USA > California > Glenn County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 7
USA > California > Colusa County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 7
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Colonel Semple found that Jolin Bidwell, who had also been impressed with this wonderfully fertile land, had obtained a grant of two square leagues of land surrounding the Colus Indian vil. lage, just where the colonel wanted to settle. He bought the grant from Bidwell, and in the spring of 1850 came up the valley to locate his new town, which was to be placed on the site of the old Indian village at "Salmon Bend." But he missed the place and went instead to where Powell Slough puts out from the river, seven miles above Colusa, and later the location of the old Seven- Mile House. He had mistaken a temporary Indian camp for the place he was looking for, and did not discover his mistake till he had laid out a town there and established a camp of men, who were set to clearing off the land round about, and cutting cord- wood for the steamship line that was soon to be established.
In the meantime Dr. Semple, at Benicia, had been laying the foundations for this same steamship line. He had been building a steamer, which was finished in June and was named the "Colusa" in honor of the town between which and the outside world she was to ply. About the first of July, 1850, she started on her first and last trip up the river, having on board Will S. Green, then a youth of eighteen, a stock of goods which Green and Colonel Semple
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owned in partnership, and enongh lumber to build a store to honse the goods. The Colusa made good progress till it struck the bend just above the town's present location, when rapids, snags and short turns in the river so harassed the little boat that one of the engines gave out, and it took several days to make the remain- ing seven miles to her destination.
The cargo of the boat had hardly been unloaded and she had proceeded back to Benicia, when Colonel Semple discovered the mistake he had made in the location of his town. He proceeded at once to move it to its present and proper location. Green had brought up a carpenter named Hicks on the boat to build the new store; and while Semple hauled the goods to the new location, Hicks began the erection of the building and Green stayed at the old location to watch the remaining property till all was safely hauled. As soon as they had their store up, Semple and Green laid out the town and proceeded to make a metropolis of it. That it isn't a city of a million people is no fault of theirs; for they both spent their lives, and died, booming it.
Semple & Green's store building was a story and a half high, and was located on Levee Street, between Fifth and Sixth. The river has so encroached upon the land that the levee now covers the site. This was not the first building in the town. By the time Colonel Semple reached his permanent location, he found that two men, named Heeps and Hale, had started a little shanty on what is now Fifth Street, between the Riverside Hotel and the river. . In this they opened up a hotel, remained for a few weeks, and then departed. A man named Sheppard had also started a log cabin at what is now Sixth and Main Streets, where the Eagle Stable now stands; but Sheppard abandoned his building before it was finished.
After Heeps & Hale abandoned their hotel, Semple & Green had to add a hotel department to their store. This they did by installing a bar in the store and building on an addition in the rear for a kitchen and dining room. Business was good, for there was a great deal of travel up and down the valley, between the mines of Shasta and the bay; and the new landlords found that there were quite a number of hunters, trappers, homeseekers, prospectors, teamsters and other travelers to be cared for, even at that early date. After conducting their combined store and hotel through the winter, Semple & Green leased the hotel depart- ment early in 1851 to two men named Hendricks, and a little later to Mr. and Mrs. Davis. Mrs. Davis was the first white woman to live in Colusa. She didn't stay long, however, and for most of the summer of 1851 the town did not have the beneficent presence of woman to cheer it. But in September, 1851, William Vincent
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arrived by boat with his wife and little daughter; and from that time on, Colusa was never withont women folks. The Vincents were the first permanent family in Colusa; and they resided in the town for many years, Mr. Vincent being at one time county treasurer. The little daughter grew up and married a later county treasurer. A son was born to the Vincents in November, 1851; and he was the first child born in the town.
During the year 1851 Cohisa grew to be a town of about twenty people, and nearly that many business establishments; for almost every man in the town was the proprietor of his own busi- ness. The country round about, especially up and down the river, also began to be taken up and settled in 1850 and 1851 quite exten- sively. The cattle men were naturally the first to come; but because of floods and dronghts the cattle business was a more or less precarious enterprise, and many stockmen later turned their attention to farming. A great impetus was given to farming operations by the heavy demand for hay and barley to feed the teams engaged in hauling supplies up the valley to the mines. To meet this demand, rather than to establish homes, a number of men began farming in the county during the two years mentioned. A number of others established "hotels" at various points along the route to the mines, also with a view to aiding the teaming business, which had by this time grown to great proportions.
