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 23
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the beginning of the fight, so far as Merced County was concerned at any rate.
In 1868 a man named Pixley had about 1700 acres of grain on the banks of the Merced River. A bunch of cattle ran over a big part of it along in the spring before it had begun to joint and trampled a good deal of it into the ground. It looked pretty badly damaged and Pixley went to some of the cattle men for satisfaction. A group of them, Neill Brothers, Colonel Stevinson and several others, who amongst them owned the cattle that had done the damage, got together and named Colonel Stevinson to arrive at a settlement with Mr. Pixley. The result reflected a good deal of honor on both sides. They agreed that Pixley should harvest the trampled grain separately from the untrampled, keep account of the acres and bushels in each lot, and that the cattle men would pay him for the loss shown in this way. When the grain was harvested, Colonel Stevinson came around to settle, and Pixley reported that instead of their owing him money, he owed them. So they let it stand as it was.
There were losses along during 1868 and 1869, as we have already seen from the paper of the time-crops trampled out by cattle. There were some cattle shot by the irate farmers, particularly some bulls. The oldtimes of near Merced will tell you of how they used to patrol their crops, how they used to drive the cattle and the wild horses away down towards the San Joaquin. The cattle men set their va- queros to help keep their cattle off the grain, because they did not want them killed and also because they were fair men. But the va- queros were far too few.
In the spring of 1869 the stockmen and the grain men called a meeting at Patrick Carroll's ranch, known now usually as the Sheehy . place, to adjust their differences. John M. Montgomery was a leader among the cattlemen and was known as just man. A good many wanted him to act as chairman. He declined on the ground that there were more grain men than cattle men, and that the chairman ought to be a grain man. Warner Oliver, a Methodist minister, and at that time the owner of the greater part of the site where Merced now is, was chosen chairman. Among the cattle men were Mr. Montgomery, the Neill brothers, William and James, N. B. Stoneroad, W. C. Tur- ner, J. B. Cocanour, "Claibe" Dean, E. T. Givens, and a lot of others. Among the grain men were the two Healy brothers, former cattle men, Warner Oliver and his brother William, who lived on the north side of Bear Creek, L. R. Fancher, W. P. Fowler, and a still larger num- ber of others. This meeting was about the end of March or the be- ginning of April. The stockmen, led by Mr. Montgomery, agreed that they would have to recognize the rights of the men who had bought the land. The two factions held separate sessions when it looked as if
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they might not be able to agree. The stockmen agreed that they would hold a big rodeo at the end of May and that they would move their cattle out of the grain lands, northward or southward, according to where they had ranged. Both parties agreed to do all they could to keep the cattle off the grain, and the grain men agreed not to kill cattle. They carried this out. The cattle men moved out. Montgomery with his cattle formed a partnership with W. S. Chapman, who had become the owner of an immense lot of land in the Valley, and the Chowchilla Ranch was the result. Down on the road towards El Nido on the left- hand side of the road, may still be seen a small part of the redwood picket fence of which Montgomery built about seventeen miles along the north border of the 48,000 acres that Chapman put into the part- nership against Montgomery's 12,000 to 15,000 cattle. He built it out of redwood logs brought by water to Dover and split into pickets, and hauled overland by wagon, a line set between the old order and the new.
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CHAPTER XIV THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD AND THE FOUNDING OF MERCED
By the fall of 1869 the new grain-raisers who had for the past year or more been flocking into the plains country had tried trans- portation by water and had convincingly demonstrated some of its uncertainties, or rather the certainty that there could be none for a long enough period after their crops were harvested to enable them to get the grain to market. We have seen how great quantities of grain were left on the growers' hands during the winter of 1869 and 1870, either on their own farms or at the most no nearer to market than in warehouses on the river banks, as at Dover and Hill's Ferry. The summer of 1869 may perhaps have been an unusually favorable year for river transportation at that; at any rate Mrs. Stevinson re- calls that it was only for one year that steamboats attempted to make a serious business of getting up the San Joaquin higher than the mouth of the Merced. It is interesting to note in this connection that the pictures in the old 1881 history showing steamboats in the Merced River at the Stevinson and the W. C. Turner ranches were not drawn from imagination, but from "life." A young man who was one of those engaged in the work on the 1881 history was stormbound at the Stevinson Ranch for a week, and made the sketch of that place, steamer and all, while he was there, and the boats actually did go as far up as the Turner Ranch.
