Eastern States and Europe. 
 His residence is at San Francisco. 
 
JAMES WILLIS NESMITH. 
 
 ^Y THE Editor. 
 
 THIS early pioneer of Oregon occupies a prominent 
 place among the representative men of the Pacific 
 Coast. He is one of the few surviving public men who 
 sought the extreme west, impelled more by the love of 
 adventure than by a thirst for fame or fortune. He came 
 to these shores when a very young man, long before the 
 discovery of gold in California, and made his home in 
 Oregon, where he has passed the greater portion of his 
 life. 
 
 His remote paternal ancestors migrated from Argyle- 
 shire, in Scotland, and settled in Ireland, in the province 
 of Ulster, about the year 1612. His great, great gr^and- 
 father, James Nesmith, emigrated from the valley of the 
 river Bann, in North Ireland, to America, in 1718. 
 He was one of the first sixteen settlers in the town of 
 Londonderry, New Hampshire. In this town the father 
 of James Willis was born, and passed his early boyhood. 
 Before he had grown to man's estate, he moved to Ae- 
 worth. New Hampshire. Afterwards he married a Miss 
 Willis of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and emigrated to 
 the eastern frontier of Maine, where James Willis, their 
 only child, was born July 23d, 1820. His mother died 
 when he was but eight months old. At the age of nine 
 years, the boy was thrown upon his own resources, his 
 father, who was a merchant and trader, having been un- 
 fortunate and reduced to poverty some years previous. 
 By hard work of various kinds he kept himself above 
 want. At the age of fifteen he walked the entire distance 
 
440 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 from Brooks, Maine, to AewortH, New Hampshire. In 
 summer, whenever he could find employment, he worked 
 upon farms, and devoted his winters to study at the dis- 
 trict school. 
 
 When eighteen years old he left Clearmont, New 
 HamjDshire, with all his worldly goods packed upon his 
 back, and twenty-five dollars in pocket, and traveled on 
 foot to Albany, New York. Thence he proceeded, partly 
 on canal boats and partly on steamboats as a deck passen- 
 ger, to Cincinnati, Ohio. Here his funds gave out. He 
 obtained employment as a farm hand near the Queen 
 City, and continued for some time to work at his old oc- 
 cupation, receiving twelve dollars per month for his serv- 
 ices. When the ''melancholy days" returned, he was 
 no longer required upon the farm, and was compelled to 
 look elsewhere for work. He soon secured a new ''en- 
 gagement" to cut cordwood, at fifty cents per cord. 
 
 From 1838 until the spring of 1843, Mr. Nesmith 
 followed a sort of nomadic life in the States of Illinois, 
 Missouri and Iowa. During this period he learned the 
 carpenter trade, at which occupation, being of a mechan- 
 ical turn of mind, he became very proficient. During 
 the latter part of 1842 and the beginning of 1843, the 
 young carpenter assisted in the construction of Fort 
 Scott, now in the State of Kansas. 
 
 In the spring of the latter year a number of men were 
 preparing to emigrate to Oregon from Missouri. Mr. 
 iVesmith determined to join them. He had concluded 
 that his prospects of acquiring a competence by hard 
 labor were dismal; and as he loved the adventures inci- 
 dent to a frontier life, he gladly embraced the oppor- 
 tunity which now offered to penetrate the solitudes of 
 the wilderness, and explore the vast unknown regions 
 which stretched to the west of the Missouri. The party 
 started overland from Independence. Among its mem- 
 bers were Peter H. Burnett, afterwards first Governor of 
 the State of California, Pierson B. Redding, Samuel J. 
 Hensley, and others who have attained distinction in the 
 States of the Pacific. Being expert with the rifle and 
 the shot-gun, Mr. Nesmith hunted for a mess of six or 
 
JAMES WILLIS NESMITH. 441 
 
 eight men, whom he kept supplied with meat in regions 
 where any game could be found. He arrived with his 
 companions in the valley of the Willamette, Oregon, Oc- 
 tober, 1843. For two or three years thereafter he worked 
 at the carpenter's trade. Soon after his arrival he determ- 
 ined to prepare himself for the legal profession. While 
 following his trade he devoted his leisure hours to read- 
 ing law. 
 
 In 1846, Mr. Nesmith was married, and settled on a 
 farm, which he cultivated for about two years. He ap- 
 pears to have always cherished a fondness for the life and 
 labors of a husbandman. But it was appointed that he 
 should not remain secluded from the observation of his 
 fellow men. From 1846 until 1866 he served the Terri- 
 tory and State of Oregon in many and varied capacities. 
 During that period and since, he has also been engaged 
 in many varieties of business pursuits : farming, milling 
 and merchandising have alternately received his attention. 
 
 In 1848, he was a captain in the expedition against; 
 the Indians of Middle Oregon, during what was known as 
 the '• Cay use War." In the latter part of that year he 
 visited California, and worked for more than twelve 
 months in the gold mines. 
 
 In 1853, he served as captain in the war with the 
 Indians of Southern Oregon. 
 
 In 1853 and 1854, he was United States Marshal for 
 Oregon. 
 
 In 1856, he commanded a regiment during the war 
 with the Yackama Indians in north-eastern Oregon and 
 Washington Territory. 
 
 In 1857 and 1858, he was Superintendent of Indian 
 affairs for Oregon and Washington Territory. 
 
 His patience and ability displayed in the management 
 of the complicated concerns of this department, attested 
 his practical wisdom and absolute integrity. 
 
 When the memorable controversy arose between 
 President Buchanan and Senator Douglas, Mr. Nesmith 
 adhered to the views expressed by the latter, to whose 
 course and conduct he gave a hearty endorsement. 
 Though holding a federal office, his sentiments concern- 
 
442 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ing the events then disrupting the Democratic party were 
 candidly asserted, without malice yet w^ithout reserve. 
 
 In June, 1860, President Buchanan removed him 
 from the office he had held for more than three years, 
 and in the administration of which he had given so much 
 satisfaction. Three months had not elapsed thereafter, 
 when the people of Oregon selected him to represent 
 them in the national councils. 
 
 The Legislature of that State convened in September, 
 being divided into three nearly equal elements — the Doug- 
 las Democrats, Administration Democrats, and Republic- 
 ans, with the first-named party in a small plurality. Af- 
 ter a few ineffectual ballots, Mr. Nesmith was elected 
 United States Senator for the full term of six years from 
 the fouth of March, 1861. Col. E. D. Baker was chosen 
 for the short term of five years. During his Senatorial 
 term, Mr. ISTesmith served on the committees on Military 
 Affairs, Commerce and Revolutionary Claims. He was a 
 ^^War Democrat," and supported most of Mr. Lincoln's 
 measures for the suppression of the Rebellion. He op- 
 posed the Emancipation Proclamation on the ground that 
 the Constitution did not warrant its issuance. He be- 
 lieved President Johnson's policy of reconstruction was 
 right, and endorsed it. He sympathized warmly with 
 Mr. Johnson in his disputes with Congress. In the last 
 Presidential election he supported Seymour and Blair, and 
 the weight of his name and influence, in that election, 
 probably turned the well-balanced scales in favor of the 
 Democracy in Oregon. 
 
 Mr. Nesmith is an earnest and forcible, though not an 
 eloquent speaker. He never wearies his auditors, and 
 has no difficulty in engaging their attention, no matter to 
 what subject he addresses himself. His bold, plain and 
 emphatic utterances carry the conviction that he is a prac- 
 tical and truthful man. He is a devoted son of the State 
 where he has so long lived, and his popularity is very 
 great throughout the new north-west. The speech which 
 follows this sketch, in which he urged upon Congress the 
 necessity of establishing a branch of the LTnited States 
 Mint at Dalles City, Oregon, will be found interesting on 
 
JAMES WILLIS NESMITH. 443 
 
 account of the view it presents of the mineral resources 
 of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, while his humorous 
 attacks on the principal enemy of his favorite measure 
 render its perusal anything but monotonous. 
 
 Delivered in the United States Senate, April 1st, 1864, 
 ON the Proposition to establish a Branch Mint at 
 Dalles City, Oregon. 
 
 Me. President : Early in the present session, impelled by a sense 
 of duty to the State which I in part represent, I introduced the bill 
 which has just been read; it was referred to the Committee on Fi- 
 nance for investigation. That committee did my colleagues in this 
 body and in the other House , and myself, the honor to in\dte us be- 
 fore them to present such facts as might be within our knowledge 
 bearing upon the question under consideration; and we w^ere not 
 without hope that the reasons we then presented would induce the 
 committee to give us a favorable report upon a measure of such 
 vital importance to our State as well as to our neighboring Terri- 
 tories of Washington and Idaho. 
 
 It appears that the committee, deferring to a usage so venerable 
 as to have almost become the common law of the Senate, after list- 
 ening to the representations of our delegation, who were supposed 
 to know something about the propriety of the measure, referred the 
 question to the decision of the Secretary of the Treasmy, who tac- 
 itly admitted that he had no information upon the subject, and who 
 in return referred it to one James Pollock, Director of the Mint at 
 Philadelphia, and who was the very man who knew less than any 
 other party consulted, or likely to be consulted, about the q aestion, 
 and who has sent here a communication adverse to the establish- 
 ment of the proposed branch mint in Oregon, and from which the 
 following luminous extract is made : 
 
 " Coinage is one of the highest and most important attributes of national sov- 
 ereignty, and should be exercised and controlled in such a manner as will tend to 
 strengthen rather than weaken the national Government. It is respectfully sug- 
 gested whether the providing of additional coinage establishments does not tend 
 toward national disintegration." 
 
 While the fate of the measure rested with the unbiased judg- 
 ment of the honorable Senators who compose the Finance Commit- 
 tee, I had no apprehensions of anything but a favorable result; but 
 
444 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 when my bill was sent on a voyage of discovery, first to the case- 
 mates of the Treasury Department, and thence to the genius who 
 presides over the parent mint in the city of ' * brotherly love/' I was 
 ajDprehensive that I should never again behold the fair proportions 
 of my cherished offspring. My worst fears have been realized. 
 My bill has returned from its peregrinations hawked at, torn, and 
 dilapidated by the stupidity and ignorance of the company it has 
 kept, and its mangled remains are now before me in the shape of a 
 recommendation for an assay office. 
 
 Before I had ever beheld the American Congress I was so ver- 
 dant as to suppose tnat great questions affecting the country, or any 
 portion of it, were decided by the intelligence and good sense of 
 the members, without reference to the narrow, contracted, and an- 
 tiquated prejudices of some old fogy of some previous generation, 
 whose views could only be valuable as an illustration of what might 
 be said by an active, energetic, and successful competitor for the 
 capital prize at the world's fools' fair. 
 
 My constituents are an eminently practical and unsophisticated 
 sort of people. When I return to them I shall be called upon to 
 give an account of all the deeds and misdeeds done by me in this 
 body; and among other things I shall be called upon to explain why 
 their prayer for a branch mint was not responded to. Well, sir, 
 in my shame and confusion, I shall have to state that Mr. Pollock 
 was opposed to the measure. They will naturally enough say, "We 
 sent you to the American Congress to urge our claims, and cannot 
 see what Mr. Pollock had to do with the question. " You cannot 
 imagine, Senators, how the people, in their simplicity, will be 
 startled and surprised when I deliberately proceed to tell them that 
 before a branch mint can be established for the coinage of their 
 gold, the bill must be sent to one James Pollock for his approval or 
 disapproval. If I am so fortunate as to convince them that this 
 Pollock is a coordinate branch of this great and glorious Govern- 
 ment, they will very naturally desire to know upon what grounds 
 «nd upon what reasons he based his refusal to so just a demand. 
 -Then I shall be forced to unfold to them the mighty, profound, 
 *ind luminous reasons of the philosopical, astute, and recondite 
 ^"ollock, in this wise : ' ' Oregonians, you might have had a branch 
 mint to coin your gold and your silver at your doors, and thus save 
 you from a loss of fifteen or twenty per cent, of the precious metals 
 for which you so industriously delve in the earth, and of which you 
 are daily being robbed, either by speculators or by reason of the risk, 
 expense, and delay incident to sending your gold and silver thousands 
 of miles away to be coined; but the truth is, that by some recondite 
 process beyond my comprehension, and known only to the great 
 political alchemists, the profound Pollock, after submitting branch 
 mints to the torturing process of decomposition and analysis, has 
 discovered that their component parts * consist of treason, secession, 
 withdrawal from the Union,' abrogation of constitutional compacts, 
 denial of Federal authority, disregard of oaths, usurpation of na- 
 tional prerogatives, stealing of public property, arson, and murder. 
 
JAMES WILLIS NESMITH. 445 
 
 all of which, when recombined into a modern branch inint, consti- 
 tutes the essence of all these crimes latterly known as disirdegrafion ! 
 Why, sir, after this lucid statement of the evils which our people in 
 their simple credulity have invoked upon their own heads, when 
 again the people of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho Temtory pe- 
 tition you for the location of a monster of so hideous mien in their 
 midst, you will be enabled to silence their clamors at once by the 
 bare mention of ''Pollock Disintegration," or " Disintegration Pol- 
 lock. " Why, sir, its effect will be as instantaneously soothing as 
 the cabalistic invocation of the " 3Ianitoiva" which frightens the 
 young Indian to sleep, or the bare mention of that devil in English 
 which reduces white urchins to a state of propriety if not of slum- 
 ber. Mr. Pollock, it would seem, has not only found time to draw 
 his annual stipend with the greatest regularity, but has devoted 
 some of his leisure hours to an examination of the Constitution of 
 the United States, upon which instrument he assumes to become a 
 commentator, and with the greatest self-complacency proceeds to 
 inform us that ' ' coinage is one of the highest and most important 
 attributes of national sovereignty, and should be exercised and 
 controlled in such a manner as will tend to strengthen rather than 
 weaken the national Government," and then proceeds to suggest 
 that "additional coinage establishments tend toward national 
 disintegration." 
 
 It is true, sir, that our forefathers in forming the Constitution 
 of the United States did define the powers of Congress; and among 
 a variety of specified objects placed within its jurisdiction was that 
 "to coin money and regulate the value thereof;" but Mr. Pollock 
 is the first of the great commentators who has found it necessary to 
 raise his warning voice against a liberal exercise of this * ' one of the 
 highest attributes of national sovereignty," so essential to the pros- 
 perity and general welfare of a great and powerful nation. His 
 profound reasoning would seem to indicate that even the limited 
 exercise of this great prerogative was only a safe experiment when 
 conducted at the parent mint at Philadelphia, and under his own 
 personal care and supervision; and while no danger is to be appre- 
 hended from "disintegration" upon the slip of land between the 
 Delaware and Schuylkill, yet, from some occult reason, the most 
 dire and disastrous consequences were sure to follow the exercise 
 of this wonderful power beyond those magic limits. 
 
 The Constitution also authorizes Congress "to borrow money 
 on the credit of the United States," and no one seems disposed to 
 regard the unlimited exercise of this power as at all dangerous. It 
 also provides that Congress shall have power to levy and collect 
 taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; to regulate commerce with for- 
 eign nations and the Indian tribes; to establish a unifoi-m rule of 
 naturalization, and uniform laws upon the subject of bankruptcy; 
 to fix standards of weights and measures; to provide for the pun- 
 ishment of counterfeiting the securities and cun-ent coin of the 
 United States; to establish post offices and post roads; to x^romote 
 the progress of science and useful arts; to constitute tribunals in- 
 
446 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ferior to the Supreme Court; to declare war and grant letters of 
 marque and reprisal; to raise and support armies. Tliese are but 
 a few of the great powers confided to congressional jurisdiction, to 
 be exercised for the prosperity and development of a great and pro- 
 gressive people. It has remained for Mr. Pollock to discover that 
 at least one of these great j)owers cannot be exercised beyond the 
 boundaries of his own town. He might with the same propriety 
 propose to restrict the exercise of all the rest within the same 
 nan'ow limits. 
 
 Congress having availed itself of the constitutional grant to coin 
 money and fix the valae thereof, exercised this/ 'highest and most 
 important attribute of national sovereignty" by determining the 
 mode by which the thing should be done. Its functions ceased for 
 the time being when the mint, or factory to execute its mandates, 
 was set in motion for that purpose. No restrictions were placed 
 upon the quantity of coin to be made, that being left to be determ- 
 ined by the quantity of material furnished for the purpose and 
 the capacity of the factory to work it up. 
 
 No one but Mr. Pollock is impressed with the idea that every 
 time he applies the necessary physical force to the lever to swedge 
 a piece of nickel into the shape of current coin, he is any more 
 exercising the " attributes of national sovereignty" than is eveiy 
 day exercised by the stage driver who cracks his whip over the team 
 that draws the mail, or the coal-heaver that stokes the fire to gener- 
 ate steam for its propulsion by water. All these are simply doing 
 the physical labor necessary to accommodate the people with coins 
 and mails, in pursuance of different acts of Congress, predicated 
 upon a fundamental grant of power. The stage driver or the stoker 
 could, with quite as much propriety, give us their disquisitions upon 
 the constitutional power, or the dangers to be apprehended from its 
 exercise, by reason of "disintegration," resulting from the estab- 
 lishment of new mail routes or increased speed upon the old ones, 
 as Mr. Pollock has for his absurd attempt to prevent the people 
 upon the Pacific slope from being accommodated with pieces of metal 
 fashioned into money at a Government factory, by virtue of pre-ex- 
 isting authority. 
 
 Mints, and branch mints, notwithstanding all the mysterious 
 dignity with which Mr. Pollock attempts to surround them, are 
 mere workshops, or factories, established by the Government for 
 the accommodation of the people, and should be located at points 
 convenient to where the raw material is produced, in order that 
 those engaged in that production should enjoy at least some of the 
 benefits of the fabrication. The man who is so narrow-minded and 
 selfishly prejudiced as to desire to confine their operation to a single 
 and inconvenient point in this great country, so abounding in the 
 precious metals, might as readily urge that every iron-foundiy, 
 brick-yard, saw and grist mill, blacksmith, hatter, and shoemaker 
 shop necessary to accommodate more than thirty millions of people, 
 should be established in the same village, and thus check any in- 
 cipient tendency toward "disintegration." 
 
JAMES WILLIS NESMITH- 447 
 
 Why, sir, when the patriotic people of Oregon, and Washington 
 and Idaho Territories, read Pollock's letter, and comprehend that 
 his report against their proposed branch mint is based upon his 
 fears that so petty a consideration should shake their loyalty or in- 
 duce them to become traitors to their countiy and their flag, they 
 will simply treat his absurd theories with the scorn and contempt 
 they deserve. A public officer who, in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, could descend to indulge in such imputations against a 
 loyal and patriotic people, under the guise of defending the Con- 
 stitution, has about as much conception of that instrument as the 
 grave-worm has of the intellect which once animated the body upon 
 which it feeds. The author of such vagaries could not excite the 
 anger of a sensible people, who, if he were present among them, 
 would be moved by the highest dictates of humanity and philan- 
 thropy to cut him for the simples. 
 
 We read in the Scriptures that Nebuchadnezzar fed upon grass, 
 but there is no evidence that he ever became fit for beef; so from 
 analogy we may infer that Pollock, though he directs and controls 
 a factory which he regards as embodying all the attributes of na- 
 tional sovereignty, will hardly ever attain a condition qualifying 
 him for the proper exercise of those high functions. 
 
 When my colleagues and myself went before the Committee on 
 Finance to urge upon tbem the propriety of this measure, we 
 found oirrselves laboring under some embarrassment in the produc- 
 tion of conclusive evidence in relation to the quantity of gold being 
 produced, and likely to be produced, in the region of country to be 
 accommodated by the proposed branch mint. 
 
 Owing to the great distance which separates us from our con- 
 stituents, the delays, difficulties, and uncertainties of communica- 
 tion with them, and in part to their own carelessness and neglect to 
 forward the necessary data upon which to predicate our statements, 
 we were only able to furnish an approximate estimate of the results 
 of their industry in mining pursuits during the last year. With a 
 consciousness that we were within bounds, we stated that our ex- 
 jDortations of gold for the last year amounted to more than an aver- 
 age of one million dollars per month. When called upon by the 
 honorable chairman of the committee to submit our views in writ- 
 ing, we offered the following communication : 
 
 Washington, January 20th, 1864. 
 
 Sir : At the suggestion of the committee, at its late meeting upon the sub- 
 ject of a branch mint proposed to be established at the city of Portland, State of 
 Oregon, the undersigned submit a statement of facts which have induced them to 
 ask the passage of the bill now before you. 
 
 PreUminary to this we will remark that, owing to the fact that from the local 
 situation of the mining region which will be tributary to the proposed branch 
 mint, a large share of the treasure passes out of it by private hands, we cannot 
 pretend to give accurate statistics of its mineral products. The mines lie along 
 the eastern boundary of Oregon, and extend thence north and into the British 
 Possessions, and east to the summit of the Kocky mountains. This region embrac- 
 ing all of Idaho on the western slope, and a large share of the Tenitory of Wash- 
 ington and the State of Oregon, finds its outlet by way of the Columbia river, and 
 
448 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 draws its supplies by the same channel. A mint located at the city of Portland, 
 which is the commercial mart of all the country drained by the Columbia, would 
 accommodate the whole of this vast region, now rapidly filling with a population 
 whose principal, almost exclusive, business is that of mining. 
 
 The Territoiy of Idaho, organized last March, did not till within eighteen 
 months contain to exceed five hundred white persons. In the month of October 
 last the census taken by the United States Marshal showed a population of thirty- 
 four thousand. This increase seems to indicate that the existence of rich and ex- 
 tensive mines is well established. A fair, candid estimate of the population en- 
 gaged in mining and to be accommodated by this measure would probably place the 
 number at fifty thousand. And we may add that in proportion to the labor employ- 
 ed, we believe no mines on the western slope yield so well. 
 
 Much of the treasure taken fron tlfese mines finds its way out of the country 
 in the hands of private individuals. There is no common place of deposit for 
 it where it can be credited to its source, thus making it almost impossible to estimate 
 its amount justly. The various express companies can give the amount which 
 they transport, but this leaves an immense amount, which any one knows to ex- 
 ist who is acquainted with the independent mode in which a great many persons 
 transact their business, thus entirely unaccounted for. As an instance of this, a 
 late Portland (Oregon) paper states that the express company brought down by the 
 daily steamer of the Columbia river only $1,000 in gold dust, while the same pa- 
 per gives the names of two passengers who had over three hundred pounds in their 
 possession, and others mentioned had smaller amounts. We say, therefore, that 
 while the books and receipts of express companies show the only accurate statis- 
 tics on the subject, they give no idea of the vast resources in mineral of the section, 
 the interests of which will be accommodated by this measiure. 
 
 Such data as we have we now submit. There are three private assay offices in 
 the city of Portland. The amounts received by them, as shown by their books, 
 an abstract of which is published in the ' ' Oregonian ' ' newspaper for November 
 last, from January 15th, 1863, to October 20th, following, is $2,486,496.65. As an 
 evidence of the growth of the product of gold we may mention that one office, 
 making monthly statements of the amount received, gave for each of the two 
 months preceding the last account almost double that of those earlier in the year. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin HoUaday, of New York, who is the owner of the line of steam- 
 ships plying between San Francisco and Portland, informs us that he has trans- 
 ported from Portland an average of from six to seven hundred thousand dollars 
 per month during the past summer and autumn. This statement does not include 
 the amounts in the hands of passengers, of which he knew nothing, but which, 
 owing to the high insurance, we must conclude were large. 
 
 There being no regulation at the branch mint in San Francisco requiring the 
 depositor of bullion to designate whence it came, there is no other means of 
 obtaining any just estimate than by reports of the kind to which we refer. The 
 recently published reports from San Francisco, made by a commercial board of 
 that city, of the amount of bullion received there for the past year, credits Ore- 
 gon and British Columbia with a product of five millions. This, of coiu'se, is 
 based upon the receipts by shipments and through express companies, and leaves 
 a vast amount — the whole that is diffused through the mining region and that por- 
 tion which enters the circulation of business and agi*icultural parts of Oregon, and 
 that shipped in the hands of passengers— unaccounted for. This, we do not hesi- 
 tate to say, we believe amounts to as much more. 
 
 Om-s is a growing State. Capital is finding many new avenues of employment 
 and investment, and even as far back as 1860, when our mining interest was in its 
 infancy, the city of Portland was, in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, 
 the wealthiest city in the Union. So the census of that year will verify. We might 
 give many items showing that the mines tributary to the proposed branch mint are 
 very productive; but we refer to only one, and that only because it came directly 
 to the knowledge of one of the undersigned. That was an instance where three 
 men in six weeks' time, with their own hands dug out $180,000. These instances 
 are not common, we admit, but they serve to show the exceeding richness of some 
 portions of this northern region, and indicate the wealth which must soon there 
 be developed. For the purpose of stimulating this development by providing the 
 miner with a place for the assay of his gold without the loss of time, the risk of 
 transmission by sea to San Francisco, and the payment of expressing and insurance 
 
JAMES WILLIS NESMITH. 449 
 
 fees, and to prevent the swindling dealer in coin from robbing tbe miner of his 
 fair earnings by his unjust discoiint, which many prefer to submit to rather than 
 the inconvenience just alluded to, we ask you to consider the proposition favorably^ 
 
 J. W. NESMITH, 
 B. F. HARDING, 
 JOHN K. McBRIDE. 
 
 Hon. W. P. Fessenden, 
 
 Chairman of Senate Finance Connnittee. 
 
 As auxiliary to this statement, we laid before tlie committee tbe 
 following extracts from well known and credible Oregon newspa- 
 pers relative to the production of gold solely within the State of 
 Oregon : 
 
 The Gold and Silveb Mixes of Owyhee. — The news from the Owyhee mining 
 district is sufficient to warrant the proud assertion that Oregon and Idaho territory 
 will soon be recognized as the richest countries in mineral wealth on the face of the 
 globe. Mr. Luther Hasbrook, a gentleman who has just returned from the Owy- 
 hee, called upon us on Thursday last and exhibited to us a sack full of quartz speci- 
 mens, taken mostly from the Oro Fino, Morning Star, Evening Star, and Noonday 
 lodes. Contrary to the usual custom of selecting the richest specimens for assay, 
 Mr. H. brought down with him every character of rock which had been obtained 
 in the lode, from the richest to the poorest. A chemical analysis of that taken 
 from the Oro Fino shows a valuation of $22,000 per ton, with the proportion 
 of §3,000 per ton in silver. From the Morning Star an average of $11,000 in gold 
 and $2,000 in silver has been taken from a ton of the rock. The Evening Star is 
 said to equal the Morning Star, while the Noonday, it is believed, ^vill surpass all 
 the others in richness. The above mentioned are all the lodes that have as yet 
 been thoroughly prospected, though many others have been located and will be 
 opened as soon as labor will accompUsh it. Mr. Hasbrook could not recollect the 
 names of all the different lodes which have been claimed, but mentions the follow- 
 ing : Oro Fino, Morning Star, Evening Star, Noonday, Union, Whisky Gulch, 
 Last Chance, Claremont, Highland, War Eagle, North Pole, South Pole, New York, 
 Empire, Silver Gray, and Moonhght. 
 
 The above and a large number of others are found in a district of about five 
 miles square, though Mr. Hasbrook assures us that there is not the slightest doubt 
 of the entire Owyhee valley proving equally rich. Nor is the mineral wealth con- 
 fined to the Owyhee exclusively, but to the whole country for fifty miles around. 
 Aside from the gold-bearing quartz lodes, several ledges have been discovered 
 which rival the richest of the Washoe or Esmeralda districts. 
 
 If the above reports be true, (and there is very httle reason to doubt them) we 
 may rest assured that the following season will witness the largest emigration to 
 that region ever yet known. The great success of the miners during the past sea- 
 son has given encouragement to enterprising men everywhere, and instead of be- 
 ing regarded as a humbug, the richness and extent of our mines is acknowledged 
 by all. 
 
 Mormon Basin. — From Mr. Perry, a gentleman who has spent the summer in 
 Mormon Basin, we derive the following in relation to this mining district. About 
 two hundred and fifty men have been at work in the Basin during the summer, and 
 their average pay has been fully up to the Boise standard. Indeed, it is thought 
 that if they had an abundance of water in the Basin it would be the best mining 
 camp in the northern country. Working with a rocker, the best day's work made 
 was $225. The average pay was ten dollars per day to the hand. The gold is of 
 a superior quality, and assays over seventeen dollars per ounce. On Clark's Creek, 
 distant seven miles from the Basin, one hundred men have been at work, making 
 good wages. Many of the miners have come out to winter, and it is thought that 
 not more than one hundred and fifty men wiU winter in the mines. All through 
 the summer there was a great demand for men. To laborers five dollars per day 
 
 29 
 
450 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 •was paid, and considering the difference in the cost of living, this is quite as good 
 as six dollars in Boise. In the spring there will be a great demand for hands, and 
 it is not unlikely that wages will go up to Six dollars. Mr. Perry brought down 
 with him several plethoric purses, filled with Mormon Basin dust. It is coarser 
 than that from Boise, and in the lot that we examined there were many pieces that 
 would weigh from one to two dollars. "Without doubt. Mormon Basin is a rich 
 mining district, and with another year a large amount of treasure will be taken 
 out. — Mountaineer. 
 
 Tons or Gold. — The Nez Perce Chief brought down last evening the richest 
 freight that any steamer on the Columbia river ever bore. Wells, Fargo & Co. had 
 183 pounds, ($35,000); one party of six miners had 800 pounds. ($150,600); 
 another party of six men had 700 pounds, ($134,400 ;) another partv of two men 
 had 300 pounds, ($57,600) ; while one man had 150 pounds, ($28,000). Thus we 
 have a total of 1,950 pounds ($370,600) in the hands of fifteen " honest miners," 
 and 183 pounds ($35,000) in the hands of Wells, Fargo & Co. All of these fif- 
 teen persons our informant, who came down in the Chief, saw and conversed with. 
 He also learned that nearly all the passengers had plenty of money. So it is fair 
 to conclude that two tons of gold dust came down on the Chief last evening. — Dal- 
 les Journal. 
 
 From our own personal knowledge of that country, and our ac- 
 quaintance with gentlemen making these and similar statements, we 
 are satisfied of their reliability. 
 
 The region of country which will be accommodated by the estab- 
 lishment of the proposed branch mint extends from the forty-sec- 
 ond to the forty-ninth parallels of latitude, and from the Pacific 
 ocean to the Rocky mountains, embracing an area about eight times 
 the size of the great State of New York, or about six times as large 
 as the New England States. Throughout the length and breadth of 
 this vast region, with the exception of but a few localities, both gold 
 and silver abounds in inexhaustible quantities. But a few short 
 years since I saw it an uninhabited wilderness, except that portion 
 occupied by Indians, much of it apparently sterile and unproduc- 
 tive, and as was then thought by many, perfectly valueless. To- 
 day it contains two hundred thousand busy, enterprising, indus- 
 trious, and intelligent people, forming a nucleus around which mil- 
 lions will be found within a few brief years. During the last year 
 its scattered and meagre population, with but few conveniences or 
 facilities, and with rude appliances, produced $15,000,000 in gold. 
 This year that product will be more than trebled, and that ratio of 
 production will continue in the proportion that an industrious and 
 energetic population is supplied from the older States and from for- 
 eign countries, until the production of the precious metals of that 
 auriferous region will amount to $1,000,000,000 per annum. 
 
 Who, sir, would have had the temerity a few short years since to 
 have predicted the vast revolution to be wrought in commerce, in- 
 dustry, national prosperity, and general enterprise by the discovery 
 of gold upon the Pacific slope? 
 
 One morning in the year 1848, Bennett and Marshall, two indi- 
 viduals unknown to fame, picked up some pieces of yellow sub 
 stance in Captain Sutter's mill-race, on the American river near 
 Coloma, California. Those men, quite as unconscious of the mag- 
 nificent results to flow from their discovery as was Columbus when 
 
JA3IES WILLIS NESMITH. 451 
 
 he first beheld the glimmering light upon the shores of America, 
 held in their hands the germ that was to give a new impetus to the 
 progress of the world. What has resulted from the discover}^ made 
 by those two almost unknown men, though it has astonished and 
 filled mankind with amazement, is but the precursor of what is to 
 follow when the vast mining regions of Oregon, Washington, and 
 Idaho have their mining resources more fully developed. As yet 
 nothing has been accomplished upon the Pacific coast but a mere 
 scratching of the surface. With machineiy, capital, systematized 
 labor, and good roads afibrding facilities for ingi-ess and egress, and 
 the cheaper transportation of necessary supplies, the production of 
 gold and silver will be increased a thousand fold, and the nation 
 will have in its own public domain, so rich in precious metals, re- 
 sources ample for the liquidation of our public debt, even if we 
 should be compelled to battle with treason and secession for another 
 generation to come. 
 
 It does seem to me, Mr. President, that the Government, instead 
 of pursuing a niggardly policy toward the hardy pioneei*s engaged 
 in developing the region to which I have referred, should extend 
 toward them all reasonable facihties for the successful promotion of 
 an entei-prise so fraught with the present and prospective interests 
 of the nation. 
 
 The world changes, and he who attempts to oppose its mutations 
 in place of accommodating himself to them, can lay no claims to 
 statesmanship. When the Alleghanies were the western limit of 
 the Union, and our annual gold production and coinage was about 
 two hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars, as it was on an aver- 
 age for the twenty-four years from 1793 to 1817, then, when Presi- 
 dents, Cabinets, and members of Congress, together with the more 
 respectable portions of mankind, refused to send messages by tele- 
 graph, use postage stamps, or ride upon railroads, then the JVIint at 
 Philadelphia was at the hub of the American universe and in a 
 central position, and could accommodate the nation. At present 
 there is no more use or propriety in its being there than there 
 would be in sending warming-pans to the East Indies, temperance 
 lecturers to the State of Maine, Christian missionaries to Massa- 
 chusetts, or steam cotton-presses to Terra del Fuego. 
 
 The little old man who so complacently sits in the little old Gov- 
 ernment workshop in Philadelphia, exercising ** the highest func- 
 tions of national sovereignty'* by coining $3,000,000 of gold a year, 
 while the Pacific slope is producing $100,000,000 and wants it 
 coined into a circulating medium, will eventually have to yield to 
 the logic of current events and take his shop to the gold, for the 
 reason that the gold will not come to his shop. 
 
 This is a progressive world and a progressive people in a pro- 
 gressive age. Commerce, enteq^rise, and the great interests of 
 mankind will not be trifled with or retarded by the theories of a by- 
 gone era. Those who are too prejudiced or too stubborn to yield 
 must clear the track, or be crushed by the car of progress. The 
 adoption of a liberal and magnanimous policy on the part of Con- 
 
452 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 gress toward the remote States and Territories is calculated to cher- 
 ish and foster the innate love of our people for our G-overnment 
 and institutions. No recipients of such generous favors are likely 
 to regard them as an inducement to secession or " disintegration/' 
 especially when the disturbing causes which have led to our present 
 difficulties have no existence with them. This is true of the States 
 and Territories upon the Pacific. It is true that a branch mint was 
 one of the institutions conferred upon the southern States by the 
 liberality of Congress, and was located at New Orleans. That bless- 
 ing, like any other conferred upon that region, was perverted and 
 abused in the mad career of a people determined to make slavery- 
 general and freedom local; but there is not a j)article of evidence 
 that it furnished any more inducement to the consummation of seces- 
 sion and rebellion than any other of the thousands of blessings that 
 the southern people derived from their connection with the Union. 
 This folly had its origin in other causes, prominent among which 
 was the absurd claim that State sovereignty was paramount to na- 
 tional authority. The seeds of secession and rebellion, with all their 
 concomitant curses and crimes, had been sown broadcast by promi- 
 nent southern statesmen for a period of more than thirty years, un- 
 der the fascinating designation of State's rights, and were assiduously 
 cultivated by pretenders who claimed to be the embodiment of all 
 that was chivalrous. 
 
 Mr. President, in order to refute the visionary theories of what 
 I regard as an insane man, I have thus been led to repel mere asser- 
 tions which would not be of the slightest consequence, were it not, 
 imf ortunately, for the official position which by accident he happens 
 to occupy. I regret exceedingly that circumstances beyond my con- 
 trol have compelled me to waste so much ammunition upon such 
 very small game. 
 
 It may possibly be urged, sir, that with a parent mint at Philadel- 
 phia, and a branch mint at San Francisco, no more mining facilities 
 are required, and that gold will seek the locality where it can be 
 coined the cheapest. I dispose of all such arguments by stating 
 that during the last fiscal year the branch mint at San Francisco, by 
 being worked to its utmost capacity, was only able to coin gold to 
 the amount of $17,510,963, while only $3,340,931.74 reached and 
 was coined at Mr. Pollock's old curiosity shop in Philadelphia. It 
 should also be borne in mind that at Philadelphia the Government 
 charge for ''parting " as it is technically called, was only five cents 
 per ounce, while at San Francisco it was fourteen cents per ounce. 
 This data proves conclusively that gold seeks the nearest mint for 
 coinage, and that the extra charge of nine cents per ounce for 
 "parting" bears no sort of proportion to the expense and delays of 
 transporting gold to the parent mint at Philadelphia. When, be- 
 sides, it is taken into consideration that the Government levies and 
 collects a tax upon all money coined at their establishments equal to 
 the expense of coinage, I am unable to perceive how she can lose in 
 a pecuniary point by the adoption of a measure which provides for 
 reimbursing her for all her outlay. Surely the amount asked for by 
 
JAMES WILLIS NESMITH. 453 
 
 the bill is a paltry sum. You expend Tnthout a murmur a larger 
 sum every month in what is called "decorating the subterranean 
 passages" of this building with gaudy daubs, intended, as I suppose, 
 to represent mountains, cascades, beasts, birds, and pei*sons, which 
 never existed except in the distempered brain of the artist engaged 
 in producing them. 
 
 The wealth, the population, and political power of this Repub- 
 lic are progressing westward with as much certainty and resistless 
 power as causes the light and heat of the morning sun to flow in the 
 same direction. You can neither ignore the fact nor retard its con- 
 summation, but you may for a brief period embarrass it by a refusal 
 to comply with the just demands of our people, for the same na- 
 tional benefits conferred by the common Government upon older 
 and more favored portions of the country. 
 
 With a firm consciousness of the justice and propriety of my 
 amendment, I invoke the aid of Senators to procure its adoption. 
 
^Y/^^^^a^^ 
 
SAMUEL BRANNAN 
 
 ^Y )VlLLIAM J. ]VeLLS. 
 
 Ij^EW names among the prominent pioneers of California 
 have been more intimately associated with the his- 
 tory of the State than that of Mr. Erannan. A review of 
 many of the principal enterprises for internal or metro- 
 politan improvement during the last twenty years, would 
 reveal him as their zealous advocate and master mind, 
 either as the originator or the active promoter ; and it 
 may be truly said of him that he has not been surpassed 
 by any individual in. the State in his encouragement of 
 industrial progress. 
 
 Mr. Brannan was born in Saco, in the State of Maine, 
 in 1819. He immigrated to Lake County, Ohio, in 1833, 
 where he entered upon an apprenticeship to letter-press 
 printing. Before the term of his indenture was com- 
 pleted, he bought up, in 1836, the remainder of his time, 
 and although a mere youth, entered into the great land 
 speculations at an era when the whole country was seized 
 with the mania of making fortunes without the worrying 
 need of time, trouble, or capital. A year later he turned 
 again to the press, and traveled the country as a journey- 
 man printer. In the course of the five following years 
 he visited most of the States of the Union. In 1842, he 
 established and published in New York a weekly news- 
 paper, styled the New York 2fessenger. 
 
 As early as 1846 he formed a company of pioneers to 
 settle upon the distant and then unknown shores of Cali- 
 
456 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC), 
 
 fornia, and the ship BrooMyn^ in which, with two hundred 
 and thirty immigrants, he sailed from New York, arrived 
 at San Francisco in July of the same year. When Mr. 
 Brannan first landed in California he was about twenty- 
 six years of age. He at once became a leading and 
 influential member of the isolated little community, and 
 soon after his arrival he erected the machinery of two 
 flour mills, in a locality answering to what is now Clay 
 street. These were the first introduced into the country. 
 He also, in January, 1847, projected and published a 
 weekly newspaper, called the California Star^ which was 
 the first journal that appeared in San Francisco, and was 
 the parent of the present Alta California. All this was 
 before the discovery of gold, and when the early settlers 
 little suspected that the progress and development of 
 their new and distant home would be aided by any of 
 the remarkable events that soon after made California a 
 centre-point of attraction for the whole world. 
 
 In the fall of 1847, Mr. Brannan opened a store at 
 Sutter's Fort, under the name of C. C. Smith & Co. 
 This was the first establishment of the kind formed in 
 the Sacramento Yalley. In the spring of 1848, he 
 bought out Mr. Smith, who shortly afterwards returned 
 to the Atlantic States possessed of a handsome fortune. 
 Mr. Brannan continued the business during the heat of 
 the gold excitement, and there laid the foundation of his 
 present great wealth. In 1849, he returned to San Fran- 
 cisco, where he had preserved a residence and citizenship, 
 and, under the firm of Osborn & Brannan, conducted an 
 extensive business for nearly a year in Chinese merchan- 
 dise. In the noted affair of ''the Hounds," about mid- 
 summer of that year, he took a leading part, and was 
 active in extirpating that band of desperadoes from 
 the city. In August following, he was elected a member 
 of the first regular Town Council; and in 1851 was 
 chosen President of the famous "Vigilance Committee." 
 About the end of 1851, Mr. Brannan visited the Sand- 
 wich Islands, where he bought extensive properties in 
 farming land, and real estate in Honolulu. In 1853, he 
 was elected a State Senator of California. 
 
SA31UEL BRANNAN. 457 
 
 It is impossible in our narrow limits even to allude 
 to the numberless public affairs in which this gentleman 
 has been engaged. The cause of education always found 
 in him an ardent supporter. He was one of the founders 
 of the first school in San Francisco, and contributed 
 liberally to the edifice. Many of the most elegant 
 structures in the city were built by him, and there is 
 scarcely an institution of public usefulness that has not 
 experienced the benefits of his impulsive generosity. 
 Libraries; institutes; lectures for charitable purposes; 
 churches; Sunday schools; works of art; literary so- 
 cieties; military companies; hospitals; poor artists, 
 authors, and editors; needy inventors, and suffering 
 humanity generally, of whatever religion or nationality, 
 have had cause gratefully to remember his liberality. 
 N^ot only associations of public beneficence have found a 
 friend in Mr. Brannan, but he has been a pioneer in, and 
 a liberal encourager of, a curious variety of enterprises, 
 embracing some of the most useful branches of California 
 industry. The importation, via Panama, of rare breeds 
 of French and Spanish merino sheep, at a time when 
 the success of such investment was problematical; the 
 collection throughout France, Spain, and Italy, of choice 
 varieties of grape cuttings, he having visited Europe in 
 1857 for that and other purposes; the reclaiming of tule- 
 land along the San Joaquin river, thus setting the ex- 
 ample to others; the raising of blood stock, and the 
 improvement of his extensive farming lands in various 
 parts of the State, have divided his attention with the 
 management of his real estate in San Francisco. The 
 Pacific Railroad, Overland Telegraph, Express Companies, 
 banking and insurance and loan associations — enterprises 
 connected with and forming the very essence of the pros- 
 perity of California — all of these have found in Mr. Bran- 
 nan one of their most ready and intelligent cooperators. 
 
 In 1868, he purchased the entire landed estates of 
 Abel Stearns in Los Angeles county, embracing an area 
 of about one hundred and seventy thousand acres, which 
 resulted in the opening of those extensive tracts to set- 
 tlement by small farmers, thus greatly stimulating the 
 
458 EEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 industry of that portion of the State. In the silver 
 mining regions of Eastern Nevada, Mr. Brannan's restless 
 business talents have also been exerted, in the erection 
 at Robinson District of saw mills, quartz mills, and 
 smelting works, the building of toll roads, and develop- 
 ment of one of the richest mineral districts in that State ; 
 together with the location of valuable tracts of timber 
 and agricultural lands near Mineral City and in Steptoe 
 Yalley. 
 
 From among his numerous enterprises, we may par- 
 ticularize the instance of Napa Yalley, where he is the 
 proprietor of the Calistoga Hot Springs, and a valuable 
 estate of three thousand acres surrounding them. Here, 
 his all-pervading activity has created out of bare nature 
 the principal watering place in California, not inaptly 
 termed the ^^ Saratoga of the Pacific Coast." This famous 
 place of fashionable resort is too well known in Cali- 
 fornia to require any extended description at our hands. 
 Its climate, rivaling the most celebrated localities of 
 Italy or the south of France, and the scenery, uniting 
 the grandeur of the loftiest summits of the coast range 
 with the pastoral features of the adjacent rich farming 
 country, have made Calistoga the favorite resort of tour- 
 ists and invalids from all parts of the country. This 
 costly scene of comfort and healthful recreation Mr. 
 Brannan has reared by his own unaided resources, and 
 the effect of his far-reaching enterprise is felt in the im- 
 petus he has given to the prosperity of all that section 
 of the State. The Napa Valley Railroad, connecting 
 Calistoga with tide water at Yallejo, is especially due to 
 his persistent energy. 
 
 We cannot close this imperfect sketch without record- 
 ing the unwavering and outspoken loyalty of Mr. Bran- 
 nan to the cause of the Union in the darkest periods of 
 its trial by fire and sword. On the stump, in the press, 
 among the people, his voice has been heard in emphatic 
 denunciation of the rebellion, and his contributions in 
 aid of the cause he espoused were unstinted in fitting 
 out officers for the war, in printing and disseminating 
 loyal documents, and in evexy way strengthening the 
 
SAMUEL BRANNAN. 459 
 
 hands of the Government. In the second Lincoln cam- 
 paign, Mr. Rrannan was chosen as one of the Presidential 
 Electors from California. During that memorable con- 
 test he canvassed the northern part of the State^ and 
 aided materially in carrying the Union ticket. His gen- 
 erous sympathies were not confined to his native land. 
 The cause of freedom in Mexico, menaced by the French 
 intervention, received his substantial aid. In 1866, he 
 armed and equipped at his own expense a company to 
 join President Juarez, and these recruits, composed of 
 hardy and experienced frontiersmen, rendered important 
 services in expelling the foreign invaders. 
 
 Mr. Brannan is a signal example of the American 
 self-made man. Starting in life a poor boy, thrown early 
 on his own resources, and with few of the advantages 
 possessed by the youth of the succeeding generation, he 
 had the sagacity to foresee the mighty future of the 
 Pacific coast, and the pluck and energy to avail himself 
 of the circumstances of the times. As his influence in 
 the community has thus far been beneficial to the welfare 
 of California, so it is equally certain that it will continue 
 to be exerted for the best interests of his adopted State. 
 
PHILIP L. EDWARDS 
 
 ^ JlOBERT p. pi^PEI^ 
 
 PHILIP Legget Edwards was born in Breckenridge 
 county, Kentucky, on the 14th of July, 1812; died 
 the 1st of May, 1869; hence he was fifty-six years, nine 
 months, and seventeen days old. His father and mother, 
 Thomas Edwards and Jane Edwards, (whose maiden name 
 was Jane Cunningham) were both natives of Virginia. 
 At quite an early period they bade farewell to their native 
 home, and marched westward to the then frontier State 
 of Kentucky. Enterprise, coupled with adventure — the 
 love of unrestrained freedom to enjoy the extended fields 
 of nature ere they had been incumbered with a dense 
 population — w^ere leading characteristics of the Edwards 
 family. 
 
 Virginia had, it is true, more of the comforts of life 
 and promises of leisure than the wilderness west of the 
 Alleghanies could ofier ; yet the father of Colonel Edwards 
 stopped not to consider a life of ease in the land of his 
 birthplace, but eagerly sought to lead the van of empire, 
 whose path was westward. His move from the scenes of 
 his childhood, instead of satisfying his desire to see new 
 places and fasten his attachment for a particular locality, 
 rather stimulated his inclination still farther west, for in 
 1824 he was again on the road of emigration, this time 
 to the outposts of the white settlements in the State of 
 Missouri. 
 
462 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 He located at Old Franklin, in Howard county, on 
 the Missouri river; afterwards moved to Ray county, in 
 that State, where he resided until 1850, at w^hich time he 
 took up the line of march for California. He lived to be 
 quite an old man ; was resident of Nevada county several 
 years, where, two or three years since, his career on earth 
 was brought to a close. 
 
 Colonel P. L. Edwards, the subject of this sketch, 
 (the title Colonel was acquired during the Mormon 
 troubles in Missouri, 1841) commenced teaching school 
 at the age of twenty-one, in the village of Richmond, 
 Ray county, Missouri. That avocation, which of all 
 others is best calculated to discipline the mind, to incul- 
 cate method both of thought and action, systematize 
 reflection, and enable the inquiring mind to arrive at just 
 conclusions, was entered by him just as youth had 
 ripened into manhood. This is the most important point 
 in the life of every man, for at this period the tender 
 cares of the mother, the wise admonitions and counsel 
 of the father, culminate and unmistakably direct him to 
 assume responsibilities which he never before held, and 
 lay out the course which he would follow through an 
 active, living world. 
 
 With a full supply of common sense; naturally kind^ 
 eager to learn ; faculties capable of receiving and inclina- 
 tion to acquire knowledge; he commenced the active 
 duties of manhood in that praiseworthy calling of im- 
 parting information to the innocent youth; and doubtless 
 he also commenced the cultivation of those traits of 
 character which endeared him to his friends, and formed 
 that frame-work of esteem and respect that elevated him, 
 wherever he resided, far above suspicion, even of the 
 most vicious. That honesty of purpose, love of truth^ 
 independent thought, earnest action, gratitude to friends^ 
 and leniency towards antagonists, which he taught the 
 young under his tutelage, he also practiced himself. Next 
 to that of character, his fondest theme for the study of 
 the young was the understanding of words. This theory 
 he strictly pursued in all his readings as well as his 
 writings. No man systematically analyzed the subject 
 
PHILIP L. EDWARDS. 463 
 
 under consideration more completely than he. Its sev- 
 eral branches he would unravel in detail, and unite the 
 various collateral definitions as well as join the main line 
 in one aggregated conclusion, and express the same in 
 languag(5 sujfficiently terse, perspicuous, and comprehens- 
 ible to bring it within the scope of the simplest mind. 
 
 Frank, energetic, and industrious, he moved in any 
 cause in which he engaged with a zest and ardor to suc- 
 ceed, not only to the understanding of the surface, but 
 the cause, the wherefore, and the groundwork, as well as 
 the superstructure. The glittering varnish on the outer 
 lines of the work might please his eye, but the plan of 
 the architecture, the base and foundation of the whole 
 structure, were subjects of far greater importance to him. 
 The experience of those who had gone before him, the 
 theories of government, the life and character of states- 
 men, the mysteries of politics, the teachings of theology, 
 the works of the poets, the facts of the historian, the 
 tales of life and stories of romance, all received his at- 
 tention; and although the taste he nurtured for reading 
 while the bloom of youth was on his cheek may have 
 become somewhat abated as age advanced, yet he con- 
 tinued the habit of much reading down to the day of 
 his death. This, coupled with his abundance of kind- 
 ness for all, and ill-will towards none, is the explanation 
 of that remarkable faculty he had in making every one 
 easy in and fond of his company. If the man of letters 
 was present, he could readily draw upon the rich store- 
 house of information at his own command, and never fail 
 to entertain as well as inform his hearer. The illiterate 
 would feel easy in conversation with him, because in 
 his pleasant and unassuming style, he would anticipate 
 their deficiency, and supply it for them in such a friendly 
 manner, they would fail to discover their own ignorance 
 in their admiration of the Colonel's great good nature, 
 manifested in understanding them, however awkwardly 
 they expressed themselves. He was a man full of humor, 
 indulged frequently in anecdotes, and highly enjoyed a 
 good joke well told. 
 
 During the second year of his school, his health be- 
 
464 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 came rather feeble. Just at this time, a party was 
 organized, some of the members intending to trade with 
 the Indians on the plains; others to perform missionary 
 duties among them west of the Rocky Mountains ; others 
 again were seeking to inform themselves of the topog- 
 raphy and resources of the wild, uninhabited ^'West." 
 Of the traders. Captain N". J. Wyeth was the most prom- 
 inent; Jason Lee had charge of the missionary division; 
 Townsend, and Nutall, the distinguished naturalist, and 
 Captain Steward, afterwards Lord Clyde, were seeking 
 pleasure and information. The Colonel joined the party, 
 mainly to improve his health, and at the same time to 
 satisfy an inclination to explore the unfrequented plains 
 and mountains of which at that time so little was known. 
 
 The party left Independence, Missouri, on the 25th 
 of April, 1834. On the 15th of July following, they ar- 
 rived at the point on Snake river since known as Fort 
 Hall. Here Wyeth and his party of traders remained ; 
 the others continued their journey to Vancouver by the 
 way of Walla Walla, arriving at the former place on the 
 15th of September of that year. The missionaries, after 
 receiving their supplies, (which had been forwarded from 
 Boston on the brig Mary Dacre) and being joined by those 
 in the same cause who came on the brig, established 
 their headquarters at Willamette Yalley, about seventy- 
 five miles above the mouth of the Multnomah. Colonel 
 Edwards remained with them. This fact likely gave rise 
 to the impression which has since appeared in public 
 print, that he was a member of the mission. He was at 
 that time a member of the Methodist Church, and may 
 have joined his efforts with those around him in dissem- 
 inating the truths of the Bible among the red men of the 
 Pacific coast, but he was not ofiicially connected with the 
 mission. In September, 1835, Daniel Lee, nephew of 
 eJason Lee, and Colonel Edwards, left the mission for 
 Vancouver; the former seeking to restore his health, and 
 the latter contemplating a return to the United States on 
 the brig Mary Dacre. 
 
 The change from the mission to Vancouver seemed 
 not to have the desired effect upon Mr. Lee's health, for 
 
PHILIP L. EDWARDS. 465 
 
 instead of improving, he grew worse; hence his friends 
 deemed it advisable and did send him to the Sandwich 
 Islands. Colonel Edwards in the meantime changed his 
 intention of returning by sea, and went back to the 
 mission. In October of that year, he established a school 
 at Campment du Sable, or Champoeg, which he con- 
 tinued till the next spring. Other missionaries had 
 arrived from the States, which, by the spring of 1836, 
 increased their numbers to quite a settlement, sufficiently 
 so as to make it necessary to look after the means of 
 support and to provide against contingencies. Colonel 
 Edwards again visited Vancouver, and soon after joined 
 with others in the enterprise to obtain cattle and horses 
 from California to supply the pressing wants of the fast 
 increasing population of the Willamette Valley — Douglass, 
 Governor of British Columbia, being one of the inter- 
 ested parties in the venture. Captain W. A. Slocum, of 
 the United States Xavy, very kindly offered the interested 
 parties free passage to San Francisco. Colonel Edwards 
 and Ewing Young were appointed to take charge of the 
 expedition. They arrived in San Francisco the 1st of 
 July, 1836. 
 
 What a change! A few huts here and there, standing 
 on the margin of the bay, not of sufficient importance to 
 deserve the name of village when first he saw the place, 
 had grown to a populous and wealthy city when last he 
 visited it in 1869. 
 
 The party delayed no time in purchasing and gather- 
 ing together a band of cattle and horses, and started 
 across the country for the settlement of the missionaries. 
 The Indians frequently annoyed them, and on several 
 occasions seemed determined not only to take their prop- 
 erty but also their lives. They succeeded in stealing part 
 of their band; yet, through the perseverance and un- 
 daunted courage of the managers of the expedition, near 
 1,200 head were taken through, which were distributed 
 among the settlers, and laid the foundation for a rapid 
 accumulation of the comforts of life and future wealth. 
 
 In March, 1837, the Colonel, in company with the 
 Rev. Jason Lee and two Indian boys, whom they had. 
 30 
 
466 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 educated in the English language, took their leave of the 
 mission and started across the plains for Missouri. After 
 undergoing the hardships incidental to such a trip, they 
 finally arrived safely at the Colonel's home in the sum- 
 mer of that year. 
 
 . Of course, after an absence of four years, the rejoin- 
 ing with relatives and friends necessarily demanded many 
 conversations relative to his travels and experience during 
 that period, which left but little opportunity for him to 
 , consider his future course. However, his active mind 
 was ill at ease while idle, and no considerable time was 
 lost in arriving at some conclusion. He settled upon the 
 study of law, and placed himself under the instruction 
 of Amos Reese, of Richmond, in that State. Like every 
 thing else with which he dealt, he commenced the read- 
 ing of law with a determination to fathom its mysteries 
 and understand its complications. After close applica- 
 tion for more than two years, he was admitted to the bar 
 in 1840. He began the practice of law at Richmond, 
 before a strong bar, meeting antagonists learned in the 
 law and experienced in the practice. Carrying with him 
 native urbanity, cultivated fine taste, penetrative intellect, 
 an unflinching will for the right, and no countenance for 
 ' the wrong, he soon acquired a high standing among his 
 fellow-members of the bar. Unlike many lawyers who 
 i regard their calling no higher than ingeniously combined 
 1 manoeuvres to defraud innocent parties, and all the while 
 ' hunting up the tricks to victimize some one, he looked 
 ( upon his profession as one of the most responsible known 
 j among men: the leading objects of which are, as he re- 
 garded it, to allay broils between neighbors, adjust un- 
 avoidable disputes between parties upon the broad and 
 honorable premises of equity, and to deal out even- 
 handed justice between man and man. 
 
 As a practitioner, he was at all times fair with his 
 adversary, scorning to take any advantage of technical- 
 ities, preferring to meet the issue boldly and rely upon 
 the merits of the case. As an advocate, he was zealous, 
 energetic, and persevering for the interest of his client. 
 His cases were always well prepared ; his argument to the 
 
PHILIP L. EDWARDS. 467 
 
 Court, whether oral or written, invariably presented his 
 theory of the case in that concise language too plain for 
 any to mistake his meaning. His appeals to the jury 
 were animated and full of pathos ; strongly persuasive to 
 the side of his client. As a counselor, none were more 
 careful, always preferring a thorough investigation of the 
 law in contemplated application of the facts in the mat- 
 ter, before giving his opinion. Of course, like all lawyers, 
 he had at times very doubtful cases, but under no cir- 
 cumstances would he advise a client to commence litiga- 
 tion, if he considered the facts of doubtful application 
 and insufficient to sustain the case: he would frankly 
 tell him so, and counsel him against the danger of com- 
 mencing in the law on precarious grounds ; for, said he, 
 even a good cause of action is attended with annoyance, 
 trouble, and cost, and a bad one with still more annoy- 
 ance, beside indefinite outlays of money. 
 
 In August, 1840, soon after being admitted to the bar, 
 he married Miss Mary Y. Allen, and entered upon the 
 duties and responsibilities of a husband, which he never 
 relinquished or neglected. His conduct in business mat- 
 ters and his social demeanor never failed to attract the 
 admiration of those with whom he came in contact, and 
 his domestic relations may well be pointed to as a perfect 
 model of that union of love and affection equaled by few, 
 surpassed by none. The pledges of good faith and con- 
 fidence made to each other while yet they were young, 
 lost none of their binding force as age increased, but 
 rather grew stronger and deeper-seated in love and affec- 
 tion for each other. 
 
 In 1843, he was elected to represent Ray count}^ in 
 the lower branch of the Legislature by the Whig pafty, 
 to which he adhered from his majority. His force of 
 character, together with his admitted ability, attracted 
 attention, and he was selected as the Chairman of the 
 Judiciary Committee, which is the most important posi- 
 tion in any Legislature. He filled the place with dignity 
 and marked ability. At that time, politics was not the 
 dirty pool it has since become. The two great parties of 
 the country were honorable in their actions among them- 
 
468 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 selves, as well as towards .each other. Both parties had 
 leaders upon whom the members ( doted, and were eager 
 to do them honor. Henry Clay, the great leader of the 
 Whig party, had his admirers and friends, among whom 
 none were stronger in their attachment than Colonel Ed- 
 wards. The writer has often heard him speak of Clay, 
 and he would admit that Mr. Clay, as a matter of course, 
 had some faults; "^but," he would say, ''Clay had the 
 great, good man in him." Without "the good," he always 
 insisted, " no man was great." 
 
 The Whig Convention of 1844 selected him as dele- 
 gate to the National Convention to be holden in Balti- 
 more, which nominated Clay for the Presidency. He was 
 Chairman of the Missouri delegation, and availed himself 
 of the opportunity to express his admiration of the only 
 candidate before that convention, as well as to predict 
 the result of the ensuing campaign, which seemed appar- 
 ent to all the friends of their chieftain, unquestionably 
 in favor of Harry of the West. In this, however, he, 
 like his comrades, fell short of the realization, for not- 
 withstanding the flattering prospects of success when the 
 canvass opened, their heau ideal of a man and statesman 
 failed to be sustained by the people. 
 
 It will be remembered that just at that time Morse 
 had about completed the first telegraph line ever made, 
 which was between Baltimore and Washington City, and 
 the nomination of Clay and Frelinghuysen was among the 
 first dispatches sent over the line to Washington. Tele- 
 graphing at that time was regarded as among the wonders 
 of the age, and the nomination of Mr. Clay was looked 
 upon by his friends as an epoch in American history which 
 ought to be commemorated; therefore his more ardent 
 idmirers seized upon duplicated telegrams of his nomina- 
 tion as appropriate mementoes of the Convention that 
 '.ad done the noble work. The Colonel, visiting AYash- 
 ngton after the adjournment of the Convention, procured 
 a duplicate of the telegram referred to, as well as other 
 samples which were in telegraphic characters as then 
 used in the art, and had them for many years afterwards, 
 if not up to the time of his death. After seeing the 
 
PHILIP L. EDWARDS. 469 
 
 places of interest in the capital city — listening to the 
 discussion had in the United States Senate upon the 
 tariff and other prominent subjects then agitating the 
 country — he returned to Missouri, and entered the can- 
 vass between Clay and Polk, which soon became intensely 
 exciting. As did his brother Whigs generally, he fought 
 gallantly for the chivalric leader of the ''American sys- 
 tem;" but the tide of opinion was against them, and all 
 their hopes of placing the country under his administra- 
 tion fell prostrate under a defeat of their idolized states- 
 man. Though beaten and defeated, he never yielded his 
 good opinion and attachment for Mr. Clay, but insisted 
 that he ought to have been President. The canvass over, 
 he took a trip to Texas, with an intention, should some 
 locality suit him, to move his family and permanently 
 settle there. Seeing San Antonio, Galveston, and other 
 prominent places of business, he returned pleased w^ith 
 the country ; but the inducements were not sufficient to 
 justify a change of residence, therefore he entered again 
 upon the practice of his profession in Richmond, where 
 he continued till 1850. 
 
 The gold mines of California by this time had become 
 known, and were famous for their rich and unprecedented 
 yield. Thousands were flocking to her shores to take a 
 chance at fortune's wlieel in this fabulously rich land of 
 gold. The stories of sudden wealth acquired by many 
 who came to California, may have had some influence 
 upon the subject of this sketch; yet they certainly were 
 not the leading cause of his immigrating hither, for he 
 came prepared and evidently intended to make California 
 his home. He brought his family along with him, arriv- 
 ing in Sacramento in September, 1850, where his home 
 continued through all the ups and downs of the city, until 
 he was called to render that final account which must 
 sooner or later occur with all that live. The wild excite- 
 ment of the mines, the big strikes and rich diggings, did 
 not lead him to engage in what he regarded the pursuit 
 of fickle fortune within their precarious precincts. His 
 attention was directed to his profession, and he soon 
 
470 REPRESENTATrV^E MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 established a reputation as a first-class lawyer in his new 
 home. 
 
 In 1852^ the Whigs made their last big fight for the 
 Presidency, General Winfield Scott being the candidate. 
 Colonel Edwards was selected by that party as a candidate 
 to Congress. He made the canvass of the State, and from 
 his energetic manner, and bold and argumentative 
 speeches made from the stump, he was denominated the 
 ^' war horse" of the Whig party. As before, his party 
 failed. The failure on this occasion, however, he never 
 seemed to regret so much as he did that of Mr. Clay. 
 
