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 29
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In 1880, out of the 5656 total population of the county, there were 5015 whites, 59 colored, 7 Indians, and 575 Chinese-over 11 per cent of non-whites. This is the largest Chinese population shown by any of the federal censuses, apparently. The Chinese population had decreased to 357 in 1900, 278 in 1910, and 135 in 1920. But statements of oldtimers indicate that 575 does not represent the height reached by Chinese population ; Ah See, a Chinese resident of the Plainsburg and Le Grand section for many years, and still a resident there, says there were once 400 Chinese in Plainsburg. There was once a considerable Chinatown in Snelling. Probably almost all of the 135 Chinese remaining in 1920 are in Merced.
Thirty Indians are shown in 1890, 4 in 1900, none in 1910, and 7 in 1920.
In 1870 the total of 2807 consisted of 2196 native-born and 611 foreign-born. In 1880 the total of 5656 consisted of 3956 native- born and 1700 foreign-born. This was less than 22 per cent foreign- born in 1870 and just over 30 per cent in 1880.
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Of the 3956 native-born in 1880, there were 2010 born in Cali- fornia, 221 in New York, 287 in Missouri, 103 in Massachusetts, 131 in Ohio, 139 in Illinois, 98 in Pennsylvania, 88 in Maine, 106 in Iowa, and 60 in Indiana. Of the 1700 foreign-born in 1880, 121 were born in British America, 93 in England and Wales, 265 in Ireland, 38 in Scotland, 177 in Germany, 59 in France, 27 in Sweden and Norway, 577 (given elsewhere as 575) in China, and 110 in Mexico. The Chinese were the most numerous foreigners, with Irish second and Germans third, and then British Americans and Mexicans. Of native-born, after California-born the largest number came from Missouri and the second largest from New York; and then in order came Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
The marked pioneer conditions which still prevailed in the county as late as 1880 are indicated by the fact that out of the 5656 total population 3790 were males and only 1866 females-a proportion of more than two males to one female. There were 649 males and 582 females between 5 and 17 years of age (school age), 2131 males from 18 to 44 inclusive (military age), and 2595 males 21 and over (voting age).
Data are not available for analysis of the foreign population of 1870, in full. Out of the 611 foreign-born in that census, the 186 Chinese were no doubt almost 100 per cent foreign-born. It is prob- able that the Irish, who had begun to come in the late sixties, equalled or exceeded the Chinese, and probably Mexicans were another of the three largest constituents of the 611. It would be interesting if we had the figures for the proportions of males to females in the census of 1870 and the earlier one of 1860. They do not seem to be available, but it seems certain that the males in those pioneer days would be found to outnumber the females in an even greater ratio than in 1880. Probably by 1880 the shortage of women was a good deal more marked among the foreign-born than among the native- born part of the population; many of the foreigners were quite new arrivals, and young single men seeking their fortunes doubtless largely predominated.
By 1890 some modern trends had begun to show themselves in the population of the Valley. Fresno County, which in 1880 had only 9478 population, had grown to 32,026, passing San Joaquin, which had grown from 24,349 to 28,629; Fresno City, with 10,818, had distanced its rivals south of Stockton, and was approaching the latter city's 14,424. Los Angeles had jumped from 11,183 to 50,395 and become the second city in the State. Merced County had 8085 popu- lation, and Merced City, now incorporated, had 2009. There were 5413 males and 2657 females in the county, still a full two to one, and 5658 native-born and 2427 foreign-born-just about 30 per cent
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foreign-born, maintaining the same percentage as that shown ten years earlier. Whites numbered 7262; negroes, 47; Indians, 30. This accounts for 7339 out of the 8085. Query: Were the remain- ing 746 Chinese ?
In 1900 the county had 9215 total population, an increase, as has already been pointed out, of only about 14 per cent over 1890. Of this total 5644 were males and 3571 females. There were 7020 native-born and 2195 foreign-born. There were 8780 whites, 31 negroes, 4 Indians, 357 Chinese and 43 Japanese. Of the native- born there were 3941 males and 3079 females; and of the foreign- born, 1703 males and 492 females, indicating the continuance of a condition which has already been suggested about 1890-namely, that most of the pioneering condition of a great preponderance of males over females applied to the foreign-born part of the population.
