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 6

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 6

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The Spaniards extended the exploration of California with exasperating slowness during the half century and more that they were in undisturbed possession. After Juan B. de Anza's time, in 1774, most of the information concerning the interior was gathered in the search for sites for a projected interior parallel line of missions, or by punitive military expeditions pursuing runaway neophytes.

Thus in 1804 Padre Martin crossed the range to the Tulares, which he appears to have explored as far as the Kings River. Gov. Jose J. de Arrillaga (March 1800-July 1814), an enterprising soldier and a more zealous religionist than any of his predecessors, planned in 1806, a more extensive exploration of the interior than any before undertaken. A party was sent out from each of the four presidios. The one from Santa Barbara headed direct across the range via Santa Inez to the neighborhood of Buena Vista and Kern lakes and passing eastward reexplored at least part of the region that Padre Garces visited thirty years before. It returned via Mission San Gabriel, reporting the Indians well disposed but only one available mission site.

In September, 1806, Ensign Gabriel Moraga, great Indian fighter and the most enterprising of the soldier explorers of his day, left Mission San Juan Bautista with a party of fifteen, crossed direct to the San Joaquin River which he had named on an earlier visit, striking the river near the northern line of Fresno County. Turning north, he discovered and named the Mariposa River and he found what he regarded as a fairly good site near the present city of Merced. Continuing north, he crossed three other rivers which he named, and then came upon the Tuolumne tribe of Indians-the first recorded mention of them.

At a large stream which some previous expedition possibly commanded by him had named, Moraga turned back on October 4, dividing his party by sending one section along the eastern side of the valley and skirting the Sierra foothills, while the other wended its way further westward. At any rate Moraga observed the entire valley to its southern limit more thoroughly than it had ever before come under human scrutiny. As the result of these expe- ditions, President Tapis, who had succeeded Lasuen as head of the missions, reported four or five good sites discovered, but that a new presidio would have to be provided to protect them.

In 1807 Moraga made another journey to the San Joaquin Valley with a party of seventy-five, going as far as the foothills of the Sierras: and in 1810 two more. On the first he started out from the Mission San Jose and returned via San Juan Bautista : on the other he revisited the Merced country in quest of runaways, captured thirty and brought back a few hostiles.

The accompanying padres said that they found the Indians generally tractable and well disposed. In the Tulare country many children were pre- sented for baptism, but as no assurance was forthcoming that they would be reared in the faith the padres declined to administer the sacrament. They baptized however many old and sick people, who were in immediate danger of death, and remained with some of these until the end. 2

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Moraga is admittedly foremost in the early exploration visits to the interior of California, but there is one other-Padre Francisco Garcés-to share honors for an intrepid undertaking. By this time eight missions had been founded, three more projected along the coast and Padre Serra had had his heart's desire gratified in the mission at San Francisco dedicated to St. Francis, patron saint of his priestly order. Padre Garcés was of the Portola first land expedition from Sonora in Mexico to Monterey in California in 1774, and one of the most remarkable of missionary explorers of the south- west. He was located at a frontier mission near the Apache country border, exposed to all the dangers from those daring marauders. He was left behind at Yuma "to teach religion" to the Indians until Anza's return from his second land expedition, in 1775-76, with settlers from the Colorado with which to found the San Francisco mission.

Without following up the itinerary, suffice it to say that, when ready in February to begin one of the longest and most dangerous journeys under- taken by him, it was with the hope of opening another route north of that which Anza had trailed across the inhospitable desert and more direct from the Colorado to the Mission of San Luis Obispo, or as far north as Monterey, if fortune favored.

On this journey he discovered the Mojave River at its sink and reached San Gabriel mission in March, crossing the San Bernardino mountains. In the Tulare valley he came upon Indians differing from any before met with in that they lived in enclosed camps, each family in its own house, walled, tule roofed and with nightly guard stationed at each house. These Indians aided him to cross the Kern River near the present site of Bakersfield. A five days northward journey brought him to White River, where, having no more presents for distribution and being dependent upon strange tribes for food, he turned back reluctantly, having reached the latitude of Tulare Lake, though he did not behold it as he was probably not far from the base of the mountains and much farther east.

