TWHP

The Plots

The Players Meet the People Who Made California The Plots Learn the Strange Tales The Places See the Towns They Built San Francisco The Birth of the Modern World The Gold Rush The Find that Energized America The Comstock Lode The Greatest Silver Strike in History and the Big Bonanza The Transcontinental Railroad The Train that Transformed the Nation The Alaska Grab The Making of a Monopoly

The growth of the early West was accomplished by remarkable individuals engaged in endeavors magnificent and trivial. Their activities resulted not only in great works, but also strange stories of every nature, from the funny to the tragic to the bizarre. Most are even true; dates are approximations. Find a sampling of these below.

How the Padres Saved the Indians--1769-1835
When the Spanish and Mexicans sent the missionaries into California, they not only wanted to save souls and extend empire; there were also sincerely benevolent intentions of preparing the Indians for the inevitable changes to come. In this, the results were mixed, and the effort is often condemned as the soft side of cultural genocide. One thing they did do, though, was inoculate mission Indians against smallpox with the first vaccination developed. After a Russian messenger from Fort Ross brought the disease into Mexican California during the 1830s, the Indian populations were all but exterminated, the only survivors, generally, those who had been inoculated by the missions, or the small groups who lived in the deep forests north of the Sacramento Valley.

The Bizarre First Encounter Between General Vallejo's Parents--1783
The General's father, Sergeant Ignacio Vallejo, studied for the priesthood before joining the army, and received some medical training. Visiting his friend Francisco Lugo in San Luis Obispo, the latter's pregnant wife went into labor, and Ignacio delivered the baby, a girl. Lugo offered to honor any request Sergeant Vallejo might make. His desire, he said, was to marry the the child when she came of age. He did so when she turned 14, and together they had 13 children in a marriage of more than 40 years.

The Bale-Vallejo Feud--1844
Salvador Vallejo was General Vallejo's hot-headed brother, uncle of the woman who married Doctor Edward Bale, builder of the grain mill in the upper Napa Valley. A troublesome man, Bale objected to the affection demonstrated between his wife and Salvador, challenging him to a duel. An expert swordsman, Vallejo parried Bale's thrusts, sword-spanked him, and went on his way. Four months later, Bale gathered some American friends, rode to the square in Sonoma, and shot Salvador, inflicting a minor wound. Bale barely escaped lynching, eventually being pardoned by the Mexican governor; Salvador Vallejo escorted him out of town, promising revenge. Bale fell to his knees, begged forgiveness, and the two embraced. That ended the feud.

George Yount's Dream--1846
As the winter of 1846 set in, newcomers to California speculated about a party of wagons they'd encountered on the overland route that had not yet arrived. Such news traveled widely in the sparsely settled territory, and after hearing of it, the Napa Valley's first white resident--George Yount--had a dream. They were stranded in the mountains, he told people, freezing in the snows. Soon afterward, a member of the missing group struggled into the Sacramento Valley with news that the Donner Party was, indeed, stuck in the snowy passes and starving. Reesin Tucker, Yount's neighbor upvalley, immediately organized a rescue party, and with others from Sutter's Fort trekked into the mountains to save them, making several trips. Many of the survivors ended up settling not far from the Napans, overwhelmed by the bounty and beauty of the Valley in springtime, contrasting it with the cold desolation of their trials in the Sierra Mountains where some of their number had resorted to cannibalism.

James Fair Outsmarts Them--1849
Eventually one of the silver magnates, Fair got rich as a result of a self-regarding cleverness which served him well. While camping in Mormon territory, Fair and company were joined by strangers who made unpleasant remarks about the Saints. The 18-year-old quickly objected to the sentiments, defending the oft-persecuted sect. He had realized, of course, that they were Mormon spies, and when his party bought supplies in Salt Lake City, they encountered a warm welcome and fair prices, unlike others not lucky enough to have a James Fair along for the ride.

Peter Donahue Saves His Ship--1849
Peter Donahue, a Scottish immigrant who lived in New York, started working life as a blacksmith apprentice at a foundry. Proving himself a smart, industrious youth, a mentor taught the boy everything he could absorb about working and casting metal. Catching the gold bug in 1849, however, he headed to California. Donahue embarked from Panama on a Pacific Mail Steamer for the last leg of the journey, but some days out to sea, the engines broke down, leaving the ship becalmed and facing a long trip by supplemental sails for which the rations were insufficient. The ship's crew and every adult male who thought he knew anything about engines spent several days trying to effect repairs without success. The prospects appeared unpleasant if not bleak, when the 16-year-old approached the captain, explained his background, and suggested that he might be able to help. The boy had the ship running within a day or two, and it arrived safely. The Pacific Mail Line awarded him a $5,000 token of gratitude and offered him a job; Donahue declined and started his own foundry, eventually building the Union Iron Works, which constructed the two most famous ships to participate in the Spanish-American War, the Olympia and the Oregon.

