HISTORY -OF- AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA BY J. D. MASON.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE MINERS.
Exaggerated Accounts of Bret Harte and Joaquin Miller Cooking and Washing Hawks, Squirrels, Quails, and Other Game for Food Getting Supper Under Difficulties Laundry Affairs Prevalence of Vermin The Sanguinary Flea Miners' Flea Trap Fleas versus Bed-bugs Rats and Other Animals Visits of Snakes A Romantic Affair Spoiled by a Skunk.
FOR the satisfaction of curious women who wish to know how their fathers and brothers managed housekeeping, we have added this chapter. Men who never tried pioneer life, and have no prospect or necessity of trying it, may omit reading this altogether, or forever hold their peace. Many exaggerated stories are in circulation concerning the habits and characters of our early settlers. Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, and a score of other writers, have taken some odd sample of humanity, added some impossible qualities, and set him up to be laughed at, or perhaps admired; when the fact is, the caricature is about as near the original as the Indian maiden of romance is to the filthy squaw that would eat the raw entrails of a horse or bullock without adding anything to the dirt, that already ornamented her hands and face. The '49er is represented as having pounds of dust loose in his pockets, which he passed out by the handful for whisky or whatever struck his fancy; as carrying an arsenal of knives and revolvers which he was wont to use on the slightest provocation " rough but generous, brave, and kind." While it is true that an ideal '49er occasionally made an appearance in those days for it is almost impossible to draw a monster, physical, moral, or intellectual, that has not some familiar features the fact is, that the mass of the people had no resemblance to the ideals of Bret Harte or Joaquin Miller. They were sober, industrious, and energetic men, who toiled as men with ambition and strength can toil. The labor these men performed in damming and turning rivers, or tunneling mountains, was not the -spurt of enthusiasm born of whisky. Many of the men had families at home whose letters were looked for with the most eager interest. The younger men, who had not families, had ties perhaps equally as strong. The exceptions, which have given such a false character to the '49er, were unprincipled adventurers from every State and nation, gamblers in bad repute, even among their own kind, frontiersmen who acknowledged no law, and fugitives from -justice everywhere. This was the class that made a vigilance committee necessary in San Francisco in 1850 and 1856; which occasionally aroused the wrath of the mass of miners by robbing or killing u peaceable citizen. The description of this class is not the object of this chapter; they have already, in the hundred books which have been written of them, had more notice than they deserved. The substantial, honorable, and industrious must now claim our attention.
When the lucky prospector had found a paying claim, the next thing was to set up his household. From two to four was the usual number of the mess. The Summers were long and dry, and there was no discomfort in sleeping out of doors. But even in Summer a house, though humble it might be, had many advantages over a tent for comfort and security. A stray horse or ox would sometimes get into the flour-sack or bread-sack, upset the sugar, or make a mess of the table-ware. Wandering Indians would pilfer small things, or take away clothing which might be left within reach; but in a cabin things were tolerably secure from depredation. A site for a cabin was selected where wood and water were abundant. These things, as well as the presence of gold, often determined the location of a future town. Bottle Spring (Jackson), Double Springs, Mud Springs, Diamond Springs, and Cold Springs, at once suggest their origin. In the earlier days, log-cabins were soon put up, for suitable logs were found everywhere. Though these cabins are in the dust passed into history there is no need of describing them,' as the books are full of the "settlers' log cabin," and no boy of the present generation, who has arrived to the age of ten, would need instruction in building one.