To paraphrase Z. S. Eldredge's History of California: He was now in that great interior valley toward which the gold hunters of the world turned so eagerly three-quarters of a century later. Lightly concealed in the beds of the mountain streams farther north, lay more gold than Cortez had wrung from Mexico or Pizarro from Peru and succeeding generations would find in the soil of the valley itself a far more permanent source of wealth. He had opened the way thither alone, unhelped by a single fellow being of his kind or kindred, he had explored it, braving the unknown dan- gers of the wilderness, the heat and thirst of the desert, the rush of mountain torrents, the ferocity of wild beasts, and the treachery of savages. He had reduced himself so nearly to the level of the savage that he was able to live as he lived, feed as he fed, on the vilest food, sleeping as he slept, in his filthy and vermin haunted camps, and exposing his life constantly to his treacherous impulses. And it all availed nothing !

On rejoining his Indian companions who had refused to proceed farther with him among the unknown tribes, Garcés set out by return route more to the east than the one by which he had come. He probably crossed the moun- tains at the Tehachapi pass, following the present day route of the Southern Pacific railroad to the neighborhood of Mojave. and thence made direct for the Colorado and Yuma country and following the Gila arrived at San Xavier del Bac in September.

In this long tour he was accompanied only by Indians, his one associate companion, Estavan Tarabel, a runaway San Gabriel mission neophyte, who had proven a failure as a guide on Anza's first Sonora-Monterey overland ex- pedition. The Indians acted as interpreters but when they failed him Garcés had recourse to the sign language. To arouse interest in his story of religion he exhibited his pictorial banner. He also relied upon his compass which never failed to interest and delight the Indian, and his cross, rosary and

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

missal. In his rewritten diary, he furnished much information which should have been of moment to the authorities, "but it was not for the reason that they did not use it."

CHAPTER V

TULARE SWAMPS OF VALLEY THE RENDEZVOUS OF RENEGADE NEO- PHYTES AND OUTLAWS IN GENERAL. FREMONT HESITATED NOT TO BUY STOLEN HORSES. FAGES, FIRST WHITE MAN TO LOOK UPON INTERIOR VALLEY. PURSUIT AND SURRENDER OF REVOLT- ING SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL INDIANS. BATTLE WITH THE FUGITIVE SANTA CLARA MISSION CONVERTS IN 1829. VALLEJO COUNTENANCES A SHOCKING BUTCHERY OF HAPLESS PRISONERS. KIDNAPING OF GENTILE CHILDREN.

The unexplored interior, or that central portion that was at all known to the Californians, was named the Tulares, or the Tulare country, because of the immense tule swamps formed in the depression or slough between Tulare Lake and the great bend of the San Joaquin, and above it by the Kern and other small bodies of water from the streams from the Sierras on the east and south. This slough carried the surplus waters of lake and upper part of valley off into the rivers in flood seasons. The valley was dry under foot in summer and autumn seasons and in drouth periods. Around the lakes and sloughs for miles, along almost the full length of the San Joaquin and the lower half of the Sacramento and over a large territory of low ground about their mouths, extensive tule covered swamp lands formed, salty where affected by ocean tides but fresh or brackish where not.

The tule swamps, apparently one immense tract to the eye, were at intervals visited by the Spaniards and the Californians in pursuit of deserting Indians, and horse and cattle thieves. That region now embraced in Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties was inhabited by a warlike band of horse riding Indians, who not infrequently descended upon missions and ranches to run off stock and particularly mustangs, the Indian having a great fondness for horseflesh as an article of diet. The renegades piloted their wilder brothers on the forays and raids. These Tulareans were never subdued by the Span- iards, and the Tulares became in time a rendezvous for the runaway neo- phytes of the missions. They were also resorted to by horse thieves from New Mexico and elsewhere, and by Spanish and American adventurers to buy horses. John C. Fremont, concerning whom Senator Nesmith of Oregon once said that he had the credit with some people of having found every- thing west of the Rockies, had no moral scruples on his 1846 expedition to buy 187 horses from these Tulareans, despite the warning of John A. Sutter that he would receive stolen animals. A hunting knife and a handful of beads bought a horse.

Many were the expeditions sent to the Tulares. The first of which there is record was in 1773, when Pedro Fages with a few soldiers sallied out from San Luis Obispo across the Coast Range to the vicinity of Tulare Lake in pursuit of runaways. He was the first white man to look upon the great interior valley.

