USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 41
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 41
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Angeles was an overgrown village, headquarters for supplies for the meager wants of the interior with a newly built railway to tidewater at Wilmington running a mixed train of cars once a day each way. This was in 1870.
Riverside was then being founded, but not advertised in California. A season of corn growing and some letters of Judge North's in the San Francisco Weekly Bulletin called my attention to the new settlement of Riverside where oranges and other semi-tropical products could be raised. This to our fancy looked like the promised land and so one day in April, 1872, I took my blankets and provision and started on horseback to spy out the promised land. Night found me camped in the Santa Ana river bottom and next morning in Riverside where I received a cordial wel- come. It was Sunday morning and being told that there was that day to be formed a society of the Congregational Church I attended and am about the only one alive today who was present at the founding of the Congregational Church. The meeting was held in the little schoolhouse.
Riverside appealed to me as being a desirable place to come to both on account of the promise of the land and also for the progressive con- dition of the people and before I left I had made arrangements to settle on a quarter section of government land. When I reached our home my wife was delighted with my report of the promised land and we made immediate arrangements to make our home in Riverside and July, 1872, again found us on the road and in Riverside after two days travel.
Our life in Riverside has been part of the history of Riverside. Coming without any money owing to an unlucky purchase of land near Los Angeles, it was a hard struggle to make both ends meet as there was but little opportunity in the early days to earn much while trees and vines were growing. In the following spring I got a little orchard of all kinds of trees set out with a small vineyard of raisin grapes and while wait- ing for returns I got enough to live on by hauling freight for the stores from Los Angeles and team work in other ways.
In the course of my travels in this way, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Bakersfield were all visited, together with trips to the mines at Bear Valley and as far as Panamint one hundred and fifty miles away on the desert near Death Valley. The grading of Magnolia Avenue, planting it with trees and the care of it for one year was one of the contracts I carried out. Fixing up the streets of Riverside as road overseer was accomplished in the early days before paving or oiled roads were heard of. My further history will be embraced incidentally as this history pro- ceeds, but enough has been said at present to show that I had a hand in helping to make Riverside the beautiful city it now is.
CHAPTER II
PERSONAL (Continued )
Some readers of my personal history have asked for a further con- tinuance of it, in a less general form and at the risk of egotism I venture to give a brief resume. We are all interested in the personal experience and adventure of those who have gone before us, if they only can be told in an entertaining form. The conditions of the early seventies in South- ern California can never be encountered again or reproduced in any part of the United States. Oil, gasoline and electricity with all the discoveries and appliances resulting therefrom forever preclude those experiences and the pioneers of that time will always be in a class by themselves.
Orange culture and the growth of those luxuries such as figs and raisins now looked on as necessities had a fascination for my wife and myself that was irresistible.
. At first in the winter of 1870-1871 as we had not heard of Riverside as yet we rented a small house in the lower part of El Monte near the Old Misson San Gabriel which had been abandoned as heing too liable to overflow from the Old San Gabriel river and moved to the New San Gabriel as it was then called. Here was our first acquaintance with the native Californian-the Spaniard or Mexican as he is generally known. This was not much over twenty years after the acquisition of California by the United States and he was pretty nearly in his primitive condition as he was under Mexican rule. We found them kindly disposed and neighborly as we have since invariably found them. After a short resi- dence there. we found an American who was anxious to do us a favor by selling us a fine piece of land at a cheap rate and on easy terms for the unpaid balance, with abundance of water for irrigation from the San Gabriel river. This was so good looking that we soon found ourselves in a new home with fifty-three acres of land and contented for the time being. We, after a few months, found that the bulk of the land was use- less on account of alkali which we had never seen before and in any case it was entirely unsuited for the growth of semi-tropical fruits and this put us in a quandary for at best only a precarious living could be gotten out of the land.
When we read Judge North's letter in the San Francisco Bulletin it did not take my wife and I long to decide that we were better to throw away the place we were on than continue as we were. As mentioned heretofore a visit to Riverside confirmed us in the desire to move and sacrifice everything. Fortunately in the end it was not so disastrous as we feared for about that time the Southern Pacific Railway was planning to build to Anaheim and Santa Ana if those who were interested would give the right of way. As planned the right of way would go diagonally through our place which was half a mile long and take about seven acres ruining the place for further use. The sensible way was to buy the place outright and sell the remaining fragments to the neighbors, and so we gladly received a commitee from Anaheim a year or two after settling in Riverside who proposed to purchase at about half of the original purchase price and got relief from a mortgage.
Riverside was unlike most other places for there was but little chance to make a living out of the soil while fruit trees were growing into bear- ing and unlike what it is today for the change from a dry and arid climate brought about by so many fruit trees and so much water developed even
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on the Cucamonga desert as it was then known has produced changes that make it much easier to raise things that are in every day use now. This had a good influence on the class of settlers who came to Riverside for it was no place for a man to settle, grow some corn and raise a few hogs and care nothing as long as he could eke out a living in as easy a way as he could.