In the western settlements a floor made of hewn timbers (puncheons) was usual, but the ground served for a floor, and was considered good enough for a man. The sleeping places were as various as the minds of men. Sometimes a kind of dais, or elevation of two or three feet, was made on one side of the cabin, where the men, wrapped in their blankets, slept with their feet to the fire. Generally, bunks were made by putting a second log in the cabin at a proper elevation and distance from the sides, and nailing potato or gunny sacks across from one to the other, making in the same way a second tier of bunks, if necessary. Some fern leaves or coarse hay on these sacks, with blankets, made a comfortable bed. A good fire-place was necessary. Most of the mining was in water, necessarily involving wet clothes. A rousing fire, especially in Winter, was necessary to " get dried out." Some of these fire places would be six feet across, and built of granite or slate rocks, as each abounded. There was not much hewing done to make them fit. When the structure had been carried up four or five feet, an oak log was laid across as a mantle-piece, and on this the chimney, generally made of sticks or small poles plastered with mud, was built. A couple of rocks served for rests for the backlog and forestick. A shelf or two of shakes, or sometimes an open box in which pickles or candles had come around the Horn, would serve for a cupboard to keep a few tin plates, and cups, and two or three cans containing salt, pepper, and soda. A table of moderate size was also made of shakes, sometimes movable, but oftener nailed fast to the side of the house. Those who crossed the plains would often take the tail-gate of
DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE MINERS.
the wagon for this purpose. A frying-pan, coffee pot, Dutch-oven, and water-bucket completed the list of household utensils. As the miners became prosperous, a soup-kettle for boiling potatoes, and also for heating water to wash their clothes on a Sunday was added. Somewhere in a corner was a roll of paper, with pen and ink, with which to correspond with the folks at home. Cooking was some times done turn-about for a week, and sometimes seemed to fall to the lot of the best-natured one of the crowd, the others bringing wood and water by way of offset. Not much attempt was made at neatness, and oftentimes one had to console himself with eating only his own dirt, for there were camps where the dishes were not washed for months. Sometimes a little hot coffee turned on a plate would take off the last-formed dirt; but washing dishes the everlasting bane of woman's housekeeping was, if possible, more repugnant to man, and was frequently omitted; it made the gold-pan greasy (the miner's prospecting-pan served for washing dishes as well as gold, also as a bread-pan, and wash-tub on Sunday); there was no time to stop after breakfast, and they worked so late that they could not delay supper for the dishes to be washed, and so they were left from day to day. The cooking was a simple matter, boiling potatoes, making coffee, frying slap-jacks and meat, being the usual routine. Bread? yes, I am going to tell you about that. All sorts of bread but good bread, were made at first. The miners knew that their wives and mothers put in soda, so they put in soda. Some of them brought dried yeast across the plains, and undertook to make raised bread, but as a general thing miners' bread was but sorry, sad stuff. The most successful plan was to keep a can of sour batter (flour and water mixed), with which to mix the bread, neutralizing the excess of acid with soda. Some of the miners became quite expert with this, judging to a nicety the exact amount of soda required. Dough mixed in this way and set in the sun, would soon raise, and, if the soda was rightly proportioned, was palatable and whole some. The sour batter was splendid for slapjacks! The old story that a California miner could toss his slap-jack up. a chimney, run out doors, and catch it as it came down, right side up, is too old to be repeated; but it is a fact that they would turn the slap jacks with a dexterous flip flop of the frying-pan, though when the batter was made stiff enough to stand this kind of usage, the cake would answer for half-soling a boot. The better way was to have two frying-pans, and turn the cakes by gently upsetting the contents of one into the other. Thirty years' experience and observation suggest no improvement on this method.
