Newspapers / The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, … / Feb. 20, 1930, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
PAGE TWO I THEN AND THERE I'isloi'v (old as it would be written today i By IRVIN S. COBB [ ] The Truth About the Forty-Niner* jj Most ot us see tlie Days o» the Forty-Niners through the romantic m.st in winch the gifted pen of Bret Harte wreathed them. V.’e see noble-hearted gamolers and adopted wairs and talented chivalric gun-fighters; we see red-shutedl miners w.th the =n,os o their knees singing quaint songs about their Susannas back East among the settl.me. . What we are apt to forget is that the great transcontinental pugr.mage was marked more by endurance than by sporadic melodrama, more by sweat t an y tr °’ more by human suffering than by theatric episodes. The average Forty-Niner as neither a swashbuckler nor a hero nor a desperado. He was not a character fit to go mt. • story-book or a scene in a play. Generally speaking, he was an orderly. hard^° typical young American of bis time who had been lifted out of the ordinary run of ordinary jTkind only by his adventurous spirit and by his powers for facing and conquering hardships which to us of the present generation seem well-nigh mcredib e. We are indebted to one Alonzo Delano for a graphic but truth picture of the great mid-century movement of the gold-seekers from the Mississippi to the Pacific In a book which be wrote called, “Life on the Plain and Among the Diggings ,t is real life in the raw that we see—not glorified fiction. . . This book, now entirely out of print and only rarely encountered among the prized copies of some collector or the back shelves of some library, has furnished the material for this eye-witness article dealing with one of the greatest a„d most significant passage* fla our national history. THOSE who have read Emerson Hough’s novel, “The Covered Wagon,” may get a reminiscent thrill on reading the lines with which Alonzo Delano begins his main nar rative. The principal distinction was this: Hough dealt with the first great stream of homeseekers over the Ore gon trail, so that in his chapters worn <?n and broods of children played then parts; his pioneers, starting on a Journey two-thirds the breath of this continent, took with' them their families, their portable household equipment, their most valued posses sions. But Delano in his journal is telling us of a gold rush made up almost ex clusively of full-grown men. 1 lie do mestic side was altogether lacking. His companions were sturdy adven turers inspired by the oldest lure next only to love of warfare that set the feet of mankind on paths far and strange and perilous—the quest for treasure. But the country through which the expeditions passed, the dan gers ami discomforts they encountered, the sufferings they underwent—these largely were identical in both cases. Only the personnels and the goals were different. For the emigrants there was thd hope of new homesteads in tlie vast free fertile lands of the newly-opened ; for the argonauts the ctanee to dig for those precious grains ore on craggy California JiHlsldes sterile of every valued pros pect 6ave the metal hidden In them. Delano’s diary gives a graphic Idea eds the departure from what then was tfec father fringe of the civilized set :<Jg wOTto be at St. Joseph, on the Mis 90uri, from which we intended to take -enr departure. My wagon I shipped by water to St. Joseph and sent my cattle across the country about the i middle of March (1849) to meet me at the place of rendevouz in April. Our desire to be upon the road induced us to be stirring early and we were mov ing as soon as our cattle had eaten tbeirfill, when a drive of a mile placed us upon the great thoroughfare of the gold seekers. “For miles, to the extent of vision, an animated mass of beings broke upon our view. Long trains of wagons with their white covers were moving slowly along, a multitude of horsemen were prancing on the road, companies of men were traveling on foot, and al though the scene was not a gorgeous one, yet the display of banners from many wagons and the multitude of armed men looked as if a mighty army was on its march ; and in a few moments we took our station in the lice, a component part of 'lie motley throng of gold-seekers who were leav ing borne and friends far behind to encounter the peril of mountain and plain.” The Price of Westward Travel. Within a month, though, this -mighty caravan which he described had disintegrated. What made it fall apart into separate trickling units was that certain hardier spirits, growing impatient over the slow movement of the unwieldy mass, broke away with their trains, preferring to risk the danger of Indian attacks from which the main body might have been free, in order to reach the diggings the sooner. The face of the earth was streaked with toiling strings of wagons, teams and foot-travelers, each of these lines marking independent and helter-skelter route of a little group hurrying toward the Sierras fund the diggings. Thus it befell that instead of chronicling the march of an army Delano, from this time on. told of the experiences of the individ ual outfit which he led. •‘(August 11.) There were a great many men daily passing, who having worn down their cattle and mules had abandoned their wagons and were try ing to get through as they might; hut their woe-begone countenances and meager accoutrements for such a jour ney. with want and excessive labor staring them in the face, excited onr pity, wretched as we felt ourselves. Oar own cattle had been prudently driven and were still in good condition perform the journey. Although our stock of provisions was getting low. we felt that under any circumstances we could get through, and notwith .standing we felt anxious, we were not discouraged. . . . 