VOICE OF THE MENDOCINO NUMBER 10 “CHARLES FLETCHER AND NIGGER NAT” Sponsor - Union Lumber Company Author - F.W. Niesen Station - KDAC, Fort Bragg, California Presented - March 13, 1949 ANNCR: (Opening biz, commercial, and introduction into the Voice of the Mendocino) MUSIC: NARR: Today your voice of the Mendocino is going to tell you the story of a friend-ship…. A friend-ship that knew no lines of color or race. It’s the tale of Charles Fletcher, a White man, and Nigger Nat, a colored man. The scenes of today’s story will take place mostly in Cuffey’s Cove and the Navarro Flats on our Mendocino Coast. But for the actual beginning, we must take you all the way back to 1815….to a dark, stormy night aboard a British merchant ship in the distant China Sea. In those days it was not unusual for the master of a ship to take his wife with him on his voyages to the remote corners of the lobe. But listen now as your voice of the Mendocino turns back the near hundred and thirty five years to where a tall, raw boned Englishman is nervously pacing the bridge of this sturdy vessel. As our scene opens, a seaman comes on deck and approaches the Captain. MUSIC: SOUND Heavy Seas – Hold B.G. CAPT: Captain Fletcher Sir? CAPT: Oh….Yes, Hanks….What is it? CAPT: I think you’d better go below Sir. CAPT: (Frightened) Is it….is it near? CAPT: I think so, Sir….I think you had best go. CAPT: Aye Hanks….This is one time when a man’s ship must step aside. ‘Tis a murky night for this business. All right, I’ll go. You stay here, Hanks….Call me the moment anything happens. CAPT: Aye….Aye….Sir (Fading) SOUND: Walking….Sea higher….Knocking CHRIST: (Weakly) Come in. SOUND: Door Open - Close - Sea in low B.G. CAPT: Christine....Christine....How is it going? CHRIST: (Bravely) Fine, Charles....Everything is going to be all right. CAPT: I'll never forgive myself or this ship for not making port in time. CHRIST: Don't hate yourself for that, Charles....why this has been our home for a long time....the only real home we've got. I'm proud that our child will be born on his father's ship. CAPT: But you need more help than a blundering seaman can give you at a time like this. CHRIST: All I need right now, my dear, is for you to hold my hand. There...that's better. CAPT: Christine...if anything should happen to you, I don't think I could... CHRIST: Nothing is going to happen to me, Charles. And I hope so much it's a boy. I'd want him to grow up to be as fine a man as you are. CAPT: (Tenderly) It would be splendid to have a son who I could teach the ways of the sea. You wouldn't object to my making a sailor of him would you? CHRIST: No, my dear...I'd be glad. That's why it's all right that he's to be born in these Chinese waters. Why someday he'll... SOUND: Excited knocking on door CAPT: (Excited - off mike) Captain Fletcher...Captain Fletcher...You'd better come topside. The lookout's sighted a reef. CAPT: (Angrily - Loud) Hanks, I can't come at a time like this. Where's Your common sense, man. CAPT: (Off mike) But Captain... The wheels man can't get the ship away from it. CAPT: (Angrily - Loud) You tell that man on the wheel... CHRIST: Charles...Charles...What's the matter with you? Of course, you;ll go on deck ..would you want your son to know that you deserted your post...jeopardized the lives of your crew...risked losing our ship? CAPT: But Christine...I can't ... Christ: You can and you will. Now go. And God willing ... when you come back, your son, Charles Fletcher, will be born. CAPT: All right, Christine I'll go. And God bless you and take care of you. (Loud) Tell the men to stand by, hanks. I'm (Fading) coming topside. SOUND: Sea up full. MUSIC: NARR: Well, a son was born to captain and Christine Fletcher aboard that ship in the China Sea in 1815. He took his father's name of Charles, and in many ways he became very much like his father. Young Charles Fletcher grew up with the sea. His boyhood and young manhood was spent, for the most part, on trading ships that combed the far corners of the Earth. And if he lacked the formal education that would have taught him to read and write, he made up for that loss in many other ways. He received the broad general education that comes from traveling. From seeking first hand, the ways in which people live, work, and play ... and by that contact with human beings of all races and cultures, he became a better man himself. Charles Fletcher grew to be a giant of a man ... he stood six feet five inches tall in his stocking feet and weighed 230 pounds. Early in life a keen mechanical aptitude developed within him, and it is said that in spite of not being able to read and write, he could take a set of plans and build a boat, house, or what have you. So he passed the