 In 1854, Colonel Edwards was elected by the Whig 
 party as a Representative of Sacramento county. The 
 Legislature met January, 1855. Attention was soon 
 directed to him for the Speakership, but he declined the 
 position, and accepted the appointment by Speaker Stow 
 as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a position for 
 which he was well qualified, and which he filled ably and 
 creditably to himself, as well as to those who elected him. 
 This session was the one in which the memorable struggle 
 occurred between Broderick and Gwin for a seat in the 
 United States Senate. In joint caucus of their party, 
 Gwin received the nomination, but Broderick' s friends 
 bolted, and both of them came before the Joint Conven- 
 tion of the two houses. Col. Edwards was nominated by 
 his own party in opposition to both of the Democratic 
 candidates. He needed a few votes of an election at the 
 beginning of the contest, but the parties were well drilled, 
 and those few were not obtained. However, the required 
 number could have been had, for the proposition was made, 
 on the condition that the Colonel would pledge the ap- 
 pointment of several parties to Federal positions in Cali- 
 fornia. His friends received the proposal, and consulted 
 with him concerning it. He indignantly scorned the idea 
 of permitting his hands to be tied by any one, or barter- 
 ing for a position which should be untrammeled, and 
 particularly screened from the machinations of that class 
 of men who, like cormorants, liang upon the skirts of all 
 political parties, seeking no higher distinction than to be 
 
PHILIP L. EDWARDS. 471 
 
 the recipients of the spoils. What a contrast between 
 his opinion as to what should be a candidate's position, 
 and what really is their course now ! 
 
 The joint convention of the two houses convened from 
 day to day, when it was well understood no choice could 
 be made. The Colonel would not vote for himself, and 
 not being disposed to vote for the opposite candidate, 
 would cast his vote for any one he happened to think of 
 at the time his name was called. At one time some 
 fellow-member suggested the name of a party, and the 
 Colonel cast his vote for him. He afterwards learned 
 that he had voted for Mr. Broderick's servant, and some 
 of the members regarded it as a good joke. '^Well," he 
 remarked, ^'I am not certain but he would do about as 
 well as any of us." 
 
 The Whig party to which he belonged and to whose 
 doctrines he had unwaveringly adhered, just at this time 
 went into dissolution, and other and different isms sprang 
 up. He never afterwards had any strong attachment for 
 either of the political parties that were claiming the suf- 
 frage of the people. The Know-Nothing, or American, 
 party being in opposition to the Democratic party, he 
 favored the former on the ground of continuing his op- 
 position to the latter, which he had been fighting all his 
 life, yet he condemned all secret political associations. 
 
 As a partisan, he was so on the broad ground of prin- 
 ciple, and not capable of resorting to the narrowly con- 
 tracted view too often entertained and practiced by those 
 who, in deciding a proposition, first inquire how much, or 
 the number of dollars they can make out of it. "After," he 
 w^ould remark, "the chivalric and noble Whig party died," 
 he had to choose between his life-long foe and the new isms 
 of the day. This, however, he did not do until after the 
 Presidential fight in 1856, at which time he strongly 
 advocated the claims of Millard Fillmore. Political par- 
 ties then divided principally on propositions of a sectional 
 character, and from that time he voted and acted with 
 the Democratic party. Except the speech he delivered 
 in the Democratic Convention in 1861, his political ad- 
 dresses were impromptu, and always to the point at 
 
472 EEPRESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 issue — strongly persuasive to the cause he espoused. On 
 that occasion, lie was careful lest he should be misrepre- 
 sented by the reporters of the press, and wrote out his 
 speech on the issues involved and the condition of affairs, 
 before delivering it. 
 
 In his public as well as his private life, all had full 
 opportunity to understand his position. Scorning deceit, 
 condemning vanity, abhorring egotism, frank and sincere, 
 with a religious faith not hampered by the sectarian limits 
 of favorite dogmas, but broad and extended as the 
 pleasing fields of charity, love, and truth. The old, the 
 little children, the young man, as well as the damsel just 
 blushing into womanhood, were fond of enjoying his 
 society. He never spoke ill of any one, nor did ever 
 charity appeal to him in vain. His desire to assist others 
 doubtless injured him in a pecuniary point of view, but it 
 demonstrated the good impulses of nature which marked 
 his course through life. 
 
HUGH CAMPBELL MURRAY. 
 
 Py the ^ditoi^ 
 
 All Calif omians will find interest in a simple sketch, however 
 prosaic, of the life of one who came to the shores of the Pacific in 
 early manhood, friendless and penniless; who, after a very brief 
 residence, impressed his fellow men with a high sense of his worth 
 and splendid abilities; who became a leader in the early political 
 movements in California; who was a Judge of the Supreme Court at 
 the age of twenty-six years; who became Chief Justice of that tri- 
 bunal at the age of twenty-eight; and who died, not "full of years'* 
 but *'full of honors," in the service of the State. 
 
 HUGH Campbell Murray was born at St. Louis, Mis- 
 souri, on the 22d day of April, 1825. He was of 
 Scotch ancestry. While he was yet in his infancy his 
 parents removed to Alton, Illinois. At Alton, Hugh 
 passed his boyhood days, where he received his education 
 and grew up to manhood. Upon leaving school he re- 
 solved to embrace the study of law, and, with that view, 
 entered the office of Hon. N. D. Strong. He had not 
 commenced the practice of law, when the Mexican War 
 broke out. Mr. Murray joined the army and received the 
 appointment of Lieutenant in the Fourteenth Regiment of 
 Infantry. He served during the war in Gen. Scott's line, 
 and, upon the conclusion of peace, returned to Illinois. 
 The Editor has been unable to obtain any incidents in his 
 military career, and cannot say with what distinction, if 
 any, he served in Mexico ; but his disposition was ardent 
 and adventurous, and he doubtless entered with spirit and 
 enthusiasm into that short conflict. 
 
474 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Before he had commenced the prosecution of his pro- 
 fession, his attention was again diverted. Upon the dis- 
 covery of gold in California, he was among the first to 
 leave Illinois for the far West. He came to California by 
 way of Panama. The voyage severely tried his patience 
 and endurance : not being able to secure a through ticket, 
 he was detained some time on the Isthmus; at length he 
 embarked at Panama on the ship Two Friends^ for San 
 Francisco. This vessel was very old and very slow. Mr. 
 Murray spent six months in coming from Panama to San 
 Francisco, and would have been even longer on the way 
 had he not left the vessel at Cape St. Lucas. In com- 
 j^any with some of his companions he walked the entire 
 distance from the point last named to the place of his des- 
 tination — several hundred miles. Upon this journey the 
 little party of indomitable pioneers suffered incredible 
 hardships and privations. At last, in September, 1849, 
 they arrived at San Francisco. Mr Murray at once com- 
 menced the practice of law. He soon formed a large cir- 
 cle of friends, and was distinguished for his social and 
 convivial qualities. He was not long in obtaining a 
 lucrative practice. When the Superior Court of the city 
 of San Francisco was organized by the first Legislature of 
 the State in 1850, Hugh C. Murray and J. Caleb Smith 
 were elected Associate Justices, Judge Morse having been 
 appointed to preside. Judge Murray discharged the 
 functions of his office in a manner that convinced the bar 
 and the people of his capacity and fidelity. 
 
 In 1854, upon the resignation of Judge Bennett. Mr. 
 Murray was appointed by Governor McDougal as one of 
 the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court. Judge 
 Murray was then only twenty-six years of age. It is safe 
 to predict that many years will elapse before the Supreme 
 bench of this or any other State will be occupied b}^ a 
 man as young as was Judge Murray at that time. Upon 
 the expiration of his term of office, in 1853, our subject 
 was nominated by the Democracy for Supreme Judge, and 
 was elected by the people. Shortly after his electron, he 
 became, upon the resignation of Judge Lyons, Chief Jus- 
 tice of the Court. 
 
HUGH CAAH^BELL MURRAY. 4:15 
 
 The term for which he was elected having expired in 
 1855, Judge Murray became a candidate for reelection. 
 The ^N'ative American, or Know-Nothing, party had just 
 perfected its organization in California. Judge Murray, 
 with many of the brightest intellects of the State, em- 
 braced the principles of the new party. The first State 
 Convention of that party met at Sacramento, in the sum- 
 mer of 1855. It was a very enthusiastic body and large- 
 ly attended. Judge Murray received the nomination for 
 Supreme Judge for the long term — six years. After a 
 desperate contest, in which every appliance was brought 
 to defeat him, he was again elected by a small majority. 
 He continued to be the presiding justice of the Court up 
 to the time of his death. In the summer of 1853 he made 
 a visit to Illinois, and spent a few months with his mother. 
 With that exception, ever since his appointment in 1851 
 until he succumbed to disease in 1857, he devoted all the 
 energies of his great mind to the* proper discharge of his 
 official duties. 
 
 Judge Murray died of consumption, at his residence 
 in Sacramento, on September 18th, 1857. For a long 
 while before his death he had suffered much, and often 
 occupied his seat on the bench when his health did not 
 justify it. He was confined to his room for about ten 
 da}' s in his last sickness. By the force of will he bore up 
 against the working of his disease until the evening pre- 
 vious to his death, when the consciousness of his situa- 
 tion was first fully manifested to him, and he calmly re- 
 signed all hope of life. From that hour he sank rapidly, 
 and at a quarter past twelve o'clock the next day, expired. 
 A post mortem examination showed the cause of death to 
 be the perforation of the left lung by the ravages of dis- 
 ease. A violent fit of coughing, with which he was first 
 attacked, caused a rupture of the tegument and the open- 
 ing referred to. The following extract is taken from the 
 obituary notice of Judge Murray which appeared in the 
 Sacramento Union the day after his death. 
 
 ''As a man. Judge Murray has always been noted for 
 his extremely positive character, ^o one in the State 
 possessed more warm and devotedly attached friends, 
 
476 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and probably no one more bitter enemies. He sought no 
 disguise of his preferences or dislikes, nor did he strive 
 to conceal the faults of his nature. He was consequently 
 subjected to severe criticism — as much so as perhaps any 
 man who has occupied so exalted a position. The vio- 
 lence of assault had, on the other hand, the effect of 
 drawing his friends to him more closely, and we doubt 
 not the tears shed at his grave will flow directly from 
 the very depths of the heart. 
 
 "As a jurist, Judge Murray occupied an unequivocal 
 position. Xo one — not even his most bitter enemy — has 
 ever questioned his capacity. He had a peculiarly legal 
 mind, sufficient to grasp all the points of a case with won- 
 derful scope. His legal knowledge seemed to have been 
 almost intuitive. From chaos he drew forth order, and 
 resolved the most intricate propositions into clear and 
 concise form. His decisions were always terse and pun- 
 gent, free from circumlocution and directly to the point. 
 The last judicial act of his life — the decision in the case 
 of Welch vs. Sullivan— ^wsiS his most elaborate one, and 
 serves better than any commentary to display the strong, 
 positive character of the Judge and the man." 
 
 At the time of his death, the only surviving relatives 
 of Judge Murray, were his mother and brother, who 
 resided at Alton, Illinois. His mother is represented 
 to have been a lady of strong intellect and estimable 
 character. 
 
 More than twelve years have elapsed since Judge 
 Murray's body was committed to the earth. A noble fra- 
 ternity of professional men, constantly augmenting in 
 numbers, continues to study with unflagging interest his 
 learned expositions of law. His fame is established as an 
 honest man, a great lawyer, and an upright judge. Those 
 who bear his name may smile at the harmless shafts with 
 which his enemies, in their bitterness, dared to assail even 
 his honor. The record of his life will bear the closest 
 scrutiny, and will lead the candid foe to confess, that he 
 was UNCORRUPTED and incorruptible. 
 
HUGH CAMPBELL SILTiRAY. 477 
 
 Proceedings of the Supreme Court, had upon the Death 
 OF Chief Justice Ml^rray. Sacramento, California, 
 October 5th, 1857. Present — Dayid S. Terry, C. J., 
 ^nd Peter H. Burnett, J. 
 
 On the opening of the Court, W. T. Wallace, Esq., 
 Attorney General of the State, arose and said : 
 
 May it please your Honors : — 
 
 . Since your last adjournment, it has pleased an all-wise Provi- 
 dence to remove from our midst the Hon. Hugh C. Murray, the late 
 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California. Arriving upon 
 our shores a youth, unknown and unheralded, unaided by any of the 
 fortuitous circumstances which sometimes lend success to men, he 
 commenced his high career ; but he was not even then unnoticed. 
 One who heard his first effort here as a lawyer, has often in other 
 years related to me the deep interest which his eloquence threw 
 around the first cause which he argued upon these shores. After 
 his arrival in this State, Judge Murray did not long remain at the 
 bar. It was early discovered that he was fitted for a loftier posi- 
 tion. He was first elected one of the Judges of the Superior Court 
 of the city of San Francisco. In that position his great abilities as 
 a jurist were so signally displayed, that in accordance with the gen- 
 eral wish of the bar, at the earliest opportunity which offered, he 
 was transferred to the bench of the Supreme Court, in which posi- 
 tion, having been twice elected by the people of the State, he con- 
 tinued until death put a period to his usefulness. He was gifted 
 by pature with an intellect capable of graspin^^ the mightiest sub- 
 jects ; he had a mind which passed with ease through the meshes in 
 which ingenuity or sophistry had interwoven a cause to the con- 
 trolling point ; and he Was possessed of an analysis under the magic 
 operation of which the most intricate legal problems were solved 
 as if by intuition. At the early age of thirty-two years, it is not to 
 be denied that his position was in the jfront rank of the j mists of 
 our country. In view of so much accomplished while he was yet 
 in the morning of life, who could tell what he might have effected for 
 his country, and himself, when years and experience had fully ma- 
 tured his great powers? But he is gone ! G-lassy and dim now is 
 the eye that we have seen here so often lit up with the hash of ge- 
 nius and intelligence. That generous and kind heart is stilled for- 
 ever. That noble form, which we have so long seen presiding over 
 the judicial destinies of a great State, has passed away, and of the 
 loved and honored and gifted departed, nothing is left but the bright 
 page in the judicial history of the State which his genius adorned, 
 and the memory of the man, most fomily cherished by those who 
 knew him best. He had no negatives in his nature. He never 
 
478 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 shunned responsibility, and never turned aside in his pathway to 
 avoid consequences ; and, like all men of such strongly marked 
 and positive character, he had bitter enemies and devoted friends. 
 But friends and generous foes alike, gathering around his early 
 tomb, pronounce his untimely death the greatest calamity that has 
 yet befallen the fortunes of our young commonwealth. 
 
 I move, your Honors, that the resolutions of the Sacramento Bar, 
 which I have the honor now to read and present, may be entered 
 upon the minutes of the Court ; and that this Court do now adjourn, 
 as a mark of respect to the memory of the lamented deceased. 
 
 In response to the motion of the Attorney General, 
 Chief Justice Terry said : — 
 
 The death of the Hon. Hugh C. Murray, who for five years past 
 has occupied, with distinguished ability, the position of Chief Jus- 
 tice of this Court, has filled us with unfeigned regret. 
 
 Called early in life to an important position in the Judiciary of 
 a new State, he was eminently fitted for the discharge of the oner- 
 ous and responsible duties of the post. His quick perception, 
 sound judgment, and vigorous intellect, enabled him to master 
 with ease the most difficult questions ; and the possession of great 
 moral courage prevented his being swayed or influenced, in the 
 conscientious disfcharge of his official duties, by any considerations 
 of policy or regard for personal popularity. He has left his mark 
 in the history of our young State, whose judicial reports, bearing the 
 impress of his genius, will remain a lasting monument to his mem- 
 ory. As a judge, he was just, impartial, and fearless. As a man, 
 he was remarkable for the possession of social qualities which won, 
 in a peculiar degree, upon the confidence and a£fection of his asso- 
 ciates. He was frank, candid, and ingenuous, almost to a fault ; 
 generous to prodigality, and firm and faithful in his friendship. 
 We deplore his early death, as an irreparable loss to the State ; and, 
 cordially approving the resolutions you have just read, order that 
 the proceedings of to-day be entered on the minutes of the Court, 
 and as a mark of respect for the memory of our late distinguished 
 brother, order that the Court stand adjourned until Monday next. 
 
'-O^ Of TSS 
 
'c4^'?zA 
 
 7^^, 
 
HENRY M. GRAY. 
 
 J3y y/lLLIAM y. y/EI-L-S. 
 
 THE name of Dr. Gray, surrounded by endearing recol- 
 lections, has for twenty years , been cherished as a 
 household word in San Franc i'sco, where, in the relation- 
 ship of friend and benefactor, his good deeds are enshrined 
 in unnumbered hearts. He wa^,' born in New York, in 
 1821. His father, the Rev: William- Gray, aScotch Pres- 
 byterian clergyman,.remoyed tO' Seneca' Falls, N. Y., soon 
 after the birth of this son, who passed his boyhood there. 
 He was graduated in 1842 at Geneva Medical College, 
 having previously studied at Almyra with Dr. Boynton, 
 his private preceptor. He went thence to New York, 
 commenced the practice of his profession, and was soon 
 known for the brightness and thoroughness of his intel- 
 lectual acquirements, rendered the more effective by a 
 pleasing frankness of manner which drew about him the 
 best influences. As Visiting Physician at the New York 
 Dispensary, in Centre Street, he gave a certain number 
 of hours daily to gratuitous practice among the poor, and 
 by some of them his assiduous attentions are still grate- 
 fully acknowledged. 
 
 With an assured and enviable social position, and the 
 certainty of speedy eminence as a physician, his love of 
 adventure could not resist the excitement of the Califor- 
 nia gold discovery; and closing his office in New York, 
 he organized a party of ten congenial spirits — college 
 mates, friends and associates — who purchased the bark 
 Ho^e, and sailed in July, 1849, for California, he acting as 
 
480 REPRESENTATIVE I^IEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 surgeon of the expedition, Touching at Rio de Janiero, 
 they reached their destination in the following December. 
 Some of the party, including Dr. Gray, visited the mining 
 regions, but returned to San Francisco after a few months, 
 where he immediately commenced the practice of medi- 
 cine, to which he thenceforth devoted himself. 
 
 Almost as soon as political organization began to as- 
 sume shape on the Pacific coast. Dr. Gray identified him- 
 self with the Whig party in San Francisco, but never to 
 an extent that could interfere with his professional pur- 
 suits. He had brought with him from his native State 
 the traditions associated with the great names of the 
 Whig party, and to that faith he adhered as long as the 
 party maintained an existence. He was a member of the 
 Whig State Central, and of the Whig General Committee, 
 having been Secretary of the former and Chairman of the 
 latter. His popularity bringing him prominently before 
 the Nominating Committee as a candidate for Mayor in 
 1852, he lacked four votes of the nomination, which was 
 awarded to Mr. Brenham, who, in the ensuing campaign 
 was elected over his Democratic competitor. About the 
 same time, Dr. Gray was chosen to deliver the oration at 
 the American theatre, before the assembled Masonic 
 lodges of San Francisco, on the occasion of the centennial 
 of Washington's initiation into the Order. Of this no 
 other record remains than a few meagre paragraphs in the 
 newspapers, by which it appears that the address was a 
 shining testimonial of the eloquence and culture of the 
 orator, who, with that disregard for the applause of the 
 public, which, unfortunately, too often distinguishes gen- 
 ius, modestly withheld the manuscript from publication. 
 It impressed itself upon the audience by its accomplished 
 scholarship and the unstudied gracefulness of the deliv- 
 ery. His addresses before the Grand and other Masonic 
 Lodges were of the same finished type, but were not re- 
 garded by their author as of sufiicient merit to deserve 
 perpetuation in print. On the anniversary of St. John the 
 Baptist, June 25th, 1860, he delivered the oration at the 
 laying of the corner-stone of the Masonic Temple in San 
 Francisco. His notes he was induced to write out for 
 
HENRY M. GRAY. 481 
 
 publication only at the earnest request of his brother 
 Masons, who claimed the production as the property of 
 the Order. This is the sole address by Dr. Gray that has 
 been preserved, and is hereto appended as a fair specimen 
 of his polished and fervid eloquence. 
 
 His practice, which at first had been limited, grew to 
 be the most considerable of any in San Francisco, and so 
 lucrative that in a few years he had made a large fortune 
 despite his proverbial remissness in making collections, 
 his own expensive habits, and his liberal contributions to 
 the many charities that appealed to him for aid. Wher- 
 ever the voice of pain and anguish was heard, there the 
 good Doctor was foremost with his cheerful presence, ten- 
 der sympathies, and kindly ministrations. As in earlier 
 days in New York he had ever been ready to assuage the 
 sufferings of the poor and wretched, so in the home of his 
 adoption he distinguished himself by the extent of his 
 gratuitous practice. With him it was no theoretical ab- 
 straction, but he daily carried into practical illustration 
 the Scriptural and Masonic teachings which raise charity 
 to the first of the cardinal virtues. Until his last day he 
 was a Surgeon of the Fire Department, and at any time 
 some of its members were to be seen in his ante-room 
 awaiting attendance, for which he desired no other reward 
 than the consciousness of doing good to his fellow man. 
 He was long a member of the "San Francisco Association 
 for Medical Enquiry" — a body of physicians, who, in a 
 quiet way, did more to alleviate distress in California 
 than can ever be acknowledged or known beyond their 
 own beneficent circle. Hundreds of poor creatures of 
 either sex who came to him for treatment, he prescribed 
 for without fee or reward, but sending them away with the 
 means of buying not only the necessaries, but the luxuries 
 so grateful to the sick, and beyond the reach of many a 
 longing patient. In kind offices he was omnipresent. On 
 board ocean steamships he found his way into the crowded 
 steerage to attend the helpless and afflicted, and on his 
 visit to the Yosemite, in 1861, he went far out of his route 
 to prescribe for a wounded hunter lying in his cabin among 
 the lonely fastnesses of the Sierras. Carrying his good 
 31 
 
482 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 deeds beyond the term of his existence, shortly before his 
 death, he charged a professional friend with the care of 
 the health of poor and worthy persons who had long re- 
 ceived gratuitous practice at his hands. He made a point 
 of inquiring into the circumstances of needy-looking 
 people — especially women and children — seeking medical 
 advice ; and how many have gone down the familiar wood- 
 en steps at the corner of Dupont and Clay streets, lead- 
 ing from his office, with blessings on their lips for the 
 cheery words and more substantial tokens of his kindness, 
 no tongue can ever tell, nor pen record. 
 
 He entertained at one time a worthy ambition for 
 political preferment. These aspirations originated not in 
 a sordid craving for the emoluments of office, nor the 
 dazzling allurements of popularity ; but in the conscious- 
 ness of fitness for position — an innate sense of intellectual 
 power such as could draw towards it the best elements 
 for efficient government. In the fall of 1853, he was 
 nominated for Mayor by the Whigs, and shared in the 
 final defeat sustained by that party throughout California, 
 from candidate for Governor, down. It was the last 
 Whig campaign. From that time he renounced politics 
 except during the civil war, when he was a pronounced 
 Unionist, aiding the cause by speech, money and example, 
 and holding an official position on the staff of Greneral 
 Allen until the close of his life. Failing in the election 
 for Mayor, he thereafter gave all his energies to science; 
 and however much the city may have lost in him as a 
 ruler, it is beyond question that the community was 
 largely the gainer in the exclusive possession of his great 
 professional usefulness. His father, who was still offici- 
 ating as a clergyman in New York, visited him in San 
 Francisco in 1856, and died there in October the same 
 year, at the age of seventy. 
 
 Dr. Gray never left California except for a brief visit 
 to New York late in 1859, where, during the ensuing 
 winter, he suffered intensely from pneumonia, and by the 
 advice of his medical friends, returned speedily as a 
 means of preserving his life. His recovery was regarded 
 as extremely doubtful — and sharing in these doubts him- 
 
BJENRY M. GRAY. 483 
 
 self, he characteristically ordered his coffin, which was 
 ]ined with lead, and had preparations made for embalming 
 in case his decease should occur before reaching Califor- 
 nia: such was his repugnance to the idea of being buried 
 at sea. His health was improved, however, by the voyage. 
 He was President of the Society of California Pioneers in 
 1861-2, before whom, in 1856, he had delivered the an- 
 nual address. This alone, among numerous similar ora- 
 tions by others, has not been preserved, neither in pam- 
 phlet form nor in the columns of the press. He spoke 
 for upwards of an hour from a few notes which he had 
 arranged only the night before, and which, with his usual 
 carelessness where his own fame was concerned, he failed 
 to prepare for publication. It is remembered as a deeply 
 interesting discourse, rich in historical allusions, clothed 
 in the most captivating forms of eloquence, and picturing 
 the past and future of California with a wealth of classical 
 imagery and glowing beauty of diction. 
 
 It was in the theory and practice of his profession that 
 his mind and heart were especially engaged. He was in- 
 defatigable in studies rendered necessary by the advance- 
 ment of the medical and its associate sciences. Endowed 
 with peculiar graces of mind and person, his manner in 
 the sick room showed consciousness of his own ability, 
 and at the bed-side his presence inspired a confidence al- 
 most marvelous. Not seldom has his genial manner and 
 kindness of voice arrested the course of disease by a mag- 
 netic power eminently his own. Master of his own feel- 
 ings and mighty in his sympathies, how often has he 
 buoyed up the sinking heart of agonized parent, child, 
 and sorrowing friend. In times of danger he showed a 
 courage and fearless use of means sometimes called he- 
 roic in practice. Nature seemed to have designed him 
 for the work of a physician. He investigated disease al- 
 most intuitively, arriving very quickly at conclusions; 
 though where there was the least doubt in his mind, or 
 obscurity in the symptoms, he was careful, patient and 
 untiring, seldom giving an opinion that was not verified 
 by the progress of the case. After recognizing disease he 
 was never at a loss for remedies, and had a happy faculty 
 
484 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of making combinations to suit each individual case, 
 never combining without being able to give a most satis- 
 factory reason therefor. His health was such as to forbid 
 constant application to professional duties for a year pre- 
 vious to his death. He was industrious however, and 
 applied himself assiduously until October, 1862, when he 
 found it necessary to resign the more arduous portion of 
 his practice. Thenceforward until his death he alternately 
 worked and rested, frequently going into the country for 
 a brief relaxation, and returning, recommenced work with 
 a determination far beyond his powers, until again forced 
 to retreat. He visited San Luis Obispo and San Rafael 
 during 1863, always working hard while at home, despite 
 the remonstrances of his numerous friends. It seemed 
 impossible for him to remain in the city without being 
 engaged in active practice. His devotion to his friends 
 was, if possible, more than reciprocated; which a single 
 instance will illustrate, though only an example of very 
 many similar attachments between his patients and him- 
 self. He returned, broken in health, to attend an invalid 
 lady in a case of emergency, whom he had watched from 
 childhood through severe illness and much sufiferir.g. Al- 
 though worn down and enduring great pain himself, he 
 was with her almost constantly for a week, when death 
 terminated her sufferings. He was overwhelmed with 
 grief, and never afterwards recovered himself, following 
 his patient in about a fortnight. Three days before death 
 he had attended a number of patients, and was out in the 
 street thirty-six hours prior to his decease. He died on 
 the morning of September 24th, 1863. For eight hours 
 previous to dissolution he was speechless, but conscious 
 of all that was passing around him. He had often ex- 
 pressed a desire to die holding a Mason by the hand. In 
 his last moments he grasped the hand of a friend present, 
 motioning him to a seat, when he seemed content, and so 
 breathed his last. 
 
 The announcement that Dr. Gray was dead, though 
 it did not take his friends by surprise, fell like a pall 
 upon many a sorrowing household. Every one who had 
 known him seemed to take the event especially to heart. 
 
HENRY M. GRAY. 485 
 
 as at the loss of a near and intimate friend. Associations 
 and public bodies met and passed appropriate resolutions. 
 The wealthy and the poor alike were mourners — those 
 for^the genial companion, these for the generous benefac- 
 tor — all for the skillful, sympathizing physician, who had 
 carried hope, life, courage and healing into despairing 
 hearts and homes. He died a bachelor, and upon the 
 Society of California Pioneers devolved the sad duty of 
 receiving the body at their hall, where it lay in state the 
 night preceding the funeral. Quiet footsteps came con- 
 tinually through the watches of that night — rustling silks 
 and the coarse habiliments of po^^'erty mingling, as one 
 after another lingered a moment and passed on — the sup- 
 pressed emotions of the refined and self-possessed not 
 less eloquent than more audible and uncontrolled grief. 
 The casket, piled high with ever-increasing floral offer- 
 ings, could at last hold no more, and the floor around was 
 strewn with them. The services at the funeral, in which 
 Civic orders and societies and Military organizations vied 
 with each other to do honor to the occasion, were mem- 
 orable and deeply impressive. The remains, with those 
 of his father, were sent to New York, where they rest in 
 Greenwood Cemetery, side by side. 
 
 We have endeavored thus briefly to depict Dr. Gray 
 as the scientist, the physician, and the member of society. 
 In conversation as in oratory he was singularly felicitous. 
 His voice possessed that modulated musical quality 
 rarely found except in superior organizations, and which 
 with him, whether in every-day intercourse among his 
 friends, in an after-dinner speech, or in the more formal 
 parlance of an organized assemblage, had the same fascin- 
 ating influence, enhanced by the charm of an unafl'ected 
 courtliness of manner that made his presence eagerly 
 sought in reunions of cultivated men and women. His 
 personal appearance was as strikingly handsome as his 
 manners were distinguished. He was a connoisseur in 
 music, books, and works of art, which he was always se- 
 lecting as gifts for his patients. He had a genuine ap- 
 preciation of the grandeur and beauty of nature, and the 
 correctness of an anatomist in the choice of fine horses, 
 
486 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of which he was particularly fond. His tastes combining 
 the attributes of manliness and intellectual culture, were 
 those of the highly educated gentleman. His nearest as- 
 sociates recall him as one of the finest types of man^ in 
 his physical as well as mental qualifications. To have 
 enjoyed his intimacy may be regarded as one of those 
 legacies to which the mind, perhaps wearied with the 
 world's selfishness, instinctively turns when glancing 
 back into the near past for bright examples and pleasant 
 memories. 
 
 Delivered at the Anniversary of St. John the Baptist, 
 AT THE Laying of the Corner- Stone of the Masonic 
 Temple, San Francisco, June 25th, 1860, by the Grand 
 Orator for the Day — Sir Henry M. Gray. 
 
 Brethren : — Beneath the blue dome of this wide, unpiHared firm- 
 ament, and under the magnificent roof of a temple "not made with 
 hands," we are met in joyful assemblage, upon a day sacred to the 
 ancient memories of our Craft, to lay with appropriate and impres- 
 sive ceremonies the foundation-stone of a Temple, henceforth and 
 forever to be sacredly dedicated to the mysteries and work of 
 Masonry. • 
 
 In due form and manner the corn, wine, and oil, poured forth 
 upon that stone, have symbolized the great end and object of Ma- 
 sonic life ; the swell of joyous music with its exultant harmony 
 has awakened in our breasts the responsive echo ; the light in a 
 thousand earnest eyes, and the quickened throb of a thousand lov- 
 ing hearts, have told how deeply this scene and this hour have im- 
 pressed themselves upon our very souls ; and finally, the invocation 
 of the blessing of Almighty God, to direct and prosper this under- 
 taking to its successful completion, has, while it humbly acknow- 
 ledges our dependence upon His powerful aid, given us the trustful 
 hope that His paternal blessing shall be vouchsafed to us. 
 
 Brethren, the work is done ! In the deep foundations of this 
 structure you have placed your memorial. For the first time on the 
 western shores of this continent, you have set u]3 the pillars of your 
 faith in enduring stone. In the generations yet to come, who shall 
 gaze with pride upon this noble pile, and who shall under its secure 
 shelter prosecute the glorious mission which Masonry has entrusted 
 to their keeping, your labor will not be forgotten. They will recall, 
 
HENRY M. GRAY. 487 
 
 with proud and glowing retrospects, the memory of this day. They 
 will pay due homage to the loyal faith, the loving interest, and the 
 deathless attachment which you held to the great work of Masonry, 
 and which promj)ted you, in the very infancy of our State, thus to 
 lay broad and deep the imperishable foundations of a Temple, 
 which, while it should be one of the most conspicuous adornments 
 of our city, should also sei've as a jjei'petual record of that faith 
 which, in all ages and in all countries, has, in its ' ' outward visible 
 fonn," illustrated itself to the world in all the triumiDhsof architec- 
 tural glory, as, in the manifestations of its inner life, it has been 
 the pioneer in the vanguard of civilization, charity, j^eace, brother- 
 ly kindness, and good will to men. If ever the light burns dim up- 
 on our altars, or the hearts of the faithful fail them "because of 
 fear"; if the doubter or the skeptic ask : "The Fathers, where are 
 they? " then shall this Masonic Temple answer : *' The same faith that 
 animated their hearts still survives in their descendants. This 
 goodly Tabernacle, which the ancient craftsmen builded, yet stands 
 in its pristine strength and beauty, a heritage to be sacredly 
 guarded and preserved by us and by those who shall come after us. 
 So, evermore, shall the faithful remembrance of our brethren yet to 
 be, preserve our memory green." 
 
 Ail creeds and faiths have their festal occasions. The State has 
 its days of patriotic jubilee, the Church its seasons of rejoicing. On 
 commemorative days, due homage is paid to all who, in every rank 
 and in every good work, have adorned the age they illustrated. Thus 
 religion, art, science, heroism, virtue, wherever their votaries have 
 ennobled life by grand achievements, have claimed the ready hom- 
 age of the world. They who have died on the bloody fields of bat- 
 tle for the liberties of their country, where thousands in the joyous 
 msh of death go down — they who in the fires of martyrdom have 
 yielded up their lives a sacrifice to principle — they who in toilsome 
 solitude have worked out the great problems of science, and given 
 language and interpretation to the mute voices of nature — they who 
 with strong hands and pure ambitions have guided the evolving des- 
 tinies of nations — they who, as the apostles of divinest charity, have 
 devoted life, substance, influence, all to the amelioration of human 
 wrong or suffering, are alike canonized in the world's great heart, 
 and com^Del the homage of the world's wide symj^athy. 
 
 This is our festal day, my brethren ; to us, a day of joy in a two- 
 fold sense. This happy hour is witness of a ceremon}^ of no small 
 import to the future of Masonry in this State and on this coast. We 
 have come up together, with one accord, to aid in the laying of the 
 corner-stone of the first Masonic Temple erected within the limits of 
 our national confederation, on the westward slopes of the dividing 
 mountains. For a brief space we have forsaken our usual avoca- 
 tions ; and from fields of waving grain, from work-shops of daily toil, 
 from the quiet retreats of scientific pursuits, from the busy marts of 
 commerce, from the sacred chancels of religion, we have come with 
 " one heart, and one mind," to swell the pomp of this festive hour. 
 Hallowed by oui* prayers and benedictions, we have placed the token 
 
488 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of our affection to Masonry in the keeping of our mountain gTanite. 
 Our loves, our hojies, our aspirations, we place beside those memo- 
 rials : as soon may the one perish as the others. Not until the solid 
 rock fe-hall melt in the consuming fires of the final conflagration, 
 shall die out in our hearts the noble teachings of our Order. Not 
 even when the elements themselves shall yield to the inevitable 
 laws of decay and dissolution, shall the pure, eternal, imperishable 
 principles upon which our faith is based, perish or be lost. 
 
 There is no eternity to matter. The adamantine walls of earth 
 themselves must crumble into dust: and no work of man's hand 
 can withstand the silent tooth of time. The mighty monuments of 
 the forgotten past reveal themselves to us only in dim traditions or 
 in almost un distinguishable fragments, puzzling the lore of the an- 
 tiquarian and baffling the light of science. They leave us like the 
 mariners on the wrecking midnight sea, looking — and oh, how hope- 
 lessly — for the coming light. But principles cannot die. Truth is 
 eternal. Justice, equality, fraternal love, charity, faith, hope, are 
 all invulnerable, and immortal all. They are but the emanations of 
 the eternal good — sparks from the eternal fire — drops from the ever- 
 flowing river of immortal life. Like the deathless source from 
 which they sjorang, they also (albeit in clouded manifestation) must 
 claim the high prerogative of immortality. So, brethren, with the 
 inner life of Masonry. It cannot die. Its temples may totter to 
 the dust, and its visible tokens be utterly lost, but it will survive. 
 Its spirit is the spirit of the "All-working Good" — its work is the 
 practical embodiment of all-working benevolence — its mission on 
 this earth is but the reflection and exemplification of that divinest 
 of all virtues — Charity ! 
 
 Aside from the event which has convened us together, we enjoy 
 another source of congratulation. This is one of our ''holy days," 
 set apart and dedicated to the memory of the holy Saints John. 
 Since the early primitive rule of our first Grand Master, King Sol- 
 omon, with the passing away of the ancient dispensation — with all 
 its glorious sj'mbols, types, and shadows — with all its rigid enforce- 
 ment of the law as a penalty for disobedience — with all the magnif- 
 icent surroundings which environed the ancient Masonry, and the 
 rites and ceremonies of the early Temple worship — with all the 
 forms and restrictions and subordinations, working in their iron 
 channels — the lapse of ages and the changing conditions of society 
 brought an epoch in which milder laws and more tolerant systems 
 were demanded by the necessities of the time. The early morning 
 glow upon the eastern hill-tops announced the coming of a brighter 
 day; the softer airs that swept westward from the ancient home of 
 the stern wide-browed prophets and patriarchs, foretold the coming 
 of a more genial summer ; the dove, with the olive branch of peace, 
 was flying o'er the stormy water in search of a resting-i)lace for her 
 weary feet ; and then, when among the crumbling fragments of the 
 earlier civilizations Masonry could find no permanent abiding place, 
 she swept down the cloudy and perturbed centuries, until she rested 
 under the shadow of the new dispensation of ]Deacec 
 
HENRY M. GRAY. 489 
 
 The earth had been convulsed for a thousand years ; thrones, 
 dynasties and empires were passing through all the mutations of so- 
 cial and political existence ; yet amid all this turbulent torrent of 
 change in our world, the precious Ark of our Covenant floated 
 safely down, until it rested securely upon the Ararat of perpetual 
 repose. 
 
 Then lived in Holy Land two holy men — two Johns. Tlie one, 
 the Baptist; the other, the Evangelist; men of extraordinary yet 
 diverse characters, but both the living embodiments of the highest 
 lessons of Masonic wisdom. The one, the impersonation of temp- 
 erance, courage, self-sacrifice and heroic suffering for conscience* 
 sake ; the other, the type of gentleness, meekness, sympathy, char- 
 ity, brotherly kindness, and holy love. These men, so exalted above 
 their fellows, so set aside and stamped with the mark of divine no- 
 bility, were eminently fitted to succeed the august King of Israel 
 as the patrons and exemplars of oui* Order. Hence they, not alone 
 and not chiefly as the forerunnei-s and disciples of a new ecclesias- 
 tical dispensation, but from the singular purity of their lives, their 
 devotion to the fundamental tenets of Masonic faith, and their sac- 
 rifice of all earthly good for the cause that engrossed their whole 
 being, have been for two thousand years the loved and venerated 
 high priests of our Masonic faith. He of whom we speak to-day 
 died a martyr's death. He perished in vindication of the teachings 
 of his life. He fell an heroic sacrifice to the principles upon which 
 our Order rests. 
 
 We speak of martyrdoms, and they are glorious. We speak of 
 heroisms, and they are glorious. How they stand out in the past, 
 like landmarks in the life-gloom, these martyrs for the good ! — these 
 heroes for the right ! Some have sunk on the battle-field ; some 
 have watered the scaffold with their blood ; others have perished in 
 the agonies of fire. These have been of one race and language ; 
 those of another. This endured all things for one faith; that for 
 another: but all, whatever their nation, or sect, or lineage, were 
 alike the warriors of humanity, and perished that mankind might 
 be free. The great and good of all eras form one great brother- 
 hood. Thank God, for having thus linked distant ages together by 
 the ties of a common sympathy. The great souls scattered along 
 the highway of history are bound one to the other by an electric 
 chain ; and thus the influence of heroic deeds tlirills from century 
 to century down the long avenue of Time. 
 
 This day, my brethren, is held in sacred commemoration of St. 
 John the Baptist, throughout the whole Masonic w^orld. Eveiy as- 
 piration and prayer that arises to-day from your own full heai*ts, is 
 met in the silent and illimitable fields of air by a million aspira- 
 tions in every land and clime, from hearts as full and deep as 
 yours. 
 
 All along the cloudy pathway of time, our Craft have left their 
 ever-enduring land-marks. While yet an operative organization, 
 spreading from land to land, in Lodges of Labor, they have erected 
 their mighty monuments, which, to this day, are the wonder and 
 
490 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the glory of the world. The order and system which marked the 
 building of the first temple, followed them in the latter ages; and 
 although in^the erection of the vast creations of Masonic skill, the 
 busy sounds of labor were heard on every hand, as the grand arches 
 and pinnacles and towers rose from their solid foundations to the 
 heavens, yet the same beautiful plan of work by which the magnifi- 
 cent structure of the King of Israel 
 
 " Rose like an exhalation, with the sound 
 Of dulcet symphonies, and voices sweet," 
 governed the Craft in the building of those colossal triumphs of 
 architectural genius, which shall forever demand the admiration and 
 worship of the human intellect. 
 
 Passing from this brief review of our subject, let us for a mo- 
 ment consider our institution in its adaptation to the wants of hu- 
 manity; its fitness as the almoner of the holiest charity; its laws 
 and precepts as the embodiment, not only of the purest morality, 
 but presenting likewise a frame of government fitted for all condi- 
 tions of life, for all races of people, and for all states of society. 
 It sprang into existence far back in the distaiit ages, over whose 
 history rests the pall of everlasting silence ; it gleamed out of that 
 darkness as the light of history began to irradiate the gloom only 
 in dim and fabulous traditions ; it took organic shape and practical 
 development in the earliest days of the ancient Kings of Israel ; 
 and its culminating point was reached in that perfect system of 
 work and government which presided over the erection of that mi- 
 raculous structure — that marble poem of consummate genius whose 
 lovely beauty, shining from the sacred mountain, gleamed to the re- 
 motest horizon like a star. 
 
 Thus it has come down to us from the earliest times. Through 
 all the changes of empires, and amid all the revolutions of govern- 
 ments, it has preserved its existence. The altar now stands where 
 it stood in the days of the first Masters; and the enkindled fires 
 and the emblematic lights still shed their beams to illuminate the 
 surrounding darkness. It has outlived the Temple which its an- 
 cient Craftsmen builded ; but the same laws that held it in harmo- 
 nious union then, alike preserve its unity and integrity now. The 
 forms of architectural beauty and design may have gone down in 
 the dust of the vanished ages, but the soul and spirit of the design, 
 order and beauty, yet lingers in our Cratt and hallows all its work. 
 
 From Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles 
 
 "Fill the hushed air with everlasting love ; " 
 
 from towers and arches, moldering among their mocking ivy ; from 
 the solemn cloisters of many an old cathedral ; from the dim aisles 
 of grand old woods, whose mighty trees are evermore repeating 
 " Their old poetic legends to the winds ; " 
 
 from the stupendous caves with all their sparry grots ; and from the 
 rock-invested gorges of the mountains, whose beetling walls might 
 serve as the bastions of a world, where the sublime Ai-chitect of the 
 
HEXRY M. GRAY. 491 
 
 Universe has in the play of His omnipotence set those copies for 
 human genius to imitate ; from each and all, the lesson falls with a 
 deep significance on the Mason's heart Architecture, its first great 
 operative application, compelled the recognition of the laws of uni- 
 ty and order. From the study and contemplation of the principles 
 upon which the harmony of the material universe depended, the 
 transition was natural and easy to the recognition and adoption of 
 those laws governing the life, conduct, character, and actions, upon 
 which alone, as upon a comer stone, could be erected the moral and 
 spiritual Temple of Masonry. 
 
 Neither the time nor the occasion demand from me an exposition 
 of the tenets and principles of the Craft. I may, however, be allowed 
 for a brief moment to allude to some of the excellencies of our Order. 
 
 And first, its sublime equality. Its first principle is the recogni- 
 tion of the humanity of the man, and the acknowledgment of the 
 fraternal ties that bind all men together. AVithin its sacred enclos- 
 ure there can be no rank or caste. The royal ruler of a mighty 
 realm ; the mitred prelate ; the soldier, bearing upon his body the 
 scars and trophies of a hundred fights; the philosopher, whose 
 keen vision has explored all the intricacies of natural or political 
 wisdom ; the soul of science that hath sojourned among the stars or 
 dived into the nethermost depths — are all alike. Brethren all — 
 made so by the recognition of each individual humanity — and each 
 an equal scholar in the school of virtue. "Love one another" is 
 written upon the door-posts, and the word "Brother" embraces in 
 its comprehensive dialect all ranks, from the Neophyte to the Su- 
 preme Master. 
 
 While prejudice alienates — while sect and nation, lineage and 
 language, wealth and power, set up evermore the barriers which 
 keep men asunder — while political distinctions and religious difier- 
 ences but deepen animosities and engender bitterness — Masonry- 
 presents a platform and a principle broad and firm enough for all 
 the world to rest upon in peace. 
 
 In the grand Choral Hymn of the noble Schiller, I find these 
 lines, which could only have sprung from a heart incandescent with 
 Masonic heat : — 
 
 *' Spark from the fire that gods have fed — 
 
 Love — thou Elysian child divine — 
 Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread, 
 
 Oh, Holy One, thy holy shrine. 
 Strong custom rends us from each other. 
 
 Thy magic all together brings. 
 And man in man but hails a brother. 
 
 Wherever rests thy gentle wings. 
 Embrace, ye millions, let this kiss, 
 
 Brothers, embrace the earth below, 
 Yon starry worlds, that shine on this. 
 
 One common Father know." 
 
 Masonry is, in short, the highest expresssion of the idea of Fra- 
 ternity, and it is destined to be one of the most active agents in the 
 accomplishment of that world-wide fraternization which so espec- 
 
492 HEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ially marks the tendencies of the present age, and whose pro- 
 gressive development will ultimately result in drawing to a nearer 
 and more perfect union all the children of the earth. It offends no 
 prejudice ; it opposes no sect. It stands aloof from all the noisy 
 clamors of the day. Its mission is in secret and in silence. It 
 *'does good and communicates/' but the right hand knows not 
 what the left hand doeth. It is the minister to want, the angel of 
 consolation to patient suffering, the handmaid of religion; for 
 what religion teaches from lofty pulpits, it practically performs. 
 Wherever there is want or sorrow, there is Masonry, the reliever ; 
 wherever is wrong or oppression, there is Masonry, the strong arm 
 of support ; wherever is death, or sickness, which is the shadow of 
 death, there also is Masonry, to bind up the wound, to close the 
 fixed and ghastly eye, and then, with reverent care, to commit the 
 dead body to the silence and retirement of the grave. 
 
 How often have you, in this land of strange vicissitudes, been 
 called upon to minister to such needs as these ? The strong, bold- 
 hearted adventurer, struggling amid discouragements and priva- 
 tions for his children's bread, is suddenly arrested by the palsying 
 hand of disease. Poverty and want environ him. A stranger in a 
 land of strangers, to whom shall he go for succor? The swift tides 
 of life rush by him, and he is cast a stranded wreck upon the shore. 
 In the desolation and agony of his heart, he lays down to die ; no 
 friend near that death couch — no ministering voice of consolation — 
 no brother's hand to clasp the nerveless fingers — no upward-point- 
 ing angel of hope to guide the way to immortal life. 
 
 But stay, some one knows that poor man ! Some one in all this 
 bright world out of which he is passing into the unknown land, 
 must know that man ! Surely, he shall not die, and make no sign ! 
 Oh no ! He has found friends. In almost the last agonized con- 
 vulsions of his members, when his tongue could no longer syllable 
 his thoughts, he found a brother — a brother in a higher sense than 
 the claim w^hich our common humanity in suffering or sore distress 
 demands of every man — one, whose soul was knit to that vanishing 
 soul in all the gentle ministrations of love and charity, by ties as 
 strong, aye stronger, than those which knit the souls of Jonathan 
 and David. 
 
 This picture, brethren, is a picture of practical Masoniy. You 
 have it framed in all jowc hearts ; its colors cannot fade from your 
 memories. In your own dark hours of desolation, the light from it 
 will be a beacon pointing upward to Heaven !• 
 
 And now, the hour for our departure has arrived. Henceforth, 
 our paths diverge. From manifold pursuits in life, and from dis- 
 tant homes, moved by a common impulse, we have come up to wor- 
 ship near this sacred shrine, and to renew the vows of fealty to our 
 common faith. I trust the hour has not been spent in vain, and 
 that it has been good for us to have been together. In this inter- 
 change of kindly greeting, we have strengthened our fraternal ties, 
 and in this common labor dedicated to our common cause, we have 
 strengthened the hands of our Craft in every land. 
 
HENRY M. GRAY. 493 
 
 As Masons of California, this hour is full of deep significance. 
 You are the representatives of the world. From distant lands and 
 climes, from eveiy rank and station in life, from the most dissimilar 
 conditions of phj^sical and political existence, you have assembled 
 on the western shore of our continent, a family of brethren bound 
 together by a common interest and protected by the glorious Con- 
 stitution of our common country. You are one, as citizens; and 
 owing allegiance to a common law, you share alike in the glory and 
 advancement of the State. In your Masonic relations you present 
 the same anomaly. Of various tribes and nations, of parentages and 
 educations the most diverse, with wide and high partition-walls 
 separating you one from the other, you yet, here, to-day, meet upon 
 common ground. We are all one — on earth, the great all-embrac- 
 ing, loving soul of Masonry claims us as her common children — 
 and in the heaven above us, the One Eternal Father ! 
 
 Before we go hence, let us review our work. Upon a solid 
 foundation we have placed our memorial stone. It hides from mor- 
 tal eyes (we hope for ages yet to come) in its safe and silent tomb, 
 the records of this day. In all its appointments, and with all the 
 glory of its architectural design, this temple shall rise to its lofty 
 roof, a fitting and noble testimonial to the devotion of the Masonry 
 of our State. But there must be something^ brethren, underneath 
 that stone, and underneath the foundation which supports it, deeper 
 than all this, or the building will not stand. The master builder 
 may perform his work never so well ; the apprentices and craftsmen 
 may labor in due subordination to the authority of the masters ; the 
 massive walls may rise in all their solid strength to heaven ; the 
 costly jewels of our work may adorn its various chambers; the fires 
 may be lighted upon its inner altars ; the entrance may be well and 
 duly guarded ; but all, all will be in vain, unless there is a deeper, 
 surer, and more stable foundation than that on which our corner 
 stone reposes. What is that nether stone? What is that upon 
 which a true temple to Masonry must be built? Ah, brethren, it 
 is the deep, underlying, imperishable foundation of Masonic love, 
 and Masonic unity. With that beneath the material foundation, this 
 Temple is indeed secure and indestructible. The foundations of the 
 globe had need of no more permanent coi-ner stone than that structure, 
 under whose deep bases repose Truth, Charity, and Brotherly Love. 
 
 One prayer, one spontaneous aspiration, is a fitting conclusion 
 to this hour : Oh Temple ! planned with the cunning skill of labor- 
 ious att, rise in all thy majesty and beauty inward the skies? May 
 thy walls be strength, and all thy tabernacles peace ! May the 
 votaries who shall in the long march of centui'ies enter thy sacred 
 porches, find evermore therein repose, refreshment, peace ! May 
 the light of thy sacred altars burn ever like a star! May the 
 "stranger and the sojourner in the land" ever enjoy the blessings 
 of thy welcome and thy shelter ; and when the hour of thy decay 
 and dissolution crumbles thee to earth, may there be found thous- 
 ands of faithful and devoted hearts to raise thee from thy ashes 
 with renewed splendor and more enduring life ! "So mote it be. '* 
 
TOD ROBINSON. 
 
 jpY THE ^DITOR, 
 
 THE ancestors of this gentleman were, on his father's 
 side, English, on his mother s, Scotch-Irish. They 
 emigrated to Xorth Carolina at so early a day that all 
 tradition of the event is lost. His father was a merchant 
 and planter in that State. At a time when it was a life 
 office, he held the position of Clerk of the County Court 
 for Anson County. In this county. Tod Robinson was 
 born, A. D. 1812. When he was quite young, his father 
 resigned his office and removed with his family to 
 Alabama. 
 
 Tod Robinson came to California from Texas, by way 
 of Panama, in September, 1850. He landed at San Fran- 
 cisco, but not tarrying there, pushed on up the Sacra- 
 mento river to Sacramento city, then the liveliest and 
 busiest mining camp in the State. Here he settled, and 
 entered immediately on the practice of law. He very 
 soon attained prominence and success. He had not been 
 in the city a year when Judge Thomas resigned his posi- 
 tion as District Judge of the Sixth Judicial District, em- 
 bracing Sacramento county, and Gov. Burnett appointed 
 Mr. Robinson to fill the vacancy. For this honorable and 
 responsible position his extensive legal attainments and 
 his incorruptible integrity eminently fitted him. During 
 the short period of his occupancy of this office. Judge 
 Robinson won the undivided esteem of the bar and the 
 undisguised reverence of the people of his district. In 
 
49 G REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the list of able jurists who have graced the bench of the 
 Sixth Judicial District, Judge Robinson's name shines 
 with unfading lustre. He had occupied the position only 
 a few months, when, in October, 1851, the Whig party, to 
 the principles of which he was devotedly attached, unso- 
 licited, nominated him as their candidate for Supreme 
 Judge ; whereupon he resigned his place on the District 
 bench, and accepted the nomination for the higher office. 
 The Whig party being in a minority, he was defeated. 
 The election over, and having aided so materially in pre- 
 serving the organization of his party, at the expense of 
 his own personal advancement and comfort. Judge Rob- 
 inson resumed practice in Sacramento. He formed a 
 partnership with Murray Morrison, since Judge of the 
 Seventeenth Judicial District, which continued for two 
 years. In 1853, Judge Robinson was again nominated 
 by his party for the Supreme Bench. Anticipating de- 
 feat, he yet obeyed with alacrity the call of his party to 
 carry the banner of Whiggery in the final charge upon a 
 triumphant foe. The result was as expected — the utter 
 overthrow of the proud and gallant party to whose for- 
 tunes he had clung so steadfastly, and in whose last 
 struggles he had been so conspicuous. Judge Robinson 
 again returned to the profession in Sacramento. Soon 
 after the general election in 1853, he entered into part- 
 nership with H. 0. Beatty, lately Chief Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of Nevada, and James B. Haggin, an old 
 and wealthy citizen of Sacramento and San Francisco, 
 now residing in Paris. This partnership lasted two or 
 three years, when Mr. Haggin withdrew, and his place in 
 the firm was filled by Hon. C. T. Botts, afterwards Judge 
 of the Sixth Judicial District. Judge Botts being ap- 
 pointed to the bench, Mr. Heacock, subsequently State 
 Senator from Sacramento, entered the firm. Judge Rob- 
 inson's connection with Judge Beatty continued till the 
 year 1862. 
 
 Judge Robinson confined himself exclusively to his 
 profession for several years, during which time he built 
 up an extensive and lucrative business. During this im- 
 portant period in the history of Sacramento, his fidelity 
 
TOD ROBINSON. 497 
 
 to his profession and his able management of the heavy 
 litigation he was called upon to conduct, spread his fame 
 as a lawyer throughout California. 
 
 In 1862, he accepted the Democratic nomination for 
 Attorney General. In 1863, he was nominated by the 
 same party for Supreme Judge, upon the reorganization 
 of the Supreme Court. On both occasions he was de- 
 feated with the rest of his ticket. 
 
 He had now resided in Sacramento for thirteen years. 
 The practice of law being almost dead in that place, which 
 the great flood of 1860-61 had almost depopulated, he 
 removed to Virginia City, Nevada, where he resided eight- 
 een months. While residing in that State, he was nom- 
 inated by the Democratic State Convention for Clerk of 
 the Supreme Court. He could easily have been nomi- 
 nated for the higher place of Supreme Judge, but his friends 
 determined to give him the nomination for the first-named 
 position, because of the great emokmients attached to it. 
 However, his party being defeated, the hopes of his friends 
 were not realized. 
 
 Early in the year 1865, Judge Robinson returned to 
 California, and settled with his family in San Francisco, 
 where he has since resided. He still continues to act as 
 counsellor at law, but his health being very feeble, he is 
 seldom in his office and rarely seen in court. 
 
 Judge Robinson ranks high as an impressive and elo- 
 quent speaker. He is a cogent, logical reasoner, a racy 
 debater, and can hurl the shaft of irony with cutting ef- 
 fect. His clear and mellow utterances, his earnest man- 
 ner, his dignified, polished diction, often reaching solem- 
 nity in its calm and graceful flow, render him at all times 
 an agreeable and pleasing speaker. He is quite fond of 
 poetry, and a close student of Shakspeare. In addressing 
 public audiences he is decidedly happy in his quotations 
 from the immortal bard of nature. He is devoted to his 
 large family, in whose society he passes nearly all of his 
 time. His private life is without a blemish. 
 
 Judge Robinson has nearly passed the meridian of his 
 usefulness; His voice will probably never again thrill 
 the listening crowd, nor his form be seen rising to con- 
 32 
 
498 KEPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 front the expectant jury. He has not been exempt from 
 the ordinary lot of mortals. His life has been eventful 
 and his career checkered. Disappointments have visited 
 and trials perplexed him. Time has laid his hand heavily 
 upon him. Disease has racked and enfeebled his frame. 
 He expects soon to be called upon to '^ resign this pleas- 
 ing, anxious being." But his heart is still young — nor 
 time, nor disappointment, nor disaster can ever subdue 
 his free spirit or ''chill his mental glow." His independ- 
 ent nature, and his devotion to a principle, command the 
 respect of his political opponents. He has always dared to 
 pursue the course his sense of right suggested, regardless 
 of the clamors of the fickle multitude. He could not be 
 flattered by the breath of popular applause nor be made 
 to submit to the demands of the mob — " that many-head-' 
 ed, monster thing." The injunction of his own favorite 
 poet has been to him an ever present guide and com- 
 forter. 
 
 " This above all ! To thine own self be true ! 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man."' 
 
 The Editor trusts that he has not passed beyond the 
 limit of a faithful biographical sketch in the above expres- 
 sions. He could not have said less, in humble acknowl- 
 edgment of past kindness on the part of his subject, in 
 the bosom of whose family he found shelter, in boyhood, 
 from a multitude of woes which had nearly crushed his 
 spirit. 
 
 The following terse language applies to Judge Robin- 
 son with as much force and propriety as to Dr. Akenside : 
 
 '' He is exclusive in his social taste, but with a high 
 standard of integrity; more proud than vain, and more 
 fastidious than companionable. Intimately known to but 
 few, he is respected by all as a gentleman and a scholar. 
 His formal address might impress a stranger with the idea 
 of accomplished pedantry; but once fairly engaged in 
 conversation with a genial and appreciative auditor, the 
 philosopher and the man of cultivated taste and elevated 
 sentiment appears conspicuous." 
 
 # 
 
 sf^i 
 
 # 
 
■V 
 
 Of ■I'J.z ^ 
 
 
UAJrCVKN- ISAAC L RTKVF':NS. 
 
ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS. 
 
 By the ^ditor.* 
 
 GENERAL Stevens was born at Andover, Massachusetts, 
 in 1817. Of his ancestry and early boyhood, the 
 Editor lias not been able to procure any information. He 
 entered as a cadet the United States Military Academy at 
 West Point, July 1st, 1835, and graduated there July 1st, 
 1839, ranking first in a class of thirty-one members : 
 Gen. Halleck standing No. 3, Gen. E. 0. G. Ord, No. 17, 
 and Gen. E. R. S. Canby, No. 30. He was immediately 
 promoted in the army to second Lieutenant, Corps of 
 Engineers. From that time until 1841, he was engaged 
 as Assistant Engineer in the building of Fort Adams, New- 
 port harbor, Rhode Island. On July 1st, 1840, he was 
 promoted to First Lieutenant, Corps of Engineers, and was 
 engaged upon the repairs of Fairhaven Battery, New Bed- 
 ford harbor, Massachusetts, 1841-42, and of the defences 
 of Portsmouth harbor, New Hampshire, 1842-46. Dur- 
 ing the greater part of this latter period, he served also 
 as Superintending Engineer in building Fort Knox, at 
 the Narrows of Penobscot river, Maine. 
 
 During the Mexican war he made for himself a bril- 
 liant record. When that struo:g;le commenced he was at- 
 tached to Gen. Scott's staff. He was engaged as Adjutant 
 of Engineers in the siege of Vera Cruz, March 9th, 
 1847 ; and was conspicuous for his boldness and fearless 
 bearing at the reconnoissance of the Penon, August 12th- 
 13th; of San Antonio, August 18th; at the battle of Con- 
 
 * For explanatory note, see Preface. 
 
500 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 treras, August 19th; the battle of Cherubusco, August 
 20th; at the battle of Molino del Rey, September 8th; 
 reconnoissance of the southern approaches to the city of 
 Mexico, September 9th-13th; battle of Chapultepec, Sep- 
 tember 13th, and at the assault and capture of the city 
 of Mexico, September 13th-14th. At the attack upon 
 the Mexican Capital he was in Gen. Worth's division, and 
 was severely wounded in the San Cosme suburb. 
 
 ^'For gallant and meritorious conduct" in the battles 
 of Contreras and Cherubusco, Mexico, he was brevetted 
 Captain in the regular army, August 20th, 1849, and on 
 September 13th, for like conduct at the battle of Chapul- 
 tepec, was brevetted Major. 
 
 In 1848, Major Stevens was engaged as Superintend- 
 ing Engineer in building Fort Knox, Maine ; of repairs of 
 Portsmouth fortifications, New Hampshire ; of the im- 
 provements of the Savannah river, Georgia ; and of build- 
 ing Forts Pulaski and Jackson, in the latter State. 
 
 From September 14th. 1849, to March, 1853, he was 
 principal assistant to Professor Bache, of the Coast Sur- 
 vey, and had charge of the Coast Survey Office at Wash- 
 ington, D. C. In the early part of the latter year he was 
 a member of the Commission for devising plans for the 
 improvement of the James and Appomattox rivers, Vir- 
 ginia, and of Cape Fear river, North Carolina. 
 
 On March 16th, 1853, Major Stevens resigned his posi- 
 tion in the army, to enter the civil service of his country. 
 President Pierce, who had just been inaugurated, was his 
 warm personal and political friend, and two weeks after 
 he assumed his high office, he appointed Major Stevens 
 Governor and Commissioner for Indian Affairs of Wash- 
 ington Territory : at the same time he was placed in charge 
 of the survey of the northern route for the Pacific Rail- 
 road, and, the appointment being confirmed by the Sen- 
 ate, he departed for Washington Territory, where he 
 entered upon, and .continued to discharge, his duties 
 as Governor and Commissioner throughout President 
 Pierce's term of office. 
 
 In May, 1856, a serious dispute occurred between Gov. 
 Stevens and Edward Lander, Chief Justice of the Terri- 
 
ISAAC IXGALLS STEVENS. 501 
 
 tory, and brother of the late Gen. Lander. The Governor 
 declared the Territory under martial law, and, on May 
 7th, 1856, caused Judge Lander to be arrested in his court- 
 room. The Editor has not been able to obtain the his- 
 tory of this conflict, although he has written and applied 
 personally to several old citizens of California, Oregon 
 and Washington ; but it is probably safe to assume that 
 the conduct of Governor Stevens was unjustifiable or, to 
 say the least, hasty, inasmuch as it was disapproved, upon 
 investigation, by the authorities at Washington. 
 
 During Mr. Buchanan's administration, 1857-1861, 
 Gov. Stevens was a delegate to the United States House 
 of Representatives, from Washington Territory. 
 
 Gov. Stevens was author of '^ Campaigns of the Rio 
 Grande and Mexico," (8vo., New York, 1851) — being are- 
 view of Ripley's History of the Mexican War ; also of a 
 Report of Explorations made by him in 1853-54, while 
 Governor of Washington Territory, for a '' Route for a 
 Pacific Railroad near the 47th and 49th parallels of north 
 latitude, from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound," pub- 
 lished by order of Congress in 1855. 
 
