Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 28

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366

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Sixty years later Sebastian Viscaino's ships sailed through the channel. Padre de La As- cension, one of the three Carmelite friars ac- companying the expedition, December 4, 1602, writing a letter descriptive of the mainland and the islands of the channel, headed it Santa Barbara, in honor of Santa Barbara, virgin and martyr, whose day in the Catholic calendar is December 4.

Santa Barbara was born in Nicomedia, Asia Minor, and suffered martyrdom, Deceniber 4, A. D. 218, during the persecution of the Chris- tians under the Emperor Maximum. She is said to have been decapitated by her father, a Roman officer serving under the Emperor. One hun- dred and sixty-seven years after Viscaino's ex- płorations. Portala's expedition passed up the coast and through the valley where the city of Santa Barbara now stands. Through all these years the channel still retained the name given it by Padre de La Ascension, although so far as we know no ship's keel had cut its waters since Viscaino's time.

When the presidio was founded. April 21, 1782, the name of the fort, and of the mission that was to be, had already been determined. To Padre de La Ascension belongs the honor of naming the channel from which came the name of the presidio, the mission and the pueblo that grew up around these. When the county was formed naturally it took the name so long borne by the pueblo and the district over which it exercised jurisdiction.

ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY.

Santa Barbara is one of the original twenty- seven counties into which the state, or rather

the territory, of California (for it had not yet been admitted as a state of the Union) was di- vided by an act of the legislature. Approved February 18, 1850.

Section 4 of that act created the county of Santa Barbara. The boundaries as given in the act are as follows: "Beginning on the sea coast at the mouth of the creek called Santa Maria, and running up the middle of said creek to its source; thence due northeast to the summit of the Coast Range, the farm of Santa Maria fall- ing within Santa Barbara county; thence fol- lowing the summit of the Coast Range to the northwest corner of Los Angeles county ; thence along the northwest boundary of said county to the ocean and three English miles therein; and thence in a northerly direction parallel with the coast to a point due west of the mouth of Santa Maria creek : thence due east to the mouth of said creek, which was the place of beginning; including the islands of Santa Barbara, San Nicolas, San Miguel. Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and others in the same vicinity. The seat of justice shall be at Santa Barbara." By an act of the legislature of 1851-52 the boundaries of the county were more clearly defined and some slight changes made in the lines.

The legislature passed acts creating county organizations and providing for the election of county officers. The old system of municipal government that had been in force under Span- ish and Mexican rule and under the American rule from the time of the conquest was swept out of existence. In place of ayuntamientos and courts of first, second and third instance, and of offices of alcaldes, prefects, sub-prefects, regi- dores and sindicos were substituted district courts, courts of sessions, county courts, justices of the peace, common councils, mayors, sheriffs, district attorneys, treasurers, assessors, record- ers. surveyors, coroners and constables. To the natives who had been reared under the simple forms of early years the American system of government was complicated and confusing. An election for county officers was ordered held

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throughout the state on the first Monday of April, 1850; and the machinery of county gov- ernment was put into operation as speedily as possible. The transition from the old form to the new took place in Santa Barbara in Au- gust.

Henry A. Tefft was appointed judge of the second judicial district, which consisted of the counties of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. John M. Huddars acted as clerk of the court. At the April election Pablo de la Guerra, who had represented the Santa Barbara district in the constitutional convention, was chosen state senator and J. M. Covarrubias and Henry S. Carnes the first assemblymen.

Joaquin Carrillo was the first county judge and by virtue of his office presiding justice of the court of sessions. This court consisted of the county judge and two justices of the peace, who acted as associate justices. Besides its judicial duties it also fulfilled the functions of county government now performed by boards of super- visors. The first meeting of the court of ses- sions was held October 21, 1850, and its first recorded act was the ordering of a county seal. The design of the seal is described as follows: "Around the margin the words, county court of Santa Barbara county, with the following device in the center: A female figure holding in her right hand a balance and in her left a rod of justice; above, a figure of a rising sun; below, CAL. The associate justices at the first meet- ing of the court of sessions were Samuel Barney and William A. Streeter.

