ROGUE RIVER WAR.

        San Francisco, Monday, Oct. 15, 1855.
    Having passed through Oregon, from Portland to Jacksonville and out to Crescent City, within the last eighteen days--leaving Jacksonville and Fort Lane a week ago this morning--I may give you as authentic intelligence as you will receive from any source. Before leaving Willamette Valley old residents of the country remarked the smokiness of the atmosphere, telling us it was less smoky in 1853, when the Rogue River war was in progress. They said the mountain atmosphere was very clear when there were no fires in the mountains, and that these fires were kindled by the Indians as war signals, and they feared a general outbreak. But all seemed quiet as we passed on through the Umpqua and out by the cañon--which would be a terrible place to encounter a band of desperate red men, it being the worst pass for a wagon road I ever saw--and on through Rogue River Valley. Yet the people were apprehensive of danger as we neared Jacksonville, for the report of the attack on wagoners in California, near the Oregon line, had reached the valley, and the memory of 1853 revived.
    At Jacksonville the excitement was intense. The report was believed that Gen. Wool had come up from California for the purpose of prosecuting the war; that he had recommended the organization of volunteer companies, and given the soldiers at Fort Lane permission to volunteer, which they had immediately done to the number of sixty, under command of Col. Alston. At Sterling, the same day, Sunday, Oct. 7, a volunteer company was made up under command of Smiley Harris, and I came to Jacksonville toward evening. They were to meet a company from Bear River, and another from Butte Creek, and before morning attack on Butte Creek some of John's Indians--about twelve in number--who, with others to the number of twenty-five, had been stopping several days in the same place, and could be easily surrounded and cut off. John's men had long been lawless, and it was hoped they would now be destroyed. We breakfasted on Monday at Fort Lane, after a ten miles' morning ride from Jacksonville, and then learned that General Wool was not there, nor was he expected; that the volunteer companies were not authorized by the officers at the fort, and the soldiers were all there--two companies, one hundred and fourteen each. Capt. Smith, our host, pointed to eight or ten Indian women and children, who had come to the fort for protection about daybreak. The men at the fort had heard firing a little while before, and soon learned that the volunteer companies had not found the company of John's tribe, as they expected, for John's men had heard of the intended attack and gone off upon the reservation. The volunteers then went to a rancheria, containing at the time two men, and women and children to make up a dozen, fired into it, killing one old woman and slightly wounding another. [The actual toll of the Lupton massacre was much higher.] The woman killed was Sam's mother, and the company were Sam's Indians. This Sam was chief of perhaps a hundred men, whom the Shasta Indians had long tried to induce to join them against the whites, but Sam had hitherto refused. Whether this outrage would induce him to turn, Capt. Smith did not know. He thought whatever lawlessness the Indians committed, the whites were the aggressors, as in this instance. He said if John's men had been cut off it would have been unjust, for they had been peaceably fishing and drying salmon for several days, and he did not think they had hostile intentions. I left the fort in company with Mrs. Wagoner, from whose house, thirty miles from Jacksonville, she had attended me on Saturday. [Mrs. Wagoner would be killed the next day.] Mr. Rosenstock, our escort, and Dr. Drew of Jacksonville, and Judge Deady, also joined us at the fort, and were going to the Willamette Valley, and the latter to his home. He had been holding court as district judge at Jacksonville. It was his opinion that the movements of the volunteers might arouse the Indians to desperation, and that a general attack was to be feared. We called at the house of Dr. Ambrose, the Indian agent, who had an engagement with the judge to attend him to the Willamette; but when we called he had just received a summons from the fort to go there directly. Judge Deady bid him good morning, and told him to come on to Mr. Wagoner's, where he would spend the night, and go on with him in the morning. As we proceeded we heard a report that one or two hundred Indians, armed and mostly mounted, were on the road down the valley, the way we were going; also that a horse and a keg of whiskey had been stolen on Saturday night from the premises of Mr. Wagoner, and that he had sent after and recovered them by some of George's Indians, whose encampment was near his house. On reaching our destination, and indeed all along the road, we found at every house renewed fear of the Indians. But George's tribe were about Mr. Wagoner's house, nor did he seem to feel in danger. One of these friendly Indians came to him in the night and told him that a keg of whiskey had been stolen, and he hired him to bring it back. Sunday morning he found that a fine horse belonging to a Dr. Carpenter of Sacramento, who was traveling for pleasure through the country, had been taken from the house. One of George's men was hired to go after it, and succeeded in bringing it back, but its shoulders were swollen with hard riding. All was quiet here, however. At 8 next day Dr. Drew and Judge Deady went on. I waited for attendance toward Crescent City, taking my horse, which I had left here to recruit. At 10½ o'clock, Mr. Wagoner could go with me. I had tried to obtain a little Indian girl for guide, but her mother was afraid to let her go, she said. When we left the house, Mr. Wagoner and her little girl, six years of age, were the only whites; but a half dozen of George's Indians were there round the door. They had breakfasted at Mr. W.'s table, which they often did. Mrs. W. could talk the Chinook with them as well as any of them, and did not fear to be left. When we were a half mile or more from the house I heard a musket report, and asked Mr. W. what it meant. He said it was one of George's men shooting game--said they were good shots. I heard another report, but thought no more of it. We rode by a blind trail to Vannoy's ferry, where I was to take a good wagon road and could go alone. We found Mr. Vannoy much excited. A man came past an hour and a half before, saying that he took breakfast at Mr. Jones', four miles from Mr. Wagoner's, on the Jacksonville road, and after breakfast had occasion to go off the track on an errand, and returning in sight of the house it was in flames and the haystacks also, and he heard reports of guns and the cries of women. Mr. Vannoy had sent the half dozen men he had with him to alarm the neighbors and put them on guard. Mr. Wagoner, of course, was in fear lest his house was attacked, but I think did not recall the musket report that we heard. He hastened back. I came on my way. Reaching Sailors Diggings I found that there had been a mule train attacked near there and three Indians had been shot, and all though Illinois Valley the people were preparing to resist. Indeed, the general sentiment was that the Indians must be destroyed. This position they say seems hard, but there is no other way; if an Indian is fed and cared for ninety-nine days and on the hundredth he gets any inattention, he will resent it, and it is those who have been best treated that often do the injury, and there is no trusting any of them. There is considerable bitterness toward the officers at Fort Lane on account of the want of interest manifested, it is charged, in suppressing the robbers and stopping their depredations. The report came by expressman when I was at Crescent City, confirming what I feared, that Mrs. Wagoner and child were killed and the house and barn fired in a few minutes after Mr. Wagoner and myself left. The Indians were a company of Shastas, who had been joined perhaps by John's and Sam's tribes after the Sunday night's work of the volunteers on Butte Creek--for the volunteers had attacked three encampments and killed twenty-four Indians, which Captain Waite and his soldiers buried on Monday, and enough more to make forty. It was supposed after this the Indians had come down Rogue River, burning and murdering all the way. They had attacked wagons, killed the men, and taken horses and whiskey and guns, and whatever else they could appropriate; and a mule train near Mr. Wagoner was left by the men when they saw the Indians firing the house and murdering the inmates. These men, in going to Jacksonville, had seen dead bodies all along the road. The house at Evans' ferry, eight miles from Wagoner's, Jones' house, four miles, and Wagoner's, and two further down toward the Willamette were reported and destroyed. With the scattered position of the people in Rogue River and Illinois valleys there can be no protection on the property, and the only safety of the people is in meeting and placing themselves in condition to defend their lives. The war is one of extermination, designed on both sides; but the Indians will of course be defeated. The government troops were immediately dispatched in chase down Rogue River Valley, under Major Fitzgerald. The Governor of California has ordered three companies sent up to Northern California, and yesterday the Columbia carried up troops to the Oregon.
    There is a general combination of the Indians in Washington and Oregon territories, and the war will be a very bloody one, not equaled for atrocity in the annals of the past, perhaps.

