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The Little Lady of Lagunitas

R >> Richard Henry Savage >> The Little Lady of Lagunitas




The convention adjourns SINE DIE n October 13, 1849. It has settled
the great point of freedom on the Pacific Coast. It throws out the
granite Sierras as an eternal bulwark against advancing slavery.
The black shame is doomed never to cross the Rockies, and yet the
great struggle for the born nobility of manhood has been led by
Shannon, an alien Irishman. The proudest American blood followed
Dr. Gwin's pro-slavery leading. The two senators named are Gwin and
the hitherto unrewarded Fremont. Wright and Gilbert are the two
congressmen. Honest Peter H. Burnett, on November 13, is elected
the first governor of California. He is chosen by the people, and
destined to live to see nearly fifty years of peaceful prosperity
on the golden coast.

While this struggle is being waged on the Pacific, at Washington the
giant statesmen of those famous ante-bellum days close in bitter
strife. The political future of the great West, now known to be
so rich, is undecided. It is the desperate desire of the South to
keep California out of the Union, unless the part falling under
the Wilmot proviso act south of 36 deg 30 min is given to slavery.

The national funds to pay for the "Gadsden purchase" will be
withheld unless slavery can be extended. The great struggle brings
out all the olden heroes of the political arena. Benton, Webster,
Clay, Calhoun, Davis, King, Sam Houston, Foote, Seward, John Bell,
and Douglas, are given a golden prize to tourney for. In that
press of good knights, many a hard blow is struck. The victor and
vanquished stand to-day, looming gigantic on the dim horizon of
the past. It is the dark before the dawn of the War of the Rebellion.

It was before these days of degenerated citizenship, when the
rising tide of gold floats the corrupt millionnaire and syndicate's
agent into the Senate. The senator's toga then wrapped the shoulders
of our greatest men. No bonanza agents--huge moral deformities of
heaped-up gold--were made senatorial hunchbacks by their accidental
millions.

No vulgar clowns dallied with the country's interests in those old
days when Greek met Greek. It was a gigantic duel of six leaders:
Webster, Seward, and Clay, pitted against Calhoun, Davis, and
Foote. Pausing to refresh their strength for the final struggle,
the noise of battle rolled away until the early days of 1850.
California was kept out.

The delegates at Monterey hastened home to their exciting callings.
Philip Hardin saw the wished-for victory of the South deferred.
Gnashing his teeth in rage, he rode out of Monterey. Maxime
Valois now is the ardent "Faust" to whom he plays "Mephisto." His
following had fallen away. Hardin, cold, profound, and deep, was
misunderstood at the Convention. He wished to gain local control.
He knew the overmastering power of the pro-slavery administration
would handle the main issue later--if not in peace, then in war.

As the red-tiled roofs of Monterey fade behind them, Hardin unbosoms
himself to his young comrade. Maxime Valois has been a notable
leader in the Convention. He was eager and loyal to the South. He
extended many acquaintances with the proud chivalry element of the
new State. His short experience of public life feeds his rising
ambition. He determines to follow the law; the glorious profession
which he laid aside to become a pathfinder; the pathway to every
civic honor.

"Valois," says Hardin, "these people are too short-sighted.
Our Convention leaders are failures. We should have ignored the
slavery fight as yet. Thousands of Southern voters are coming to
us within six months from the border States. Our friends from the
Gulf are swarming here. The President will fill all the Federal
offices with sound Southern Democrats. The army and navy will be
in sympathy with us. With a little management we could have got
slavery as far as 36 deg 30 sec. We could work it all over the West
with the power of our party at the North. We could have controlled
the rest of this coast by the Federal patronage, keeping the free
part out of the Union as territories. Then our balance of power
would be stable. It is not a lost game. Wait! only wait!"

Maxime agrees. Philip Hardin opens the young politician's eyes with
a great confidence.

"Maxime, I have learned to like you and depend on you. I will give
you a proof of it. We of the old school are determined to rule this
country. If Congress admits California as a free State, there will
yet be a Lone Star republic covering this whole coast. The South
will take it by force when we go out."

The Louisianian exclaims, "Secession!"

"Yes, war even. Rather war than the rule of the Northern mud-sill!"
cries Hardin, spurring his horse, instinctively. "Our leading men
at home are in thorough concert day by day. If the issue is forced
on us the whole South will surely go out. But we are not ready yet.
Maxime, we want our share of this great West. We will fill it with
at least even numbers of Southern men. In the next few years the
West will be entirely neutral in case of war or unless we get a
fair division. If we re-elect a Democrat as President we will save
the whole West."