first thirty years of his life ... traveling, observing, learning. Then in 1846, we find him serving as ship's carpenter on a vessel working the China - San Francisco trade. The ship was returning to America via the great circle route with a cargo of teak wood and tea. The voyage had been a successful one, and the crew looked forward to reaching port within a short time. But somewhere along our Mendocino Coast a great calm came over the ocean. For two... then three full weeks the ship drifted bask and forth. The becalmed state, in itself, was something that could be expected occasionally and morale aboard ship did not sink too low. But then, by some miscalculation of provisioning, food began to run alarmingly low. It was a bad situation, indeed, and the crew did not take well to half and then quarter rations. But one morning, as they lay in close to shore, the ship’s carpenter, Charles Fletcher, saw something on the banks of a small cove that put him into a high pitch excitement. He peered through the ship’s glass for a few moments, and then calling enthusiastically to his friend, Nigger Nat, who was working a few feet (Fading) down the deck. MUSIC: SOUND: Light sea in b.g. CHAS: Nat…Nat! Come here a minute…quick! NAT: (Fading on) Whattya see, Charlie…whatchu lookin’ at through them spy glasses? CHAS: Here, Nat…Take a look for yourself. My hungry old eyes might just be deceivin’ me. NAT: Now lemme get this contraption ‘justed…ummm – uh! wouldju’ look at that. One…two…three…four…four nice roly-poly black bears. I can almost smell that bear steak cookin’ now. CHAS: They sure would be a welcome change from that smidgin of salt pork and beans we’re getting’ now. NAT: They sho’nuff would. CHAS: Nat…did you ever hunt bear? NAT: Don’t reckon I did, but I sho feels like I could learn in a big hurry. CHAS: Well, look…what do you say if we put it up to the mate? Iv’e done some huntin’ before, and some of that fresh bear meat would make this whole crew a lot happier. NAT: Charlie, that sounds fine with me. I’m almost hungry enough to tangle with that there animal bare handed. CHAS: There’s the mate now…I’ll call him over. (Louder) Say, mister Howard… would you step over here for a minute? HOWARD: What’s on you mind, Fletcher? CHAS: Take a look in that cove over there with these glasses. HOWARD: Well, I’ll be hanged! bear! playing right down around the water’s edge. NAT: Yep! An I sho got a hankerin’ of’ some of that there fresh meat. CHAS: Nat and I figure we could get the long boat into that cove. We’d like to go ashore…kill those bears…and bring back some meat. HOWARD: Umm…they sure look fat, don’t they? I reckon you could beach the long boat there. Well, it sounds good to me, Fletcher. CHAS: I’d like to take some knives and salt ashore. We might just as well skin ‘em and dress ‘em there. HOWARD: Well, from the looks of this blasted calm, you could probably stay ashore overnight. I don’t think we’re ever going to get down to San Francisco. CHAS: We’ll break out some guns and stock up the long boat. Should be ready to shove off in an hour or so. HOWARD: Oh…Fletcher. You better take a couple of more men with you. That’s a lot of rowing for just you and Nat. I’ll send Jansen and Erickson over to give you a hand…they know how to hunt. CHAS: Fine, Mr. Howard…we should have fresh meat aboard by tomorrow noon. NAT: An’ I’m just going to eat that bear meat ‘til it comes (Fading) running out my ears. MUSIC: NARR: So Charles Fletcher in 1846 took charge of a hunting party that came ashore on our Mendocino Coastline. The crew of the becalmed ship gave him, Nigger Nat, Jansen, and Erickson a rousing send off as the foursome pushed off for land. Everyone was in great anticipation of fresh meat on the Morrow, and the cook began to make plans for a festive culinary celebration. With steady sweeps of the oars the long boat was propelled through the breakers and beached in the cove. Naturally, as the men approached land, their scent was picked up by the bears and the animals scampered off into the brush. Fletcher had a strange sensation as he sloshed through the surf to reach dry land. He was aware that he was somewhere on the northern pacific coast of America, but he instinctively knew that this land had not been walked upon the by very many white men. A short distance back from the beach began the dense forest over which towered the mighty redwood giants, and there was an awesome stillness to the land that was only slightly punctuated by the lapping surf. After securing the long boat the men started after the animals. From the tracks, Fletcher saw that the bears had taken off in pairs…two to the southward…and two to the northeast. Therefore the hunting party split up…with the Scandinavians