USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 50
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 50
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What was called the lower canal was built at great expense and profiting by the experience in building of the upper canal it was much more perfect in its details. Shortly after its construction Mr. Evans and his associates bought out Mr. Felton's interests in the upper canal and thus terminated the Southern California Colony Association by merging it into a new company called the Riverside Land and Irrigating Company.
Quoting from James H. Roe from a diary of 1875 the following con- ditions prevailed :
"This summer Capt. W. T. Sayward came down." That is to the settlers on the Government lands of whom Mr. Roe was one. He claimed "that the company owned the water and that the company had many rights but no duties and that the settlers had many duties but no rights." In short, he threatened to cut the water off the Government tract entirely whenever they might need it elsewhere. This was discouraging to the settlers and they took the alarm, banding together in secret to discuss their rights and how to secure the use of the water forever. The idea of a company furnishing water to start improvements which would last two or three lifetimes and after five years' use of it claiming the right to shut it off permanently was justly considered preposterous and much anxiety was felt.
"This fall (1875) the Hon. John W. Satterwhite was elected to the State Senate from this (San Bernardino) County. We settlers voted for him solid in return for which he did yeoman service in the Legislature. He obtained the passage of a bill to protect the water rights of settlers on Government lands which, if it had passed as he originally framed it, would have settled the troublesome water question for good. But as it did not pass as framed, it protected all our improvements guaranteeing us the water for them perpetually."
This closed the official life of Judge North as manager and president of the Southern California Colony Association.
The progress of the settlement up to this time had been slow, owing to a variety of causes, mainly dissatisfaction with the water system and the lack of title to the company lands, patent not yet having been issued for the Jurupa grant, and also lack of title to the Government lands because there was no official survey by the Government. The company had a private survey on the Government lands which was afterwards run on the same lines and in 1882 homesteaders got a patent for their home- steads.
Judge North established a law office in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Francisco, but shortly after got land interests at Oleander in Fresno County, where he passed the later years of his life, passing away on February 22, 1880. In his passing the state lost a valued citizen, a man of large views and left a monument to his talents in the founding of Riverside which will be as lasting as Riverside itself.
CHAPTER XII FOUNDERS AND BUILDERS
Before proceeding further a short sketch of some of the original founders will not be amiss. They have all passed away and but few remain who were personally acquainted with them.
DR. JAMES P. GREVES was one of the first in the movement to found a colony in Southern California. He was sometimes called the "Father of Riverside." He was the only one of the party who located in River-
DR. JAMES P. GREVES
side who remained without going back East. His family was all grown and never came out to live with him.
He was born in Skaneateles, Onondaga County, New York, Septem- ber 6, 1810. He studied medicine in his early life and graduated at the age of twenty-one and practised first in Marshall, Michigan, moving to Milwaukee in 1845, from thence to St. Louis in 1859. He was in the South in the winter of 1859-1860. In 1862 he was in Beaufort, South Carolina, in Government employ, having charge of the sick of the colored race until his health failed, when he went north to New York. His health not improving, he sailed for San Francisco via the Nicaragua route and from thence to Virginia City in 1863, engaging in mining enterprises. His health improving he returned to New York, locating in
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Washington in 1867. He went to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1869, as gen- eral agent of the Equitable Life Insurance Company of New York. During all this time he was in pursuit of health.
While in Tennessee he got acquainted with Judge North, and here was planned the founding of a model colony in Southern California.
He returned to Marshall, Michigan, where he got up an excursion trip over the railroad which had been finished the previous year across the continent to San Francisco. About 100 persons went on the excursion, among whom were Judge North, Dr. Sanford Eastman and wife, E. G. Brown, A. J. Twogood and K. D. Shugart, who along with Dr. Greves proceeded to Los Angeles in search of a suitable location for a colony.
