people thought the children might have escaped and lost themselves in the woods; but search failed to reveal a trace of them, -unless one may believe the tales of imaginative travellers that stay a night in the forests toward the southeast, that they hear voices, as of children climbing the slopes of the hill. Of course it is only the creaking of the trees that they hear. But the face may yet be seen from the door of the tavern, still calmly and peacefully upturned; and, by those that know the tale, it is still called as the children named it, "Faithful." T NEW ENGLAND IN CALIFORNIA. HE American historian, in tracing the settlement and growth of states, comes at last to regions where opposing currents have met and blent, or still are blending. It would take a volume to describe with fulness and fidelity the elements of New England character which have been transplanted to the Pacific coast, especially to California, and have wrought strongly and bravely at the foundations of social and political organization. In every field of human activity, - in business, finance, mining, agriculture, in education, religion, literature, -the New Englander helped to shape the growth of the young commonwealth. If we look for the beginning of this influence, it was in the days of the hide-droghers, of Dana's picturesque Two Years before the Mast, and of the New England vessels, such as the Pilgrim, cruising up and down the Spanish coast from San Diego to Yerba Buena. Little enough these New Englanders found in the country, after all, but they traded, and made money, and introduced a good many notions of their own. It was not alone on the Columbia that the natives called all the Americans "Bostons"; the term was widely scattered along the coast, during the days of the herdsmen and the padres. Before the American conquest of California, there were numbers of runaway sailors settled down in the small Spanish towns. English, French, and Portuguese names occur in the annals, but now and then one finds a good New England name a Ward or a Macy. The trappers began to drift across the desert from Taos and the Santa Fé trail, but they were mostly Kentuckians and Missourians, the Younts and Cabells -men who had ridden with Kit Carson and fought beside St. Vrain. But among the trappers who explored the San Joaquin and Sacramento, were Yankees enough who had somehow managed to cross the continent. One of them came down to the old Mission San José, in 1840, and lived awhile in a tent by the Creek, within sight of San Francisco Bay. When the world heard the news of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, not the first nor the second gold discovery in California, but the first that made any noise, the "men from New England" were on hand. They came by thousands, singly and in famous associations. I lately came across Samuel C. Damon's Diary of the Voyage of the "Massachusetts," published in Hawaii in 1849. The Massachusetts left Honolulu April 17th, of that year, bound first for the Columbia, thence for San Francisco. Capt. Wood, her commander, was a Harvard graduate, a classmate and friend of Prescott, the historian. By the time the Massachusetts had reached San Francisco, "half of the New England colony at the Hawaiian Islands" had taken more direct passage and were found by Mr. Damon in the new city, or at the mines. He took an especial interest in studying the "Eastern Associations" of plain, middle-class people who had come to the new country. Chief among them, at that time, was a party of one hundred from Boston, under the name of "The California Trading and Mining Association," who had arrived on the ship Leonore. The capital stock was $30,000, divided into 100 shares, and the articles of agree ment are dated December 28th, 1848. When the company disbanded by mutual consent, the members scattered over the Pacific coast, and many of them afterwards became prominent citizens. Some light is thrown on another famous association of the time by a manuscript in my possession, the Personal Recollections of Captain Timothy Rix, one of the members of the association. The captain, who died sixteen years ago on his farm near San Francisco Bay, was born at Landaff, New Hampshire, in 1796, and fought in the war of 1812. He was prosperous in business, and by 1820 owned "about 20 Mackerel Ketchers of 60 to 70 tons, pink stems." In 1823 he began trading with the West Indies, in schooners of about 200 tons. "In 1834," he writes, "I travelled from Chagres to Panama with 200 natives, each carrying a bale of English cottons, weighing 212 pounds." At this time he determined some day to visit California, and when, in September, 1848, some of his ventures failed, he began to organize a company in Boston and the vicinity. To this aim he devoted three months. This was the noted "Edward Everett Company," which sailed December 12th, 1848, on the ship of the same name, and numbered one hundred and fifty associates, besides a crew of twentyeight and the necessary officers. Edward Everett gave the company a library of considerable value. The capital stock was placed at $45,000, all paid up. On their arrival off the Golden Gate, July 4th, 1849, they "held off" and "celebrated, like good Whigs, as most of us were," and then sailed into harbor with all their flags flying. I have in the handwriting of