RUSSEL STARKS: Side one, oral history, the tape is of Charles Dambacher, a pioneer in Tuolumne County and the time starts at 1859 in Columbia, California; his birthplace. 

            Okay, we’re talking now about Columbia in 1859 and the man’s name is Charlie Dambacher, that’s where he was born.

ARTHUR DAMBACHER: Right.

STARKS: In May of 1859.

DAMBACHER: Right.

STARKS: [unintelligible] Now his father’s name was?

DAMBACHER: John Dambacher. 

STARKS: And what’s in John Dambacher?

DAMBACHER: Well, he immigrated from Germany, the exact time I’m not sure, it could’ve been as early as 1830’s but I question that by doing recent research so I’d surmise to say he came to the United States as a deserter from the German army out of Bismark, and then we went through immigration and instead of moving he said to the immigration authorities that the United States were promised to go and fight German and I’ll enlist in the United States Army because he would rather …[unintelligible]…but of course the gold rush in California intrigued him.  He arrived in California 1859 or I mean 1849 or thereabouts.  He and (name missed) Miller of the famous millionaire Lux Corporation of California were pals in Germany, both butchers by trade and  Miller wanted to have my grandfather John run a cattle business but the lure of gold was more attractive, so he went to Columbia. 

STARKS: Okay, in the ensuring years then there’s this period from 1849 to 1859 was John Dambacher a married man? 

DAMBACHER: Uh, yes, John was married and the, uh, the family was made up of a John Jr., Henry, Fred, Charlie and William: twins, in fact very early white twins of this section of California [transcriber’s note: twins were characteristically attributed to those of African descent and were very rare among Caucasians in the past].  Charlie being my father; there was one girl born in that marriage and it’s been often said there were seven boys in the family and each one of them had a sister and everybody would open their eyes because immediately they thought there was fourteen children.  But Minnie, was the next Dambacher, and then Ike and Joseph. There was seven boys and one girl.

STARKS: So the first born in California would be who?

DAMBACHER: Uh, that’s Fred.

STARKS: Fred?

DAMBACHER: Fred.

STARKS: And that’s in Columbia?

DAMBACHER: Uh, yes.  Fred was born in Columbia.  And uh, one thing that I might mention in passing at this time at some interest perhaps:  my grandfather had built the first Presbyterian church over there.  I recall this as a, oh, a situation where in my father was telling me one day that his dad did do this and Henry as a (bull-hog? Hawk? Implying a dare or show off, not distinguishable) fell off of the shed roof of the church and broke his arm.  And, uh, this was rather a shocking thing to my dad who was a very little boy at that time and uh, I just mention this in passing. 

STARKS: Okay now, you spoke of twins, this is Charles and..

DAMBACHER: William [interrupting]

STARKS: Yeah.

DAMBACHER: Charles and William.

STARKS: Okay who was the first born of these twins?

DAMBACHER: Charles. 

STARKS: Charles.  So really in fact in May 1859 along came twins to John and what was her name?  What was John’s wife’s name?

DAMBACHER: Oh, well that would be Barbra, and her maiden name was Dare.  Barbra Dare.

STARKS: Barbra Dare, okay.  These twin boys then are born in Columbia near the old Columbia store.

DAMBACHER: Uh know, Charlie and Will were born down on Yankee Hill Road just across the street from the (Present Goose) home that’s now a vacant lot. 

STARKS: If this is 1859 and these children are all living in Columbia, John Dambacher did what?  Mining?

DAMBACHER: At that time.  John mined along with everybody else meeting with, more or less, mediocre success.  To the end that he decide that there wasn’t much money to be made in gold mining and decided that he would take up a homestead and going into the, uh, the prospects of farming and his homestead is up on Yankee Hill, on what is now the Job Corps.  It’s over the mountain on the North slope maybe a mile distance from the prison, Job Corps.

STARKS: In the Job Corps, okay when you speak of Yankee Hill now where [stops] were in our changing times it’s been renamed to Big Hill is it?

DAMBACHER: Big Hill, yes it has been changed.  [undistinguishable Starks in the background]

STARKS: Job Corp Site.

DAMBACHER: Right, right, that’s exactly it.

STARKS: Alright, then with, with these twin boys, let’s stick with the twins now, and we’re talking about Charles and William, their growing up years.  From stories you’ve heard from your dad, just what was his function on this homestead?  Was he going to school or was it strictly chores, how did he grow up?

