Volume 001-2 - April 1948 (2 pages)

April 12, 1948 MAY MEETINGS Mr. George W. Hallock, President of the California Hydraulic Association, be the guest speaker of the Historical Society, Monday, May 3rd, at 8:00 P.M., in the Rotary Room of the Bret Harte Inn, Grass Valley. . Mr, Hallock has followed mining for the greater part of his life in California, and has numerods claims and interests in Nevada and Sierra counties. He is a member of the State Mining Board, and resides at 126 Bennett Street,.Grass Valley. Members of the Society will be interested in his talk on Hydraulic Mining in Nevada County. The story of how the top soil and layers of earth were torn away by the force of water from the huge monitors in man's eagerness to reach the rich river channels, the storage and distribution of the vast amount of water necessary for hydraulic operations, is a fascinating one. The Hotel management is offering an “Historical Special Plate* on the menu for this night, priced at 85c, and anyone wishing to have dinner, may stop at the Bret Harte Coffee Shop before the talk in the Rotary Room. + + On Sunday, May 23rd, Mr. Edmond Kinyon and Mr. Herbert Nile will conduct an excursion to Mule Springs. This location was probably so named and first utilized by the Elisha Stevens Party who roughed out the Emigrant-Donner Trail from the Summit to Johnson's Rancho in early December, 1844. It lies at the upper end of the narrow ridge between Bear River and Steep Hollow Creek. On the Miller Map it appears asthe name of a placer mining claim only, but a flowing spring of considerable size remains intact and is marked by the Tahoe National Forest as “Mule Springs.” The name figures in all Donner Party histories. The location is about twelve miles from the highway-crossing of Bear Va" Just where the original trail climbed the north wall of Bear Valley is reportedly unkne During the winter of 1846-47 Mule Springs was a sort of half-way haven for the ingoing rescue parties and the outcoming refugees. That valiant leader, Selem E. Woodworth with his cavalcade, reached the location, but was deterred from proceeding furthér by deep snows, he taking the back track to Johnson's afer several days of indecision. For weeks it was a way-station for rescuers of sterner fiber and for the haggard humanity staggering down the trail. Efforts are being made to ascertain whether three or more graves in the vicinity are linked with the Donner tragedy or are of later placement. The Nevada County Historical Society will. place a marker on the day of the excursion with a few words of information regarding Mule Springs. Details of the trip will be given later in the local newspapers. + The Nevada County Historical Museum, located at 206 Main Street, Nevada City (see cover picture), will be opened to the public for the summer on Sunday, May 2nd. It is hoped to maintain Saturday and Sunday openings this year, as well as special holidays and excursion visits. As this is made possible through voluntary help, members afe urged to offer three to six hours Custodian Service to Museum Chairman Elmer Stevens, phone G. V. 664-W, or President Doris Foley, N. C. 312-W. Museum revenue is mostly derived from the sale of novelties, and anyone having trinkets to donate for this purpose may phone Esther McCandless, G. V. 245-J, or they may be left at the Nevada City News, 210 Main Street, Nevada City. Relics or gifts to the Museum may be left with the Museum Custodian, or by phoning Elmer Stevens or Doris Foley. Mr. William H. Wayman has been appointed Museum Curator for the 1 season. + + HISTORICAL NOTES For one’s personal files. “OLD BLOCK” Alznzo Delano 1806-1878 (By Elmer Stevens) Imagine, if you can, Grass Valley in 1850! Here is Hamilton Hall, Beatty Hotel, the ‘Telegraph. Wells Fargo, Judge Walsh’s Mill. Coming down Main Street is a dapper looking man in frock coat, most prominent is a large nose. Here was Grass Valley's outstanding citizen, Alanzo Delano. Yes, scventy-five or eighty years ago, Old Block needed no introduction to his public. He had made his homely pen-name as familiar to the public as any houschold word. There was hardly a man or woman in California who had not heard of him. His prodigious nose was proverbial as ever was Cyrano’s in France. He saved our town when faith and hope was lost. Such was the affection for him that when he died all of Grass Valley's flags were flying at half mast, its business suspended, and tributes poured in from over the nation and even an attempt was made to preserve him in bronze. His western life was but twenty-five years, crossing the plains into the Sacramento Valley, a few precarious years in San Francisco, and most important of all, his ‘life in the perennially young mining town of Grass Valley. I regret my acquaintance with this congenial personality is second hand, through the writings of Ezra Dane and Edmond Kinyon. There are but a few who remember him or his ingratiating cook and valet, Chinese Ah Chee, or Duck Egg, to you. It was here in Grass Valley that Delano mingled the