The various kinds of vegetables both summer and winter always suc- ceeded which was fine for family use, but there was no market for them for everybody had all he wanted to raise for his own use. But some money was necessary to pay for water and the tax collector when tax paying time came around. There was but little call for labor when every man did his own work on the outside and his wife did hers on the inside and in beautifying the surroundings. All groceries had to be hauled from Los Angeles and the stores hired teams to do the hauling and paid in groceries.
I had a four horse team and took in what hauling I could get and many a load of groceries and other things I brought from Los Angeles. Four days were consumed in the trip always camping out at Spadra or somewhere near water sleeping out in the open air generally under the wagon with the horses tied to the wagon. Enough provision was cooked in the home to do for the four days so there was not much cooking to do except boil the coffee. Generally two teams went together for com- pany and mutual assistance when necessary and good times were experi- enced sitting around the campfire. While away on these trips my wife was left alone with the little ones and to look after things at home. There were no tramps or other disreputable or dangerous characters so there was no fear felt on that score for all would be safe on the return. Later on as times improved I was able to have someone at home to help with the outside work. The most annoying trouble arose from loose Spanish horses for everyone who could afford a saddle had a horse which was usually turned loose to find its own feed and the green and succulent alfalfa formed a tempting morsel for the hungry horse. Some- times in the spring a load of wool from the Perris Valley and the plains and valleys as far as Temecula and San Jacinto formed a welcome and profitable addition to the Los Angeles trip for a load both ways and a six days trip was always more profitable. But again the Santa Ana river had to be forded and when it was in flood which was not very often there was danger that the wool would get wet and have to be unloaded and unpacked and dried. This only happened once in my hauling experience and not to my own load. When the river looked at all dangerous we always doubled teams and took no chance to get stuck in the quicksand. It was always the rule of the road whenever a team was stalled either in the river or in heavy sand on the desert (as it is still on the Arizona or Colorado desert in California) to help the other man out without any expectation of pay. The first bonanza in that line I got at a time when I very much needed it was when I overtook Moses Daley who then owned the Old Rubidoux place across the river. I overtook him down the river on the road via Chino with an overload of wool on the way to Los Angeles. Stopping to help him he put part of his load on my empty wagon which I hauled to Los Angeles. When we came to the San Gabriel river there was half a mile or more of dry heavy sand to haul through quite unlike what the San Gabriel river bed is today with its damp sand.
The few dollars I got for this service came in good time to buy gro- ceries. This happened when I was hauling some of my household effects from our abandoned ranch. Between loads and other contracts, there was opportunity to look after the growing trees and vines, which seemed
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as if they were endeavoring to make up by their encouraging growth for the difficulties encountered while waiting for returns from them.
Once in a while there would be long trips. About the time that the Riverside I.and and Irrigating Company was formed by the coming of S. C. Evans, D. W. McLeod came to Southern California for his health. His wife was a niece of Mr. Evans. Mr. McLeod, who bought land down Arlington way, came to live in Riverside when orange growing promised results, but health matters had to be attended to and a living made as well. Bee keeping was an untried, but promising business except on a small scale. A negro who was working at the tin mine had a few hives which had done well. Mr. McLeod was the first beekeeper in the Temescal valley who went into beekeeping on a large scale and his pioneer work showed what could done. He bought his bees in San Diego County near Escondido and I along with two other teamsters got the job of moving them. Two trips were made for bees and one or two to San Diego for hives and hive materials. These trips consumed a week or more each time, but they were all profitiable and helped "keep the pot boiling." Selling hay delivered at the tin mines at a time when barley hay was unsaleable came in to good purpose and consumed two days in delivery.
The grading, planting of Magnolia Avenue and the care of the trees for one year was quite a large contract. This was for the oldest part of it and extended from the head of the Avenue where one of the original trees is now planted for a distance of two and a half miles to the street below the Indian school. This avenue would have been continued right into the end of Main Street something on the line it now is except for the unreasonable opposition of one or two men. A bond for the fulfill- ment of the contract was one of the conditions of the contract, but none was ever asked and at the end of the year every tree was growing and satisfactory. Fifteen hundred dollars was what I got for the work.
The hanling of lumber from San Bernardino (and sometimes off the mountains but rarely) was one of the early occupations for the man with a team. Latterly when the railroads were built and when there was a demand for redwood and a better class of lumber than the San Ber- nardino mountains afforded Anaheim was drawn on for this class of lum- ber. This was to a certain extent in competition with the railroads which enabled lumber yards to be kept at Colton. This was before Riverside had a railway of its own. Anaheim was a four days trip and the road down the Santa Ana canyon crossed the river several times. The lum- ber for the lower story of the Odd Fellows hall which was first built for a hall for fruit exhibition purposes was hauled from Anaheim, the upper story for an Odd Fellows hall. The hauling for the exhibition hall .was paid for in stock in the new building and sold afterwards about half of its face value to the Odd Fellows. The third story was an afterthought for a later day.