Of the 2185 foreign-born included in the 1900 census, Italy furnished 385; China, 335 ; Portugal, 287; Germany, 223; Ireland, 196; England, 108; Denmark, 102; Mexico, 93; Canada, 91 (81 English and 10 French) ; France, 81; Switzerland, 56; Japan, 43; Atlantic Islands, 38; Sweden, 32; Spain, 18; Holland, 15; Scotland, 13; Norway, 15; Austria, 8; South America, 7; Wales, 7; Australia, 6; Russia, 5; Hungary, 4; Pacific Islands, 3 ; and other countries, 24. The most significant features of this analysis, in the light of later growth, are the considerable numbers of Italians and Portuguese, and the beginning of the coming of the Japanese.
The 1910 census shows 15,148 people in the county, an increase of 5933, or 64 per cent, over 1900, as compared with a growth of only 1130, or 14 per cent, for the decade from 1890 to 1900. Of this total, 3102 are given as urban and 12,046 as rural, the urban being the population of the City of Merced. The census returns give the area of the county as 1995 square miles, probably a previous figure, and somewhat in excess of the present area, and on this basis gives the density of population as 7.6 per square mile for the county as a whole and 6 per square mile for the rural part.
The City of Merced, as stated, had 3102. Of its neighboring cities in the Valley, Fresno was now the largest, with 24,892; then Stockton, 23,253; Bakersfield, 12,727; Hanford, 4,829; Visalia, 4,550; Modesto, 4,034; Madera, 2,404; Los Banos, 745.
By judicial townships, there were 568 people in Township Num- ber One, 5503 in Number Two (including Merced City's 3102), 1869 in Number Three (including Los Banos's 745), 669 in Number Four, 2838 in Number Five; 2366 in Number Six, 1335 in Number Seven, these last four townships consisting of the country in and around Le Grand, Livingston, Gustine, and Dos Palos, respectively. Of the total, 14,697 were whites; 75, negroes; and 376, Indians,
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Chinese, Japanese and all others; and of the negroes, 50 were black and 25 were mulattoes.
Of the foreign-born whites, Italy contributed the largest number of any one country, with 1101; Portugal, 593; and the Atlantic Islands, 301; Mexico, 355; Sweden, 311; Germany, 258; Denmark, 176; Switzerland, 167; Ireland, 165; England, 153; Canada, 127, of whom 8 were French; France, 94; Greece, 82; Spain 38; Norway, 33; Scotland, 31; Austria, 12; Russia, 11; Finland, 4; Turkey, 4; Australia, 2; Hungary, 1; other foreign countries, 45. This gives a total of 4054 foreign-born besides the 376 Indians, Chinese, and Japanese (mostly foreign-born of course). Including these 376, how- ever, the percentage is a little below the 30 per cent which we found earlier.
By the 1920 census the county had a total population of 24,579. Of these, 14,298 were males and 10,281 females, considerably lessen- ing the preponderance of males over females previously observed. There were 17,515 native-born whites, of whom 9510 were males and 8005 females; 6441 foreign-born whites, of whom 4366 were males and 2075 females; and 48 negroes, 34 males and 14 females. There were 7 Indians, 135 Chinese, and 420 Japanese. The Chinese had decreased from 357 in 1900 and 278 in 1910, and the Japanese had increased from 43 in 1900 and 98 in 1910. The total population consisted of 71.3 per cent native-born whites, 26.2 per cent foreign- born whites, and 0.2 per cent negroes. These percentages agree very closely with 10,633 native whites and 4064 foreign-born whites in 1910, giving 70.2 per cent native whites and 26.8 per cent foreign- born white. The percentage of negroes in 1910 was 0.5 per cent.
Of the foreign-born included in the population of 1920, the Portuguese led with 2010; Italians were second, with 1301; Mex- icans third, with 658; Swedes fourth, with 422. There were 258 from the Atlantic Islands, 254 Germans, 214 Canadians other than French and 9 Canadian French, 185 English, 164 Danes, 152 Irish, 149 Swiss, 115 French, 89 Greeks, 79 from Spain, 69 from Scotland, 59 from Norway, 32 from Russia, 31 from Austria, 26 from Finland, 20 from Syria, 19 from South America, 18 from the Netherlands, 16 from Hungary, 16 from Jugo-Slavia, 12 from Wales, 11 Czecho-Slovakia, 10 from Australia, 8 from Poland, 6 from Belgium, 4 from the Pacific Islands, 2 from Armenia; and 24 from all other countries.
