Up and Down California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer, with Maps

by William H. Brewer, Francis P. Farquhar (Editor), Francis Peloubet Farquhar (Editor)

In 1860 William Brewer, a young Yale-educated teacher of the natural sciences and a recent widower, eagerly accepted an offer from Josiah Whitney to assist in the first geological survey of the state of California. Brewer was not a geologist, but his training in agriculture and botany made him an invaluable member of the team. He traveled more than fourteen thousand miles in the four years he spent in California and spent much of his leisure time writing lively, detailed letters to his brother back East.

These warmly affectionate letters, presented here in their entirety, describe the new state in all its spectacular beauty and paint a vivid picture of California in the mid-nineteenth century. This fourth edition includes a new foreword by William Bright ( 1500 California Place Names ) and a set of maps tracing Brewer's route.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Outdoors, Adventure, Natural History, Travel

583 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

William H. Brewer was an American botanist, geologist, and geographer best known for participating in the first California Geological Survey.

Reviews

[Ken-ichi · Rating 4 out of 5]

First-person history is truly amazing. Even if all you do is marvel at how some things have changed while others have stayed the same, it is still fabulous. Grizzlies everywhere! Completely unselfconscious racism! No roads! Moaning about the monotonous summers! Racial diversity! California crazies! So good.

If you didn’t take the time to read the description, this book comprises letters written by one William H. Brewer during his time leading a field crew for the California State Geological Survey from 1860 to 1864. He and his band of beans-and-bacon-fed chaps traipsed o’er hill and dale (and desert and chaparral and flood plain and alkali flat and glacier), up and down the great state of California, mapping it, collecting biological specimens, and, most importantly, investigating its mineral wealth. Brewer was technically hired to be the botanist, but did more surveying and logistical work.

That would would all be meaningless if Brewer were not Brewer. He was a fastidious measurer and recorder. I mean, he measured everything. If he was staying in a room and felt it was a bit chilly, he would whip out the thermometer and write down exactly how chilly it was. When he saw a big tree, he was not satisfied until he wrote down exactly how big it was. If you were to do a shot every time he measured something, you would be drunk in 10 pages, dead in 50. This compulsion is annoying, amusing, eventually endearing, and ultimately reassuring, because it engenders trust in him as a faithful narrator, and that trust is what makes this such an exceptional window into the past. There’s a scene in the book where Brewer meets some fellow Yale alumni on a steamer headed down the Sacramento toward San Francisco, who he later employs in the survey. His account is succinct and unremarkable, but a footnote includes a letter by one of the men he met recounting the experience, and it is incredibly dramatized and colorful by comparison. Little tidbits like that make me believe Brewer when he says he walked extraordinary distances, or that his companions were turning blue on top of Mt. Shasta, or that the majority of the Central Valley flooded one winter.

My only disappointment was the lack of botanical detail, and frankly, given the info in the intro, I suspect there wasn’t actually much to report. Brewer surely collected quite a bit, and many California native plants and animals bear his name (including the lovely Brewer’s clarkia, which I long to see), but apparently he recognized very few of them, most likely because they were new to science. I’d be curious to take a peek at his field journals, which he intended for personal use, and not for more general consumption.

If you like history and you love the California landscape, you should check this out.

Notes

p. 13 "The weather is soft and balmy—no winter, but a perpetual spring and summer. Such is Los Angeles, a place where 'every prospect pleases and only man is vile.'" Given that I live in Northern CA and that it is thus my sworn duty to look down upon the benighted fools who choose to live in SoCal, this passage made me laugh. The quote isn't cited, though, so I looked it up. It's from a hymn called "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" by Reginald Heber, a Brit and former Bishop of Calcutta. Brewer was probably commenting on the mixed Mexican population of Los Angeles at the time, but I thought it was a sort of nice piece of romantic environmental misanthropy as well. Turns out the original has become quite controversial and emblematic of European colonial arrogance with respect to native peoples, derided by no less than Mahatma Gandhi (the next lines are "In vain with lavish kindness the gifts of God are strown / The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone"). Oh so much more on Wikipedia.

p. 41 "Such a pickle!" It filled me with joy to learn that people used the word "pickle" this way in 1860.

p. 63 Brewer encounters an Indian who has caught several "vivaparoa fishes" which give live birth, "a thing," he claims, "nowhere known except on the coast of California." There are, in fact, quite a few viviparous fish in many parts of the world, but given the fact that he was on the beach in CA, I'm guessing the Indian was catching surfperch (family Embiotocidae), which are all apparently viviparous (so sayeth Pacific Coast Inshore Fishes).

p. 68 yarb (n): Wordnik has it as a colloquial synonym for "herb."