5_ "(August IG.) . . . Beyond us, Jfcr as we could see, was a barren ' waste without a blade of grass or a J drop of water for thirty, miles at least, i Instead of avoiding the desert, instead [pt the promised water, grass, and a ? better road, we were in fafet upon a More dreary and wider waste without either grass or water and with a hard er road before us. “(August 17.) As 1 walked on slow ly and with effort, I encountered a great many animals perishing for want of food and water on the desert plain. Some would be just gasping for breath, others unable to stand would issue low moans as I came lip, in a most .distressing manner, showing in tense agony; and still others, unable to walk, seemed to brace themselves up on their legs to prevent falling, while here and there a poor ox or horse, just able to drag himself along, would stagger towards me wifli a low sound as if begging for a drop of water. My sympathies were excited at their sufferings, yet instead of afford ing them aid 1 was a subject for re lief myself. Horrors cf the Plains. “High above the plain, in the direc tion of our road, a black, bare moun tain reared its bead at the distance ot fifteen miles; and ten miles this side the plains were flat, composed of baked earth without a sign of vegeta tion and in many places covered with incrustations of salt. Bits had been sunk in moist places, hut the water was salt as brine and utterly use less. . . 7 “(August 20.) . . . T»irough the day there was a constant arrival of wagons and by night there were sev eral hundred men together; yet we learned by a mule train that at least one hundred and fifty wagons Tiad turned back to the first spring west of the Humboldt on learning the dangers of crossing the desert, taking wisely the old road (the more southerly route) again. This change of route, however, did not continue long,, and the rear trains comprising a large por tion oFThe emigration took our route and suffered even worse than we did. It was resolved that several trains should always travel within support ing distance of each other so that In case of an attack from the Indians a sufficient body of men should go to gether to protect themselves. Reports again reached us corroborating the great loss of cattle on the desert be yond the Sink. The road was filled with dead animals and the offensive effluvia had produced much sickness: but shortly afterwards our own por tion of the desert presented the same catastrophe and the road was lined with the dead bodies of wornout and starved animals, and their debilitated masters in many cases were left to struggle on foot, combating hunger, thirst and fatigue in a desperate ex ertion to get through. . . . “(September 17.) Ascending to the top of an inclined plain, the long sought. the long-wished-for and wet come valley of the Sacramento lay be fore me five or six rryles distant.” * A Lake of Dross. Delano was one of the more fortu nate Forty-niners. He had crossed the plains, weathered the desert, threaded through the Rockies and the empty waste spaces on their Pacific side, had dodged the Indians and now, on the sunset slope of the Sierras he was within sight of the promised land from which had filtered back to the East such fabulous stories of rich ness in every creek-fted and fortunes to be made overnight by the lucky or the shrewd.- He tells how disillusionment and defeat and despair awaited most of those who came as he had come. Here is the story of a typical case: “In May, 1850, a report reached the settlements that a wonderful lake had been discovered a hundred miles back among the mountains toward the head of the Middle Fork of-Feather river, the shores of which abounded with gold, and to such an extent that it lay like pebbles on the beach. An ex traordinar.v ferment among the people ensued, and a grand rush was made from the towns, in search of this splendid El Dorado. Stores were left to take care of themselves, business of all kinds was dropped, mules were suddenly bought up at exorbitant prices, and crowds started off to search for the golden lake. “Days passed away, when at length ; adventurers began to return with dis appointed looks and their worn out and dilapidated garments showed they had seen some service, and it proved that although several lakes had teen dis covered, the gold lake par excellence was. not found. The mountains swarmed with men exhausted and l worn out with toil .and hunger; mules were starved or killed by falling from precipices. Still the search was con tinued over snow forty or fifty