"War," muses Valois, as they canter down the rich slopes toward
the Salinas River, "a war between the men who have pressed up Cerro
Gordo and Chepultepec together! A war between the descendants of
the victorious brothers of the Revolution!" It seems cold and brutal
to the young and ardent Louisianian. An American civil war! The
very idea seems unnatural. "But will the Yankees fight?" queries
Valois. Hardin replies grimly: "I did not think we would even be
opposed in this Convention. They seemed to fight us pretty well
here. They may fight in the field--when it comes."

For Philip Hardin is a wise man. He never under-estimates his
untried enemy.

Valois smiles. He cannot control a sneer. The men who are lumber-hewers,
dirt-diggers, cod-fishers and factory operatives will never face
the Southern chivalry. He despises the sneaking Yankees. Traders
in a small way arouse all the arrogance of the planter. He cannot
bring any philosophy of the past to tell him that the straining,
leaky Mayflcnver was the pioneer of the stately American fleets
now swarming on every sea. The little wandering Boston bark, Otter,
in 1796 found her way to California. She was the harbinger of a
mighty future marine control. The lumbering old Sachem (of the same
Yankee borough) in 1822 founded the Pacific hide and tallow trade
as an earnest of the sea control. Where one Yankee shows the way
thousands may follow, yet this Valois ignored in his scorn of the
man who works.

Maxime could not dream that the day could ever come when thousands
of Yankees would swarm over entrenchments, vainly held by the best
blood of the sunny South.

As the two gentlemen ride on, Hardin uses the confidential loneliness
of the trip to prove to the Creole that war and separation must
finally come.

"We want this rich land for ourselves and the South." The young
man's blood was up.

"I know the very place I want!" cries Valois.

He tells Hardin of Lagunitas, of its fertile lands sweeping to
the San Joaquin. He speaks of its grassy, rolling hills and virgin
woods.

Philip Hardin learns of the dashing waters of the Merced and Mariposa
on either side. He hears of the glittering gem-like Lagunitas
sparkling in the bosom of the foot-hills. Valois recounts the wild
legends, caught up from priest and Indian, of that great, terrific
gorge, the Yosemite. Hardin allows much for the young man's wild
fancy. The gigantic groves of the big trees are only vaguely
described. Yet he is thrilled.

He has already seen an emigrant who wandered past Mono Lake over
the great Mono notch in the Sierras. There it rises eleven thousand
feet above the blue Pacific--with Castle Dome and Cathedral Peak,
grim sentinels towering to the zenith.

"It must really be a paradise," muses Hardin.

"It is," cries the Creole; "I intend to watch that region. If money
can make it mine, I will toil to get it."

Philip Hardin, looking through half-closed eyes at Valois, decides
to follow closely this dashing adventurer. He will go far.

"Valois," he slowly says, "you have seen these native land-barons
at the Convention. A few came in to join us. The rest are hostile
and bitter. They can never stand before us. The whole truth is, the
Mexican must go! We stopped the war a little too soon here. They
are now protected by the treaty, but we will litigate them out of
all their grants. Keep your eye on Lagunitas. It may come into the
market. Gold will be the fool's beacon here for some time. These
great valleys will yet be the real wealth of the new State. Land is
the rock of the wealth to come. Get land, my boy!" he cries, with
the lordly planter's instinct.

Valois admires the cold self-confidence of the sardonic Hardin.
He opens his heart. He leans upon the resolute Mississippian.

It takes little to make Maxime joyfully accept Philip Hardin's
invitation to share his office. They will follow the fortunes of
the city by the Golden Gates.

On riding down the Visitacion valley their eyes are greeted with
the sight of the first ocean steamers. A thousand new-comers throng
the streets.

Maxime finds a home in the abode of Hardin. His cottage stands on
a commanding lot, bought some time before.

Letters from "Belle Etoile" delight the wanderer. He learns of the
well-being of his friends. Judge Valois' advice to Maxime decides
him to cast his lot in with the new State. It is soon to be called
California by legal admission.

Philip Hardin is a leader of the embryo bar of the city. Courts,
books, two newspapers and the elements of a mercantile community
are the newest signs of a rapid crystallization toward order. With
magic strides the boundaries of San Francisco enlarge. Every day
sees white-winged sails fluttering. Higher rises the human tumult.
From the interior mines, excited reports carry away half the
arrivals. They are eager to scoop up the nuggets, to gather the
golden dust. New signs attract the eye: "Bank," "Hotel," "Merchandise,"
"Real Estate." Every craft and trade is represented. It is the
vision of a night.

