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 20
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Also in this issue the world is informed that Mr. Stubbs of Dover has opened a saloon there, formerly Flannigan's Saloon, opposite the steamboat landing.
In the issue of July 17 there is this interesting and instructive account of a journey of the editor through "The Country to the West," as follows :
"We this week paid a business visit to the country to the west- ward of us, passing on our way down through the new farms on the high plains at the foot of the hills lying between the Merced and the Tuolumne rivers, and returning by way of the lower plains near the San Joaquin, crossing the Merced River at Turner's Ferry, and by the town of Dover. The first place of note on our route was Empire City, which we found considerably improved since our last visit six months ago. The village now consists of the large mercantile estab- lishment of Messrs. Giddings & Ward, a drug store, a hotel, and a blacksmith's shop, a large warehouse, and a handsome and neat-look- ing saloon kept by 'Elder' Purday, whose ministrations have delighted
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the thirsty of the neighborhood for months past. We were pleased to observe that Messrs. Giddings & Ward are doing an extensive business. They receive their supplies of merchandise by the boat load, and ship in return wheat, large quantities of which are accumu- lating upon the banks of the Tuolumne at the Empire landing. The shipments of new wheat the present season, by Messrs. Giddings & Ward, amount to seven hundred and seventy-to tons, and there are on the bank about three hundred and fifty tons, most of which will have to be stored. The enterprising merchants (Messrs. G. & W.), are building an addition to their large warehouse, which will increase its capacity to about twelve hundred tons, and have engaged wheat for storage sufficient to fill it. The other towns on the Tuolumne, Westport, Berryville, Paradise, and Tuolumne City, wear their usual appearance, except the latter, which in consequence of navigation hav- ing closed to ports above, presents a more lively appearance than for ten months past. The landing and streets are thronged with teams from morning until night delivering grain for shipment, and the mer- chants and business men of the town seem encouraged by the impetus thereby given to business transactions.
"On our return we tarried for the night at Dover, where we found quite a stir among the people of the place, notwithstanding the fact that every available man has been drawn from the town to assist in harvesting the grain crop in the surrounding country, and that the shipping season had not commenced, owing to the fact that harvest- ing commenced much later in that vicinity than in older settled sec- tions. The crops are reported good, and except where damage was done by cattle and other stock, an average yield will be the result, notwithstanding the fact that much of the grain was planted as late as March."
The Millerton correspondent writes that the cable and boat of Converse's Ferry have been sold at private sale for $2000 and moved thirty miles down the river. Landrum & Co. were the purchasers. A company is to be oranized to establish a new ferry at Millerton.
A man named Johnson S. Weese was killed by being caught in the cylinder of a threshing machine on William H. Hartley's ranch on Bear Creek about fifteen miles from Snelling. There is a report of the coroner's inquest, with a verdict of accidental death.
July 31, 1869: "The San Joaquin .- The San Joaquin River is yet navigable for the larger sized craft in the up-river trade, and the farmers on the plains are rushing their grain to the bank at all avail- able points for shipment before the season closes. The Tuolumne is yet navigable to Tuolumne City, and there is unusual activity dis- played in the shipment of grain from that point. While there in the early part of the present week, we noticed that the town was thronged
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with teams from the country, bringing to the landing hundreds of tons of grain which was daily being shipped by steamer to Stockton. For the benefit of the farming community we hope the water in the rivers will keep up a few weeks longer, and thus enable them to get their products to market."
Of course the rivers did not accede to the editor's wish. On September 25, in the Argus, which had before that time replaced the Herald, are these two paragraphs :
"Dover .- We learn that much more grain is being stored at Dover for shipment than was expected, the farmers being compelled to haul their crops there for storage for want of granaries at home. At present there is no safe landing for steamers at any point but Dover above the mouth of the Merced River on the east side of the stream for forty or fifty miles, giving that place the advantage of the trade of a vast area of territory that will produce grain in great abundance next year. Mr. Simpson is doing a thriving business, as he richly deserves to do."
