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THE EVENING NEWS

GOLD HILL, : : : MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1877

PIONEER PICNIC EXCURSION,

The Fourth Grand Bean-eating
Open Air Festival of the Old
Boys–How They Ate Beans and
Shot at Targets–Who Helped
Them Eat Beans–A Particularly
Social and Pleasant Time–A
Feast of Beans and Flow of Soul.

The fourth annual Picnic Excursion of the Pacific Coast Pioneers last Saturday was a grand and highly gratifying success. One of the special reporters of the NEWS who was present sent a brief telegraphic account of the target shooting, etc., and now gives a few details of the affair.

THE TRIP.

Thirty-six cars besides the commissary car were engaged for the occasion, but five or six of them were not needed. The weather was a fine and pleasant as could have been desired and everybody started out gay and happy with plenty of lunch, As the big train wound around the turns from Virginia and Gold Hill the whistles of the mining works sent forth their shrill and prolonged blasts of welcome, and the bands mingled their music with the responsive cheers of the joyous excursionists. In coming back, the locomotive Santiago, which was in the lead, did some pretty effectual responding from her powerful whistle. The train sped merrily over the road, stopping at various points to take on passengers and in due time arrived alongside the front fence of

TREADWAY'S RANCH.

In the suburbs of Carson. The green grass and numerous benches under the shady trees offered plenty of facilities and inducements for the spreading of lunches, and the luscious baked bean, the appetizing sandwich, the good boiled egg, and all that sort of thing found plenty of hungry and appreciative admirers. There were family, social, and other styles of circles, but all were bean-eating circles. Nobody forgot to bring along some beans. Farmer Treadway had also a big public lunch stand where there was plenty of baked beans and other eatables. There were plenty of refreshment stands about the grounds, and nobody had any occasion to suffer. Outside the grounds, along the road in front, were also numerous refreshment stands, and there we found the indefatigable Charley Legate with a full supply of the choicest ice cream in the country. Noon time is good time for lunch, and all seemed to recognize the eternal fitness of things in that respect. How many thousand people there were present could not well be estimated, for hundreds came in all sorts of carriages from all parts of the country. Everybody and his wife was there, and all seemed to have brought their babies along. At any rate there were more little children and babies present than we remember to have seen on any similar occasion. And they were just as happy, playing about on the green grass in the sunshine and shade, as any little ones ever want to be. The Washington guard Band, as well as the other two bands, discoursed some of their choicest music, stationed in different parts of the ground, alternating in furnishing music at the spacious dance hall, where gay youths and lovely maidens together with the festive old Forty-niner and his robust lady mingled in the jolly quadrille, or sweated and fumed in vigorous wrestle with the intricate mazes and collisions of waltz, schottische and mazourka. The National Guard, acting as escort to the Pioneers, together with the various military teams who were present for the target shooting, added considerably to the attractive features of the occasion; and there were more pretty girls there from Carson, or somewhere, than is generally found at anybody's picnic.

THE TARGET SHOOTING

Took place just after lunch and was conducted in the open field west of the picnic ground. There were seven targets of the regulation style, exactly alike and numbered from one to seven. They were stationed at a distance of two hundred yards from the shooting stand, and the seven teams consisted of ten picked me each, from the Pioneer Society, National, Emmet, Washington and Montgomery Guards of Virginia, the Sarsfield Guard, Gold Hill, and the Carson Guard, Carson City. The prize contended for was a beautiful gold medal given by the Pioneer Society, and J. D. Loynachan, ex-Town Marshal of Gold Hill, offered a $20 gold piece to the winner of the medal. Each man had five shots, and 25 was the hight or maximum of the score that could be made by any one man. The preliminaries were soon arranged, and all the teams went to work peppering their respective targets. There being no wind to interfere, some excellent shooting was done, with the following result: National Guard 192, Sarsfield Guard, 189, Emmet Guard 183, Carson Guard 183, Pacific Coast Pioneers 171, Washington Guard 171, Montgomery guard 170.

PIGEON SHOOTING.

After the team shooting for the medal, pigeon shooting was declared next in order. A match was made up between Daly, Diamond, Schultz, Jackson and Conroy, on one side, and Gibson, Macauley, Parker, Kaneen and Dormer, each man to have ten birds, and each to put up ten dollars for sweepstakes. The distance was twenty-one yards rise.

The supply of birds being exhausted, and there being a tie between the parties, it was agreed to call the match a draw, each man to pay his proper proportion for the birds that had been used. Several birds were lost by falling out of bounds, but few got away unscathed. The match attracted a large crowd of interested spectators.

THE LITERARY EXERCISED

At the Pavilion followed, and consisted of addresses by Hon. R. H. Taylor, President of the Society, a poem by Hon. C. C. Goodwin, recited by R. H. Lindsay, songs by W. D. C. Gibson and others, and the presentation and acceptance of the medal. The following is the poem:

THE PIONEERS.

