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 32

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 786

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 32

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" I now change to a highly interesting group of plants, one admired by all Ferns which our county possesses in matchless beauty. ] shall not attempt a botanical description. The reader in the pursuit of knowledge must inter- view a more competent teacher. Our California

Botany, edited by the gifted Prof. Asa Gray, and the California Flora, are authorities of unques- tionable character. The most noble and majes- tic of all our species is Woodwardia radicans. I have gathered fronds of this beautiful variety fully ten feet long. In dark, moist canons near the coast, sheltered from winds and sunshine, it may be found in its best estate. In enltiva- tion it seems to pine ont a miserable existence, growing at best not more than four feet high. Near the head of Bear Valley in Marin Coun- ty some massive beauties were growing a few years ago. Their graceful, arching fronds made a leafy bower of fairy splendor. One speeimen I measured covered a space of twenty feet across. Another beautiful fern, not by any means plen- tiful, is Lowaria Spirant. At the base of Spring Hill, a few miles from our city, some most love- ly specimens may be found, the fronds growing six to seven feet high; the beanty of this fern is the finely dissected leaves or fronds.

" There are but few ferns, however small in structure, so delicately divided in formation, and though large and massive inform, is of most ex- quisite grace and loveliness. Of the Adiantum. or maiden-hair ferns, we have only two species. A pedatum or bird-foot fern, or more common- ly known as five-finger fern, is a most graceful and attractive plant. Under good culture its delicate fronds grow to regal beanty. A. C'up- illus reneris, often known as a1. Chilensis, is of low growth. yet most beautiful and attractive. It does not take kindly to cultivation and much prefers the wilds of its rocky home. In Europe, however, it is a variety of deep in- terest, where it appears to stand on its good be- havior. Pellea densa is indeed a most ex- omnisite and lovely fern. Years ago I found this variety near Healdsburg, almost completely covering a huge rock. Interspersed in cracks and fissures was one matchless Cheilanthes California or lace fern, almost completely cov- ering from sight the little mossy covering that seemed to alone give life and nutrition, while at its base were fine specimens of Polypodium Vulgare, P. Falcatum and P. Califoriran.

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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.

stately, grand sentinels of their more delicate relatives above them. Of other species of ferns found growing in our connty, I mention Gym- nogramme triangularis, the gold-back fern, Cheilanthes gracillima, Pollen Andromedafolia. and possibly some others. I have often sent specimens for identification to different botan- ists, and their classification often caused con- fusion.

" As yet,much remains to be learned as to the botany of our State. Changes are repeatedly be- ing made by savants, showing conclusively of their indecision, and years must elapse,-years of study, and a comparison of notes and speci- mens, -before a final permanent basis is reached. " I have very hastily and very briefly sketched these rambling notes of history, and though but a mere mention of our vast flora has been noticed, it is to be hoped it may afford some lit-

tle pleasure to our readers. It is to be hoped that at no distant day an earnest effort may be made to collect and classify the many different genera of plants growing in our county.

" It would be of great interest to the student of nature, and a valuable auxiliary for all fu- ture generations in learning of our primitive flora. Sneh a monograph could be easily ac- complished by the higher academie classes of our schools. In fact, when elementary botany is taught, students should be instructed to bring in specimens of all plants they could find at all times of the year. These should be mounted and exchanged with different sections, thus se- enring many different forms from all locations. Let me suggest a permanent herbarium for all our schools. be they of a primary or more ad- vaneed grade, and if need be it should be com- pulsory."

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LO, THE POOR INDIAN!"

CHAPTER XXV.

Til. INDIANS -- MISSION RECORD OF TRIBAL NAMES- VALLEJO'S ESTIMATE OF THEIR NUMBER --- THEIR NUMBER AT TIME OF AMERICAN SETTLEMENT-THEIR COMPLEXION AND STATURE-HOW THEY LIVED -THEIR IMPLEMENTS - INTERVIEW WITH CASKIBEL AND JOSE VIQUAR) -JOHN WALKER'S STATEMENT.

TN those chapters historie of Padre Altimira's founding the mission San Francisco Solano at Sonoma, and the first colonization of this county by the Spaniards, necessarily appeared most of what is anthentie history in connection with the Indian tribes occupying the territory embraced in the subject of this history. It is to be regretted that much of this is so indefi- nite as to preclude a possibility of writing with speeitie exactness in reference to the names of tribes: their numerical strength, or the bounda- ries of the territory over which each tribe claimed jurisdiction.

