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During the first decade of his life in Vermont, frail Walter, f'1* ^
third of Thankful Colton's 12 children, .. used to act the preacher... go1'1' Cq through all forms of public worship with a grave propriety..Dur>,lra his final decade, he governed a polyglot constituency which, he noted, came $ Ca
California expecting to find “little work and less lmL'
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s , er since the early days when they were give maSters> Nayy chaplains have been sen various collateral duties, sometimes q lr*gly far removed from their calling, abl nian<^ers found chaplains more expend- cQriv ^an ^ne °fficers» who could not be eniently removed from the watch list, Caj. ^herefore assigned them to tasks which ed for ingenuity and adaptability. During the War of 1812, when the Essex was raiding British shipping in the Pacific, Captain David Porter put his Chaplain, David Adams, in command of several prizes—he being the only chaplain known to have commanded war vessels of the United States.
When, in the summer of 1846, Commodore Robert F. Stockton arrived in Monterey, California, to relieve Commodore John D.
Sloat of command of the Pacific Squadron, he found the American flag flying over the port, although no news had been received of a declaration of war with Mexico. There was an immediate need for law and order in the newly acquired territory and the Commodore detached his Chaplain, Walter Colton, from the flagship, appointing him the Alcalde of the Monterey district.
Walter Colton graduated with honors from Yale College in 1822 and from Andover Theological Seminary. The young Congregational minister’s interest in journalism brought him to Washington to edit church journals, where he became a friend of President Andrew Jackson. It was the President who suggested that sea voyages might benefit the young editor’s health and offered him a naval chaplaincy, which he accepted.
The Chaplain confided to his journal:
“ Time and the force of circumstances work changes upon us. The very habits which fitted me for the contemplative quietude of the closet by undermining my health, have driven me into an opposite extreme; for there is no situation more stirring . . . than on board an armed ship.” After considerable experience at sea and ashore, Chaplain Colton was ordered in the fall of 1845 to the USS Congress, flagship of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, bound for Monterey, California. War with Mexico was imminent. He reported to his ship at Norfolk.
The Congress began her voyage on Saturday 25 October, but head winds forced her to anchor for four days in Hampton Roads. Forty other ships were windbound like themselves. The Chaplain wrote in his journal. “We number about five hundred souls; have laid in provisions and fuel for five months with fifty thousand gallons of water and sails and rigging sufficient to replace what is now in use should emergency demand. How such a mass of life and material can be brought within a frigate’s capacity and yet leave scope enough for action and repose is a mystery. The housewife who grumbles over the intrusion of an additional- piece of furniture should look into a man of war and she will go home with the conviction that she can sleep comfortably in the cradle with her infant.”
The unexpected delay gave the Chaplain opportunity to arrange the crew’s library of four hundred volumes in convenient cases- He later recorded:
“Sailors will read, if you furnish them with books suited to their tastes and habits. Give them narratives, history, biography and incidents of travel. In these sketches virtues may be shadowed forth that will win reverence and love, and the results of vice unfolded with repelling power. But all this requires care in the selection. This duty properly devolves on the Chaplain. It is for him to elevate and mold the moral sentiments of those around him. If he is not equal to this, he should not put his foot on the decks of a man of ward’ A southwest wind at dawn on Thursday enabled the frigate to stand out to sea on her long voyage to California by way of Cape Horn and Honolulu. It was not the first time the Chaplain had cleared the Virginia Capes on a long voyage. He had previously seen the old lighthouse on Cape Henry sink below the horizon and had noted in his journal:
“7 felt when it was gone as one that has parted with a venerable attachedfriend. Never before did a lighthouse appear to me an object of suJ beauty, fidelity and affectionate regard. It seemed as if it had come forth from the thousand object of the heart’s yearning remembrances to take position at that promontory, where it might lo<& its last farewell and express it kindest wishes- All hands were piped for a brief getting underway ceremony conducted by Comm0' dore Stockton. Addressing Captain Samu^ F. DuPont and the officers he said, “Yo°r reputation in the service is a sufficient guar' anty that the cruise before us will enlist yo°r highest energies and zeal.”