 When the great breach occurred in the Democratic 
 ranks in 1860, Gov. Stevens became one of the most 
 earnest leaders of the Breckinridge wing of the party, 
 and was President of the Breckinridge National Executive 
 Committee. He acquiesced in the election of Mr. Lincoln, 
 and before the latter was inaugurated, strongly urged 
 upon Mr. Buchanan the propriety of dismissing Secreta- 
 ries Floyd and Thompson from his Cabinet. At the time 
 of the fall of Fort Sumter he was on the Pacific coast, 
 and as soon as he heard that hostilities were commenced, 
 he hastened to Washington, and was appointed Colonel 
 of the 79th New York, (Highlanders) July 31st, 1861. 
 From that time until October 21st, 1861, Col. Stevens 
 served in the defenses of Washington. He was commis- 
 sioned Brigadier-General of Volunteers, September 28th, 
 1861, and had command of a brigade in the Port Royal 
 Expeditionary Corps from October 21st, 1861, to March 
 31st, 1862. He had command of the land forces which 
 attacked the enemy at Port Royal Ferry, and captured and 
 
502 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 destroyed their batteries on Coosaw river, South Carolina. 
 He led the principal column in the unsuccessful assault 
 on the enemy's position near Secessionville, June 16th, 
 1862. From March 31st, to July 12th, 1862, Gen. Stev- 
 ens was in the Department of the South, having com- 
 mand of a brigade and subsequently of a division ; being 
 engaged in the demonstrations and actions on Stono river, 
 June 3d-10th. 
 
 On July 4th, 1862, Gen. Stevens was commissioned a 
 Major-General of Volunteers, and served in the Northern 
 Virginia Campaign ; being engaged in various skirmishes 
 on the Rappahannock during the early part of August ; at 
 the battle of Manassas, August 29th-30th ; and at the bat- 
 tle of Chantilly, where, '^ while leading his division in a 
 charge, he was killed, September 1st, 1862, aged forty- 
 four years." 
 
 Gen. Stevens was not a statesman, although a man of 
 varied talents, and ambitious of civil honors. His fame 
 must rest upon his military achievements. His life, 
 though not long, was active and crowded with events. 
 Stout hearted, high-spirited, brave and resolute, he was 
 admirably adapted to the profession of arms. Whenever 
 the flag of his country waved above ''the red baptism of 
 the battlefield," his arm was prompt to strike, and his 
 free and martial spirit followed where duty called. In 
 early manhood and in middle age, within his country's 
 borders and in a foreign land, he displayed on many 
 memorable instances, the noblest qualities of the soldier 
 and hero. It was the wish of Stevens that, when death 
 sheathed his sword, his name would be enrolled upon the 
 shining list of American Generals : and the aspiration 
 has been fully realized. 
 
JUAN BAUTISTA ALVARADO. 
 
 Go^t:rnor Juan Bautista Alyarado was born in the 
 city of Monterey, the then capital of Alta Cali- 
 fornia, on the 14th day of February, a.d. 1809. His 
 father was General Don Francisco Alvaraclo, chief ad- 
 viser and Adjutant General of the Spanish commander 
 and Governor Don Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga, then Gov- 
 ernor of Lower and Alta California; and his grandfather 
 was the renowned General Limon, who conquered the 
 States of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Lower California, and who 
 made himself so famous on account of the great interest 
 he manifested towards the progress and advancement of 
 the newly acquired Territories — which fact is marked in 
 the history of Spain. 
 
 General Don Francisco Alvarado, father of Juan 
 Bautista, was married in the year 1808 to Seiiorita Josefa 
 Vallejo, daughter of General Ignacio Yallejo and sister 
 of General Mariano G. Yallejo. Don Juan Bautista Al- 
 varado was the only issue of that marriage. His father 
 having died when he was only ten days old, and having 
 left no property, he was compelled to struggle for himself. 
 He early, however, found a friend in the person of Don 
 Pablo Vicente de Sola, then Governor of California. 
 Young Alvarado was sent to school, and received private 
 lessons and instructions from Governor Sola himself in 
 his private residence, the Governor having taken great 
 interest and pains to promote the education and welfare 
 of his protege, young Alvarado, who, when but twelve 
 years old, had shown considerable natural abilities and 
 
504 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 rare intellect for one so tender in years. When he had 
 attained his eighteenth year, he had already acquired 
 that notoriety and prominence which is so characteristic 
 in a new country, and ranked among the ablest and fore- 
 most of that period. 
 
 Before attaining his nineteenth year, he was elected 
 by the people's vote to the Secretaryship of the Terri- 
 torial Legislature. Subsequently, the Legislature con- 
 ferred upon him the appointment of treasurer and cus- 
 todian of the public funds of the Territory, with full 
 power and authority to invest the same as he might 
 judge best for the benefit of the country. 
 
 In the year 1826, the- Mexican Government appointed 
 him chief officer of the Commissary Departments of 
 Sonora, Sinaloa, and California. In 1833, and when but 
 twenty-four years of age, he was appointed to the posi- 
 tion of Collector of the Custom-house at Monterey. 
 
 In the year 1836, Governor Alvarado was President 
 of the Departmental Assembly, which body had declared 
 California to be a free, sovereign, and independent State, 
 under the Constitution of 1824, overthrowing Nicolas 
 Gutierrez, then Governor under Mexico, and creating 
 thereby a vacancy in the gubernatorial chair. Governor 
 Alvarado being then President of the Departmental As- 
 sembly, became by the constitution Governor of Cali- 
 fornia ad interim^ was confirmed as such by the Supreme 
 Government, and subsequently, as will be seen, by the 
 President of the Republic of Mexico. The Constitution 
 of Mexico provided that the people of each and every 
 Territory represented by the Departmental Assembly 
 should recommend three citizens, one of whom should be 
 selected and receive the appointment by the President 
 of the Republic of Mexico for Governor of his respective 
 Territory. The Territory of Alta California, in pursuance 
 of said provision, recommended for Governor three of 
 its most distinguished and prominent citizens, namely: 
 General Mariano Guadalupe Yallejo, General Jose An- 
 tonio Carrillo, and Don Juan Bautista Alvarado. His 
 Excellency Don Anastasio Bustamente, then President 
 of the Republic of Mexico, selected of the three names 
 
JUAN BAUTISTA ALYARADO. 505 
 
 thus presented to him for the highly important position 
 of Constitutional Governor of Alta California, Don Juan 
 Bautista Alvarado. 
 
 In the year 1842, the native Calif ornians showed 
 symptoms of discontent and dissatisfaction with the ad- 
 ministration of the then President of Mexico, General 
 Santa Anna; who, having by force of arms overthrown 
 the constitutional President of Mexico, Anastasio Busta- 
 mente, attempted the overthrow of the republican form 
 of government and the establishment of a monarchy. 
 Governor Alvarado was among the first and foremost in 
 repudiating and denouncing the illegal course adopted 
 by Santa Anna; and assisted by his uncle, General Mari- 
 ano G. Vallejo, and his personal friend, General Jose 
 Castro, initiated revolutionary steps, raising the cry of 
 war against Santa Anna and his monarchical coadjutors, 
 seeking at all hazards to maintain and uphold the repub- 
 lican form of government in California. 
 
 Santa Anna, upon being apprised of this movement, 
 headed by such influential men as Alvarado, Yallejo, and 
 Castro, and anticipating serious results, sent post haste 
 his confidential and personal friend. General Manuel 
 Micheltorena, with sufficient forces to California, in 
 order to overthrow and defeat the leaders of such 
 movement, and to proclaim Santa Anna Dictator of 
 Mexico. The Californians, laboring under the impression 
 that Micheltorena, impelled by motives of friendship 
 towards them, had accepted the mission, j)ermitted him 
 to assume the reins of government, and he was Governor 
 of California during two years. All this while, Michel- 
 torena kept concealed from the knowledge of the Cali- 
 fornians the true and sole object of his mission. 
 
 The Californians, immediately upon discovering the 
 secret plots concocted by Santa Anna and Micheltorena, 
 armed themselves; and, led by Governor Alvarado, Gen- 
 eral Yallejo, and General Castro, overthrew and com- 
 pletely routed Micheltorena, who w^as compelled to flee 
 back to Mexico for safety. 
 
 In the year 1845, Don Pio Pico was appointed Con- 
 stitutional Governor of California. In 1845, Governor 
 
506 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Pico conferred upon Governor Alvarado the appointment 
 of Collector of the Custom House at Monterey, which 
 appointment Governor Alvarado only accepted at the 
 urgent solicitation of Governor Pico and other prominent 
 citizens and friends, and for the second time held that 
 office only during a short time. 
 
 A general election took place about this time in 
 California for the purpose of electing delegates to form 
 a convention to select a representative to the Mexican 
 Congress. Gov. Juan B. Alvarado was the choice of the 
 people, and was elected representative to the Mexican 
 Congress from California by an overwhelming majority. 
 
 Gov. Alvarado being about to depart for Mexico to 
 take his seat in Congress, war was declared between the 
 United States and the Republic of Mexico, and he was 
 prevented from proceeding thither in consequence of all 
 the Mexican ports having been blockaded by the United 
 States war vessels. 
 
 Matters having been satisfactorily arranged between 
 the two governments, and the United States troops hav- 
 ing landed and taken possession of California, a consult- 
 ation took place between Gov. Pico, General Castro, and 
 Gov. Alvarado, as to the course to be pursued at that 
 critical moment. The two former, after mature delibera- 
 tion, concluded to leave the country, and left for Mexico ; 
 while Gov. Alvarado decided to remain friendly towards 
 the United States, in his native home. He was placed 
 under parole, and removed quietly, and without partici- 
 pating in any movement against the United States, to his 
 present home, San Pablo. 
 
 General Kearney, the Commander in Chief of the 
 armies of the United States in California, seeing and ap- 
 preciating the faithfulness with which Gov. Alvarado, 
 notwithstanding the frequent invitations to levy war 
 against the United States, kept his parole, offered and 
 tendered to him a prominent and influential position 
 under the Government of the United States. Governor 
 Alvarado, however, declined the honor, assigning as a 
 reason for his refusal, that he was a paroled officer, and 
 could not honorably, and while owing allegiance to the 
 
JUAN BAUTISTA ALYAEADO. 507 
 
 Mexican government, accept an office at the hands of the 
 United States government ; at the same time highly ap- 
 preciating and thankfully acknowledging the honor. 
 
 Governor Alvarado's six years of administration as 
 Governor of California gave unbounded satisfaction to 
 the Californians. A man of generous and extremely 
 liberal disposition, courteous and affable, always prompt 
 and ready to render assistance to the needful, al- 
 ways acting with an honesty and purity of purpose, 
 perhaps none of his predecessors ever possessed the 
 hearts of his people in so great a measure as he. He 
 was universally esteemed and respected by all, natives 
 and foreigners. Upwards of four hundred Mexican grants 
 of land were issued in California by him, all of which 
 have been more or less confirmed by the Government of 
 the United States. As the head of administration in 
 California, Governor Alvarado scattered among the people 
 the commodities of justice, liberty, and prosperity. 
 
 The most remarkable traits in the character of Gov. 
 Alvarado during his administration as Governor of Alta 
 California were his utter disregard and great disinterest- 
 edness towards advancing and benefiting his pecuniary 
 condition, and his exceedingly unostentatious disposition. 
 
 Since 1845, though repeatedly asked to accept public 
 offices and trusts, he has positively declined every thing 
 of the kind, preferring solitary and quiet retirement amid 
 the rural shades of private life. 
 
 Governor Alvarado was married, in the year 1839, to 
 Seiiorita Martina Castro, the daughter of a distinguished 
 Californian, Colonel Don Francisco M. Castro. Nine 
 children have been born to them: of these, three have 
 since died, and six are living. 
 
 The Governor, although in the sixtieth year of his 
 age, is hearty and robust, and would be taken for a toan 
 of forty-five years of age by those unacquainted with 
 him. He resides at present with his family in his rural 
 mansion, situated in the village of San Pablo, in Contra 
 Costra county, where he has dwelt for upwards of twenty 
 years. 
 
THOMPSON CAMPBELL 
 
 By Frank f. Baylor. 
 
 ILLINOIS can claim the honor of having been more pro- 
 lific of distinguished men during the last decade than 
 any other State of the Union. Certainly, from no other 
 State have as many men, conspicuous for signal ability 
 and great talent, emigrated, and become the adopted sons 
 of California. 
 
 Thompson Casipbell was one of those whose fame was 
 established in Illinois before California attracted the at- 
 tention of the American people. This gentleman was 
 born in Pennsylvania, in the year 1812. In that State he 
 grew up to manhood, received a good education and 
 studied law. Shortly after his admission to the bar, he 
 'removed to Galena, in Jo. Daviess County, Illinois, where, 
 in a few years, he became famous for his oratorical pow- 
 ers, and where he acquired great distinction as a crim- 
 inal lawyer. From 1838 to 1853 he practiced at a bar 
 which numbered among its members many able men — 
 Hon. E. B. "VVashburne, present Minister to Trance, Hon. 
 Thos. Drummond, present U. S. Circuit Judge of Illinois, 
 and others (who have since become noted in California) 
 prominent among whom are Hons. J. P. Hoge, 0. C. 
 Pratt, and S. M. Wilson. 
 
 In 1840, Mr. Campbell was appointed by Gov. Ford 
 of Illinois, Secretary of State, and acted in that capacity 
 for one term. In 1846, he was elected a delegate to the 
 convention called to amend the Constitution of his State. 
 He took a leading part in the deliberations of that body. 
 In 1850, he was elected a member of the National House of 
 
510 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Representatives, to succeed Hon. E. D. Baker. At the 
 expiration of his term, in the spring of 1853, he was ap- 
 pointed by President Pierce U. S. Land Commissioner 
 for the State of California, and immediately thereafter 
 removed with his family to San Francisco. He did not 
 long discharge the duties of this position, but resigned in 
 order to practice his profession in the new and inviting 
 field which San Francisco then presented. 
 
 He achieved marked success in the practice of law, 
 and maintained the high reputation he had won in Illi- 
 nois. He returned to the latter State in 1859, and re- 
 sided in Chicago for about two years. He was warmly 
 ■\velcomed on his return to Illinois by numerous personal 
 friends ; and the Democracy, then about to divide into 
 two hostile factions, watched his course with anxious in- 
 terest. He was not long in deciding under which standard 
 he would march, but espousing the cause of the weaker 
 branch, threw the great weight of his name and influence 
 against the ''Little Giant." 
 
 In the campaign of 1860 he was one of the Breckin- 
 ridge Presidential electors. Soon after the result of that 
 contest was known, Mr. Campbell made a tour through 
 Europe, after which he returned to San Francisco, and 
 resumed legal practice. A man of his temperament and 
 patriotism could not be silent while the war of the rebel- 
 lion was raging. At the outbreak of that struggle he 
 promptly and enthusiastically gave his support to the 
 Union cause, and throughout its continuance he advo- 
 cated, on every proper occasion, the principles of the 
 Union party, and labored for their vindication with una- 
 bated zeal. Mr. Campbell had been a life-long Demo- 
 crat ; and suddenly to sever his connection with his party 
 must have cost him much painful effort: but, possessed 
 of a bold, comprehensive mind; of patriotic impulses^ 
 which made him disregard the ungenerous and sometimes 
 severe criticisms of his old partisan friends, he was un- 
 daunted, and strode like a giant into the conflict with 
 those who advocated the cause of disunion. 
 
 In 1863, he delivered a speech on the condition of 
 public affairs, which was a meritorious and masterly effort, 
 
THOMPSON CAMPBELL. 511 
 
 and caused many hearty congratulations throughout the 
 State, that the Union cause had in California so fearless, 
 earnest, and eloquent a champion. So widely did his 
 fame as an orator and a thinker extend, and so eagerly were 
 his counsels sought, that in July, 1863, the proprietors 
 of the Sacramento Union proposed to him that, if he would 
 visit Sacramento and there deliver a speech on the state 
 of the country, they would, at their own expense have it 
 reported stenographically, and printed in full in the col- 
 umns of their popular journal. This offer was accepted, 
 and in the month named, Mr. Campbell made one of his 
 ablest and most convincing speeches, in the Assembly 
 chamber of the Capitol. Although he possessed the rare 
 and happy faculty of readily extemporizing as well, yet tliis 
 particular effort was evidently the result of careful and 
 thorough preparation. The gubernatorial canvass was then 
 progressing with great animation : Hon. F. F. Low being 
 the Union, and Hon. J. G. Downey the Democratic can- 
 didate. On the occasion just referred to, Mr. Campbell, 
 owing to a misapprehension as to time, commenced his 
 speech at 8.45 o'clock, P. M., and closed at 12.30, A. M., 
 consuming three and three-quarters hours of time. Being 
 then in bad health, it was a subject of common surprise 
 that he could s|>eak, with voice clear and unbroken, for 
 so long a time. His speech was printed in full in the 
 Union^ occupying nearly nine columns of that paper. The 
 State Central Committee ordered 10,000 copies to be print- 
 ed in pamphlet form, but soon raised the number to 50,- 
 000, for general circulation. It was widely circulated and 
 received as a text-book of the party, and as the most able, 
 instructive and exhaustive argument that had been or 
 could be made on the subject upon which it treated. It 
 was generally agreed that the decisive victory soon after- 
 wards achieved by the Union party in California, was ow- 
 ing as much to the efforts of Mr. Campbell as to those of 
 any other leader of the party in the State. 
 
 A few weeks after the delivery of the speech of wdiich 
 mention has just been made, Mr. Campbell was nominated 
 as a candidate for the Assembly by his party in San Fran- 
 cisco. He was elected ; and when the Legislature convened 
 
512 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 in December, 1863, he was made chairman of the Judiciary 
 Committee of the lower house. His influence in that com- 
 mittee and in the Assembly chamber was remarkable, and 
 equaled, if it did not surpass, that of any man who has ever 
 held a seat in the California Legislature. 
 
 During that session of the Legislature the representa- 
 tives of the Union party met at Sacramento in State con- 
 vention, to choose delegates to the national convention 
 at Baltimore, called to nominate candidates for President 
 and Vice President of the United States. Mr. Campbell 
 received the highest number of votes cast for any dele- 
 gate except Gen. Bidwell. His appearance on the plat- 
 form, and his speech on that occasion, elicited enthusiastic 
 demonstrations of applause. It will be remembered that the 
 excitement produced by the war then raging was intense. 
 One of the principal subjects of public discussion through- 
 out the State was the declaration contained in the resolu- 
 tions passed by the Union convention, that the volunteer 
 soldiers were entitled to vote at the general election in Cal- 
 ifornia, although they happened to be without the bound- 
 aries of the State at the time. Addressing himself to this 
 topic, Mr. Campbell electrified the convention with a 
 speech at once argumentative and eloquent. He seemed 
 to be in his happiest vein. The magnificence of his style, 
 the beauty and finish of his periods, the perfect harmony 
 existing between his own feelings and the general senti- 
 ment of his party, the vast and appreciative audience, and 
 the impassioned mood of the speaker, all joined to height- 
 en the effect of this splendid effort. He spoke of the 
 lofty valor, heroism and unfaltering devotion of the Union 
 soldiers, "which would hereafter render their posterity 
 more proud of them than if they had sprung from a race of 
 kings," and that 'Svewill send the ballot, if necessary, round 
 about the pendant globe, but what it shall reach them." 
 
 Soon afterwards, Mr. Campbell departed for Balti- 
 more, and participated in the proceedings of the con- 
 vention which renominated Abraham Lincoln for the 
 Presidency. 
 
 Returning to San Francisco, in June, 1865, he ad- 
 dressed a public meeting in that city, on the question of 
 
THOMPSON CAMPBELL. 513 
 
 Mexican independence, sternly denouncing the usurpa- 
 tion of Maximilian J and advocating with great zeal the 
 application of the ''Monroe Doctrine" in our relations 
 with that country. He was always earnestly in favor of 
 the introduction of the national currency into California. 
 
 His political sagacity was remarkable. In the spring 
 of 1865, on his return from the Atlantic States, he told 
 his party friends plainly and emphatically that the elect- 
 ive franchise must and would be extended to all the ne- 
 groes in the States which had engaged in the Rebellion, 
 for the simple reason that that class of the population 
 could protect themselves in no other way than by the 
 ballot. He astounded many of those to whom he thus 
 spoke, and but few agreed with him until the rapid suc- 
 cession of events attested his foresight. 
 
 Mr. Campbell died, after a short illness, in San Fran- 
 cisco, leaving a widow, son and daughter, who have since 
 returned to the East. Owing in a great degree to his 
 disease, he lacked, in his latter years, that suavity and 
 genial temper which were among the most attractive -char- 
 acteristics of his early manhood. 
 
 In former years he had great vivacity and personal 
 magnetism, and delighted his hearers with entertaining 
 conversations and amusing anecdotes. He sought no indi- 
 vidual alliances or support; and yet such was his great pow- 
 er, aided by the prestige of his former achievements, that 
 his influence was almost unbounded. Until the last two 
 days of the term, not a bill or law was rejected which was 
 introduced or advocated by him, and his frown was fatal 
 to every measure which he opposed. This is stated not 
 as mere flattery or even eulogy, but as an instance of the 
 extent of the influence which one legislator, noted for his 
 integrity, wisdom, and eloquence could exert over his 
 fellows. 
 
 During the year 1867, he several times addressed the 
 people of San Francisco on the interesting subject of 
 what is known as ''the outside lands," in which he be- 
 came involved in an exciting controversy with Mr. Con- 
 ness, then a U. S. Senator from California; also, in the 
 gubernatorial canvass of that year, in which he closed a 
 33 
 
514 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 masterly speech, by saying that, '^he should support Mr. 
 Gorham OYi patriotic grounds, and none other." 
 
 As an orator, in particular, it is most difficult to do 
 justice to Mr. Campbell ; only those who have seen him 
 in the various moods of passion and thought, which lit up 
 his classic countenance as with a flame of light ; who have 
 heard the sweet, deep-sounding cadences of his voice, 
 and witnessed, in his great earnestness, his grand and 
 magnificent gesticulation, who have listened to his pro- 
 found arguments, and witnessed the effect of his glowing 
 words, the winged messengers of his enthusiastic soul, 
 can fully comprehend the inadequacy of any description 
 of his character. 
 
 Well was he described by a leading political paper of 
 California, in January, 1864, as "That just less than sov- 
 ereign intelligence Thompson Campbell." 
 
 In the death of Mr. Campbell, an estimable and devot- 
 ed wife, and an interesting daughter and son, of mature 
 years, lost a loving, tender, and affectionate husband and 
 father, whose fame and public virtues threw around them 
 the protective glory and shield of an honored and great 
 name. California lost a noble son, w^ho had reflected 
 honor upon her escutcheon. His circle of admiring 
 friends lost in him a friend indeed, and the bar and 
 public forum were deprived of one of the most brilliant 
 of geniuses and most profound of intellects. 
 
 The following extract from the obituary notice of Mr. 
 Campbell which appeared in the San Francisco Evening 
 Bulletin^ on the day after his death, will fitly conclude this 
 brief and imperfect sketch. 
 
 Mr. Campbell's voice has often been heard in the discussion of 
 public affairs, and always on the side of liberal principles. None 
 who ever heard him will forget his pale face, set in a frame of long 
 dark hair, his glowing eyes, his nervous energy of gesture, his half- 
 absorbed yet electrical manner, his compact logic, his faultlessly 
 correct and felicitous language, rising often to a natural eloquence, 
 and his fervid expressions of patriotic sentiment. At the bar he 
 was especially distinguished for closeness of logic and clearness of 
 analysis. These qualities, and his command ovey the attention of 
 a jury, were remarkably displayed in a late important land case in 
 San Francisco. 
 
 ^ 
 
'-y*' or Tiis -^ 
 
 [U5I7Br. ilTT] 
 
^'^Sraredt.J.c Burt.., from ^ Sag^-^^'^ 
 
JOHN B. WELLER 
 
 By the -p^DiTOi^ - 
 
 THIS gentleman, for many years a prominent public 
 man in California, and the fourth Governor of the 
 State, was born on the 22d day of February, 1812. His 
 parents were of German descent, and natives of the State 
 of New York.' They moved from the county of Orange, 
 in that State, to Ohio, about the year 1810, and settled in 
 Hamilton county, some twelve mites from Cincinnati. 
 There, in the village. of Montgomery, John B. Weller was 
 born. 
 
 When he was twelve or fourteen years old, his parents 
 removed to Oxford, Butler county, the seat of Miami 
 University. At this institution, John B. was educated. 
 Immediately upon the completion of his studies at college, 
 he became a pupil, in the study of law, of Jesse Corwin, 
 brother of Hon. Tom Corwin, whose name is so familiar 
 to the people of the entire Union. Jesse Corwin' s office 
 and residence were at Hamilton, the county-seat of Butler 
 county. In that town, John prosecuted his legal studies 
 until his friend and preceptor considered him qualified to 
 enter upon the practice of law, when he was admitted to 
 the bar before he had attained his majority. 
 
 He had been practicing his profession but a short time, 
 when the Democratic County Convention of Butler county 
 nominated him for Prosecuting Attorney. His opponent, 
 the Whig candidate, was his old tutor, J^sse Corwin, 
 
516 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 whom he defeated by a large majority. About this time, 
 he was married to Miss Ryan, a daughter of the leading 
 merchant of Hamilton 
 
 In 1838, he was elected by the Democracy of his 
 district to the lower house of Congress, representing the 
 counties of Butler, Preble, and Darke — these counties 
 constituting what was then the second Congressional 
 District of Ohio. His readiness in debate, and his orator- 
 ical powers, which were considerable, immediately gave 
 him prominence on the floor of Congress. He was con- 
 spicuous in nearly every important partizan struggle 
 witnessed in the House of Representatives during his 
 service as a member. His bearing, while the celebrated 
 New Jersey contested election case was convulsing the 
 House, attracted to him the attention of the Democratic 
 leaders, who esteemed him as one of the most effective 
 champions of Democratic principles. When he addressed 
 the House, attentive auditors from both parties were 
 always eager to give due consideration to his earnest yet 
 sober utterances. He was twice reelected to the House 
 of Representatives, on both occasions having for his com- 
 petitor the Whig candidate, Hon. Lewis D. Campbell, 
 who, in later years, represented the same district in Con- 
 gress. 
 
 Having lost his first wife a few years after his marriage, 
 Mr. Weller, during his first term in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, married Miss Bryan, daughter of John A. 
 Bryan, then Auditor of the State of Ohio. This, lady 
 was a sister of Hon. Charles H. Bryan, formerly Judge 
 of the Supreme Court of California, by appointment of 
 Gov. Bigler. Two years had barely elapsed, when Mr. 
 Weller suffered a new affliction in the death of his second 
 wife. Near the close of his third term in Congress, 
 (1845) he married Miss Susan McDowell Taylor, daughter 
 of Hon. William Taylor, then a congressman from Vir- 
 ginia, and a niece of Col. Thomas H. Benton. 
 
 Mr. Weller, when his third term as a representative 
 had expired, determined to resume the practice of law. 
 His party desired to continue him in Congress, and ten- 
 dered him the nomination again, but he declined, and 
 
JOHN B. WELLER. 51 7 
 
 devoted himself to his profession, until the war broke 
 out between this country and Mexico. Then he left his 
 business to others, and volunteered as a private. He 
 was chosen captain of his company, which became a part 
 of the First Ohio regiment, and afterwards he was elected 
 lieutenant colonel of this regiment — 0. M. Mitchell be- 
 ing colonel. He distinguished himself for his gallantry 
 at Monterey, and when Colonel Mitchell was wounded 
 and disabled. Col. Weller commanded his regiment in the 
 hottest part of the fight. 
 
 At the termination of the war, he returned to his home 
 in Ohio, and resumed the practice of law. He was not 
 long allowed the comforts of private life. In 1848, he 
 was nominated by his party as their candidate for Gov- 
 ernor. The Whig candidate was Seabury Ford. The 
 memorable struggle between these two men was the 
 most bitter and animated political contest that ever dis- 
 turbed the public mind in the Buckeye State. Colonel 
 Weller, then in the very prime of life, possessed of a 
 robust constitution and excellent, untiring speaking 
 abilities, opened the campaign at an early day, and 
 throughout its continuance bent his whole strength to 
 the attainment of success. The great, main purpose of 
 the Democracy was to secure the vote of the State for 
 Gen. Cass at the approaching presidential election. If 
 Col. Weller should be elected Governor, it would follow 
 as almost beyond doubt that Ohio would cast her vote 
 for Gen. Cass in the fall election. Col. AVeller fully ap- 
 preciated the importance of the position he occupied, 
 and the great responsibilities resting upon him. The 
 office for which he was nominated was not a desirable 
 one, so far as its emoluments were concerned, twelve 
 hundred dollars ($1200) per annum being the salary at- 
 tached to it. The candidate was fighting for his party, 
 and looking to a national victory. He made speeches in 
 seventy- eight counties of Ohio. He, at no time, relaxed 
 his exertions, nor faltered in his great work until the 
 campaign closed. He took the bold stand, everywhere, 
 that if he were elected by votes of those who endorsed 
 the principles of the new Abolition organization, and the 
 
518 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 fact could be determined, he would not accept the ofiSce. 
 The prejudice at that time against Abolitionists was gen- 
 eral among conservative men who acknowledged allegiance 
 to no political organization, and pervaded the entire Dem- 
 ocratic party. 
 
 The campaign ended amid intense excitement, which 
 extended not only throughout Ohio but the whole country, 
 which awaited the issue anxiously. For weeks after the 
 election, the result continued in doubt: the race was so 
 closely contested that the official count was required to 
 definitely settle the question of who was the people's 
 choice for Governor. In an aggregate vote of nearly 
 th^ee hundred thousand^ Seabury Ford was declared elected 
 by a majority of three hundred and forty-five. In one 
 county, however, more than four hundred votes had been 
 cast for John Weller, which were of course intended for 
 the Democratic candidate, as there was no man of the 
 name of JoAti Weller before the people; and the Demo- 
 cratic committee of that county having omitted the 
 middle initial of their candidate's name in making up 
 the ticket for the voters of that county, Col. Weller lost 
 the office for which, not only on his own account, but for 
 the interests of his party, he had made so determined 
 and gallant a fight. The great end was nevertheless at- 
 tained. At the presidential election which followed, the 
 electoral vote of Ohio was cast for Gen. Cass. 
 
 In January, 1849, President Polk tendered Col. Wel- 
 ler the appointment of Commissioner, under the Treaty 
 of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to run the boundary line between 
 the United States and Mexico. He accepted the appoint- 
 ment. Having, a month previous, for the third time 
 laid in the grave the chosen and beloved companion who 
 had augmented his pleasures and lessened his anxieties, 
 his mental condition was such as to render new scenes 
 and a change of pursuit particularly inviting. With a 
 force of thirty men, he left New Orleans, a month after 
 his appointment, and came to the Pacific coast by wa}^ 
 of the Isthmus of Panama, arrivmg at San Diego m June. 
 He proceeded at once, with the Mexican Commissioner, 
 to fix the initial point. He had barely completed this 
 
JOHN B. WELLER. 519 
 
 portion of the work when he was recalled by the new 
 administration. G-en. Taylor, very soon after his inaug- 
 uration, (March 4th, 1849) appointed John C. Fremont to 
 supersede Col. Weller. The new appointee, however, 
 did not enter upon his duties, being engaged in pressing 
 his claims to an election to the United States Senate, in 
 which he was successful. Major Emory, the topographi- 
 cal engineer of the commission, prosecuted the work until 
 the arrival of Mr. Bartlett, Gen. Taylor's second ap- 
 pointee. 
 
 By way of excuse for removing Col. Weller, he was 
 accused of being a defaulter, before he had any oppor- 
 tunity to settle his accounts. The charge, started by the 
 then Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing, was re- 
 peated in the United States Senate by Truman Smith, of 
 Connecticut. Afterwards, from his seat as a senator from 
 California, Col. Weller had the gratifying opportunity of 
 vindicating himself and demonstrating the utter falsity 
 of the accusation. Scarcely two months had passed 
 since this charge was vso boldly made, when a settlement 
 with the government showed a balance of several thous- 
 ands of dollars in favor of Col. Weller, which was paid 
 him upon his arrival at Washington to take his place in 
 the United States Senate. 
 
 The Legislature of 1851-2 elected Col. Weller to the 
 United States Senate, to succeed John C. Fremont. He 
 took his seat early in 1852. In the following session he 
 was made Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, 
 and served as such during the remainder of his term. 
 
 The Legislature of California which convened in 
 January, 1857, was called upon to elect two United 
 States senators, one for the term of four years, to succeed 
 Dr. Gwin, and one for the full period of six years, to 
 succeed Col. Weller, whose term of office expired on the 
 4th of March following. The latter gentleman was a 
 candidate for reelection, but instead of returning home 
 to prosecute his claims, remained at his post at Washing- 
 ton — preferring the consciousness of duty faithfully per- 
 formed to success at the price of neglect of public trust. 
 The result was his defeat by David C. Broderick, who 
 
520 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 received a small majority of votes in the Democratic 
 caucus — Dr. Gwin being afterwards chosen as his own 
 successor. 
 
 Upon the arrival of Mr. Broderick, Col. Weller re- 
 turned to California. Arriving at San Francisco, he was 
 met at the wharf by the leading members of the Demo- 
 cratic party, who desired his continuance in public life. 
 He wished to withdraw from the field of politics, and at 
 first refused to become a candidate for Governor. The 
 unanimity with which his party demanded his nomination 
 for that ofiice attested his great popularity throughout 
 the State, and induced him to accept. His nomination 
 was tendered almost unanimously, and he was elected 
 by an unusually large majority over Edward Stanly, Re- 
 publican, and G. W. Bowie, American, or Know-Nothing. 
 He was inaugurated in the first week in January, 1858, 
 and held the ofiice for the term of two years, when he 
 was succeeded by Milton S. Latham. 
 
 Gov. Weller, upon leaving the office of Governor, 
 retired to his country seat in Alameda county, with his 
 family, having in 1854 married his fourth wife. 'He 
 wished and expected to enjoy in his quiet and beautiful 
 retreat the sweets of private life and agricultural pursuits 
 the remainder of his days. In less than six months, 
 however, he was on his way to the city of Mexico, as 
 Minister Plenipotentiary to the Mexican Republic, by 
 appointment of President Buchanan. He was recalled 
 in the first month of Mr. Lincoln's administration, Hon. 
 Tom Corwin succeeding him. He then returned to his 
 farm, and devoted himself to its proper cultivation and 
 adornment for a few years. At the height of the excite- 
 ment consequent upon the discovery of rich silver de- 
 posits at Reese river, Nevada, he was tempted to visit the 
 new mines, in the effort to better his condition pecuniar- 
 ily. He remained there only a few months, and met with 
 no success worthy of mention. He had, however, al- 
 though advanced in life, become imbued with a love of 
 mining and the adventures and excitements attending 
 life in the mines. 
 
 Returning home, and making proper disposition of 
 
JOHN B. WELLER. 521 
 
 his family, he prepared himself for an extended '' pros- 
 pecting" tour. He proceeded to Oregon, thence to Idaho, 
 and afterwards through Idaho and Utah Territories to 
 Great Salt Lake city. In the '* City of the Saints," he 
 practiced law for several months. Becoming employed 
 in a murder case which compelled him to prosecute and 
 denounce certain of the Mormons who were implicated 
 in the murder, his course excited the open hatred of the 
 ^'Saints," who marked him as one of the future victims 
 of the ''Destroying Angel." He concluded, very sens- 
 ibly, to resume his travels. He returned to the Eastern 
 States, and sojourned for a while in Washington city. 
 
 In the spring of 1867, he visited New Orleans; and 
 falling in love with the climate, pleased with the business 
 prospects, and having faith in the future of that beautiful 
 city, he determined to make it his home. He is now 
 actively engaged at that place in the practice of his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 During his long public career, Col. Weller has ever 
 maintained his popularity with his constituents, and his 
 reputation for fidelity and honesty. Although he has 
 always led a life of frugality, he has never accumulated 
 wealth. As a senator of the United States from Cali- 
 fornia, and as Governor of the State, his conduct was 
 distinguished by unflagging devotion to the interests of 
 the Pacific coast. He is yet in the full possession of his 
 powers, and his old constituents wish him many years of 
 happiness as the reward of his public labors. 
 
'A^^ or Tas ^ 
 
'"^$ * ty OeoE-PerBa"^ - 
 
 HON. CORNELIUS COLE 
 SEKATORFROM CALIFORNIA. 
 
CORNELIUS COLE 
 
 CORNELIUS Cole was born at Lodi, Seneca County, New 
 York, September l7th, 1822, the seventh of twelve 
 children. His paternal ancestors were natives of New 
 Jersey, of English origin, mingled in marriage with the 
 German family of Yan Zant. His maternal ancestors 
 were also English, named Townsend, joined in marriage 
 with the family of Ganong. As the time of the arrival of 
 any is at present unknown, all must have come to Amer- 
 ica at an early date. They were generally farmers and 
 thrifty citizens, the later generations residing near Towns- 
 endville, New York, a small village named for his grand- 
 father, its first settler. A few months later followed his 
 maternal grandfather, who settled near by, and here these 
 sturdy pioneers battled with adversity in the wilds of 
 their forest home, conquering all opposition by the same 
 indomitable perseverance and earnest effort that have 
 characterized their descendants, and especially the subject 
 of this sketch. Here was passed the latter's earlier years, 
 though surrounded by scenes very different from those 
 with which his ancestors had been familiar ; the howls of 
 wolves had given place to the ''church-going bell," the 
 gloomy savage and the wandering hunter had been 
 changed as by a magician's wand, into a circle of society, 
 justly celebrated then, and pleasantly remembered for 
 its purity, intelligence, and excellence. Not nursed in 
 the lap of wealth, nor yet pinched by poverty, his sum- 
 mers were spent in assisting his father in the labors of 
 the farm, and his winters in attendance upon the district 
 school, where he was early distinguished for his profici- 
 
524 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ency in mathematics. Later winters were devoted to 
 teaching school in neighboring districts, and thus in part 
 he earned the means to complete a classical education, upon 
 which he had long been determined. A limited practice 
 in the art of surveying also aided him somewhat in his 
 efforts at self-reliance. For, to his credit be it said, his 
 desire to help himself, and thus allow the resources of his 
 father to extend to the education of his younger sisters, 
 was the motive power of his actions, rather thrai the pres- 
 ent inability of his father's means to supply him. His 
 first winter away at school w^as spent in the Academy, at 
 Ovid, Seneca county, whence, though some seven miles 
 from home, his drafts for board, though not the lightest, 
 were always duly and promptly honored ; not on some 
 bank, but upon his mother's well stocked cellar ; as for 
 the sake of economy, he ''boarded himself," as the phrase 
 goes. Vividly does the writer remember the Monday 
 mornings, when about to leave for school, the worthy ma- 
 tron would insist on absolutely loading the sleigh with 
 stores of solid viands, regardless of her son's smiling re- 
 monstrances, and the last article was generally a few mince 
 pies, or a basket of apples. And well does he remember 
 the glow of love and pride that flushed the broad brow 
 of the mother, and beamed so kindly from her moist eye, 
 as she smiled a good bye to her son in the distance. 
 Who can estimate the effect of such a mother's affection 
 on a young man's future ? Upon the subject of this sketch 
 it has borne its fruit. Early manifesting a fondness for 
 learning, being of a thoughtful and studious disposition, 
 he soon took place among the first for good conduct and 
 ability. 
 
 After leaving Ovid, he entered the celebrated Genes- 
 see Wesleyan Seminary, at Lima, New York, where he 
 vigorously pursued his course of study, taking active part 
 in the literary societies, and obtaining at that early age a 
 good reputation as a sound debater and logical reasoner, 
 rather than as a celebrity in high-sounding periods and 
 classical allusions. His efforts were directed rather to 
 demonstrate the truth and value of a position, than to 
 tickle the ear of the multitude. Having acceptably and 
 
CORXELIUS COLE. 525 
 
 thoroughly prepared himself for college, he entered the 
 Wesleyan University of Middletown, Conn., whence, after 
 three years of collegiate life, he graduated with honor. 
 While here the writer was his room-mate, the last year of 
 his college life, and many personal incidents occurred, 
 now dimly shadowed by time. They peep out from the 
 dark curtain of past memories, too faint in outline for 
 even a willing pen to portray, but often the subject of 
 pleasant musing. At the close of the first term, we found 
 our funds running alarmingly short. An investigation 
 showed that the senior member of the firm, and in conse- 
 quence purse-bearer, had made very frequent investments 
 in loans to impecunious students, which proved very gen- 
 erally permanent, and necessitated extreme economy for 
 some time to come ; this was accomplished by hiring an 
 old woman to cook, and buying our food in bulk ; even 
 yet, a pang of regret comes at the recollection of a tub 
 of butter purchased cheap, but only superficially good. 
 Its depths were strong as Homer's heroes. The answer, 
 too, of our butcher, to a remonstrance against tough beef, 
 ^'that we didn't buy much, and he wanted it to last," did 
 not appear half as witty then as it does now. After 
 awhile the writer, as junior member, was compelled to car- 
 ry the money, from the fact that an inability to say No 
 seemed chronic with his senior, and the two students were 
 consequently enabled to board again. At the levee of 
 the graduating class at the house of President Olin, the 
 Rev. Doctor asked: ^'Mr. Cole, w^hat do you purpose to 
 do?" The answer was: "I intend to study law, sir!" 
 *'Well, said the Doctor, a man mmj be a good lawyer and 
 a good Christian, but it's a pretty tight squeeze." 
 
 After graduating, the law student was for some time 
 in the office of Hon. William H. Seward, at Auburn, New 
 York, where he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme 
 Court of the State of New York, May 1st, 1848. In 
 1849 he started overland to California, arriving there in 
 July of that year, having suffered severe hardships upon 
 ''the plains." After mining some months in El Dorado 
 county, he removed to San Prancisco, where he engaged 
 in the practice of his profession about two years. He 
 
52 G REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 then removed to Sacramento, where he practiced over 
 ten years. 
 
 While in Sacramento, he was one of the first and most 
 prominent organizers and supporters of the Republican 
 party, when Republicanism was sufficient cause for per- 
 sonal injury and unlimited abuse of its advocates ; of 
 which he received a full share, including personal threats, 
 and persistent efforts to injure his business. Much of the 
 subsequent success of Republicanism is doubtless due to 
 his persistent, fearless, and honest support, in those hours 
 of trial. He was defeated as a candidate for Clerk of 
 Supreme Court of California, in 1856, during which year 
 he edited and published the Sacramento Daily Times ^ the 
 leading Republican paper in the State, in the Presidential 
 contest then pending. He was District Attorney for the 
 City and County of Sacramento in 1859, 1860 and 1861. 
 He afterward resided a year in Santa Cruz, California, 
 still engaged in his profession. 
 
 He was married January 6th, 1853, to Miss Olive Cole- 
 grove, of Trumansburg, Tompkins County, Kew York, an 
 estimable lady, with whom he has since lived in great do- 
 mestic happiness, the union being blessed with numerous 
 offspring. 
 
 In 1863, Mr. Cole was elected to Congress by ballot 
 through the whole State, receiving 64,985 votes. He 
 served in the thirty-eighth Congress, on the Committees 
 on Post Offices, and Post Roads, and on the Pacific Rail 
 Road. He introduced and carried through Congress the 
 important bill establishing a Steam Mail Line to China 
 and Japan, and several other prominent measures. 
 
 In December, 1866, Mr. Cole was elected to the ' 
 United States Senate, to succeed Hon. James A. McDou- 
 gall, receiving on first ballot in Republican caucus sixty 
 votes to thirty-one cast for Aaron A. Sargent, and on first 
 ballot in joint legislature ninety-two votes against twen- 
 ty-six for W. T. Coleman, the Democratic candidate. He 
 entered the Senate March 4th, 1867, and served on Com- 
 mittees for Appropriations, Claims, Manufactures, Post 
 Offices and Post Roads, and Revision of Laws. 
 
 As will be inferred from the above, Mr. Cole's pecu- 
 
CORNELIUS COLE. 527 
 
 liar characteristics are unswerving integrity of action and 
 intention, tenacity of purpose, a contempt for wealth and 
 its influences, a strong sense. of justice, and fidelity in 
 friendships. Domestic and temperate in habit, and mod- 
 est in ambition, his honors have been thrust upon him, 
 rather than plucked down by a bold hand. 
 
JOHN R. MCCONNELL 
 
 ^Y )VlLLIAM ji, J^HODES. 
 
 JOHN R. McCoNNELL, the leading lawyer of Northern 
 California, was born in Kentucky in the year 1826. 
 He is descended from Scotch-Irish stock, and his ances- 
 tors originally settled in the State of Pennsylvania. At 
 an early day, one branch of the family removed to the 
 wilds of Kentucky. On the mother's side, Mr. McCon- 
 nell is lineally descended from the family of the Clarksons, 
 who are of English origin, and originally settled in the 
 county of Albemarle, in old Virginia. He was the twelfth 
 child in a family of thirteen. 
 
 As early as 1833, his father removed to the State of 
 Illinois, and soon settled on a farm, near the town of 
 Jacksonville, the county seat of Morgan county. The 
 next year his father died, and two years afterwards, his 
 mother In 1841, he returned to Kentucky, and resided 
 in the family of a brother-in-law, in Bourbon county, 
 until 1846. 
 
 He attended several respectable institutions of learn- 
 ing, both in Illinois and Kentucky; but his education 
 was chiefly derived from the private tutorship of Profes- 
 sor Vaughn, now of the city of Cincinnati. This gentle- 
 man now stands at the head of the mathematicians of the 
 West. Under his tutor, McConnell made rapid strides in 
 classical studies, but became eminent in mathematical 
 and metaphysical lore. In the higher mathematics especi- 
 34 
 
530 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ally, he excelled, and to this day nothing seems to afford 
 him more pleasure than a dash into the mysteries of 
 curvilinear and conic sections. 
 
 In the year 1844, abandoning, on account of ill health, 
 the original design of a military education at West Point, 
 he commenced the study of law, under the tuition of 
 John Martin, Esq., at that time a leading member of the 
 bar of BourlDon county. But from him he derived only 
 slight assistance, and has been always self-reliant in the 
 acquisition of that profound knowledge of law to which 
 he has attained. Some assistance, however, he did derive 
 from a short matriculation at Transylvania University, 
 where his studies were, for a time, directed by such mas- 
 ters of the profession as Judges Wooley, Rol3ertson, and 
 Thomas A. Marshall. Ill health, however, soon com- 
 pelled him to quit the law school, and he was again 
 thrown upon his own resources. 
 
 In 1846, removing again to Illinois, he commenced 
 the practice of law at the early age of twenty-one years. 
 Two years after this, we again find him moving — for early 
 in 1848 he was located at Natchez, in the State of 
 Mississippi. 
 
 It was during his residence in Mississippi, that young 
 McConnell commenced laying in that fund of useful inform- 
 ation on some branches of the law which afterwards 
 contributed so largely to his benefit, and to that of his 
 adopted State. In N'atchez, we find him applying himself 
 to the study of Justinian's Institutes, and that splendid 
 body of civil law which has come down to us from the 
 age of Tribonian. Before he had time to avail himself of 
 any of the knowledge thus acquired, the news of the 
 discovery of gold in California reached his place of resi- 
 dence, and early in 1849, in company with his friend Col. 
 E. J. Saunders, (afterwards so well known in Nicaragua 
 and during the Confederate war) he started across the 
 plains to California. He arrived here early in October, 
 1849, and settled as a miner in the vicinity of Placerville. 
 It was bruited abroad that he was, by profession, a lawyer, 
 and he soon engaged warmly in the disputes before the 
 various Alcaldes' courts in the vicinity. Here he met 
 
JOHN R. MCCOXNELL. 531 
 
 Judge John Heard, now of Sacramento, and the Hon. 
 Frank M. Pixley, of San Francisco. There not being a single 
 law book in the whole district, the discussions, and the 
 decisions equally, must have been rather crude and ill 
 digested ; but we have reason to believe that the germ of 
 the entire mining jurisprudence of California sprang from 
 those early deliberations. Finally induced to abandon 
 mining by the growing wants of the community for legal 
 knowledge, as well as by the reputation he had already 
 acquired as a jurist, he took up his residence early in 
 1851 at Nevada City, and devoted himself thenceforth 
 to the practice of his profession. 
 
 In the opening of this sketch, we have characterized 
 McConnell as the leading lawyer of Northern California. 
 To those who have met him oftenest at the bar, and 
 know him best in the higher walks of the profession, we 
 need adduce no proof other than such encounters have 
 furnished. But proof is not wanting of a more reliable 
 and a less perishable character. 
 
 The records of the Supreme Court of California, for 
 many years, as preserved in the reports, afford ample 
 testimony upon this point. It is not going too far to 
 assert, that the briefs and argument* of John R. McCon- 
 nell, before that tribunal, have done more towards 
 building up the mining law of this State than the labors 
 of any other counselor upon this coast. To an inex- 
 haustible fund of learning, he added indomitable industry, 
 and a perception quick, sure, and intuitive; methodical 
 almost to formality, he drilled his arguments into the 
 forms of logical sequence, that in most cases amounted 
 to mathematical demonstration. But his memory is, 
 perhaps, the most remarkable trait of a most remarkable 
 mind. It seems to be absolutely infallible. Piled up in 
 the deep reservoirs of his capacious intellect, he calls 
 forth these argosies of wealth at a moment's notice, and 
 launches them upon the tide of learning with an abandon 
 that produces amazement. 
 
 No point of law bearing upon the subject under dis- 
 cussion seems ever to be overlooked or hidden ; and very 
 often his adversary finds that he is more thoroughly 
 
532 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 versed in his own case than he is himself. Kor is there 
 any other branch of learning that Mr. McConnell has 
 neglected. Dr. Johnson said of Gibbon, that "no 
 man could casually meet him under an awning, during 
 a shower, and hear him speak five minutes, without 
 saying at once, ' Here is the most remarkable genius 
 in Great Britain.' " This great praise can also be applied 
 almost as faithfully to the subject of this sketch. He 
 appears to be like Macaulay, almost omniscient — all 
 science, art, and philosophy are equally at his command. 
 He has studied almost every branch of human learning — 
 and when at leisure, seated at the fireside amongst his 
 friends, he pours forth such prolific streams of informa- 
 tion, that his mind appears inexhaustible. He is withal 
 an acute observer of nature, as well as a profound 
 student of man ; and in political ethics, including the 
 history of party in the United States, he has no super- 
 ior. Nicholas Biddle's panegyric on the true lawyer, 
 applies with great force to McConnell, "who, not content 
 with the ordinary routine of litigation, seeks in all liberal 
 arts, in all sciences, and throughout the whole domain of 
 learning, whatsoever may dignify and adorn his noble 
 occupation." 
 
 As a teacher of law, McConnell deserves more than a 
 passing notice. His office has been commonly filled with 
 young men in pursuit of a knowledge of that science, 
 " whose seat," old Hooker declares," is the bosom of God, 
 and whose voice is the harmony of the world." Amongst 
 those who sought the instruction of McConnell, were 
 Edward Craig, Esq., of Placer county, and the Hon. 
 Wm. M. Stewart, at present Senator of the United States 
 from the State of Nevada. Both these gentlemen are 
 able lawyers, as well as renowned politicians ; and Stewart 
 owes all his dialectic skill, ingenuity, and eloquence to the 
 early training of McConnell. It would of course be 
 expected that a man gifted with such talents as McCon- 
 nell' s, should at some period of life be lifted up into 
 public station. As early as 1853, he was elected Attor- 
 ney General of California, and held that position until 
 1856. Twice he has been unsuccessful in his political 
 
JOHN R. MCCONNELL. 533 
 
 aspirations. In 1861, he was the Democratic candidate 
 for Governor of California, on a peace platform, but was 
 defeated by Gov. Stanford; and again in 1864, he ran for 
 the Supreme Judgeship, in the neighboring State of 
 Nevada, but failed in securing his election. 
 
 In political opinion, McConnell may be classed as an 
 old school strict constructionist. He gravitates toward 
 Calhoun rather than toward Stanton or Seward. It is 
 true, that in 1860 he endorsed Judge Douglas for the 
 Presidency instead of Breckinridge; but the preference 
 seems to have been more the result of personal friendship 
 than of party affinity. 
 
 Mr. McConnell has been thrice married. His first 
 wife was Rebecca Cross, of Nevada City; his second, 
 Ann Eliza Moore, of Fayette county, Kentucky; and 
 his third, Sallie B. Darby, eldest daughter of Dr. J. Custis 
 Darby, an eminent physician of Lexington, Kentucky. 
 With this lady he is still living at his old home in Nevada 
 city, the centre of a large band of friends and clients. 
 
 In person, Mr. McConnell is of medium height, and 
 rather spare build. His complexion is sallow, but re- 
 lieved by one of the blackest and brightest eyes that ever 
 shot forth fiery eloquence, rapid thought, and stern denun- 
 ciation upon an opponent. Few men can meet that glance 
 without quailing. It is of that intense magnetic flame 
 that dazzles and consumes. Of late, Mr. McConnell' s 
 health has not been robust, but we trust that he will live 
 long to illustrate the annals of California. 
 
OGDEN HOFFMAN. 
 
 ^Y THE pDITOR. 
 
 THIS •gentleman, who has been for so many years United 
 States District Judge for the District of California, 
 was born in the city of New York, October 16th, 1822. 
 His ancestors were from Holland, and were among the 
 earliest settlers of New Amsterdam. His father, Hon. 
 Ogden HoJBfman, was long one of the most influential 
 leaders of the Whig party. He possessed the graces and 
 powers of oratory in a wonderful degree ; was unrivalled 
 as a debater, and ^'proudly eminent" on the hustings. 
 He was one of the most accomplished lawyers of the 
 Empire State, his fame eclipsifig even that of his father, 
 Josiah Ogden Hoffman. At the time of his death, in 
 May, 1853, a meeting of the New York bar was held, at 
 which Wn;. M. Evarts and others, who had witnessed his 
 forensic triumphs and his able management of great civil 
 and criminal causes, paid feeling tributes to the nobility 
 of his nature, the greatness of his mind, and the fullness 
 of his learning. 
 
 Mr. Hoffman, our subject, graduated from Columbia 
 College in 1840, and determined to prepare himself for 
 the bar. He studied law at Dane Law School, Harvard 
 University, for about two years, under Judge Story and 
 Simon Greenleaf. He afterwards read law under Mark 
 Sibley, of Canandaigua, New York, and under Benjamin 
 D. Silliman, of New York city. After being admitted, he 
 
536 HEPRESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 spent nearly two years in foreign travel ; returning, opened 
 an office in New York city, and practiced law for two or 
 three years. 
 
 Mr. Hoffman arrived at San Francisco, May 16th, 1850, 
 and entered immediately on the practice of law. He had 
 not been in his home a year when, in March, 1851, Presi- 
 dent Fillmore appointed him United States District Judge 
 for the Northern District of California — Mr. Hoffman 
 being then twenty-eight years of age. 
 
 There were several weighty reasons which nearly moved 
 the young appointee to decline the proffered honor. 
 Recognizing in the appointment a graceful compliment to 
 his father (who had long been the warm friend and sup- 
 porter of Mr. Fillmore) and being young and inexperi- 
 enced, he hesitated to accept the responsibilities of a 
 position for which he felt himself unqualified : moreover, 
 litigation was rife at that day in San Francisco, and his 
 prospects were flattering to acquire an ample reward for 
 his labors in the profession. But, being urged by his 
 friends and advised by his father, he assumed the ermine, 
 and (it is not undue praise to say it) though he has many 
 times regretted his acceptance of the office, the people of 
 California are grateful that he did accept. 
 
 As District Judge — a position which he has held for a 
 period of eighteen years — he has distinguished himself, 
 and won an enviable reputation among the people of his 
 adopted State for his integrity and learning. Upon him 
 has devolved, in a large degree, the settlement of the con- 
 flicting land titles of the State, in controversies existing 
 between the Federal Government and claimants under 
 Mexican grants. His decisions, while they have uniformly 
 been sound and impartial, have not only given stability 
 to titles, but they have acquired the confidence and com- 
 manded the respect of the whole community. In all the 
 varied duties of the bench over which he presides, he has 
 exemplified a high degree of capacity and intelligence; 
 and the opinions which he has delivered from time to 
 time are being made the subject of a forthcoming pub- 
 lication of Reports, which is anxiously looked for by the 
 public, besides a volume of land cases already issued. 
 
OGDEN HOFFMAN. 537 
 
 Judge Hoffman possesses classical attainments of a 
 high order, and is a fine linguist. The editor has heard 
 him declare in conversation his belief that it is impos- 
 sible for any person, no matter how studious and talent- 
 ed, to master any language except his own. He speaks 
 French, has some knowledge of other modern tongues, 
 and there is probably no more accomplished Greek and 
 Latin scholar in California. He is a constant reader, a 
 most agreeable conversationalist, and possesses a memory 
 retentive, and enriched with gleanings from a wide range 
 of eclectic information and classic lore. 
 
ISAAC ROWELL 
 
 ^y pAJLVIN ^ yVlcJ)ONAJLD. 
 
 DR. Isaac Rowell was born in Coos county, New 
 Hampshire, in 1818. He is descended from the 
 Pilgrims, his ancestors having come from England with 
 that historic company who came in the Mayflower; and 
 through successive generations his family have been 
 earnest and progressive Republicans, in the broad and 
 national sense of the term. He was educated at Dart- 
 mouth College, including its literary, scientific, and 
 medical courses, and at once entered upon the practice 
 of medicine at Gardiner, Maine. In 1849, he joined the 
 great procession of enterprise and adventure moving to 
 the farthest West, and coming by way of Cape Horn, 
 arrived in San Francisco on the 16th of June of that 
 year. He at once announced himself as a physician and 
 surgeon, opened an office near the place still occupied 
 by him, and soon became a popular and successful prac- 
 titioner. From that time to the present, his office has 
 been the daily resort of suffering humanity, a large por- 
 tion of his attention and skill being devoted to the poor, 
 expecting and receiving no reward save the pleasant con- 
 sciousness of having sought to relieve the distresses of 
 the friendless and despairing. 
 
 In 1852, Dr. Howell became interested in military 
 affairs, and raised the first cavalry company organized 
 on this coast — the Eureka Light-Horse Guards — which 
 
540 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 afterwards became the First Light Dragoons, and which 
 was remarkable as one of the finest companies in the 
 Union. After holding command several years, having 
 been unanimously elected captain at the organization of 
 the company, the First Light Dragoons, the National 
 Lancers, Capt. Thomas Hayes, the First National Guard — 
 Light Artillery — Capt. Thomas D. Johns, united under 
 the organization known as the First California Mounted 
 Battalion ; and at the first meeting, every member being 
 present, every vote was cast for Dr. Rowell as com- 
 mander — an instance of that popularity which he has 
 always enjoyed in every relation of life. . 
 
 In 1855, he took a leading part in organizing the 
 Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, and 
 was elected to the Chair of Chemistry; also lecturing 
 in various other departments of the institution ; and for 
 one full term occupying the Chairs of Chemistry and 
 Surgery with complete satisfaction to the Faculty; while 
 at the same time performing the duties of an extensive 
 and increasing practice; affording an illustration of 
 physical endurance and executive capacity almost un- 
 paralleled in the history of his profession, and which 
 could be performed only by the most vigorous and reso- 
 lute mind. At the commencement of the War of Re- 
 bellion, this institution was broken up; many of the 
 students betook themselves to the field, and became dis- 
 tinguished in the reports as army-surgeons, attesting the 
 thoroughness of the instruction received of Cooper, 
 Rowell, and the other earnest and devoted men who had 
 founded a college of Medicine and Surgery among the 
 first public institutions of their young State. 
 
 In 1866, he was elected a member of the San Fran- 
 cisco Board of Supervisors, having been an independent 
 candidate, and received a large majority of the popular 
 vote. That position, hardly less important than a mem- 
 bership of the State Legislature, was sought in order to 
 correct abuses and errors existing in the City and County 
 Hospital, to which Dr. Rowell gave his earnest attention 
 during his term of office. Having served in that capacity 
 two years and a half, and accomplished the desired re- 
 
ISAAC ROWELL. 541 
 
 form, he declined a renomination ; and on his retirement 
 from office was publicly presented with a magnificent set 
 of silverware by a number of leading citizens, who de- 
 sired to express their approbation of his faithful and 
 public spirited conduct as a member of the local Leg- 
 islature. It was the most beautiful and costly gift 
 ever received by any private citizen of San Francisco, 
 and was so referred to by the public journals of that 
 time. 
 
 Up to the commencement of the great rebellion. Dr. 
 Rowell had been an active and conspicuous member of 
 the Democratic party; but at that time, together with 
 thousands of earnest and patriotic men who held the 
 principles of Thomas Jefferson, he at once took a fore- 
 most and resolute stand for the restoration and preserva- 
 tion of the Union. He supported the second election 
 of Mr. Lincoln, made his first political speech in behalf 
 of that illustrious man, and abandoning a large and 
 lucrative practice, traversed the State at his own expense, 
 and took an active and important part in the presidential 
 campaign. His political speeches were earnest, inspiring, 
 and effective, and perhaps no single citizen did more to 
 create and give direction to public sentiment during the 
 cloudy and perilous days of our country. Everywhere 
 the sturdy and enthusiastic doctor communicated the 
 electrism of his own strong and earnest soul to the 
 people ; and he returned with honor and distinction from 
 a turbulent and even dangerous canvass, to resume his 
 gentler rounds among the children of affliction, having 
 obeyed, the irresistible impulses of his hereditary nature, 
 and struck a blow for Union, freedom, and the rights of 
 men. 
 
 In 1868, he was elected Health Officer of the city of 
 San Francisco by the Board of Supervisors; and in that 
 capacity, during an alarming and desolating epidemic, 
 displayed a characteristic energy and devotion, giving him- 
 self up wholly to the duties of a perilous and thankless 
 office, visiting the dreary abodes of the pestilence, con- 
 tributing to the relief of the poor, and as ever, earnest, 
 active, conscientious, and untiring. We believe he made 
 
 i 
 
 'J^*" Ot Ti^ 
 
 "^,. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
542 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the only post inortem ex3imm2ition of small-pox that occurred 
 during the prevalence of that awful scourge. 
 
 Having glanced rapidly over the public services of one 
 of the most noted and valuable of private citizens, it may 
 be added that Dr. Rowell ranks high with the most dis- 
 tinguished physicians and surgeons of San Francisco. 
 Being one of the oldest, he is also one of the ablest and 
 most popular, not only in the estimation of the public, 
 but likewise with the members of his profession. In 
 private association he is social, generous, and sympathetic, 
 ambitious of popularity and of distinction as a man of 
 liberality and public spirit; caring far more for the good 
 opinion and friendship of his fellow-men than for all the 
 golden treasures that could be heaped around him. In 
 the lecture-room, he is versatile, instructive, and enter- 
 taining, giving apt expressions to thoughts original, philo- 
 sophical, or humorous, as the circumstances and fancy of 
 the moment may suggest. The structure of his mental 
 organism leads to inquiry, analysis, and invention ; and 
 perhaps no member of the Faculty in this State is better 
 adapted to the requirements of the lecture-room in a 
 medical institute. As a citizen, he is well informed, 
 public spirited, and liberal, closely observing every new 
 movement of the public mind, taking part in every 
 worthy enterprise, and contributing freely, generously, 
 and almost thoughtlessly to the appeals of charity; the 
 chief obstacle to his greater professional success and fame 
 being the multiform and eclectic nature of his occupa- 
 tions, and his irresistible desire to take part in every 
 great public enterprise, and to be personally identified 
 with every great work of progress and reform. The 
 physician's highway to eminence is through the quiet 
 and sorrowful places of affliction, and it is a long dis- 
 tance; but in the scale of an unselfish philanthropy, it 
 may claim precedence in the loftiest occupations of man- 
 kind. To breast the beating storm at midnight, and 
 linger till gray dawn in the abode of poverty, in spite of 
 the invocations of sleep, and with scarcely any hope of 
 reward other than the intangible fees of conscience, are 
 acts of the sublimest heroism. 
 
ISAAC ROWELL. 543 
 
 Professor Rowell is still in the prime of vigorous life, 
 as appears from the excellent portrait preceding this 
 sketch. In personal presence he is as manly and noble 
 as he is refined, humane, and generous in the structure 
 of his mind. And whether in social companionship with 
 his friends, in the public assembly of his fellow-citizens, 
 or in the abodes of threatening death or friendless 
 poverty, he is always recognizable among the highest 
 types of enlightened mankind and the truest of American 
 citizenship. 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 
 
 ^Y THE pDITOl^ 
 
 THIS gentleman is one of the oldest practitioners at the 
 San Francisco bar. For nearly twenty years, with 
 the exception of the time when he occupied a seat upon 
 the Supreme Bench of California, and the further period 
 of nearly five years passed in two visits to the Eastern 
 States, he has been actively engaged in the practice of 
 law in the metropolis of the Pacific. 
 
