USA > California > El Dorado County > Historical souvenir of El Dorado County, California : with illustrations and biographical setches of its prominent men & pioneers > Part 10
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Los Angeles county was named from the city (Ciu- the word is unknown.
42
HISTORY OF EL DORADO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
Shasta, the name of a tribe that lived at the base of the lofty peak, going by the same name.
Calaveras, so named by Captain Moraga, on account of an inimense number of skulls found in the vicinity of a stream which he called " Calaveras," (the river of skulls). This is the reputed site of a terrible battle between the mountain and valley Indians, over the fishing question.
San Joaquin, after the river, so named by Captain Moraga, in honor of the legendary father of the Virgin.
Tuolumne, a corruption of an Indian word signify- ing a cluster of stone wigwams.
Mariposa, signifies butterfly. So called by a party of hunters, who camped on the river in 1807, and ob- served the trees gorgeous with butterflies.
Trinity, called after the bay of that name, which was discovered on the anniversary of Trinity festival.
On March 2d, the legislature passed another act, authorizing the first county elections to take place on April Ist, and after a session of four months, during which time one hundred and forty laws were passed, that were supposed to cover the requirements of the time completely, the legislature adjourned, April 22d, 1850.
The bill for the admission of California as a state passed the senate August 13th, notwithstanding the senators from the South almost unanimously voted against it on account of the slavery clause in the con- stitution ; the bill passed the lower House September 7th, and was signed by President Filmore on the 9th the same month.
The first news of the passage of the California Ad- mission Act arrived in San Francisco October 18, 1850, by the steamer Oregon, General Bidwell being the bearer.
GOVERNORS OF CALIFORNIA.
AMERICAN RULE-TERRITORIAL.
Commodore John I). Sloat, July 7th, 1846 to Au- gust 17th, 1846.
Commodore Robert F. Stockton, August 17th, 1846, to January 16th, 1847.
Colonel John C. Fremont, January 16th, to March Ist, 1847.
General Stephen W. Kearney, March Ist, to May 3Ist, 1847.
Colonel Richard B. Mason, May 31st, 1847, to February 28th, 1849.
General Persifer F. Smith, February 28th, to April 13th, 1849.
General Bennett Riley, April 13th, to December 20th, 1849.
AMERICAN RULE-STATE.
*Peter H. Burnett .... Inaugurated, Dec. 20, 1849.
John McDougall
Jan. 9, 1851.
John Bigler
Jan. 8, 1852.
John Bigler . Inaugurated Jan. 8, 1854.
J. Neely Johnson.
Jan. 8, 1856.
John B. Weller Jan. 8, 1858. 66
*Milton S. Latham.
Jan. 8, 1860.
John G. Downey. Jan. 14, 1860
Leland Stanford.
Jan. 8, 1862.
tFrederick F. Lowe ..
66
Dec. 5, 1867.
*Newton Booth. Dec. 8, 1871.
Romualdo Pacheco ...
Feb. 27, 1875.
William Irwin.
66
Dec. 9, 1875.
George C. Perkins ...
Jan. 8, 1879.
George Stoneman .
Jan. 8, 1883.
POPULATION OF CALIFORNIA.
COUNTIES.
1851.
1870.
1880.
Alameda,
24,237
62,972
Alpine,
685
539
Amador
9,582
11,386
Butte,
4,786
11,403
18,721
Calaveras,
16,884
8,895
9,094
Colusa, (incl. Shasta & Trinity in 1850)
1,152
6,165
13, 1IS
Contra Costa,
722
8,461
12,525
Del Norte,
2,022
2,584
El Dorado,
20,785
10, 309
10,685
Fresno, . Humboldt
6,140
15,510
Inyo,
1,956
2,928
Kern.
2,925
5,601
Klamath, (by Act of March 28 1874 the
Territory of this county was annexed to Humboldt and Siskiyou)
1,686
Lake,
2,969
6,596
Lassen,
1,327
3,340
Los Angeles,
15,309
33.379
Marin,
323
6,903
11,325
Mariposa,
4,400
4,572
4,339
Mendocino,
56
7,545
12,800
Merced, .
2,807
5,656
Modoc, (formed from eastern
part
of Siskiyou) .
4,399
Mono, ..
430
7,499
Monterey,
1,872
9,876
11,302
Napa,
414
7,163
13.225
Nevada, .
19, 1 34
20,827
Placer,
11,357
14,226
Plumas,
4,489
6, 180
Sacramento,
11,000
26,830
34,39I
San Benito, (formed from eastern parl of Monterey.)