Stockton’s words to the crew were: “Me0’ your conduct since you have been on boa^ this ship justifies the strongest confidence 1,1 your fidelity. Above us floats the flag of o°r country. To your patriotism and undaunte0 valor I intrust its honor, dearer to me that1 life. We now sail for California and Oreg0'1 and then where it may please Heaven.” _ The Commodore then turned to Chapla1'1 Colton and asked him to offer a prayer God’s protection. This done, the broad pe°| nant was saluted, the ship cheered, and “Ha1 Columbia” played by the band. The pilot dropped along with the last letter bag, thousands of sea miles had to be coursed fore the Congress would turn home again. During the 53-day, 6,000-mile voyage l°
Rio de Janeiro, divine services were held on deck every Sunday when weather permitted. Church attendance was compulsory—perhaps for a very good reason—for, as Herman Melville wrote in White Jacket, in which he picked life at that time on board the frigate United. States: “Often the boatswain’s-mates "'ere obliged to drive the men to service, V|olently swearing upon these occasions as upon every other. ‘Go to prayers, damn you! 1° Prayers, you rascals, to prayers!’” Chaplain Colton believed that sailors had >ttle respect for fair weather Christianity, ^inking that the course of heaven lay through stormy seas. Unlike White Jacket's transcen- aental divine whose abstrusities were probably not understood even by the Commodore, haplain Colton resolved to give them plain, lrect preaching full of heart and strength. Since Chaplain Colton was a recently Carried man, his thoughts often turned home- vyard. He found departure more difficult ari it had been previously and noted:
‘Tou who cannot leave your wives and your children for a week without intelligence from them, go to sea with the prospect that we have, °f not hearing from them for a year. The truth is, none but old bachelors and henpecked husbands should go to sea. The latter flies from persecution, ^ former from that wretchedness which a sight °f real domestic happiness inflicts.” q 8 December when near the equator, the j°nSress fell in with the American whaleship j- as°n homeward bound, a most welcome sight, sr she would carry their letters home. Her C°nd mate came on board with the infor- lQn that her destination was New London, k e bad been 17 months at sea and had on °ard 28,000 gallons of whale oil and 46,000 ^ uunds of whalebone. The mate added that wanted powder and shot to keep the llQexicans off. He was informed that there was fu VVar wbh Mexico, but that he would be Wished with some ammunition.
°f tuX'°US to know the latest development afra C ^exican situation, the Commodore ha rir’e<^ to have Mr. Morris, his secretary, t0 'erred to the Jason with orders to return
lriese United States; get the President’s lak S3^es ancl the proceedings of Congress; rtl(| Passage to Panama, cross over the istli- ^ and rejoin the ship at Callao.
e Congress arrived in Rio de Janeiro on
21 December where she remained at anchor three weeks. Soon after her arrival, her Britannic Majesty’s frigate President, named for the former ship of that name captured by the British in 1812, dropped her hook alongside. She was commanded by Rear Admiral James Dacres—the same Captain Dacres who had commanded the Guerriere when she was defeated in her battle with the Constitution.
Chaplain Colton spent many days sightseeing in the Brazilian capital. Slavery was permitted at this time, and he found the Africans generally treated humanely by their masters. He wrote:
“It is for us Americans to preach up humanity, freedom and equality, and then turn up our blessed noses if an African takes a seat at the same table on a steamboat. Even in our churches he is obliged to look out some obscure nook and dodge along towards heaven as if he had no business on the ‘narrow way'. The misery is that they who preach equality the loudest are generally the last to practice it."
The Congress tripped her anchors at dawn 14 January 1846 for the formidable voyage around Cape Horn to Valparaiso.
