The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949 Page: 55
512 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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John Ricord
That Love, the mistress of mankind,
Unfortunately was born blind.
And hence arise those strange mistakes
Which he who loves so often makes;
And hence the oddities of love,
Now mild and gentle as the dove,
Now raging and tearing
Wild with transport! Now despairing!
Worn out by party strife, impatient with the pittance he was
paid by the government, and forbidden to see his beloved, Ricord
resolved to go to California, which had just passed into the con-
trol of the United States. He sailed on the schooner Providence
on August 21, 1847, and arrived in San Francisco thirty-four
days later. After a few weeks he continued to Monterey, at which
place Richard B. Mason, colonel of the First Dragoons and mili-
tary governor of California, had his office. There Ricord hung
out his shingle. The superimposition of English common law
upon the Spanish civil law resulted in litigation, and Ricord,
who had been obliged to handle this phenomenon in both Texas
and Florida, found clients at his door. Governor Mason, in addi-
tion, soon appointed him special judge to try a libel case in-
volving two men, like himself, recently arrived from Honolulu.
In his order changing venue of the cause he made a masterful
summary of the conflict between the two systems of jurisprudence.
Before the discovery of gold, there was in California much
interest in quicksilver. In January, 1848, Ricord associated him-
self with a number of prominent men of Monterey, among them
Thomas O. Larkin, and organized the Santa Clara Mining Com-
pany to exploit a quicksilver mine in the jurisdiction of San
Jos6 de Guadelupe. This scheme was moderately successful, but
the discovery of gold at Sutter's Fort seduced its promoters, who
rushed forth in search of El Dorado. As early as June, 1848,
Ricord was at the diggings. His whilom friends reported that his
appearance was seedy and that he was given to bending his elbow
more than necessity required. This second charge he vehemently
denied in a letter to Wyllie. Ricord did not find mining a rea-
sonable sport, and, as early as January, 1849, he and Isaac Mont-
gomery, who had employed Herman Melville in Honolulu for
a brief period, opened a store near Sutter's Fort. In the following
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949, periodical, 1949; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101121/m1/61/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.