USA > California > Contra Costa County > History of Contra Costa County, California, including its geography, geology, topography, climatography and description; together with a record of the Mexican grants also, incidents of pioneer life; and biographical sketches of early and prominent settlers and representative men > Part 4
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Resting upon these are strata of volcanic materials, such as ashes and pumice, which have evidently been ejected or washed into water and de- posited in a stratified condition. These beds to the west of Kirker's Pass have a thickness of several hundred feet, and rise into considerable hills. Their dip is usually about 25° to 30°; but in some places they are elevated at as great an angle as 50°. Their straike is also somewhat irregular, and they form a series of rounded and bare hills, stretching along near the edge of the San Joaquin plain.
Above the sedimentary volcanic beds just noticed are beds of gravel and loose materials, probably a Post-Pliocene age, which also have a considerable but variable thickness, and which pass gradually into the modern deposits of the valley. All these strata, from the Cretaceous up to the Post-Pliocene, appear to be perfectly conformable with each other, and they all have a northerly dip, although it is variable in amount.
TOPOGRAPHY .- The Sacramento river is navigable from the bay north- ward to Sacramento, one hundred and twenty miles, for large, commodious steamers, as fine as any upon the rivers in the Eastern States. They ply daily to Sacramento northward, stopping at Martinez, New York and An- tioch ; smaller, light-draft steamers ply regularly to Red Bluff, two hundred and fifty miles further, and on the Feather river, sixty miles to Marysville. The San Joaquin river is also navigable for large steamers, which ply daily to Stockton, one hundred and twenty miles. Above Stockton, light-draft vessels ascend toward Visalia, two hundred miles, and also for some distance up its branches, the Stanislaus and Tuolumne, and also the Mokelumne river. The light-draft steamers on all these rivers carry with them large barges, in which the crops of the farmers, firewood and other products, are cheaply and rapidly transported to a market at San Francisco at very low rates. A number of the creeks and sloughs emptying into the Bay of
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Suisun are also navigable, and ascended by numerous steamers and sailing craft, which carry freight and passengers at reasonable prices. Thus a great portion of the county is, to a great extent, independent of the rail- road, while the competition between land and water carriage insures low rates of freights and fares on both.
The course of the San Joaquin is very tortuous ; and a writer thus de- scribes a trip up the river by steamboat : " Looking through the cabin windows we see the brown banks of the river just below Antioch. By the time breakfast is over we are nearing False river and leaving Sherman Island. We go on deck and look around. Contra Costa lies just behind, its bare hills rising to the height of Mount Diablo, which, looked at from this low level, towers up very grandly. The flat extent of San Joaquin is to the right, while to the left the Montezuma Hills show quietly over Sher- man Island. The view, however changes almost every minute as the steamer follows the channel, and Mount Diablo is as often seen over the bow as over the quarter, whilst sometimes it seems as though we were leaving it behind, only to find it almost instantly staring us in the face. The banks begin to narrow in as the afternoon comes on, and when we enter the west channel of the San Joaquin the character of the surroundings is entirely changed. The stream is narrow and flows apace, whilst willows grow down to the water's edge, the tule flags forming an outlying and lower fringe. Levees lie along most of the distance, covered now with alder and dwarf poplars, while here and there tree-covered mounds look like the farm groves of New Jersey. We are now between Union Island and the mainland, and the character of the banks has changed again. The pleasant green timber has gone, and the tule is everywhere.
" The San Joaquin river has such an erratic course about here that the only method of threading the curves and loops is by running the steamer's nose plump into the tules on this side, which fends her off until she swings around enough to plump her nose into that side."
The San Joaquin river is divided into three branches, known respect- ively as the West, Middle and East channels-the latter named being not only the main stream, but the one used by the steamboats and sailing ves- sels bound to and from Stockton-or, at least, within four miles of that city, from which point the Stockton slough is used. The east or main channel is navigable for small, stern-wheel steamboats as high as Fresno City.
The first mail ever carried up the Sacramento river was on the 24th of July, 1849, by Captain Seth M. Swain, of Martinez, in the schooner " John Dunlap." The mail matter was all contained in one bag, and the Captain received six hundred dollars for the service, while the entire postage on the contents of the mail was less than sixty dollars.