One afternoon when the ship was half-way to the Cape, all hands went to general quarters as officers and crew rehearsed an actual engagement. Chaplain Colton’s journalistic ability was evidently known to the Captain, who assigned him the task of reporting the • battle. The Chaplain was not happy about it and wrote:
“7 am stationed at the capstan to take notes of the action; a very cool business when balls are flying around you like hail! If there is any fighting to be done I wish to do my part of it but not with a goose quill. That weapon does very well when there are no cutlasses, powder and shot about but it is not quite the thing with which to protect your own deck or board the enemy. It is said the Chaplain of the Chesapeake, who wielded a cutlass instead of a goose quill, gave the commander of the Shannon as he attempted to board, the wound of which he ultimately died. So much
For one whose courage cut him loose From weapons furnished by a goose.” Doubling Cape Horn brought them into another world—a cold world of half-light and sudden gales that pinned the topmen to the shrouds and made the tall masts roll from sea
to sea as dashes of hail drummed ominously on the decks—a lonely world where their only companions were the following albatross and the great whales that moved in the waters beside them, their black bodies looking like rocky reefs as they crossed the hollows of the seas as silent guardians of the bottom of the world.
The Chaplain’s journal vividly described the experience.
Sunday, February 1 “We are now within jorty miles of Staten Island, that high barrier rock of the American continent around which raves the Antarctic Sea. It is the center of storms which never slumber. One of them struck us a few hours since and carried away our fore topsail. It was an old sail and we bent another in its place. Sleet and hail are falling and the night has closed over us in starless gloom.”
Thursday, February 5 “In the last fifty-two hours we have made but little more than one degree of latitude and less than half a degree of longitude. It will take us a long time at this rate to get around Cape Horn.”
Saturday, February 7 “ We have made but very little progress the last two days. What we gain when the wind hauls we are sure to lose when it returns to its old position. It is in our teeth and has been there with brief variations for the last six days. Unless it changes we may box it till doomsday.... There ought to be a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama. If Cheops could build himself a tomb; if Brunei could arch a pathway under the Thames for the multitudes of London with navies on its bosom and if Whitney can run a railroad from the Atlantic seaboard to Oregon through the Rocky Mountains, surely the civilized powers of Europe and those of America combined can cut a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. I only wish all who oppose the project were obliged to double Cape Horn.”
Sunday, February 8 “The severity of the weather and the heave of the sea prevent our holding divine service today. The gale has become truly terrific; the sea and sky seem rushing together. We can only carry our storm trysails and even their strength is tested to the last thread. The whole ocean is white with foam which falls in cataracts from the crests of soaring waves. It is terrible and sublime to
watch one of these huge combers heaving up within the horizon and rolling . . . upon you.” Monday, February 9
“Our ship last night plunged and rolled like a leviathan in his death throes. At every heave of the sea she rolled her lee guns under. The watet which was forced through her ports lay on het gun deck ankle deep and rolled in sheets over the combings of her hatches. The watch on deck has just been relieved and were crowding beloW covered with sleet, stiff with cold and wading through water ankle deep to reach their hammocks, there to turn in and sleep in their drenched frozen garments.
Sunday, February 15 “We are at last some forty five miles west of Cape Horn and about one hundred and sixty miles south of it. This position we have gained in spite of the elements, by taking prompt advantage of those slight variations which will occur in winds of remarkable constancy. Still, we are not around the Cape for the wind is dead ahead and blowing a gale.”
Tuesday, February
“We are at last around Cape Horn. We hav1 left its stormy steeps astern and are holding old course for more congenial climes.
Cape of clouds, of hail and thunder, Towering o'er a savage sea,
Let the earth's wide circuit sunder Our departing keel and thee\”
Friday, February 2^ “It is now forty four days since we left Rl0' We had a splendid run to the Cape but since th$ we have wrenched every league from the element's by the hardest. We sailed two thousand miles 4 the Cape to make four hundred on our course. H1 literally beat round it.”
Monday, March * “Wefidded our topgallant masts; crossed N royal yards; rousted up and mounted the eig^ spar deck guns which had been struck below 0Jl the Cape; unbent our heavy topsails and cour5(S and bent lighter ones; holystoned our deck5’ scrubbed our paint work; cleaned our brass rad5’ finished one new side ladder and repaired $ whale boat stove in the gale.