According to the mission books of Sonoma the following named Indian tribes furnished neophytes to that institution: Aloquiomi, Aten- omae, Canoma, Carquin, Canijolmano, Caymins, Chemoco. Chiehoyomi, Chocuyem, Coyayomi, luiluc, Huymen, Lacatint, Lonquiomi Libayto, Locnoma, Mayacma, Muticohno, Malaen, Na- pato, Oleomi, Putto, Polnomanoe, Paque. Peta- Inma, Suisun, Satayomi, Soneto. Tolen, Tlayaema, Tamal. Topayto, Ululato, Zadow and Utinomanoe.

But the heathen thus gathered in evidently took the wide range between Tomales, Marin County, and Carquinez Straits. There were unmistakably tribes bearing the following

names: The Petalumas, occupying the country north of San Pablo Bay and contiguous to the Petaluma Creek. This is evidenced by the record of the expedition of Padre Altimira, in which mention is made that their first eneamp- ment in Petaluma Valley was with some l'eta- Inma Indians who were hiding from their enemies, the Cainemeros Indians of the now Santa Rosa Beyond the ('ainemeros of Santa Rosa were the Soteomelos, or Yapos (braves), who ocenpied the Russian River country from the neighborhood of the present Healdsburg northward to Cloverdale. That this was a pow- erful and aggressive tribe is evidenced by the faet that they overeame and slaughtered a large number of the Cainemeros, whose wrongs were avenged by the assistance of Salvador Vallejo and his troops in battle up in the Geyser Mountains, as appears in another chapter. Thus it would seem that the central valleys of the county from Petaluma northward was occupied by three distinct tribes of Indians: the Peta- lumas, the Cainemeros and the Soteomelos or Yapos.

While every lateral valley, subsidiary to these main valleys, in the early days seem to have been the center of an Indian rancharie, yet it is doubtful if they had separate and distinct.

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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.

ive tribal existence. General Vallejo first vis- ited the territory now embraced in Sonoma County in 1828, and we have it direct from his lips, that in every little valley was a rancharie of Indians. To use his exact language: " The Indians were swarming everywhere." In refer- ence to the possible number of Indians here as late as in 1835, the reader is referred to an ad- dress of General Vallejo delivered on the occa- sion of the laying of the corner-stone of the new court-konse at Santa Rosa in 1884.

Making due allowance for extravagance of estimate of Indian population in what is now embraced in Sonoma County, in 1835, there must have been several thousand of these dusky children of nature here. But the small-pox pestilence in 1838 must have made sad havoe among them, for never since American ocen- pancy could they have mustered 1,000 all told. In 1834 the writer traveled afoot and alone, with only a small pocket pistol as a weapon of defense, from Petaluma to a point twelve miles above Healdsburg, a total distance of over forty miles, and he did not see fifty Indians in the whole distance. At that time there was quite a rancharie at Cloverdale; one near Healdsburg, another in the neighborhood of the lagoonas about Sebastopol and a small number of Indians who made a precarious living by hunting around Smith's Ranch and Bodega Bay. As late as 1554-'55 there was quite a rancharie of Indians at Tomales Bay, Marin County; and a very small rancharie in the edge of Marin County, about five miles distant from Petaluma. The last Indians we find any trace of as living apart by themselves in a rancharie, in the neighborhood of Petaluma, was on what is now known as the Fred Starkie place, about two miles north of that city. At the present writing there is not to exceed 100 Indians left in the county. Most of these are hovering, like the last shadows of their race, around Healdsburg and Cloverdale, eking out a miserable existence as the servitors of the race that has supplanted them.

stature, complexion, and habits of life to those of other portions of California. They are very thick in the chest, and have voices of wonderful strength. The children are clumsy, and heavy set. The women are very wide in the shoulders and hips, and strongly built. Men and women are large in the body, and slim in the legs and arms, as compared with Caucasians. They are physically and intellectually inferior to their relatives in Nevada Territory, and far inferior to the Indians who dwelt during the last cen- tury east of the Mississippi River. They are of a very dark complexion, and their hair always black, is coarse to the verge of that of a horse's mane. The women ( mohalas) cut their hair straight across the forehead just above the eye- brows, much as their Caucasian sisters do for " bangs." In their native state these Indians were far from models of neatness or cleanliness; but now that most of them wear modern gar- ments and often seek labor on ranches, they have in a measure abjured their former filthy habits. Their rancharie habitations were of the rudest and cheapest possible construction. The indispensable sweat-house, however, was a sort of joint-stock structure, and as it generally con- sisted of an excavation in the ground, with a surface structure made tight by banking up the earth around it, its construction eost some labor.

