CHAPTER IV.

CALIFORNIA GOLD EXCITEMENT IN 1848-50.

GOLD DISCOVERED--ANXIOUS TO GO--"OUTFIT" OBTAINED--FAREWELL TO FRIENDS--TRIP FROM SOUTH BEND TO OLD FORT KEARNEY--PERILOUS PASSAGE OVER THE "BIG MUDDY"--FIRST NIGHT IN NEBRASKA--TERRIBLE STORM--BEAUTIFUL SCENE.

n the year 1848 rich gold-mines were discovered in California. During that year, and in 1849, the most intense excitement on the subject prevailed throughout all the States. Flushed with the glowing reports from the mines that came by every mail, and with high expectations of becoming independently rich in a few months, tens of thousands rushed to the land of gold. The gold-fever, like a tidal wave, rolled from ocean to ocean. Many went "over the Plains," crossing the Missouri River, passing up the Great Platte Valley, thence over the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. To make this trip, from three to four months were required. Others went by water, doubling Cape Horn, a voyage requiring five or six months; while many others went by way of the isthmus, crossing from Aspinwall to Panama, and from there on the Pacific to San Francisco.

     In South Bend, Indiana, my home, the "California fever" raged fearfully, carrying hundreds of the people to the Pacific Coast. Several companies were organized, and set out for the far distant West. Just before bidding their friends farewell, as their teams stood hitched to their wagons in the street, the Hon. Schuyler Colfax was called on for a speech. He was in the second story of a large store-building on Washington Street. He stepped forward to an open window, and looking down into a sea of upturned faces, spoke to the emigrants. He assured them that they would have the sympathy and prayers of the friends they left behind, and that during their absence the citizens of South Bend would never allow any of their families to suffer want. His few felicitous remarks touched the hearts of all. The faces of the emigrants, and the hundreds who crowded the streets to witness their departure, were bathed in tears. The scene was a most touching one. I shall never forget it. I shall never forget how I envied the young men that were among the emigrants, and how ardently I longed to be one of their number. The desire already kindled in my young heart for the new El Dorado, was fanned to a flame, and burned with a white heat. I said to myself, "I will go some day." During all that year the excitement continued, becoming, if anything, more intense. The mail from the

Pacific Coast came only once a month. When it arrived, hundreds gathered in and around the postoffice, eager to learn the latest news from the mines. Nearly all the letters from friends were read aloud to the citizens. When a letter was received, after glancing over it himself, the person receiving it was called on to read it aloud for the benefit of all present. He would climb upon a chair or a dry-goods box, and read, while the hundreds around him stood in breathless silence, bending forward, eager to catch every word that fell from his lips. I have seen a large crowd standing in front of the post-office in the midst of a drenching rain, and while one held an umbrella over the person reading the letter, the crowd listened, seemingly unconscious of the terrible storm that was raging. And I do not suppose there was one in the vast crowd more oblivious to the storm, more anxious to hear, and more intensely interested than myself. We talked of California by day, and dreamed of it by night. Visions of the far-famed gold-regions often rose before us. In the spring of 1850 the long-wished-for time came. Judge E. Egbert, a brother-in-law, offered an "outfit" to my brother Albert and myself, with the understanding that we were to give him one-third of all the profits arising from any business we might engage in while in California.

     I was then seventeen years old. With buoyant spirits, bright hopes, and visions of immense treasures of wealth before us, we bade adieu to a weeping mother, brothers and sisters, and friends, and started for the far West. Little did we know, or even dream, of the privations, sufferings, and disappointments that awaited us in the future. And well is it that a kind Providence keeps all these things hid from us! Well is it that the future, so far as these things are concerned, is all unknown. Little did we know of the dangers that would beset us on every hand, of the many imminent perils to which we should be exposed. Even now, when I think of the many narrow, hair-breadth escapes of life, I feel a peculiar chilly sensation creeping over me. I often ask: "How was it we escaped?" The answer comes in an instant: "God's guardian angel watched over us."
    There is truth, as well as poetry, in Shakespeare's words:

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."

    Thomson, too, utters a great truth when he says:

    I verily believe that that "unseen Power" which guides the motion of all worlds, all systems, and all atoms, guided and guarded us.
    The patriotic Roman cried out: "If I had a thousand lives, I would give them all for my country."
    With greater emphasis, and greater love for God than the Roman had for his country, I have often said: "If I had a thousand lives, they should all be given to God."
    We were just four weeks going from South Bend, Indiana, to Saint Joseph, Missouri. The roads through Illinois and Missouri were very bad. We had never seen anything like them. There was snow and rain and mud. We had black, sticky mud in Illinois, and yellow, sticky clay in Missouri. In that early day there were but few bridges, and but very little work had been done on the roads. It is hard for any one now, in these days of improved roads and easy travel, to imagine the difficulties that were in the way of travel at that time. Illinois was full of sloughs. These have since been bridged, and no longer impede the traveler. We would cross several of these daily, and often our horses would go down to their sides in mud. We came to one of these one day; it looked ominous; we hesitated about attempting to cross. A team was just