p. 70 "No place but California can produce such groups." Brewer commenting on the racial diversity at a church service including Spaniards, Mexicans, Indians, Chinese and Anglo-Americans. So interesting that even then the area was remarkable for its diversity.

p. 71 Brewer loves the ladies. Well, he is forever talking about them. A lot of days are like, "Found a big oak, was afraid of grizzles, met several lovely daughters." He doesn't seem like a lecher, so maybe he was just starved for female companionship?

p. 82 He seemed quite afraid of tarantulas early on, but he mellows out later.

p. 121 "Much as can be said about this lovely climate, yet give me our home climate, variable as it is. This is healthy, very healthy, lovely, but it is monotonous—four more months, long months of dry air and clear sky." Tell it, brother. I love it when Brewer gets all Northeastern.

p. 121 "There is no canopy like the tent, or the canopy of Heaven, no bed so sweet as the bosom of Mother Earth." Sometimes Brewer is clearly Romantic, but he's no environmentalist in the modern sense. Constantly killing animals for sport, doesn't criticize the massive environmental destruction of mining. Strange.

p. 142 Stockholders exploit the miners, miners (sexually) exploit the Indians, the whole system exploits the land. It's like a David Mitchell novel.

p. 160 "I wish you could see those Mexican ladies ride; you would say you never saw riding before."

p. 242 He describes almost the entire Central Valley flooding in 1862: 6,000 square miles under water (which prompted 11,000 lbs of rescue ham!). Astounding.

p. 251 "What the 'Nigger Question' is at home, the 'Mongolian Question' is here." Brewer dislikes the Chinese lack of integration. "The morals of this class are anything but pure."

p. 256 Apparently Tamalpais could mean "bay country mountain" in... Miwok?

p. 257 Here and elsewhere Brewer laments the fact that the Spanish land grants have left huge tracts of land in the hands of a few, preventing smaller farmers from settling and making a living for themselves. I wonder if this is at least partially responsible for the relatively large areas of land that have been conserved in the West.

p. 261 meerschaum (n): a soft white mineral, often used for pipes.

p. 295 "Previous to 1848 the river was noted for the purity of its waters, flowing from the mountains as clear as crystal; but, since the discovery of gold, the 'washings' render it as muddy and turbid as is the Ohio at spring flood" Again he draws the connection between mining and environmental changes, and the decreasing utility of the river as a result, but digs no further. Later he describes the silt as "surely filling up the Bay of San Francisco" (p. 328). He seems perfectly free with his opinions in other matters (e.g. the "feelings of deep disgust" (p. 322) excited by most Indians he meets), so why doesn't he at least worry over the wanton destruction of the landscape he so enjoys exploring? Was there some stigma associated with criticizing "progress" and Westward expansion?

p. 348 "At Tomales there are several houses, but the only one where we could get 'accommodations' was a very low Irish groggery, kept by a 'lady.'" He's none too fond of the Irish either. Gotta love the word "groggery" though.

p. 367 He says Marin was pronounced "Ma-reen'", whereas today we pronounce it mah-RIN, last syllable rhyming with "tin." Wonder when that changed.

p. 411 "Such was our camp—picturesque, romantic; but prosy truth bids me to say that mosquitoes swarmed in myriads, with not one-tenth the fear but with twice the ferocity of a southern Secessionist." One of those things that hasn't changed. Speaking of Secessionists, he often calls them "Secesh," as in "We have a lot of 'Secesh' at my boarding house." Love it.

p. 434 glutton (n): a synonym for wolverine!

p. 474 "You at home little know the blessed charm that letters can have, their true value to the person that wanders, homeless and desolate, especially when his bed is the ground and his canopy the sky, and when all he holds dear is so far away."

p. 493 On the subject of "half-breed" white/Indians, he writes, "It is a good American doctrine that a man not entirely white has few rights or privileges that a pure white is bound to respect..." On the same page, he laments the murder of many Indians at the hands of white settlers: "They went in the night to this island and murdered the whole of these people! Women, children, infants at their mothers' breasts, decrepit, infirm, and aged people were killed in cold blood and with the most revolting cruelty." He then goes on to say that their husbands and fathers now plague the area, seeking revenge, and the only solution is "their absolute extermination." People of the future will probably look back on our time and marvel at the same discordancy between our professed compassionate egalitarianism and our unwillingness to intervene when genocide threatens predominantly non-white nations. I guess the recognition of our hypocrisy is a step in the right direction. Yay?

p. 521 "A few days ago, before we got the deer, the boys shot a large arctic owl, an enormous fellow. They dressed and cooked him. I have often heard of 'biled owl,' but this is the first time that I have practically tested it, and it is nothing to brag of—strong, tough, and with a rather mousy flavor." Ew. Just... ew.

p. 546 "They are generally the 'poor white trash' from the frontier slave states..." Wikipedia would have us believe that the phrase "white trash" emerged in the 1830s among black slaves to describe poor whites. Amazing.

p. 567 "begirt with a hackamore" apparently means "encompassed by a kind of bitless bridle," as in the animals doesn't have a bar of metal in its mouth.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has delighted me and initiated a new reading project. I recommend it highly, especially for Californians: past, present, and ‘state of mind.’

