History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 16

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 16

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Winchell's Gulch brings up tender memories as a favorite picnic ground and trysting place for lovers. The gulch is a horse-shoe shaped ravine, en- circling the base of a succession of low hills overlooking the river between fort and townsite, its eastern extremity fortwards a projecting rocky promon- tory that the river washed away to make the bank roadway to the fort. The gulch was approachable on the western edge of the hills by a road from the lower end of town, passing the ancient Odd Fellows' cemetery, dedicated in 1873 and now enclosed with a circular cattle-proof fence, the few grass- grown mounds of the dead unmarked, unknown, or long since forgotten, and anyhow out of the course of all present day travel.

Near the mesa at the head of the gulch, one mile east of the village and three-fourths from the fort, was another cluster of homes, at Mountain Side so called, notably the E. C. Winchell residence and the select boarding school for young misses, conducted by Mrs. Winchell. The glen was a romantically delightful and restful spot.

At the present day extreme western approach was J. R. Jones' store, also known as Jonesville, a trading post of some note, located on the site of the gum tree park and grove at Pollasky, and on the approach to the fine concrete span bridge into Madera county. The record of 1870 is that Millerton had the largest collection of houses at one place in the county, Centerville, or Kings River, the largest population and Kingston the wealth- iest, not any settlement in the county arising to the dignity of a town-large or small. It was in this year also that Walker. Faymonville & Company as the Millerton Ferry Company established themselves below town at Rancheria Flat.

The big fire was on Sunday night July 3, 1870. Saddler D. B. McCarthy and three others had entered the shop to go to bed. In the place was a lot

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of fireworks received the night before from Stockton for the celebration. Tradition has it that McCarthy had celebrated alcoholically, and a question arose about the pyrotechnics which he proceeded to settle. He lighted a Roman candle and walking towards the door, the candle sputterings alighted on the fireworks with the result that there was an unlooked for dis- play then and none on the following day. The building burst into flames which communicated with S. W. Henry's hotel, the Farmers' Exchange saloon of S. Levey also contributing to the fire. Then the flames veered, and Henry's livery stable and blacksmithy across the street were destroyed. The roof of the courthouse caught fire, but the flames were extinguished. Mrs. Henry and children escaped in their night robes. Henry's loss was $8,000. Henry had been the financial backer of McCarthy, who was the unintentional cause of his ruin after a streak of bad luck.

He had been flooded out, his blacksmithy burned down and thereafter blown down, and now he was burned out of everything. He published a card of thanks for the aid given him and his family, and the money donation of $323.50. Late in September the old wooden courthouse was overhauled and refitted as a hotel by Henry, who in the meantime had also opened a smithy near Darwin's ranch on Big Dry Creek. On October 12, the over- hauled hotel was opened and continued the hotel until the end of Millerton. A large livery stable of Henry's occupied the site of the burned hotel.

The historic Oak hotel and McCray had seen their best days, and overcome by financial troubles he took to drink. He disappeared anon from Millerton, but returned, not like the Prodigal Son for whom the fatted calf was killed. The hotel building razed to one story after the flood rented out as a saloon in the basement, also as a butcher shop to James Thornton, who sold to J. B. McComb, who renovated the house as a hotel, but it never regained prestige. C. A. Hart and S. B. Allison had law offices in the build- ing, and McCray was disposing of everything before leave taking. The Oak in its palmiest days was the sporting house of the village; Henry's the staid, family house.

Part of the refitted hotel that was the one time courtroom stands today a weather beaten, moss covered and time corroded farm house off the Dry Creek road to Millerton, eleven miles away, having been removed after the village evacuation. Dorastus J. Johnson, who was deputy county clerk and died in November, 1862, rented it to the county for years for public purposes. It stood to the left of the stone courthouse and Payne's adjoin- ing saloon, the two Millerton buildings that were not removed or dis- mantled at the finale of the village.