feel deep, till the highest ridge of the Sierra was passed, when the disap pointed crowds began to return with ! out getting a glimpse of the grand de THE CHATHAM RECORD, PITTSBORO, N. C. sideratum, having had their labor for their pains. Yet this sally was not without some practical and beneficial results. The Man They Left Behind. “The country was more perfectly ex plored. some rich diggings were found and. as usual, a few among the many were benefitted. A new field for en terprise was opened and within a month roads were made and traversed by wagons, trading-posts were estab lished and a new mining country was opened which really proved in the main to lie rich, and had it not been for the gold-lake fever it might have remained many months undiscovered and unoccupied. . . . “From the mouth of Nelson’s creek to its source men were at work in digging. Sometimes the stream was turned from its bed and the channel worked; in other places wing dams were thrown out and the bed partially worked; while in some the banks only were dug. Some of these, as is the case everywhere in the mines, paid well, some fair wages, while many were failures. One evening while wait ing for my second supply of goods I strolled by a deserted camp. I was attracted to the ruins of a shanty by observing the etiig.v of a man standing upright in an old torn shirt, a pair of ragged pantaloons, and boots which looked as if they had been clamboring over rocks since they were made —in short, the image represented a lean, meager, worn-out and woebegone miner such ns might daily be seen at almost every point in the upper mines. On the shirt was inscribed in a good business hand, ‘My claim failed—will you pay the taxes? (An allusion to the tax on foreigners.) Appended to the figure was a paper bearing the following words: “ ‘Californians Oh, Californians, look at me! Once fat and saucy as a privateersman, but now —look ye—a miserable skeleton. In a word, I am a used-up man.’ “Ludicrous as it may appear, it was a truthful commentary on Ihe efforts of hundreds of poor fellows in the ‘golden land.’ This company had pene trated the mountain snows with in finite labor in the early part of the season, enduring hardships of no or dinary character —had patiently toiled for weeks, living on the coarsest fare: had spe.it time and money in building a dam and digging a race through rocks to drain off the water; endured wet and cold in the chilling atmosphere of the country, and when the last stone was turned, at the very close of all this labor, they (fid not find a single cent to "reward" them for their toiTand privations, and what was still morp aggravating, a small wing dam on the very claim below them yielded several thousand dollars. Having paid out their money and lost their labor they were compelled to abandon the claim and search for other diggings where the result might be precisely the same.” The Threshold of Vice. \ Delano offers a realistic picture of the earlier months in the gold country when the majority of the workers were industrious and orderly, and then for contrast a picture of the time when the rascals, the professional had men and the professional gamblers gathered in force to start their nefari ous and corrupting operations, with the result that a condition sprang up which grew steadily worse until that grim day of the vigilantes—earnest honest men who framed their own* primitive code of laws and themselves enforced these laws, being by turns criminal-chasers, jurors, judges and sometimes executioners. After this fashion he sums up the period of transition from the first of these stages to the second and dis reputable one: “The population of Independence represented almost every state in the Union, while France, England, Ire land, Germany and even Bohemia had their delegates. As soon as breakfast was dispatched nil hands were en gaged in digging and washing gold in the banks or in the bed of the stream When evening came, large fires were built, around which the miners con gregated, some engrossed with thoughts of home and friends, some to talk of new discoveries and richer diggings somewhere else; or sometimes a sub jeet of debate was started and the evening was whirled away in pleasant and often instructive discussion, while many for whom this kind of recrca tion had not excitement enough, re sorted to dealing monte on a small scale, thus either exciting or keeping up a passion for play. “Some weeks were passed in this way under the clear blue sky of tin mountains, and many bad made re spectable piles. I highly enjoyed the Wild scenery, and quite as well. th» wild life we were leading, for then were many accomplished and inteiii gent men; and a subject for amuse ment or debate wsis rarely wanting As for ceremony or dress, it gives us no trouble: we were all alike . . At length a monte dealer arrived, with a respectable bank. “A change bad been gradually com ing over many of our people. - nno for three or four days several indus trious men had commenced- drinking and after the monte bank was set uj it seemed as if the long-smothered fire burst forth into a flame. Labor with few exceptions, seemed suspend ed and a great many miners spenr