Practice made many of the miners expert cooks. New methods of cooking were sought out, and new dishes invented. Think of using a dry-goods box for an oven, and baking a pig or shoulder of pork in it! No trick at all. Drive down a stake or two, and on them make a small scaffold, on which to place your roast; now build a very small fire of hard wood, at such a distance away that a moderate sized dry-goods box will cover it all, and your arrangements are complete. The fire will need replenishing once or twice, and in two or three hours, according to the size of the roast, you may take it out, done in a rich gold color, with a flavor unattainable by any other method. Steaks were roasted before a fire, or smothered, when sufficiently fried by the ordinary process, in a stiff batter, and the whole baked like a batch of biscuit, making a kind of meat pie. Game sometimes entered into the miner's bill of fare. Quails, rabbits, hares, coons, squirrels, and hawks, were all converted into food, as well as deer and bear. Some Frenchmen in 1852, during a time of scarcity, killed and eat a coyote, but their account of his good qualities was not such as to induce others to try the experiment. In 1851, some miners getting out of both money and meat, shot a young and fine-looking hawk. He was fat, and, the flesh looking toothsome, they cooked him, and reported that "he was better nor a chicken." Some neighbors tried the same experiment, but, unfortunately, killed the old fellow that was preserved from drowning a great many years ago, through the kindness of one of our forefathers. His flesh was about the color and consistency of sole-leather, and after boiling him for three days in the vain attempt to reduce his body to an eatable condition, he was cast away. Even the rice with which he was boiled acquired no hawk flavor, which induced one of the miners to remark, "They's much difference 'n hawks as 'n women" A second trial resulted in a splendid dish, and after that hawks learned to avoid that settlement. On Christmas- day, 1852, a company of miners got up a big dinner. They put a fine largo hawk in the center of a Dutch-oven, about twenty quails around it, and around them, potatoes. Some slices of salt pork on the hawk and quails, seasoned the birds, and tempered the upper heat of the oven. The hawk was pronounced the best of all. The Winter of 1852-53, was perhaps the roughest time ever seen in California. The long spell of high water utterly prevented the transportation of provisions from the cities, and there was much want, though no actual cases of starvation. Many men lived for weeks on boiled barley. Beans, without even a ham-bone to season them, furnished, in some cases, the only food for weeks. At one camp, a pork rind was borrowed from one house to another, to grease the frying-pan for slap-jacks.
A narrative of personal experience of one who lived on the south branch of Dry creek, in 1852, will give an idea of the troubles of that year:
"It had been raining for about six weeks, and our claim had been four feet under water for a month. There were no gulches there that would pay, and we had been waiting for the rain to cease until every bit
HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. p. 74
of provision of any description was gone, as well as money or dust. Something had to be done, even if the rain was coming down in torrents. There were four of us, one Yankee, two young married men from Illinois, and a man who had served in the United States army in the Seminole war, and. also as a volunteer in the Mexican war. We shouldered our pick, shovel, and rocker, and started up towards Indian gulch. After going a short distance, one of the Illinoisans got to thinking of his young wife, and the pleasures of home compared with this country, and, overcome by his feelings, burst into a blubber of despair, and started on the run for the cabin, where he was found at night hovering over the cold ashes of the fire-place, the fire totally extinguished by his floods of tears.
“At the head of Indian gulch we found some paying dirt. We went to work, and by dint of ground sluicing, rocking and panning, about four o'clock we had, probably, an ounce of dust. With this I started to Fiddletown to buy a supper for the boys. An ounce of gold dust, in 1881, will buy almost a year's provisions for a man, but in 1852 (flour at one hundred dollars per barrel, and meat seventy-five cents per pound), it was not much. After standing and aheming awhile, I remarked that I thought the rain would hold up shortly, so that provisions would get cheaper; believed that I would buy but a small quantity to-night, etc. Mr. Wingo, the gentlemanly trader, did not seem to notice my embarrassment, but politely sold me the little dab of flour and a piece of meat, which went down into the corner of the sack out of sight. I started for the cabin, darkness coming rapidly on, and the rain still falling. The creeks were now nearly waist deep, but I safely got through them all until I got to Dry creek. The log on which I crossed in the morning was gone, and the water was running high over the banks. Two or three hundred yards away was the cabin, and I knew, by the bright light shining through the cracks of the door, that a big fire had been built to cook our suppers, out of the proceeds of our day's work, and to dry our clothes, soaked by twelve hours' rain. A council of war was called, and all attainable information regarding roads, bridges, and ferries, called for. The creek was nowhere fordable; that proposition was disposed of without delay. One witness, or member of the council, had an indistinct recollection of having seen a tree across the creek a mile or two below, some days since, but could not vouch for its being there at present. This being the only information attainable, the commander ordered a change of base, to the possible bridge. Down the creek, in utter darkness, over rocks and bushes, stumbling and falling, and after an hour's hard work, the bridge was found. It was a cedar tree, the butt resting on the stump, the large top reaching to the opposite shore, and the middle sagged down so that the water was running, perhaps, two feet deep over the trunk, and threatening every moment to sweep the tree off its moorings; for, standing on its upper end, I could feel it swaying to the movement of the water. But the submerged part had limbs standing up out of the stream, and a charge in force across the bridge was ordered, I with this caution, ' My boy, if you go overboard, the boys will go without their suppers.' The opposite bank was gained in safety, by feeling the way and holding to the limbs; and, an hour later, some bread and fried pork, and a roaring fire, brought us to a comfortable condition, and gave us the spirit to laugh at all our troubles."