    On Friday evening last Miss Pellet, who had returned from a tour through Southern Oregon, delivered a lecture on the subject of Temperance to a very large and attentive audience at the Presbyterian Church in this city. Only once or twice before have we seen the building so well filled. The novelty of hearing a lady lecturer certainly attracted many, although it strikes us that the apparent disinterestedness and self-sacrifice of one of the weaker sex in a good and great cause is of itself sufficient to enlist the attention of a community. Whatever Miss Pellet's personal predilections may be in regard to traveling, her mission through a country like the one she has just visited enjoins certainly many hardships to undergo which requires no little courage sustained by a deep conviction of the importance of the cause engaged in.
    Miss Pellet spoke perhaps for an hour or more of the evils which are found everywhere in the train of intemperance, and some of her remarks cannot have fallen fruitless to the ground. Temperance, whether we regard it as total abstinence, or merely moderation in our enjoyments,`` is one of the cardinal virtues of society; if we would oftener contemplate and ponder on its excellencies, many of the rougher shoals on which numbers around us make shipwreck of their happiness, might be avoided, and the argument used by Miss Pellet that the reputation of California for intemperance has done more to retard immigration from the other parts of the Union than all other causes put together--will hardly find a contradiction.
    Contrary to expectation the steamer did not arrive on Saturday, and by request, Miss Pellet delivered a second lecture at the church. This time her subject was the expediency of a prohibitory liquor law. She spoke for more than two hours, we believe, without any apparent signs of fatigue, and the audience continued attentive and apparently well interested in her arguments, seasoned with some good stories. Inasmuch as the prohibitory law is intended to correct and limit only the traffic in liquors, we think it is fast winning for itself the popular favor, and at no distant date, we hope, may be found on our statute book. Total abstinence is an extreme to realize, which is hoping too much; but a limitation or restriction in the traffic of liquors is not only practicable, but demanded by sound morals and good policy. Miss Pellet declares the advocacy of a prohibitory law to be the only object of her lectures, and we entertain little doubt but that her efforts will be crowned with success.
    At the conclusion of her lecture a petition for a division of the Sons of Temperance at this place was signed by a number of persons, so that in a few weeks a society of that kind will be permanently organized in this city.
Crescent City Herald, October 17, 1855, page 2


