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The Last Tie In the Overland Monthly Volume III San Francisco: A. Roman & Company 1869 By Dr. J.D.B. Stillman - July 1869 When we stood for the first time on the iron-bound shores of the Pacific a generation ago and looked upon their desolate mountains, after a voyage of more than half a year, we thought in our forlorn hearts that the last tie that bound us to our native land was broken. We did not dream that the tie that was to reunite us, and make this our native land forever, was then flourishing as a green bay tree in our woods; but even so it was, and here, in the month of May, it lay before us, a polished shaft, and in whose alternate veins of light and shade we saw symbolized the varied experience of our California life. Would I accept an invitation to go to the "front" and see the last spike driven? Old veterans and companions in frontier life would be there--men with whom I had hunted grizzlies in the river jungles. We had hungered and feasted together on the Plains, slept with our feet to the same fire, and fevered side by side when the miasma had shrunk the blood of our veins. Could I refuse to share in this triumph on the great day, long prayed for, that was to witness the finishing blow to the greatest enterprise of the age? California would be there with her bridal gift of gold; Nevada and Arizona were coming with their silver dowers, and a telegram from Sacramento informed me that a place would be reserved for me in the special car that was to convey the high contracting parties of the first part to the scene of the memorable event. With one lingering look at the fireside where my children played, a cheerful word to my exhausted patients, and a hope that they might improve the opportunity of my absence to recuperate their wasted strength--I was off. The regular passenger train from Sacramento starts at about six o'clock in the morning, and we moved off soon after in a special one, consisting of the superintendent's car and a tender. The car was arranged with a kitchen, dining, bedroom, and parlor, with sleeping accommodation for ten persons; the tender was provided with water-tanks, for the greater part of our way was over regions where good water could not be obtained, refrigerator and stores for a protracted sojourn in the desert. A careless glance around was enough to lull any apprehensions that might have been felt from past experience, that we might be compelled to eat our stock on the road, or search for manna in the land of the "Diggers." Stretching myself out on a sumptuous lounge, I looked out on the brimming, turbid river and breathed the morning laden with the perfume of a city full of roses. The pulse of life beat high, the town was on tip-toe of expectation, and gushing with the enthusiasm of triumph. The crowds cheered as we passed, and President Stanford on the platform bowed his thanks. Besides the President were the three Government Commissioners, Sherman, Haines, and Tritle, Chief Justice Sanderson, Governor Safford of Arizona, Collector Gage of Nevada, and a few others who, like myself, were not particularly distinguished but born to good luck. Across the bridge and out upon the plain we flew, alternate flashes of wheat fields and flowery pastures, and ghosts of trees went by; the rumble and clatter of car wheels filled my ears and soon lulled me into a drowsy reverie, and I "dreamed a dream that was not all a dream." I stood as a child in my father's dooryard and saw the rippling flood as it flowed for the first time over the sandy floor of that stream--small as it seemed when measured by the line, but mighty in its results--that immortalized the name of Clinton, and opened the great lakes and prairies of the west to the commerce of the Atlantic. A troop of boys, barelegged, were frolicking in the frothy current; one stoops down and catches a fish struggling half smothered, and bears him away in exultation; the booming of cannon rolls their paeans of victory from the Hudson to Erie, and back again through a wilderness, startling the black bear from its covert and awakening the land of the Iroquois with the march of a mighty people. Again I stood amidst a group of curious, skeptical men on "Albany Hill," when a ponderous steamer on wheels was about to test the practicability of making steam a motive power on railways. They had been successful in England, and why not here? A line of road had been constructed for fifteen miles as straight as a beam of light from the sun and at a water level. I heard again the fizzing of the steam and the gush of water as the machine vainly essayed to start. More fuel was supplied, the fizzing grew louder and sharper--slowly the wheels began to revolve but slipped on the track--sand was thrown on, when, with a cheer from the hopeful, the enormous black mass began to move off. The crowd grew excited and followed on, men on horseback led the way, determined to be in at the death and see how far the joke would go. Faster the iron horse moved on, faster the horsemen rode, and as the dreadful sounds