Dover, shortest-lived of all the county's towns, had been begun in July, 1869, Steele tells us. During the summer of 1869 it had its short boom, and after the winter of 1869 and 1870 the Argus does not have much of anything to say about the town. Steele tells of visiting both Dover and Hill's Ferry in March, 1870, and he speaks of their appearance of prosperity ; but in his account of the same trip he tells us that the prospects are that the grain crop on the West Side will be a total failure for want of rain, and we are left with the im- pression that he was deceived about the prosperity, or perhaps he was unwilling to admit that his earlier prophecies of a permanent growth for the place had so soon proved wrong.
In the Argus of October 23, 1869, appeared the following :
"Railroad .- Railroad is the principal topic in many localities throughout the State, each particular place having a favorite line. The line in which the people of the San Joaquin Valley are most in-
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terested, and the only one that could possibly aid them by supplying transportation facilities for their produce commensurate with their wants, is a 'dead beat' so far as the people of Stockton and the S. J. V. R. R. Co. is concerned. The little bid of three hundred thousand dollars has excited the cupidity of the professional land-grabbing association, and they retard the commencement of operation by bring- ing in claims on the part of the Copperopolis Railroad. We, here, have no right to grumble about the manner in which the people of Stockton invest their money, and have no objections to their building a road to Meader's copper mine if they desire to do so; but we do object to their holding out the idea to the public that their intention is to build a road to secure the trade of this valley when their real design is to run out a few miles into the country for the sole purpose of gobbling the unsettled land in the foothills. While this valley offers greater inducements than any other section of the State to capitalists to invest in railroad building, the country at the same time would be more benefited by such an enterprise, as it would enable the people to settle upon and cultivate millions of acres of rich land which now lie fallow because of the impossibility of farmers obtaining supplies or transporting their produce to market. Though opposed to monopo- lies, we believe the only hope and salvation of this section of the State is in relying upon the Central and Western Pacific Companies, and offering to them inducements that will ensure the building and stocking of a road through this valley within a year or two. Direct trade with San Francisco for the people of the San Joaquin Valley will in all probability be the result of the policy now pursued by the Stockton people, and that city will find when too late to avert its doom that the people to the southward of it can get along without it, and ignore its very existence so far as trade is concerned. Instead of throwing obstacles in the way of improvement of the transportation facilities between this city and the country, Stocktonians should vie with each other in studying out plans to aid any enterprise set on foot to connect that point with the great wheat-growing section south of the Tuol- umne River, where now all enterprise languishes simply for want of means of transportation commensurate with the requirements of the settlers. The winter season is now setting in, and the people see no means offered them for getting to market the large quantities of grain which their lands are capable of producing, and therefore they will not be likely to plant as largely as they would do were there a prospect for the completion of the railroad through the valley within the next twelve months. The mutton, pork, beef, and grain. sent annually from this valley to San Francisco amounts to an immense trade, which could be increased ten-fold in a shart space of time if improvement of trans- portation facilities could be kept up with the demands of the country."
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In the issue of November 6, 1869, the Argus prints a communi- cation from a writer who masks his identity under the name of "Hampden"-not dauntless enough, apparently, to disclose his real name-which says that the Honorable William M. Stewart, United States Senator from Nevada, has been in Snelling on a trip through the valley in behalf of the Western Pacific Railroad, and that he is inviting the counties to donate $10,000 a mile to help build the rail- road "from Shepherd's Ferry to Visalia." Already, we are told, Sena- tor Stewart has secured donations of 50,000 acres of land conditioned on the building of the road to Sycamore Point by September 15, 1871. According to the letter, the road contemplates crossing the Tuolumne near Empire City, and the Merced near McConnell's Ranch. Hamp- den points out that such a line would run for about thirty miles through Merced County, and the county would thus have to donate about $300,000 if it accepted Senator Stewart's invitation. Hampden is in favor of having the county do this, and argues that it is estimated that the assessed valuation for ten miles on each side of the road would be increased $10 an acre, a total increase of $3,840,000, which he says is more than the county's total assessed valuation, and that the county would make money by the donation. Steele comments editorially and counsels going slow on Hampden's proposition. The files of the paper later show that an attempt to get a big donation from the county failed.
