USA > California > Marin County > History of Marin County, California also an historical sketch of the state of California > Part 33
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Jonive rancho, and Dawson and McIntosh occupied the Estero Americano tract. Dawson, however, afterwards separated from McIntosh, sawing their common house in twain, and placed his half on the tract now known as the Cañada de Pogolome rancho, all of which grants bordered on the Russian colony, and were eventually confirmed to their respective claimants. When the mines were in thefr glory Black drove annually large herds of cattle into that section, where he found a ready market for them, and their sale added much to his store of wealth. He spent the remainder of his days in quietude in this county, being however always an active business man and a true citizen. In 1850 he was one of the Associate Justices of the Court of Sessions, and on April 24, 1852, he was appointed Assessor, which office he filled till 1853. In both these positions he proved himself both capable and faithful. In 1843 he was united in marriage with Maria Augustine Saiz, daughter of Juan and Domingo Saiz. Two children resulted from this union, one of whom is now living, and is the wife of Dr. G. Burdell. Mrs. Black died February 23, 1864, and in 1865 he married Mrs. Pacheco, who still survives him. He died June 12, 1870, at the age of sixty-four. And thus are the leaves of the great book of life closed and another of California's oldest pioneers has passed from time to eternity, and all that can be gathered of the life he led, the scenes he saw, or experiences passed through in those olden days, before it were possible to place them upon the living pages of history, is but the stray threads of warp and woof, and the web can but be at best sadly disconnected, and the links of life's chain widely severed, with only here and there one which even approaches completeness. In 1853 Jacob and J. O. B. Short leased an extensive tract of land in Nicasio from Timothy Murphy for grazing purposes, and took a considerable band of cattle upon it. They built a large log house in Bull's Tail valley, on what is now known as the Crayton place. This house is still standing, though Father Time has left the imprint of years upon it. This was the second house erected in the township. Two brothers named Hiram and Noah Corey came into this valley in 1852, and each built a house. The one erected by Noah Corey was the first house built on the present town site of Nicasio, and was located where the hotel now stands. This house was twenty-two by thirty feet and is still standing, and occupied by Mrs. McMannus. The frames for these two buildings were sawed out with a small circular saw driven by horse power. This was probably the first saw-mill of any character that was ever run in the township, and was owned by the Corey brothers. These houses were weather boarded and ceiled with shakes, and were very durable and comfortable. The house built by Hiram was situated just north of the town site of Nicasio. These men brought their families with them, and, with the exception of James Black's family, were the first who came to the township. During the first or second year of their residence here a little child belonging to the family of Noah. Corey
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sickened and died, and was buried under the wide spreading branches of a massive oak tree which grew near the house. Years sped by apace, and the family moved away, leaving the little grave behind them with nothing to mark it save a redwood slab. After them many cane and many went, and at last the slab was gone and the little sleeper forgotten by those who knew her, and her resting place unmarked and unknown to the strangers who came to settle in the valley. But fresh in the memory of the parents remained the little mound, and no lapse of time could destroy their love for, or cause them to forget, the hallowed spot. At length, after the flowers of a quarter of a century had bloomed, the father returned for the purpose of removing the body to a more appropriate resting place, beside other mem- bers of the family, who, having wearied with life's burden, had gone to rest on the bosom of mother earth. But when the father returned he found that many, many changes had occurred. The old house was gone, and the tree that sheltered the grave of his darling had likewise been swept out of exist- ence, and in their stead the goodly proportions of a fine hotel were reared. Search for even a trace of the grave proved futile, and with a sad heart the father turned away to await the great day which shall reveal the resting place of all.