DAMBACHER: Alright well, his schooling was all in the Present Brook School up on School St. where the [muttering unintelligible 07.08.9]…and um, he went through the eighth grade in that school and then when the family moved to the ranch one winter because of the snow condition no work could be done, my dad decided because of the opportunity to go back to school and he went to Phil Martin, who was our former superintendent of the schools of Tuolumne County and incidentally a classmate of my father’s, was teaching over the ridge from the Dambacher Ranch up the so-called Bellview School at this time, but that time it was not necessarily known as the Bellview School, it was more the so-called (Hazamike? 8.03.9).  Then dad and his brother Will went to school for three months.  He often told me, “I learned more in those three months from Phil than I did in my other eight years of school!”  And he was happy for having gone to school there. 

Well coming back to what they did, they were teenagers at this time and they helped about the ranch from laboring timbered area to taking off mining timbers and how the (other) mines of Tuolumne County. And that didn’t make my little timbers made red and they finished the ribbed at many of the mines and started doing cleared off this 165-acres of homestead property.  They then put the ground into orchard and truck driving.  My Dad told me that…[unintelligible]…that they would raise potatoes [unintelligible]…And it is, I’ve grown up since to appreciate it in its good loose soil that would be just perfect for mountain potatoes and as I understand grown by the tons, just wagon loads furnished much of the area with potatoes.

I, uh, one day on the street in Sonora, came in contact with Walter Ralph of the Pioneer Ralph family and in our conversation he said to me, “You know Doc, your grandfather was the strongest man I ever saw in my life.”  And that interested me because Mr. Ralph, the man I was talking to, had been a strong man in the circus and a famous one.  So I said to him, “Mr. Ralph coming from you this means something.  You tell me why you thought he was so strong.”  And he said, “When I was about eighteen and another lad” and he named the chuck but I’ve forgotten his name, “he and I ran up to your grandfather’s apple ranch to get wagon-load of apples for our team and we were to get this load of apples.  When we got there the apple tree in a shed but no one was home.  So we tried to load those apples and we couldn’t because it was packed in big sugar barrels weighing 300lbs.  So,” he said, “we saw some big heavy plank there and decided that we’d roll those apples into the wagon.  We was doing that when your grandfather came along and said, ‘Boys, what are you doing?’  ‘Well, we’re trying to load these apples.’ and he says, ‘Do you know you’re rolling, you’re brusing them loading ‘em like that.  Why don’t you lift them in?’  And he said, Ralph said, ‘We can’t do it, we can’t lift ‘em.’  And he said, ‘Oh well get out of the way, I’ll show you how.’”  And he said that he took one pack in one hand and threw it to one side and another in the other side and he said, “Now you fellas get up in the wagon.”  And he said he bounced those 300lbs apple barrels in there faster than we could…[unintelligible]…with his hands and bounce them up there.  He said, “I’ve never seen such a trick in my life.” 

So my father was still alive at that time so I asked dad that night about his father and he said, “Oh yes, my father was an extremely strong man.”  And I said, “How come you never told me about this before?”  And he said, “Well I never thought of any occasion to do so.”  And I got him talking a little bit and he says, “Ah yes, my father could take an axe and bury it clear to the hammer in any kind of wood.  He could just, he was a giant and extremely strong.”  Well I was pleased to get that verification.

STARKS: Okay, now you’re talking about teenage boys.

DAMBACHER: I’m talking about teenage boys, right.

STARKS: It’s a far cry from today’s teenage boys isn’t it?

DAMBACHER: In some respects [laughs]

STARKS: Okay, in the life of a teenager there has to be a woman sooner or later, tell me about this.

DAMBACHER: Oh uh, my father and mother were born, rather married in 18..6..1883, January first to be exact in 1883 of Columbia.  My mother was Louise Bixel, a member of the Bixel family, who were the people who established the rather famous Bixel [unintelligible 12.48.6] .

STARKS: Okay, following the marriage, first child born. 

DAMBACHER: Oh uh, my first sister was born on, oh let’s see, oh, year and seven months later, her name was Lillian.  Two years following that, a brother Albert was born.  Approximated two years later a little sister was born by the name of Minnie, following that a little brother by the name of Joseph and both Minnie and Joseph are the two deceased members of the family so far as the young family was concerned.  Minnie was poisoned eating nightshade, it was a rather tragic death because she got desperately sick and no one was aware what was her problem and the doctor couldn’t diagnose it, and she slowly died.  She had a little play mate, it was in a room separate but was one of those little three-year-old kid and he came to my mother a few days after the funeral and shyly said, “Mrs. Dambacher, I think might know what was wrong with little Minnie.”  And she immediately asked him, “What?” And he said, “She ate some of those blackberries.”  And it turned out, he showed her the berries and the turned out to be nightshade.  Had that been brought forth earlier it might have saved her life. 

