Meanwhile, Mexicans at the mines expressed growing frustration over the lack of justice where they were concerned. In her 16th letter, Louise writes sardonically:

A few evenings ago, a Spaniard was stabbed by an American. It seems that the presumptuous foreigner had the impertinence to ask very humbly and meekly of that most noble representative of the stars and stripes, if the latter would pay him a few dollars which he had owed him for some time. His high mightiness, the Yankee, was not going to put up with any such impertinence, and the poor Spaniard received, for answer, several inches of cold steel in his breast, which inflicted a very dangerous wound. Nothing was done and very little was said about this atrocious affair.

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She goes on to explain that at Rich Bar, ‘they have passed a set of resolutions…one of which is to the effect that no foreigner shall work the mines on that Bar. This has caused nearly all the Spaniards [Californios] to immigrate upon Indian Bar.’ Two years earlier, the California Legislature had passed a law requiring all foreigners to pay a $20-a-month tax (later reduced to $4) for the right to stake a claim and mine it.

On the Fourth of July, tensions between Californios and Americans exploded. While Dr. and Mrs. Clapp joined other sober Americans in celebrating Independence Day with speeches, poetry, music and dancing at the Empire on Rich Bar, drunken celebrants made the rounds at Indian Bar. When the Clapps returned to their cabin at Indian Bar, a man gave them an ‘excited account’ of an American who had been knifed during a melee. Louis Clapp wrote about it in her 19th letter:

He said…Domingo — a tall, majestic-looking Spaniard, a perfect type of the novelistic bandit of Old Spain — had stabbed Tom Somers, a young Irishman, but a naturalized citizen of the United States,…[and while] brandishing threateningly the long bloody knife with which he had inflicted the wound upon his victim…[had paraded] up and down the street unmolested. It seems that when Tom Somers fell, the Americans, being unarmed, were seized with a sudden panic and fled. There was a rumor (unfounded, as it afterwards proved) to the effect that the Spaniards had on this day conspired to kill all the Americans on the river. In a few moments, however, the latter rallied and made a rush at the murderer, who immediately plunged into the river and swam across to Missouri Bar; eight or shots were fired at him…not one of which hit him.

In the meanwhile,…Spaniards who…thought that the Americans had arisen against them…barricaded themselves in a drinking saloon, determined to defend themselves against the massacre which was fully expected would follow….In the bake shop, which stands next to our cabin, young Tom Somers lay straightened for the grave…while over his dead body a Spanish woman was weeping and moaning in the most piteous and heart-rending manner. The Rich Barians, who had heard a most exaggerated account of the rising of the Spaniards against the Americans, armed with rifles, pistols, clubs, dirks, etc., were rushing down the hill by hundreds. Each one added fuel to his rage by crowding into the little bakery, to gaze upon the blood-bathed bosom of the victim….Then arose the most fearful shouts of ‘Down with the Spaniards’….’Don’t let one of the murderous devils remain.’

The more sensible and sober of the Americans partly quieted the angry crowd. Still, Fayette Clapp wanted his wife to join two other women who lived on a nearby hill, where things would be safer should a serious fight erupt. Louise said she wanted to stay where she was, but finally, ‘like a dutiful wife,’ she went up the hill.

We three women, left entirely alone, seated ourselves upon a log overlooking the strange scene below. The Bar was a sea of heads, bristling with guns, rifles, and clubs….All at once, we were startled by the firing of a gun, and…saw a man [being] led into the log cabin, while another was carried, apparently lifeless, into a Spanish drinking saloon….Luckily for our nerves, a benevolent individual…came and told us what had happened.

It seems that an Englishman, the owner of a house of the vilest description, a person, who is said to have been the primary cause of all the troubles of the day, attempted to force his way through the line of armed men which had been formed at each side of the street….In his drunken fury, he tried to wrest a gun from one of them, which being accidentally discharged in the struggle, inflicted a severe wound upon a Mr. Oxley and shattered in the most dreadful manner the thigh of Sr. Pizarro….This frightful accident recalled the people to their senses….They elected a Vigilance Committee and authorized persons to go…arrest the suspected Spaniards.

