Egbert, Sisson, Wallace, and Crocker
Merchants, lumbermen and Chinese Railroad Labor Contractors
John L. Knox Placer County Historical Society
2024 157 pages large format
It’s cliché to say today that the people who got rich during the Gold Rush were the ones who mined the miners rather than the ones who did the gold mining. The names in the title of this book, along with others, mentioned in the text prove the point though. They came west but did not go into mining or stay in mining. Instead they found success elsewhere. This book is their story told in a very different way.
Egbert, Sisson, Wallace, and Crocker is a book about the rise and fall of the various iterations of the Egbert company, with the various names, over the decades of the second half of the 19th Century. In an ordinary history book the story or events are told by the author with various kinds of illustrations. In Egbert… there is very little text by the author and the story is told via snippets of newspaper articles, entries in The History of Placer County, and some county records. Those various sources can make tedious reading, but they are easily skimmed.
Casually reading old California newspapers from the 19th Century one is liable to come upon ads for Egbert, Sisson, Wallace in some form or another particularly in towns along the railroad routes. Here we include a part of the map of the first U.S. Government survey done in 1866. On this portion from Donner Summit there is noted a Sissons, one of the many names that was started by Egbert. One then might wonder, who were these guys who had so many stores, supplied all of the Chinese workers to the transcontinental and other railroads, and supplied the Chinese with their needs. It appears that the stores were the Amazon of the day selling everything and even delivering.
There are short biographies of the men of the title and others and then the book launches into the story of the stores and other businesses the owners conducted: sheep, cattle, horses, livestock, cannery, meat packing, a resort, saw mill and lumber, water rights, real estate (including developing stops along the railroad and then selling them once developed), hot springs, freight dairy, and charcoal manufacture. A major profit center was supplying Chinese railroad workers to the railroad and supplying the Chinese with their needs. Other stories cover the monopolistic activities, sales of property, and lawsuits, how the Chinese were cheated and exploited.
Through the newspaper articles and others sources the reader learns about a lot of specifics having to do with Egbert… but also wider issues such as Chinese railroad worker recruitment, pay, how recruitment worked, various strikes, how work gangs operated and were organized, the diet of the Chinese, and what was in the stores. We also learn what happened to the Chinese after May 10 1869 when the railroad was finished. They went off to other railroad building, mines, agriculture, and coal. Industry in and around Truckee which includes, surprisingly charcoal manufacture.
In only a few places does the author inject himself leaving the text to what was in the newspapers. The author does disagree, for example, with current methods of counting the number of Chinese workers and about the famous strike, which the author says was “not a genuine strike.”
There is an interesting inclusion about Donner Summit is Tom Macaulay’s ice harvesting enterprise in Summit Valley. It turns out One of the Egberts was involved and was Tom’s bother in law. (See the May ’21 and May ’13 Heirlooms) There is also a reference to the Heirloom as as source which is gratifying. (page 30).
Another interesting story was wood cutting. Of course we think of the snowsheds and the railroad ties which took a lot of wood but there was also the continual need of wood for running the trains. There are a number of newspaper articles about delivery of huge amounts of wood: 25, 30, or 50 thousand cords; two hundred men engaged in wood cutting with 25 and 30 teams; and putting $175,000 to $200,000 in circulation in the Truckee area. The Truckee Republican for example said in 1883 “The wood business of the Truckee Basin is no small portion of its source of wealth. As is natural in every country were sawmills abound, and lumber is made, cordwood forms a principal adjunct. Many large trees fifty to eighty feet high are cut down… as a result wood fuel is cheap and plenty. The Central Pacific, with its large number of engines, consumes vas quantities….. The labor is principally by Chinamen, who receive a average of $1.50 per cord for cutting, the wood when delivered at the track selling from $3.75 to $4.00 per cord.”
Another interesting story is a big one which is the prejudice against the Chinese. Newspaper articles and other primary sources show some of the dark side of history.
The Truckee Method appears showing how the town was able to push the Chinese out through boycotts against Chinese workers and companies and boycotts against anyone who would do business with the Chinese. Here the Egbert… company shines, at least for awhile, refusing to cave in to demands to boycott Chinese.
An example of the Truckee Method in action was reported in an 1886 the San Francisco Examiner, “It was resolved to-night [sic] by the largest anti-Chinese meeting yet held in Truckee to boycott those parties and boycott all who do not boycott them. The bitter incendiary feeling which has heretofore existed against the Chinse has turned to an angry torrent against Sisson, Crocker, & Co., who are charged with having brought the Chinamen here, and now persist in keeping them in defiance of the unanimous will of the community….” That’s followed with a petition byTruckee citizens to boycott Chinese, “And we furthermore pledge ourselves to boycott and have no dealing with any person or person residing in this community who refused to boycott Sisson, Crocker & Co.” A circular had been sent to every place where Sisson, Crocker, and Co. had stores appealing to people to boycott “and withhold all patronage from Sisson…”
A newspaper article from January, 1886 reported that “All’s well that ends well.” The holdouts against boycotting the Chinese fell into line and joined the boycott. This was after tar and feathers had been talked about for the manager of the Sisson company.
The Truckee Republican followed saying “The Chinese have been crowed [sic] out of employment, and forced to leave town, by the fairest of all fair means. Truckee has kept her temper.” The fairest of all means was the boycott. People were not hurting the Chinese, they were simply taking their business elsewhere.
The story of the anti-Chinese sentiment is compelling reading as one reads the progression of anti-Chinese sentiment and actions as they really happened. The author’s only including newspaper articles is effective showing how ordinary people actually thought and acted.
The reports of boycotts and citizen actions, meeting, and petitions was not the end. There are also included several articles about how the Chinese were cheated and exploited.
In the map below at the point of the arrow is a Sisson store on Donner Summit. This is from the first gov't survey in 1866.
Placer Herald 12/29/66
SNOW ON THE MOUNTAINS A friend, just from the Summit, informs us that the snow on the Sierras is from 4 to 100 feet deep. We looked rather astonished at the information, but, said he, where it is 100 feet deep it has drifted.