 Judge Bennett is of regular old Puritan stock. His 
 father and mother were born and married in Fairfield 
 county, Connecticut, where their ancestors had resided 
 for several generations. A short time after their mar- 
 riage, his parents removed to Caatskill, then a village just 
 beginning to flourish in the State of New York, and 
 where his father engaged in the mercantile business for 
 some years. The latter afterwards moved to Clinton, 
 Oneida county, at which place Hamilton College had then 
 lately been established. His object in moving to Clinton 
 was to embrace the better opportunities which offered for 
 the education of his children. 
 
 Two of his sons, older brothers of Nathaniel, gradu- 
 ated at Hamilton College. One of them was for many 
 years chief judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Erie 
 county. New York. The other was also a lawyer, and 
 practiced his profession in New York city, in partnership 
 w^ith Hugh Maxwell, Esq., at that time District Attorney 
 of the city. This brother died when quite a young man. 
 
646 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Nathaniel Bennett was born at Clinton, Oneida county, 
 Iv^ew York, on the 27th day of June, 1818. When he was 
 three or four years old his father purchased several tracts 
 of land of considerable extent, in Erie county. On one 
 of these tracts he settled as a farmer, moving his family 
 thither from Clinton. Nathaniel passed his early boy- 
 hood on this farm, and in his twelfth year was sent to 
 Buffalo to a military school, then lately established by 
 the celebrated Captain Partridge, who had been for more 
 than twelve years principal of West Point Academy. 
 
 Nathaniel was at school at Buffalo for over two years. 
 The pupils of this school were daily subjected to regular 
 military drill and exercise, after the fashion at West Point. 
 From Buffalo, young Bennett was sent to the Academy at 
 Canandaigua, under the direction of Mr. Howe, where he 
 continued his studies for about a year. One of his school- 
 mates at Canandaigua was Stephen A. Douglas, who then 
 gave no indication of his subsequent renown. After 
 leaving the Academy, young Bennett was sent to Hamil- 
 ton College, where he remained one year; at the end of 
 that time he entered Yale College. 
 
 Mr. Bennett read law at Buffalo, New York. He was 
 admitted to practice as an attorney in 1840, and as a 
 counselor in 1843. He practiced at Buffalo from 1840 
 until the fall of 1842, in partnership with Eli Cook, a 
 brother of Elisha Cook, Esq., of San Francisco. He then 
 determined, as his health was somewhat impaired, to make 
 a tour through the Southern States. In 1838-9, he had 
 traveled through Ohio, and visited many parts of Indiana 
 and Kentucky, but had beheld no spot for which he was 
 willing to exchange his own home — Buffalo. Up to the 
 time of his starting upon his second and longer journey, 
 Mr. Bennett had always been an ardent Democrat, and a 
 great admirer of the South and southern institutions. A 
 radical change was soon to come over his feelings. He 
 passed, on horseback, through the States of Ohio, Indiana, 
 Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisana, to New Orleans, where 
 he spent the winter of 1842-3. In the following spring, he 
 started upon his return trip. He rode, on horseback, 
 through eastern Louisiana, through Mississippi, Georgia, 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 547 
 
 Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New 
 York, to Buffalo. In referring to this tour. Judge Ben- 
 nett has stated that it wrought a great change in his 
 views concerning southern institutions, country, and 
 people. 
 
 Upon his return home, Mr. Bennett applied himself 
 closely to the study and practice of his profession. When 
 the political organization known as ^' Barnburners" first 
 arose, under the leadership of Silas Wright, Benjamin F. 
 Butler, Joseph White, John Van Buren, and others, Mr. 
 Bennett embraced the principles of the new party with 
 enthusiasm. He was a member of the celebrated Barn- 
 burners' convention which met at Buffalo in the summer 
 of 1848. In addition to the men just named above, 
 Charles Francis Adams, Charles Sedgwick, Alvin Stewart, 
 of Utica, and James W. Nye, now U. S. Senator of 
 Nevada, were delegates to the convention; and a great 
 many others, among whom were some of the most noted 
 men of the Democratic party, who had determined to 
 sever their connection with the latter organization, if it 
 continued in the course which it was pursuing. The con- 
 vention nominated Martin Van Buren for the presidency. 
 The result of the election is known. Silas Wright, truly 
 a great man, did not live to see the triumph of his prin- 
 ciples. Although wedded to political tenets repugnant 
 to a very large majority of his fellow-citizens, and dying 
 in the effort to engraft his views upon hostile public 
 sentiment, millions of devoted friends and magnanimous 
 foes lamented his death, and the flag of his country 
 drooped in melancholy appreciation of the national loss. 
 Judge Bennett is one of those whose hearts were cast 
 down by the tidings of his death, and who have labored 
 patiently and quietly for the vindication of his political 
 principles, and the establishment of a great national party, 
 whose controlling purpose should be the fulfilment of his 
 prophecies and the execution of his high designs. 
 
 From 1843 to the summer of 1848, Mr. Bennett was 
 exclusively engaged in practicing law. His success was 
 very, considerable. By long and continued labor, and 
 the sacrifice of personal comforts and enjoyments, he had 
 
548 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 acquired a competency ; but his health had become great- 
 ly impaired. He was closing up his business affairs, with 
 the intention of spending the following winter in Europe, 
 when the discovery of gold directed his attention to 
 California. His physicians had advised him to take a sea 
 voyage, and as he had lost his health in the pursuit of 
 gold, he hoped in like manner to regain it. 
 
 About the time Mr. Bennett determined to leave 
 for California, a few of his friends made the same resolu- 
 tion, and their united efforts got together a pleasant party 
 of twelve persons, mutual acquaintances, who agreed to 
 make the long sea voyage in company. Before com- 
 pleting the arrangements for their departure, they heard 
 of an old ship announced to leave New London, Con- 
 necticut, for San Francisco. Believing that a vessel leav- 
 ing that port would be less crowded than one from New 
 York city, Mr. Bennett, on behalf of his little party of 
 friends, visited New London and inspected the ship. She 
 proved to be the Mentor^ a whaling vessel, which had 
 been built by Stephen Girard thirty-eight years before, had 
 made several long voyages, and now presented a sorrow- 
 ful appearance. Mr. Bennett was not fascinated at the 
 sight of the old hulk on her beams, dismasted, stanch- 
 ions rotten, and innocent of paint. Like many of his 
 old writs and summonses, he thought her functus officio. 
 But, upon inquiry, he ascertained that her timbers were 
 strong, and that the necessary repairs could be made so 
 as to render her entirely sea-worthy. Accordingly, he 
 engaged passage for his party. The owners of the Mentor 
 at once proceeded to fit her up in proper manner ; they 
 painted her, put up her masts, made two cabins, one 
 having capacity for fifty steerage passengers, the other 
 just large enough to accommodate Mr. Bennett and his 
 friends, and a few others, making twenty-five in all. 
 The Mentor sailed from New London on the last day of 
 January, 1849. Our little band of pioneers were well 
 provided with tents, clothing, provisions and every variety 
 of implement then deemed necessary in mining. On the 
 first day out, the Mentor encountered a violent gale, which 
 severely tested her strength and fitness for the voyage 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 54:9 
 
 she had undertaken. She behaved splendidly, but hav- 
 ing sprung her main cap she was obliged to put 
 in to Rio Janeiro for repairs. After a week's sojourn 
 at that place, enraptured beholders of natural scenery 
 which, in magnificence and grandeur, is surpassed by that 
 of no spot on earth, the voyagers renewed their journey. 
 Swiftly and gallantly, the old Mentor swept round the 
 '^ Horn," passing every one of the many vessels she over- 
 took on the way. She stayed two days at Juan Fer- 
 nandez, or Robinson Crusoe's Island, where the passen- 
 gers landed. Mr. Bennett and his companions wandered, 
 with feelings of pleasurable emotion, over this famous 
 island, and frequent and fervent were their expressions 
 of admiration for the genius of De Foe, whose pen, one 
 hundred and thirty years before, had invested this lonely 
 island with such romantic interest, that a perpetual charm 
 will linger around it and pervade its silent lodges. 
 
 The Mentor landed her passengers at San Francisco, on 
 June 30th, 1849. Judge Bennett has stated that the five 
 months consumed in the voyage round the ''Horn" were 
 passed more pleasantly than any other portion of his life. 
 The captain and crew of the Mentor were old whalers and 
 well-behaved men; the cabin passengers were supplied 
 with books, chess-boards, cards, etc. ; and as Mr. Bennett 
 spent considerable time every day in studying the Spanish 
 language — that being the tongue spoken by the native 
 population of California — it may easily be perceived how 
 the long ocean voyage was rendered agreeable, and even 
 delightful. Besides, Mr. Bennett enjoyed a happy exemp- 
 tion from sea-sickness during the entire trip. 
 
 Upon arriving at San Francisco, Mr. Bennett's com- 
 pany determined not to remain in the city, and the entire 
 party immediately started for the mines. The little party 
 did not cling together a month, but broke up, like all 
 such companies in those times, most of them returning 
 to their homes in the Eastern States. 
 
 Mr. Bennett commenced his California life in digging 
 gold on the Tuolumne river, on a bar about two miles 
 below Jacksonville, at the mouth of Wood's creek. This 
 bar proved very rich, and being worked by a goodly 
 
550 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 number of men, yielded an immense amount of gold. 
 Mr. Bennett was very fortunate at mining: he continued 
 at his new occupation for about three months, when in 
 response to the repeated solicitations of a friend practicing 
 law at San Francisco, he determined to repair to that city, 
 and resume the practice of his profession. Accordingly, 
 in the fall of 1849, he returned to San Francisco, where 
 he formed a law partnership with the gentleman who had 
 induced him to leave the mines. This gentleman was the 
 Hon. John Satterlee, afterwards Judge of the Superior 
 Court of San Francisco, one of Judge Bennett's earliest 
 and best friends, and a member of his company, but who 
 had crossed the isthmus in advance of the rest. 
 
 During his long sea voyage, Mr. Bennett had made 
 considerable progress in his study of the Spanish language ; 
 and after commencing practice at San Francisco, he con- 
 tinued his studies until he could read Spanish law-books 
 with facility. Soon after the adoption of the State 
 constitution, he was elected a State senator from 
 San Francisco. He had been in his seat only a few days, 
 when he was elected by the Legislature one of the As- 
 sociate Justices of the Supreme Court, being chosen for 
 the longest term, six years. During his brief senatorial 
 career, and immediately thereafter, he virtually directed 
 the determination of an important question then agitating 
 the mind of the legal fraternity. A petition signed by 
 many practicing members of the San Francisco bar, had 
 been submitted to the Legislature, praying that that body 
 would retain "in its substantial elements, the system of 
 the Civil Law." The report of the Judiciary Committee, 
 to whom this petition was referred, was written by Judge 
 Bennett, and led to the prompt adoption of the Common 
 Law by the Legislature then in session. This lettered 
 exposition of the general principles of the Civil and of 
 the Common Law, replete with arguments, compactly 
 marshalled, in favor of the superiority of the latter system, 
 will be found in the first volume of the California Law 
 Reports. It has lost no tittle of its original merit, and 
 cannot be too often read by the law student. 
 
 Judge Bennett continued on the Supreme Bench for 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 551 
 
 about two years, when he resigned, his salary being in- 
 sufficient to support him in comfort. The nominal salary 
 of a Supreme Judge was ten thousand dollars per annum, 
 payable quarterly ; but soon after the organization of the 
 State government, the scrip of the State rapidly declined, 
 as might have been expected. 
 
 Judge Bennett was compelled to part w4th large 
 amounts of scrip for fifty cents on the dollar, and some 
 as low as thirty-five cents. Upon the expectation that 
 the paper of the State would not fall much below par, he 
 had contracted some debts, drawing a high rate of 
 interest, and to remain in office would be to sink deeper 
 and deeper in debt. He therefore resigned, and entered 
 upon the practice of law. 
 
 In October, 1850, when the glad tidings came slowly 
 over the waters, that California had become a sovereign 
 State in the federal sisterhood, the enthusiastic citizens 
 of San Francisco celebrated the event with great pomp 
 and ceremony. Judge Bennett was selected to deliver the 
 oration. His effort on that occasion was printed in full 
 in the columns of the Alta California, and other newspapers 
 of the city. It is remembered with affectionate admira- 
 tion by the surviving pioneers of the State, and is treasured 
 among the archives in the County Recorder's office of 
 San Francisco. It is a masterpiece. It has long been a 
 favorite piece for declamation in our schools; and no 
 matter to how high a standard the literature of the Pacific 
 coast may in future attain, must ever be considered and 
 esteemed as a California classic. This oration appears in 
 this volume, immediately 'following this sketch. 
 
 In 1852-3, Judge Bennett was absent from the State 
 for eighteen months, on a visit to the Eastern States. 
 Upon returning, he resumed the practice of law. He 
 devoted himself closely to his profession, and paid but 
 little attention to politics until the formation of the 
 Republican party. He was present, and took part in the 
 first Republican meeting held in San Francisco ; and was 
 a delegate to the first Republican State convention held 
 at Sacramento, being elected president of that body. 
 He was nominated for Judge of the Supreme Court on 
 
652 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the first Republican State ticket voted for in California, 
 when Hon. Edward Stanly was the Republican candidate 
 for Governor. Being defeated, with the remainder of the 
 Republican nominees, Judge Bennett paid a second and 
 longer visit to his old home, and returned to San Fran- 
 cisco after an absence of three years, in 1860. Since that 
 time, he has been in continuous practice at the San Fran- 
 cisco bar. From 1866 until 1868, Judge Bennett was in 
 partnership with Elisha Cook, Esq., brother of his former 
 law-partner in ISTew York. Later, he was the senior 
 member of the law-firm of Bennett, Machin & Owen; and 
 still continues, in connection with the last-named gentle- 
 man, the practice of law. 
 
 At the celebration in May, 1869, of the completion 
 of the Pacific Railroad, by the people of San Francisco, 
 Judge Bennett had the honorable task assigned him of 
 delivering the oration on the occasion. In grandeur of 
 thought, splendor of diction, and beauty of expression, 
 this effort will compare favorably with his address de- 
 livered in 1850, to which allusion has already been made. 
 Thus, it will be seen, the name of Nathaniel Bennett will 
 be intimately associated through coming time with the 
 history of the two grandest events which in his age 
 affected the interests and destinies of his adopted State. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to speak of Judge Bonnet's per- 
 sonal qualities or professional abilities. He is known by 
 his works. An able bar has long recognized him as one 
 of the first of .counselors and jurists. He is a scholar 
 of high classical and scientific attainments; and as Poe 
 said of Bryant, ''His soul is charity itself, in all respects 
 generous and noble." 
 
NATHANIEL BEXXETT. 553 
 
 Delivered at the Celebration of the Admission of California into the Union, 
 Tuesday, October 29th, 1850. 
 
 BY NATHANIEL BENNETT. 
 
 Fellow-citizens: The human heart is never in repose. One 
 moment it is oppressed with gloom; another, enlivened withgayety. 
 It vibrates unceasingly, between the pangs of disappointment and 
 the cheerful excitement of gratified desire. These varying emotions 
 sometimes spring from individual causes, limited in then* effects, and 
 rarely extending beyond the precincts of individual interests; at other 
 times, their sources flow from some great national blessing, or some 
 great national calamity, and i^ervading alike all portions of the land, 
 I)our their flood of sweet or of bitter w^aters through every heart. 
 
 A few weeks ago we were congregated on this very spot. It was 
 a day of mourning.* The head of the nation had been laid low in 
 the earth. That heart which beat so warmly for us had ceased its 
 friendly throbs in the embrace of death. The wave of sorrow starting 
 from the Atlantic shores of the continent, and gathering accumulated 
 force in its progress, had just burst over the hills and valleys of Cali- 
 fornia, and its solemn murmurings were mingled w^th the surge of 
 the Pacific. On the occasion to which I allude, emblems of moui-ning 
 saddened our sight. The pall, the hearse, the drapery of black, the 
 strains of martial music borne upon the air in tones of woe, and the 
 sad thoughts si^eaking from the melancholy countenances of the vast 
 assemblage — all proclaimed that the cherished hopes of a whole nation 
 had been smitten down, and that the wail of a nation's anguish was 
 ascending to heaven. 
 
 But two short months have elapsed, and we again stand upon the 
 same spot. But how changed the scene ! Cheerfulness has taken the 
 place of sadness. Buoyancy of spirit has succeeded to despondency 
 and regret. Badges of rejoicing everywhere greet the eye, and ac- 
 clamations of pleasure salute the ear. Amid yon forest of a thousand 
 masts, innumerable gay pennants and signals are flung to the breeze, 
 in token that the sons of ocean, equally with the dwellers upon 
 land, particij)ate in the general jubilee. Banners and music, as of a 
 triumphing army, mingle in our march. The deep voices of a hun- 
 dred cannons proclaim our congratulations. Business stands still in 
 the streets; and all the fair, the gay, hoary -headed age, and elastic 
 youth, and vigorous manhood, have gathered here to-day, as from a 
 strong and common imjiulse, to testify, in this imj)osing manner, 
 their deep and abiding joy that California at length stands an equal 
 among her sisters, the thirty-first State of the American Union. 
 
 At any time this would have been a source of hearty congratula- 
 tion. Now^, it is peculiarly so. For months had we waited in ^Dainful 
 
 * For the death of Gen. Taylor. 
 
554 REPRESENT ATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 anxiety, at o^e moment elated and again depressed, as oach sr.cces- 
 sive steamer brought tidings of the prospect, more or less speedy, 
 of our receiving the simple justice which we had a right to demand 
 from Congress. And our anxiety was not without cause. We were 
 placed in a strange and anomalous condition. Possessing within our 
 "borders the richest mineral region of the world, we had yet but a 
 limited control over it, 'and Congress had neglected to provide the 
 necessary regulations for the extraction of its treasures. The agri- 
 cultural lands of our valleys were left to lie waste in consequence of 
 uncertainty of ownership, and of doubt as to their ultimate disposi- 
 tion; and no provision being made for the survey of government 
 lands, we could receive the benefit of no preemption laws, and could 
 acquire no title to any portion of the national domain within our 
 limits. We had a State government regularly organized in all its 
 departments, with powers sufficiently enlarged to enable it to perform 
 all the requisite functions of a State government under the federal 
 constitution, but not comprehensive enough to subserve the pressing 
 wants of an independent community. With a great maritime com- 
 merce, we yet had no admiralty courts; with extensive correspond- 
 ence with the States and amongst ourselves, the postal facilities 
 were miserably inadequate. Paying into the national treasury a 
 tribute more than sufficient to defray the expense of the whole mili- 
 tary force of the Union in this State and in Oregon, and the whole 
 naval force on the Pacific station, we were nevertheless not per- 
 mitted to enjoy those reciprocal benefits w^hich alone could render 
 such enormous taxation even tolerable. We were thus compelled to 
 sustain the burdens of government, without being admitted to a par- 
 ticipation in its blessings. We were taxed without representation; 
 but our revolutionary sires resolved that taxation and representation 
 should go hand in hand, and that the duty should not be enforced, 
 unless the correlative right was granted. Claiming to be a State 
 ourselves, and the administration of every department of our gov- 
 ernment being based upon such assumption, we were, nevertheless, 
 not recognized as such by Congress, and could not have been so 
 considered by the federal judiciary. We were in the awkward pre- 
 dicament of a State out of the Union, when justice dictated, and 
 imperious necessity demanded, that we should be received to the 
 enjoyment of the privileges of a State in the Union. W^e stood 
 alone amongd the republican family of Anglo-Americans, whilst, at 
 the same time, we were not of them. In addition to these manifold 
 sources of disquiet in our midst, there w^ere others which gave rise 
 to no less aioprehension. The portentous cloud of x^olitical conten- 
 tion had gathered over our heads, and party strife and sectional 
 animosity hung, like lurid balls, on thesMrtsof our eastern horizon. 
 Night seemed to settle upon our hopes. Some amongst us even felt 
 as if the w^ave of necessity must drift us into an untried and danger- 
 ous sea; but patriotism still stood cabn at the helm, and lioj^e en- 
 deavored to pierce the thick darkness of the future. It way at such 
 a time that the tidings of the event which we celebrate reached us; 
 and the rebound of our feelings to-day is in proportion to the depth 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 555 
 
 of our past depression. If, when tlie tempest has gathered over the 
 troubled waters, and the angry billows, lashed into furj% rave around 
 the devoted bark, the winds are suddenly lulled, the waves hushed, 
 and the warm sunshine again sleeps uj)on the bosom of the tranquil 
 sea, the thrill of delight which the hardy mariner feels is enhanced 
 by the recollection of the imminent dangers from which he has just 
 escaped. 
 
 To the people of the old States the admission of a new one has 
 always been a source of honest pride. They behold mth gratifica- 
 tion the spread of the empire of freemen; and their welcome voice 
 has always been heard in the jDast, as in gay and glittering proces- 
 sion, and laden with varied gifts, State after State has gone throng- 
 ing up for admission and been marshaled into the lists of the 
 Union. How then could it be otherwise, when California, with her 
 robe glowing with silver and a diadem of gold upon her brow, had 
 so long and patiently waited for the privilege of being allowed to 
 participate mth her elder sisterhood in their hopes and fears, to 
 share with them the common benefits and sustain her portion of the 
 common bui'dens. The numerous manifestations of kindly feelings 
 from our brethren of the East prove that their satisfaction is inferior 
 only to our own — that they receive us into their embrace with sincere 
 friendship, and with warm wishes for our continued prosperity and 
 permanent welfare. The notes of their rejoicing at the consumma- 
 tion of our mutual wishes have not ceased to reverberate, when 
 California "takes up the strain ; and in tones not less sincere and 
 perhaj)s even more heartfelt, sends back to her elder sisters a pledge 
 that she will never disgrace that Union into which she has been re- 
 ceived, but will for ever continue to revere and cherish it, not 
 merely as the highest honor to herself, but as a guaranty of bless- 
 ings to the human race. This is due not only to herself, to the 
 Union, and to humanity, but is doubly due to her friends, who, 
 whether in private life, in the Legislatures of the respective States, 
 or in the national councils, have defended her character from the 
 false and impudent aspersions which have been cast upon it even 
 in high places, and have asserted her rights with unfaltering zeal 
 and determined boldness. To all such, it would be ungrateful did 
 we not remember them in this the day of our triumph, and return 
 them our hearty thanks, and assure them that the pledge they gave 
 of our attachment to the Union was well founded. Indeed, it is 
 impossible that the people of California should be otherwise than 
 devoted to the Union. They are not outcasts, whom an over- 
 populous society has thrown from its bosom in order to secure the 
 means of subsistence for the rest. They are not criminals, fleeing 
 from punishment for transgi'ession of law. They are not drones, 
 whom an industrious community has chased from the common hive. 
 They do not consist of the vicious and idle, who were incajjable of 
 procuring an honest competency upon their native soil. They are 
 not the ignorant, banished by superior knowledge and "talents and 
 attainments from the refinements of civilized life. Such as these 
 would scarcely have had the energy to undertake, or the persever- 
 
556 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ance or ability to accomplish, a journey to this remote region. They 
 do consist of the industrious laborer, the independent mechanic, the 
 shrewd and intelligent merchant, the skillful physician, the learned 
 lawyer, and the pious divine. They embrace as much of enterprise, 
 as much of intelligence and learning, as much of business skill and 
 capacity, as much of morality and love of good order, as any other 
 community of equal numbers under the sun. They possess, in a 
 higher degree than can be found anywhere else, the peculiar char- 
 acteristics of Americans; an energy that never flags, and an in- 
 domitable resolution in surmounting all obstacles. They have not 
 come from one State, nor from one section of the Union, but from 
 all. East and West, North and South, almost every county and city, 
 and village and town, of each of the thirty old States, have their 
 representatives in our midst, identified with our weal or our woe. 
 Nay, there "are but few families in the Eastern States whose blood 
 does not flow, either directly or collaterally, through the veins of 
 some citizen of California. How, then, is it possible that we should 
 not feel a deep interest in the preservation and perpetuity of the 
 Union? And how is it possible that the welfare of California should 
 not be bound, more closely than with links of steel, to the hearts of 
 the whole American people? The electric chains of human sym- 
 pathy, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Pacific to the 
 Atlantic, stretching across the wide interval of mountain and plain, 
 not a link weakened nor its brightness dimmed or tarnished by dis- 
 tance, must for ever bind the two portions of our common country 
 indissolubly together. These are bonds of aftection stronger than 
 ties of mere political connection, and they can never be severed by 
 sectional jealousies, nor by the mad schemes of disappointed am- 
 bition. Wherever, then, the Union may be disparagingly spoken 
 of or sneeringly scoffed at — on whatever spot our national banner, 
 which floats so gallantly in war and so grticefully in peace, may be 
 trailed on the ground, and its glorious folds ignominiously trampled 
 in the dust — California will never lift a sacrilegious hand to sever 
 the common ties of interest, of friendship, and of kindred — she will, 
 to the last, cling to the Union, not merely as the plank of her safety, 
 but as the ark freighted with her brightest hopes for the future and 
 her holiest remembrances of the past. 
 
 And who is there amongst us but feels proud that he is a member 
 of this grand confederacy of freemen? Who would wish to sever 
 his earliest patriotic impulses and associations, and form unto him- 
 self new and strange gods? Who would choose to forget the warm 
 impressions of youth, when his ear first caught the strains of our 
 martial music and his eye learned to look with pride upon the 
 emblem of our national power and glory, as it was flung to the 
 breeze of his native hills? Let us indulge the anticipation that the 
 patriotic hopes which stirred the breast of childhood, which inspired 
 the heart of youth, and which cheer the toils and struggles of man- 
 hood, may quicken the languid pulse of old age; and that Time, 
 who, in his never-ceasing and yet imperceptible course, gradually 
 and silently steals away, one by one, the impiilses of early years, 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 657 
 
 ♦ 
 
 may, even at three score and ten, leave untouched the thrill of en- 
 thusiasm at the sound of our national anthems and the sight of our 
 national flag. 
 
 And is not our country worthy of our sentiments of veneration 
 and love? Not two centuries and a half have elapsed since our race 
 first planted their steps on American soil. Only three quarters of a 
 century — a period which, though conducting the individual man to 
 old age, is but a day in the history of a nation's existence — have 
 passed away, since we took our place amongst the powers of the 
 earth as a distinct and independent nation ; and yet, during that 
 brief period, we have made advances in national greatness which 
 have required with other people the struggle of centuries to achieve. 
 The sparse population scattered at wide intervals along the Atlantic 
 coast has grown to an empire of twenty millions. The thirteen 
 States which formed the Constitution have been multiphed to thirty- 
 one. The narrow belt of American civilization on the eastern slope 
 of the Alleghanies has been constantly growing wider and wider, 
 and pushing its bounds farther and farther. It has crossed the 
 Sabine on the south and the Mississippi on the west. It has 
 ascended the Rocky Mountains, and the snow-capped summits of 
 the Sierra Nevada have been no impediment in its course. At length 
 it laves its feet in the waters of the Pacific. It spans the entire con- 
 tinent, and the base of its arch rests on the shores of both oceans. 
 We have a frontier line of eleven thousand miles; a sea coast of up- 
 wards of six thousand; a lake coast of more than two thousand. 
 We have rivers twice as long as the Danube, the largest river in 
 Europe, and bayous and creeks that shame the Thames and the 
 Seine. We have single States larger than the United Kingdom of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, and harbors that would hold all the 
 navies of Europe. From Maine to New Orleans, or from Washing- 
 ton to San Francisco, is farther than from London to Constanti- 
 nople — a route that crosses England, Belgium, Prussia, Germany, 
 Austria, and Turkey. 
 
 It would seem that the progress of our institutions westward was 
 at length effectually closed by the ocean. But it may be we mis- 
 calculated even here. The peaceful islands of the sea, which yield 
 their spontaneous productions without toil, with a climate as if 
 tempered for the abode of the gods, where to live is pleasure and 
 to breathe the pure air is bliss — it may be that in the lapse of time 
 they will occupy the j)osition which California now occupies, and 
 become to the American people what we are now to the Eastern 
 States. Nay, further: the vast continent which lies beyond, teeming 
 with millions of semi-civilized inhabitants, and reeling under the 
 heat of a tropical sun, may j^et yield to the influence of American 
 institutions, and repose beneath the shelter of American freedom. 
 Empire is born, increases, wanes: its course hitherto has been west- 
 ward; and it is not impossible that in the revolving cycle of ages, 
 the seat of the last great empire may be on the very spot of the origin 
 of the first, and the plains trodden by the Chaldean and Assyrian 
 despot may echo the songs of American liberty. 
 
558 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 While we would by no means urge the spirit of conquest, so rife 
 amongst our people, but would use all legitimate measures to repress 
 it, yet when the field is ripe, we would not neglect the harvest 
 through fear that our garners will overflow. We are not amongst 
 those who believe that, because former republics and kingdoms have 
 gone to wreck when their territory became extended, and perhaps 
 for that reason alone, the same result must necessarily or will proba- 
 bly attend our system also. It may perhaps be deemed rashness 
 and a disregard of the teachings of experience, when we declare 
 that the examples so often cited of Greece and Kome, and Italian 
 Republics, thrust forward as Procrustean beds, to the dimensions of 
 which our republic must be cramped, have but little weight upon 
 our mind. Their forms of government, the condition of civilization 
 and intelligence amongst their people, and above all the great in- 
 ventions of modern days, unknown to them, render any such com- 
 parison inappropriate. 
 
 The advancement of jj^olitical knowledge and its reduction to 
 practice; the discoveries in the laws of the physical world, and their 
 application in a thousand ways to machinery, which characterize the 
 present age ; have rendered valueless the political theories and maxims 
 and principles and practice of ancient States. Steam, applied to the 
 propulsion of vessels and railroad cars, has brought the remote sec- 
 tions of our country into close proximity. Forty years ago, Cincin- 
 nati was a month's journey farther from New Orleans than San 
 Francisco is now. It then required months to ascend the Mississippi, 
 where it now requires days. Intelligence fhes on the wings of light- 
 ning, with the rapidity of thought. The magnetic telegraph whispers 
 as readily and distinctly at the distance of two thousand miles as at 
 the distance of two feet. In point of rapidity of intelligence, 
 Washington is as near to New Orleans as to New York, and with a 
 telegraph from San Francisco to the seat of government, she would 
 be as near to the Capital as either. The universal intelligence of our 
 people, amongst whom all read and think, and to theoretical knowl- 
 edge add practical experience in matters of government, is another 
 strong safeguard, unknown in other nations, against danger from the 
 expansion of our territory. 
 
 Again, another great and distinctive feature of our system, which 
 renders inapt the comparison of all former systems, is the division 
 of powers between the federal government and the local govern- 
 ments of the respective States — whereby the former, acting within 
 the scope of its limited powers, controls the general interests of the 
 whole, and provides such measures as concern the welfare of all 
 portions alike; whilst the latter attend to the distinct wants of their 
 own separate communities, and prescribe such laws as suit the pecu- 
 liarities of climate, people, manners, and institutions of their re- 
 spective States, but which might not be of a common utility to all. 
 Thus the one portion of our system is indispensable to the perfec- 
 tion of the other. If all the powers of legislation and government 
 over the general interests of the nation, as well as over the minute 
 local affairs of the different sections, were entrusted to Congi-ess, 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 659 
 
 then it might with reason be feared that the diversified wants of the 
 various portions of the country could not be adequately jDrovided 
 for, and that secession or revolution might be the result. But with 
 the Federal government and the respective State governments re- 
 volving each in its appropriate sphere, we see no reason why our 
 system is not as well adapted to the government of the whole con- 
 tinent as it was to the government of the original thirteen States. 
 It is the mutual adaptation, each to the other, of all the difi'erent 
 parts of our system which, as is the case with the harmonious ad- 
 justment of the planets, attracts and restrains each in its appointed 
 orbit, and impels the whole, without confusion or discord, around 
 the common centre. We see but little danger of a disruption of the 
 Union merely on account of its extent. Other causes may operate 
 to produce that result, but of them it is not our province now to 
 speak. 
 
 Californians, natives of the soil! such is the nation, its progress 
 in the past and its prospects for the future, which you have chosen 
 to adopt for your country. You and ourselves stand on common 
 ground. Born and reared under different governments, and speak- 
 ing different tongues, we nevertheless meet here to-day as brothers. 
 The same fraternal roof shelters us all. The segis of the Constitu- 
 tion guards and protects us alike. Though you have been severed 
 from the parent tree, your strength is not sapped nor your leaves 
 withered; but, grafted into a strange branch, you nevertheless 
 spring forth with more than former vigor, and flouiish with fresh 
 and unwonted luximance. Subject to no other restraints than our- 
 selves, cherished by the same beneficent laws, enjopng the same 
 rights, political, civil, and religious, you stand amongst us in all 
 respects our equals: than this we can say no more, for we acknow- 
 ledge no superiors. Henceforth, notwitlistanding difference of 
 origin and perchance diversity of sentiments, you and ourselves and 
 our posterity, through all coming time, are inseparably united, 
 whether in haj^piness or in misery. Hencefoi*th, our fortunes are 
 embarked on the same voyage and destined for the same port. 
 Henceforth, we kneel at the same political shrine, are charged vvith 
 the same protection of our common institutions, and are bound by 
 the same holy ties to fan the flame of liberty and keep its sacred fires 
 for ever burning^upon the altar of our common country. Henceforth, 
 we have one country, one hope, one destiny. Your hearty participa- 
 tion in the joyful event v/hich we celebrate in common to-day gives 
 abundant evidence that if the day of trial shall ever come, when the 
 fountains of the political deep shall be broken up, and discord rule 
 the hour, you will be found standing shoulder to shoulder with our- 
 selves, putting forth all your exertions in maintenance of the laws 
 which vv'C cherish and in support of the constitution which we revere. 
 
 Fellow-citizens: we are at length fairly launched uj)on our course. 
 With a State constitution approved by the convention unanimously, 
 and adopted by the people with scarcely a dissenting voice — a con- 
 stitution guaranteeing freedom to all, favoring none, and bringing all 
 the officers of the State under immediate responsibility to the people, 
 
660 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 there is no reason to doubt our eminent success. Judging from the 
 past, what have we not a right to expect in the future. The world 
 has never witnessed any thing equal or similar to our career hitherto. 
 Scarcely two years ago, California was almost an unoccupied wild. 
 "With the exception of a presidio, a mission, a j)ueblo, or a lonely 
 ranch, scattered here and there at tiresome distances, there v/as 
 nothing to show that the uniform stillness had ever been broken by 
 the footsteps of civilized man. The agricultural richness of her 
 valleys remained unimproved, and the wealth of a Vvorld lay en- 
 tombed in the bosom of her solitary mountains, and on the banks cf 
 her unexplored streams. Behold the contrast! The hand of agri- 
 culture is now busy in every fertile valley, and its toils are re- 
 munerated with rewards which in no other portion of the world 
 can be credited. Enterprise has pierced every hill for hidden 
 treasure, and has heaped up enormous gains. Cities and villages 
 dot the surface of the whole State. Steamers dart along our rivers, 
 and innumerable vessels spread their white wings over our bays. 
 Not Constantinople, upon which the wealth of imperial Borne was 
 lavished, not St. Petersburg, to found which the arbitrary power of 
 the Czar sacrificed thousands of his subjects, could rival, in rapidity 
 of growth, the fair city which lies before us. Our State is a marv^el 
 to ourselves, and a miracle to the rest of the world. Nor is the in- 
 fluence of California confined within her own borders. Mexico, and 
 the islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific, have felt the quicken- 
 ing breath of her enterprise. With her golden wand she has touched 
 the prostrate corpse of South American industry, and it has sprung 
 up in the freshness of life. She has caused the hum of busy life to 
 be heard in the wilderness "where rolls the Oregon," and where undl 
 recently was heard ' ' no sound save his own dashings." Even the wall 
 of Chinese exclusivenesshas been broken down, and the children of the 
 sun have come forth to view the splendor of her achievements. But 
 flattering as has been the past, satisfactory as is the present, it is but 
 a foretaste of the future. It is a trite saying that we live in an age 
 of great events. Nothing can be more true. But the greatest of all 
 events of the present age is at hand. It needs not the gift of prophecy 
 to predict that the world's trade is destined soon to be changed. 
 But a few years can elapse before the commerce of Asia and the 
 islands of the Pacific, instead of pursuing the ocean track byway of 
 Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or even taking the shorter 
 route of the Isthmus of Darienor the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will 
 enter the Golden Gate of California, and deposit its riches in the lap 
 of our own city. Hence, on bars of iron and propelled by steam, it 
 will ascend the mountains and traverse the desert, and having again 
 reached the confines of civilization, will be distributed through a 
 thousand channels to every portion of the Union and of Europe. 
 New York will then become what London now is, the great central 
 point of exchange — the heart of trade — the force of whose contraction 
 and expansion will be felt throughout every artery of the commercial 
 world; and San Francisco will then stand the second city of America. 
 Is this visionary? Twenty years will determine. 
 
NATHANIEL BENNETT. 561 
 
 "Witli all these elements of wealth in our midst, with this ex- 
 perience of the past and these prospects for the future, it would be 
 madness should we prove false to ourselves in the career upon which 
 we have but just entered. Let us hope that the foundations of our 
 State g-overnment are wisely and skillfully laid, and let us endeavor 
 to rear a superstructure thereon which shall prove worthy of the 
 high destiny to which we are called. The responsibility rests upon 
 us whether this first American State on the Pacific shall, in youth and 
 ripe manhood, realize the promise of infancy. We may, by unwise 
 legislation, by unhappy dissensions, by maladministration, cramp 
 her energies and distort her form, or we may make her a rival even of 
 the Emjoire State of the Atlantic. The best wishes of Americans 
 are with us — they expect that the fortunate past will prove but the 
 harbinger of a still more glorious future; that the Herculean youth 
 will grow to a Titan in his manhood. The world is interested in our 
 success, for a fresh field is open to its commerce, and a new avenue 
 to the civilization and progress of the human race. Let us then en- 
 deavor to realize the hopes of America and the expectations of the 
 world. Let us not only be united amongst ourselves for our own 
 local welfare, but let us strive to cement the common bonds of 
 brotherhood of the whole Union. In our relations to the federal 
 government let us know no South, no North, no East, no West : 
 wherever American liberty flourishes, let that be our common coun- 
 try — wherever the American banner waves, let that be our home. 
 
 36 
 
JAMES KING OF WM.* 
 
 JAMES King of Wm. will always be a prominent and 
 honored name in the history of California, and espec- 
 ially in the annals of its chief city. His was the head that 
 planned the regeneration of California society, the heart 
 that periled life to achieve it. From his assassination, as 
 from the blood of a martyr, sprang a great political and so- 
 cial movement, or revolution, as it may be better termed, in 
 San Francisco. That solemn and irresistible rising of the 
 masses for virtual liberty, will be recorded by the histo- 
 rian, and pointed out by statesmen and by philosophers 
 as one of the most signal and instructive triumphs of an 
 outraged people over men who had long violated the right 
 of suffrage, usurped the powers of government, made the 
 Constitution and law a farce, and polluted public mor- 
 als. His life how short, yet how eventful! He beheld 
 San Francisco rise like Venice, ''a sea Cybele, fresh from 
 ocean." In 1851, he beheld it the abode of crime, and 
 was among the earliest and most effective of those who 
 formed the celebrated Vigilance Committee in that year. 
 But he never violated the laws of his country, and was 
 always ready to uphold them even at the risk of his life. 
 Many members of the old Committee remember how man- 
 fully he interceded for a suspected prisoner, before that 
 body, and actually armed himself to defend him — believ- 
 ing that none but the vicious should be accused, and none 
 but the guilty punished. 
 
 Who can forget his holy wars ? No crusader ever en- 
 gaged Mus§ulman beneath the walls of Jerusalem with 
 
 * For explanatory note, see Preface. 
 
564 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 sterner resolution or more glorious chivalry, than he did 
 the dastardly pests who for years had hovered like carrion 
 crows over the decomposing elements of California soci- 
 ety. No Kentucky rifleman ever sent the death messen- 
 ger with an aim so sure as his, when, with steady nerve 
 and fixed eye, he discharged the terrors of his pen at vil- 
 lainy, vice and corruption. There was no blanching in 
 his features ; no quailing in his heart. He knew wxll the 
 dangers that surrounded him, but, inspired by the justice 
 of his cause, he despised them all. 
 
 James King was born at Georgetown, District of Co- 
 lumbia, on the 28th day of January, 1822. He was of 
 respectable parentage, and was one of the youngest of a 
 numerous family. His father died in June, 1854, at the 
 ripe age of eighty-three years. Mr. King received a lib- 
 eral education, and proved himself an apt scholar. To 
 the last of his life he was a student, eagerly seeking knowl- 
 edge of every kind wherever it could be found. He had 
 a fair acquaintance with the Latin classics, and was well 
 read in the best English and American writers. In later 
 years, he spoke fluently the French and Spanish lan- 
 guages, and was moderately acquainted with the German. 
 About the age of sixteen he assumed the term ^'of Wm.," 
 which was found to be necessary in order to distinguish 
 him from a number of other James Kings then living 
 at Georgetown. William was his father's name. Some 
 men distinguish themselves from others of the same name 
 by using the word '^ senior" or '^ junior," ''1st," "2d," 
 and so on. The same end was obtained, in this instance, 
 by adopting the affix of ''Wm." It is a custom in some 
 parts of the United States, and particularly in Maryland, 
 thus to take the father's given name as a portion of the 
 son's. 
 
 When about fifteen years old, in 1837, Mr. King left 
 the parental home to push his fortune. He went first to 
 Pittsburgh, where he remained a twelvemonth, as clerk 
 in a store. Afterwards he proceeded to Berrien and St. 
 Josephs, Michigan, at each of which places he stayed a 
 short time. Towards the close of 1838, becoming sick of 
 fever and ague, he returned to Georgetown. The next 
 
JAMES KING OF WM. 565 
 
 year he entered the Post Office there, as a clerk, where 
 he served a few months. In the fall of 1839-40, during 
 the Presidential contest between Mr. Van Buren and Gen- 
 eral Harrison, Mr. King (now ''of Wm.") became con- 
 nected with Kendall's Expositor^ a Democratic campaign 
 j)aper. His connection with that journal lasted for half a 
 year, after which period he engaged for a few months on 
 the Washington Globe. In 1841, he entered, as book- 
 keeper, the banking establishment of Messrs. Corcoran 
 k Riggs, bankers in Washington. He remained in the 
 employment of these gentlemen till 1848, w^hen he de- 
 termined to migrate to California. He was married in 
 1843 to Miss Charlotte M. Libbey, of Georgetown. About 
 the time of Mr. JKing's departure for California, a gentle- 
 man who now resides in San Francisco called upon 
 Messrs. Corcoran k Riggs, and asked the latter what he 
 thought of Mr. King. ''He is a very clever, steady sort 
 of a man," said Mr. Riggs; ^^lut Idoii!t believe he will ever 
 set the Pacific onjirey 
 
 When Mr. King resolved to emigrate, the gold discov- 
 eries of California had not been made, or, rather, the 
 news of them had not yet reached the Atlantic border. 
 An elder brother, who had been engaged in Col. Fre- 
 mont's expedition across the Rocky Mountains, had 
 visited California in 1846, and had subsequently filled 
 the mind of Mr. King with glowing prospects of the 
 future greatness of the country. This brother was also 
 in the expedition of Col. Fremont in 1848; and it was to 
 meet him in San Francisco, in order that they might en- 
 ter into business together, that Mr. King sought the 
 shores of the Pacific. Unhappily, the brother perished 
 during Fremont's disastrous trip of the year last men- 
 tioned. Mr. King left Washington in May, 1848, and an 
 extract from a letter written to him by his brother while 
 he was in I^ew York waiting for the vessel to sail, shows 
 the condition of things in California, immediately after 
 the Mexican war. He writes; 
 
 ''You must recollect that society is not formed yet properly 
 in California, and as the population increases they will gradually 
 form laws, adapted to their own peculiar circumstances. I think it 
 
5G6 REPRESENTATIVE .AIEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Avould he well to inform yourself of the situation of the country and 
 of the rights of the people, for as soon as the treaty is ratified, pub- 
 lic attention there will be at once turned to the establishment of a 
 civil government. " ^h * * j think it would be best to invest 
 your money, or a portion of it, in a good rancho, and if you can 
 purchase Joachim Estrada's, near the mission of St. Louis Obispo 
 anyways reasonable, with the stock, do it by all means. Only have 
 the title examined. This last advice I give upon the supposition 
 that you would like an agricultural life. If you can bu}^ a lot or a 
 few yards of the Quicksilver mine you had better do it. The best 
 one is about six miles from the Puebla San Jos-i, near Mr. Cooke's 
 rancho. If you travel by land between San Francisco and Monte- 
 rey, you will pass through San Jose, and it is but a short ride to the 
 mine. Visit it by all means if you are in the neighborhood." 
 
 He left New York on the 24th of May, 1848, and in 
 due time reached and crossed the Isthmas of Panama. 
 From thence he could find no opportunity of proceeding 
 direct to California. He accordingly sailed to Valpa- 
 raiso, with the view of getting a vessel there bound for 
 California. 
 
 The news of the gold discoveries had by this time 
 reached Chile. He was ready to make the best use of the 
 startling intelligence. He purchased some goods at Val- 
 paraiso, and hired nine Chilenos to proceed with him to 
 the mines in California, and work for him for a specified 
 time at fixed wages. 
 
 He reached San Francisco, November 10th, 1848, 
 when every body in the place was in a fever of excite- 
 ment. Six of the Chilenos immediately deserted him. 
 With the three who remained he hastened to Hangtown, 
 now called Placerville, and commenced mining. In three 
 weeks time he found gold enough to pay all the expenses 
 of his original large party from Valparaiso. Afterwards 
 he went to Sacramento, and engaged in business with the 
 mercantile firm of Messrs. Hensley, Reading k Co. He 
 could not, however, be satisfied, while so fair an opening 
 presented itself for the exercise of his proper profession 
 of banking. In July of the same year he sacrificed large 
 pecuniary interests which he had acquired in business, 
 and left for the East to make corresponding arrange- 
 ments there for the banking establishment which he pro- 
 posed to form. He speedilv returned to California, and 
 
JAMES KING OF WM. 567 
 
 on December 5th, 1849, opened a bank in San Francisco, 
 in a small frame building on Montgomery street, between 
 Clay and Merchant streets, under the name of James 
 King of Wm. This was one of the earliest banking 
 houses in the city. Afterwards he built the brick buikl- 
 ing at the southwest corner of Montgomery and Connner- 
 cial streets, which was long known as his banking house. 
 Mr. King was widely known as a banker over the 
 whole State. He long carried on an extensive and lucra- 
 tive business, and was universally respected as a man of 
 the strictest integrity and the highest moral vrorth. His 
 presence was an ornament to society, his friendship a 
 prize which good men rejoiced to possess, and his joersonal 
 acquaintance esteemed an honor by the most intellectual 
 and influential persons. He was straightforward, earnest, 
 practical and intelligent in all things. His wife, and their 
 family of four children, rejoined him in 1851, and hence- 
 forth San Francisco became their home. He continued in 
 the banking business until June, 1854. He had made so 
 large profits in it that about the middle of 1853 he esti- 
 mated his clear means at a quarter of a million of dollars. 
 But riches take wings and flee away. He had entrusted 
 large sums to a person to buy gold dust in the interior 
 for him, when the agent, without his principal's consent 
 or knowledge, invested the monies in a mining water 
 stock. This unexpected speculation turned out ill. In 
 the attempt to save some part of the original expenditure, 
 Mr. King was induced to venture a great deal more money 
 in the same stock, amounting in the end to about $100,- 
 000. All this proved a total loss to him. This unfor- 
 tunate investment, and the depreciation of other stocks 
 in which he was interested, induced him to close his 
 bank. He did not/ai/, however, for he sacrificed all that 
 he possessed, and paid his creditors to the utmost far- 
 thing. He even refused to retain the homestead allowed 
 him by law. He turned over the water stock to the 
 banking and express firm of Adams k Co. for literally 
 nothing, (but out of which they afterwards cleared a con- 
 siderable sum) transferred his banking business to them, 
 and entered their establishment as managing clerk of the 
 
568 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 banking departmentj at a liberal salary. No man could 
 say that he lost one dollar by trusting Mr. King as his 
 banker. Ke satisfied every obligation, and began to seek 
 fortune anew. 
 
 On February 22d, 1855, Adams & Co. failed. The 
 consequences of their failure were disastrous in the ex- 
 treme to thousands of industrious persons in every por- 
 tion of the State. Mr. King retired from the ruined firm 
 without a shadow of stain upon his personal reputation. 
 He had done his duty to his employers, and had acted in 
 good faith and honorably towards the creditors. He was 
 next to seek justice for them, or at least avenge them on 
 their betrayers. After the failure of Adams & Co., and 
 in March, 1855. he endeavored to create a new banking 
 business for himself, but without success. Public opin- 
 ion ran strongly against all banks, and general distrust 
 w^as excited against making deposits in any. He had no 
 capital but his good name, and that could not be coined 
 into money to enable him to conduct the necessary finan- 
 cial operations. He was therefore obliged to close his 
 establishment in the month of June following. He pre- 
 served his credit and reputation for personal probity, 
 throughout; and nobody had yet sustained any loss 
 through him. While diligently pursuing his profession, 
 he ever sought to perform the duties incumbent on a good 
 citizen. As foreman of the Grand Jury, and as a leading 
 agent in whatever public and private movements were 
 connected with the promotion of the peace, purity and 
 prosperity of San Francisco, he rendered much valuable 
 and effective service to the community. 
 
 It was the Grand Jury of November, 1853, of which 
 he was foreman, that preferred a bill of indictment against 
 the City Treasurer. For the fearless discharge of his du- 
 ties Mr. King received much newspaper abuse, and a 
 warning that if he did not desist, his life would be in dan- 
 ger. In reply to an abusive article published in a daily 
 paper, after stating his reason for not more fully giving 
 the evidence that was brought before the Jury, he says : 
 
 " I will say, however, that from the very commencement of proceed- 
 ings against one of the parties accused, threats were made to the ef- 
 
JAMES KING OF WM. 669 
 
 feet that if we found a true bill against that gentleman, at least five 
 or six of us would certainly be shot, and that a certain newspaper 
 in this city would be ' ' down " upon us. * * * I have been 
 called upon by several of my friends, and requested to arm myself 
 against an attack. I have not and do not intend to carry anj' 
 w^eaj^on. I shall have no fears for anything that may occur, and in 
 conclusion will add, that, though I shall feel bound to defend my- 
 self as I can, if assaulted, yet I know my position too well to allow 
 any threats or editorial remarks from a certain quarter to tempt me 
 from my joresent position. I went on this Grand Jury with the 
 greatest reluctance. During the whole course of my life, I have not 
 absented myself so much from my business as I have during its ses- 
 sion. I think I am within bounds in saying $2,000 would not repay 
 me for that neglect. I asked to be excused, and the Judge would 
 not do it; but fined me $50 for not being more punctual. The fine 
 was afterwards remitted. I have endeavored to do my duty faith- 
 fully. I trust the public, even if it does not think as I do, will give 
 me credit for my intention; but whether it does or not, I cannot ca- 
 ter to that public's taste to the violence of my oath. I have confi- 
 dence in their sense of justice; whether they aj^prove or dissent, I 
 can meet the eye of any man living, and, what is sweeter still, am 
 at peace with my own conscience, and can look around in my family 
 circle and know that the mother and six little ones need not blush 
 for me." 
 
 At the risk of a repetition of some of the events be- 
 fore narrated in this sketch, we shall proceed to give Mr. 
 King's published statement of the relations that existed 
 between Adams & Co. and himself: showing how he stood 
 with them, and how earnestly he strove to prevent the 
 failure which he saw would inevitably befall them unless 
 they pursued a different business policy. Mr. King says, 
 in answer to queries addressed to him through the news- 
 papers : 
 
 " Through the imprudence of a banker at Sonora (who had been 
 my cashier during nearly the whole of the years 1850-51, and in whose 
 judgment and discretion I had the utmost confidence) a large 
 amount of funds placed by me in his hands for the purchase of gold 
 dust, was, without my knowledge, taken for the uses of the Tuo- 
 lumne Hydraulic Assgociation, of which he was the Treasurer. The 
 stockholders refusing to ratify certain extraordinaiy exj^enses incur- 
 red by the Board of Directors, a suit was instituted, which was de- 
 cided against the stockholders, and the canal was bought in at 
 Sheriff's sale, to secure the debt. Unable to meet my call for funds, 
 the parties in question did all they could, and gave me the entire 
 works for security. Month after month I waited anxiously for the 
 receipts, which did not, by any means, equal the anticipations of 
 
570 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 those familiar with the work. During all this time I was a prey to 
 the most agonizing doubts and fears. 
 
 For the first time in my life I was unexpectedly placed in a po- 
 sition where, in the event of a run, I could not possibly meet my 
 engagements. No one that has not been similarly situated can 
 imagine the agony I endured from day to day, and week to week, 
 as I saw persons walk into my office and dejDosit money wdiich, in 
 the event of a j)anic, before I could turn my property into cash, I 
 knew I could not return. I saw it all, felt it all, and dared not oj^en 
 my lips. I cared not about being poor. All I aimed at was to be 
 able, at a moment's warning, to return what had been entrusted to 
 me. I was afraid to attempt borrowing money, lest it should hasten 
 the very crisis I wished to avoid. I consulted with a few friends, 
 showed them my books, and asked their advice. "Why," said one 
 of the firm of Page, Bacon & Co., ^* Mr. King, I don't see that you 
 are as bad off as you represent; you are stronger than any banker 
 
 in the street excepting, perhaps, Messrs. and Messrs. ." 
 
 *'Then, heaven help us all," I replied, "for I don't see how I can 
 ^et along without borrowing, and that would never answer for a 
 Banker. The result of this conference was that I was offered, if 
 needed, $50,000 by Page, Bacon & Co., and $50,000 by Mr. Haskell, 
 of Adams & Co. As I hesitated about accepting this offer, one of 
 the friends urged, among other things, that Mr. Haskell (of Adams 
 &> Co. ) considered himself under obligations to me for the handsome 
 manner in which I had managed their affairs at Stockton, where, by 
 pledging myself for coin advanced them to aid their house, I had 
 stopped the run at that point and saved the other countr)^ offices as 
 wall as the parent house here. That my commission as receiver 
 'would have amounted to a large sum, which I had refused to accept, 
 sud declining any compensation for my time and services, received 
 ha£k only the actual amount of my expenses — some $160, or $170. 
 This decided me, and I told them I would call on them in case I 
 inaeded any assistance. I set myself earnestly at the work of sell- 
 ling off my property, calling in loans, and converting everything into 
 <2ash, when I received the following offer from Mr. Woods (of Adams 
 & Co. ) through Mr. Park : 1st. On my transferring to them a cer- 
 tain amount of property, part in cash, part in bills receivable, and 
 tbe balance in certain pieces of real estate, they would undertake 
 to assume all my liabilities of every kind, provided they did not in 
 the aggregate exceed an amount before stated by me from memorj^ 
 2d- I should remain in their employ for the space of two years, for 
 which they agreed to pay me the sum of one thousand dollars per 
 ! month, and a certain per centage on the amount of their interest 
 I account, regardless of any losses or gains either on said interest or 
 I any other account. 
 
 I declined giving Mr. Park any answer until the offer was made 
 in writing; which w^as done in the course of a half hour, and ac- 
 cepted by me without hesitation; for, though it left me penniless, 
 it enabled me to meet all my engagements, and I was assured of 
 their ability to advance the amount required without any detriment 
 
JAJ.IES KING OF WM. 571 
 
 to their own depositors. After the bargain was concluded, and 
 whilst the lawyers were drawing the papers, Mr. Woods called on 
 me, and asked how I liked the bargain. I replied, *' Veiy much, in- 
 deed. And what do you think of it?" "Well," he said, "I like it 
 so well that I would not undo it for $100,000." "And I assure you," 
 I rejoined, "that even if I were sure your most sanguine expecta- 
 tions would be realized, I would not undo it for a like sum. " 
 
 After receiving the details of my assets, Mr. Woods expressed 
 himself highly pleased at the result, and said to a mutual friend: 
 "King is entirely too honest; he underrated everything he had, and 
 though he had become so disgusted with the canal as not to set any 
 valuation at all on it, I am satisfied I shall make fron $100,000 to 
 $150,000 out of it; and when I get through, w^e shall make King a 
 present of $10,000 or $20,.000. I am posted on canals, and he knows 
 nothing about them. " 
 
 Among the assets thus conveyed by me to Adams & Co., were : 
 The three stoiy fire -proof Building, at the corner of Mont- 
 gomery and Commercial Streets, valued at, $36,000 00 
 
 Lot on Stockton Street, for which I had been offered, . . . 7,000 00 
 
 Water Lot No. 273, 15,000 00 
 
 Three small Lots valued at $250, each, 750 00 
 
 Loan to Orphan Asylum, on mortgage, 500 00 
 
 Eighty Acres of Land on the County road, with dwell- 
 ing-House, Barn, Carriage House, &c., and all the 
 Stock thereon, as well as Furniture in the house, .... 8,000 00 
 
 Buggy, pair of Horses, Harness, &c., 1,000 00 
 
 $1,000, of old Stock, Bradley, Berdan & Co., cost $1200, 1,000 00 
 
 $3,000, Plank Road Stock, at 55cts. , 1,650 00 
 
 $15,100, Central Wharf Stock, at 30cts., 4,530 00 
 
 1st Class Bills Receivable, all since paid, 37,189 00 
 
 Debt of A. A. Cohen, since paid, 1,200 00 
 
 Over Prafts, since paid, 17,472 55 
 
 Fremont Drafts, since paid, 14,125 00 
 
 Cash, 49,548 87 
 
 $194,965 42 
 
 To this should be added one gc od Note, payment of ... . 
 
 which, by request, was not pressed, 3,312 00 
 
 And the Loans made on Account, and by Note, as secu- 
 rity for which, I held the Tuolumne Hydraulic Canal, 
 w^hich cost upwards of $350,000, and which I am now 
 
 informed is paying $2,000, per month, 80,055 35 
 
 On which had accrued at the time I closed business, an 
 
 average of about five months, interest, say 12,000 00 
 
 In addition to this amount of $290,332.77, I handed over sun- 
 dry Bills Receivable, not considered good, amounting, to $22,580.15, 
 but which were not counted at the time. The whole amount of my 
 liabilities, here and elsewhere, amounted to the sum of $278,951.29. 
 
572 
 
 REPRESENTATIYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 From the Bulletin of N'ovember 3d, 1855, we take the 
 following, entitled 
 
 To the San Francisco Puhlic : 
 
 A Card over the signature of the Financial Conductor of the 
 Chronicle newspaper, and which appeared in yesterday's issue of 
 that journal, being the first effusion of that kind over the real name 
 of the author, demands, I think, a notice from me. Passing over 
 the abusive terms applied to me by the writer referred to, I come 
 at once to the direct charges made against me by a man of whose 
 person I am totally ignorant, with whom I am not aware that I ever 
 yet exchanged a word, and of whose very name, until within the 
 past week, I was wholly unconscious. And first, as to the charge of 
 living extravagantly and beyond my means. I lived well, but, for 
 my means, not extravagantly. My house was a good one. I aimed 
 to have it such. It was not larger than I needed, and was fur- 
 nished well, without having unnecessary display. Those who were 
 in the habit of visiting there, will judge from the following table 
 whether my style of living was beyond my means. 
 
 I made it a point to balance m}'- profit and loss account once a 
 month for the purpose of seeing how my affairs stood, and regulat- 
 ing my expenses accordingly. 
 
 The following table shows the net profit of my banking business, 
 over and above salaries and all office expenses, for a series of 
 months. 
 
 For the month ending April 30, 1852, $6,591 56 
 
 May 31, '' 3,535 01 
 
 June 30, '' 4,183 08 
 
 July 31, " 5,075 08 
 
 Aug. 31, '^ 922 87 
 
 Sept. 30, " 2,702 57 
 
 Oct. 31, '' 830 14 
 
 Nov. 30, " 1,048 14 
 
 Dec. 31, '' ....... 5,033 91 
 
 Jan. 31,1853, 1,619 48 
 
 Feb. 28, '' ....... 3,726 35 
 
 Mar. 31, '' 2,695 92 
 
 Apr. 30, " 970 34 
 
 May 31, '' 4,557 68 
 
 June 30, '' 524 31 
 
 July 31, '' 3,257 22 
 
 Aug. 31, " 5,483 54 
 
 Sept. 30, " 4,101 44 
 
 Oct., Nov. and to Dec. 31, '* 4,104 89 
 
 Making for twenty-one months, the sum of $60,963 53 
 
 and an average for the whole period of $2, 903. 03 per month. This, 
 be it remembered, was my income from my regular banking busi- 
 
JA^IES KING OF TOf. 573 
 
 ness, and did not include my profits from sales of real estate, of 
 which a separate account was kept. As to the "parties" alluded to 
 by the proprietor of the Chronicle, I never gave but one during my 
 seven year's residence in California. So much for the private affairs 
 of a household thus unceremoniously dragged into the public prints 
 by a man whom, so far as I know, I have never seen. 
 
 The next thing to be noticed is the charge of betraying the con- 
 fidence reposed in me by the firm of Adams & Co. , in whose employ 
 I once was. This charge If ully answered in my letter to I. C. Woods, 
 dated the 26th of July last, and published in the Sun and Alfa, 
 wherein I showed that, notwithstanding the quarrel then going on 
 between Woods and Cohen, on the one side, and myself on the 
 other, I refused to give any information about matters obtained by 
 me whilst in their employment, and preferred the loss of my best 
 friends rather than betray the trust. When announcing my determ- 
 ination to Mr. Woods, I said : '' This sir, is the most painful duty 
 I ever had to perform. My honor forces me to keep your secret, 
 whilst by so doing I am sure to lose my best friends, and you and 
 Cohen, my worst enemies, knowing the dilemma in which I am 
 placed, chuckle with delight at the pain that decision gives me.** 
 Profoundly ignorant of the rascality of Woods, that has since been 
 told me, I never opened my lips to any one about the private affairs 
 of Adams & Co., until the attorney of one of the partners (Mr. 
 Adams) asked for a statement of what I knew about the business of 
 the firm, and I told everything I knew to that partner, because he 
 had a right to know it. 
 
 The public have already been informed of the causes which led 
 to my employment by Adams & Co. After completing the changes 
 necessary to the system of accounts introduced by me into that of- 
 fice, I set myself to work to find out, as far as the books in my pos- 
 session would show, what the real condition of the house Avas, and 
 soon made up my mind it was insolvent. I immediately reported 
 the fact to Mr. Woods, who at first affected to laugh, and then be- 
 coming seriously alarmed, asked me what I meant? I replied : "to 
 discharge my duty to my employers, and by warning you, sir, of the 
 condition of the house, if possible, save it from ruin, and its de- 
 positors from heavy losses. " The result of that conversation was, 
 that he promised to sell off what property the fii-m owned, and con- 
 vert everything into cash ; to allowTne to reduce the amount of bills 
 receivable to the extent of two or three hundred thousand dollars; 
 to build no more offices and buy no more property ; but to sell off 
 his ranch, as well as all his other private "property" so called, 
 and generally take the measures proposed by me for placing the 
 house in a condition to meet any crisis that might arise. Had Mr. 
 Woods adhered to my advice, the house would have been in far 
 better condition to stand the crisis that awaited it. But every move 
 I made for the good of the house was thwarted by a contrary one 
 on the part of Mr. Woods. With all the exertions I could make, 
 it took me nearly a whole month to reduce the loans $60,000, and 
 in Jive minutes, Woods had arranged for loans to the extent of 
 
574 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 $125,000. What could I do? I was but a clerk; he the sole part- 
 ner resident here. 
 
 The question now arises naturally, why it was, when I dis- 
 covered the house was insolvent, I did not resign and leave it? 
 My answer is, that by contract I was bound to remain with them for 
 the space of two years, and could not get away. In addition to 
 this, let me ask what good could I have accomplished by leaving the 
 firm in the lurch, as it were, and in so doing alarm some of the de- 
 positors and hasten the ruin ? By remaining I not only fulfilled my 
 contract : but as Woods spoke of going to the Atlantic States, I 
 had some hopes of having more power placed in my hands, and 
 with him out of the way, might possibly save the house. 
 