There is no picture of Millerton before the damaging winter flood of 1861-62. In photography it was yet the day of the primitive daguerreotype. There is only one known pictorial of the townsite after the flood of 1867-68 which proclaimed Millerton's doom. It is the frontis-piece to W. W. Elliott's History of Fresno County published in 1882. It is a zincograph illustra- tion of "Millerton as It Was in 1872," a reproduction of a photograph by Frank Dusy. Dusy had many photos of early scenes, but they have long since been destroyed. E. R. Higgins later had many photographs of early Fresno City. The negatives that were not destroyed in fires were cast in the refuse pile years ago. Some of the notable panoramic photos of early Fresno are today highly prized and interesting enlargements of his originals. The amateur photographer who has contributed so much to the advance- ment of the art was unknown in their days.

Today nothing stands to mark the site of Millerton save the courthouse building of 1867 and the adobe walls of what was Payne's saloon, a little to the left and slightly in advance of the courthouse. Foundations of the Oak Hotel, with the cellar holes of one or two other structures and domiciles, remain of the mining hamlet and the county seat village on the stage route and the one-time center of placer activities on the San Joaquin. The site

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memories of Millerton are two-one before the first flood and the other after the second. Millerton never made advance. Its history is one certain and positive retrogradation. A good portion of the first townsite went down the river with the first flood. The second finished the job.

Millerton, before the first flood, was strewn along the shelving southern bank of the river for about 300 yards. It extended from the rocky point half a mile below the fort on the river bend above the town to the low ground and the last house, about 400 yards above the medicinal springs, among the cobbles and boulders in the river channel, on a slight turn of the stream below the town. Rocky point and springs are location points to this day. The village was located to face the river. The latter ran a straight course before the town and was a deep channel. Floods and disturbances of the bed in mining operations changed, bared, shoaled and widened the channel.

The river runs here almost due east and west. Townsite is on a down- hill grade. The river flows towards the plains. Originally at the town's edge on the river there was å beach of rocks and boulders. The first bench above the water level was as high in places as ten to fifteen feet. Three gulches headed for the river marked off the townsite at almost equal dis- tances from each other. Two winding roads divided the site in strips paralleling the river. The lower of these went out with the flood. The upper and second was the stage route through the town. Its route is today the road across the deserted site to the ranch headquarters at the fort site beyond the rocky point. This became the town's main street after the flood.

Behind the houses that fronted on it was an irregular foot path to town from the highest part of the townsite level, at the upper end. Cross paths traversed townsite in every direction. Houses were located as whim or convenience directed. Regularity there was none. The earliest houses were shacks. At no period in the history of Millerton were there more than about four houses two stories in height. These were the wooden Burroughs Hotel, the stone and brick Oak Hotel, the wooden Henry House, the solid granite and brick courthouse and the wooden Ashman-Baley domicile. The courthouse and the Oak were the two notable structures. Little wonder that they were regarded in the light of architectural marvels in their day.

You approached town from the lower end on an easy up grade. Fort was established before the town and first improvements were at the upper end on the town's side of the rocky dividing line. The washed out bench level between beach and first wagon road was in large part owned by T. C. Stallo, who in the sixty's went to Arizona and of whom all trace was lost. He is remembered as a companionable bachelor, who not infrequently enter- tained the young for whom he had a partiality. There are gray haired today who recall as children that he had a cousin relative who was a con- fectioner by trade and whose creations were the delight and admiration of the younger generation at these entertainment feasts.

The main thoroughfares never had official designation. Records refer to them as River, Front and Main streets, dependent on whether before or after the one or other flood. Coming to town by the lower road there was before reaching the first gulch an open level on which at your left stood the Shannon (1) and Bill Parker (2) houses and then to nearly the second gulch scattered habitations of miners. Then came another large vacant space to the third gulch near which stood a small shack (3) almost hanging over the river, appurtenant to the Oak Hotel and in which was located, in 1865, the Times and the first print shop, shaded by a great oak tree. The lower road practically ended here. Gulch was an approach to the deep water ferry crossing here, the cables to the ferry pontoon being fastened to the tree.