An advertisement of a sawmill for sale in the same issue provi- dentially gives us the location of Sycamore Point. The steam saw- mill is at Sycamore Point, San Joaquin River, and those interested are directed to apply to James Helm, Firebaugh's Ferry.
The issue of December 18, 1869, contains this: "Stockton and Her Railroad Projects .- Within the past year, numerous railroad projects have been sprung in Stockton, all of which have been killed, or failed for want of enterprise on the part of the people along the lines of the respective proposed roads. The Stockton and Tulare Railroad proved a fizzle; the Stockton and Copperopolis Railroad ditto; the Ship Canal likewise; but now it seems that the pertinacity with which the Stocktonians have stuck to their intention to build a railroad up the valley of the San Joaquin is about to be rewarded. The 'Stockton and Visalia Railroad' is the latest proposition, and it ought to succeed. The need of a railroad up the valley has been plainly seen for years; but the sparseness of population, combined with other obstacles, has prevented its construction. The Stockton Inde- pendent says: 'At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Stockton and Visalia Railroad Company held at Pioneer Hall on Saturday evening last, James A. Jackson was elected President; Frank Stewart, Treasurer; and Austin Sperry, Secretary. There is
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at present $191,000 subscribed to the stock of the company, and ten per centum of the same has been paid into the treasury. It is the intention of the company to fully complete its organization, immedi- ately after which books for further subscriptions will be opened. The prospects of a speedy commencement of the work are very encourag- ing, as the company can now safely calculate upon securing funds sufficient to construct the road from Stockton to a point near Empire City.'"
On March 5, 1870, appears the following on "Railroad Building," which the Argus quotes with brief comment from the San Joaquin Republican :
"From I. M. Hubbard, Superintendent of construction on the San Joaquin and Tulare Railroad, we learn that the railroad is now com- pleted to the north bank of the Stanislaus River, a distance of eleven miles from Wilson's Station, the point of connection with the West- ern Pacific road. Some little delay will take place, occasioned by the unfinished bridge across the river ; but as soon as this is completed the road will, we are informed, be pushed forward rapidly in the direction of Tulare Lake. It is not contemplated to run the road to Visalia, but to leave that place somewhere twelve or fourteen miles to the eastward. If the company can manage to keep itself to the sticking point, the people of the Valley will soon be able to hear the whistle of Crocker's steam wagons and will ride on a railroad-if they have money enough. Only ten cents a mile, and board your-self."
From Stockton to the Stanislaus bridge, says the Argus, is about twenty-three miles.
Some little light on transportation conditions in the part of Merced County towards which this railroad is advancing may be gained from three notices published in the Argus in December and January, 1869 and 1870, to the effect that the board of supervisors will be asked at the meeting on February 7, 1870, to lay out and locate three new roads. The notices are signed by Neill McSwain, W. P. Fowler, and H. W. French. The first road was to be about twenty-three miles in length, and was to extend from J. M. Mont- gomery's Ranch, the present Wolfsen Ranch, down the north side of Bear Creek to somewhere near where Merced now is; then to leave the creek a little and run out to where Sections 18 and 19 corner on the westerly line of Township 7 South, Range Thirteen East; thence south two miles to join and include an existing private road to Dover. The second was to be about seventeen miles in length, and to extend from the Lone Tree vicinity to join the Snelling and Mariposa Creek road near Montgomery's ranch. The third was to be about thirteen miles in length, and was to extend from the southeast corner of Sec- tion 16, Township 7 South, Range 13 East, on the lands of Dr. R.
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P. Ashe (Fergus vicinity, and apparently connecting with the road from Montgomery's Ranch to Dover), northwesterly to McSwain's Ferry across the Merced River in Section 9, Township 6 South, Range 12 East.