Suisun Bay is one of the chief bays that border the Contra Costa coast. Many of the gold-seekers here found a watery grave, or foundered upon
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the middle grounds of the bay. Says Rev. W. W. Smith : "One schooner, in the fall of 1849, struck on the lower end of the middle ground, and the winds and waves soon broke her up, and the flour with which she was laden was cast into the bay. Those coming up the bay would pick up a barrel or two for use, and one large boat was engaged a long time in hunt- ing up the barrels of flour, which were sold to the baker of New York of the Pacific for five dollars per barrel. Supposing them to be worthless, some refused to give any price; but they were but little damaged, even after a week's soaking in the water of the bay, wetting the barrel and flour half an inch deep, making the whole impervious to water.
" Another schooner struck, three miles from New York, on a spot not so dangerous, and she was strong and staunch-built, so that she sat upon the sand of the middle ground, and the sailors could walk around her at low tide. The captain and crew found a near cut to the channel, and by the use of the miners' spades and the work of the passengers, they dug a pas- sage from the schooner, and the wind and tide serving right, they on the tide floated, and having a kedge anchor out in the right direction, the schooner and cargo were saved, and they all went up the bay rejoicing at their good luck and escape from the dangers of the Suisun Bay.
" A number of boats were swamped and stove upon the middle bars of sand in this bay, before a perfect map of the bay was known by the hurry- ing crowds who were compelled to navigate these waters to take their traps to Stockton and Sacramento. One boat was foundered, and the men swam to the south shore across the channel, but cold and wet they had to swim another slough one hundred feet wide, and then came to New York Land- ing for aid.
" Whale boats have stayed at New York waiting for a week at a time for the winds to settle, and came down before venturing upon the Suisun Bay.
"The ship Henry Lee was anchored in the harbor with short chains ; the northers caused her to drag her anchor, but the banks on the south shore were such that she would work up and down to the south shore line in tides ; and thus she was left to care for herself for about a year-1850- without grounding. She was taken in unharmed to the city and sent to sea. There is not a rock or shoal for all the distance from a mile below Antioch to Marsh's Landing, three miles above the town; making four miles in length, and wide enough for four or five ships to lie side by side ' and swing at the chain. The channel is on an average of about forty feet deep, and the clay banks are straight up and down."
The largest valley of Contra Costa County opens about midway of the northern boundary on Suisun Bay, about six miles wide, east and west, and fifteen long, north and south, reaching up to the foothills of the Mount Diablo spurs, and comprising portions known by various names, as Pacheco,
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History of Contra Costa County.
Diablo, Ygnacio, and Walnut Creek Valleys. Other smaller but important and beautiful little serpentine valleys coil up and almost surround the mountain, till lost in the narrowness of their waterways. The most im- portant of these small valleys is San Ramon, extending from Walnut Creek Valley south, to the Alameda county line, quite dividing the main range of mountains from its Diablo spur, making a natural and easy highway through the county and around the peak of Diablo. In places this valley is as narrow as half a mile, while at others it spreads to one and a half miles, with three villages and dozens of highly prized farms and homes in a length of ten miles. The other only important valley in size is the San Joaquin, having a length of twenty-seven miles in the county by three and a half in breadth-reaching from the great central valley described at a spur of Diablo, called Bay Point, along the San Joaquin River east to the county line, and at a right angle with the other valleys mentioned. These valleys have a gentle descent to the bay and river on the north. Three busy villages occupy the water front of the San Joaquin Valley, and two others the foot- hill slopes and lower cañons. The foothill villages engage in raising the stores of fuel for improvident man, that an All-wise Creator laid up for him; the three coast towns engage in a mixed commerce of coal and food staples grown in the valley about.
The Alhambra Valley, west of the central or great Diablo Valley, and only divided by three miles of rolling hills, opening on the Straits of Car- quinez, is narrow and but a few miles in length, but fertile and picturesque in its fringes of evergreen oaks, and dots of cottages white, and life in toil- ing, happy man, and useful beast. It has the county seat nestled upon its water line. Moraga, an elevated valley, in the west, with Taylor, Rodeo, Briones, Pinole and San Pablo, all small valleys among the hills of the west- ern part of the county, go to make up the smiling dimples in the face of our mountainous county. No lakes or rivers add variety to the landscape, we regret to say, and few streams of any size endure throughout the usual season of drought, from April to November.
