Abandoned ships San Francisco Harbor 1850. Not a few were from Downeast

I have written a couple of articles in the past about the St. Croix Valley and the California Gold Rush. Downeasters left in such droves that John Jackson, editor of the Calais Advertiser, despaired for the very survival of the community. In fact many did not return and those who did mostly came home poorer if wiser from the gold fields. I recently came across an 1884 article published in the Calais Times describing the moderately good fortune of Calais’ Charlie Olmstead and that of a “Mr. Brown”, a resident of the Ledge in St. Stephen. They are connected. The identity of the author of the article below is a mystery as he published under the byline “Recollections and Impressions of a Former Resident”. At the time the “Former Resident” was working at a shop on the Calais Main Street.
The article:

The California fever to 1849, and later, carried off many people from Calais and the valley of the St. Croix generally. I recollect when your now venerable correspondent, Mr. W. H. Lawrence, ex-Captain of the Flat-Foots and ex-Mayor of Calais, went to California. His absence was not prolonged; and I have the impression that he returned with only a moderate share of the “dross” which lured so many people from comfortable homes to a life of toil and hardship in California.

Among others who went to the modern El Dorado was “Charley” Olmstead, a blacksmith. “Charley” was a very small man, but Olmstead pere, also a blacksmith, was a burly person, full of rough good humor. Both father and son married sisters, who were very large women. “Charley” having determined to try his fortunes in California, the two ladies were left under the old man’s care ; but, unfortunately, while the son was away, Mr. Olmstead, senior, had a stroke of paralysis, from which he recovered so far as bodily health was concerned, but his mental equilibrium was destroyed, I believe, forever. One phase of this latter state was a peculiar one, and one which has never come under my observation before nor since. While he still retained the power or faculty of speech, he lost nearly all knowledge of the real meaning of language. He would make the most ludicrous mistakes in applying words. Ladies especially used to flee from his presence-and, in some measure aware of his misfortune, he would, in a deprecating way, exclaim often : “I can’t speak : I can’t speak !” and yet talking glibly all the time. One day I observed him animatedly talking to the mail driver of the shore line to Eastport. He evidently could not make the coachman understand him, and he came into the shop where I was, and in an excited manner said to me : “I can’t speak ! Tell me where I want to- go ! Twelve miles ; twelve miles !” I divined that he wanted to go to Robbinston, as he had friends there, and said so. The poor old man’s face lighted up with joy, and he made signs for me to write it down. I did as he wished, and I saw him hand the slip of paper to the driver, and got into the couch. “Charley”, like a dutiful son and a good husband, after making a little money, returned to Calais and took his father and the two wives back to California, Of their after history I know nothing.

There is a little incident connected with “Charley’s” return which perhaps is worth relating. He was interested in a claim with a number of others, which paid very well, and when he made up his mind to come back for his near relatives, he sold out his share to a young man named Brown, a native of the Ledge, on the New Brunswick side of the St. Croix. Soon after Brown had bought “Charley” out, he and his partners “struck it rich”, to use mining parlance, acct, in just three’ weeks after his purchase, Brown found himself possessed of $15,000; or, perhaps, I should say that his share of the proceeds of the claim came to the sum named. He at once sold out in turn, and, buying a draft of Adams’ Express Co., on Boston, for fifteen thousand dollars, started for home; and, strange to say, he returned to the Isthmus and from thence in the same steamer to New York and home with “Charley” Olmstead. The latter had simply sufficient to pay his way back and forth, and, of course, enough to pay the passage of his people. Brown was comparatively rich. He had been five years in California, and during all that time had only accumulated enough to buy out Olmstead. As soon, however, as he made the $15,000 he determined to “let well enough alone”, and come home before misfortune befell him.

That draft passed through the hands of Mr. Samuel Valentine, express man, on its way from Calais to Boston for collection. The proceeds came back in the shape of thirty $500 bills of the Suffolk Bank of Boston, and were passed over to Mr.Brown, who paid a fair sum for the transaction. A day or two after, Mr. Brown sauntered into the shop to me and in the most innocent manner possible, one altogether incredible, with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand pulled out of his vest pocket the little roll of $500 notes, handed them to me and said that he wished I would send them to Boston to exchange them for gold, or something that he could pass. He had endeavored to buy some trifling things from several persons, who did not seem to have enough change about their bills or pockets, and he got discouraged. It was almost like having no money to have bills of such largo denomination. As Mr. Brown seemed acquainted with financial transactions, I advised him to deposit the whole sum in the St. Stephens Bank, as the transportation of the pretty pictures to Boston, and the return of their equivalent in gold, involved much risk and cost. He adopted my advice, and the next day having been deputed to do some business at the bank, I got one of the bills. Mr. Brown seemed to me the most inexperienced and unsophisticated man, so far as handling considerable sums of money is concerned, I ever met with. Perhaps the money had fallen so suddenly to his lot, that he could scarcely realize that it was real and tangible.

Mr. Brown was an unassuming man, intelligent and alert; but his whole way of handling his little fortune, carrying it about in his vest pocket, and with his thumb and finger manner of passing it over to the custody of strangers, was, to say the least, “childlike and bland”, and pointed him out as an easy victim of “bunko-steerers”. It is possible, though, that he might have proved to be something like that other California Brown, he of “Caleveras”, made historical by Bret Harte, and known as the “quiet Mr. Brown”, given to “clearing out the town”, and who made himself conspicuous by shying the piece of old red sandstone at the meeting of scientists, and doubling up one of the members “—–On the floor, And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.”

It strikes me that a history of the experiences of those who went to California from Calais and vicinity, would prove highly interesting. Perhaps some one of a literary turn might work up a volume which, would find a large sale. For some years California was the cause of much ebullition on the St. Croix. At one time it was a common thing for those who could not go, but had means, to send substitutes, by paying the way of the latter to the land of gold, with the agreement that a certain portion–one-half generally–of all these substitutes would make, should be paid to the stay-at-home. I am sorry to say that these ventures did not prove profitable. Some of those sent out returned nothing, while some were honest enough to pay back the sums expended in sending them to California. I am not aware of an instance where one of those speculators made any money. Those who had not accumulated enough to pay their own way across or around the continent, were not the men to succeed anywhere. The industrious and the frugal could always make more than a living on the St. Croix. Many who went to California returned as soon as possible. Mr. Thomas Ellis came back in the most sudden manner. He gave a comical description of the scenes which met his eye in San Francisco; of the crowds of idle men, latterly denominated hoodlums, and “Tom” thought that Calais, after all, was the real Paradise for him, as an industrious, honest man.

(From the Calais Times, May 9, 1884)