John C. Hoxie, Fresno pioneer and miner, and a man with such a marvelous and accurate memory that he was often called upon as a court witness to give litigants the benefit of his recollection of early day events and localities, bore personal witness to the richness of the placers of the Southern Mines. He recalled publication years ago of a series of articles in a San Francisco mining journal by B. D. James, popularly called "Brigham," giving estimates from reliable sources such as express companies and the like of the yields of the mining districts. For the period approximately from 1850-55 the estimate for the Southern Mines was given as thirteen millions and several hundred thousands.
But whether considered as a roaring mining camp, or a county seat, twice visited by river floods and slowly dying from dry rot after the passing away of the mining period, Millerton never was more than a straggling mountain village, and from the very force of circumstances and conditions surrounding it could never have been more than that. There was an idealistic ruralness as witness the following published news brevity anent the courthouse:
ABOUT A BIRD— In the courthouse at this place, a little bird has builded its nest in the chandelier in the courtroom, and frequently when the court is in session, or when a religious meeting is being held there, the little fellow will flit backwards and forwards from its nest to the open air, passing out of the window, or sit in the nest and chirp and twitter right prettily. We think our judicial officers should be well pleased with their little feathered compeer.
As late as the 70's, the supervisors allowed a claim for four dollars for a pole with which to demolish the nests that the swallows built under the courthouse eaves. The San Joaquin was a stream of pure icy water, and clear as a crystal where not muddied by mining. Salmon ascended to the spawning grounds by the myriads, and, when the run was on, the fish were hunted with spear, pitchfork, shovel, even with shotgun and revolver. Salmon appeared in such shoals that as late as July, 1870, it was recorded that restful sleep was disturbed because "myriads of them can be heard nightly splashing over the sand bars in the river opposite town as they make their way up." Hogs roamed at large unhindered as the self-constituted village scavengers.
Fresno was a paradise for the Nimrod. They tell of great herds of antelope scouring over the desert plains where Fresno City is located. Today an antelope is as rare as the ichthyornis. Along in December, 1870, mention was made on the authority of a Crane Valley man that an Indian named Tom, shot, killed and dressed twenty-one deer in three days within a circle of one mile from a given spot. Even this was regarded as extraordinary enough to warrant publication at a time when the plains, mountains, foothills and rivers teemed with game and fish.
With such delightfully primitive conditions, the flutter may be faintly appreciated, when at the close of March, 1871, announcement was made of a change in April in the stage schedule, for all of which Contractor Bennett was publicly thanked for his "enterprising and accommodating spirit." Northbound stages were to connect with Fisher's stages at Snelling (county seat of Merced and a village that went through the same lingering dying experience as Millerton, instead of Hornitas in Mariposa. The Snelling stages arrived at Millerton at the ungodly hour of five a. m., and passengers were piloted to hotels by the pale glimmer of whale oil lanterns. They departed at eight in the evening, arriving at Snelling at eleven on the following morning. The Visalia stage left immediately on arrival of the northern stage, and returning also made close connections. By this new arrangement Millertonians could go through to San Francisco in twenty-four hours, a gain of nearly one-half in time, and no unnecessary laying over en route. And this was hailed as rapid transit!
All of which recalls the "unbearable outrage" of July, 1870, when Millerton. Big Dry Creek and Kings Riven were relegated from a four to a single weekly mail by reason of the abandonment of the mail route. Otto Froelich was then Millerton's postmaster. The Expositor, which had never a good word for the national Republican administration said "There is nothing too corrupt or contemptible for the Radical officers to do." In August, Sillman's opposition stage to Stockton began running, leaving Millerton every Thursday morning with through fare of eight dollars. About the middle of December, Contractor P. Bennett bought off Sillman & Co., who had the mail contract and he served again the tri-weekly mail.
Talking about stages, here is another piece of evidence to accentuate the isolation of the village. In July of this year broke out the Franco-German war. The Expositor gave on July 20, 1870, the news of the outbreak based on a dispatch from Visalia brought by Russell Fleming the Saturday before to the effect that France had determined upon a declaration against Prussia. And as for war news thereafter, it was so scarce that a club was formed at Millerton to buy war dispatches at Visalia to be brought by Fleming as "the genial Jehu" of Bennett's stages. Fleming is a familiar Fresno character, reputed to have been the first appointed postmaster of Fresno City, of which he is one of the earliest settlers. He was the first livery man in the town and his stables and corral at H and Mariposa were long a landmark.
The gathering of news for a weekly issue for Millerton, with a population of 200 to 300 at the most, was no easy task, when so much was suppressed, and so much space wasted in fulminations against the "radicals." The "unbearable outrage" in the reduced mail delivery made the task the more difficult, with "not a single exchange under ten days old," and "no communication with any portion of the county either." But all things come to those who wait. Things hummed again in the first week in September, according to the Millerton pace. An editorial squib read:
"MILLERTON has been quite lively thus far this week. The county court has been and is still in session and a very large number of jurors and witnesses are in attendance. Whiskey has flowed pretty freely and some considerable skirmishing has taken place."
There may have been no connection whatever between the two, but in the next column was this pithy, two-line penitential announcement:
"EXCUSE the lack of editorial matter in this issue as we have been sick."
CHAPTER XIX
"The earlier settlers of the county cared little for politics. They were a plain, hard-headed, sensible people, who worked the placers, tilled the soil, raised cattle, herded sheep, made money, reared large families, feared God, respected the laws and were happy. The interest they took in politics was largely of a personal character, to secure the maintenance of order, the enforcement of the laws and the making of needful internal improvements. It may be that this indifference to politics was due largely to the fact that the county has always had a safe Democratic majority. The early settlers very generally came from the southern states, and at the breaking out of the war their sympathies were with the Confederacy and they voted that way."
These observations, in so far as they relate to the earlier settlers, and written in April, 1891, may be accepted as fairly accurate, though the statement that they "cared little for politics" must be taken with a grain of salt, because with the war influx the political interest was bitter, even vindictive. There was also personal animosity displayed during the period of the war and after. So much so that a time was when a Republican was a lusus naturae as much as ever a five-legged lamb, or a double-headed rooster was, and also when it was not always politic or safe to announce one's affiliations, if .they were not friendly to the southern cause. That cause had in this county and in Tulare and Kern many unreconstructed adherents, whose opinions had not been changed with the result of the war, but had become the more fixed, and probably not without cause, by reason of the indignities heaped upon the vanquished by the carpet-bagging administrations foisted upon the Southern people. The passions and prejudices of men ran high in those days, and