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Volume 052-4 - October 1998 (8 pages)
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Page: of 8
NCHS Bulletin October 1998
years later Old Block’s Sketch Book, or Tales of California
Life was being read the length and breadth of California. A
two-act play, “A Live Woman at the Mines” came out in 1857.
Among Old Block’s mining acquaintances was Charles
Nahl, a German artist who had panned gold at the camp of
Rough-and-Ready, a spot noted for its lawlessness. In his
spare time Nahl sketched the miners, producing drawings
that were subsequently used to illustrate several of Delano’s
books.
By the 1860s Old Block was a popular figure in the west.
Grass Valley knew him best of all, however, not only as a
writer, but as a sober banker and sound citizen who worked
for the good of the community. His wiry figure of medium
height, lean and erect, with keen eyes and enormous hooked
nose was a familiar sight on the streets. At the age of 65,
after his wife died, Alonzo Delano married a young lady
visiting in California, Miss Marie Harman of Warren Ohio.
In 1873 Grass Valley was plunged into gloom by the
news that the Eureka Mine was about to close; the town
was doomed, they supposed. “Old Block” rented Hamilton
Hall. He must have been a striking figure with his Roman
nose and chin whiskers as he told his fellow citizens, “My
friends, have no fear for the future of Grass Valley, for underlying this town is a perfect network of gold-bearing
ledges. You may rest assured that your children’s children
will be mining here 100 years from now.”
Alonzo didn’t have a long marriage to his second wife,
since he died in 1874 at the age of 68. He and Marie both
are buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Grass Valley, where
their tombstones are still standing.
“Burning of Grass Valley”
from Old Block's Sketch Book by Alonzo Delano
ID YOU EVER KNOW A YOUNG MAN GO INTO THE
company of his sweetheart that he didn’t make his best
bow? Did you ever know an old lover meet his ancient love
without saying “my dear?” Did you ever hear an ardent
preacher commence his sermon without prefacing it with
“my dear hearers?”
Well, then, if an Old Block, after years of absence, is
about to revisit the home of his old love, to appear on the
scene where former kindnesses met him at every turn, the
memory of which is still as fresh and green as at the moment they were extended; as he offers his hand with the
kindliest feelings of his heart to greet you, will you not
allow an old man to use the gentle cognomen of Dear Public, and accept his best bow with kind greetings? Yes, yes—
make your bow, but Jet us hear what you’ ve got to say:
Well then, dear public, I am not in the pumpkin trade
now. I’m done with the squash business. My little cub-hole
on Long Wharf has given place to a magnificent brick; all
the old wharf rats are driven out years ago. Even the onearmed water carrier has disappeared with his little hand2
cart. And my tail—my tale, I mean, has been cut short for
months by the want of time and means to extend it. By
degrees, I propose to unfold it from my den in the mountains, and if I can’t talk like a green grocer on Long Wharf*"™
of cabbages and turnips, perhaps I can cabbage a little of
your time, while I occasionally turn up a few items in the
columns of the UNION for your notice—I like to have said
amusement. There, dear male public (I like to make a distinction, sometimes—don’t you?). Here’s my hand, and—
dear ladies, here’s my lips for you, and, though Old Time
has been at work with the hair on my crown, for aught I
know my kiss is as vigorous as—well I know age is garrulous.
You’ve heard of Grass Valley, or “I s’pose you’ve read
of it in the prints”; a mountain town, so named from the
fact that it was first settled by grass widowers, and being
incorporated since by that name, because it became the
heaven or haven (I haven’t got a dictionary at hand) of
grass widows. Although its name is a little verdant, our
people, taken as a whole or by sections, are not quite so
green as the name would imply. In fact, we are making
some noise in the world, although our “fathers don’t beat
the drum, nor our mothers cry clams.” Yet the noise and
thumping of a dozen quartz mills is proof positive that we
can be heard at a distance, and we are where the air is clear
enough. Besides, too, we have our papers of California naturalization, without which no town in the State is worthy of
notice. We stand No. 23 on the list—Oh! don’t you know
what constitutes a legal incorporation in California? Why,
it’s being burnt down and built up again in a month, and
coming out more fresh, more fair and beautiful than ever by
the purification, As gold is more refined and bright by
being submitted to the flames, so our towns are purified and
rendered more beautiful than ever as they spring up from
their own smoking ruins. True, it tries the metal, and the
alloy and dross is swept off, but show me the town in California, from San Francisco to Grass Valley, which has been
subjected to the seething flame—even wiped off the earth
by the devouring element—when the energies of its people
have not triumphed over the calamity which prostrated it,
and renewed it, improved in appearance, and beautified and
enlarged in its proportions. And with what calmness and determination the Californians look upon such calamities.
On the eventful night which laid our town in ruins,
which left us no cover for our heads but the blue vault of
Heaven; when we were driven from our falling roofs to the
streets, from the streets to hill, beyond reach of fire, there
stood mothers with their children, and men ruined in purse
by the catastrophe, gazing calmly upon the greedy flames
as they leaped from house to house, licking up their homes,
and destroying the work of years of toil, did you hear one
word of wailing—one single note of despair? No, not one.Even females, who scarcely saved their garments coolly remarked, “It can’t be helped; there’s no use to cry. It’s gone,
oo
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