    TEMPERANCE ADDRESS.--A very interesting address on Temperance was delivered by Miss Pellet last evening at the Sacramento theater. The house was literally jammed, and the address was listened to attentively throughout.
Sacramento Daily Union, December 17, 1855, page 2


    MISS PELLET.--This indefatigable apostle of temperance will lecture to the people of Nevada on her favorite subject at Frisbie's Theater on Sunday evening next, should the weather be suitable. Turn out and "shell" out, ye sons of temperance and sons of Bacchus!
Nevada Journal, Nevada City, California, December 28, 1855, page 2


    Miss Sarah Pellet, who made a flying trip through Oregon as a temperance lecturer last fall, has left California for the States. It will be seen by the following extract from a letter we received by the last mail that the political aspects of the country are still engaging her attention:
    My Dear Sir--I much regret that I have no intelligence as yet from Oregon, except through the papers. I left the Rogue River country just as the war was commencing; escaping the attack by a few minutes only. I have not as yet heard directly from the war there. I have written to you once, but it occurs to me to write again.    *    *    *
    The political aspect of California skies is still rather dark. It is not certain yet what will be done by the Legislature. A Senator may be sent to Congress, but it is doubtful. Foote and Crabb and a half score of others will contest the ground. There is a strong sentiment in Southern California in favor of slavery and state division, but the revolution of such a wish on the part of a candidate for the Senatorship will not procure him votes, I think, even in the K.N. Legislature.
    But I will not write much this morning--am not in the mood. Wishing you much success, I am very respectfully,
Oregon Argus, Oregon City, January 12, 1856, page 2


    TEMPERANCE.--Miss Pellet delivered one of her characteristic addresses on temperance in the Assembly Chamber last evening, to a full house, including a large representation of ladies. The address was introduced by a duet, sung by two amateurs (gentlemen), and a prayer by the Rev. Mr. Cummings.
Sacramento Daily Union, January 14, 1856, page 2


    A preacher, advertising herself as "Miss Sarah Pellet, a graduate of Oberlin," delivered a discourse last Sunday, in this city, taking for her text the words, "Stand up, I myself also am a man." If Pellet is a man, what right has he to advertise himself as a woman?--N.Y. Observer.
Defiance Democrat, Defiance, Ohio, January 19, 1856, page 5


    STEAMERS TO SAIL.--The Stephens and Sierra Nevada are advertised to leave this morning, but, judging from their usual custom, they will not probably get away before afternoon. The price of passage on Saturday was, on the Stephens, first cabin, $250; second do., $175; steerage, $110. On the Sierra Nevada, first cabin, $200; second do., $150; steerage, $100. Col. Kewen and lady, Miss Pellet, Dr. J. B. Phinney and lady, and about one hundred others, will go on the latter to Nicaragua, which will furnish quite a reinforcement to Walker's little army.
Daily Alta California, January 21, 1856, page 2