William Brewer was a remarkably gifted observer, writer, botanist and explorer of remote areas of California in the early 1860s. He was working for the well-known geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney, who was working for the California government. California wanted an accurate geological survey to inform future development of the state. Whitney got the state’s highest peak named after him, but Brewer did the legwork. Literal legwork. Judging from Brewer’s book, Whitney was certainly knowledgeable and probably had the reputation to keep the project going amidst funding crises, but he seems to have just checked in occasionally with those actually climbing dozens and dozens of really high peaks in incredibly bad weather, lugging weighty barometers and other supplies. The strength and resilience of these scientists, through years of snowstorms, broiling deserts, and everything in between, is really incredible.

On this site, Ostap Bender has written an excellent review of the content of the book, so I’m not going to repeat the same material. Do read it. I want to talk about how some aspects of the book fit in with other reading and my perceptions of my home state. I was born in California, and have lived most of my life in ‘California north and south,’ but I went to grade school in Colorado. So I never took California history. I’m now on a mission to rectify that gap.

First, I was struck with the lightning speed of change mid-nineteenth century California. Silicon Valley, eat your heart out. Brewer starts out with his trip across the isthmus of Panama in 1860 on its new railroad. I thought back to Richard Henry Dana’s 1834 trip to California, described in Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor's Life at Sea, when he had to round the horn. His description of the storm the ship endured at the tip of South America is burned in my memory. Dana visited a California still governed by the Californios, the Mexicans of Spanish descent who owned vast estates. The economy was based entirely on hides. Cattle were raised and slaughtered by the tens of thousands, but only for the hides. Dana did manual work for these men for about two years before returning to the East.

Then I thought forward to Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Amateur Emigrant, which describes his 1879 trip across the United States to California by train. One could have done this any time after the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. To fill in the gap between Dana’s trip and Brewer’s, I found Jessie Benton Fremont’s short book A Year Of American Travel, about her trip to, and life in, California in 1849. (She was the daughter of the Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton and the wife of the controversial explorer John Fremont.) She traveled before the Panama railroad was completed, so she crossed the isthmus by mule and pirogue. Her party was stranded for months on the west coast of Panama because the crews of all ships that had made it to California abandoned ship for the gold fields; the ship that was supposed to return to convey Fremont’s group from Panama to San Francisco arrived months later.

So the speed with which travel progressed from sailing around the horn in 1832 to mule and canoe (1850) to Panama railroad (1860) to transcontinental railroad is dizzying.

The other astounding thing is the number of well-educated and widely-traveled people in California across this spread of years. I can’t remember much about the Dana book now, but Brewer found people he knew all over California. He found plenty of men educated at Ivy League colleges and who had travelled all over Europe and the rest of the world. He encountered people he had first met himself in Europe and the Eastern US. So too did Jessie Benton Fremont find people she knew from being the daughter of the senator who championed westward expansion.

This ties in with the other recent book about the state that I read, the Recuerdos: Historical and Personal Remembrances Relating to Alta California, 1769–1849 of Mariano Vallejo. One of the Californios with a rancho northwest of San Francisco, he was active in the governance of California during Mexico’s slow failing rule. He urged Mexico City to actually send the resources it promised to the region, he used his own resources to defend the settlers in northern California against would-be intruders and understandably resistant Native Americans, and he tried to get the other squabbling Californios to act in concert. He saw it was a futile effort, and threw in with the United States as what he thought was the best alternative of all the nations circling the failing territory. His memoir ends about 1850, with the chaotic, violently expropriative Bear Flag movement invading his home and kidnapping him about the same time as the gold rush was going to turn California into a totally different kettle of fish anyway. In the end, the US did not protect Mexican rancho owners as it had promised and inrushing US settlers managed to seize much of the Californios’ land. Vallejo lost most of his land under the rule of the country he had assisted to take over. He was a cultured statesman. I recommend his recently published memoir.

Back to Brewer. While he doesn’t address the Bear Flag movement, he does describe another period of extra-governmental rule that occurred in San Francisco in the 1850s when corruption became rampant. Local businessmen who were unable to operate in such conditions formed a vigilante group that became an unofficial governing body for a few years. They proposed slates of clean candidates and made sure they won and were able to govern effectively, but never ran for office themselves. Making change happen has a long history in California.