duties of express agent, banker, city treasurer, city trustce, but his literary works were known through all the west. They have been neglected for half a century. It might be well to look at his works as we approach the Centennial of the Gold Rush Days of which he was the genial exponent. A grave stone tilted back among the myrtle in Greenwood Cemetery, here in Grass Valley, the mountain town of his sketches, tells us that he was born in Aurora, New York, tenth of eleven children to Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Delano. Research by some indicate that Pilgrim Father, Phillip de-Lay-Now left Holland to save his neck from the gallows. However, it is impossible that Old Block had any notion of illustrious ancestry or cared tittle. ‘“Put airs with royalty—I have drunk with it, slept with it, danced with and swore at it—" What he had in mind was his Majesty Homody Weimer, the Merry Monarch of the Feather River Indians, ‘“‘a gentleman who was clothed with despotic power, being clothed with nothing else unless it was a rabbit robe in cold weather.” In 1841, we find him in South Bend, Indiana, citizen of Indiana, a dealer in “tape, flour, silk, lard, coon skin caps, whisky and bank stocks.” The western spirit was astir when his doctor advised him to get a change of residence to preserve his life. Then gold added to his ailments. From Ottawa, Illinois, 1849, he bade good-bye to Mary and their sixyear-old Harriet, and came westward with the Dayton Company. Noting the incidents of interest, he wrote, ‘Life on the — Plains and among the Diggings,” the best pictures of the great trek. It was-in September, 1849, that Captain Delano led the survivors over the Green Horn cut-off and approached California. Into the valley of the Sacramento, Delano came to San Francisco. It was here he became a correspondent for the Pacific News. His success was immediate. The wanderers to the land of gold wishing to give folks at home an idea of this life sent thousands of copies. His humor was in tune with the times. Chips off the Old Block—kindly sympathy. He could deal in caricature without ridiculing. Style was simple, rustic but “smooth as a Sierra stream." Alanzo Delano and John Phoenix established the tradition of California humor which was the inspiration of Bret Harte and Mark Twain. He was to appear in the Sacramento Union, the California Farmer, the Golden Era, the Grass Valley Telegraph, New York Times. The editors of the Union were responding to the public demand when they published “Pen Knife Sketches.”

April 12, 1948 MAY MEETINGS Mr. George W. Hallock, President of the California Hydraulic Association, be the guest speaker of the Historical Society, Monday, May 3rd, at 8:00 P.M., in the Rotary Room of the Bret Harte Inn, Grass Valley. .. Mr, Hallock has followed mining for the greater part of his life in California, and has numerods claims and interests in Nevada and Sierra counties. He is a member of the State Mining Board, and resides at 126 Bennett Street,.Grass Valley. Members of the Society will be interested in his talk on Hydraulic Mining in Nevada County. The story of how the top soil and layers of earth were torn away by the force of water from the huge monitors in man's eagerness to reach the rich river channels, the storage and distribution of the vast amount of water necessary for hydraulic operations, is a fascinating one. The Hotel management is offering an “Historical Special Plate* on the menu for this night, priced at 85c, and anyone wishing to have dinner, may stop at the Bret Harte Coffee Shop before the talk in the Rotary Room. + + On Sunday, May 23rd, Mr. Edmond Kinyon and Mr. Herbert Nile will conduct an excursion to Mule Springs. This location was probably so named and first utilized by the Elisha Stevens Party who roughed out the Emigrant-Donner Trail from the Summit to Johnson's Rancho in early December, 1844. It lies at the upper end of the narrow ridge between Bear River and Steep Hollow Creek. On the Miller Map it appears asthe name of a placer mining claim only, but a flowing spring of considerable size remains intact and is marked by the Tahoe National Forest as “Mule Springs.” The name figures in all Donner Party histories. The location is about twelve miles from the highway-crossing of Bear Va" Just where the original trail climbed the north wall of Bear Valley is reportedly unkne During the winter of 1846-47 Mule Springs was a sort of half-way haven for the ingoing rescue parties and the outcoming refugees. That valiant leader, Selem E. Woodworth with his cavalcade, reached the location, but was deterred from proceeding furthér by deep snows, he taking the back track to Johnson's afer several days of indecision. For weeks it was a way-station for rescuers of sterner fiber and for the haggard humanity staggering down the trail. Efforts are being made to ascertain whether three or more graves in the vicinity are linked with the Donner tragedy or are of later placement. The Nevada County Historical Society will. place a marker on the day of