“forms” into the yellow river, and scattered
the types in the dusty road. These proceedings
were received in the distant and more civilized outlying
towns as vague indications of progress and vitality.
I have before me a copy of the “Poverty Flat
Pioneer,” for the week ending August 12, 1856,
in which the editor, under the head of “County
Improvements,” says: “The new Presbyterian
Church on C Street, at Sandy Bar, is completed.
It stands upon the lot formerly occupied by the Magnolia
Saloon, which was so mysteriously burnt last month.
The temple, which now rises like a Phoenix from the
ashes of the Magnolia, is virtually the free gift of
H. J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, who purchased the
lot and donated the lumber. Other buildings are
going up in the vicinity, but the most noticeable is
the ‘Sunny South Saloon,’ erected by Captain
Mat. Scott, nearly opposite the church.
Captain Scott has spared no expense in the furnishing
of this saloon, which promises to be one of the most
agreeable places of resort in old Tuolumne. He
has recently imported two new, first-class billiard-tables,
with cork cushions. Our old friend, ’Mountain
Jimmy,’ will dispense liquors at the bar.
We refer our readers to the advertisement in another
column. Visitors to Sandy Bar cannot do better
than give ‘Jimmy’ a call.” Among
the local items occurred the following: “H.
J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, has offered a reward of
$100 for the detection of the parties who hauled away
the steps of the new Presbyterian Church, C Street,
Sandy Bar, during divine service on Sabbath evening
last. Captain Scott adds another hundred for the
capture of the miscreants who broke the magnificent
plate-glass windows of the new saloon on the following
evening. There is some talk of reorganizing the
old Vigilance Committee at Sandy Bar.”
When, for many months of cloudless weather, the hard,
unwinking sun of Sandy Bar had regularly gone down
on the unpacified wrath of these men, there was some
talk of mediation. In particular, the pastor of
the church to which I have just referred—a
sincere, fearless, but perhaps not fully enlightened
man—seized gladly upon the occasion of York’s
liberality to attempt to reunite the former partners.
He preached an earnest sermon on the abstract sinfulness
of discord and rancor. But the excellent sermons
of the Rev. Mr. Daws were directed to an ideal congregation
that did not exist at Sandy Bar,—a congregation
of beings of unmixed vices and virtues, of single
impulses, and perfectly logical motives, of preternatural
simplicity, of childlike faith, and grown-up responsibilities.
As, unfortunately, the people who actually attended
Mr. Daws’s church were mainly very human, somewhat
artful, more self-excusing than self-accusing, rather
good-natured, and decidedly weak, they quietly shed
that portion of the sermon which referred to themselves,
and, accepting York and Scott—who were both
in defiant attendance—as curious examples
of those ideal beings above referred to, felt a certain