Coming of the Argonauts by Zoeth Skinner Eldredge

Coming of the Argonauts

It was on the 28th of February that this modern Argo steamed past the rugged cliffs of the Golden Gate into the warm sunshine of a California spring, past the green slopes of Marin and the purple heights of Tamalpais, past the islands of the bay and the Alta Loma, and cast anchor before a most disreputable collection of adobe houses, wooden shacks, and tents -- the outpost of this new Colchis -- with its background of wind swept dunes, bleak and desolate. The weary Argonauts were joyfully welcomed. The ships in the harbor donned their gayest bunting; the guns of the Pacific squadron boomed while the yards of the war ships were manned with blue jackets. The rains of winter had driven the miners to cover and the town was full. Gold dust was plenty and the gambling houses ran day and night. The people were rough and uncouth but they gave the new comers a hearty welcome and celebrated with ardor the establishment of steam communication with the world.

There was nothing lofty in the motive that brought this band of adventurers to these shores and nothing particularly remarkable about the men who composed it. They were strong, courageous, undaunted. They came to make a fortune and return; they remained to create an empire. It was the part the Argonauts played in founding and building a great commonwealth on the Pacific coast that gives significance to their coming. Among this first band were De Witt Clinton Thompson, who commanded a California regiment in the war of the Rebellion, John Bigelow, first mayor of Sacramento, Rev. O. C. Wheeler, who erected the first Baptist church, Rev. S. W. Willey, founder of the State University, Pacificus Ord, judge and member of constitutional convention, Wm. Van Voorhies, first secretary of State, Rodman M. Price, member of constitutional convention, later governor of New Jersey, William Pratt, surveyor general of California, Eugene L. Sullivan, collector of the port, Lloyd Brooke, one of the founders of Portland, Oregon, Alexander Austin, Asa Porter, Samuel F. Blaisdell, Henry F. Williams, Richard W. Heath, Robert B. Ord, William P. Walters, Edwin L. Morgan, Malachi Fallon, B. F. Butterfield, A. M. Van Nostrand, Charles M. Radcliff, Samuel Woodbury, Isaac B. Pine, and Oscar J. Backus. Alfred Robinson, who had been appointed agent of the Pacific Mail, also returned on the California, and Major General Persifer F. Smith and staff were on board. Hardly had the ship come to anchor when her crew deserted, only one engineer remaining faithful to his obligations.

When the California sailed away from Panama she left behind a multitude of emigrants, all disappointed, some filled with rage, some with despair. A few sailing vessels were chartered to carry the adventurers to California and it is said that a few tried in log canoes to follow the coast only to perish or be driven back after futile struggles with winds and currents. The Oregon, second steamer of the Pacific Mail, arrived at Panama about the middle of March. The crowd had doubled. The Oregon took on about five hundred, and reached San Francisco April 1st. Profiting by the experience of the California, the captain took the precaution to anchor his ship under the guns of a man-of-war, and placed the most rebellious of his crew under arrest. With barely enough coal to carry him to San Blas he sailed April 12th, carrying back the first mail, treasure, and passengers. On the 1st of May, the California having obtained a crew sailed for Panama. The Panama, third steamer of the Pacific Mail, arrived at San Francisco June 4th, sixteen days from Panama. The Oregon brought John H. Redington, Dr. McMullan, John McComb, Stephen Franklin, Ferdinand Vassault, George K. Fitch, A. J. McCabe, S. H. Brodie, John M. Birdsell, Joseph Tobin, and many others well known in California, while on board the Panama were Wm. M. Gwin, first United States senator from California, John B. Weller, boundary commissioner, D. D. Porter, Major W. H. Emory, of the boundary survey. Lieut. Colonel Joseph Hooker, Major McKinstry, T. Butler King, agent of the United States to California, Hall McAllister, Lieut. George H. Derby ("John Phoenix"), John V. Plume, P. A. Morse, Lafayette Maynard, H. B. Livingston, Alfred De Witt, Andrew G. Gray, surveyor of the boundary commission.

Ships now began to arrive from all parts of the world, crowded with treasure seekers, and by the middle of November upwards of six hundred vessels had entered the harbor and the larger part of these were left swinging at their anchors while their crews rushed to the gold mines. Colonel Mason advises the adjutant general of the arrival of a ship at Monterey loaded with ordinance stores and says that it will cost more to unload the ship than the total freight from New York to Monterey.