the excursion with a few words of information regarding Mule Springs. Details of the trip will be given later in the local newspapers. + The Nevada County Historical Museum, located at 206 Main Street, Nevada City (see cover picture), will be opened to the public for the summer on Sunday, May 2nd. It is hoped to maintain Saturday and Sunday openings this year, as well as special holidays and excursion visits. As this is made possible through voluntary help, members afe urged to offer three to six hours Custodian Service to Museum Chairman Elmer Stevens, phone G. V. 664-W, or President Doris Foley, N. C. 312-W. Museum revenue is mostly derived from the sale of novelties, and anyone having trinkets to donate for this purpose may phone Esther McCandless, G. V. 245-J, or they may be left at the Nevada City News, 210 Main Street, Nevada City. Relics or gifts to the Museum may be left with the Museum Custodian, or by phoning Elmer Stevens or Doris Foley. Mr. William H. Wayman has been appointed Museum Curator for the 1 season. + + HISTORICAL NOTES For one’s personal files. “OLD BLOCK” Alznzo Delano 1806-1878 (By Elmer Stevens) Imagine, if you can, Grass Valley in 1850! Here is Hamilton Hall, Beatty Hotel, the ‘Telegraph. Wells Fargo, Judge Walsh’s Mill. Coming down Main Street is a dapper looking man in frock coat, most prominent is a large nose. Here was Grass Valley's outstanding citizen, Alanzo Delano. Yes, scventy-five or eighty years ago, Old Block needed no introduction to his public. He had made his homely pen-name as familiar to the public as any houschold word. There was hardly a man or woman in California who had not heard of him. His prodigious nose was proverbial as ever was Cyrano’s in France. He saved our town when faith and hope was lost. Such was the affection for him that when he died all of Grass Valley's flags were flying at half mast, its

business suspended, and tributes poured in from over the nation and even an attempt was made to preserve him in bronze. His western life was but twenty-five years, crossing the plains into the Sacramento Valley, a few precarious years in San Francisco, and most important of all, his ‘life in the perennially young mining town of Grass Valley. I regret my acquaintance with this congenial personality is second hand, through the writings of Ezra Dane and Edmond Kinyon. There are but a few who remember him or his ingratiating cook and valet, Chinese Ah Chee, or Duck Egg, to you. It was here in Grass Valley that Delano mingled the duties of express agent, banker, city treasurer, city trustce, but his literary works were known through all the west. They have been neglected for half a century. It might be well to look at his works as we approach the Centennial of the Gold Rush Days of which he was the genial exponent. A grave stone tilted back among the myrtle in Greenwood Cemetery, here in Grass Valley, the mountain town of his sketches, tells us that he was born in Aurora, New York, tenth of eleven children to Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Delano. Research by some indicate that Pilgrim Father, Phillip de-Lay-Now left Holland to save his neck from the gallows. However, it is impossible that Old Block had any notion of illustrious ancestry or cared tittle. ‘“Put airs with royalty—I have drunk with it, slept with it, danced with and swore at it—" What he had in mind was his Majesty Homody Weimer, the Merry Monarch of the Feather River Indians, ‘“‘a gentleman who was clothed with despotic power, being clothed with nothing else unless it was a rabbit robe in cold weather.” In 1841, we find him in South Bend, Indiana, citizen of Indiana, a dealer in “tape, flour, silk, lard, coon skin caps, whisky and bank stocks.” The western spirit was astir when his doctor advised him to get a change of residence to preserve his life. Then gold added to his ailments. From Ottawa, Illinois, 1849, he bade good-bye to Mary and their sixyear-old Harriet, and came westward with the Dayton Company. Noting the incidents of interest, he wrote, ‘Life on the — Plains and among the Diggings,” the best pictures of the great trek. It was-in September, 1849, that Captain Delano led the survivors over the Green Horn cut-off and approached California. Into the valley of the Sacramento, Delano came to San Francisco. It was here he became a correspondent for the Pacific News. His success was immediate. The wanderers to the land of gold wishing to give folks at home an idea of this life sent thousands of copies. His humor was in tune with the times. Chips off the Old Block—kindly sympathy. He could deal in caricature without ridiculing. Style was simple, rustic but “smooth as a Sierra stream." Alanzo Delano and John Phoenix established the tradition of California humor which was the inspiration of Bret Harte and Mark Twain. He was to appear in the Sacramento Union, the California Farmer, the Golden Era, the Grass Valley Telegraph, New York Times. The editors of the Union were responding to the public demand when they published “Pen Knife Sketches.”