In short, these books describe a period of incredibly wild, speedy and uncoordinated development in the Golden State that doesn’t seem that different from today. Brewer’s book is phenomenal in giving this view of a rapidly metamorphizing culture alongside rapturous descriptions of the state’s grand geography.

Last, when I searched for a travelogue from 1850 I discovered a great resource for those interested in 19th century California. The library of Congress has digitized about 200 documents from its collection of first-person accounts of California in this period. Brewer, Dana, Fremont, Stevenson are there, along with John Muir, John Sutter, Bayard Taylor, Charles Nordhoff, Mary Austin, Helen Hunt Jackson, Charles Dudley Warner, Clarence King, Joseph LeConte, Hubert Bancroft, Mark Twain, and William Tecumseh Sherman (in the 1850s), all for free. But there are also many lesser known authors who wrote works for people back east that explained what it was like in the mines, how Southern California was a paradise of milk and honey, and much more. Search the Library of Congress site for: California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849 to 1900. Preachers, miners, soldiers, a shipwrecked Japanese sailor who ended up in San Francisco, East Coast matrons touring the state, farmers, a report on the condition of Native Americans, the Donner Party, ‘Six years experience as a book agent in California’ by a single mother, and more! Mostly by those from the United States, but some written by people from all over the world who flocked to California. A fair proportion are by women, but few by people of color, unfortunately, since few seem to be in the collection.

Eureka! [California’s state motto]

[Ostap Bender · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ll ever see places in California the same way after reading this marvelous book, which is a compilation of the letters William H. Brewer wrote to his family back east while he traveled all over the state as part of a surveying commission over 1860-64. He took the position shortly after his young wife and baby died, and while he never alludes to them, there is a spiritual side to his solitude in rugged wilderness areas, sleeping out under the stars, and seeing what must have been extraordinary sights. Part of the fun of the book is in looking up the place names and figuring out where he was, and another is in looking up various references to events or people of the day. It’s tremendously informative about California history, though that’s sometimes difficult to stomach, as I expand on later.

His travels over the state took him to most of its mountain ranges, its desert areas and dry central valley, to the coastline at Monterey teeming with sea life, and down into some of the many mine operations that had drawn so many settlers to the state over the previous couple of decades. He visits towns like Los Angeles then with a population of 4,000 people, ruins of the neglected missions, and the fertile gardens of crops growing in the Santa Clara Valley, now home to Silicon Valley technology companies. He writes of how extremely hot and dry a big portion of the state is, likening the name to Calor (heat) Fornax (furnace), after the Latin. In many places there was a tremendous amount of dust at the time, as he describes 8” along one road, and 2-6” along another, “fine as the liveliest plaster of Paris, impalpable clay, into which the mules sink to the fetlock, raising a cloud out of which you often cannot see.” He also writes of the soaring majesty of the ancient redwoods and sequoias, and the grandeur of places like Yosemite, King’s Canyon, and the Siskiyou mountains.

It’s hard to fathom just how tough he and his companions were. He never boasts about this, but it’s stunning to hear his accounts of their long hikes up mountains through dense chaparral, hauling his 3 foot barometer tube with his as he climbed, often being forced to drink alkaline, dirty water (“the color of weak coffee”), and sleeping without a tent in the rain or in below-freezing temperatures. He sometimes eats raw bacon or tainted, smelly beef. Sometimes they make the noxious water into tea to make it palatable, despite how disgusting this sounds: “To be sure, the water is alkaline and stinks from the droppings of many animals, but made into tea it is drinkable, and we can stand it if those who live here can.”

His hike up Santiago Peak was 15-17 miles, had an elevation gain of 4,469 ft, and was listed as an 8 hour, strenuous hike even today – much less in February, with less insulated clothing, and beating a path through thorny brush. There are times he hikes up narrow trails at “an average incline of 47 degrees” that have mules sometimes tumbling hundreds of feet, and then getting up and plodding on. He awakes in the dark to begin his long trek up Mt. Shasta with his party at 3:30am, enduring icy temperatures with howling winds (some members getting frostbitten fingers), clear symptoms of altitude sickness, and the elevation gain of over 7,000 feet to one of California’s highest peaks, carrying his precious barometer all the way. There are many, many more, including the hike up the mountain in the Sierras that now bears his name, Mt. Brewer, which he was the first to reach the summit of.