LAUNDRY AFFAIRS.
Necessity compelled every man to do some kind of cooking. The calls of a ravenous stomach three or four times a day could not be disregarded with impunity; but the matter of having clean shirts and beds, though quite as necessary, was not so forcibly called for, and the washing was postponed from one Sunday to another until the traditional washing-day, in many camps, was well-nigh forgotten. A clean shirt was hauled over a dirty one, until the accumulations of sweat and red clay would afford a study for a geologist. The blankets, too, were slept in for months, for no miner ever dreamed of having clean sheets, and as for pillows, his boots tucked under his blankets served as a support to his head. When a shirt was changed, the cast-off garment was laid aside, or left in his bunk to be washed at a more convenient time which never came. No wonder then that the gray-backed lice, the genuine army vermin, colonized every blanket and shirt. For months respectable men, who would as soon have been accused of stealing as being lousy, went scratching around without a suspicion of the trouble. Poison oak, hives, change of climate, and a hundred other things were supposed to produce the intolerable, persistent itching. When the true cause became known, for sooner or later the discovery was sure to come, the conduct of the victims became amusing. Some would swear, some would cast their clothing away, or perhaps bury it, and purchase an entire new outfit but the fact was the louse had taken possession of the whole country; like the angel of the apocalypse, he had a foot on the sea and on the dry land; in the store as well as in the cabin. A vigorous war with hot water, on everything that would scald, would exterminate him, though some lazy, and consequently lousy, miners contended that hot water would not kill them. The louse eventually abandoned the country; but whether from the neater habits of the miners, or the coming of the avenger,
THE FIERCE SANGUINARY FLEA
Is still an open question. Between 1851 and '53, contemporaneous with the irruption of the rat, the flea fought his way into every camp, and held the fort, too, against all enemies. If unwashed shirts and blankets were favorable to the existence of myriads of gray-backs, not less so was the swarming lice for the flea, for he made meat and drink of them. Hot water had no terrors for the flea; he was out and off before a garment would go into the water. During the day he made his home in the dust floor of the cabin, and at night sallied out of his lair, thirsting for blood. And he must be a good sleeper indeed, who could close his eyes in slumber, while hundreds of lancets were puncturing his cuticle. Sometimes a cabin was abandoned on account of them. A person happening to come in would have hundreds crawling on his pants in a few minutes.
DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE MINERS p. 75
Sometimes a man would leave his cabin and blankets and sleep on the naked ground on the outside to get rid of his persistent bed-fellows.
THE MINERS' PLEA-TRAP.
If necessity is the mother of invention, the flea trap was a sure corollary. It was a simple and effective affair. It was known that fleas would gather around a light; taking advantage of this habit, the miners would set a lighted candle on the floor, and around it set their pans with a small quantity of slippery soap-suds in each. The flea would fall in, struggle vigorously for awhile to get out, and finally drown. A tablespoonful of the rascals in the morning was considered a satisfactory catch. Later the bed-bugs drove out, to some extent, the flea, and still hold the land. The good housewife is often reduced to despair by the persistence of these unwelcome tenants of her rooms, who neither pay rent nor vacate.
