One
--------------------------------------
ECHOES FROM COLOMA
1849 – 1860
“The untransacted destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent — to rush over this vast field to the Pacific Ocean — to animate the many hundred millions of its people, and to cheer them upward — to set the principle of self-government at work — to agitate these herculean masses — to establish a new order in human affairs — to set free the enslaved — to regenerate superannuated nations — to change darkness into light — to stir up the sleep of a hundred centuries — to teach old nations a new civilization — to confirm the destiny of the human race — to carry the career of mankind to its culminating point — to cause stagnant people to be re-born — to perfect science — to emblazon history with the conquest of peace — to shed a new and resplendent glory upon mankind — to unite the world in one social family — to dissolve the spell of tyranny and exalt charity — to absolve the curse that weighs down humanity, and to shed blessings round the world!” “Divine task! Immortal mission!”
-- William Gilpin, March 2, 1846
"Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"
-- Sam Brannan, May 12, 1848
“It was known that mines of the precious metals existed to a considerable extent in California at the time of its acquisition. Recent discoveries render it probable that these mines are more extensive and valuable than was anticipated. The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service who have visited the mineral district and derived the facts which they detail from personal observation.”
– President James K. Polk, State of the Union Address, December 5, 1848
1849
Malone, New York
Wednesday, September 5th
William Green Dickinson was an impatient man. No Saturday wedding for him. Saturday was the busiest day at the mercantile. So here he was, knotting a gray tie at sunrise, as he did every day. But instead of putting on an apron and walking the wide-planked aisles of the store, checking inventory, he, accompanied by his father and stepmother in their finery, crowded on to the carriage to the courthouse, where he would take the hand of Sarah Florence King.
Sarah, heading to that stone building from her home in a carriage with her parents, was a fine young woman. Her people had ventured west from Vermont to Malone, just as William Green’s father Joshua had. Their courtship, born at a Christmas cotillion not long after Sarah’s 18th birthday, lasted a year and a half, sustained by Saturday evening dances and Sunday afternoon teas.
William Green, a couple of years older than Sarah, was protective of her. She was small-boned, a songbird, a wren or sparrow. And he, a large man, was always on the lookout for loss. His name told you that.
He wasn’t William or William G. or Will. From a young age, he insisted on being called William Green Dickinson. His name was the way he held on to his mother, Louisa Green Dickinson. His birth in June 1826 was the cause of her death; there was no way around it. The labor, more than a day, had been difficult. Louisa never left the bed where she had delivered her son. One morning, four weeks later, the nurse found her. She thought Louisa was sleeping, but she could not be roused. The doctor was unable to say why.
***
William Green Dickinson grew up in a home where every record of his mother’s life had been erased. His father never spoke of Louisa again. After a suitable time of mourning, Joshua married again, to Adaline Sargent, whose family, like his and Louisa’s, had crossed the border from Vermont. They quickly had three sons of their own. William Green was treated just as well as the other boys. That wasn’t the problem. The issue was the silence about what had come before.
Prior to his father’s second marriage, there had been a small oil painting of his father and mother that had hung in the front parlor. William Green, not more than five, found it face down in the sideboard in the dining room. He took the painting to his room and placed it atop his bureau. His father and his stepmother never said a word. Nor did they talk about William Green’s regular visits to the family plot in the cemetery, behind the iron gate. There was a lot of empty space on the hill inside the fence, but only two markers, a spire for his mother and twenty paces away, a slab for Uncle Luther’s first wife. Both men had remarried and started new families. The unmistakable message from William Green’s afternoons in the cemetery – death is coming; life moves on.
And I thought I had an uncertain, solitary childhood.
It was odd that his mother, two decades gone, would dominate his thoughts on this, his wedding day. Would he and Sarah have a good long run? What triumphs and tragedies would they know? It was not uncommon for William Green to ruminate, but he had to work hard to push away these unwelcome thoughts on this, the most joyous of days.
The ceremony had been simple. A simple box of a room lined with bound legal volumes. The only flowers, a bunch of New England aster that Sarah clutched. A rail-thin justice of the peace said the prescribed words. William Green and Sarah uttered their “I dos.” Kisses and busses on the cheeks were offered by both sets of parents. And now, a three hour carriage ride later, they were in the Province of Canada in a small inn overlooking the St. Lawrence. William Green had a halting exchange with the innkeeper. “Très peu” had been his response to whether they would require the use of the carriage later in the day.
“Non, nous ne sortirons pas,” Sarah said. The innkeeper smiled. William Green looked relieved.
He carried Sarah over the threshold of their room. “I wish I could have offered you Paris, my darling. Or even Montreal.”
“You silly man, don’t you know, you are my world?”
William Green smiled. He had chosen well.
After refusing dinner, the two of them were awkward and clumsy with each other, their hearts beating outside their chests. In the quiet that came after, William Green thought this moment was every bit as enjoyable as their union before. He could feel Sarah’s pulse course below his fingertips resting on her hip. In the darkness, the only sounds were the thunder of the occasional steam engine and the shouts of the rivermen below.
These were trains and boats heading west. Sure, William Green Dickinson had experienced some pangs when the rumors and then the reports of California gold appeared in the paper and in discussions at the store. The thought of the challenging journey west or working the icy streams in the spring runoff or the blazing sun of summer held little appeal. Instead, he envied the men, like him, in places like St. Louis and Independence, who were outfitting the gold seekers. They were selling rakes and pans, anvils and wagon wheels. Down at his mercantile, William Green was selling the things he always had – brooms, canning supplies, undergarments. His dreams were bigger than this.
But, for now, it was one more night with Sarah at this inn in Saint-Anicet. Saturday morning, William Green would be back on the floor at the mercantile.
댓글