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 33
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" But a few short years ago little else than the antelope, the elk, the deer, the droves of mustangs, the herds of wild, inferior cattle, and an occasional adobe habitation, would have at- tracted the attention of the stranger traveling through Sonoma at this season of the year. He would naturally have inquired how these ani- mals subsisted in a region apparently so sterile, barren and dry, and have shaken the dust from his feet, and left this region, impressed with the belief that it was nnfit for the habitation of an energetie and enterprising stock-grower, much less mechanics or agrieulturists.
" The speaker visited this region very little in advance of the period indicated by the fore- going remarks, and well remembers the first impressions made on his mind by the then gen- era! appearance of the country, and although he here pitched his tent and has remained ever since, no small fortune would then have indneed
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
his consent to do so. But as time passed along he witnessed first the experiments, then the successes, and afterward the almost miraenlous improvement in the animal and vegetable king- doms, and still later, the wonderful progress and development in agricultural and the me- chanie arts. He could, therefore, speak of them both from observation and some slight practical experience. But it would consume too much time and weary your patience to give a detailed history of these things; let it suffice to note some of the singular changes wrought by the progress and development referred to. Then we usually went to the valleys of the Sacra- mento and its tributaries on the mustang; to San Francisco on what was commonly called a lanneh, taking generally from two to four days in erossing the bay; and as long as we pleased in going to Sacramento, but nearly always giving the mustang his natural gait -- a lope or a gallop. We generally carried our bed with us. and slept wherever darkness overtook ns. Every one carried a pistol and knife-indeed it was considered a crime to go without them. Now we go to San Francisco in four hours, on steam- boats; to Sacramento in ten hours, on steam- boats and railroads; we find no necessity for taking a bed, or even sleeping on the journey, and we punish men for carrying knives and pistols. Then it was considered impossible to eultivate the soil withont irrigation; now it is well known to be quite injurious to irrigate.
" The great valleys of this region were then thought to be adapted to and fit for grazing purposes only, except as they could be irrigated; and now they are devoted almost exclusively to agriculture, and without a thought of irrigation. The monntains and hills then believed to be barren waste are now known to be the best grazing lands, and in some instances even for agricultural purposes. Then fifty, or at most, $100,000, would have purchased all the landed estates of private individuals within what is now known as the County of Sonoma. Now a single vineyard on the mountain side will almost, if not quite, command that sum. Then the entire
taxable property in her borders woukl, perhaps. have reached $200,000; now it reaches abont $8,000,000.
" Wild grasses covered her plains and valleys then, now corn, wheat, oats, barley and rye. Extensive orchards abound in almost every sec- tion, and vineyards have taken the place of the barren pateh; the corral has been supplanted by the commodious stable and barn; the ride adobe habitations by handsome, comfortable, and, in many instanees, almost palatial briek. wooden and stone edifices, beautified and adorned with all the improvements in modern architecture and mechanic arts.
" Sonoma Valley, ' the valley of the moon, from which this county takes its name, forms but a small though important portion of the region now ealled Sonoma Connty. Sonoma proper is where . Old Pap Merritt,' as he was familiarly called, MeIntosh, Cooper, Nicholas Carriger, Broekman, Griffith, and others, first picked their flints for the contest which ended in the acquisition of this State, and gave birth and rise in a very great degree to the progress, improvement and development which ensned.
" Old Sonoma! her memory is dear to me! May she and her many noble citizens be long and abundantly blessed."
Such was the language of IIon. George l'earce in 1869, reminiscent of the then past, and yet he has lived to see the day when he can step aboard of cushioned cars and reach San Francisco in two hours from l'etaluma, or in less than two hours and-a-half from Santa Rosa, and when the assessed valne of the property of Sonoma County, instead of being $8,000,000, has reached the sum of $30,121,898.
With the exception of the philuxera that proved destructive to the old vineyards of Sonoma Valley, from the year 1870 down, the entire County of Sonoma has made slow bnt sure pro- gress in material prosperity. For a long series of years she had but little market for her super- abundance of fruit. As a consequence much fruit went to waste, and orchards were uneared for and neglected. The discovery of the process
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
of fruit canning, however, has worked a com- plete revolution in the matter of fruit-growing. Old orchards have been pruned and cultivated, and new orchards are being planted on every hand. This is now coming to the front as one of Sonoma County's most enduring industries. Here, without any irrigation whatever, all kinds of deciduous trees grow luxuriantly. So, too, with grape-vines. And in many portions of the county even semi-tropical fruits grow in a high state of perfection.
