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Volume 075-3 - July 2021 (8 pages)
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Page: of 8
NCHS Bulletin July 2021
They have little fear of the Good Being, it
seems, as they think He is always kind and
good, but they make great effort to oppose the
devil. The figures representing the “old boy”
are filled with fire-works, with a rocket for his
back-bone, and when the close of their worship draws near, they set fire to him, and he
explodes and his rocket back-bone goes up. So
they get rid of the devil for a year. They wind
up with a feast of hogs and chickens, and a
grand bonfire made of their Joshes and gods
which were made for the occasion, and the
letting off of quantities of fire-works. I have
only given a faint outline of the picture; I will
leave it to your imagination to put in the colorit is among the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevadas, surrounded by gently sloping hills, and
covered with orchards and vineyards. The
dwellings are not very pretentious, but being
well supplied with shade trees, there is an air
of home comfort and enjoyment rarely to be
found.
I enjoyed my visit there extremely well.
There are several mines in the vicinity and
a number of quartz mills. The inhabitants,
about five thousand, are supported mostly by
the mining interests. With a balmy and even
climate, an abundance of fruit and plenty of
gold, the people ought to be, and seem to be,
well satisfied.
ing, and I assure you it would be impossible to
exaggerate it. It was the strangest performance
I have ever witnessed.
I have crossed the Sierras and passed safely around “Cape Horn,” and attended services
in the Mormon Tabernacle, but none of these
sights were so wonderful as the Chinese campmeeting.
Grass Valley is one of the most charming
places I have visited on the coast, situated as
In 1877 much of the Chinatown that Foster visited
was swept by a fire that started in a private home and
destroyed the principal temple of the community,
the Hou Wang Miao. The temple was one of the first
structures to be rebuilt after the fire. In 1938 Grass
Valley’s Chinatown was demolished, the temple dismantled, and the furnishings put in storage to make
way for new construction in the area. In1951 the temple altar was moved to the Firehouse No. . Museum in
Nevada City where it can be viewed today.
Philip A. Bell Visits Nevada City
In April 1873, the Black newspaper publisher and civil rights activist
Philip A. Bell made the trip from San Francisco to Nevada City to visit
his good friend D.D. (Dennis Drummond) Carter and his wife Jennie
Carter who wrote for Bell’s newspaper, The Elevator. Unlike Martin
Foster, Bell was not a visitor to California having arrived in San Francisco in 1860 where he worked with Peter Anderson, another Black
publisher who had established the newspaper, Pacific Appeal, in 1862.
Bell arrived in San Francisco with impressive abolitionist credentials
having worked as New York City’s agent for William Lloyd Garrison’s
Boston-based abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Bell would put that
experience to good use combating California’s entrenched pro-Southern
legislators who sought to maintain strict racial separation in the state.
When Bell and Anderson fell out over the best way to fight for equal
rights in California Bell started The Elevator in 1865.
Although Bell had been in California for some years, his trip to Nevada County was likely his first venture into gold country, for exploring
several mines was clearly one of his objectives. He was the guest of the
Carters at their home on American Hill in Nevada City. It was apparently
4
PHILLIP A. BELL.
Philip A. Bell (1808-1889). Courtesy Wikimedia
Commons.