USA > California > Merced County > A history of Merced County, California : with a biographical review of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 15
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It took more than a flood to disarrange Fee's methodical and industrious habits. On the 9th, while the flood was in progress, he records, "Letter (represented by a rectangle) to Perley, received Starr's answer"; and on the day after "Wilson got out of the tree," Fee "workt on the coral."
The Wilson referred to was L. P. Wilson, whose name appears in the list of pioneers published in the Express in 1880, and who was known to his intimates as "Hookie" Wilson. Henry Nelson remem- bers the incident of his being in the tree, and relates that Wilson and Chris Mugler, both of whom lived a little up the river from Fee's place, on the north side, had received a distress signal from someone on the south side, and set out in a boat to the rescue. The boat proved leaky, and Wilson, who had been a sailor and didn't like
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leaky boats, climbed out into a tree. Mugler and the boat landed further down. Nelson saw Wilson in the tree, where he had to stay all night, so that he must have landed there the same day when Fee's barn, stable, and workhouse washed away, and when Mrs. Fee was at Mugler's-evidently for safety. J. C. James tells of this flood of 1861 and 1862 as it conducted itself further down towards the San Joaquin. His brother, Captain Jones, had a ranch down near the lower Tuolumne. The cattle were marooned on the higher spots of land, the chickens driven to high perches, and the men had to build a board bulkhead to protect an adobe house from being reduced to mud. At Snelling the flood washed away Judge Fitzhugh's house and several other buildings and changed the course of the river.
Fee was a pious man. It was his habit, after 1858, to sum up each year in a few words. In 1859 he writes: "The past year has proved sucsesful to the Fee Famelie, God be praised." At the close of 1860, "The past year has been a favereble to the Fee Famelie; a large crop of grain was harvested." The entry at the close of 1861 doubtless refers in part at least to the war : "By loking back on 61 and will be remembered as a dark and trubblefild year, but my hope is to God that Truth and Temprans will triomph in 62." He closes 1862 and the book with the words, "Notwithstanding the disaster of the flod 1862 has been a blesset year, Amen."
There may have been more exalted names on the list of the coun- ty's pioneers than that of Peter Fee, but it is questionable if there was any whose life story touched more phases of the local history of his time, or more truly represents those times to us, than the story set forth in the dairy of this versatile, hard-working Norwegian-Ameri- can pioneer.
From what we have seen from these two documents, the assess- ment roll of 1857 and Fee's diary of from 1858 to 1862, we can get a very fair insight into the life of the early days of the county, in many of its aspects. Scarcely too much emphasis can be laid upon the very close connection which existed between the new county, with its activities creeping out into the big plain of the San Joaquin, and the mother county in the hills. The new county was creeping out into the big plain of the San Joaquin, it is true; but its markets, its associa- tions, the former dwelling-places of many of its people, a large part of its social connections, and numberless other bonds were across the line. The activities of the two counties were different in character from the beginning, from the very nature of their topography; but in many most important respects they formed one community. The very line which divided them politically from 1855 on, the Stockton and Millerton Road, the main (indeed the only) artery of travel between north and south, was a bond of union rather than a barrier.
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We see in the early minutes of the Merced supervisors how road after road was laid out, and how the great majority of them were to con- nect the westward-creeping settlements of this county with this main road and the country on the other side of it. We have seen how T. W. T. Young's sign advertised his ferry as the best route to the southern mines. We have seen how Fee, after he moved down from Mount Ophir, still found a great part of his employment in teaming in the hills or between them and the valley; how W. L. Means, fol- lowing the business of hunting near Robla, found his market at the mines; and how many of those who settled in this county had first tried their luck in the search for gold-indeed there were so many of them of whom this was true that it may be said to have been the rule rather than the exception. We have seen how the first county seat under the oak tree on Mariposa Creek was early abandoned because it was difficult of access; it was indeed almost on the western frontier of settlement, too far from the Stockton and Millerton Road to be convenient. If the West Side, the west three-quarters of the county, in fact, was not entirely uninhabited, it was almost so; and the notions about it were pretty vague. There is in the first book of the records of deeds in the county recorder's office a deed to an undivided one-half of an eleventh interest in the San Carlos and New Idria quicksilver mine, supposed, the deed recites, to be in Merced County; and this was after the creation of Fresno County in 1856, which event put New Idria miles and miles beyond Merced's most southerly boundary.
