USA > California > Lassen County > Fairfield's pioneer history of Lassen County, California; containing everything that can be learned about it from the beginning of the world to the year of Our Lord 1870 Also much of the pioneer history of the state of Nevada the biographies of Governor Isaac N. Roop and Peter Lassen and many stories of Indian warfare never before published > Part 30
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Milford. Fairchilds and Washburn divided up their prop- erty, the former taking the sawmill and the latter the real estate. Washburn at once went into partnership with his brother, Freeman C., and this year they built the first black- smith shop in Milford. It was on the south side of the road a little east of the creek and Charles Batterson was the first blacksmith.
This year and perhaps the next J. N. Pine and H. W. Wal- bridge kept a sort of store near the Soldier bridge. John D. Kelley and Hiram Winchel claimed a tract of land near the lake.
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It was the northern part of the location made by John M. Kelley in 1859. H. E. Lomas says that there was at Shaffer's this year the station and its buildings, his cabin and blacksmith shop, and a house that belonged to D. I. Wilmans and John Bass. Some one laid out a town there and its future looked promising. They came to him and wanted him to choose a name for the place. He told them that it was usually spoken of as "Lathrop's," so why not call it "Lathrop." Instead of calling it that they called it "Lathrop City" and he thinks the name was too much for it, for the place died a natural death. In December Daniel C. Wheeler and two Germans whose names he has forgotten located a section of land where Amedee now stands and to the south of it. During the winter of 1861-62 the high water had carried a good many fence rails down the river into the lake and these had drifted over to the east side of it. The next spring they hired a man to haul these rails and with them they fenced their land on three sides, the lake making a fence for the other side. After the fence was completed Wheeler traded his part of the property for some other land that the three of them owned together. In 1868 he came back to this county with sheep and in a few years bought a ranch three miles south of Susanville. Ever since that time he has been a prominent sheep owner of this county and western Nevada. The Germans improved the land on the lake and then sold out to Pearson and Sutherland.
Toadtown. Under this head it should have been told that in the fall of 1863 a small schoolhouse was built on the site of the present one and that the first school in Toadtown was taught there by Daniel Murray during the winter of 1863-64.
Long Valley. David Cameron bought in with Hood on the Hot Spring ranch. Frank Williams located a tract something like a mile and three quarters northeast of the above ranch and three and a half miles south of the Warm Springs ranch. Osmer Marsh bought the Warm Springs ranch, but the Robinsons kept the land they claimed to the south of it, including what was afterwards known as the James Miller place. Some claim that Williams and Marsh went into the valley the previous year. John W. Doyle and Henry Berryman came into the valley and the former took up a ranch to the north of the Jacob McKissick place. Albert E. Ross bought the place where the Kearns cabin was, about one and three fourths miles east of the Evans ranch.
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Willow Creek. During the summer a party crossed the plains under the leadership of a man named Lee. He had several sons- in-law, and they and the old man laid out a town in the upper end of the valley. It was on the south side of the creek about a hundred yards below where it comes out of the timber and was called "Leesburg." They built four or five cabins and lived there nearly a year, but no boom struck the place and they departed for a warmer climate. In the fall P. D. Hurlbut and Lewis Knudson claimed some land on the north side of the valley and three miles from the lower end of it, but probably they made no improvements this year.
The only change in Mt. Meadows was that the Quinns sold out to a man named Seaman who lived there with his wife for a year or two.
Tunison says that several parties went into Surprise valley this year to settle. If they reached there, it is doubtful if they stayed the following winter or made any improvements.
The following settled in the county in 1863, and the length of residence applies to those whose names are given and their wives.
