A memorial and biographical history of northern California, illustrated. Containing a history of this important section of the Pacific coast from the earliest period of its occupancy...and biographical mention of many of its most eminent pioneers and also of prominent citizens of today, Part 2

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1000

USA > California > A memorial and biographical history of northern California, illustrated. Containing a history of this important section of the Pacific coast from the earliest period of its occupancy...and biographical mention of many of its most eminent pioneers and also of prominent citizens of today > Part 2

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of the meanderings of the expedition, which is as follows:

"Thirty-five soldados de cuera and twenty infantes, part of the force coming from Mon- terey, were assembled at San Francisco. Horses and mneh of the supplies were sent from Santa Clara and San Jose up to the strait of the Car- quinez. The officers selected were Captain Luis Argüello, Alterez Francisco de Haro, Alferez José Antonio Sanchez, and Cadet Joaquin Estu- dillo, with Padre Blas Ordaz as chaplain and chronicler, and John Gilroy, called the . English interpreter Juan Antonio.' Some neophytes were also attached to the force, and all was ready for the start the 18th of October. The company sailed trom San Francisco at 11 A. M. in the two lanchas of the presidio and mission, landing at Ruynta, near what is now Point San Pedro, to pass the night. Next day they continned the voyage to the Carquinez, being joined by two other boats. Saturday and Sun- day were spent in ferrying the horses across the strait, together with a band of Ululatos and Canneaymnos Indians, en route to visit their gentile homes, and in religious exercises. Mon- day morning they started for the north.

" The journey which followed was popularly known to the Spaniards at the time, and since as " Argüello's expedition to the Columbia." The Columbia was the only northern region of which the Spaniards had any definite idea, or was rather to them a terin nearly synonymous with the northern interior. It was from the Columbia that the strange people sought were supposed to have come; and it is not singular, in the absence of any correct idea of distance, that the only expedition to the far north was greatly exaggerated in respect to the distance traveled. The narratives in my possession, written by old Californians, some of whom ac- companied Argüello, are unusually inacenrate in their versions of this affair, on which they would throw but very little light in the absence of the original diary of Father Ordaz, a docu- ment that is fortunately extant.

"Starting from the strait on the morning of October 22, Argüello and his company marched for nine days, averaging little less than eight hours a day, northward up the valley of the Sacramento, which they called the Jesus Maria, The name of rancherias I give in a note. There is little else to be said of the march, the obsta- cles to be overcome having been few and slight.

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

The natives were either friendly, timid or slightly hostile, having to be scattered once or twice by the noise of a cannon. The neophyte Rafael from San Francisco had but little diffi- culty to make himself understood. The most serious calamity was the loss of a mule that fell into the river with two thousand cartridges on its back. There were no indications of for- eigners.

"On the 30th, to use the words of the diary, ' the place where we are is situated at the foot of the Sierra Madre, whence there have been seen by the English interpreter, Juan Antonio, two mountains called Los Cuates-the twins- on the opposite side of which are the presidio and river of the Columbia. The rancherias be- fore named are situated on the banks of the Rio de Jesus Maria, from which to-morrow a differ- ent direction will be taken.' Accordingly the 31st they ' marched west until they came to the foot of a mountain range, about fifteen leagues from the Sierra Nevada, which runs from north to south, terminating in the region of Bodega.' Exactly at what point the travel- ers left the river and entered the mountain range, now bounding Trinity County on the east, I do not attempt to determine, though it was evidently not below Red Bluff. The dis- tance made up the valley, allowing an average rate of three miles an hour for sixty-eight hours, the length of the return march of ninety-six hours through the mountains, at a rate of two miles an hour, and the possible identity of Capa, reached in forty-four hours from Car- quinez, with the Capaz of modern maps opposite Chico, would seem to point to the latitude of Shasta or Weaverville as the northern limit of this exploration.

" For nine days, the explorers marched sonth- ward over the mountains. No distances are given, and I shall not pretend to trace the exact route followed, though I give in a note the names recorded in the diary. Like those in the valley, the savages were not, as a rule, hostile, though a few had to be killed in the extreme north; but their language could no longer be understood, and it was often difficult to obtain guides from rancheria to rancheria. The natural difficulties of the mountain route were very great. Many horses died, and four pack-mules once fell down a precipice together. The 3d of November, at Benenue, some blue cloth was found, said to have been obtained from the coast, probably from the Russians. On the 6th

the ocean was first seen, and several soldiers recognized the 'coast of the Russian establish- inent at Bodega.' Next day from the Espinazo del Diablo was seen what was believed to be Cape Mendocino, twenty leagues away on the right. Finally, on the 10th, the party from the top of a mountain, higher than any before climbed, but in sight of many worse ones, abandoned by their guides at dusk, with only three days' rations, managed to struggle down and out through the dense undergrowth into a valley.