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The Congress arrived at Valparaiso March; remained there until 18 March whe|j she sailed for Callao, which was reache 27 March. The steamer from Panama fina^ arrived 8 May with Mr. Morris, the Comn10
dore’s secretary, who brought mail and dispatches not more than a month old. The next day they sailed for Honolulu. At sea again, the Chaplain noted in his diary:
“A Chaplain in the Navy has an advantage over his brethren on land. He has his parishioners in the most compact of all possible forms and everyone present when he officiates. In making his official visits he has not to ride around among five hundred familes located at all points of the compass. He cannot stir without coming into contact with them.”
The 6,000-mile voyage from Callao to Honolulu was made in record time and dur- Mg the fortnight the Congress remained there, Chaplain Colton exchanged pulpits with Missionary friends ashore, explored the is- Wd, and made an effort to learn about the life of its inhabitants. The flagship had brought out a new Commissioner of the Sandwich Islands and the Chaplain attended It's colorful installation ceremonies at the r°yal palace.
The king stood before the gathering with Ms son, the young prince, his chiefs on the riSht, and the members of his cabinet on the left. He was a man of 34 years, heavy set, dark complexioned and kindly in appearance. He was dressed in a blue uniform with gold epaulettes and carried a sword at his side. Since he did not speak English fluently, he used an interpreter. Commodore Stockton made an address in which he said that he hoped a long, uninterrupted friendship would exist between their two countries. He told the king that the United States was very much interested in his plans for the welfare of his people and stood ready to come to his aid in the event of “any aggressive emergencies which might threaten the tranquility and integrity of his realm.”
The king’s reply was simple and closed with the words, “Commodore, I thank you for your visit to our islands. Your words will long be remembered. May you be happy!” Surfboarding was a sport the Chaplain had never seen before and he watched it with interest.
“Nothing has amused me more than the surf sports of the young chiefs. Each takes a smooth board of some eight feet in length, leads it out over the coral shallows far out into the sea and when a tremendous roller is coming in, jumps
upon it and the roller carries him upon its combing top with the speed of an arrow to the shore. A young American not liking to be outdone in a sport which seemed so simple, thought he would try the board and the billow. He ventured out a short distance, watched the opportunity and as the roller came, jumped upon his plank, was capsized and hove, half strangled on the beach.”
The days in Honolulu were cut short on 22 July by the arrival of Mexican newspapers which stated that fighting had broken out along the Texas border. Although this report was unofficial, Commodore Stockton decided to put to sea immediately in order to be off Monterey in the event of an emergency. The flagship sailed the next day and the crew was piped to general quarters daily during the voyage.
Chaplain Colton inaugurated Sunday night prayer meetings which became so popular that the compartment leading to the storeroom proved too small and even the storeroom itself could not hold the increasing congregation.
His diary for 12 July noted:
“The effect of this on the discipline of the ship is too marked to escape observation. There is no disobedience and no punishment. Give me the religious sentiment in a crew and you may sink
your handcuffs, cats and Colts in the depths of the ocean. They who, under the hypocritical cry of [separation] of church and state would deprive our seamen of these influences, have steeled their hearts to the first instincts of humanity.”
The Congress entered the harbor of Monterey 15 July 1846 and came to anchor near the other ships of the Squadron; the frigate 1 Savannah, Commodore Sloat, and the sloops of war Cyane and Levant. The American flag was already flying over Monterey and they learned that San Francisco, Sonora, and Sutter’s Fort were also in American hands, with no apparent effort being made by the , inhabitants to recapture them. No news had been received of a declaration of war. It was reported that the majority of people in California had no great attachment to Mexico nor to the military rulers sent by her to govern them. It was also reported that Captain John C. Fremont’s exploring party and ' a group of emigrants from the East who had settled on the Sacramento had been ordered by the Mexican government to leave California, but instead had run up their flag, “a white field, red border with a grizzly bear eyeing a single star which threw its light on the motto, ‘The Republic of California’.” The
Commodore Stockton’s Pacific Squadron, the Congress at left, at anchor off Monterey.