The following article, from the Oakland Times, is commended to the attention of housekeepers who are still in the thick of the doubtful and unequal contest:
" Stockton is celebrated for its mosquitoes, Sacramento for its bed-bugs, San Francisco for its rats, and Oakland for its fleas. They are larger and there are more of them; they can jump further and higher, bite oftener and deeper, than any fleas in the world. They are more persistent than a book agent, and hold with a tighter grip than a money-lender. They swarm everywhere in the streets, the stores, and the public places. Everybody ' has 'em bad.' The young and the old, the tender and the tough, alike are meat for them. If you wish to say a complimentary thing to a lady, ten to one a flea will bite you where it is impossible to scratch, while, likely, the lady, troubled in the same way, will manifest impatience. Do not misjudge her, or be discouraged.
" You may fancy that your neighbor in the cars has the itch; no such thing; only the irrepressible flea. Flea catching is one of the accomplishments of our belles. They never disrobe without taking a hunt, and boast of the numbers they slay. Even the sanctuary is invaded by them; in fact, the church flea is the most ravenous of all. Starved during the week, he has an extraordinary appetite when the Sabbath comes. No bells calling a laboring man to his dinner ever brought such joy as the Sunday chimes do to the fasting flea. How ho rushes to the attack as the people take their seats! How the victims writhe and squirm as the flea plunges his jaws into them! Preachers unaccustomed to the phenomenon, imagine it to be the sword of the spirit bringing sinners to a lively sense of their condition, and they lay on and spare not. Fleas, reverend sir; nothing more.
" Those who have studied phlebotomy think they can distinguish the bites of the different denominations. There is the flea of the gushing Methodist, that is gentle and affectionate; of the iron-bound Presbyterian, that bounces you like a bull-dog; but for downright, hard work, take the flea of the hard shell Baptist. Raised amidst difficulties, like the Scotchman among his crags, and the New Englander among the granite boulders, he is fitted for every possible emergency in a race for life. None but the hardiest survive, which proves Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest.
" The fleas are not without their benefits, however. Half of the success of our business men is supposed to be due to the irritation of the fleas, who never let them rest, day nor night. And then no w housekeeper listen no bed-bugs can live where such a race of fleas has taken the land. To use the words of a noted housekeeper, "the fleas eat 'em up." Not a bed-bug is known in all Oakland. What a blessing these fleas would be in our interior towns, whore the bed-bugs have had possession for a quarter of a century. How the sangrados would riot in blood ! What consternation among the respectable, alder-manic old bugs, as the bloodthirsty flea, his jaws reeking with gore, dashed in among them ! The irruption of the hordes of Alaric into Rome, or the contemplated raid of Kearney's hoodlums into China town, could not compare with it.
" If our country neighbors want some of these fleas, I think the Oaklanders would be willing to spare them. Though usually anxious to drive a good bar gain, in the sale of fleas they would be generous. They will help you catch them. You have only to sleep a night or two in the churches, and you will have enough. Negotiations may be opened with our Mayor or any of the city officers." RATS AND OTHER VERMIN.
