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California, in-doors and out; or, How we farm, mine, and live generally in the Golden State. By Eliza W. Farnham CALIFORNIA, IN-DOORS AND OUT; OR. How we Farm, Mine, and Live generally IN THE GOLDEN STATE. BY ELIZA W. FARNHAM. It is a goodly land, my lord, of richest stores And most delightsome ways. The pleasant sky Doth never weep upon't thro' all the sunny Summer months. Ay, but knowest thou not, good Jacques, That e'en with precious stores, and smiling skies, And beauteous earth, there lacketh much. PERU.—AN OLD PLAY. NEW YORK: DIX, EDWARDS & CO., 321 BROADWAY. 1856. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, California, in-doors and out; or, How we farm, mine, and live generally in the Golden State. By Eliza W. Farnham http://www.loc.gov/ resource/calbk.176 by DIX, EDWARDS & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. MILLER & HOLMAN, Printers & Stereotypers, N.Y. PREFACE. EXPLANATORY TO MY FEW PARTICULAR FRIENDS, IF I HAVE ANY SUCH, WHICH THE GENERAL READER HAS PERMISSION TO PASS BY, IF HE HOPE FOR SOMETHING BETTER FURTHER ON. A CONSIDERABLE part of the book before you was written in '51. The finishing of it was so long delayed that I had nearly given it up; but a strong desire to complete what I had begun, and a resolution not easily defeated, prevented my doing so altogether; and within the last few months I have been so often urged to tell my story of California, that, at length, such as it is, it lies before you. If there appear to be discrepancies between the early and later pages, you will please bear in mind that, in many respects, there have been such changes in the things and aspects sought to be described, as half a century would not produce in many older countries. In returning to the work, I frequently felt an inclination to strike out from the MSS. passages which iv were not truly descriptive of things as they now are, but, remembering that whatever has been true in our history would be equally interesting with what is so to-day, I have not erased a line of the early writing. The book may, perhaps, have a greater interest from this fact than if it had been written in a few consecutive weeks. California, in-doors and out; or, How we farm, mine, and live generally in the Golden State. By Eliza W. Farnham http://www.loc.gov/ resource/calbk.176 The personal experience related in it, extraordinary as it may appear, is as tamely stated as truth will permit; and my own has been, in many respects, not more novel than that of scores of my sex who emigrated both before and after 1848. Mine has included none of that terrible physical suffering which has fallen upon many women who had been tenderly nurtured. To the mental anguish, the racking anxiety, the unmitigated loneliness, the numberless humiliations, have not been added the hardship and destitution which have been the lot of many on their first arrival. The Goodness which overrules all, and fits the burden to its bearer, has spared me that, and though I can never recall, even momentarily, what I have suffered, without shuddering, and shrinking from the recollection as the victim who turns his weary eye upon the rack, yet I have to thank one who better knew my strength than I did myself, that some bitter ingredients were withheld from my cup. Let me pass to say a few words on general topics, v and close. Life in California is anomalous— unique—and a book which should faithfully describe it, must contain strange developments; tales and pictures, some of which would be set down by those who had never seen the country, and, perchance, by some who had, as exaggerations, others as falsehoods. I am not conscious that a single passage in this volume deserves the application of either of these comments. The grotesque features of our life defy the caricaturist—the pathetic ones could derive no additional power to pain the heart, from the most exalted and tender imagination. We are extreme in revelry, in gloom, in vice, in pleasure (not happiness), in sorrow, in munificence (not in meanness), and I feel that, so far from having exaggerated or embellished, I have, in many things, fallen greatly short of conveying the full impression which actual every-day facts make upon observing and thoughtful minds among us. My best abilities would fail me in the task. Only one of the masters—a Dickens or a Jerrold— could do that. But such as I have been able to make it you have it;—the book long promised, and by some of you, I will please myself with believing, still desired. Let it not be forgotten in the reading, that the California of to-day is