Entering town on your right at the lower end was vacant space until the first gulch was passed. Then came a cluster row of Hugh A. Carroll's house

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(4) fronting on the road, Simon Henry's barn (5), his blacksmithy (6), John Linnebacker's house (7), the Morgan house (8), Denny & Darwin's establishment (9), a group of shacks (10), Millerton's first Chinese quarter, and William Fielding's saloon (11), close to the second gulch. Between it and the third was more open space and then the Oak Hotel (12) facing the lower road and the river, two stories in front and erected on ascending ground one story in rear which after the floods became the front with a side main entrance. Beyond the Oak, the stage road inclined toward the river, but later was continued as the traveled route to the fort. Townsite ground was rough and undulating, rising as the rocky point was approached and sloping towards the river. First flood washed away all below the lower road and what was not carried away then was with the second, when the water came up as high as the steps of the courthouse on the highest ground.

Beyond the Oak which was diagonally across from the courthouse location were the barn and stable corral (13) of the hotel, formerly Ira Stroud's, and halting place for the stage, and further beyond the open space on which the second Chinatown was located with its brick and adobe shacks and Judge Hart as the Poo-Bah. Here was a notable brick structure (14) first occupied as an office by Dr. Leach, later by Hart as a home before his purchase of the fort property, for years rented to the county for public offices, and lastly by Tong Sing, Chinese merchant, who also located in Fresno.

Entering Millerton by the stage route you passed Rancheria Flat below town, so named because of the early location of an Indian rancheria there. Here a ferry was located later. It was the horse racing ground for the vil- lagers. The earliest arriving families camped there before locating domiciles. After evacuation the fort houses were sought for temporary as well as permanent domiciles. The first large structure on entering town was Grier- son & Froelich's store (15), back of it the Froelich domicile (16) and along- side of store the office (17) ; then the Gaster (18), Stroud (19) and John McClelland (20) domiciles. The Gaster house was the first location, in 1870, of the Expositor print office. Beyond the first gulch were Henry's barn and stables (21), along side the two story, double peaked roof Henry Hotel (22) fronting on the stage road; further along Burroughs Hotel (23) also rented for courtroom and county office purposes, and next to it Payne's adobe saloon building (24). In rear of these were Dr. Leach's barn (25), Mrs. Converse's domicile (26), and Leach's office (27).

Standing back from the roadway line was the 1867 courthouse (28) and on the upper bench level and well back of it the county hospital (29). Alongside the courthouse was the Faymonville residence (30) and forward more on the line of the courthouse Fritz Friedman's saloon (31) ; beyond the gulch Allen's saloon (32) and "Nigger Jane's" house (33). On the higher hillside and well to the rear was the Ashman-Baley domicile (34). Alongside and back of it was the barn and stable where the Expositor long was located and to the right of the domicile was the site of the historical first county jail built by Burroughs in 1857 and from which on the day of acceptance a lone prisoner offered to demonstrate the ease with which he could scratch his way out with a ten-penny nail.

The Dusy picture of 1872 shows sixteen points. It was evidently taken from the high north bank of the river at the Indian camp there with the sweep of the stream as foreground. It shows the Chinatown location (13) after the 1861-62 flood, back on the hill side the Baley domicile (34), the Oak Hotel (12) with the oak tree to the right; on the opposite side and on a line with the courthouse Allen's saloon (32), to the left and back of the courthouse the Faymonville house (30), the courthouse (28), Payne's sa- loon (24), the Henry Hotel (22), far in rear and in line the county hospital (29), at opposite ends of corrals the Leach office (27) and the Converse home (26) and three small structures between, next the McClelland house

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(20), the express office possibly the Stroud (19) house, another possibly the Gaster (18) house, and the Froelich house (16).

Make due allowance for ample barn and stable corrals and yards; weed and wild flower grown vacant spots; elbow room in plenty ; houses scattered here and there as if sprinkled from a pepper box; weather and sun beaten and blistered if any ever were painted; some little effort made at rustic palings and gardening of old fashioned flowers; foot, cow and hog tracks in every direction ; trees a scarcity and shade a luxury ; the one thor- oughfare a streak of dust in summer and a churned up trough of mud in winter; shack architecture predominant, the better class of domiciles up and down, boarded and battened structures and pretentious if provided with attic; the bare hills across the river for a monotonous vista ; a burning sun beating down to make things sizzle by day and stew and sweat by night; postal and all connection with the world through the agency of stage coach; nearest populous centers pioneer Stockton and Visalia; pioneering life at its hardest and roughest; lacking almost all things that conduce to comfort in life; conceive all these conditions and you can mentally picture what the life in Millerton was.

