The Great Diamond Hoax E-Book

Asbury Harpending

• Herausgeber: Asbury Harpending
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

On my return to California, after an absence of many years, my attention was called, for the first time, to the fact that my name had been associated unpleasantly with the great diamond fraud that startled the financial world nearly half a century ago. Plain duty to my family name and reputation compelled me to tell the whole story of that strange incident so far as my knowledge of it extends. I sincerely trust that a candid reading of these pages will satisfy the public that I was only a dupe, along with some of the most distinguished financiers of the last generation. Concerning two of the historians who maligned me, I am without redress. They are dead. The latest author, Mr. John P. Young, repeated the accusation of his predecessors in his history of San Francisco. This gentleman has admitted that he merely copied the story of the earlier works, having no personal knowledge of events at that period, and has handsomely admitted, over his signature, that he unconsciously did me an injustice.

Leseprobe

The Great Diamond Hoax

By

Asbury Harpending

YOURS WITH BEST WISHES, ASBURY HARPENDING

JUNE 20, 1915—AGE 76

To my friend, unassuming John A. Finch, of Spokane, Washington, a man of great ability, possessing, according to my ideals, all the attributes of greatness, as a token of my deep esteem, this book is dedicated.

The Author.

PREFACE.

On my return to California, after an absence of many years, my attention was called, for the first time, to the fact that my name had been associated unpleasantly with the great diamond fraud that startled the financial world nearly half a century ago. Plain duty to my family name and reputation compelled me to tell the whole story of that strange incident so far as my knowledge of it extends. I sincerely trust that a candid reading of these pages will satisfy the public that I was only a dupe, along with some of the most distinguished financiers of the last generation. Concerning two of the historians who maligned me, I am without redress. They are dead. The latest author, Mr. John P. Young, repeated the accusation of his predecessors in his history of San Francisco. This gentleman has admitted that he merely copied the story of the earlier works, having no personal knowledge of events at that period, and has handsomely admitted, over his signature, that he unconsciously did me an injustice.

To the diamond story I have added, at the request of friends, some of my experiences and reminiscences of California of the early days.

ASBURY HARPENDING.

CHAPTER I.Early Years—My Voyage to California.

My father was one of the largest landed proprietors of Kentucky, in the southwestern section of the State. That was still on the frontier of the Far West. Beyond stretched the land of enchantment and adventure—the plains, the mountains, the unbroken solitudes, the wild Indians, the buffaloes and the Golden State on the shore of the Pacific.

Youngsters whose minds are occupied today with baseball and tennis and who still retain a lingering love for taffy, sixty years ago on the frontier were dreaming of wild adventures that were nearly always realized to some extent. We lived on the border line, where the onward wave of emigration broke and scattered over the vast vacancies of the West, and it is hardly saying too much to assert that fully seven boys in ten were caught and carried forward with the flood before they had gone very far in their teens.

For myself, I simply gave up to the spirit of the times. At the age of fifteen I ran away from college to join an aggregation of young gentlemen but little older than myself, who enlisted under the banner of General Walker, the filibuster. The objective was the conquest of Nicaragua. The Walker expedition sailed to its destination and what followed is a matter of well known history. But for my companions and myself, numbering 120 in all, it ended in a humiliating disaster. For, as we sailed down the Mississippi River the long arm of Uncle Sam reached out and caught us, like a bunch of truant kids. I managed to elude my captors, and after various wanderings and strange experience made my way to the paternal home in a condition that made the Prodigal Son look like 30 cents.

That didn’t abate the wandering fever in the slightest and in order that I might not commit myself to another Walker expedition, my father consented that I should try my luck in California and I started with his blessing and what seemed to me a liberal grub stake. I had just turned sixteen.

Instead of going to New York and taking passage from that port, I decided to travel down the Mississippi River, have a look at New Orleans and leave on one of the various steamers there that connected with the Pacific Mail at Darien.

Here an unforeseen calamity very nearly upset all my plans. My money consisted of currency, issued under the auspices of the various States. A financial storm of some kind had just swept the country and the currency became legal tender only in the borders of the State of issuance. All that I could realize on my bills was barely enough to buy a steerage ticket to California. That, together with five dollars in gold coin and a revolver comprised my earthly possessions.