The following, compiled from the assessor's reports for 1887-88, will give the reader an accurate estimate of the present and future of Sonoma County:
The enltivation of wheat has decreased con- siderably, having fallen in the interval between 1870 and 1887 from 45,000 aeres to 21,785 acres according to the assessor's report, or a de- crease of over 50 per cent. The yield, however, in 1888, an admittedly dry season, is estimated at about 550,000 to 600,000 bushels or only a reduction of about 30 per cent. This is prob- ably due to the better system of cultivation and more general practice of summer fallowing. The breadth of land sown to barley in 1887 ac- vording to the same official was 22,869 acres against 21,213 in 1876; a trifling inerease of 73 per cent. in area, but a much larger one in yield, the erop being estimated at 762,450 bushels against 424,200 eleven years before. Oats are not much grown in Sonoma, except on the coast and the acreage according to the asses- sor in 1887 was only 4,695 aeres. Hay had increased from 47,744 acres to 80,561. In 1887 the assessor reported seventy-two thorough- bred horses and 364 graded horses and all other kinds 7,624. To any one who has seen the ex- hibits of stock at the Sonoma and Marin Agri- cultural Fairs and been much in the streets of the towns and visited farms where breeding is not made a specialty, it seems absurd to put down the number of graded horses at 364, but if farmers have a graded horse or two they are not likely to boast of it to the assessor. Mules were set down at 386.
Thoroughbred cows were reported at eighty, a ridienlously small number considering the many herds of Jersey, Holstein and short-horns there are in Sonoma, but we suppose only those whose owners had had them registered in the herd-books were mentioned as thoroughbreds. American cows were reported 18,219; stock cattle at 3,066; beef cattle at 430; calves at 1,730; hogs at 15,450; Cashmere and Angora goats 250; sheep, including 1,935 graded, 150,710 head, and lambs 12,460.
The assessor reports 656,657 fruit trees: this at eighty trees to the acre would only give about 8,208 acres which was probably mneh below the facts at that time and hardly two- thirds of what it now is, with the new trees that have since been planted. Luther Burbank. a well versed and reliable nursery man of Santa Rosa, after a careful estimate of the fruit and nut trees planted in 1887, says the following statement is a fair and close approximate of the number and different varieties of trees planted in Sonoma County: Olives, 20,000 trees; apples. 12,000; pears, 30,000; plums, 6,000; prunes, 15,000; cherries, 6,000; apricots, 4,000; peaches, 25,000; nuts, mostly walnuts and chestnuts, 15.060.
These figures do not inelnde old orchards, most prominent among which is Warren Dut- ton's prune orchard of 20,000 trees-the largest in the world-situated near Santa Rosa.
The Italian -Swiss colony near Healdsburg has also a very extensive orchard. Prune trees were in such demand last year that the supply failed or the acreage would have been greatly increased and the demand this spring has not fallen off but rather enlarged.
The assessment roll showed in 1887 21,683 acres set out in vines. Vitienlturists estimate that the planting of vines last season exceeded anything in the history of the county, being not less than 8,000 aeres. This would bring the acreage in vines up to 29,683 acres. As asses- sors' figures are generally below rather than above the facts, it is not stretching figures to estimate the total number of acres at 35,000,
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including table grapes and non-bearing first and second year vines from euttings or rooted plants.
The assessor's report shows the production of wine in 1856 by districts, was as follows: Cloverdale, 200,000 gallons: Geyserville, 150,- 000; llealdsburg, 200,000; Windsor, 150,000; Fulton. 40,000; Santa Rosa, 500,000; Fontain Grove, 80.000; Laguna and Korbell, 100,000: Sebastopol. 80,000; Petaluma, 40,000; Glen Ellen, 500,090; Los Gnilieos, 200,000; Sonoma. 1.000,000; Bennett Valley, 260,000. Total. 3,500,000 gallons.
The State Board of Equalization makes a very moderate estimate in giving the following report of the vines in Sonoma County: Table and raisin -- One year, fifty aeres; two years, 400 acres : five years, 1,450; total. 1.900. Wine grapes - One year, 7,000 acres; two years, 5.272 acres; three years. 3,640 acres: four years. 1.225 acres; five years, 6.046; total. 23,183: grand total. 25.083. It is, however. as the Board admits. the first in respect to the area, under wine grapes of any county in the State.