redoubled, their steeds bolted the course, with staring eyeballs, terror-stricken. The locomotive was the victor; one dog alone contested the race, bounding and barking on till lost in the distance, and on the long vista, where the paralleled lines met, the black speck disappeared, leaving a film of smoke to float away among the pines. One man -- I could call his name--laughed outright; another shook his head: "Somebody would get hurt yet." Mr. Van Epps, my schoolmaster, said that he "never had any doubt that so much was possible, but he had many reasons for believing that steam could not be successfully introduced to the propulsion of carriages. It was very pretty philosophical apparatus." And still I dreamed; the air grew larger and darker, deeper and darker yawned the canyons, the train seemed poised in mid-air, now flying through tree - tops, and now circling like an eagle the beetling cliffs they call Cape Horn. Far below, rivers flowed like silken threads, and as silent; above us, the snowy peaks kept creeping down, and somber shadows of giant pines, whose vast trunks had withstood the storms for a thousand years, oppressed us with their gloom. We plunge into the bowels of the mountains and out at once into the sunlight and past the cheerful dwellings of men. We are cribbed in by timbers, snow-sheds they call them; but how strong! Every timber is a tree trunk, braced and bolted to withstand the snow-slide that starts in midwinter from the great heights above, and gathering volume as it descends, sweeps desolation in its path; the air is cold around us; snow is on every hand; it looks down upon us from the cliffs, up to us from the ravines, drips from overhead and is frozen into stalactites from the rocky wall along which our road is blasted, midway of the granite mountain. We are in pithy darkness in the heart of the mountain--the summit of the grade; out again into the light; on, on through wooden galleries mile after mile; a sylvan lake flashes out from its emerald setting among the mountains--a well-dressed gentleman touches me on the arm, and taking a cigar from his lips, asks me if I will not take luncheon. "Where are we?" I responded. "There is Donner Lake and we will soon be at Truckee." "Two by honor and the odd card, that gives you the rubber--Jake says 'Lunch,' and we will go and get our revenge in the dining-room." * * * * * I was on earth again. Truckee was the first place that I could realize. It is worth a trip over the mountains to see that city alone. The whole place is "bran-new"; every board in every house, and there are many of them, looks as if just from the saw-mills, so fresh and bright; such crowds of great, healthy-looking, bearded men. The enormous amount of lumber in and around this place creates a wonder in the mind of one coming from the west--What will be coming from the west--What will be done with it? but one approaching from the east will exult more than wonder. Down the valley of the Truckee River winds the great highway, crossing the river several times. Just before entering a tunnel, when the road slips in between the mountain and the river, we came near driving our last spike. Some Chinamen on the mountain side were cutting trees, and seeing the regular train pass, and knowing nothing of a special one, they probably thought it a fit time to run a log down the mountain. But whatever may have been their intention, the log landed on the railroad just before us--its length fifty feet and its greatest diameter three and a half feet--the smaller end rested on the track midway between the rails, and the other rested on the bank at an angle of about forty-five degrees. The short turns of the road prevented the threatening danger from being discovered until we were almost upon it; but the promptness of the engineer, and the lightness of the train, saved us from a catastrophe. The pilot picked up the log, or did its best to do it, and went through bankruptcy; but the force of the blow was not lost, for the heavy frame of the engine tipped the log and landed it where there was just room for it, yet did not prevent it from clearing away the steps of the starboard side of the train from stem to stern. The only person injured--and he but slightly--was one of our party who was on the engine, who, seeing what seemed an inevitable crash, jumped from the train. The force of the blow can be conceived from the fact that the log was broken through the middle, where it was at least three feet in diameter. It was near sundown when we reached the last crossing of the Truckee, where our crippled locomotive was sent into the hospital, and our cars were made fast to the regular train. Here the desert proper begins; here for five hundred miles we loose sight of sweet running water, and the attention of the traveler is arrested by the water trains--numerous tanks mounted on trucks, used to supply the grand army of laborers and animals while the work was going on, with all the water they used. The worst part of the overland route was always represented by the early emigrants at this forty miles from the