This Fages was a brave soldier, an undaunted explorer, a pioneer of pioneers and a gallant and picturesque figure of early California, who as a subaltern was prominent and foremost in the first land explorations of California as well as of the bay of San Francisco with Portola. He was California's first comandante of the military (1769-1773). He quarreled with Father President Serra, who had him deposed, but later retracted his

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

accusations as unmerited. He was the fourth governor (1782-1790) and during his regime the wife's accusations and actions involved him in a juicy scandal agitating Monterey social circles from center to circumference. The end all was to prove that Fages was more sinned against than sinning, and the donna a woman, whose tact and discretion left much to be desired. In his retirement days, Fages was never out but he was followed by a band of children, attracted by the candies that he stuffed his pockets with for dis- tribution among them.

The Tulares as the refuge of outlaws and evildoers was not infrequently the scene of conflicts with them. In 1805 a small military party was sent out from Mission San Jose to punish gentiles (Indians that were never affiliated with mission) who had attacked a missionary who had gone on an errand of mercy to their rancheria, and one of whose attendants had been killed. This party pursued the malcontents as far as the San Joaquin River, recovering thirty or forty runaways and capturing a lot of gentiles.

The routed survivors of the general uprising of February, 1824, against the Santa Barbara channel cordon of missions, fled to the valley and were pursued in June following by 103 soldiers with two field pieces. The In- dians when overtaken in camp at Tulare Lake displayed a white flag. A conference followed, the two priests acted as negotiators, and as a result unconditional surrender, pardon and enforced return to their respective mis- sions. The number engaged in this revolt was upwards of 400. Had their secret conspiracy succeeded, there would have been massacre at all the missions. Its failure discouraged other attempts for a time. Santa Inez and Purisima with burning of the buildings and Santa Barbara were the missions attacked.

Not until the spring of 1829 was there another general uprising, this time of the neophytes of Santa Clara and San Jose, who deserted and fortified themselves with gentiles near the San Joaquin River. A San Francisco expe- dition of fifteen men under Sergeant Antonio Soto was dispatched to capture the fugitives and destroy the fortification, but it was repulsed in penetrating a thicket of willows and brambles and withdrew to San Jose, where Soto died from his wounds. The Indians celebrated their victory with feasting and dancing, while neighboring rancherias made common cause with them, and the uprising threatened to become a dangerous one, necessitating rigor- ous repressive measures. Jose Sanchez was sent with a second expedition of forty from the San Francisco presidio but retired to San Jose without risking a second storming of the inner works on finding that the Indians had set up several strong lines of wooden palisades, the first of which had been destroyed.

A third expedition of one hundred from Monterey under Ensign M. G. Vallejo joined the Sanchez force with Indian auxiliaries, and after a desper- ate fight the fugitives were driven from their intrenchments, unable to with- stand the musketry and cannonading. After the fight, "a most shocking and horrible butchery of prisoners took place." The auxiliaries ranging them- selves in a circle were permitted to exercise their skill in archery upon the hapless prisoners in their midst, others were hanged from trees with vine ropes and old women shot down in cold blood. Estanislao, the native alcalde, who instigated the uprising, escaped the slaughter, delivered himself up to Father Narciso Duran of San Jose who concealed him for a time and finally secured his pardon.

Finishing his bloody campaign, Vallejo returned to San Jose and Mon- terey. Father Duran attempted to have him prosecuted for "the greatest barbarity ever perpetrated in the territory." One soldier was sentenced to five years penal servitude for shooting down a defenseless old squaw, but Vallejo escaped trial. Duran, who as a Spaniard opposed the republic, as did all the missionaries, wielded less influence than Vallejo, who as usual ranged himself on the popular side and was in the line of promotion, wherefore

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

according to Historian T. H. Hittell "by degrees the bloody story was sup- planted in the public mind by matters which were supposed to be of more immediate importance."