William Dampier and William Butterfield were the next settlers in the valley. They constructed a house similar to those mentioned above, in 1853. It was situated south of the town of Nicasio, and is still standing on the farm owned by B. F. Porter. These gentlemen were partners and were engaged in the stock and dairy business. After this the valley filled up quite rapidly with settlers, among whom may be mentioned Peter Irwin, John Nutter, Captain Henney, M. MeNamara, C. Murray and Richard Magee. The latter came to Nicasio in 1857 and located in the redwoods east of the town. He had bought the down timber in this forest from John Lucas. He built a log house. The present locale of those old settlers men- tioned above who are still living is as follows :- Short Brothers in San Rafael; Corey Brothers in Sonoma county, near Santa Rosa; William Dam- pier, present Treasurer of Marin county; William Butterfield in Monterey county ; Richard Magee, M. MeNamara and C. Murray still reside at Nica- sio; and Captain Henney is in Sacramento, and the remainder have gone to their long home.
The first blacksmith to work in the town of Nicasio was a man by the name of Thomas Ward. His forge and anvil were placed under the branches of an oak tree, and here he forged and welded with as good a grace as though he were housed in a mansion. He continued to work under this tree till the rains began, when an open shed was constructed. Later in the year he sold out to W. C. Fredenbur, who added the business of a wheelwright to his blacksmithing.
The first store in Nicasio was conducted by Edward Jackson. He occu-
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pied the old Noah Corey House, which is mentioned above as being the first house erected in the town.
The business interests of the town of Nicasio are represented by one store, one blacksmith shop, one meat market, one livery stable, one hotel, and one boarding house. H. F. Taft is postmaster and Wells, Fargo & Co.'s agent. The post-office was established April 13, 1870, with Mr. Taft as post- master.
CATHOLIC CHURCH .- The church at this place of the Catholic persuasion was for a number of years included in the Petaluma parish, and the resident priest of that place served the people here for some time before a church building was erected. In the Spring of 1867 a subscription was circulated and enough secured to proceed with the building. The body of the church is twenty-four by fifty, with a chancel at the rear which is twenty by twenty-four. It is neat and substantial in its construction, having hard finished walls. The work around the altar is of curled redwood nicely varnished, giving to it a very handsome appearance. It is stated that the cost of the building was three thousand dollars. Father Harrington was pastor at the time of the erection of the building. He was followed by Father Burmingham. The church is now connected with the parish of Sonoma.
SCHOOLS .- There are two school districts in the township, viz : Nicasio and San Geronimo. The first school-house erected in the former was built in 1866, and was quite a small building. The demand for a larger building soon became pressing, and in 1871 a second and much larger structure was erected, being thirty-five by forty-five. This is probably the most substantial and handsome district school building in Marin county. It cost three thousand dollars when completed.
HOTEL .- A large and well furnished hotel was erected at this place in June, 1867, by Wm. J. Miller. The main building is thirty by sixty-six. three stories high, with a wing twenty-six by forty. It contains twenty-two rooms, beside bar, dining room, kitchen and parlor. It was completed and furnished at an expense of eleven thousand dollars.
SAW-MILLS .- The pioneer mill of this township was built by James Dixon and James Ross in 1862. It was located about one and a half miles easterly from the present site of the town of Nicasio. The capacity of the mill was about fifteen thousand feet of lumber per day. It was run till 1865, when Dixon bought the interest of Ross, and moved the mill to Fort Ross, Sonoma county. The next mill was built by Isaac Shaver and Jona- than Mitchner in 1866, and was located about one and a half miles south- east of Nicasio. It had a capacity of twenty thousand feet per day, and was run till 1872, when part of the machinery was taken to San Rafael and
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put into a planing mill. In 1874 Isaac Shaver located a portable saw-mill on the White ranch, about a mile south of San Geronimo Station. It was run six months. In 1875 Isaac Shaver and Edmund and Samuel Kiler built a mill on the road between White's Hill and San Geronimo. Its capacity was twelve thousand feet daily, and was run for six months. In 1876 the same company built a mill about two miles west of San Geronimo, with a capacity of twenty thousand feet per day. They ran it about six months. The machinery is still there and in running order. In 1877 Robert Scott, Charles Sims, and - Parks had a shingle mill at the foot of Nicasio Hill, on the road from Nicasio to San Geronimo. It had a capacity of fifteen thousand shingles daily, and was run about one year.
