The
Gold Camp of Foolery
By GARY MEIER
During the
Soon after gold was
discovered in the millrace at John Sutter's sawmill on January 24, 1848, tent
camps blossomed, then were quickly replaced by the cabins, shanties, and brick
and stone buildings that became towns. At the beginning of 1848 there were about
2,000 Americans in
It is believed that E
Clampus Vitus started as an elaborate practical joke in the hills of western
Zumwalt attempted to
organize the first ECV chapter in Hangtown. That lodge was short-lived, perhaps
due to a half-hearted try by the frustrated Zumwalt, who was having little luck
finding gold. Then he moved forty miles south to the Mokelumne Hill district,
where he found richer diggings. He also found that the prank-loving,
recreation-hungry miners of Mok Hill were ready to embrace his intriguingly
absurd lodge. So in September 1851, Mokelumne Hill Lodge No. 1001, Ancient and
Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus was
Everything about E Clampus
Vitus was a jest, a philosophy embodied in the Clamper motto, Credo Quia
Absurdium--take nothing seriously unless it is absurd. Even the name of the
order was a humbug, for E Clampus Vitus has no meaning in true Latin. The
high-spirited miners loved it, for they belonged. Their mascot was a decorated
Billy goat, and their banner was a hoop skirt, to which they attached the words,
this is the flag we fight under. In parades they carried a seven-foot-long Sword
of Justice and Mercy, and they toted an equally long "Blunderbusket,"
with a two-inch bore.
Pranks and practical jokes
abounded, finding victims in members and non-members alike. Soon Joe Zumwalt's
Mokelumne Hall lodge of parody caught on in other camps, and within a few years
other ECV chapters had sprung up throughout
In 1855, even Hangtown (by
then called
They also met in hotels,
dance halls, and if the attendance was too large, in barns. Some chapters even
constructed their own Hall of Comparative Ovations building. But most met in, as
one newspaper put it, "libation emporiums, where they reached stages of
well-being, free from pain and distress."
The brethren were called together by the tinny braying of the "hewgag,"
a big horn sounded in the street by the Royal Grand Musician. Strict Clamper
rules required meetings to be held "at any time before or after a full moon." Much Clamper
business involved taking in new members, called Poor Blind Candidates, and they
were really "taken in." The only requirement for a membership was a
poke of gold dust. The amount depended upon the candidate's means, and in some
cases it was waived entirely. Whenever a new member was to be inducted, the
hewgag brayed and the brothers headed for the Hall of Comparative Ovations.
After all were assembled, the Noble Grand Humbug, the Clamps Petrix, and the
Clamps Matrix, all masked, began the solemn ritual of initiation, complete with
elaborate phony Latin phrasing. The Poor Blind Candidate--right shoe off, pants
leg rolled up, and wearing a blindfold--was then led into the hall and brought
before the Noble Grand Humbug. His Eminence would ask the nervous candidate a
series of questions, after which the newcomer was led around the hall, stopping
at different points where he was lectured on various Clamper policies and rules.
Next he was placed in the Expungent's Chair, a wheelbarrow padded with a large,
cold, wet sponge, and taken over the
Upon completion of his
"soul cleansing" ride, the initiate was asked if he believed in the
Elevation of Man. When he said he
did, he was immediately lifted onto a saddle and hoisted by block and tackle to
the ceiling. Often the
"elevation" was accomplished by a blanket toss, where the candidate
was bounced on a blanket that the brethren firmly held on all sides.
Finally, sometimes after several hours of good-natured torture, the
Scales of Darkness--the blindfold--was
The Noble Grand Humbug then
completed the rite by explaining the importance of the Order's Clampatron, St.
Vitus, and the significance of the Clamper sacred emblem, the Staff of Relief.
He closed by asking the ritual question, "What say the Brethren?" to
which the reply was "Satisfactory!". The initiation was over.
There were no dues in E
Clampus Vitus, and often the treasury consisted only of the initiation fee put
up by the evening's inductee, which was immediately converted to liquid assets
for the refreshment of the assemblage. Because the Hall of Comparative Ovations
was usually a saloon, the barkeep often had the drinks dispensed before the
Scales of Darkness came off the Poor Blind Candidate. In Mokelumne Hill, where
it all started, Van Pelt's saloon served as a Hall of Comparative Ovations until
George Leger became a Clamper and opened his hotel to the braying of the hewgag.
In Ione, Ringer's saloon was where the Clampers met. In Amador City it was
Mooney's, and in Georgetown, Clamper-saloonkeeper Pat Lynch hosted the raucous
meetings. The Noble Grand Humbug E.H. Van Decor presided over the Georgetown
gatherings in 1856 until a fire swept away that sacred Hall and most of the
town. Stevens' Young America Saloon in Jackson was a Hall of Comparative
Ovations and Al Dudley was the Noble Grand Humbug in 1861. In the
booming gold rush town of Columbia there were two Clamper Halls in the 1850's:
Soderer and Marshall's drinking emporium, later called the Stage Driver's
Retreat, and Albert Aberdeen's saloon, where the Clampers met downstairs in
Darling's Oyster Parlor.
