A story of epic intrigue and mystery that is the SECRET SOCIETY OF THE OWL...
I got to read allot about the history in the area while I was making this series of caches, but this is truly one of my favorite articles out of the Chispas. This cache is placed near the Jamestown Methodist Church that Mr. Mulford describes he used as a schoolhouse in the article below.
Patrick Mulford was born on Long Island in 1834. At 21 he shipped on a clipper from New York to San Francisco. He worked as a ship’s cook, school teacher, cowboy, barkeeper, bankman, mailman, clerk and gold digger. Then he discovered the pleasure of writing. Prentice Mulford’s pen has touched the minds of millions of people throughout the western world. Today he is better remembered in Europe where he spent his later years.
In the United States he is best known for his humorous portraits of life on the California gold frontier, In Tuolumne County he wrote for the Union Democrat under the name “Dogberry”. His humor quickley made him well known and popular.
Mulford’s exam to become a teacher at Jamestown was conducted by the school board consisting of a saloon keeper, the camp blacksmith and the local doctor. Mulford describes his examination in the following CHISPA,
Doctor D -- took up this volume, opened it, peered into it through those scientific spectacles with an air of fierce profundity, glared over its top at me as if, already, he had mentally stewed me down to a cipher, and exclaimed, in a monotonous voice, “Spell ‘Cat’.” I obeyed: “C-a-t.” “Spell ‘Dog’.” I spelled: “D-o-g.” “Spell ‘Rat’.” “R-a-t.” “I beg your pardon, Doctor D --,” said I; “but I believe I am competent to spell words of one syllable.” “Spell ‘Man’.” said the Doctor, in the same dreary monotone. “M-a-n.” “Spell ‘Can’.” “C-a-n.” And in this way he exercised me for fifteen minutes in words of one syllable, then shut the book, threw it on the table, and said: “Young man, you’ll do to teach our school. I pity you from the bottom of my heart. For my part, I wouldn’t teach a district-school for $5,000 per month. Come, take a drink”.
As he spent time in Jamestown, Mulford found that Dr. D-- was the camp’s resident jokester and that nothing seemed serious in Jamestown. He also found that regular school attendance didn’t seem to be a matter of importance in Jamestown. Strong, growing sons of ranchers would show up a couple days a week; never enough to get into the school routine or to feel that it was necessary to them. Mulford’s “young lady scholars” were aware of the power they held over the male population. By fifteen they were going to balls and parites, taking buggy rides with suitors and receiving marriage proposals from young and old alike. They were not of a mind to do as they were told by a school master.
Mulford became an active member of the “Owls” who were a midnight society of Jamestown, composed of men who dressed in black gowns, cowls, and hoods with white crosses on the back. Doctor D -- was at their head. The Owls gathered late at night and made Mulford’s home their new gathering place. They seem to have spent time going over books and papers having to do with the sheriff’s office (the sheriff being one of the Owls), but it’s unclear what, if anything, they actually did. Mulford says:
It was funny, and pleasant. I liked it. But among the more quiet and sober people of Jamestown, it became at length rumored that a noise, as of revelry by night, was too often heard proceeding from the school-master’s room.
Mulford spent 2 years in his school located in a hot little church 200 yards from the Bella Union Saloon. He writes:
The school, the school-master, the “Owls” (many of whom had little owls in the school), pistols, knives, fun, and fights were at that time so mixed up that it is impossible to extricate them separately from the tangled web of my recollection
Mulford went on to have an active career after leaving Jamestown. His writing gives us a colorful look at life in early Jamestown.