    FEMALE LECTURERS.--Lately was chronicled by the press with more or less unction, according to the gallantry of editors, or their want of the same courteous quality, the exodus of a strong-minded woman from our shores.
    It is whispered, she was more provident in her apostolic peregrinations than the twelve of old. Rumor has it that she provided her purse with the necessary against a rainy day, to the tune of $25.000. This can hardly be true, yet such has been the scarcity of women in certain parts of the mining region that Miss Pellet could not fail to accumulate something of a pile by merely exhibiting herself in woman's array at two bits a sight. Simple curiosity to see a woman would have emptied hundreds of gulches of their crop of old bachelors. But when it was announced that she would spout cold water to the miners, there was a charm of novelty about the thing that could not be resisted. Open-mouthed listeners faced a column of oracular Merrimack, heard their much-loved beverage unmercifully berated and paid for the abuse with the same liberal spirit, and from the same motive that they would pay to witness the antics of a wooden-headed Punch.
    Miss Pellet suffered more wear and tear of body than of mind, in her ejaculating circuits among the hills. No one who ever heard her went away with a feeling of sorrow that an overtaxed intellect was wearing itself out. Water was her element, but she dabbled in it where it was shallow. The stream that flowed from her lips was "one weak, washy, everlasting flood," muddy and tasteless. In a word, Miss Pellet was a humbug. Whatever praise may have been courteously bestowed upon her, we challenge her pretended admirers to produce a single sentence of hers that exhibits a mark of individuality, or proves talent in the least above mediocrity. But she has gone, and in her stead has come another lecturer of her sex, and of a different order. The one was a type of the age of bronze, the other of the age of gold.
    Mrs. Farnham is a woman of mind, of culture, and of large observation and experience. Men will listen to her lectures for the wealth of thought and beauty of language which characterize them. She fills a house, and keeps the audience interested in her subject, which she handles in masterly style. Every sentence that drops from her lips bears it with a burden of thought. There is nothing trivial or commonplace in her discourses, no bluestocking affectation, or ranting of a moral reform exhorter. Her address is made to the understanding, the taste, the intellect.
    We understand Mrs. Farnham will visit this city next week, when our citizens will have an opportunity of hearing subjects well treated in the strongest, yet finest language by a woman.
    We are not particularly well disposed towards female lecturers, but as even cold water papers say, "if you will drink go to friend Teal's and get the genuine article," so we say, if you will hear female lecturers, go and get the worth of your time and money in listening to Mrs. Farnham.
Nevada Journal, Nevada City, California, February 8, 1856, page 2


    MISS PELLET.--A private letter from Miss Pellet appears in the Chronicle, which we herewith subjoin:
    DEAR SIR:--I have scarce a word to write today. I have made a flying trip through Nicaragua--seen the beauty of this fine country, the customs of the people, the strength and security of the government and the confidence the people seem to place in it. The people honor the power that has given them quiet, and though it is not native to the soil, so their rights and property are respected, they hail peace from such a quarter. There is no danger of revolt, I am confident. The native forces are being disbanded, by the advice of the native officers, and are returning quietly to their homes, where they are so much needed. The adult men in the whole republic are not more than one to five of the women, and the labor of all is needed to preserve the present condition of things, to say nothing of restoring the past--the plantations that are desolate.
    You know Judge Campbell, and saw the notice of his death by the last steamer? He had not completed his intended report of his visit to the Nicaragua mining regions, but in his brief tarry he had won universal esteem, and respect for him made him missed when he died. He would perhaps have been supreme judge of the republic, had he lived. Clay, too, his companion in his tour to the mines, followed him in a few days. Granada is quite healthy now, though some are sick. Randolph and Messrs. Kewen and McDonald are each recovering from acclimated fever. Adios.
    P.S.--We are regretting that there are so few down from California by this steamer--so few to stop on the Isthmus. I want to have Walker sustained. There are elements of character in the man that give me the assurance of his success.
Sacramento Daily Union, March 29, 1856, page 1


    LAMENTABLE.--There are sixteen drinking saloons in Weaverville, and what is worse, Miss Pellet has been there, so that the people cannot plead ignorance of the effect of bad spirits on the system.
Sacramento Daily Union, February 27, 1856, page 2


    Miss SARAH PELLET writes a letter from Nicaragua to the Golden Era. She says she is delighted with Virgin Bay, and from the tenor of her letter, we are led to infer that she has joined Walker's army. Fast country this! our women turning filibusters too. England had better take the sober second thought in regard to the threatened war with us, as our army of "strong-minded women" would be hard to beat.
Trinity Journal, Weaverville, California, March 1, 1856, page 2