Already a leader, Hardin daily extends his influence as man,
politician, and counsellor.

The great game is being played at the nation's capital for the last
sanction to the baptism of the new star in the flag.

California stands knocking at the gates of the Union, with
treasure-laden hands. In Congress the final struggle on admission
drags wearily on. Victorious Sam Houston of Texas, seconded by
Jefferson Davis, fresh laurelled from Buena Vista, urges the claims
of slavery. Foote "modestly" demands half of California, with a
new slave State cut out from the heart of blood-bought Texas. But
the silver voice of Henry Clay peals out against any extension
of slave territory. Proud King of Alabama appeals in vain to his
brethren of the Senate to discipline the two ambitious freemen of
the West, by keeping them out of the Union.

Great men rally to the bugle notes of their mighty leaders.

The gallant son of the South, General Taylor, finds presidential
honors following his victories. In formal message he announces
on February 13, 1850, to Congress that the new State waits, with
every detail of first organization, for admission.

Stern Calhoun, chief of the aspiring Southerners, proudly claims
a readjustment of the sectional equality thus menaced. Who shall
dare to lift the gauntlet thrown down by South Carolina's mighty
chieftain?

In the hush of a listening Senate, Daniel Webster, the lion
of the North, sounds a noble defiance. "Slavery is excluded from
California by the law of nature itself," is his warning admonition.

With solemn brow, and deep-set eyes, flashing with the light
of genius, he appeals to the noblest impulses of the human heart.
Breathless senators thrill with his inspired words. "We would not
take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of nature," he cries, and, as
his grave argument touches the listeners, he reverently adds, "nor
to re-enact the will of God."

Mighty Seward rises also to throw great New York's gauntlet in the
teeth of slavery.

Taunted with its legal constitutional sanction, he exclaims grandly,
"There is a higher law than the Constitution."

Long years have passed since both the colossus of the North and
the great Governor entered into the unbroken silence of the grave.
Their immortal words ring still down the columned years of our
country's history. They appeal to noble sons to emulate the heroes
of this great conflict. Shall the slave's chains clank westward?
No! Above the din of commoner men, the logic of John Bell, calm and
patriotic, brings conviction. The soaring eloquence of Stephen A.
Douglas claims the Western shores for freedom.

Haughty Foote and steadfast Benton break lances in the arena.

Kentucky's greatest chieftain, whose gallant son's life-blood
reddened Buena Vista's field, marshals the immortal defenders of
human liberty. Henry Clay's paternal hand is stretched forth in
blessing over the young Pacific commonwealth. All vainly do the
knights of the Southern Cross rally around mighty Calhoun, as he
sits high on slavery's awful throne.

Cold Davis, fiery Foote, ingenious Slidell, polished and versatile
Soule, ardent King, fail to withstand that mighty trio, "Webster,
Seward, and Clay," the immortal three. The death of the soldier-President
Taylor calms the clamor for a time. The struggle shifts to the
House. Patriotic Vinton, of Ohio, locks the door on slavery. On
the 9th day of September, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signs
the bill which limits the negro hunter to his cotton fields and cane
brakes at home. The representatives of the new State are admitted.
A new golden star shines unpolluted in the national constellation.

Westward the good news flies by steamer. All the shadows on
California's future are lifted.

While wearied statesmen rest from the bitter warfare of two long
years, from North and South thousands eagerly rush to the golden
land.

The Southern and Border States send hosts of their restless youths.

From the Northwest sturdy freemen, farmers with families, toil
toward new homes under freedom's newest star. The East and Middle
States are represented by all their useful classes.

The news of California's admission finds Hardin and Valois already
men of mark in the Occidental city.

Disappointed at the issue, Hardin presses on to personal eminence;
he turns his energies to seeking honors in the legal forum.

Maxime Valois, quietly resuming his studies for the bar, guards his
funds, awaiting opportunity for investment. He burns the midnight
oil in deep studies. The two men wander over the growing avenues
of the Babel of the West. Every allurement of luxury, every scheme
of vice, all the arts of painted siren, glib knave, and lurking
sharper are here; where the game is, there the hunter follows.
Rapidly arriving steamers pour in hundreds. The camp followers of
the Mexican war have streamed over to San Francisco. The notable
arrival of the steamer California brings crowds of men, heirs to
future fame, and good women, the moral salt of the new city. It
also has its New York "Bowery Boys," Philadelphia "Plug Uglies,"
Baltimore "Roughs," and Albany "Strikers."