After considerable time spent in the search, Dr. Greves, E. G. Brown and Dr. Shugart selected Riverside as the best place, and after conference with Judge North and others Riverside was selected. On the 19th of September, 1870, Judge North and Dr. Greves camped on the ground and on the 20th of September, 1870, the papers were signed by which the land was bought.
Dr. Greves bought a two and a half acre tract in town on which he built a house and set the block to trees. He also owned other lands which were all ultimately sold, giving him a competence in his latter years. He was secretary of the Southern California Colony Association for five years. He was the first postmaster, his appointment dating September, 1871. His salary for the first year was $12. For several years he was a notary public and also conducted an insurance business. He was post- master for ten years. He retired from public life in 1887 and died Sep- tember 25, 1889.
No man was better known and he was universally esteemed, foremost in public spirit, ever ready to help the needy and popular with everyone, almost forgotten in modern times, his name will always be connected with the early history of Riverside.
DR. K. D. SHUGART was also one of the original selectors of the site of Riverside and deserves a passing notice in connection with the South- ern California Colony Association.
Dr. Shugart was born in Randolph County, Indiana, April 13, 1829, and died in Riverside, California, May 10, 1897. Between these dates was spent a life devoted to uplifting and healing his fellowman. He was one of the original settlers of Riverside with his family and one of the first to plant orange trees and other fruits in the spring of 1871 before the canal was completed in June of the same year. One can imagine the weary waiting of the first settlers, living on a dry plain in the makeshift houses of that time. He was the second purchaser of land in the colony, owning the two and a half acre block between Ninth and Tenth and Mulberry and Lime streets, and here were the first orange trees planted in the Riverside section. Living for months on his block and having to haul all water for domestic use and also for irrigation at a cost of 25 cents per barrel, will show some of the dogged perseverance of the pioneers.
Dr. Shugart lived in his native state for the first twelve years of his life, moving with his parents to Cass County, Michigan, where he com- pleted his common school education. He studied medicine and completed his medical studies in the Keokuk Medical College in Iowa, practicing in or near Belle Plaine, Iowa, until he came to California in 1870. He made two trips to the mining regions of Colorado for his wife's health with great benefit. Search of a healthy place for health brought him to Cali- fornia in the North party, arriving in August, being one of the original
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three who selected Riverside as the location for the proposed model colony.
It was on Dr. Shugart's block that the writer in April, 1872, first saw the future promise of Riverside in the healthy and luxuriant growth of trees and vines. Mrs. Shugart was one of the examples of what climate and pure air was capable of doing. She died at a ripe old age in Novem- ver, 1903.
Dr. Shugart was one of those who came to Riverside with some money and he was not backward in spending it in experiments, for as a matter
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DR. K. D. SHUGART
of fact it was all experimental until time would tell wherein lay success. Those who came in later days, although they paid high prices for their lands, were able to make more money because they knew what to plant. Many experiments contributed to the woodpile at a time when firewood was scarce and high. Gas, electricity, kerosene and gasoline for heating and cooking were unknown and coal could not be brought in for lack of transportation and so the unprofitable trees helped to make up for lack of other materials for household uses.
Dr. Shugart, as a member of the Southern California Colony Associa- tion, was its first treasurer. He sold his original location or rather traded it off for forty acres where the Sherman Institute is now located and
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$4,000 cash in addition, to H. M. Beers, whose daughter still lives on the place, although most of it has been sold for building purposes and homes.
Dr. Shugart was a public-spirited man, taking an active part both secular and political and did his full share in the founding and progress of the colony. Besides his wife he had two daughters, one of whom died shortly after coming to Riverside. Lillian Moina was married to L. C. Waite in 1872.
A. J. TWOGOOD, as one of the first men who came with the excursion gotten up by Dr. Greves in search of a location for a new colony, and for many years a resident and active worker, is entitled to a short notice in connection with the formation of the Southern California Colony Association.
