A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 76

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

USA > California > A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 76

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The Iowa colony secured 500 acres of the old Cucamonga homestead in 1883. The union of the two settlements accounts for the amalgamated name Ioamosa. Fruit culture is the principal in- dustry of the colony.

BARSTOW.

Barstow, formerly Waterman, is a railroad town situated at the junction of the Southern California and Santa Fe system proper. It has an elevation of 1900 feet. The climate is clear and dry. It has considerable trade with the mines. The project of building the Victor res- ervoir, which will bring a large area of the so- called desert under cultivation, has revived inter-

est in Barstow as a prospective agricultural district.

THE NEEDLES.

The Needles is the chief metropolis of San Bernardino's portion of the Colorado desert. It is located at the point where the Santa Fe Rail- road enters California. It takes its name from a number of spire-shaped rocks near it, which were so named by Lieutenant Ives in 1857, when he explored a railroad route on the thirty-fifth parallel. A railroad station was located at the crossing in 1883, when the bridge over the Col- orado was completed. A railroad eating house was built for passengers and employes. Frank Monaghan, who had been a conductor on the Southern Pacific road, and Dan Murphy opened a small store. The desert station gradually grew into a town. It is the headquarters of one of the divisions of the Santa Fe system which absorbed the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. In 1888 Dr. J. P. Booth and F. H. Harberd started a news- paper and named it Our Bazoo. In 1891 the title was changed to The Needles Eye.

The Needles contains a number of business houses, two hotels and several manufacturing es- tablishments. The Santa Fe has a large round- house here and its repair shops. The town has considerable trade with the mining camps con- tiguous to it. It claims a population of 2,500 souls.

CHAPTER LXVI.

VENTURA COUNTY.

F OR twenty-two years the territory now included in Ventura county was part of Santa Barbara county, and the early history of that part properly belongs in that coun- ty. Its history in the Spanish and Mexican eras centers around the Mission of San Buenaven- tura. There was but little settlement beyond the immediate vicinity of the mission. The country after the secularization of the mission was held in Santa Barbara city or in Los Angeles. These ranchos were managed by mayor-domos. There

was no opportunity for small settlers to get a foothold.

Two roads led up the coast from the pueblo of Los Angeles in early times. One of them el camino viejo (the old road) was via Cahuenga pass to Encino, from Encino to Las Virgenes, from Las Virgenes to Trumfo, and from Trum- fo to San Buenaventura; the other, from Los Angeles by Cahuenga or Verdugos to San Fer- nando and thence to San Buenaventura. Com- ing together as they did at the old mission made

456

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

the little settlement there an important station in the travel up and down the coast in the days when the mustang was the chief means of trans- portation. Like Jordan, they were hard roads to travel. By the shortest road, that via the En- cino, the distance between the mission and the pueblo was seventy miles, yet the wiry mustang and his tireless rider could easily make the jour- ney in a day.

Although surrounded by a magnificent cattle country there was but little shipping from its port in the hide droghing days. Dana, Robinson and others who were on the coast at that time make but meager mention of it. The cattle of its extensive ranchos transported their own hides and tallow to the market, that is, they were driven to some point near Santa Barbara or San Pedro for slaughter.

The old mission figured in the Civil war of 1838, when Juan Bautista Alvarado and Don Carlos Carrillo were hostile rivals for the gov- ernorship of the territory. The battle of San Buenaventura was the Waterloo of Carrillo. It was not much of a battle, as battles were fought in the American Civil war from 1861 to 1865. but it was the most sanguinary conflict in the struggle between Northern and Southern Cali- fornia over the question of which, Los Angeles or Monterey, should be the capital, and who, Al- varado or Carrillo, should be governor.

Casteñada, in command of Carrillo's army of the south, had fallen back from Santa Barbara on the approach of Castro with the army of the north and taken position in the mission church of San Buenaventura. Castro pursuing, with three pieces of artillery, reached San Buenaven- tura in the night and planted his cannon on the heights overlooking the mission. In the morn- ing he summoned Casteñada to surrender. The summons was indignantly rejected, and the bat- tle was on. For three days there was a rattle of musketry and a roar of artillery. Each supposed he was annihilating the forces of the other. On the third night the southern soldiers, weary of slaughter, attempted to steal out under the cover of darkness and make their way to their desolate homes. They did the stealing part admirably, but when they had crawled out they were prompt- ly halted by the enemy lying in ambush; and as

promptly surrendered. After the battle came the painful duty of burying the dead and car- ing for the wounded-a dead southerner and a wounded northerner, or possibly the reverse (au- thorities differ). The mission building had re- ceived several severe wounds. Castro's marks- men could hit a mission, but not a man. It is said that there are several of Castro's cannon balls still embedded in the adobe walls of the* old mission. The battle of San Buenaventura was the Gettysburg of the Civil war between the arribanos (uppers) and the abajanos (lowers).