"Large Warehouse .- We are informed that a warehouse 100x80 feet has been built and is now being filled with grain, at Hill's Ferry. The sacks of wheat are being stored in tiers twenty-four high, which makes the capacity of this warehouse about 22,000 tons. It is said that the entire capacity of the building has been engaged, and yet more warehouse must be built to accommodate the farmers who will ship their grain from that point. Verily the yield of grain must have been abundant on the farms beyond the Joaquin the present year."
Having thus taken a glimpse a little way ahead at the check which was due to come to the first year's boom, we drop back to July 17 again. In the Herald of that date is an "ad." of Wigginton & Howell to the effect that they have over 250,000 acres of unimproved lands in Stanislaus, Merced, Fresno, and Tulare Counties at from $2.50 to $10 per acre. Those desirous of settling in this part of the State cannot fail to be suited in quantity, quality, and location of lands, and on such terms as will be satisfactory.
July 31: "Our Town .- Improvements are still progressing in Snelling, every man who can handle a hammer or trowel being engaged upon the various buildings in process of erection. This fall will wit- ness a large addition to the number of our business houses and a corresponding increase in the population of the town and vicinity. We see no reason why Snelling should not become one of the large towns of the State, situated as it is in one of the richest and most pleasant and healthy localities in all the San Joaquin Valley."
"Harvesters .- These machines are being used in the lower valley, and we are informed are doing good work. Mr. Daniel Whitmore has two of them on his farm near Empire City, with which he cuts,
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threshes and sacks forty acres per day with the labor of eight men and twenty-eight horses."
The editor himself prepared to expand along with the town and the country, and actually did so. In the issue of August 7, there is a little editorial, "by the head devil," entitled "Gone Below," in which we are informed that Mr. Steele has gone to San Francisco to buy a new press and new materials for Volume II of the paper. Evidently the editor hadn't yet planned, or at least the "head devil" did not yet know, that it was to be, not Volume II of the Herald, but Volume I of the San Joaquin Valley Argus. On the 14th there is an announce- ment of "our new office," on the north side of Lewis Street. There is also a news story that the Western Pacific Railroad is now completed from Sacramento to Stockton. And a little earlier, Wigginton & Howell have added an abstract office to their real estate establishment.
On August 28 the editor of the Tuolumne City News is quoted as saying that "there are at present near fourteen hundred names on the great register of Stanislaus County." In another article in the same paper, the Herald points out, he (the News man) sums up the Democratic strength in Merced County as 272, and in Stanislaus as 642. Steele points out that the News man must certainly be wrong (he usually was, according to the Argus), for this would make a Republican majority of nearly 150 in Stanislaus-which of course was not to be thought of.
This paper of August 28 is the first issue of the new Argus. Steele writes in that issue, in part: "Our Paper .- Two weeks ago today the Merced Herald died by termination of contract, and today we present to the people of this portion of the State the San Joa- quin Valley Argus in its stead." This valley-wide point of view, shown in the name of the new paper, in such matters as Wigginton & Howell's over 250,000 acres of unimproved land in four counties, and in a good many other ways, was the point of view of a budding metropolis, conscious of a destiny which was shortly to be sidetracked at a town not yet in existence on Bear Creek. The Argus of January 1, 1870, voices this point of view thus :
"Town Improvements .- Building still goes on at a rapid rate in our town. On every side we see new buildings rearing up, and the sound of the carpenter's hammer and saw hums merrily as we write. Within the past two weeks a block of wooden buildings has been erected on the ground directly north of our office, and still the demand is for more houses. People are coming in so rapidly that it would be impossible to furnish house room for them as fast as required, with the present facilities for obtaining lumber. One or two years' growth more to our town, at the same ratio of increase as that of 1869, and Snelling will have a larger population than any town in the adjacent
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counties excepting only San Joaquin. The little river cities of Paradise Valley are already left in the background, and we rank with the largest mountain and valley towns in both population and the amount of business done. Our county, generally, also keeps pace with the county seat in improvement, large sections of country embraced within its limits, which one year ago could not boast of a single inhabitant of the human race, now being densely populated, and the wild virgin soil being put in cultivation with a fair prospect for a heavy yield of grain the coming harvest."