Even at this early date, Colusa County was the scene of two earnest, though rather quiet, competitions. One was between the men who were interested in boat traffic and those who moved goods by team; and the other was between the two routes of passenger travel to the northern mines, one up along the eastern foothills of the valley, via Marysville and Chico, and the other up the middle of the valley, along the river, via Colnsa. Colonel Semple's dream, when he located his town at the head of deep- water navigation, was that it should become a great steamboat terminus and distributing point ; bnt, in the first place, steamboat- ing required a large outlay of capital, and, in the second place, it was a hazardous business because of the many snags and shoals in the river. So, while Colonel Semple was struggling to get a permanent line of steamers established between Sacramento and Colusa, hundreds of tons of supplies were being taken north through Colusa to the mines by wagon; and after he did get the Orient and her successors to going regularly, Colusa became, not only a transfer and shipping center for freight, as he had hoped, but also a busy center of stage lines. At this time there were sometimes as many as fifty great freight wagons loaded and started from the town in a single day.
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It can be readily seen that all this activity created an urgent demand for horse feed, a demand that the alert prospectors and travelers through the county were not slow to see and appreciate. As a consequence, farming operations commenced and were stim- ulated. No complete list of those who settled at that time within the present limits of the county can be given; but the names of some of them are known, and they will be found below. From these the reader may obtain a fair idea of how populous the county was when it considered itself ready to be organized as a county.
Beginning at the present north line of the county, we find that in 1850 and 1851 a continuous line of settlements had been made down the river to Wilkins' Slough, which is below Grimes. The first one to occupy our attention is the Seventeen-Mile House, which Hiram Willitts established for the entertainment of the traveling public. After wagon traffic to the mines fell off, Mr. Willits left Colusa County and went to Mendocino County, where he founded the town that now bears his name. The house got its name from the fact that it was seventeen miles from Colusa. The other "mile houses" were named for a similar reason. A mile down the river from Willitts' was the Sixteen-Mile House, estab- lished by J. M. Arnett, who remained but a short time and was suc- ceeded by J. P. J. Helphenstine. Princeton is now situated upon the location of the Sixteen-Mile House. About two miles below Princeton was Sterling's Ranch, the first settlement in the county; and a mile below that was the Eleven-Mile House, established by Thomas Parton. (It will be seen that the figures given do not tally; but the early settlers did not try to be particularly accu- rate.) Two stockmen and ranchers, Charles Brooks and Ben Payne, had settled near Parton's place, on what was later called the Hubbard ranch, and which was recently the scene of the "Thousand Acres" fiasco. A mile further down, the Ten-Mile House had been established by L. H. Helphenstine. His son, Henry Russell Helphenstine, still lives there. This is the only place between Princeton and Colusa, and almost the only place in the county, along the river, that still remains in the name of the original founder. The Helphenstine place has been the Helphen- stine place for sixty-seven years, and bids fair to remain so for at least that many years to come. The present owner was born there in 1858, and is one of the oldest citizens, in point of resi- dence, in the county. A mile below Helphenstine's, S. H. Cooper established the Nine-Mile House; and two miles further down, Robert Payne and James Hill were running the Seven-Mile House. This was located a few hundred feet south of where the county road crosses the railroad, near Tony Wohlfrom's resi- dence. It was the original location of the town of Colusa. Two
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miles below the Seven-Mile House, Obed DeLong had the Five- Mile House. This is where the Maxwell road leaves the river road, and it is now known as the Seavers place. Robert N. Park- hill, a refined and educated man, one of the first election officials in the county and a member of the first grand jury, took up a "wood ranch" on the east side, three miles above Colusa, in 1851, and was active in the county's affairs till 1855, when he disap- peared from his cabin, leaving money and all his effects undis- turbed. He was never seen or heard from again; and his dis- pearance was a mystery that was widely speculated upon at the time, but that has never been solved.