It is difficult to grasp the small scale on which the county affairs were conducted-as must necessarily have been the case with a popu- lation numbering perhaps scarcely two per cent of what it is at present. We read in the early minutes how the county auditor was paid $125 a year for his services, the clerk of the board $250, the clerk of the court of sessions $4 a day, and the assessor $337.50 for making the first assessment, which took him forty-five days. There were but two judicial townships; each had two justices of the peace and two constables, but this liberal allowance of officers was apparent- ly due rather to the number of miles to be traveled than to the num- ber of cases to be tried. Their duties were apparently not onerous ; we find that Thomas Eagleson, who was one of the constables, was also a road overseer, and it is fair to infer that the two offices left him with time to run the ranch near Forlorn Hope which was assessed to himself and his mother.
Travel was, to us in these days of paved highways and automo- biles, almost unbelievably slow; Peter Fee takes the best part of a week in midsummer of 1862 in making the trip to Knight's Ferry and returning with the printing press, though we do have to deduct the one day when he stopped over and "swopt oxen with Dingley."
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In view of the difficulties of travel, it is surprising how much of it there was.
There were the little landholdings along the river (and "the river" in those days is used synonymously with "the Merced"), some- thing like about forty-two sections on the East Side on the ninety-four pages we have left of the original 122 of the 1857 assessment roll- about six by seven miles, if we had it all in one compact rectangle. "The plains," unsurveyed, without private owners, rich with grass, were the range of thousands of cattle-Spanish stock cattle improved already with the intermixture of "American stock cattle" sprung from the beginnings of great herds which such men as Montgomery, Ruddle, and McPhatridge drove across the Rockies and the Great American Desert and the Sierras to these new pastures.
Even this early the county had become a great stock county, growing towards that leadership in this industry which enabled a well-informed stockman to say within the last year or two that there are more cattle shipped from the region within a radius of twenty- five miles of Merced than from any other equal area in the world. If the county was growing towards eminence in this respect, it was also growing towards a peck of trouble. The free range could not last, and when the public lands of the plains began to be taken up with the beginning of the grain-raising days-the beginning of rais- ing it away from the river and creek bottoms-there was a big read- justment to be made, and a bitter fight to be waged between the grain-farmers, who wanted the part of the land they desired to work, and the stockmen, who wanted all of it as they had had in the past.
It is the cattle industry which explains such assessments as the several we have seen, where men were assessed for nothing but one horse; these were doubtless cowboys, vaqueros, or whatever they called them. The cattle business also, we have seen, was responsible for the largest assessments-such as J. M. Montgomery's and Hil- dreth & Dunphey's, which are still in the book, and doubtless in- cluding the Stevinsons, whose names now appear only in the index.
As was the case in the mines, though to a lesser degree, men outnumbered women; those who came first were for the most part young single men. Many went back after a few years for wives; but it was a matter of a few years before the majority of them estab- lished families. We see in the minutes of the supervisors in Febru- ary, 1856, that William Nelson presented a petition asking the board to divide the county into school districts, and they did it-did it very simply, too, for with the existing lines bounding the county and divid- ing it into two judicial townships, it was necessary for them to draw but one new line for the purpose. The line is described as follows : "Commencing at Samuel Scott's ranch, thence north to the county line, and from said ranch south to No. Two Township line." Three
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school districts were the result, Judicial Township Number One being divided by this line into District Number One, east of the line, and District Number Two, west of it, and Township Number Two form- ing school district Number Three. William Nelson was appointed by the board the county's first superintendent of common schools. This was on February 7, 1856. On October 7 of the same year, in an enumeration of voting precincts for a coming election, we find one of them described as "School House, M. C." The "M. C." is possibly Merced County; we find the board's minutes frequently signed So-and-so, chairman board of supervisors, M. C. But M. C. might also mean Mariposa Creek and perhaps it should so read. Query : Was there only the one schoolhouse in the county on October 7, 1856? If there was only one, we should rather have expected it to be at Snelling; and there is a Snelling precinct in the list, which seems to dispose of that supposition. Incidentally, this is the first reference we have seen of the name of the first permanent county seat written without the apostrophe and "s."