José A. Rodriguez, the first sheriff of the county, was killed in the fall of 1850 on the present site of the oil wells of Summerland while leading a party in pursuit of the murderers of the Reed family at San Miguel Mission. Ro- driguez was recklessly brave. The murderers had been surrounded. The members of the sheriff's posse hesitated to close in on them. Rodriguez, to inspire his men with courage, rushed in upon the murderers and, seizing one of them, pulled him from his horse. In the

scuffle the fellow shot and killed the sheriff. One of the desperadoes, endeavoring to escape, swam out to sea and was drowned. Three of them, Lynch, Raymond and Quin, were captured, taken to Santa Barbara and shot.

The first assessment of property was made by Lewis T. Burton, county assessor. The total value of all property in the county, real and personal, was placed at $992,676. Cattle were assessed at $8 per head, sheep at $3 per head and land at twenty-five cents per acre. The assessment list of Don José de la Guerra y No- riega is a good illustration of how the lands of the county had been monopolized by a

few men. Noriega owned the Conejo ran- cho, which contained 53,880 acres; the Simi, containing 108,000 acres ; Las Pasas, containing 26,640 acres; San Julian, 20,000; the Salsipu- edes, 35,200 acres ; a total of 243,120 acres ; the assessed value of which was about $60,000.

It took the new officers some time to become acquainted with the duties of the several offices. There was a disposition to mix American and Mexican law. In the county as in the city gov- ernment there were frequent resignations, and the officers changed from one official position to another. County officers held city offices and vice versa, sometimes by appointment and sometimes by election. Joaquin Carrillo, in 1852, was county judge and mayor of Santa Barbara city at the same time. J. W. Burroughs breaks the record as champion officeholder. He was elected sheriff in 1857; appointed recorder September 3, 1851 ; justice of the peace Septem- ber 16, 1857; acted as county clerk January 23, 1852, and was appointed treasurer April 14, 1852. January 29, 1851, he had been elected a member of the common council. He held six distinct offices within a little more than a year.

The frequent recurrence of the same family name in the lists of city and county officials might give rise to the charge of nepotism or a family political ring. The de la Guerras and the Carrillos were ruling families in Santa Barbara before the conquest and they continued to be for some time after. The first mayor of the city was a de la Guerra (Francisco). The first state senator was also a de la Guerra (Pablo). Don Pablo, although a bitter opponent to the Amer- icans during the war, after the conquest be- came thoroughly Americanized. He held many offices. He was a member of the constitutional convention, state senator, acting lieutenant-gov- ernor, mayor of Santa Barbara, councilman, su- pervisor and district judge. At a meeting of the court of sessions December 6, 1852, the judges of the court were Joaquin Carrillo, coun- ty judge: Pedro Carrillo and José Carrillo, asso- ciate justices.

In early days politics had very little to do with the selection of county officers. Fitness and family (particularly family) were the chief qualifications. It was urged against Don Pablo cle la Guerra when he was a candidate for dis- trict judge that in a great many cases which would come before him if elected he would be barred from sitting as judge because about half of the population of Santa Barbara county was related to him by blood or marriage. In 1852 District Judge Henry A. Tefft was drowned at Port San Luis while attempting to land from the steamer to hold court at San Luis Obispo. Joaquin Carrillo was elected district judge to

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fill the vacancy. He held office by appointment and election fourteen years. He did not under- stand English and all the business of the court was conducted in the Spanish language. Although not a lawyer his decisions were seldom over- ruled by the higher courts. Charles Fernald was appointed county judge to fill the vacancy caused by the promotion of Joaquin Carrillo. The first county building, a jail, was completed December 1, 1853. In 1853 the county was di- vided into three townships of about equal area. Township No. 1, elections held at San Buenaven- tura; No. 2 at Santa Barbara, and No. 3 at Santa Ynez. By act of the legislature of 1852-3 a board of supervisors was created for each county. This relieved the court of sessions of the legislative part of its duties. The first board of supervisors of Santa Barbara consisted of Pablo de la Guerra, Fernando Pico and Ramon Malo.

Up to 1856 Santa Barbara was solidly Demo- cratic in politics. The Whig party seems not to have gained a foothold. In local politics, fam- ily, as I have said before, was one of the chief requisites. So one-sided was the county politi- cally that at the state election of 1855 the super- visors in canvassing the vote recorded only the Democratic. The opposition vote seems not to have risen to the dignity of scattering.