Another source of income to the needy was the care of orchards for abstentees or for those who did not own a team. Once I had a trip to Bakersfield on a wild goose chase trying to sell some local produce on the suggestion of, and in the company of a fellow teamster. This was disastrous in its results and over poor roads, up the Cajon canyon branch- ing off at Swarthout Canyon and down Rock creek to the base of Cuca- monga mountain where there was a great meadow with abundance of water, thence on by Elizabeth Lake and on past Fort Tejon and down Tejon pass and canyon, and across the dreary dry plain to Bakersfield. Nearly a month was spent and practically lost on this fruitless trip, but that was not the worst for in that malarial country I brought back a dose
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of malaria which fortunately did not develop for a few days after my return, for I found my wife sick and half dead, but still keeping on her feet to look after the small children. My first case was to look after her and bring her back to health, but I had no sooner get her back to her old standard than I was down with malaria, and for a whole month I was unable even to do any of the chores. She had everything to do out and in, and the little children as well on her hands. But we were cheered at the prospect of our growing fruit with enough for our own use and the addition of the fine vegetables and melons which were always a success in their season.
Again when "Lucky Baldwin" found his mountain of gold in the east end of Bear Valley and wanted to put up a forty stamp mill I helped haul up some of the machinery. It took nearly a week then to get into the Valley up the Cajon canyon, down on the other side, and by Hesperia on the mesa, through the yuccas and away across the Mojave river deep sands, past Rabbit Springs and on to Cushenberry's at the foot of the long rocky canyon, that finally leads over the grade and into the valley to Bairdstown where the stamp mill was in process of erection. A night's camp in the cold mountain air found us in the morning with a covering of two or three inches of snow. The return trip was made in about half the time being mostly down hill. We had to haul feed for our horses, both going and coming. Always two or three teams together to double teams in the worst places.
Another time it was a trip to Panamint, a new mining camp away 150 miles out on the waterless desert north of the San Bernardino near Death Valley on a newly tracked soft road with water about twenty miles apart, and in one stretch forty miles where water had to be hauled for one night's supply. In winter it was so cold that some teamsters made big fires of brush to warm the ground before spreading their bedding for the night. I hauled a load of lose hay on that trip besides hauling feed for the team both ways. Five cents per pound was paid for hauling to the mine, and a lesser sum for a load of ore back. This was again pretty near a month's trip for the road was heavy and the team slow. Thus the early years in Riverside were passed. Every one, man and woman did their share, and everything pointed to a bright future and there was not lacking the bright side. Having plenty of horses and vehicles, an outing during the summer was a possibility. One of these outings, repeated a few years later, was to Bear Valley while the founda- tion to the dam was being built. With the lumber wagon to carry the baggage, provisions and feed, and a heavy spring wagon to carry the people who could not all pile onto the big wagon, and a few friends for company, a jolly time was had both going and coming and a whole month in the valley, and the stock getting fat in the luxuriant growth of feed in the present bottom of the lake and carefree, who would not be happy ? Dr. Greeves, one of the founders of Riverside was with us on one trip. While in the valley I was set to work by Judson and Brown fixing up roads by blasting and removing rocks and boulders, and so the time passed and the children grew rugged and strong in the open air and liv- ing on the pure milk, rich butter and the tender beef of the mountains. This was in 1884 and never again will the stock graze and grow fat in the abundant pasture that grew in the bottom of what is now Bear Valley Reservoir. Excursions to Holcomb Valley, to Bairdstown to see the abandoned stamp mill with its rusting machinery and the ruins of the shanties in which the miners lived, and the better homes of those who had their families with them, all were interesting. Again in that coun- try where there was gold, who could say but a rich ledge might be dis-
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covered and then what? Imagination could build the fairest "Castle in Spain." Best of all was the three days trip to the summit of San Gorgonio mountain better known as Greyback, the highest mountain in Southern California, on horseback to the base of the large peak which had to be climbed on foot and in the very early morning in order to see the sun rise. There was also the chance that in the absence of any trail the way might be lost as there was no traveled path, but everyone took his own way, certain that if he kept climbing over the rocks and boulders, the summit would be finally reached and the glorious view of the sun ris- ing to be enjoyed and the magnificent view of the surrounding mountains and country even as far as Catalina Island on the ocean on a clear day viewed with awe and admiration. Then the coffee and the early breakfast warmed with wood carried some distance ( for the top of the mountain is above the line of vegetation) was thoroughly enjoyed. On the way down which was down some loose fine rock the passage was easy and the streak of snow alongside was tempting for a toboggan slide were it only certain that a safe landing could be made. The gnarled and crooked trees near the top crushed down to the ground by the snow and the strange vegetation in the higher altitudes, familiar to colder climes were all full of interest, and home again to camp, the time flew swiftly until the month's outing was spent, all making the drudgery of every life more agreeable if only from the novelty of change.