This list of precincts, numbering just a dozen, is interesting. With the inspectors appointed for the election, they are as follows : Ward's Ranch, J. N. Ward; Young's Ferry, T. W. T. Young; Snel- ling, L. W. Talbott; Forlorn Hope, E. Eagleson; Howard's Ranch, R. S. Howard; Montgomery's, J. M. Montgomery; Neill's Ranch, Wm. Neill; Thornton's Ranch, S. March; Brown & De Hart, P. B. Brown; Hildreth's Ranch, John Hildreth; School House, M. C., Wm. Wall, Sr .; Johnson's Precinct, J. Johnson. We can locate most of these places, and their location gives us another slant on the interesting question of where the population was at that time. Ward's Ranch was on Dry Creek; Young's Ferry, about where the Merced Irrigation District diverting dam is on the Merced River; Snelling, where it is now; Forlorn Hope is now Hopeton; Howard's Ranch, by the 1857 assessment roll, is described as 920 acres of land on Burns Creek; Montgomery's was at the present Wolfsen Ranch on Bear Creek; Neill's Ranch, on the Merced River at Arundel, is well known now, to all who have been in the county a dozen years, as the Shaffer Ranch; Thornton's Ranch was 160 acres bounded on the east and north by Samuel Scott and on the south by the Merced River.
The remaining four precincts offer difficulties. At Brown & De Hart's Ranch, P. B. Brown is named as inspector. In the 1857 assessment roll there is the name of B. P. Brown in the index, but his assessment is torn out. The De Harts were West Siders.
In the chapter on the assessment roll we have suggested that Hildreth & Dunphey were on the Santa Rita Ranch west of the San Joaquin. However, on that roll the three assessments preceding and the four following Hildreth & Dunphey's all contain land, and it is all on Dry Creek, and we have already pointed out that apparently the
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assessments were made as the assessor traveled from one settler to the next. Hildreth & Dunphey are assessed for no land in 1857; it may well have been that Hildreth lived on Dry Creek in this Octo- ber of 1856, even if we were correct in assuming that the 1857 assessment, chiefly of live stock, was on the Santa Rita.
William Wall, Sr., is the inspector named for the precinct desig- nated as "School House, M. C." There is a William Wall assessed in 1857 for 160 acres of land situated on Mariposa Creek and unde- scribed. There are also Wall & Brothers; but they are not assessed for any land, and we therefore have no clue to where they lived.
With reference to Johnson's Precinct, J. Johnson, Inspector, there is a James G. Johnson assessed in 1857, but not for any land, and there is a James Johnson assessed for 160 acres of land situated on Dameron's Creek, commencing at the line of Mariposa and Mer- ced Counties and running one mile down said creek. The assessment before this Johnson's is McDermott & Laughlin's in Section 2, Township 8 South, Range 16 East; and the one following it is Wil- liam Newton's at Newton's Crossing of the Chowchilla. This sug- gests that "Dameron's" may have been a mistake for "Deadman's"; but the name is very clearly written "Dameron's," and moreover the name Dameron is present on the roll, for Moses Dameron is assessed for 320 acres on Mariposa Creek, bounded north by public land, east by M. F. Turner, south by Fitzhugh, west by public land.
Taken all in all, we are again impressed with how almost entirely the population was close to the eastern boundary of the county. With reference to the schoolhouse, if the William Wall on the assessment roll is the same as the election inspector, that structure would appear to have been in the region of Mariposa Creek. When one finds later that the Pioneer school district was one of the first four, he is led to wonder if it was not probably the first of all; out along these creeks the population was probably nearer one hundred per cent a farming population than even along the river, and perhaps there one should expect earliest to find school children and a school.
Incidentally, the Howard mentioned appears to have been the brother of the Captain Howard who died only recently in Portland at the age of over ninety, and who took part in the pursuit and killing of Joaquin Murietta. That is, Captain Howard was the "Howard" of Howard & Brother. The Captain's name was William. The R. S. Howard who was the inspector for the election in 1856 was apparently the "Brother." Henry Nelson recalls that when quite a small boy he accompanied his father with their team and a load of flour on a trip from their mill south, and that they "got stuck" at Howard's Ranch. The ranch was far enough up Burns Creek, he says, so that it was on the main Millerton Road.