Sam Brannan's Hawaiian Foray--1851
Inspired perhaps by the antics of Americans in Panama trying to take over whole countries on behalf of shipping companies fighting for control of the Isthmus, Sam Brannan thought of seizing Hawaii. With a handful of friends, he chartered one of the finest clipper ships of the day--The Red Jacket--and the assemblage spent pleasant weeks eating and drinking well on the passage west. Though negotiating unsuccessfully for land with the Hawaiian king, Brannan and company maintained designs on the island chain, determined to have their way in spite of the monarch. After returning to San Francisco, though, Brannan received a warning from the United States Government. It had its own international interests to protect, especially in opposition to the British. Mind your own business, Brannan, was told, so he moved on to other schemes instead.

The Chinese Build John Parrott's Bank--1852
John Parrott, the former American consul in Guaymus, Mexico, knew coastal commerce better than most emigrants to Gold Rush San Francisco, and he soon became one of the City's early successful bankers. Desiring a building to reflect solidity and security, he ordered a pre-fabricated stone edifice from China, since all labor in California chased the gold diggings. Along with the numbered blocks, the ship from China arrived with Cantonese masons to assemble it. Disregarding the deal that had been made concerning their wages, they went on strike for a raise. Parrott found the situation outrageous, and refused. He'd find someone else to assemble the bank. But no one could read the Chinese instructions. Parrott relented, paid the money demanded, and he got his bank.

Asbury Harpending Starts His Fortune--1857
A restless, Kentucky youngster determined on adventure, Asbury Harpending finally headed to California with his father's blessing and a substantial stake in currency issued by state banks. By the time the 16-year-old arrived in New Orleans, a financial collapse had rendered most of his money useless, and he had just enough to buy a ticket to California, with $5 left over. Not long after the ship left port, the passengers rebelled over the bad food, and raided the stores of fruit the ship's purser had hoped to sell for his own account. Harpending approached the man, pointed out that he'd lose the rest of what he possessed soon enough, and Harpending offered to buy the remaining stocks of fruit for $10. He used his $5 for a down payment, auctioned off the fruit for several hundred dollars, paid-off the remainder of the debt and moved to better accommodations. There he met a man impressed with the youth's enterprise, who suggested that Harpending accompany him into gold country. Even though the most profitable sites had long been exhausted, everywhere his mentor told him to look for gold, Harpending found gold. he amassed $60,000 by the age of 17, and he was a millionaire before turning 21.

The Annoying Blue Dirt of Sun Mountain--1859
On the long way to California, many overlanders found themselves passing through a Nevada canyon just dozens of miles short of the final hurdle of the Sierras. Some found gold in the rugged draw, but they were assured that it was nothing compared to what awaited on the other side. After the diggings played out in California, some returned to the canyon and eaked out a modest living from the scant gold traces. But a ubiquitous blueish dirt interfered with the gold extraction, earning universal complaints. Then someone found a particular dig that looked good for gold content, and they sent a wagon load into California to be assayed. The gold content was minimal, but that blue stuff was loaded with silver. Word got out, the gold miners of California became silver miners in Nevada, and the richest finds in the world opened up for the next 20 years as boom town Virginia City funnelled millions of dollars into the pockets of San Francisco.

They Heard it on the Grapevine--1860s
Not long after the Comstock Lode opened up and Virginia City jumped to life, telegraph lines were run between the two so the latest news could be transmitted to the City and its stock markets. The earliest lines, however, ran not on poles, but from rock to tree to boulder, and so on, a length of wire often broken when the winds and storms howled through the mountains. The parted wires sprung back into an approximation of their shape on the spools, reminding everyone of the corkscrew tendrils of a grapevine. The costant failure of these lines caused annoyance, so when someone said they "heard it on the grapevine," they were coloring the information they passed on as no more reliable than those broken, twisted wires coming down from the mountains.