There are some extraordinary events that he’s present for, aside from the occasional earthquake, lunar eclipse, and comet that he makes note of. One is the great flood of 1862 that submerged Sacramento for three months and created an inland lake 20-60 miles across and 250-300 miles long, which is still said to be the worst disaster in the state’s history, killing 800,000 cattle and wiping out an estimated 25% of the homes in the entire state. He was in San Francisco at the time and visited Sacramento, and brilliantly describes the devastation. Another is when he takes a cruise into San Francisco Bay around Alcatraz in December 1862, and the captain hits a submerged rock, resulting in a shipwreck and emergency evacuation. That rock was known for a while as Paul Pry rock (after the ship in this incident), but since then has come to be known as Little Alcatraz, seeing as its just 81 yards off its northwest coast. His description of it all, with the scramble of the men and women, is fantastic.

Brewer’s writing is intelligent, factual, and often as observant or wryly humorous as anything you’d see from Mark Twain. Here’s an example at a large picnic gathering where political speeches were made. After describing the scene of people eating he says:

“Then the speeches commenced again. Men and women were seated, and the eloquent speakers told of the horrible designs of the other parties, of their infamous doctrines, of their wonderful inconsistencies, of the scoundrels who were the leaders; and they pathetically told of the cruel persecutions and slanderings their own party had received, of its patriotic leaders and pure principles, of its innocence and the immaculate purity of its office seekers.
I sat and listened for a while, and as I gazed on the scene around I felt sad that so pure a party should not have all the offices, and the scoundrels of the other parties could not all be instantly hung.”

Of the mirages he regularly sees on the hot plains, he says “Science has explained its mystery, but its beauty, its poetry, remains ever the same to me,” and that’s just it about him – he’s is a scientist touched with a poet’s spirit. When he see things, he measures them, and yet at the same time, he’s well-read, contemplative, and sees the beauty in the world around him. He mentions both Les Miserables (1862) and Bleak House (1853) among the books he’s reading at different times, and of the camp at night he writes:

“As I sleep less than the rest, and the evenings are getting longer – they go to bed at eight or eight-thirty – I sit in the tent and read until cold, then go out and sit by the fire, warm myself, gaze into its embers and reflect on distant scenes and distant friends, take a quiet smoke (for I smoke in camp), then retire. The brilliant shooting stars, so common in August, have almost ceased – but here the sky is clearer, like our clearest winter’s night, and the stars twinkle as brightly. The oaks are grouped around with their drooping branches, and the stars twinkle through them – while in the southern sky loom up the bold and grand outlines of the majestic old mountain.”

He appreciates his smallness in the grand scheme of things, and the fact that the earth has a long history. He finds massive beds of oysters and sea fossils up on the top of mountains, such as this passage about the Mount Diablo area:

“The whole country is of mountains 2,000 to 3,500 feet in elevation, made by the broken edge of the strata. We saw sections of these strata over a mile in thickness, yet full of shells through their whole thickness. I think the Tertiary rocks of this region are two or three miles thick! Who shall estimate the countless ages that must have elapsed while they were being deposited in that ancient ocean? While these myriads of animals were called into existence, generations lived and died, and at last the species became extinct. Each day reveals new marvels in our labors, teaches us new truths in the world’s history.”

Unfortunately, he’s also got a substantial dose of the cultural biases of the day, and saw Native Americans as primitive, ignorant, ugly, and cowardly people, though to his credit he does say that their aggression to settlers was all instigated because of atrocities committed against them, and that “whites were vastly more to blame than the Indians.” He points out when whites have been mutilated or tortured in retaliation, but does equal service to the genocide that was taking place all around the state, e.g. the massacre at Indian Island in Humboldt Bay in February, 1860, John C. Fremont (who the city and several other things are named after), along with Kit Carson murdering 175 Wintu, and whites also killing 100 Wintu in 1850 by tricking them into a “friendship feast” and poisoning them.

His racism knows no bounds either, as he also casually demeans Mexican and Chinese immigrants. It’s not that he spends an inordinate amount of time on these passages, but his feeling of racial superiority is regularly felt, which is of course unpleasant to encounter. While watching a performance at a Chinese theatre in San Francisco and not understanding which parts are meant to be funny or dramatic, or much else about what he’s seeing, he comments without a shred of introspection that this might be because of his own cultural ignorance and racial bias.

He also sizes up and comments on the appearance of the native women, usually but not always in a negative sense, and even when mentioning one’s beautiful ‘costume’ and moccasins and well-proportioned body, condescendingly says, “her appearance was rather pleasing – that is, she did not excite the feelings of deep disgust that the others did. But she sat down as I passed her, and commenced eating acorns, reminding me of a baboon eating nuts.” Another time he says “some of the squaws were quite pretty, but they had their faces painted in strange ways, often looking absolutely disgusting.” He knows that they styles of red and black paint mean different things among married and single women, but does not try to figure it out.