Gen. M. G. Vallejo, as he was later known, was a man who has been given much prominence in the written early history of California, as well under the Mexican as the American regime. He was a delegate to the Mon- terey constitutional convention, honored politically then and afterward, a leader and spokesman for the California-born Spanish speaking population, lived. the life of a feudal lord and baron at Sonoma with the history of the region north of San Francisco largely that of his own family, held the military title of General to his dying day yet never commanded more soldiers than would make up the complement of one company, revelled in wealth and luxury in the halcyon days and lived his later days in comparative pov- erty, was as proud as the most blue-blooded Hidalgo until the very last, was honored by the Society of California Pioneers, having arrived July, 1808, and by the Native Sons of the Golden West, a quoted authority on early California history, a friend at one time and the opponent at another, of the dominant Roman Catholic church, importing and collecting for private read- ing and library in his younger davs the very books that were forbidden by the church, and foremost as an influential individual in yielding to and advo- cating the change under American territorial acquisition.

A reading between the lines of history impresses one that he was a very accommodating spirit, best described by the present-day term of a "political trimmer." His advocacy of the American regime was at a time when his opposition might have been feared for its possible results when the popular sentiment was not over friendly to the American cause.

But what mattered it that a few Indians, more or less, were wantonly massacred? Some of the whites were no more considerate or humane.

Towards the end of 1833, because of the frequency of raids by Indian horse thieves, it became the custom to send monthly expeditions, aided by rancheros, to overawe the maranders. It was not unusual for them to make slave prisoners of gentile children, wherever met with. An instance came under the notice of Governor Figueroa in the early part of 1835 as the result of a San Jose expedition and the kidnaping of seven children. He de- nounced the outrage in unmeasured terms, ordered the papooses placed in the mission until the parents could call for them, directed that no more expeditions be sent except in actual pursuit of horse thieves, and then only with express governmental permission. Figueroa had great sympathy for the Indian, due as much to his humanity as to his Aztec blood. He was so well thought of that he was called the "Benefactor of the Territory of Alta California.'

Lieut. Theodore Talbot, U. S. N., who had been left in command with nine men at Santa Barbara in September at the outbreak of the Californian insurrection, following the raising of the flag and after the retaking of Los Angeles, was called upon to surrender by one of the California military commanders. Talbot refused, but unable to resist the force of 200 against him retired to the mountains. His little party fought the pursuers, and fire was set to the woods to burn them out. Talbot and men escaped the flames and eluded the pursuit. An old soldier of ex-Governor Micheltorena, who was unfriendly to the Californians because of their expulsion of his former chief, piloted the pursued ninety miles across the mountains into the Tulares. From here they groped their way for about a month, mostly on foot, endur- ing hardships and suffering, for some 500 miles to Monterey, arriving carly in November and rejoining Fremont after having been given up for dead.

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

CHAPTER VI

FRESNO COUNTY IS THE HEART OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. THE CITY IS THE STATE'S PRACTICAL GEOGRAPHICAL CENTER. PHYS- ICAL FEATURES OF THE GREAT INTERIOR BASIN. CLIMATE A MOST VALUABLE ASSET. DEVELOPMENT CHANGE DUE TO IRRIGATION. DESTINY IS TO SUPPORT A MUCH LARGER FARMING POPULATION. FULLEST GROWTH WILL BE ATTAINED WITH CONSERVATION OF WATER AND FORESTS, AND NAVIGABILITY OF ITS MAIN WATER COURSE.

Fresno County lies in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, and the- latter is the central portion of the state. Fresno City is practically the- geographical center of the state, as it is the central spot of the valley. As valley or county, the region is one with many claims to distinction and not a few to supremacy. Fresno is one of the five richest agricultural counties. in the United States.

Between the San Joaquin and the Kings rivers, streams that rise in the perpetual snows of the Sierras, bringing the life-giving waters out upon- the parched plains, to yield in orchard, vineyard and alfalfa fields, returns. greater than ever did the local gold placers, lies a broad-backed divide,. known as the Fresno plateau, though to the eye it is a part of the undulat- ing fertile plains of the great valley. The plain-like Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley-The Great Valley of California-was once a vast inland sea. Geological proof of this is not lacking. The plain is 400 miles long- and fifty to seventy wide, in the very heart of the state, nestling at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas, or Snowy Mountains, and according to scien -- tists is one of the oldest, present day, existing physical features of California. Sparsely settled as yet, the prophetic predict that it will some day support the bulk of the state's agricultural population.