Their food was composed chiefly of acorns, clover-grass, grass-seeds, grasshoppers, horse- chestnuts. fish, game, pine-nuts, edible roots. and berries. The acorns are large, abundant, and some of them not unpleasant to the taste, but they do not contain much nutriment as compared with an equal bulk of those articles commonly used for food by the Caucasian race. The acorns were gathered by the squaws, and preserved in various methods. The most com- mon plan was to build a basket with twigs and rushes in an oak-tree, and keep the acorns there. The acorns were prepared for eating by grind- ing them and boiling them with water into a thick paste, or by baking them in bread. The

The Indians of this region are very similar in , oven was a hole in the ground about eighteen 14

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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.

inches enbic. Red hot stones were placed at the bottom of the hole, a little dry sand or loam thrown over them, and next came a layer of dry leaves. The dough or paste was poured into the hole until it was two inches or three inches deep. Then came another layer of leaves, more sand, red-hot stones, and finally dirt. At the end of five or six hours the oven had cooled down, and the bread was taken ont, an irregular mass nearly black in color, not at all handsome to the eye or agreeable to the palate, and mixed through with leaves and dirt. For grinding the acorns a stone mortar was used. This mor- tar was sometimes nearly flat, with a hollow not more than two inches deep; and occasionally one will be seen fifteen inches deep, and not more than three inches thick in any part of it. The pestle was of stone, round, ten inches long and three thiek.

Horsechestnuts were usually made into a gruel or soup. After being ground in the mortar, they were mixed with water in a waterproof basket, into which redhot stones were thrown, and thus the soup was cooked. As the stones when taken from the fire had dirt and ashes ad- hering to them, the sonp was not clean, and it often set the teeth on edge.

Grass-seeds were ground in the mortar and roasted or made into sonp.

Grasshoppers were roasted, and eaten withont further preparation, or mashed up with berries.

Fish and meat were broiled on the eoals. The intestines and blood were eaten as well as the muscle.

Clover and grass were eaten raw. The In- dians would go out into the clover patches, pull up the clover with their hands, and eat stalks. leaves, and flowers. They considered clover a great blessing, and got fat on it. The pine- nuts, edible roots, and berries were eaten raw. Bugs, lizards, and snakes were all considered good for food. In those places where the tules grow, the roots of those rushes were raten.

They used very few tools. The bow was the only weapon for killing quadrupeds. It was made of a reddish wood, and on the back the

bow was strengthened by a covering of deer's sinews, which gave to it greater strength and elasticity. Salmon were killed with stones and elnbs in shallow water, and were caught with spears. Their most ingenious spear had a head of bone about one inch and a half long and sharp at both ends. To the middle was fastened a string, which was attached to the spear-shaft. One end of the head fit into a socket at the end of the spear-shaft. When the spear was thrown the head eame out of the socket and turned eross-ways in the fish, and then there was no danger that it would tear ont. The Indians rarely hunted the grizzly bear. Along the ocean beach they got barnacles. Their method of catching grasshoppers was to dig a hole sev- eral feet deep, in a valley where this species of game abonnded. A large number of the lu- dians then armed themselves with bushes, and commeneed at a distance to drive the grasshop- pers from all sides toward the hole, into which the inseets finally fell, and from which they could not escape. The pine-nuts were sought at the tops of the pine-trees, which the "buck3" ascend by holding to the rough bark with their hands, and pressing out with their legs, so that they do not toneh the body to the trunk of the tree in going up. Is is more like walking then climbing.