As the popularity of E
Clampus Vitus grew, Clamper lodges formed in nearly every town in the California
mining districts. Many community leaders and business owners found it to their
advantage to join the Order and follow the bray of the hewgag, for Clampers were
loyal and tended to vote for their brothers and trade in Clamper-owned
establishments. Besides, there was refreshing if ironic honesty in the Clamper
philosophy. By the mid-1850's, E Clampus Vitus numbered among its brethren such
worthies as judges, senators, state assemblymen, newspapermen, sheriffs,
bankers, and mayors, as well as scores of lawyers and doctors.
When E Clampus Vitus was in
full bloom, from the mid-1850's to about 1870, it was not unusual to find towns
almost closing down at the call of the hewgag. Shops, banks, saloons, homes--and
placer diggings—were temporarily abandoned when the summons of the sacred
clarion shattered the stillness of the air. Indeed many mining towns in the
Mother Lode, such as Downieville, Placerville, and Sierra City had more Clampers
in
Presently 500 men had
assembled within the walls of the Hall to witness the ceremony of the
initiation. The Clamp Petrix announced that he who sought admittance was no less
a personage than Lord Sholto Douglas. When he had been blindfolded, the shoe
removed from his right foot and the pants leg rolled to the right knee, the work
of introducing him to the mysteries of the order was begun." Attendance at
the second performance was quite different, for now heading the little company
of actors was Lord Sholto Douglas of E Clampus Vitus. The theatre was filled,
and the songs, dances, and skits met with roars of "Satisfactory!"
Lord Sholto was a success in Marysville.
Some of the enlightened,
having the Scales of Darkness removed in the Hall of Comparative Ovations, were
names not lost to history. Philip D. Armour, the Auburn and Placerville butcher
who would later found on of the world's largest meatpacking firms, was a
Clamper, as was John Mohler Studebaker, who made the
wheelbarrows for Mother Lode miners in the 1850's. When he had saved
enough money, Studebaker joined his brothers in their
Indiana wagon shop and lived to manufacture the first gasoline-powered
Studebaker auto in 1904. John Hume, lawyer, well-known state assemblyman, and
brother of famed Wells Fargo Chief Detective James Hume, was a member of E
Clampus Vitus' Placerville and Coloma lodges.
Also a young newspaperman named Sam Clemens, who lived for a time at the
Jackass Hill diggings near Angels Camp, was a brother of E Clampus Vitus. There,
on a cold January day in 1865, the fun loving journalist heard someone
relate a funny anecdote about a frog-jumping contest. A few months later, Mark
Twain wrote The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County and found
fame overnight. The Clampers also
claimed Ulysses S. Grant, J. Pierpont Morgan, Horace Greeley and Horatio Alger
as members. All of these historic figures visited the California gold rush
country, but it is doubtful that they were ever really Clampers. Some Clamper
membership claims are certainly suspect, such as Solomon, the Caesars,
Sometimes when the hewgag
brayed it was not for the initiation of a Poor Blind Candidate, but the planning
of an intricate practical joke. In the Mother Lode town of Sonora, a lawyer
named Otis Greenwood was the prankish Noble Grand Humbug. Greenwood and his
brothers had taken note of a stranger in town, a foppish
After the performance, the
brothers led the resplendent but foolish fop in a parade up the main street,
with the entire audience in tow. Greenwood stopped the march at the Placer Hotel
steps and introduced the Honorable Mr. Garland to Sonora, while a dozen Clampers
in the crowd called for a speech. Before he could speak, however, he was given a
bracer of whiskey, laced with a dollop of croton oil, a strong cathartic. Within
Perhaps the Mother Lode's
greatest hoax was a humbug known to the world as the "Pliocene Skull,"
and though never proved, many historians are convinced it was perpetrated by
those who heeded the call of the hewgag. In 1866, from a mine near Angels Camp,
a human skull was taken and presented to the scientific world as that of a
previously undiscovered type of pre-historic man. Anthropologists argued for
almost fifty years over the authenticity
of the find, but finally decided that the famous skull was from an Indian and
had been placed in the mineshaft as an ambitious--and successful--practical
joke. E Clampus Vitus remained the chief suspect, but no public admissions were
ever made. In its lapses from buffoonery the Ancient and Honorable Order of E
Clampus Vitus showed a benevolent side. Frequently, and quietly, the brethren
performed charitable acts, and though they would whimsically state that the
purpose of their society was to "care for widows and orphans, particularly
the widows," the ECV was widely lauded for valuable services to the needy.
They sponsored benefit shows and other fund-raising events for the sick and the
destitute, with no hoaxes involved. And when the Mother Lode was struck with
disaster, such as fires and floods that devastated whole towns, the Clampers
were among the first to lend a hand with rescues and rebuilding. They were
jokesters, but good citizens as well.
The strength and spirit of
E Clampus Vitus began fading by the 1890's as the miners drifted away. The last
Clamper meeting in Sierra City was in 1907, and the hewgag brayed for the last
time at Quincy in 1916. However, Carl I. Wheat, Dr. Charles Lewis Camp, and
others in the California Historical Society revived the order in 1931. Today
there are a number of E Clampus Vitus chapters in California, existing to have
fun,
recount gold rush lore, and
place plaques at historic sites. Some of the crumbling, long-abandoned saloons
are still there, too--former Halls of Comparative Ovations, where in the heyday
of the Mother Lode the ritual question, "What say the Brethren?" was
always answered with a roaring "SATISFACTORY!"