November 27, 1855, the supervisors purchased the house of John Kays for a court house, pay- ing for it and the grounds $6,000. The county was now equipped with a court house and jail. The prisoners, who were mostly Indians, were not doomed to solitary confinement. The jail was not capacious enough to hold them. They were given employment outside. We find among the proceedings of the board of supervisors in 1856 an order to the sheriff to sell the adobes made by the prisoners at the county jail at not less than $2.50 per hundred.

CRIME AND CRIMINALS.

During the early '50s the coast counties were the scenes of many deeds of violence. The Argonauts who came to the state by the south- ern routes and the Sonorian migration traveled the coast road on their way to the mines. The cattle buyers coming south to the cow coun- ties to buy stock came by this route. The long stretches of unsettled country in Santa Bar- bara and San Luis Obispo counties gave the banditti who infested the trail an opportunity to rob and murder with but little fear of detec- tion.

The Solomon Pico band of outlaws was the first organized gang that terrorized the coast counties. Their victims were mostly cattle buy- ers. This gang was finally hunted down and

most of them died "with their boots on." Some of the remnants of this gang that escaped jus- tice and others of the same kind were gathered up by Jack Powers, who became the recognized leader of a band of robbers and desperadoes. Powers came to the coast as a member of Ste- venson's regiment. After his discharge front service he turned gambler and robber. Al- though it was known that he was implicated in a number of robberies and several miur- ders, he escaped punishment. He was arrested in 1856 when the vigilance committee was dis- posing of his kind. Although he was released he felt safer to be beyond the jurisdiction of the committee. He went to Sonora, Mexico, where lie stocked a ranch with stolen cattle. In a quar- rel with one of his men he was shot and killed. His body when found was half eaten by hogs.

Fear of the vigilance committee drove out of San Francisco in 1856 a number of undesir- able citizens. Among those who fled from the city was Ned McGowan, a notorious and dis- reputable politician, who, with several others of his kind, had been indicted by the grand jury of San Francisco county as accessory before the fact of the murder of James King of William. McGowan made his escape to Santa Barbara, where he was assisted and befriended by Jack Powers and some others whose sympathies were with the criminal element. The vigilantes chartered a vessel and sent thirty of their men, under the command of one of their captains, to capture him. McGowan's Santa Barbara friends, some of whom were wealthy and influential, kept him concealed until the vigilantes left. After the disbanding of the vigilance commit- tee McGowan's friends in the legislature se- cured the passage of a bill giving him a change of venue from San Francisco to Napa county. He was tried and acquitted mainly on the cvi- dence of one of the twenty-two doctors who at- tended King after he was shot. This physician testified that King was killed by the doctors and not by Casey.

Local vigilance committees, between 1855 and 1860, in Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Santa Cruz to a considerable ex- tent purified the moral atmosphere of these coast counties; but Santa Barbara, judging from a grand jury report made to the court of ses- sions in 1859, seems to have been immune from outbreaks of vigilantes. Says this report: "Thieves and villains of every grade have been from time to time upheld, respected, fostered and pampered by our influential citizens, and, if need be, aided and assisted in escaping from merited punishment due their crimes. * * Offenses, thefts and villainies in defiance of the * law. of every grade and character, from the

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horse and cattle thief to the highway robber and midnight assassin, have dwelt, to our knowledge, for the last five years in our very midst."

THIE DOWNFALL OF THIE CATTLE KINGS.

For a decade and a half after the discovery of gold in California the owners of the great ranchos of Santa Barbara continued, as they had been in the past, the feudal lords of the land. Their herds were more profitable than gold inines and their army of retainers gave them unlimited political power, which they did not always use wisely or well.

