Fort John, California
A church and schoolhouse, reportedly the first in what would become Amador County, were built as early as 1850-51. The church was
Forty-Nine times than any other place in this section of California. You behold the log-cabin, with canvass roof; the clapboard palace with mud chimney emitting the savory perfumes of burnt slapjacks and beans straight, not forgetting the bountiful supply of oro that lines the pockets of the 'honest miners.' Everyone is proficient in the mysteries of poker and old sledge ..."[3]
By 1881, a county history book reported only one resident there, who "seems to have staid to point out the site of the former town, and relate to occasional visitors the glories of the ancient days."[4][5][6][7][8] Yet, the Mining Bureau still had the site listed as of 1954.[2]
References
- ^ ISBN 1-884995-14-4.
- ^ a b California Gold Camps, p. 120 (1975)
- ^ (23 May 1857). Fort John Correspondence, Amador Ledger-Disptach
- ^ (5 October 1947). Old Fort John, Oakland Tribune, p. 61, col. 3
- ^ Amador County History (Amador County Federation of Women's Clubs, 1927), p. 47 ("Fort John was the name of a place near Volcano,where the men who first discovered it were killed by the Indians. Later, P. Y. Cool, Thomas Rickey and son James arrived with a number of others and found some gold. They gathered funds and built a small church and school, the first in the county. There were several hundred inhabitants for about a year, but the Volcano diggings proved much richer; the site was abandoned, and the buildings fell to decay. For years, one old settler might be found there, willing at all times to expatiate on departed glories; but Time gathered him in, and there is hardly a foundation stone to mark the place.")
- ^ (10 May 1856). Fort John, Volcano Weekly Ledger, p. 2, col. 2.
- ^ History of Amador County, California, pp. 214-15 (1881)
- ^ The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. 23 , p. 372 n. 34 (1888)("Fort John, on the north fork of Dry Creek, promised in 1849-50 to become a leading town, but decline rapidly; yielding the honors to Volcano, which opened in 1848.")
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| Footnotes | ‡This CDP also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |||
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