USA > California > A memorial and biographical history of the coast counties of Central California > Part 25
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This valley was the seat of the Miramontez and Vasquez families long before the appear-
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ance of the American settler, and by all old residents the town is still called Spanishtown. The old adobe homestead is still here, but before many years will have yielded to the assaults of time and become an unnoticed tumulus. There is something in the atmos- phere of Spanishtown that breeds a spirit of independence. The people believe in them- selves. Not that they consider that they are the salt of the earth entirely, but they love the valley where they have made their homes and cling to it as to a family tie which they are loth to sunder. The business of the place is drawn mainly from dairymen and farmers. At Amesport, a short distance north of town, there is a wharf and warehouse where coasting vessels call and take away the butter, cheese and beans.
LA HONDA.
In the romantic canon of the San Greg- orio, where giant redwoods cast their elon- gated shadows and the murmuring waters of the stream sing a ceaseless lullaby, Mr. John H. Sears, one of the pioneers of San Mateo, is passing the afternoon of his life. Here he has built a hotel and store and does not lack for company. During the summer sea- son the woods ring with the merry voices of campers and the hotel and cottages are crowded to repletion. No more charming place can be found anywhere in the State. It is reached by stage from Redwood City over a fine road, but so strong is the impres- sion of a primeval wilderness when once in the heart of the forest that even the rattle of
the daily coach and the receipt of diurnal messages from home does not suffice to break it. White tents peep through the bushes at every turn, but that serves to highten the illusion. You are out of the world when you know you are in it. The days are spent in eager angling after the elusive trout with which the stream abounds. In the evening there are concerts in the camps; bear stories to be swapped with the landlord; compara- tive fish yarns by young men, who could'nt catch three trout in a week, but who love to talk about it; a championship game at crib- bage with the drummer, who knows it all and then to be abed for seven hours in deepest oblivion. It is a joyful place, un- conventional, unaffected, but unexceptionable in the personnel of its patrons. A writer in one of the many visits to this favorite spot was introduced to a camp, where the party was almost entirely composed of ladies. When out of hearing of the camp he asked the lady who acted as chaperon of the party how they managed to enjoy themselves with- out the aid of the sterner sex. " Enjoy themselves?" said she in a burst of enthus- iasm, "oh, yes; they do! We have plenty of horses, wear divided skirts, ride astride like men and have such lots of fun." Of course they did. It was harmless, healthful fun, and they were free to throw their souls into it. It was an active exercise of body and mind in a pure air, and with such surround- ings as induced joyful hearts, consuming ap- petites and refreshing sleep. Every day 80 spent added a year to their lives. It is not
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strange that when the sun dips to the south they look forward with eager anticipation to the June days when they shall again set up their tents at La Honda.
LIGHTHOUSES.
Año Nuevo (New Year's) Island fog sig- nal station (lantern) is located on the south- western or seaward side of the island. It was established in 1872. Its latitude is 37° 06' (43") north; and longitude 122°, 19' (51") west. The light is a fixed white lens lantern, twenty-four feet above sea level. This station is equipped with a twelve-inch steam whistle. Blasts, ten seconds; intervals fifty-five seconds.
Point Pigeon lighthouse is located on the extremity of Pigeon Point, latitude 37°, 10' 49" north, and longitude 122°, 23', 39", west. Light, flashing white every ten sec- onds, a Fresnel of the first order, 150 feet above sea level, visible eighteen and one-half (nautical) miles; established in 1872. It has a twelve-inch whistle: blasts, four seconds, alternate intervals of seven and forty-five seconds. It is thirty-eight miles south of Golden Gate and thirty-nine miles from Point Pinos light.
The lantern of this station did duty at Cape Hatteras on the coast of North Caro- lina before the war, but so perfect is its construction that the revolving apparatus shows no sign of attrition, although it has been in use half a lifetime.
CHAPTER VII.
CLIMATIC PECULIARITIES OF THE COAST.
UR uniform temperature throughout the year, on this coast, is largely due to that great conservator of climate, the ocean, on our western border. During the winter months, warm southeast winds prevail at in- tervals. The long winter nights, with the lessened amount of heat from the sun, and consequent cooler atmosphere, reduce the temperature of the southeast winds, coming from a warmer region, and cause the condens- ation and precipitation of their moisture in the form of copious showers of rain. This makes the so-called rainy season; during which (especially, if there is much south wind) there is a general growth of vegetation, as in spring in the Eastern States. Exception- ally dry seasons are caused by a failure of these southerly winds in their seasons; when this occurs the weather is colder, with more frost than in wet winters, when the south winds prevail.