The following lived here all the rest of their lives or are living here at present. Clinton De Forest and Family, Alvin E. De Forest, Thomas J. French, William S. Brashear, John Decious and Family, Adam D. Elledge and Family, Francis M. Elledge, David Johnston and Family, James Haley and Wife, H. N. Haley and Family, Antone Bantley, P. D. Hurlbut and Family, John W. Hosselkus, Mrs. Sarah Laird (afterwards Mrs. C. T. Emerson and Mrs. J. W. Hosselkus) and Family, Mrs. Mary Harris and Family, George H. Dobyns and Family, James R. Cain, Henry Berryman, James Trussell, Samuel Trotter, Mrs. Samantha Fletcher (Mrs. Jeremiah Tyler) and Family, Isaac S. Wright, Samuel Johnson, Lewis Knudson, C. W. Wooton and Family, Henry C. Stockton and Family, John W. Doyle, William Greehn, Jeremiah Baldwin and Family, Mrs. Frances Shaw (Mrs. J. P. Garrett) and Family, and Rufus Kingsley and Wife. The following lived in the county from twenty years to almost a lifetime. H. K. Cornell and Family, James L. Haley, Mrs. Amos Conkey, David Cameron and Family, James M. Stein- berger and Family, Lorenzo H. De Forest, Joseph W. Decious, William I. Decious, and James Ridgeway and Family.
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The following lived in the county from two or three to fifteen years. Andrew Miller, Matthew McCulley, John McCulley, *Lee Button, Franklin Dewitt and Family, James Christie and Family, Andrew J. Downing, George W. Downing, Alfred Hill, *John Malise and Wife, Thomas Harris, James M. Wiggin, Chappel M. Kelley, Robert Briggs, S. K. Shannon, John D. Putnam and Family, John Lambert, Henry Tussler, Elijah Tussler, Daniel C. Wheeler, J. D. Peer and Family, "Frank Williams, John Mc- Naughten, Samuel McNaughten, J. M. McNaughten, *Bascom D. McColm, Richard Withy, H. W. Walbridge and Wife, J. N. Pine, W. H. Van Alstyne, Mark Stewart, W. W. Clemmons, Mrs. Jane Bryant (Mrs. M. C. Lake) and Family, George W. Long, J. I. Steward and Family, *Henry H. Wright, Amos Roach, *Robert McBeth, Nathaniel Winn, *Lawrence Fritz and Wife, *William Waterland and Family, *J. B. Ball (Ball's Canyon was named after him), Mathias Glazier, *E. Fitzgerald, Henry H. Reppert, Daniel Reppert, John Reppert, Hiram Teft and Family, Samuel Latten and Family, Samuel Read and Wife, S. J. Eldridge, Sarah E. De Forest (Mrs. Cyrus Lawson), Andrew J. Hunt, and Austin Byrd.
NEVADA TERRITORY. AND HONEY LAKE POLITICS. 1863
Judge Mott came to Susanville and on January 20th admin- istered the oath of office to the county officers elected the pre- vious September. He also held a term of the district court, but there were no cases to be tried and court was adjourned until the next regular term.
THE SAGE BRUSH, OR BOUNDARY LINE, WAR
The following was written from the narratives of William Dow, Fred Hines, V. J. Borrette, Dr. H. S. Borrette, William W. Kellogg, Allen Mead, John W. Stark, John S. Shook, Mrs. A. T. Arnold, A. L. Tunison's diary, Thompson and West's History of Nevada, and the History of Plumas, Lassen, and Sierra Counties. The names of some others who furnished information are given further on.