Truckee River t the Sink of the Humboldt, or Humboldt Lake as it is now more generally called. There is absolutely no water that is not hot and poisonous, and the low shrubs that abound everywhere and bitter and unwholesome to animals. The bunch grass on which the animals support life thus far, here gives out entirely, and it was this last forty miles that broke the hearts of so many faithful animals in the memorable emigration of 1849, and their bones still lie at every rod in the sands where they fell, to witness for years to come the terrible sufferings they endured. The nearer they came to the life-giving waters of the Truckee the more abundant these sad memorials are strewn. Several of our party were among the overland emigrants of that year, and they pointed out where, one by one, their animals perished, where they abandoned their wagons, and where their guns--the last article they could afford to part with--were planted, muzzle downward, into the hillocks in the desperate struggle for water and life. The coniferous trees we left far back on the slopes of the Sierras, and a few cottonwoods or poplars only flourished here and there along the banks of the lower part of the river. But there is no spot so desolate that does not teach some thrilling lesson in the world's history. If you would study the anatomy of the human form you must strip it naked; the region before us required no such denuding process; in the economy of Nature it was bare enough, and its very bones were everywhere exposed to the eye. The stunted growth of pale, green, bitter shrubs did not conceal the earthy salts that covered the ground with their frostwork, and the swift wheels of the train raised a cloud of ash-colored dust that settled over everything. Yet no man would have had the speed slackened on that account. It was a country that one could not travel over too fast. The lessons taught in Physical Geography in that one day's travel were deeply interesting. To pass from the extremes of fertility through Alpine snows between sunset of the same day cannot be done everywhere, or anywhere else as far as I know. Why this contrast? In what age of the world was this "great basin," through which the Pacific Railroad runs for hundreds of miles, drained of the mighty flood that filled it and which has left its water lines hundreds of feet above us as distinctly legible as those that are washed today? From the great Mud Lake on the north, away south where the Pyramid drinks up the Truckee, and the Humboldt and Carson sink in the alkaline sedge and Walker's River finds its grave, and eastward to the palisades of the Humboldt is the bed of what was once an inland sea larger than any body of fresh water now known upon the globe. If the water had disappeared by evaporation the change would have been gradual; but the appearances indicate distinct periods of subsidence. In the valley of the Great Salt Lake there are five well-marked ancient beaches, or benches as they are there called; the highest is best defined, and is eight hundred feet above the present level of the lake; there is no outlet in all its borders, and if the water should return to its old level it would cover every habitable spot on its shores. The novelty of a spring-bed in a railroad car was too great to allow of sound sleep; it was too much like being tossed in a blanket all night; and with the first light of morning I was up. The air was cold, and snowy mountains were in sight--one is never out of sight of them. A volume of steam in the distance indicated hot springs. At Elko we parted with the most of our passengers, who were bound for the White Pine country a hundred miles south of the railroad. Another night brought us to the front, where we saw the novel sigh of a town on wheels. Houses built on cars to be moved as the work progressed. Here were the Chinamen who had built more railroad in a given time than was ever done before by any people The Central Pacific Company had been battling for years with the formidable difficulties of the Sierra Nevadas; and when at length they descended from the mountains they passed like a hurricane across the open country. All the material except the lumber was transported around the continent; and yet with such vigor was the work pushed forward, that three hundred miles of the road was constructed in nine months. Ten miles of track were laid in one day; and it is worth of note, that all the rails were taken from the trucks and deposited in their places by eight men, four on a side. These rails weigh on an average five hundred and sixty pounds; and allowing fifty feet to each rail, the amount of iron borne by each man during the day of eleven hours was seventy-four tons! This was without relay. The names of the men who performed this feat are justly a part of this record. They were: Michael Shay, Patrick Joyce, Thomas Dailey, Michael Kennedy, Frederick McNamara, Edward Killeen, Michael Sullivan, and George Wyatt. We arrived at Promontory Summit on Friday, under the information that the connection of the two roads would be made on the following