SAN GERONIMO .- This is the name of the station on the North Pacific Coast Railroad, from which stages connect with Nicasio. It is a small village containing some half score houses, of which most are dwellings. The only business conducted at the place is a blacksmith shop.
GOLD MINES .- The San Geronimo gold mine is located about one half mile west of the station, and operations were begun in it in October, 1878. Since that time a shaft two hundred feet deep has been sunk, and a drift has been run to the northward a distance of two hundred and sixty feet, and a side drift from that a distance of sixty feet, also a drift to the westward has been run two hundred and seventy feet. It is proposed to run this drift some distance farther, when a shaft will be sunk connecting with it. The force engaged at present consists of fourteen men, who work in three shifts of eight hours each, with the exception of two engineers, who work twelve hours each. Assays of ore average from thirty to forty dollars per ton, although it has yielded as much as ninety dollars gold. The ore contains gold, silver, iron, manganese, antimony and tracings of nickel. The outcrop- pings of the lode extend for a long distance through that section of the country, and should gold in paying quantities be found it will prove a very extensive mine, and would add very much to the material interests of Marin county.
INDIANS .- The Nicasio Indians were at one time a very powerful tribe, numbering many thousands, and filling the whole valley, but they have vanished before the silent forces of civilization like the dew from off the grass beneath the ardent rays of a mid-summer sun. Dire contagion stalked through the land and claimed many tithings for the charnel house of death, and later the accursed "fire water " of the white man overcame and destroyed their sons, and the souls and bodies of their daughters were sold in prostitution and they ceased to bear children. And thus have their ranks been decimated until scarcely a score can be mustered, and the once popu- lous village contains only eight wigwams now. What few remain of the
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tribe now live upon a tract of about thirty acres, situated about two miles east of the town of Nicasio in a lovely valley, which was purchased by José Calistro, their last chief, of Wm. J. Miller, several years ago, for a home for the remnant of his people. The county appropriates forty dollars per month for their support, which, together with the pittance of wages which they earn and the game they kill, affords them a meager sustenance. There are five who are very aged indeed, in fact so old that nothing can be obtained which will establish the date of their birth, and they are almost helpless. They are patiently waiting for death to come and take them to their people who have gone before them long ago to the happy hunting grounds in the home of " Gitchie Manito," the mighty.
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NOVATO.
GEOGRAPHY .- Novato township is bounded on the north by Sonoma county, on the east by San Pablo bay, on the south by San Rafael town- ship. and on the west by Nicasio and San Antonio townships. The San Antonio creek follows along its northern boundary, and debouches into the bay of San Pablo at the north-easterly point of the township. There are no streams running through Novato of any considerable size, and the principal ones are Novato creek, arroyo San José and arroyo Achiva.
TOPOGRAPHY .- Along the eastern side of the township there is quite a section of salt marsh land, which is, of course, low and level, but points of the high land extend to the bay, and serve to break up the monotony of the landscape, and to add to the beauty of the scene as viewed in passing up the bay on board the steamer. The remainder of the country is very broken and mountainous. The mountains are not very high generally, and the most extensive range, and the only one deserving a name, is called the Olompali Hills. Lying sequestered amid these mountains are a number of extensive and lovely valleys, rich in soil and fertile in beauty. In these charming glens, the husbandman is sure to realize a full fruition of all his labors, and the products of the soil are poured into his garners with a lavish hand, the financial return for which is always commensurate with the yield.
SOIL .- The soil throughout this township is a rich, sandy loam, and is especially fertile in the valleys. It is well adapted to the growing of grains, vegetables, fruits and vines. Grass grows very luxuriantly on all the hill and mountain sides, over which large herds of kine roam at will, feeding upon the sweet and succulent grasses, yielding rich milk, which, when con- verted into golden butter, affords a golden return.
