Unfinished Business

As Good as Gold

Photo by Steve Carter on Unsplash

There's gold in them thar hills! Today's influx of gold seekers isn't creating a Gold Rush 2.0, but it's panning out for a few! California's incredibly stormy winter unleashed torrents of melting snow that's coursing through rock crevices, streams, and rivers. The erosion has yielded surprising pockets of gold deposits, known as flood gold.

The phenomenon is taking place in El Dorado County, about one hour east of Sacramento, as well as elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada region. You can buy metal detectors, sluice boxes, and plastic pans at Placerville Hardware, the oldest continuously operating hardware store west of the Mississippi.

In January 1848, near Placerville, James Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, was building a sawmill along the American River when he spotted something glittering in the water. The news spread like a California wildfire. One hundred seventy-five years ago, the Gold Rush attracted wagon trains and caravans from across the U.S. A total of 300,000 would-be prospectors arrived from 1848 to 1855.

Lloyd Tevis, a Kentucky native, was one of them. He had read for the law and worked in his father's Shelby County circuit office. He moved on into business, and rose quickly, securing a position at the Bank of Kentucky in Louisville before his 25th birthday. Eager to see more of the American frontier, he accepted a job at a St. Louis insurance company. The company burned to the ground in 1849.

In the spring of 1849, he joined the California Gold Rush. He crossed the plains in a covered wagon, and tried his luck for nine months in the diggings near El Dorado.

West Coast Still a Draw

As a college student at Morningside in Sioux City, Iowa in the early 1970s, I wasn't aware of Lloyd Tevis, or his fortune-seeking move to California. After growing up on an Iowa farm, though, I was anxious to head West. I jumped at the chance to join a 35-hour bus trip to San Francisco over spring break.

Our tour was filled with scheduled activities and visits to tourist sites including Fisherman's Wharf, China Town, Golden Gate State Park, the Berkeley campus, Haight Asbury, and Glide Memorial Church. But, as it turned out, my most memorable excursion wasn't on the tour itinerary.

Photo by Luca Florio on Unsplash

A day or two before our return to Sioux City, we were allowed free time. I had been soaking up family history like a sponge since I was 12-years old. I often used the telephone book (remember those?) to research possible family lines. Tevis is an unusual name, and this branch of my family was relatively uncharted. As I checked the San Francisco phone book, I was surprised to discover several, including an individual listing with the same first and last name as my father. It seemed a striking coincidence.

A phone call confirmed common ancestral roots in Kentucky and Maryland, and led to an invitation to bring a friend and visit Mr. Tevis the next day. Somehow, I convinced Lois, another tour member, to accompany me. As we rode the bus across the roller-coaster hills of San Francisco, I clutched my map, and began to have second thoughts about the advisability of this adventure.

Passing through a deteriorated neighborhood, we decided that if my distant relative lived near there, we wouldn't budge from the bus. Fortunately, before long, we entered a more affluent area.

We stepped off the bus a few blocks later, and located the address on Scott Street. I rang the bell. Imagine our shock when a butler answered the door! We were ushered up the stairs of the stately home into a room where a distinguished, elderly gentleman rose to greet us.

As we compared our family roots, Mr. Tevis explained that his grandfather Lloyd had left St. Louis in the spring of 1849 to join the gold rush to California. Like many others, his efforts didn't yield much success. Like others, he decided to pursue his luck with other opportunities in California, which became a state in 1850. He went to Sacramento. where he worked in the county recorder's office. He saved his earnings, and bought a lot for $250. Before long, he formed a law practice there with a fellow Kentuckian, James Ben Ali Haggin, and they relocated to San Francisco. From there, it seemed as if everything he touched turned to gold. Lloyd went on to become:

·      One of the principal owners of the California Steam Navigation Company;

·      An early projector of telegraph lines throughout the state;

·       President of the Southern Pacific Railroad;

·       An early manufacturer of illuminating gas;

·       Part-owner of Wells, Fargo & Co., and its president from 1872-1892

At one time, he owned 1,300 miles of stagecoach line in California, as well as horse-drawn streetcar lines in San Francisco, thousands of acres of ranchland and enormous herds of cattle and sheep. In the 1930s, oil was discovered on the family's land holdings.

Photo by Tim Photoguy on Unsplash

Eventually, he controlled partial and full interest in gold and silver mines in several states, including a partnership with George Hearst in the great Anaconda copper property syndicate headed by John D. Rockefeller. He and Haggin launched the Kern County Land Co. in 1890. Neither one looked ever back at Kentucky, or the generations of their families living there.