3,988
7,786
San Diego,
4,951
8,618
San Francisco,
21,000 149.473 233,956
San Joaquin, .
4,000
21,050
24,354
San Luis Obispo,
336
4,772
9, 142
San Mateo, ..
1,185
7,784 9,522
Santa Clara,
3.502
26,246
35,939
Santa Cruz,
674
8,743
12, 80I
Shasta, (incl. Trinity and Colusa)
1,152
4,173
9,492
Siskiyou,
580
16,871
18,475
Sonoma,
561
19,819
25,926
Sutter,
3,030
5.030
5,159
Tehama,
3,587
9. 302
Trinity, (incl. Colusa and Shasta).
1,152
3,213
4,998
Tulare,
4,533
11,281
Tuolumne.
8,150
7,848
Ventura, (formed from eastern part of Santa Barbara)
5.073
Yolo, ... ...
1,003
9,899
11,772
Yuba,
19,032
10,851
11,270
Total.
117,297
560, 247|864,686
Sierra,
5,619
6,623
6,848
8,610
Solano,
6,499
8,751
Stanislaus,
6,635
8,669
Santa Barbara,
5,584
San Bernardino,
6,336
9,478
Dec. 2, 1863.
Henry H. Haight .
* Resigned. t Office term of Governor increased from 2 to 4 years.
43
EARLY CONDITION. INHABITANTS. EXPLORATIONS.
The census of 1850 was rendered by Census Agent J. Neely Johnson, on April 10, 1851, to the Legislat- ure in session. The north boundary of the State had been so undefined that a large population on Klam- ath river was not enumerated, being supposed to be comprehended in the Territory of Oregon.
CHAPTER XII.
EARLY CONDITION -- INHABITANST. EXPLORATIONS IN CALIFORNIA.
Animal Life, Mammiferous and Fowls-The Indians -Their Characteristics by Different Travelers - Habitation, Food, Clothing-Their Family Life-Other Habits, Hair Cutting, Painting, Tattooing-Their Fondness for Ornaments-In- dustry-Faith and Burying Their Dead - Their Signal Fires-Gluttonous Habits-Temes chals -Appearance of the First Trappers-J. S. Smith -- Alexander R. McLeod- Joseph R. Walker-The Truckee River-Stephen H. Meek -Wilke's Expedition, the Detachment Under Lieutenant George F. Emmons-First Emigrant Company Under Captain Bartelson-Another Emigrant Company Under William Workman.
When first visited by the Spaniards, California abounded in wild animals, some of which are now extinct. Of one of these, called by Spanish people "berendo," and by the natives "taye," Father Venegas says: "It is about the bigness of a calf a year and a half old, resembling it in figure except in the head, which is like that of a deer, and the horns very thick like those of a ram; its hoof is large, round and clo- ven, and its tail short." This was the Argali, a species intermediate between the goat and sheep, living in large herds along the foot of the mountains, supposed to be a variety of the Asiatic argali.
On his journey from Monterey to San Francisco, Father Serra met with herds of immense deer, which the men mistook for European cattle, and wondered how they got there. Several deer were shot whose horns measured eleven feet from tip to tip.
Another large animal which the natives called "cibalo," the bison, inhabited the great plains, but was eventually driven off by the vast herds of domestic cattle. When Langsdorff's ship was lying in the bay of San Francisco, in 1804, sea-otters were swimming about so plentifully as to be nearly unheeded. The Indians caught them in snares or killed them with sticks. Perouse estimated that the presidio of Monte- rey alone could supply ten thousand otter skins annu- ally, worth twenty dollars and upwards apiece.
Captain Beechey in 1824, estimated the annual ex- port of skins (of sea-otter, beaver, etc.) to number 2,000, and he points to the indolence and ignorance of the Californians shown in the incident that the
rivers abounded with these animals, but they bought the skins from the Russians, paying twenty dollars and upwards apiece for them.
Upper California, when first visited by the mission- aries under Spanish protection, was inhabited by the same race of men as the lower provinces. The na- tives of Upper California, however, differed somewhat both in physical character and customs, from their southern brethren; but hardly more than what they varied one from another in the different districts. They were acknowledged to be a timid and feeble race by all who had a chance to compare them with the hardy red men of the northwestern plains of North America.