    MISS PELLET.--This lady, so well known to every American, has been spending a week at Leon. She was escorted to that city by Lieut. Col. E. J. Sanders. We are anxious to welcome her back to Granada.
"Nicaragua," Sacramento Daily Union, March 10, 1856, page 2


    THE LECTURE ON NICARAGUA.--In the present state of feeling upon the question of Nicaragua, no doubt exists that Miss Sarah Pellet will be greeted with a large audience. The Central American states have been directly intruded upon the public mind in the past few years, by reason of our acquisition of California, with the necessity of a connectlon across the Isthmus. Perhaps there is no portion of our continent of which less is known by the American people than of them. Miss Pellet offers, as regards Nicaragua, an opportunity this evening for such instruction. Her long residence in the country would well quality her for the task. She brings testimonials of the highest character from the newspapers to the southward of us, and others of a more private nature.
Savannah Daily Georgian, Savannah, Georgia, May 22, 1856, page 1


    At the present time, when Central American affairs are attracting so much attention, a lecture on Nicaragua will be listened to with more than ordinary interest. Such a lecture will be delivered tonight at St. Andrew's Hall by Miss SARAH PELLET, a talented and accomplished young lady, who comes to us recommended by letters from many leading men of the country, and who is spoken of in the most complimentary terms by our cotemporaries of other cities where she has lectured.
    The New Orleans True Delta, speaking of her lecture in that city, says: "Others have told us of the geology of the country, its agricultural and commercial resources, the rude aboriginal relics of the land of the mosquitoes and mahogany, the painted and sculptured rocks, the idols and monuments of Rusacola and Tyapateco, the plains and plazas of Jutibucat and Tegucigalpa. But she entertained us with what is perhaps much more interesting--the alternating reverses and successes of the present government, which she now holds is permanently established. We were pleased with the modest and ladylike manner in which Miss Pellet read her lecture."
    The Crescent, in a notice of the same lecture, says--
    "Miss P. has traveled extensively over Nicaragua, made the acquaintance of the prominent men there, looked at the grand old mountains, smiling plains and fertile valleys, and has, withal, taken notes by the wayside, which render her amply competent to speak knowingly in the premises. Besides, she is a warm advocate of the cause of true freedom and genuine progress in Central America; believes in the "manifest destiny" of her countrymen; and thinks the time is not far distant when the blessings of civil and religious liberty will be extended as far southward as the Isthmus of Darien."
    Miss PELLET has only recently returned from California, over which she traveled as a temperance lecturer, and where she contributed much to the advancement of the temperance cause. The Jackson Mississippian, noticing her lecture on California, which she repeated in that city by request of numerous citizens, says--
    "Of the ability and accomplishments of this lady it is unnecessary to speak to those who heard her previous lectures. Concerning her abundant opportunities to become acquainted with the theme on which she will lecture, we cannot speak better than to copy the following notice of her departure from California, which state she visited as a temperance reformer. The Sierra Citizen, a paper of wide circulation, says:
    "'We see it announced in several of our exchanges that Miss Pellet is about to end her California mission and return to the Atlantic, and thence perhaps to Europe. She is certainly a remarkable woman--her name will be closely identified with the history of the state, and be spoken with respect as one who stepped out from among the more timid and less adventurous of her sex, traveling on a mission of peace through the deep gorges of the Sierras, among the rough adventurers of the mountains, speaking words of friendly exhortation and encouragement to thousands who had nearly forgotten the tones of woman's voice, but still maintaining that womanly dignity which distinguishes her sex in their humbler spheres. She accomplished more than all the other reformers, and, in after years, when the moral vineyard hangs with clustering grapes, when the husbandman has rooted out the last noxious weed, and looks with pride over his goodly heritage, he may perhaps be reminded by his helpmate that a woman first brought into the unhewn forest the olive and the vine.'
    "Other notices of the services of this accomplished and excellent woman in the Golden State, paying still more glowing tributes to her worth, are before us, but we have no room to copy them. We learn from them that she visited both California and Oregon, giving more than 800 public lectures, and assisting in the organization of scores of divisions of the Sons of Temperance, to the aid of which society her efforts were directed, and were received gladly everywhere."
    The engagements of Miss PELLET will only permit her to give one lecture in Savannah at this time. We hope she will be greeted with a large attendance. Coming but recently from the scene of action, having left Virgin Bay the day after Schlessinger's defeat, she is enabled to give a vivid and faithful description of the condition of affairs on the Isthmus. The ladies cannot fail to be interested in that unsettled country, and we trust our temperance friends will give a cordial and encouraging welcome to a deserving lady who has done so much for their cause.
Savannah Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, May 22, 1856, page 2