Was the printer in the Expositor shop at his case setting type, the horses in the corral poked their noses in at the window to neigh a cheery how-do-ye-do. Did the printer plunge his hand into a box on the shelf for some material as likely as not he brought out a wriggling bull snake to restore him to sudden sobriety.

CHAPTER XXI

EARLY FLOOD AND DROUGHT PERIODS RECALLED BRIEFLY. SCOTTS- BURG ON THE KINGS WASHED AWAY IN 1861-62 WINTER FLOODING. MILLERTON UNHEEDED THE TIMELY WARNING. IT NEVER RALLIED FROM THE CHRISTMAS EVE DISASTER OF 1867, WITH CENTERVILLE A SECOND TIME SUFFERER. TWENTY-NINE HOUSES DESTROYED IN THE MILLERTON OVERFLOW OF THE SAN JOAQUIN. THE STREAM WAS ITS BLESSING BUT ALSO THE AGENT IN ITS UNDOING. SOME NOTABLE ENTERPRISES TO AMASS FOR- TUNES WITH ITS AID. A GIGANTIC IRRIGATION PROJECT FAILURE.

The winter of 1849-50 was one of excessive rains throughout the state, with storms commencing on November 2 and continuing almost without cessation for six weeks. The interior valleys were waterlogged and the city of Sacramento was under four feet of water. In January another storm flooded that city, but the threatened March and April inundations were pre- vented by river bank damming. Extensive and costly levees constructed after these experiences proved ineffectual for in 1852, 1853 and 1854 floods did much damage. The levees were strengthened and much damage was averted until 1861-62, when they succumbed to water pressure and a loss of over $3,000,000 resulted, perhaps the most disastrous visitation.

The San Joaquin and Kings flooded in 1849-50, 1852-53, 1861-62, 1867-68 and in 1875. The one of 1861-62 is known as "the great flood." Since then, there have been no comparable high water periods, nor such general losses suffered. In the years named, save the last, there had not been such material building up of the county that a winter's flood would result in a calamitous loss in property destruction. The winter of 1889-90 was one of excessive rainfall with streams overflowing, but the damage was mainly to farm

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lands in the inability to put in seasonal grain crops. For destruction of property, it may be said that the subsequent floods in the state are not comparable with those of the first decade and a half of its history for obvious reasons, one of these being the greater number of undertaken preventive measures.

As there was flood loss during the earlier years of settlement, so there was also damage in the state from drought periods in that time, but with a steady decrease in the frequency of dry seasons, the losses from which have been minimized in large part by irrigation. The first noteworthy dry season was in 1851. There was then little agriculture, so the loss fell mainly upon the cattle men, who depended upon spontaneous herbage and lacking it were forced to the alternative of allowing the stock to die from starvation or kill the herds for hides and tallow. Five years later came another drought, which while not as severe, fell more heavily on the farmer because more land was under cultivation.

The drought of 1864 was the most severe and disastrous that the state had experienced up to then. The grain crop was almost a failure, and owing to the absence of grass sheep and cattle perished by the thousands. Many were bankrupted. Seven years of plenty followed, with another drought in 1870-71, grain crop scant, great loss in stock and yet not so general as in 1864. Six years of prosperity, with the "boom" in Southern California ush- ered in, and in 1876-77 came a drought, second as a state-wide disaster to the memorable one of 1864. Cattle literally died in droves, so did sheep, millions were lost by the stock raisers, and the industry received a setback from which it never recovered in particular localities. This was California's last serious drought. There have been since seasons of scanty rainfall, but with spread of irrigation there is less to fear, and a dry season has little appreciable effect upon business, though seized upon by the speculative mid- dleman to corner products and boost the price to the consumer.