From the accounts given by the missionaries, whose travels were chiefly undertaken with the intention of converting the natives, and for this purpose fixed on the proper places to plant missions, it appears that the borders of the Rio Gila and Rio Colorado were thickly peopled by Indians, who, though they culti- vated some maize and even wheat, and also had some cattle, did not show the slightest hostility or opposi- tion to the travelers who, on the contrary, were re- ceived with kindness and presented with such food as there could be found, were esteemed by the fathers a> in a very low state of civilization.
The moral qualities of these native people are cer- tainly not beyond the range of their physical, but the estimates as to their qualities are more or less influ- enced by the standpoint of the reasoner. Says Father Venegas: "It is not easy for Europeans, who were never out of their own country, to conceive an ade- quate idea of these people; for even in the least fre- quented corner of the globe there is not a nation so stupid, of such contracted ideas, and weak, both in body and mind, as the unhappy nations here. Their characteristics are stupidity and insensibility, want of knowledge and reflection, inconstancy, impetuosity and blindness in appetite. An excessive sloth and abhorrence of all fatigue, an incessant love of pleas- ure and amusement of every kind, however trifling or brutal; in fine, a most wretched want of everything which constitutes the real man and renders him rational, inventive, tractable and useful to himself and society." Certain it is, that they at least have none of that boldness and independence of character, and very little of that'activity and perseverence which dis- tinguishes the Indians nearer the pole. And another writer says: "The whole of the Indians inhabiting the territory are of the same race as those which for- merly inhabited the coast, and whose chidren are now subjects or slaves of the missionaries. They seem to have made no advance toward civilization since the first discovery of the country. Their habitations are
44
HISTORY OF EL DORADO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
small round huts of rushes, of a temporary character, Parts of their bodies. This habit of cutting their hair, however, seems not to have been a general one all over, for the Indians of the south, on the contrary, had a great pride in the abundance of their hair, which they ornamented with beads, etc., made into wreaths, bound around their heads. All are in the habit of painting themselves; black, blue, and red seem to be the principal colors. This is not only done for their own beautifying but it seems also an emblem of mourning for their friends, for whom they had a strong affection. This is not the only means used of producing impressions that were not born with them ; some tribes tattoo their bodies like the Indians of the Islands, but not to such an extent, and this practice is erected where they halt for a season, and burned when they change their station (the exterior has the appear- ance of a beehive). In each dwelling there are nine or ten Indians of both sexes and of all ages, nearly in a state of nudity, huddled around a fire kindled in the center; the whole presenting a picture of wretched- ness and misery seldom beheld in even the most sav- age state of society." The whole furniture consists of a chest, a dish and a bowl, made in the shape of a high crowned hat, a bone used for an awl in manufac- turing the form r articles out of bulrushes or roots, and once in a while a shell to drink out of. When removing from one place to another the women have to carry the whole outfit, including the babies, loaded here more confined to women. While in summer on their shoulders and hanging down their backs; the they go around nearly naked, in the winter they wear
man only carries his bow and arrows, with their ap- purtenances. Father Palou on the habits of subsist- ence of the Indians says: "The natives of this part of the country maintain themselves by the seeds and herbs of the field, to collect which, when in season, is the duty of the women. They grind the seeds and make a gruel from the flour, and sometimes a kind of pudding or dough, which they form into balls the size of an orange. Some of this flour has an agreeable flavor and is very nutritive; that produced from a black seed has the taste of a toasted almond. To this they add fish and sometimes shellfish, and in addition they have the produce of the chase and wild fowl. Some- times it happens that a whale is driven ashore and they would have a great feast. In the highlands they gather an eatable root which they call amole, about the size of an onion ; when roasted this has an agree- able, sweetish taste. The female sex make more use of clothing than the male, even the young girls have always some covering made of the tule or bulrush, consisting of one piece before and another one be- hind, made in the manner of a petticoat; they also have a piece thrown over their shoulders." They have their marriages, but they only consist of the consent between the parties, no ceremonies are connected, and they are binding as long as both parties agree; in case of disagreement, and they should choose to part, their only mode of cancelling the marriage is by using the expression : "I throw you away." They are given to polygamy, and frequently it happens that the wife urges her husband to marry her sister or even their mother; but these many wives of one husband live all together in one hut without jealousy or dispute, each looking on the whole of the children as though they were her own.