in front of us, and the driver said to the man on the other side
    "Is the bottom good?"
    "Yes," was the reply. So he cracked his whip and started in. His horses began to flounder and soon went down to their sides in mud, and the whole wagon was buried except the box. The driver cried out in a rage to the man on the other side:
    "I thought you said the bottom was good here ?"
    "It is," said the man, coolly, "but you are not half-way down to it." It was a common remark among the emigrants that the bottoms had dropped out of all the roads in Illinois.
    Twenty miles east of St. Joseph, Mo., we stopped four weeks to rest our horses, lay in provisions, and prepare for the long journey over the plains. At that time St. Joseph was the extreme western border of civilization, and the outfitting point for emigrants starting for California. Beyond this, all was a wide, desolate waste. There were no white settlements west of this. The whole territory belonged to the Indians. St. Joseph was a small, unsightly, filthy town, of a few hundred inhabitants, and in looks the people compared very favorably with the dingy houses, filthy streets, and general repulsiveness of the place. Here we saw

what we had never seen before. Many of the men we met wore about them leather belts, in which were large bowie-knives and revolvers. These they carried openly, and no attempt whatever was made to conceal their deadly weapons. Robberies were of almost daily occurrence, and it was unsafe for a man to walk the streets alone at night. We felt peculiar. We realized, for the first time, that we were in a "strange land," among thieves and robbers and cut-throats, and that life was none too safe. The impression made upon one, unaccustomed to such scenes, was very strong. I sometimes felt my heart creeping up into my throat, and a certain unpleasant choking sensation. But this little, unsightly, unattractive village has grown to be one of the beautiful, flourishing, and inviting cities of the West.
    From this place we passed up the east side of the Missouri River into Iowa, to a point just opposite old Fort Kearney. Old Fort Kearney stood right where Nebraska City now stands. Here we crossed the "Big Muddy" in an old, dilapidated ferry-boat. The river was high, the current swift, and to undertake to cross the turbulent stream in such a rickety craft was indeed a hazardous task. The ferrymen managed the boat with oars and long poles. Only the day before the current got away with them, carried them some distance below the landing, capsized the

boat, and a span of horses and a loaded wagon went down and were lost. The ferryman said, while there was danger, still he thought he could land its safely on the other side. We were restless, anxious to proceed on our journey, and unwilling to wait for the water to fall. We said, "We will risk it," and drove our team on board; and, with bated breath and trembling limbs, held the horses and watched the oarsmen with the most intense anxiety. When the dangerous current was passed and the pilot cried out, "Safe," the heavy strain was gone; relief came, and we breathed easy. A few moments afterwards the boat struck the shore, and on the 2d day of May, 1850, our feet pressed Nebraska soil for the first time. We pitched our tent on the western slope of "Kearney Hill;" and as it was raining and the ground wet, we cut hazel-brush, on which we placed our blankets and made a comfortable bed. That night the rain fell in torrents, and the thunder-peals were deafening. Lightning-flash vied with lightning flash, and thunder-peal with thunder-peal, and the elements seemed holding a grand carnival. In the morning we found the water running like a perfect mill-tail through our tent and under our bed. The brush, however, kept the bed from the water, and we were perfectly dry. Early that day the clouds cleared away, the sun came forth, pouring his mellow rays of light

upon all around, and the scene that swept before us from the west was beautiful, even beyond all description. The lovely prairies, stretching away in every direction as far as vision could extend, with swell rising above swell, carpeted with living green, and beautified with flowers of almost every hue, made a scene which caused us involuntarily to exclaim, "Grand!"
    Our first meeting with Nebraska was like the first meeting of many a young man and woman--it was "love at first sight." And that love, kindled when we first gazed upon Nebraska's beauty, has been growing in intensity for forty years.
    As we stood upon Kearney Hill, it never once occurred to us that, in a very few years hence, on this very spot, would rise a great and beautiful and flourishing city. And still more remote was the thought that, in eleven short years, I should be a minister of the gospel and presiding elder of a district embracing near half the Territory of Nebraska. If such a thought had entered my mind at that time, I should have banished it in an instant as one of the wild visions of the young.
    I was then an uneducated, unconverted boy of seventeen years. My heart was on this world. Bright visions of the future rose before inc. Vast treasures of wealth were soon to be mine. A life of unalloyed pleasure, with everything

earth can give to make man happy, was within my grasp. These were the dreams of my young heart. Little did I imagine that all my worldly plans and hopes, in a few brief years, would be dashed to atoms.
    Momentous events and wonderful scenes were crowded into the next ten years. When I think of the stupendous events and wonderful changes that took place during that short period, a sensation I have no language to describe thrills my whole being.