Lillie Coit's Tall Tale--1861
The darling of early San Francisco, Lillie Coit won the hearts of the City's firemen as a child with her enthusiasm for their efforts, and it was she who donated the money for the tower named after her on Telegraph Hill. A Southern sympathizer in the years leading to the Civil War, she would later tell the story of how her father--an Army doctor--felt compelled to get her to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict so she wouldn't be compromised by treasonous speech or activity. She would later take credit for helping another Southerner evade Federal authorities as she left the City on her journey. But California newspaper accounts of January 1861 conveyed the news that she had been presented to the French Court of Napoleon III in the previous months. Considering that she would have had to have departed from the City at least by the middle of 1860 in order to be in Paris in January 1861, her adventures of derring-do seem unlikely; the Civil War didn't commence until the following April.

Sonoma County's Deadly Train--1866
The first train in Sonoma County--completed by 1864--ran from Petaluma to Haystack, three miles south, from where passengers took coaches to a boat landing on the Petaluma River for the trip down to the Bay and San Francisco. By 1866, the line had been extended all the way to the waterway, and the first riders eagerly awaited for the debut run on the longer route. John McNear, a local civic leader and businessman whose son raised a grain empire on those foundations, joined them in the excitement and took a seat on a crate of poultry while the train prepared to depart. He leaned over to tie his shoe just as the locomotive's steam boiler exploded, sending a chunk of iron shrapnel over his head. The engineer and three passengers died, along with the locomotive. The surviving passengers ended up back on the reliable wagons.

Sam Brannan Gets His Mill Back--1868
Sam Brannan owned a lumber mill in Calistoga, but he and a partner ended up in litigation over it. Brannan had been away in Los Angeles, and soon after returning to the Bay Area was informed that the case had just been settled in his favor. But he also learned that a squatter had expressed intentions of taking over the facility as soon as it was vacant, and claiming it as his own. By the time Brannan made it to Calistoga, the squatter had moved in; Brannan confronted him. The squatter refused to leave, Brannan threatened action, and departed. The squatter discharged a shotgun into his back from some distance, and disappeared from town. Brannan got his mill back, with a lifelong limp as well.

Billy Ralston Saves the Economy--1869
Soon after taking office, President Grant froze all gold coins in United States mints in order to take an inventory. Meanwhile, as a distant outpost on the edge of the continent, San Francisco enjoyed a unique isolation, and hard money was often in short supply. William Ralston, the brains behind the Bank of California, the leading financial institution west of the Mississippi, faced disaster. Rumors of the money shortage threatened a run on all the banks of California, and universal ruin of the Western economy. But Ralston did have millions of gold dust in his vaults. So, one night, with the help of an insider at the mint--just a block or two away from his bank--Ralston and his closest confederates exchanged a couple of millions of his gold dust for an equal amount of golden federal coins. The banks opened the next day, customers could get as much coin as they wanted, and the government was none the wiser.

John Jones Beats the Robbers--1873
After making his fortune in the Comstock Lode and becoming a United States senator, John Jones bought into the silver mines of the Panamint district near Death Valley. The boom town of Darwin nestled deep at the bottom of a desert canyon, and robbers regularly plundered the silver shipments coming out, disappearing easily into the rocky wastes. Jones found the situation intolerable, and came up with the perfect solution; he had the silver melted into large spheres weighing many hundreds of pounds, making it impossible for bandits to ride away with the loot.

The Bad Men of Bodie--1870s
The town of Bodie, like many mining towns of the day, had its share of violence. But Bodie, on the east side of the Sierras not far from the mountains separating California from Nevada, tolerated homicide to such lengths that newspapers around the world regularly carried stories of the wanton murders occurring there daily. The "Bad Man of Bodie" came to be a universal bogey-man of the civilized world. When a mining engineer informed his family they'd be moving to the notorious hell-on-earth for a job, he overheard his little girl saying her prayers one evening. "Good-bye, God, we're moving to Bodie," she allegedly lamented. The story, of course, made the rounds of the newspapers. When the editors of Bodie's journal heard the story, they offered a clarification. What the little girl had really said, they insisted, was "Good, by-God. We're moving to Bodie!"

The First Film Star--1877
Leland Stanford, founder of the university and one of the men who built the Transcontinental Railroad, turned his attention to race horses after the trains were rolling, and in 1872 allegedly made a $25,000 bet that while trotting or running, all of a horse's hooves were off the ground during points in the cycle of movement. That conflicted with conventional wisdom, and it was thought unprovable in any case. Then he approached Eadweard Muybridge, a leading West Coast photographer, who over the next several years invented faster camera shutters better capable capturing motion. Muybridge finally set up a line of cameras activated by trip wires, and successfully recorded a series of images of the horse Occident at speed; some of the frames showed all four hooves in the air. Stanford won his bet, and the first moving pictures followed soon after.