The bow and arrow, the spear, the net, the obsidian knife, the mortar, and the basket were the only tools made by the Indians. The obsi- dian knife was merely a piece of obsidian as large as a hand and sharp on one side. The baskets were all made of wire-grass, a grass with a round jointless stem, about a sixteenth of an inch thick and a foot long. The basket- work made with this wire-grass resembled the texture of a coarse Panama hat, and was water- proof. All the basket-work of the Californian Indians was made of this material. The most common shape for the basket was a perpendieu- lar half of a cone, three feet long and eighteen inches wide, open at the top. The basket, ear- ried on the back of the squaws, was used for carrying food, miscellaneous articles, and chil-

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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.

dren. This outline of the lives and habits of the aborigine race that once held undisputed sway in Sonoma County will be of interest to future generations.

Only a few months ago the writer visited the ranch of Mr. John Walker, near Sebastopol, where is now the last rancheria of Indians south of Ilealdsburg. Fifteen Indians, all told, now constitute the tribe. Mr. Walker, who speaks Spanish, and Jose Viquero, the head Indian, a chief who speaks very good English, accom- panied uts and did the interpreting. Our mis- sion was to interview an Indian named Caski- bel, who is now supposed to be 100 years old. Mr. Walker has known him forty years, and has no doubt about his being a centenarian. Cas- kibel has been stone blind for twenty years. Ile was sitting flat on the ground busily remov- ing the hulls from acorns, his native and favor- ite food. It was Sunday morning, and as we took a seat with note-book in hand to jot down such information as might be elieited from Cas- kibel, every member of the tribe stood by, ap- parently interested spectators. From him we gathered the following information about the long past : When the Americans came to Cali- fornia, the chief of his tribe was named Francis- co, and the Chief of the Russian River Indians was named Ocata. In those days creeks, rivers and mountain ranges marked the boundaries be- tween Indian tribes. It was not permissible for the Indians of one tribe to enter upon the territory of another tribe to hunt or fish, with- ont permission. The tribes, so far as Caskibel knew, spoke the same language- that is, they could make each other readily understood. The different tribes had occasional wars. It was a common thing for Indians of different tribes to inter-marry. Tattooing was practiced. This was done with pulverized charcoal made from willow wood. They only had knives made of obsidian, and for killing small game they used bows and arrows. The most common way of

capturing elk, deer and antelope was by means of snares. We questioned Caskibel particular- ly in reference to the pestilence that swept away the Indians. He could not give the year, but said that it was long ago, and the Indians of his tribe for a long time died to the number of from ten to twenty a day. In some tribes nearly all died. He describes the Indians as having been very numerous previous to that pestilence, which he said was small-pox.

Jose Viquero, through whom we elicited this information from the aged Caskibel, must be sixty years old himself, but he seems to be in full vigor of middle age. He informed us that he was at Sonoma when it was captured by the Americans, and that he received from Fre- mont a pass which allowed him to go and come as he chose. Mr. Walker stated that Viquero was virtually the chief of all the Indians now left in Sonoma County. He also gave informa- tion as to a custom prevalent among the Indians when he came to the county over forty years ago. In the fall, after having gathered in store their winter's supply of acorns and other food, each rancheria gave what might be termed a harvest feast, inviting to it the Indians of neighi- boring rancharies. On such occasions a large fire was built, and when everything was ready for the feast, but before anyone partook of food, the chief, together with the aged men and squaws, marched in procession around this fire, each easting into it handfuls of acorns, grass seed, and in fact, some of each and all kinds of the provisions that had been laid in store. From whenee came this custom of a burnt-offering among these untutored children of nature?

It was not withont a feeling of sadness that we turned away from that little group-the last remnant of a race soon to become extinct. They are rapidly melting away, and their rude- ly fashioned stone mortars and pestels will be the only material evidence that generations of the future will have that they ever existed at all.

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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.

GENERAL HISTORY TO A CONCLUSION.

CHAPTER XXVI.

FROM 1870 ONWARD-THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES OPENED TO SETTLEMENT -ITS EFFECT-SONOMA PROS- PERS WITHOUT A CHANGE IN HER INDUSTRIES-GRAIN AND POTATOES NOT GROWN SO LARGELY

STOCK, HAY AND FRUIT GROWING OTHERWISE SONOMA COUNTY'S FUTURE, ETC.