By judicial townships the population was as follows : Number One, 885 ; Number Two, including Merced, 6796; Number Three, including Los Banos, 3487; Number Four, 1065; Number Five, 5804; Number Six, including Gustine, 2769; Number 7, 1639; Num- ber Eight, 2134. The population of Merced was 3974; that of
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Los Banos, 1276; that of Gustine, 716. These three were the only incorporated cities; Atwater and Livingston have since been incorp- orated. Only the population of Merced is classed as urban; the rest is classed as rural-under a rule, we believe, which classifies the population of towns of 6500 or over as urban.
The population of the county, in its various elements and its changes, offers an interesting study. The names on the latest great register differ a good deal from those on the 1857 assessment roll. There is now a great variety; the names then were almost English, with the exception of a few Mexican or Spanish names. The In- dians, never numerous, are practically gone. The Chinese have dwindled to a small remnant of their former numbers. The Jap- anese, who showed such an increase from 1910 to 1920, are proba- bly less numerous now than they were in 1920, by reason of the in- creased stringency of the anti-alien land law. At Merced Falls and in Merced there has been an increase of negroes since 1920. Of the larger elements of the population, it remains to be seen whether the restrictions upon immigration recently adopted by the United States will check growth here. Taking the three largest groups, the people of Portuguese, Italian, and Swedish blood, we see that the county had 1101 Italians in 1910 and 1301 in 1920-no very rapid increase. It had 593 Portuguese in 1910 and 2010 in 1920; it is probable that there will be a check in immigration here that the county will feel. There were 311 people of Swedish birth in the county in 1910 and 422 in 1920. These figures fall a good deal short of representing all the people of Swedish blood in the county, mostly in the section around Hilmar and Irwin. It is probably a conservative estimate that there are 2000 people of Swedish blood, wholly or in part, in that section; the great majority of them, how- ever, are native-born Americans, and many of them, in fact, are na- tives of Merced County. Another large element is the Mexicans, who increased from 355 in 1910 to 658 in 1920. While the Swed- ish, Portuguese, and Italian elements are very largely farmers, the Mexicans are very largely laborers. The number of foreign-born Germans decreased by 4 during the decade, and the number of for- eign-born Irish decreased 13. The foreign-born Danes decreased 12. The foreign-born Swiss decreased, while English, Scotch, French, Russians and Greeks of foreign birth increased.
Prophecy is vain; still, now in the spring of 1925, half-way on the road to another census year, it is possible to guess with perhaps some basis, at what the population is likely to be by 1930-not as to its elements, but as to its numbers simply. It seems probably that there are 30,000 people in the county now. Such criteria as the asses- sor's records, the increase in the number of school children regis-
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tered, and the like, so indicate. There are two large irrigation dis- tricts in process of development-the Merced, with nearly 200,000 acres, and the West Joaquin, with about 550,000, about half of it in this county-nearly half a million acres in all. We have seen how the county, after making a pause with only about 14 per cent of growth between 1890 and 1900, has during each of the succeeding decades grown 60 per cent or upward. It does not seem unreasonable to forecast that it will probably make substantially this percentage of increase during the present decade, and that by 1930 the population will be 40,000. If it does that, the county, while it will still be one of the smaller ones of the State in population, will have well up towards 100 times as many people as it had when it was organized in 1855, seventy years ago this spring.
CHAPTER XVIII TRANSPORTATION
There is perhaps no one factor which enters into the history, especially the early history, of the county which sheds more light upon that history than the story of the transportation connected with it. The story of that most necessary handmaiden of the early production and consumption of the region is extremely picturesque; but more important than that, the story of where people were coming from and going to, and what they were bringing with them and taking back, is very illuminative of what manner of life they were living, very illuminative of the sum total of their history.
In no particular is it more necessary than in that of transporta- tion, that we should resolutely put from us the history of the present if we are to understand that of the past. There are now half a dozen railroads coming into the county, paved highways and automobiles, telegraph and telephone lines, airplanes overhead-in short, all the complex fabric of modern transportation and communication. To understand the early transportation we must reconstruct in our minds a Merced County in which these things did not exist; indeed, a world in which most of them did not exist. We have seen how Harvey J. Ostrander and a companion walked here from San Luis Obispo; how J. L. Ivett walked here from San Francisco; how pioneers, men and women, came here across the plains in wagons drawn by ox teams, and took half a year in the journey. In this speed-crazed age, one of the hardest things for us to realize about the transportation of those earlier days, is the extremely slow speed at which they traveled. Only recently there was exhibited in Merced the moving picture based on Zane Grey's novel, "The Thundering Herd." It was about as false to realities as most movies are ; and one of the respects in which it was most essentially false was, that the pioneers were represented as driving their teams and wagons at a furious gallop. Also, the villians robbed a four-horse team of its load of buffalo hides and carried them off, dragging them with a saddle horse, partly on the front wheels and axle of the wrecked wagon and partly on the ground. We shall not understand the transportation of those days unless we realize that they hauled heavy loads, that they went not only at a walk, but at a slow walk, making something like twelve or fifteen miles a day, and that they did not indulge in any gallops over the plains, for the excellent reason that one such piece of foolishness was pretty likely to damage stock and wagon both, and all the re-
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pairing of such damage the travelers had to make with such scant means as they had at hand.
We have seen that the first comers to the county came, some of them, from the north, from Stockton or Sacramento or San Fran- cisco, and some of them from the south by way of Los Angeles and Tejon, Visalia and Fort Miller. Also that their first objective was not this valley country at all, but the mining country of the hills- the Southern Mines. But though the immigrants came from both north and south, supplies came practically all from the north. Stock- ton was the point from which nearly all the freight was shipped; it came that far from San Francisco by water, and from Stockton it was hauled by wagon to the mines. The main artery of travel was not down in the valley where the railroad and the State highway now parallel each other, but along the edge of the foothills. This was so for two reasons : first, because it was to the hills that the freight was going; and second, because of the difficulty of crossing the tributary rivers which flow into the San Joaquin from the east, which difficulty would have been much greater down in the plains than it was at the edge of the foothills.
Very early there were ferries established across these tributaries along the edge of the foothills; we read in the biographical sketch of Judge James W. Robertson, for example, that he arrived on the Merced River near where Snelling was afterwards established in January, 1850, at the old California Ferry, where Young's Ferry afterwards was. Phillips' Upper Ferry was the point mentioned in the description of the line dividing Merced from Mariposa County when Merced was created in April, 1855. During the first year of the county's history we find in the minutes of the board of supervisors that there was quite a fight on between Phillips and Young with their ferries and Murray with his bridge, and that the board licensed them all three, charging them each $250 or $300 license a year, and putting each under bond at something like $20,000. That indicates a good deal of traffic by that time. Going to indicate that a large portion of this traffic stopped between these points and Millerton, is the fact that the yearly license on Converse's Ferry across the San Joaquin at the latter point was but $75, and the bond somewhere in proportion; the mines did not extend much south of Fort Miller.
These ferries and this bridge, like practically all the others which existed in those early days, were toll-ferries and toll-bridges. They were established by private individuals, under permission granted by the county or counties concerned; the county, as we have seen, put them under bonds and collected a license from them, and also the county prescribed the rates which they might charge. There were also toll-roads, established in like manner by private individuals or
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companies for their own profit but under some county regulation. In the first year or two of Merced County's history we find numerous references in the minutes of the board of supervisors to A. Firebaugh and his toll-road across Pacheco Pass. Firebaugh and several asso- ciates, under permission from this county and Santa Clara, built the road across the range between the San Joaquin Valley and Gilroy, and there was a proviso in the franchise granted them that after a period of years the road should become public. Proprietary toll-roads were built in many places in the hills; places where the expenditure of more money than the county could afford to spend on some hill would produce a road enough better than the public one so that teamsters would pay the toll. One of the most interesting toll-roads locally was that which Washburn built from this side of Cold Springs into Yosemite, which was opened to travel in 1875, and which re- mained a toll-road until just a few years ago; many people since the coming of the automobile will remember paying toll on it. "Toll House" is a geographical name which occurs repeatedly in the foot- hills and commemorates the day of the toll-roads.