F. D. Roosevelt Collection
the Spanish terey on 28 Ju °otlockers pa<
Mexican general had been forced to retreat.
Captain Fremont arrived in Monterey with his band of 200 riflemen. The men were well In°unted and had 300 extra horses. Clad in buckskins and armed with long rifles, knives, and new revolving pistols, the black-bearded hoops made camp at the edge of the forest °n a hillside which overlooked Monterey. Their night watchfires cast an eerie light on the streets of the village and were visible to ships at sea. The next day they came on hoard the Congress. Many of them, Indians, trappers, and backwoodsmen, had never seen a ship before. They were soon to become amiliar with ships, for in less than a week they were on board the Cyane for San Diego t° attack General Castro at Los Angeles. Chaplain Colton noted in his diary:
“Commodore Stockton resolved to rest in no half way measures. The wave had been set in notion and must roll on or its returning force night sweep him and his temporary garrisons nto the Pacific. We are acting however, not only ln view of the alleged collision between the American and Mexican forces on the Rio Grande, but in reference to the anarchy and confusion into 'which this country has been thrown by a revolution which did not originate with us. It is but of tittle moment what the ultimate action of our government may be in reference to California. It cannot change her destiny. She is severed forever from Mexico. Should our government attempt to throw her back on that country, she will not stay thrown back.’”
In order to bring law and order out of the confusion and lawlessness that prevailed, t-oinmodore Stockton, who had had opportunity on the long voyage to appraise and aPpreciate Chaplain Colton’s good judgment and common sense, appointed him Alcalde word for “Mayor”—of Mon- ly. * His books were boxed, his _ :ked, and in one hour he was ashore. Since there was no comfortable hotel 1,1 Monterey at this time, arrangements were uiade for him to reside at the home of the American Consul.
The office of Alcalde held many responsi- ilities, including those of Mayor, Sheriff, Superintendent of Schools, Chief of Police,
See also F. F. Smart, Jr., “The First Governor of alifornia,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings,
* ebruary 1961, pp. 160-161.
Judge, and Governor. Every breach of the peace, every case of crime, and every disputed land title within a jurisdiction of three hundred miles was his to adjudicate. The population of the territory was made up of halfwild Indians, Mexicans, Spaniards, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Irishmen, and Germans; Russians, Mormons, Americans, trappers, and adventurers. The Chaplain commented: “ There is not a judge on any bench in England
or in the United States whose power is so absolute
as that of the Alcalde of Monterey.”
He had not been in his new role two weeks when the Warren came in from Mazatlan with information that war had been declared between the United States and Mexico, news which created great excitement among the inhabitants of Monterey. The majority welcomed the advent of a more stable government, while a minority clung tenaciously to the old ways.
Communication between the populace and the new government was a problem which Chaplain Colton met by the publication of the first newspaper in California. Volume 1, Number 1 appeared on Saturday, 15 August 1846, with its title “Californian” printed across its one 8 X 12-inch page. Its masthead announced that it would be published every Saturday morning by Colton and Semple at 12j cents a copy. A year’s subscription was five dollars.
Its first copy proudly announced, “This is the first paper ever published in California, and though issued upon a small sheet, as is intended, it shall contain matter that will be read with interest. The principles which govern us in conducting it can be set forth in a few words. We shall maintain an utter severance of all political connection with Mexico. We renounce at once and forever all fealty to her laws, all obedience to her mandates, and we shall advocate an oblivion of all past political offenses and allow every man the privilege of entering this new era of events unembarrassed by any part he may have taken in previous revolutions. We shall maintain freedom of speech and of the press and those great principles of religious toleration which allow every man to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. We shall advocate such a system of public instruction as will bring the means of a good
practical education to every child in California.”
The first edition also contained the declaration of war, along with news from several military posts. An enthusiastic crowd gathered outside of its office and purchased each sheet as it came off the press.