They are in the habit of cutting their hair short, when one of their relatives or friends dies, and put ashes on their heads and faces, as well as on other
a garment made of deer skins, otter skins, or made of feathers of different water fowls ; this latter is chiefly used by the women. The feathers are twisted and tied together into a sort of rope, and these are bun- dled and tied so as to have a feathery surface on both sides. Like all savages, they are fond of ornaments for their person, consisting of bits of carved wood worn as earrings, bandeous of feathers around their heads, shells rounded and strung up like beads hung around their necks. In one of their feather bandeous- Langsdorff counted 450 tail-feathers of the golden, winged woodperker, and as there are only two of these in each birds tail, one can make himself an idea of the number of birds that were killed for the purpose, and of the labor and persistency spent in gathering this material. But the mechanical dexterity of this people was not limited to these feather-works ; other articles were made of tule-grass or bulrushes, and in the construction of their baskets, bowls, etc., they dis- played considerable ingenuity ; some of them, made out of the bark of trees were water-tight and used for carrying water. The largest of their manufactured articles were their boats, called the balsa, made from the same material that the baskets were made from.
About their faith and belief there is as much as nothing known; but one superstition seems firnily believed by all, viz .: that any sickness with which they were afflicted arose from the incantations of their ene_ mies. Most of them burnt their dead, and together with the dead all his household goods, ornaments and arms. They had special burying places for this pur- pose, and as far as El Dorado county is concerned, there are three such places that could be made out with certainty : one near Columbia Flat ; one close by Diamond Springs, and one lower down near the Co- sumnes river.
Dr. Santels, a Swedish scholar, who traveled over this
SAMUEL LAWSON. WILLIAM H. FOWLER.
45
EARLY CONDITION. INHABITANTS. EXPLORATIONS.
country in 1843, gave a description of their signal fires. He says : " A hole is dug in the ground wider at the bottom than at the top ; this hole was filled with com- bustibles and set on fire ; once well ignited the hole is nearly closed at the opening. By this means the smoke rises to a considerable hight in a column, and thus in- formation was conveyed to different tribes of the ap- proach of an enemy or friend, and whether they are coming in large or small bodies."
About the gluttonous habits of the Indians he writes: "The Indians that constituted the crew of the schooner, having been rather stinted of food for a day or two, determined on a feast as a recompense for their previous fasting. They presented on that occa- sion a spectacle I had never before witnessed of dis- gusting sensual indulgence, the effect of which on their conduct, struck me as being exceedingly strange. The meat of a heifer, most rudely cooked, was eaten in a voracious manner. After gorging them- selves they would lie down and sleep for a while, and get up and eat again. They repeated this gluttony until they actually lost their senses, rolled upon the ground, dozed, and then sprang up in a state of deli- rium. The following morning they were all wretchedly sick, and had the expression peculiar to drunken men recovering their reason after a debauch."
Notwithstanding their filthy habits, the Indians gen- arally were very healthy ; their principal remedy for all diseases, where the natural means of their herbarist medicines did not bring the expected result, consisted in hot air baths, called temes chal, constructed as a big oven or hovel, out of mud, with a small hole for en- trance on the side, and another one on the top from which the smoke escaped; the interior, with the na- tural soil for the floor, was big enough to allow about half a dozen persons to use the room at the same time, and they kept on with adding sticks to the fire as long as they could stand the heat. A profuse per- spiration soon followed, which was scraped off with a kind of a wooden spoon ; and thereafter they used to plunge into the cold water of the river, for which pur- pose the temes chals usually were built close to a river's bank.
tribes may not have been so docile, yet none of them were very formidable. But the most extraordinary daring of these American adventurers presented such a remarkable contrast to the indolent creole, who sel- dom left his house, on account of the rays of the sun, to which he did not like to expose himself, while the American trapper furnished him an imposing exam- ple of strength and endurance effected by their rough pursuit, and a comparison between both these na- tionalities, already at that time, was showing the chances of each of them in an eventually coming con- flict.
Neither the Spaniards nor their progeny, the native Californian, knew anything of California outside of the Coast range district and the great valleys where they used to pasture their herds of all kinds of stock. In 1820, Captain Luis Arguello, by order of the gov- ernor of California, went on an exploring trip through the northern region of the territory. He followed the upper part of the Sacramento river and penetrated as far as Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia river, being without a doubt the first Caucasian, who traveled on that route. To him some of the rivers owe their names ; thus the Yuba river, Rio de las Uva (grapes); Feather river, Rio de las Plumas ; Bear river, Rio de los Osos ; etc. Nothing, however, is known of an ex- ploring trip into the heart of the mountains that skirt the great valley basin to the east ; the sight of their snow-clad crest made the effeminate race shiver, and probably the grand scenery and gigantic beauty of nature enclosed in the mountains, had not charm and attraction enough to warm them up again ; so the whole region remained to them a terra incognita, and they felt fully satisfied to have given the name : " Si- erra Nevada," meaning snowy mountains.