The little boy died at the age of, uh, oh 16-18 months there about teething (?) red convulsions at a very inopportune time in the winter and the combination of these teething (?) convulsions waiting for the doctor to get the personal hours cost him his life.  So that’s the one boy.  Following that was my sister Mabel.  In our family we call came approximately two years apart so for simplification let’s say two years later.  Following Mabel was a sister Lotti; following Lotti:  myself, Charles Arthur “Doc” [laughs]; um, uh and following me:  as sister, Gladys; then my brother Garnett; and a sister Mable-er-Myrtle.  So that is the immediate family.  Of that family, uh, I must [unintelligible 15.36.4], I have lost my sister Gladys and my brother Robert.  The rest of us are still alive. 

STARKS: Okay if, if we had a family this large and we have a time now of about oh, what have we here, right around the turn of the century, getting pretty close to the turn of the century, support for a family that large comes a little tough.  What’s the day’s work like?

DAMBACHER: Oh!  [laughs] In those days it was from sun up to dark, my dad original was the hoist engineer at the Bellview Mine for many years.  Incidentally, he is the man that shut the mine down, closed it up, called the men down, recovered what gold was strayed and so on with [unintelligible muttering 16.35.3] So that left him without employment and he went into the teaming business, hiring freight, mining timbers, etc.  And uh, I can recall as a very young boy my mother getting up to prepare dad’s breakfast at three o’clock in the morning, and uh, he had feed his team and hook them up, come and get his breakfast and be on his way.  And uh, that’d be four or five o’clock depending.  In the summer usually be four o’clock in the morning and be out later, but they’d start out in the dark and get home definitely in the dark because a long hard job, believe me. 

STARKS: Okay with hiring timbers, lumber or whatever, what areas where..?

DAMBACHER: Well, timbers came from Ray’s Assembly areas in our low back country, we’ll say in the Sugar Pine area, Middle Camp area, uh, the Yankee Hill area, all over mining timbers could be gathered without too long a haul.  There were many of these, uh, timbers hired on bringing back too far in this statement came off of the old Dambacher ranch.  But we’re discussing the area of my memory.  Lumber was done at that time at a place called the (Nusan) Mill, which would be West of Long Barn over the ridge, they are separated by a hogback running between Long Barn and the so-called (Nusan) Saw Mill, then over the next ridge it dropped back down into Lion’s Dam; that gave you the area.  A lot of timber came out of the there.  Mixon had a Saw Mill in that area and for one season in particular my dad had a logging contract and they did all the logging for the mill and then subsequently hauled the lumber and it was yarded out at the hills in Simon’s area or better put, the Safeway store.  This man, uh, recently had married had a Herald (?) girl and old man Herald (? Last name) was a former lumber man himself and Mixon then used part of Herald’s property to start his lumber riches on Stewart (?) Street.  I don’t want confuse you by using the name Herald with the Heralds in (Soloman), it was a different Herald.  [transcriber’s note: not positive he’s saying Herald].   But they were all together.

STARKS: Ironic then that they would be there almost in the same location.

DAMBACHER: Yes, right, but that was the case.

STARKS: It didn’t actually have anything to do with the railroad at that time, however? 

DAMBACHER: Not really, the railroad came in through Sonora [later].

STARKS: Okay, I have a picture here now that is of Herald right around the turn of the century again.  We have evidence here to the fact it was the first team of one of the person’s in the picture, in fact the person in the front.  I would like you tell me more about it, because I don’t really have a teamster’s attitude and I know you do.  So, tell me what you can about this, as you see it and as you may know of what the place there.

DAMBACHER: This is a eight animal two made up of six mules and two rear horses.  Um, this for location is at the old Clark ranch which is today know as Cedar Ridge sub-division.  When this picture was taken there was an apple orchard back there run by Clarks and the Hazel Dome Mine that is down below this ranch was in operation and I assume my dad hauled arborous machinery in there or lumber at that time.  The man leaning on the line leader is my brother Albert at about the age of fifteen.  The other man sitting, or standing on a pile of lumber on the offside of the team is unknown to me.  My father is riding the rear horse.  I don’t know if you want me to go into the team aspect.

STARKS: Why not, let’s carry on now.  What’s the common practice in these days?  Was it to ride on the wagon, or a rear horse?

