... the mark of a true gentleman was his skill in baking a perfect pie.

Born in Sag Harbor, Long Island, Prentice Mulford (1834-1891) sailed to San Francisco on a clipper in 1856 and remained for sixteen years. He left for a long tour of Europe in 1872 and then settled in New York City where he became known as a comic lecturer and author of poems and essays and a columnist for the New York Daily Graphic (a serial), 1875-1881.
Life by land and sea (1889) contains Mulford's adventures at sea and in the West, 1856-1872: life on a clipper and a California coastal schooner hunting whales and seals, gold prospecting in Tuolumne County, accounts of camp life and experiences as a school teacher and minor local politican, copper mining in Stanislaus County, and career as journalist for the San Francisco Golden Era.

One of our prominent officials, giving evidence in a suit relative to the disputed possession of a mining claim in a remote district, when asked what, in the absence of a house or shaft, he would consider to be indications of the former presence of miners, answered: "Empty oyster cans and empty bottles."

Although sometimes absent, social skills were certainly prized in Early California, but the mark of a true gentleman was his skill in baking a perfect pie.

The early pie-makers of our State were men who as soon as possible slept in sheets instead of blankets, who were skilled in washing linen, who went in clean attire on Sundays, and who subscribed for magazines and newspapers.. On remote bars and gulches such men have kept households of incredible neatness, their cabins sheltered under the evergreen oak, with clear rivulets from the mountain gorges running past the door, with clothes-lines precisely hung with shirts and sheets, with gauze covered meat safe hoisted high in the branches of the overshadowing trees, protecting those pies from intruding and omnivorous ground squirrels and inquisitive yellow-jackets; while about their door-way the hard, clean-swept red earth resembled a well-worn brick pavement. There is morality in pies.

Themes he loved appeal to the thoughtful seeker –

Love is Life; Sympathy is Force; Our Thoughts Are Forces; Thoughts Are Things; Thought Is an Element; Strength is Born in Rest; Truths Prove Themselves; New Thoughts Bring Life Power and Talent; Grow in Repose;Truths Bring Health; Lies Breed Disease

The core of his creed is embodied in his essay “The Church of Silent Demand”.

The Church of Silent Demand To Supreme Power
Demand first Wisdom, so as to know what to ask for.
‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ Ask imperiously, but ask in a willing mood for what the Supreme Power sees best for you.
‘Love thy neighbour as thyself,’ but demand good first for yourself that you may be the better fitted to do good to all.
“Prentice Mulford, The New Gospeler”, National Magazine, 1905

“The Infinite is with us in all creeds and nations, and to call on the Infinite for more power, patience, courage and cheerfulness is to get it.”