Sonoma County enjoys a perfect immunity from dronths, as the following metereological report will show:
In the records of Sonoma County since rain guages were established, we find that in 1853 '54. 29 inches fell in Santa Rosa, which city may be accepted as a central locality that gives the mean precipitation. leaving the wooded slopes facing the ocean out of consideration. In 1854-'55. 30 inches fell; in 1855-'56, 25 inches; in 1856-27, 25 inches: in 1857-'58, 23 inches; in 1858-59. 23 inches: in 1859-60, 21 inches; in 1860 '61, 17 inches; in 1861 -62, 46 inches; in 1862-63, 17 inches; in 1863 '64, 12 inches: in 1864-'65, 26 inches, and yet the two latter seasons were the driest ever known in California, and while the erops and grasses were an abso- Inte faihire in the great valleys and in all South- ern California, yet in Sonoma, especially in the latter year, and as regards other parts of the State. driest season ever known. the yield was enormons. In the seasons of 1865-'66. the fall
was 30 inches : in 1866-'67. 40 inches ; in 1867-65, 50 inches: in 1568-69. 26 inches; in 1869-70, 25 inches: in 1870-71. 17 inches: in 1871-'72. 40 inches: in 1872-'73, 21.58 inches: in 1873 '74. 29.54 inches; in 1874-75. 23.30 inches; in 1875-'76, over 32 inches, showing a mean annual rainfall in the twenty-three years of which we give a record, of over twenty-seven inches each season. with a maximum of fifty inches from autumn to spring, and a minimum of twelve inches. It has been truly said of Sonoma. that no erop ever failed for want of moisture. Corn is planted on the rich bottom lands in April, and though often it does not re- ceive one drop of rain after it appears above the ground. yiekls from eighty to 100 bushels to the aere.
Ilaving given a record of the rainfall for the twenty-three years beginning in the season of 1853-54, and ending with that of 1875-76, according to observations made in Santa Rosa, we will now give the record for the succeeding period of ten years, from 1876-'77 to 1885-'86, as observed at Petaluma, by Major James Sing- ley. at the office of the San Francisco & North Pacific Railroad Co. In the season of 1576- 77. 13.15 inches fell: in the season of 1877-75. 39.24 inches; in the season of 1878-79. 20.53 inches; in the season of 1879-80, 26.83 inches. in 1880-81, 24.55 inches; in 1581 -82. 17.04 inches; in 1852 '83, 19.15 inches; in 1883 -'84, 24.55 inches; in 1884 'S5, 14.96 inches, and in 1885-'86. 28.59 inches. In the ten rainy sea- sons, ending June 30, 1886, the average rainfall was 23.14 inches in the southern or Petulama end of the great valley.
While the above relates mainly to the annual direet prodnets of her soil, Sonoma County has a wealth in her forests and mines, the acenmu- lation of the ages. Previons to 1870, her lun- ber and timber industries were largely confined to her belt of seaboard, where water transporta- tion offered facilities for transportation of her forest products to market. The building of the Northern Pacific and the Coast Line Narrow Gange Railroads changed all this, for they pen-
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
etrated these fields of wealth, and soon the hum of hundreds of saws was heard where silence had reigned supreme for nntold ages. Else- where extended mention has been made of the magnitude of the forests of Sonoma County, also the process of manufacturing these giants of the forest into marketable lumber. Taking the wealth of these forests alone as represented by lumber, railroad ties, posts, pickets, cord- wood and tanbark, and it is immense, to say nothing about the untold wealth of minerals, that in time will be exploited from mines of en- during richness. The successful operations of the Mt. Jackson Quicksilver Mines in those wilds is tangible evidence of the hidden wealth locked up in those forest-clad mountains.
No section of California has acquired such fame in producing fine stock as Sonoma County, especially superior horses. Wherever you travel in California, in fact anywhere on the Coast, if you see a very fine animal, and inquire where it came from, the answer most likely will be Peta- luma or Santa Rosa. Bordering upon the bay, and with a large ocean frontage, with the ex- tensive bottom land, and grassy mountain slopes and hill sides, together with the regular period- ieity of rains, nearly all portions of this county are celebrated for producing fine horses, cattle and sheep. The hilly and lower mountain sec- tions of the northern part of the county are the wool growing districts. The section bordering on the Pacific is noted for dairying, while the sonthern bay section for producing fine horses. Two hundred and fifty carloads of live stock are shipped annually by railroad from this county. Sonoma County has been noted from its earliest settlement for the amount and superiority of its dairy products, which have always brought the highest prices in the San Francisco market. The annual yield of butter is about 1,500 tons, or 3,000,000 pounds, giving an income of over $600,000. Petaluma is one of the largest ship- ping points in the State, of dairy products.