Because it is a small instance it is a very clear one of how the cities are full of pride, and also of how they will insist on regarding themselves as the kite instead of the tail. On December 11, 1869, we read something more about the real kite, the immigrants who had heard afar of the rich grain lands to be had here, and whose sense of porportion was so warped that they did not even suspect they were tributary to the county seat, which they heard of more or less incident- ally, over on the Merced River, or which was at most a station on the way to where they were going :
"The Immigration .- We learn that since the rain commenced in this valley very large accessions have been made to our population. In the Lone Tree (Sandy Mush) district, Mr. Smythe informs us, there is a house erected upon almost every quarter section. . . . New settlers are also flowing into the portion of our county lying between Bear Creek and Mariposa Creek, and are building up one of the most flourishing settlements to be found anywhere in our valley. They are all practical farmers and bring with them means sufficient to farm on a large scale, using the most approved machinery. There is yet room and good location for thousands more. . . . "
In the issue of January 22, 1870, is the following, which may serve to close this chapter :
"Navigation Resumed .- We see by the Stockton papers that navigation on the San Joaquin River has been resumed, which will have a tendency to relieve the farmers who have been suffering for want of money, many of them having their entire crop of last year stored on the banks of the river awaiting shipment to market. We may now look for brisk times throughout this valley until navigation closes. The past six months' experience has proved the necessity of one or two railroads through the valley east of the river, and the people hope soon to see movements made for building them."
CHAPTER XII EARLY DAYS ON THE WEST SIDE
We have told briefly how Los Banos Creek received its name on account of the baths (los banos), the pools high up towards the creek's source on the eastern side of the Diablo Range south of Pacheco Pass, whither the mission fathers from San Juan Bautista were in the habit of coming in the hot summers to refresh them- selves. It is probable that tucked away somewhere in some old Span- ish chronicle the date of this discovery and naming can be found, but we haven't found it.
The earliest West Side history that is to be found in the records of Merced County appears to be in the records of the patents to the four Mexican grants partly or wholly in this county : the San Jon de Santa Rita, San Luis Gonzaga, Orestimba y las Garzas, and Rancho Panoche de San Juan y Los Carrisalitos. In the records of the patents to these great ranches there are recitals of the history of the titles, and it is from these that we learn when the grants were made, and to whom, and by what Mexican Governors.
A recital of a portion of one of these patents will shed light on them all. It is from the record as to the Rancho Panoche de San Juan y Los Carrisalitos-the present Arburua Ranch-and is as follows :
"Rancho Panoche de San Juan y Los Carrisalitos. The United States of America. To whom these presents shall come, greeting:
"Whereas, it appears from a duly authenticated transcript filed in the general land office of the United States, that pursuant to the provisions of the Act of Congress, approved the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, entitled, 'An Act to ascer- tain and settle the private land claims in the State of California,' Julian Ursua and Pedro Romo as claimants filed their petitions on the 2nd day of February, 1853, . . . to five square leagues situated in the County of San Joaquin and State aforesaid, and founded on a Mexican grant to Don Julian Ursua made on the 17th day of Febru- ary, 1844, by Manuel Micheltorena, then Governor of the Depart- ment of California
The claim was confirmed by the board of land commissioners May 2, 1854; there was a confirmation of this by the district court of the United States for the Southern District of California, an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, a dismissal of the appeal, and a final confirmation by the district court, which appears
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to have been made October 13, 1864. The patent, like all the others, contained a proviso, under the provisions of the act of Congress men- tioned, that the patent "shall not affect the interests of third parties." The patent is dated July 13, 1867, and signed by President Johnson.
All four patents were issued after similar proceedings under the same act of Congress, with the difference that at least one of the claims was rejected by the board of land commissioners, and that some of the transcripts were filed in the branch of the land office at San Francisco. All four claims were alike affirmed by the district court, however, and appeals to all four were dismissed by the supreme court. The San Juan y Los Carrisalitos Grant was not the earliest, but next to the latest of the four.
The Santa Rita Grant was the earliest. It was made to Fran- cisco Sobranes on September 7, 1841, by Juan B. Alvarado, then Governor of the Department of both Californias, and was to "eleven Spanish square leagues." This claim was rejected by the land com- missioners, but affirmed by the district court. The patent was dated November 20, 1862, and signed by President Lincoln. The claim was filed March 1, 1853.