Perhaps the saddest comment is this: “It has for years been a regular business to steal Indian children and bring them down to the civilized part of the state, even to San Francisco, and sell them – not as slaves, but as servants to be kept as long as possible.” It’s heartbreaking not because he himself engaged in the practice, but because he states it so matter of factly, does not recognize it as horrific, or as a form of slavery.

It’s a work that transports us to the 19th century obviously (and in all of those ways painfully), but there are parts of it that show how things recur. Here is what Brewer says about the polarization America faced that was leading it to war, which is eerily relevant still today:

“I fear the prestige of the American name is passed away, not soon to return. We are doing and reaping as monarchists have often told us we would do – put designing, immoral, wicked, and reckless men in office until they robbed us of our glory, corrupted the masses, and broke us in pieces for their gain.”

It’s intriguing to hear him allude to events like Lincoln’s election and the Civil War which followed, as well as the mix of Union and Secessionist views he encountered along his travels. While over 600,000 soldiers died in that horrific war on the other side of the country, he was off traipsing through the mountains, deserts, and coast of California. Ironically he writes this in October, 1861, not realizing the actual death toll would be a sizable fraction of the figure he tosses out:

“We go again to Mount Diablo tomorrow. I am glad to get in camp – but the season flies – as I lie in my blankets at night and see the Pleiades rising so high in the clear sky I am reminded that winter is at hand – and what a terrible winter for our country – I tremble to think of it. I have been anxious and low spirited much of late over our unhappy troubles – the end looks dark. I would rather see the nation reduced to poverty and a million men perish than see the Union broken – but what will be the end? God only knows, and in Him we must put our trust.”

Fifteen months later, in January, 1863, he writes this upon hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation; those that criticize Lincoln for having written it as he did would do well to see that even at the time, this guy and presumably many others saw it as foundational to something bigger, which indeed it was.

“The Emancipation Proclamation was hailed with gladness by a vast majority of our loyal population. It is looked upon not only as a military necessity, but also as a grand step in civilization, as the great movement to unite the nation again by laying the foundation for the early removal of the grand bone of contention.”

There are so many other little bits here – correctly recognizing the health hazards the use of mercury (“quicksilver”) represented to miners (among other things), the Spanish Land Grant system having put enormous tracks of land in the hands of the few, and alluding to the treaty with Mexico granting California to America as having “guaranteed to the Mexican citizens all the privileges of American citizens on entering this republic.” (Ha!) He mentions the excitement over the intercontinental telegraph being completed, allowing dispatches across the country over 4,500 miles of wire, with a price of dollar of word – or $31/word in today’s currency. His description of the one month long transits to get from one coast to another via an overland passage in Central America (Panama on the way out, Nicaragua on the way back) which begin and end the book are also mind-bending.

It’s a fantastic book if you want a window into the past, and I’d highly recommend it.

[Sylvia Seymour · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book since May, rationing myself and trying to stretch it out as far as possible so it won't ever end. Profoundly riveting -- like traveling back to 1860s California in a time machine. William Brewer traveled 14,000 miles through the state from 1860-1864 by foot, mule, and stagecoach as head of the newly-formed California Geological Survey, wandering through vast expanses of unexplored territory and making countless first ascents. He recorded every detail in letters to his brother back in the States with amazement and good humor, then headed back to Yale for a long and happy life as a professor of botany there. These are those letters, and he is my hero.

[jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This journal of letter written by William H. Brewer as he crisscrossed California for the first geological survey of the state under Josiah Whitney from 1860-64 covering on foot, horse, and donkey—mostly foot, is rich reading. It’s comprised of colorful, detailed, wonderfully written letters to his brother back East. If you’re a mountain climber and or a lover of California, it’s a must read. As both, I couldn’t get enough of this book which is now flagged and underlined. It’s well indexed with end chapter notes offer further documentation and biography. If you’re a native of the state it’s like hopping a Time Machine to all the places you’ve thought you knew and a walk in the Wild West that the movies never showed us. I give it 5 hearts!

[Brandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to return this gem to the library having only read the Tejon-Tehachapi-Walkers's Pass - no less I am in love with Brewer's letters. Hope to find an old copy for my very own.

[Jennifer Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the most interesting books I have ever read. The author explored all of California from 1860-1864 and documented his experience. His writing was very enjoyable and his descriptions of California at that time were great to read. Highly recommend!

[Garth · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are the journal of a geologist who was hired to traverse California in the days of the Civil War looking for mineral wealth to exploit for The Union. It is very dated but gives amazing insight into the workings of the 19th century mind of a scientist. I was both enraptured by the prose like descriptions of California and repulsed by the views of Dr. Brewer on the subjects of blacks and Native Americans and the typical desire of that mindset to kill every living thing for the sport of killing it.. That being said, it is an excellent read for fans of American History and California State history.

