1869.] NEW YEAR'S DAY AT FORT BENTON. 597

CHAPTER XLIX.

THOSE remorseless levelers, the railroad and the telegraph, tread so closely upon the heels of the pioneer that new settlements have no longer the picturesque coloring, the strong local peculiarities of half a century ago. Each individual, each community grows more and more like all the rest. Perhaps when Alaska is cut up into half a dozen States, with gas, hot and cold water, and a private telegraph wire introduced into every dwelling, provincialisms will disappear altogether, and local nicknames become utterly obsolete.

As yet, a few remote localities retain the old features. Fort Benton, Montana, is one. The French trappers and traders of the American Fur Company have passed away, but many left Indian wives and half-breed children; and some whites of the present generation have also intermarried with Indians. The aboriginal women retain their ancient habit of Platonic kissing once every twelvemonth. On New Year's day they perambulate the settlement by twos, by tens, and by twenties, visiting each house and store, and kissing every white man they can find. The holiday closes with a 'squaw ball,' at which pies eaten from the fingers, and ice water drank from a tin dipper, constitute the refreshments.

In spite of all leveling influences, the man of the Far West will long retain his intensity, his hearty friendships, and his equally hearty enmities. Let us hope, too, that he will retain his quick perception of the ludicrous, his readiness to laugh at everybody's weak points, including his own. 'Gentlemen,' said a frontier candidate for Congress at the close of a public speech, 'these are my sentiments. They are the sentiments of an honest

598

EARLY WESTERN NICKNAMES.

[1869.

man, the principles of a consistent politician. But, gentlemen, if they don't suit you, they can be altered!"

Early Southern and Western nicknames will puzzle the antiquarian of the year of grace 2969. The North Carolinians were 'Tar-heels,' from the abundance of tar which their State produced; the people of Michigan, 'Wolverines,' from their prairie wolves; and those of Wisconsin, 'Badgers,' from the animal most common in their new settlements. 'Hoosier' has received two explanations. According to one, pioneer Indianians had huge frames, and were so formidable in fights that they became known as 'hushers;' and this, at first in jest, was transformed into 'Hoosiers.' The other relates that the name was applied to ridicule the common inquiry of the backwoodsman, when he heard a knock on his door at night, 'Who's yer?'

'Sucker' likewise has several theories of its origin. One is that every spring thousands of Illinoians went up the Mississippi

A YOUNG SUCKER.

by steamers, worked in

the Galena lead mines through the summer, and returned home in the fall. Ascending and descending the river like fishes, they were called 'Suckers.' Another is, that as they were poor whites from Virginia and Kentucky, who had torn themselves away from the wealthy slaveowners, satirists predicted that they would perish like sprouts, or

suckers, of the tobacco plant, stripped from the parent stem. Still a third relates that in crossing the dry prairies they used to carry a hollow reed, and when thirsty thrust it into holes in the ground made by crawfish in their descent to the water, and thus suck up the liquid. Let me suggest a fourth. The earliest

1869.] ORIGIN OF THE PACIFIC RAILWAY.

599

white settlers of the Mississippi valley were Frenchmen, who adopted many Indian habits. They strapped their infants to boards like papooses. The mother, working in the fields, often left her baby alone in the cabin for hours; but, to alleviate his solitude, she gave him a huge piece of raw pork to suck, first tying it to his foot by a string, so that whenever he attempted to swallow it the natural impulse to kick would save him from choking. The custom is well authenticated. What more natural than that those who followed it should have been nicknamed 'Suckers?'

Who first suggested a Pacific Railway? In 1778, Jonathan Carver foreshadowed it, and he of all men was farthest ahead of the age in which he lived. In 1835 the Rev. Samuel Parker, in his journal of an overland trip across the continent, recorded his opinion that the mountains presented no insuperable obstacle to a railroad. In 1838, Lewis Gaylord Clark wrote in the Knickerbocker: The reader is now living who will make a railway trip across this vast continent.' In 1846, Asa Whitney began to urge his project upon State legislatures and popular gatherings, and he continued to agitate the subject for five years. He proposed to build a line from the Mississippi to Puget Sound (California was not yet settled by whites) if Congress would give him public lands to the width of thirty miles along the entire road. Later experience has shown that their proceeds would have been utterly insufficient. Yet Whitney did not fail on that account, but because he could excite no general interest in the subject.