THE AUTHOR AT 16

Taken just before his migration to California

At Panama we were crowded into a small steamer designed for about 400 passengers, but nearly 1,000 were crammed into it. Conditions in the steerage were appalling. Besides, the ship was under-provisioned and we soon ran short of anything like vegetables and fruit. The purser had thriftily laid in a large private supply of oranges and bananas for sale in San Francisco. These he had divided into two caches. The hungry mob seized on one of them, located between decks, in the night, and cleaned it up to the uttermost peel. The purser knew only too well that the next night would witness the disappearance of the balance of his property. He was in despair. An inspiration seized me.

“How much will you take cash for the lot?” I asked him.

“Give me $10 for them and it’s a bargain,” he answered.

I fished out that lonesome $5 piece, paid it on account and made some vague excuse about getting the other five from my bunk. I was given permission also to hold a fruit auction sale on the upper deck.

Being a fruit peddler shocked my southern ideas of a gentleman’s employment. Nothing but downright poverty could have driven me to it. However, I took the edge off the thing as far as possible by employing an itinerant gambler, also dead broke, to act as general salesman and orator while I took in the cash. He had a voice like a fog horn and the gall of a highwayman. He cried our wares with such success that in a few minutes the whole ship’s company was engaged in mad competition to buy oranges and bananas at five for a half. It would have been just the same if I had made the price five for a dollar.

Money rolled in faster than I could count it. I could see that my chief of staff was “knocking down” on me in a shameless way, but I didn’t have time to check his activities—in fact, I didn’t care. In a little over an hour, the last orange and banana had vanished. I settled accounts with the purser and counted my capital. I had a little over $400 to the good, enough to make a decent start in California.

I do not tell this incident because it is noteworthy in itself. Instances were then so common of needy gentlemen who extricated themselves from the financial bog by some shift which in other days they would have thought ignoble—almost disgraceful—that this event would not be worth recalling; but in the peculiar way that destiny is worked out, it had a decisive part in directing very important matters of the future. And it has been my observation that the most impressive movements in the lives of most of us have been determined more by chance than by a fixed purpose.

Among those who watched my fruit sale with interest was a gentleman named Harvey Evarts. He was a successful plumber in California and was returning from a trip to the “States,” whither he had gone with a party of bankers, mine owners and others of fortune commensurate with his own. Plumbers were not in 1857 the financial giants that they have become today. Still their stars were in the ascendant and Mr. Evarts was one of the brilliant luminaries in the sky.

This gentleman approached me after the sale. I had transferred at once from the steerage to the upper deck, as became my altered fortune, and he congratulated me in a pleasant way on my extraordinary good luck. I told him all about myself in boy fashion and when we reached San Francisco we had become so well acquainted that Mr. Evarts invited me to accompany him to Camptonville, then a great mining district, now off the map, so far as the yellow metal goes, where he had important interests.

Placer mining was on the toboggan in 1857, when I arrived in California. All the great “bars” and gulches had been located and worked out. Very few individual strikes were made after that date. I do not know whether it was good judgment or just a case of pure “nigger luck,” but at all events it happened that even in those days of declining fortune, every suggestion that Mr. Evarts gave me turned to gold. He advised me to take a chance at the head of a couple of abandoned gulches. In both cases I struck it rich enough to add $6,000 to my working capital. Again he suggested a lease of a hydraulic mine on what was known as Railroad Hill, which had been the ruin of several experienced miners. I followed his advice and after being brought to the verge of bankruptcy struck it rich, to my way of thinking, and cleaned up finally with $60,000 to my credit, all before my 17th birthday.

I visited the newly discovered Comstock Lode. Didn’t like it, for deep mining seemed too slow a way of making money. Later I had a spectacular race with Jim Fair, then a hustling prospector, to locate a mining claim in Utah. But the tales of mountains gorged with wealth vanished when we got there.

Then I began to listen to a lot of mining camp talk about Mexico and its riches. California and Nevada were growing dull to my way of thinking and I turned my thoughts to the land of Montezuma.

CHAPTER II.My Experience in Mexico.How Luck Again Brought Me Fortune.