[John Barron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoroughly entertaining journal, describing the landscape, people, geology, vegetation, and weather of the nearly the whole state of California during the period between late 1860 and the end of 1864. As a geologist who has spent the last 50 years throughout California, it was intriguing to see how many of Brewer's observations still hold true and to have his reactions to varied landscapes and people. It is amazing to have descriptions in the words of an educated young man of the 1860's during the time of the Civil War and ongoing strife with the Indians. The book is well worth reading both as a historical journal and a descriptive travel guide.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the early 1860s, California was no less diverse geographically, politically, climatically, and culturally than it is today. During these years, William H. Brewer, a Yale graduate from Boston, came to California to make a geological survey of the state with a group nominally lead by Josiah Whitney. Brewer became the de facto leader throughout most of the expedition. The harsh conditions of mountains and desert seemed to keep Whitney largely settled in San Francisco, far from the actual survey. This book consists of the candid and rather eloquent letters written by Brewer to his brother detailing his explorations. The fourth edition includes maps depicting the explorers’ paths. Though these maps are extremely helpful in understanding the locations of the group, readers might want to supplement certain sections with detail maps from the internet to better understand the topography of particular areas.

The harsh conditions in California were a surprise the urbane Brewer, and the reader may wonder how anyone could endure them without sleeping bags, Goretex, ripstop nylon, and in most cases tents. Brewer mentions needing new pants at times when his are torn to shreds in the chaparral. He endures strong winds and dust storms. He speaks of temperatures of 110 degrees F, of thirst, no shade, and no recourse except to keep traveling. He speaks of snow on his blankets night after night, and temperatures of 10 degrees F. He speaks of getting wet and then wetter when it rained, of near-impossible scaling of peaks, of being cold, dirty, and exhausted. He relates these details to his brother to document them rather than as complaints. Much of what makes his journey harder is self-imposed; indeed he takes his job seriously and can scarcely pass a peak pass without attempting to see it and make notes about it.

California natural history buffs will enjoy comparing Brewer’s letters with current California conditions. Imagine camping in the hills above the bucolic town of Los Angeles, with its 3500 residents, or observing a multitude of rivers flowing from the Sierras into the Owens Valley, or finding Owens Lake full of water. Brewer’s descriptions of trees verge on romantic, particularly oaks, redwoods, and sequoias. These trees remain exactly as he described them today. He carefully observes and records plants and animals that he sees on the journey, and not without some prejudices.

In fact, Brewer’s prejudices define how most Euro-Americans viewed westward expansion during the mid-1800s, a rather shameful national heritage in hindsight. In the midst of the Civil War, Brewer is a Yankee who is strongly opposed to all “Secessionists,” equating them time and again with ignorance and fraternization with “Indians,” whom he considers even more inferior. He frequently describes Native Americans as looking intellectually inferior in the face, with color too much like “negroes,” who he seems to consider most inferior. He doesn’t think much of “Mexicans” either, and seems to only approve of “Americans” like himself. He’s also opposed to “American” men who live with “squaws” and their “half-breed” children, which he sees as a real problem to “America.”

Brewer’s views of women are largely based upon their looks and their ability to entertain him, and he those few that are mentioned by name are typically wives of important Euro-Americans. He doesn’t even like Catholics, considering them a few notches below Protestants. The reader must bear in mind that these letters weren’t meant for publication, but for a brother who probably shared the same prejudices. Perhaps Brewer would have edited his racist and sexist references if he knew they were to be published. As is they provide insight into the prevailing attitude of educated male Euro-Americans of the time.

Also noteworthy in this regard is Brewer’s discomfort with rattlesnakes. Indeed, he seemed to be on a campaign to kill as many as possible, regardless of whether they threatened him. “This fellow, like the last, did not show fight until after he was attacked,” sums up his strategy. In fact, his group might have hated all snakes. “A snake five or more feet long, but harmless, was killed at our tent just at dark.” He and the group seemed similarly afraid of and apt to shoot at coyotes, yet largely uneducated about bears. During the journey they learned to respect the bears and their own limitations as fighters of what they perceived as evil.

“Up and Down California” is a fascinating account of California’s mountains, foothills, coast, deserts, and chaparral. Brewer’s commitment to the expedition is evidenced by the many times that he notes that his pay has been delayed, sometimes for nearly one year. His discussion of the politics involved in funding—in which he does not participate—is quite interesting. Survival under the difficult physical conditions in which the 15,105-mile survey was completed is almost unbelievable to modern-day readers. The social aspects of a white male from New England in California give insight into the practice of Manifest Destiny. California and US historians and all readers who enjoy their own explorations of California will like reading this book.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential if you enjoy Californian history. What an amazing experience to follow along with as Brewer and his party explored the vast and wild unknowns of early California.