They turned their steps toward the setting sun, For lo! in the beautiful West,
There rose a vision of mountains far, each one with a golden crest;
For the story was told that far away, beside the sun-set sea,
In marvelous beauty slumbered a land in virgin purity.
Where triumphs waited the valiant, where hearts that were leal and true,
Could find a field for exertion, in a land that was fair and new.

And the light of the hope within them shone in the eager eyes;
There was joy in their hearts and faces, and joy in their gathering cries;
The clinging arms of affection they unloosed with a smile;
They painted the pictures of their dreams, the hearts of Love to beguile;
They dried Love's tears with kisses, and the promise to go back,
And with exultant footsteps started on their Western track.

A strong, brave company were they, as strong and brave and fair
As ever tracked a fortune to its deep and secret lair;
As strong and brave and fair a band as ever, courting fate,
Essayed to, in the wild, uprear the framework of a State.
Some o'er the widespread, lonely plains pursued their weary path,
'Gainst savage tribes, 'gainst heat and cold and 'gainst the tempest's wrath;
Some by the deep sea sought the way, and, as its pulses wild
Throbbed 'neath the ships that bore them confidently smiled;
And to the sea, the winds, the stars the mighty hope was told
That thrilled the hearts which thronged to find the magic land of gold.
And the mountains, with the shining crests, shone brighter as they came;
By day they were a golden cloud, by night great domes of flame.

Who shall repeat what since has been? Where now is that bright band?
Their graves ae scattered far and wide, all over this broad land.
Upon the plains; beneath the sea; by hill and stream and vale–
How many through the weary years have fainted on the trail!
How many hearts have broken here–how many far away
Have waited for the coming of the absent, day by day.
While youth was dying, and while West no more expectant cast.

Long since the wild flowers faded from the California plains–
Long since the dream of triumph in ten thousand hearts grew cold,
For Hope forgot her promise in the magic land of gold.

Of that first band a remnant still lingers on this shore;
They meet on festive days to tell their stories o'er and o'er.
Youth long ago forsook their path, and long ago they learned
That all the shining hights to which they had exultant turned
Were but a mirage to decoy their youthful feet, to lead
Them to a waiting, untried land where strong hearts were the need;
That on its soil the temples fair of Mercy might be raised;
That trails for Culture and for Peace might through its wilds be blazed.

But they are not a sad-browed race-nay, rather they believe
There is no reason why the day should have a gloomy eve.
The hands that stretched to them at first no longer are discerned,
But since the shadows toward the East–fast lengthening now–have turned,
Other dear shadowy hands of those they knew so well of yore
Are stretching down in love to them from their bright shining shore;
And beckoning them to hights divine, where no mirage is known,
To paint illusions for the eyes in that celestial zone.

There is a lovely legend of a knight, who stooped to pay
Alms to a leper lank, who bent for charity to pray,
And the legend runs that with the gift a light shone round the place,
And lo! the couching leper stook upright with radiant face,
August, superb and glorified, and tall and fair and straight,
As was the sculptured pillar by the temple's beauteous gate.
The leper was an angel to the mortal's eye concealed,
Until the act of charity his presence real revealed.

So, when this band approached this coast, it was a barbarous shore,
Untamed and rude by plain and hill, and o'er this desert hoar;
They gave their strength, their toil, their hopes; their lives' best gifts they gave,
And Hardship, danger and despair smiled at with faces brave;
Till, as the leper, glorified, stood up before the knight,
So shines this land redeemed, refined and smiling in their sight.
Where all was darkness, all is light; where barbarism sat
Loathesome, and lank, and dreadful, like the leper at the gate,
Now States are molded into form, now homes smile everywhere,
And where the wild beat made his den the school bell thrills the air.

This is the work of Pioneers. Why should they not rejoice–
Why should they not on festal day lift up a joyful voice?
The youth they lost, reflected is in noble works to-day;
Their unrequited toll has come to be to States the stay.
Because of them, though childless, do children's voices ring;
Because of them, though wifeless, do wives o'er cradles sing;
Because of them, the poor find work and the brave a home can gain;
Because of them do Peace and Law and Justice hold their reign.

HOMEWARD.

After 5 o'clock P. M., the excursion train was backed up the track and all hands got aboard for home. The train was divided into two sections, and everybody got home safe and sound, with lunch baskets and all. Everybody had a good time and there were no disagreeable incidents or accidents to mar the pleasures of the occasion. Everything passed off smoothly, well and satisfactorily.

Notes and Questions

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rstew160

According to General Land Office records, Aaron D. Treadway had established his land holding in northeastern Eagle Valley by the summer of 1861, and received patent ("title") to the land from the GLO in May, 1866.

In the poem, "leal" is old Scottish for "loyal and true"