their time in riot and debauchery . . . The monte dealer, who in Ids way was a gentleman and honorable according to the notions of that class of men, won in two nights three thou sand dollars! When he had collected his taxes on our bar he went to Onion valley, six miles distant, and lost in one night four thousand, exemplifying the fact that a gambler may hi? rich today and a beggar tomorrow.” (© by the BeJl Syndicate. Inc.) *************** * The Live-at-Home * * Program * * By G. L. Nisbet * * * * * * * ❖ ❖ ❖ ****** Necessity is the mother of many children other than mechanical in ventions. Some philosopher years ago said that experience is -a dear teacher; and Dame Experience has associated with her in most of her schools another .teacher,Stern Ne cessity. In the hard school of adver sity, under the tutelage of necessity, North Carolinians are learning to live at home. There is nothing new in Governor Gardner’s live-at-home program; the same idea has been preached by agricultural college and extension forces, by far sighted bankers and editors for years. The difference reception of the idea is not due to any new, thought but to a changed attitude on part of. the people. The necessity of living at home, if we are to live at all, has prepared the citizenship of the state to receive the gosepel of self sup port. There is nothing very new in the idea of an all-home banquet such as was served a few weeks ago by governor and Mrs. Gardner to state officials and members of the North Carolina press association. Ten years ago when the writer was sec retary of the Monroe Chamber of commerce a supper -was arranged where nothing was served except Union county products. The Made in-Carolinas exposition promoted by industrial interests and held for several years at Charlotte was an other expression of the same idea. None of these former efforts at tracted the interest that the gov ernor’s program this year received. The reason is not that a man of as high rank as the governor of a state promulgated it; rather it lies in the fact that stern necessity has brought the average man to realiza tion of his plight. Some years ago I worked with county farm agents and others try ing to organize the cotton co-opera tion. Cotton growers were apathet ic. It was difficult to get their at tention. It has been my privilege in recent weeks to attend meeting of farmers at Candor, at Hamlet, at Columbia and Pageland, and the most impressive thing about these meetings was the earnestness of the farmers in studying their problems. They evinced not only a" willing ness to listen, but they were eager to learn from experts the results of experiences elsewhere and to try to apply this information to Solution of their problems. Neces sity has exerted her influence, and the people of the state are going to come through because , now they are in deadly earnest. North Carolina is a tremendously rich state, potentially. Whether it is actually rich is another question. Folks are coming to appreciate the fundamental proposition that real wealth is represented in income rather than investment. The British have long had a more accurate con ception of true wealth. Among them a man is not rated by his holding, but by his income. Instead of say ing that So-and-3o is worth a mil lion pounds, they translate this into income and say that he is worth forty or fifty thousand pounds a year. One of the most absurd of the booster-bubbles blown by enthusi * asts about North Carolina is that the state is rich because it pays into the federal treasury more than any other state save New Y’ork. That means nothing except that the revenue levied by the federal gov ernment upon tobacco users through out the world is collected through an office located in North Carolina. The wealth of the state is not meas ured in terms of dollars produced somewhere else, collected from dis tant sources, and immediately paid out to the federal treasury; but it is measured by the state’s ability to produce wealth. And the real sources of wealth in the State have hardly been tapped.' The old geographies rate North Carolina as one of the chief pro ducers of naval stores. Sixty years ago this whole section was thickly covered with long leaf pines and the production of tar, pitch and turpen tine was the main industry from here to the coast. A few years later the lumbermen came in and cut the trees that had already been bled by the turpentine men. Thus was killed one goose that laid golden eggs. And #ne of the important phrases of the live-at-home pro gram has to do with reforestation of these desolated sandhills.With char acteristic shortsighteness most of us are not interested in this preject,— it takes too long. We have so dis sipated our reserve wealth that we cannot afford to wait 30 or 40 years for a crop; we must live meantime, and we want a crop that will pro duce in 30 or 40 days. Again ne cessity is exerting its influence. One of the most entrancing stories ever written is that com piled by the late Chief Justice Clark in his history of North Caro lina in the Confederacy. It is a story of sublime courage and hero ism; of insuperable obstacles over come, of irresistable forces held at