[Jill Poulsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mandatory reading for any serious student of California history. Be prepared for offensive references to women and blacks. Be grateful we live in different times.

[Dan Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a find! A great journal by an official surveyor of California, from 1860-1864, who hiked and camped all over California. He was the first ascender of Mt Hamilton. He climbed Mt Shasta. He explored the Coast Ranges, the Sierras, the Central Valley, traveling thousands of miles.

I found this because of his personal observations of the Great Floods of 1862 that put the entire California Central Valley underwater!

I have been to many of the places described in this book, but I learned of new places as well. I read it all in one sitting.

Being a native Californian, it was great to read about what it was like 100 years before I grew up there.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brewer's letters to his family have been collected as a sort of journal of the Whitney Survey, and provide a vivid picture of California during the American Civil War. The author was a careful observer of geology, people, culture, and politics and, not writing for publication, his remarks are completely unrestrained. Every page rewards the curious:
"Birds scream in the air -- gulls, pelicans, birds large and birds small, in flocks like clouds. Seals and sea lions bask on the rocky islands close to the shore; their voices can be heard night and day. Buzzards strive for offal on the beach, crows and ravens "caw" from the trees while hawks, eagles, owls, vultures, etc., abound. These last are enormous birds, like a condor, and nearly as large. We have seen some that would probably weigh fifty or sixty pounds, and I have frequetly picked up their quills over two feet long -- one thirty inches -- and I have seen them thirty two inches long. They are called condors by the Americans. A whale was stranded on the beach and tracks of grizzlies were thick about it." ( p.30) He is describing what is today the site of the Pebble Beach golf course.
This has the same feel as Two Years Before the Mast, but with a broader scope and keener observation.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Up and Down California is a series of letters written to family and friends by William Brewer while he was on the California State Geological Survey, from 1860 through 1865. This was the Whitney Survey which gave the first good natural resources description of California. As a book or literature, it is dry. But when read as a honest and personal travel journal, you can imagine yourself traveling this state.

Reading the journal for good writing, there are several of his contemporaries which do better such as King. But for a straightforward account of the Whitney Survey and the times, this is pretty good.

For more of my thoughts, see my blog.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a classic if you are interested in early descriptions of the State of California. I read it for his descriptions of landscapes I know so well, and try to imagine his investigating those areas in the first half of the 1960s. Clambering through thick chaparral to climb Santiago Peak or Mt. Baldy in So Cal, and heroic ascents of some of the classic Sierra Nevada peaks. Viewing so much of the area before the population bloomed to its current levels gives a very different view of much of the state compared to today, such as a week-long wagon journey down the length of the San Joaquin Valley in shoulder-high grass. If you want to see what it was like before too many people claimed it and changed it forever, this is a good book.

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty cool book, created from the journals of William Brewer who participated in the first Geological survey of California. He went to most of the hot spots. Shasta, Lassen, the Eastern Sierra, Yosemite, the Central Valley, etc.

Some of his accounts are astounding - like the 1862 floods where the whole Central Valley was flooded. It was so flooded that steamboats could navigate over ten miles from the Sacramento River into the valley. High winds created white caps that battered and destroyed houses and other structures.

His observations are very interesting, and often almost poetic. This is a gem.

[Phritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Brewer was a natural scientist from Yale who participated in a series of geological surveys in California just as the gold rush was winding down. His journals reveal a California so fresh to modern readers, but also the context of the era in which he lived. His musings include the legacy of Mexican land grants and the ongoing civil war. But most profound is his life in the California wilderness, surveying places and landmarks that have since been transformed materially by development but also in our minds by familiarity.

[Holly Lindquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the 1860s, botanist William Brewer assisted in the first official geological survey of California. He traveled thousands of miles and wrote wonderfully meticulous descriptions of people, places, flora, and fauna. This book is a treasure of early California history and also a great true adventure account. Particularly noteworthy are Brewer's observations of gold mining operations, the Sierra wilderness, and the devastating 1862 floods near Sacramento.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read in the last 5 years. Mostly because California still blows my mind and the idea of getting to explore it on muleback, and by foot, back in the day is pretty appealing. Totally bitchin'.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the outside this book looked daunting, yet I found my self reading right through it. As a snap-shot of California in the 1860's is invaluable original source material.

I would have preferred the fourth edition with maps.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you live in California, you must read this incredible diary of the travels of a very unique individual in a very unique time.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

An experience.

[Shawn Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read of Brewer's California exploration.

[Amy Brewster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating detailed observations of California in an era of abundant wildlife and few people.

[Greg]

I LOVE this book. First hand scientific account of California in the early 1860s.