Owners of land crossed by the first road are given as J. M. Mont- gomery, Ray & Hines, W. P. Fowler, Job Wheat, and Joseph F. Goodale, to a point on Bear Creek in Section 22, Township 7 South, Range 13 East . .. , Isaac Friedlander, S. B. Dillion, J. C. Rogers, Neill McSwain, R. P. Ashe, J. B. Cocanour, G. W. Kidd, J. W. Mitchell, A. C. Hill and H. P. Jolly, P. R. Tarr, F. G. Anderson, Thomas Pletts, George Drumbald, and J. M. Soaper. By the second, Isaac Friedlander, W. Mitchell, Joseph G. Morrison, Warner Oliver, J. M. Montgomery, Joseph F. Goodall (Goodale, probably), P. Carroll, Frank Stewart, Stockwell & Guernsey, Timothy Page, W. K. Knight, and L. Howard. By the third, R. P. Ashe, Neill McSwain, John Archibald, Thomas Bevans, Thos. J. A: Chambers, A. S. Chase, E. S. Holden, Stewart & Newell, C. J. Cressey, Theodore Lee, A. Hoenshell, Neill Brothers, and Joshua Griffith.
Back in the issue of the Argus for September 25, 1869, we get a clue to the $300,000 referred to in the story about the railroad talked about from Stockton to Copperopolis, when we read that Leland Stanford, president of the S. J. V. R. R., had entered into an agreement with the Mayor and Common Council of Stockton whereby he was to build seventy-five miles of railroad south from Stockton, and the city to donate the right of way within its limits and on com- pletion of the seventy-five miles to contribute $300,000.
Back in the Herald of September 19, 1868, is a little item about . "Improved Mail Facilities." It says that Congress has established a new mail route from Stockton to Millerton, by way of French Camp, Tuolumne City, Paradise, Empire City, Hopetown, Snelling, P. Y. Welch's store on Mariposa Creek, Appling's store on the Chowchilla, and so to Millerton. Possibly Uncle Sam had some- thing to do with the dropping of the old name of "Forlorn Hope," and "Hopetown" easily dropped the "w." It is also interesting to note that there does not yet appear to be any Plainsburg.
Plainsburg, by name, first emerges, so far as we find by the news- paper files, on October 9, 1869. This is the story :
"New Hotel at Plainsburg .- Mr. A. B. Farley has recently opened a neat and commodious hotel in the new and rapidly growing little village of Plainsburg, in the southern portion of this county, where he is prepared to give the traveling public the very best accom- modation to be had in the country. In addition to the hotel business, Mr. Farley is purchasing cattle, sheep, and hogs for the San Francisco and Stockton markets, and pays the highest prices in cash for them. Give Mr. Farley a call. You will find him a well-informed, public-
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spirited gentleman, and justly regarded as a valuable acquisition to our county." And we are referred to his ad.
On December 25, 1869: "New Paper .- We are informed that parties contemplate publishing a paper at Plainsburg, in this county. Mr. Wickham, at one time one of the publishers of the Herald in this place, is to be the editor. Plainsburg must have improved greatly in the past few weeks to induce any prudent business man to establish a newspaper with reasonable hope of profit."
On January 29, 1870, we read that Mr. Andrew Lauder of Plainsburg proposes to put up a mill for the grinding of feed and the manufacture of pearl barley, etc., provided he can get others to take stock in the enterprise.
On March 5, 1870: "Plainsburg .- We paid a visit to this thriv- ing village this week and could not but be pleased at the improvements since we were there six months ago. The place now boasts two hotels, two blacksmith shops, one store, a large billiard saloon, a bar- ber shop, a boot and shoe shop, a wagon shop, one good doctor, and a number of other professionals. While there we learned that A. J. W. Albeck was moving his 'Pioneer Store' from the old stand to the village, and before this notice is seen by the public the place will have two large mercantile establishmens instead of one."