Roop county was promptly organized by the newly appointed officers, and it was not long before trouble commenced with the authorities of Plumas county. Hon. John S. Ward, probate judge of Roop county, issued an injunction restraining William
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J. Young from acting in his official capacity. Young, who lived in Susanville, had been elected a justice of the peace for Plumas county the year before. He paid no attention to the injunction and Ward fined him $100 for contempt of court. Then Hon. E. T. Hogan, county judge of Plumas county, issued an order restraining John S. Ward and William Hill Naileigh (Cap. Hill), sheriff of Roop county, from exercising jurisdiction in any way in Honey Lake valley. They refused to obey this order and Judge Hogan issued warrants for their arrest. This was on Wednesday, the fourth of February, and the next day Sheriff E. H. Pierce and his deputy, J. D. Byers, started for Susanville to serve them. On Friday an injunction issued from Judge Ward's court was served on him by William K. Parkinson, a deputy sheriff of Roop county. This injunction restrained Pierce from exercising jurisdiction over any portion of Roop county. It must have been while the two Plumas county officers were here this time that Byers snatched a warrant from the hands of a Roop county officer just as he was about to serve it. He was arrested upon the charge of having obstructed an officer in the discharge of his duty and was defended by Israel Jones, a young lawyer who had taken the Plumas county side of the controversy. He secured the release of Byers by bringing the warrant into court and showing that the Roop county judge had, in his haste, neglected to sign it. Pierce paid no attention to Ward's injunc- tion, and on Saturday he arrested Cap. Hill and sent Byers to Ward's residence to arrest him and bring him to the Lanigar ranch about four miles south of Susanville, and this Byers did. There they had to wait a short time for a horse for Ward to ride, and Pierce, Cap. Hill, and two witnesses started ahead, leaving orders for Byers to come on with Ward as soon as the horse came. While this was going on the Never Sweats had not been idle. Governor Roop with six men followed the Plumas county officers, but before they had gone very far they met John Dow on horse- back with an ax on his shoulder and he went with them. It is impossible to tell who all the men with Roop were. G. R. Lybar- ger says he knows positively that Robert and George Johnston were with him and John Dow certainly was. There is a proba- bility that the other four were among the following: C. C. Wal- den, Dave Blanchard, Luther Spencer, Joe Hale, Henry Arnold, and Alec Brown. Before they got to the Lanigar ranch Roop
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halted his men and went on ahead. Byers and Ward were still there, but were just ready to leave, and when the latter attempted to mount his horse Roop stopped him. Roop and Byers then had a row and their talk had almost reached the shooting point when (so Freeman Lanigar says) Francis Lanigar, who was standing near, said "Gentlemen, remember that you are both Masons." They then cooled down and Byers and his prisoner started up the trail toward Indian valley. Roop went back and got his men, started in pursuit, and overtook them at the foot of the moun- tain. They surrounded them and Byers, seeing it was useless to resist, made some jesting remark about being unable to fight men armed with axes and gave himself up. Roop started back with his prisoner and when they got to the Lanigar ranch Byers sent a man after Pierce with a note telling him what had hap- pened. The Honey Lake people say that Byers was taken to Susanville at once. Byers told the writer that he went to Rich- mond and stayed there until the next day, holding Ward as his prisoner all the time, but finally released him on parole. Hines says he was at Richmond the next day (Sunday) after Byers was captured and both men were there then. Perhaps the others forgot about that part of it. There was no place in Susanville where Byers could be kept in confinement, probably they didn't want to do it anyway, so they put him in charge of Miss Susan Roop who had come to Honey Lake from the East the first part of January. He was to board at Roop's and report to the young lady once in a while. He was allowed to go around town where he pleased, so he visited with his friends and acquaintances and waited for the next move in the game.