going in one direction, and Nat and Charlie tracking to the northeast. It was rough going through the dense brush, but within an hour the murmur of the surf was indistinguishable. Then late in the afternoon, the signs showed that the bears were not too (Fading) far in advance. MUSIC: SOUND: Crashing through brush…slash of machete NAT: I swear to goodness, Charlie…If I have to swing this knife much more, my arm’s going to fall off. (Breathing heavily) CHAS: (Breathing heavily) It’s tough going, all right, Nat. I guess we’re the first white men to clear a path through this brush. NAT: (Sound: Slashing) (Chuckling) Ther you go callin’ me a white man again, Charlie. I sho’nuff like that. CHAS: (Good naturedly) You know what I meant, Nat. Besides, you’ve been as good a friend to me as any white man I ever knew. NAT: Well, the way those bears keeps ahead of us, I guess we both smell about the same to them. CHAS: (In fast) Hold up, Nat…be quiet. Did you hear that? (Lower voice) SOUND: Bear growling – grunting NAT: Yeah…It’s coming from down this ravine. CHAS: I think they’re taking on water down there. Let’s ease forward slowly now. SOUND: Rustling brush NAT: (Confidential) There they are, Charlie…both of ‘em. CHAS: All right…you take the one to the south…aim for the neck…you all set, Nat? NAT: Ready any time. CHAS: Fire when I count to three…then begin reloading right away. SOUND: Cocking rifles CHAS: One….two….three SOUND: Three shots NAT: Yours is down, Charlie…down and out. SOUND: Bear growling – B.G. CHAS: Other one’s hit, but he’s trying to limp away. If I can just get reloaded before he gets out of sight. (Sound: ramrod) There now…all right, I got a bead on him. SOUND: Rifle shot NAT: You got him, Charlie!…you got him good! CHAS: We sure did, Nat. Now let’s get down there and skin ‘em. We’ll camp here tonight and head back for the beach in the morning. NAT: Umm – uh! I can taste that nice, juicy (Fading) bear meat right now. MUSIC: NARR: So it is that Charles Fletcher and his friend, Nigger Nat, were successful in their bear hunt on our Mendocino Coastline in 1846. During the late afternoon of that day they skinned and butchered the animals, and then threw up a makeshift shelter in which to pass the night. Nat prepared a huge meal and the tow men enjoyed fresh meat for the first time in many weeks. They sat for a time around the camp fire…talking quietly of the abundance of game, fish, and timber on the remote northern coast, and how the setting appealed to both of them. Then they dropped off to sleep thinking of the celebration aboard ship the next day when they returned with the supply of fresh food. It must have been about the middle of the night when Charlie and Nat were awakened by a new sound…a sound that neither had heard for several weeks. It was wind, and to their trained ears it had the characteristics of a heavy blow. Slowly but surely the wind increased until it was howling through the treetops with near gale force. Within a short time it was followed by rain, and the two men scrambled around trying to get their powder and supplies under cover. There for the remainder of the night they huddled together in the downpour, wondering what the storm was doing to their ship laying off the cove. When the cold, dreary dawn broke, they gathered together their gear and headed back for the beach. Both were thinking unvoiced fears, and as they began to hear the pounding surf, their pace increased until they arrived on the sand at a dead run. Pausing there, they scanned the waters far up and down the coast. But their inward fears were realized…the ship was nowhere in sight. Then in the lee of a rock they saw a huddled figure. Hopefully, they approached (Fading) the spot. MUSIC: SOUND: Wind –surf CHAS: (Fading on) Olof…Olof…is that you? OLOF: Ya…Charlie…it’s me. NAT: Man, speak up…where’s that ship of ours? CHAS: Olof…They haven’t …they haven’t gone… OLOF: Ya…Charlie they ‘ben gone down the coast. NAT: They sho’nuff left us stranded here. OLOF: Ya…Nels and me…we got back here to beach last night…built a big fire…ship saw us and signaled. Then this whoppin’ wind began to blow, and along ‘bout dawn she ‘ben go down the coast. CHAS: Well, this beats all…stranded on the beach in the wilderness. NAT: This sho’ is funny. CHAS: Olof, where’s Nels?