All the early gold seekers of California had some knowledge of Mexico. The great argosies of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company stopped at various points, such as Acapulco, Manzanillo and sometimes at Mazatlan. Thus the passengers gained a sort of hurricane deck impression of the Latin nation to the southward. But it extended no further than these glimpses of the coast. A veil of profound mystery and romance shut out a view of the vast interior. Only, we knew that it was immensely rich in precious metals, but so utterly lawless and overrun with bandits that nothing short of a standing army could protect an investment.

Thus none of the adventurous pioneers attempted to explore and prospect the west coast of Mexico, which later poured its hundreds of millions into California. I may be mistaken, but I have a strong impression that I was the first of a long line of miners who went from San Francisco to Mexico and laid the foundation there for mighty fortunes.

Very much like Jason, when he pushed his classic junk from Greece, I started on my ventures in Mexico. I bought a small trading vessel, hired an excellent crew, several of whom spoke Spanish, took very little money along, but a large cargo of goods suitable to the wants of the country. In other words, I figured to make the expedition finance itself. In this I was fairly successful. After sailing up the Gulf of California and stopping at various ports, we arrived at Mazatlan, my original objective point, my cargo sold out.

There was a small American colony at Mazatlan and several groups of foreigners of other nationalities, all of them of the trading class. When I suggested a prospecting expedition into the interior, they assured me it was little better than suicide; that the country was in the absolute possession of outlaws of the most desperate type, and that a prospector’s life would not be worth ten cents among them.

But I met a Mexican gentleman by the name of Don Miguel Paredis, who told me a very different story. He said that the dangers were grossly exaggerated—that there was really little to fear for anyone who understood the people. As a guaranty of good faith he offered to go with me, for at the time he happened to be broke—not an unusual incipient in the life of a Mexican gentleman. Moreover, he promised to lead me to a mine of fabulous riches, in the mountains of Durango, about two hundred miles from Mazatlan. So we set out with a complete mining outfit, powder, steel, tools, general equipment and provisions for six months.

Don Miguel certainly understood his business. We really were in no more real danger than if we had been traveling through one of the New England States. We did meet some uncommonly tough-looking citizens, armed to the teeth, but Don Miguel always rode forward to meet them, handed out some specious palaver in Spanish, whereupon the whole party would disembark from their mules or horses, embrace each other on the trail, pass around some more palaver and part with mutual esteem. The Don was a marvel as a peacemaker and I might add that for genuine good-fellowship and clean dealing in all respects he was one of the finest men of any nation I have met in a long life.

Finally, we reached his mine. This was known for years after as the Guadaloupe de los Angeles mine. He hadn’t exaggerated its riches, hadn’t told half the truth. The vein ran straight up the almost perpendicular face of a narrow gorge. It was merely a case of breaking down the ore as in an open cut. There were no shafts, tunnels, drifts, and winzes that take the heart out of quartz mining as a rule. And the ore was so rich that with careful sorting it was possible to make large cargoes average $500 or $600 a ton.

We never attempted to “beneficiate” or reduce the ore on the spot. Don Miguel was altogether too shrewd for that. Had bullion trains gone through the mountains from our camp it would have taken a standing army to protect them. We simply bought mules and burros, loaded them with rock that no bandit wanted, though it was worth perhaps five hundred dollars a ton. It very seldom failed to reach the seaboard, where there were crude reduction works and plenty of purchasers of ore.

Even our inbound pack trains of costly supplies were unmolested. Don Miguel was forever practicing diplomacy. If a robber appeared at our hacienda he was received like a friend and brother, had the best of everything, couldn’t say “mas vino” too often, was handed a liberal “gratification” or tip and limitless “felicidades” on his departure. By the exercise of these arts, the management became so popular that on several occasions our pack trains were actually protected by professional bandits against marauding amateurs.

We never had a bit of trouble in our camp with the large number of people assembled there. This also was due to Don Miguel’s forethought and knowledge of his people. As far as I can recollect, give the average Mexican plenty of grub, plenty of music, plenty of dancing, a little cheap finery in dress, and the rest of the world can wag on as it will, for aught he cares. He does not take kindly to abstractions, doesn’t worry over his “wrongs,” has no inclination to reorganize society; only wants to be let alone to enjoy the good things of life according to his own simple plan. And when you get down to brass tacks, his is not a bad philosophy, after all.