Like most of the early pioneers, Mr. Twogood was of New England stock, born February 17, 1831, in New York State, and educated there. In the year 1855 found him in Benton County, Iowa, where he became possessed of a tract of land which he improved and cultivated until the Civil war broke out. Offering his services to the Union cause in 1862, he was accepted and became a private soldier in Company I, Sixth Iowa Cavalry. During the three years he was in the service he acted as commissary sergeant and at different times commanded his company. With his regi- ment he went to the front and took part in various engagements decisive in character and perilous to the participants. While in the army he went home on a furlough and while there sold his farm and entered into part- nership with his brothers. After his discharge he took part with his com- pany in handling grain and continued his partnership until he came to California.
He was one of the party that came with Dr. Greves and others on the special excursion to San Francisco in 1870. After the selection of Riverside he returned home, sold out and in the spring of 1871 we find him in Riverside with his family in the new colony anxiously waiting for the completion of the canal. He settled on the Government lands near Pachappa, and was among those who tried dry farming, raising grain only to find that grain raising was not much of a success unless the land was irrigated before plowing.
He set out a variety of fruits at first, only to find that they were unprofitable, except oranges. He set out a seedling grove with the finest trees that could be bought in Los Angeles, having bought them a year ahead so as to get good growth. When he sold out to Mr. Hewitson in after years when his trees were bearing he got what was a very large price, $1,000 per acre, showing there were rewards to those who had stayed with the orchard.
L. C. WAITE. Although not one of the selectors of the lands that now comprise Riverside, nor one of the excursionists who came to spy out the land, L. C. Waite, as the oldest living orchardist, is fully entitled to recognition as one of the original settlers. He was born in Wisconsin, September 12, 1842. His parents followed cultivation of the soil and in his early days helped on the farm. After completing his common school education he entered Lawrence University at Appleton in 1860. His educational life was cut short by enlisting in 1862 in the Civil war as a volunteer. He was assigned to Company D, Twenty-first Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. He entered upon his new life with zeal and energy and though but twenty years of age. his soldierly bearing and bravery on the field of battle soon won him promotion and he rose rapidly through
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the ranks of non-commissioned officers to a lieutenancy and later he was made captain of Company C, where he served with distinction and bravery.
His was an active life during the war, serving under Grant, Sher- man, Rosecrans and Buell, participating in some of the hardest-fought hattles and campaigns of the war, and was in forty-two battles and skirmishes and was with Sherman in his celebrated March to the Sea. finally ending up at the Grand Rieview at Washington. One year and eight days after its organization there were but forty-two men able to report for duty in his regiment, and his own company could muster only five enlisted men and two officers, the latter on detached duty or they might have been on the missing list.
After the war and an honorable discharge he returned to his old home, finished his studies after three years and at once began teaching school. In 1869 he located in Belle Plaine, Iowa, where he became principal of the graded schools. In 1870 he was admitted to practice law. Later on he decided to come to California. Coming with the family of Dr. Shugart he arrived in Riverside in December, 1870, with $100 to his credit. In January, 1871, he was admitted to the bar in San Bernardino County. In Riverside he was the first justice of the peace and taught school for a time.
It is, however, as a horticulturist that he attained his greatest success. He filed a claim on 80 acres of Government land south of Riverside, which he sold some time after to Edwin Hart. He purchased land just outside of the mile square, engaging in orange culture and raising of nursery stock. He owned one of the finest orange groves at Highland, San Bernardino County, which was one of the most productive and profitable in the county. He bought the two and a half acre block and built at the time one of the finest residences in Riverside, where he still resides.
On April 5, 1872, he was married to Miss Lillian M. Waite, the first marriage in Riverside, from which union there was six children. The canal took toll of his oldest born at the age of two years and eight months.
Mr. Waite, owing to his success in orange culture and his early resi- dence in the colony, has been first in many things. He hauled the first fruit and ornamental trees from Los Angeles and made a great deal of money in the nursery business, having in partnership with J. A. Simms furnished the trees for many of the orange groves in Riverside. He has also held office both public and in private capacity during his long career in Riverside.