Rev. John A. Benton, one of the members, a list of the Everett associates. Sixty-one came from Boston, one from New York, the rest, one or two from a place, from more than sixty New England towns. Maine sends from Portland; New Hampshire from Manchester, Haverhill, and Concord; Rhode Island from Pawtucket and Little Compton; Connecticut from New Haven and Lyme; Massachusetts, outside of Boston, from Chicopee, Brighton, Amesbury, Salem, Middleboro, Springfield, Worcester, Charlestown, Lowell, Chelsea, Framingham, Duxbury, Quincy, Weymouth, Sharon, Roxbury, Westfield, and a score of other towns. Among the prominent names are Appleton, Bradbury, Bryant, Carter, Eggleston, Freeman, Griswold, Haskill, Holbrook, Knox, Lord, Morrill, Noyes, Towle, Upham, Washburn, and Whipple. The records of the California pioneers are full of instances of close association among the early miners, and one often comes across evidence that men of New England were controlling spirits in such organization. I find, for instance, the written agreement made in 1848 by a few Massachusetts and Connecticut men, in Monterey, on going to the mines, "that we shall bear an equal share in all expenses; that we will work together in the mines and use our tools in common; that we will stand by each other; that no sick comrade be abandoned." Of these early companies some ordered an equal division of all the gold found; others said, "gold belongs to the finder, but there shall be equal assessments for expenses." Some forbade the use of ardent spirits except as medicine. Some arranged for a trust fund, of ten per cent of all the earnings of the camp, to be kept in case of sickness or accident. The sober-eyed, shrewd, earnest New England business men formed the nucleus of social order in hundreds of small camps scattered along the axis of the Sierra. In searching many sources for glimpses of the formative life of the time, the names one finds are often very distinctly New England names. The old grave-boards of pine and cedar that still stand, worn and weather-beaten, on the hillsides, among the rocks, by forgotten towns, in Butte, Shasta, Trinity, and El Dorado, tell the same story. "John Morey, a native of Maine, died December 11, 1849"; "Eli Stiles, of Connecticut, died of fever, Nov., 1850, at Rough and Ready Camp." J. D. Borthwick, one of the most interesting of the early writers about California, speaks in his book, now very rare, of the "ubiquitous Yankee," whom he met everywhere in the mines of 1850-1853. He made many admirable sketches of life in the camps, of miners at monte, miners dancing, miners at work on their claims. He tells with much delight of the striking capacity of the American miner to work by himself, going off for miles, prospecting or gold-digging, and as lonely and dangerous as a grizzly bear. Men of other nationalities were far more gregarious. But, as he also noticed, when Americans associated themselves it meant business, they could pull together. In the Life and Letters of that bright, generous poet and novelist, Theodore Winthrop, I find the same sort of testimony to the "rough sincerity" of the pioneers of California. Mr. C. T. Blake, a Yale graduate, tells me that he began to work in the mines when there was hardly a custom or a law, and that by dint of talks among the best men and public meetings a gradual organization spread from camp to camp, claims were registered, and written records kept. Everywhere, the men who came from New England were apt to hold together. The late Senator A. A. Sargent, himself a miner, used to tell a story which illustrates the sort of government some of the camps adopted. It was on the San Juan Ridge, whether at Columbia or San Juan I 'do not remember. The alcalde, or chief officer, was a mild-mannered, gentle-spoken New Englander. A young fellow who had stolen a buckskin bag of "dust" was brought before him. The witnesses gave such clear testimony that in about ten minutes the alcalde said: "Would you like a jury trial, son?" my "No, Judge, I reckon you'll be fair." "All right, my son. Now first you give back the dust you stole." "Certainly, Judge; the sheriff has it." "And the court regrets it, but you ought to pay costs; one ounce for sheriff fees, one ounce for me." "Here it is, and thank ye, Judge,". pulling out a heavily filled bag, and handing over the required amount. The alcalde looked him all over, and his voice grew even milder as he said: "That is all, except one trifling formality. Boys, take him out, give him thirty-nine lashes, well laid on, put him on his mule, and tell him to travel." In all the old camps of to-day, ancient, almost deserted villages, where only a few families live, one finds the New England element under two widely different types. One I saw in most characteristic expression in a camp which had had its five hundred voters in 1853. The brick stores were occupied by Chinese; the brick hotel was a ruin; the whole town had but twenty voters left. Old Levi Snow kept the sa "Hev loon, and published a little newspaper for that part of the country. "Yankee from away back," he remarked. run Sunday-school daown east; here I be, sellin' whiskey, an' stayin' by the camp, this forty year. Can't live anywhere else excep' here in these mountains. Prospect a little too; might strike it again, ye know." The other type of