The Diablo meridian line divides the county most completely in three ways-in longitude, or as we express it in government surveys, as range east and west-in temperature and rain-fall, and in the difference in terri- tory claimed under Mexican grants. From this north and south line west, nearly the entire half is comprised in Mexican grants, there being twelve grants ranging from three-fourths of one to five leagues in extent, while east of the meridian there are only three. We do not reckon the Western Pacific Railroad concession, which ranges along the southern border, and spreads its uncertain shadow of twenty miles wide over half of the country from west to east.
The one hundred and ten miles of tule delta, in the northern corner of the county, is estimated to approximate one-sixth of that kind of land in
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the State. It is slowly increasing from natural causes. Much time, labor and capital have been expended in trying to successfully reclaim it from its annual overflow of tide and river, and appropriate it to agricultural and grazing purposes, with but small measure of success as yet. This portion of the county properly belongs to the San Joaquin Valley, but is a distinct feature in the county, and the contrast from such elevated vales as Moraga in the west, is a novel peculiarity. One has a valley elevation of about seven hundred feet over several miles, while the other, over a larger space, bathes itself twice daily in the restless tide of Suisun Bay.
MOUNT DIABLO .- There was once a time when there were no human inhabitants in California, but there were two spirits, one evil, the other good ; and they made war on each other, and the good spirit overcame the evil one. At that period, the entire face of the country was covered with water, except two islands, one of which was Mount Diablo, the other, Eagle Point, (on the north side). There was a coyote on the peak, the only living thing there. One day the coyote saw a feather floating on the water and as it reached the island, suddenly turned into an eagle, which spreading its broad pinions, flew upon the mountain. The coyote was much pleased with his new companion, and they dwelt in great harmony together, making occa- sional excursions to the other island, the coyote swimming while the eagle flew.
After some time they counseled together and concluded to make Indians ; they did so, and as the Indians increased the water decreased, until where the lake had been became dry land.
At that time what is now known as the Golden Gate was a continuous chain of mountains, so that it was possible to go from one side to the other dry-shod. There were at this time only two outlets for the waters, one was the Russian River, the other San Juan at the Pajaro. Some time after- wards a great earthquake severed the chain of mountains and formed what is now known as the Golden Gate. Then the waters of the Great Ocean and the Bay were permitted to mingle. The rocky wall being rent asunder it was not long before the "pale faces " found their way in, and, as the water de- creased at the coming of the Indians, so have the Indians decreased at the approach of the white man, until the war-whoop is heard no more, and the council-fire is no more lighted; for the Indians like shadows have passed silently away from the land of the coyote and eagle.
In addition to the above legend, the following somewhat similar tradi- tion is current among the Indians, and though we may not have the means of verifying it, is certainly full of interest.
It is related that where the Bay of San Francisco now is, there formerly was a great lake, much longer, broader and deeper than the Bay. According to the Indian account this lake was more than three hundred miles in length,
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with no outlet except in the rainy season, when it would overflow its banks and a small stream would run to the ocean some thirty miles south of the present outlet.
The ridge of hills along the coast was then unbroken and served as a dyke to prevent the waters of the lake from escaping to the ocean. Its level was many feet above that of the ocean, while its waters extended far up into the present valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. On the shores, centuries ago, there dwelt populous tribes of Indians; indeed, if cre- dence may be given to the tales of the aboriginals, the present population of California will equal that of those ancient days, when the "noble red- man " fished in its waters and hunted through the forests.
The hills along the coast are formed of soft sandstone, and through this, the tradition relates, the water began to make a breach, which yearly grew wider, until it burst through and among the hills with tremendous power, leaving steep cliffs and precipices to mark its way-and what was once a lake several hundred miles in length, is now a bay not forty miles long. This may have been the cause for such a change, but it would seem far more reasonable to attribute it to some volcanic commotion which in those days might have been as prevalent here as they are now in Mexico and Central America.