Another season Santa Barbara was visited and the seashore was a variation in the busy everyday life and the time flew as those only who have something to do can realize.
Everyone almost who has got the wanderlust in his blood and comes to California with its wonderful tales of digging for gold and the lucky strikes wonders if there may not be some rich mines or strike of some kind somewhere in the mountains or in some inaccessible place for him -the most inaccessible and out of the way the better. Then there is traditions of very rich prospects being found by solitary wanderers who were always forced by unforseen circumstances to abandon the "find" for the time being until they can go on the inside and get fitted out in a way to take advantage of the treasure. Then there were the traditions of Indians who would go away by themselves and come back with enough gold to carry them on for the time being. All of these strikes were con- firmed by rich specimens. There were always good reasons why these finds were lost, generally the death of the prospector. Such a find was made by an old mountain trader and hunter called Peg Leg Smith, so-called because he had a wooden leg having lost his own in a skirmish with some Indians in a horse raid. The specimens were there, but Peg Leg Smith died before he could get back. Many a search has been made for the mine, but no one has ever discovered the gold. Tom Cover, one of the early settlers of Riverside disappeared in one of these prospecting expeditions. I went on one such expedition with a party both as a hired teamster and an interested participator out by Indio and across the bed of the Salton Sea and into San Diego county over a very dry and deso- late country. Back and forward to Indio for supplies and into what is called the bad lands, but after a weary and exhausting search nothing came of it and Peg Leg's treasure is still on the earth.
Another time I was away out north and east of the San Bernardino Mountains which another party with no results, but there is always the gamblers excitement which in some is never quelled. As far as I am concerned my desires in the mining line are satisfied and I am content to "let George" do the rest of the adventure.
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One very interesting trip was made all alone both ways to the Imperial Valley by team with a spring wagon at a time when I was proving up a desert claim for my daughter. It would seem rather foolhardy for an old man of 75 to go away so far unattended on a lonely desert road where you would maybe at times be twenty miles from a living human being. But I went nothing fearing for it was no new thing to me. The route lay over the old Butterfield Stage route in the early history of Cali- fornia before the war and during its continuance. I mean the war of the secession. At one of the old Stations above the Salton Sea there was a haunted camp, but I saw nor heard anything of the haunt. There was no danger of robbers for there was nothing to rob. There is, how- ever, the danger that some accident may happen without any help near. One Riverside citizen dropped dead suddenly on one of those trips, leav- ing his wife and small babies alone all night amid the howling desert coyotes.
The road was very difficult a good part of the way after leaving Warner's ranch, steep pitches the corkscrew canyon and twenty or thirty miles of deep almost impassable creek sand without any water. It was a very interesting trip, a great part of the way completely desert.
Meantime children grow up and railways and motor cars come into use and before we realize it the old fashions and old fashioned ways pass and the new comes in, and in place of mother taking the babies out for an outing, the babies take her out and father goes along too and the world passes and the fashions thereof change.
In a busy life other things come up and the children can be substituted and trusted to look after the homes and the home place and can go out on their own responsibility, and they also when large enough in the higher grades know just how things can be done on the home place while their elders take their outing without the cares of the family. These outings were great things for the growing children and for their expansion of body and mind. An occasional rattlesnake varied the monotony and fish- ing for trout in the canyons with a night's camp there helped to pass the time pleasantly. These occasions were all looked on as pleasure trips and everybody got out of them what was looked for.
Meantime other factors were coming up in my life. From the very first I had always looked on fruit raising not as an incident in life, but as the main issue in material existence and whatever would advance the prosperity of Riverside would also benefit me too.
In the later seventies the Southern California Horticultural Society came into existence and in connection therewith there was soon a paper devoted to the interests of the soil and soon there came a fair or exhibi- tion of products from all parts of Southern California. Discussions in connection therewith were also had as to how it was done and as to best methods.
There were always opportunities for participation in these discussions. This was before the State or Nation was able to send out experts or issue monthly bulletins and before Farmer's Institute were instituted As a matter of fact these meetings of the farmers set the pace for those that were to come after and the reports served to preserve what was valu- able. At all of those fairs I along with others had exhibits which took their share of premiums and medals. It was always easy to get a hear- ing in the papers for anything of interest written in an interesting man- ner. In these various ways I was active, never at a loss for an opening or a hearing in the papers. Soon we in Riverside had our Horticultural Clubs and also an East Side Literary Society which had an active and useful career for many years in all of which I had membership and
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