When Pierce got Byers's note he released Cap. Hill on parole, and forcing his way through the deep snow on the mountain, went to Quincy as soon as he could. Without any loss of time he raised a posse of, Stark says, 93 men in American valley and fifteen or twenty more joined them in Indian valley. Two or three days after the first posse started twenty men more fol- lowed them with a small cannon. Mr. Stark, the son of Squire Lewis Stark, who with a Mexican helper and eight or ten mules packed their outfit, says they went from Taylorville to the Presby place, seven miles from the upper end of the North Arm of Indian valley, the first day. Allen Mead of Taylorville, who was one of the posse, says some of them stayed at the Presby place
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and the rest stayed at the James Ford ranch in the upper end of the North Arm. William W. Kellogg, who was with the party as one of Pierce's deputies, says that the crowd met at the James Ford ranch instead of Taylorville. N. B. Forgay of Greenville says that there were only 45 men who left Taylorville, that there was no second posse, and that they started from Taylorville at two P. M. and reached Honey Lake the next morning at six o'clock. Mr. Forgay also came over with the Plumas men. This shows how men who are trying to tell the truth differ in their stories fifty years after an event has taken place. They must have had a hard time getting over the mountain. Stark says they stayed a day or two at the Presby ranch breaking a road through the snow so they could get over the mountain in one day, and they almost ate Presby out of house and home. They got to the Lan- igar ranch on Friday, the 13th, and camped there for the night. Pierce with three or four men immediately went to Susanville and arrested Ward and Cap. Hill again, but released them with the understanding that they should give themselves up whenever he wanted them. He then returned to camp.
The news that Ward and Hill had been arrested again spread rapidly and about nine o'clock that night some men from Toad- town went to Susanville and there were joined by others until there was a party of thirteen men. A. L. Tunison, Byron B. Gray, Luther Spencer, Captain Weatherlow, V. J. Borrette, Dr. H. S. Borrette, and Charles White were among them, and it is probable that Henry Arnold, Thomas Bare, either John or Wil- liam Dow, Dr. Z. N. Spalding, and Frank Strong were there, too. These men took Ward and Hill into the cabin on the east side of Weatherlow street that Roop had built in 1854 and stood guard over them that night.
The next morning about ten o'clock, or a little later, Pierce and his men reached town. They crossed the river at the ford a couple of hundred yards above where the bridge is now and came along Weatherlow street until they reached Main street. They found a line drawn across Weatherlow street on the north side of Main and four or five Never Sweats standing near it. It is said that Bare was one of them and that he told Pierce if they came any nearer they would be fired on from the fort, i. e., the Roop cabin. Stark thinks it was Cornelison who did the talking. Pierce and his men then went up Main street and camped at Went-
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worth's feed stable near the southeast corner of Lassen and Nevada streets. Nothing was done that day but to parley a little. Ward and Hill said they could not give themselves up because their friends would not let them, and the men in the fort posi- tively refused to let Pierce have them. There was no trouble of any kind that day and no doubt the Plumas men went where they pleased. They went to the ponds in the yard of the Roop resi- dence on Main street to water their horses. One of them, Wil- liam Bradford, asked Miss Roop how many men there were in the fort and she told him that there were a hundred. He said they could not stay there long and she replied that he need not fool himself for they had plenty of provisions. After the fight was over and he knew how many men there were in the fort at first, they talked about it again. He reminded her of what she had told him, and she asked him if he thought she was "emigrant" enough to tell him all she knew about it. (In early days a person was an "emigrant" until he had been in California a year, and was supposed to be "green" in mind and body. It was even claimed that he could not do so much work as a Californian.)
Susanville had grown to be quite a little town. It extended from Weatherlow to Lassen one way, and from Nevada to Mill the other. On Main street there were a few buildings on two blocks still further west and four dwelling houses on the south side of Mill street between Weatherlow and Gay. There were two hotels and a restaurant, two saloons, five stores, one of them a drug store, or rather a store where patent medicines were sold, a gallery where pictures were taken, a barber shop, one or two shoe shops, two livery and feed stables, and thirteen or fourteen houses and cabins, and from its location it seemed as though in time it would be the principal town in this part of the country.