The high price of cattle, the abundant rain- fall of the years 1860-61-62 and the consequent luxuriant growth of grass led to an overstock- ing of the cattle ranges. When the terrible dry years of 1863 and 1864 came, the stockmen were in no condition to carry their numerous herds through the drought. "The county assess- ment roll of 1863 showed over 200,000 head of cattle in Santa Barbara county. This prob- ably was 100,000 less than the true number. When grass started in the winter of 1864-65 less than 5,000 head were alive. The great herds were gone, and the shepherd kings were kings no more, for their ranchos were mortgaged be- yond redemption, and in the next five years passed entirely out of their hands."*

The downfall of these feudal lords was, in- deed, pathetic. For nearly a century their an- cestors and they themselves had ruled the land. The transition of the country from the domina- tion of Spain to that of Mexico had not affected their rule. The conquering Saxon had come, but his advent had only increased their wealth without lessening their power; at least such was the case in the coast counties. The famine years and their own improvidence had at last undone them. In the days of their affluence they had spent lavishly. If money was needed, it was easy to negotiate a loan on their broad acres. Rates of interest in early times were usurious, ruinous. Five, ten and even fifteen per cent a month were no uncommon rates. Present needs were pressing and pay day was manaña (tomorrow). The mortgage, with its cancerous interest, was made and the money spent. So when the "famine years" swept away the herds and flocks there was nothing to sell or mort- gage to pay interest and the end came quickly. It was with the stoicism of fatalists that the great ranch owner viewed their ruin. They had be- sought the intercession of their patron saints for the needed rain. Their prayers had been unanswered. It was the will of God, why com-

plain? Thus do Faith and Fatalism often meet on a common plane.

During the next four or five years several of the great ranchos were subdivided, or segre- gated portions cut up into small tracts. When immigration began to drift into the coast coun- ties in the early '7os many of these small tracts in Santa Barbara were bought by eastern immi- grants and the transition from cattle-raising to grain-growing and fruit culture wrought a great change not only in the character of the prod- ucts, but in the character of the population as well.

The write-up of the climate and agricultural possibilities of the coast counties by Nordhoff and others, the judicious advertising of the re- sources of the county by J. A. Johnson, editor of the Santa Barbara Press (a paper established in 1868), increased steamer communication, and the prospects of a railroad down the coast, all combined, attracted settlers from Northern Cali- fornia and the eastern states. The price of land advanced and in 1874 the city and the county experienced their first boom. The dry year of 1876-77 checked the rising wave of prosperity, and disastrously affected the sheep industry, which since the "famine years" had to a consid- erable extent taken the place of cattle-raising. Business revived in the early '8os, and the county made good progress. The completion to Santa Barbara in 1887 of the southern end of the Southern Pacific Coast Railroad, and the prospect of an early closing of the gap between the northern and southern ends of that road gave the city and county their second boom. Real estate values went up like a rocket. In 1886 the county assessment roll footed up $8,585,485; in 1887 it went up to $15,035,982, an increase of seventy-five per cent in one year. When railroad building ceased the reaction came. Land values dropped, but the county continued to grow, notwithstanding the long and discouraging delay of fourteen years in clos- ing the gap in direct railroad communication between San Francisco and Santa Barbara. March 31, 1901, the first through trains from the north and the south passed over the com- pleted coast line of the Southern Pacific Rail- road. The event was not heralded by any great demonstration, nor was it followed by a land boom, as in 1887, yet there can be no doubt but that it marks the beginning of a new era in the growth and development of the city and county of Santa Barbara.

LOMPOC.

In August, 1874, the Lompoc Valley Com- pany, an incorporation, bought the ranchos Lompoc and Mission Vieja de La Purisima.

*Mason's History of Santa Barbara.

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containing a total of 45,644.49 acres. A consid- crable portion of these lands was divided into 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 acre tracts. One square mile about the center of the Lompoc valley and nine miles from the coast was reserved for a town site. The sale of the lands began No- vember 9, 1874. It had been widely advertised and attracted a large crowd. The capital stock of the company was divided into 100 shares of $5,000 each. While the sale was in progress shares rose to a premium of $1,000. During the sale about $700,000 worth of land and lots were disposed of. The average price of the farm land was $60 per acre. Some of the corner lots in the town site sold as high as $1,200.