Advancing years and uncertain health have caused Mr. Waite to retire mostly from active life, but no one has had a more active share in the progress and prosperity of Riverside.
PIONEER WOMEN. There have been several histories of Riverside written, but none by those who were very early settlers with families and able to give a personal tinge to the history. None of those who came with the excursionists brought their wives except Dr. Eastman, and he being a moneyed man did not need to put his family to the inconveni- ences that those of lesser means had to undergo.
Mrs. T. J. Wood was the first woman to settle in Riverside. As she and Mr. Wood came from San Bernardino she knew something of the climate and local conditions ..
Captain Brodhurst and his family were among the first to settle on the dry plains on the Government lands east of town. Captain Brodhurst. a Scotch sea captain came from Sydney, Australia. The first birth in
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the settlement was a daughter in their family. They had the eighty acres afterward occupied by H. P. Kyes and laid off by him in town lots, going up into the Box Springs Mountains for spring water which he brought down in pipes for domestic and irrigation purposes. There was but a scanty supply and when he sold his water system to the city, it was supplemented by the city water.
D. C. Twogood also had an eighty acres of government land east of the canal and built a good home for that time on it. Others had govern- ment lands, Judge North and his sister among the others, but when the project for a canal on higher lands was abandoned they moved into town on to city blocks. Judge North's claim being adjoining his city block of two and a half acres was retained and after completion of the canal was planted out and a current wheel put in the canal to raise water for irrigation. This was afterward removed on the completion of the Gage Canal and the land laid off to building lots. Mrs. Brodhurst was the first one to speak of the navel orange, having known it in Australia and said it was the finest orange in Australia.
It is hard to describe the conditions which prevailed in Riverside before water was brought onto the lands. Mrs. D. C. Twogood used to look back on her first experience and say it was the happiest time of her life.
It was fortunate that the waiting period for water was in the cooler time of the year and in the rainy season, but in the early years ordinarily there was but scanty rains. It can be imagined what it was living on a dry plain with the scanty vegetation produced by the winter rains, with no shade and in a hastily constructed shanty of rough lumber, upright boards with battens over the seams to keep out the wind. The idea in the hot dry climate was to keep out the heat and get plenty of fresh air. Every drop of water for cooking, washing and all other purposes had to be hauled by wagon from Spring Brook a mile or more away. Fortunately the water from Spring Brook was of the fine quality and was used for years after for drinking purposes, by many families until domestic piped water was brought in from artesian wells in the San Bernardino Valley.
Then there were the "Northers," which the heavy winds that swept down the Cajon Pass from the Mohave desert were called. They were much more severe then and sometimes very cold, blowing for about three days at a time. Many people treated them as they would rainy weather, and by way of derision they were sometimes called "Mormon rains," coming as they did by way of San Bernardino. They often came before the rains and when sheep had been pastured in the early summer the sur- face of the ground was cut into fine dust and we would have a dust storm which would cover the inside of the houses with dust. Since the land was planted and roads oiled, the "Northers" have lost most of their disagreeable features. Being dry they clear the atmosphere and are one of the beneficial features in our healthy climate.
Every woman had to do her own cooking and bread making. The nearest bakery was in San Bernardino. Occasionally one neighbor who was a good bread baker sold some to her neighbors. There were no laundries and except when any one could be hired from the outside the washing was done at home. The Chinaman was the first laundryman but it was too early for him then. He came later. These are about all of the disagreeable features.
As against that the family cow was everywhere and the rich milk, cream and golden butter were on every table. This was before the germ and microbe theories and sterilization and pasteurization were known or
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heard of and when ptomaine poisoning was unknown or was known under a different name. Everybody was healthy, happy, and content, and the kiddies ran out in the hot sun bareheaded, barefooted, and half naked. The smaller ones could not run out barefooted in the middle of the day for the ground got so hot that it would burn the feet and so mamma knew where her babies were about noon. But water changed the situation when sick women began to go out in the early morning planting vines and flowers and vegetables and gaining health in the open air and sun- shine and then came real homes with everything in the surroundings to make them until the little cottage would be a mass of climbers and ever- blooming roses. The wife made the home and contributed her share in making Riverside the city of homes that it now is.