The Sage Brush War was a queer one. Honey Lake valley at this time had quite a population and only forty or fifty men, or something like that, were fighting Plumas county. Many of them were old time Never Sweats, men who came into the valley during the first days of its settlement. For reasons heretofore given they had been fighting Plumas county ever since and were going to keep it up until the end. Only half a dozen of those who took part in the fight had come into the valley after 1860. This applies to those who went into the fort. A good many peo- ple in the valley were in sympathy with the Plumas county
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authorities, and others would have nothing to do with the trouble. The "war" was a good deal like two men fighting in the street, and while some few people looked on and took sides in the matter, travel along the street and business went on as usual. It has been told that the people of this valley had little or no personal feel- ing against the officers of Plumas county. In a letter to the writer Mr. Kellogg says "I will add that during all of the time of the trouble with Roop county, etc., Mr. Pierce and myself were personally treated most gentlemanly by the people there. We were very friendly. Nothing was said or done to mar any friendship." It was the same in the case of the other officers. The posse was largely composed of men who had relatives, friends, or acquaintances here. They came with the belief that there would be no fighting and that the people here were just "run- ning a bluff." When they got here and found that the Honey Lakers were in earnest and that they would have to shoot at people whom they liked, they were sorry that they were here. Perhaps they were also sorry because those people were going to take a shot at them.
That night the Honey Lakers sent out for assistance. A. W. Worm says he rode all night looking for recruits. On the morn- ing of the 15th there were something like thirty men at the fort, and not many more than that at any time during the day. Ross Lewers says there were only thirty-two. These were the hundred men that Pierce told about in his report. Some of them were in the fort, some at the south end of it behind some logs they had piled up there, and some in a log house about sixteen feet south of the fort. This log house had been built a few feet high and then left. The fort was 16 by 24 feet on the inside and eight feet high at the corners, and would not hold a hundred men if they were cut up and packed into it. As nearly as can be told at this time the men at the fort the day of the fight were Rough Elliott, Captain Weatherlow, Cap. Hill, William Dow, Fred Hines, John Dow, A. L. Tunison, John S. Ward, Frank Strong, Henry Arnold, V. J. Borrette, Dr. H. S. Borrette, E. G. Bang- ham, Dr. Z. N. Spalding, W. K. Parkinson, Robert Johnston, A. B. Jenison, B. B. Gray, John S. Shook, Charles White, Luther Spencer, Thomas Bare, S. J. Hill, J. W. San Banch (Buckskin), E. L. Varney, Al. Leroy, Alec. Brown, Amzi Brown, Joseph Bel- knap, Wiley Cornelison, Dr. P. Chamberlain, Samuel Marriott,
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Dave Blanchard, and Ross Lewers. Governor Roop was at the fort part of the time during the day. The rest of the time he was trying to effect a compromise and stop the fighting. No one but Mr. Forgay seems to be able to remember the names of many of the Plumas men. He gives the following list: D. Chapman, H. Carrol, Amos Reeves, Jack Cunningham, Levi Wilcox, Miller, Horace Bradford, Jack Kensey, Ob. Fields, - Jackson, Jasper Palmer, Al. Boyd, N. B. Forgay, Robert Varner, Ben. Payne, R. Grabel, John Pope, "Kentuck" Harris, Oscar Peck, Ely Campbell, Edward Davis, Jacob Jordan, John Pettinger, John Ratliffe, Alex Moore, Samuel Grass, Thomas True, - Winchen, and Leroy Jennings.
Captain William N. De Haven was one of them and the names of some of the others are given in the narrative.
The Honey Lakers elected Rough Elliott captain, and he acted in that capacity during the fight, though he consulted with the other men. They took up the floor of the fort, set some posts a little ways from the walls, and nailed the planks to them. They then filled the space between with earth, and this protected them from bullets as long as they kept behind it.