 On the 17th of July, 1855, Mr. , now a very 
 
 wealthy citizen of San Francisco, with whom Mr. King 
 had been on hostile terms, and the latter met on Mont- 
 gomery street, opposite Barrett & Sherwood's jewelry 
 store, and a few words ensuing, the nature of which was 
 unknown to any beside the parties themselves, Mr. King 
 
 struck several times about the head and shoulders, 
 
 and considerably worsted his adversary. This led to the 
 following challenge by Mr. , and reply by Mr. King. 
 
 San Francisco, July 17th, 1855. 
 To James King of Wm., 
 
 Sir : — I hereby demand satisfaction from you, for your con- 
 duct toward me this afternoon. I refer you to my friend. 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 San Francisco, July 18th, 1855. 
 
 Mr. , 
 
 Sir : — I now proceed to give you my reply to the note you 
 handed me last night. And first, waiving other insuperable objec- 
 tions to the mode indicated of settling such difficulties, I could 
 
 not consent to a hostile meeting with Mr. . The public 
 
 have already been fully advised of my estimate of his character. 
 The relative positions of Mr. and myself are entirely une- 
 qual in worldly fortune, and domestic relation. He is understood 
 to be possessed of an abundant fortune. In the event of his fall, 
 he would leave ample means for the support of his wife and child. 
 Recent events have stripped me entirely of what I once possessed. 
 Were I to fall, I should leave a large family without the means of 
 support. My duties and obligations to my family have much more 
 
 weight with me than any desire to please Mr. ■ or his friends, 
 
 in the manner proposed. I have ever been opposed to duelling on 
 
 moral grounds. My opinions were known to Mr. , and when 
 
 he addressed me the note which you had the impudence to deliver, 
 
JAMES KING OF WM. 575 
 
 he was well aware that it would not be accepted or answered affirm- 
 atively. That fact is sufficient to demonstrate his contemptible cow- 
 ardice in this silly attempt to manufacture for himself a reputation 
 for "chivalry." 
 
 Whilst nothing could induce me to change my principles upon 
 the subject of duelling, my conscience is perfectly easy as to my 
 light and the propriety of defending myself should I be assaulted. 
 
 Do not flatter yourself, sir, that this communication is made out 
 of regard either to yourself or to Mr. . I write this for pub- 
 lication in the newspapers. I avow principles of which I am not 
 ashamed, and shall abide the result James King of Wm. 
 
 This was the first instance in the history of Califor- 
 nia that any one had had the moral courage to refuse to 
 fight a duel when challenged ; and among other evidences 
 which Mr. King received of the high appreciation which 
 the better class of society placed upon his conduct, was 
 the following communication addressed to him, which 
 was signed by many of the prominent business men of 
 the city. 
 
 James King of Wm. , Esq. , 
 
 Sir: — Your fellow citizens, whose names are subscribed to 
 this letter, desire to express to you their admiration of the moral 
 courage and sound principle manifested in your refusal to accept 
 
 the challenge of Mr. , to meet him in a duel. We believe 
 
 that the so-called code of honor which requires all who consent 
 to be governed by it to submit every injury, insult, misrepresen- 
 tation or misunderstanding to the decision of the pistol or the 
 knife, to be in violation of the law of God. and of the laws of this 
 State, and of those sacred obligations which a man owes to his 
 family, his relatives and dependents, and to society. 
 
 We are convinced that if an expression of the sentiment of this 
 community could be had upon this subject, a very large majority 
 would be found to view with abhoiTence the risking of life for in- 
 sufficient cause, and often upon a mere punctilio ; and that we ex- 
 press the feeling common to them, as well as ourselves when we 
 thank you for the bold, manly, and uncompromising manner in 
 which you have refused to sanction the practice. With the expres- 
 sion of an earnest hope, that if no higher principle should govern 
 our fellow citizens, a regard for their interest may soon induce them 
 to see to it that good laws well administered shall in future save us 
 from violence and bloodshed ; and with assurances of our high 
 esteem and regard, we remain, Your obedient Servants. 
 
 (Here follow some seventy signatures. ) 
 
 On the 8th of October, of the same year, Mr. King 
 started and edited the Daily Evening BuUetin^ a newspaper 
 
576 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 which suddenly rose to the most unbounded popularity^ 
 and which has had a wide sway, and exercised a great in- 
 fluence over the community. As stated by himself, the 
 problem to be solved at the establishment of this paper 
 was: "Would the San Francisco public sustain a truly in- 
 dependent journal — one that would support the cause of 
 morality, virtue and honesty, whether in public service or 
 private life, and which, regardless of all consequences, 
 would fearlessly and undauntedly maintain its course 
 against the political and social evils of the day?" The 
 answer Yes! was soon and loudly made, and enthusiastic- 
 ally echoed from every town and mining camp in the 
 country. The services rendered by James King of Wm., 
 in the Bulletin^ to the cause of political integrity, and 
 public and private morals, will never be forgotten by the 
 people of the State. He attacked ih.<d vicious and crimi- 
 nal wherever he found them. Corruption in high places 
 met in him a relentless foe. 
 
 A notorious and professedly banking house, but which 
 was virtually a political institution, that had long overrid- 
 den the Constitution, and made and unmade — against the 
 will of the people, and by the most disreputable means — 
 nearly every officer of the city and State, was assailed by 
 the Bulletin in regular form ; and its corruption, its inso- 
 lent and dangerous usurpation, and at the same time its 
 inherent weakness, exposed. The wrongers and swindlers 
 of the unfortunate creditors of Adams & Co." were piti- 
 lessly attacked and held up to the scorn and detestation 
 of the people. The demoralizing system of bestowing 
 Federal, State and city appointments chiefly on profes- 
 sional gamblers, duelists, rowdies and assassins — on the 
 debauched, illiterate, idle, criminal, and most dangerous 
 class of the mixed population of the country — was forci- 
 bly pointed out and indignantly condemned. A high 
 standard of honesty was laid down for all public men. 
 The law's cruel delay, the baseness and corruption of its 
 ministers, the dishonorable professional conduct of lead- 
 ing pleaders in the courts, all were made plaiii to the 
 honest and unsuspecting, and properly stigmatized. In 
 short, the glaring evils of the body politic, the denial and 
 
JAMES KING OF WM. 577 
 
 perversion of justice, and the unworthy personal charac- 
 ter and incapability of the general class of men who held 
 office, or who were connected with the courts of law, were 
 loudly and unsparingly denounced. Mr. King did not 
 waste his energies by uttering smooth, general homilies 
 on evil doings ; he struck directly at the evil-doer. If a 
 man whose conduct required to be publicly exposed were 
 really a swindler, a gambler or duelist, a common cheat, 
 a corrupt judge or a political trickster, the Bulletin^ stand- 
 ing alone in this respect among the timid, time-serving or 
 bribed city press, dared so to style him. But not only did 
 Mr. King, in his paper, expose scoundrelism, vice and 
 crime, and smite their votaries wherever he detected 
 them ; he also endeavored, and not in vain, to aid in 
 whatever could restore and strengthen the moral tone of 
 society. He urged the decent observance of the Sabbath; 
 he recalled public attention to the plainest and most nec- 
 essary dictates of religion; he encouraged the establish- 
 ment of public schools, and dwelt on the blessings of a 
 sound and liberal education; he frowned on gambling, 
 dueling, and willful idleness; he sought to soothe and re- 
 inspire the desponding who had the desire but lacked the 
 opportunity, and especially the energy and perseverance, 
 to earn a living by the sweat of their brow; he strove to 
 free the city from the unblushing presence of the lewd 
 who had so long assumed insolently to follow, if not often 
 to lead, the virtuous and decent portion of the commun- 
 ity. The political knave, the dishonest office-holder, the 
 gambler, swindler, loafer and duelist, the base class of 
 lawyers — in brief, the vicious, lewd and criminal of every 
 kind, were in consternation; their unhallowed practice 
 and gains were disappearing. 
 
 A conspiracy was formed : and the end of it all was 
 the public assassination of this brave champion of the 
 people's rights. The conspirators resolved and swore to 
 secure impunity to the guilty doer. A base, illiterate 
 man — a convicted felon, who had served a sentence of 
 imprisonment in Sing Sing penitentiary, but who yet 
 held a high municipal office in San Francisco, into which 
 he had been stuffed by ballot-box fraud — was the wretched 
 37 
 
578 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 tool of the secret murderers. The professed cause of the 
 deed was that James King of Wm. had told the truth con- 
 cerning him. 
 
 The circumstances attending the assassination, and the 
 events which followed, will ever appear as fixing a grand 
 epoch in the history of California, and from that day will 
 date the regeneration of public virtue, if not also of private 
 morals, in the State. 
 
 Mr. King was taken unawares, and deliberately shot 
 down, about five o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, 
 the 14th day of May, 1856, on the public thoroughfare, 
 near the northwest corner of Montgomery and Washing- 
 ton streets. A ball, fired from a navy revolver, entered 
 the left breast and passed through his body. After lin- 
 gering in much pain, and for some time affording strong 
 hopes of recovery, he gradually sank, and died of the 
 wound shortly after one o'clock on the afternoon of Tues- 
 day, the 20th of May. 
 
 His death was universally regarded (except by the 
 miserable faction whom he had pursued) as a national 
 calamity, and every honor that a grateful people could be- 
 stow was heaped on his memory. A public subscription, 
 amounting to nearly $32,000, was raised throughout the 
 city and State, and presented to his widow and family of 
 six children. He was thirty-four years and a few months 
 old when he died. His was a tall, well-proportioned, manly 
 form. The keenness of his eyes, his handsome black 
 beard, and the noble expression of his countenance — the 
 index to his heroic character — were vividly remembered 
 by all who saw him but only once. His body lies buried 
 in the Lone Mountain Cemetery, mid-way between the 
 city and the ocean. 
 
 On the afternoon of Thursday, the 2 2d day of May, 
 the assassin, James P. Casey, was hanged before a vast 
 multitude by the Vigilance Committee. At the same in- 
 stant of time that a solemn dirge was being chanted over 
 the dead body of the victim, previous to the funeral pro- 
 cession leaving the old Unitarian Church, on Stockton 
 street, for the cemetery, the murderer was struggling with 
 death. That day. May 22d, 1856 — in which also news 
 
JAMES KING OF WM. 57i; 
 
 reached San Francisco of a dreadful railway accident on 
 the Isthmus of Panama — was one of manifold horrors to 
 the citizens. 
 
 Among the numerous tributes offered to the memory 
 of James King of Wm. were the following verses, written 
 by W. H. Rhodes, Esq., (better known by the norn de plume ^ 
 ^'Caxton,") which were appropriately set to music by. 
 Prof. Rodolph Herold. 
 
 "He Fell at His Post Doing Duty." 
 
 The patriot sleeps in the land of his choice, 
 
 In the robe of a martyr, all gory, 
 And heeds not the tones of the world-waking voice. 
 
 That cover his ashes with glory. 
 "What recks he of riches? what cares he for fame. 
 
 Or a world decked in grandeur or beauty ? 
 If the marble shall speak that records his proud name, 
 " He died at his post, doing duty ! " 
 
 The pilot that stood at the helm of our bark, 
 
 Unmoved by the tempest's commotion, 
 "Was swept from the deck in the storm and the dark, 
 
 And sank in the depths of the ocean. ♦ 
 
 But little he'll grieve for the life it has cost, 
 
 If our banner shall still float in beauty. 
 And emblaze on its folds, of the pilot we lost, 
 '*He died at his post doing duty V 
 
 The warrior-chieftain has sunk to his rest — 
 
 The sod of Lone Mountain his pillow ; 
 For his bed, California has opened her breast ; 
 
 His dirge, the Pacific's sad billow ! 
 As long as the ocean-wave weeps on our shore. 
 
 And our valleys bloom out in their beauty. 
 So long will our country her hero deplore, 
 
 Who fell at his post doing duty ! 
 

JOSEPH C. TUCKER 
 
 % 
 
 j3y )Villiam y. yii 
 
 %'' 
 
 IT is impossible to look back upon the history of Califor- 
 nia during the last twenty years, without recognizing 
 the influence of the learned callings in the development 
 of the State; and this has been particularly the case as 
 regards members of the medical fraternity. , Not only in 
 an intense application to the details of the profession has 
 this been seen, but men of classical education have been 
 a potent element in the progress of communities — in their 
 political, scientific and general advancement. This is 
 owing, not more to the energy essential to the successful 
 physician, than to the direction which the eventful cir- 
 cumstances of the early days gave to character, which, 
 among less exciting surroundings, might not have pro- 
 duced the impatient, practical activity distinguishing men 
 of scholarly attainments in this new field of adventure. 
 Numbers of valuable institutions on the Pacific coast 
 have originated in the sagacious counsels and well-direct- 
 ed efforts of physicians. A principal among these pro- 
 moters has been the present surgeon of the U. S. Marine 
 Hospital at San Francisco, Dr. J. C. Tucker, who, per- 
 haps, more than most other men, has given an impulse to 
 sanitary legislation in California, while, at the same time, 
 his influence has been felt in a wide variety of useful 
 public enterprises. 
 
 Dr. Tucker was born in 1828, in New York city, where 
 the family name ranks among the oldest in the State. 
 His grandfather, father, and only brother, the Hon. 
 
582 REPRESENTATIVE IVIEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Gideon J. Tucker, late Secretary of State, and present 
 Probate (Surrogate) Judge of New York, have all been 
 actively prominent men. He commenced the study of 
 medicine under Doctors Robert M. Cairnes and Willard 
 Parker, and graduated in 1848, taking the degree of M. D. 
 in the old Crosby street Medical College in New York. He 
 early excelled as a student in surgery, having a firm, bold 
 hand, and inflexible nerve. About the time he obtained 
 his majority, the famous suit (well remembered in legal 
 annals) respecting the will of his grandfather, Hon. Gid- 
 eon Tucker, and involving one of the largest properties 
 in New York city, was decided against the grandchildren. 
 
 The hope of bettering his fortunes, together with the 
 fascinations of the gold discovery, impelling, him towards 
 the newly-acquired California, he embarked in January, 
 1849, as surgeon in the ship TaroUnta, for San Francisco, 
 where he arrived on the first of July following. The 
 company in which he .was interested sensibly following 
 the then general rule, dissolved, and the Doctor visited 
 the gold regions, leading the life of a miner, and working 
 in the placers of the American river until the ensuing 
 winter, when we find him practising his profession in 
 Sacramento city. The ''Gold Lake" excitement in the 
 following spring carried him into the mountains, with 
 innumerable other ardent young adventurers, in quest of 
 alleged marvellous deposits of gold ; but detained at the 
 foot-hills of the Sierras by impassable snow fields, the 
 party encamped at Bid well's Bar, where the Doctor prof- 
 itably occupied himself in surveying and running the 
 present town limits with chain and compass, and erecting 
 upon the most desirable site the first house — the Empire 
 Hotel. 
 
 Returning to Sacramento, he organized a second expedi- 
 tion in search of the Gold Lake myth, which, after weari- 
 some and perilous adventures among the pathless mount- 
 ains, resulted in the dissolution of the company and the 
 return of its members in great destitution. The exist- 
 ence of this fabulous mine of wealth, however chimerical 
 it may now appear, was at that primitive time firmly be- 
 lieved in, and the search was prosecuted by hundreds from 
 
JOSEPH C. TUCKER. 583 
 
 various points, lured by the charm of novelty, and the 
 mystery that yet hung over the snowy solitudes, where, 
 as the adventurers not unreasonably conceived, immense 
 treasures might exist, which were the sources of the rich 
 placers in the regions below. Returning, the Doctor 
 found his way to Dobbin's Rancho, on the Yuba river, 
 and located a large tract of land, with a log trading house, 
 where the ''Keystone Rancho House" now stands. Dis- 
 covering through the Indians with whom he traded, the 
 first dry gulch diggings known in that vicinity, he quietly 
 employed them in obtaining a large amount of gold dust 
 before their existence became known to other white men. 
 Selling his fine estate, now worth a fortune, for $1,000, 
 the Doctor, tired of his lonely mountain life, returned to 
 Sacramento city, where he resumed the practice of his 
 profession. 
 
 In 1851-2, he was elected to the Assembly. Dur- 
 ing both of these terms he took a leading part in va- 
 rious exciting issues, embracing most of the import- 
 ant questions of that period. He was identified with 
 what was called the anti-Broderick wing of the De- 
 mocracy, and was known as the friend of Gwin, Weller, 
 Denver, and other leaders of that branch of politics. He 
 was also an early friend and companion of Col. Fremont. 
 By his persuasive eloquence and unobtrusive managing 
 talent among his fellow-members, he was a recognized 
 power in directing the course of legislation. During the 
 memorable session of capital removals, he framed, intro- 
 duced, supported in strong argument, and finally passed the 
 first bill providing for the State care of insane persons. 
 The bill, as drawn by him, proposed to locate the Asylum 
 on the high lands near San Francisco, within the influence 
 of the sea breezes; but political considerations, and swap- 
 ping upon the then pending Senatorial contest, carried it to 
 its present unsuitable and malarious location at Stockton. 
 Prominent upon the Legislative State Hospital Committee, 
 the Doctor then, as ever since, devoted himself almost ex- 
 clusively to politico-medical subjects. He was elected at 
 the close of the session to the position of State Quarantine 
 officer. Immediately following his appointment came the 
 
584 EEPRESENTAITYE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 first visitation of small pox to California, and although 
 less fatal than the subsequent one of 1869, there were 
 at one time upwards of two hundred cases of it in the 
 Quarantine Hospital under his charge. 
 
 When the State hospitals were abolished, in 1854, and 
 each county was required to provide for its own sick, 
 Dr. Tucker was elected by the municipal government of 
 San Francisco its city physician. He was a prominent 
 and successful member of the profession, and was an in- 
 timate friend of, and adviser with the lamented Dr. H. M. 
 Gray — the two young practitioners having commenced 
 their professional career about the same time, in New 
 York. They usually acted together in the meetings of 
 the California State Medical Society, and of the Medico- 
 Chirurgical Society of San Francisco, of both of which 
 Dr. Tucker was Vice-President, as he was also of the State 
 Medical Society of New York. 
 
 Pie became connected, in the spring of 1855, with an 
 enterprise which, for a while, was to give a new direction 
 to his energies. The writer of the present sketch had 
 lately returned from Central America, where, during his 
 sojourn in Honduras, he had secured from the govern- 
 ment of that Republic important mining and commercial 
 privileges, embracing the exclusive right to navigate cer- 
 tain rivers; to export and import goods free of duty, to 
 establish trading posts along the coasts and mahogany- 
 cuttings in the interior; together with valuable conces- 
 sions of lands and gold and silver mines in the department 
 of Olancho, which were exempted from the taxes and ex- 
 actions customary in that country. There was a dash 
 of romance and adventure in the affair that naturally at- 
 tracted the attention of the Doctor, whose broad views 
 and keen perceptions foresaw in this enterprise the possi- 
 ble extension of our institutions into the Spanish Amer- 
 ican Republics, and their eventual annexation to the 
 United States. The grants which had been procured 
 after long and patient negotiation, were taken to New 
 York, and at once attracted the attention of capitalists 
 by their extraordinary liberality and extent. Together 
 with the Honduras Inter-oceanic Railroad grant made by 
 
JOSEPH C. TUCKER. 585 
 
 the same government to Mr. E. G-. Squier and his New 
 York associates, it was seen that these concessions were 
 virtually a transfer of the Republic, with its vast mineral 
 and agricultural resources, to the two companies, thus 
 establishing an association, resembling, in many respects, 
 the English East India Company. Throwing his whole 
 energies into the new channel, Dr. Tucker repaired to 
 New York, and in the spring of 1856, in connection with 
 this enterprise, he was appointed, by President Pierce, U. 
 S. Consul General and Commissioner, with special powers, 
 to the Government of Honduras. 
 
 In the meantime, General Walker, the afterwards cel- 
 ebrated filibuster, availing himself of information obtained 
 from the writer hereof, had raised a party of adventurers, 
 and landing in Nicaragua had espoused the cause of the 
 Liberals there, and virtually obtained possession of the 
 country. The adjoining Republics, alarmed at this irrup- 
 tion of Anglo-Saxons in their vicinity, were naturally sus- 
 picious of Americans. Dr. Tucker, albeit armed with 
 the credentials of his diplomjxtic mission, was subjected 
 to infinite annoyances and hostilities by petty officials on 
 his route from San Juan del Norte among the secluded 
 populations of Nicaragua and Honduras, to which were 
 added the dangers and vicissitudes of a lonely journey 
 through dense forests and uninhabited regions, across 
 formidable rivers, swollen by tempests, and among the 
 gloomy defiles of the Central American Cordilleras. On 
 more than one occasion attempts were made to assassinate 
 him, instigated by the jealousies of the local authorities 
 in Chontales and Segovia, who had been apprised of the 
 approach of his little cavalcade, and associated it with the 
 Nicaragua filibusters. By the exercise of address and 
 vigilance acquired by an early familiarity with mountain 
 life in California he eluded these dangers, and reached the 
 city of Tegucigalpa in May. Thence he proceeded to 
 Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, where the new- 
 ly-elected and reactionary Indian President Guardiola 
 refused to recognize him under the pretense that his 
 credentials were forged. Argument would have been 
 useless and resistance foolish. To attempt to prove the 
 
586 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 authenticity of his papers would have been undignified. 
 The commissioner, therefore, decided to leave the country, 
 and reaching Omoa, a small port on the Caribbean Sea, he 
 chartered a coasting vessel and embarked for Truxillo and. 
 Havana, whence he returned to New York, arriving in 
 June, 1855, thus terminating a series of adventures of 
 continuous excitement and peril. Although the mission 
 was a failure as far as its legitimate objects were concerned, 
 the Doctor obtained much interesting knowledge of the 
 American tropics, one of the wildest and most unfrequent- 
 ed portions of which he had penetrated. The peculiari- 
 ties of a strange and decadent race, living in the primitive 
 simplicity of by-gone centuries; the majestic symmetry 
 of the volcanoes, clothed to their summits with verdure; 
 the mysterious solitude of the forest ; the splendid plum- 
 age of its denizens, and the fantastic shapes and gaudy 
 hues in which tropical ]S"ature robes herself, indelibly im- 
 pressed themselves upon a mind keenly sensitive to such 
 influences. 
 
 Mr. Marcy, then Secretary of State, already sufficient- 
 ly embarrassed with the Walker raid in Nicaragua, found it 
 convenient to overlook the insult to the American flag 
 implied by the non-recognition of his special commis- 
 sioner, and the latter had the good sense not to weary the 
 Secretary with pertinacious applications for redress, al- 
 though he had been a heavy sufferer pecuniarily. The 
 important commercial results which had been anticipated 
 from the Olancho enterprise were never realized, owing to 
 the fears engendered by the devastations committed by 
 Walker's filibusters; and a government which had been 
 ion the eve of placing itself permanently as a protectorate 
 iinder the United States, with a view to ultimate absorp- 
 tion by us, withdrew into its customary seclusion imbued 
 with a deep-seated distrust of American faith. 
 
 Dr. Tucker returned to California in 1857, having been 
 appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury U. S. Examin- 
 er of Drugs and Medicines in San Francisco. While 
 holding this official position, he imported at his own ex- 
 l^nse a magnificent laboratory, and applied himself closely 
 ?i[ his favorite study of analytical chemistry. His atten- 
 
JOSEPH C. TUCKER. 587 
 
 tion being called to the advantages of a cheap and efficient 
 substitute for bone-black in discoloring sugar liquids, he 
 after many experiments perfected and patented the pro- 
 cess now universally used in sugar refineries, of hydrated 
 alumina. In connection with the sale and employment of 
 this patent he visited the principal sugar refineries in tht 
 United States and Cuba. 
 
 Visiting New York the following year, on official busi- 
 ness from California, he resigned his position in Wash- 
 ington, and accepted that of Deputy Secretary of State of 
 New York, which in turn he resigned in December, 1859, 
 and returned by the Southern Overland Route to San 
 Francisco to carry out an enterprise which he had long 
 had in contemplation — building street railroads. At the 
 session of the Legislature of 1861, the bill incorporating 
 the ''North Beach and Mission Railroad," which he had 
 proposed, was introduced ; and at once encountered the 
 venomous opposition of rival companies, lobby mem- 
 bers and interested parties in San Francisco. The war 
 was virulent and bitter. The progress of the bill was 
 fought at every step, its passage impeded in each branch 
 of the Legislature, and the most strenuous efforts made 
 to obtain the Executive veto. It was urged that the proj- 
 ect was a mere swindling job, and would be no accommo- 
 dation to the traveling public. Signatures to petitions 
 against the railroad, were industriously hunted up by 
 agents hired to manufacture opinion hostile to the '^ in- 
 famous Tucker Bill." To meet objections raised against 
 the road through so narrow a street as Kearny, he drew 
 up, and caused to be offered, a bill providing for the 
 widening of that street. This proposition, now so suc- 
 cessfully consummated, brought upon his head anew the 
 anathemas of the property holders along the route. Al- 
 though opposed and discouraged by those who should 
 have aided him, he persevered, finally organizing and 
 building the now most prosperous railroad in the city — its 
 passenger traffic far exceeding that of any other, thus 
 proving it to have been a work of the first public utility. 
 
 About this time his health failing him, Dr, Tucker 
 took the position of Surgeon on the Nicaragua Steamship 
 
588 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 line. Visiting New York again in 1863, he married the 
 lady to whom he had become engaged while in Havana, 
 three years before — the daughter of Albert Havemeyer 
 Esq., of New York, and returned to California. Having 
 some mining interests on the Comstock vein, he went to 
 Virginia City, Nevada, and being offered the care of the 
 hospital at that place, remained and entered into a large 
 and lucrative practice, holding at different times the po- 
 sitions of Physician to the State Insane Asylum, Coroner 
 of Storey County, and City and County Physician of Vir- 
 ginia. Here, when cutting and shooting were daily occur- 
 ences, he performed many bold and successful surgical 
 -operations. During the war, as Commissioned Assistant 
 Surgeon U. S. A. at that post, he had charge of the Bar- 
 rack hospital and examination of recruits, and always has 
 been, in act and word, an undeviating friend to the Union. 
 
 In the spring of 1865, with his family he left Virginia 
 City and passed the summer in the East. Shortly after 
 his return to San Francisco the ensuing fall, he was ap- 
 pointed by President Johnson, Surgeon of the U. S. 
 Marine Hospital, a position he still holds to the satisfac- 
 tion of the authorities at Washington. At the time of 
 the memorable earthquake in October, 1868, being then 
 in charge of this hospital, his utmost presence of mind 
 was called into requisition. The structure, one of the 
 largest in the city, was racked and shattered. As there 
 was every indication that the hospital would fall under 
 repeated shocks, he took the responsibility of removing 
 the patients to safer quarters at his own expense, a pro- 
 cedure which was approved by the Department at Wash- 
 ington, and the building was subsequently condemned 
 by the government architects. 
 
 Another of his projects of public beneficence was the 
 purchase of a valuable tract of land in Alameda, on the 
 opposite side of the bay from San Francisco, where in the 
 spring of 1867, he established a private Insane Asylum. 
 Conducted on humane and philanthropic principles, it has 
 proved a blessing to the afflicted, where in many cases, 
 delicacy seeks for that shelter in a private institution 
 which a public State establishment cannot afford. The 
 
JOSEPH C. TUCKER. 589 
 
 Doctor, in his leisure hours, has indulged a taste for me- 
 chanics, and among other trifles obtained a patent for a 
 machine sewing simultaneously two seams, or parallel rows 
 of stitching. 
 
 Our sketch must necessarily be confined to mere brief 
 allusions to the many public measures of v/hich Dr. Tuck- 
 er is the originator. His life has been one of continual 
 activity, and the talisman of his uniform success is to be 
 found in the happy combination of an affable address 
 with great persistency of purpose, and an intuitive knowl- 
 edge of men. He had hardly become of age when he 
 arrived in California, but his intrinsic merits speedily 
 raised him to an eminence seldom reached except through 
 painful toiling and experience. A nervous restlessness 
 of temperament, and the courageous, almost reckless, 
 spirit of adventure w^hich has ever impelled him to rapid 
 achievement in a multiplicity of enterprises, is not at first 
 apparent under a quiet, unaffected exterior. His tastes 
 at once refined and manly, are equally displayed in art 
 subjects and yatching, in which latter amusement he is an 
 enthusiast and skillful amateur. As a friend, he is faith- 
 ful and companionable. Entertaining in conversation, he 
 is, as well, a forcible writer, having been a frequent con- 
 tributor to the press, generally on scientific subjects, and 
 wielding, like his brother in New York, a vigorous and 
 caustic pen. Enjoying an enviable popularity, surrounded 
 by the most charming domestic influences, and having 
 earned by years of public service the confidence of the 
 government, his usefulness in the future promises to be 
 as positive as his power for good has hitherto been wide- 
 reaching and acknowledged. 
 
EDMUND RANDOLPH 
 
 ^Y )VlLLIAM ji. p.HODES. 
 
 A NAME radiant with revolutionary glories, a lineage 
 famed for great men in great causes, for more 
 than ^ve generations. Edmund Randolph was born in 
 Virginia in the year 1818, and died at San Francisco at 
 the early age of forty-two. He was an offshoot of the 
 Virginia Randolphs, and inherited the chief traits of 
 character of those extraordinary men. His father, grand- 
 father, and great grandfather, were lawyers, and he him- 
 self early studied the same profession. He was liberally 
 educated, having graduated at William and Mary's Col- 
 lege shortly before settling in New Orleans, where he 
 read law, and received the appointment of Clerk of the 
 Circuit Court of the United States for the Circuit of 
 Louisiana. During his residence in New Orleans, he 
 married the daughter of a leading physician of that city, 
 Dr. Meaux. 
 
 He continued to practice law until the news from 
 California woke up within him aspirations of a broader 
 usefulness and a loftier ambition than he could gratify at 
 home; and early in 1849 he turned his eyes towards the 
 West, and reached these shores in the course of that 
 year. Before he left New Orleans, he began to exhibit 
 talents of a very superior order, both as a learned lawyer 
 and an eloquent advocate, and gave promise of those 
 splendid attributes of a finished debater that lifted him 
 above all competitors. He had scarcely landed in Cali- 
 
592 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 fornia ere he was elected a member of the lower branch 
 of the first Legislature that convened under the State 
 constitution. 
 
 But his heart was not in politics. His mind looked 
 more lovingly at the honors of his profession than 
 towards those gathered in the political arena. He was 
 very often importuned by those most intimately ac- 
 quainted with him, and who knew his great parts, to 
 permit his name to be used in connection with high legis- 
 lative offices in this State, but always ineffectually. He 
 became a partner of the noted lawyer, R. A. Lockwood, 
 Esq., and of Frank Tilford, and the firm soon led the 
 ranks of the profession in the city of San Francisco. 
 
 One of the most significant acts of his life was his 
 opposition to the first Vigilance Committee in this city, 
 in 1851. He publicly and boldly denounced that organ- 
 ization, its leaders, abettors, and sympathizers; and so 
 terrible became his anathemas that a sub-committee from 
 that body was appointed to wait upon him and Mr. Lock- 
 wood, and request them to cease their denunciations, or 
 quit the city. The reply received by the parent com- 
 mittee was such that the request was not renewed, nor the 
 penalty imposed. 
 
 Edmund Randolph hated oppression, fraud, cruelty, 
 and wrong, with a vehemence that bordered upon sub- 
 limity. It looked, to some of his more prudent friends, 
 like a species of insanity. In the argument of his cause, 
 if the testimony brought out any fact that threw a sus- 
 picion of corruption upon his opponents, the floodgates 
 of his soul were at once opened, and he broke forth in a 
 torrent of indignant eloquence that bore away every im- 
 pediment in its course. But his heart was just as sus- 
 ceptible to the kindlier emotions, and he would plead 
 the cause of innocence with a tenderness and sincerity 
 that drowned his audience in tears. 
 
 His familiarity with the early history of California 
 gave him great advantages over most of his brethren at 
 the bar, and he was usually retained in all the important 
 suits where such knowledge was most valuable. It was 
 this superiority, as much perhaps as his fame as an ad- 
 
EDMUXD RANDOLPH. 593 
 
 vocate, that secured for him a retainer in the cause cdehre 
 of the United States vs. Castillero ; usually known as the 
 New Almaden Quicksilver Case. The trial of this stu- 
 pendous suit — for it was gigantic in all its parts: in the 
 amount involved, in the principle at stake, in the number 
 and reputation of the counsel employed, and in the length 
 and duration of its various sessions — was the acme and 
 the flower of his fame. 
 
 Titans were all around him. Judah P. Benjamin, the 
 greatest civilian in the United States, was his chief op- 
 ponent. At his right hand sat Reverdy Johnson, the 
 worthy successor of William Pinckney at the Baltimore 
 bar; on his left, the no less renowned champion of the 
 Philadelphia forum, Edwin M. Stanton, his coadjutor in 
 the cause. The most noted men of the coast were his 
 auditors. He rose fully up to the dignity and import- 
 ance of the occasion, and vindicated his right to be 
 there. Indeed, for a full mastery of his case in all its 
 bearings, for varied and useful learning, for quick and 
 unsleeping vigilance, for powerful and splendid oratory, 
 and above all for success, he was not surpassed by either 
 of the great advocates about him. The government took 
 the wise precaution to have the entire proceedings re- 
 ported and printed. They form in themselves almost a 
 whole library on the subjects discussed; and he who 
 would study the ancient mining codes of Spain and 
 Mexico, and consequently of California, cannot find so 
 rich and exhaustive a treatise in any other repository. 
 But the most precious portions of that vast magazine 
 must be sought in the speeches and arguments of Ed- 
 mund Randolph. His early indoctrination into the 
 Justinian Code, which indeed has formed the substratum 
 of the jurisprudence of all Europe, except England, for 
 two thousand years, fitted him peculiarly for the task.j 
 before him. But to this he superadded perfect familiar- t.l 
 ity with the modern codes of Spain and Mexico, in the I 
 original tongue; and thus armed, defied the entire arsenals 
 of his opponents. No other cause has ever attracted so 
 much attention on this coast, and it is quite safe to assert 
 that none henceforth ever will. It forms the most en- 
 38 
 
594 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 during monument to his fame, and like the trial of Warren 
 Hastings, constitutes an epoch in judicial history. 
 
 The efforts of Mr. Randolph in the Castillero suit 
 were so untiring and self-sacrilicing that they left him with 
 a weakened constitution and an incipient disease. Ag- 
 gravated by two or three other conflicts at the bar hardly 
 less laborious, it soon assumed a dangerous aspect, and 
 he became conscious, when too lute to remedy the dis- 
 order, that pulmonary consumption had set in. Brave, 
 buoyant, and hopeful to the last, he fought his distemper 
 with the same fortitude that he ever exhibited in his 
 great moral combats, but unfortunately with less success. 
 He continued to fail monthly until the fatal day ap- 
 proached (September 8th, 1861); then folding his arms 
 in mute but dignified repose, he slept with his fathers. 
 
 The annals of California do not furnish a more bril- 
 liant name than that of Edmund Randolph. His 
 historical studies can be best appreciated by consulting 
 the case above named, and by a perusal of his Address 
 TO THE Pioneers, portions of which follow this sketch. 
 This was afterwards republished in pamphlet form^ and 
 is an indispensable adjunct to a correct knowledge of the 
 subject. 
 
 Towards the close of Mr. Randolph's career, he was 
 jorevailed on to make a few political speeches, especially 
 in the great conflict between the Lecompton and anti- 
 Lecompton wings of the Democratic party. In this con- 
 troversy he warmly espoused the cause of Douglas, in 
 opposition to the then President of the United States^ 
 James Buchanan; and in 1859 was defeated as the anti- 
 Lecompton candidate for Attorney General of California. 
 But as the country was evidently drifting into war — a 
 war of sections, a fight for supremacy betwixt North and 
 I South — true to his hereditary instincts, to the home of 
 i his youth and to the land of his nativity, he did not, 
 could not hesitate where he was to be found. He bitterly 
 opposed the successive measures of the Lincoln adminis- 
 tration, and denounced them with terrific energy. His 
 whole soul seemed to become one vast volcano of molten 
 rage, and he spoke more vehemently than ever before 
 
EDMUND EANDOLPH. 595 
 
 during his whole life. The last speech he ever delivered 
 in public was perhaps the greatest proof which he ever 
 displayed of his power of language when aroused. It was 
 delivered at Sacramento on the 5th day of August, 1861, 
 and on the 8th of September following he was no more. 
 
 The writer of this sketch was present at the time the 
 speech was delivered, in company with the late Judge 
 Baldwin of the Supreme Court. During the mid-day recess 
 of the Court, we strolled into the Democratic convention 
 then in session, and reached there just in time to witness 
 the terrible invective of Mr. Randolph — concentrating in 
 itself the fury of an inflamed patriot and the frenzy of an 
 inspired prophet. The tone, the gesture, the action, the 
 expression of lip and eye, can ne'er be forgotten. ^' Great 
 God!" exclaimed Judge Baldwin, '' did you ever hear elo- 
 quence like that? Randolph seems to be on fire." And 
 so indeed he was. But the flame was the last flickerings 
 of life's candle. The intensity of the passion, uttei-ed in 
 half hysteric shrieks, overcame the shattered bulwarks 
 of a constitution almost gone, and from that hour he 
 sank rapidly to the tomb. 
 
 Bitter as were partizans at the period when he died, 
 no one could find it in his heart to censure the dead 
 Virginian in his grave. Even his political foes paused' 
 over his remains, and gave a tear to the splendid genius 
 and the brave heart that had perished. All men believed 
 in his sincerity, and knew but too well that if he loved 
 the Federal government less than his native Virginia, it 
 was the fault of early prejudices, the bias of political 
 training, and the recollections of ancestral partiality. 
 In the grave, the fault — if fault it be — lies buried. Amid 
 the dazzling effulgence of so much to commend and so 
 little to reprove, we can well afford to pardon one slight 
 speck upon his fame. 
 
 In domestic life, Mr. Randolph was eminently blest. 
 His wife sympathized with him in all his toils and all his 
 triumphs. She still survives him, with a bevy of beauti- 
 ful children, whose inheritance, though it were a throne, 
 could not be greater than that which they now enjoy — 
 the heritage of their father's glory. 
 
596 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 ^Uvmf fey i^mwttd fatitlolplt, 
 
 On THE History of California, delivered before the So- 
 ciety OP California Pioneers, at their Celebration of 
 THE Tenth Anniversary of the Admission of California 
 INTO THE Union, September 10th, 1860. 
 
 Pioneers: 
 
 From the importunities of the active Present which surrounds 
 us, we turn for a brief space to the Past. To-day we give ourselves 
 up to memory. 
 
 And first, our thoughts are due to those who are not here assem- 
 bled with us; whom we meet not on street or highway, and wel- 
 come not again at the door of our dwellings; upon whom shines no 
 more the sun which now gladdens the hills, the plains, the waters 
 of California: to the Pioneers who are dead. To them, as the laurel 
 to the soldier, you will award the honor of this triumph, marked by 
 the marvellous creations which have sprung from your common en- 
 terprises. To them, you will consecrate a success w^hich has sur- 
 pass^ the boldest of the imaginations which led you forth, both 
 them and you to a life of adventures. Your companions died that 
 California might exist. Fear not that you will honor them over- 
 much. But how died they, and where do they repose — the dead of 
 the Pioneers of California? 
 
 Old men amongst you will recall the rugged trapper; his frame 
 was strong; his soul courageous; his knowledge was of the Indian's 
 trail and haunts of game; his wealth and his defence a rifle and a 
 horse; his bed the earth; his home the mountains. He was slain 
 by the treacherous savage. His scalp adorned the wigwam of a 
 chief. The wolf and the vulture in the desert feasted on the body 
 of this Pioneer. A companion, wounded,, unarmed and famishing, 
 wanders out through some rocliy canon, and lives to recount this 
 tale — lives, more fortunate in his declining years, to measure, per- 
 haps, his lands Ja^ the league, and to number his cattle by the 
 thousand. And the sea, too, has claimed tribute; the remorseless 
 waves, amid the terrors of shipwreck, too often in these latter days 
 have closed over the manly form of the noble Pioneer. The monsters 
 of thedeephave parted amongst them the flesh of ourfriends, and their 
 dissevered members are floating, suspended now in the vast abysses 
 of the ocean, or roll upon distant strands — play-things tossed by 
 the currents in their wanderings. And here in San Francisco, ex- 
 acting commerce has disturbed the last resting-place of the Pio- 
 neers. Ten years and-a-half ago, pinched by the severities of a 
 most inclement winter, under the leaky tent which gave no shelter, 
 they sickened and died — and then women and children were Pio- 
 neers too — by scores and by hundreds they sickened and died. 
 With friendly hands, which under disastrous circumstances could 
 
EDMUND RANDOLPH. 597 
 
 administer no relief, you yet did bnry them piously in a secluded 
 spot upon the hill-side or in the valley, and planting a rude cross 
 or board to mark the grave, did hope, perhaps, in a more prosper- 
 ous day, to replace it with a token in enduring stone. But the hill 
 and the valley alike disappear hourly from our sight. The city 
 marches with tremendous strides. Extending streets and lengthen- 
 ing rows encroach upon the simple burial ground not wisely chosen. 
 The dead give place to the living. And now the builder with his mor- 
 tar and his bricks, and the din of his trowel, erects a mansion or 
 store-house for the new citizen, upon the same spot where the Pio- 
 neer was laid and his sorrowing friend dreamed of erecting a tomb- 
 stone. Meanwhile, by virtue of a municipal order, hirelings have 
 dug up and carted away all that remained of the Pioneers, and have 
 deposited them in some common receptacle, where now they are 
 lying an undistinguishable heap of human bones. 
 
 Pursuing still this sad review, you well remember how with the 
 eager tide along and up the course of rivers, and over many a stony 
 ascent, you were swept into the heart of the difficult regions of the 
 gold mines; how you there encountered an equal stream pouring in 
 from the East, and in a summer all the bars and flats, and gulches, 
 throughout the length and breadth of that vast tract of hills, w^ere 
 flooded with human life. Into that rich harvest Death quickly put 
 his sickle. Toil to those who had never toiled ; toil, the hardest 
 toil, often at once beneath a torrid, blazing sun, and in an icy 
 stream; congestion, typhus, fevers in whatever form most fatal; and 
 the rot of scurvy; drunkenness and violence, despair, suicide and 
 madness; the desolate cabin; houseless starvation amid snows; all 
 these bring back again upon you in a frightful picture, many a 
 death scene of those days. There fell the Pioneers who perished 
 from the van of those who first headed back the bolts that barred 
 the vaulted hills, and jooured the millions of the treasures of Cali- 
 fornia upon the World ! 
 
 Wan and emaciated from the door of the tent or cabin where you 
 saw him expire ; bloody and mangl'sd from the gambling saloon 
 where you saw him murdered, or tbe roadside where you found him 
 lying; the corpse you bore to the woods and buried beneath* the 
 trees. But you cannot tell to-day which pine sings the requiem of 
 the Pioneer. 
 
 And some have fallen in battle beneath our Country's flag. 
 
 And longings still unsatisfied led some to renew their adven- 
 turous career upon foreign soils. Combating for strangers whose 
 quarrels they espoused, they fell amid the jungles of the Tropics 
 and fatted the rank soil there with right precious blood. Or upon 
 the sands of an accursed waste, were bound and slaughtered by in- 
 human men who lured them witli promises and repaid their coming 
 with a most cruel assassination. In the filthy purlieus of a Mexican 
 viilage, swine fed upon all that murder left of honored gentlemen; 
 until the very Indian, with a touch of pity, heaped up the sand upon 
 the festering d^ad, a^d /n^ave slight sepulture to our lost Pioneers. 
 
 Though from the first some there were who found in California 
 
598 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 all they sought, and as they lived, so died, surrounded by their child- 
 ren and their new-made friends, and were buried in church-yards 
 with holy rites; and although those more lately stricken, repose in 
 well-fenced grounds, guarded by the society they planted, and whose 
 ripening power they have witnessed; and are gathered to a sacred 
 stillness, where we too may hope that we shall be received when full 
 soon we sink to our eternal rest; alas! far different the death and 
 burial of full many a" Pioneer! 
 
 In deeds of loftiest daring of individual man, encounters fierce 
 and rudest shocks, too often has parted the spirit of the Pioneer, 
 and left his mortal body to nature and the elements! Thus wilds 
 are conquered ! and to civilization new realms ai^ won ! 
 
 . Upon his life and death let them reflect who would deny to the 
 Pioneer the full measure of the rights of freemen. 
 
 For us, we behold the river or the rock, the mountain's peak, 
 the plain; whatever spot from which his eyes took their last look of 
 earth. There as he lies, one gentle light shining athwart the gath- 
 ering darkness still holds his gaze. Guided by that light, we wijl 
 revisit the distant home of the dying Pioneer. In imagination we 
 will there revive the faded recollections of the intrepid boy, who 
 in years long past disappeared in the wilderness and the West, and 
 for a life-time has been accounted dead. We will renew, whilst we 
 console, the grief of the aged father and mother. To the fresh 
 son'ows of the faithful wife we pledge the sympathy and love of 
 brothers. To the sons and daughters of our friends we stretch forth 
 our hands in benedictions on their heads. To ancient friends we 
 too are friends; until with our praises, and the' eventful story of his 
 life, we make to live again in his old peaceful home, him who died 
 so wildly. What though to mournful questioning we cannot point 
 their graves? They have a monument, behold the State ! And 
 their inscription, it is wTitten on our hearts. 
 
 Thus, as is meet, we honor our dead Pioneers; with severe yet 
 pleasing recollections, grateful fancies, and tears not unmanly. 
 With an effort — we turn from ourselves to our country. 
 
 [Mr. Randolph then proceeded to trace the history of 
 California from the time of Cortes (1537) down to the 
 year 1830. He consumed over two hours in this portion 
 of his address, which has been pronounced by high au- 
 thority, 'Hhe most complete and authentic history of Cal- 
 ifornia extant." Its great length prevents its insertion 
 here in full. 
 
 Of populous Christian countries, Upper California is 
 among the newest. Her whole history is embraced with- 
 in the lifetime of men now living. Just ninety- one years 
 have passed — 1769 to 1860, A. D. — since man of European 
 origin first planted his footsteps within the limits of what 
 
EDMUND RANDOLPH. 599 
 
 is now our State, with purpose of permanent inhabitation. 
 Hence, all the inhabitants of California have been but 
 Pioneers. 
 
 The orator concluded as follows :] 
 
 Internal disturbances seem to have commenced in California 
 about the year 1830. The liberal Spanish Cortez of 1813, in carrj-ing 
 out the Constitution which they adopted for the Spanish monarchy 
 the year before, decreed the secularization of all the Missions in the 
 Sjoanish dominions. The design was to niake general what had al- 
 ways been done before by special authority — to liberate the Indians 
 from the control of the Missionaiy Fathers, and divide amongst 
 them, as their separate property, the land, cattle, and whatever else 
 they had owned in common ; to establish secular priests in the 
 place of regular priests or monks of the religious orders among 
 them, for their spiritual guidance; and in every respect to convert 
 the Indian villages of the missions into Spanish j)ueblos — the pro- 
 cess by which, in so great a degree, society was constructed in all 
 Sj^anish American countries, and the ultimate fulfillment of the 
 purpose of the King, eveiywhere so prominently put forth in colon- 
 izing California. 
 
 The decrees of the Cortez, not incompatible with the republican 
 form of government, continued after the establishment of her in- 
 dei^endence to be the laws of Mexico ; but veiy few, if any, of them 
 had been put into operation in California. AVith the rest, that of 
 SECULAEizATioN remained a dead letter. Echandia, the Political 
 Chief, (as the Governor was then entitled) in 1830, very hurriedly, 
 and without consulting the Supreme Government, published as the 
 custom of the Government was, a set of Regulations for caiTjdng 
 this old law into eifect. At that moment he was superseded by 
 Victoria, who suppressed the Regulations, and put a peremptory 
 stop to the secularization of the Missions. Victoria's conduct was 
 approved by the Supreme Government; but there was a party here 
 warmly in favor of the secularization, and disturbances which were 
 considered serious and threatening ensued, although I do not know 
 that they resulted in bloodshed. The chief promoter of the scheme 
 was sent out of the countiy by Victoria ; and thus, I think, civil 
 strife commenced in California. The occasion was the disT)osition 
 to be made of the Missions, which we have seen were once, and for 
 so long a time, so nearly all of California. It was the beginning 
 of the downfall of those ancient establishments, so difficult for us 
 to comprehend, and now so entirely passed away, that to recall 
 them is like recalling the images of a dream. AVhat the Govern- 
 ment of Mexico was opposed to was not the secularization of the 
 Missions, but the manner in which it was attemj^ted. The agitation 
 which had been thus commenced resulted in the passage, by the 
 Mexican Congress, of the law of the 17th of August, 1833, to sec- 
 ularize the Missions of the Calif ornias. Under it the work was be- 
 gun by Figiieroa, the best and ablest of the Mexican Governors. 
 At the same time he had two other laws, most fundamentally sub- 
 
600 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 \ersive of the old order of things, to carry into execution. They 
 were the law for the political organization of the Territory, being 
 another of those decreed by tlie Spanish Cortez in 1813, and the 
 law of colonization, passed by the Mexican Congress August 18th, 
 1824, with the executive regulations, prescribing the manner of its 
 application, dated Xovember 21st, 1828. 
 
 It is evident that this is the true era of revolution in Mexican 
 California, Observing the ancient limits of the Presidial jurisdic- 
 tions, municipal governments were established for each district. 
 Authority was exercised by elective bodies called Ayuntamientos, 
 of which the head was an Alcalde or Judge. This body regulated 
 the economy of the whole district, directly of the pueblo in which 
 it resided, and of every other pueblo in the district, through the in- 
 tervention of local and subordinate Ayuntamientos. This was the 
 separation of the civil functions from the military functions, both 
 of which had been continued in the hands of tlie commanders of 
 the Presidios, as in the Spanish times. Here in San Francisco, 
 and for all the region north of San Mateo creek, east indefinitely, 
 and west to the ocean, the separation of powers took place in 
 December, 1834, at which time the Ayuntamiento was established 
 for the civil government of this Presidial district, and Gen. M. 
 G. Yallejo, then in command of the Presidio, was left with only 
 his military command. In the secularization of the Missions, 
 Pigueroa advanced so far as to put administrators in possession 
 in iplace of the Fathers, at which stage his proceedings were 
 arrested by a decree of the Mexican President. Ruin was in- 
 evitable ; it was as rapid as spoliation could make it, and it was 
 soon complete. Governor after Governor adopted regulations up- 
 on regulations, to secure a faithful administration of the property 
 of the Missions, i. e. , of the Christian Indians who inhabited them, 
 and by whose labor all had been built and accumulated. It was to 
 no purpose ; and of as little avail was the partial restoration of the 
 Missions to the charge of the Fathers, by Micheltorena, in 1843. 
 The Indian was by nature a very little above the brute ; the Fath- 
 ers were not able to elevate him in spite of nature ; the administra- 
 tors stripped him without compunction; and, when the United 
 States conquered the country, he was already exterminated — his de- 
 struction complete in ten years. When emancipation began, Figu- 
 eroa says there were twenty thousand Christian Indians in the 
 Missions of California. 
 
 Colonization was another idea introduced by the Spanish Cortez 
 in 1813. It was embodied in the Mexican law of colonization, of 
 1824. The scheme was to reduce all the public lands of the State 
 to private property. The Spanish rule before 1813, had ever been 
 to make such grants the exception, and to retain all lands generally 
 speaking, as the domain of the King. Other Mexican Governors 
 may have made informal grants of which nothing appears, but Figu- 
 eroa was the first to inaugurate the system of which we find the rec- 
 ords in the Archives. He established a course of proceedings in 
 exact accordance with the law and the regulations, and adhered to 
 
EDMUND RANDOLPH. 601 
 
 it strictly and executed it conscientiously and with great intelli- 
 gence. From the lands subject to be granted are excepted such as 
 belong to Pueblos and Missions. Of Pueblos, i. e. villages, there 
 were but two — San Jose and Los Angeles — or three including the 
 unprosperous Villa de Branciforte. Whatever lands these owned 
 were at their foundation surveyed, marked out, and set apart to 
 them ; and then recorded. The same course was followed with such 
 of the Presidios as Avere converted into Pueblos, as at Monterey; and 
 would have been pursued with the Missions when converted into 
 Pueblos, if that change bad not been arrested. In these cases 
 there could have been no uncertainty as to what lands the Governor 
 could grant. With the Missions, untouched, or incompletely sec- 
 ularized as they were left, there was difficulty. The title of the 
 Indian who had consented to become a Christian and a civilized man, 
 binding as it was upon the King, had always been indefinite as to 
 quantit}', and as to the situation of his lands, save that it should be 
 at and about the Mission ; in which essential particulars it rested 
 altogether in the King's discretion, exercised by the proper officers 
 of his government. The Mexican Kepublic stepped into the same 
 relation to these Christian Indians. That no injustice might be 
 done them, every petition was referred to the Priests, and after- 
 wards to the Administrators of the Missions. They were asked 
 whether the grant could be made without prejudice to the Indians. 
 As they replied, so were the grants given or withheld. So it was 
 at least in Figueroa's day, and that, no matter how far the land pe- 
 titioned-for was from the nearest Mission. Other Governors were 
 neither so exact nor so conscientious as Figueroa. And as, in the 
 hands of the Administrators to whom they were delivered over, the 
 Missions went rapidly down to complete iniin, it is evident that the 
 lands required for the Indians would become continually less — such 
 would be, and was, the answer of their new^ guardians to the inquiries 
 of the Governor — and finally all was granted, and in some cases, it 
 is alleged, even the Missions themselves. Their cattle, without the 
 aid of a grant from the Governor, took the same course. It is not 
 too much to say that when the United States in 184G took posses- 
 sion of the country, they found it j)assing through a conquest still 
 raw and incomplete. It was the conquest of the Missions and the 
 Christian Indians, by the settlers of the Presidios and Pueblos who 
 at first had been introduced into the country mainly for their bene- 
 fit ; to aid the King and the Church in carrying out their pious and 
 humane intentions towards them. Yet it was well that it was so. 
 W^ho that looks upon the native Digger Indian could wish that a 
 superior race should be sacrificed or postponed for his benefit? W^e 
 contemplate a miserable result of the work begun with so much 
 zeal and heroism in 1769. But because they failed, we none the less 
 respect the motives and the laborers, whether of Church or State. 
 
 The unworthiness of the Californian Indian did not altogether 
 deprive him of sympathy. Every Government expressed some feel- 
 ing at seeing him hasten so rapidly to his wretched end. And the 
 just and kind-hearted Figueroa battled for him manfully. In the 
 
602 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 midst of the complex labors of his administration he was almost 
 crushed by the arrival of three hundred persons, for whom he had 
 to make provision, without resources, and who came under the 
 charge of a Director of Colonization, instructed- by the Supreme 
 Government, at that time radically democratic, to begin operations by 
 taking possession of the property of the Missions and admitting the 
 nev/ colonists to a division of it with the Indians. During the win- 
 ter of 1834-5, Figueroa and tho Director carried on an animated dis- 
 cussion in writing, on the subject of the last of these propositions. 
 Figueroa maintained that the Missions were the private projoerty of 
 the Indian, and protected from invasion by the Constitution. The 
 Director insisted u]pon the letter of the order of the Supreme Gov- 
 ernment. Figueroa said it was improvident, and refused to obey it 
 until he could make a representation to the Supreme Government 
 on the subject. The end was, that some of the partizans of the Di- 
 rector attempted an insurrection at Los Angeles, in the spring of 
 1835, which was easily suppressed, but furnished Figueroa the op- 
 portunity to send the Director and the heads of his faction back to 
 Mexico. Of these, the principal was the same man who had been 
 sent out of California by Victoria for the same cause — a desire to 
 have a part in the secularization of the Missions. The colony, how- 
 ever, remained, and though numbering but three hundred, was a 
 great addition to the population of California in those days. Among 
 them we find the names of several persons who afterwards became 
 conspicuous in the country — Joso Abrego, Jose Ma. Covarrubias, 
 Augustin Olvera, and Francisco Guerrero. 
 
 Figueroa died at Monterey, on the 29th of September, 1835, his 
 death being probably hastened by the effect of the anxiety and vex- 
 ation of this controversy, upon a constitution already broken. At 
 that time his manifesto to the Mexican Republic, in which he gives 
 a clear and forcible statement of the whole affair, and an able vin- 
 dication of his conduct, was going through the press at Monterey. 
 His death seems to have been very greatly deplored at that time, 
 and he is still recognized as the ablest and most upright of the 
 Mexican Governors. His work of the political organization of Cal- 
 ifornia lasted but a little while ; it fell with the overthrow of the 
 Federal Constitution of 1824, by Santa Anna, in 1836. California 
 then became a Department : Political Chief was changed into Gov- 
 EKNOR, and Territorial Deputation into Departmental Assembly. 
 
 These changes, however, were not fully completed in California 
 until 1839. The Department of the Californias w^as then divided into 
 three districts ; the first extending from the frontier of Sonoma to 
 San Luis Obispo, its principal point or seat of administration being 
 the old Mission of San Juan, on the Pajaro river ; the second dis- 
 trict included the rest of Upper California, the seat of its adminis- 
 tration being the city of Los Angeles, which had been promoted to 
 that rank from the original condition of a Pueblo, in the year of 
 1835 ; and the third comprised Lower California, which, after a sep- 
 aration, was now re-united with Upper California. These districts 
 were divided each into two Partidos, of which, consequently, there 
 
EDSIUND RANDOLPH. 603 
 
 were four in Upper California. Ayuntamientos were abolished, and 
 a Justice of the Peace substituted in each Partido. Por the whole 
 district there was a Prefect, who resided at the seat of the Adminis- 
 tration of one of the Partidos, and a Sub-Prefect, who resided at 
 that of the other Partido. In 1843 Micheltorena, acting under ex- 
 traordinary powers, made some changes in this system, but it was 
 substantially restored by Pio Pico, in 1845, when again Lower Cal- 
 ifornia was thrown off. 
 
 With Figueroa everything like stability, and indeed order, 
 passed away. The next year after Figueroa's death, the Califor- 
 nians drove away the Governor; and Don Juan B. Alvarado, being 
 at that time President of the Territorial Deputation, was declared 
 Governor. After this was done, the Dei^utation went one step 
 further, and on the 7th of November, 1836, passed these resolutions : 
 
 (1.) "California is declared independent of Mexico until the 
 re-establishment of the Constitution of 1824.'* 
 
 (2.) "California is erected into a free and sovereign State, es- 
 tablishing a Congress, &c., &c." 
 
 Public documents for a while were headed "Free and Sovereign 
 State of California. " This anomalous state of things lasted until 
 1838. The demands of the Free and Sovereign State were not com- 
 plied with, nor on the other hand was the Central Government dis- 
 posed, or perhaps able, to push the controversy to extremes. In 
 1838, Alvarado was appointed Governor arf interim; and Constitu- 
 tional Governor in 1839, when we have seen that the innovations of 
 Santa Anna took effect. Whilst California was in rebellion, the 
 President of Mexico commissioned Carlos Antonio Carillo, as Gov- 
 ernor. Alvarado refused to recognize him, and accepted' the aid of 
 a i^arty of Americans who, since the time of Jedediah Smith, seem 
 to have found their way into the country. Alvarado prevailed over 
 Carillo ; and the appointment of the former as Governor ad interim 
 compromised the difficulties of those times. Here is a document 
 relating to this contest, which will serve to illustrate California 
 warfare. It is the report of G^n Jose Castro to Governor Alvarado, 
 dated the 28th of March, 1838. 
 
 " I have the honor to announce to your Excellency, that after two days contin- 
 ual firing w ithout having lost hut one man, the enemy took to flight, under cover of 
 night, numbering one hundred and ten men ; and I have determined to dispatch 
 one company of mounted Infantry, under the command of Captain Villa, and 
 another of Cavalry lancers, under the command of Captain Cota, in their pur- 
 suit, remaining myself, with the rest of the division, and the Artillery, to guard 
 this point, &c., &c." 
 
 And here is another of the same period. It now appears that 
 the Americans who resided with Alvarado had fallen under suspic- 
 ion and into disfavor at about the time that their chief made up 
 his differences with the Central Government, and received his com- 
 mission as Governor ad interim. They were all arrested, some fif- 
 teen or twenty perhaps, it is said by surprise, and sent to Mexico. 
 Amongst them was Mr. Isaac Graham, of Santa Cruz. This paper 
 will also serve as a specimen of Calif ornian eloquence at that period. 
 
604 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and I commend it at the present moment as a model to our politi- 
 cal orators. 
 
 Proclamation m^vde by the Undersigned : — 
 
 ' ' Eternal Glory to the Illustrious Champion and Liberator of 
 the Department of Alta California, Don Jos6 Castro, the Guardian 
 of Order, and the Supporter of our Superior Government. 
 
 Fellow-citizens and Friends v To-day, the eighth of IMay, of the present year of 
 1840, has been and will be eternally glorious to all the inhabitants of this soil, in 
 contemplating the glorious expedition of our fellow countryman, Don Jose Cas- 
 tro, who goes to present himself before the Superior Government of the Mexican 
 nation, carrying with him a number of suspicious Americans who, under the mask 
 of deceit, and filled with ambition, were warping us in the web of misfortune ; 
 plunging us into the greatest confusion and danger ; desiring to terminate the life 
 of our Governor and of all of his subalterns ; and finally, to drive us from our 
 asylums ; from our country ; from our pleasures, and from our hearths. 
 
 The bark which carries this valorous Hero on his Grand Commission, goes 
 filled with laurels and crowned with triumphs, ploughing the waves and publish- 
 ing in distinct voices to the passing billows the loud vwas and rejoicings, which 
 will resound to the remotest bounds of the universe. Yes, fellow-citizens and 
 friends, again v.-e say, that this glorious chief should have a place in the innermost 
 recesses of our hearts, and be held as dear to us as our very breath. Thus we de- 
 sire, and in the name of all the inhabitants, make known the great rejoicings with 
 which v/e are filled, giving, at the same time, to our Superior Government the 
 present proclamation, which we make for said worthy chief ; and that our Governor 
 may remain satisfied, that if he (Castro) has embarked for the interior of the Re- 
 public, there still remain under his (the Governor's) orders all his fellow country- 
 men, companions in arms, etc., etc." 
 
 The foregoing is signed by seTen citizens of note and respecta- 
 bility in the countiy. ■ "W'hen this lamxl-lcden yeesel reached San 
 B las, the Mexican authorities took a different view of the matter. 
 They put Gen. Castro in prison and Graham and his companions in 
 the best hotel in the place, (he says a palace) and entertained them 
 handsomely until they could send them back to California, which 
 they did g-t the expense of the Government. 
 
 In 1839, Captain John A. Sutter, a man who had seen many 
 vicissitudes and adventures, in Europe and the wilds of Ameri'^a, 
 arrived in Calif oinia from the Sandwich Islands. By permission 
 of Governor Alvarado he established himself in the valley of the 
 Sacramento, then the extreme northern frontier. He engaged to 
 protect the Mexican settlements extending in that direction under 
 the Colonization Law (the only vital thing left of the Mexican rule 
 for many years) from the incursions of the Indians, and he kept his 
 word. 
 
 In 1841, he obtained a grant of land himself, and built a fort 
 which soon became the refuge and rallying point for Americans 
 and Europeans coming into the country. Over all these Sutter, by 
 virtue of an appointment as Justice of the Peace, exercised what- 
 ever government there was beyond the law of the rifle. Practically 
 his powers w^ere as indefinite as the territorial limits of his jurisdic- 
 tion. Amogst those who early gathered around Sutter, we find the 
 names of John Bidwell, who came in 1841, and Pierson B. Bead- 
 
EDMUND RANDOLPH. 605 
 
 ing and Samuel J. Hensley, who came in 1843, and many others 
 well known at the present day. 
 