Savannah Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, May 22, 1856, page 2


    Miss PELLET will lecture in Charleston, on Monday evening, on NICARAGUA. She was in Columbia last night.
Daily Chronicle & Sentinel, Augusta, Georgia, May 25, 1856, page 2


    A FEMALE TO GO ON THE STUMP.--The Syracuse Journal intimates that Miss Sarah Pellet, whilom book pedlar on the cars, is to take the stump for the Republican nominee. She is to "run" the polygamy plank.
"All Sorts of Items," Auburn Weekly American, Auburn, New York, June 25, 1856, page 5


    The Syracuse Journal intimates that Miss Sarah Pellet is to take the stump for the Republican nominees.
Savannah Daily Republican, Savannah, Georgia, June 30, 1856, page 3


    Miss Sarah Pellet is delivering lectures in Savannah upon Nicaragua, its society, manners, customs, and a complete description of the Rivas and Walker governments.
"General Gossip," Wide West, San Francisco, July 13, 1856, page 3


    "AID AND COMFORT."--Miss Sarah Pellet, who lectured here last winter upon Nicaragua, we see it stated, is about to take the stump in New York for Fremont. The Syracuse Journal announces that Miss P. "had the most favorable opportunities to become acquainted with the plans and operations of Southern men, and will do us good service during the summer in our campaign for self-preservation."
Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, Augusta, Georgia, July 13, 1856, page 3


    FREMONT ALL SAFE!--Mr. (we beg his pardon) Miss Sarah Pellet, Esq., has taken the stump for Fremont and Dayton, and of course, Women's Rights. What's the price of whiskey now, Sarah?
Crescent City Herald, July 30, 1856, page 2




    MISS PELLET.--Miss Pellet is about to return to the Eastern States via the Plains. She will leave about the first of June.
Daily Alta California, May 2, 1857, page 2


    MISS PELLET.--This fair disciple of Father Matthew was present on Monday at the Wagon Road Convention, now in session in Sacramento. A delegate moved that a committee be appointed to escort the divinity heroine within the bar of the Senate chamber, but before he had an opportunity of giving his gallantry a practical turn, the strong-minded damsel had fled the room.
Daily Alta California, San Francisco, May 14, 1857, page 2


    REJECTED.--Miss Pellet offered a resolution, through the secretary, to the Sacramento Wagon Road Convention, which was summarily laid on or under the table. It refers to the high prices of passage to the Atlantic States by the sea line, to the facilities for crossing the plains, the value of mules and horses, &c., &c.
Daily Alta California, San Francisco, May 15, 1857, page 2


    SARAH PELLET ON HER TRAVELS.--Miss Sarah Pellet recently lost her portmonnaie containing the following articles, according to the inventory of the finders: A free pass on the Illinois Central Railroad; one co., on Michigan Central Railroad; one do. from the C.S.N. Co.; an order for fifty copies of the Prohibitionist; a bill of lading of seven boxes, "said to contain clothing"; three more railroad checks; a free pass on the Terre Haute, Alton, and St. Louis Railroad; another on the Illinois Central; another on the New York Central; another on the Indianapolis, Pittsburg and Cleveland; five autographs of S.P.; one lead pencil, 2¼ inches long, sharp at one end; two brass pins; twelve three-cent postage stamps; one ten-cent do.; a small snarl of black sewing silk; two needles, one coarse and one fine; nine red wafers and a pair of small scissors.
Marysville Daily Herald, October 8, 1857, page 2


    Miss Sarah Pellet, the reformer, has turned up again. She proposes to forward to California a consignment of 5000 marriageable girls from the New England States. They are to be consigned to the various divisions of the Sons of Temperance, who are to provide for their wants, husbands included.
Red Bluff Beacon, May 26, 1858, page 1


    Miss Sarah Pellet, a young lady who has been in Utah, is delivering lectures in Boston on the Mormons.
Daily Gazette, Vincennes, Indiana, June 21, 1858, page 3