Below Colusa, almost on the outskirts of the town, J. T. Marr, White Brothers, Abbe Brothers, James Keefer, John Rogers, and Marion Tate had come in and were doing a little farming or were herding bands of stock. A little further down the river, O. C. Berkey, father of Supervisor P. V. Berkey, had established a stock ranch in partnership with George Carhart and Silas Howard; and four brothers named Gibson had located in the bend of the river above the present town of Meridian. Jack Long had a big cattle ranch about where Sycamore station on the Northern Electric now is; while John Fitch and Joe Farnsworth had settled just south of Sycamore Slough, where the town of Sycamore now stands. Mr. Farnsworth was one of the few pio- neers who "stuck," and he became quite prosperous. Mrs. Farnsworth still lives a couple of miles below Sycamore, on the ranch her husband took up. They reared a family of sturdy children; and one of their sons, George, is a member of the Colusa County Exemption Board, whose duties are so important in forming the national army that is to go to Europe to take part in the great war.
In 1851, the Grimes brothers came up the river and settled at what is now the town of Grimes. Within one hundred yards of where he built his first cabin, Cleaton Grimes continued to reside till he was ninety-four years old, dying in 1909. When the Grimes brothers arrived, they found E. R. Graham and Richard Welsh already located near by, doing a prosperous farming busi- ness. These neighbors, with the help of a Sacramento blacksmith, made the first plow ever brought to Colusa County. Mr. Graham afterward became the father of E. R. Graham, the present county treasurer, and two other sons, and also of five daughters. One of these married E. C. Peart; another, W. H. Cross; a third, C. G. Stinson ; a fourth, R. L. Welch; and the fifth, J. W. Eustis.
The above are most of the settlers along the river prior to 1852. There was one settlement out on the plains, J. C. Johnson having established the Ohio House south of where College City
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now stands. When the county was mapped ont by the legislature in 1850, and organized in 1851, the east side of the river, the plains and the foothills were practically uninhabited. In that part of the county which is now Glenn County, there were similar settlements along the river, but none out on the plains. U. P. Monroe had started a town that he ealled Monroeville, and natu- rally the settlers up that way gave their allegiance to the town nearest them; so when the county government came to be organ- ized, there was a strong contest between Colusa and Monroeville as to which should be the county seat. The particulars in this eon- test will be given in the chapter on the organization of the county.
Settlers eame in so fast, after 1851, that no particular mention of them can be made in a work of this scope. In examining the list of names given above, it will be noticed that there are very few mentioned who remained permanently or left families to perpetuate their names. In the years 1852 and 1853, and those immediately following, however, quite a number of settlers came whose names are well known in the county today. Active settle- ment of the east side of the river began in 1852, abont a dozen men settling there that year and as many more the year following; but the names of nearly all of these have disappeared from the community, only about half a dozen of them having left any trace of their existence, so far as present population is concerned- certainly a pertinent commentary on the transitory nature of human life.
Of those whose names are still known, there was Henry Ahlf, who settled two or three miles above Colusa in 1853. He was the father of George, John, Herman, Adolphus and Miss Emma Ahlf. Nick Laux first settled on the McConnell place, but afterwards sold it and moved to a place near by. J. W. Jones, grandfather of J. Morris Jones, of Colusa, settled on a ranch up the river in 1853, as did also W. F. Goad, brother of J. W. Goad, now of Colusa. Mr. Goad was one of the organizers of the Colusa County Bank, and was its first president. Frank Steele's grandehildren now reside on the place he settled upon in 1853. Col. L. F. Moulton also arrived about 1853. Colonel Moulton impressed himself most decidedly upon the future life of his county. He was one of the most courageous, liberal, and persistent experimenters along reclamation and general agricultural lines that the state has known. To his energy and initiative is due much of our knowl- edge of the possibilities of Colusa County from an agricultural standpoint. Joseph McConnell, Clinton and Joseph McVay, Thomas Williams, and Jefferson Tate all settled on the east side ahont 1853 or 1854, and reared families there; and some of their descendants still survive.