The Sierra Nevada is a range of extreme scenic grandeur and natural beauty, some of its valleys, as the Yosemite, the Forks of the Kings, and the Hetch-Hetchy, presenting sublime scenic spectacles. The range protects from the east the long, central, fruitful valleys of the San Joaquin and of the Sacramento. The Coast Range parallels the sea coast line and protects from the west. They unite near the 40th parallel and combined, extend north- ward into Oregon as the Cascade Range. The Great Valley is a basin between the two first ranges, gradually rising to them through foothills. The northern branch of the trough-like plain is known as the Sacramento;" and the southern as the San Joaquin Valley, each drained by a river of the same name, heading from opposite directions, uniting in the valley's western center and coursing westward to empty into San Francisco Bay.

There was a time when the combined stream went out into the ocean through the Golden Gate, but owing to the sinking of the coast, in a great convulsion of nature and the earth, of which there is a hazy Indian tradition, the river was "drowned." Tidal influence is felt now no further inland than at Sacramento and Stockton. The coast subsidence once flooded the lower- part of the valley, as even now at the junction of the rivers an overflowed delta and marsh is forming and slowly being made into dry land by silting, the surface overgrown with tules. These reclaimed marshlands have proven remarkably productive. When the gold seekers first appeared, the Feather River was navigable by small boat to Marysville in Yuba County, and the- Sacramento as far as Red Bluff in Tehama County. Today they are scarcely-

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

navigable above Sacramento. The San Joaquin carries less water than the Sacramento, although dredging could make it navigable.

Time was when the San Joaquin was navigable for freight scows, towed by light draught tugs, in spring high water, above the present railroad bridge across the river at Herndon in this county. Miller & Lux provisioned their big cattle ranches thus, and by water sent to market hides and spring wool clips. Millerton, the old county seat, was at times so provided with mer- chandise as a cheaper means of transportation than hauling by freight wagons from Stockton. The river was a navigable stream as far as Sycamore Point, above Herndon, and was so delineated on the old maps. So well recognized was the fact that when a bridge was put in at Firebaugh, it was made a draw so as not to impede navigation of the stream. A demonstration river journey from Stockton with a light river steamer was successfully made in the summer of 1911 in connection with an abortive agitation for a reduction of railroad freight rates and a congressional appropriation for the dredging of the river as a navigable stream as in the days of yore to near Fresno.

The Coast range streams flowing eastward into the San Joaquin are small and dry in the summer. Those from the Sierras, flowing westward, are large, permanent and supply the water for irrigation. The main drainage line of the valley is consequently forced over to the west side by the delta accumulations on the Sierra side. In evidence of this, the Kings has silted up so large a delta as to block the one time continuous drainage of the valley and form Tulare Lake behind the dam as a permanent body of water. Later so much water was taken for irrigation that with the evapora- tion the lake almost went dry and the lake shores were farmed. A few years ago, six in fact, the water accumulated again and the lake was reproduced but of reduced size. The Kern River's debris also dammed the valley, creat- ing Buena Vista and Kern Lakes at the extreme southern end, though in high water stages Buena Vista discharges northward into the Tulare basin and also southward into Kern Lake.

The western sides of the valley are much drier than the eastern because of the Coast range barrier, and therefore are in greater need of irrigation. Much of this land will bear good grain crops in average rainy years. Other large areas are semi arid and suitable only for grazing during the spring months. Nearly one-third of Fresno County's area is on the dry west side, which if ever brought under irrigation would yield results to duplicate the agricultural wonders of the past and add immensely to the productive wealth of the county.

The climatic extremes of the valley are greater than in the coast region. The summers are hot, but the air is dry and the temperature is borne there- fore with less discomfort than the summer eastern weather. In this dry summer heat, the valley counties have a most valuable asset. It ripens crops earlier and forms saccharine in the fruit, while it enables the grower to dry it with the aid of the sun. The lack of humidity prevents dew at night and thus maintains the drying process by night and day. The humidity is at times as low as six percent, and while the mercury may register 110 degrees this temperature is felt less for discomfort than one twenty or thirty degrees lower in a region of humidity. This desiccating summer heat has made Fresno the world's raisin district, an extensive citrus fruit grower and a leader in sun-dried fruit. Sunstroke is as great a rarity as a snowstorm. The mean daily average maximum temperature from May to September is eighty-one degrees, and the mean minimum during the remaining period fifty-eight degrees.

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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 6

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