 The Pioneers of that day all bear testimony to the generosity 
 of Captain Sutter, at a time when his fort was the capitol and he 
 the Government for the American colony, in the valley of the Sac- 
 ramento. In 1844, the number of this population had come to be so 
 considerable as to be a power in the State. In the revolution which 
 then occurred, Sutter took the side of Governor Micheltorena. 
 But before he marched he took the reasonable precaution, so obvi- 
 ously required by justice to his men, to obtain from Micheltorena 
 a grant of the land for which they had respectively joetitioned. 
 Micheltorena then issued the document known as the General 
 Title. 
 
 In this document he declares that every petition upon which 
 Sutter, in his capacity of Justice of the Peace, had reported favor- 
 ably, should be taken as granted ; and that a copy of this document 
 given to each petitioner, should serve in lieu of the usual formal 
 grant. This done, he marched to the south, but was unfortunate, 
 for he was taken prisoner, and Micheltorena expelled from the 
 country. This is the last of the civil wars of California. 
 
 In the spring of 1840, General Castro in the North, and Pio 
 Pico, the Governor, in the South, were waxing hot against each 
 other, and preparing for new conflicts, when the apparition of Cap- 
 tain Fremont with his small surveying party of old mountaineers, and 
 the hardy and indomitable Pioneers of the Sacramento Valley and 
 the Bear flag, put an end to their dissensions. Castro had himself 
 prepared the way for this aggression, by driving Fremont and his 
 surveying party out of the Mexican settlements, a few months before. 
 The colony on the Sacramento necessarily sympathized with Fre- 
 mont : and rumors, more or less well founded, began to run through 
 the valley, of hostile intentions towards all the American settlers. 
 But resentment and anticipations of evil were not the sole cause of 
 this movement. There can not now be a doubt that it was prompt- 
 ed, as it was approved, by the Government of the United States; 
 and that Captain Fremont obeyed his orders no less than his own 
 feelings. 
 
 Fremont was still on the northern side of the Bay of San Fran- 
 cisco, when the American flag was hoisted at Monterey, on the ever- 
 memorable seventh day of July, 1846. 
 
 Before the war, the Government of the United States had fully 
 determined, so far as that matter rested with the Executive, upon 
 the conquest and permanent retention of California, as soon as the 
 out-break of war should offer the opjiortunity. Orders, in antici- 
 pation of war, were issued to that effect, and it was under these 
 orders that California was actually taken. The danger of that day 
 was, that England would step in before us. Her ships were watch- 
 ing our ships on the coast of Mexico. The British pretext, it is 
 said, was to have been to secure an equivalent for the Mexican debt 
 due to British subjects; and it is understood that there was a party 
 here who favored this design. 
 
606 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Because Commodore Sloat did not rush to the execution of the 
 orders issued in anticipation of war, on the very first report of a 
 collision between the United States and Mexico, the anxious Secre- 
 tary of the Navy, dreading to lose the prize, hotly censured him in 
 a letter which reached him after the event had broken the sting of 
 its reproaches, and served only to assure him how well he had ful- 
 filled the wishes of his government. The flag of the United States 
 was no sooner flying, than the ColUngn'ood entered the bay of Mon- 
 terey. There had been a race between the Collingwood and the 
 Savannah. What a moment was that for us, and for the world ! 
 What if the Collingwood had been the swifter sailer, and Sloat had 
 found the English flag flying on the shore! What if we had been 
 born on another planet! The cast was for England or the United 
 States, and when the die turned for us, the interest was at an end. 
 
 As a feat of arms, the conquest of California was nothing for a 
 power like ours. Even more feeble, and as much distracted as the 
 rest of Mexico, and with but a nominal dependence upon the Cen- 
 tral Government, but a very little force was sufficient to detach Cal- 
 ifornia forever from all her Spanish- American connections. What- 
 ever of military credit there was, is due to the Pioneers, who, under 
 the Bear flag, had, before they heard of the beginning of the war, 
 with an admirable instinct for their own rights, and the interests 
 of their country, rebelled against any further Mexican misrule, or a 
 sale to the British. The loyalty of their sentiments was beautifully 
 illustrated by the alacrity with which they relinquished the com- 
 plete independence which appeared to be within their grasp, and 
 turned over their conquests, and the further service of their rifles, 
 to the country which* they remembered with so much affection, and 
 a government from which they would suffer themselves to look for 
 nothing but wisdom and strength, and a tender consideration for 
 the rights and interests of the Pioneer. 
 
 For three years and a half, when there was no war, and for near- 
 ly two years after there was a declared peace, California was gov- 
 erned, and for a great part of the time heavily taxed, by the execu- 
 tive branch of the government of the United States, acting through 
 military officers. This I note as an anomaly in the experience of 
 the citizens of this Republic. 
 
 California, separated from Mexico, a new people began to come 
 in from the United States and Europe. But California was remote, 
 and yet but little understood. Mr. Webster himself spoke of her 
 as almost worthless, except for the Bay of San Francisco, and as 
 though the soil was as barren and thorny as the rocks of Lower 
 California. Emigrants came, but not many — amongst the most re- 
 markable arrivals being the ship Brooklyn, freighted with Mormons. 
 The soldiers themselves were nothing more than armed colonists. 
 And everything was peaceful and dull, until suddenly, when no man 
 expected, there came a change of transcendent magnitude. 
 
 Gold was discovered at Coloma. This was an event that stirred 
 
EDMUND RANDOLPH. 607 
 
 tlie heart of the whole world. The motives which pervade and most 
 control the lives of men were touched. All the impulses that spring 
 from necessity and hope were quickened; and a movement was vis- 
 ible amongst mankind. To get to California, some crossed over 
 from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso, scaling the Andes. The Isthmus 
 of Darien became a common thoroughfare. Peaceful invaders en- 
 tered Mexico at every point, and on every route startled the drowsy 
 muleteer as they passed over to the Pacific where the coast was 
 nearest, or pushed on directly for California. Constant caravans 
 issued from our own borders, traversed every intervening prairie, and 
 explored every pass and gap of opposing mountains. As the long 
 train descended to the valley, perhajjs the foremost wagon is driven 
 by an old man, who, when he was a boy, moved out in this way 
 from Virginia to Kentucky; and passing still from one new State to 
 another, now when he is grown gray, halts his team at last upon the 
 shores of the Pacific. Ships sailed from every port on the globe. 
 The man at the wheel, in every sea, steered by the star that led to 
 San Francisco. So came the emigrants of 1849. The occupation 
 of California was now complete, and she became a part of the 
 world. 
 
 Eleven years are passed. "We looked out upon a wide expanse — 
 unfenced, unfilled — and though nature was lovely, our hearts sank 
 within us. Neither the priest nor the ranchero had prepared this 
 country for our habitation. We asked : Who shall subdue all this to 
 our uses? W^e look again; and now, upon a landscaj)e checkered 
 with smiling farms and dotted with cities and towns, busy and hum- 
 ming like the hive. What magic is it that has wrought this change? 
 On every hand, with one acclaim, comes back the answer: Labor, 
 it is Labor. Of our eleven years, here is the lesson. Man's opin- 
 ions and his passions were but insolence and vanity. Boasting and 
 praise made but the greatness of the passing day. And Labor, only 
 Labor, has survived. However silent, however humble and unseen, 
 or on what bestowed, it is Labor which has created California, and 
 which rules us at this hour. With our own eyes this we have seen, 
 and of our own knowledge we know the lesson to be as true as it 
 is old. 
 
 California in full possession of the white man, and embraced 
 within the mighty area of his civilization ! We feel the sympathies 
 of our race attract us. We see in our great movement hithei'ward 
 in 1849 a likeness to the times when our ancestors, their wives and 
 little ones, and all their stuff in wagons, and with attendant herds, 
 poured forth by nations and in never-ending columns from the Ger- 
 man forests, and went to seek new pastures and to found new king- 
 doms in the ruined provinces of the Roman Empire: or when, 
 swayed by another inspiration, they cast their masses upon the 
 Saracens, and sought to rescue the Sepulchre of Christ from the in- 
 fidels. We recognize that we are but the foremost rank of the 
 multitude which for centuries has held its unwavering course out of 
 Europe ujoon America, in numbers still increasing; a vast, unnum- 
 bered host, self-marshaled, leaderless, and innumerable, moving 
 
608 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 onward forever, to possess and people another continent : separated 
 but in space, divided but by the accidents of manners, of language 
 and of laws — from Scandinavia to California — one blood and one 
 people. Knowledge is but the conservation of his thoughts, art but 
 the embodiment of his conceptions, letters the record of his deeds. 
 Man of our race has crowned the earth with its glory! And still in 
 the series of his works you have founded a State. May it be great 
 and powerful whilst the Ocean shall thunder against these shores. 
 You have planted a people; may they be prosperous and happy 
 whilst summers shall return to bless these fields with plenty. And 
 may the name of the Pioneer be spoken in California forever! 
 
MILTON S. LATHAM. 
 
 j3y ^udge ^ayen p. fiAL,U 
 
 UNDER the most favorable circumstances, it is at all 
 times a very difficult task to write a biographical sketch 
 of a cotemporary. This difficulty is greatly increased 
 when the person whom you would portray is a member 
 of the same community, and when the truthfulness and 
 fidelity of the portrayal must be submitted to the im- 
 partial judgment of those who have enacted important 
 parts in the drama of which he is made the chief charac- 
 ter. The prominent events in the career of the individual 
 under consideration are of such recent occurrence — are 
 so blended and identified with the experience of every 
 old Californian — as to enable the chronicler to analyze 
 his subject without viewing him through the misty haze 
 of remote years, and to comment from an actual and 
 personal knowledge of events. 
 
 Mr. Latham's ancestors came to America in the May- 
 floiver. His father was a native of Virginia, and his mother 
 of New Hampshire. He was born in the State of Ohio 
 on the 23d day of May, 1829, and was fortunate in being 
 the son of a gentleman of eminent local celebrity, and a 
 person of liberal education and a generous nature. En- 
 joying the advantages of high social position, professional 
 distinction, and a mind adorned and enlarged by the re- 
 finements of education, his father appreciated the value 
 of thoroudi education, and bestowed upon his son all 
 ^ 39 
 
610 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the advantages to be derived from cultivated society and 
 collegiate training. 
 
 In 1846, he graduated from Jefferson College, Penn- 
 sylvania, and left his Alma Mater with a reputation for 
 scholarship, energy, and industry, that gave promise of 
 his future success and distinction. Soon after graduat- 
 ing, he removed to Alabama, where he studied law. 
 Having chosen the law for a profession, his earnest devo- 
 tion to study, his aptitude and genius, secured him license 
 to practice at an early age. In 1848, he was appointed 
 Clerk of the Circuit Court of Russell county, Alabama. 
 
 At the period when California was the focus of public 
 interest and attention, Mr. Latham selected the Golden 
 State as the field for his future labors and aspirations. 
 On the 6th of April, 1850, he arrived at San Francisco, 
 and at once entered upon the active practice of his pro- 
 fession. Sacramento having been made the capital of 
 the State, many of our most eminent lawyers were at- 
 tracted thither, and Mr. Latham among them. His ex- 
 treme youth attracted general sympathy. His suave and 
 genial manners made him universally popular, while his 
 abilities commanded respect from the members of the 
 bar as well as the entire community, and soon secured 
 him a very profitable business. So rapid were his strides 
 to public notice and favor that at the ensuing general 
 election after his arrival in 1850, he was elected by a. 
 very large majority to the important office of District 
 Attorney for the Sacramento Judicial District, com- 
 prising Sacramento and El Dorado counties. His 
 official position gave him an enlarged theatre of action 
 and a more extended and familiar acquaintance with the 
 people. While his civil practice had established his claim 
 as a logical and philosophical student of the law, his op- 
 portunities as an advocate soon won him a reputation 
 among the people excelled by no member of the profes- 
 sion in the State at that day. Indeed, his advancement 
 was so great, his hold upon the popular mind so fixed, 
 that in 1851, he was elected Representative to Con- 
 gress, triumphing over competitors who had already 
 established a national fame. 
 
MILTON S. LATHAM. 611 
 
 Mr. Latham fully sustained at the forum of Congress 
 the reputation he had won at home ; and the honored at- 
 titude he occupied toward his colleagues, and his faithful 
 efforts to secure legislation for the best interests of Cali- 
 fornia, were rewarded by a reelection, and he remained 
 her representative till 1856. 
 
 It will be remembered that the affairs of the Collect- 
 orship of the Port of San Francisco had not uniformly 
 been administered so as to give entire satisfaction to 
 either public or private judgment. It is not our province 
 to discuss political subjects, or to inquire into the causes 
 or consequences of the management of the Collector's 
 office, that gave the Government extreme solicitude and 
 difficulty in selecting the proper person to take charge 
 of the office, and bring "order out of chaos." It is 
 sufficient to say, while it was a source of great public 
 satisfaction, that from a host of eager aspirants, Mr. La- 
 tham, unsolicited and in fact against his protest, was in- 
 vited and induced to accept the position. This dis- 
 tinguished compliment from the Government was based 
 upon the character for honesty, integrity, and fidelity to 
 duty that Mr. Latham had won in his Congressional 
 career ; and he acquired additional credit and honor for 
 the exactness, dispatch, and discipline that characterized 
 every department of the Customs during his administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Latham now determined to ignore the blandish- 
 ments of office, and devote himself to the more remuner- 
 ative and less exciting pursuit of private business : to use 
 his own words on a memorable occasion, he had "resolved 
 to quit Hhe filthy pool of politics.'" These hopes of 
 quiet happiness and repose were not, however, to be 
 realized. The exciting canvass of 1859 snatched him 
 from contemplated retirement. The influence of their 
 young favorite was warm in the hearts of the people, and 
 they determined to manifest their approval of his past 
 stewardship by the bestowal of yet higher honors. In 
 that year he was nominated for Governor of California 
 by the Democratic State Convention, (his principal com- 
 petitor being Hon. John B. Weller) and was elected by a 
 
612 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 very large majority, receiving over 60,000 votes — his com- 
 petitors being Hon. John Currey, afterwards Supreme 
 Judge, and Hon. Leland Stanford, afterwards Governor 
 of the State. 
 
 It was incumbent on the Legislature, which was chosen 
 at the same general election, and which convened in Janu- 
 ary, 1860, to elect a successor to the Hon. David C. Brod- 
 erick. United States senator, then lately deceased. This 
 important matter elicited a degree of political feeling and 
 public interest unwonted even in the arena of California 
 politics. Those national questions that finally culminated 
 in the Great Rebellion were then being everywhere dis- 
 cussed. All felt the absolute necessity of having a repre- 
 sentative in the United States Senate who should be a 
 representative in fact — not merely of California or of a 
 political party — but of the patriotic impulses of the 
 people at large. In this great crisis, the Shakesperean 
 theory of fortune was fulfilled, and Mr. Latham became 
 the recipient of her gifts. Scarcely had he assumed the 
 office of Governor and delivered his inaugural, when he 
 was called on to resign and assume the senatorial toga. 
 Mr. Latham presented his credentials and took his seat in 
 the United States Senate in March, 1860, and served in 
 the Senate until March 4th, 1863. 
 
 This brief summary of events affords an eulogy of 
 which any man might be justly proud; and a lengthened 
 commentary upon them would be a work of supererogation. 
 Justice to distinguished merit, admiration for the unparal- 
 leled promotion to conspicuous and exalted station that 
 mark the career of Mr. Latham, would seem to warrant, 
 if not exact, some further comment. 
 
 Upon Mr. Latham's advent in California, already at- 
 tracted to her shores was a population above every other 
 people of America distinguished for their dash, intelli- 
 gence, and enterprise. Among them were to be found 
 able representatives of every profession, trade, and calling 
 — Professors of Colleges, ex-Governors, and Members of 
 Congress, divines and lawyers — who had become noted 
 throughout the country. These, according to their various 
 tastes and avocations, were earnest rivals, struggling in 
 
MILTON S. LATHMf. 613 
 
 the most exciting and eager race of life the world ever 
 witnessed. The phantom of wealth — the spur of necessity 
 — the hopes of ambition — seemed to cauterize human 
 nature and freeze the heart against all impulses of gen- 
 erous emulation, and make every man an uncompro- 
 mising competitor. To succeed in such a contest, to win 
 and command the warm sympathy of the people, and to 
 retire from the struggle with their abiding confidence 
 and trust, was to create .a monument more enduring than 
 any entablature graven on steel or adamant; and affords 
 a model well worthy the imitation of the youth of our 
 country. 
 
 'No man in America has filled so many important 
 offices in so brief a time as has Mr. Latham, and history 
 affords no example among our countrymen of a person 
 at his age having filled such high stations. At that age 
 when most men plume themselves for the highest flights 
 of ambition, Mr. Latham has successively filled the most 
 honorable positions within the gift of the people. To 
 what peculiar trait of character or special qualification 
 we must attribute his extraordinary career, it would be 
 difficult to determine. 
 
 In his social character, he is dignified ^vithout stiff- 
 ness, impressive without dictation, genial without levity, 
 and companionable without familiarity. In business en- 
 gagements other than professional, his accustomed suc- 
 cess has followed his efforts, and he now enjoys a hand- 
 some fortune. He is now Manager of the London and 
 San Francisco Bank, which institution flourishes under 
 his direction. As a popular orator, he has no superior 
 on this coast, and the result of many a political canvass 
 in this State has been influenced by the powers of his 
 eloquence. 
 
 We have to regret that our limited space will not 
 permit us to give extracts from his speeches in Congress, 
 for he spoke to almost every question of national im- 
 portance that rose during that exciting period ; as they 
 would adorn these pages, and carry with them proofs of 
 tlie genius and ability of their author. 
 
 As a representative man, Mr. Latham is a fair type 
 
614 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of California, her people, genius, and extraordinary ex- 
 pansion. As she, without the preliminary forms of 
 territorial existence, sprang almost immediately into 
 the condition of a great State, so did he seem to 
 defy the ordeal of probation through which mankind 
 usually pass in the vicissitudes of fortune, and stepped 
 forth from his minority into a manhood of established 
 fame. 
 
 " Palmam qui meruit ferat." 
 
>*^ or Ti£a ' 
 
^. 
 
ROBERT B. SWAIN 
 
 By WiLJLiAM y. Wells. 
 
 THE reputation for enterprise, intelligence, and liberal- 
 ity which San Francisco in her remarkable growth 
 has acquired abroad, is undoubtedly due, more than to 
 any other class, to her merchants. The same may be 
 true of most communities, where commerce is the vital 
 element of their prosperity ; but it is especially so in one 
 whose merchants have always exerted the chief influence 
 in directing the policy of municipal or State government, 
 in shaping congressional legislation relating to the Pacific 
 coast, and giving the tone to public sentiment and meas- 
 ures. In this lightj biographical sketches of commercial 
 men long identified with the city, assume something of 
 historical value, as inseparably connected with its material 
 and social progress. For many years Mr. Swain has been 
 known as a prominent merchant of San Francisco, filling, 
 during that time, positions of the highest responsibility, 
 political and social, and honorably associated with import- 
 ant movements. The records of societies organized for 
 literary, religious, and benevolent purposes, are silent test- 
 imonials of his activity in charitable w^orks; while to pub- 
 lic discussions of maritime questions, he brings a qiuckness 
 of perception and a familiarity with those subjects, only 
 to be acquired through business talent of a high order 
 joined to great experience. It is not, however, from a 
 merely commercial stand-point that we propose to sketch 
 
616 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Mr. Swain. In the last ten years his name has been 
 interwoven with men and events which have become cel- 
 ebrated, and the character before us is thus additionally 
 representative. 
 
 Mr Swain, who is of Quaker origin, was born- about 
 the year 1825, in JN'antucket, Mass., his island home front- 
 ing upon the rude Atlantic, and his earliest assodations 
 having been among rugged and adventurous seamen. At 
 the age of seventeen, he went to New York, and becoming 
 a clerk in the famous house of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., 
 received a thorough mercantile education. In 1855, fail- 
 ing health, caused by a too close attention to an extensive 
 commission business, in which, after having remained with 
 the above named firm for many years, he had embarked 
 for himself, obliged him to seek a milder climate, and in 
 that year he came to California intending to remain only 
 long enough to ensure a restoration to health. Increasing 
 interests and duties, however, required a longer stay, and 
 here he has ever since found his field of labor, pursuing 
 his legitimate business of Commission Merchant and Fire 
 and Marine Insurance Agent. His sphere of occupation 
 speedily displayed an ability and readiness of application 
 to diverse subjects in the walks of social and business life, 
 and he was evidently destined to be a leading man in the 
 State of his adoption. Soon after his arrival, he was 
 elected a Trustee of the Mercantile Library Association 
 of San Francisco, and thenceforth served that institution 
 in various capacities, having for the past four years been 
 either President or Yice President. He has been untir- 
 ing in his labors to subserve the interests of the Library, 
 and his disinterested efforts while presiding over its wel- 
 fare indicate a painstaking care for its advancement. On 
 the inauguration of the new Library building in June, 
 ],§68, Mr. Swain thus concluded a speech, in which he 
 had proposed at some length a plan for bonding the debt 
 of the Association, which bonds he trusted would be event- 
 ually liquidated by the donations of zealous and liberal 
 minded citizens: 
 
 Of the ultimate success of this scheme, the Trustees have not a 
 thread of doubt, and it now remains to be seen whether the people 
 
ROBERT B. SWAIN. 617 
 
 of this city will at once second tlieir efforts; whether the people of 
 tliis city are alive to the necessity of a literar}^ centre like this, which 
 is destined to work a silent but potent influence ujion the morals 
 cf the community and the futui-e prosperity' of the State; whether 
 the fathers and mothers who have sons ripening- to manhood, and to 
 whom membership in this Association may be a matter of vital con- 
 sequence, are anxious that their talents and energies be not wasted 
 on selfish and ignoble objects; whether they prefer for their sons 
 the reading-room to the race-course — the sure delight of books to the 
 uncertainties of the gaming table — literary pleasure to licentious in- 
 dulgence — and the cultivation of a refined and ennobling taste to 
 mere sensuous weakness and fashionable frivolity. 
 
 Afterwards, wlien the Mercantile Library was threat- 
 ened with extinction by reason of a crushing indebted- 
 ness, this appeal presented itself with renewed force. In 
 the efforts to rescue the institution from its financial dif- 
 ficulties, ^Ir. Swain, who was still its President, took 
 an active part, devoting valuable time to the subject, and 
 originating numerous practical suggestions to that end. 
 
 In New York he had been an intimate friend and 
 parishioner of the Rev. Dr. Bellows, and joining the 
 First Unitarian Church on his arrival at San Francisco, 
 he at once became influential as an executive member, 
 and was soon after elected President of the Board of 
 Trustees, an office which he continued to hold for ten 
 years. While he was filling this position, it became 
 necessary in 1859 to select a new pastor for the Society. 
 Mr. Swain at once placed himself in communication with 
 the Rev. T. Starr King, then in pastoral charge of the 
 Hollis street church in Boston, the result of which was 
 that Mr. King consented to transfer his labors and in- 
 fluence to the Pacific coast. A portion of this corre- 
 spondence appears in an address delivered by Mr. Swain 
 before the Society in 1864, and published by request. It 
 forms a most interesting chapter in the life of the eminent 
 divine, a few days after whose death, and in whose mem- 
 ory it was delivered; and in its style and matter, the 
 afiecting and beautiful tribute is highly creditable to the 
 oratorical powers, as well as the liberal Christian spirit 
 of Mr. Swain. In the spring of 1860, Mr. King arrived, 
 and from that time until March, 1864, the date of his 
 decease, he found in Mr. Swain his wisest and closest ad- 
 
618 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 viser and friend. Indeed, from the time of his landing 
 in San Francisco, the two were ahnost inseparable, and 
 this intimate companionship may be said to have imbued 
 our subject with his highest aspirations and worthiest 
 aims in life. The sketch of that great man elsewhere in 
 these pages, renders unnecessary any further allusion to 
 this particular point. Truly fortunate was the advent of 
 Mr. King in San Francisco, not only for the church which 
 he raised out of bankruptcy by the magic of his genius, 
 but for the State and the country ; for to the splendor of 
 his eloquience is largely owing the sentiment which saved 
 California from the vortex of secession and the horrors 
 of civil war. Since his arrival in California, Mr. Swain 
 has seen the affairs of the Unitarian Society changed from 
 the most deplorable financial aspect to one of flourishing 
 prosperity — a result traceable in no small degree to his 
 own prudent management and unwearied efforts. About 
 the time of his retiring from the Presidency of the Board 
 of Trustees, the pews rented for a premium of $24,750 
 above the annual assessments, amounting to $12,000; 
 enabling the society to wipe out entirely the debt of the 
 church, which had lingered along from the time the new 
 edifice had received the shock of its illustrious builder's 
 decease two months after it was consecrated. Mr. Swain 
 resigned only when the society was free from debt. 
 
 Although frequently solicited to serve in a public 
 capacity, having been several times applied to by nomi- 
 nating conventions to become a candidate for Senate and 
 Assembly, he invariably refused. While claiming to be 
 an ardent and original Republican, he shrunk from con- 
 tact with the coarser machinery of politics, preferring the 
 dignity of his own calling as a merchant and his books, 
 to active participation for personal ends in a political 
 canvass. Early in 1863, he was appointed, without solici- 
 tation, and as we believe without his knowledge. Superin- 
 tendent of the United States Branch Mint at San Fran- 
 cisco- Following the rule that had invariably guided him 
 hitherto, he hesitated before accepting, but finally yielded 
 at the request of many citizens and all the officers of the 
 Mint. The complimentary manner in which the office 
 
ROBERT B. SWAIN. 619 
 
 was tendered by President Lincoln, would scarcely have 
 justified a refusal. 
 
 The office upon which Mr. Swain now entered has of 
 late years come to- be regarded as more strongly identified 
 with the interests of California than any other in the gift 
 of the Federal Government. It has been a reliable bank 
 of deposit for the miner, with a capital of thousands of 
 millions behind it for security, and to some extent the 
 regulator of finance on the Pacific coast. The position 
 was no sinecure. The Mint is a hard-working mill, with 
 the glare and heat of a chemist's laboratory. It has never 
 been a stepping-stone to political preferment; it has never 
 been a school for Senators or Congressmen. It requires 
 skilled labor and scientific attainment. The amount of 
 work done within its walls may be imagined from the fact 
 that since its creation in 1854 not far from three hundred 
 millions of dollars, or more than half the sum coined 
 by the Philadelphia Mint since 1793, has been struck from 
 its presses. Mr. Swain's management of the vast funds 
 placed in his charge, merits a much more lengthy and 
 detailed description than can be here devoted to the sub- 
 ject. In the manipulation of the precious metals, the 
 Government supposes that there will be a considerable 
 natural loss or wastage, and accordingly a large allowance 
 is given by law to the officers of the Mint for that purpose. 
 Although in some years, under a previous administration, 
 this allowance had not only been exhausted but largel}^ 
 exceeded, under that of Mr. Swain the loss in no year 
 was ever more than a few hundred dollars, showing the 
 nation an instance in which a great public trust was 
 conducted as honestly and thoroughly as any private 
 business. It has been said of Mr. Swain, that '' he has 
 succeeded in accomplishing what few men ever accomplish 
 — administering a department of the government service 
 so as to disarm party animosity, and leave no place for 
 criticism to hang a complaint upon." In assuming control, 
 he resolved to be uninfluenced by cliques, combinations, 
 or parties. Of course, tremendous pressure was brought 
 to bear for places, but office brokers and office hunters 
 soon learned that the new Superintendent could not be 
 
620 EEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 used as a tool. While demanding that the employes 
 should be unconditionally loyal to the Government, in- 
 tegrity, capacity, and faithfulness, were the chief requis- 
 ites. The Mint was a branch of the Government espe- 
 cially requiring the public confidence, and he steadily 
 refused to permit it to be prostituted to political ends ; 
 and this course met the entire approval of Mr. Lincoln 
 and of several Secretaries of the Treasury. The re- 
 markable success of Mr. Swain in the discharge of his 
 duties for six years, we think, may in a great measure be 
 attributed to this polic}^ 
 
 After holding the position for about two years, con- 
 sulting rather his own tastes and inclinations than the 
 notoriety of public station, he tendered his resignation 
 of the Superintendency. It may be that this course 
 partly grew out of an honest indignation in his own 
 breast at the persistent misrepresentations by persons 
 anxious to supplant him, to meet which Mr. Swain, with 
 becoming dignity and conscious rectitude, would not 
 descend to a contradiction. The letter was sent without 
 the knowledge of his many friends and the public gen- 
 erally. His popularity and the estimation in which his 
 services were held is shown by the fact that as soon as it 
 became known that his resignation was in the hands of 
 the Department at Washington, a paper, signed by all 
 the bankers and many of the leading merchants of San 
 Francisco, was presented to him, requesting that he 
 withdraw the document, and a dispatch from the same 
 gentlemen in reference to the matter was also sent to 
 Secretary McCulloch. By a singular coincidence, this 
 dispatch was crossed on the wires by one from the Sec- 
 retary himself preferring the same request to Mr. Swain. 
 Thus urged, he consented to retain his place at the head 
 of the Mint, which he continued to hold until the sum- 
 mer of 1869 — his administratien of its affairs compelling 
 the unqualified endorsement of the Department, while 
 the character and unimpeachable integrity of the Super- 
 intendent was made the theme for special encomium on 
 the floors of Congress. 
 
 In 1865, Mr. Swain was one of the founders, in con- 
 
EGBERT B. SWAIN. 621 
 
 junction with other philanthropic gentlemen, of the San 
 Francisco Benevolent Association, which patterns after a 
 like society in New York known as the ''Association for 
 Improving the Condition of the Poor." Of this institu- 
 tion Mr. Swain has been the President from the date of 
 its organization. At its first anniversary meeting in 
 May, 1866, in an address to the members, he gave a 
 graphic statement of the scope of the Society's useful- 
 ness and charities during the year then just ended. Mr. 
 Swain said: 
 
 It is not permitted to the trustees to relate in detail the facts that 
 have been gathered bearing on the extent and natui'e of indigence 
 and suffering in our city, because a proper regard for the peculiar 
 sensitiveness of the poor has imposed upon them the obligation of 
 secrecy. But if I could di^oilge a tithe of the information which 
 we have gained — if I could tell of the poverty and despair that is 
 nurtured in our very midst — of the squalid destitution prevailing here 
 — which exists not a stone's throw from the abodes of wealth and 
 splendor — if I could make known to the generous-minded people of 
 this city how, through the gentle beneficence of this society, which 
 is but the wise concentration of the individual charities of the mem- 
 bers, anguish has been assuaged, bleeding hearts cured, widowed 
 mothers assisted to the necessaries of life, hungry little children fed, 
 and their delicate, naked bodies clothed against the wet and cold; 
 if I could relate a small portion of the tales of wretchedness and 
 woe that have been whispered into the ears of the officers — tales of 
 disappointed ambition, buried hopes and expectations, blasted for- 
 tunes, unexpected penury and discouraged hearts; and if I could 
 paint a picture of the army of houseless, homeless, hungiy, shiver- 
 ing, dejected, sorrow-stricken people whose sufferings they have re- 
 lieved, and some of whom have been raised from the slough of des- 
 pond beyond the necessity of further aid — if I could present such 
 pictures as these to the full gaze of a kind, indulgent public — pictures 
 w^hich have had their reality in the experience of this Association — I 
 am sure that parents who remembered their children, men who have 
 wives, women who have husbands upon whom, perhaps in this 
 capricious age, fortune may one day frown — I am sure that such 
 would never allow this Society to w^ant for funds. For its scope is 
 broad and cathohc. It extends the hand of charity to all. It is no 
 resjDecter of persons, color or race. Whether the applicant be Jew 
 or Gentile, Greek or Roman, American or foreign, black or white, 
 young or old, Protestant or Catholic — whatever the sex, whatever 
 the sect, whatever the skin, so long as it is a being bearing the 
 impress of humanity and made in the image of God, the case re- 
 ceives immediate attention according to its nature and exigency. 
 Nor does it supersede existing charities, but it cooperates with them, 
 and so far as is practicable, makes them the more available to those 
 
G22 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 for whom tliey are designed. The work which it performs is various. 
 Some are furnished with food, some with fuel, some with, clothing. 
 Some are assisted in the payment of rents, who would otherwise with 
 their children be turned houseless into the streets. Some are as- 
 sisted to employment; some furnished with the means to reach 
 distant relations, who will care for them; and in one instance, to 
 illustrate the scope and breadth and comprehensiveness of this 
 Society, a beneficiary — a very excellent woman — was provided with 
 a worthy husband, with whom she is now living happily. 
 
 To many public charities during the last ten years^ 
 Mr. Swain has been a contributor, and. of several to this 
 day an active working member, devoting time, money, 
 and labor to alleviating the necessities of his fellow- 
 creatures. At the Southern Relief Meeting held in 
 April, 1867, in San Francisco, he was one of the officers, 
 and took a prominent part by word and action in for- 
 warding the object of the assemblage; during the war, 
 he was an indefatigable member of the Sanitary Commit- 
 tee ; for many years he has been Secretary of the Board 
 of Trustees of the Ladies' Protection and Relief Society ; 
 is Treasurer of the San Francisco Lying-in Asylum and 
 Foundling Hospital, and an officer in several other chari- 
 table institutions that need not be mentioned. In the 
 debates and proceedings of the San Francisco Chamber 
 of Commerce, Mr. Swain has been a constant participant 
 for many years, and from its earliest days has been Vice 
 President or a Trustee of the institution. The records 
 are replete with the results of his practical suggestions 
 on commercial subjects. His especial pride in life is his 
 mercantile education. At the opening of the new Mer- 
 chants' Exchange in July, 1867, being introduced in his 
 official capacity of Superintendent of the Mint, he said 
 in the course of a speech of considerable length : 
 
 But I am not overpleased, Mr. President, with the association into 
 which you have brought me. It is not as a public officer that I 
 desire to be known. Creditable as it may appear to enjoy the con- 
 fidence of the people and the Government, I regard the vocation of 
 the merchant in the broadest and the most comprehensive acceptation 
 of that word as the most important of all. In the one case, the 
 accident of position or office may give a factitious importance to the 
 individual, to which he may not be entitled. But in the case of the 
 merchant, his influence, his power, his importance, are not reflected, 
 are not derived, are not uncertain. They spring out of the depths 
 
ROBERT B. SWAIN. 623 
 
 of his own nature, and no external surroundings can raise him to a 
 place higher than that to which his own genius may lift him. I 
 claim to rank as a merchant; as a merchant I believe I hold a public 
 office. I dCtsire no prouder honor than to hold humble rank with 
 men v/ho have so distinguished their class. I regard honorable 
 distinction as a merchant as infinitely more valuable than I do the 
 highest glory that can come from any office in the gift of people or 
 President. "Whose name stands higher in the catalogue of merchants, 
 higher in the roll of fame, higher in the annals of history; than that 
 of George Peabody? What office in the gift of Prince, Potentate, or 
 President, can confer such distinction as has been earned by this 
 simple, unpretending merchant and banker? Indeed, does not his 
 name shine out more glowingly than that of any Prince or President 
 himself? And this, not because he has become possessed of huge 
 wealth, but because his mind has been disciplined while accumu- 
 lating that wealth, to a correct knowledge of the uses to which it 
 should be applied, v/hich so few understand. Such men, too, were 
 Robert B. Minturn, Jonathan Goodhue, and Peter Cooper, now 
 living, and a host of others. 
 
 Mr. Swain not only possesses the faculty of express- 
 ing himself readily and neatly on public occasions, but 
 he is also peculiarly happy in the composition of ad- 
 dresses, while his pen has frequently been engaged in 
 contributions to the press, both by editorials and com- 
 munications, on a variety of subjects, but usually in the 
 discussion of topics of pressing public interest. His style 
 is compact and logical, and when occasion seems to re- 
 quire it, men and measures are handled with a force and 
 directness that leaves nothing to be inferred. 
 
 In retiring from the responsibilities and cares of 
 office, he gladly resumed his place as a private citizen, 
 enabling him to pursue his regular mercantile business, 
 which, however, he had never abandoned during his super- 
 intendency of the Mint. The office came to him unsought, 
 and he left it without regret, satisfied to know that the 
 department over which he had presided for so many years, 
 continually enjoyed the confidence of the people and of 
 the Grovernment, that in the discharge of his duty he 
 established many valuable precedents which no successor 
 can set aside, and that during his official career not a 
 word was whispered even among his political enemies 
 against the upright management of an institution which 
 sends forth two-thirds of the coinage of the country. 
 
624 REPRESENTATIVE 5IEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Notwithstanding that he has figured conspicuously as a 
 man of affairs — as a public man — those who know him 
 intimately are aware that he does not court prominence 
 or notoriety — has no ambition to be a leader. If he has 
 taken a leading part in public matters, it was with the 
 consciousness that duty demanded the consecration of 
 time and influence to useful objects, and the building up 
 of a purer and more elevated tone of society, while his 
 own impulses leaned to the studious seclusion of his lib- 
 rary or the quiet of his legitimate calling. Together 
 with a strict fidelity to every engagement, and unclouded 
 clearness and accuracy in business, he has a cheerful, 
 elastic, ingenuous manner that invites confidence, and is 
 in keeping with a kindly, sympathetic nature. Still in 
 the prime of life, Mr. Swain has been fortunate in retain- 
 ing, through many years, all his valuable early friendships, 
 while the range of his commercial connections has widely 
 extended on both sides of the continent. 
 
FREDERICK F. LOW. 
 
 J3y y/'lLLIAM y. )VeLLS. 
 
 THE appointment of Governor Low as United States 
 Minister to China, while regarded as a titting recog- 
 nition of his services in the several honorable stations he 
 has occupied under the Federal and State Governments, 
 was particularly pleasing to Californians — not only his 
 intimate friends, but the community at large. The in- 
 creasing importance of California, and its position rela- 
 tively to China, seem especially to designate that State 
 as a point from which to select envoys to the Asiatic 
 countries bordering on the Pacific; a policy, however, 
 which has too often been overlooked by administrations 
 previous to that of President Grant. But Mr. Low, al- 
 though a Calif ornian proper, made so by twenty years' 
 residence in the land of gold, has a reputation somewhat 
 national in character, having filled the offices of Collector 
 of the Port of San Francisco and Member of Congress, 
 both during periods of great public agitation, and when 
 abilities of no ordinary kind were demanded; and the 
 same may be said of his term as Governor of California. 
 He is not only a representative Californian, but a repre- 
 sentative American, and is endowed with those qualities 
 of mind which eminently fit him for a leading foreign 
 mission. In view of the international questions incident 
 to our proximity to the vast populations across the Pacific, 
 the Chinese Mission rises to the first importance. Our 
 40 
 
G26 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 representative to that ancient Government is liable to 
 have submitted to his judgment, subjects involving com- 
 mercial and maritime issues of incalculable weight. A 
 third of the human race live opposite to us; and these 
 nervously active and imitative people are brought by the 
 modern appliances of steam travel nearer to the factories 
 of the North and the cotton fields of the South than 
 England was forty years ago, when European labor 
 reached America by sailing craft, sometimes occupying 
 six weeks in crossing the Atlantic. The natural anxiety 
 which all feel who are interested in our relations with 
 China was relieved u]3on the announcement of the name 
 of the new Minister, from whose good sense, tact, and 
 experience, much was to be expected. 
 
 Mr. Low was born in 1828, in the State of Maine,, 
 where his ancestors were among the earliest settlers. 
 After completing an academical education, he engaged in 
 mercantile pursuits in Boston, whence he came to Cali- 
 fornia in 1849, arriving in San Francisco in the height 
 of the gold excitement on the first trip of the steamship 
 Panama^ in June of that year. Continuing business as 
 a merchant in San Francisco until 1854, he went to 
 Marysville in the following year, where he established a 
 banking house, and was widely known as a prosperous 
 banker. In 1861, he was elected to the thirty-seventh 
 Congress, and repairing to Washington took an active 
 part in the vital issues then convulsing the nation. The 
 civil war had broken out, and during the whole of his 
 Congressional term every hour was big with events in 
 which the national existence was at stake between con- 
 tendmg armies. The record of Mr. Low finds him ever 
 prompt, energetic, and uncompromising in his devotion 
 to the cause of the Union. The limits of our sketch will 
 not admit of more than this condensed allusion to his 
 course at that time, familiar as it is to the general reader 
 for its unshaken patriotism. In counsel with statesmen 
 of veteran experience, his clearness of discernment and 
 fertility of resource were ever apparent in times of emer- 
 gency. At the expiration of his term in the spring of 
 1863, he was appointed by President Lincoln Collector 
 
FREDERICK F. LOW. 627 
 
 of the Port of San Francisco, succeeding Ira P. Rankin; 
 and here, as in the halls of Congress, he showed an apt- 
 itude for business, and a quick comprehension of intricate 
 revenue questions, that commanded the respect of the 
 merchants with whom he came in contact. Soon after 
 assuming the office of Collector, he was elected Governor 
 of California, and entered upon his duties in December, 
 1863, serving the full term of four years, when, in 1867, 
 he returned to private life. 
 
 This, in brief, is the public career of Mr. Low. We 
 believe it will be universally conceded that w^e have in 
 no respect overestimated his services or abilities. During 
 the larger portion of his term as Governor the civil war 
 was raging, and his activity in holding California true to 
 the Union gave great satisfaction to the Government and 
 to the people of this coast. He devoted himself to the 
 finances of the State, and by his prudence, sagacity, and 
 business intelligence, cleared off the floating debt, amount- 
 ing to something like $1,000,000, and placed the State 
 Treasury on a cash basis. His administration was dis- 
 tinguished for unflinching opposition to all special and 
 local bills, and a determined enmity to such as were calcu- 
 lated to squander the funds of the State for the benefit 
 of individuals. His veto of several bills granting aid to 
 railroads, and for other similar schemes, gave him the un- 
 limited confidence of the people. His inaugural and 
 messages, terse, vigorous and practical, were generally ad- 
 mired as lucid expositions of the state of public affairs, 
 for the clear comprehension of which, his experience as 
 merchant, banker, and legislator had given him peculiar 
 advantages. He declined a renomination in 1867, which, 
 in the language of one of the leading journals of Cali- 
 fornia, was the mistake of his life, and a great mistake for 
 his party. The appointment of Minister to China was 
 tendered to him by President Grant without solicitation, 
 and his acceptance of that important and delicate mission 
 was more in deference to the wishes of the leading busi- 
 ness men of the Pacific coast than to his own inclination. 
 He has naturally given considerable attention to the various 
 difficult questions accompanying our increased intimacy 
 
628 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 with China — perhaps more than most men not directly 
 interested in them. His predecessors to China during the 
 last twenty-five years have been Caleb Cushing, Humphrey 
 Marshall, Mr. Parker, Robert McLane, William B. Reed, 
 Anson Burlingame, and J. Ross Browne. Mr. Low, albeit 
 he has done his State service in various responsible posi- 
 tions, is still a young man, and the future may yet be bur- 
 thened with his honors. 'Next to his clear-headed insight 
 into involved questions, and abilities as a negotiator, 
 perhaps the secret of his remarkable success in life may 
 be found in his amiability and urbanity, which are appre- 
 ciated by a wide circle of friends, and which draw men 
 towards him almost without an effort on his part. 
 
 As a public speaker, he exemplifies the unpretending 
 directness of his character, seldom aspiring to flights of 
 eloquence, always sensible and to the point, ready in 
 language and appropriate in style. At the dinner given 
 in San Francisco to commemorate the opening of the 
 line of steamers between that port and China, in January, 
 1867, Mr. Low, who presided on the occasion, concluded 
 as follows an eloquent speech on the relations of the 
 United States with China: 
 
 Until within a few years, China has been to us a sealed hook, 
 practically, and even now we are permitted to examine only the out- 
 side and the title-page; and it seems but yesterday that Commodore 
 Perry anchored his fleet in front of Japan, and gave the Tycoon the 
 option of opening his outside door, or having it battered down with 
 shells made of American iron. Who can foretell all the results of 
 intimate commercial relations with these countries during the next 
 ten, twenty, or fifty years? China, with an area of 5,000,000 square 
 miles, a coast line of 3,350 miles, and containing a pox^ulation of 
 410,000,000 people, or about one-third of the whole world, thrown 
 open to unrestricted intercourse with, and the indomitable energy 
 of the American people, what mutual advantages may not be expected 
 to flow from it? The ruling powers in China will learn that free 
 intercourse will be of advantage to them; that they can increase their 
 imports of merchandise with profit, and dispense with the large 
 amounts of precious metals which are annually received in payment 
 of exports, and hoarded. And while the Chinese are receiving th-ese 
 valuable lessons, may not our magnates in finance learn that the true 
 remedy for the unsettled state of our financial affairs is to be found 
 in securing a balance of foreign trade in favor of the United States, 
 rather than in acts of Congress making the selling of gold a mis- 
 demeanor? We must learn to treat the Chinese who come to live 
 
FREDERICK F. LOW. 629 
 
 among us decently, and not oppress them by unfriendly legislation, 
 nor allow them to be abused, robbed, and murdered, without extend- 
 ing to them any adequate remedy. I am a strong believer in the 
 strength of mind and muscle of the Anglo-Saxon race, which will 
 win in the contest for supremacy with any people, without the aid 
 of unequal and oppressive laws; and the man who is afraid to take 
 his chances on equal terms with his opponents is a coward, and un- 
 worthy the name of an American. Were I to sum up the whole 
 duty imposed upon us, I should say let us be honest, industrious, 
 and frugal; be persevering and progressive, and remember Raleigh's 
 maxim, that, "Whoever commands the sea commands the trade of 
 the world; and whoever commands the trade of the world commands 
 the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.'' 
 
flTiri?; -^Y 
 
 iZlv >J 
 
 ANTONIO MARIA PICO.* 
 
 THE little of romance that attaches to the name of 
 California is connected with the days prior to 
 American intrusion, when the scattered missions and 
 presidios held the aborigines in bodily and spiritual thrall, 
 and a few descendants of the heroes of the Spanish con- 
 quest lorded it over broad leagues of territory, and main- 
 tained an estate of patriarchal independence. Afterwards 
 came the coarse, brutal days of the gold-digger ; nor have 
 we in our history any other epoch to which we can look 
 back with something of that romantic feeling which clings 
 around the older days of chivalry in the lives of older 
 countries, except the epoch of the Spanish rule. One of 
 the few remaining lives which connected us, as by a pal- 
 pable link, with the past, was that of Antonio Maria 
 Pico. Like the Castros, Vallejos, and other familiar 
 Spanish names, that of Pico is united with the early 
 history of the Californias. Don Antonio Maria was born 
 at Monterey, California, in 1808, when our own nation had 
 barely attained its majority, while our revolutionary 
 fathers still directed the career of the Republic ; when the 
 Regent held a brilliant court at St. James', and nearly 
 twenty years before the American colonies of Spain as- 
 serted their independence. Then the Californias were to 
 the world at large as much Urra incognita as the shores of 
 Tanganyika are to us to-day. Their very name savored 
 of the age of fable. It seems now almost wonderful that 
 
 ** For explanatory note, see Preface. 
 
632 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the changes of these sixty years — the growth of one great 
 nation from feeble infancy to vigorous maturity, the 
 decadence of others, the overthrow of monarchies, the ex- 
 tinction of dynasties — should have transpired within the 
 span of one human life ; and yet they were all crowded 
 within the experience and ken of Sefior Pico. The same 
 thought might be expressed upon the death of any man 
 of equal age, but they are not so naturally suggested as 
 in the case of this old Californian, whose own youth 
 reaching back to the romantic period of our history, 
 naturally connects itself with the contemporaneous scenes 
 which have been enacting in the world's greater drama. 
 
 When but sixteen years of age, Pico was called from 
 his home at Monterey to San Juan Capistrano, by Padre 
 Ramon, to take charge of the books and business of that 
 Mission. He afterwards removed to San Jose, where he 
 held for many years the office of Alcalde; while dis- 
 charging the duties of that position, he induced the 
 people of San Jose to commence the erection of the old 
 Mission Church. 
 
 He was residing at that place, and in the prime of life, 
 holding office under the Mexican Government, when the 
 Americans under Fremont broke over the mountains and 
 on to the plains of California, and the Federal Navy scoured 
 the coast and seized the ports of California. Pico was a 
 Colonel in the Mexican service, but was unable, with the 
 means at his disposal, and the equipments at his command, 
 to successfully oppose the progress of the American troops. 
 The Mexican forces retreated towards Los Angeles, and soon 
 afterwards the war in California was closed by capitulation 
 and a surrender to the United States. Col. Pico soon 
 came to appreciate the heroic qualities of the American 
 soldiers, and formed that strong attachment for Gen. 
 Fremont which he ever afterwards manifested. 
 
 Upon the calling of the Convention at Monterey to 
 form the Constitution of California, in 1849, Col Pico was 
 elected a delegate from Santa Clara county, and took his 
 seat in that body, and was a useful member in its delibera- 
 tions: was appointed Prefect by Gov. Burnett, and in 1850 
 was elected a member of the General Assembly from 
 
ANTONIO MARIA PICO. 633 
 
 Santa Clara county. In 1856, upon the organization of 
 the Republican party, and the nomination of Col. Fremont 
 for the Presidency, Col. Pico united with that party, and 
 did much to secure the California Spanish vote to the 
 support of the Republican ticket. On the hrst nomina- 
 tion of Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency, the California 
 Republican State Convention selected Col. Pico as one 
 of the Republican candidates for Presidential Elector, to 
 which office he was chosen by the people at the sub- 
 sequent election. Mr. Lincoln, after entering upon the 
 duties of his office, appointed Mr. Pico Receiver of publie 
 moneys at the land office in Los Angeles; but as the 
 duties of the office required him to be much absent from 
 his family, he soon resigned it. 
 
 Col. Pico died at his residence at San Jose on Sunday 
 morning. May 23d, 1869. Four months thereafter, his 
 mother died at Castroville — having attained the great age 
 of ninety-eight years. The old lady left more than a 
 hundred descendants and probably a thousand relatives to 
 mourn her death. 
 
 Like so many of the race to which he belonged, Senor 
 Pico was physically an extremely handsome man. Of 
 commanding presence and courtly address, he impressed 
 the stranger as one of the finest samples of that noble 
 Spanish type which is yearly becoming more rare. LTpon 
 the more intimate acquaintance which was enjoyed with 
 his generous hospitalities, one was impressed by the 
 goodness of heart, simplicity of character, fine sense of 
 honor, and that sweetness of disposition which is the per- 
 fection of manliness, rather than by the dignity of exterior 
 which first commanded attention. These very virtues and 
 excellences in Sefior Pico contributed to cast a shadow 
 over the closing years of his life. In the early American 
 days, by abuse of his confidence and betrayal of his 
 trustfulness, he was stripped of his princely possessions, 
 and was subjected thereafter to feel the mortifications and 
 bitterness of one who had been despoiled through the 
 means of all which he knew to be best and noblest in his 
 being. He held aloof, as far as his strong human feelings 
 and nature would permit, from Americans, to whom his 
 
684 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 misfortunes were due, never learning their language nor 
 associating upon a basis of intimacy save with a proved 
 and chosen few. Although he opposed them patriotically 
 upon their invasion of his country, he was one of the first 
 of prominent and influential Californians to come forward, 
 upon the conclusion of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 
 to accommodate himself and those of his countrymen who 
 looked to him for example and counsel, to the new order 
 of things. It is believed that his many troubles aggra- 
 vated the heart disease to which he finally succumbed. 
 He left a reputation unsullied, a name which has been 
 honored in his life, a wide circle of deeply attached 
 friends, nor — as we believe — -an enemy on the face of the 
 .earth. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS STEWART. 
 
 MR. Stewart was born in the State of New York, in 
 the year 1827. He is the oldest son of a numerous 
 family of brothers and sisters. His parents are native- 
 born Americans, of remote English or Scotch ancestry. 
 During the War of 1812, his father enlisted as a volun- 
 teer from the State of New York, serving during a por- 
 tion of the war, and until honorably discharged. He is 
 now a pensioner of the government, and in the enjoy- 
 ment of faculties still unimpaired by the ravages of time. 
 
 In early youth, Mr. Stewart worked upon his father's 
 farm, his ordinary avocations and every-day life being 
 little different from that of other boys under similar cir- 
 cumstances. An ardent desire for the acquisition of 
 knowledge was one of his leading characteristics, and for 
 the accomplishment of this end, all his spare time was 
 employed in the study of such books as could be pro- 
 cured in the neighborhood of his home. 
 
 After passing through the usual routine of work and 
 study, (at a time when public schools were neither so 
 numerous or so thorough as now) Mr. Stewart, by com- 
 bining his own earnings with judicious pecuniary assist- 
 ance furnished by friends who took an interest in his 
 progress, was enabled to enter Yale College as a regular 
 student. At this seat of learning he remained for about 
 three years, managing in that time, by close study, to 
 master a course which generally occupied a longer period. 
 Mathematics was his favorite pursuit, and in this branch 
 he acquired such extraordinarv -i-ofi-^/r^ncy that his assist- 
 
636 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIPIC. 
 
 ance was required in the preparation of a mathematical 
 work upon which one of the professors was at that time 
 employed. His Alma Mater afterwards conferred upon 
 him an honorary degree, in recognition of his early dili- 
 gence and subsequent eminence. 
 
 When Mr. Stewart left Yale College, the excitement 
 concerning gold discoveries in California was at its height, 
 and he caught the contagion. After making a few neces- 
 sary preparations, he started for California in 1849, ar- 
 riving at San Francisco in that year, in time to take an 
 active part in those measures which prepared the way for 
 an admission to the Union. Mining was then the occu- 
 pation to which a large part of the population were de- 
 voted, and in a short time Mr. Stewart found himself at 
 work in the mines. He followed this pursuit for some 
 years. Then, having determined to study law, he made 
 application to Hon. John R. McConnell, then in the full 
 tide of a lucrative practice at Nevada City, Cal. The 
 enthusiasm and zeal of the young man was a sufficient 
 earnest of that unflinching energy and close application 
 so essential to the successful prosecution of legal studies. 
 His personal appearance at the time of this application 
 was anything but prepossessing: he was attired in buck- 
 skin pants, heavy boots, slouch hat, and such other gar- 
 ments as generally completed a miner's costume; but this 
 rough exterior could not conceal that native hue of reso- 
 lution which animated his whole appearance. Arrange- 
 ments, satisfactory both to pupil and preceptor, were 
 made, and preparations for the bar were commenced im- 
 mediately. These were carried on with characteristic 
 perseverance for the space of three months, at the end 
 of which time he applied for admission, was subjected to 
 a rigorous and searching examination, was declared to be 
 qualified, and a license to practice granted forthwith. 
 Shortly after becoming a full-fledged attorney, he was 
 elected a Justice of the Peace, and discharged the duties 
 of the office without '' fear, favor, or affection." Though 
 the questions that came before this petty tribunal were 
 generally unimportant, they were always decided on 
 principle; and the correctness of these decisions is evi- 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS STEWART. 637 
 
 denced from the fact that they were rarely reversed on 
 appeal. 
 
 After serving one term as a Justice, the ambition for 
 more exalted fields of labor, together with an aptitude 
 for business w^iich had already been exhibited, led to 
 the formation of a partnership between Mr. kjtewart and 
 his old preceptor. During a portion of the time which 
 this partnership lasted, Mr. McConnell held the office of 
 Attorney General of the State, and being at one time 
 compelled to be absent, he selected his partner to fill his 
 place until his return. 
 
 For the successful conduct of important criminal 
 cases before the highest judicial tribunal of the State, 
 and for the preparation of sound legal opinions upon 
 mooted constitutional questions, no mean order of ability 
 is required. It is therefore no small tribute to say that 
 he performed his duties in a manner such as to meet 
 with the universal approval of the people, and to add in- 
 creased lustre to a rapidly advancing reputation. At 
 about this time, Mr. Stewart was married to the third 
 daughter of Gov. Henry S. Foote, of Mississippi, and 
 shortly after this event the partnership between Mr. 
 McConnell and himself was dissolved by regular limita- 
 tion of time. 
 
 Mr. Stewart then commenced to practice for himself. 
 That there is always room at the top of the ladder of 
 fame, however much its approaches may be crowded^ was 
 with him an appreciated maxim, and it is no matter 
 of wonderment that we see him disputing the place for 
 precedence with older and more experienced practition- 
 ers. Force of will, celerity of action, indomitable per- 
 severance, strict integrity, and a restless energy that 
 could never be quieted, are qualities which Mr. Stewart 
 possessed, and it was these attributes which enabled him 
 to take a high place at the bar, even at the very outset 
 of his career — a place which he always maintained, never 
 losing an inch of ground once gained, but steadily push- 
 ing forward towards the very front ranks of the profes- 
 sion. At this time business was becoming somewhat 
 stagnant at Nevada City; many important mining suits 
 
638 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 had been settled ; and but few real estate cases of any 
 magnitude were likely to arise in a country where titles 
 were unclouded and local resources were but beginning 
 to be developed. Hence a better location was to be 
 found, and Downieville, Sierra county, was the chosen 
 place. A removal was accordingly efiected in the year 
 1857. 
 
 Here, among comparative strangers, the struggle for 
 professional advancement and its unfailing emoluments 
 was renewed with unabated vigor. Immediate employ- 
 ment on one side or the other of every important case, 
 a high reputation for professional skill, and a leading 
 position at what was then a very able bar, are indicative 
 of his standing at this time; but Downieville soon shared 
 the fate of other mining towns, and settled down from a 
 state of undue excitement to a condition of comparative 
 quietude : it was no longer the place for an active, enter- 
 prising, and rising young man. 
 
 Fortunately at this juncture (1859) the discovery of 
 extensive silver mines at Washoe afforded just the op- 
 portunity for a man of Stewart's composition to reap 
 riches and renown in an almost incredibly short space of 
 time. It did not take long to decide so vital a question, 
 and a second removal was effected with commendable 
 promptitude. This move was made just in time to meet 
 the flood of immigration which shortly after began to 
 flow towards the region hitherto regarded as a mere 
 barren waste, but now believed to teem with exhaustless 
 mineral wealth. From the confusion which ensued, 
 sprung endless litigation. Disputed boundaries, priority 
 of locations, non-compliance with legal forms, the mutual 
 rights of holders of adjacent claims — these and kindred 
 questions were the fruitful parents of numberless law- 
 suits. This was just the location for a man possessed of 
 great fertility of resources and willing to encounter any 
 obstacles, which were generally surmounted by the per- 
 tinacity with which they were met. Here was a battle- 
 field where new and untried expedients were more likely 
 to eventuate in success than a strict compliance with 
 long established precedents ; where celerity of movement 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS STEWART. 639 
 
 was of more effect than regular approaches ; where ^^Tapo- 
 leonic genius falsified all military maxims. There were 
 few precedents for information of lawyers or the guidance 
 of the bench. Some of the questions which arose were 
 novel, and many of them very intricate. Some had never 
 before arisen, and others had been passed over without 
 definite decision. There was no reasoning upon such 
 cases from analogy: they must be decided each upon its 
 own individual merits and the circumstances under which 
 it arose. Difference of situation led to conflicting de- 
 cisions. From chaos must be educed a system of order; 
 from a confused mass of decisions, evidence, and opinions, 
 must be formed a steady and unvarying rule of law. 
 
 It is no flattery to Mr. Stewart, still less is it an in- 
 justice to his compeers, to say that he contributed as 
 much towards this result — towards forming a correct 
 system of jurisprudence for the State of Nevada — as any 
 one lawyer within the borders of the State. An ex- 
 tensive practice necessarily made him acquainted with all 
 important points which arose. The '' one ledge theory," 
 a mixture of law and geology, was a proposition ad- 
 vanced by him, and demonstrated in many instances. 
 
 Mr. Stewart never argued a case without preparation: 
 by conversing with witnesses, and a careful examination 
 of authorities, he made himself familiar with every issue 
 which could by possibility arise, so as never to be taken 
 at a disadvantage. An anecdote related by Dr. Merritt 
 of Oakland, in Mr. Stewart's presence, is illustrative of 
 his character. The Doctor was in Virginia City attend- 
 ing to some legal matters, and was recommended to con- 
 sult with Mr. Stewart before commencing suit. The 
 parties were introduced, whereupon Mr. Stewart said, 
 ''Well, Doctor, state your case." The Doctor then com- 
 menced, but had not proceeded far when he was inter- 
 rupted with the inquiry, ^' Have you a witness to prove 
 that fact ?" An affirmative answer, and the Doctor went 
 on with the statement, but was frequently interrupted 
 during the course of his narrative with the same inter- 
 rogatory. At length the conclusion was approaching, 
 when Dr. Merritt stated a fact upon the proof of which 
 
640 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 the whole case hinged, when Stewart again asked, "Have 
 you a witness to prove that fact?" "No." ^^ Then you 
 must go right out and get one!' This anecdote, although 
 probably overdrawn as to the mendacity of witnesses or 
 the readiness of lawyers to use perjured testimony, is yet 
 strikingly illustrative of tha-^etermination never to go 
 to trial \vith the risk of a surprise, and consequent dis- 
 comfiture. 
 
 When a case was ready for court it was conducted 
 towards its conclusion with the same assiduous zeal which 
 marked its preparation. Truth w^as drawn from the lips 
 of an unwilling or an interested witness, more by force 
 of will and an accurate knowledge of human nature, than 
 by subtle rules of logic or a confusing mode of examina- 
 tion. 
 
 As a forensic speaker, Mr. Stewart is a man of marked 
 ability. He argues a case closely, never leaving the main 
 point for the sake of saying a fine thing. His speeches, 
 considered merely as compositions, are not calculated to 
 impress one with the ability of the speaker. They are 
 clear, methodical, almost entirely devoid of ornament, 
 especially that of a meretricious character, but yet they 
 are forcible and convincing, addressed to the understand- 
 ing rather than to the imagination of his auditors. When 
 occasion requires a display of rhetorical skill or oratorical 
 powers, his speeches differ from a mere juridical argument. 
 In summing up his character as a lawyer, we may truthfully 
 say that he is an eminent one, especially in that depart- 
 ment — mininsr law — to which his attention has been most 
 closely directed. 
 
 At this period of his life (1860, '61, '62) he was 
 eminently successful. Business poured in upon him 
 to such an extent that he was frequently compelled 
 to refuse important suits. Up to this time, he had 
 taken but little part in politics, preferring the pursuit of 
 a practice which yielded an enormous revenue, and a 
 plenitude of renown. But a lawyer in esse is a politician 
 in posse; good lawyers generally expect to go to Congress ; 
 Stewart was no exception to the rule ; yet his transposition 
 from the bar to the Senate chamber was due as much to 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS STEWART. 641 
 
 the desire of the people to employ trained ability, as to 
 his own ambition for political preferment. 
 
 For the reasons before enumerated, he was elected one 
 of the Senators from J^evada, at the first meeting of the 
 Legislature for the ratification of the constitution, a posi- 
 tion to which he was reelected in 1869. That energy 
 and activity which wins for its possessor a place in the 
 front rank of advocates in a mining State, is duly ap- 
 preciated in Congress, where industry is a commodity 
 valued in proportion to its scarcity. 
 
 Prior to the war, and indeed ever since ^Ir. Stewart 
 attained his majority, he had been a Democrat, in full 
 affiliation with the leaders of the party, and an earnest 
 advocate of its leading doctrines. He voted for Breckin- 
 ridge in 1860. 
 
 After Mr. Lincoln's election, when all chances for a 
 peaceful settlement had vanished, and an adjustment of 
 sectional differences could only be effected through the 
 arbitrament of the sword, Mr. Stewart unhesitatingly 
 severed his connection with his old political associates, 
 and allied his fortunes wdth those who were for a vigor- 
 ous prosecution of the war. Nevada was admitted to 
 the Union during the days when the storm of war raged 
 fiercest; when the cries of those who sought for peace 
 were drowned in the general uproar for war, and it is not 
 strange, therefore, that she sent men whose "voices were 
 for war" to represent her in the national councils. Gov. 
 Nye and Mr. Stewart, both uncompromising LTnion men, 
 were elected at the first meeting, and were both retained 
 for a second term of office. 
 
