Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff was born on the ancestral estate in Carver, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, September 7, 1821, a son of Charles and Hannah (Shaw) Shurtleff. On both sides he is descended, without admixture, from old settlers of New England, members of the first successful colony, that of Plymouth. The name of Shurtleff has been found in old records of the Plymouth Colony, spelled in various forms and therefore at times incorrectly – something which often occurs when those doing clerical work write names from sound. The natural evolution of the language may also have cut some figure. In some cases the name is quite distorted by the spelling, and it appears in different places respectively as Chyrecliff, Shiercliff, Shirtley, Shurtlef and Shurtleff.

The founder of the family in this country was William Shurtleff, who was born in England (probably in Yorkshire), about 1619. He landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, some time prior to 1635, a youth in his ‘teens. He is on record as having been enrolled for military duty there in 1643, and also as having been married unto Elizabeth Lettice, October 18, 1655. While at Plymouth his estate was at Strawberry Hill, near the Reed Pond, not far from the boundary line of Kingston. He afterward moved to Marshfield, where his name is of record in 1664. He died there June 23, 1666, being killed in a severe tempest by a stroke of lightning. In the marriage record referred to his name is written Shirtley. He is said to have written it with one final “f” – Shurtlef, - and one of his grandsons added an “f”, since which the name has been spelled, as now, Shurtleff. It is so spelled on the tombstone, at Plymouth, of William Shurtleff, the eldest son of the above first settler, who died in 1729.

William and Elizabeth (Lettice) Shurtleff had three sons, William, Thomas and Abiel. The latter, born in June, 1666, at Marshfield, was married in January, 1693, to Lydia Barnes, a daughter of Jonathan and Elizabeth Barnes, of Plymouth, who bore him seven sons and three daughters. Their son Benjamin (first), who was born in 1710, was the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch.

To supplement this genealogical record it will be necessary at this point to turn back and refer to other of the original families of the old colony. Isaac Allerton and his family came in the Mayflower to Plymouth, in 1620, among whom was a daughter, Mary. She in due time was married to Thomas Cushman, who, at the age of fourteen years, came in the ship Fortune, in 1621, with his father, Robert Cushman. Among the children of Thomas and Mary (Allerton) Cushman was Elkanah, who had a son names Josiah Cushman; and of the children of Josiah Cushman was a daughter named Susannah Cushman, who was married to the aforesaid Benjamin Shurtleff (first), and was the great-grand-mother of the subject of this sketch.

Thus it will be seen that by this union then veins of this branch of the Shurtleff family received an affluent from a conspicuous source more remote in the past than the point to which the family name can be traced. Isaac Allerton and Robert Cushman were leading and historic characters in connection with the Puritans, not only as regards their settlement in the “old colony” of Plymouth, but in their native England and in their chosen exile of Amsterdam and Leyden. They lived in the Elizabethan age. Thomas Cushman, son of Robert, was born in 1607, the year in which, according to Shakesperean commentators, “Antony and Cleopatra” and “Timon of Athens” were written, and nine years before the death of Shakespeare. Hence his father, Robert Cushman, was strictly a cotemporary with Shakespeare. Charlotte S. Cushman, mentioned because so widely known, and who honored the stage more than any other woman America has produced, was a descendant of these Cushmans.

To resume the original thread, Benjamin (first) and Susannah (Cushman) Shurtleff had a son, Benjamin (second), who was born in 1748, and who, being an only son, inherited his father’s estate in Carver, on which his life was spent. His son, Charles, the father of our subject, was born there, October 29, 1790. He was reared on his father’s farm. Soon after his marriage to Hannah Shaw, he removed to New Hampshire, and entered upon a mercantile career. Abandoning this, he returned to Carver, Massachusetts, where he died at about the age of fifty, being an exception in the Shurtleff family, most of whom have reached the Scriptural three-score years and ten, or more.

The above is a mere genealogical outline, necessary in introducing the sketch of a pioneer of California, a descendant of some of the first settlers of the Atlantic coast, and of necessity brief, though much interest could be written of members of the family, who have attained more than local distinction in various walks of life, but especially in literary and professional pursuits. Rev. William Shurtleff, a grandson of the first settler, was a graduate of Harvard, about 173 years ago (1717), when such an education was alone a distinction. Roswell Shurtleff was a graduate in 1799 and also a Professor of Dartmouth College, during the period when Daniel Webster and his brother, Ezekiel, were students there; and his reminiscences of the college life of these famous alumni are published in one of the biographies of the great statesmen. Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff, an eminent physician of Boston, a brother of the father of our subject, was a founder of Shurtleff College, at Alton, Illinois, to an extent which caused his surname to be given to the institution. His son, the late Dr. N.B. Shurtleff, was Mayor of Boston two terms, and did much in aid of the progress of the city, but is more distinguished for his exhaustive genealogical and antiquarian researches, and for the accuracy and value of his writings on these topics.

