Excerpt from A Picture of Pioneer Times in California: Illustrated With Anecdotes and Stories Taken From Real Life

This book is respectfully dedicated to the boys and girls born on the Pacific Slope, of pioneer parents.

Its object is to draw a correct and faithful picture of pioneer times in California, and thus expose the misstatements of itinerant lecturers and thoughtless or vicious writers, who seem to delight in wholesale misrepresentation of the habits and character of the first American settlers of this coast. The time has come when this matter should be discussed and set right, for the pioneers are fast passing away, and in a few short years not one will be left to contradict and expose the slanderous charges now constantly put forth against them.

In the picture I have drawn, I have sought to avoid claiming for the pioneers one virtue not fairly theirs, nor have I attempted to conceal their errors. When speaking of individuals, I have tried to avoid undue praise or unjust censure. How far I have succeeded in making my picture a truthful representation, I leave my fellow pioneers to judge.

The destinies of the great young States of the Pacific are fast passing into the hands of the children of the pioneers, and we, the parents, cheerfully resign our trust, feeling sure that the amor patriæ with them is most heartfelt, and, burning brightly, will be "the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day" to guide them onward, and ensure a great future to the States of their birth. In resigning our leadership, it ought to be our ambition that our children should honor our memory, and feel proud that they are the children of California and Oregon pioneers.

It is this ambition that has prompted the writing of this volume. It is directly addressed to our young people, but I hope it will be found attractive and interesting to every American citizen, and especially so to all our pioneers, who, day by day, as the shades of evening fall on their path, and their numbers lessen, grow nearer and nearer to each other, and more and more attached to all the recollections of the days when, as a band of brothers they, with cheerful hearts, faced every danger, side by side, and aroused into life this whole Pacific Coast.

If my fellow pioneers find that I have performed the task I assigned myself but indifferently, I hope they will at least credit a good intention and an earnest endeavor to the author.

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