In 1850, the first Pacific railroad bill was introduced into Congress by sturdy old Benton. It contemplated a railway only 'where practicable,' leaving gaps in the impassable mountains to be filled up by a wagon road. As yet even the Alleghanies were not crossed by any unbroken railway, but by a series of inclined planes, upon which the cars were drawn up and let down by stationary engines.

In 1853-4, by direction of Congress, nine routes were surveyed across the continent on various parallels between the British Possessions and Mexico. Among the young officers in charge of these explorations were McClellan, Pope, Saxton, Parke, and Whipple. Another, Lieutenant Gunnison, was murdered by the

600

EMIGRATION MAKES IT CERTAIN.

[1869. Indians while in the performance of his duty. The surveys resulted in thirteen huge quarto volumes of reports, which are now curiosities of our historical literature. Being issued at Government expense, they were profusely illustrated with colored engravings of flowers, plants, reptiles, fishes, birds, mountain scenery, and other objects which had no intelligible bearing upon the ease or difficulty of building a railway. Under the supervision of Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, the results were summarised in the interest of the extreme Southern line, showing, with all the falseness of figures, that a road near the Gulf, along the thirtysecond parallel, would cost only half as much as one further north, and that the route upon which our present line runs would be impracticable, on account of heavy grades and deep snows in the Sierras. Even up to 1864 the Canadians, and many of our own citizens, believed that a railway could not be built south of the 'British Possessions, unless it was carried far down toward Mexico.

In 1859, Congress indicated our natural and inevitable transcontinental system by authorizing the construction of three roadsa Northern, a Southern, and a Central. They were to receive no money endowment, but very liberal land grants. Before any active steps could be taken to build them, however, all such enterprises were extinguished for the time by our great war.

But what Government had failed to do, the steady course of emigration was accomplishing. The Mormon hegira from Illinois to Utah, the Mexican war, the California gold discoveries, the Kansas troubles, and the rush to Pike's Peak, had all carried settlements westward from the Mississippi, and railroads were following across Missouri and Iowa.

Simultaneously, too, civilization began to push eastward from the Pacific. In the Washoe country, now Nevada, was found abundant quartz rock, rich and sparkling with silver. A rush to Washoe followed, and a great State was founded. The travel and traffic grew so enormous that a turnpike was soon built from Placerville, California, over the seemingly insurmountable Sierras. The machinery and other freights passing over it in a single year paid tolls to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars (gold), and the cost of transporting them was estimated at thirteen millions, or more than twice their original value.

1869.] ITS BEGINNING IN CALIFORNIA.

601

The absolute need of some cheaper and easier conveyance, revived the idea of a continental railway, always popular in California. But could the Sierras be crossed by the locomotive? And who would furnish twenty-five millions of dollars to build a road over them? Theodore D. Judah, a sanguine engineer of Sacramento, insisted that the project was practicable both topographically and pecuniarily. Neighbors laughed at him, but earnestness is always contagious. Through many a long winter evening he talked upon his favorite theme with a group who frequented the hardware store of Huntington & Hopkins, a firm of wealthy, but cautious and frugal merchants. In a country where everybody speculated, they had never invested a dollar in mining, but had adhered strictly to their legitimate business. One partner, with his family, lived in their store building, separated from their goods only by a board partition made from boxes brought around Cape Horn, all the way from Boston.

Huntington was the first convert. Soon, Hopkins, Crocker, a leading lawyer, and two or three of their neighbors, were also among the prophets. In the spring of 1860, these gentlemen subscribed fifty dollars apiece to enable Judah to devote the summer to a careful mountain survey. Other Californians had advocated a Pacific Railway; legislatures and public meetings had indorsed it; but this was the first money paid-the business germ of the greatest enterprise the world has ever seen.

In autumn Judah and his corps returned to Sacramento, ragged, jaded, and hungry; but with a report so favorable that fifteen hundred dollars more was promptly raised to support them through the next season. A second summer was spent in surveying, with equally encouraging results. Then Judah was dispatched to San Francisco to secure subscriptions for incorporating the company; but after a month of faithful canvassing he returned home without having obtained a dollar. A poor engineer had started the project; two plain hardware merchants had put it in business shape; and now, not rich San Francisco, but unpretending Sacramento was to make it a success. Even after the Central Pacific Company had been chartered by the California Legislature, only two San Franciscans subscribed for shares (fifteen thousand dollars, all told), and one of them was a woman!