DAMBACHER: That’s a good question, practice was to ride on the horse because of the maneuverability and control of the team.  If you rode the wagon, you did repound a good control over the operation of your team as you might on the horse and many other facets.  Now let’s assume for the moment that this would be a load freight of some kind where it would be really convenient to, to ride the wagon.  The breaking operation of the long-line team was rather intricate in of itself and I use that to justify riding the rear and off [? Transcriber note: Not exactly sure what he says here, but it sounds like that].  The um, often these teams they hauled a main wagon and a freighter, a second wagon.  The braking on the first wagon was a large rod, steel brake arm with a, a steel rod about ¾ of an inch diameter that ran from the front end of the wagon on this great arm back to the brake was engaged on the rear wheels.  And there was a linkage and a hook up there and the roll[er] bar was used for leverage and the um, brake bar had a large wide leather strap about two inches per straight that lead from this roll[er] bar to the rear horse.  And leave the slack on the rump of the horse, the rear horse, right where the rider could reach that and grab it and control without riding.  Now in addition to that, there was a rope used, in the same kind of a hook up, that ran to the rear wagon but it was used, a rope was used in that case because of the length involved and the weight factor.  And that was also strapped to that rear horse and when occasion demanded, the driver of the team would brake both wagons.  So he could do this more efficiently from the horse than the person in the other position.

STARKS: Let me break in now, you’re telling me that the semi-truck and trailer is not something of the modern generation?

DAMBACHER: The semi might be, but in this case that is a much heavier wagon used as the thump item then there are on a lighter wagon as the trailer and it had a close hook up on a (brusnick) and I could go into detail to explain that but I don’t know how much you want.  And that was hooked up over this (brusnick) with a very sharp pole as a riding device and they were just hooked close together to just give room so their load would be separated.  But with lumber they would take two or three feet between the loads for towing purposes.  And these two items were hooked together with steel rods so that they curled in proper manner and these rods were hooked to the axel, both rear and front, of the wagons involved as I emphasized for safety factors.  If we had a breakage one place, another hook up would grab it and hold it. 

STARKS: Okay, to tell me these things then obviously you were involved in some way in operation such as this.  Uh, would it be possible that the same thing that goes on today where a father has a son and the father is a trucker and he takes the boy along and he gets some of the nomenclature, he gets the jargon, he knows more about the subject.  Did your dad take you…?

DAMBACHER: (Interrupting) Oh yes that was, whether it…it was my favorite to go along with that, oh yes I went many a days, many occasions then as a grew older to the point that some thought I was considered a (slopper), the second man that belonged to was called a slopper, he helped things, and if you were good enough put in by the team.  And I happened to have a long line of teams as a boy and along with the guidance and direction of my father. 

STARKS: Gimme a, give me some of, for instance, where you may have travelled. 

DAMBACHER: Well, uh, I also worked in this capacity with my brother who, at a very young age, became a long line, he got a teamster of some merit if I may say.  He was recognized as one of the best in the country because of his abilities.

STARKS: This is Albert?

DAMBACHER: This is Albert and uh, our differential of age wasn’t so great, but that I had worked with him perhaps as much as I did my dad.  But let’s see if I can recall some specific occasion.  I do recall on one morning heading for relief with my brother, which would’ve been about 1910 I’d say, and we had a load of hay on this wagon and I rode on the hay rather for comfort than on the floor, and uh, I had some pizzas on this hay and, oh I say, six-seven o’clock in the morning I decide I had to have something to eat and I ate one of those pizzas.  The pizza blew on my bale of hay, and a straw was incased in one of the pizzas and I swallowed that straw and it stuck in my throat and I thought for a time I was going to die.  I had the most awful experience!  My brother finally put his finger down in my throat and he got rid of the straw and we were heading for relief.

STARKS: Okay you’ve mentioned this word “relief”, now tell me more about relief.  Where was it and why was it?

DAMBACHER: Relief is on the (head waters) of the Stanislaus River, um, in more or less succession now, I’d say the [headquarters?] are associated with the Pinecrest-Strawberry area.  This is beyond there at Two-Berries Run by Two up on what was Relief Meadows.  And Relief Meadows was so low because of all of the parties coming to California in the Gold Rush days, was called the so-called Relief Party because they were snowed in and starving to death at this very valley and the party that went up was a so-called Relief Party and rescued the [only] survivors of that party.  So it is called relief because of that early incident.  And the Sierra and San Francisco Power & Light Company, predecessors to the PG&E, have are building a locked-filled baron there, and it in itself was a tremendous undertaking.

[Stop]

STARKS: Just before we go on to side 2 let me ask you about this particular photograph.  It’s of Relief Dam and I’d like you’d to explain some of the features in that picture.

Tape Ends:  30:08.2

General Information:

Interviewer: Starks, Russel

Interviewee: Dambacher, Charles Arthur

Name of Tape: …On his father, Charles Dambacher (dambacher_c_f_0)

When: 1973

Transcriber: Judy (3/12/09)

Transcriber’s Note: n/a