Don Miguel arranged it so that our little army of employees never had time to meditate mischief. He bought them all kinds of musical instruments, including a brass band on which they became proficient in a wonderfully short time. Every night there was a “baile” in the plaza at which the people danced till they fell from exhaustion. He offered cash prizes—mighty stiff ones—for the best dancers, male and female—the choice to be determined among themselves by a plebiscite or by select committee. Also, on Sundays, we had a bull fight. It wasn’t of the sanguinary description; the bulls weren’t killed, but were thriftily kept in cold storage to fight another day. It made a satisfactory sport for the people, and was also inexpensive. Added to this, we paid high wages in hard cash and kept in stock at our store an assortment of articles for personal decoration at prices that were highly profitable but not prohibitive.

Thus our enterprise became a big success from every standpoint. At a time when nearly all the mines in the Sierra Madre were closed down—practically abandoned—we were swinging along under a full head of steam, without the slightest interruption, with the general good will of all with whom we came in contact. Besides, we were making money at a rate sufficient to turn one’s brain. I doubt if ever such a return was made on the trifling sum invested. There had been no development expense. The mine paid from the very day we began to operate it.

While I was the “capitalist” and owned, by our agreement, two-thirds of the property, I allowed Don Miguel an absolute free hand in all matters of policy; wherein I showed a wisdom superior to my years. And I followed his advice in one matter so important that I must mention it for the general good of mankind.

The women of the Mexican Sierra are remarkable for their physical charms. There were many real beauties resident in our camp—“simpaticas,” they used to call them—which doesn’t mean “sympathetics,” but “good lookers.” Now, I have always believed that a good looking woman was made to be looked at, to be admired; otherwise, wherefore was she created? Down in Mexico I could no more fail to notice a “simpatica” as she passed by, than I could close my eyes to the beauties of nature.

Observing which, Don Miguel gave me a piece of advice which every reader of this chapter who may happen to visit Mexico should write down for future reference.

“Leave our women alone,” he counseled me. “They are romantic, soft-hearted and will meet you half way, but no matter how innocent your intercourse, it will rouse jealousy, ill-will and serious danger. Nearly all the foreigners who get into trouble in Mexico can trace it to this source.”

I realized the truth of this later when a young friend of mine called Eaton, who was a fine fellow but an ardent imitator of Lothario the Gay, was shot down in a lonely spot, jealousy being the evident motive.

In the fall of 1860 I returned to San Francisco, as I thought for a brief trip. Just to show myself, in fact. Among other things, I brought a few tons of ore that sold for $3,000 a ton, the sight of which made the town delirious. I found that my fame, or rather various romances, had preceded me. I wasn’t quite twenty, couldn’t vote, couldn’t make a legal contract, yet I had over a quarter of a million in hard cash to my credit in bank, and my mine in Mexico was worth a million more. These were the actual facts, which were exaggerated and distorted beyond all resemblance to the truth. My wealth was at least quadrupled, and I was dragged through a series of bloodcurdling experiences in Mexico without a parallel in fiction.

Thus, you can see how the orange and banana sale incident set the wheels of fate revolving. If I had come to California with sufficient money. I would have made some kind of a blind stagger at luck, thrown up the sponge in disgust after a few months, and written to my father for a remittance to come home.

As it was, I quietly took rank with the great figures of the State before I had reached my majority, and became a leading actor in an unwritten page of history, when the destinies of California hung by the veriest thread.

CHAPTER III.Story of Southern Plan to Make California Secede From the Union Is Told for First Time.Narrator Describes His Invitation Into Band of 30, Which Planned to Organize Republic of Pacific.

I had barely reached San Francisco when the election of 1860 took place, resulting in the choice of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. All through the South this was accepted as the signal for a civil contest. The work of organization went ahead with feverish haste and long before the inauguration of the new President the authority of the Federal Government was paralyzed in most of the slave States.

The attitude of California was a matter of supreme moment, not understood, however, at the time. Had this isolated State on the Pacific joined the Confederate States, it would have complicated the problems of war profoundly. With the city of San Francisco and its then impregnable fortifications in Confederate hands the outward flow of gold, on which the Union cause depended in a large measure, would have ceased, as a stream of water is shut off by turning a faucet. It was the easiest thing in the world to open and maintain connection through savage Arizona into Texas, one of the strongholds of the South. It does not need a military expert to figure out what a vital advantage to the Confederacy the control of the Pacific would have proved.

