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Volume 060-2 - April 2006 (8 pages)
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Page: of 8
NCHS Bulletin April 2006
tences were not often needed because such crimes were infrequent. “There was very little law, but a large amount of
good order,” Oglesby wrote of 1850-51 Nevada City, “and
crime was rare because punishment was certain.”
Field’s inexplicable order for as many as 250 lashes for
the theft of gold dust stands as an example of those early
days when justice was meted out according to the inclination of those men charged with making such decisions.
Although California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, it was not until October 18 that the news
reached San Francisco. In the meantime, a general election
was called for October 7 and candidates began to line up
for an opportunity to serve in what was presumed would
become California’s first state legislature. Field decided to
seek the office of assemblyman from Yuba County, which
then embraced all of today’s Nevada County.
“T went to the town of Nevada a little more than a week
before the election,” Field later wrote. “In the afternoon [of
Sunday, September 29], when the miners from the country
were in town and had nothing else to do than to be amused,
I mounted a platform erected for the purpose in the main
street, and commenced speaking. I soon had a crowd of
listeners.”
The aspiring candidate—an ardent, lifelong Democrat—
spoke on a number of issues, including his views on slavery
and mining rights, but drew the audience’s greatest attention when he reminded them that a trip from Nevada City to
Marysville could be very time-consuming and costly. He
told his audience:
As things then existed, the right to a mule could not
be litigated without going to the county seat [Marysville], at a cost greater than the value of the animal... . I
was in favor of dividing the county and making Nevada
the county seat... . I closed with a picture of the future
of California, and of the glories of a country bounded by
two oceans. When I left the platform, the cheers which
followed showed that I had carried the people with me.
Eight days later, Field was elected. “In the country gener=.
ally I ran well, and was elected, notwithstanding the fact
that I was not the nominee of any convention or the candidate of any party.”
In January 1851, shortly after Field took the oath of office at the state capital of San Jose, he introduced a bill to
create Nevada County, another to incorporate the City of
Nevada, and a third to name it the county seat. On March
13, 1851, the city was incorporated, and on April 25 the
legislature adopted Field’s bill to establish Nevada County.
In addition to writing Nevada City’s original charter, he
also wrote the charters for Marysville and Monterey.
Suddenly, Yuba County was no longer the most populous
county in the new state. With over 22,000 habitants,
Nevada County, for a brief period, contained the state’s
largest population; and Nevada City was the most populated town in that county. Those were very heady days on
Broad Street, and proud citizens had Stephen Field to
thank—a man who made a campaign promise and actually
kept it.
Field chose to serve only one term in the assembly, but
during that brief period he crafted the California Civil and
Criminal Code—modeled after his brother David’s set of
codes for New York. He also designed a system of county
courts with county judges, and introduced legislation to
turn a portion of Trinity County into Klamath County. Law,
however, and not government, was Field’s main interest in
the 1850s, so when his term ended he returned full-time to
his practice in Marysville.
And it was there, in what was left of Yuba County, that
he made the acquaintance of another Nevada City pioneer,
Charles Snowden Fairfax, the 21-year-old scion of English
peerage—the 10th Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron.
(To be continued in the July Bulletin)
Several miners pose for the
daguerreotype camera in front of
their cabin at Nevada City in
1851. The men in front have been
loading gold-bearing dirt into a
series of sluice boxes where it can
be washed by water flowing from a
nearby ravine. Notice the wooden
chimney on the end of the cabin.
(California State Library photo)
~
)