day. The morning was rainy and dreary; two or three tents were pitched in the vicinity for the rendezvous of those ruffians who hang about on the march of industry, and flourish on the vices of men. The telegraph operators at the end of the respective lines were then within a few rods of each other, and communication was open with the officers of the Union line to the eastward of us. We were informed, after some delay, that it would be impossible for them to arrive before Monday. The delay seems to have been an unavoidable one; but it was to cause a great disappointment to the people of California, whose arrangements for a celebration the next day were completed. The intelligence was sent back to Sacramento and San Francisco; and messages were returned that the celebration must take place according to the published programme; that it could not be delayed with out defeating its object altogether. We all felt the embarrassment of our position keenly; but we tried to make the best of circumstances we could not control. To spend three days in this desolate spot, surrounded with sage-brush, with only such neighbors as would make it dangerous to venture away form the car, lest we have our throats cut the suspicion that we might have a spare quarter in our pockets, was not charming. The camps of the construction parties of each road had fallen back from the summit to the low ground near the lake, after the close of one of the most celebrated contest of engineering skill and energy on both sides ever known, and were resting on their arms. One-half of our party procured a conveyance to the camps of the Union Pacific, where General Casement, their Superintendent of Construction, generously dispatched a train to convey them to Ogden. On the following day the same gallant officer came up to the end of his track, with a special train which he put at the disposal of Governor Stanford to take the rest of us over their road. The offer was accepted, and we ran down to Weber Creek station, and an opportunity was enjoyed of viewing some of the finest mountain scenery in the world. The Wasatch Mountains rise from the plain on the west shore of the lake to the height of six thousand feet above its surface, or ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. They are very ideal of inaccessible snowcovered mountains, set off by the green fields and blushing tints of the peach orchards just coming into flower. Mr. Hart, the Central Pacific artist, who accompanied us, took some fine views of this mountain from the railway over-looking the town of Ogden. The tiderip is well marked where the currents of traffic from East and West greets the corn from Illinois, where paper is currency, and coal takes the place of Juniper trees as fuel. We feel, while looking about, that we have met half way. A genuine thunder storm seemed to have been got up for the occasion and drove us all indoors, while we were at Ogden, and cooled the air. Here we found plants common at the East, but unknown in California--as the old familiar Taraxicum or Dandelion; and Rhus toxicodendron or Poison Ivy takes the place of the Rhus diversiloba or Poison Oak. On the following day we ran our own train back, about thirty miles, to Monument Point at the north end of the lake--the only point where the railroad touches it; and we spent several hours upon its shore. A beautiful sea is Salt Lake when seen from an elevation--its color varying from brilliant blue to green; but a study of its briny shore reveals it as a dead sea in which no living thing is found. The waves cast up masses of the remains of insects which have perished on its surface, and which are known as the "grasshopper line"--the high-water mark. A few fish in the lake would allow no grasshopper line along the shore; but here the insects are pickled when they perish, and are finally blown ashore. Its islands, when visited by Fremont and Stansbury, were inhabited by myriads of birds, where undisturbed they bred in security; but we saw no living thing within or above its waters. Our steward with his gun procured a mess of snipe from a marsh where a fresh water brook lost itself in the sedge at a distance from the lake--among them was a rufus-headed Avoset! On the morning of the tenth, as we looked out of the car, we saw a force of Union Pacific men at work closing up the gap that had been left at their end of the road, and the construction trains brought up large numbers of men to witness the laying of the last rail. About ten o'clock the whistle announced the long-expected officers from the other side. We went over at once to meet them. In a superb piece of cabinetwork, they call a "Pullman car," we met Vice President Durant, of whom we have heard so much, with a black velvet coat and gay neck-tie, that seemed to have been the "last tie" to which he had been giving his mind, gorgeously gotten up. General Dodge was there, and he looked all business. The veterans Dillion and Duff were there to give away the bride. General Dodge on the part of the Union Pacific, and Edgar Mills on the part of the Central Pacific, were