    . . . Miss Sarah Pellet, the ex-Walker-Nicaragua lecturer, ex-Fremont stump orator, ex-woman's privileges advocate, and now the Pacific and Ocean electric telegraph friend.
"Saratoga, [New York,]" Daily Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, August 28, 1858, page 1


    The veteran editor of the Virginia (Nevada) Trespass, formerly a Californian, relates the following:--Something of a moral view of the Pacific Railroad, different from that of the San Francisco preacher in his Sunday lecture, was that of the miner in a mountain town in California in 1856. Miss Pellet was expatiating on the great injury which whiskey had done to the morals of the country, and, swelling with inspiration, said she, "What, indeed, my friends, do you suppose would be the difference to your fair state today, if some arbitrary edict had forbidden the admission of a drop of liquor through the Golden Gate?" Just here were the sensation was supposed to come in, as the speaker paused, a tall miner arose, and, as respectfully as the language could be delivered, said: "By ---, madam, we'd have had the Pacific railroad!"
Weekly Trinity Standard, Weaverville, California, August 29, 1868, page 1


    NEEDED CORRECTION.--A scrap of Southern Oregon history just published in the Dalles Mountaineer, with regard to an occurrence alleged to have taken place here in 1855, is untrue and should be corrected. The Mountaineer states that a temperance lecturess, Miss Pellet, together with the audience, was driven by the Captain of Company A out of the courthouse. This is an aspersion on the courage of as brave a community as ever lived and the gallantry of as true manhood as Oregon ever saw. The real facts are that Captain Smiley Harris, afterwards forced out of the service for cowardice, did while intoxicated attempt to interrupt Miss Pellet, but he was promptly put down, and the lady attentively and respectively listened to until the close of her lecture. There are many now living in Jacksonville who attended the lecture and pronounce the Mountaineer's statement grossly exaggerated.
Oregon Sentinel, Jacksonville, February 18, 1880, page 3  The issue of the Mountaineer referred to is not on the microfilm of that newspaper and presumably lost.


    Miss Sarah Pellet was the cause of it all. Her line was temperance. She came into the northern mines in 1855 with a mission--to stop the miners from drinking away their gold. Unfortunately she was the indirect cause of two men facing each other with double-barreled shotguns at 40 yards.
    This is the tale of the long-forgotten Tevis-Lippincott duel--a unique story in California's record of formalized murder.
    IN THE HARD-drinking1850s temperance was a mighty forlorn hope, and nowhere more so than in the tough mining camps of California. It is here recorded that whole mining camps--including the Chinamen--made the week between Christmas and New Year's one continuous bender. But faith sustained Miss Pellet, and there she came--to save the lost souls.
    Sarah was "well put up, but dragonish." That was Miss Pellet, from her corkscrew curls to her white cotton stockings. She was a novelty, however, because women had not yet come to the mining camps in any great number. A woman's place was in the home, and wives addressed their husbands as Mister. So what the heck kind of business was it for a middle-aged female to go traipsin' round tough mining camps preaching temperance?
    THE NEWSPAPERS of the area made some mighty sarcastic remarks about Miss Pellet when she undertook to establish societies of the Sons of Temperance. All, that is, except the newspaper in Downieville. The editor rebuked the camps farther down the mountain and invited Sarah to come to Downieville and do her stuff. And the crusader came.
    About this time young Robert Tevis was nursing political aspirations, with his eye on a seat in Congress. He was in his early 30s and not long from Kentucky. Bob came from a good family and had a certain aristocratic intolerance common to Southerners at that time. He was an ardent hunter and a sure shot.
    THE FOURTH of July celebration was drawing near and the committee was looking around for somebody to deliver the regular Fourth oration. In those days rival camps bid as high as a thousand dollars to secure the services of a silver tongue for the "exercises." It was a point of pride to have the ringtailedest word slinger obtainable for the occasion.
    Young Tevis wanted the job--it provided the opportunity to rise and shine before the electorate of Downieville. It was a terrible blow when Sarah Pellet was chosen as orator, and he was given the lesser honor of reading the Declaration of Independence. The brooding Kentuckian accepted, with the stipulation that he should have the privilege of adding some "explanatory notes" to his reading.
    THE BIG DAY arrived and miners came trooping in from Kanaka Gulch, Slug Canyon, Indian Valley and Goodyear's Bar. When everybody was well lickered, and the last of the St. Charles ham was gone, they trooped across the bridge to Jersey Flat for the exercises.
    Robert Tevis, every inch the aristocrat, stepped to the rail and gave his reading. Finishing that, he launched upon the "explanatory notes" and it soon became apparent that he was working for himself with election in mind and might talk forever. Meanwhile the orator of the day, Sarah Pellet, had to sit while the youngster stole her spotlight.
    One of the committeemen finally arose and forced Robert to make his bow and quit. He took his seat, white with rage. Sarah got her innings then.
    DOWNIEVILLE was delighted at the way Robert Tevis had cheated the female orator. Senator Charles Lippincott did not agree, however, and inserted an item in the newspaper flaying Tevis neatly.
    Next day editor MacDonald received a visit from young Tevis, who inserted an article of his own in the next issue of the paper, characterizing Senator Lippincott as a "liar and slanderer." It was cause for "satisfaction " Lippincott's seconds waited upon the Kentucky youth immediately. Being the challenged party, he dictated that weapons should be double-barreled shotguns loaded with ounce balls at 40 yards.
J. Barton Hassler, "Portals of the Past," Mountain Democrat, Placerville, California, January 7, 1965, page B2

