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Unlike most people who believe they have a book stuck in their gut somewhere, I know I do. I’ve been thinking long and hard about what to write, and I believe I’ve finally found the answer. So on January 2, I started work ... resumed it, actually, picking up the trail I embarked upon more than four years ago. Back then I was consumed researching a series of historical pieces for my website about the structure housing my wine shop (and now restaurant), Carpe Vino, Old Town’s former Union Saloon. The deeper I dug into the Placer County Archives at the DeWitt Center, the more I lusted to learn the minutia about the larger-than-life characters who lived and died in the this compact enclave once known as “Lower Town.” For starters there was Frank H. “Big Dip” Dependener, a Placer County Deputy Sheriff, one of the best known and most feared lawmen in Northern California for 27 years spanning the turn of the 20th century. He was straight from central casting—an imposing six feet, seven inches tall, Big Dip was a giant among men—especially intimidating to the flood of Asian immigrants who chose to stay in Auburn following completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Big Dip was a one-time partner in the Union Saloon, but his true fame stems from tracking, and sometimes shooting it out with bad men all over the county. Lesser in stature but an equally standout personality was Sheriff Elmer H. Gum, Big Dip’s boss for a time, who busted moonshiners during Prohibition with the same level of enthusiasm as our modern-day DEA officers who sniff out marijuana plots secreted in the ravines. Starting in 1929 and setting a technology standard perpetuated by Auburn’s contemporary police administration, Gum packed a Thompson submachine gun insisting it was essential for keeping Placer County free of undesirables.
And then there was the most infamous of anyone Auburn born and bred,
Adolph Julius Weber, a young man who, in May of 1904, staged an
outrageous daylight robbery relieving Placer County Bank on Commercial
St. in Lower Town of more than $6,000 in cash and gold coins. He got
away cleanly but months later, he was undone, presumably by his father,
Julius, who may have discovered Adolph’s illicit cache in the family
barn. We’ll never know for sure because Adolph kept a date with a
Folsom Prison hangman insisting that he was not the one who murdered
all four of his family members and then set fire to their home on the
hill above Brewery Lane. From highwayman Richard “Rattlesnake Dick” Barter to prospector Claude
Chana to the unforgiving Judge J.E. Prewitt to Shanghai Restaurant and
Bar owner Charlie Yue, Auburn’s past yields a rich tableau of flesh and
blood players. Yet what I find equally compelling are the folk who made
Auburn home after the hillsides and rivers refused to surrender any
more precious metal. Their everyday lives are chronicled on the same
pallid, parchment pages of the Placer Herald as the ne’er do wells and
adventure seekers. A classic example is the short life of Mabel Eloise Gregory as
eloquently reported in her obituary in the May 28, 1904 edition of the
Placer Herald. She died at the home of her parents and her age isn’t
given, but she was young and had been felled by malaria. She was
married to a young man employed by the railroad, who abruptly moved her
to Rocklin where she soon contracted the fever. She convalesced for the
better part of a year, and in that time she became pregnant with her
first child. Her baby daughter was born on May 10th and weighed just four pounds.
Mother and child stubbornly clung to life, struggling mightily for five
days before Mabel’s strength gave out. Here are death notice excerpts
that I found particularly moving and well written, given the time, and
imagery you will never see replicated today: “With the dawn of day, May 15th, at the home of her parents, near Cool,
the bright young soul of Mabel Eloise Gregory passed to the Great
Beyond, where a thousand years is but as a day of life on this earth. “... owing to a weak heart, the young mother could not survive her
terrible sufferings and breathed her last at the dawn of light on
Sunday, and with the twilight of the same day the baby soul joined its
mother. The remains of mother and babe were placed together in a
beautiful white casket and laid to rest in the beautiful cemetery at
Georgetown. A large number of the friends of the deceased showed their
affection for her by going the thirty mile journey to lay her to rest.
... Loving friends lined the grave with white and ferns, and tiers of
beautiful floral tributes; silent offerings of esteem for her who had
crossed the dark river ere her sun had fairly risen, leaving a loving
husband desolate, her devoted parents heart-broken, a loving sister and
two brothers inconsolable, that they can hardly say calmly, ‘Thy will
be done.’” The obituary ended with this poem: “Over the hearts that grieve
Be Heaven’s own solace spread;
Their loved one is not dead,
But rather sweetly sleeping;
In death the angels found her,
And into tender keeping
The dying life has been taken.
Bleed not, Oh mother’s heart,
As if of God forsaken.
Sweet sleeper, thus transplanted
Beyond the changing skies,
Beyond fickle hopes of earth,
A flower of Paradise,
A gem in Heaven’s own setting,
Be thou a beacon star
To those who mourn,
Their toilsome footsteps lighting
To thy sweet home; in earth’s dim gaze afar.” Last week I found myself driving up to Georgetown to find Mabel’s
grave. I had to know what was written on her headstone, though the
reason is not clear to me. The ancient cemetery has the worn look of a
graveyard dating back to 1850, and I searched every corner under a
weeping sky for nearly two hours, yet I came up empty. There are pioneers laid to rest everywhere and at least 50 family
plots, but the most common headstone reads “Unknown.” I am desperate to
know if Mabel and her sweet child are lost for all time. I’m convinced there is powerful story here and someone should tell it ... might as well be me. Gary Moffat is a journalist and he owns Carpe Vino in Old Town Auburn. He can be reached at
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