bay, of immovable barriers laid : low. Then North Carolina lived at home. The marauding armies to the north stopped the flow of produce from that direction; the naval block ade cut us off on the east, the country south of us was more des ‘ olate than our own and no help ‘ could be had, and that time the ; mountains of the west were impass able. We had to live at home—and I we did. It is a story of romance , and adventure; how women went , out into the fields and plowed and , hoed; how they used okra for cos , fee and bark for tea; how they carded and spun and wove their own clothing, supporting not only themselves and their children, but by the exalted courage and deter mination of southern womanhood kept an army fighting in the field for three years after they should have been, by all the laws of eco nomics, starved into submission. What North Carolina did in the sixties it can do again; but the ap- , peal now is for a reasonable ap plication of the rule so that the same distressing conditions shall not prevail. Getting back to the- unlimited sources of real wealth in our state. They are soil and climate. The ore that lies buried in our I mines can be exhausted. There is a definite, though far distant limit,' upon development of water power resources. But God in his infinite goodness has arranged that the soil, instead of being exhausted if properly cared for, will become more fertile the more it yields to man’s needs The combination of soil and climate in North Carolina 1 will produce almost anything. The j eastern islands are laden with' tropical fruits, while our mountain j heights have plants found few i other places outside the artic cir cle. It is a crime not to use these ! advantages; it is foolish to grow cotton and tobacco upon land that is yearning' to produce potatoes - and corn and other feedstuffs. There could be given lots of figures showing the requirements of North Carolina in food and the pitifully small percentage of j these things that we are producing; and along with this the amazing i r~ —\ THE BEST WE CAN Farmers should not economize on fertilizers if they can possibly manage to secure them. But they can not afford to buy them on time prices, even if they can get them on time. It is cheaper to borrow the money and pay cash. This bank will do its best for the farm ers, though, as all know, we are bound to observe the rules of safe banking. Come in , and talk your business over with us, THE BANK OF MONCURE MONCURE, N. C. y, ; / ~==— ====== =^===^==ss^=. i . 1 r..:..:.; i .; l : l .^ms«aaaaa» CUT COFFEE COST IN HALF You get as many cups from one pound of “Gold Ribbon” Brand Coffee and Chicory as you do from two pounds of ordinary coffee, because it is Double Strength. Cut your coffee bill in half by using “Gold Ribbon” Blend — one pound lasts as long as two pounds of -ordi nary coffe —and you pay no more! or ■■ before and probably never again will subscribers of this' paper be given the ||HL opportunity ms this unbeard of bargain. Either of these offers carry a variety of high clas* aanSjV publications—enough reading for the entire family for a whole year. This is a very limited offer so send your order TODAY. BARGAIN No. 1 Progressive Farmer, 1 year \ , T T nri’rV Alabama Time® (Weekly), 1 year 1 ALLi ©rA IV HEMM Home Circle, 1 year I nvT v American Poultry Journal, 1 year I Gentlewoman Magazine, 1 year / Farm Journal, 1 year k 4 OC AND THIS NEWSPAPER J One Year • 1 BARGAIN 2 Son therm Rnralist. 1 year N I Alabama Times (Weekly), 1 year j ALL SEvL-- Good Stories, 1 year I _. r »r Home Circle, 1 year f * FOR ON Li American Poultry Journal, 1 year / Farm & Fireside, 1 year l Jt fiC AND THIS NEWSPAPER \ For One Year / I ■ YES— MR. EDITOR, Send Bargain No. g| I ■ Name J ® Town —— $ H State R. F. D $ ■ Bring or mail this Coupon to our office today N O ( ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■a mmmuumn& THURSDAY, FEBRUARY o» n number of our ever dim; •,. cotton and tobacco doll™ go out of the state to at them, when we ought for them at homo. One is what Clarence Poe of years ago about the North r farmer. He said he workS v'** all summer killing g rasc cotton to get money to' W ? ow But figures don’t mean when they get into million . ? billion columes; we can’t an^ their significance. Thp of getting the next somewhere, we understand 11 But so many folks are not f arn ers, and have no opportunity t raise their own foods. So the nr ° osition perhaps should be Presented m a somewhat different way most of us are not going to our own food, let’s buy food srZl in North Carolina. Let’s buy%tuff produced as nearly as possible i« our own community. Let’s let th canned milk stay *on the shelv and buy real cow milk. Let’s courage canning and preserving 0 f sandhill peaches and let the Cal’ fornians look somewhere else for a market. Let’s develop a genuin North Carolina complex. e— . WASTING MONEY AND TIME Teacher (in mental arithmetic class): What is the interest on SI,OOO for a year at 2% Herman Cohen, you pay attention! Herman: For two per cent I couldn’t pay attention.
The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Feb. 20, 1930, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75