History relates in a few brief words how the secession movement here was extinguished by a wild outburst of patriotism. I am now going to relate for the first time the inside story of the well-planned effort to carry California out of the Union and by what a narrow margin it finally failed of accomplishment when success was absolutely secured.

I was young, hot-headed, filled with the bitter sectional feeling that was more intense in the border States than in the States farther north or south. It would have been hard to find a more reckless secessionist than myself. I moved among my own people, got off all sorts of wild talk about spending the last dollar of my money, and my life, if need be, to resist the tyrant’s yoke, and so forth, and was actually about to leave for my home in Kentucky to be ready for the impending struggle, when a quiet tip was given me that more important work was cut out where I was. My exaggerated wealth and the irresponsible stories of my Mexican exploits, made me an actor in a great, silent drama, despite my years and boyish look.

One afternoon I was told to be at the house of a well-known Southern sympathizer at 9 o’clock in the evening. It was well apart from other buildings, with entrances in several directions. The gentleman who owned it lived alone, with only Asiatic attendants, who understood little English and cared less for what was going on. A soft-footed domestic opened the door, took my card, and presently I was ushered into a large room where a number of gentlemen, most of them young but well established, were seated at a long table. I recognized among them leading men of San Francisco of various walks of life.

The spokesman, a great man of affairs, told me that I was trusted, that I had been selected as one to lead in an affair of great peril, an enterprise on which the future of the South might depend, and asked me if I were ready to risk life and fortune on the turn. I answered with an eagerness that satisfied my hearers and took an oath, of which I have a copy, reading as follows:

“Do you, in the presence of Almighty God, swear that what I may this night say to or show you shall be kept secret and sacred, and that you will not by hint, action or word reveal the same to any living being, so help me God?”

The answer, of course, being an affirmative, I repeated after the spokesman the following objuration:

“Having been brought to this room for the purpose of having a secret confided to me and believing that to divulge such secret would imperil the lives of certain Southern men as well as injure the cause of the Southern States, I do solemnly swear in the name of the Southern States, within whose limits I was born and reared, that I will never, by word, sign or deed, hint at or divulge what I may hear to-night. Not to my dearest friend, not to the wife of my bosom will I communicate the nature of the secret. I hold myself pledged, by all I hold dear in heaven or on earth, by God and my country, by my honor as a Southern gentleman, to keep inviolate the trust reposed in me. I swear that no consideration of property or friendship shall influence my secrecy, and may I meet at the hands of those I betray, the vengeance due to a traitor, if I prove recreant to this my solemn obligation. So help me God, as I prove true.”

This oath was committed to memory by every member. At subsequent meetings it was solemnly recited by all, standing and with right hand uplifted, before proceeding to further business. Several years afterwards, while it was still fresh in my recollection, I set it down in writing and preserved it to the present day. Thus I became one of a society of thirty members, pledged to carry California out of the Union.

I might say here, in parenthesis, that I have long been a reconstructed “rebel.” The old flag floats over my home on every national holiday and also on Labor day, for I take an interest in the ideas it represents. I am mighty glad now that my efforts to disrupt the Union failed and still gladder because it has been my good fortune to see the awful heritage of hate that so long divided two brave and generous people die out and disappear.

The Southern mind has a wonderful capacity for secret organization and for conducting operations on a vast scale behind a screen of impenetrable mystery. This had a fine illustration in the workings of the Ku-Klux-Klan, in reconstruction days, which destroyed carpet-bag rule and negro supremacy in the South and restored the government of the white race. The operations of the committee of thirty of which I became a member demonstrated the same peculiar trait.

The organization was simplicity itself. We were under the absolute orders of a member whom we called “General.” He called all the meetings, by word of mouth, passed by one of the members. Anything in the way of writing was burned before the meeting broke up. The General received the large contributions in private, never drew a check, settled all accounts in gold coin and accounted to himself for the expenditure.