The claim to the San Luis Gonzaga Grant was filed February 12, 1852, by Juan Perez Pacheco. It was to eleven square leagues, and was founded on a Mexican grant to Jose Maria Mejia and Juan Perez Pacheco made on the 4th day of November, 1843, by Manuel Michel- torena, then Governor of the Department of the Californias. The land is described in the claim as situated in the County of Mariposa. This claim likewise was rejected by the land commissioners, but affirmed by the district court, and an appeal was dismissed by the supreme court. The patent is dated May 16, 1871, and was signed by President Grant.
The claim to the Orestimba y las Garzas Grant was made by Sebastian Nunez February 12, 1852, to "six Sitios de granada mayor or square leagues," situated in the County of Tuolumne, founded on a Mexican grant made February 22, 1844, by Manuel Micheltorena, then Governor of the Department of the Californias. This claim likewise was rejected by the land commissioners, but affirmed by the district court, and by the supreme court by the dismissal of an appeal. The patent was dated July 30, 1863, and signed by Presi- dent Lincoln.
Only one of the four grants, the Carrisalitos, is wholly within the present Merced County. It contains 22,173.34 acres. The Santa Rita extends into Fresno County, and has in Merced County 46,050.68 acres. The Orestimba extends over into Stanislaus, and has 10,- 092.7 acres in Merced County. The San Luis extends into Santa Clara, and has in Merced County 27,731 acres.
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It is not intended here to follow the title of these grants in detail to later owners. Briefly, it is worth while to note that the Carrisalitos passed in time to Hernandez and then to Arburua, and that there is a map of the San Luis filed June 11, 1880, "owned by Mariano Ma- rarin." The Santa Rita, however, demands further notice, because it appears to have been the only one in which the clause "shall not affect the interests of third persons" became of practical importance. On April 9, 1866, between three and four years after the patent to Francisco Sobranes, there was a decree quieting title entered in an action entitled Henry Miller and Charles Lux vs. Francisco Sobranes, Valentine Alviso, et al., in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendants, and thus Miller & Lux came into the ranch which came to be called Henry Miller's pride. From the recitals in the decree quieting title it appears that all of the defendants except Alviso defaulted, and that he stipulated to the entry of a judgement against him.
We have seen that on the Assessment Roll of 1857 the Carrisa- litos was assessed to Brent & Crittenden (one square league) and Alexander Forbes (four square leagues), and that the name of Pacheco appears in the index, although the page containing his assess- ment is torn out. We also, still earlier (in April, 1844), got a brief glimpse through the eyes of John C. Fremont, across the San Joaquin River to this country of the West Side, when he tells us that he kept to the East Side because of the large numbers of wild cattle and horses across the river among which he did not dare to venture for fear his own half wild stock would run off.
The Pacheco Pass appears to have been a way through from the Santa Clara Valley quite early. How early it received the name it now bears is hard to say, but in view of the fact that Juan Perez Pacheco was one of the grantees of the San Luis on November 4, 1843 it seems reasonable to assume that the name was probably applied to the pass as early as the forties. It appears to have been the way across which the indefatigable Gabriel Moraga passed on more than one of his numerous expeditions against the valley Indians from 1806 on, though we gather no hint that the pass then enjoyed the dignity of a name.
One of the first petitions which was presented to the board of supervisors of the newly organized Merced County, in 1855, was one by A. Firebaugh for permission to build a toll-road across the pass. Firebaugh, in conjunction with others, some of them at least in Santa Clara County, planned and built a road from San Jose across the pass. We find through the minutes of the board of supervisors during 1855 and 1856 that they extended Firebaugh's time at several different meetings, for the completion of the road.
