I'll carry you!" The other complying, Twain reached in
safety the deepest part of the creek and, purposely or not, dropped him.
A man, to play such pranks as this, must be sure of his standing in a
primitive community.
Mr. Taylor is known to everyone in Nevada County as "Ben." His genial
manner and kindly nature are apparent at a glance. But while Ben Taylor
was on friendly terms with Mark Twain, he was never so intimate with him
as with Bayard Taylor, whom, it seems, he much resembled. This
accidental likeness, combined with the similarity of names, caused many
more or less amusing but embarrassing complications, since they were
frequently taken for each other and received each other's
correspondence.
I asked Ben Taylor - he rightly dislikes "Mister," perhaps the ugliest
and most inappropriate word in the English language - if the shootings
and hangings which figure so prominently in the stories of the romancers
were not exaggerations. He said he certainly was of that opinion. I
said: "As a matter of fact, did you ever see a man either shot or hung
for a crime?" "I never did," he replied with emphasis. "But I once came
across the bodies of several men who had been strung up for
horse-stealing; that, however, was not in Grass Valley."
Ben Taylor was present when Lola Montez horsewhipped Henry Shibley,
editor of the Grass Valley National, for what she considered derogatory
reflections on herself, published in his paper. It can readily be
understood that Grass Valley was at that time a place of importance,
when Lola Montez considered it worth while to stay there several years
and sing and dance for the miners.
In parting, Ben Taylor told me pathetically that his wife had died a few
years before and he had never recovered from the blow; "I am merely
marking time until the end comes," he added. Since his married daughter
and family live with him, he is assured in his latter days of loving
care and attention.
Chapter VI
E. W. Maslin and His Recollections of Pioneer Days In Grass Valley.
Origin of Our Mining Laws
To Mr. E. W. Maslin, of Alameda, of whom Ben Taylor said: "He is like a
brother to me," I am indebted for information of much interest, bearing
on the olden days and Grass Valley in particular. Mr. Maslin came around
the "Horn" to California, in the ship Herman, on May 7, 1853. He arrived
in Grass Valley and went to work as a miner the following morning. He
now holds, and has for years, the responsible position in the United
States Custom House, San Francisco, of Deputy Naval Officer of the Port.
The clearing papers of every vessel that leaves San Francisco bear his
signature. Although in his eightieth year, his memory is as clear and
his sense of humor as vivid as when, a youth of nineteen, he left for
good, Maryland, his native state.