…He’s not hurt? OLOF: No…Nels ben gone get some berries to eat. We missed our bear yesterday…’ben awful hungry. CHAS: Well, we’ve got bear meat for you if we can start a fire in this dirty weather. NAT: (Excited) Charlie! Dat long boat of ours…dat long boat’s gone! CHAS: Good Lord…it is gone. Where is it, Olof…did you see it? OLOF: Ya…big wind…high tide pull it off the beach…wash it away to sea. CHAS: Well, that fixes us up fine, Nat. I guess we’re here to stay awhile. NAT: Sho looks as though the almighty’s taken to frownin’ on us. CHAS: Now, don’t let it get you down, old timer. We’re not as bad off as we could be. The ship may come back in a few days…in the meantime, we’ll just have ourselves a nice little shore leave. NAT: Charlie…I got a feelin’ in my bones that we ain’t gonna see that ship no more. Once that captain gets a good wind for port, he ain’t gonna be about to come back. CHAS: Well, I hate to lose that pay we got coming, but other than that, there’s not much to worry about. NAT: I sho’ don’t wanna eat bear meat the rest of my natural life. CHAS: You won’t have to Nat. I saw the signs of lots of other game in that timber we’ve got a few simple tools here on the beach…don’t you fret, we can do all right for ourselves. NAT: Charlie…where do you figure we are? CHAS: Can’t say for sure…except we’re on the Pacific Coast somewhere north of San Francisco. Maybe not to far north or it would be colder. NAT: Well, we’re here all right. So we might just as well make the best of it. CHAS: That’s the idea, Nat. If we can’t live off of this land, we don’t much deserve to live anyway. NAT: Makes us sorta like property owners, huh, Charlie? CHAS: I reckon it does, Nat…we might as well just lay claim to this stretch of ground. Can’t tell how long we’ll be here. NAT: Sho seems strange not knowin’ where we is, though. CHAS: Well, Nat…if that bothers you, put a name on the place. NAT: I’se been thinking about that Charlie. And seein’s how we hunted a few bear in this place…why, I’d like to call it Cuffey’s Cove. (Fading) MUSIC: NARR: So it was, that in 1846 three white men and a colored man came to our Mendocino Coast. And Nat, whose sea journeys had taken him to the far corners of the world, used the Chinese word for bear to name the cove on which they had landed. Well, the two Swedes, Charlie, and Nat remained on the beach for some time…watching and waiting for their ship to return. But that vessel did not come back to take them from our Mendocino wilderness. Whether the captain felt the hunting party could make their way overland to civilization, or whether the elements made that return impossible is unknown. However, Charles Fletcher made the best of their predicament, and after looking around, decided to stay on the ground as a settler. And his friend, Nat, with a steadfast devotion and friendship, stayed with him. The two Swedes, Erickson and Jansen, also stayed for awhile, but eventually they left for other parts and nothing more is known of them. We know that Fletcher and Nat stayed on at Cuffey’s Cove for two years…from 1846 to 1848. Their existence, though primitive, probably was not an unhappy one. For while they lacked the many comforts of settled areas, they also were divorced from the many foibles that civilization sometimes brings with it. In several respects, these two men lived in a man paralleling Robinson Crusoe and his good man Friday…though Nat’s position was hardly that subservient. Fishing and hunting occupied much of their time and Fletcher’s boundless mechanical ingenuity was put to good advantage in constructing the essentials for better living. He certainly must have seen future in the land to stay on as he did, and undoubtedly the ideas for future business enterprises began even then to take shape in his mind. Finally, he mad the decision to move north from the cove and claim the land at the mouth of the Navarro River. So listen now as we join he and Nat on the site of their (Fading) new camp. MUSIC: CHAS: You see, Nat….we’ve got to think about the future. As nice a spot as Cuffey’s Cove is, the possibilities of development there are not that great. NAT: How do you figure dat Charlie? CHAS: Well, when settlers begin to move up here, they’re probably going to settle on the ocean, but they’re also going to want to be near some kind of inland transportation, and since there’s not any roads….and probably won’t be for some time….the best place to light would be at the mouth of some river. NAT: Then that’s why youse is pickin’ out this Navarro River for da new location? CHAS: Yeah, that’s right. If a boom ever comes up here, it’s going to be in lumber. Logs are moved a lot easier on water than on land, so that’s another reason for being on the river. NAT: Then mebbe you plans on going into the lumber business, huh, Charlie? CHAS: Don’t figure so, Nat. I reckon I got my roots too deep in the sea. But I’ve been thinking that it’s going to take some sort of a special kind of ship to get lumber down this coast, and maybe I can make that kind of a boat. NAT: Well, I don’t rightly see how we could just start building boats right now, there ain’t no lumber yet. CHAS: Nat, I’m going to