In Merced County, in the valley country, a road was created in the early days by the simple process of dedicating a more or less in- definite strip of country to the purposes of travel. The line was made definite upon the ground by traveling over it, but in case of washouts and ruts the travelers pioneered out a new route alongside the old one. There was plenty of land, and for the most part it was public land, and was used only for cattle range, except the comparatively small areas along the river and creek bottoms. As we have seen in the chapter on the No-Fence Law, the law prior to 1870 required the farmer to fence stock out instead of requiring the stockmen to fence their animals in, and accordingly the roads were for the most part not fenced. Roads were worked by the system of road overseers; and in the early minutes of the supervisors we find repeatedly where they appointed overseers, a dozen or more for the diffrent districts into which roughly they divided the county, with each overseer given the men who lived in his district, each man being required to work out his road tax.
The great artery of travel was the road from Stockton out to the edge of the foothills about Knight's Ferry and thence along the edge of the hills by way of La Grange, Merced Falls, the Union Post Office, Newton's Ferry across the Chowchilla, Converse's Ferry across the San Joaquin, Fort Miller, and so on to Visalia and Tejon and Los Angeles. But the bulk of travel stopped with the limit of the Southern Mines, for the most part north of the San Joaquin. The greater number of early roads in Merced County were for the pur- pose of connecting the settlements which were creeping out into the
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flat country with this Stockton and Fort Miller road; the chief excep- tion to this was the road running down the north side of the Merced from Merced Falls clear to Hill's Ferry at the mouth of the Merced. Somewhat later other roads connected Hill's Ferry with the country on west to the Coast Range. From San Jose across Pacheco Pass a stage road led to Visalia; the San Luis Ranch was a station on this road, and from the San Luis Ranch also we find pretty early a road to Stockton. A principal fact which we must never forget is that along the line of the Central Pacific and the main valley highway, where now the principal towns and the thickest settlements are lo- cated, there was in the early days no route of travel-for the two reasons already indicated, that it was to the hills and not to the valley that travel was bound, and that crossing, and travel between crossings too, was easiest up next to the hills. Along that line there may have been up and downs, but there was at least solid bottom, and freighting across the valley country would in the winter have made one continuous mire hole of the road clear from Stockton to Visalia. It was not until almost the end of the sixties, when grain- farming had come as far south as Stanislaus County, that travel began to leave the edge of the foothills for further out in the valley ; in 1868 we read of the establishment by Congress of a new mail route from Stockton to Millerton by way of French Camp, Tuolumne City, Paradise, Empire City, "Hopetown," P. Y. Welch's store on Mariposa Creek, Appling's store on the Chowchilla, and so on to Millerton.
Along about 1870 the newspapers carry notices of intention to petition for three new roads which may be said to have constituted a road system for the East side: one from Montgomery's Ranch, the present Wolfsen place, down the north side of Bear Creek to Dover ; a second from Sandy Mush northeastward, joining the road from Snelling to Mariposa Creek near Montgomery's Ranch; and the third from the vicinity of Fergus or the Franklin schoolhouse to McSwain's Ferry, leading from the first road to the country north of the Merced River. As indicating the unfixed locations of the roads up to this time, we cite the complaint which Steele makes about the people of Plainsburg, of how the farmers, who have recently settled on the grain lands, are changing the routes of the roads to suit their own convenience or whim, so that in many cases the bridges which the county had been at pains to build across some of the creeks were left without roads connecting with them.
The quantity of freight hauled between Stockton and the Southern Mines, and the country tributary to the mines, was immense. Large freighting businesses were built up. Among the men who were notable in this business were Alvin Fisher, C. H. Huffman, and Hughes &
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Keyes. W. H. Hartley was also in this business before he settled on Bear Creek and went to wheat-raising. Fisher afterwards was one of the notable figures in the stage business to Yosemite, at first from Stockton, and then as the railroad was built southward, from Mo- desto, and then from Merced. A few miles out of Stockton on the Sacramento road, Fisher had his own stock ranch, where he raised the horses he used in his teaming business. C. H. Huffman, the old- timers will tell you, had the finest teams and hauled the largest loads on the road. These were only a few of the notable figures in the business. They were not only teamsters, but also commission mer- chants; they bought supplies for regular and occasional customers in the mining country and along the route from Stockton south, and delivered the purchases. E. M. Stoddard, before he came to Merced about the time that town was started, was in the teaming business out of Stockton, with a partner named Ladd. They had a warehouse on Hunter Street. After the railroad reached Bear Creek and Merced was built, Stoddard & Hubbard were commission merchants and teamsters for a number of years. Stoddard later absorbed the business.
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