The Archival Silence of Hill’s Ferry, California

Abstract

Purpose:  The town of Hill’s Ferry was once a thriving Central California town during the mid-to- late 1800s. But this once-vibrant town has all but disappeared from the memory of California history. There is now only a historic marker, covered in weeds, near broken concrete from a torn-down bridge. The marker, installed in 1964 by the Boy Scouts youth organization, reads: “July 18, 1964, historic landmark, Hills Ferry, founded 1849 by Judge O. D. Dickerson, named for Jesse Hill, operator of the ferry boat that landed just upstream under the present bridge.” Hill’s Ferry is worth remembering. Originating during the California Gold Rush, it was at one time the largest town in its county of Stanislaus and was part of a thriving international wheat industry.  Alternately it had a notorious reputation and was known throughout California as “Hell’s Fury” due to its reputation for lawlessness and the ferocity of its work life and social life. There were powerful and affluent members of this community whose history has been well documented, and this study does not endeavor to undermine the accomplishments associated with any individual or enterprise related to the development of Hill’s Ferry. Instead, I will focus on enclaves whose histories I argue have been silenced and forgotten, everyday people of Hill’s Ferry whose history, like the town itself, has been abandoned.  This is despite the fact that the numbers of these identified groups comprised a significant percentage of the population of Hill’s Ferry.  At the center of the identified marginalized groups is a Chinese woman known as Ah Gun (born circa 1850s; died 1928 in the nearby town of Newman), who was trafficked into the United States from China, and eventually brought to Hill’s Ferry as a young woman in the early 1870s.

Methodology:  This study will discuss marginalized communities and individuals crucial to Hill’s Ferry’s development and the character of this town, focusing particularly on the individual named Ah Gun, and contextualizing the Hill’s Ferry community in which she lived part of her life. This includes the vibrant Chinese enclave, and two other groups categorized by their labor: laborers who harvested the lucrative wheat crops, and the workers who provided entertainment in the saloons and bordellos. I argue that these communities have been ignored or mischaracterized in existing histories, though they do have a strong presence in census data, archival photographs, and newspaper articles from the period. These communities undeniably were part of the fabric of a once vibrant, now disappeared, town. I ground my methodological approach in previous literature on archival silence and how this concept can be related to the historically marginalized subjects described above.

Findings:  This approach will both challenge and illuminate aspects of available sources, ultimately uncovering a more contextualized history of the town of Hill’s Ferry and its community, and especially one of its former residents known as Ah Gun. 

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: This approach furthermore can provide a framework for future investigations:  Hill’s Ferry is not the only ghost town with its origins in the Gold Rush, and Ah Gun was one of thousands of individuals trafficked from China to the United States from the 1850s to 1870s.  Thus, the methodological approach is one that may inform future investigations into the histories of marginalized individuals and disappeared towns that comprise the larger history of the American West and especially California during the mid-to-late 19^th century.