How far this tradition can be corroborated must be determined by those who have the means; but no one who has witnessed the steep bluffs around San Francisco, or has passed the singular entrance of the bay, called the Golden Gate, with its perpendicular walls, or has seen the no less singular bluffs of Raccoon Straits, can for a moment doubt but that they were formed by some powerful agency, either fire or water.
Let us now for a little turn to consider the derivation of the name Mount Diablo, for by such a name is it known in the early English surveys. To the old Californian, it is recognized as the Sierra de las Golgones, they asserting that Mount Diablo is the name applied by them to another and smaller peak in the neighborhood, while De Mofras calls the mountain Sierra de los Bolbone.
General Vallejo, than whom few better authorities on Californian lore exist, in his famous report to the Legislature dated April 16, 1850, says : " Mount Diablo, which occupies a conspicuous place in modern maps, is the centre of this county (as it was then and still is). It was intended so to call the county, but both branches of the Legislature, after warm debates on the subject (the representatives of the county opposing the said name), resolved upon the less profane one of ' Contra Costa.'" The following he then gives as the history of Monte del Diablo: "In 1806 a military expedition from San Francisco marched against the tribe 'Bolgones,' who were encamped at the foot of the mount ; the Indians were prepared to receive the expedition, and a hot engagement ensued in the large hollow fronting the western side
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of the mount. As the victory was about to be decided in favor of the Indians, an unknown personage, decorated with the most extraordinary plumage, and making divers movements, suddenly appeared near the com- batants. The Indians were victorious, and the incognito (Puy) departed towards the mount. The defeated soldiers, on ascertaining that the spirit went through the same ceremony daily and at all hours, named the mount ' Diablo,' in allusion to its mysterious inhabitant, that continued thus to make his appearance until the tribe was subdued by the troops in command of Lieutenant Gabriel Moraga, in a second campaign of the same year. In the aboriginal tongue 'Puy' signifies 'Evil Spirit;' in Spanish it means ' Diablo,' and doubtless it signifies 'Devil' in the Anglo-American language."
It is said that there is an old Californian legend in this regard preserved in the archives of one of the missions, which runs thus :-
Soon after the arrival of the Spanish Padres here, about the year 1769, to locate missions and civilize the aborigines, the Indians, among other tributes which they brought to the pious Fathers in token of their obe- dience, produced a quantity of gold nuggets, which they brought from the vicinity of a high mountain adjacent to what is now known as the Bay of San Francisco, and, which, according to their rude traditions, had once vomited forth both fire and smoke. The Padres foreseeing in this abund- ance of " the root of all evil" the future destroyer of their pastoral plans of settlement and the permanence of the Roman Catholic religion among these primitive tribes, determined to prevent the use of, or hunting for, the precious metal. They accordingly took all the gold which had been col- lected, and having secretly poisoned it, placed it in a tub of water, and told the Indians to make their dogs drink it. The simple natives, accustomed to yield implicit obedience, did as they were ordered, and the dogs that drank thereof died. The Padres then pointed out this as an instance of the ruin and destruction which would visit them and their country if they meddled any more with so dangerous an agent, and from that time the Indians carefully avoided the place whence the treasure was obtained, and, which, as the gold was held to be of a diabolical origin, and especially sent to carry out the plans of his Satanic Majesty, they ever after named it Monte Diablo, or Devil's Mountain,
The mountain is also said to take its name from a marvelous phenom- enon witnessed amongst its wild and precipitous gorges, at a time when, in the language of an old trapper, "Injins war plenty, and white women war not." It is related that once, in an expedition against the horse-thief tribes who inhabited the valley of the San Joaquin as far down as the base of the mountain, the native Californians came up with a party of the freebooters, laden with the spoils of a hunt, and immediately gave chase, driving them up the steep defiles which form the ascent of the mountain on one side. Elated with the prospect of securing and meting out punishment to the
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robbers, they were pressing hard after them, when lo ! from a cavernous opening in their path there issued forth such fierce flames, accompanied by so terrible a roaring, that thinking themselves within a riata's throw of the principal entrance to his Infernal Majesty's summer palace, the astonished rancheros, with many a " carajoes !" and " carambas !" and like profane ejaculations, forgot their hostile errand, and turning tail scampered down the mountain faster than they had gone up. Reciting the adventure to their fellow-rancheros on their return, it was unanimously agreed that the devil and his chief steward had fixed their abode in the mountain, and in compliment to the great original dealer in hoof and horns, they gave the present name of Mount Diablo to the scene of their late terrific exploit and discomfiture. As for the Indians, who as they declared, all mysteriously disappeared as the flames rose in view, of course the Dons afterwards in- sisted that they were the favored children of the devil !