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Two writers of note have recorded the fact of crosing the pass rather early-both in the sixties, in fact. Clarence King tells of doing so in his "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada," about 1864; and John Muir, in "My First Summer in the Sierra Nevada," gives an account of crossing it in April, 1868. Neither of these writers has anything to say of the inhabitants ; but it is well to read Muir especially as an antidote to the impression of the country as something ap- proaching a desert, which may be suggested by our attempt to guess the impressions it probably made on Gabriel Moraga and his men on the occasion, late in the year, when they left a permanent record of their thankfulness in finding the Merced by naming it "River of Our Lady of Mercy." Such men as John Montgomery, John Ruddle, and Colonel Stevinson early recognized the East Side as a desirable cattle country, and drove in cattle from the States ; and Henry Miller found the place he wanted on the West Side. A well-informed stock- man made the statement in 1924 that there were more cattle shipped annually from within a radius of twenty-five miles of Merced than from any other equal area in the world; in that year Merced County had over 80,000 stock cattle and over 40,000 dairy cattle, and was surpassed among the counties of the State only by Kern in number of stock cattle and Stanislaus in number of dairy cattle. It raises also large numbers of sheep, and a considerable number of hogs.
One reminiscence of Mr. Stockton, which he must necessarily have had at second hand, recalls Grizzly Adams' story of the stock-killing grizzly. It relates that a stockman named Davis, on the West Side in the early fifties, witnessed the killing of three grizzlies one after the other by a bull, and conceived such a respect for the bull as a fighter that he took it to Stockton, where fights between bulls and grizzlies were a feature. There, says the story, the bull was matched against a grizzly which had something like seven bulls to its credit, and the bull killed the grizzly, and piled up a record of almost a score of bears, until the brutal promoters, finding they could get no more matches, hamstrung the champion and let a grizzly kill him. This bar- baric sport had a short life in the State; it was soon prohibited on account of its cruelty.
We have seen, along through the sixties, when the election re- turns are given, or the appointment of election officers, that there seems to have been only the one precinct of the San Luis Ranch which was wholly on the West Side, and a second, called Anderson's and apparently later Mears', which presumably was partly west of the San Joaquin. And the vote in these precincts was not large.
The San Luis Ranch House was a station on the stage route between San Jose and Visalia pretty early. S. L. Givens mentions the stage stopping there in 1858, when he was a boy going to college
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at Santa Clara. James Capen Adams ("Grizzly Adams"), who hunted and captured grizzlies on the upper Merced during the fif- ties and late in that decade exhibited several of these and some other animals in San Francisco, and whose life story was written in book form by Theodore Hittell, evidently passed along the West Side of this county in the later fifties, and he tells of a grizzly coming out of the bushes somewhere in that vicinity and rolling on the ground to excite the curiosity of the cattle until one came near enough for the bear to kill it. Adams was apparently not concerned about county lines and could not probably have distinguished them, but we get from him the idea of the West Side as a stock country with a few far scattered ranch houses.
W. J. Stockton came to the West Side in October, 1872, and Charles W. Smith in 1874, and to these two pioneer residents of that section we are indebted for much information about early days there. "When I first came to Los Banos," says Mr. Stockton, "I hauled timber across the old Toll Road from Gilroy to build me a house. It took me about a week to haul one load-and such a road! Some- times we used to tie a log on to the back of the wagon with a rope to act as a brake, the road was so steep."
Looking at the picture of Los Banos Village (old Los Banos) in the Elliott and Moore history of Merced County published in 1881, which shows Sheeline's grocery, H. Thornton's hotel, a blacksmith shop, a barn, and two smaller buildings, Mr. Stockton states that in 1872 the only building there was one small one in the foreground on the right, next to Sheeline's store, and that this was a store which had been recently established by a German named Kreyenhagen, to whom Henry Miller had leased a section of land for ten years for $1 on condition that he would put up a store. This little building was a store and also a post-office. A man named Moses Korn, a Jew, bought Kreyenhagen out in 1873. Korn added a hotel, which about 1876 he sold to Harry Thornton. Korn afterwards sold out his store to Sheeline. Sheeline was there only about a year, and the 1881 history fixes his date pretty closely, unless the picture was not strictly up to date. Miller bought Sheeline out, and the store, moved to the present Los Banos when that was established on the coming of the railroad, has been run by Miller & Lux ever since. Arthur Drum- mond, now a banker at Gustine, and W. T. White, merchant at Living- ston, were early keepers of the Miller & Lux store.
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