neither in material nor moral aspect the California of 1851-2 and 3. The exterior and the interior life are alike advancing. California, in-doors and out; or, How we farm, mine, and live generally in the Golden State. By Eliza W. Farnham http://www.loc.gov/ resource/calbk.176 vi In riding through one of her large agricultural vallies, a few weeks since, where, so late as 1852, there was scarcely a mile of fence to be seen from one end of it to the other, I saw now continuous grain-fields, of six or eight miles in length, with, perhaps, a dozen reapers, of the best patent, marching up and down, leveling the tall thick harvest. Comfortable, substantial farm-houses, or neat cottages, stand upon the sites of the little canvas shanties we used to see, and neat, often elegant vehicles, have taken the place of the clumsy coarse wagon of those times. You may travel in summer on all the main roads, from the north to the south, in the best Concord or Troy coaches, and be received, in the more considerable towns, at as good hotels as you will find at corresponding places anywhere in the Union. And even this great material progress is less expressive of the growth of the state than other signs at present visible in her condition. The revolution in progress here at this hour will shortly have inaugurated a new and more hopeful state; and there is little reason to dread that the influences from which we have hitherto suffered, will ever regather to such wanton waste of life and character as we have witnessed. The present is a war, not between parties or persons, but between the principles of good and evil. The latter of which has been so vii long in the ascendant, that it is not wonderful that common observers should feel there was no redemption for the country that bore it. They erred. There is redemption for California —as, indeed, there ultimately is for all people, however low, whose lives contain the progressive principle that distinguishes ours in free America—for her there is swift redemption, which it is idle and wasteful for the outcast and worthless to resist. It will be the result of her intelligence and true moral life, working together for a result, which is preordained to them. The self assertion they labor for, is as certain to follow the overthrow of villainy and corruption as day the night. God speed the fearless souls who are striving for it. E. W. FARNHAM. SANTA CRUZ, July, 1856. ix California, in-doors and out; or, How we farm, mine, and live generally in the Golden State. By Eliza W. Farnham http://www.loc.gov/ resource/calbk.176 CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER I. Hints at the Trials of Farmers, and gives the locum tenens of those which follow. 28 CHAPTER II. Takes Possession, and introduces the reader into “The Shanty”—Foraging upon Tenants—Visitors. 41 CHAPTER III. Wrecking: almost Tragedy and Comedy on the Beach—First night at Santa Cruz—Hauling Goods and setting up on the Rancho—Case of Obstinacy—Drying Clothes in the Rainy Season. 50 CHAPTER IV. Sound Advice, which is wisely accepted—Consequences—Attempt at Farming in earnest—Professional Visit—Jenny and her Rider—A Hunt for the Ford—Bright Home. 58 CHAPTER V. The Shanty as Furnished—Bed-rooms, Dining Apartment, Reception Rooms, Kitchen—Midnight Marauders— Defense. 66 x CHAPTER VI. Journey to San Francisco—Mountain Road—Flowers—A Settler—How he came there—Landscape, which, if the reader could see with my eyes, would be beautiful to him—Pueblo Valley—Fellow Traveler—Getting around Cape Horn. 72 CHAPTER VII. All about Election and the Successful Candidate. 81 CHAPTER VIII. Home Again—The Sick and Lame—Plowing, Nursing, Milking, Cooking, Planting—Laborers; their Accomplishments, etc.—Another Journey— An Elopement, Murder, etc. 83 CHAPTER IX. Farming in our Neighborhood—Degeneracy of our Manners—Degeneracy of Morals, public and private—Grasshoppers—Wild Cattle—Watching the Crop—Resignation: and my Successor—Talking English to his Spanish—Bear-hunt. 91 CHAPTER X. Building commenced—Anticipations—A Set-to—I commence a New Business in a New Costume. 104 CHAPTER XI. Another Journey to San Francisco—An Adventure à la Mrs. Raddle, with Bill—Shocking Sight and Agreeable Surprise after it—A Capture-Mission of San José. 110 CHAPTER XII. Setting out for home with Bill in Harness—Extraordinary docility of Sheik—Night at a Spanish Rancho—Supper, Sleeping Apartment, Contentment, and Plenty. 119 CHAPTER XIII. Home at Last—Destruction and Discouragement—Asparagus, Melons, Tomatoes, etc., all gone— Work resumed—A Half-holiday—Its Entertainments.

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