The sufferings of the emigrants who came by sea, great as they were, were as nothing compared with those who came by land. Not since the crusades of the Middle Ages, has there been anything approaching the overland emigration in magnitude, peril, and endurance. It is estimated that during the year 1849, forty-two thousand emigrants came overland to California, of whom nine thousand were from Mexico. Eight thousand Americans came by the Santa Fé Route and twenty-five thousand by the South pass and the Humboldt river. The horrors of the Camino del Diablo have been portrayed in a previous chapter. Bayard Taylor writes: "The emigrants we took on board at San Diego were objects of general interest. The stories of adventures by the way sounded more marvelous than anything I had heard or read since my boyish acquaintance with Robinson Crusoe, Captain Cook, and John Ledyard. * * * The emigrants by the Gila route gave a terrible account of the crossing of the great desert lying west of the Colorado. They describe this region as scorching and sterile -- a country of burning salt plains and shifting hills of sand, whose only signs of human visitation are the bones of animals and men scattered along the trails that cross it. The corpses of several emigrants, out of companies who passed before them, lay half buried in sand, and the hot air was made stifling by the effluvia that rose from the dry carcasses of hundreds of mules. There, if a man faltered, he was gone; no one could stop to lend him a hand without a likelihood of sharing his fate."

The rendezvous for overland emigrants was usually Independence, Missouri for both the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails. Throughout the eastern states the winter of 1848-49 was one of preparation. Emigration parties were formed in almost every town, each member contributing a fixed amount for outfit. These were as elaborate as the taste of the members suggested or their means permitted. Provisions for the journey and for one or two years in California, with every known implement for digging and washing gold, arms, ammunition, large supplies of clothing, blankets, etc., and in some cases, goods for barter or sale, characterized the equipment of the emigration of 1849. Vehicles of every conceivable kind and quality were seen, from the ponderous "prairie schooner" drawn by three yoke of oxen, to the light spring wagon; riding horses and pack mules; together with relays of animals for heavy hauls. Arriving at the rendezvous the small parties were joined in a large party together with such individuals and families as came in singly, a captain was selected and the caravan set out on its two thousand mile journey. The northern route was by the so-called Oregon Trail, up the north fork of the Platte to the Sweetwater, up the Sweetwater, through the South pass, to the Green River, down the Bear to Soda Springs, to Fort Hall on the Snake River, to the Humboldt, down the Humboldt to the sink, across the desert to the Truckee River, over the Sierra Nevada to the head waters of the Bear River, thence down the river to the Sacramento and to Sutter's Fort. From the sink of the Humboldt, three routes offered themselves: northerly to the Pitt River pass; west, across the desert to the Truckee, and southerly to Carson valley, where grass and water was, and thence over the sierra to the south fork of the American River. It is estimated that by the end of April 1849, twenty thousand emigrants were in camp on the Missouri waiting for the grass on the plains to be high enough to feed. Many companies had started earlier and by the middle of May the trail from the Missouri River to Fort Laramie presented a continuous line of wagons and pack trains. Through the valley of the Platte the cholera broke out, claiming many victims and spreading terror through the ranks of the emigrants. This began to disappear as they approached the Rocky mountains. At last, after some days of travel through a rugged and broken country where high bluffs force them from the river to make long detours, Fort Laramie is reached and the first stage of the journey is completed. For the next three hundred miles the country is a desert, with little grass and less water, through the forbidding Black hills, up the Sweetwater, across the continental divide by the South pass, at an elevation of seven thousand and eighty-five feet; thence through a somewhat better country, the Green river valley, to Bear river, which here flows northward, making a horseshoe around the mountains. Down the Bear they travel for a distance of about ninety miles to Soda Springs. Here the Bear turns southward and the emigrants proceed westerly to the Portneuf River down which they travel to Fort Hall, on the Snake River. The route is now down the Snake to Raft River, thence over the hills to Goose creek and up Goose creek to the head waters of the Mary, or Humboldt, as the river now began to be called. This was the regular route. There were a number of short cuts which saved the travelers from one to two hundred miles of distance, but cost them weeks of extra time to get through; short cuts which were all right for pack-trains, but all wrong for wagons. On reaching the Humboldt the traveler has two-thirds of the whole distance behind him and is on the last stage of his journey. And what a journey it has been, and how changed he is from the one who set out so blithely from Independence three months ago. How bright the anticipations then! how cozy the snug family retreat within the great canvas-covered "prairie schooner!" how jolly the conversation and the stories around the camp fire! the song and music after the day's toil was over.

The long weary journey, the dreadful monotony of the endless plains, the barren desert, the bleak and almost impassable mountains, the heat and dust, the scorching sun and the drenching rains, the sickness and suffering, and the deaths that have thinned his party, have long since dulled his spirits and left in place of the joyous buoyancy of the start, a sullen, dogged determination to push forward. The faint-hearted abandoned him at the Platte, at Laramie, and at Salt Lake; the weak died; and before him now was the greatest trial of the journey, the greatest test of strength. Many were yet to fail, to die of starvation, of cholera, of scurvy, and some, who had passed through so much of hardship and suffering, were to die by their own hands as they approached the fatal desert and saw in the distance the lofty barrier of the Sierra Nevada.

Continued Next Page

Albert Bierstadt's Oregon Trail, 1869, at Joslyn

Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska

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