Rats have been mentioned as coming in with the fleas. The mild climate, exposed condition of eatables, and absence of cats and dogs, the natural enemies of rats, caused them to multiply with extraordinary rapidity. They were as much at home in the country as in the town, and a miner, camping in the hills away from the town, soon received visits from the rats, who thenceforth managed to have a share of all he brought into his camp. After he had retired to his blankets, the rats in troops would run over his body, making it the jumping-off place in their playful gambols. They left their tracks on his butter, gnawed holes into his flour-sack, danced cotillions on his table, and kicked up a fuss generally. Nothing but boxes of tin or heavy lumber would keep them from eating, destroying, or dirtying every article of food around the cabin. It will be borne in mind that the houses or cabins were made of logs daubed with mud, without floors or windows, and were accessible to all kinds of vermin, as well as rats. Rattlesnakes sometimes crawled into the interstices of the logs, and first made their presence known by the sharp rattle or perhaps the deadly thrust of their poisonous fangs into the sleeper's limbs. A young man living on the Slate-creek side of American hill, near Oleta, was bitten in this way without any warning on the part of the snake. He felt the sting, felt the deadly paralysis coming over him, and, in company with two or three companions, started for town, but sunk helplessly to the ground before getting there, dying shortly after. The following morning an examination of the bed revealed the presence of a young and vigorous rattlesnake, three feet or more in length. A Frenchman in the vicinity, was bitten about the same way, though he was living alone and was unable to reach the town,
p. 76 HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
perishing on the way, being found in the trail some days afterwards without any visible wound. A rattlesnake, dead on the floor of his cabin, indicated the cause of his death. The long, yellow chicken snake would sometimes crawl into the cabin and create consternation among the rats and lizards, as well as among the miners. As the miners got to building their cabins of sawed lumber and elevating them above the ground, snakes, rats, mice, and skunks, became less frequent visitors. When dogs and cats were called in as friends and protectors, men, and women as well, could sleep without fear of disturbance. Since skunks have been mentioned, the reader may feel an interest in the adventures of a young and romantic miner with an animal of this kind, which, possibly, exerted a great influence in shaping his destiny:
" I had been mining on the South fork, in the Summer of '52, and came down to Dry creek in the Fall, a little the worst-busted individual you ever saw. Save some old, worn-out shovels and picks, I had nothing, not even a decent pair of pants. About that time two or three families had settled on Dead Man's creek, a little above my camp. I had seen a slender, willowy form flitting in and out of a cabin, and all the powers of my imagination were summoned to describe her charms. ' Young and fair with bright golden hair,' was not then written, but I thought it though, as well as many other fine things, and spent some days in composing compliments to her musical ability, sweet voice, beautiful eyes, mouth, teeth, feet, ' and all that sort of thing.' I worked like a Trojan ' panning-out,' to get money enough to buy raiment fit to appear in her presence. At length, one Saturday evening, the task was performed, and I hung the suit up by my bed and slept fondly dreaming etc. I was awakened in the night by a scratching on the logs above my head, which I supposed was by the rats. NOW T , they had annoyed me so often in that way, that I had lost all patience with them, and resolved to 'fix 'em.' A gun was standing by my side, and I proceeded to gently draw out a ramrod, with which to kill some of them, for, from the scratching I concluded there must be a dozen or two, at least. I succeeded in getting the rod out without alarming my visitors, and suddenly whipping it into the corner over my head, did my best to kill the whole of them. There were three other persons sleeping in the cabin. Hearing the racket, they all roused up with:
‘Whe--w!!' 'WHAT IN H--L!!' 'OH JE--RUSA- LEM! ! ' We all leaped into the middle of the floor, and, hastily stirring the coals in the fire-place, raised light enough to see our friend crawling out of a hole in the unfinished gable of the cabin. lie did not take the atmosphere with him. Clothing, blankets, provisions, boots and shoes, and even the very logs of the cabin, were saturated with the essence of all that is villainous. Months afterwards when the scent had become so diffused that wo could no longer perceive it, I made a visit to Fiddletown (Oleta). There was a ball going on, and I stepped into the ball-room to get a glimpse, once more, of a woman's face. Several persons made the remark that somebody must have killed a skunk. I did not tell them that the skunk was not killed, but quietly retired. Somebody else got that girl."
Forward to Chapter Eighteen
History of Amador County California - 1881
Special Acknowledgements:
(1) The original source document:
“History of Amador County, California with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers” 1881 - Thompson & West Oakland, Cal. Originally commissioned by the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. - circa 1881
(2) The WWW source document - High-speed Internet connections: (100 Mb download - PDF)
www.archive.org/details/historyofamadorc00masorich
Internet Archive - history of amador 1881
(3) The WWW source document - edited for Dial-up Internet connections: Please see below.
www.boitano.net/amador-county/history/1881/1881-ch1.html