The Chaplain was assisted in this venture by Robert Semple, a six-foot-eight Kentuckian, described as “dressed in buckskins, wearing a fox skin cap, true with his rifle, ready with his pen and quick at the type case.” The partners showed both ingenuity and perseverance in getting the newspaper published. An ancient printing press was found which had once been used by a Roman Catholic monk for printing religious tracts. Its type was rusted and jumbled. No paper was available until a large quantity of tobacco wrappers was discovered on board a coasting vessel.
Chaplain Colton had not been Alcalde many days when Indians raided a nearby farm and made off with two hundred horses. Twenty Indians with their chief were apprehended and brought to Monterey for trial. When questioned, the chief declared that the men who had stolen the horses were not members of his tribe. They had recently joined his forces, but now that he knew them to be horse thieves, he would have nothing more to do with them. The Alcalde was unable to obtain any evidence that either the chief or his men were implicated, and he set them free upon their promise to obey the laws of the new government. As a gesture of goodwill, he had them taken on board the Savannah where they were furnished with new blankets. A Navy uniform was found for the chief, complete with epaulettes, cap with gold braid, sword, boots, and spurs. The band played “Hail Columbia” as they departed with promises of allegiance to the Americans.
The Chaplain later wrote in his journal: “Horse stealing has given me more trouble than any other species of offense in California. It has grown out of a loose habit of using the horses of other people without their consent at a time when they were of little account; and what once was a venial trespass has become a crime. Nor are the Americans here a whit better than the natives. They have a facility of conscience which
easily suits itself to any prevailing vice. Many of them appear to have left their good principles on i the other side of Cape Horn or over the Rocky Mountains. They slide into gambling, drinking and cheating as easily as a frog into its native pond.”
Two Mexican suitors for the hand of the same senorita made such a nuisance of themselves by frequent visits to the girl’s home that the girl’s mother appealed to the Alcalde to settle the matter. The Chaplain ruled that neither of the rivals were to enter the house except when invited by the mother or until her daughter made up her mind which one she wished to accept.
The Alcalde impanelled California’s first jury on 4 September 1846. The 12 men selected were a mixture of Spanish-speaking and American backgrounds. The case was a complicated one which involved both property and slander. Both parties appeared ^ satisfied with the verdict, and the citizens of Monterey who witnessed it were impressed by the complete absence of bribery. The Chaplain wrote:
“If there is anything on earth beside religion for which I would die, it is the right of trial by jury.”
The people of Monterey showed their confidence in the Chaplain by electing him their Alcalde on 15 September.
Determined to discourage professional gambling in the growing community, Chaplain Colton got word that the “Prairie Wolf,” a notorious gambler from Missouri, had opened a game of monte in Monterey’s > Astor House. One night when a game was in progress, he stationed soldiers at all the exits and rushed into the gaming room with his deputies. Someone blew a whistle of alarm as cards, money, and gamblers miraculously disappeared. The gamesters hid under beds, in closets, and in other rooms. Two were | found in a hogshead. One went up the chimney. The Prairie Wolf was pulled from between two mattresses, half-smothered with feathers. In all, about 50 men were rounded up and among them was the Alcalde of San Francisco, charitably referred to by the Chaplain as “a gentleman of education and refinement who never plays himself but on this occasion had come to watch the excitement.” They were herded into the lobby "'here they were informed that they were fined $20 each and the hotel $100 for permitting the game to be held on its premises. There was some grumbling about injustice since no cards or money had been found. The local doctor paid up, however, upon the suggestion that they all do so, since the money was to be used to build a school where, hopefully their children would be taught better principles than those exemplified by their parents. The Prairie Wolf then good- naturedly followed suit and all the others ioined him.
Commodore Stockton left California 17 July 1847, after having been in the new territory for more than a year. His departure was keenly felt by the Chaplain who wrote:
“His measures in California have been bold and vigorous and have been followed by decisive results. He found the country in anarchy and contusion and the greater part under the Mexican flag, and he has left it in peace and quietness beneath the stars and stripes.”
