Reading About the Early Days

Every now and then I switch my phone-in-hand reading over to California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900. I've been reading through the titles in alphabetical order for some time now. It contains a lot of dull Nineteenth Century text. But it is source material, and fascinating in that the people who wrote it were actually there, and not historians or novelists or bloggers poorly pursuing a dozen hobbies.

The other day I found myself reading Mrs. Rideout's 1886 camping trip of many weeks, riding around California in a large horse-drawn wagon. She writes vividly of the places she sees, and though it seems half her effort goes into manifesting a new Christian paradise where everyone observes the Sabbath and avoids alcohol, the descriptions that escape her sermons interest me. This is mainly because they are of places I know. Her trip pretty much encompasses an area bounded by Clear Lake and Santa Cruz, and at one point passes within a few miles of where my great-grandfather was at the time raising a family on a farm.

The notes, by the way, say it was 1888, but her mention of a stirring speech given by General Logan in San Jose and the huzzahs and hurrahs for "our next President" sent me to do some internet research and determine this was in '86, not '88. Yes, I am entertained by such activities.

Anyway, towards the end she writes of passing through Kelseyville, which is a town south of Clear Lake. Clear Lake, by the way, is the largest natural lake wholly within California, and one of North America's oldest lakes, i.e. almost half a million years. It's a pretty place. But of Kelseyville, Mrs. Rideout says, "Here is the best steam organ factory we have ever visited. It is filling the mountains and valleys with sweetest music and pouring its golden notes into many an humble home." My interest was piqued, and I tried to find information on this manufacturer of musical instruments. I found none. What I found was the history of the town and its name. In short, in 1850 Andrew Kelsey and his partner enslaved Pomo families, starved and raped and murdered them at will, and once they were finally killed, were avenged by the U.S. Army at what is now known as the Bloody Island Massacre. This long painful story made me unutterably sad.

California is not famous for its Indian wars. The local peoples were peaceful people by and large, having lived forever in a region that practically fed them directly and thus never needing to perfect any war-making arts. When the outside world suddenly descended upon them, first from Spain, and then mostly from the States, they were completely overwhelmed. No wars; just death.

Mrs. Rideout makes no mention, of course. Her world seems a rosy place. Even the orphanages and insane asylums visited along her way are clean well-run places shining with God's work. Who knows, maybe in an era when all mental health issues were either the result of satanic whiskey shops or just mysterious maladies never to be explained, some mere feeding and housing of people who couldn't manage it for themselves was as Godly as one could expect.

The rooms were all pleasant and the beds nice and comfortable. In the nursery we found some little suffering children who had just been brought from the homes of drunkards, and our eyes filled with tears as we gazed on the wan pinched features and emaciated forms. One was covered with bruises and sores which too plainly indicated the treatment it had received from those whose love and sympathy had been utterly destroyed by the demon of strong drink.

Well, some things never change. Let's take heart in these words instead:

As we watched the happy birds that went darting back and forth among the boughs so full of life and happiness, we thought of the words of Luther. When in deep distress of mind, he pointed to a little bird that was singing sweetly, and said: “Happy creature; he leaves God to think for him.”

What a blessing it would be if Christians would allow their Heavenly Father to think for them, instead of training all the energies of body and mind to think for themselves.

Yeah. Some things never change.