PRODUCTS .- The products of this section are as varied as any in the county. The cereals prosper in all the valleys, as also do potatoes and other vegetables. Fruits are found to do exceptionally well, especially in those valleys which open toward the bay. Vines and small fruits are grown with great success wherever planted, and the sparseness of orchards and vineyards in this section is not to be attributed at all to the fact that they
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will not thrive, but that the land is mostly rented for dairying purposes, and the renters do not care to make any such permanent improvements upon the farms. As an evidence of what may be done in the way of growing fruits and vines, we will take a hasty survey of the extensive orchard and vineyard of F. De Long. This orchard lies just north-west of the town of Novato, in a valley opening to the south-east, and well sheltered on the north and west by a high range of hills. In this orchard there are twenty thousand apple trees, three thousand and five hundred pear trees, three thou- sand apricot trees, two hundred cherry trees, six hundred peach trees, and five hundred almond trees. The vineyard has eight thousand vines in it, and the yield from all these trees and vines will compare favorably with any in the State. The produce from all except the apple trees is sent at once to market. Of the apples, a large proportion are crushed, and cider and vine- gar made from the expressed juice. For this purpose the proprietor has all the necessary appliances for rapid and complete execution of the desired object. The apples are crushed by a roller driven by steam power. The pomace is then passed into the cellar of the building where the press is sit- uated. Here a cheese is built upon a frame five feet square, encased in strong gunny cloth. This is passed under a very large and strong press, to which the power is applied by four strong screws, operated by a series of cog-wheels connected with the engine. There are two grinding machines, and two frames for constructing cheeses upon, so that while one cheese is under the press another one is in construction. Each cheese will yield from five to seven barrels, of forty gallons each, of cider owing to the season and quality of the fruit. It usually requires ten bushels of apples to make one barrel of cider. It requires four men to operate this machinery, and the average daily yield is about one thousand and six hundred gallons. The pomace is put into large vats and allowed to stand until it ferments, when it is again pressed, and yields an amount of juice equalling about twenty-five per cent. of the original quantity extracted from it. The cider is pumped into a main conductor and conveyed into large tanks in the store room. At the end of three or four months it is drawn off from the lees, and placed in clean tanks. It is usually drawn off twice more, when, at the end of from fifteen to eighteen months, it is con- sidered to be in prime condition for the market. It will then neutralize fifty grains of potash very readily, and sometimes will reach so high a standard as to neutralize seventy grains. There is no water allowed to enter any of the processes, and if it becomes necessary to reduce the grade of the vinegar to make it marketable, it is done afterwards. In the store room there are twenty vats, each containing two thousand and eight hundred gallons, also about eight hundred barrels, of forty gallons each. Quite a large quantity of cider is boiled down from thirty to fifty per cent., and marketed in that condition, while much more of it is bottled and sold as champagne cider. ,
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For storing his apples Mr. De Long has a brick building which is seventy by one hundred feet in size, and three stories high, including the basement, It has a storage capacity of twenty thousand boxes, holding one bushel each. This is the most extensive vinegar manufactory, probably, in the State of California, hence the extended notice of it in our work. As else- where in this county, butter is the chief staple product.
CLIMATE .- The climate of Novato is usually very mild and temperate. It is so far inland that the strong sea breezes do not reach the valleys with any undue degree of force, at the same time the effect of them is felt in the moderated temperature. It is almost perennial spring-time in the glens and dells of this section. Tropical plants and fruits bloom and fructify in a luxuriance not found elsewhere north of Santa Barbara. Japonicas can be seen in full and perfect bloom in the month of March, which have stood in the gardens the entire season, exposed to all the rigors of the winter's storms; also lemon, orange and lime trees. Dr. G. Burdell has, in his orchard of tropical fruits, orange trees from Los Angeles, Japan, Florida and Tahiti, all of which are growing nicely, and seem to thrive as well here as beneath their native tropical sun.
TIMBER .- The timber of this township consists chiefly of oak and laurel, and in the early days of its settlement the chopping and exporting of wood formed one of the principal industries of the settlers. But that is all a thing of the past, and but little wood is now chopped here for the market. There are no redwood forests in this section, but a few straggling trees are to be found in the cañons near the mountain tops. These trees are spoken of as being very hardy and their wood very durable. A few pine and fir trees are also found, but not in any considerable bodies.