appointed to arrange the preliminaries. The munificence of private citizens of San Francisco had contributed two gold spikes, each designed to be the last one driven. Gentlemen from Nevada had contributed a silver one, at whose forging a hundred men had each struck a blow. The Governor or Arizona, also on behalf of his Territory, had one of silver. The Laurel tie that we brought with us was adjusted to its place; and in order that each gold spike should be the last, one was presented by Governor Stanford, President of the Central Pacific, to Vice President Durant, of the Union Pacific, who should drive it as the last on the latter road, while the other was to be the last on the Central road, and be driven last of all by Governor Stanford, who had thrown the first shovelful of earth at the opening of the road. It had been arranged with Mr. Gamble, superintendent of the telegraph lines, that throughout the cities of the United States, wherever fire-alarm telegraphs were established, connection should be made with the last spike and the hammer that drove it, so that the blow should announce itself and fire cannon on the shores of both oceans at the same instant. Preparations having completed, the operator sent notice to all stations throughout the country to be ready, and the whole nation held its breath. A reverend gentleman present was invited to invoke the blessing of Almighty God upon the work. The operator announced: "Hats off, prayer is being said;" and as we uncovered our heads, the crowds that were gathered at the various telegraph offices in the land uncovered theirs. It was a sublime moment, and we realized it. The prayer ended, the silver spikes were driven. Durant drove his of gold. Stanford stood with the silver sledge gleaming in the air, whose blow was to be heard farther, without metaphor, than any blow stuck by mortal man; the realization of the ancient myth of Jupiter with the thunderbolt in his hand. The blow fell, and simultaneously the roar of cannon on both shores of the continent announced the tidings: It is done! The alarm bells of the principal cities struck, one--two--three--synchronous with the strokes of the hammer; and people rushed from their houses, thinking a general alarm of fire was being rung. The cause soon became known, and banners everywhere were flung to the breeze; other bells joined in the cry of joy and of triumph. Te Deum Laudanus was sung in the churches, and the chimes rung out the national anthems. The nation made a day of it. But I set out to tell what we did there among the sage-brush, away there in the heart of the wilderness. We Californians were too few to make much noise. We did the best we knew; but we were swallowed up in the multitude that came from the East. The officers of a detachment of the Twenty-first regiment, with their wives, on their way to California, arrived in time to witness the ceremony; and soon after the detachment itself came up under arms, accompanied by the regimental band playing national airs. The locomotives from each side rolled over the place of junction as if to weld the union, touched pilots and screamed their best. The only women from California were Mrs. Ryan, wife of Governor Standford's agent at Ogden, and Mrs. Strowbridge, the wife of the superintendent of construction for the Central Pacific, who had been with her husband at the front during the whole time of the building of the road; and a post of honor was assigned her as the "Heroine of the Central." The prearranged telegrams to the President of the United States, the Associated Press, and others, were sent off; and after cheering the companies and everybody interested, we adjourned to the car of Mr. Durant, when answers to our messages began to pour in from Chicago, New York, and Washington, announcing that the lines worked as intended, and that the country was in a blaze everywhere at the East. Governor Stanford threw open his car, and the officers of the Eastern company returned his visit. And then the trains bound east and west went their respective ways; the troops who travel only by day went into camp; and after an ineffectual attempt to capture the officers of the Union Pacific Company and bring them prisoners to California, we steamed away form that spot which will be distinguishable until the hewn ones form the Laramie are rotted away. Years to come, the traveler as he passes the place will look out for the laurel tie and the gold and silver spikes that garnished the last rail that connected the two oceans with a continuous band of iron. Could they hope to see them there? Why, even before the officials left the spot they were removed and their places supplied with those of the ordinary material, and when the throng rushed up, the coveted prize was not there. What their fate would have been we can judge by that of their successors, which had to be replaced by new ones even before we left the spot. They were broken to pieces for relics; and the unfortunate rail itself was failing beneath the blows of hammers and stones, to be borne away in fragments as heirlooms. END