 Since Senator Stewart's entrance into political life, his 
 course is known to the whole country. Before the con- 
 clusion of the war, there was but little opportunity for 
 a new-comer to display his abilities, as the plan of offensive 
 operations had been determined upon, and was undeviat- 
 ingly pursued. With the close of the contest, affairs were 
 changed, and an opportunity for distinction was open, such 
 as is seldom offered. A new system of tactics w^as to be 
 followed; the relations of the States had been suspended, 
 but not entirely dissolved ; to heal animosities engendered 
 41 
 
642 EEPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 by a long and bloody war; to reestablish the authority 
 of the general government, without unnecessary harshness 
 to the Southern States; to restore harmony and good 
 feeling between the two sections by the enactment of 
 enlightened laws ; to fix the political status of the emanci- 
 pated negroes; to temper justice with mercy, and angry 
 passions with a leaven of magnanimity, required qualities 
 which go far towards forming high-minded statesmanship. 
 At this conjuncture, Senator Stewart offered his " Uni- 
 versal Amnesty and Universal Suffrage" resolutions, which 
 he vigorously supported with his voice and vote. There 
 can be little question but that if those resolutions had 
 been adopted the vexed question would have been speedily 
 and definitely settled. The fate of these resolutions is 
 too well known to require comment. At this period, 
 Senator Stewart maintained close personal relations with 
 President Johnson, and gave an undivided support to the 
 leading measures of his administration. Unfortunately 
 for the whole country, a humane and magnanimous policy 
 did not prevail, and harsher measures were decided upon. 
 Senator Stewart was elected as a Republican at a time 
 when sectional hostility was at its height; but since his 
 entrance into the halls of Congress, had not advocated 
 extreme measures, and hence could not in strictness be 
 termed a ^^ Radical." But party lines were closely drawn, 
 and a choice must be made. Senator Stewart readily 
 gave his adherence to measures introduced by Repub- 
 licans, though they were somewhat in conflict with former 
 expressed opinions. This partial change of opinion arose 
 from two causes: a conviction of previous error, and a 
 belief that more extreme measures were necessary for 
 the salutary treatment of the reconstruction question. 
 He has since given his undivided support to those 
 Congressional enactments known as the ^^ Reconstruction 
 Acts," commencing with the '' Civil Rights Bill," and 
 ending, for the present, with the '' Fifteenth Amendment." 
 Of this latter document, upon which has been exhausted 
 the language of panegyric or invective, according to the 
 political tenets of the commentators, Senator Stewart 
 is, we believe, the author; and however much it may be 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS STEWART. 643 
 
 decried as a public measure, no one can fail to admire 
 the simplicity of a document which accomplishes, within 
 the compass of two lines, a purpose which has been ad- 
 vocated by able partizans ever since the formation of the 
 government. It is the concentrated essence of the doc- 
 trines of the original abolitionists and emancipationists. 
 
 Mr. Stewart, though before known as a moderate Ee- 
 publican, was an advocate of the impeachment of President 
 Johnson, and worked and voted with the thirty-five senators 
 who declared the President guilty as charged. He was 
 never classed as one of those whose vote was in the least 
 degree doubtful. He possessed the confidence of his as- 
 sociates, as is evidenced from the fact of his appointment 
 upon the ''Judiciary" and other important Congressional 
 committees. 
 
 But whilst devoting so much time to national affairs, 
 he has not neglected matters of moment to the people 
 of this coast. The Pacific railroad has at all times re- 
 ceived a large share of his attention, and he has con- 
 tributed every thing in his power to the completion of 
 an enterprise of so much importance to the people of this 
 section of the Union. Other lines of railroad have also 
 derived benefit from his efforts, for it is but recently that 
 he has contributed a large share of his time towards the 
 completion of a plan for a railroad through the San 
 Joaquin Valley. 
 
 Every measure having for its object the development 
 of the mining regions, lessening the hardship of the in- 
 habitants, or contributing to their greater security and 
 comfort, has met with his hearty support. The establish- 
 ment of complete postal facilities, those great civilizers, 
 has been an object of especial care. He was an early and 
 earnest advocate of Chinese immigration. 
 
 In Congress, Mr. Stewart is looked upon as an able 
 and efiicient member. His speeches are marked more by 
 force than fire: like his forensic efforts, they are almost 
 entirely devoid of ornament, reaching conclusions less 
 by artificial refinements of logic, than concise arrange- 
 ment, and simple brevity of statement. 
 
 In personal appearance, Senator Stewart is rather a 
 
644 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 striking looking personage : he is considerably over six 
 feet in height, and rather stout, without being inclined 
 to corpulency. He has light hair, a clear, blue eye, and 
 a long, flowing beard. He is just approaching middle 
 age, and in the full enjoyment of a vigorous manhood. 
 Socially, Mr. Stewart is pleasant and affable, without be- 
 ing familiar; dresses plainly, without ostentation or show, 
 holding himself aloof from no one, however humble his 
 condition may be. He has implicit confidence in those 
 by whom he is surrounded, and this trait has more than 
 once been the cause of unfriendly impositions. 
 
 Taking success as a criterion of merit — a generally 
 accepted rule — we can safely pronounce Senator Stewart 
 a great man. The writer of this hasty sketch is aware 
 of the fact that there is but a slight line of demarcation 
 between the office of a truthful biographer and that of a 
 mere servile adulator. Looking from the standpoint 
 of justice, however, and free from political or personal 
 bias, he has endeavored to do simple justice to a person- 
 age with whose public acts the people are already 
 familiar. 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER 
 
 pr p. f . p. 
 
 REV. Hugh P. Gallagher was born in the County Don- 
 egal, Ireland, in the year 1815. From his tender 
 years he manifested a desire to devote his life and ener- 
 gies to the sacred ministry. He was distinguished for 
 his assiduity and rapid advancement in English and 
 classical learning. When quite young he left his pater- 
 nal home with letters dimissory from his bishop, to seek 
 a new and wider field in which to labor in the cause of 
 religion. He landed in America in 1837, and immediate- 
 ly entered the Theological Seminary of St. Charles Bor- 
 romeo, in Philadelphia. Shortly afterwards, he w^as ap- 
 pointed Professor of the Latin and Greek languages in 
 that Seminary. 
 
 Whilst prosecuting his ecclesiastical studies in that 
 institution, he possessed advantages of which he did not 
 fail to profit. At that time. Most Rev. F. P. Kenrick, 
 the late Archbishop of Baltimore, whose literary fame is 
 not limited by the boundaries of our Continent, but holds 
 high place in every kingdom of Europe, was President 
 of the Seminary. His brother, the Most Rev. Peter R. 
 Kenrick, the present venerable and learned Archbishop 
 of St. Louis, was Rector of the Seminary. Rt. Rev. E. 
 Barron, afterwards Bishop of Liberia, in Africa, was Pro- 
 fessor of Moral Theology, and Rt. Rev. M. O'Connor, 
 the first Bishop of Pittsburg, Professor of Dogmatic The- 
 ology. These illustrious men, by their writings and mis- 
 sionary labors, have done much to place the Catholic 
 Church, in the United States, in its present elevated and 
 
646 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 dignified position. Under the instruction and influence 
 of such tutors, did our young Levite live and learn, dur- 
 ing his whole collegiate career, until he was elevated to 
 the priesthood in 1840. 
 
 From ihis date, Father Gallagher, as we shall now 
 call him, entered upon the duties of a Catholic Pastor. 
 He was appointed, for his first Mission, to the parish of 
 Pottsville, at that time one of the largest and most im- 
 portant congregations in the interior of Pennsylvania. 
 Here was a field wherein to exercise his zeal. This was 
 the centre of the great coal district of Eastern Pennsyl- 
 vania. Thousands and tens of thousands of operatives 
 had gathered there from every quarter of the globe. 
 Many of them were addicted to the frightful vice of in- 
 temperance, the prolific source of broils, fights, bloodshed 
 and murder. 
 
 Father Gallagher's compassionate heart was moved by 
 the misery and scandal produced by these excesses, and he 
 resolved to use his utmost efforts to stem this tide of 
 vice and immorality, which threatened to sweep over 
 the land, bringing ruin and desolation in its course. 
 With the skill and prudence of a more matured experi- 
 ence, he commenced a course of instructions on the vir- 
 tue of temperance. He spoke with such paternal affec- 
 tion and pleaded with such pathetic earnestness, that 
 more than five thousand hardy miners came forward and 
 pledged themselves to total abstinence from all intoxi- 
 cating drinks. The improved condition and regularity 
 of conduct of these teetotalers had a happy influence in 
 winning over many of the votaries of inebriety to enlist 
 under the temperance banner. 
 
 In the following year. Father Gallagher was appointed 
 to govern a parish in western Pennsylvania. Here also 
 his efforts in the cause of temperance were crowned with 
 success. His labors were of the most trying character, 
 as he was obliged to travel over a great extent of country 
 to visit the different congregations entrusted to his pas- 
 toral charge. One of a less robust constitution would 
 have succumbed under the incessant calls made on his 
 time, both by day and night. All Catholics, who are sick 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 647 
 
 and dying/ have a right to the services of the priest at 
 whatever hour he may be called. It was not an unfre- 
 quent occurrence with Father Gallagher, after being worn 
 down and exhausted with the arduous labors of Sunday, 
 celebrating the late Mass, preaching, teaching the cate- 
 chism, singing vespers, instructing the young and ignor- 
 ant, and in various other duties, to be called out in a 
 23itiless storm, to visit a dying person some fifteen or 
 twenty miles distant, and to make this journey not un- 
 frequently on a trackless road over snow-clad hills. 
 
 In 1844. Father Gallagher was called by his ecclesi- 
 astical superior to Pittsburg, to take charge of the The- 
 ological Seminary. His duties here were of no ordinary 
 kind, for he was not only the President of the Institution, 
 charged with its management and discipline, but occupied 
 different chairs of instruction, and at the same time had 
 care of a large parish. About this time, a concerted op- 
 position to the Catholic Church and to the rights of Cathol- 
 ics, citizens of the United States, was organized under 
 the name of the Native American Party. The Churh, her 
 institutions and her teachings, were maliciously misre- 
 presented, and Catholics were held up to the scorn and 
 contempt of their fellow-citizens throughout the land. 
 The press and the pulpit were equally fierce and imjust 
 in their attacks on Catholics. Pittsburg was without a 
 newspaper to defend the rights of Catholics, or to give an 
 honest and fair statement of the doctrines and discipline 
 of the Church. 
 
 Under these circumstances. Father Gallagher was 
 waited on by many prominent citizens, who earnestly so- 
 licited him to cooperate with them in establishing a pa- 
 per devoted to the exposition of the real doctrines of the 
 Catholic Church, and to its vindication from the multi- 
 plied slanders and calumnies of a misguided press. . The 
 financial part of the undertaking they promised to attend 
 to, provided Father Gallagher would undertake the edi- 
 torial department. Weighed down, as he was, by his nu- 
 merous occupations, he might well have refused this new 
 burden ; but not so : the interests of the Church, of his 
 fellow- Catholics, and the enlightenment of his fellow-cit- 
 
648 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 izens generally, demanded his aid, and he would not, even 
 if he could, resist their imperative appeal. The Pittsburg 
 Catholic was then established, and, under the editorial 
 management of Father Gallagher, attained an enviable 
 reputation. Its influence was soon felt. The fires of re- 
 ligious intolerance were subdued, the voice of calumny 
 silenced, the bitterness of fanaticism mitigated, and men 
 blushed for the ignorance by which they were impelled 
 to acts of violence and injustice. Peace and good will 
 succeeded to strife and hatred. These happy results 
 were due, in a great measure, to the course which Father 
 Gallagher adopted. The editorials of the " Catholic'' were 
 plain, clear, outspoken expositions of doctrine, whilst the 
 answers to assailants were the embodiment of Christian 
 charity, pitying rather than censuring, the deluded spirit 
 which aniiliated them. The demon of discord and re- 
 ligious animosity disappeared, we hope never again to 
 visit our land, fanning the flames of burning churches, 
 asylums, or convents. 
 
 This great task being accomplished, Father Gallagher 
 was called on by his bishop to complete the work com- 
 menced by the Reverend and illustrious Prince Gallitzen, 
 in Loretto. Prince Gallitzen belonged to the noble house 
 of Gallitzen, in Russia. Honors, position and fame 
 awaited him, had he remained in the Greek Church; but 
 this his conscience forbade : for after examining all the 
 arguments, pro and cow, and devoutly and perseveringly 
 imploring the assistance of Divine light, he was convinced 
 that the Roman Catholic Church was the only Church 
 which had claims to Divine origin. He, therefore, re- 
 nounced honors, country and home, to become an hum- 
 ble missionary in the then wilds of Pennsylvania. His 
 work was blessed by Almighty God. A flourishing con- 
 gregation grew up under his pastoral care. To succeed 
 such a devoted missionary and carry on his great under- 
 taking, was Father Gallagher now called. He set to work 
 with an indomitable spirit, that neither knew nor courted 
 repose. 
 
 The mantle of the illustrious Gallitzen had fallen on 
 a worthy successor. The work of his ministry was bless- 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHEE. 649 
 
 edj and diffused blessings. As the congregation was 
 growing large and important, it became necessary to es- 
 tablish schools. To this end, Father Gallagher purchased 
 an extensive tract of land, and erected thereon a commo- 
 dious building for a boarding and day school. He invit- 
 ed the Sisters of Mercy to take charge of it, which invita- 
 tion they accepted ; and in a very brief period, he had the 
 satisfaction of witnessing St. Aloysius' Academy for young 
 ladies in full operation, crowded with boarders and day 
 scholars, diffusing the blessings of a sound moral and re- 
 ligious education. 
 
 The male children were now to be provided for. The 
 energies of Father Gallagher were again taxed to supply 
 this desideratum. For this purpose he devoted a large 
 farm belonging to the church, and had the necessary 
 buildings erected. This for him was an easy task; but 
 how was he to procure teachers? A merciful Providence, 
 which seemed to guide and bless all his undertakings, 
 came to his relief. A community of Franciscan Brothers 
 in Ireland had determined to found a home of their Or- 
 der in the United States. This coming to the knowledge 
 of Father Gallagher, he immediately invited them to Lor- 
 etto ; whither they came and opened the St. Francis' Col- 
 lege. This school now ranks among the foremost of 
 educational establishments in the East. The Legislature 
 of Pennsylvania chartered it, conferring on it University 
 privileges. Its graduates now shine bright among the 
 literati of the Atlantic States. These two institutions are 
 proud monuments of the zeal of Father Gallagher in the 
 cause of education. The labors of our good Father in 
 this portion of the Lord's vineyard culminated in the 
 erection of a magnificent church, whose massive walls and 
 lofty spires will proclaim "His praise from generation to , 
 generation." 
 
 In 1850, the Rev. Father, with that indefatigable zeaL, 
 which characterized him, started a Catholic newspaper 
 at Summitville, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, called the 
 Crusad.r, aided in its editorial managemx^nt by the late^ 
 Rev. Thos. McCullough, and the Right Rev. Dr. Mullen,, 
 present bishop of Erie. As the name imports, these gifted 
 
650 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 divines did good service as soldiers of the cross ; and the 
 various articles from their pens were written with such 
 eloquence, boldness and force, as to challenge the ad- 
 miration even of the enemies of the Catholic faith. Any 
 one on this or the other side of the Rocky mountains^ 
 who perused them, will bear testimony to the fact, that 
 they have not been surpassed, if equalled, in any Cath- 
 olic publication of our day. 
 
 In the year 1852, he was appointed Theologian to the 
 First Grand Plenary Council of bishops, held in the City 
 of Baltimore. Our own venerable and learned archbishop, 
 Alemany, who was in attendance at the Council as bishop 
 of Monterey, was most solicitous to obtain the services 
 of a pious, learned and zealous priest to aid him in estab- 
 lishing the Church on a solid basis on these shores^ 
 whither were coming people of every clime, attracted by 
 the golden yield of river beds and mountain sides. Our 
 illustrious prelate's keen perception was not slow to 
 single out Rev. Father Gallagher from among the many 
 holy and devoted priests invited to the Council. He earn- 
 estly besought the Reverend Father to join him, placing 
 before him the gi»eat w^ants of his diocese, the immense 
 field of labor in it, and the incalculable good to be accom- 
 plished. These arguments had their weight; but how 
 could he leave a parish where so much Jiad been done, 
 and yet much more was to be accomplished ; where he was 
 beloved and revered with filial affection? Rt. Rev. Dr. 
 •O'Connor had already yielded an unwilling consent to the 
 ';solicitations of Bishop Alemany for a temporary absence 
 i*of Father Gallagher, who, ever willing to make any and 
 every sacrifice where the glory of his heavenly Master 
 -wsiB to be extended, and the welfare of his neighbor to be 
 promoted, consented to the importunities of the Arch- 
 bishop, and immediately made preparations to set out 
 to his distant and laborious mission. The prayers of 
 tlkousands, for whose spiritual benefit he had so success- 
 folly toiled, like the odor of sweet incense ascended to 
 ihe throne of grace, entreating, imploring new benedic- 
 i?i:oiis on the work of the devoted pastor. The lisping 
 riSW?pplication of innocent childhood joined with the trem- 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 651 
 
 ulous petition of old age, and the earnest prayers of strong 
 manhood, besought the Giver of every good gift to bless 
 and protect their zealous and self-sacrificing pastor. The 
 efficacy of such intercession was made manifest by the sub- 
 sequent career of Father Gallagher. It seems a work of 
 supererogation to speak to Californians of his life, his 
 labors and success; thousands are willing witnesses of 
 all that we may assert. 
 
 Immediately after his arrival in this State, in the fall 
 of 1852, he proceeded to Benicia, where, as yet, there 
 was no Catholic Church. He took instant measures to 
 j3rocure a lot. He was fortunate in obtaining the site on 
 which the present church stands. The lot being secured, 
 it became necessary to open a subscription for the erec- 
 tion of a church. The Church of Benicia was the first fruit 
 of the labors of Father Gallagher, in California. Subse- 
 quently, he visited Shasta and Weaverville, in both of 
 which towns he obtained lots on which to erect churches ; 
 he also started collections for building them. About this 
 time, he was appointed to the charge of St. Francis' 
 Church, in San Francisco. As the Catholic population 
 of the city was rapidly increasing,, there was not sufficient 
 church accommodation to supply its requirements, and 
 Father Gallagher made considerable additions and im- 
 provements in St. Francis' Church. Archbishop Alemany 
 now resolved to build the cathedral of St. Mary, a deter- 
 mination with whom was equivalent to its realization. He 
 called on Father Gallagher to assist him in this gigantic 
 undertaking. How could he fail, thus aided ? The work 
 was commenced and carried on until St. Mary's Cathedral 
 now stands a stately monument of the noble generosity of 
 the citizens of San Francisco, and an imperishable testi- 
 mony of the zeal and energy of the good Archbishop and 
 Father Gallagher. 
 
 Whilst engaged in carrying on the cathedral, our Rev- 
 erend Father found time to visit other portions of the 
 diocese, and exert his influence. Thus he secured in the 
 beautiful city of Oakland, by his personal influence, the 
 large block on which the Catholic Church now stands. 
 With his usual zeal he opened a subscription for a church. 
 
652 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 which was crowned with his accustomed success. At this 
 time also he had charge of the important mission of Sacra- 
 mento, the duties of which he performed satisfactorily 
 and successfully. 
 
 His untiring energy was afterwards to be exerted in a 
 new field. With the approbation of Archbishop Ale- 
 many he undertook^ in 1853, the publication and editorial 
 management of the Catholic Standard in San Francisco, 
 which did good service in the cause of religion and mo- 
 rality during its brief career. 
 
 Thus was the time of Father Gallagher constantly and 
 usefully employed in the great work in which his heart 
 and affections were centered. To labor for the glory of 
 God and the benefit of his neighbor, was the sacred and 
 inspiring influence that caused him to quit his home and 
 country, to sunder the bonds of love and reciprocated 
 affection which united him to his dear congregation in 
 Loretto ; and this heaven-born zeal now guided him in 
 all his undertakings. Though frequently obliged in the 
 interests of the church, morality, and benevolence, to min- 
 gle with public and ^prominent men, he ever obtained and 
 preserved the respect and esteem of all political parties ; 
 for he rose far above all party distinctions or sectional 
 feelings. Thus whatever right, favor or privilege he 
 sought was gracefully conceded. Such was the confidence 
 in his integrity, even among those who differed from him 
 in religious belief, that they earnestly cooperated with him 
 in every measure for which he claimed their assistance. 
 
 The growing wants of the church in this State imper- 
 atively demanded renewed exertions to meet its claims. 
 The members of the priesthood were few and entirely 
 inadequate to the labors required of them. Religious 
 institutions were limited in number. There was no hos- 
 pital or other religious charities through which to diffiise 
 the blessings of religion. To provide for all these wants 
 which pressed heavily on the heart of the good Arch- 
 bishop, he requested Father Gallagher to visit the Atlan- 
 tic States and Europe, and in his name to make arrange- 
 ments for securing the services of faithful and zealous 
 priests and some religious communities. He left San 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 653 
 
 Francisco for this purpose on the 1st of December, 1853, 
 and his success on this mission surpassed the brightest 
 anticipations. Several priests, animated with a holy ar- 
 dor, volunteered to accompany him to the distant shores 
 of the Pacific ; fourteen students were placed in ecclesi- 
 astical institutions in Europe to complete their studies 
 and fit them for the great work of the ministry in Califor- 
 nia. A community of Sisters of Mercy, numbering sev- 
 eral members, who had adorned the highest social circles 
 in Ireland, in a spirit of self-sacrifice listened to the irre- 
 sistible appeal of Father Gallagher, and cheerfully left 
 their homes to minister to the wants of the stranger in 
 the far off West. With what fidelity they have discharged 
 this sacred duty, the whole people of San Francisco can 
 testify ; for they have witnessed their self-denying labors at 
 all times, and more recently the noble heroism with which 
 these ministering angels rushed to the rescue of the plague- 
 stricken patients during the small-pox epidemic of 18G8- 
 9. A community of Sisters of the Presentation generous- 
 ly volunteered to dedicate their lives for the benefit of 
 the rising generation of California. Thousands of young 
 ladies in San Francisco have already experienced the ad- 
 vantages of the teachings of these good Sisters. Whilst 
 they have been instructed in the highest grades of polite 
 literature, they have been trained gently in the paths of 
 virtue, purity and modesty, to shine as bright ornaments 
 in society. 
 
 Such was a portion of the work of Father Gallagher 
 during his visit to Europe. He received, besides, pecu- 
 niary and other assistance for the church in California. 
 The ex-Emperor of Austria, Ferdinand, gave him a gener- 
 ous donation ; and from various other parties he received 
 presents of vestments, chalices and other church furniture 
 to a very large amount. The diocese reaped a rich re- 
 turn from these labors of love. 
 
 It was then the intention of Father Gallagher to re- 
 turn to his dear congregation of Loretto, and there pass 
 the remainder of his days in the quiet discharge of his 
 priestly duties ; but, at the urgent solicitation of the Most 
 Reverend Archbishop Alemany, he was prevailed upon to 
 
654 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 make tlie sacrifice a second time, and smider the ties 
 which bound him to his cherished home. 
 
 The great panic which seized our whole population in 
 1855, in consequence of the failure of Adams' Express and 
 Blinking Company ; the immense losses sustained by the 
 mining and working classes by that bankruptcy; and the 
 want of confidence in other moneyed institutions, directed 
 public attention to Father Gallagher as one in whose 
 sterling integrity any and every trust might be reposed. 
 Hundreds called on him requesting, nay begging him to 
 take on deposit for safe keeping their hard-earned savings. 
 His was not the heart to resist the entreaties of these good 
 people, some of whom had been swindled out of the gains 
 of years. Although he consented to be the guardian of the 
 fruits of their toil, it was with extreme reluctance, for his 
 duties in the ministry occupied almost every moment of 
 his time. He was unwilling to be mixed up in financial 
 affairs, knowing with what a jealous eye his every act 
 would be scanned by a community which had just passed 
 through a crisis in which thousands had been reduced to 
 destitution and beggary. His only thought was to benefit 
 those confiding people to the best of his ability; and, great 
 as was the demand on his time and energies, he was ready 
 to devote himself to the advantage of the community. De- 
 positors, with sums varying from fifty to hundreds and 
 thousands of dollars, crowded in upon him. His little 
 room, which heretofore was sacred to study and repose, 
 vfas now converted into a Banking office, without the 
 many salaried clerks generally found in such institutions. 
 Father Gallagher alone performed all the duties of Re- 
 ceiver, Paying Teller, Treasurer, Book-keeper and Presi- 
 dent — all without fee or reward, except in the conscious 
 satisfaction that he was laboring honestly and successfully 
 for parties, whose confidence and esteem were more pre- 
 cious than gold. A busy scene was his little room each 
 day, as some came to doposit, and others to draw money. 
 Millions thus passed through his hands, every dime of 
 which has been fully and satisfactorily accounted for. 
 
 Such constant attention to these matters and his many 
 other occupations began to make inroads on his con- 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 655 
 
 stitution; his failing health warned him that limits 
 must be put to his labors, or he would soon fall a victim 
 to his zeal. He settled up his accounts with all interest- 
 ed, and retired from this business with the benedictions 
 of all who had been depositors. Few men in this venal 
 age can present a brighter or more enviable record. 
 
 Tired and worn out with the labors of the preceding 
 year, the Reverend Father was compelled to leave the city 
 and retire for a while to the country, with a view to re- 
 pair his health and reinvigorate his exhausted energies. 
 In May, 1860, he proceeded to Yreka for this purpose ; 
 but his indefatigable zeal and active mind would not per- 
 mit him to take that rest so necessary to exhausted na- 
 ture. He had not been long there before the religious 
 wants of the poor people appealed to his feelings, and in a 
 very short time he obtained a large lot, and transformed the 
 capacious house of Gen. Colton into a temporary church. 
 
 In August, 1860, he set out for Washoe, which was 
 then looming in the distance as the great resort of the 
 miners of the Pacific coast. When there, he found ''the 
 harvest rich but the laborers few;" and at once went to 
 work and erected three churches — one at Carson, one in 
 Yirginia City, and one in Genoa — to each of which was 
 attached a large lot of ground, and a cemetery to the one 
 in Yirginia City. 
 
 In 1861, with the approbation of Archbishop Alemany, 
 Father Gallagher undertook to supply the increasing de- 
 mand for church accommodation in San Francisco. While 
 looking for land for this purpose he was presented by Hon. 
 Horace Hawes with the large lot at Tenth and Howard 
 Streets, and erected thereon a church sufficiently spacious 
 as was deemed at that time, to accommodate the congre- 
 gation for many years ; but the rapid growth of the city 
 in that direction soon made it necessary to put up a much 
 larger and more commodious building. The zeal and 
 energy of Father Gallagher were again taxed to provide 
 the funds for its erection. His appeal to the congrega- 
 tion and his fellow-citizens was met with a promptness 
 and generosity, which showed the high esteem in which 
 he was held by them. The new church was quickly com- 
 
656 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. ^ 
 
 pleted and paid for, and the old one converted into a 
 Temperance Hall and School-House. Subsequent ad- 
 ditions and improvements to the new church have made 
 it capable of seating a larger audience than any other 
 church edifice in San Francisco. The school accommoda- 
 tions have also been augmented^ so that at the present time 
 eleven rooms are crowded with children of the district. 
 
 For several years the greatest exertions w^ere required 
 to sustain St. Joseph's school, but as it was a work in 
 which the dearest interests of his congregation were at 
 stake, Father Gallagher spared neither time nor labor to 
 make it a success. We have been present at the exam- 
 inations and exhibitions of this school, and take pleasure 
 in recording our high estimation of the proficiency shown 
 by the pupils in the various branches of study. The 
 pleasurable emotions which filled the Rev. Father's heart, 
 we could have envied, as this crowd of smiling, happy 
 innocents gathered around him daily. He seemed con- 
 tented, satisfied, repaid for all the anxiety and labor he 
 had expended on the school. He has thus ranked himself 
 among the first of the promoters of education in San 
 Francisco. 
 
 Prominent among the causes of the high appreciation 
 in which Father Gallagher was held by his fellow-citizens, 
 may be placed his unselfish zeal in the cause of education. 
 The true, unfailing way to reach the hearts of parents, is 
 to show a kind, affectionate interest in their offspring; and 
 this Father Gallagher has done so effectually as to secure 
 the confidence and affection of parents and children. 
 
 In our notice of Rev. Father Gallagher, we should be 
 adjudged derelict in our duty, did we fail to mention ^ 
 another praiseworthy institution which owes, in a great 
 measure, its origin and present prosperity to his zealous 
 labors. We mean the Magdalen Asylum. The worthy 
 Sisters of Mercy, filled with the spirit of their Divine 
 Master, who, to the penitent Magdalen, said ''many sins 
 are forgiven her because she hath loved much," and 
 took her under his special protection, to save her from 
 the sneers and contempt of the proud Pharisee or the 
 no less dangerous solicitations and enticements of false 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 657 
 
 friends, had already established a home and shelter for 
 the poor fallen daughters of Eve, who wished to abandon 
 a life of sin and infamy, and return again to the paths of 
 virtue and morality. Already had those chaste servants 
 of God rescued many an erring woman and thrown the 
 mantle of charity over their past transgressions and led 
 them in the way of sanctification and eternal life. But 
 their means were limited, and the accommodation insuf- 
 ficient to meet the constantly increasing demands on their 
 charity. It was under these circumstances that Father 
 Gallagher was applied to by the good Sisters, to assist 
 them. At once he sought our venerable Archbishop, 
 and readily obtained permission to undertake the erec- 
 tion of a new building wdiich should serve as an asylum 
 for penitent women. It was thought that an edifice 
 might be constructed of ample dimensions to satisfy the 
 present want, at an outlay of eight or ten thousand dol- 
 lars ; but such a building was not equal to the zeal and 
 charity of Father Gallagher. He started out on his elee- 
 mosynary peregrinations, and soon, through the generos- 
 ity and public spirit of the citizens of San Francisco, had 
 twenty-one thousand dollars at his command. Thus en- 
 couraged, he laid the corner-stone of the present beautiful 
 structure on the San Bruno road in 1865, and carried it 
 on to a successful termination. Since the opening of the 
 new Asylum, there have been seldom fewer than one 
 hundred inmates within its walls. 
 
 Few citizens can realize the great, noble, and divine 
 work of charity which is silently and unostentatiously 
 carried on by these ministering angels, the Sisters of 
 Mercy. Eight hundred human beings, once the idolized 
 objects of parental endearment, the pride and joy of the 
 household hearth, who listened to the seductive voice of 
 deceivers, had fallen and become objects of contempt, at 
 whom the finger of scorn was pointed — worse than plague 
 spots on the community — lost to society and to God — 
 sunk into the lowest depths of immorality and vice — have 
 been reclaimed, regenerated, restored to society and God, 
 in the Magdalen Asylum of San Francisco, through the 
 patient, gentle, merciful influence of the Sisters of Mercy. 
 42 
 
658 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Thus to the exertions of Father Gallagher, hundreds 
 of parents, whose hearts had been wrung by the fall of 
 their daughters, whose hoary heads were hastening to a 
 premature and dishonored grave, are indebted for the 
 Asylum, where their lost ones have been sheltered from 
 the attacks of their enemies, protected from the cold and 
 ofttimes cruel charity of the world, and trained in the 
 glorious paths of virtue and morality. This is effected by 
 the pure, simple, devoted, self-sacrificing lives of those 
 heroic Sisters, as well as by the words of learning and divine 
 charity in which they are daily instructed. As there is 
 joy in the celestial mansions among the blessed spirits 
 which surround the Throne of Grace, on one sinner do- 
 ing penance, so here on earth the parental hearth and 
 heart have been gladdened, when the poor, weak, frail 
 one has sought refuge in the Magdalen Asylum. A warm, 
 fervent prayer, gushing up from the bruised and bleeding 
 heart, has ascended like the fumes of sweet incense to the 
 footstool of Mercy, in thanksgiving for the return of the 
 prodigal, and in earnest supplication that blessings in- 
 numerable should be granted to the Sisters of Mercy, 
 and good Father Gallagher. 
 
 It is not our purpose, nor is it necessary, to enter into 
 further details of the labors of this indefatigable divine. 
 Firm and consistent in all the teachings of the Catholic 
 church, zealous and exact in the discharge of his duties 
 as a minister of that church, he has not only secured the 
 approbation and affection of his ecclesiastical superiors 
 and the congregations committed to his care, but has 
 conciliated the respect and esteem of those who differ 
 from him in religious tenets. •Catholic in all the feelings 
 of head and heart, he pursues '' the even tenor of his 
 way," intent alone in extending the kingdom of his 
 Heavenly Master, and diffusing on earth peace and good 
 will to men. His zeal in the ministry, his distinguished 
 ability and learning, his labors for the promotion of edu- 
 cation, his efforts in the cause of morality, and the gen- 
 eral success of all his undertakings, entitle him to be 
 classed among the Representative Men of California. 
 
 The various articles furnished by Father Gallagher 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 659 
 
 while acting as editor, prove that he wields a facile pen 
 with force and vigor. Earnest and impressive, he also 
 ranks high as a pulpit orator. The extract which follows 
 this sketch is a specimen of his descriptive powers and 
 style. 
 
 (Extract from a ^cctuit on §omt, 
 
 Delivered in St. Joseph's Church, Tenth Street, San Francisco, in 1862. 
 BY REV. FATHER HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 
 
 Towards evening of the 13th April, 1854, the Padrone, as he is 
 called (that is, the conductor of our conveyance) directed my atten- 
 tion to an object just dimly visible from that point of the road lead- 
 ing from Civita Vecchia to Rome: it was the great dome of St. 
 Peter's ! I felt with gratitude that the day-dream of my life from 
 boyhood was at length promised an early realization. I was soon 
 to stand within the city of Romulus and Remus — the Eternal City, 
 the works of whose historians, poets, and orators, had been the 
 labors of my early years. As I conned each stubborn line of her 
 ancient classics, whether prose or verse, I had to become familiar 
 with her feuds, wars, conquests, treaties, conspu*acies, revolu- 
 tions, changes of government, and laws — even her very topo- 
 graphy. It seemed as if I could find my way through the streets 
 of ancient Rome at midnight without a lamp; that I could recognize 
 her heroes, officials, and authors, at sight, and hold familiar con- 
 verse with them without the formality of an introduction. Whatever 
 fourteen years' companionshij^ with one of the most distinguished gra- 
 duates and professors of the Propaganda left undone in f amiharizing 
 me with the very arcana of Christian Rome, was more than supplied 
 by the accurate description of Baron Geramb; and since I became 
 an ecclesiastic. Christian or modern Rome has been all to me. 
 
 From the moment I got the first glimpse of the city, I could 
 scarcely withdraw my eyes from it for an instant. Such were my un- 
 founded fears at that moment, that only by identifying my com- 
 panions could I reassure myself that I must not again experience 
 the disappointment of the morning dream : as the exile far away oft 
 in visions of slumber revisits the home of his childhood, but wakes to 
 disappointment — the loved ones disappearing with his sleep — he re- 
 fuses to withdraw his eyes or to relax his grasp, determined, this 
 time, from more vivid phantasm to force reality. 
 
 That night I slept within the city of the seven hills — ^the city of 
 the Caesars — where dwells the visible Head of the Church, the direct 
 
660 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 successor of St. Peter, the reigning vicar of our blessed Lord! Be- 
 times next morning, I hastened to gratify my anxious eyes by behold- 
 ing him. For this purpose, I sought the Sistine Chapel, and was 
 not disappointed. My success, however, in gaining admittance there, 
 ■where so many w^ere unfortunate, was the result of a lucky expedient. 
 To avoid crowding, tickets of free admission to the Pope's chapel 
 are issued to those who make timely application. This privilege is 
 sought to be monopolized by members of royal families visiting tliere, 
 foreign ambassadors and their suites. Clergy are admitted, but they 
 must present themselves in ecclesiastical costume — a sutane and 
 clerical hat. In my impatience to be there, I neglected these re- 
 quirements, and presented myself in my usual apparel. With many 
 others, I was refused admittance by the Swiss guard, who, under the 
 command of Capt. Schmidt, sentineled the entrance. To the re- 
 monstrance of a member of the Pope's household in my behalf, the 
 captain's answer was that " his instructions w^ere peremptory'. " As 
 the rest retired disappointed, I addressed the old commander, now 
 at leisure, quite familiarly in stout Teutonic, his mother tongue. 
 The gallant and warm-hearted old veteran, thinking it too bad 
 tliat, having journeyed from the uttermost bounds of the earth, I 
 should be disappointed, politely allowed me to pass in, remarking that 
 my slight foreign accent, in the pronunciation of some German 
 words, was doubtless caused by emigrating from Fatherland when 
 young. It was a slight mistake. To have corrected it, would not 
 have helped my purpose; so he enjoyed his theory and I my choice 
 seat in the Sistine chapel. 
 
 In the sanctuary just before me sat the sovereign pontiff, Pius 
 the Ninth, suiTounded by cardinals and prelates, celebrating the 
 Mass of the Presanctified — the most solemn commemoration of our 
 Lord's passion and death — for it was Good Friday. His hands were 
 joined, his countenance turned gently upwards, and those large, 
 lustrous eyes fixed immovable, as though rivetted on objects beyond 
 the clouds — on the dread mysteries of eternity. 
 
 At the proper signal, all engaged in the ceremonies formed in 
 solemn procession, and passed just by me to the Pauline chapel; 
 whence they returned in a few moments, the Pope bearing the Most 
 Blessed Sacrament under a gorgeous canopy. I was but too happy 
 in being permitted to join the procession in which were corporeally 
 present the visible and invisible Head of the Church — Peter and his 
 Divine Master. How amply did the weather-beaten, Avayvvorn pil- 
 grim from the distant Pacific feel rewarded in finding himself, at his 
 journey's end, in the company of Peter, and the Apostles, and the 
 Lord himself ! What powerful incentive to his cherished faith, that 
 alone explains the supernatural, to find himself in physical contact 
 with the living link of that unbroken chain that unites him with the 
 Deity ! In the consolations of that moment, he felt his holy faith 
 enkindled, intensified, illumined, and rewarded: in a word, the 
 nearest approximation to penetration behind the veil of faith — to the 
 fruition of vision, the realization of the promise, "I am with you." 
 
 At tliree o'clock p. m. of the same day, the same sacred edifice was 
 
HUGH P. GALLAGHER. 661 
 
 thronged by crowds to witness the office of Tenebrae, and gratify their 
 love of the marvelous by hearing the world-renowned Miserere sung 
 by the Pope's choir. The Tenebrae is the ordinary office of those three 
 great days of Holy Week, performed solemnly in the larger churches. 
 The trij)le or triangular candlestick is placed, having fifteen candles 
 lighted. As the office proceeds, fourteen of the candles are gradually 
 extinguished, indicating the death of the prophets, or the extinguish- 
 ing of those lights of the people of God. The fifteenth is finally 
 removed behind the altar, indicating the death of our blessed Lord, 
 and the fulfilment of all the prophecies. On its removal, the clergy 
 knock gently on the cover of their books, representing the earthquake 
 that occurred at the moment He expired on the cross. This done, 
 the candle is brought back unextinguished, and replaced, represent- 
 ing that He has arisen, to die no more — the unfading light of the 
 world ! This psalm commences as the wailing of a guilty world 
 and its suppliant cry for mercy. Mid the earthquake's rumblings, 
 a solitary voice is heard in deep, pathetic, plaintive tones, crying, 
 ' ' Have m ercy on me , O God ! according to thy gTeat mercy !" Number- 
 less voices just then become audible, as the spirits of a thousand 
 worlds catching the tone of supplication: "And according- to the 
 multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out our iniquities!" At the 
 verse, Averte faciem tuam ("Turn away thy face from my sins") the 
 petition is caught up, and wafted higher and higher by different, 
 shall I say relays of voices, as though these souls would carry their 
 supplications to the very feet of the Most High. 
 
 Wliile these plaintive notes are dying away in the distance, the 
 tone is caught up by a solitary voice, as of an angel bending dov/n 
 from the skies to receive that petition and lay it before the Throne 
 of Mercy. That voice is listened to, as it files heavenwards, until it 
 becomes inaudible in the clouds. At that moment, you hear the 
 rapt audience endeavoring to supply by a long inhalation the ex- 
 haustion they experienced in f olloAving with bated breath the angel's 
 flight. As you enjoy this celestial chant, you hear the full vibrations 
 of the dulcet-toned string and the clear silvery ring of the wind in- 
 struments; but it is a deception. There is naught there but the 
 perfected harmony of the human voice : there are no sounds in the 
 Pope's choir but the voices of men! 
 
^4^ Of THx'^ 
 
 'iriri7BR:iT7] 
 
 
/r/^/?^ 
 
HENRY HUNTLY HAIGHT. 
 
 HENRY HuNTLY Haight was bom at Rochester, in the 
 State of New York, May 20th, a.d. 1825. His 
 ancestors were English on the paternal side, the first one 
 who emigrated to America, Jonathan Teal Haight, having 
 come to New York from England under the old Dutch 
 regime. On the maternal side, he is descended from the 
 old Scottish family or clan of Cameron, his great grand- 
 father, Ewen Cameron — a cousin of the celebrated 
 Lochiel — having come to New York from Scotland in 
 1790, and settled in the western part of the State. His 
 father, the late Fletcher M. Haight, a law}^er of eminence 
 and distinguished ability, and who was at the time of 
 his death, Judge of the United States District Court for 
 the Southern District of California, was also a resident 
 of western New York, where, with the exception of a 
 few years in St. Louis, he lived until he removed to 
 California in 1854. 
 
 Mr. Haight was the eldest son of a large family of 
 children. He entered Yale College at the age of fifteen 
 years, from whence he graduated in 1844; and having 
 decided to adopt as a profession one that had been 
 hereditary in his family for several generations — that of 
 the law — entered at once upon its study in the law office 
 of his father. In 1846, his father removing to St. Louis, 
 Mr. Haight accompanied him, and was shortly afterwards 
 admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Missouri. , 
 He immediately commenced the practice of law in St. 
 Louis, in connection with his father, and remained there 
 
664 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 until late in 1849, when he turned his steps towards the 
 newly acquired territory on the Pacific. He arrived in 
 San Francisco on the 20th of January, 1850, then a small 
 town, its dwellings consisting principally of tents and 
 rough board shanties; and although its population was 
 already large, yet by far the greater portion consisted of 
 persons who were making it but a temporary stopping- 
 place on their way to the mines. Among those, however, 
 whose faith was strong in the future greatness and pros- 
 perity of San Francisco was Mr. Haight, and he decided 
 at once to make it his home. He immediately com- 
 menced practicing law, first in connection with the late 
 Gen. J. A. McDougall, and later with his father, who had 
 followed him to California. His abilities were soon ac- 
 knowledged; and young as he was, he soon occupied an 
 eminent position in the front rank of the bar of Cali- 
 fornia, and which he has ever maintained. 
 
 From the time of his arrival in San Francisco until 
 the spring of 1867, he has resided and practiced law in 
 that city, with the exception of a short absence in the 
 Eastern States, during which he was united in marriage 
 to a daughter of the late Capt. Bissell of St. Louis. 
 
 In 1867, he removed his residence to Alameda county, 
 continuing, however, his law practice in San Francisco, 
 until called by the people, in the fall of that year, to as- 
 sume the office of Chief Alagistrate of the State. 
 
 He had never been, with but one exception up to the 
 time of his nomination for Governor in 1867, actively 
 engaged in any political struggle. Occupying the promi- 
 nent position he always has during his long residence in 
 San Francisco, he had often been pressed by his friends 
 to accept nominations for judicial and other honorable 
 offices, but had invariably declined. Although taking a 
 jealous interest in the affiiirs of the country and the 
 cburse of events, he had never, beyond an occasional 
 article from his pen, entered publicly into the discussion 
 of the political questions of the day, until the Presiden- 
 tial campaign of 1864, in which he took part with the 
 conservative party in the support of Geo. B. McClellan. 
 
 It would not be proper here to enter into an examina- 
 
HENRY HUNTLY HAIGHT. 665 
 
 tion of the political questions that then agitated the 
 people, and we have but mentioned the subject to show 
 that the course pursued by Mr. Haight and the constitu- 
 tional principles announced by him in that memorable 
 campaign, were remembered and approved of by the 
 people of California when they elected him Governor of 
 the State three years afterwards by the large majority of 
 nine thousand and five hundred. 
 
 He was nominated for that position by the Democratic 
 State Convention that met in San Francisco in June, 
 186 7. He had at first steadily declined to allow his name 
 to be used before the convention, but at last, yielding to 
 the pressing solicitations of his friends, he consented. 
 His name v/as presented to the convention by the Hon. 
 J. B. Crockett, who prefaced the nomination by the fol- 
 lowing remarks, to the truthfulness of which any one 
 who has personally known Mr. Haight for any length of 
 time, will cordially assent: 
 
 I rise to perform an agreeable duty in presenting for the high 
 office of Governor of the State of Cahfornia, a gentleman whom I have 
 known from his boyhood. I have known him twenty years; and I 
 can say, truthfully say, that I have never known a truer, better, more 
 honest, or more upright man than he whose name I will present to 
 the convention; a man distinguished for his integrity and perfect 
 uprightness of character in all the walks of life; a man against whom 
 not a word of reproach has been or is likely to be uttered; a man in 
 whose keeping the honor and welfare of the State will be perfectly 
 safe; a man who will be a party to no scheme, who will not yield to 
 any corrupt influences, and w^lio will administer the government of 
 the State with ability, in the spirit of the constitution and the laws; 
 and who will do honor to the office and to the party which elects 
 him. And I do now nominate for the office of Governor of Cah- 
 fornia, Henry H. Haight. 
 
 The remarks of Judge Crockett were received with 
 great applause, and Mr. Haight was immediately nomi-- 
 nated by acclamation. His principal opponent in the- 
 campaign was George C. Gorham, the nominee of the 
 Republican party. The contest was a most spirited and 
 exciting one, probably more so than any previous guber- 
 natorial election that ever took place in the State, not 
 even excepting the memorable struggle of September,, 
 
666 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. "^ 
 
 1859. The election resulted in the triumph of the entire 
 Democratic State ticket, Mr. Haight's majority over Mr. 
 Gorham being as already stated. 
 
 There is probably no better or surer method of ascer- 
 taining the position occupied by a man in the opinion of 
 his fellow-citizens, and the character he bears among 
 them, than for him to become a candidate for some pro- 
 minent office, especially at a time when party feeling 
 runs high. Every act of his life, and every word that he 
 has ever spoken that can by any known mode of conclu- 
 sion or misconstruction be made to bear upon the ques- 
 tion at issue and turned against him, are immediately 
 blazoned forth in the public journals. Not only is his 
 public life subjected to the scrutiny of his political op- 
 ponents, but his private life and affairs, and the motives 
 that may have influenced him in any particular matter, 
 are dragged forth and commented upon w^ith perfect 
 freedom. To a reasonable extent, it is right enough that 
 such should be the case, but party zeal often oversteps its 
 legitimate boundary, and engages in systematic defama- 
 tion and abuse. The man who successfully passes through 
 such an ordeal and escapes therefrom with untarnished 
 reputation, is to be considered something more than for- 
 tunate; and no better proof can be adduced of the high 
 moral standard of Mr. Haight than to say, that during 
 the entire gubernatorial contest just alluded to, bitter as 
 it was, no attempt was made to attack his private char- 
 acter. 
 
 Gov. Haight was inaugurated December 5th, 1867, 
 and since then has administered the State government 
 with general acceptance. His official term as Governor 
 expires in December, 1871. 
 
HENRY HUNTLY HAIGHT. 667 
 
 lutteis, 
 
 Delivered at Sacramento, Cal., May 8th, 1869, upon the Completion of the Pacific 
 
 Eailroad. 
 
 BY GOVERNOK H. H. HAIGHT. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : We meet to-day to celebrate one of the most 
 remarkable events of this eventful age, and whose influence upon 
 the future of our countiy and upon human destiny it would be diffi- 
 cult properly to measure; one of the grandest tiiumphs of American 
 enterprise, engineering, and constructive skill and energy of which 
 our history can boast. It ushers in a new era in American progress, 
 and while it is an event of world-wide significance, it is one of special 
 importance to our own country and our own State. 
 
 I recollect some years ago looking at a picture, which many of 
 } ou doubtless have seen, representing a family of pioneers who had 
 accomplished the tedious journey overland, and having reached the 
 crest of the Sierras, stood gazing with enraptured vision upon the 
 magnificent panorama which extended before their eyes in the Valley 
 of the Sacramento. The noble river in the distance seemed like a 
 silver thread meandering through the great valley; the purple sum- 
 mits of the Coast Kange rose in front to the westward, and far to the 
 south stretched the fertile plains of the San Joaquin, until in the 
 soft haze of our landscapes their limit was lost in the horizon. 
 
 In a metaphorical sense we stand upon such an eminence to-day. 
 Behind us is the rugged journey, with its desert sands, its savage 
 tribes, its cooling springs, making oases, where at times we have 
 rested from our toil; around us is the pure air and over us the blue 
 sky, while within us our hearts beat high with hope and confidence, 
 and before us lies in its beauty the rich prospect of our boundless 
 future. 
 
 In looking back over our journey, did time permit, one would be 
 tempted to extend the re\dew beyond our own personal experience, 
 and the history of our own State and country, to note a few of the 
 most memorable epochs which have marked human progress during 
 the eighteen centuries that are pa^t. To trace the history of civih- 
 zation, however, dui'ing this period would require far more than the 
 time now allotted, and is a subject which would task the loftiest 
 powers. Otherwise, it might be interesting to dwell upon those 
 prominent epochs which have signalized the progress of mankind, 
 since the advent of Christianity marked an advance from paganism 
 to theism, and from a religion of forms to one of spirit; from the 
 time when the code of Justinian marked a memorable era in legisla- 
 tion, to the period when Magna Charta developed a new and rational 
 theory of government, and thence to the enlightenment of the present 
 dav. This progress, it is true, has not been uniform or constant. 
 The tide has had its ebb as well as its flood. There have been tem- 
 
668 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 porary retrogressions in almost every department of human activity — 
 in science, in government, and in religion. 
 
 Nations have exchanged places in the scale; some have relinquished 
 freedom for despotic rule, religious liberty for blind superstition, 
 power for weakness, and science for ignorance, while other nations 
 have risen from barbarism to the heights of knowledge, and from 
 small beginnings have attained greatness in the arts and sciences, in 
 freedom, wealth, and power. 
 
 The great nations of the present day are none of them ten cen- 
 turies old. England's greatness dates from the revolution of 1640, 
 before modern civilization had penetrated the domain of the Czar, 
 before the Prussian monarchy or the American Kepublic were known 
 among the nations, when Spain was the leading power on land, and 
 Holland was mistress of the seas. 
 
 Human progress for the last two centuries has known little pause. 
 Dynasties have risen and fallen; revolutions and civil wars have 
 deluged portions of the world with blood; but heretofore good has 
 been evolved out 'of evil, and, during war and peace, political 
 changes and national vicissitudes, the minds of men have been year 
 by year more emancipated from thraldom, and more active in investi- 
 gation, and in useful invention and discovery. 
 
 In the history of human progress it seems to us as if the chapter 
 devoted to the present century would fill as large a space as the 
 eighteen centuries which have preceded it. It is now but little more 
 than two-thirds gone, and yet what improvements and discoveries 
 it has witnessed. When the last century closed, and for some years 
 afterwards, no steamboat had been built. Nearly a fourth of the 
 present century had passed before railway construction was in- 
 augurated, and nearly half of it was gone before electricity was 
 pressed into man's service, as his messenger to annihilate distance 
 and bring into instant intercourse the most remote islands and con- 
 tinents. Anthracite coal was never used as fuel in dwellings, nor 
 was any city lighted with coal gas until after the year 1800. 
 
 Time would fail to enumerate even the most important discov- 
 eries and inventions of this century. In locomotion, in the art of 
 printing, in weaving and sewing by machinery, in dyeing and color- 
 ing; in hydraulics and optics; in the application to machinery of 
 steam and hot air; in the thousand improvements in fire-arms; in 
 light, lighthouses, and lightning; in photography, from the daguerre- 
 otype to the card photograph; in agricultural implements; in cabinet 
 work and house-building; in steam navigation; in ship building; in 
 railways and electro-magnetic telegraphs, with their various appa- 
 ratus of wire and cable, and printing; in house warming; in lighting 
 streets and dwellings; in metal pipes and tubing; in sewerage and 
 drainage; in cotton, wool, flax, hemp, and silk production and man- 
 ufacture — in all these and many other channels the minds of men 
 have been busy and fruitful during the sixty-nine years of the present 
 century, until the limit of invention seems to be almost reached and 
 human ingenuity exhausted. 
 
 Marshall's discovery of the particles of gold in the mill-race at 
 
HENRY HUNTLY HAIGHT. 669 
 
 Coloma, was the beginning of a great revolution in the commerce 
 and business of the world, and in the nominal .value of labor and 
 property. It changed our geography, and gave a new expansion to 
 American ideas. What had before seemed hyperbole, became real- 
 ity; the empty boasts of stump orators seemed about to be verified 
 by facts. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had secured us in pos- 
 session of the fairest, the most genial and fruitful part of the Ameri- 
 can continent, and as we in our partial judgment think, of the globe. 
 We had almost realized the poet's dream of exchanging our "pent-up 
 Utica" for "the whole boundless continent." We still lacked the 
 British Possessions and Mexico, but we were in the position of one 
 gorged with food and incajDacitated from further indulgence, until 
 time was allowed for digestion and assimilation. I speak of a revo- 
 lution in the commerce and business of the world, and in the value 
 of labor and property. Two substances alone, gold and silver, are 
 an accepted standard of value and a universal medium of exchange. 
 Like all other articles, the intrinsic value of these metals is regulated 
 by the quantity produced, the cost of production, and the demand 
 for their use. The demand has increased with the expansion of com- 
 merce, but its increase bears no ratio to the increased supply. The 
 whole amount of gold and silver in the old world at the discovery of 
 America was estimated to be $170,000,000, and the total annual 
 product of gold in the world for some years previous to 1848, was 
 but $20,000,000. At this rate it would have required a century to 
 produce $2,000,000,000. Within the past twenty years there have 
 been added to the stock of j^recious metals more than this latter sum. 
 
 The obvious result would be, as it has been, to diminish the ex- 
 changeable value of gold and silver, so that to procure many of the 
 necessaries and comforts of life requires about three times as much 
 money as it did twenty years ago. 
 
 This, however, is not the time to weary you with statistics, or dis- 
 cuss questions of political economy. The Oregon and Mexican 
 treaties gave us a new geography; but neither Oregon, with its 
 majestic river, its productive soil, and its " continuous woods," nor 
 California with its healthful and equable climate, was accessible 
 to immigration by any except the roving trapper and frontiersman. 
 Trackless deserts, infested by tribes of Indians, and lofty mountain 
 ranges intervened between the States of the Union and the newly- 
 acquired territory along the Pacific. 
 
 The thirst for gold in 1849 and the few following years stimulated 
 a multitude to defy all dangers aud difficulties in the effort to reach 
 the new El Dorado. An almost continuous line of emigrants crossed 
 the plains and reached the Pacific, way-worn with travel, and deci- 
 mated by famine, pestilence, and massacre. Another army crowded 
 steamers and sailing vessels for the Isthmus of Panama, and en- 
 countered the miasma of the tropics and the discomforts of a voyage 
 in over-crowded and ill-supplied vessels. Thus, by sea and land, the 
 stream of adventurers poured into the region of gold. Europe added 
 its contribution, and the penal colonies of Great Britain also — some 
 of which latter was of indifferent quality. 
 
670 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 So they came in 1849 and 1850, a vast throng, mostly men in the 
 prime of life, full of adventurous energy — the ^lite of the enterprise 
 of older countries, carrying with them, in spite of some vicious and 
 dangerous elements, a large infusion of Anglo-Saxon respect for law, 
 order, and constituted authority. 
 
 The tract of emigration across the plains was dotted with the 
 graves of those who fell by the way, and in the lack of ordinary com- 
 forts multitudes more would have soon found a grave in California 
 but for the salubrity of its climate. 
 
 The early emigration was composed of heterogeneous elements. 
 All forms of vice and dissipation were indulged unblushingly by men 
 and women set loose from the restraints of settled society, and freed 
 from the control of a sound public sentiment. There were many 
 noble spirits who labored to lay broad and deep the foundations of 
 religious, educational, and charitable institutions, and to organize 
 Republican government on these shores. Some of them have rested 
 from their labors, leaving behind them monuments more enduring 
 than marble, and some are still pursuing their career of usefulness 
 among us. 
 
 In looking back at the past, how checkered is the prospect! Con- 
 flagrations have swept our cities and towns with the besom of de- 
 struction. The commercial metropolis of the State has more than 
 once been almost wholly destroyed by fire, with no insurance to re- 
 pair the broken fortunes of its citizens, and the present capital has 
 suffered not only from fire, but from the more appalling disasters of 
 flood. Mercantile embarrassments and disaster, with extreme de- 
 preciation of property, were superadded to the ruin wrought by flood 
 and fire. 
 
 There are shadows in the picture like all of this world's experience; 
 but in disaster and distress, Saxon and Celtic energy vindicated its 
 claim to supremacy over all the obstacles of accident and of nature. 
 The winter of our discontent has been exchanged for glorious sum- 
 mer, and a stable edifice of prosperity has been reared upon the ruins 
 of our shattered fortunes. No more invincible perseverance has ever 
 been manifested by any community under disheartening circum- 
 stances than by that of Sacramento, and her citizens are at last 
 sharing with those of other cities a prosperity beyond that of any 
 former period, and rejoicing in the certainty of a bright future. 
 
 For the first year of our California experience, those of us who 
 were here, felt many longings for the old homes and friends we had 
 left beyond the mountains; an intense desire for some rapid and 
 du^ect communication with the Eastern States, pervaded the mass 
 of the population. It was never absent from our thoughts by day, 
 or from our dreams by night. The lack of it induced many to bid a 
 reluctant farewell to the sunny skies and attractive scenes of Cali- 
 fornia, and seek their former homes east of the mountains. 
 
 Our only communication with the East in those days was the 
 Panama steamer, first occasional, then monthly. The journey over- 
 land consumed months, and a telegraph or railway during the present 
 generation was looked upon as chimerical. Installments of news 
 
HENRY HUNTLY HAIGHT. 671 
 
 came once a montli in the shape of letters, and Eastern papers, forty 
 days old, which were eagerly purchased at fabulous prices. 
 
 In the winter of 1849-50, the streets of San Francisco were 
 thronged with miners driven there for shelter from the inclemency 
 of the season. The prevailing style of dress was a flannel shirt in 
 lieu of a coat, and in addition to the ordinaiy nether garments a pair 
 of long boots, purchased at the moderate price of six ounces, or 
 ninety-six dollars, in gold dust. Most of the large rooms in the city 
 were used as gambling saloons, with the accessories of bands of 
 music and well-stocked bars. Here, day after day, were to be seen 
 dense crowds of men of all nationalities and races, bending in ab- 
 sorbed attention over the gaming table, ignoring all distinctions of 
 race or color in the excitement of iDlay. Comparatively few were 
 without weapons, and yet the number of homicides was relatively 
 small. The sight of a lady was sufficiently rare to cause a street 
 full of men to stop and turn to look at one passing. 
 
 The advent of spring dispersed the crowds of miners throughout 
 the mountains, and produced a stagnation for the time in San Fran- 
 cisco. I must not weary your patience by dwelling upon the scenes 
 of the past so familiar in memory to many of you. Suffice it to say, 
 the i)ublic gaming-house was soon succeeded by the school-house, 
 the hospital, and the sanctuary. The common law and a code of 
 well considered statutes superseded the vague, uncertain, and strange 
 rules of Mexican and civil law, and Courts organized in accordance 
 with American usages took the place of the unfamiliar and irregnilar 
 judicial administration of Courts of first instance. 
 
 One thing must be said in honor of our people, and it is but 
 justice to say it: no more liberal, even lavish, charities ever character- 
 ised any community than those of the people of this State. The 
 direction then given to benevolent impulses will never cease to be 
 felt. It has conferred lasting honor upon our State and reflected 
 credit upon human nature. It was the offspring of circumstances. 
 Men came here strangers, without families and homes. There was 
 a present feeling of mutual dependence. Wealth, too, was easily 
 acquired, and as a consequence lightly esteemed. Open-handed 
 charity was the custom, and the people were educated to give at any 
 time to any worthy object. Hence the benefactions of which Cali- 
 fornia has been j)rolific, and which are known to the world, and 
 hence the facihty with which money can be obtained among us for 
 any v/orthy or laudable purpose. 
 
 California in the early days was known to possess mineral wealth, 
 and this was thought to be her only attraction, aside from climate. 
 The general judgment was that the country was worthless for agri- 
 culture. The long drought of summer was thought to render profit- 
 able husbandly impossible. On approaching her shores, we were 
 told that the earth became so parched with drought in the dry 
 season that it was rent with fissures, which in some districts ren- 
 dered journeying unsafe. Trees, it was thought, would perish in 
 summer from lack of moisture. 
 
 Such was California in the past, with neither schools, hospitals, 
 
672 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 or churches, with few public journals, with no agriculture, no fire- 
 sides or children, no settled public sentiment, no railways or tele- 
 graphs, no ship-yards, wharves, or docks, no public buildings, no 
 manufactures, and no communication with the East except by three 
 small steamships, the germ of our present steam marine. 
 
 The country, however, was here, with its cloudless sky and its 
 healthful air, its fruitful soil, its noble harbor and bay, and its water- 
 courses opening access to the two great inland valleys: and the 
 pioneers were here, with faith in its future, with fixedness of pur- 
 pose, with large hearts and stalwart arms. 
 
 This was our past — what is our present? But little more than 
 twenty years have gone, and what has been accomplished? 
 
 Look around you, and see these philanthropic and benevolent in- 
 stitutions which now constitute your highest praise. Sanctuaries 
 representing every form of religious belief — Gentile and Hebrew, 
 Protestant and Catholic. A Public School system, well organized 
 and endowed, growing every year in efficiency, placing instruction 
 within reach of all. A University, furnished with ample means for 
 growth, in addition to private institutions of learning. Hospitals, 
 private and public. Asylums for the Insane, for the Deaf, Dumb, 
 and Blind, and for the Orphan. Benevolent associations to relieve 
 the wants of the distressed and suffering, of every creed and nation- 
 ality. A public press, which for enterprise and devotion to the 
 public interests, is certainly not inferior to that of any Eastern State. 
 Thousands of comfortable homes, in the best sense of the word, with 
 troops of rosy-cheeked children. A sound and discriminating pub- 
 lic sentiment. A system of interior railways, well advanced towards 
 completion, which will soon render the most distant jDarts of the 
 State accessible. Spacious and elegant ferry and river steamers. A 
 well organized citizen soldiery, as a reliance against attack from 
 without or lawlessness within. Telegraphic communication between 
 the commercial centre and every considerable town in this State, and 
 the States north and east. Ship-yards and dry-docks, foundries and 
 factories — lines of steamship, north, west, and south — public build- 
 ings for the criminal and the unfortunate. A State Capitol, nearly 
 completed, which for solidity, spaciousness, and architectural ele- 
 gance, has few equals on the Continent. These are but a part of 
 our present. To present a complete statement within the short 
 compass of an address would be impossible; but there are two things 
 more to be noticed. Agriculture, not mining, is now the basis of 
 our prosperity, the sinews of our commerce and the source of our 
 wealth. The fame of our gold is eclipsed by that of our wheat. 
 Agriculture is daily becoming a greater interest, and gold mining 
 relatively, if not absolutely, less. Breadstuffs, wool, wine, and silk, 
 seem now developing into the great industries of our State, but our 
 agriculture will naturally be diversified and profitable beyond what 
 would be possible elsewhere, owing to the peculiarities of our 
 climate. 
 
 The other feature of our present is the great Continental Railroad, 
 the completion of which we are met to celebrate to-day. If any one 
 
i 
 
 HENRY HUNTLY HAIGHT. 673 
 
 had asserted six years ago that to-day would find us rejoicing over 
 a completed Pacific Railway, he would have been ridiculed as an idle 
 dreamer. It is due to candor and truth to say, that even after the 
 large grants made by Congi'ess, the number of those who regarded 
 the enterprise as spurious, and as nothing more than a Dutch Flat 
 turnpike, probably exceeded the number of those who expected to 
 witness its completion. It is unnecessary to give a history of a work 
 with which you are all so familiar. Many of you recollect that not 
 far from this place, in the month of January, 1863, the first ground 
 Vv^as broken in the constiTiction of the Pacific Railroad, by the then 
 Governor of the State, now the President of the corporation. The 
 enterjorise encountered some opposition, which has probably retarded 
 by a twelvemonth the completion of the work. I am not here to 
 sound tha praises of individuals or of communities, but it is simple 
 justice to say that the men who projected and successfully executed 
 this gigantic undertaking have exhibited a degi-ee of foresight, of 
 industry, sagacity, and business capability, which merits high praise. 
 