Fresno's history has to do principally with the 1861-62 and 1867-68 winter rush of waters in the Kings and San Joaquin. By the first, Scotts- burg, a stage station on the line to Hornitas in Mariposa, located on Moody's slough in the Kings River bottoms was washed away. The settlement was moved three-quarters of a mile south of where its successor (Centerville) is today, but being again flooded in 1867-68 was a second time moved to the present site, and still in the bottoms. The 1861-62 flood overran the low- lands bordering on both rivers. The warning to Millerton was unheeded. The village low ground was under water, stocks in cellars damaged and foundations of river bank buildings sapped or weakened by the ramming floating debris. Farmers and stockmen were the principal sufferers. William Caldwell had the Falcon Hotel on the Upper Kings on the best road be- tween Millerton and Visalia, with "a good and safe ford where the road crosses the Kings River." Ford may have been such, but the site was not, for the rush of water carried it away and left the Falcon a collapsed ruin.

The 1867-68 flood is the memorable one, because from the loss suffered Millerton never rallied, nor were the twenty-nine destroyed buildings on any part of the half remaining village site ever replaced-only another proof of the instability of things. Centerville (Kings River) was again a suf- ferer, necessitating a second relocation on its present site, hotel, hall and other structures removed, the hall eventually to Fresno where it became Len Farrar's Metropolitan saloon on H Street, around the corner of Mari- posa. The flood water spread over an area two and one-half miles or more wide, and the river bottom was piled up with driftwood. It is a tradition that for five years and more thereafter no one living near the Kings River had need to buy firewood. There had been a warm rain for three weeks with consequent melting of the snow in the mountains. The soil was so loosened that acres bordering on the river and covered with timber slid into the stream, spreading the silt from Hazleton Canyon to Tulare Lake sink

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Near where the bridge east of Centerville spanned the river, J. W. Sweem had a gristmill operated by an undershot water wheel, with nearby brick dwelling, orchard and garden. After the flood not a vestige of these was left. The river main channel directed by the millrace tore open a new one seventy-five to 100 feet further away, leaving the old a bed of exposed cobbles and gravel. The night of the flood and part of the next day until rescued, Sweem, wife and ten children roosted in trees with such scant clothing and coverings as they could gather in the excitement of the moment. Knolls showing above the surface of the sea of water were crowded with jack-rabbits that stirred not on the approach of man but had to be kicked out of the way.

MILLERTON CHRISTMAS EVE FLOOD

The following account of the overflow at Millerton is reproduced from the San Francisco Alta California and was presumably written by Otto Froelich :

THE OVERFLOW AT MILLERTON Terrible Destruction of Property

(From an Occasional Correspondent)

Millerton, Fresno County, January 19, 1868 .- I will endeavor to give you a few outlines of the general sufferings and losses which we in this county have sustained by the late doings, of which you have probably seen some notice in the newspapers. On the evening of the 24th of December (Christmas eve) in the middle of the darkest night known, the citizens of this place were awakened by a sudden thundering and roaring of the San Joaquin River, and in less than one hour after, the whole place was over- flowed, with the exception of the ground upon which the court house stood and a few private residences. All the buildings and stores filled with mer- chandise gave way from their resting places. The frame houses took with- out pilots a passage down the river, stocked with provisions and furniture; part of them were wrecked on the cliffs and rocks, and the others which escaped have taken the plains as their resting place, perhaps giving lodg- ment to the poor cattle grazing along in the vicinity. The brick and adobe houses with apparent fear, trembled as if aware of their perilous situation. The day following nothing was left of them but piles of brick and sand, mixed with timber, drift wood, iron doors, tin roofing, etc., as warning monuments not to locate any town on sand and gravel, especially in close proximity to a river. The loss at this place in buildings and personal prop- erty, at the lowest estimate, is $30,000. I am pleased to say my individual loss is but small. I began as soon as I apprehended danger, to remove my merchandise from the store into the court house and not more than ten minutes after I removed the last case of goods the storehouse was entirely destroyed. In the surrounding country also, on Upper and Lower Kings River, all the farmers and stock ranchers have suffered serious loss. All is now at a standstill ; all the crossings on the rivers are gone and traveling stopped for the present .- F.

The story is authenticated that great damage at Millerton was done by the battering-ramming of a great raft of uprooted trees that the surging wave of water brought down to clog the river channel. The townsite of today is practically the diminished one that the flood left. It carried away a considerable portion of the bluff on the north side of the river facing the village. This is recalled because there was an early burying ground there, and after the flood there was not a grave left. A large Indian rancheria was also located there.

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 16

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362