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We have seen what must have been pretty nearly the first start of schools in the county; and it may be mentioned in this connection that Henry Nelson attended three different schools along the river, one at Merced Falls and the others a little further down, but all above Snelling.
We have a little information also on early churches and preachers. Mrs. John Ruddle relates that when her party arrived in 1859, there were a South Methodist presiding elder and preacher at Snelling. The preacher was Rev. S. W. Davies, and the presiding elder's name was Blythe. Mrs. Ruddle also states that Rev. McSwain, Christian Church preacher, was here, and she believes had been here several years. Their house looked as if it was getting old when she first saw it, she recalls, and she was there in 1860. This was Rev. Daniel McSwain, sometimes known as Uncle McSwain. Mrs. Mary J. Little, who came here in 1862, and who passed away at an advanced age less than a year ago at her home below Snelling, came out with the same party in which Daniel McSwain returned to California after coming back to Missouri after his sister-in-law and her children. His brother had died, and Daniel McSwain brought the family to Cali- fornia. The name McSwain is a familiar one in the history of the county. Children of those children who came out in 1862 live here still. The name is commemorated in McSwain Bridge, across the Merced near Cressey, and in the McSwain school district; and we shall encounter it in the county's history later.
We have seen that Peter Fee hauled the press for the first news- paper in the county from Knight's Ferry and delivered it at Snelling on the second of July, 1862. Something over seven years had then passed since the organization of the county and the first meeting of its court and supervisors under the oak tree on Mariposa Creek. Perhaps the beginning of this first paper, the Banner, is as good a landmark as any to mark the close of this chapter on the early life of the county.
CHAPTER X
A CROSS-SECTION OF MERCED COUNTY LIFE IN 1865
When the new county was ten years old, on May 13, 1865, P. D. Wigginton and J. W. Roberton issued the first number of the Weekly Merced Herald. This was not the first newspaper which the county had had. Almost three years earlier, in July, 1862, Robert J. Steele and his wife, Rowena Granice Steele, started the county's first paper, the Banner, which led a rather stormy existence for a time during the Civil War. One "Hall, alias Pierce," issued a few numbers of the Merced Democrat-a very few. Wigginton and Robertson were both lawyers; you may read their professional cards in the columns of their paper, the earliest files of a Merced County paper, so far as we can learn, which are now preserved. In addition, Robertson was county judge and Wigginton was district attorney. They ran the paper as partners for a few months; but Wigginton sold out his interest to his partner along in the fall, and Robertson con- ducted it alone, with a man named Kennedy as assistant editor.
From the columns of the Herald we have gathered the following hodgepodge, which taken together gives us a pretty accurate and vivid picture of life in and around Snelling at that time. Little would be gained by very much of an attempt at classifying the items; prob- ably, on the contrary, the impression will be truer if they are allowed to follow one another pretty much as they have been gathered. It is fitting enough that we should start off with a political item, and it goes without saying that it will be Democratic. It is from the Herald of June 24, 1865 ; and we may add that the headlines are in such small type that they would cause the soul of William Randolph Hearst the most poignant anguish :
"Apportionment of Delegates .- The Democratic County Central Committee, at their meeting on Saturday the 10th instant, made the following apportionment of delegates to the County Convention which each precinct is entitled to in Merced County. They also fixed the 15th day of July, for the primary election, and set the 22nd day of July as the time for holding the County Convention. Snelling is entitled to 5 votes; Stevenson's (sic), 2; Neill's, 2; Forlorn Hope, 4; Murray's, 2; Hail's, 1; Mariposa Creek, 2; Anderson's, 2; San Luis Ranch, 1; Beighle's, 1; Dry Creek, 1."
Note that the item is only two weeks old; those were leisurely days in journalism. Note also the location of the precincts, and what it indicates about where the population was-and where it
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wasn't. Snelling and Stevinson's are familiar now. Neill's Ranch was afterwards the Shaffer Ranch, where the Oakdale Railroad crosses the Merced River; Forlorn Hope was Hopeton; Murray's was at Merced Falls; Dry Creek, north of the Falls and Snelling; Hail's Ranch, somewhere out Lone Tree way; Mariposa Creek, in the Plainsburg country; Anderson's, apparently somewhere down along the San Joaquin in the Mariposa Island region; San Luis Ranch, on the West Side out towards Pacheco Pass; Beighle's Ranch, out about where the Phenegar stone house stands, next to the hills east of Le Grand.