In October, when the days are shortening and the resident of the Atlantic States is hanling his " back logs " over the frozen ground, to protect himself against the long, cold nights of winter, the farmer on the bor- ders of the bay of San Francisco is plowing his land for the next year's crop. Should the rains begin in October, by the first of Novein- ber the hills are green. The new season's growth follows close upon the heels of har- vest, and often overtakes the vintage. Grain may be sown as early as October, or as late as
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April, and will perfect a crop. Corn is rarely planted until the rains cease. In favorable locations the japonica, the rose, and geranium will bloom all the year round.
About the first of April the climatic condi- tion is reversed. The days grow long and warm, the south winds cease entirely, and are succeeded by the regular northwest winds. The temperature of these winds from the ocean is colder than the temperature on land; hence their moisture is dissipated instead of condensed as it passes over the heated plains, and all clouds disappear altogether, resulting in the absence of rains until the return of the southerly winds again in autumn. From the above it will be seen why it is that the win- ters on the California coast are comparatively warm, and the summers cool; in other words, why we have an all-the-year equable climate, being a benefaction from the all-generous ocean.
THE CAUSES OF OUR WET AND DRY SEASONS.
As the summer sun, after it passes the equator in its northward march, heats up the interior, or the Colorado desert, each day, rare- fying the atmosphere and causing it to rise over an immense area, thereby creating, or tending to create, a vacuum, the surrounding air, and especially the cooler and heavier air of the ocean, rushes in along the surface of the earth, to replace the attenuated; lighter, rising air of this vast interior region. And thus it is that the trade-winds of the Pacific ocean north of the equator, which, as mar- iners tell us, blow six months in summer
towards the southwest, are diverted inland near the coast each day, with such force as to drive off, or in fact to dissipate altogether all clouds, which might but for this powerful local cause tend to gather and produce rain as in inost other parts of the world. Now, as aqueous precipitation is caused by precisely the same law, whether produced by natural or artificial processes, it follows that if vapor is distilled or condensed into liquid, artifically as in the still-worm, by passing from a heated state to a relatively cooler state, or from a warm to a colder locality, then air currents bearing moisture,-and all air currents do carry moisture, whether visible in the form of vapor, or clouds, or not-must have their aqueous particles condensed by the cold when passing from a warm to a relatively cool local- ity. Air currents, moving from the equatorial regions toward either pole must have their watery particles chilled and condensed by the increasing cold and by the intenser cold over- head, and, if the process is continued long enough, precipitated, in the form of mist, rain, hail or snow. This is the general law; and it is uniform and inexorable in its opera- tions, whether invoked by Nature or by man. And the converse of this law is equally in- exorable and uniform in its operations. If relative cold condenses, relative heat dissi- pates.
Herein then are found the causes, both of our wet and our dry seasons. The heating up of the interior daily, while the sun is north of the equator, causes a draft or suction of air- currents from where it is cool to where it is
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warm, the result of which is the dissipation or dispersion of the moisture which those air currents may carry. Therefore, the agencies which cause rain elsewhere are wholly inoper- ative here so long as the sun is north of the equator. All winds, and all fogs and clouds within the area of this all-potent local cause, to wit, the suction of the daily super-heated desert, are subordinated to its action, and the phenomenon of rain becomes, as a rule, im- possible. And thus we have our long, dry, but bracing, summers near the seacoast.
But when the sun passes south of the equator it ceases to heat the desert, and therefore causes but little or no draft, and then agencies which usually bring rain the world over, are free to operate here. And thus we have our so-called rainy seasons, i. e., seasons during which it becomes possible for rains to come here, as they do elsewhere.
Another incidental peculiarity of our daily wind currents may be noted in this connec- tion. These ocean breezes come up daily with the sun (or as soon as he has heated the desert, say at nine or ten o'clock) and go down with the sun. The earth, being heated on the surface, cools quickly, whilst the ocean, heated to a considerable depth, cools slowly, and thus it is sometimes warmer in the night than the land; and thus it happens that we have sea breezes by day, and land breezes by night. These latter, however, are not regu- lar. Sometimes these night currents are off and sometimes on land, and sometimes there are none at all.
