A Dangerous Journey, California 1849

By J. Ross Browne

IN THE SUMMER OF 1849 there was in California one J. Ross Browne representing the United States Postal Service. In the course of his official duties he made a trip by “mulepower and footpower” from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. The tale of this trip is authentic, unusual Californiana: the narrative combines the outlandish happenings of the journey—including a brush with outlaws, and a death battle between a bull and a huge bear—with a reporter’s penetrative observation on the rugged life in California a century ago.

A Dangerous Journey was first published as two articles in Harper’s Monthly for May and June, 1862. It was reissued in 1864 as a compilation, Crusoe’s Island: A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander Selkirk with Sketches of Adventure in California and Washoe.

This edition was first published in 1950.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Release date: Mar 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789120523

J. Ross Browne

John Ross Browne (February 11, 1821 - December 9, 1875), often called J. Ross Browne, was an Irish-born American traveler, artist, writer and government agent. The style of his writings influenced a number of authors such as Mark Twain, Bret Harte and Dan De Quille. Born at Beggar’s Bush near Dublin, Ireland, the third of seven children of Thomas Egerton Browne, an Irish newspaper editor, and his wife, Elizabeth (Buck) Browne, the family emigrated to the United States in 1833 and settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Browne briefly attended Louisville Medical Institute, an experience that inspired his first book, Confessions of a Quack (1841). In 1842, after working several years on a riverboat, he signed on to a whaling ship. In 1846 he published the book Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, which earned him recognition as an artist and writer. He married Lucy Anne Mitchell in 1844 and the couple had nine children. In 1849, at the time of the California Gold Rush, Browne moved to California and worked in various jobs for the government, including as an agent for the Treasury Department, investigator of Indian and Land Office affairs, and official reporter for the state constitutional convention. He published parts of these experiences in the popular press as From Crusoe’s Island (1864). He then went on a trip to Europe and the Middle East, published his impressions serially at Harper’s Magazine, and then in book form as Yusef (1853). Browne and his family moved to Germany in 1861, which resulted in An American Family in Germany (1866), with Browne’s side trips detailed in The Land of Thor (1866). In 1863 he returned to the American West, vividly describing Arizona, Sonora and other regions in his Adventures in the Apache Country (1869). He was appointed Minister to China in 1868, but was recalled in 1870. Browne died in 1875, in Oakland, California, aged 54.

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Text originally published in 1950 under the same title.

© Papamoa Press 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

A DANGEROUS JOURNEY

California 1849

by

J. ROSS BROWNE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

PUBLISHER’S NOTE 4

A NOTE CONCERNING THE AUTHOR 5

Chapter 1—THE CANNIBAL 7

Chapter 2—THE MIRAGE 10

Chapter 3—A DEATH-STRUGGLE 13

Chapter 4—THE OUTLAWS CAMP 19

Chapter 5—THE ESCAPE 26

Chapter 6—A LONELY RIDE 32

Chapter 7—THE ATTACK 35

Chapter 8—SAN MIGUEL 41

Chapter 9—A DANGEROUS ADVENTURE 44

Chapter 10—A TRAGEDY 48

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 55

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The illustrations reproduced in color are from the 1864 black and white reproductions after Ross Browne’s original sketches.

A NOTE CONCERNING THE AUTHOR

J. Ross BROWNE was born February 11, 1821, at Beggar’s Bush near Dublin, Ireland. Browne’s father, editor of The Comet, incurred the displeasure of the Crown by fighting the English system of tithes, and found it necessary to sail for America in 1833, where he and his family settled in Louisville, Kentucky. For the next several years J. Ross Browne acquired an education largely informal but enriched by cultured parents. In 1838 he left home to become a sailor, reporter, traveler, and adventurer. In 1844 he married Lucy Ann Mitchell and in 1845 accepted the sedentary job of secretary to Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the United States Treasury.

As gold fever swept the country in 1849, Browne’s urge to adventure reawakened and he persuaded Walker to secure an appointment for him as Agent in the Revenue Service on the Pacific Coast.

Ross Browne arrived in San Francisco aboard the ship, Pacific, on August 5, 1849. He soon discovered that the new Presidential administration had commissioned him Inspector of Postal Service. He was instructed to establish a line of post offices on the inland route from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. Thus it was that he experienced the events which are chronicled in A Dangerous Journey. The city of San Jose has grown up where he instituted the only post office of the journey.

On September 3, 1849, Browne was in Monterey, California, and there served as the official recording secretary of the California Constitutional Convention. He edited this material and published it as Report of the Debates in the Convention of California, on the Formation of the State Constitution, in September and October, 1849.

In September 1851 he settled his family in Florence, Italy, while he traveled extensively in Europe and the East. He returned to California in 1855 as Custom-House Inspector and Inspector of Indian Affairs. He brought his family to Oakland, which he called home for the latter half of his life. In 1868 he concluded a monumental work with the publication of his Report on the Mineral Resources of the States and Territories West of the Rocky Mountains.

In 1868 Browne was appointed United States Minister to China and served abroad for a year before returning to California.

On December 9, 1875, he was suddenly stricken with an attack of appendicitis and died in Oakland a short distance from his home, Pagoda Hill, in the foothills near Tamescal.

Browne’s books are now scarce. During his life, however, his writings on foreign travel and Western adventure were very popular. Harper’s Monthly frequently carried his work as the lead article, and through these his writing was widely known and highly regarded.

Biographical material too is scarce, though an interesting and scholarly monograph, J. Ross Browne: A Biography, has been done by Francis J. Rock.

A Dangerous Journey was first published as two articles in Harper’s Monthly for May and June, 1862. It was reissued in 1864 as a compilation, Crusoe’s Island: A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander Selkirk with Sketches of Adventure in California and Washoe.

Chapter 1—THE CANNIBAL

IN THE summer of 1849 I had occasion to visit San Luis Obispo, a small town about two hundred and fifty miles south of San Francisco. At that time no steamers touched at the Embarcadera, and but little dependence could be placed upon the small sailing craft that occasionally visited that isolated part of the coast. The trail through the Salinas and Santa Marguerita valleys was considered the only reliable route, though even that was not altogether as safe as could be desired. A portion of the country lying between the Old Mission of Soledad and San Miguel was infested by roving bands of Sonoranians and lawless native Californians. Several drovers, who had started from San Francisco by this route to purchase cattle on the southern ranches, had never reached their destination. It was generally believed that they had been murdered on the way. Indeed, in two instances, this fact was established by the discovery of the mutilated remains of the murdered men. No clew could be obtained to the perpetrators of the deed, nor do I know that any legal measures were taken to find them. At that period the only laws existing were those administered by the alcaldes, under the Mexican system, which had been temporarily adopted in connection with the provisional government established by General Riley. The people generally were too deeply interested in the development of the gold regions to give themselves much concern about the condition of other parts of the country, and the chances of bringing criminals to punishment in the southern districts were very remote.

My business was connected with the revenue service. A vessel laden with foreign goods had been wrecked on the coast within a short distance of San Luis. It was necessary that immediate official inquiry should be made into the circumstances, with a view of securing payment of duties upon the cargo. I was also charged with a commission to establish a line of post-offices on the land-route to Los Angeles, and enter into contracts for the carrying of the mails.

By the advice of some friends in San Francisco, I purchased a fine-looking mule recently from the Colorado. The owner, a Texan gentleman, assured me that he had never mounted a better animal; and, so far as I was capable of judging, the recommendation seemed to be justly merited. I willingly paid him his price—three hundred