At the time of the American conquest there was not, so far as known, an American settler in San Buenaventura. Colonel Stevenson, when he was commander of the military district of the South, in 1847-48, sent Isaac Callahan and W. O. Streeter to take charge of the mission prop- erty, which had been abandoned by the super- intendent. After the organization of Santa Bar- bara county the San Buenaventura district con- stituted a township of that county. In Novem- ber, 1852, an election was called to elect three school commissioners for the township of San Buenaventura, but whether any were elected the records do not show. The boundaries, as de- fined in 1855, are as follows: "First township to extend from the division line of Los Angeles county to the Arroyo known as Arroyo del Rin- con. The election shall be held at the Mission San Buenaventura." The boundaries of the school district were the same as those of the township. The school trustees elected in No- vember, 1855, were José A. Pacifico and Sanchez Rey Olivas.

In December, 1855, John Roselli was teachı- ing a public school at the mission of San Buena- ventura. The school was taught in the Spanish language. This was probably the first common school taught in the district and the pioneer school of Ventura county.

In 1857 A. Schiappa Pietra, than a resident of Santa Barbara, started the first store in San Buenaventura. At that time there were but two places in the whole district where travelers could be entertained. One was a tent on the Sespe rancho and the other a hotel kept in the east wing of the mission. In 1858 the American resi-

457

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

dents were A. M. Conway, Griffin Robbins, W. T. Nash, W. D. Hobson, Mclaughlin and Park.

In 1859 the first attempt was made to form a county out of the eastern portion of Santa Bar- bara. A petition containing 130 names was sent to the legislature praying for the formation of the county of San Buenaventura.

The Los Angeles Star of January 29, 1859, commenting on the project says: "We might, however, have remained silent, had not the in- terests of Los Angeles county been brought into the question. Our informant stated to us that we are to be deprived of Fort Tejon township; and that according to the petition it was to be incorporated into the new county, giving to us the rancho of Conejo or some other place almost entirely valueless in exchange. It is an old maxim not only taught by the fireside, but spread upon every statute book, that he who takes from another without his consent is guilty of robbery. And he who assists in such an act is equally guilty with the leaders. Has Los An- geles county been consulted in this matter? We are certain it has not. Has Tejon district been asked if it would accede to it? We find no one can answer. San Buenaventura then would like to control not only the 130 persons who are said to have signed the petition, but also the board of supervisors of Santa Barbara county and the like body of Los Angeles county. Don Antonio de La Guerra, chairman of the board of super- visors of Santa Barbara, immediately on hearing of the movement, ordered the clerk of the coun- ty to send the representatives of the county in the legislature and the senator of the second district a comparative statement of the number of votes the would-be new county could cast; the pro rata amount of debt they would have to as- sume; and requesting these representatives to show to the legislative body the folly of the un- dertaking." The Star assures its readers that our delegation in the legislature will see to it that no "snap judgment" is taken by these plot- ters for a new county.

It is rather strange that this county division project did not carry in that legislature. The legislature of 1859 was a secession body. It passed a bill dividing the state and creating the state of Colorado, subject to the approval

of the people and congress. At an elec- tion held in the fall of 1859 the proposi- tion was voted upon by the counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino and Buena Vista. A large majority of the voters favored division, but state division failed. Congress took no ac- tion on the scheme to form a new state or terri- tory out of California. Nothing came of the county division schenie, either.

In 1860 there were but nine American voters in the precinct of San Buenaventura. The first survey of a town site was made in 1862, by Wat- erman, Vassault & Co., who owned the ex-mis- sion lands. The first attempt to incorporate the town was made in 1863. Messrs. Simpson, Bee- be, Stow, Escandon and others met at the hotel kept by V. A. Simpson and drew up a petition to the legislature asking for incorporation. The legislature, probably considering it too small a matter to waste time on, did nothing with the petition.

The Noachian deluge of 1861-62 made an in- land sea of the Santa Clara valley, but did very little damage. The cattle and horses escaped to the foothills and the loss of stock was light. Dur- ing the famine years of 1863 and 1864 there was a heavy loss of cattle. The dry years, however, did not bring about a subdivision of the ranchos as in Los Angeles. The ranchos were restocked gradually and the old industry, cattle-raising, continued for a time.

The flood of 1867-68 was more severe than that of 1861. "On Christmas day, 1867, the water rose until it was three feet deep in Main street of San Buenaventura. The lower por- tions of the town were submerged and the in- habitants had to be removed to a place of safety. The warm rain falling on and melting the re- cently deposited snows of the mountains filled the rivers to overflowing and caused the flood. The land from the Santa Clara hotel to the river was flooded. Forty-seven women were rescued from the flooded houses and carried on the backs of horses or on the shoulders of men to places of safety."

In 1868 the current of immigration, which for years had steadily flowed into Central and Northern California, turned southward. The

458

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

subdivision of the great ranchos of the south had begun and cheap farm lands were thrown on the market. Successive years of abundant rainfall had obliterated the traces of the "famine years." Prices of all products were good and men of small means in Central California, who had made money by grain-raising on rented lands, began to look around for homes of their own. The completion of the first transcontinental railroad (the Union and Central Pacific) in May, 1869, brought many home-seekers to the coast and some of these drifted southward.

The coast stage line had been established in 1868 on a better basis, and with increased serv- ice, running on regular time, attracted land travel. Heretofore travel up and down the coast had been almost entirely by steamer ; and as the large passenger steamers did not stop at San Buenaventura, it had remained comparatively unknown. The stage passengers coming down from the mountains on their journey northward or, rising as it were out of the sea on their south- ward trip, beheld stretched out before them the valley of the Santa Clara in all its loveliness and were delighted with the view and enthusiastic over the country's future prospects.

The following table of distances and stations gives the line of the old stage route between Los Angeles, San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara in 1868:

From Los Angeles to Cahuenga Pass House 93/4 miles

To New Station 534

To Mountain House (Larry's) 153/4

To Simi Ranch 83/4 ..

To Las Posas 12

To Santa Clara River IC

To San Buenaventura 83/4

To Rincon 12

To Santa Barbara 15

Total 981/2 miles

The stage, which carried the daily mail, left Los Angeles at 6 A. M. and arrived at 8 P. M. The through time from San Francisco to Los Angeles by stage was 66 hours. The following extract taken from Josephine Clifford's "Tropical California." a series of articles descriptive of the coast counties from San Luis Obispo southward, published in the "Overland Monthly" several

years before Nordhoff's famous letters appeared, gives a pleasing description of the stage ride and of San Buenaventura as she saw it in 1870:

"The regrets 1 expressed on leaving Santa Barbara came from my heart ; it is a lovely spot, and even when I went from it I could not but lean out of the window to catch departing glimpses of it as it faded more and more from sight. The stage road winds along by the sea ; the sun was shining, golden, as it seems ever to shine on these serene, blue ripples of water, and there was something so quieting in the soft plashing of the waves against the shore that I laid my head back and, with open eyes, dreamed -dreamed till I fell asleep, and was waked up again by the sound of water rushing immediately under the coach. I locked out in bewilderment ; it was true, the horses were drawing the coach through the foaming, flashing waves. The other passengers expressed no concern; so I, too, re- mained quiet, and soon found that this was the pleasantest way of traveling along the coast.

"Twenty-five miles below Santa Barbara lies San Buenaventura, another old mission, around which quite a flourishing place has sprung up. The flimsy, garish frame houses have crowded themselves in where the olive, the palm, and the fig-tree once grew in unbroken lines; but now only patches of ground, covered with giant pear trees and huge olives, are visible back of the fast-growing town. Passing through in the . broad, positive light of noonday, I could look on these things philosophically and with equanim- ity ; but on my way back from Los Angeles some time later, in the chill hours of the waning night, the sight of the place made me feel sad, almost bitter. Night had not yet lifted her mantle from the earth as the stage rolled heavily toward San Buenaventura, and the roar of the ocean fell on my ear with hollow sound. Soon I distinguished the bell towers of the Mission Church, and the tinkling of the bells, just touched, had a feeble, complaining tone; now we turn into the one long street of San Buenaventura, and in the darken- ing halls, the clerk of the hotel shows me into a cheerless room, upstairs. I walk to the win- dow-to the rising light-and there, in the yard below are those peerless, graceful palm trees I saw waving and bending in the dim distance.

459

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

How pitiful to see these neglected daughters of the torrid zone lifting their royal shafts among the stove pipes and empty dry goods boxes of a country store back yard. I stretched out my hands lovingly, and they nodded their proud heads, and flung their arms to the morning breeze, pointing to where those clusters of dark olives stood. But it grows lighter, the stage is at the door, and bears us rapidly away. In the far east breaks the cold gray morning-'those Amer- icans' are coming !"

And "those Americans" continued to come ; the "garish frame houses" crowded out the adobe structures. The age of wood supplanted the age of unbaked clay, and in turn was crowded back from the business streets by brick and stone. The "clusters of dark olives" have been thinned by the woodman's ax and but two of the palms nod their proud heads in the morning breeze. And still "those Americans are coming," not by stage, but by steam.

Mrs. Clifford's description of a night ride over the mountains between San Buenaventura and Los Angeles illustrates some of the perils and inconveniences of travel a third of a century ago : "We had been ascending the mountains for some time, when, during a breathing spell given the horses, the sharp, decided rattle that seems pe- culiar to just these stages, sounded back to 11s from somewhere above, as though it were the echo of our own wheels. The driver listened a moment, and then broke out with an abrupt oath, for which he didn't even apologize. 'D -- that fellow ! But I'll make him take the outside,' he muttered. 'What's the matter?' I asked, appre- hensively ; 'anything wrong?' 'Oh, no!' with a look over to my side of the road where the light of the lanterns fell on the trees that grew up out of the mountain side below us, and were trying to touch the wheels of our coach with their top branches-'nothing at all. Only he's got to take that side of the road and take his chances of going over. He'd no business com- ing on me here.' The rattling had come nearer all this time and now a light flashed up a little in front of us and directly a fiery, steaming mon- ster seemed rushing down to destroy us. The air had grown chilly and the horses in the ap- proaching stage seemed to have cantered down

the mountain at quite a lively gait, for the white steam was issuing from their nostrils and rising in clouds from their bodies. The six gallant horses, reined up short and stamping nervously to be let loose for the onward run, were a noble sight ; and the heavy coach, with its two gleam- ing eyes, was grandly swaying in its springs. Our own horses were blowing little impatient puffs from distended nostrils, and our coach drawn safely up on the rocky hillside. Both drivers stopped to exchange the compliments of the day-or, rather, the night-our driver speak- ing in crusty tones, and, pointing down to where the road fell off steep and precipitous below him, warned the other driver 'not to run ahead of his time again.'

"There was nothing remarkable about the sup- per we took that night except the bats that kept coming in at the front door in a perfectly free- and-easy manner, swarming about our heads till they thought they knew us, and then settling in their favorite nooks and corners. Noticing my tintiring endeavors to prevent them from inspect- ing my head and face too closely, the station keeper observed that people were 'most always afraid of them things when they first come,' but that they 'needn't fright of them; they wouldn't hurt nobody.' The rest of the night was passed inside the stage, though of sleep there was no thought, such jolting and jumping over rocks and boulders ; I ache all over to think of it even now! Just before daybreak we entered the City of the Angels." * *

San Buenaventura became ambitious to be classed as a seaport. In January, 1871, a frań- chise was secured to build a wharf; work was begun upon it in March; and in February, 1872, it was so near completion that steamers were able to discharge their cargoes directly on it. The next advance was the establishing of a news- paper. April 22, 1871, appeared the first number of the Ventura Signal. The editor and proprie- tor. J. H. Bradley, was a wide-awake, progress- ive newspaper man. He directed his efforts to- wards building up the prospective county. He was an earnest and intelligent advocate of county division and labored to organize and unify public sentiment in favor of that measure.

460

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

ORGANIZATION OF THE NEW COUNTY.