By day, new occupations, strange callings, and the labor of organizing
a business community, engage all men. The ebb and flow of going
and returning miners excite the daylight hours. From long wharves,
river steamers, laden to the gunwales, steam past the city shores
to Sacramento. At night, deprived of regular homes, the whole
city wanders in the streets, or crowds flashy places of amusement.
Cramped on the hilly peninsula, there are no social lines drawn
between good and bad. Each human being is at sea in a maelstrom
of wild license.

The delegated representatives of the Federal Government soon arrive.
Power is given largely to the Southern element. While many of the
national officials are distinguished and able, they soon feel the
inspiring madness of unrebuked personal enjoyment.

Money in rough-made octagonal fifty-dollar slugs flows freely. Every
counter has its gold-dust scales. Dust is current by the ounce,
half ounce, and quarter ounce. The varied coins of the whole
world pass here freely. The months roll away to see, at the end of
1850, a wider activity; there is even a greater excitement, a more
pronounced madness of dissipation. Speculation, enterprise, and
abandonment of old creeds, scruples, and codes, mark the hour.

The flying year has brought the ablest and most daring moral refugees
of the world to these shores, as well as steady reinforcements of
worthy settlers. Pouring over the Sierras, and dragging across
the deserts, the home builders are spreading in the interior. The
now regulated business circles, extending with wonderful elasticity,
attract home and foreign pilgrims of character. Though the Aspasias
of Paris, New Orleans, and Australia throng in; though New York
sends its worthless womanhood in floods, there are even now worthy
home circles by the Golden Gate. Church, school, and family begin
to build upon solid foundations. All the government bureaus are in
working order. The Custom House is already known as the "Virginia
Poor House." The Post-Office and all Federal places teem with the
ardent, haughty, and able ultra Democrats of the sunny South. The
victory of the Convention bids fair to be effaced in the high-handed
control of the State by Southern men. As the rain falleth on the
just and unjust, so does the tide of prosperity enrich both good
and bad. Vice, quickly nourished, flaunts its early flowers. The
slower growth of virtue is yet to give golden harvest of gathered
sheaves in thousands of homes yet to be in the Golden State. Long
after the maddened wantons and noisy adventurers have gone the
way of all "light flesh and corrupt blood," the homes will stand.
Sailing vessels stream in from the ports of the world. On the narrow
water-front, Greek and Lascar, Chinaman and Maltese, Italian and
Swede, Russian and Spaniard, Chileno and Portuguese jostle the
men of the East, South, and the old country. Fiery French, steady
German, and hot-headed Irish are all here, members of the new empire
by the golden baptism of the time.

Knife and revolver, billy and slung-shot, dirk and poniard, decide
the ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.

In the enjoyment of fraternal relations with the leaders of the
dominant party East, Philip Hardin becomes a trusted counsellor
of the leading officials. He sees the forum of justice opened in
the name of Union and State. He ministers at the altars of the Law.
He gains, daily, renown and riches in his able conduct of affairs.

Hardin's revenue rises. He despises one of the State judgeships
easily at his hand. As his star mounts, his young neophyte, Maxime
Valois, shares his toils and enjoys his training. Under his guidance
he launches out on the sea of that professional legal activity,
which is one continued storm of contention.

Valois has trusted none of the mushroom banks. He keeps his gold
with the Padres. He makes a number of judicious purchases of blocks
and lots in the city, now growing into stable brick, stone, and
even iron.






CHAPTER VII.

THE QUEEN OF THE EL DORADO.--GUILTY BONDS.





In the dreary winter of 1850-51, there are luxurious resting places
for the crowds driven at night from the narrow plank sidewalks of
the Bay City. Rain torrents make the great saloons and gambling
houses the only available shelter.

Running east and west, Sacramento, Clay, Washington, and Jackson
Streets rise in almost impracticable declivity to the hills. Their
tops, now inaccessible, are to be the future eyries of self-crowned
railroad nobs and rude bonanza barons.

Scrubby chaparral, tenanted by the coyote, fox, and sand rabbit,
covers these fringing sand hills. North and south, Sansome,
Montgomery, Kearney, Dupont, Stockton, and a faint outline of Powell
Street, are roadways more or less inchoate. An embryo western Paris.

Around the plaza, bounded by Clay, Washington, Dupont, and Kearney,
the revelry of night crystallizes. It is the aggregating sympathy
of birds of a feather.

The peculiar unconquered topography makes the handcart, wheelbarrow,
and even the Chinaman's carrying poles, necessary vehicles of
transit.