Between nine and ten o'clock Sunday morning, the 15th, Pierce with part of his men came down and took possession of a frame barn that stood just north of the Cutler Arnold log hotel. This barn was about the middle of the lot at the southeast corner of Union and Nevada streets, and was between 150 and 160 yards southwest of the fort. As the inch boards with which the barn was covered were a poor protection against bullets, they pro- ceeded to fortify themselves by pulling up the floor of the barn and nailing it against the side next to the fort. There were some long hewed timbers about a foot square not far from the barn and they concluded to use them in their fortification. There was a little snow on the ground and Kellogg with seven men, he says, went out with a rope and tied it to one of them, intending to snake it on the snow to the barn. Some say they got one stick and had gone back for another one when Elliott stood up on the logs at the south end of the fort and told them if they tried to take that timber to the barn they would be fired on. They paid no attention to what he said and started with it. Several men at the fort shot at them and William Bradford fell with a bullet in his thigh. They went on with the timber and Kellogg went back
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after Bradford. Some say that they took two sticks of timber to the barn and piled them up in front of it, and others say they never got the second stick to the barn. When the Honey Lakers fired the Plumas men returned the fire and the battle was on. The shooting continued for four hours or more, but the most of it was at random. As a rule, the Never Sweats fired at the barn and the other side fired at the fort. Both sides were well pro- tected, if they kept behind their fortifications, and the men in the barn were so careful to do this that none of them were hurt during the fight. There was one man, however, on the Plumas side who did not shoot at random. A man whose name was Arch. Little, Stark says, lay behind something at the northeast corner of the barn and shot to kill. Hines and Strong were behind the logs at the south side of the fort and whenever this man saw the spaces between the logs darken he fired at that place. He did such good shooting that he drove those two men away from there and they went to the north side of the fort. While they were there he, or some one else, fired a bullet that either grazed Strong's shoulder, or tore off a piece of a log that struck him on the shoulder making it black and blue. There was a window in the side of the fort next to the enemy and a door opposite to it. Whenever the door was opened the men in the barn could see through, and they shot at the window when it looked as though there was somethng between it and the door. Dr. Borrette's coat was hanging near the door and several bullets went through it. Charles White was sitting in the fort and a bullet came through the window or between the logs and went through his leg just above the knee. It was only a flesh wound, but he went on crutches for a while. V. J. Borrette was standing up looking at the barn through a crack when a bullet knocked some of the chinking out from between the logs and hit him in the stomach. He "doubled up like a jackknife" and it was some time before he could get his breath. While Hines and Strong were at the north end of the fort they saw Byers going toward the rear end of Neale and Harvey's store. Hines told the other man to take a shot at him, but he refused to do it. Hines told him they had brought men in from Plumas to shoot them and he could not see why it was not right for the Honey Lakers to shoot at any of them, and he was going to shoot at him anyway. It was a long shot for a gun of those days, for the store was on Main street
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almost at the upper end of the block above the barn, but the bullet tore up the ground just behind Byers who got into the store without any loss of time. A year or two after this when Byers was sheriff of the county, he was passing along the road where Hines was building a fence. As he passed he sighted along the fence and said "Fred, that is a straight fence. A man who can build a fence like that ought to be able to shoot pretty straight." Hines laughed and told him that at one time he thought he was a pretty good shot. Probably some one had told Byers where that shot came from. The men at the fort saw John H. Neale, who was a friend to the Plumas county authorities, going from his house south of the Arnold hotel toward the store. Some one said "Let's scare him a little and make him hurry up." A few of them fired at the ground close to his feet and he took con- siderable interest in getting out of the way, much to their amuse- ment and very little to his own. At that time some of the towns- people used to come for water to a spring on the north side of Main street and south of the fort. While the shooting was going on the men in the fort would dodge out to the unfinished cabin and then along under the hill to the spring, and find out from the people who had come for water what was going on in town. Ward was just going out there when Hines stopped him and told him about the man who was doing the good shooting on the other side. He also told him to be very careful to stoop low when he went from the fort to the cabin. Ward heeded the warning as he was going out and got under the hill in safety, but coming back he didn't keep down and a bullet struck him. It went under the collar bone and made quite a bad wound. Brad- ford had been taken to the Brannan hotel and Miss Roop, who was somewhat experienced as a nurse, was taking care of him. Ward was taken to Roop's residence and she took care of him, too. A. W. Worm started for Janesville after Dr. Slater and was captured by Kellogg, but when he told his errand he was allowed to go his way.
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