In California's imaginary Hall of Fame, Bret Harte must be accorded a prominent, if not first place. His short stories and dialect poems published fifty years ago made California well known the world over and gave it a romantic interest conceded no other community. He saw the picturesque and he made the world see it. His power is unaccountable if we deny him genius. He was essentially an artist. His imagination gave him vision, a new life in beautiful setting supplied colors and rare literary sk

A desire to obtain, at first hand, any possible information in regard to reminiscences of Bret Harte, Mark Twain and others of the little coterie of writers, who in the early fifties visited the mining camps of California and through stories that have become classics, played a prominent part in making "California" a synonym for romance, led to undertaking the tramp of which this brief narrative is a record. The writer met with unexpected success, having the good fortune to meet men, all over eig

Reminiscences of Bret Harte. "Plain Language From Truthfulful James." The Glamour of the Old Mining Towns It is forty-four years since the writer met the author of "The Luck of Roaring Camp"—that wonderful blending within the limits of a short story of humor, pathos and tragedy—which, incredible as it may seem, met with but a cold reception from the local press, and was even branded as "indecent" and "immodest!" On the occasion referred to, I was strolling on Rincon Hill—at that time the fashion

Inception of the Tramp. Stockton to Angel's Camp. Tuttletown and the "Sage of Jackass Hill" Following as near as might be the route of the old Argonauts, I avoided trains, and on a warm summer night boarded the Stockton boat. In the early morning you are aware of slowly rounding the curves of the San Joaquin River. Careful steering was most essential, as owing to the dry season the river was unusually low. The vivid greens afforded by the tules and willows that fringe the river banks, and the oc

Tuolumne to Placerville. Charm of Sonora and Fascination of San Andreas and Mokelumne Hill. Sonora is nine miles distant from Tuttletown, and I reached it in the early afternoon. Perhaps of all the old mining towns, Sonora is the most fascinating, on account of the exceeding beauty of the surrounding country. No matter from what direction you approach it, Sonora seems to lie basking in the sun, buried in a wealth of greenery, through which gleam white walls and roofs of houses. Even its winding

J. H. Bradley and the Cary House. Ruins of Coloma. James W. Marshall and His Pathetic End. More than any other town, Placerville gave a suggestion of the olden times. "John Oakhurst" and "Jack Hamlin" would still be in their element, as witness the following scene: In the card room back of the bar, in a certain hotel, a "little game" was in progress. A big, blond giant, with curly hair and clean-cut features—indeed he could have posed as a model for Praxiteles—arose nonchalantly from the table a

Auburn to Nevada City Via Colfax and Grass Valley. Ben Taylor and His Home After surmounting the canon of the South Fork of the American River, you gradually enter a open country, the outskirts of the great deciduous fruit belt in Placer County, which supplies New York and Chicago with choice plums, peaches and pears. About three miles from Auburn, the road plunges into one of the deepest canons of the Sierras, at the bottom of which the Middle and North Forks of the American River unite. Just b

E. W. Maslin and His Recollections of Pioneer Days In Grass Valley. Origin of Our Mining Laws To Mr. E. W. Maslin, of Alameda, of whom Ben Taylor said: "He is like a brother to me," I am indebted for information of much interest, bearing on the olden days and Grass Valley in particular. Mr. Maslin came around the "Horn" to California, in the ship Herman, on May 7, 1853. He arrived in Grass Valley and went to work as a miner the following morning. He now holds, and has for years, the responsible

I was heading due west for Smartsville, just across the line in Yuba County. In four miles, I came to Rough and Ready, once a famous camp. Save for the inevitable hotel, now used in part as a store, there was nothing to suggest the cause of its pristine glory or the origin of its emphatic designation; today it is simply a picturesque, rural hamlet. In Penn Valley, a mile or two farther on, I passed a smashed and abandoned automobile, the second wreck I had encountered. I thanked my star I travel

Early the next morning I started for Marysville, the last leg in my journey, and a long twenty miles distant. I had been dreading the pull through the Sacramento Valley, having a lively recollection of my experience in the San Joaquin, on leaving Stockton. The day was sultry, making the heat still more oppressive. After leaving the foot-hills for good, I walked ten miles before reaching a tree, or anything that cast a shadow, if you except the telephone poles. For the first time I realized there

Bayard Taylor and the California of Forty-Nine. Bret Harte and His Literary Pioneer Contemporaries. And here in old Marysville, the county seat of Yuba County and situated on its extreme western boundary, I ended my tramp, having covered a distance of approximately two hundred and fifty miles, exclusive of retracements. The ideal time to visit the Sierra foot-hills would be in the late Spring or early Autumn. I was compelled to grasp the opportunity when it offered or forego the pleasure altoget

Views of the Bret Harte Country [Photographs in the Appendix have been moved to the appropriate part of the text. DW] Here ends A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country by Thomas Dykes Beasley. Published by Paul Elder and Company and printed for them at their Tomoye Press in the city of San Francisco, under the direction of John Swart, in the year Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen...