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 77

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

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donating $4,000 for the purpose of building a court house and jail. The project of building a court house in San Buenaventura aroused the op- position of other towns ambitious to be the county seat (particularly Saticoy and Hueneme), and a court house war was on with all its bitter- ness. The court house, nevertheless, was built among the century-old olives in the mission gar- den; and, although the mutterings of the dis- contented towns were heard for years afterwards, it availed them nothing. It is not probable that any one of the aspirants of early days will ever become the seat of county government. The main building of the court house was completed in 1874; a wing was added in 1878, and in 1884 four rooms were added to the west end.

During the years of 1872 and 1873 business was active in San Buenaventura and throughout the county. New buildings were going up, prop- erty changing hands, and the old town, after its sleep of a century, awoke from its lotus dream of ease to find itself metamorphosed from a sleepy, half-Indian, half-Mexican hamlet to a bustling, wide-awake, progressive American town.

CHAPTER LXVII.

VENTURA COUNTY-Continued.

ANNALS OF VENTURA TOWN AND COUNTY.

T \HE colony form of settlement which was very popular in Southern California dur- ing the decade between 1870-1880 did not reach or, at least, did not find lodgment in Ven- tura county. The county was off the line of rail- road travel then, and the line of passenger steam- ers did not stop at its ports. The seekers for colony sites preferred locations easily accessible by railroad or steamer. The county developed more slowly than its sister counties of the south. Its development while slower was more perma- nent. It was not inflated by booms nor depressed by hard times like some of the adjoining counties.

Early in 1872 San Buenaventura district is- sued school bonds to the amount of $10,000 to

build a new school house. The bonds were sold and the corner-stone of the building laid Sep- tember 16, 1872. The number of school census children in the county in 1872 was 809, of which 323 were in the town of Ventura.

The year of 1874 was one of abundant rain- fall; crops were good, prices of grain and stock high, immigrants were steadily coming and the city and county were riding on the wave of pros- perity. The town had grown rapidly. Its popu- lation was about 1.000.

The Ventura Library Association was incor- porated November 23, 1874. The incorporators were: Milton Wasson, James Daly, C. G. Fin- ney, L. F. Eastin, G. S. Gilbert, Jr., C. H. Baily. J. J. Sheridan, T. B. Stepleton and L. C.

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Granges. All members paid $5 a year to the sup- port of the library ; those not members were al- lowed. the privilege of drawing books on the pay- ment of twenty-five cents per month. A room was secured, and with the proceeds of a fair and festival was fitted up with shelves and furniture. Six hundred volumes were bought and the library opened. It was kept open until 1878, when, becoming involved in debt, it was closed. The library trustees, Messrs. James Daly, M. H. Gay, C. H. Baily, L. F. Eastin and J. J. Sheri- dan, made a proposition to the board of town trustees to transfer the assets of the association to the town, provided the town trustees would pay the library indebtedness and agree to levy a tax for the support of the library in accordance with the state law providing for a library fund in incorporated cities and towns. The town board accepted the proposition and took charge of the library August 21, 1878. J. F. Newby was appointed librarian and held the office until February, 1888. The town owns its own library building, which is a part of the city hall. New books are added as means will allow. The library is in charge of Miss Florence Vandever. The annual income received from taxation amounts to $1,000. The total number of volumes now in the library is 4,750.

In 1875 the town and the county had grown populous enough to support another newspaper. J. H. Bradley had done good work with the Signal, the pioneer newspaper founded in 1871. He made it a model country newspaper. His health failed and in 1873 he disposed of his in- terest in it to E. Shepherd and J. J. Sheridan. They kept up the early reputation of the paper. The first number of the Daily Ventura Free Press was issued November 14, 1875. It was pub- lished by O. P. Hoddy. The subscription price of the daily was $8; weekly, $3. In his saluta- tory, the editor says : "In conducting the Free Press we shall endeavor to the best of our ability to be a champion and friend of the people." The daily was a four-page, eight-column blanket sheet. The editor was often driven to despera- tion to fill his local columns with news items. The town was small, the people were intent on their own business and it was the same wearying round of sameness day after day. At the end

of an uneventful week the editor utters this wail: "If ever in the publication of a local paper we were driven to desperation in search of items we are this week. Not even a dog fight has oc- curred to relieve the monotony. We have felt almost justified in placing a man on the watch for wild geese or sending a reporter to the clam beds."

February 19, 1876, H. G. McLean became pro- prietor of the daily and weekly Free Press. With the advent of a rival paper a newspaper war broke out. There was no scarcity of items after that. There was perhaps no more news, but there was more noise. People never quarrel si- lently. Expletives, hot with wrath or icy with irony, were hurled back and forth from sanctum to sanctum. During the famous More murder trial the rival papers assailed each other vicious- ly, the Signal scathingly condemning the murder and the Free Press excusing it.

The Monumentals, a fire company, was or- ganized in 1875; B. F. Williams, president ; L. F. Eastin, secretary ; and R. G. Surdam, foreman.

The Gas Company was organized the same year; J. M. Miller, president ; L. F. Eastin, sec- retary.

February 25, 1876, the steamer Kalorama, 491 tons burden, belonging to the Coast Steamship Company, was lost. While lying at Wolfson's wharf, on account of the rough sea, she chafed against the wharf and was ordered to move out to the floating buoy. On the way thither her screw fouled with the mooring rope and left the vessel at the mercy of the wind, which drove her ashore. As she lay on the beach her heavy ma- chinery broke loose in her hull. The loose ma- chinery and the beating of the waves broke her to pieces. The loss was estimated at $77.500.

CRIMES.

The first murder in the new county was com- mitted March 3, 1873. In a dispute over land boundaries George Hargen shot and killed George Martin, on the Colonia rancho. Hargen, after the murder, attempted to escape by flight. He was followed by some of his neighbors, over- taken, arrested and taken back to the scene of the murder. He was confined in a small house and closely guarded. An inquest was held on the

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

body of Martin and the verdict was that he had been murdered by Hargen without provocation. Martin was a peaceable man and a good citizen, Hargen a quarrelsome and dangerous fellow. After the inquest, Hargen was taken to a lone tree on the ranch and hanged. He showed no penitence for his deed, but expressed himself glad that he had killed Martin. No effort was ever made to arrest the vigilantes. It was gen- erally conceded that Hargen had received his just deserts.

In 1877 occurred the murder of T. Wallace More. The excitement, prejudices and political issue even that arose out of the varying cir- cumstances connected with the trial of the con- spirators made this one of the most celebrated cases in the criminal annals of California. Thom- as Wallace More, by purchase from the old California families, had acquired large land hold- ings in the Santa Clara valley. He and his three brothers at one time owned a tract thirty- two miles long, bordering on the Santa Clara river. Among his purchases was the Sespe rancho, originally granted to Don Carlos Car- rillo in 1829. More bought this grant in 1874, paying in full for six leagues, the amount of land the grant was supposed to contain. The United States Land Commission had confirmed the grant in 1853 for this amount. The United States, as adverse claimant, appealed the case to the United States district court. When the plat was brought into court it was found that the number of leagues had been changed from two to six at some time during the existence of the grant. More, to prevent the whole grant from being rejected, consented to take two leagues ; the remaining four leagues being gov -. ernment land, was open to settlement and about forty squatters located on it. Frequent disputes arose between More and the squatters. The ill feeling between them was intensified by More attempting to buy the four leagues from the gov- ernment under an act passed subsequent to the rejection.

On the night of the 23rd of March, 1877. More was sleeping at the ranch house on his grant. About midnight the barn was discovered on fire and he and his hired man rushed out to save the contents of the buildinig. More was

shot down as he came into the light by some masked men, and while lying on the ground beg- ging for his life, was riddled with bullets. Sus- picion fell upon the squatters. To avert it they held a meeting and some of the murderers were loudest in their condemnation of it, and passed resolutions denouncing it and offering their as- sistance in ferreting out the murderers. Austin . Brom, one of the Sespe settlers, having quar- reled with Curlee, one of the conspirators, re- vealed to the administrator of the More estate the names of those who had conspired to kill More. As a result of these revelations and some other evidence obtained by the authorities, F. A. Sprague, J. S. Churchill, J. F. Curlee, Jesse M. Jones, Ivory D. Lord, Charles McCart, H. Cook and J. A. Swanson were arrested. N. H. Kickerson, chairman of the meeting at which the resolutions were passed, being on his death bed, also made some revelations. After the ar- rest Jesse M. Jones turned state's evidence. On trial, Sprague and Curlee were found guilty. Sprague was sentenced to be hanged and Cur- lee to imprisonment for life. On the trial of Lord the jury disagreed. When the trial of the next conspirator was begun, Jones, a weak and unscrupulous fellow, having evidently been in- duced to do so by purchase or persuasion, re- tracted his former evidence and admitted that he had perjured himself. As it was impossible to convict without his testimony, the others were discharged. Sprague's sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. Stoneman, when gov- ernor, pardoned him. Curlee obtained a new trial and, the jury disagreeing, his case was final- ly dismissed. Jones' financial circumstances were greatly improved by his connection with the plot.

DISASTERS.

The year 1877 was one of disasters to Ven- tura, both by sea and land. Two vessels were wrecked in the bay that year. The brig Crimea, 223 tons' burden, loaded with lumber, while made fast to the wharf, parted her cable and was driven ashore by the heavy northwesterly gale prevailing at the time. The loss was estimated at $9.200.

December 1, 1877, the brig Lucy Ann, 200

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

tons' burden, parted her mooring during a vio- lent northwester and was broken to pieces. One life was lost. The vessel was valued at $6,500.

Eighteen hundred and seventy-six was one of the dreaded dry years. After the almost to- tal destruction of cattle-raising in the "famine years" of 1863-64 the sheep industry came to the front in Southern California. The high price of wool in the years immediately following the close of the Civil war, the rapidity with which sheep multiplied and the small cost of their maintenance made the business of wool- growing very profitable. As the agricultural lands of the valleys were utilized for grain-grow- ing the ranges were curtailed and the sheep were crowded back on the mesas and foothills. When drought came the feed on these was soon ex- hausted and sheep were dying by thousands. On the island of Santa Cruz alone 25,000 starved to death. On the mainland whole droves per- ished. Some of the owners drove their sheep to Arizona and Southern Utah and thus saved a remnant of their flocks. Others, depending on a late rainfall, delayed their departure until too late and, attempting to cross the deserts with · their starving bands, lost them all. The dry year put a temporary check to the prosperity the county had been enjoying for several years.

PROGRESS.

In 1879 the assessed value of the property of the county was $3,399,000. The land under cul- tivation was estimated by the county assessor at 75,000 acres. Of this amount about one-half was sown in barley; corn came next and wheat third, the three cereals monopolizing about 60,- 000 acres of the cultivated lands ; while the bean, now one of the great agricultural staples, only occupied 1,800 acres, and the sugar beet was then unknown among the products of the county.

The great flood of 1884 swept down through the Soledad Canon and carried the Southern Pacific Railroad track out of the cañon down the Santa Clara river to the sea. Out beyond the mouth of the river for several days during the flood a great raft made up of bridge timbers, ties and telegraph poles, the wreckage of the railroad, was tossed back and forth by the riv- er current and the breakers. When the flood

subsided this flotsam was cast on the beach or carried out to sea. The Santa Clara river spread out over the valley and for some time rivaled the Mississippi river during a spring rise. The flood did but very little damage in Ventura county.

In 1886 the construction of the coast line of the Southern Pacific Railroad was begun at Saugus, a station on the main road from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Work was pushed rapidly down the Santa Clara valley, and early in 1887 the road was completed to San Buena- ventura. The reaction from the debilitating ef- fects of the bank failures on the coast, dry years and low prices of grain did not begin till about 1882; from that on there was a steady advance in the price of real estate. With the advent of the railroad in 1887 it went up with a bound. The real estate agent became very much in evi- dence. What the town or the county lacked in actual conditions his vivid imagination supplied. On every side was evidence of growth and prog- ress. The magnificent Hotel Rose was built at . a cost of $120,000. To prevent business from drifting up town too rapidly a syndicate of down- town property holders built the Anacapa hotel. Streets were graded, sidewalks laid, a theater built and the town assumed metropolitan airs. The railroad reached Santa Barbara in August, 1887, and there it stopped. The halt would not be long. The gap between the northern and southern ends would soon be closed, so the real estate boomers said. Besides, the Atchison, To- peka & Santa Fé had surveyed a route from Santa Monica to San Buenaventura, then up the river of the same name, crossing the divide to the Santa Ynez, down its valley and by way of the Salinas valley and San José to San Francis- co. Rivalry between the two roads would force them to hurry up the work. San Buenaventura on two main lines would become a great railroad center. But the Santa Fe did not ma- terialize; the Southern Pacific remained sta- tionary and the gap was wide open. Hope de- ferred made the heart of the real-estate agent sick. The boom subsided and San Buenaven- tura awoke from a dream to the reality that she was not a great railroad center.

In 1890 the federal census gave the town a

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population of 3,869, a very healthy growth for the decade. The population of the county was 10,071. The total number of school census chil- dren between five and seventeen was 2,703, of whom 1,962 attended school.

September 1, 1890, the town was lighted by electricity.

The Ventura County Pioneer Society was or- ganized September 19, 1891. Dr. C. L. Bard was made president and L. F. Eastin secretary. The vice-presidents were John Barry, J. Hobart, K. P. Grant, Thomas A. Rice and J. A. Conaway. James Daly was chosen treasurer and A. J. Snod- grass marshal. All male residents of the coun- ty, June 2, 1873, were made eligible to mem- bership. Sixty-two members signed the rolls the first evening.

F. S. S. Buckman, the first superintendent of schools of Ventura county, was assassinated in San Francisco by a man named Daly. He shot Buckman in the back, mistaking him for his (Buckman's) brother, with whom he had a quar- rel. Daly was tried. found guilty and sentenced to the state's prison for life.

December 20, 1891. José de la Rosa, the first printer to set type in California, died in the town of Ventura. He brought a printing press and font of type to Monterey in 1834, and printed the first book ever issued in California. He was born in the pueblo of Los Angeles, Old Mexico, and lacked but eight days of being 103 years old. At the time of his death he was the oldest print- er in the world. On the press he brought was printed the first newspaper published in Cali- fornia, the Californian, published by Semple & Colton, August 15, 1846.

The railroad to Nordhoff was completed in 1892.

July 9, 1895, an election was held to vote up- on the proposition of bonds to the amount of $106,500 to purchase the property of the Santa Ana Water Company. The bond issue was car- ried by a vote of about seven to one in favor. On the question of issuing bonds in the sum of $23,- 500 to purchase the arc light system of the Ven- tura Land and Power Company, submitted the same day, the vote stood six to one in favor. The proposition to purchase the water system was

afterwards rejected by the town trustees on ac- count of defective title, so it was claimed.

The number of census children in the county in 1895 was 3,592. In 1905, 3,979. Two high schools had been established, Ventura and San- ta Paula. Oxnard now has a high school. The assessed valuation of the county in 1895 was $8,236,147. It was estimated that the county in 1895 produced 2,600 carloads of beans, valued at $1, 100,000.

The year 1898 marked the beginning of a new industry and the introduction of a new agri- cultural product into the county. The Pacific Beet Sugar Company erected a sugar factory and refinery at Oxnard and inaugurated the cultivation of the sugar beet. Oxnard was founded in January, 1898. The population of Ventura county, according to the Federal cen- sus of 1900, was 14.367, an increase of 4,298 in ten years, or about thirty per cent; that of San Buenaventura, 2,470; of St. Paula, 1,047; of Oxnard, 1,000.

In 1904 the Chatsworth tunnel was complet- ed, making a cut-off on the Southern Pacific Railroad by which a heavy grade was avoided on the old line.

OTHER TOWNS.

HUENEME.

Hueneme, or Wynema, as the name was for- merly spelled, is an Indian word meaning a rest- ing place or place of security, and was so named by the Indians because in this bay or harbor they found a resting place from adverse winds. The town was founded in June, 1870, by W. E. Barnard, G. S. Gilbert and H. P. Flint. It was the first town really founded in the district which later formed Ventura county. San Buenaven- tua, the oldest town of the district, grew up around the mission without founding. Hueneme is twelve miles south of the county seat and is situated on a coast projection of the Colonia rancho. The Hueneme Lighting Company es- tablished a shipping port here in June, 1870, and received shipments of lumber. During the first year 60,000 sacks of grain were loaded on vessels by means of lighters. Thomas R. Bard and R. G. Surdam obtained a franchise to con-

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struct a wharf at the point. Work was pushed rapidly on the structure, and in August, 1871, the wharf, 900 feet long and extending out to where the water was eighteen feet deep, was completed. (In 1897 the wharf was extended to 1,600 feet, with an average depth of water at its end of thirty feet.)

Upon the completion of its wharf, Hueneme became one of the most important shipping points on the southern coast. It was the outlet by sea of the rich corn, barley and bean district south of the Santa Clara river, and of the wheat and fruit-growing valleys of the Las Posas, Simi and Conejo. Hueneme is a town of warehouses. It now has seven of these, with a capacity of 500,000 sacks. It has a bank with a capital of $50,000, three churches and supports a week- ly newspaper.

NORDHOFF.

Nordhoff, named for the celebrated writer, Charles Nordhoff, is located in the center of the Ojai valley, fifteen miles north of San Buena- ventura. It has an elevation of 900 feet above the sea level. The town was founded in 1874. R. G. Surdam purchased sixty acres, which he subdivided into town lots .. The town contains several churches, a good school and a public li- brary. It supports a weekly newspaper, the Ojai, established in 1890. The Ojai valley is a famous citrus fruit belt. Nordhoff is connected with San Buenaventura by railroad.

SANTA PAULA.

Santa Paula, sixteen miles easterly from San Buenaventura, on the coast line of the South- ern Pacific Railroad, was founded in 1873 by Blanchard and Bradley. It is located at the junc- tion of the Santa Paula creek with the Santa Clara river and takes its name from the creek. The first hotel opened in the town was Dod- son's. Wiley Brothers opened the first mercan- tile establishment. One business place that an- tedated the founding of the town was Major Gor- don's saloon, The Cross Roads. One Septem- ber day in 1873, Tiburcio Vasquez and his gang of robbers and cutthroats visited the major's li- quid dispensary and spent money for drinks most lavishly. Their high toned liberality and disregard for money made a deep impression on

the major, and after their departure he was loud in their praise. "The most polished gentlemen, sir, I ever met in California." The major very nearly had a fit when an officer of the law who was on their trail told the major who his "pol- ished gentlemen" were.

In 1875 Santa Paula contained two hotels, two stores, two saloons, a postoffice and a flour- ing mill half a mile above the business center. The discovery of petroleum that year in Santa Paula cañon greatly accelerated its growth. It experienced another boom in 1887, when the railroad was built through the town. Since 1875 Santa Paula has been the headquarters of the oil industry of Ventura county. The larger oil companies have offices here and a pipe line from the wells conveys the oil to Ventura. Be- sides the support the town receives from the oil industry it is the center of a rich fruit-grow- ing district. Both citrus and deciduous fruits are produced here. Santa Paula is a city of churches. It supports more different denomina- tions than any other town of its size in the state. The Universalists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Bap- tists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Holiness and Christians have church buildings, and there are several other religious organizations who have not yet erected buildings. The town has an ex- cellent high school. Two weekly newspapers- the Chronicle, founded in 1886, and the Senti- nel-keep the people posted on the news of the day.

OXNARD.

Oxnard, named for Henry T. Oxnard, pres- ident of the American Beet Sugar Company, is one of the youngest towns in the county. Jan- uary, 1898, it consisted of one lone house-a structure of rough upright boards. In March, two months later, there were seven buildings. In June, 1901, it boasted of an elegant hotel, a bank, a $22,000 school house, a $16,000 Masonic hall, a number of mercantile establishments, among them one carrying a $100,000 stock, a daily newspaper (the only one in the county), a number of fine residences, a sugar factory (the largest, with one exception, in the world). three church buildings, one of the prettiest de- signed plazas in Southern California and a pop-

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ulation of 2,000. Its school census, taken May, 1901, gave its school population 523, the larg- est of any town in the county except that of San Buenaventura, which numbered 720.

The following, compiled from the Oxnard Courier, gives a brief description of the sugar factory : "The construction of the Oxnard Beet Sugar Factory was begun early in 1898. The main building is an immense structure. It is 121 feet in width by 401 in length and 90 feet high. The sugar house, where the finished prod- uct is stored, extends from the west end of the building 220 feet, and is 65 feet in width. The boiler house is 100x300 feet. Crude oil is used for fuel and three iron tanks placed 700 feet away from the main building have a storage capacity of 33,000 barrels each. The twin steel smoke-stacks are twelve feet each in diameter at the base, and rise to a height of 155 feet. They constitute a landmark that can be seen miles away. There are two vertical lime kilns, one 95 feet high and the other 85 feet. supplying 180 tons of lime a day, which is used in clarify- ing and purifying the beet juice in the process of sugar making. The building, machinery, etc., cost $2,000,000. Oxnard is on the main line of the Southern Pacific, via the Chatsworth tun- nel.

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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 77

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