To the daring and adventurous advance-agents of the civilization of the great West it was withheld to make the first exploring voyages over an I through the mountain region. The trappers of the American Fur Company and the Hudson Bay Company passed over them at different times and over different routes to and from their choice trapping grounds in the great valleys and the Coast Range mountains of this coast.
The first of these trapping expeditions that crossed the Serra Nevada is supposed to be.one fitted up by the American Fur Company in the summer of 1825, under Jedediah S. Smith (for his discovery of gold, see " Discovery of Gold,") as leader, from Green river station. He advanced to the country west of Salt Lake, discovered what is now called Humboldt river, calling it Mary's river after his Indian wife ; pushing further on, he found his way blocked by the great mountain range, but this instead of building up a hin-
The Spanish settlers always considered the Indians not belonging to the missions, particularly those on the Rio Colorado and adjacent countries, as most ferocious and inimical to the white man, and that it was almost impossible to pass through their territory ; thus they were astonished by the first appearance of the American trapper, and still more so by learning the fact that they had escaped the vengeance of the wild Indians; this opinion, however, is a great exag- geration, based upon the imperfect knowledge of the country they were living in ; for although some of the | drance for further explorations, invited his adventure-
46
HISTORY OF EL DORADO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
some nature to see what could be found for his trade name was Baptiste Truckee, a Canadian, and his name was given to the stream he had discovered. Following up the run of this river they penetrated as far as Donner Lake, but the snow-bound mountains-it being then in the month of December-did not invite them to a crossing, and they returned to the Meadows on the Truckee river, passing through Washoe valley to Carson river, and discovered Walker river, called after the captain of the company, and crossed the mountains through Walker's pass, also called after him. They went into camp on the shore of Tulare lake, but failing to accomplish the purpose of their mission they retraced their steps over the mountains back to the Humboldt and Green rivers. Mr. Meek is still a resident of Siskyou county in this state. Nearly every party of trappers who passed through the country left a few of their number here, and after the fur trade began to break up, from about 1838 and later, many of them settled down on the streams of California. One of this class of settlers in El Dorado county, although a somewhat late one, is Lewis B. Myers, of Greenwood, El Dorado county, California. on the other side. Where he crossed the Sierra is only a matter of supposition, but it must have been not far from where the old emigrant-road crossed afterwards, near the head waters of the Truckee. The party trapped for beaver and otter from the American river to Tulare lake, and had their camp for a while near the present site of Folsom, following their cal- ling in a northerly direction and finally returning over the mountains about the locality of Walker's pass. In May, 1827, we find the same J. S. Smith with only a few companions on another voyage, near the mission of San Jose, having lost most of them on his way into the Mojave country, on the Colorado river, in a fight with Indians. He made his way through, arriving in January at the mission of San Gabriel, procured pass- ports for himself and companion from the general at San Diego, and camped in May near the mission of San Jose, where he wrote a letter to Father Duran, stating that he was on his way to Oregon in the peace- ful business of trapping ; and after having reunited himself with the company he had left on the American river, the year before, he started for the Columbia In the year 1838, the United States government sent out a fleet of vessels under command of Commo- river, following the coast, but was attacked by Indians at the mouth of the Umpqua river, and all but himself dore Chas Wilkes, on an extended voyage that lasted and two others were killed and robbed of all their five years. In the month of September, 1841, a de- tachment of this expedition started on an overland trip from Vancouver, on the Columbia river, to Yerba Buena, (San Francisco,) passing down the Hudson Bay trail and the Sacramento river. This party con- sisted of : traps and furs. They escaped to Fort Vancouver and after telling their story to the agent of the Hudson Bay Company, a party was fitted out to recover the stolen property and chastise the Indians, and meeting with success in both directions, they returned to Fort Vancouver ; the greater portion, however, followed Lieut. George E. Emmons, in command. Alexander Roderick McLeod on a trip into Califor- Past Midshipman, Henry Eld. nia, which they entered by the same route where Smith Past Midshipman, George W. Colvocoressis. had come out, and trapped on the streams of the Assistant-Surgeon, J. S. Whittle. valleys.
Next to Smith's stands the record of Joseph R. Walker, who started in July, 1833, from the rendez- vous of the American Fur Company on Green river, with a party of about forty trappers. Stephen H. Meek, now of Sikiyou county, was one of this party, and to him we are indebted for the following informa- tion :
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