Our subject has had two uncles, five cousins and a brother who were regular graduates in medicine – the latter the well-known Dr. G. A. Shurtleff, of Stockton. This gentleman, who came to California in 1849, was a member of the first and second city councils of Stockton, two years Recorder of San Joaquin County, and became a Director of the State Insane Asylum at Stockton, in 1856, and its Medical Superintendent in 1865, holding the position with signal ability until admonished by failing health, brought on by overwork, to resign in 1883. He was one of the Commissioners who located the Napa State Insane Asylum, and was the author of the bill providing for it. He has been President of the State Medical Society, and is Emeritus Professor of Mental Diseases and Medical Jurisprudence in the University of California. He was for years a prominent member of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, and attended the meetings of the Association at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1872, at Baltimore in 1873, at Philadelphia in 1880, and the American Medical Association also in 1880, in New York city. He was elected, in 1876, as the sole delegate for the State of California to the International Medical Congress. He was also the first President of the San Joaquin Society of California Pioneers. Though now retired from practice, he stands to-day one of the most honored and representative of the medical profession who ever lived in California, and is one of the most favorably known men in the State, in or out of the profession.

Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff spent his boyhood days in Carver, Massachusetts, where he attended the public schools to the age of fifteen years. He continued his education at Pierce Academy, and when he was nineteen years old he began teaching school during the winter seasons, attending the academy during the intervals until he had the completed the regular course. He first studied medicine with his brother, Dr. G.A. Shurtleff, and afterward with the late Dr. Elisha Huntington, of Lowell, Massachusetts. He also graduated at Harvard, in 1848, meantime attending Fremont Medical School of Boston, and being in both a pupil of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

While at Harvard, in 1846, he heard Rufus Choate’s celebrated speech in defense of Albert J. Terrill, charged with the murder of Maria Bickford, and considers the great advocate’s address to the jury on that occasion the most fascinating display of eloquence he ever witnessed. Reared in the county where Daniel Webster resided, he occasionally heard him discuss the political issues of those times. He often speaks of the great orator’s celebrated Marshfield speech, in the Taylor campaign of 1848, as one of rare eloquence and power.

His last year at school was the memorable one in which Marshall discovered gold in California, and the news at once turned his thoughts in that direction. When the early reports were verified by President Polk’s message, he at once determined to try his fortune on the far-away shores of the Pacific, and began making preparations with that idea in view. Late in December, 1848, he secured passage on the schooner Boston, then fitting out in the New England metropolis for the trip to San Francisco, and while waiting for the departure of the vessel he put in his time about the city. Learning through the newspapers that Choate and Webster were to appear on opposite sides of the patent case of Marcy vs. Sizer, he eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to witness these two giants of the forensic arena arrayed against each other, and as a result enjoyed one of the greatest treats of his life. Both were at their best, while every available particle of the space allowed for spectators about the court-room was crowded with the representatives of the brain and the beauty of Boston. The scene was an inspiring one, and the occasion worthy of its brilliant setting.

Preparations being completed, the vessel made ready to depart with her passengers on January 25, 1849, though on account of adverse weather the start was not effected until two days later. Those who sailed with Dr. Shurtleff were for the most part fine specimens of bright young manhood of New England, men of nerve, adventurous and of more than ordinary capacity, as indeed were the great majority of the pioneers who came to California before the proofs of California’s golden wealth were actually laid down before their eyes. Instead of rounding Cape Horn, the vessel route of 1849, the schooner passed through the Straits of Magellan, and without any unusually noteworthy incident, proceeding on her way, casting anchor in the harbor of San Francisco July 6, 1849. That was quite a noted day in the history of arrivals, as no less than five other vessels of note also appeared in the harbor, namely, the ships Edward Everett and Atilla, and the brig Forest of Boston, and the ships Mary Stewart and Taralinto of New York. The Boston made the voyage in 160 days, which was more than an average trip, as the California-bound fleet of 1849 could boast of only a few fast sailers. The ship Gray Eagle, a Baltimore clipper, made the best record of all the vessels of that year, having arrived in San Francisco from Philadelphia on May 18, in 117 days. But the discovery of gold in California quickened the spirit of commercial enterprise and created a demand for the fleetest ships that mechanical skill and invention could devise. The Flying Cloud, built at East Boston, in 1850, by Donald McKay, made the voyage in 1851 from New York to San Francisco, a distance of 13, 610 miles, in eighty-nine days and twenty-one hours. In 1854 she made the same trip in eighty-nine days and eight hours, and on one occasion making 374 miles in twenty-four hours. No other sailing vessel has ever made the voyage from any Atlantic domestic port to San Francisco in less than ninety days.

