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Volume 058-4 - October 2004 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
o> denominations and missionary
gold was still there for the digging; but the digging was
getting harder and deeper. The early men of California were
up to the challenge, inventing new methods and devices in
order to bring the gold to the surface. While a few got rich,
most just survived; some didn’t and were never heard from
again.
By 1851 crimes such as murder, robbery, theft, duels,
knifings and shootings, and occasionally rape, were on an
alarming increase in California. Josiah Royce, a native of
Grass Valley, in his notable history, California: A Study of
American Character, published in 1886, contends that the
genuine social problems began due to “social laziness”
where
Everybody who came without family, as a fortunehunter whose social interests were elsewhere, felt a
selfish interest here in shirking serious obligations;
and among such men everybody hoped, for his own
person, soon to escape from the place. . . . The social
sins avenged themselves, the little community rotted
till its rottenness could no longer be endured; then the
struggle for order began in earnest and ended either
with the triumph of order and the securing of permanent peace ....
Brierly and his contemporaries would work towards such
an end, After Brierly’s arrival in California in 1849, and
* during the next two years he settled at Mokelumne Hill,
later in the valley of San Jose and finally in Sacramento. At
San Jose Brierly was appointed chaplain of the first state
legislature, and for a time preached there steadily. In early
1851 he was elected pastor of the Baptist Church in Sacramento. He remained there only a few months and then he
left California. It is most likely that he had made his decision to settle permanently in the West, and went to New
England to bring his family to California, as he was only in
NCHS Bulletin October 2004
churches that were lacking, and to save souls that were
slacking.”
After Brierly’s return to California in 1852, he was pastor of the Baptist church in San Francisco for six years and
then returned to San Jose for two years. It was during his
service at the Washington Street Baptist Church in San
Francisco that Brierly wrote and preached some of his most
famous addresses. His “Claims on Young Men’ was printed
in the Pacific Banner on February 17, 1853.
Brierly’s famous sermon, “Thoughts for the Crisis,” was
delivered on the Sunday following the assassination of
James King of William by James P. Casey. Casey was tried
and found guilty of the murder, and he and Charles Cora
(the murderer of Gen. William H. Richardson) were hung
by the Vigilance Committee in San Francisco in 1856.
Brierly’s “Thoughts” document the extent of the conditions that had existed since 1851:
Look at the history of our criminal jurisprudence
for the last five years, for the answer. Look at the almost daily record of murders, in our public prints, and
at the almost as universal escape of murders.
Look at the boldness and impunity with which men
who ought to have been in the State Prison, or on the
gallows, long ago, shoot valuable and defenseless citizens in our streets. There lies in our midst today,
stained with his own blood, a man whose worth as a
citizen and a man, is surpassed by few; and this man
was shot down, in broad daylight, in the presence of
witnesses, by the hand of a felon who has worn a
felon’s fetters, and filled a felon’s cell.
In a footnote Brierly disclosed a few statistics:
It was stated sometime since in open court, that
twelve hundred murders had been committed in this
city, and still later the number has been rated as high
the East a short time and returned
the next year. He sailed out of San
Francisco aboard the IJndependence on October 4, 1851, and
arrived back in Sacramento with
his family in May 1852, on his
second trip around Cape Horn.
God’s Gold, God’s Country
Letters written home by the Americans in California told about the
social and human conditions and
disorder that abounded in the
towns and mining camps. Church
societies saw the gold fields ripe
for God’s work, and it was at this
time that Baptist activity in the
country was on the rise, sending
missionaries west “to _ start
The execution of James P. Casey and Charles Cora by the Vigilance Committee of
San Francisco took place on Thursday May 2, 1856, when they were hanged from
the roof of a building at Sacramento Street, between Front and Davis.