So much for these legends of Diablo. There are other stories connected with the mountain, bordering on the marvelous, or rather the diabolical, one of which is that a herdsman who had lost his way among the cañons, dis- covered what he supposed by the fading light of day to be a spring of clear water in a hollow rock, and that stooping down to appease his thirst, he was rather surprised at the marvelous celerity with which the supposed water slid down his throat and through his stomach, like drops of real water off the back of a duck. It was afterwards supposed that he drank from a pocket of liquid quicksilver, a supposition which subjected the old mount- ain to a pretty rigid investigation in 1848, by cinnabar hunters. Whether the tradition of the burning mountain had anything to do, also, with the ex- plorations which were made about the same period (just before the general discovery of gold) for coal mines, we are not advised, nor whether the coal bed since discovered suggests an explanation, or furnishes an hypothesis by which to account for the burning pit which opened before the astonished gaze of the Indian scouting party, we leave it for others to determine, as we do also which of the above legends offers the most plausible reason for the name Mount Diablo.
This cognomen has, however, had its enemies. In the session 1865-66 of the California Legislature a petition was introduced by a Mr. Dodge ask- ing for a change in the name of Mount Diablo. The Bulletin, a San Francisco newspaper, thus enters into a little badinage on the subject : "It may possibly be a trick of the devil himself to get another alias, or, perchance the prayer comes from a bevy of 'out-cropping poets,' living at the base of the mountain, who want the name changed to Parnassus. The probability is, however, that the petition originated with some mining com- pany who want to get the name changed to ' Coal Hill,' or some other ridiculous title, in order to advertise their bituminous deposits. In either case, it is an absurd proposition, and besides it can't be done. The Legis-
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lature is not equal to the task. They may succeed in changing the name of Smith to Jones, or Brown to Johnson; but when they undertake to give a new title to one of California's grandest old mountains, they reckon with- out their host. The popular voice won't accept the change. Though the Legislature may say 'Coal Hill,' the people will continue to say 'Mount Diablo,' and Diablo it will remain. It is safe to bet that when that tower- ing lump of earth ceases to be called Mount Diablo there will be no mountain there, if, indeed, there be any California.
' While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall : And when Rome falls, the World."
The State Geologist in his report published in 1866, says of this grand old mountain :
" To the Survey it has served as a sort of key for unlocking the strati- graphical difficulties of the whole line of upheavals from Los Angeles to Clear Lake, and it was here that the Cretaceous formation in the State was first clearly recognized.
" Monte Diablo itself is one of the most conspicuous and best-known landmarks in California. But few persons in the State can have failed to recognize it from some point either of the Coast Ranges or of the Sierra Nevada. It is not its great elevation which has given it its pre-eminence among the innumerable peaks of the Coast Ranges; it is just the height of Mount Bache, near New Almaden, a point hardly known by name to those who have not made a special study of the geography of California, and it is overtopped by Mount Hamilton, San Carlos, and some nameless peaks to which no public attention has ever been attracted. The reason why Mount Diablo has so marked a pre-eminence among the peaks of the Coast Ranges is, that it is, comparatively speaking, quite isolated, especially on the north- west, north and northeast, the directions from which it is most likely to be seen. To the traveler passing up Suisun Bay, or the Sacramento or San Joaquin rivers, it presents itself in all its symmetry and grandeur, rising directly from the level of the sea, and easily recognizable from a great dis- tance by its double summit and regular conical outline, resembling that of a volcano, which it was generally supposed to be by the early settlers.
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