The dry government lands above the canal came to be settled by a different class of men with families who had faith that these fine lands with a climate unsurpassed would not be always dry and barren and wind swept and treeless. Men who had but little but their labor to sell brought their families and put down wells, put up windmills and the plains began to be dotted with homes and enough water was obtained to make the home comfortable. In good seasons crops of barley were raised and a comfortable living was made working for others under the irrigation sys- tem. Time brought other canals and in places right up to the foothills some of the best orange groves are situated. Mr. Gage was the first to see the possibilities by building the Gage Canal and still another higher up was built. The higher lands are the best for orange growing as they are warmer and freer from frost.
The great asset of Riverside has been its climate. In the early his- tory of California the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley had plenty of malaria and the accompanying mosquito pest. Riverside has not been troubled with these. No malaria, mosquitos very rare, and no fleas. These seem but minor evils but when you sum them all up, they all, if prevalent, take away from the comfort of existence. Eastern people when they came were delighted with the climate, but many of them did not appreciate it fully until they went back and paid a visit to the old home. As long as they stayed in the old hame and enjoyed good health they were content, but when they paid a visit east after living in California they had a standard of comparison and soon saw the disadvantages of the old home. Riverside being the first in point of time naturally made the first comparisons and many were the reports sent back east until it an old story. Eastern people note the fine days. California people note the bad days. For weeks and months at a time the weather is so per- fect that one does not notice it at all. It is only when the occasional disagreeable day comes in the winter that notice is taken of the weather. The best tribute to the California climate came from the multitude of people who have come here sick and unable to work, who have in a short time been able to work and live for years in happiness and good health. Bright sunshine and pure air are what California has to offer to those in search of health. When that comes back opportunities are abundant on every hand for a good living.
"ONLY A DITCH AND A FUTURE." (Written by Mrs. S. Waterman, daughter of Judge Brown. She now lives in New York. Dr. Water- man, her husband, is a son of Governor Waterman, once Governor of California. )
Over the shoulder of Rubidoux came an old Concord Coach in November, 1871. It had loaded the day before in front of the Pico House in Los Angeles and the night had been spent at Uncle Billie Rue-
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bottom's at Stadra, where the roses, oleanders and orange trees had delighted the eyes and reassured the minds of some tired travelers. It was the family of E. G. Brown, his wife, little son Lyman V. W. Brown and one daughter-coming out to join him in the "desert" for so it looked as we came up from the river and swung down to the town site-just a few temporary buildings-the outlines of some tree planting- but no one minded the outlook, the husband and father was there and his faith and courage had been communicated to them.
Judge Brown was one of that first party of four men who came out from Los Angeles looking for a site for Riverside. He was living in Iowa when he saw an article by Judge North in reference to a coloniza- tion plan for citrus fruit growing in Southern California. So he arranged to join him on the train and came with him. For a time their search for a location had eluded them and Judge North was again in San Fran- cisco when Mr. Cover brought Dr. Greves, Dr. Eastman and E. G. Brown out from Los Angeles to view the present site. They tested the soil,
OLD STAGE COACH WHICH BROUGHT IN MANY OF THE FIRST SETTLERS
looked over the water possibilities, saw oranges growing at Old San Ber- nardino, the trees twenty years old. So, Mr. Brown wrote to Judge North that the quest was over and a little later he approved it. Those men, with Dr. K. D. Shugart, Mr. L. C. Waite, A. J. and D. C. Twogood and others, with their families became the first settlers. The next year brought Mr. James Boyd, our Riverside historian and others.
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