 I say this the more freely because it is well known that I have 
 never looked with approbation upon the loan of State funds or credit, 
 or the gift of State property to any corporation of this character. 
 The people will doubtless oppose any such polic}^ in the future as 
 they have in the past. 
 
 It is a question of low taxes and exemption from debt on one 
 hand, and a burdensome debt and high taxation on the other. All 
 the railroads which are required will be built by private enterprise, 
 without loading the State with an incubus of debt, crippling its 
 finances for half a century, and furnishing a prolific source of cor- 
 iniption. If we expect to derive benefit from a Pacific railroad by the 
 infiux of population, we should be able to point immigrants to a 
 State free from debt, where the surplus earnings of the industrial 
 and mercantile classes are not all absorbed by the tax-gatherer. 
 
 While, too, we should be willing to be just to all, we need not 
 forget that most powerful private corporations have some interests 
 in conflict with those of the public, and that they are justly regarded 
 with some jealousy. 
 
 To return, however, from this digression: It cannot be otherwise 
 than a source of just pride to the citizens of Sacramento, that what- 
 ever credit attaches to any community in the State for the conception 
 and execution of this gi^eat enterprise, belongs rightfully to them. I 
 say this not to utter any implied censure upon other communities on 
 this day of festivity and rejoicing, but it is said as the simple truth. 
 The men who conceived the project and carried it through to suc- 
 cess are all citizens of Sacramento, and the fact cannot be othei*wise 
 than gratifying to her people. 
 
 It was an arduous undertaking from first to last. The progress, 
 at the outset, was slow through the foot-hills and up the mountain 
 slopes of the Sierras. Hills were cut through, canons bridged, until 
 after about four years of labor the iron track reached the solid granite 
 of the summit. A tunnel of 1,650 feet through granite rock, in- 
 volved enormous expense and labor, and caused a delay of a year. 
 
 43 
 
674 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The mountain was finally pierced, and the iron track started but 
 little more than a twelvemonth ago for its race toward the Eocky 
 Mountains. That the rapidity of its construction since that time has 
 been a marvel, and that all anticipations have been exceeded, is 
 notorious. 
 
 AVe stand here to-day to rejoice not only over the completion of 
 this great thoroughfare of commerce, but to rejoice still more with 
 devout thanksgiving over a prosperity not exceeded, if equalled, in 
 any community on the globe. It is safe to say that there is no State 
 or country where more elements of substantial prosperity exist, where 
 greater contentment perv^ails, where labor is so well rewarded, where 
 wealth is so generally diffused, where a sounder currency is to be 
 found, and where climate and other causes are more promotive of 
 the health and happiness of all classes. 
 
 I have thus, in these discursive remarks, glanced briefly at the 
 past and present of California. What shall be said of her future? 
 Lift your eyes and expand your conceptions to take in the magnitude 
 of her destiny. An empire in area, presenting advantages and attrac- 
 tions to the people of the Eastern States and Europe far beyond those 
 presented by any other State or Territory, who will set limits to her 
 progress, or paint in fitting colors the splendor of her future ? 
 
 When we reflect upon what has transpired during the twenty 
 years that are past, isolated as the State has been, what will be her 
 progress during the twenty years that are to come ? Extrinsic causes, 
 of course, may influence our destiny for good or evil. Mismanage- 
 ment at home or at Washington, profligate public expenditure, 
 foreign war, and unwise legislation, famine and pestilence, may, at 
 times, retard our progress, but if the people of California are true 
 to themselves, this State is destined to a high position, not only 
 among her sister States, but among the commonwealths of the world. 
 
 AVhat is to be her future in the useful arts, with the popular 
 intellect trained and developed by a complete sj^stem of general edu- 
 cation; in the fine arts, when the exquisite tints of her iand>scapes 
 and sky, and the stupendous scenery of her mountains are transferred 
 in glowing colors to the canvas, and the sculptor's genius chisels into 
 forms of beauty the marble of her quarries; in commerce, when trade 
 is freed from its shackles; when her ships visit every shore, and her 
 merchant princes control the commerce of this great ocean and the 
 populous countries upon its border; in manufactures, when our silk 
 and woolen goods, by their superior quality, displace the fabrics of 
 older nations; in agriculture, when our wine and wheat are as eagerly 
 sought after as our gold and silver; in science and literature, when 
 institutions of learning, of the first order, afibrd every facility, and 
 accumulated wealth secures leisure for scientific and literary pursuits. 
 
 In the answer to these questions, we might be charged by our 
 Eastern brethren with . blind partiality aud exaggeration. We are 
 content to leave the answer to time. 
 
 The day is at hand when a more splendid civilization than any 
 which has preceded it, will arise upon these distant shores. A vast 
 population will pour into this Canaan of the new world. Already 
 
HEXRY HUNTLY HAIGHT. 675 
 
 we hear the hum of preparation in every quarter: akeady we listen 
 to the tread of the advancing hosts. From the north, east, and south, 
 from the lakes to the gulf, the swelling tide of population will gather 
 volume, and pour in a mighty tide across the Continent, bringing to 
 us the youth, the enterprise and energy of the older countries in 
 search of adventure, of freedom, and of riches on the shores of the 
 Pacific. Tourists will be attracted by the most sublime scenery on 
 the Continent, and thousands will come to repair physical consti- 
 tutions racked by the extremes of climate, the inclement aii% and the 
 miasma of the States east of the mountains. 
 
 These words may seem boastful to our brethren at the East, but 
 we know whereof v/e speak, and in simple truthfulness can say no 
 less. One reminiscence more before I close. The 14th day of this 
 month terminates the first century of the occupancy of this State 
 by the white race. One hundred years ago, on that day, the first 
 settlement of white men was made within the borders of California. 
 A party of immigrants then arrived, not in a luxurious passenger 
 car, whirled along the dizzy heights and profound gulfs of the Sierras 
 by a ponderous engine, waking the echoes of the mountains with its 
 roar and rattle, but led by a Franciscan friar, not in quest of gold or 
 ofiice, or of a more comfortable home, but stimulated by religious 
 zeal, and bearing the standard of the cross. After a laborious and 
 painful journey overland through Mexico, Father Juan Crespi arrived 
 at San Diego, on the 14th day of May, 1769. F'ather Junij)ero Serra 
 followed, arriving on the 1st day of July, of the same year. 
 
 It seems singularly appropriate to signalize the centennial anni- 
 versaiy of the settlement of California by the completion of this 
 crowning work of Saxon civilization, which links together in iron 
 bonds the two great oceans of the world, and carries California at 
 one bound into the centre of the great family of nations. 
 
 If, after the lapse of this hundred years, the good friar could 
 awake from his slumber and revisit the scenes of his self-denying 
 labors, with what speechless amazement would he gaze upon the 
 transformation wrought on these shores since his day ! It is doubt- 
 fid, however, whether the changes of the past hundred years, 
 amazing as they have been, are more wonderful than those that will 
 occur within the hundred years to come. Where is the fancy ad- 
 venturous enough to conceive the changes to occur before the cease- 
 less course of time brings the second centennial anniversary of the 
 settlement of California? 
 
 In conclusion, however, some things must be borne in mind, if 
 we expect that prosperity which seems to gild with its rainbow of 
 promise the horizon of our future. 
 
 Railwaj^s and telegraphs are potent civilizers, but these alone will 
 not constitute or conserve any State — much less a free State. Cor- 
 ruption and vice can travel on railways with as much ease as in stage 
 coaches. California may have all the facilities of travel and inter- 
 course, and its people accumulate wealth bej^ond the dream of 
 avarice, and yet be miserably poor in all the higher elements of solid 
 and endui'ing happiness. What the moral character of the future 
 
676 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 population of this State is to be, depends largely upon the genera- 
 tion which is living to-day. 
 
 When we contemplate the magnitude of the destiny in store for 
 our noble State, let us realize that we must ourselves furnish to those 
 who are to come after us that lofty example which we wish them to 
 follow. "We must set our faces like a flint against corruption in high 
 places as in low ones — in legislative halls and primary conventions. 
 We must make no compromise with gilded dishonesty. We must 
 refuse to recognize tw^o codes of morals, one for private and a low^er 
 one for political affairs. 
 
 Above all, we must recollect that the only basis of morality is 
 religion; that no people who are unmindful of their obligations to 
 their Creator can permanent^ prosper; that no amount of material 
 wealth can compensate for the decay of public and private virtue. 
 And whatever our religious convictions may be, or whatever forms 
 of worship or tenets of faith our judgments approve, while we obey 
 the calls of patriotism and render unto Csesar the things that are 
 Caesar's, let us be careful to render unto God the things that are 
 God's. 
 
'•^ or Taa'** 
 
(^y?xtn^^ wyi-viA^pL. 
 
 ^/ 
 
DELAZON SMITH.* 
 
 THE progenitors of Delazon Smith were among the very 
 earliest settlers of Xew England. Capt. Jonathan 
 Smith, the grandfather of Delazon — as was his father — 
 was born in the colony of Rhode Island. Capt. Smith 
 was commissioned a captain in the war of the Revolution, 
 and performed signal and important services from the 
 inception of the war at Bunker's Hill until the final vic- 
 tory at Yorktown. From the memoir published of the 
 late Rev. Stephen R. Smith, (who was the nephew of 
 Capt. Smith) we make the following quotation : 
 
 My father's family, or rather that of my grandfather on my 
 mother's side, was, by intermarriage and common ancestry, intimately 
 connected with several ©f the prominent families of the State of 
 Hhode Island. The Hopkinses, Wilkeiisons, and Harrises, and 
 others in the vicinity of Providence, were near relations; among these 
 the Stephen Hopkins whose name apjDears among the signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence, I have always understood, was cousin- 
 german of my grandfather. The children of my grandfather, John 
 Smith, of Scituate, Rhode Island, were six sons and one daughter, 
 namely, Richard, Joseph, Jonathan, Oziel, Thomas, Hope, and Sarah. 
 The sons were in their several spheres distinguished for their devotion 
 to the cause of national freedom. Richard, the eldest, was a sub- 
 altern in one of the New England regiments, during one or two of 
 the campaigns of what was known as the French War, and which 
 terminated in the capture of Quebec and the cession of Canada to 
 Great Britain. Josejjh, though never in the regular service, was one 
 of those Green Mountam hoys who stormed the breastworks at the 
 battle of Bennington; while his son, a lad of only fifteen years, 
 fought in the second battle on the same day. Jonathan, (the grand- 
 father of Delazon) with a lieutenant's commission, on hearing of the 
 
 * For explanatory note, see Preface, 
 
678 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 battle of Lexington, marched immediately with his company to Cam- 
 bridge; was several years in the Continental service, and lived till a 
 very advanced age in the enjoyment of his country's bounty. Thomas 
 declined a commission, and entered the service as a volunteer. He 
 was killed at the bridge in Springfield, New Jersey. Captain Olney, 
 of the Ehode Island line, has given in his own memoir, an interesting 
 account of his feelings and fears when left to guard the bridge, 
 where he lost his life. Oziel, though devoted to the cause of liberty, 
 was emphatically a man of peace, and though occasionally called out 
 for short periods of service, it is not known that he ever remained 
 longer than immediate duty required. 
 
 The maternal grandfather of Delazon was Joseph 
 Briggs, Esq., a native of Massachusetts, and at the time 
 of the Revolution, a citizen of Vermont. He was also a 
 captain in the War of Independence: he particularly dis- 
 tinguished himself in the battles of Bunker's Hill, Benning- 
 ton, Saratoga, and Monmouth, and was present at the 
 surrender of Burgoyne. On one occasion, in the midst 
 of the battle, his superior officer, having deserted the 
 American standard, and sought protection under the 
 British banner, Captain Briggs moved gallantly forward 
 to the command, rallied the dismayed and panic-stricken 
 men, charged the enemy boldly and courageously and 
 turned the tide of battle, achieving a victory at a moment 
 when defeat seemed inevitable. 
 
 At the close of the war, he returned to his home and 
 resumed the peaceful pursuits of private life, covered with 
 honorable scars, and content with the consciousness of 
 duties well performed, and rejoicing in an honorable peace 
 with its blessings, and the unquestioned freedom of his 
 country. Thus could the young Senator point with pride 
 to his ancestry and to his country's record, which estab- 
 lishes the fact that he descended from ^^figUing stock:'" 
 indeed, every battle-field where a foreign foe has been met 
 and resisted by American arms has been wet with the 
 blood of his kindred. One brother offered himself and 
 was sacrificed upon the altar of his country during the 
 war with Mexico. 
 
 Delazon Smith was the fourth son of Archibald Smith, 
 and was born in the village of New Berlin, in the county 
 of Chenango, State of New York, on the 5th of October, 
 1816. His father was an humble mechanic, in moderate 
 
DELAZON SMITH. 679 
 
 circumstances. His mother was a woman of extraordinary 
 intellectual powers, and of remarkable excellence of 
 character and disposition, universally esteemed as a 
 womanly perfection of nature's noblest handiwork. She 
 died in the year 1825, leaving five surviving sons of ten- 
 der age, to rely at the very commencement of their career 
 mainly upon their own individual, native, inherent energy, 
 for success in the great battle of life. 
 
 In the year 1831, when but fifteen years of age, Delazon, 
 provided with but a small bundle of clothing which he 
 carried under his arm, and almost penniless, started for 
 the ^' West." After a temporary residence of two or three 
 years in Western New York with an elder brother who 
 had preceded him, and where he sought, and to a limited 
 extent obtained, the facilities of an education, he renewed 
 his journey westward. Having heard that there was a 
 manual labor college in Ohio, where indigent young men 
 could obtain an education and meet their current expenses 
 by the daily labor of their hands, young Smith lost no 
 time in making his way to that institution. He arrived 
 at Oberlin in the spring of 1834, where he remained two 
 years as a student of the " Collegiate Institute." Then 
 he withdrew because of his refusal to acquiesce in the 
 practice which then prevailed of enticing away, harboring, 
 secreting, and running off North slaves from the Southern 
 States. 
 
 On leaving Oberlin, the young student repaired to 
 the city of Cleaveland, where he published a large edition 
 of a small work entitled, ^' Oherlin Unmasked;'' and it is a 
 significant and somewhat remarkable fact, that even at 
 that early period in the history of anti-slavery agitation, 
 he actually depicted, as w^ith the ken of a prophet, the 
 state of things as they existed at a later period. Having 
 arrived in Cleaveland, and resolved upon the study and 
 practice of the law, Mr. Smith at once entered his name 
 as a student in the ofl&ce of a prominent attorney of that 
 city. In the meantime, he contributed much to the 
 columns of the newspaper press^ and frequently became 
 involved in controversies on the subject of religion and 
 politics. 
 
G80 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 In the spring of 1838, Mr. Smith received a flattering 
 invitation from an association of appreciative gentlemen 
 to return to the city of Rochester, in his native State, for 
 the purpose of establishing a newspaper, to be called the 
 Neio York Watchman. This position he accepted, and 
 edited the Watchumn for a period of two years, in the 
 meanwhile continuing the study of the law. 
 
 In the memorable campaign of 1840, Mr. Smith edited 
 and published a very able, spirited, and influential Demo- 
 cratic paper, entitled the True Jeffersonian. His maiden 
 political speeches, delivered to large and promiscuous 
 audiences, were made in the Presidential contest of 1836; 
 and though he had taken an active and prominent part 
 in the New York State elections of 1838, yet it was not 
 until the campaign of 1840 that his extraordinary abil- 
 ities as a political or '^ stump" speaker became generally 
 known. During that excited and bitter contest, under 
 the banner of Van Buren and Johnson, he did more than 
 a soldier's duty: he performed herculean labor. In addi- 
 tion to sustaining his True Jeffersonian with marked and 
 acknowledged ability, he canvassed with great success 
 the States of New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. 
 
 After the close of the campaign of 1840, Mr. Smith 
 established a daily paper called the Western World, but 
 owing in part to the utter prostration of the Democratic 
 party, he discou tinned it, and soon after, in the fall of 
 1841, returned to Ohio, and located in the city of Day- 
 ton, w^here he at once established a Democratic jom^nal, 
 which he named Western Umpire, which came to be the 
 leading Democratic paper in that section of the State. 
 
 When the then Chief Magistrate of the nation vetoed 
 the Congressional bills re-chartering a national bank, 
 etc., and after Mr. Tyler's policy had become essentially 
 Democratic, Mr. Smith, as the editor of the Empire, and 
 as a Democratic orator, gave to the executive and hig 
 administration a prompt, generous, and able support. 
 
 In 1843, a difference of opinion arose between Mr. 
 Smith and some of his partisan friends and associates, in 
 reference to the propriety and policy of his defence and 
 support of certain measures of Mr. Tyler's administra- 
 
DELAZON S^nTH. 681 
 
 tion, which eventuated in Mr. Smith's voluntarily with- 
 drawing himself from the editorial control of the Empire. 
 Soon afterwards, however, he established another paper, 
 called the Miamian^ in the same city. 
 
 Prior to the Baltimore Convention of 1844, Mr. Smith 
 declared his preference for and hoisted the name of Gen. 
 Lewis Cass for the Presidency, in the meantime insisting 
 that President Tyler's overtures to be readmitted into 
 the Democratic party should be generously and cordially 
 met, and the leading measures of his administration, be- 
 ing substantially Democratic, sustained and defended, his 
 honest friends fcllowshipped, and his Democratic ap- 
 pointees protected and preserved in position. 
 
 When Mr. Polk was chosen as the compromise 
 standard-bearer of the Democratic party, Mr. Smith 
 placed his name at the head of his paper, and was every- 
 where found energetically, eloquently, and gallantly bat- 
 tling, under the motto of '' Oregon and Texas," for Polk 
 and Dallas. 
 
 At the close of the campaign of 1844, President 
 Tyler appointed Mr. Smith as Special Commissioner of 
 the United States to the Republic of Ecuador, in South 
 America. In the execution of this mission, Mr. Smith 
 was clothed by his govermnent with full powers to treat 
 with the government of Ecuador. He was especially in- 
 structed to remain at Quito from nine to twelve months, 
 and if at the expiration of that period the objects of his 
 mission had not been accomplished, or if in his judgment 
 there was no immediate prospect of a satisfactory issue, 
 he should return to the United States. Upon his arrival 
 at Quito, Mr. Smith found the government to which he 
 had been accredited embroiled in intestine wars. After 
 having remained at the capital of the Republic for one 
 month, and exchanged a few letters with the self-con- 
 stituted officers of the provisional government, and 
 ascertaining the utter impossibility of accomplishing the 
 objects of his mission, he returned home. 
 
 On his return from South America, in the spring of 
 1846, Mr. Smith located himself in what was then the 
 territory of Iowa, where he purchased and settled upon 
 
682 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OP THE PACIFIC. 
 
 a farm, and engaged in the labors of agriciilturej associa- 
 ting therewith, to a limited extent, the practice of the 
 law. In the formation of the State government, he took 
 a prominent and active part. During his residence in 
 Iowa, he appears to have been the especial favorite of the 
 Democracy of his (Van Buren) county, for on three several 
 occasions they presented his name as their first choice for 
 Congress, and once to a Democratic State convention as 
 their choice for Governor. 
 
 In the year 1850, Congress, at the close of the long 
 session, declared the seat of Hon. Wm. Thompson, from 
 Iowa, vacant, it having been contested by the Hon. Daniel 
 F. Millar. Understanding that no convention would be 
 held, and that Mr. Thompson would not contest the 
 matter before the people, and did not desire to run for 
 an election to fill the residue of the term, the Democratic 
 friends of Mr. Smith held a mass meeting and placed him 
 in nomination for that position. Subsequent!}^, however, 
 Mr. Thompson resolved upon making the canvass^ and 
 the result was the election of Mr. Millar, the opposition 
 candidate. 
 
 During his residence in Iowa, Mr. Smith was con- 
 stantly on hand engaged in fighting the battles of the 
 Democracy, and with the same zeal, intrepidity, and elo- 
 quence which had characterized all his previous efforts in 
 the advocacy and defence of his favorite principles. 
 
 During the Presidential campaign of 1848, he edited 
 with decided ability the Iowa Democrat^ in support of 
 Cass and Butler, the Democratic nominees; and in the 
 meanwhile canvassed upon the stump a large portion of 
 the State, in company with Gen. A. C. Dodge, our late 
 Minister to Spain, and the late Chief Justice Joseph 
 Williams. Yery much of the credit for having in that 
 day placed the Territory of Iowa upon her feet as u Dem- 
 ocratic State is eminently due to Mr. Smith. 
 
 Having lost several members of his family by death, 
 and having suffered deeply from sickness and other mis- 
 fortunes during his residence in Iowa, Mr. Smith resolved 
 upon seeking health and home and fortune by removing 
 still farther Westward. Accordingly, in the spring of 
 
DELAZON SMITH. 683 
 
 1852, he set out with his family in an ox- wagon for the 
 Territory of Oregon, crossing the Plains and the Rocky 
 Mountains. He was five months making the journey from 
 the Missouri River to the Dalles of the Columbia. Himself 
 and family suffered severely for a protracted period with 
 sickness whilst on the Plains, but at last arrived in safety 
 and health in the Yalley of Willamette, thougli not until 
 they had lost every head of cattle, and in fact every thing 
 in the shape of property which they possessed. 
 
 Undaunted, and neither dismayed nor disheartened, 
 Mr. Smith selected for himself a land-claim (under the 
 act of Congress of 1850, granting lands to all citizens who 
 should reside upon and cultivate the same for a period of 
 four consecutive yearsj in the county of Linn, in the heart 
 of the Valley, and soon thereafter established his family 
 there. Having thus provided a home, he applied himself 
 vigorously and unremittingly to the practice of the law, 
 devoting the proceeds to the cultivation and improvement 
 of his farm, and to securing the comforts and surrounding 
 himself with the elegancies of life. 
 
 In the spring of 1854, the Democracy of Linn county 
 nominated Mr. Smith as a candidate for the Legislature, 
 and he was elected by a majority of upwards of two hun- 
 dred. In the following year, he was again nominated for 
 the same position, and returned by a majority of four 
 hundred. 
 
 Upon the convening of the Legislature, he was chosen 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives, receiving nine- 
 tenths of the votes cast. In 1856, he was again renomi- 
 nated and reelected to the Legislature by an increased 
 majority, and in the year following, he was chosen one of 
 the delegates to the convention to frame a constitution for 
 the State government; and finall}^, in July, 1858, he wah 
 chosen one of the first United States Senators from tht 
 State of Oregon, by a four-fifths vote of the members of 
 the Legislature assembled in joint convention. 
 
 Did the space allotted to this hurried sketch allow, 
 we should take pleasure in quoting briefly from some of 
 the numerous speeches, addresses, and orations delivered 
 by Mr. Smith on various occasions, and which have been 
 
68 i REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 published from time to time, as specimens of his style of 
 oratory: but a want of space must deprive us of this 
 pleasure. 
 
 The most prominent characteristics of Mr. Smith were 
 energy, perseverance, and warmth of feeling and attach- 
 ment. Whatever he resolved upon doing, he did with 
 remarkable energy and singleness of purpose: no impedi- 
 ment deterred, no adversity appalled him : he never flagged 
 or faltered, nor would he readily bow or bend to the storm ; 
 if he did, he rose again, and not less determined than ever. 
 No man was more devoted to country, home, and friends. 
 Unreserved, frank, and candid, no one would go further, 
 or sacrifice or suffer more, to serve his friends. As a 
 debater, he reasoned inductively and analogically: was 
 always ready, forcible, and elegant; and none who heard 
 him were permitted to doubt either his patriotism or his 
 sincerity. 
 
 Mr. Smith, in casting lots, drew the short term, ex- 
 piring on the fourth of March, 1859. Upon the expira- 
 tion of his brief term of office, he returned to Oregon, 
 and took a prominent part in political movements in that 
 State. He was in good health and spirits, and his friends 
 confidently predicted for him many years of brilliant 
 usefulness. But Providence dashed the hopes of the 
 statesman and the expectations of his friends, and put a 
 period to his career. Within a week after the result was 
 known of the Presidential election of 1860, Mr. Smith 
 was taken suddenly ill, and died in a few days thereafter. 
 His widow still lives on the family homestead, a large and 
 valuable farm in Linn county. Mr. Smith was a true 
 friend and faithful servant of the people of Oregon, by 
 whom his memory is gratefully cherished. 
 
STEPHEN JOHNSON FIELD 
 
 By the ^ditor 
 
 JUDGE Field is the son of the late Rev. David D. Field, 
 an eminent Kew England divine. David Dudley 
 Field, who has been, for a quarter of a century, one of 
 the foremost members of the American bar; Cyrus W. 
 Field, the projector of the Atlantic submarine telegraph; 
 Jonathan Field, formerly President of the Massachusetts 
 Senate; and Rev. Henry M. Field, editor of the New 
 York Evangelist, are all brothers of the subject of this 
 sketch. 
 
 Stephen Johnson Field was born in Haddam, Con- 
 necticut, November 4th, 1816. In 181 8, his father moved 
 to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he resided until 
 1837, and from 1851 until his death in 1866. When 
 thirteen years of age, young Field accompanied a relative 
 to Greece and Asia Minor, where he remained for nearly 
 three years, studying the modern languages. Returning 
 he entered Williams College in the fall of 1833, had the 
 Greek Oration in the Junior year, and graduated in 1837 
 with the Valedictory Oration, the highest honor in his 
 class. In 1838, he went to ISTew York city, and entered 
 upon the study of the law in the office of his brother, 
 David Dudley Field. During this year, he met with an 
 accident which resulted in serious and permanent injury 
 to one of his knee-joints, and has ever since caused a 
 slight lameness. 
 
686 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 After being admitted to the bar, he became the part- 
 ner of his brother, with whom he remained until June, 
 1848, when he went to Europe, and remained abroad 
 until the fall of the next year. On his return, he was 
 carried by the tide setting for California to that State, 
 where he arrived on the 28th of December, 1849. Among 
 his fellow-passengers were Gov. Purdy and Gregory Yale, 
 Esq. 
 
 Mr. Field settled at Marysville, of which place he was 
 one of the earliest citizens. ^'He was chosen by the first 
 settlers Alcalde, (under Mexican usage) and officiated in 
 that capacity until the organization of the judiciary of 
 the State — his decisions being final, and his jurisdiction 
 extending over an immense, indeed an undefined, terri- 
 tory." Subsequently, for many years, he practiced his 
 profession in the various Courts of the State, and was 
 engaged before the Supreme Court at nearly every term 
 of that tribunal. For several years before his elevation 
 to the Supreme Court bench, he was generally regarded 
 as the first lawyer of Northern California. He also 
 represented Yuba county in the second session of the 
 Legislature, and the State is indebted to him for very 
 many of the laws which constitute the body of her legis- 
 lation. 
 
 In 1857, Mr. Field was elected one of the Justices 
 of the Supreme Court of California, having received his 
 nomination from the Democratic party. His nomination 
 was endorsed by many leading newspapers politically op- 
 posed to him, and his election by a large majority was 
 not only a political triumph but a popular recognition 
 of those qualities which subsequently enabled him to 
 adorn that high station. After his election, and before 
 the commencement of the term for which he was chosen, 
 he was appointed by Governor Johnson, Justice of the 
 Supreme Court, to fill the unexpired term of Judge 
 Heydenfeldt, resigned. This appointment, coming from 
 a political opponent, was an endorsement of the popular 
 estimation of his high character. He took his seat on 
 the bench in October, 1857, and in 1859, upon the 
 resignation of Judge Terry, became Chief Justice of the 
 
STEPHEN JOHNSON FIELD. 687 
 
 State. In the latter year, he was married at San Fran- 
 cisco to Miss Sue Y. Swearingen. 
 
 In 1863, while still discharging the duties of Chief 
 Justice of the State, Judge Field, upon the unanimous 
 recommendation of the Senators and Representatives in 
 Congress from the Pacific coast, was nominated by Presi- 
 dent Lincoln and confirmed by the Senate, an Associate 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He 
 has ever since continued in the active performance of the 
 functions of this high office. 
 
 At the bar, Judge Field was a most skillful opponent. 
 He came to the trial of a cause thoroughly master of all 
 its details; then, with his mind steadily fixed upon its 
 principal points, he proceeded with coolness, caution, and 
 boldness; never thrown off* his guard; never surprised 
 by a new proposition; and always developing strength 
 when the cause demanded it, he seldom failed to evolve 
 whatever there was in a case. Without being what is 
 popularly called a great speaker, Judge Field argued his 
 cases with force and eff'ect, whether before a court or jury. 
 There was a nervous strength and an enthusiasm in his 
 clear-cut, logical arguments, which seldom failed to con- 
 vince. 
 
 Upon the bench Judge Field was equally distinguished. 
 His leading characteristic is his clear comprehension of 
 the great principles of the law: in all cases he seeks to 
 apply the broad and general rules of right and justice, and 
 in order to do this, to brush away the trifles and techni- 
 calities by which they may be obscured. This is especially 
 true of his opinions in cases involving the titles to land. 
 When carefully examined, they will be found to embrace 
 a system of land laio, scattered, it is true, through twelve 
 volumes of the Reports of the Supreme Court of the State 
 of California; sufficiently comprehensive to meet nearly 
 all questions arising in the acquisition, protection, and 
 transmission of this species of property. It is undoubt- 
 edly owing to this fact that his decisions have so generally 
 stood the test of time, and are now recognized as author- 
 ity not only in California, but in all the States of the 
 Pacific. 
 
688 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Judge Field enjoyed the intimate acquaintance and 
 friendship of the late Judge Joseph G. Baldwin, who en- 
 tertained for his legal abilities profound respect. Judge 
 Baldwin regarded with great pleasure and satisfaction 
 Judge Field's elevation to the high place which he now 
 holds, and in a communication to the Sacramento Unions 
 under date of May 6th, 1863, he gave a brief history of 
 Judge Field's career, and discussed his character and 
 abilities as a lawyer and jurist. And he did not hesitate 
 to declare that, '^ by the appointment of Judge Field to 
 a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, the State of California has been deprived of the 
 ablest jurist who ever presided over her courts." 
 
 Since his elevation to the Supreme Bench of the 
 United States, Judge Field has not ceased to exercise his 
 talents for the benefit of his adopted State. As peculiarly 
 owisng to his exertions, may be mentioned the final settle- 
 ment of a basis for land titles in San Francisco. It is 
 generally understood 'that the act of Congress confirming 
 the Yan Ness Ordinance, and the subsequent and final act 
 of Congress substantially confirming the decision of the 
 Circuit Court in the Pueblo case, emanated from him. 
 His constant solicitude has been to evolve something like 
 order from the chaotic condition of the land titles in that 
 city, believing that he could render no more efficient 
 service to the rising metropolis of the Pacific, and con- 
 sequently to the whole State, than in conferring upon it 
 one of the first essentials to the prosperity and financial 
 health of any community — certainty in the title to the 
 lands upon which it is built. 
 

 ^/? 
 
 j^^H '«^ 
 
 3. * 
 
Sn.&aTed-&T J C E^ittee froci a D^goerreo'.-I^ 
 
 c//r77l<'/}?^^f^UD- 
 
 C FBOM CALIF DRj;iA 
 
JAMES A. MCDOUGALL 
 
 ^Y ^ILLIAM fi. JR.HODEa 
 
 Vita sine Uteris, mors est. 
 
 WHEN intelligence of the death of Gen. McDougall 
 reached California^ not a citizen of that State but 
 felt that one of her brightest intellects, purest patriots^ 
 and wisest counselors had departed. The fame of the 
 dead senator had penetrated every corner of that new 
 dominion. As a lawyer, he had been eminently success- 
 ful; as a public officer, incorruptible; as a statesman, 
 w^isc, forearmed, and magnanimous. More learned than 
 Baker, more successful than Hoge, and more consistent 
 than Pratt, he led that mighty phalanx of great West- 
 erners who at an early day immigrated into California, 
 and by their united genius lifted her up into the position 
 of one of the noblest States that adorn our confederacy. 
 By their services, she early attained her proudest charac- 
 teristic, the Umjnre State of the Pacific ! 
 
 James A. McDougall was born in Albany county, in 
 the State of New York, in November, 1817, a-nd received 
 the rudiments of his education at the Grammar School 
 of that place. At a very early age, he assisted in the 
 survey of the first railroad built in the Slate of New 
 York — that connecting the two cities of Albany and 
 Schenectady. His attention thus early was directed 
 towards internal improvements, particularly to railroads, 
 U 
 
690 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 and some of the most important acts of his life owed 
 their germs to this commencement. Here, indeed, may 
 be seen the origin of his advocacy of the Great Pacific 
 Railroad, to the construction of which he devoted much 
 of his time and all of his talents: of this, however, we 
 shall speak more at large hereafter. 
 
 After completing the survey of the Albany road, Mr. 
 McDougall resolved to adopt the profession of law as the 
 'business of his life, and set about the study with indus- 
 trious alacrity. He devoted all his time to this object, 
 and with characteristic energy soon mastered the rudi- 
 ments of the profession. Whilst still a mere boy, he 
 emigrated to the great West — in 1837 — and settled in 
 Pike county, Illinois. Here he at once developed talents 
 of the highest order, and rose with unprecedented ra- 
 pidity to the highest honors of the forum. In 1842, he 
 was elected Attorney General of Illinois, and at the con- 
 clusion of his first term of office in 1844, was again elected 
 to the same position. 
 
 During his early career in Illinois, it was his fortune 
 to meet and come into friendly rivalry at the bar with 
 such men as Baker, Hoge, and Pratt. Nor is it doing 
 any injustice to those distinguished jurists to assert that 
 he fully equaled, if he did not surpass, them all. Indeed, 
 for varied literary as well as legal lore ; for scrupulous 
 good taste in all his compositions; for fiery eloquence 
 and aptness of quotation, no citizen of Illinois has ever 
 yet approached him. 
 
 From Illinois, he led an expedition of his own form- 
 ing, in 1849, to the head waters of the Rio del Norte. 
 The object of this venture was primarily, exploration of 
 the country, with a view to settlement, and secondly, a 
 search for the precious metals. 
 
 The enchanting news from California seems to have 
 taken entire possession of the minds of some of the ablest 
 and most adventurous spirits of the far West, and hence 
 the brilliant array of distinguished names that adorned 
 the early annals of the Golden State. The results of the 
 expedition not being satisfactory, instead of returning 
 homewards, the caravan turned its face to the westward, 
 
JAMES A. MCDOUGALL. 691 
 
 and started across the deserts and hills of the Gila and 
 Colorado for the El Dorado of the West. 
 
 Soon after his arrival in California, he settled in San 
 Francisco, and devoted his attention to the practice of 
 law. From the first moment of his appearance at the 
 bar in that city, he became a man of mark and distinc- 
 tion. It was no easy task to take precedence of such 
 men as Tilford, Randolph, and Sloan; yet McDougall 
 soon found himself an overmatch for them all, and shared 
 the dangerous honor of preeminence alone with Lock- 
 wood of Indiana. The contests between these two jurists 
 of the law were always terrific, and very often extremely 
 rough and personal. What Lockwood lacked in polish, 
 he made up in erudition, and what was wanting in 
 McDougall's delivery, was fully compensated for in sar- 
 castic humor. Lockwood was ponderous in his blows, 
 whilst his rival was alert and watchful. It was the old 
 battle between Fitz James and Roderick Dhu, between 
 David and Goliah, between rude strength and practiced 
 skill. The Damascus blade generally triumphed over the 
 rude claymore and the tough bull's hide. When the 
 verdict came, it was received usually in sullen silence by 
 the defeated Hoosier. The New Yorker smiled, birt 
 said nothing. Well he knew that when the appeal came 
 to the Supreme Court, nothing could resist the polished 
 irony, nervous vigor, and apt learning of his luminous 
 pen. Still the battle was left undecided up to the period 
 of Lockwood' s death. After that event, it was generally 
 conceded that James A. McDougall stood at the head of 
 the California bar. 'No sooner had he established his 
 right as a leader than he received the nomination of the 
 Democratic party for the office of Attorney General of 
 the State. He was triumphantly elected to that position 
 in 1850, and served with great distinction. His legal 
 eminence soon led to political preferment, and he was 
 chosen member of Congress, as a Representative, in 1853. 
 
 Previous to his election, the question of the con- 
 struction of a continental railroad began to exercise the 
 minds of the most sagacious politicians on both shores 
 of the hemisphere. On the western, McDougall took the 
 
G92 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 lead. Unquestionably the most scientific of the laymen 
 who advocated the measure, he soon, by his studies of 
 the geography of the interior of the continent, led even 
 the scientific corps who had been detailed by the Federal 
 government to take the initiative steps towards its con- 
 struction. It soon became the hobby of McDougall, as it 
 had been for many years with Senator Benton of Mis- 
 souri. All sources of information were explored by him 
 with indefatigable industry, and his first great speech in 
 Congress was upon his favorite theme. Before quitting 
 home, he delivered several powerful speeches on the 
 subject, and by his warm and magnetic eloquence aroused 
 the leading minds of California and Oregon to a just ap- 
 preciation of the subject. 
 
 • Much has been written to prove who was the real 
 father of the Pacific Railroad. It matters but little who 
 first suggested the general idea; but the honor of prac- 
 ticalizing the thought is due to James A. McDougall. 
 His powerful advocacy of the measure in Congress led to 
 the first action of the Covernment on the question, and 
 his ready learning on all the branches of the subject 
 effected more towards its completion than all the surveys 
 put together. In 1855, he declined a renomination for 
 Congress, and resumed the practice of law in San Fran- 
 cisco. In 1861, he was elected a United States Senator 
 to Congress, and came forward with renewed strength in 
 the prosecution of his favorite measure. 
 
 The war having in the meantime broken out between 
 the sections North and South, afforded a wide field for 
 proving the utility of the undertaking, and he did not 
 fail to present the argument in its new light, as a neces- 
 sary war measure. At this period his party being in a 
 large minority in Congress, upon others, more in sym- 
 pathy with the national administration, devolved the 
 chief duty of presenting the question. But still, upon 
 the shoulders of the Western Titan rested the heaviest 
 part of the burthen. Ably seconded by Sargent and his 
 colleagues, all difficulties were finally removed, and he 
 lived to see the darling object of his political life on the 
 'ligh road to success. 
 
JAMES A. MCDOUGALL. 693 
 
 In addition to the labors he performed on committee, 
 as Chairman of the Pacific Raikoad, he served also, and 
 with no less distinguished honor, on the Finance Com- 
 mittee, and upon that of ^aval Affairs. 
 
 Whilst in Congress, his principal speeches, aside from 
 those on the Railroad, were delivered on the subjects of 
 the expulsion of Senators Bright and W. P. Johnson; on 
 Emancipation; on Slavery in the District of Columbia; 
 on the establishment of a Steam Mail Line to China and 
 Japan; on the Civil Rights Bill; on Reconstruction; on 
 the Restoration of the Southern States; on the Freedmen's 
 Bureau; the Continental Telegraph Lines; the National 
 Academy; and upon that singular subject, the sale of 
 liquor by retail within the purlieus of the Capitol. 
 
 Upon all these questions he spoke with the learning 
 of a scholar and the moderation of a statesman. We 
 doubt if there has ever been a more logical, eloquent, 
 and unanswerable argument than that contained in his 
 speech delivered in the Senate of the United States on 
 the 12th March, 18G2, on the subject of the Right of 
 Confiscation of Southern property. He threw a mighty 
 blaze of historical and legal light upon the question, that 
 amazed and confounded his opponents; and he silenced, 
 if he did not convince them. It was in this celebrated 
 speech that he defined his position on the question of 
 negro slavery. Standing there as a representative, he 
 did not hesitate to affirm : 
 
 Do not understand me, Mr. President, as being in any sense, in 
 the remotest degree, an advocate for slavery in any form. I have 
 never, since I have had opinions, entertained the opinion that it 
 could exist to the advantage of any free State. I regard its influ- 
 ences as being worse upon the white than upon the slave poj^ulation. 
 I understand, too, that when I present my opposition to this meas- 
 ure, I come in contact with what is the popular opinion and feeling 
 of the people throughout the free States. That cannot measure my 
 conduct. I understand the business of a Senator here in the pass- 
 age of laws to be to inquire into what laws are necessary and just, 
 what laws presented are impolitic or unjust, and to give his support 
 to the one, and his opposition to the other. No notion of popular 
 opinion should or will control me. 
 
 But lest his motives might be impugned, he took occa- 
 sion also to say: 
 
694 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Sir, as far as I am able to read of the wisdom taught by the his- 
 tory and counselings of the past, the measure now proposed can 
 never secure i3eace. The policy involved in it will continue an angry, 
 remDrselss^, relentless war, which if it do not involve subjagation, 
 will involve extirpation. I fear that the country, and not only the 
 country but the Senate, have been led wild with anger; that they 
 have caught some of the angry spirit of their adversaries, and in- 
 stead of taking lessons from the great States of the world, and the 
 greab teachers of ancient and modern times, have taken their advice 
 from Richmond and Montgomery. 
 
 Bjt Sanator McDougall Wcis also a leader of public 
 opinion on another subject, which at the time of the de- 
 livery of his address subjected him to unworthy 'criticism 
 and ill-natured comment. We allude to his Franco- 
 Mexican speech on the 3d February, 1863. The policy 
 advocated by him at that time soon afterwards became 
 the settled plan of the Federal Grovernment, though at 
 the moment of its expression no statesman was more 
 bitter in his denunciations than Mr. Secretary Seward. 
 This led to some ill-feeling betwixt the two statesmen, 
 and induced General McDougall to pay a very equivocal 
 compliment to the American premier. It is related, upon 
 good authority, that McDougall, returning home one night 
 from a prolonged session of the Senate, indulged rather 
 freely in his favorite beverage, so much so as to fall down, 
 without the power of self-elevation. At this moment a 
 policeman approached, and before assisting him to rise, 
 asked him who he was. He answered very laconically, 
 ^' Don't you see? I'm Sewardr 
 
 This anecdote leads us to remark that the most char- 
 acteristic speech he ever made was in the Senate, not 
 long before his death, on the sale of intoxicating bev- 
 erages within the Capitol building. This speech is full 
 of the most delicate wit, subtle irony, and eloquent 
 learning. Classical quotations, and historical incidents 
 and allusions, abound in it from beginning to end. As 
 an ironical defence of drunkenness, it has no parallel in 
 English literature; and though McDougall was famous 
 before for his classics, this effort left him without a peer 
 in the Senate of the United States. 
 
 As a specimen of McDougall' s serious style, his eulogy 
 on the death of Col. E. D. Baker, Senator from Oregon, 
 
JAMES A. MCDOUGALL. 695 
 
 and killed in the battle of Ball's Bluff, is appended to 
 this sketch. No finer eulogy than this was ever spoken 
 upon the floors of Congress. The speech upon the sale 
 of liquors in the National Capitol will also be found in 
 this volume, immediately following the eulogy just re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 Yet, with all his talent, learning, and industry, he 
 had one fault. This pursued him most relentlessly to his 
 grave, and he died the victim of the same habits that cut 
 off Prentiss in the splendor of his career and the meridian 
 of his fame — the same enemy that throttled Alexander 
 the Great, conquered Alcibiades, and killed Lord Clive ; 
 and though we could not pardon his self-indulgence 
 during life, we may be permitted to forgive it, now that 
 he is no more. JReguiescat in pace! He died at Albany, 
 near the spot of his birth, on the 30th of September, 
 1867, aged fifty years. 
 
 Delivered in the United States Senate, December 11th, a. d. 1861. 
 
 BY GEN. J. A. MCDOUGALL. 
 
 Mr. President: Within the brief period I have occupied a seat on 
 this floor, I have listened to the formal announcement of the decease 
 of the two Senators nearest to me by the ties of association and 
 friendship, both representative men, and among the ablest that ever 
 discoursed counsel in this Senate. I trust I shall be pardoned if it 
 be thought there is something of pride in my claim of friendship 
 with such distinguished and not to be forgotten men. The l^te 
 Senator from Illinois, as well as the late Senator of whom I am about 
 to speak, were my seniors in years, and much more largely instructed 
 than myself in public affairs. Differing as they had for a period of 
 more than a quarter of a century, they had met together, and in the 
 maintenance in all its integrity of the great governmental institution 
 of our fathers, they were one. Coming myself a stranger to your 
 counsels, I looked to them for that home advice in which there is no 
 purpose of disguise or concealment. Their loss has been, and is, to 
 me like the shadows of great clouds; but while I have felt, and now 
 
696 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 feel their loss, as companions, friends and counselors in whose truth 
 I trusted, I feel that no sense of private loss should find expression 
 when a nation suffers. I may say here, however, that, while for 
 the loss of these two great Senators a nation suffers, the far country 
 whence I come feels the suffering of a double loss. They were both 
 soldiers and champions of the West — of our new and undeveloped 
 possessions. A few months since, the people of the Pacific, from 
 the sea of Cortez to the Straits of Fuca, mourned for Douglas : the 
 same people mourn for Baker. The two Senators were widely dif- 
 ferent men, moulded in widely different forms, and they walked in 
 widely different paths; but the tread of their hearts kept time, and 
 they each sought a common goal, only by different paths. 
 
 The record of the honorable birth, brilliant life, and heroic death 
 of the late Edward Dickinson Baker has been already made by a 
 thousand eloquent pens. That record has been read in cabin, and 
 in hall, from Maine to furthest Oregon. I offer now but to pay to 
 his memory the tribute of my love and praise. While paying this 
 tribute with a proud sadness, I trust its value will not be diminished, 
 when I state that for many years, and until the recent demands of 
 patriotism extinguished controversial differences, we were almost 
 constant adversaries in the forum and at the bar. A great writer, in 
 undertaking to describe one of the greatest of men, said: "Know 
 that there is not one of you who is aware of his real nature." I 
 think that, with all due respect, I might say of the late Senator the 
 same thing to this Senate, as I am compelled to say it to myself. Of 
 all the men I have ever known he was the most difficult to comprehend. 
 He was a many-sided man. Will, mind, power, radiated from one 
 centre within him, in all directions; and while the making of that 
 circle, Vv^hich, according to the dreams of old philosophy, would con- 
 stitute a perfect being, is not within human hope, he may be regarded 
 as one who at least illustrated the thought. His great powers cannot 
 be attributed to the work of laborious years. They were not his 
 achievements. They were gifts, God-given. His sensations, memory, 
 thought, and action, went hand in hand together, with a velocity and 
 power which, if not always exciting admiration, compelled astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 Although learned, the late Senator was not what is called a scholar. 
 He was too full of stirring life to labor among the mouldy records of 
 dead ages; and had he not been, the wilderness of the West furnished 
 no field for the exercise of mere scholarly accomplishments. I say 
 the late Senator was learned. He was skilled in metaphysics, logic, 
 and law. He might be called a master of history, and of all the 
 literature of our own language. He knew much of music — not only 
 music as it gives present pleasure to the ear, but music in the sense 
 in which it was understood by the old seekers after -svisdom, who held 
 that in harmonious sounds rested some of the great secrets of the 
 infinite. Poetry he inhaled and expressed. Tiie afflatus called divine 
 breathed about him. Many years since, on the then wild plains of 
 the West, in the middle of a star-lit night, as we journeyed together, 
 I heard first from him the chant of that noble song, The Battle of 
 
JAMES A. MCDOUGALL. 697 
 
 Ivry. Two of its stanzas impressed me then, and there are other 
 reasons why they impress me now : 
 
 The King lias come to marshal us, in all his armor drest; 
 
 And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest; 
 
 He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
 
 He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high; 
 
 Right graciously he smiled on us, as ran from ^\ing to wing, 
 
 Down all our line, a deafening shout, " God save our Lord the King!'* 
 
 And if my standard-bearer fall, and fall full well he may, 
 
 For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray. 
 
 Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war, 
 
 And be your oriflamme to-day, the helmet of Navarre. 
 
 Hurrah! the foes are moving; hark to the mingled din 
 
 Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring cul-verin. 
 
 The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andrew's plain. 
 
 With all the hirehng chivalry of Gueldres and Almagne; 
 
 " Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, 
 
 Charge! for the golden hhes: now upon them with the lance!" 
 
 A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest, 
 
 A thousand loiights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest; 
 
 And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, Hke a guiding star, 
 
 Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre. 
 
 He was an orator — not an orator trained to the model of the Greek 
 or Eoman school, but one far better suited to our age and people. 
 He was a master of dialectics., and possessed a skill and power in 
 words which would have confounded the rhetoric of Gorgias, and 
 demanded of the great master of dialects himself, the exact use of 
 all his materials of wordy warfare. He was deeply versed in all that 
 belongs to the relations and conduct of all forms of societies, from 
 families to States, and the laws which have and do govern them. 
 He was not a man of authorities, simply because he used authorities 
 only as the rounds whereby to ascend to principles. Having learned 
 much, he was a remarkable master of all he knew, whether it was to 
 analyze, generalize, or combine his vast materials. It was true to 
 him, as it is fei'ue of most remarkable minds, that he did not always 
 appear to be all he was. The occasion made the measure of the 
 exhibition of his strength. "When the occasion challenged the effort, 
 he could discourse as cunningly as the sage of Ithaca, and as wisely 
 as the king of Pylus. 
 
 lie was a soldier. He was a leader; ** a man of war," fit, like the 
 Tachmite, "to sit in the seat, chief among the captains." Like all 
 men who possess hero blood, he loved fame, glory, honorable re- 
 nown. He thirsted for it with an ardent thirst, as did Cicero and 
 Caesar: and what was that nectar in which the gods delighted on 
 high Olympus but the wine of praise for the great deeds accomplished? 
 "Would that he might have lived, so that his great sacrifice might 
 have been offered, and his great soul gone up from some great 
 field, his lips bathed with the nectar that he loved! None ever felt 
 more than he — 
 
 Since all must life resign, 
 
 Those sweet dehghts that decorate the brave 
 ' 'Tis folly to decline. 
 
 And steal inglorious to the silent grave. 
 
698 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 But it was sometMng more than the fierce thirst for glory that carried 
 the late Senator to the field of sacrifice. No one felt more than he 
 the majestic dignity of the great cause for which our nation now 
 makes war. He loved freedom, if you please; Anglo-Saxon freedom; 
 >'or he was one of that great old race. He loved this land, this whole 
 land. He had done much to conquer it from the wilderness; and by 
 his own acts he had made it his land. Hero blood is patriot blood. 
 When he witnessed the storm of anarchy with which the madness of 
 depraved ambition sought to overwhelm the land of his choice and 
 love; when he heard the battle-call. 
 
 Lay down the ax, fling by the spade. 
 
 Leave in its track the toiUng plowj 
 The rifle and the bayonet blade, 
 
 For arms Hke yours are fitter now: 
 
 And let the hands that ply the pen. 
 
 Quit the hght task, and learn to wield 
 The horseman's crooked brand, and rein 
 
 The charger on the battle-field. 
 
 Our country calls; away, away! 
 
 To where the blood-streams blot the green; 
 Strike to defend the gentlest sway 
 
 That time in aU its course has seen. 
 
 It was in the spirit of the patriot hero that the gallant soldier, 
 the grave Senator, the white-haired man of counsel, yet full of youth 
 as full of years, gave answer, as does the war-horse, to the trumpet's 
 sound. 
 
 The wisdom of his conduct has been questioned. Many have 
 thought that he should have remained for counsel in this hall. Mr, 
 President, the propriety of a Senator taking upon himself the duties 
 ; of a soldier, depends, like many other things, on circumstances; 
 I and certainly such conduct has the sanction of the example of great 
 i names. Socrates — who was not of the councils of Athens simply 
 : because he deemed his office as a teacher of wisdom a higher and 
 i nobler one — did not think it unworthy of himself to serve as a com- 
 j mon soldier in battle; and when Plato seeks best to describe and 
 j most to dignify his great master, he causes Alcibiades, among other 
 i things, to say of him: 
 
 I ought not to omit what Socrates was in battle; for in that battle after which 
 the Generals decreed to me the prize of courage, Socrates alone, of all men, was 
 the saviour of my life, standing by me when I had fallen and was wounded, and 
 •preserving both myself and my arms from the enemy. But to see Socrates when 
 •our army was defeated and scattered in flight at Dehas, was a spectacle worthy to 
 behold. On that occasion I was among the cavalry, and he on foot heavily armed. 
 After the total rout of our troops he and Laches retreated together. I came up by 
 chance; and seeing them, bade them be of good cheer, for that I would not leave 
 them. As I was on horseback, and therefore less occupied by a regard of my own 
 situation, I could better observe than at Potidoea the beautiful spectacle exhibited 
 by Socrates on this emergency. * * * He walked and darted his regards around 
 with a majestic composure, looking tranquilly both on his friends and enemies; so 
 that it was evident to every one, even from afar, that whoever should venture to 
 Attack bim would encount^ a desperate resistance. He and his companion thus 
 
JAMES A. MCDOUGALL. 699 
 
 departed in safety ; for those who are scattered in flight are pursued and killed, 
 whilst men hesitate to touch those who exhibit such a countenance as that of 
 Socrates, even in defeat. 
 
 This is the picture of a sage painted by a sage; and why may not 
 great wisdom be the strongest element of a great war? In the days 
 when the States of Greece were free, when Kome was free, when 
 Venice was free, who but their great statesmen, counselors, and 
 senators, led their armies to victorious battle? In the best days of 
 all the great and free States, civil place and distinction was never 
 held inconsistent with military authority and conduct. So far from 
 it, all history teaches the fact that those who have proved themselves 
 most competent to direct and administer the affairs of government, 
 in times of peace, were not only trusted, but were best trusted with 
 the conduct of armies in times of war. In these teachings of his- 
 tory there may be some lessons we have yet to learn; and that we 
 have such lessons to learn I know was the strong conviction of the 
 late Senator. It is with no sense of satisfaction that I feel it my 
 duty to say that I have been led to the opinion that there is much 
 soundness in the opinion he entertained. 
 
 It is but a brief time since the late Senator was among us, main- 
 taining our countiy's cause, with wise counsel, clothed in eloquent 
 words. When, in August last, his duties here as a Senator for the 
 time ceased, he devoted himself exclusively to the duties of a soldier. 
 Occupyin ^ a subordinate position, commanded where he was most 
 fit to command, he received his orders. He saw and knew the 
 nature of the enterprise he was required to undertake; he saw and 
 knew that he was required to move underneath the shadow of the 
 wings of Azrael. He did not, he would not, question the require- 
 ment made of him. His motto on that day was: "A good heart and 
 no hope. " He knew, as was known at Balaklava, that some one had 
 blundered; yet he said: "Forward, my Brigade, although some one 
 has blundered." Was this reckless rashness? No! It may be called 
 sacrifice, self-sacrifice; but I, who know the man who was the late 
 Senator — the calm, self-possessed perfectness of his valor — and who 
 have studied all the details of the field of his last offering with a sad 
 earnestness, say to you, sir, to this Senate, to the country, and par- 
 ticularly to the people of the land of the West, where most and l3est 
 he is known and loved, that no rash, reckless regardlessness of danger 
 can be attributed to him. It is but just to say of him that his con- 
 duct sprung from a stem, hero, patriot, martyr spirit, that enabled 
 him to dare, unflinchingly, with a smile to the green earth, and \vith 
 a smile to the bright heavens, and a cheer to his brave companions, 
 ascend the altar of sacrifice. 
 
 A poet of the middle ages, speaking of Carthage as then a dead 
 city, the grave of which was scarcely discernible, says: 
 
 For cities die, kingdoms die; 
 A little sand and grass covers all 
 That was once lofty in them, and 
 Glorious; and yet man, forsooth, 
 Disdains that he is mortal! Oh, 
 Mind of ours, inordinate and proud! 
 
700 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 It is true cities and kingdoms die, but the eternal tliouglit lives 
 on. Great thought, incorporate with great action, does not die, but 
 lives a universal life, and its power is felt vibrating through all spirit 
 and throughout all the ages. I doubt whether or not we should 
 mourn for any of the dead. I am confident that there should be no 
 mourning for those who render themselves up as sacrifices in any 
 great, just, and holy cause. It better becomes us to praise and 
 dignify them. It was the faith of an ancient people that the souls 
 of heroes did not rest until their great deeds had been hymned by 
 bards, to the sounds of martial music. Bards worthy of the ancient 
 time have hymned the praise of the great citizen. Senator, and soldier, 
 who has left us. They have showered on his memory 
 
 Those leaves, which for the eternal few 
 Who wander o'er the paradise of fame. 
 In sacred dedication ever grew. 
 
 I would that I were able to add a single leaf to the eternal ama- 
 ranth. In long future years, when our nights of horror shall have 
 passed, and there shall have come again *' the welcome morning 
 with its rays of peace," young seekers after fame and young lovers 
 of freedom, throughout all this land, yea, and other and distant 
 lands, will recognize, honor, and imitate our late associate as one of 
 the undying dead. 
 
 On the Resolution to Prohibit the Sale of Spirituous Liquors in the National 
 Capitol Building, dehvered in the United States Senate, April 11th, 1866. 
 
 Mr. President: It was once said that there were as many minds 
 as men, and there is no end of wrangling. I had occasion some 
 years since to discourse vdth a reverend doctor of divinity from the 
 State which has the honor to be the birthplace, I think, of the 
 present President of this body. While I was discoursing with him, 
 a lot of vile rapscallions invited me to join them at the bar. I de- 
 clined, out of respect to the reverend gentleman in whose presence 
 I then was. As soon as the occasion had passed, I remarked to the 
 reverend doctor, *'Do not understand that I declined to go and join 
 those young men at the bar because I have any objection to that 
 thing, for it is my habit to drink always in the front and not beliind 
 the door.'' He looked at me with a certain degree of interrogation. 
 I then asked him, "Doctor, what was the first miracle worked by 
 our great Master?" He hesitated, and I said to him, *' Was it not 
 at Cana in Galilee, where he converted the water into wine, at a 
 marriage-feast?" He assented. I asked him then, "After the ark 
 had floated on the tempestuous seas for forty days and nights, and 
 
JAMES A. MCDOUGALL. 701 
 
 as it descended upon the dry lands, what was the first thing done by- 
 father Noah?" He did not know that exactly. "Well," said I, 
 *' did he not plant a vine?" Yes; he remembered it then. 
 
 I asked him, "Do you remember any great poet that ever illus- 
 trated the higher fields of humanity that did not dignify the use of 
 wine, from old Homer down?" He did not. I asked, "Do you 
 know any great philosopher that did not use it for the exaltation of 
 his intelligence? Do you think, doctor, that a man who lived upon 
 pork and beef and corn-bread could get up into the superior re- 
 gions — into the ethereal? No; he must 
 
 ' Take nectar on high Olympus, 
 And mighty mead in Valhalla.' " 
 
 I said to him again, "Doctor, you are a scholarly man, of course — 
 a doctor of divinity — a. graduate of Yale : do you remember Plato's 
 Symposium?" Yes, he remembered that. I referred him to the 
 occasion when Agatho, having won the prize of Tragedy at the 
 Olympic Games at Corinth, on coming back to Athens, was feted by 
 the nobility and aristocracy of that city; for it was a proud triumph 
 to Athens to win the prize of Tragedy. They got together at the 
 house of Phsedrus, and they said, "Now, we have been every ni5Tht 
 for these last six nights drunk : let us be sober to-night, and we \^ ill 
 start a theme;" which they passed around the table, as the sun goes 
 round, or as they drank their wine, or as men tell a story. They 
 started a theme, and the theme was love — not love in the vulgar 
 sense, but in its high sense — love of all that is beautiful. After they 
 had gone through, and after Socrates had j)ronounced his judgment 
 about the true and beautiful, in came Alcibiades with a drunken 
 body of Athenian boys, with garlands around their heads to crown 
 Agatho and to crown old Socrates; and they said to those assembled, 
 "This will not do; we have been drinking, and you have not." And 
 after Alcibiades had made his talk in pursuance of the argument, in 
 which he undertook to dignify Socrates, as I remember it, they re- 
 quired (after the party had agTeed to drink, it being quite late in the 
 evening, and they had finished their business in the way of discus- 
 sion) that Socrates should drink two measures for every other man's 
 one, because he was better able to stand it. And so one after 
 another they were laid down on the lounges in the Athenian style, 
 all except an old physician named Aristodemus, and Plato makes 
 him the hardest-headed fellow except Socrates. He and Socrates 
 stuck at it until the grey of the morning, and then Socrates took his 
 bath and went down to the groves and talked academic knowledge. 
 
 After citin^this incident, I said to this divine, " Do you remem- 
 ber that Lord JBacon said that a man should get druiik at least once 
 a month, and that Montaigne, the French philosopher, endorsed 
 the proposition?" 
 
 I said to him further, " These exaltants that bring us up above 
 the common measure of the brute, wine and oil, elevate us, enable 
 us to seize great facts, inspirations, which, once possessed, are ours 
 forever. And those who never go beyond the mere beastly means 
 
702 REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 of animal support, never live in the high planes of life, and cannot 
 achieve them. I believe in women, wine, whisky, and war." 
 
 The reverend doctor replied, " Well, General, you are right; but 
 I cannot afford to say it." 
 
 I do not know but that it would be well for the sober Senator 
 from California to indulge himself somewhat more in generous wine; 
 and I do not know but that it would be of service to the Senator from 
 New Hampshire, and I am sure it would have a kindly influence 
 upon the Senator from Massachusetts. I think all these propositions, 
 all these regulations, all this style of determining liberties that ought 
 to be common to all men, by virtue of ismatical influences, is wrong, 
 and I utterly protest against it. I think it was well when we had 
 our lunch-room in the Senate chamber, where we quietly sat down 
 and drank our wines at our pleasure. The times have come to be so 
 false that men dare not say what they honestly think to be the truth 
 and the right. That sin of cowardice shall never come to my door. 
 I say the whole proposition is wrong. Let the Senator from Massa- 
 chusetts, if he chooses, drink his wine as his forefathers did before 
 they cut down all the apple-trees in that State. Because apple- 
 trees raised apples, and apples made cider, and cider made brandy, 
 they cut them down all through New England; but in his grand- 
 father's time, every gentleman of Massachusetts, or every man who 
 was able to afford it, had on his side-board a bottle of good apple 
 brandy, and he offered it to his guests the moment he received them. 
 Those were the good old times when gentlemen were abounding* in 
 the land. This kind of regulation tends to decorate humanity and 
 to degrade the dignity of the Senate. 
 
^ -C^A /A/^J 
 

 RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 T0«^ 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 RENEWALS AND RECHARGES MAY BE MADF 4 DAYS PRIOR TO DUE DATE. 
 LOA!.' PERIGDC .\nr. 1-.MONTH, 3-MONTHS. ArJD 1-YEAR. 
 R£:>SE\VALS: CALL (415) 642-3405 
 
 RECgivirrPWAS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 SFP 1 d 1285 
 
 08CULAIIUN IW I KqAi-iv USE O'^LY 
 
 ^5«ttrttl 
 
 ^ 
 
 35 
 
 \ 
 
 vm 
 
 £U>U\^ 
 
 ^^^0. D/se 
 
 ^£P2 a 
 
 -teir 
 
 OCT 1 9 1991 
 
 'CULATION OEPT. 
 
 Wir 
 
 ^^J934 
 
 AUTO DISC. 
 
 MT0Discot:r?_:>'91 may 2ft 190 3 
 
 CIRCULATIQ \t 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 (Bs 
 
 
^^^L!^ 
 
 -VV^,A^ 
 
 m (mrrx- 
 rmili 
 
 
 
 t2:<r (x::cc(X3^C( 
 
 GENERAL LIBRARY -aCBERKatY 
 
 BOQO^MbS^a 
 
 nr(K^H#i 
 
 KTCCC 
 
 
 KCC 
 
r^ 
 
 ^^^^■^fmi-f^m 
 
 f^'. 
 
 
 
 
 
 y-.^^ 
 
 
 o^ji 
 
 ^SS 
 
 ^^jmmm '^'-^ 
 
 ^m^ 
 
 
 It) 'yM>£^'' 
 
 ^w^ 
 
 ,^*»):> 
 
 ^:>^^:> 
 
 
 -t^,^ "lY