    Senator Lippincott had challenged Robert Tevis to a duel. Double-barreled shotguns loaded with ounce balls at 40 yards. Downieville was agog with excitement.
    CONSTERNATION reigned in the Odd Fellows lodge. Both principals had memberships. Brothers visited Lippincott and Tevis. "Several times the difficulty was supposed to be settled, but as often it would be renewed by certain chivalric vagabonds who seemed eager to see bloodshed when not flowing from their own veins!"
    Peace negotiations failed. The sheriff tried to keep an eye upon the two principals, but they eluded him and went on horseback to a little flat high on the northerly ridge of North Fork Canyon. Two doctors and the seconds accompanied them. A somber and dour place.
    JUST WHEN the seconds were pacing off the ground the sheriff and a posse were seen coming up the hill. Immediately the murder party mounted and crossed the line into Yuba County, not far away. The peace officer was stopped by an invisible mark through the pine needles. There in a similar glade the combat took place. The seconds measured off the ground just as the light was beginning to fail and blue shadows were pushing down from the ridge. Tevis won the toss for position and chose the higher ground. The loaded weapons were placed in the duelists' hands. A contemporary account follows:
    "LIPPINCOTT was a low, heavy-set man with light hair, piercing black eyes and resolute speech . . . Mr. Tevis was a tall, spare man, of a highly nervous and excitable temperament. He came from Kentucky and possessed the ideas of chivalry and honor prevailing in the South.
    "The combatants took their places 40 yards apart; the ground was a little sloping and the highest situation fell to Tevis. The sun was going down upon the peace and happiness of two families far away. The word was given; both guns cracked at the same instant. Tevis sank down, shot directly through the heart; and a lock of hair fell from near Lippincott's ear.
    "The fallen man had not made the necessary allowance for descending ground; and his murderous lead had passed directly over his adversary's left shoulder, just grazing his face."
    SO DIED Robert Tevis, the young man who had thought to steal some Fourth of July thunder to advance his candidacy for Congress. The body was taken to Downieville and interred in the bleak cemetery.
    As for Miss Sarah Pellet (who caused the whole thing), she seemed to have a positive genius for scattering trouble from her crinoline. Editor MacDonald says that after the Sons of Temperance fell back into sin in Downieville, she carried the torch into the wilds of Oregon. There, while a gallant settler acted as a guide through the wilderness, Indians descended upon his homestead during his absence, slaughtered his family and burned his cabin.
    AFTERWARD she returned across the plains to the East and operated a woman's suffrage organization in Syracuse. The trail of death behind her did not seem to bother Sarah and she continued sweeping back the sea of rum with her little broom until her death many years later.
    Looking back across the years it seems as if a strange fatality attached itself to Downieville's early celebrations of the Fourth of July. At the camp's first big blowoff in 1850 a man got 39 lashes on his bare back before the eyes of a blood-hungry crowd. The next Fourth witnessed the hanging of Juanita (recorded in this column earlier). A man was shot and killed the following year. And then, in 1855, came the famous Tevis-Lippincott duel.
    A man had to be careful in the northern mines during the early Gold Rush. Death could come swiftly.
J. Barton Hassler, "Portals of the Past," Mountain Democrat, Placerville, California, January 14, 1965, page B2