Gold was first mentioned in Chaplain Colton’s journal on 28 May 1848, in which he observed that the people of Monterey did not believe the first rumors of its discovery. A
week later, a more detailed report came in from the American Fork where some men digging a mill race “had thrown up little scales of yellow ore that proved to be gold.” As Alcalde, the Chaplain wished to find out the truth or falsehood of these reports and in order to do so, sent a messenger to the American Fork, a distance of about 200 miles. In the meantime, a straggler appeared with a gold nugget which greatly excited the inhabitants. They brought the Alcalde a “spy-glass” to examine it, a ladle to melt it, a hammer to pound it, and one lady sent her solid gold ring with which to compare it. Even so, doubts remained among the majority of the townspeople. They found it hard to understand why, if gold was really available, it had not been discovered previously. After an absence of two weeks, the Chaplain’s messenger returned. A crowd gathered quickly around him as “he dismounted in a sea of upturned faces.” Without many words, he took lumps of gold out of his pockets and passed them around among the bystanders. This was gold as bright as the California sunshine! This was gold, smooth and heavy and within their very grasp! They saw and believed, except for one old Californian who
declared it was just another Yankee trick to get them to honor the new flag.
“ The excitement was intense, and many were soon busy in their hasty preparations for departure to the mines. The family who had kept house for me caught the moving injection. Husband and wife both were packing up.” Blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, farmers, bakers, and tapsters
“. . . were ojf to the mines, some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went on a litter. Debtors ran, of course.”
“Our servants have run one after the other,” the Chaplain repined.
“ We have a house and all the table furniture and culinary apparatus requisite. This morning for the fortieth time we had to take to the kitchen and cook our own breakfast.”
A sailor came in from the gold fields with a bag of gold that weighed more than eight pounds. He proudly showed it around and when the carpenters who were at work on the new school house saw it, they threw down their tools and headed for the Yuba River where it was said to have been found. They were joined by an entire platoon of soldiers from the Fort and three sailors from the Warren, all of them AWOL.
Many Monterey residents returned from the gold fields as the summer of 1848 wore on. Four who had teamed up for seven weeks on the Feather River had made more than $11,000 apiece. A man well known to the Chaplain had netted $5,000 after two months on the Yuba. Another townsman brought back $4,500 from the North Fork for less than two month’s labor. A 14-year-old boy earned $3,400 for 54 days’ work on the Mokelumae.
Chaplain Colton set out for the gold fields with three friends in September. Mules were scarce and the four they had purchased to draw their wagon were not accustomed to the harness and were not strong enough for the task. The driver who set out a day ahead of them was “half sailor and half teamster and not much of either.” On the eighth day, as they neared their destination, they met a party of Californians returning home.
“A more forlorn group never knocked at the door of a pauper asylum. They were most of them dismounted, with rags ... [on] their blistered feet.. . clubs in their hands with which they were trying to force on their skeleton animals.”
Following service in World War I, Captain Plumb entered Trinity College in 1918 and graduated in 1923. He was awarded an Honorary D.D. in 1955. Upon graduation from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1927, his ministry took him to Episcopalian churches in Worcester, Mass. (1927 to 1930); Branford, Conn. (1930 to 1939); and Washington, D. C. (1940 to 1942, 1945 to 1954). Commissioned a lieutenant ChC-V(S), USNR, in 1942, he was successively, Chaplain of the USS Wyoming, USS Lejeune, and of the Norfolk Naval Hospital. From 1954 until his retirement in 1965, he was Executive Secretary of the Armed Forces Division of the National Council of The Episcopal Church. Since 1958, he has been Honorary Canon of the Washington Cathedral.
They asked for bread and meat, which were supplied them. The Chaplain later learned that this company’s appearance was deceptive, for they had more than $100,000 in grain gold with them and also the largest nugget found up to that time.
Chaplain Colton estimated that more than 50,000 persons were at work at this time along the streams on the slopes of the great Sierra. Some had tents. Others had none. Some were well provisioned but most of them were not. Crowbars, pickaxes, spades, and cradles and bowls for washing gold sold at at least ten times their regular value. The Chaplain gladly paid $10 for a rude pickaxe without a handle. After about a month of labor he noted in his journal.