After the failure of the attempt to divide Santa Barbara county in 1859, the scheme fell into a state of "innocuous desuetude." It was not given up; only held in abeyance. The people were biding their time. There were abundant reasons why the people of the eastern portion of Santa Barbara should have a county of their own when they could afford the expense. It was a long distance to the county seat and the journey had to be made over roads that were next to im- passable in the winter time. The western and more populous part of the county monopolized the offices; and the most harrowing grievance that the average American office-seeker can suf- fer is to have his claims to political preferment ignored by his party. Then, too, Santa Barbara city, which really dominated the politics of the county, had a large purchasable element among the voters, which, under the leadership of and controlled by crafty politicians, decided the po- litical destiny of aspirants for office on a coin basis. The advocates of a new county pointed to the many and grievous wrongs against the right of suffrage committed by the political bosses of Santa Barbara and urged a separation from their contaminating influence. Examples were many.

It is said that at one time political feeling ran so high a whole tribe of Indians were voted. At another closely contested election the passenger iist of a Panama steamer was copied and a pre- cinct of 20 voters rolled up 160 votes. The "hole in the wall" election fraud of 1852 was one of the many scandals that shook confidence in the verdict of the ballot box. At that election the voter passed his ballot through a hole in the wall. The election officers, who were all of one political faith, disposed of the ballots as seemed good to them. The electors of the other side had the privilege of voting early and often. If their votes were not counted, at least they had the sat- isfaction of casting a goodly number. The reg- istry law of 1866 checked some of the more fla- grant abuses, but bribery, coercion and the open buying of votes went on for several years after- wards.

Immigration had brought into the eastern end

of Santa Barbara county a population almost entirely American, and the desire to cut loose from the western end with its peculiar election methods increased as population increased. In 1869, ten years after the failure of the first, a sec- ond effort to form a new county was made. Hon. A. G. Escandon was elected to the assembly largely on a county division issue, but Santa Bar- bara bitterly opposed the scheme when it came before the legislature and the bill for the creation of a new county failed to pass.

In the legislature of 1871-72 the measure again came to the front. Hon. W. D. Hobson, who represented the county divisionists in the legis- lature, was successful in carrying the measure. The bill creating the county of Ventura was ap- proved March 22, 1872. The boundaries of the county are as follows: "Commencing on the coast of the Pacific ocean at the mouth of Rincon creek; thence following up the center of said creek to its source ; thence due north to the boun- dary line of Santa Barbara county ; thence in an easterly direction along the boundary line of Santa Barbara county to the northeast corner of the same; thence southerly along the line be- tween the said Santa Barbara county and Los Angeles county to the Pacific ocean and three miles therein ; thence in a northerly direction to a point due south and three miles distant from the mouth of Rincon creek; thence north to the point of beginning ; and including the islands of Anacapa and San Nicolas."

The bill provided for the appointment of five commissioners to effect a county organiation. Early in January the governor appointed Thomas R. Bard, S. Bristol, W. D. F. Richards, A. G. Escandon and C. W. Thacker.

A special election was called for February 25, 1873, to elect county and township officers. The total vote cast was 608 and the following were declared elected :

J. Marion Brooks district attorney

F. Molleda county clerk

Frank Peterson . sheriff

John Z. Barnett . county assessor

E. A. Edwards . county treasurer

C. J. De Merritte . county surveyor

F. S. S. Buckman. county sup't of schools

Dr. C. L. Bard . coroner

461

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

The supervisors were James Daly of the first district, a hold-over from Santa Barbara; J. A. Conaway of the second; and C. W. Thacker of the third district. All the officers except the cor- oner were Democrats. The coroner had no op- position or he, too, would have been over- whelmed by the Democratic tidal wave. Pablo de la Guerra was the district judge of the second district-San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura. Milton Wasson was county judge. Frank Molleda, county clerk, died a few weeks after his election and S. M. W. Easley was ap- pointed to fill the vacancy. The officers having all qualified and filed their bonds, the county of Ventura opened for business March 14, 1873. The offices of the county officials, except that of the treasurer, were located in a rented building on the corner of Main and Palm streets in what was known as Spear's hall. San Buenaventura owned a jail and this was used jointly by the town and the county until the county jail was built. A plat for a court house square in the old mission orchard was deeded to the county by Bishop Amat ; and in 1873 bonds were issued to the amount of $6,000 by the county; the town

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 76

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184