Water, brought in iron boats from Sansalito, is dragged around
these knobby hills in huge casks on wheels. The precious fluid is
distributed in five-gallon tin buckets, borne on a yoke by the
dealer, who gets a dollar for two bucketfuls. No one finds time
to dig for water. All have leisure to drink, dance, and gamble.
They face every disease, danger, and hardship. They breast
the grizzly-bear-haunted canyons in search of gold. No one will
seek for water. It is the only luxury. The incoming and outgoing
merchandise moves only a few rods from the narrow level city front.
At the long wharves it is transshipped from the deep-water vessels,
across forty feet of crazy wooden pier, to the river steamers. Lighters
in the stream transfer goods to the smaller vessels beginning to
trade up and down the coast.

In the plaza, now dignified by the RAFFINE name of "Portsmouth
Square," the red banners of vice wave triumphant over great citadels
of sin. Virtue is pushed to the distant heights and knolls. The
arriving families, for sheer self-protection, avoid this devil's
maelstrom. It sucks the wide crowd into the maddened nightly orgies
of the plaza.

In the most pretentious buildings of the town, the great trinity
of unlawful pleasures holds high carnival. Day and night are the
same: drink, gaming, and women are worshipped. For the average
resident there is no barrier of old which has not been burned away
in the fever of personal freedom and the flood of gold.

A motley mass of twenty thousand men and women daily augments. They
are all of full capacity for good and evil. They are bound by no
common ties. They serve no god but pleasure. They fear no code. With
no intention to remain longer than the profit of their adventures
or the pleasures of their wild life last, they catch the passing
moment.

Immense saloons are made attractive by displays of gaudy luxuries,
set out to tempt the purses of the self-made autocrats of wealth.
Gambling houses here are outvying in richness, and utter wantonness
of wasted expense, anything yet seen in America. They are open
always. Haunts abound where, in the pretended seclusion of a few
yards' distance, rich adventurers riot with the beautiful battalions
of the fallen angels. It were gross profanation to the baleful
memories of Phryne, Aspasia, and Messalina to find, from all
the sin-stained leaves of the world's past, prototypes of these
bold, reckless man-eaters. They throng the softly carpeted, richly
tapestried interiors of the gilded hells of Venus.

Drink and play. Twins steeds of the devil's car on the road to
ruin. They are lashed on by wild-eyed, bright, beautiful demons.
All follow the train of the modern reigning star of the West, Venus.

Shabby dance-halls, ephemeral Thespian efforts, cheap dens of the
most brutal vice, and dark lairs abound, where sailors, laborers,
and crowding criminals lurk, ready for their human prey. Their female
accomplices are only the sirens watching these great strongholds
of brazen vice. A greater luxury only gilds a lower form of human
abasement. The motley horde, wallowing on the "Barbary Coast" and
in the mongrel thieves' haunts of "Pacific Street," the entrenched
human devils on "Telegraph Hill" are but natural prey of the
coarsest vices.

The ready revolver, Colt's devilish invention, has deluged the
West and South with blood. Murder's prime minister hangs in every
man's belt. Colonel James Bowie's awful knife is a twin of this
monstrous birth. In long years of dark national shame our country
will curse the memory of the "two Colonels." They were typical of
their different sectional ideas. These men gave us the present
coat of arms of San Francisco: the Colt's revolver and the Bowie
knife.

Yes, thousands of yet untenanted graves yawn for the future victims
of these mechanical devices. The skill of the Northern inventor,
and the devilish perfection of the heart-cleaving blade of the
Southern duellist are a shame to this wild age.

The plaza with impartial liberality yields up its frontages to
saloon, palace of play, and hotels for the fair ministers of His
Satanic Majesty. It is the pride of the enterprising "sports" and
"sharpers," who represent the baccalaureate degree of every known
vice. On the west, the "Adelphi" towers, with its grand gambling
saloon, its splendid "salle a manger," and cosey nooks presided
over by attractive Frenchwomen. Long tables, under crystal
chandeliers, offer a choice of roads to ruin. Monte, faro, rouge
et noir, roulette, rondo and every gambling device are here, to lure
the unwary. Dark-eyed subtle attendants lurk, ready to "preserve
order," in gambling parlance. At night, blazing with lights, the
superb erotic pictures on the walls look down on a mad crowd of
desperate gamesters. Paris has sent its most suggestive pictures
here, to inflame the wildest of human passions. Nymph and satyr
gleam from glittering walls; Venus approves with melting glances,
from costliest frames, the self-immolation of these dupes of fortune.
Every wanton grace of the artist throws a luxurious refinement of
the ideal over the palace of sin and shame.

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