Lompoc was founded as a temperance colony, and like all such colonies has had its battles with the liquor traffic. The first engagement was with a druggist, who was carrying on an illicit traffic in forbidden liquids. His place was invaded by a number of citizens and a Mrs. Pierce plied an ax on a 40-gallon cask of whis- key and flooded the store with the fiery liquid. The druggist drew a pistol and threatened to shoot the destroyers of his intoxicants, but, con- fronted by two hundred crusaders, he concluded that discretion was the better part of valor and put up his gun. Another engagement, which scored a "knock-out" for the opponents of the liquor traffic, took place on the evening of May 20, 1881. A bomb was thrown into the saloon of George Walker. Nobody was hurt, but the saloon and its contents were completely de- molished. The Lompoc Record, commenting on the "earthquake" (as the people facetiously called it), said: "Any one looking for a location for a saloon had better not select a community founded on temperance principles where the land is sold on express conditions that no liquor shall be made or sold thereon, where public sen- timent is so nearly unanimous against saloons and where 'earthquakes' are so prevalent and destructive." The seismic disturbances that shook up saloons in the early days of the colony have ceased. The crusaders have buried their lit- tle hatchets, but not in the heads of whiskey barrels. The report of the Santa Barbara Cham- ber of Commerce for 1901 says of Lompoc: "The liquor traffic is confined by license of $75 per month each to two saloons."

Lompoc is an incorporated city of the sixth class. It has a grammar school building, cost- ing $15,000; a union high school that, with its furnishings, cost $12,000; the Methodist North, Methodist South, Baptist, Christian, Presby- terian, Roman Catholic and Episcopal have each its own church building. A bank, mercantile houses, hotels, restaurants, blacksmith shops, creamery, livery stable, warehouses, fruit pack-

ing houses, etc., make up the business establish- ments of the town. Two weekly newspapers are published in the town, the Record and the Jour- nal. The Lompoc Record was established April 10, 1875, and is one of the oldest newspapers in the county.

GUADALUPE.

This town is ninety-five miles northwesterly from Santa Barbara on the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1872 John Dunbar opened a store at this point and was appointed postmaster when the post-office was established here. This was the beginning of the town. In 1874 it had grown to be a village of 100 houses. In 1875 a newspaper, the Guadalupe Telegraph, was es- tablished. It has now a bank, a hotel and sev- eral mercantile establishments. A spur of the Southern Pacific Railroad runs to the Union Sugar Factory at Batteravia.

BATTERAVIA.

The Union Sugar Factory at Batteravia was built in 1898 at a cost of $1,000,000. It em- ploys during the sugar-making season 500 men and works up 500 tons per day. The lime used in the manufacture of sugar from beets is burned and prepared for use at the factory. Last season the factory used 8,000 tons of lime. The company has a store, shops and boarding- houses at Batteravia.

SANTA MARIA.

Santa Maria, situated near the center of the Santa Maria valley on the Pacific Coast Rail- road, was founded in 1876. It is the business center of a rich agricultural district. A branch line of railroad, five miles long, extends to the sugar factory on Guadalupe Lake. The town has a grammar school employing five teachers and a union high school. It has a bank, three large mercantile establishments and several smaller ones. The community supports two weekly newspapers, the Santa Maria Times, founded in 1872, and the Graphic.

Los OLIVAS, founded in 1880, is the present terminus of the Pacific Coast Railroad and is a shipping point of considerable importance.

Los ALAMOS, founded in 1878, situated 011 the Pacific Coast Railway, midway between Santa Ynez and Santa Maria, has a population of about 300. It is the commercial outlet of an agricultural district of about 150,000 acres, most of which is grazing land.

SANTA YNEZ.

The village of Santa Ynez is situated in the midst of the Rancho Canada de Los Pinos or

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College ranch. The College ranch or grant was given to the padres in 1843 to found a college, hence the name. The town of Santa Ynez has an excellent hotel, a grammar school, a high school, stores, shops, etc .; also a weekly news- paper, The Santa Ynes Argus. It is surrounded by a large area of farming and grazing lands.

GOLETA is a small village eight miles to the northwest of Santa Barbara. The country around to a considerable extent is devoted to walnut-growing and olive culture.

EL MONTECITO (the Little Forest) is prop- erly a suburb of Santa Barbara. It is about four miles eastward of the city. The valley is nearly oval, and opens to the southwest on the sea. It contains an area of about nine square miles. It is divided into small tracts, and is a favorite place for the suburban residences of persons doing business in the city. The Santa Barbara Country Club's grounds are here. The cottages are built on a level bluff above the ocean. The club has its golf links, tennis courts, bath house, wharf for boating and other acces- sories tor pleasure and amusement.

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Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 28

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co. Number of Pages: 1366

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366