Capturing the Moment

Mr. Tevis mentioned that his wife was gone that afternoon. I don't recall how long Lois and I visited with him, but he seemed entertained by our visit.

He asked if we'd like to see his kitchen. I vividly remember stepping into a spacious room with an astounding amount of gleaming cookware displayed on the walls, and a huge stainless-steel island. It was worthy of any 4-star restaurant kitchen.

I also recall his playful sense of humor. When the butler re-entered the room to offer glasses of ginger ale to underage Lois and me, he said, "James, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Cheryl Tevis." The butler looked at him with great surprise. He responded, "Well, her father's name is the same as mine."

He showed us the gallery of framed photos exhibited on the wall, including famous military leaders, as well as visiting royalty. Before we left his home, he asked if we would like a photo of him. (No selfies or Facebook posts in those days!). He retrieved an 8 x 10 black-and-white formal photo of himself, signing it, "To Cheryl, with admiration and Best regards." April 1, 1971.

Making the Connection

Eight years later, when I was in my first few months of writing for Successful Farming, a certified public accountant named Howard Lewis from Stockton, California took me under his wing during a nearly all-male American Law Institute-American Bar Association conference at Stanford. He inquired about my surname, and the connection to California history. I told him what little I knew. After all, there was no Internet, no Ancestry.com or other digital search paths. I said I had contacted Mr. Tevis during this trip, but his wife, who answered the phone, told me that it wouldn't be possible to see him.

In 1979, Howard sent me an obituary from the San Francisco Chronicle, and it was revealing. "Mr. Tevis's health had been failing gradually since he suffered a stroke nine years ago. . . After his stroke, Mr. Tevis' social schedule was cut back . . ." No doubt, he was convalescing, and extremely bored when I initially called him. Three marriages were mentioned in the obituary, but no children were named.

 It also explained his fabulous kitchen. "For the past half a century, Mr. Tevis was widely known in California as a man who set one of the most elegant dinner tables in the land, with some of the most sparking personalities of his era. He was a lover of fine food--a love that dated from his childhood when he used to sit for hours on end and watch the family cook performing his culinary rites. And he learned, over the years, to be an excellent chef himself." He also was said to have learned from chefs during World War I in Paris, when he flew night bombing missions in Europe. His obituary contained this culinary compliment: "His dinner parties were always divine, and his creme bruleé is the best of any that were ever made."

Years later, I learned that Lloyd Tevis was the son of my great-great-great grandfather's brother. In 1853, a few years after Lloyd left St. Louis for California, my branch of the family pulled up stakes and headed for Cedar County, Iowa, in search of rich farmland. They hit paydirt-literally!

Unlikely Set of Circumstances

Reflecting on this half-century-old story today, there are so many reasons why this rich experience was unlikely. In the first place, I hardly recognize the shy, farm girl who had the chutzpah to visit a stranger at his home in a city the size of San Francisco. Obviously, my parents were unaware of it until afterwards, or they would have discouraged me. (Surely, I told the college chaperones on the tour?) Second, Lois was not a close friend of mine, and I don't know what possessed her to go with me. If she had turned me down, I probably would not have ventured there.

Third, his wife was not home on the only day when we had free time during the tour. If she had known he had invited two Iowa college girls to visit him, no doubt she would have nixed it. Fourth: We had no GPS, and we easily could have gotten lost. Without cell phones, we would have searched for a phone booth.

It absolutely never would happen today. After all, few people list their landlines in phone books. Even fewer use landlines.

In 1850, the price of gold was $20 per ounce. Two billion worth of precious metal was extracted between 1848 and 1852, but more fortunes were made by merchants than miners, including Phillip Armour, John Studebaker, Henry Wells and William Fargo, and Levi Strauss. Today members of the Gold Country Treasure Seekers club in Placerville are panning gold for $2,000 per ounce. They're optimistic that their odds will improve in June or July, once river levels recede and the rocks and sandbars are exposed. However, it's likely only to amount to a flash in the pan.

But who knows? All it takes is the combination of an unlikely set of circumstances. Take it from me, sometimes you just happen to be in the right place, at the right time, and you're lucky enough to hit the Motherlode.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

J.R. R. Tolkien

Photo by Adrián Valverde on Unsplash

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