Buck Grant, Jilter--1880
When the ex-President Grant toured the world a few years after leaving office, he stopped in San Francisco to be feted as only the City could do. He was accompanied by his son--Ulysses, junior--known as "Buck." The Grant party hobnobbed with the nobility of the City, and Buck became enamored of Jenny Flood, whose father got rich in Nevada silver. Buck proposed marriage, but James Flood objected that it wouldn't be good for a "poor" man to marry a rich man's daughter; wait awhile, he advised the young man, invest as I suggest, and you'll be rich too. Buck Grant departed to the East as planned, followed the advice, and soon enough became wealthy. But when he returned to California, he never made it back to Jenny Flood's house; he became distracted by a visit to General John Miller's estate near Napa, at a site now known as the Silverado Country Club. There he met Fannie Chaffee, daughter of a senator from Colorado. They soon married. Jenny Flood, on the other hand, never did, becoming San Francisco's most popular old maid.

Sarah Althea Hill's Main Chance--1883
William Sharon took over William Ralston's empire after the latter's failure and death, emerging as one of the richest men in the world. He had been called the King of the Comstock silver mines, he'd served in the United States Senate, and he was one of San Francisco's most prominent men. A widower, he took young mistresses, and one of these, Sarah Althea Hill, claimed that Sharon had secretly married her. In a celebrated, chaotic trial lasting months, Sharon ultimately prevailed against the 20-something woman who'd hoped to take half his considerable fortune. That the judge stayed for free in Sharon's Palace Hotel certainly had no bearing on the case. Hill's attorney was David Terry, a notorious figure from San Francisco's first years whose career was marked by violence. He vowed to punish the judge and married his young client. The judge forever after traveled with a bodyguard. Some years following the trial, the judge, Terry and Hill all ended up at the same train station in Lathrop, California. Terry approached the judge in a threatening manner, and the bodyguard shot him dead. Sarah Althea Hill Terry eventually went insane, dying decades later in the state asylum near Stockton.

Leland Stanford's Big Mistake--1883
Following an 1880 trip to Europe and a tour of French winegrowing regions, Stanford decided to make fine wine. He built an impressive winery on the largest vineyard in the world in Tehama County, at a place he called Vina, employing only the best people, the best construction techniques, the best materials. They poured the first vintage in 1887, and it proved almost undrinkable; good for fruit trees or grain, the upper Sacramento Valley was bad for wine grapes. It was a disaster; then the winery burned down a little later, ending the costly experiment. Ironically, at the time, Stanford also happened to own much of Calistoga, one of the great winegrowing regions of world. He sold it off, never achieveing his goal as successful vintner.

Enrico Caruso's Heroic Aria--1906
When the world's greatest opera tenor heard he was booked for a trip to San Francisco, he hated the idea, thinking the West a wild, uncivilized place. His worst apprehensions came true with the great earthquake and fire. According to legend, however, some hours after the earthquake, he was serenading the City from his window at the Palace Hotel, the grandest of gestures. In fact, Caruso was almost hysterical, ranting to his manager that he'd lost his voice. The manager argued the point, insisting that the tenor just give it a try. He belted out his song, soothed his fears, and left town as fast as possible, vowing never to return.

The End of the Old West--1916
Arguably, the book closed on the Gold Rush and what it wrought with the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 and San Francisco's Panama-Pacific Exposition the next year, when the City showed-off its new, rebuilt self a decade after the earthquake. But an incident the next year marked the end in dramatic, fatal fashion. A mail-carrying stage approached the little town of Jarbidge, Nevada, along a snow-covered road when a robber jumped onto the back and fired a bullet into the teamster's head. The robber dragged off the loot, but was eventually tracked down because of footprints in the snow. Once he had a suspect in custody, the young, Elko County prosecutor--Ted Carville--marshalled his evidence, which included a mailbag bearing a bloody palm-print. Carville compared the print on the sack with his suspect's palm-print and found a match. He won his case, the first in the United States in which a palm-print--rather than fingerprints--was used as evidence. The robber-murderer received a life sentence, but he was pardoned a generation later--by Ted Carville, who by then was Governor of Nevada.


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