RAILROADS STIMULATE THE LUMBER BUSINESS-STATISTICAL AND

IN a previous chapter we brought the general developments of Sonoma County forward to 1870. We now continue it to the end. Elsewhere it has been shown that at that period Sonoma County ranked next to the County of San Francisco in number of school children. As one among the youngest counties of the State she had thus suddenly come to the very front in population and productiveness. We hazzard nothing in saying that up to 1870 Sonoma County had been productive of more wealth to the State in the shape of cereals, pota- toes, butter and cheese than the three connties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego combined. This wealth of products gave to her land a fixed value, and hence it was that lands came to be valued, even at that early day, at from $50 to 875 an aere, according to its near- ness to or remoteness from market.

At that time principally, the whole State south of Santa Clara County was yet in a com- parative state of nature. Around towns and old missions were orchards and vineyards, but the most of the country was yet an open range for bands and herds of Spanish horses and cattle. The lands were yet held in large grants and the holders thereof had little seeming conception of the real value of their broad acres, In the

years leading up to 1870, men who had learned the real value of land in Sonoma and adjacent counties began to spy out the lands of the southern portion of the State, and many of them secured large tracts at prices varying from 82 to 85 per aere. In the space of a very few years the whole southern country from Monterey to San Diego County was an inviting field for immigration. The sudden opening up of so wide a field for occupancy was most certainly not conducive to the material prosperity of Sonoma County. The number of former resi- dents here who now rank among the wealthy and influential men of those southern counties attest how minch Sonoma County contributed toward building up that portion of the State, now famous for oranges and " booms."

But even with all this drain upon her vitality and resources "Old Sonoma" pursued the even tenor of her way, making steady and permanent progress. The developments in other portions of the State deprived her of a monopoly of the grain and potato growing industry, but with a facility of expedients rendered easy by her wonderful diversity of soil and elimate her peo. ple readily adapted themselves to new conditions and have largely taken to the channels of new industries,

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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.

From Two Rock Valley to Bodega, once almost a continuous grain and potato field, the country, almost entire, is now devoted to dairy- ing and stock-raising. This is now a good pay- ing industry, and will so continue, as the rapid settling of the southern portion of the State insures a never failing market. In the southern end of the county grain has largely given place to the growing of hay, that is a crop easily handled, and that finds a never failing market in San Francisco and at remunerative prices.

The upper valleys of the central portion of the county are being largely devoted to grape and fruit growing. The most marked develop- ments in this direction is noticeable from Santa Rosa northward to Cloverdale. That region be- gins to assume the appearance of what the whole county onght to present-that is, small holdings with cheerful home surroundings.

The completion of the Northern Pacific Rail- road in 1872 to Cloverdale, had much to do with changing the currents of old-time habits and customs of the people, and the hinging of life-conditions into nearer harmony with the great metropolitan eenter to which they were brought so near by rapid communication. And

this was soon supplemented by the building of the Coast Narrow Gauge Railroad, that entered Sonoma County at Valley Ford, and after rest- ing for a time at Duncan's Mills, again pushed forward to Cazadero, in the very heart of forest wilds. The building of these roads for a time may have proved damaging to the few, but to the great mass of Sonoma County's citizens they but herakled the dawn of a yet more prosperons future. The extensions of the Donahue line to Sonoma, and thenee to Glen Ellen, as also the building of the recently constructed road be- tween Santa Rosa and Napa Inetion, are addi- tional avenues of commerce and travel of incal- culable value to the county. With one or two branch roads to meet the requirements of that fertile belt of country intermediate between the San Francisco and North Pacific and the Coast Line Narrow Gauge railroads, the whole of Sonoma County will be brought into elose rela-

tionship with the very center of wealth and eommerce on the Pacific coast.

We cannot better emphasize the progress made in the development of Sonoma County than by giving the following extract from an opening address delivered before the agricultural society at Petaluma in 1869 by Hon. George Pearce, who came to California with General Phil. Kearney in 1847. Mr. Pearce, taking a then retrospective view, says:

" We meet here to exhibit and compare the products of our labor and the soil, and to challenge competition with each other and the world in both. Some bring for exhibition pro- ductions of the vegetable kingdom, others of the animal; while others bring productions of and improvements in the mechanic arts, the handi-work of man, but all come for the same purpose, viz .: mutual improvement of each in his particular vocation-one in the manufacture and improvement of machinery, another in the more perfect specimens of the animal king- dom, and others still greater varieties and more perfect productions of the varied climates and soils with which the people of this region are blessed.

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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 32

Author: Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 786

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 786