“I have collected since my arrival at the mines, several singular and beautiful specimens of the gold. One of the pieces resembles the pendulous eardrop, and must have assumed that shape when the metal was in a state of fusion. That all the gold here has once been in that state is sufficiently evident from the forms in which it is found. I have a specimen weighing several ounces in which the characteristics of the slate rock are as palpable as if they had been engraved. I have another specimen in which a clear crystal of quartz is set with a finish of execution which no jeweler can rival.” His days among the gold diggers proved an experience the Chaplain would never forget. The sharp sound of the crowbar and pickaxe, the monotonous hum of human voices echoing through cavernous ravines was sometimes
broken by joyous shouts of “Eureka!” The daily rumors of richer discoveries in nearby streams were followed by a stampede to them. 'ainpfires glimmered on a thousand hills "'here the men prepared their slippers of coffee and jerked beef. Cold nights were made s|eepless by the barking of wolves. Occa- s'onally there were uproarious days when the joiners feasted on elk washed down with rare */'cw England rum. And, set up in the shade, busy monte tables gleamed with piles of gold, gold which often went more easily than it had come. Once a young geologist from one of lbe great colleges in the East overlooked a "'hole bank of gold which a poor Indian later hug out with a stick.
After an absence of two months, Chaplain Bolton returned to Monterey. When he reflected on his visit to the diggings, he concluded there was more lasting wealth for California in her agricultural development.
“As yet only the grape and the Jig have secured the attention of the cultivator but the capacities of the soil and aptitudes of the climate are attested in the twenty thousand vines that reel in one orchard and which send through California a wine that need not blush in the presence of any rival from the hills of France or the sunny slopes of Italy. To those plains the quiet emigrants will ere long gather and convert their drills into pruning hooks, and we shall have wines, jigs, dates, almonds, olives and raisins from California. The gold may give out but these are secure while nature remains.” The Monterey town hall which had taken ^uore than a year to build was completed in hlarch 1849. Built of white stone excavated from a hill nearby, its assembly hall, which occupied the entire second story, was 70 by 30 feet. The first floor of the building was divided into school rooms. The funds for its erection had come from the labor of convicts, from taxes on liquor shops, and fines on gamblers. The citizens of Monterey unanimously named it Colton Hall. Chaplain Colton took an important part in the drawing up of a constitution for the State of California, and early meetings on this subject were held in the hall which bears his name.
The Chaplain was relieved of his duties as Alcalde of Monterey at his own request after more than three years in California. Ordered to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, he made the journey East by way of Panama. He died in Philadelphia in 1851 at the age of 52.
In a frontier land faced with political and social upheaval, Walter Colton, oblivious to personal safety, was able to kindle in California’s heterogeneous people, a respect for law by the honest fairness of his court and jury, a desire for a free press by the example of his weekly newspaper, and a yearning among them for an increase in education by the building of his school. Alone in a strange land, he did not hang up his harp to weep upon remembrance of Zion, but sang the Lord’s song by shouldering his peoples’ problems and single-handedly driving through projects for their betterment. He was the herald of finer things to come—things which eventually arrived because of the solid foundations he had laid. He was, indeed, the right man in the right place at the right time.
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Admiral King’s War
Fleet Admiral Ernest King was an announced foe of the high-level strategy of President F. D. Roosevelt concerning the main effort of World War II. This was that the European war would be settled first, and meanwhile, we would “hold” in the Pacific. Accordingly, a bare minimum of men and material were to be earmarked for the Pacific for Admiral King’s use.
When the President briefed him on his mission, the Admiral is reported to have answered, “That’s a big slice of bread you’re giving me, and damn little butter!”
Later, when the President questioned him on how the “butter,” in the shape of new ships was coming along, the Admiral retorted, “The butter’s fine . . . but you keep giving me more bread!”
--------------------------------------------------- Contributed by Major J. W. Dion, U. S. Marine Corps
(The Naval Institute will pay $10.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)