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After the river district, the next section of the county to be settled was the foothills, because water could be obtained there more easily than on the plains. Two or three men located stock ranches in Spring Valley in 1852, but most of the early settlers in the foothill region arrived in 1853 and thereafter. Spring Valley received two or three new settlers that year. Antelope Valley was settled by at least four men, one of whom was John Sites; and a Mrs. Spear, with her two sons, had settled at Stone Corral, but later moved to Antelope Valley.
The settlement of Bear Valley is best described in the words of one of the pioneers, Godfrey C. Ingrim, in the Colusa Sun of Jannary 6, 1877. This, in part, is what Mr. Ingrim says:
"In the fall of 1853, in company with old man Beers and J. M. Blanchard, I left Sacramento City for Bear Valley (then nearly unknown). On our way we stopped one night at the Ohio House, kept by Ike Rice; and the next night we stopped at Jo. Bowles', in Spring Valley, who, with M. A. Britton, had just settled in that pretty little valley. One thing I noticed on enter- ing Spring Valley was the wild oats. They were as tall as a horse's back and as thick as they could stand on the ground. From Spring Valley we went up Salt Canyon to Antelope Valley. T. A. Botts and Dr. William V. Henry had settled there. The latter still resides in the valley, but not in the same place. From Antelope we went across the mountains to Bear Valley, entering the valley on what is the Turner ranch now. I found clover in the valley that was seven feet long by measurement. There were plenty of deer, antelope, bear, and some elk at that time. I ex- plored the valley and picked ont my present place. I then thought this a beautiful and healthy place, and after twenty-two years' residence I am of the same opinion.
"On the 20th of Jannary, 1854, in company with John H. Clark, I settled where I now reside. This valley received its name from a bear that was killed just below my house, at the old crossing, by a party from Colusa, in 1852, two of whom were Dr. Spaulding and Horace Pike. At the time I came into the valley there were no settlers, nor for six months after. John Royce and A. T. Noyes came next, and settled in the lower end of the valley. J. M. Blanchard, old man Beers, and Hull-the man that was killed on Ilull's Mountain by a grizzly, and after whom it takes its name-were the next. Stephen Reese, Stewart Harris, Fielding and Waller Calmes next came in. William Robertson came ahont the same time. Reese, the Robertson family, and myself are all that remain of the old settlers in the valley.
". . . Four miles from Bear Valley are what are called Wilbur's Springs; but the right name for them is Cantrall
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Springs, for Joshua Cantrall is the man who took those springs up, and lived there until he died. Gil Roberts then bought them. They passed into the hands of Simmons and went by his name until he died. Then Wilbur came into possession, and the springs took his name and retained it."
Three or four years after Bear Valley was first settled, the Stonyford country began to receive the attention of settlers; but those who first located there passed on, leaving the country to new people.
There was a peculiarity about the settlement of the plains that is hard to account for. The lands in the vicinity of where Williams, Arbuckle and College City now are began to attract settlers in 1853, or shortly thereafter, especially along the sloughs and creeks; while in the vicinity of Maxwell and Delevan the lands lay, for ten or twelve years longer, absolutely untouched for farming purposes. When the southern part of the county, on the plains, was "thickly settled," as settlements went in those days, the northern part was a great, uninhabited stretch of "no man's land." Why this was the case is hard to tell, because some of the finest land in the county is in that section. E. B. McDow, who came from Iowa and settled on Funk Slough in the fall of 1864, says: "When I first came here to live, William Campbell, in the hills four miles from me, was my nearest neighbor on the west; Joseph Gibson, nine miles, and F. Calmes, seven or eight miles, south and southwest; the Willows ranch nearly fourteen miles north; and nine miles to any settlement on the river east." Will S. Green says: "North of a due west line from Colusa there were no settlements on the plains, for agricultural purposes, until about 1868." He ascribes the slowness with which the plains were settled to the fact that the secret of raising grain by the summer- fallow method had not then been discovered.