New Englanders are forever at work, changing the order of things; over the waste and decay of these old camps they are planting thousands of acres of orchards, vineyards, and gardens. They gather up the rivers that the Argonauts turned on the gold placers, and guide them to the roots of orange and olive trees. They are steadily changing the region of the old mining camps to a horticultural paradise. I have travelled on horseback over hundreds of miles of foothills and mountains, and here, far more than on the lowlands and in the valleys, the better elements of New England are to be found, in homes that have grown out of the struggle of the gold episode. There is one little Californian town not far from Carquinez Straits, and near to Monte Diablo, a town in the hollow of the hills, Martinez, long the county seat, which was chiefly settled by Nantucket people. There were representatives of the Worths, the Coffins, the Swains, the Lawrences, and other Nantucket families, who for years led in the social and business life of the town. Other New England colonies here and there throughout California make notable centres of influence. A New England woman, Mrs. Coleman, was for twenty years superintendent of schools in Shasta County, and she made them remarkably practical and efficient. The county contains eight thousand square miles of mountain and valley, but she knew everybody and went everywhere. Another New England lady was for years the superintendent of Trinity County. In the old towns of both these counties, New England leads. The Missourians came by thousands to the mines, but they drifted into the valleys, and became cattle-raisers, sheep-herders, then wheat-farmers, and most of them are wheat-farmers still. The city man of the middle West, of Chicago and Kansas City, came to speculate in town sites and options, and though he often built and remained, his influence is yet a small factor in the growth of the commonwealth. But in the development of social life since the days when California became American, the man of New England has taken a not unworthy share. The staid and well-settled portions of the state are permeated with New England influences. The long seaward slope of Alameda County, from Berkeley to Fruitvale, the educational centre of California, with its State University, its high schools, preparatory schools, seminaries, and colleges, draws its inspirations in unbroken succession from Yale and Harvard, the Alma Maters of all the In founders of its cherished institutions. The T A MODEL VILLAGE LIBRARY. zen, and are generally well supported by an appropriation from the town. The existence of nearly all of them is covered by the past forty years. The primary object of their establishment was the furnishing of reading matter for amusement or entertainment, the object of instruction being a secondary consideration; and this is true to a great extent to-day, although the element of instruction is gaining in prominence, and the library is regarded more and more as an adjunct of the public schools. If they were originally intended for the very poor, our experience shows that that use has long been superseded, for their privileges are now shared by the rich and poor alike. The public library is one of the most democratic of our institutions, and a good librarian will show the strictest impartiality in the treatment of his patrons. The current literature of the day is brought into speedy contact with the general public in the libraries, and as the interest centres largely in the newest books, the patronage is greatly increased by the circumstance of finding them there. Everybody can appreciate the privilege of HE free public library may now be said to dot every hillside in New England. Especially in eastern Massachusetts, where it apparently had its origin, there is scarcely a town, however small, which does not have its library for the free use of its reading public, however limited in numbers. These institutions are often benefited by a small private endowment from some liberal-minded citi finding the latest and best literature on any subject in the public library, knowing that the free use of such books may be had for the asking. Most of the libraries, by taking periodicals and newspapers, become a combination of library and readingroom, and this enlarges the field of their usefulness. The influence of these centres of intelligence makes better citizens of our young people, enlarges the thought of the older ones, enables many no doubt to bear the ills of life better, and affords entertainment for others in many an idle hour. fortune of considerable magnitude, much of which was bequeathed for benevolent objects. An only daughter, the wife of the Hon. Edward D. Hayden, late a member of Congress, died a number of years before her father, and the only son, Charles Bowers Winn, unmarried, survived the father but a short time, and died, the last member of his father's immediate family, at the early age of thirty-seven. The family of Winn had been prominent in the annals of the town from the time of its first settlement, and the first-born child recorded in Woburn was Increase Winn, born December 5, 1641. Many were the offices of a civil and military nature which the members of this family held in the town; and when the munificent donations of Jonathan Bow |