Of course all on board had become more or less acquainted during the long voyage, and Dr. Shurtleff recalls, among his fellow-passengers O.M. Craig, the well-known Sonoma viticulturist and the late William Wallace, who was a member of the San Francisco firm of Sisson & Wallace in after years. He and others debarked from a boat at Clark’s Point, and proceeded to town by a path which followed an undulating course, sometimes twenty or thirty feet above the water, and again only a foot or two over. Many of the passengers, however, landed from boats about where Montgomery street now is, and spent a week looking about the city, and becoming acquainted with prospects in mining districts. He was struck with the novel appearance of San Francisco, which yet wore the old Mexican air, and like everyone else he little thought that the place would grow back into the hills, which it has, or that Knob Hill and similar sites would be crowded with the places that stand there to-day; yet he felt that the city must be an important commercial center, and a large one, too, - good places for investment in reality but for the general uncertainty that hung about land tittles in those days. The schooner Olivia, which had been with them in the passage through the Straits of Magellan, arrived in San Francisco a few days before the Boston; and as she was to proceed on up the river to Sacramento, our subject, who had been on shore a week, took passage on her for the trip. This required about three days’ time, and the first night the vessel anchored at the junction of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, where some ambitious person soon afterward endeavored to start a settlement, which he encumbered with the high-sounding title “New York of the Pacific.” The Doctor will always remember that night, when the mosquitoes made it so hot for him that he thought there was certainly not more than one place warmer! On July 16, he landed at Sacramento, where he saw a busy village of tents, among which he recollects seeing only two or three wooden buildings.

As soon as convenient, he proceeded to Beal’s Bar, which in now in Placer County, near the El Dorado line, and commenced mining, meeting with fair success. Among those in the vicinity was a man from Oregon, who had come down in 1848, and had secured a claim of unusual richness. His location was then such a fortunate one that he could take out two or three hundred dollars’ worth of gold in a few hours, and he thought the metal would soon become so plentiful that it would not be worth scarcely anything. As a result, he had sold much of his dust for coin at the rate of eight dollars an ounce, half what it was worth, and had gambled his wealth away or otherwise disposed of it with a lavish hand, thinking he would have a good time while it was worth something, anyway. Now, things had begun to change. His claim was not so good, new arrivals appeared every day, and he saw that gold was not going to decline. He was terribly despondent, and when asked by Dr. Shurtleff the reason of his downheartedness, he related the facts above mentioned, saying he had thrown his gold away when he could get plenty of it, and now, when he realized its value he could not take out more than $50 to $100 worth a day! He was truly an unfortunate man.

After mining on his account for a time the Doctor went to work for a company, who were engaged at a point near the confluence of the American River and its south fork, in digging a canal between those two streams. The dirt was taken out in constructing this canal, and which was used in damming the river, was the richest he ever saw, and fairly shined with the yellow metal. He received $16 a day for his work, and while a few shovelfuls of the dirt taken out would have paid his wages, the result of his enterprise when finished proved disappointing to the promoter of the scheme, who had supposed that the bed of the river would be almost lined with gold. Another party, above them, imbued with the same idea, had made great preparation for celebrating the turning of the river, which they had also undertaken at that point. Among the festivities planned was an elaborate banquet, for which they procured all the delicacies known to the mining camp, including even a supply of champaign purchased at great expense in San Francisco. When the work was completed, and the water commenced to flow through the new channel, they had their banquet and drank their champaign, but an inspection of the river bottom in the morning showed only the barren rock as the result of all their work, and the end of their dreams of wealth.

While mining on the American, Dr. Shurtlefff did not entirely neglect his profession, which he practiced when occasion demanded. In the fall of 1849, hearing the reports of rich discoveries in what is now Shasta County, he went up to Reading Springs, (now called Shasta), where he arrived on the 21st of October, and there resumed mining on Middle Creek, and he took up a good claim in the bed of the creek. Among the miners on Rock Creek were two ministers of the gospel from Oregon, who worked every day in the creek, including Sundays. For this some of the miners called them to task, but in reply the preachers said they had families at home to which they were anxious to return as soon as possible, so that the ministers had the best of the argument, especially as most of those who lay off on Sunday put in their weekly holiday at the gaming tables.

The Doctor continued working in his claim, with an occasional bit of practice until the November 2, 1849; but as the rains then commenced and the high water drove him from his claim, he gave up mining. The rains caused quite an exodus from the camps. Some of the emigrants, on their way up there, had laid in heavy supplies of provisions, with a view of selling them after reaching their destination; but when the weather changed in the fall, they wanted to get away, and offered their supplies very cheap. The late R. J. Walsh, afterward widely known as the extensive Colusa farmer and stock-raiser, who was at one time President of the State Agricultural Society, was then a merchant at Reading Springs; and while he was a far-seeing business man, he was the fortunate possessor of considerable money as well, and he bought in the greater portion of the staples offered. Flour, for instance, which was always of Chilean manufacture, packed in hundred-pound sacks, was purchased by him at 20 to 25 cents per pound, while freights were 40 to 50 cents. When communication between that point and Sacramento were shut off by the high waters of winter, prices began to rise on all the necessaries of life, and it was not long until Walsh was selling flour from $2 to $2.25. Miners would come in and buy a sack, and Walsh would take $2.25 from their sack of dust, the transaction being treated on both sides with as great nonchalance as would be the buying of a fifty-pound sack of flour now. Other things sold proportionately high.