One of the first ranches to be taken up on the plains was that located by Dr. Robert Semple, of Benicia, and W. S. Green, of Colusa, on Freshwater Creek; but it could hardly be called a set- tlement, for both the owners were non-residents. That was in 1853. The next year Joseph S. Gibson came in and laid the foundations for the great estate of the present J. S. Gibson Com- pany, which is among the foremost breeders of blooded stock in the state, or in the world. Between 1853 and 1857 the plains country received a number of settlers who were destined later to become closely connected with the county's development and his- tory. Among them were W. H. Williams, who tried a small crop of wheat and barley in Spring Valley in 1853, and made a similar experiment in 1854 near where he afterward founded the town that bears his name. Andrew Pierce, the founder of Pierce Chris-
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tian College, settled near the site of College City in 1855. The same year Julius Weyand, father of Superior Judge Ernest Weyand, settled, with his brother, Gustav, near Arbuckle. J. W. Brim came in 1856, and located west of Williams. William Kaerth located northeast of Arbuckle in 1857; and Joseph P. Sherer settled north of College City about the same time. J. C. Stovall, one of the founders of the Stovall-Wilcoxson Company, which now owns thirty-five thousand eight hundred acres of land in the county, came in 1858 and settled six miles west of Williams, on what is now a part of the great Stovall-Wilcoxson ranch. There were others who came about this time, or a little later; but obviously the list cannot be continued indefinitely. Those named found the land untouched in their several localities when they came. and they proceeded to hew homes out of the wilderness. They succeeded even beyond their dreams; and as a result of their foresight and energy, the descendants and successors of these pioneers now cultivate broad, fertile fields, live in fine houses, and drive powerful motor cars over improved highways, where once there was but a silent waste.
The settlement of the county was substantial and rapid after this time. The mines became less and less able to furnish profitable employment to all who came into the state; river trans- portation had become fairly regular and dependable; stage lines were being extended in all directions; implements were more easily obtainable; the demand for farm products was steady and strong; and last, but by no means least, wives and sweethearts were com- ing to make home something more than a camping place, so that by the time of the Civil War Colusa County was a well-established and highly organized community.
CHAPTER VI
ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY
There was in 1851, as we have seen, a fringe of settlers along the Sacramento River from the mouth of Stony Creek, on the north, to Wilkins' Slongh, below Grimes, on the south. Most of them were keepers of "road houses," institutions that in those days served a purpose different from that which they serve today. There were also two very small, but very ambitious, towns along the river: Colusa, Colonel Semple's town; and Monroeville, founded by U. P. Monroe south of the mouth of Stony Creek, in. what is now Glenn County. Each wanted and expected to be the
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county seat of the new county; and this question was not settled till after a spirited factional figlit, the first of several that have disturbed the calm of the county's political existence.
When Colonel Semple came up the river to lay out his town, the first state legislature was in session, and he had it define the boundaries of the county and give it the same name as the town. Semple and Green formed the name by adding an "a" to "Colus," the name of the Indians as the white man understood it. Mr. Green says this "gave a very euphonious name." But the legislature had a committee on the 'names of counties (General Vallejo was one of the committee), and this committee reported the name as "Colnsi," although the founders of the town insisted on its being "Colusa"; and when the statute defining the boun- daries of the county was adopted, it read as follows:
"Section 22. County of Colusi. Beginning at a point on the summit of the Coast Range dne west from the Red Bluffs, and running thence due east to said bluffs on the Sacramento River; thence down the middle of said river to the northwest corner of Sutter County; thence due west along the northern boundary of Yolo County to the summit of the Coast Range; thence in a north- westerly direction, following the summit of said range to the point of beginning. This county shall be attached, for judicial purposes, to Butte County, until a county government shall be organized for the same in the manner to be prescribed by law."
Thus the county was created "Colusi"; and thus it remained, officially, till 1854, when it was changed to conform with the name of the town. It will be seen that the legislature had pro- vided boundaries and a name for the new county, but no county seat. Colonel Semple had evidently overlooked this point; or more probably he took it for granted that the county seat of Colusa County would, as a matter of course, be Colusa town. He was not to carry away the honor so easily, however.
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