gamble on the chance that there will be ‘fore too long. It’s mighty important to have your claim staked and to be on the ground when things start to happen fast. NAT: How’s about the meantime, Charlie….What’s we gonna do for the time being? CHAS: First off, I want to build a canoe or ship. We’ll build a shanty here on the south bank of the Navarro, but we’ll need something to get across the river with. Then, too, if people start coming up we’ll be able to run a ferry service. NAT: I swear, Charlie….how you do get things figured out. I sometimes wonders how you gets time to sleep with all this heavy thinking you’re a’doing. CHAS: And there’s one more thing, Nat. So far we’ve just been catching salmon to eat ourselves. But once people begin working around here, they may not have time to do their own fishing, so I figure there’s going to be a market for fish. NAT: You mean people might pay good money for those no account salmon we take from the rivers? CHAS: Yep. I figure they would if we went about it the right way. If we smoked ‘em and cured ‘em, they’d make a presentable packet for anybodys dinner table. NAT: Charlie, I’ve been wantin’ to ask you some things for a long time….things about you and me. CHAS: What do you mean, Nat? NAT: Well, just this. When folks start to coming up here, and they find an old colored fellow like me ‘sociatin’ friendly like with a white man….well, I just wonder how there’ll think of you? I wouldn’t want to be the cause of any bad luck to you, Charlie. CHAS: Nat, old timer….you shouldn’t talk like that….we been friends for too long a time for me to worry about whether you’re black or white or anything else. As far as I know, California is a free state….that make you a free man up here, Nat. NAT: I’se glad to hear you say those words Charlie. You make me feel like a free man when you talk that way. CHAS: But I’d tell you what I’d do if I was you, Nat. There’s lots of land here that’s fgot no claim on it. While I’d hate to lose your company, I don’t see any reason why you don’t set out a claim for yourself. You’re a good fisherman….you could do pretty well in some of the same things I’ve been talking about. NAT: I don’t know what to say ‘bout that Charlie. I always figured I’d be sort of lost without you ‘round to set me on the right direction. CHAS: Well, there’s no hurry, Nat. We’ll go on just like we have, and, whatever you decide will be alright with me. Now lets get ourselves to work. I wanna do some building here on the Navarro that’ll last a long (Fading) long time. MUSIC: NARR: And what Charles Fletcher built on the Navarro flats did last a long, long time. He became the original settler of a village that in its more prosperous days totaled some five or six hundred people. And Nat had another engagement with a bear….only this time it was almost disastrous. He tangled with one in a hand to hand fight on the flats near where the new bridge is now being constructed. We don’t know what happened to the bear, but Nat was almost killed, and was once again the efficient nursing of his friend, Charles Fletcher, that saved his life. Nat moved to Big River upon his recovery, and the remainder of his years was spent in that vicinity. And its said that his proudest statement used to be that he and Charlie Fletcher were the first two white men on the Mendocino Coast….but to conclude today’s story it is appropriate to give a brief resume of Charlie Fletcher’s career. He built his dugout on the Navarro, and when Jerome Ford came north to build the mill at Big River, he was Charlie Fletcher’s guest for two or three days. Charlie made a good claim to much of the Navarro timber, and later sold it to the Navarro River mills. But he kept nine acres on the flats for his own business. In the 1860’s and 70’s, he maintained a shipyard on the south bank of the Navarro on the sight of the older bridge. During this period he built these scooners: Navarro, Sina, Ocean Pearl, Ocean Spray, Ino, and Maggie Johnson – these vessels being able to carry between 125 and 150 thousand feet of lumber. To keep his shipping, Fletcher built a jetty from the mouth of the river, and this well planned project kept the channel open with a dept of 8 or 9 feet at all times. And the last in this long list of Fletcher’s accomplishments is that he operated a hotel and saloon on the Navarro flat….a place which according to old-timers was the scene of many great celebrations on the 4th of Julys and Christmases of bygone years. But now your voice of the Mendocino must close today’s story of the exploits and friendship of Charles Fletcher and Nigger Nat….The men who’s desire for fresh bear meat was responsible for their settling in Cuffey’s Cove and staying on the Mendocino Coast. MUSIC: