USA > California > Sonoma County > An illustrated history of Sonoma County, California. Containing a history of the county of Sonoma from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time > Part 28
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108
At this fair of 1885, Hon. J. K. Dougherty, now one of Sonoma County's Superior Judges, delivered the following annual address:
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :- This association has done me mueh honor in inviting me to deliver the annual address upon this occasion. In accepting the task 1 was aware of the responsibility ineurred, and I had no grounds of encouragement.
I remembered that the subject of agricultural fairs and festivals of this nature was one upon which I was not in the habit of bestowing mueh thought.
I remembered that from a crowd of people upon the grand-stand, where there is so much else to occupy its attention, I could not expect elose attention or be heard.
I remembered, too, that my closest listeners would be those most interested in the fair and better qualified and more capable of addressing you than I myself. So that it is with a feeling of awe that I undertake the task, and I would that I were more qualified to do justice to the theme, that my appreciation of the honor might be better shown.
When I begun to revolve the subject over in my mind, to determine what I should say, the first question that I naturally asked myself was, what is the origin of the American fair? Is it a legacy from some foreign country or the pro- duct of American enterprise, ambition and in-
genuity. Wherein does it differ from the prehistoric harvest festival or the fairs of ancient and modern time of other countries.
By some, the word fair is derived from a Latin word meaning holiday, a day exempt from labor; by others, from a Latin word mean- ing to trade, to barter.
There were festival occasions in early times, the object of which would make either deriva- tion acceptable.
Heathen mythology abounds with allusions to the festivals held in honor of their gods. Under the inspiration of a false yet beautiful theology, it was the custom at stated intervals to render homage at temples consecrated to their deities.
Gifts were brought to propitiate the all-pow- erful Demeter -- the fabled representative of Mother-Earth.
We read of the corn and harvest festivals held in honor of Ceres.
Horace sings from his Sabine farin of the festival of golden fruits in honor of Pomona.
When the harvest season was over, when the wine press had been laid away, Italia's vine- dressers used to meet at some nook on the vine- clad hills and tap the last year's cask in honor of Bacchus.
The old Roman used to seek the excitement of the hippodrome and witness the horse races and chariot races.
These were purely holiday festivals. There is another class of festivals in foreign lands of early origin and now common in many parts of Europe and Asia. It is called the Fair. Lord Coke defines it as "a greater species of market recurring at more distant intervals " and calls them legalized public places for the sale, ex- change and barter of commodities.
These fairs originated because of the want of proper communications between producers and consumers.
One of the most noted of these is that of Hardmar, on the upper course of the Ganges. A quarter of a million of people annually visit the exposition, and every twelfth year a million for upward make a special pilgrimage from all
183
HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
parts of Asia taking thither Persian shawls, rngs and carpets, Indian silks, Cassimere shawls, preserved fruits, spices, drugs, et cetera, together with immense mminbers of cattle, horses, sheep and camels.
The annual fairs of Beancaire in France, of Nili Norgorod of Russia, the German fairs of Frankfort and Leipsic, where gather the pro- dneers and traveling merchants from the four corners of the earth, bringing with them their fabrics and costly wares, are all the ontgrowth of a necessary common center of exchange.
The American Agricultural Fair is peculiarly an American institution. We come not here to do sacrifice to an imaginary protectress or scat- ter offerings npon her sacred shrine.
We come not here solely to barter our own peculiar productions.
Ours the better part to meet together for mutual counsel and improvement, to compare experiences, to witness the achievements of the present, and seek to expand, enlarge and perfect onr capacities for future usefulness.
The harvest having closed, the season's work being over, it is a holiday week when the farmer throws aside his tools, selects the choicest of his grain, vegetables and live stock; the fruit grower brings his peach, pear, apple, fig, apri- cot, plnm aad olive; the wine-grower, the pure juices of his press; the merchant, his stock of goods, wares and merchandise; the stock-raiser his finest herds of imported cattle and thorough- bred standard work and trotting horses; the mother brings the little baby, the danghter her needlework, to exhibit them to the world, to compare them with their neighbors, and with friendly rivalry contend for a prize.
How grand is the scene before us! a mile of stalls filled with blooded horses with ears erect and nostrils extended ready for a race. Live stock of every description from every nook and corner of the district, and a pavilion filled to overflowing. * * **
In behalf of this association and its directors, a cordial welcome is extended to all.
This association has great cause to rejoice at
the rapid progress which our people are making in all that tends to build up a great and powerful district.
The lively interest which is now manifested in the improvement of all sorts of stock has given us in our genial climate the best variety of animals in the world.
Onr rich lands are largely under cultivation, and we are not dependent upon others for the necessaries of life.
The yearly reports which this society.is com- pelled to make to the State Board, show a vast increase in every department of agriculture from year to year.
Indeed we have within our own district com- prising the counties of Sonoma and Marin all the elements of true greatness.
With a population unsurpassed for intelli- gence and patriotism, with as rich and pro- ductive lands as the world affords, and sufficient rainfall to insure annual crops without irriga- tion, if we act wisely and use properly the means which have been so profusely spread before us, there is for us a glorious future.
1 am asked by members of this association to extend to its courteous president, active secre- tary and able board, its thanks for their liberal attention and successful work in its behalf.
The management and work of the year must necessarily fall upon them, but there is work for every man and woman in the district.
If we are to have a good fair and pleasing exhibition, we must bring something here to exhibit.
The larger and more varied the exhibit the better the record among the archives of State, the better pleased the visitors, the better its financial condition.
County and county, city and city, town and town must all co-operate in order that each an- nual meeting shall surpass the last and impart an abiding good.
It is not for to-day or for to-morrow, nor for the brief period of existence allowed to those who participate here to day that we perpetnate these fairs.
184
HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
NATURE'S LABORATORY-THE GEYSERS,
CHAPTER XX.
THE GEYSERS-THEY WERE VISITED IN 1865 BY VICE-PRESIDENT SCHUYLER COLFAX AND SAMUEL BOWLES, EDITOR OF THE SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, REPUBLICAN -- WHAT MR. BOWLES WROTE -- CLARK FOSS -- THE EARTHQUAKE. 1868.
HE present terminus of the Donahue Road, otherwise the San Francisco & North Pacific Railroad, is Cloverdale, just eighty miles from the city of San Franeiseo. A pleas- ant journey of three hours in the handsome new cars with which the company have lately equipped the road will land the traveler all safe and sonnd at that place. Leaving San Fran- cisco at 8 x. M., the journey is finished by 11 o'clock, in time for noon refreshments. As the dinner progresses, the sound and bustle of the preparation of many lines of stages with passen- gers for the upper coast of Mendocino, the Geysers, Highland Springs and other splendid summer resorts fill the air. The Geysers of Sonoma County are pre-eminently the one un- paralleled wonder, the something which no other country in the world can duplicate, illustrative of the wondrous ways of Providence visible in this world below. From Cloverdale to the Geysers is sixteen miles, making the whole dis- tance from San Francisco ninety-six miles and abont six hours' journey.
A distinguished European geologist describes the California Geysers as " fearful, wonderful." The visitor is surrounded by all kinds of eou- tending elements, boiling, roaring. thundering,
hissing, bubbling, spurting and steaming here extremes meet in a most astonishing way -- if a diversity of mineral springs ean be called ex- tremes-as there are over three hundred in number that possess every variety of character- istic. Some are hot; others icy eold; some con- tain iron: some soda; others sulphur. Side by side boil and bubble the hottest of hot springs and the coldest of eold ones, being, frequently, but a few inehes apart. Indeed so closely do
they lie together that the greatest care must be exercised lest one should step knee-deep into a " cauldron " or an "icy bath." Even the rocks become thoroughly heated, and quantities of magnesia, sulphur, alum and many other chemi- cals lie thiekly strewn about the lava beds, making a sort of druggists' paradise. The noise, too, and the smell are as diversified as the char- acter of the springs. Of the boiling springs and steam receptacles, one is known as the " Devil's (frist Mill," another, " The Calliope," then, the "Steamboat Geysers," the " Witehes' Cauldron," the " Mountain of Fire," the latter of which contains several hundred apertures. In all of these are shown, each for itself, some interesting and remarkable peculiarity.
It is a place that reealls to our mind the
185
HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
Witches' Retreat in Shakespeare's Macbeth. The water in a pool of the stream forms Nature's Cauldron, and one cannot but repeat:
" Round about the cauldron go; In the poisoned entrails throw- Toad, that under coldest stone, Days and nights has thirty-one. Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i'the charmed pot !
Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and cauldron bubble.
" Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizzard's leg, and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble,
Double, double, toil and trouble ; Fire, burn; and cauldron bubble."
Of the Geysers, the most enjoyable features is the stage ride from Cloverdale through Sul- phur Creek Canon. The road is of easy grade, and the scenery most picturesque.
Samnel Bowles (since deceased), editor of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican, accom- panied Vice-President Colfax to this county in 1865, and they visited the Geysers. The fol- lowing is Mr. Bowles' description of what they saw in their journeyings:
" Similar and prolonged experience, with some added and fresh elements, came from a rapid three day's journey northerly to see the Geysers or famous boiling springs, and the neighboring valleys, famous for farms and fruits and vineyards. A steamer took ns up through San Pablo Bay, one of the widenings of the ontcoming waters of the interior, and Petaluma Creek, to the thriving town of the latter name. I took a sharp look at it because of its persistent desire to steal your neighbor, Rev. Mr. Harding, away from Longmeadow, and found it one of the most prosperous and pleasant of California towns, at the foot of one of the richest agrieul- tural regions of the coast. The rest of the day we rode through driest dust and reposing nature, np through the l'etaluma Valley and
over into that of the Russian River, famous and peculiar here for its especial kindliness to our Indian corn, also for its toothsome gronse, first cousin to our partridge; stopping at the village of Healdsburg for brass band, speeches and supper, and after a rapid hour's drive by moon- light. at a solitary ranch under the Geyser Mountain for the night.
"Sunrise the next morning found ns whirling along a rough road over the mountains to the especial object of the excursion. But the drive of the morning was the more remarkable fea- ture. We supposed the Plains and the Sierras had exhausted possibilities for ns in that re- spect, but they were both outwitted here. For bold daring and brilliant execution, our driver this morning innst take the palm of the world, I verily believe. The distance was twelve miles, up and down steep hills, through inclosed pas- tures; the vehicle an open wagon, the passen- gers six, the horses four and gay, and changed once; and the driver, Clark T. Foss, our land- lord over night and the owner of the route. For several miles the road lay along the Ilog's Baek, the crest of a monntain that ran away from that point or edge, like the side of a roof, several thousand feet to the ravine below, and so narrow that, pressed down and widened as much as was possible, it was rarely over ten or twelve feet wide, and in one place bnt seven feet, winding in and out, and yet we went over this narrow causeway on the full gallop.
" After going up and down several mountains, having rare views of valleys and ravines and peaks, under the shadows and mists of early morning, we came to a point overlooking the Geysers. Far below in the valley we could see the hot steam pouring out of the ground, and wide was the waste around. The descent was almost perpendicular; the road ran down 1,600 feet in the two miles to the hotel, and it had thirty-five sharp turns in its conrse. 'Look at your watch,' said Foss, as he started on the steep decline; crack, erack, went the whip over the heads of the leaders, as the sharp corners came in sight, and they plunged with seeming reck-
186
HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY
lessness ahead, and in nine minutes and a half they were pulled up at the bottom and we took breath. Going back, the team was an hour and a quarter in the same passage. When we won- dered at Foss for his perilous and rapid driving down such a steep road, he said: . Oh, there's no danger or difficulty in it. All it needs is to keep your head cool, and the leaders out of the way.' But nevertheless I was convinced it not only does require a quick and cool brain, but a ready and strong and experienced hand. The whole morning ride was accomplished in two hours and a quarter, and though everybody pre- diets a catastrophe from its apparent dangers, Foss has driven it after this style for many years, and never had an accident.
"The Geysers are exhausted in a couple of hours. They are certainly a curiosity, a mar- vel. but there is no element of beauty; there is nothing to be studied, to grow into or upon yon. We had seen something similar, but less extensive, in Nevada, and like a three-legged calf, or the Siamese twins, or P. T. Barnum, or James Gordon Bennett, once seeing is satisfac- tory for a life-time. They are a sort of grand natural chemical shop in disorder. In a little ravine from off the valley is their principal the- ater. The ground is white, and yellow, and gray, porous and rotten with long and high heat. The air is also hot and sulphurous to an un- pleasant degree. All along the bottom of the ravine and up its sides the earth seems hollow and full of boiling water. In frequent little craeks and pin holes it finds vent, and ont of these it bubbles and emits steam like so many tiny tea kettles at high tide. In one place the earth yawns wide, and the ' Witches' Cauldron,' several feet in diameter, seethes and sprouts a black, inky water, so hot as to boil an egg in- stantly, and capable of reducing a human body to pulp at short notice. The water is thrown up four to six feet in height, and the general ef- fect is very devilish indeed. The ' Witeles' CanIdron ' is reproduced a dozen times in min- iature-handy little pools for cooking your breakfast and dinner, if they were only in your
kitchen or back yard. Farther np you follow a pnfling noise, exactly like that of a steamboat in progress, and you come to a couple of volumes of steam struggling out of tiny holes, but mounting high and spreading wide from their force and heat.
" Yon grow faint with the heat and smell. yonr feet seem burning, and the air is loaded with a mixture of salts, sulphur, iron, magnesia, soda, ammonia, all the chemicals and compounds of a doctor's shop. You feel as if the ground might any moment open, and let you down to a genn- ine hell. Yon recall the line from Milton, or somebody: ' Here is hell-myself am hell.' And, most dreadful of all, you lose all appetite for the breakfast of venison, trout and gronse that awaits your return to the hotel. So yon struggle out of the ravine, every step among tiny volumes of steam, and over bubbling pools of water, and cool and refresh yourself among the trees on the mountain side beyond. Then, not to omit any sight, you go back through two other ravines where the same phenomena are re- peated, though less extensively. All around by the hot pools and escape valves are delicate and beautiful little erystals of sulphur and soda, and other distinct elements of the combustibles be- low, taking substance again on the surface.
" All this wonder-working isgoing on day and night, year after year. answering to-day exactly to the descriptions of yesterday and five years ago. Most of the waters are black as ink, and some as thick; others are quite light and transparent; and they are of all degrees of temperature from 150 to 500. Near by, too, are springs of cold water, some as cold as these are hot, almost. The phenomena carries its own explanation; the chemist will reproduce for you the same thing, ou a small scale, by mixing sulphurie acid and cold water, and the other unkindred elements that have here, in nature's laboratory chaneed to get together. Volcanie action is also most probably connected with some of the demonstrations here. There must be utility in these waters for the enre of rheumatism and other blood and skin diseases
187
HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
The Indians have long used some of the pools in this way, with results that seem like fables. One of the pools has fame for eyes; and with clinical examination and scientific application, doubtless large benefits might be reasonably assured among invalids from a resort to these waters. At present there is only a rough little bathing-house, colleeting the waters from the ravine, and the visitors to the valley, save for curiosity, are but very few. It is a wild, unre- deemed spot, all around the Geysers; beautiful with deep forests, a mountain stream, and clear air. Game, too, abounds; deer and grouse and trout seemed plentier than in any region we have visited. There is a comfortable hotel; but otherwise this valley is uninhabited.
" Baek on the route of our morning ride, we then turned off' into the neighboring valley of Napa, celebrated for its agricultural beauty and productiveness, and also, for its Calistoga and Warm Springs, charmingly located, the one in the plains and the other elose among mountains, and consisting of the fashionable summer resort for San Franciscans. The water is sulphurons; the bathing delicious, softening the skin to the texture of a babe's; the country charming; but we found both establishments, though with ca- pacions headquarters and family cottages, almost deserted of people. Passed farms and orchards, through parks of evergreen oak that looked as perfect as the work of art, we stopped at the village of Napa, twin and rival to Peta- luma, and from here, crossing anothing spur of the West Range, we entered still another beautiful and fertile valley -- that of Sonoma.
" Here are some of the largest vineyards of northern California, and we visited that of the Buena Vista Vinieultural Society, under the management of Colonel Haraszthy, a Hunga- rian. This estate embraces about 5,000 acres of land, a prineely-looking house, large wine manufactory and cellars, and about a million vines, foreign and native. The whole value of its property is half a million dollars, including $100,000 worth of wine brandies ready and in preparation for market. We tasted the liquors,
we shared the generous hospitality of the estate and superintendent; but we failed to obtain, here or elsewhere, any satisfactory information as to the success of wine-making yet in Cali- fornia. The business is still very much in its infancy, indeed; and this one enterprise does not seem well managed. Nor do we find the wine very inviting; they partake of the general character of the Rhine wines and the Ohio Catawba, but are rougher, harsh and beady- needing apparantly both some improvement in culture and manufacture and time for softening. I have drank, indeed, much better California wine in Springfield than out here."
As a Knight of the Whip, Clark Foss had a wide reputation only equalled by that of .. Hank Monk." But he was caught by death on the down grade, and his foot could not reach the break-bar. The Santa Rosa Democrat of Sep- tember 5, 1885, said :
"James P'. Clark received a dispatch from .J. A. Chesboro, of Calistoga, announcing the death of Clark Foss, which oeenrred at his residenee near Kellogg, on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Foss was one of the most widely known men on the Pacific coast. His reputation as a skillful driver was second only to Hank Monk of the old Overland stage line. For the past thirty years he has run stages to and from the Geyser Springs. He was for a long time a resident of Healdsburg, and ran stages from there to Ray's Station, from whenee passengers were taken over the Geyser Peak to the springs. When the railroad was completed up Napa Valley, he moved to Calistoga, built a toll-road over the mountain by way of Pine Flat and thence down Sulphur Creek to the springs, and put on a line of six horse wagons, Until the comple- tion of the Donahne road to Cloverdale all travel went by that ronte. Mr. Foss was a man of great nerve, and yon could not rake up six of the most vieions mustang tribe that he would not tone down after a very short experience. lle would whirl around the curves on his grand road at a gait that would stiffen the hair on the head of a timid tourist."
188
HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
As the forces of nature as exhibited by these tar-famed Geysers are very suggestive of vol- canie eruptions and earthquakes, we cannot more fitly close this chapter than with a descrip- tion of the heaviest earthquake experienced in C'alifornia since its ocenpaney by AAmericans, that of October 27, 1868. Its force and effect at Petaluma is thus described by the Argus :
" Yesterday morning, at about nine minutes to eight o'clock, an earthquake was felt in this city which for severity and damaging results surpassed anything of the kind ever before ex- perienced in this vicinity. The oscillation of the earth seemed to be from east to west, and there were three distinct shocks, following each other in rapid snecession, lasting. we should think, from ten to fifteen seconds. Buiklings seemed to sway back and forth like reeds in a storm, and onr excited and panic-stricken eiti- zens of course made hurried movements to get in the streets. Horses plunged and fretted as the earth trembled beneath their feet. All nature seemed for the moment to tremble in fear at. the threatened convulsion. Several buildings were badly damaged on Main street, though none fell- the most of the damages done being in the stores wherein were piled goods of a perishable nature. Many chimneys were toppled and thrown down, and a stone dwelling in the southern portion of the city had its front shaken out, but the family ocenpying it being abed when the shock occurred, miracu- lously escaped injury. A great deal of crockery ware was also broken, and most of the clocks in the town stopped; in faet, for the moment, it looked like the end of all time. From all we ean learn before going to press, the following are the names of those suffering damages: F.
T. Maynard, breaking of bottles and loss of drugs, $1,000; S. D. Towne, ditto, $100; Man- ning & Son, $20; DeMartin & Co., $200; Symonds, $75; Lamoreaux & Cox, $20; A. P. Whitney. $150; Carothers & Todd, 8100; and several others whose damages are comparatively trivial. During the whole forenoon of yester- day light shocks were felt, and every one seemed to be more or less nervous lest another heavy shock might visit us with more disastrous re- sults. There were no casualties. U'p to present writing everything is quiet, and the fright of onr people is diminishing. There was a report that the brick school-house was badly damaged, but this, like a thousand other reports, is totally without foundation or truth."
In continuation of matters in relation to that mnemorable earthquake, the Petaluma Aryux of October 29th, said:
" In this city the earthquake did little damage outside of what was mentioned in last week's paper. A briek kiln, in the lower part of town, the property of C. A. Hough, sustained eonsid- erable damage, there being about twenty thon- sand brick broken. We have experienced several shocks since, but none that compared in severity with the one on Wednesday of last week. The effect on San Francisco turns ont not to be so damaging as at first reported. Only five persons were killed outright. The damages to property is quite large, and will probably reach over two millions of dollars. In other portions of the State, at San Jose, San Leandro, Oakland, Napa, Haywoods and Gilroy the shock was more or less severe, doing considerable damage and resulting in the loss of two or three lives. At Sacramento and above the shock was felt, but was comparatively light."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.