In another place reference has been made to the basalt roek quarries of Sonoma County. In the past ten years the making of basalt paving
blocks for the San Francisco market has grown into a large and lucrative industry. These quarries are found near l'etaluma, Santa Rosa and Sonoma. From Santa Rosa they are shipped by rail to Tiburon, and thence by water to San Francisco. From Petaluma they are shipped direct by water, several schooners being required to do the carrying. From Sono. ma they are shipped by rail to a point on Peta- Inma Creek, below Tikeville, and from thence by water. From these three points the quanti- ty of paving blocks shipped annually amounts to many thousand carloads.
The present material wealth of Sonoma Coun- ty is best told in the annual report of the State Board of Equalization of California for the year 1888. As is well known. the assessed valuation of property is usually greatly under the real value. Sonoma is not an exception to the rule. The following figures are taken from the report:
Value of real estate, personal property, money, solvents and assessments of railroads, 830,121 .- 898, an increase of $3,000,000 over last year: number of acres sown to wheat, 19,840; oats, 4,960; barley, 24,950; eorn, 29,230; hay, 36,- 370: number of growing fruit trees, 946,800; number of acres of table grapes, 1,100; wine grapes, 22,345 acres: raisin grapes. 350 aeres.
But while we are thus careful to note the growth and material prosperity of Sonoma Com- ty, we are not unmindful of her educational and moral advancement. This has kept pace with her growth and development. The people with no niggard hand have liberally contributed to- ward the maintenance of all institutions that march in the van of a higher civilization. On every hand churches and school houses have multiplied, and now the county can boast of an educational system and organizations promotive of publie morals, second to none in the State.
That this is true is evidenced by the follow- ing:
We are indebted to Mrs. F. McG. Martin, County Superintendent of Publie Schools, for the following information on matters in her do- partment. There are 128 school districts and
.
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
the last census showed 8, 441 children between five and seventeen years of age. The value of the school buildings is 8225,121, exclusive of the $18,000 builling going up in Petaluma. The number of children enrolled in the public schools is 6,949 and the average attendance 4,- 326. Of high schools there are four, of gram- mar schools there are fifty-six. of primary 120. There are thirty-one male teachers and 149 ladies, making a total of 180. The average monthly salary of the male teachers is $74.19 and of the lady teachers is $53.51; 119 distriets maintain schools eight months and over in the year. The county school tax is fourteen cents on the $100 assessed value, which yields 842,- 345.40. The State apportionment is $54,000, which makes the total school income for county purposes $96.345.40.
In Santa Rosa Court Honse District, there are 1,400 children between five and seventeen and 469 under five years of age. The number of enrolled pupils of the public schools is 1,014 and the average attendance 723. The number of pupils attending private schools is 132 and the number attending no school is 261.
In Petaluma there are 1,046 children between five and seventeen years and under five 284. The number of scholars enrolled is 845, and the average attendance is 621. The number of scholars attending private schools is twenty-two. The number who have attended no school dur- ing the past year is 176.
In Healdsburg there are 455 children between five and seventeen years and 189 under five. The number between five and seventeen, who have attended school within the year is 400, be- sides fifty-two who have attended private schools. The number now enrolled in the pub- lie schools is 319 with an average attendance of 301. Ten white children and three Indians at- tended no school.
In Cloverdale there are 361 children between five and seventeen, of whom 273 are enrolled scholars, with an average daily attendance of 200 schola s. The number of pupils attend- ing private schools is twenty-five, and sixty- 1
three children attending no school during the year.
" In Sonoma City there are 336 children be- tween five and seventeen and under five years eighty-six. The rolls show that 140 have at- tended within the year and the average attend- ance has been 118. The number attending pri- vate achools is seventy-one and attending none 125."