In the spring of 1870 there was talk of forming a separate county out of the portions of Merced and Stanislaus west of the San Joa- quin. The editor tells us he heard such talk on his visit to Hill's Ferry in March of that year. In the next issue, on the 26th, he says . "We have been informed that the petition for the new county of Jefferson from parts of Stanislaus and Merced has made its appear- ance at Sacramento." He is quoting the Tuolumne City News, which goes on to say that they claim 700 resident citizens and taxpayers as signers of the petition. The Argus joins the News in denying that the move is backed by any appreciable number of persons on the East Side (it is the only instance we have found where the two papers agree), and the Argus asserts that they can't have any such number of signers as they claim, and that the West Side is not then able to support a county government-which contention, considering the crop failure, was probably sound. This early instance of the appear- ance of a more or less perennial subject of discussion is interesting as having progressed far enough so that the proposed county had a name. On the score of nomenclature alone, and without any desire to withhold honor from the illustrious founder of the Democratis party, we may rejoice that these enthusiasts did not succeed in interjecting "Jefferson" among our distinctive California county names.
In the issue of April 23, 1870, we read that there has been an election in San Joaquin County resulting in favor of granting the Stockton and Visalia Railroad a subsidy. In the same issue there
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is a communication, anonymous, from "a gentleman of intelligence, observation, and experience in business," in favor of Merced County's donating $5000 a mile to the road.
In June the Argus quotes a Marysville dispatch to a Sacramento paper saying that plans are under way to build a railroad to Oregon and also to "put a heavy constructing force on the San Joaquin Valley road. . . . Work is progressing on the San Joaquin Valley road near the Stanislaus River." The Argus expects the road to reach the confines of Merced County in a few months.
In the next issue there is a story of a favorable report made by Mark Howell on a wagon-road project across the San Joaquin River bottom in the vicinity of Dover "to the high lands west of Salt Slough." The Argus advocates the road and says that next to the railroad it is the most important project for the permanent benefit of the county and the people now in contemplation.
On July 9, we read that freight trains are now running from the north bank of the Stanislaus to Wilson's Station, and the freight has been a good deal reduced, so that grain is being shipped from Murphy's to San Francisco for $2.70 a ton. The story is quoted from the San Joaquin Republican, and the Argus regrets that there is no report on progress southward.
In the same issue are notices that applications will be made to the supervisors at the August meeting to establish two new county roads, one from Dover to the San Luis Ranch, and the other from the Stanislaus County line to connect with the Westport road and come by way of McSwain's Ferry to Plainsburg.
On the 16th the Argus says editorially, "It seems to us that the San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co.'s reticence in regard to future oper- ations on the road is in pursuance of a very bad policy." On August 27 the editor says he has heard a rumor that the San Joaquin Valley Railroad Company have a force on the south side of the Stanislaus and that the work of grading and preparing for the constructing forces is going on. He complains of lack of definite information, and says that without assurances that the road will be pushed forward, rapid development of the southern portion of the county cannot be expected. On September 10 he publishes a letter dated August 28, from a correspondent at "Stanislaus Depot, Murphy's Ferry" :
"There is today some 20 or 30 men at work on the Stanislaus bridge, and a corps of engineers are setting the grade stakes towards the Tuolumne River; and I am informed by prominent members of the company that it is their intention to push the work forward as speedily as possible to the Merced River, So you need not be sur- prised to hear of the citizens of Merced having a general stampede in about two months, at the rattle of the wheels and the snort of the iron horse."
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Two weeks later Steele is still feeling discouraged. "We were informed yesterday by reliable authority," he says, "that not to exceed forty men (Chinamen) were employed grading, and that not three miles of the road, as yet, had been graded; also that con- siderably less than that number of carpenters were employed in building the bridge. It is quite certain that residents in this section of the valley have been building castles in the air.
On October 1, however, he reports that he has visited the scene of the work, and found it "progressing rapidly and satisfactorily. A heavy force is employed upon the construction of the bridge across the Stanislaus, and a large force is employed in grading the road to the southward. We also observed considerable activity among the people of Paradise and Tuolumne cities, and in a few weeks expect to see the foundation laid for the building of a large town a few miles from Paradise on the line of the road. The people are only waiting for the location of the depot between the Stanislaus and the Tuolumne to commence the work of building, and the removal of their stores and workshops to the new Paradise. We are assured by men who say they speak by the card that the road will be pushed forward with the greatest rapidity to the Alabama settlement, which point is expected to be reached by July or August of next year. This will open all of Merced County south of this place up to settlement and cultiva- tion and will bring the farmers of our county in direct communication with San Francisco and Stockton."
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