Each member was responsible for the organization of a fighting force of say a hundred men. This was not difficult. California at that period abounded with reckless human material—ex-veterans of the Mexican war, ex-filibusters, ex-Indian fighters, all eager to engage in any undertaking that promised adventure and profit. Each member selected a trusty agent, or captain devoted to the cause of the South, simply told him to gather a body of picked men for whose equipment and pay he would be responsible, said nothing of the service intended, possibly left the impression that a filibuster expedition was in the wind. These various bands were scattered in out-of-the-way places around the bay, ostensibly engaged in some peaceful occupation, such as chopping wood, fishing or the like, but in reality waiting for the word to act. Each member of the committee kept his own counsel. Only the General knew the location of the various detachments.

Our plans were to paralyze all organized resistance by a simultaneous attack. The Federal army was little more than a shadow. About two hundred soldiers were at Fort Point, less than a hundred at Alcatraz and a handful at Mare Island and at the arsenal at Benicia, where 30,000 stand of arms were stored. We proposed to carry these strongholds by a night attack and also seize the arsenals of the militia at San Francisco. With this abounding military equipment, we proposed to organize an army of Southern sympathizers, sufficient in number to beat down any unarmed resistance.

All of which may seem chimerical at this late day, but then, take my word, it was an opportunity absolutely within our grasp. At least 30 per cent. of the population of California was from the South. The large foreign element was either neutral or had Southern leanings. We had already, under practical discipline, a body of the finest fighting men in the world, far more than enough to take the initial step with a certainty of success.

And those who might have offered an effective resistance were lulled in fancied security or indifferent. It is easy to talk now, half a century after the event, but in 1860 the ties that bound the Pacific to the Government at Washington were nowhere very strong. The relation meant an enormous loss to California. For all the immense tribute paid, the meager returns consisted of a few public buildings and public works. Besides thousands were tired of being ruled from a distance of thousands of miles. The “Republic of the Pacific,” that we intended to organize as a preliminary, would have been well received by many who later were most clamorous in the support of the Federal Government.

Everything was in readiness by the middle of January, 1861. It only remained to strike the blow.

CHAPTER IV.Southern General, Albert Sidney Johnston, Played Important Part in Preventing Organized Revolt for Secession.Discovery of Comstock Lode With Its Vast Hoard of Gold Another Factor in Keeping This State in the Union.

General Albert Sidney Johnston was in command of the military department of the Pacific. He had graduated from West Point in 1826 and saw seven years of active service on the frontier, especially in the famous Black Hawk war. He resigned from the service on account of his wife’s failing health, and settled in Texas. On the uprising against Mexican rule, he had enlisted as a private soldier in the army of his new country, but through the compelling force of genius soon became commander-in-chief of the republic’s forces. At the time of the annexation of Texas, he was its secretary of war. When the war with Mexico broke out, he offered his services to the United States, fought in many of the severe engagements, rose to the rank of general, was sent to Utah to suppress what was known as the “Mormon Rebellion,” which he accomplished with firmness and tact. In January, 1861, he was placed in command of the Department of the Pacific.

ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON

Commanding the Military District of the Pacific in 1861

Johnston was born in Kentucky but he always in later years spoke of and considered Texas his State. Thus he had a double bond of sympathy for the South. This was the man who had the fate of California absolutely in his hands. No one doubted the drift of his inclinations. No one who knew the man and his exacting sense of honor doubted his absolute loyalty to any trust.

In all of our deliberations. General Johnston only figured as a factor to be taken by surprise and subdued with force. We wished him well, hoped he might not suffer in the brief struggle, but nobody dreamed for an instant that his integrity as a commander-in-chief of the army could be tampered with.

One of the most brilliant members of the early San Francisco bar was Edmond Randolph. He was a man of rare talents and great personal charm. Born in Virginia, a member of the famous Randolph family, he was naturally an outspoken advocate of the South. He was one of our committee, and on terms of social and professional intimacy with every one of Southern leanings. He was on the closest terms with General Johnston and there is hardly a doubt that, purely on his own motion, he approached the General with some kind of a questionable proposition. What happened at that interview no man knows, but Johnston’s answer made Randolph stark crazy. He indulged in all kinds of loose, unbridled talk, told several of our committee that he had seen Johnston, that the cause was lost and otherwise, in many ways, exhibited an incredible indiscretion that might easily have been fatal to our cause. No amount of warning was able to silence his unbalanced tongue.