The copiousness of our summer fogs near
the coast are at least a partial substitute for irrigation. These dense fogs are condensed whenever they drift inland, by the relatively colder temperature of the land in the night; and vegetation feels their influence and ab- sorbs their life-giving moisture. The effect of a few such summer nights equals a light shower of rain. This is why all farm, orchard, and other crops will mature near the coast without irrigation. This also, as has al- ready bcen remarked, is why the dense redwood forests thrive so wonderfully all along the im- mediate coast of northern California.
In this respect, the climate of the coast counties differs from that of the great and magnificent interior valleys of the State (out- side of the influence of these heavy fogs), where irrigation is necessary to produce a crop.
The temperature of the sea-breeze is from 55° to 60º Fahrenheit. When the ocean winds do not blow, the valley temperature, east of the mountain, ranges from 80 to 90 degrees in summer, but this heat is neither dangerous nor oppressive, as the air is dry and the nights are always cool.
There is rarely a day in winter or summer, when work out of doors cannot be performed without physical discomfort; and in winter there are bright days in California which would lead a traveler, coming from the ice- bound East, to believe that he had really found a climate rivaling that of ancient Italia; and few would question his belief.
TOPOGRAPHY AS AFFECTING CLIMATE.
The topography of San Mateo county, to
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a considerable extent, governs its climate. The mountain range which constitutes the backbone of the county, at a point some fourteen miles from the straits through which the waters of the Pacific ocean flow into the bay of San Francisco, rapidly decline in height, and seem to lose themselves in the ocean. From this point to the Golden Gate, the face of the ground is broken into low, rolling hills and sand dunes of variable height. The northwest summer trade winds, accompanied by detached drifts of fog, sweep over this de- pression, and give San Francisco its harsh but not unhealthful summer climate.
But the mountain range in San Mateo county turns the current of the sea-breeze, and holds back the fog which crawis up the slope, and banks itself along the summit of the mountains, being condensed by the rela- tive cold of that attitude, and also slightly obstructed, perhaps, by the trees and shrubs which crown the crest of the range. This mountain fog bank is tlie condensed freshness of the sea, out of which a cool breeze flows down the eastern slope of the range to the bay shore, cooling the atmosphere of the plains and foot-hills, without the disagree- ableness or inconvenience of the propelling winds, or actual contact with the fog. In other words, the morning sun warms the temperature of the air of the valley below, which (as relative heat, according to an in- variable natural law, always does) rareties and dissipates the fog and tempers the breeze as it flows down the slope.
CHAPTER VIII.
SUBURBAN HOMES-POSSIBILITIES.
HE almond, apricot and other early varieties of fruit bloom in the last days of February. The conditions of the climate were appreciated very early by wealthy residents of the metropolis, many of whom have made their summer homes in San Mateo county. It was rather unfortunate for the county, perhaps, that land was so low in price at the time those purchases were made, for many of the holdings are in large tracts, which is detrimental to the settlement and progress of this section.
Many of these homes are improved to a high degree. The grounds combine the beauties of the native growth, with all the semi-tropic plants which flourish on the coast, and are dreams of beauty, as examples of landscape gardening. They show at least what can be done on small lots and acre tracts by the application of water during the summer months and an intelligent hand to direct the improvements. There are in this area, extending from the town of San Mateo to the Stanford University, over 100,000 acres of land susceptible of as high a state of culture as Palo Alto, the Flood grounds, or any other of the best improved places at San Mateo, or Menlo Park, at a distance of only from twelve to thirty iniles from the city of San Francisco. It is an anomalous fact that land in this choice region can still be bought in acre tracts or lots, for from one-fifth to one-tenth the sum asked on the Oakland side of the
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bay. Between Oakland and Berkeley, land is held at from $2,500 to $4,000 per acre. Good land, relatively as well located on the west side of the bay, can be bought for $250 to $400 per acre. One of the principal causes for this remarkable difference in values, in the opinion of many citizens, is to be found in the cost of transportation. Single fares from Redwood City to San Francisco cost 80 cents, and from San Mateo 60 cents, and monthly commutation tickets from $5 to $8; as against 15 cents single fares, and $3 com- mutation between Oakland and Berkeley. Population, business improvement, and rapid progress followed the lines of low fare and freight rates.
That San Mateo county, under the influence of high fares, has been forced to the rear in the procession of progress, by which it is on all sides surrounded, cannot be controverted. With the coming of the electric road, now a certainty, for which a franchise was wisely granted by the Board of Supervisors, all this will be changed. The franchise calls for 20 cents fare from Redwood City to San Fran- cisco, being just one-fourth the price now asked by the only means of transportation at the command of the people. This road has already crossed over the border and is push- ing its way to the interior of the connty, and unlocks the gate which has heretofore barred the progress of the county, and gives it an even chance with its neighbors over the bay who have long had rapid and cheap com- nunication with the metropolis.
LAND AND LIVE-STOCK.
As a matter of curiosity, we transcribe for comparison some typical values of land and live-stock as fixed by M. A. Parkhurst, deputy assessor, in the year 1853, when this county was a municipal district of San Fran- cisco.
The San Miguel rancho, containing 4,800 acres, was assessed to José Jesus de Noe at $10 per acre; total $48,000. Fifty vara lots on the same tract near the mission were as- sessed at $125 each. This grant was near the mission and the owner once wrote a de- scription of the animals he met in traveling from Yerba Buena to his ranch.
The Sunny Side tract, containing 160 acres, recently sold by Senator Stanford for $300,- 000, and the Crocker tract of 166 acres, that sold for a like amount, was a part of the Noe ranch. At the rate fixed for these two par- cels, viz., $1,885 per acre, the whole tract would bring $10,000,000. That portion nearer the mission is, of course, worth much more. Twenty millions of dollars would be short of the actual value of what Parkhurst valued, in 1853, for $48,000. Don José Jesus de Noe would have made $1,000,000 a year had he held his vast estate until to-day.
The rancho Laguna de Merced, 2,170 acres, was assessed to the heirs of Francisco de Haro for $6 per acre-$13,020.
The Portrero rancho, south of San Francisco, was assessed at $10 per acre.
The Red House, old Pavilion House, was assessed to D. C. Broderick for $3,000.
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The pioneer race-course and improvements was assessed at $7,000.
Donna Carmen, widow of C. Bernal, was assessed for 4,800 acres of land at $10 per acre-$48,000.
The Pulgas rancho was assessed-up land $25 per acre, hill land $6, and swamp land at the rate of five cents per acre. From this it will be seen that farming land in this neigh- borhood was valued twice as high as land near the city, which is now worth nearly one hundred times more.
The Sachez rancho, now Millbrae, was as- sessed at $4 per acre.
D. W. M. Howard, of Santa Mateo, was as- sessed for eighty acres of up land at $20 per acre and 3,720 acres of hill land at $4 per acre; honse and improvements, at $5,000.
Mr. Macondray, adjoining Howard, was assessed for 100 acres of up land at $25 per acre, and 160 acres of hill land at $4 per acre; honse and fixtures, $7,500.
T. G. Phelps, 150 acres up land at $20 per per acre; fifty acres of hill land at $4 per acre.
John Greer, 4,840 acres El Corte de Ma- dera rancho, $6 per acre-$29,040.
Captain Harrington, 2,000 acres Cañada de Raymundo rancho, at $2 per acre-$4,000.
Colonel Jack Hays, Mountain Home ranch, 2,000 acres at $5 per acre-$10,000.
The Angelo house-real estate, 100 acres, at $25 per acre; 100 acres at $4 per acre; house and improvements, $5,300; two yoke
of cattle, $300; fifty hogs, $1,750; 100 pigs, $600, and poultry $100. This was the site of the present town of Belmont. It was afterward selected as the county-seat by a ring of roughs who tried to run county af- fairs. An investigation by the conrts upset their calculations.
Dennis Martin, 2,400 acres of land near Searsville, at $5 per acre, $12,000; eight yoke of oxen, at $150 per yoke; four cows, $40 each; 150 head of cattle, $25 apiece; twelve saddle-horses, $70 each; 130 sheep at $4 per head; six hogs, $10 each; one wagon $150; one sawmill, $10,000. Total $33,720.
George Thatcher, store and stock in Red- wood City, $2,000.
Captain Voiget, real estate (the present Polhemus place, near Menlo Park) 320 acres, at $20 per acre-$6,400.
Haskell & Woods, 2,068 acres of land, now Menlo park, at $25 per acre.
The Purísima rancho, on the coast, was assessed at $2 per acre.
The Miramontez ranch was valued at $3 per acre.
Tiburcio Vasquez was assessed for 4,800 acres on the coast, at $3 per acre.
The San Gregorio rancho of four leagues was assessed to Francisco Casanuevo for the lump sum of $4,000-$1,000 a league.
Tripp & Parkhurst were assessed for $2,- 500 for personal property-the stock and fixtures of their store.
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CHAPTER IX.
THE LELAND STANFORD, JUNIOR, UNIVERSITY
generous education should be the birth- right of every man and woman in America."
Such is the noble motto of this young uni- versity .. Such, in fact, has been the unform- ulated and once-thought-to-be-visionary motto of a large portion of the people of the United States. Will the generous aspiration ever be actually realized? Let us hope so!
Although the various buildings of the Stanford University are located just over the line, in Santa Clara county, a considerable portion of the land endowment of the institu- tion is in San Mateo county.
FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY.
The founding at Palo Alto of "a university for both sexes, with the colleges, schools, seminaries of learning, mechanical institutes, museums, galleries of art, and all other things necessary and appropriate to a uni- versity of high degree," was determined upon by Leland Stanford and Jane Lathrop Stan- ford, in 1884. In March, 1885, the Legis- lature of California passed an act providing for the administration of trust funds in con- nection with institutions of learning. No- vember 14, 1885, the grant of endowment was publicly made in accordance with this Act, and on the same day the board of trus- tees held its first meeting in San Francisco.
The work of construction was at once be- gun, and the corner-stone laid, May 14, 1887,
the nineteenth anniversary of the birth of Leland Stanford, Junior, deceased, after whom the proposed institution was named, The university was formally opened to students October 1, 1891.
The idea of the university, in the words of its founders, "came directly from our son and only child. Leland; and in the belief that had he been spared to advise as to the dispo- sition of our estate, he would have desired the devotion of a large portion thereof to this purpose; we will, that for all time to come, the institution hereby founded, shall bear his name and shall be known as the Leland Stanford, Junior, University."
ITS OBJEOTS.
The object of the university, as stated in its charter, is "to qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life," and its purposes to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty, regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
ENDOWMENT.
The property conveyed to the university in addition to the Palo Alto estate of 8,400 acres, partly lowland and partly rising into the foot-hills of the Santa Cruz range, con- sists of the Vina estate in Tehama county, of 55,000 acres, of which about 4,000 acres are
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planted in vines; and the Gridley estate, in Butte county, of 22,000 acres, devoted mainly to the raising of wheat.
BUILDINGS.
In arranging the buildings and gronnds, the plan has been to conform them to the peculiar climatic conditions of California, and to provide for indefinite expansion without crowding or distortion. A series of quad-' rangles, to be erected as the needs of the uni- versity demand, will furnish facilities for all general university work. Surrounding these will be varions detached buildings for miscel- laneous purposes and the university town, with carefully laid-ont streets and grounds. The buildings are of a buff sandstone, some- what varied in color. The stone-work is of broken ashlar, with a rongh face, and the roofs are covered with red tile. The archi- tectural motif is to be found in the old Spanish missions of California.
THE HOPKINS LABORATORY OF NATURAL HISTORY.
In order to carry on the biological work of this institution, a seaside laboratory of natural history has been founded as a branch of the university, by the liberality of Mr. Timothy Hopkins, of San Francisco. The laboratory is located on Poin Aulon, a headland pro- jecting into the sea near the town of Pacific Grove, on the bay of Monterey. It will be provided with aquaria and with all apparatus necessary for carrying on studies in the structure, development and life history of
marine animals and plants, and will be open during the summer vacation of each year to naturalists wishing to carry on original inves- tigations, and to students and teachers who desire to make themselves familiar with methods of study in marine zoology and bot- any. The work of the laboratory will be un- der the general direction of Professors Gil- bert, Jenkins and Campbell, the committee of the university faculty in charge. The general purpose of the laboratory is similar to that of the marine zoological laboratory at Wood's Holl, Massachusetts, and to the sea- side and marine laboratories established by Johns Hopkins University at different places along the Atlantic coast. The bay of Mon- terey is peculiarly favorable for investigations of the kind contemplated, being exceedingly rich with life; and the life history of the peculiar animals and plants of the Pacific coast has for the most part received little study from naturalists.
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