Religion reclaimed souls as mining camps expanded

	"In every major gold mining town -- Weaverville, Sacramento, Downieville and Marysville -- the Chinese miners had their houses of worship." -- Ling-chi Wang, professor at UC Berkeley

Into the moral abyss came the forty-niners, tempted by saloons selling rotgut, hoodwinked by card sharks dealing monte and enticed by prostitutes in brothels.

It was said that while traveling by wagons to Sacramento, the immigrants abandoned religion, leaving their souls on the plains like steamer trunks deemed too cumbersome for the journey.

Once in El Dorado, secular employment, with its promise of instant wealth, was so enticing that even clergy grabbed a gold pan. Of the 46 Baptist preachers in good standing in the Sacramento region in 1849-50, not one chose to do God's work. But not all was lost. As the population increased, the social chaos was to sort itself out. Churches, synagogues and temples were erected -- or congregations simply made do.

Missionaries held services in rented rooms, above gambling houses, in the streets, or anywhere else they felt they could gain an attentive audience, wrote Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp in "Religion and Society in Frontier California."

Church "disrupted the otherwise seamless garment of sinfulness," she wrote.

For eons, American Indians had practiced their own religion in harmony with the natural world around them before the forty-niners came. The earliest European spiritual leaders in California were Spanish-speaking priests who began a string of coastal missions in the late 18th century, but had limited influence inland.

Six members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were hired to build John Sutter's sawmill at Coloma. Five were at the site the day gold was discovered, according to Norma Ricketts, author of "The Mormon Battalion: U.S. Army of the West, 1846-1848."

Michael Brennan

It was not until the journal of Henry Bigler, a Mormon, came to light that the actual discovery date of Jan. 24 was established:

"This day some kind of mettle was found in the tail of race that looks like goald," Bigler wrote.

Sam Brannan, California's first millionaire, and leader of a group of Mormons who staked a rich claim on what came to be called Mormon Island, broke with the church when Brigham Young asked that he tithe the found gold.

"Bring me a receipt signed by the Lord and I'll gladly hand over to you the Lord's money," he said.

By 1850, the Valley was being populated by Baptists, Catholics, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Jews, Mormons, Methodists and Presbyterians who made their way to the new city and organized themselves into groups.

Into this nearly all-male society, Christians, Jews and adherents of the three main religions of China -- Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism -- endeavored to bring moral order with their religious beliefs and practices.

So it was that the Rev. Peter Augustine Anderson, a Presbyterian convert to Catholicism born in New Jersey, arrived in Sacramento in 1850 -- the first American priest in California.

When Anderson arrived in 1850, he held Mass at 5th and L streets where Macy's stands today. A total of 60 men -- all armed -- and 12 women attended.

The same year, on land donated by a congregation member, Gov. Peter Burnett, a church was built at 7th and K streets. Anderson was to travel among the mining camps that year, celebrating Mass and baptizing.

Pioneer life, with all its dangers, did not spare the men of the cloth. Anderson's life would end the same year he came to Sacramento when the priest was stricken with cholera during an epidemic that swept the city.

Anderson had been helping out in the tent hospitals when he contracted the disease.

"He died a martyr," said the Rev. William Breault, diocesan archivist. "Even though sick, he didn't pay any attention to doctors. He kept anointing, hearing confessions and probably even emptying bed pans on visits to the tents."

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Other Roman Catholic leaders were to follow in short order: Bishop Eugene O'Connell established the forerunner of the current diocese in Marysville in 1860; the Sisters of Mercy schooled youngsters and healed the sick after their arrival in Sacramento in 1857, and miner-turned-bishop Patrick Manogue built the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament.

Among the earliest church people were African Americans. They had no choice but to be locked in a struggle, wrote Kevin Starr in "Americans and the California Dream."

While the state offered them some prosperity, they were persecuted: Southerners could still bring in slaves and free African Americans were prevented from voting, forbidden to testify in court and were limited to segregated schools, Starr wrote.

St. Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church, established in 1850, became the focal point of African American political and social activity for Northern California. On three occasions, the church, now located at Southside Park, hosted the "California Colored Citizens State Convention."

Temple B'nai Israel also traces its past to the Gold Rush. Moses Hyman gathered a handful of Jews in his Sacramento store for the High Holy Days in 1849. Three years later, Temple B'nai Israel was consecrated.

Jewish immigrants from Europe became merchants and prominent citizens, but they also tried their hand at gold mining.

Robert E. Levinson, author of "The Jews in the California Gold Rush," cites newspaper clippings to show that Jewish immigrants mined gold as late as the 1860s:

"Mr. A. Levy washed out eighteen pans of dirt, on Thursday last, and obtained $6.50 in gold."

For the most part, Jews in the Gold Rush were accepted as citizens of their towns -- on equal footing with other European immigrants, concluded Levinson.

The Chinese were not so lucky: Political and labor leaders complained of a Chinese invasion. Still, the Chinese put down religious roots, erecting temples.

Chinese temples were called Joss Houses, Joss evolving from the Portuguese word "Deus" or God. The houses of worship were temples of the Chinese gods, wrote Alexander McLeod in "Pigtails and Gold Dust."

"In every major gold mining town -- Weaverville, Sacramento, Downieville and Marysville -- the Chinese miners had their houses of worship," said University of California, Berkeley, professor Ling-chi Wang.