EARLY SETTLEMENT .- To go back to the building of the first house in this township would bring us down several years into the last century, and without doubt to Novato belongs the honor of having the first house ever built north of San Francisco bay in the State of California. The old settlers who have passed along the road from San Rafael to Petaluma, will remember the old adobe house which stood just at the south-east corner of the house now occupied by Dr. Burdell on the Olompali ranch. This house and the one in which the Doctor resides at the present time have stood there so long that the "memory of man runneth not to the contrary." It is to be presumed that the first mentioned of these buildings was erected prior to the second, from the fact of its decay. An Indian legend which still clings about the place, coming down through the generations of Aborig- inals who have long since shuffled this mortal coil and passed to the happy hunting grounds of "Gitchie Manito," to the early Spanish dwellers in the land, and from them to the present generation, relates that in the long, long ago there was a great and powerful tribe of Indians who dwelt at this place,
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known as the Olompalis. Here a beautiful stream of living water burst as it were from the hillsides and went dashing down the valley, across the level plain skirting the bay, and lost itself in the ceaseless ebb and flow of the tide upon the sandy beach. This was before the days of salt marshes around the head of San Pablo bay, and the sparkling, rippling wavelets of that "Gitchie Gumme " danced in merry glee over its smooth surface and were at last stranded on the beach of glittering sands which begirt the shore. On the banks of this stream there were immense " kjöokkenmod- dings," or shell deposits, covering an area of several acres, and having an unknown depth, which would indicate that these people have lived here from time immemorial. In the depths of these shell mounds are found stone implements of a character unknown to the later generation of Aborig- inals. Stone calumets have been found there, and it has also been noticed that there are three distinct styles of arrow heads found buried in these shell mounds, varying according to the depth at which they are deposited. Hence it may be reasonably inferred that this place was the camping ground of a people which far antedates the California Indian. Who that people was or what they were like is not the object of this sketch. The legend above referred to relates still further that about the time of the erection of the Mission at San Francisco, a party of Spaniards crossed the straits at what is now known as Lime Point and traveled northward. It was late in the season and they found no streams of running water until they arrived at Olompali. Here they were kindly received by the natives, and all their wants supplied as far as it lay in their hands to do so. The party was so well entertained that the leaders decided to remain there for a fortnight and recruit their horses, and get thoroughly rested preparatory to proceed- ing on their arduous journey, and in return for the kindness received they taught the Indians how to make adobe brick and construct a house. Let us see now how fully this legend is sustained by facts mentioned in history. The party sent out to establish the Mission at San Francisco arrived at that place June 27, 1776. There was a store-ship containing supplies dispatched so as to arrive in the bay about the same time, but adverse winds delayed it for a protracted period. At length the party decided to construct a pre- sidio pending the arrival of the vessel, which seemed essential to the estab- lishment of the Mission. On the 18th of August the store-ship sailed into the harbor, and the Mission was dedicated October 9th of that year. Father Gleeson, in his "History of the Catholic Church in California," says :- " While waiting for the arrival of the vessel with the stores, they occupied themselves in examining the bay and visiting the natives at their respective rancherias, by whom they were favorably received." After the arrival of the vessel another short delay occurred, of which he says :- "This interval they employed in surveying the harbor, which resulted in the knowledge of there being no outlet, except that by which they had entered." Father
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Palou, the chronicler of Father Junipera Serra, and the first historian of California, says :- " After the presidio and before the Mission was estab- lished (in San Francisco), an exploration of the interior was organized, as usual, by sea (the bay) and land." It will be seen by the above, which is authority that is perfectly reliable, that an expedition was sent out by sea. and land from San Francisco at the time of the locating of the Mission and presidio there, and that they visited the rancherias of the natives in the interior, all of which not only goes to corroborate the statements made by the Indians, but fixes the fact beyond a doubt ; hence we may reasonably conclude that, if the truth of the legend has been so far established as to prove that a visit was made them at this time by the Spaniards, then the remainder of it is true concerning the instructions given in the art of brick making and house building.
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