The first act of the Committee was to try a Mejicana who had been foremost in the fray. She has always worn male attire, and on this occasion, armed with a pair of pistols, she fought like a very fury. Luckily, inexperienced in the use of fire-arms, she wounded no one. She was sentenced to leave the Bar by day-light….The next day, the Committee tried five or six Spaniards….Two of them were sentenced to be whipped, the remainder to leave the Bar that evening; the property of all to be confiscated….Oh Mary! Imagine my anguish when I heard the first blow fall upon those wretched men. I had never thought that I should be compelled to hear such fearful sounds, and, although I immediately buried my head in my shawl, nothing can efface from memory the disgust and horror….One of these unhappy persons was a very gentlemanly young Spaniard, who implored for death in the most moving terms. He appealed to his judges in the most eloquent manner — as gentlemen, as men of honor; representing to them that to be deprived of life was nothing in comparison with the never-to-be-effaced stain of the vilest convict’s punishment to which they had sentenced him. Finding all his entreaties disregarded, he swore a most solemn oath, that he would murder every American that he should chance to meet alone, and as he is a man of the most dauntless courage, and rendered desperate by a burning sense of disgrace…he will doubtless keep his word.

The above account probably inspired the flogging scene in The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, by Yellow Bird, aka John Rollin Ridge. Historian Joseph Henry Jackson notes in his book Bad Company that the Shirley letters were in Ferdinand Ewer’s possession when Ridge researched his book, and that he frequently visited Ewer’s office.

Not long after the floggings, Louise reported that a hanging and an attempted suicide had occurred at the mines. The first involved a man accused of murdering and robbing his employer. The second involved a Henry Cook, who apparently slit his own throat. After Dr. Clapp tended his wound, Cook decided to accuse Ned, owner of the Humbolt, of attempted murder. Ned’s friends came to his defense, and the charge was dropped, but tempers were high. Dr. Clapp was nearly mobbed for having bound the wound of a man they, according to Louise Capp, ‘insisted upon shooting…reasoning [that]…’a man so hardened as to raise his hand against his own life will never hesitate to murder another!” In the end, the vigilantes decided to exile Cook instead.

Meanwhile, Señor Pizarro’s wounded leg festered. It was amputated, but he did not regain his strength. Sick with dysentery, he died soon afterward. Oxley remained bedridden for weeks but eventually recovered, no thanks to ‘the Moguls,’ whom Louise Clapp refers to as’sleep killers.’ The Moguls, actually members of the Vigilance Committee, apparently believed they were above the law. They began to ‘parade the streets all night, howling, shouting, breaking into houses, taking wearied miners out of their beds and throwing them into the river….Nearly every night they built bonfires fearfully near some rag shanty, thus endangering the lives (or I should rather say the property — for as it is impossible to sleep, lives are emphatically safe) of the whole community. They retire about five o’clock in the morning; previously…posting notices to the effect, and that they will throw anyone who may disturb them into the river.’

In fall, the population began to decline swiftly. Louise noted that the flume miners, who had spent $2,000 to build a wing dam’six feet high and three-hundred feet in length, upon which thirty men labored nine days and a half,’ had collected $41.70 in gold; ‘nearly every person on the river received the same treatment from Dame Nature….Shopkeepers, restaurants, and gambling houses…were in the same moneyless condition.’ Fayette had lost $1,000 in a prospecting investment, causing Louise to call mining ‘Nature’s lottery.’

Few people wanted to brave another winter on the bars, including the Clapps. In her last letter, dated November 21, 1852, Louise couldn’t help ‘fretting…at the dreadful prospect of being compelled to spend the winter here.’ Yet when the day of departure came, she hesitated. ‘My heart is heavy at the thought of departing forever from this place. I like this wild and barbarous life; I leave it with regret….Yes, Molly, smile if you will at my folly; but I go from the mountains with a deep heart sorrow. I look kindly to this existence, which to you seems so sordid and mean. Here, at least, I have been contented….You would hardly recognize the feeble and half-dying invalid, who drooped languidly out of sight, as night shut down between your straining gaze and the good ship Manilla…in the person of your now perfectly healthy sister.’ Fayette Clapp, too, was perfectly healthy, but San Francisco again did not agree with him.

In 1853, Fayette sailed to Hawaii without Louise. In 1854, he showed up in Massachusetts. A year later, he headed west again, this time to Illinois. Louise chose to remain in San Francisco, where she taught school. She filed for divorce there in 1856. Although she kept Fayette’s last name, she apparently added an ‘e’ to it, making her Louise A.K.S. Clappe. By the time the Civil War broke out, Fayette had moved to Columbia, Mo., and remarried.

Louise retired from teaching in 1878 and went to live in New York City, where she continued to write and lecture until 1897, when she moved into a retirement home founded by Bret Harte’s nieces, Anna and Nina Knault, in Hanover Township, N.J. She died there on February 9, 1906. Although the California Gold Rush, which started 150 years ago, produced its share of heartfelt letters, the ‘Dame Shirley’ letters remain the biggest bonanza in the bunch.

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This article was written by Lori Lee Wilson and originally appeared in the August 1999 issue of Wild West.p>For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Wild West magazine today!

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