" And down this valley of Libantiliyami, which could hardly have been any other than that of the Russian River, though at what point in the present Sonoma County, or from what direction they entered it I am at a loss to say. The returning wanderers hastened; over a ronte that seem to have presented no obstacles- doubtless near the sites of the modern Healds- burg and Santa Rosa-ind on November 12th, at noon, after twenty hours' march in three days, arrived at San Rafael. Next day, after a thanksgiving mass, the boats arrived and the work of ferrying the horses across to Point San Pablo was begun. The infantry soldiers, who were mounted during the expedition, also took this route home, both to Monterey and San Francisco. Thins endel the most extensive northern expedition ever made by the Spaniards in California."

By reference to the notes referred to by Mr. Bancroft in the above, it is quite certain that Argüello and his companions reached Russian River at or near the present site of Cloverdale. Be that as it may, it is beyond cavil that they were the first Spaniards to traverse the central valleys of Sonoma County. While the expedi- tion was not fruitful of far-reaching results, yet it furnishes an important leaf to local history. Being the first of civilized race to traverse the territory of the county its whole length, entitles that little band of explorers to kindly remem- brance and honorable mention in her annals.

But the time was close at hand when Sonoma County, which had lain fallow all these years, except that portion of seaboard under occupancy by the Russians, was to come under Spanish domination. The establishment of a new mis- sion was determined upon. The causes which

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

impelled this movement northward will seem strange to the readers of the present generation. In the language of Bancroft, "In 1822 at a con- ference between Canon Fernandez, Prefect Pay- eras, and Governor Argüello, it had been decided to transfer the mission of San Francisco from the peninsula to the ' northeastern contra costa on the gentile frontier,' a decision based on the comparative sterility of the old site, the insalu- brity of the peninsula climate, the broadness of the field for conversion in the north, the success of the experimental founding of the San Rafael branch, and not im probably a desire on the part of two of the three dignitaries to throw the few fer- tile ranchos south of San Francisco into the hands of settlers. The matter next came up just before the death of Payeras, who seems to have had nothing more to say about it. March 23, 1823, Padre Jose Altimira, very likely at Argüello's instigation, presented to the deputacion a me- morial in which he recommended the transfer, he being a party naturally interested as one of the ministers of San Francisco. On April 9th, the deputacion voted in favor of the change. It was decreed that the assistencia of San Rafael should be joined again to San Francisco, and transferred with it, and the suggestion made that the country of the Petalumnas or of the Canicaimos, should be the new site. The suppression of Santa Cruz was also recommended. The governor sent these resolutions to Mexico next day, and Altimira forwarded copies to the new prefect, Senan, on April 30th, but received no response.

" An exploration was next in order, for the country between the Suisunes and Petalumas was as yet only little known, some parts of it having never been visited by the Spaniards. With this .object in view, Altimira and the deputado, Francisco Castro, with an escort of nineteen men under Alferez Jose Sanchez, em- barked at San Francisco on the 25th of June, and spent the night at San Rafael. Both San- chez and Altimira kept a diary of the trip in nearly the same words. * The explorers went by way of Olompali to the Petaluma, Sonoma, Napa, and Suisun valleys in succession,

making a somewhat elose examination of each. Sonoma was found to be best adapted for mission purposes by reason of its elimate, location, abundance of wood and stone, including lime- stone as was thought, and above all for its innumerable and most excellent springs and streams. The plain of the Petaluma, brcad and fertile, lacked water; that of the Suisnnes was liable, more or less, to the same objection, and was also deemed too far from the old San Fran- cisco ; but Sonoma, as a mission site, with eventually branch establishments, or at least cattle ranchos at Petaluma and Napa, seemed to the three representatives of civil, military and Franeisian power to offer every advantage. Accordingly on July 4th, a cross was blessed and set up on the site of a former gentile ran- cheria, now formally named New San Francisco. A volley of musketry was fired, several songs were sung, and holy mass was said. July 4th might, therefore, with greater propriety than any other date be celebrated as the anniversary of the foundation, though the place was for a little time abandoned, and on the sixth all were baek at Old San Francisco."

We cannot give the reader a more correct idea of this first exploration of the southern end of Sonoma County than is given in the language of Padre Altimira's diary, which is epitomized as follows in Alley, Bowen & Co.'s History of Sonoma County: "The Padre and his party left San Rafael, where a mission had been already founded, on the 25th of June, 1823, and during the day passed the position now occupied by the city of Petaluma, then called by the Spaniards, 'Punta de los Esteros,' and known to the Indians" as ' Chocnale,' that night encamping on the 'Arroyo Lema,' where the large adobe on the Petaluma Rancho was afterward constructed by General Vallejo.

" Here a day's halt would appear to have been ealled, in order to take a glance at the beautiful country and devise means of further progress. On the 27th they reached the famous ' Laguna de Tolly,' now, alas! nothing but a place, it having fallen into the hands of a German gentle-

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

man of marked utilitarian principles, who has drained and reclaimed it, and planted it with potatoes. Here the expedition took a north- easterly route, and entering the Sonoma Valley, which Father Altimira states was then so called by former Indian residents, the party encamped on the arroyo of ' Pulula,' where J. A. Poppe, a merchant of Sonoma, has a large fish-breeding establishment, stocked with carp brought from Rhinefelt, in Germany, in 1871. The holy father's narrative of the beauties of Sonoma Valley, as seen by the new-comers, are so graphically portrayed by himself that we cannot refrain from quoting his own words: 'At about 3 P. M.,' (June 23, 1823) ' leaving onr camp and our boat on the slough near by, we started to explore, directing our conrse northwestward across the plain of Sonoma, until we reached a stream (Sonoma Creek) of abont five hundred plumas of water, crystalline and most pleasing to the taste, flowing through a grove of beautiful and useful trees. The stream flows from some hills which enclose the plain, and terminate it on the north. We went on, penetrating a broad grove of oaks; the trees were lofty and robust, affording an external source of utility, both for firewood and carriage material. This forest was about three leagues long from east to west, and a league and a half wide from north to sonth. The plain is watered by another arroyo still more copions and pleasant than the former, flowing from west to east. but traveling north- ward from the centre of the plain. We explored this evening as far as the daylight permitted. The permanent springs, according to the state- ment of those who have seen them in the extreme dry season, are almost innumerable. No one can doubt the benignity of the Sonoma climate after noting the plants, the lofty and shady trees -alders, poplars, ash, laurel, and others-and especially the abundance and luxuriance of the wild grapes. We observed, also, that the launch may come up the creek to where a settlement can be founded, truly a most convenient circum- stanee. We saw from these and other facts that Sonoma is a most desirable site for a mission.'

"Let us here note who are now located on the places brought permanently forward by Padre Altimira. The hills which inclose the valley and out of whose bosom the Sonoma Creek springs, is now occupied by the residence and vineyard of Mr. Edwards. The forest mentioned covered the present site of the Leavenworth vineyards, the Hayes' estate, and the farms of Wootten, Carriger, Harrison, Craig, Herman, Wohler, Hill, Stewart, Warfield, Krous & Wil- liams, La Motte, Hood, Kohler, Morris, and others. The second stream mentioned as flow- ing northward from the center of the plains, is · Olema,' or flour-mill stream, on which Colonel George F. Hooper resides, while the locality in which he states are innumerable springs is the tract of country where now are located the hacienda or Lachryma Montis, the residence of General M. G. Vallejo and the dwellings and vineyards of Haraszthy, Gillen, Tichner, Dressel, Winchell, Gundlach, Rubns, Snyder, Nathan- son, and the ground of the Buena Vista Vinienl- tural Society. The head of navigation noted is the place since called St. Louis, but usually known as the Embarcadero."

Of this first exploration of the country round about Petaluma and Sonoma, every incident will be of interest to the reader. In Padre Alti- mira's diary, note is made of the killing of a bear on the Petaluma flat. Mention is also made that their first night's camp (probably near where the old Vallejo adobe now stands) was with eight or ten Petalumas (Indians) hiding there from their enemies, the Libantiloquemi, Indians of Santa Rosa Valley. As already stated, the exploration extended as far east as Suisun Val- ley, and Altimira mentions that on the 30th of June they killed ten bears. On returning they gave the Sonoma Valley a more complete ex- amination and crossed the mountain back into the upper end of Petaluma Valley and back to where they camped the first night. From there they seem to have taken a pretty direct route back to Sonoma, probably abont the route of the old road leading from Petaluma to Sonoma. This was on the 3d of July, and the next day the

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

mission location was formally established at Sonoma.

The prelate upon whose decision the Alti- mira enterprise depended for a full fruition had not yet been heard from. Altimira represented to him, and with a great deal of apparent truth, that " San Francisco was on its last legs, and that San Rafael could not subsist alone." But the desired sanction from the prelate had not yet come. Governor Argüello seemed impa- tient of delay and ordered Altimira to proceed with the work of founding the new mission, an order that Padre Altimira seemed to be only too ready to obey, for he seemed to have been a fiery, impetuous mortal, with more zeal than prudence. On the 12th of August he took possession of the (ffects of the San Rafael mis- sion by inventory, and by the 23d he was on his way to New San Francisco with an escort of twelve men, and an artilleryman to manage a cannon of two-pound caliber. He was also accompanied by quite a force of neophytes as laborers. By the 25th all hands were on the ground and the work of planting a mission com- menced. At the end of a week the work had so far progressed that it could be said of a surety that Sonoma Valley had passed under the do- minion of civilized man. Bnt Altimira was destined to have his Christian forbearance tested. The prelate refused to sanction the wiping out of the San Rafael mission. While he did not express a decided opinion on the propriety of the removal of the San Francisco mission, he expressed amazement at the hasty and unauthorized manner in which the deputa- cion had acted in the premises. On the 31st of August this decision reached the Padre at New San Francisco, and for the time pnt an end to his operations. That this interruption did not pnt Altimira in a very prayerfnI frame of mind is evidenced by the vinegar and gall apparent in his epistolary record in connection with the subject. In a letter to Governor Argüello in reference to the prelate's decision, Altimira says: "I wish to know whether the deputacion has any authority in this province, and if these

men can overthrow your honor's wise provis- ions. I came here to convert gentiles and to establish missions, and if I cannot do it here, where, as we all agree, is the best spot in Cali- fornia for the purpose, I will leave the country." As a plain missionary proposition Padre Alti- mira was right; but as an ecclesiastical fact he was restive under a harness of his own choos- ing, and was wrong. Sarria was then president of the California missions. The sequel to the prelate's decision is thus recited by Bancroft:

A correspondence followed between Sarria and Argüello, in which the former with many ex- pressions of respect for the governor and the secular government not nnmixed with personal flattery of Arguello, justified in a long argu- ment the position he had assumed. The Gov- ernor did not reply in detail to Sarria's arguments, since it did not in his view matter mnch what this or that prefect had or had not approved, but took the ground that the deputa- cion was empowered to act for the publie good in all such urgent matters as that under con- sideration, and that its decrees must be carried ont. During fifty years the friars had made no progress in the conversion of northern gen- tiles or occupation of northern territory; and now the secular anthorities proposed to take charge of the conquest in the temporal aspeet at least. The new establishment would be sus- tained with its escolta nnder a major-domo, and the prelate's refusal to authorize Altimira to care for its spiritual needs would be reported to the authorities in Mexico.

Yet, positive as was the Governor's tone in general, he declared that he would not insist on the suppression of San Rafael; and, though some of the correspondence has doubtless been lost, he seems to have consented readily enongh to a compromise suggested by the prefect, and said by him to have been more or less fully ap- proved by Altimira. By the terms of this compromise New San Francisco was to remain as a mission in regular standing, and Padre Altimira was appointed its regular minister, subject to the decision of the college; but neither old San Francisco nor San Rafael was to be suppressed, and Altimira was to be still associate minister of the former. Neophytes might go voluntarily from old San Francisco to the new establishment, and also from San Jose and San Rafael, provided they came originally

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

from the Sonoma region, and provided also that in the case of San Rafael they might return if they wished at any time within a year. New converts might come in from any direction to the mission they preferred, but no force was to be used.

Under these conditions and restrictions the fiery Altimira entered upon the task of Chris- tianizing Sonoma County heathen. While he did not let pass an opportunity to inveigh against the perverse and narrow-gauge methods of the old missions, he seems to have entered with the zeal of a Paul into his missionary work. Bancroft, who has all the data to enable him to speak with absolute certainty, says: " Passion Sunday, April 4, 1824, the mission church, a somewhat rude structure 24 x 105 feet, built of boards and whitewashed, but well furnished aud decorated in the interior, many articles having been presented by the Russians, was dedicated to San Francisco Solano, which from this date became the name of the mission. Hitherto it had been properly New San Fran- cisco, thongh Altimira had always dated his letters San Francisco simply, and referred to the peninsula establishment as Old San Fran- cisco; but this usage became inconvenient, and rather than honor St. Francis of Assisi with two missions it was agreed to dedicate the new one to San Francisco Solano, ' the great apostle of the Indies.' It was largely from this early confusion of names, and also from the inconvenience of adding Asisi and Solano to designate there- spective Saints Francis and Solano that arose the popular usage of calling the two missions Dolores and San Solano, the latter name being replaced ten years later by the original one of Sonoma."

Elsewhere we have said that right here in Sonoma County the Catholic and the Greek Cross met, and it but lends Inster to the page s of history to record that though coming by different roads they met in friendship; for, with deft hands, the communicants of the Greek church at Ross shaped gifts for ornamentation and decoration of the Catholic mission of So- noma. Altimira remained in charge at Sonoma

until 1826, when he was superseded by Buena - ventura Fortuni. Altimira had displayed con- siderable energy in his field of labor, for at Sonoma he had constructed a padre's house, granary and seven houses for the guard, besides the chapel, all of wood. Before the year 1824 closed there had been constructed a large adobe 30 x 120 feet, seven feet high, with tiled roof and corridor, and a couple of other structures of alobe had been constructed ready to roof, when the excessive rains of that season set in and ruined the walls. A loom was set up and weaving was in operation. Quite an orchard of fruit trees was planted and a vine- yard of 3,000 vines was set out. Bancroft says: " Between 1824 and 1830 cattle increased from 1,100 to 2,000; horses from 400 to 725; and sheep remained at 4,000, thoughi as few as 1,500 in 1826. Crops amounted to 1,875 bushels per year on an average, the largest yield being 3,945 in 1826, and the smallest 510 in 1829, when wheat and barley failed completely. At the end of 1824 the mission had 693 neophytes, of whom 322 had come from San Francisco, 153 from San Jose, 92 from San Rafael and 96 had been baptized on the spot. By 1830, 650 had been baptized and 375 buried; but the number of neophytes had increased only to 760, leaving a margin of over 100 for runaways, even on the supposition that all from San Rafael retired the first year to their old home. Notwithstanding the advantages of the site and Altimira's enthusiasm, the mission at Sonoma was not prosperous during its short existence."

Thus far we have followed the fortunes of the church in its missionary work north of the bay. While it was not as fruitful of results as the church probably expected, it at least paved the way for secular occupation. As it had been in the sonth, so too in the north an attempt at colonization was sure to follow in the paths made easy by the pluck and perseverance of the padres.

SPANIARDS PRESS UPON TIIE RUSSIANS.

By the year 1830 the influx of the Spanish had so encroached upon the territory occupied

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

by the Russians that the latter began to enter- tain serious thoughts of withdrawing from Cal- ifornia altogether. There was no motive for the Russians to hold an occupancy limited by Bo- dega Bay on the south and the Gualala River on the north. At best, there was but a narrow bench of seaboard available for either farming or grazing purposes. True, there was a wealth of forest baek of this mesa, but they had already learned that this timber was not durable as material for shipbuilding. They had pretty well exhausted the supply of timber from which pine pitch could. be manufactured. Tan bark for the carrying on of their tanneries was their most promising continuing supply for the future. The agents of the Alaska Fur Company had already signified to the California authorities a willingness to vacate Fort Ross upon payment for improvements. Through the intricate evo- lutions of red tape this was transmitted to the viceroy of Mexico, and as that functionary took it as an evidence that the Russian colony at Ross was on its last legs, refusal was made on the ground that the Russians, having made im- provements on Spanish territory, with material acquired from Spanish soil, they ought not to expect payment for the same. While this is not the language, it is the spirit of the view the viceroy took of the subject. As a legal propo- sition this was doubtless true, but as a matter of fact, at any time after 1825 the superintend- ent at Ross had at his command sufficient of the armament and munitions of war to have marched from Ross to San Diego without let or hindrance, so far as the viceroy of Mexico was concerned. These Dons and Hidalgo seemed, however, to consider their rubrics to be more powerful than swords or cannon. As their over- tures for sale had been thus summarily disposed of, the cold, impassive Muscovites pursued the even tenor of their way, and as the lands around Fort Ross became exhausted by continuous farming they extended their farming operations sonthward between the Russian River and Bo- dega Bay, and ultimately inland to the neigh- borhood of the present village of Bodega

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A memorial and biographical history of northern California, illustrated. Containing a history of this important section of the Pacific coast from the earliest period of its occupancy...and biographical mention of many of its most eminent pioneers and also of prominent citizens of today, Part 2

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1000

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1000