From the issue of July 15, 1865: "New Masonic and Odd Fel- lows Hall .- The Masons and Odd Fellows of this vicinity have rented the upper story of Mr. Myers' building, on the corner of Main and Second Streets, and are completing and finishing a lodge room, to be used by both orders. The lodge room is 41 by 22 feet, with anterooms of about 9 feet square. There is plenty of windows for thorough ventilation-and the floor of the lodge is covered with oil cloth matting, which will make it at once commodious and pleas- ant. We learn that both the orders named have petitioned to the proper authorities for dispensations, and intend to commence 'work' in their mystic rites in Snelling as soon as their petitions are responded to. There are a good many members of both these orders in this vicinity, and the establishment of lodges here will be a matter of accommodation to the brethren who cannot attend lodge meetings at a distance."
"No Accounting for Tastes .- It is said that the only portion of the procession in San Francisco on the Fourth of July that elicited the cheers or plaudits of the spectators were the negroes. At several points-Russ House, for one-the women waved their handkerchiefs, and showered bouquets on the sooty sons of Africa. All of these demonstrations were received as a matter of course, and Cuffee seemed less excited than his fair admirers. Verily, there is no accounting for tastes."
Then here is a quotation from the Mariposa Gazette, with the Herald's retort discourteous, from the issue of August 5 :
" 'The "Democratic" party in Merced County held a convention last week. A county ticket was filled out, mostly composed of new men-but few of the old officers being renominated. There may be an effort to break party lines, and run a People's ticket in that county. "Democracy" has become rather oppressive, and is but another term for humbug.'-Mariposa Gazette.
"If the Democratic Party of Merced County 'knows itself,' and we think it does, it will not be humbugged into anything of the kind. We are not a bolting party ; that article is monopolized by the blacks just now."
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Immediately following the preceding: "Mariposa Republican Nominees .- The Republican Convention of Mariposa County was held on the 29th ult. The nominees are: For Assembly, J. W. Wil- cox; Sheriff, J. D. Crippen ; Clerk, E. B. Rollins ; Treasurer, Charles Peregoy; District Attorney, E. C. Hartman; Assessor, J. D. Tate. Some of these candidates might stand a show of election if they were on the right side, but as it is, it is doubtful."
August 5 : "Election of School Trustees .- We see, by a posted notice, that there is to be an annual election today for three School Trustees for this (Jackson) district . .. The polls are to be open at the Court House between the hours of 2 and 5 o'clock P. M."
"A Strong Ticket .- The Democracy of Tuolumne have placed at the head of their ticket J. M. Mandeville, and followed it up by placing Prentice Mulford on as one of the candidates for Assembly. Mandeville is the old 'war horse' of Democracy in Tuolumne. . Mulford (Dogberry) is a young man of genius, which will not be denied by many of our readers who have read some of his witty sarcasms in the columns of the Herald. He will do honor to a seat in the Legislature, and is just such a man as ought to be there at the coming session to lift some of the Abolitionists 'out of their boots' when they bring up the negro suffrage bill, which of course will be done. We cannot speak from the card as regards the balance of the ticket, but if they have filled it up with such men as Mandeville and Mulford, there can scarcely be a doubt about its triumphant success. Such men cannot be beaten where there is so small odds against them as there was last year in good old Tuolumne."
In the same issue the Herald comments as follows on the Re- publican ticket nominated in San Joaquin County: "Altogether the ticket is a very weak one, and might be easily beaten if there was an organization in the county opposed to the Republicans."
"The Democrats of Siskiyou have nominated a full ticket." (Two are mentioned by name.) "If they are a fair sample of the ticket, the Democracy of Siskiyou are in luck. We take it for granted that they will elect it."
"We see stated that the Sonora and Mono Wagon Road is now in excellent condition. A letter to the Independent (Stockton) says it is expected there will be 'considerable ore shipped over this road from Blind Springs, Montgomry, and other districts. For four or six animal teams, the road cannot be surpassed by any transmontane road in the State.' "
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