The following are the names of the school dis- tricts of Sonoma County:
Alder Glen, Alexander, Alpine, American Valley, Austin Creek, Bay, Bliss, Bloomfield, Bodega, Burns. Burnside, Canfield, Cinnabar, Cloverdale. Coleman Valley, Copeland. Court House. Creighton Ridge. Davis, Dirigo, Dry Creek, Dunbar, Dunham. Eagle, Enterprise, En- reka, Fisk's Mills. Flowery, Fort Ross, Franz. Freestone. Fulton. Geyser Peak, Geyserville, Goodman. Grape. Green Valley, Gaulala, Guil- ford. llall, Hamilton, Harvey, Healdsburg. Ilearn, Hill, Horicon, Hnichica, learir, Inde- pendence, lowa, Jonive, Junction, Knight's Valley, La Fayette, Laguna, Lake, Lakeville. Laurel Grove, Lewis, Liberty, Llano, Lone Red- wood. Madrona. Manzanita, Mark West, Marin, Mayacama, Meeker, Mendocino, Mill Creek, Miriam. Monroe, Mountain, Mountain View. Mount Jackson, Mount Vernon, Muniz, Oak Grove, Occidental, Ocean, Ocean View, Oriental. Payran, Pena, Petaluma, Piner, Pine Ridge, Pine Mountain, Pleasant Ilill. Porter Creek. Potter, Redwood. Ridenhour, Rincon, Rodgers, Rose Hill, Russian River, San Antonio, San Luis, Santa Rosa, Seotta, Sheridan, Sonoma, So- toyome, Spring Hill, Star, Steuben, Stewart's Point, Stony Point, Strawberry, Summit, Sum- mit Point, Table Mountain, Tarwater, Timber Cove. Todd, Two Rock, Vine Ilill, Walker, Wal- lace. Washington, Watmangh, Watson, Wangh, Wheeler, Wilson, Windsor, Wright.
There are sixty churches in this county. rep- resenting the following religious denominations. with the number of organizations of each : Methodist Episcopal, 13; Methodist Episcopal Sonth, S: German Methodist, 2; Presbyterian,
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
9, with one mission: Catholic, 6; Christian, 7; Congregational, 3; Baptist, 3; Episcopal, 3, with two embryo; miscellaneous, 6; total, 60. with three embryo-missions.
In these chapters we have endeavored to faithfully delineate the progress made by So- noma Connty since it came under American occupancy. We found it a comparative wild. with elk, deer and antelope grazing in perfect security on the shores of San Pablo Bay, and we leave it with orchards and vineyards sur- rounding Cloverdale, a thriving incorporated town on her northern border. While we may seem to have been boastful of the progress made in less than four decades, yet we now cast the horoscope of the future of Sonoma County, and predict that the historian of her next four decades will have the pleasing task of recording more remarkable strides in growth and material prosperity than it has been our privilege to record ; for then thousands upon thousands of acres of land now used as sheep-walks and cow- pastures will be devoted to orchards and vines, and a happy. thrifty population will be found where now large land holdings present a bar to progress and development. The present large land-holdings is simply an aftermath of Spanish grante, and as those grants like the Roman Empire, tell to pieces of their own weight, so too will these accumulations of broad acres be a thing of the past within the next generation.
There is no extravagance in claiming that Sonoma County, as a whole, is one of the most favored counties in the State. For diversity of sonl, climate, scenery and productions, she can challenge comparison with almost any territory of like scope in the world. This, taken in eon- nection with her geographical position and ready facilities for rapid and cheap communica- tions with San Francisco, the great metropolis of the Pacific Coast, predestines her to grand achievements in the line of population and wealth. With her sonthern extremity washed by San Pablo Bay and a long stretch of her western border laved by the Pacific Ocean, and at short intervals coves and estuaries afford-
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ing safe mooring to coasting vessels, it gives a facility for cheap transportation which precludes the possibility of her ever being forced to pay tribute to exacting freight monopolies. In con- junction with these advantages her geographical position places her in a most favored situation as relates to rain and moisture. The unerring testimony of the weather gnage for a long series of years is that Sonoma County represents the equitable mean betwixt the excessive humidity of the northern tier of counties and the tendency to periodic droughts of the southern portion of the State. Ilere there is no scanning of the heavens with wistful gaze and the watching with solicitude every cloud that fleeks the sky wearied with conjecture as to whether or no seed time and harvest will come. With Sonoma County there never has been and never can be any fear of failure of crops on account of drought. There may be variableness of seasons and light crops contradistinction to heavy crops, but a total erop failure, never. Many there are in this county who, we apprehend, do not themselves fully appreciate the blessings they enjoy in this respect. Such have become so accustomed to gathering where they have not strewn, and reap- ing where they have not tilled, that they have come to accept these bounties as a right rather than a great and priceless boon to be thankful for. As yet our people have been mainly con- tent to gather the fat that has spontaneously exuded from an over generous soil. This skim- ming process has had its day and a new condi- tion of affairs is slowly but surely obtaining, and the adaptability of our soil to an almost infinite variety of products of farm, orchard and garden, cannot fail to invite a population such as will take advantage of all these favorable conditions and woo and win from the earth its yet reserved treasures. Our twenty-five miles of breadth and fifty miles of length of county is in itself'a principality in point of diversified re- sources. While our field for husbandry alone is ample to insure, in time, a dense population, yet we are possessed of other and inexhaustible sources of industry and wealth. Our vast red-
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