USA > California > Siskiyou County > History of Siskiyou County, California > Part 12
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YS 'NEWS'75 LA NUIT
RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL JACKSON.(950 ACRES.) MT. SHASTA DISTRICT, SISKIYOU COUNTY, CAL.
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HISTORY OF, SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
great care and vigilance we were able to pass through their country safely. On every line of travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific there has been great loss of life, from a failure to exercise a proper degree of caution, and too often have reckless and fool-hardy men, who have, through a want of proper care, become embroiled in difficulties with the Indi- ans, gained the reputation of being Indian fighters and heroes, while the men who were able to con- duct parties in safety through the country of war- like savages, escaped the world's notice."
The next morning the expedition left Fremont's unfortunate camp on Hot creek, found and crossed the famous natural bridge at Lost river, and located the emigrant road, known as the northern route, by way of Black Rock and Rabbit Hole springs, to the Humboldt river and Fort Hall, which point they reached in August. Here they found a large number of emigrants, some bound for California, but the majority for Oregon. Of these latter they per- suaded one hundred and fifty, with forty-two wagons, to try the new route they had just laid out. Among others who declined to go this way and kept on down the Humboldt was the ill-fated Donner party, whose terrible sufferings on the shore of Don- ner lake that long and cruel winter form such a sorrowful page in the history of California. The road party hastened back to the Willamette valley, and sent oxen and horses back to assist the enii- grants and get them safely to the valley. The Modocs scored one more white victim that fall, for one of the emigrants loitered behind the train near Lost river, and the Indians pounced upon him, and took his scalp to their island home in the lake. From that year this road has been largely used by emi- grants to southern Oregon and northern California. In 1848 the old pioneer, Peter Lassen, led a com- pany of emigrants with twelve wagons over the road, turning off at Pit river and going down that stream, and crossing over to the head of Feather river, which he followed down to the valley. This route has been much used and is known as the Lassen road.
The news of the discovery of gold in 1848 did not reach Oregon until the last of August, when it was brought by a vessel that sailed into the Columbia from the Sandwich Islands. Immediately there was great excitement, and a company with twenty wagons started overland to California, while as many as could get passage on the few vessels that were accessible went to San Francisco by sea. Others passed down the old trail through Shasta valley. The wagons turned off in the Rogue River valley and followed up the emigrant road to Pit river, where they came upon the wagon trail made by Las- sen's party a few weeks before. This they followed and overtook them near Lassen's Butte, at the head of Feather river, out of provisions and unable to move. By the aid of the Oregonians the party reached the valley, being the first company to enter California by the Lassen road, and the Oregonians being the first to take wagons from Oregon to Cali- fornia. The experience of Lassen's party was repeated the next year, when a large emigration came over that route, and became snowed in, and out of provisions on the head-waters of the Feather river. When word of their precarious situation
reached the valley, the people of San Francisco, Stockton and Sacramento, who remembered the sad fate of the Donner party, made a great effort in their behalf. Their condition was represented to General Percifer F. Smith, who, with the consent of General Bennett Riley, the military governor, placed one hundred thousand dollars in the hands of Major Rucker, United States Quartermaster, to purchase animals and supplies for their relief. The military authorities were the more moved to this act of humanity because General Wilson, United States Indian Agent, was among the sufferers. John H. Peoples, who afterwards was drowned in one of the Trinidad expeditions, was selected to lead the relief party. About the first of October, Mr. Peoples star- ted with twenty-four pack animals, three wagons, and fifty-six beef cattle, having twenty-five men in his party. He found the emigrants in the snow on Pit river, out of food and suffering with the scurvy. On the first of December, he brought in fifty fami- lies to Lassen's ranch, including General Wilson's, the last thirty miles being traversed through a blinding snow-storm. The majority of the emigrants settled in the head of Sacramento valley, or went to the Trinity mines in the early spring.
Quite an emigration took place from Oregon to California in 1849 and the next two years, follow- ing the old trail over the Siskiyou mountain and through Shasta valley. In June, 1849, Lindsay Applegate piloted a train of six wagons, the first to cross the Siskiyou, and passed through Shasta valley and as far as a little valley this side of Strawberry valley, where they stopped. The object of most of the company was to find a good place to settle, hav- ing some thought of doing so in Shasta valley, but when they realized how shut in they were here from the outside world and at the mercy of the savages, they decided to return. Two of the wagons they took back with them, leaving the others, the little valley having been ever since known as Wagon valley. While in camp at that place, Applegate and a few others crossed over the mountains to the westward and mined a few days on the head-waters of Scott river, the first mining ever done in Siskiyou county.
Late in the fall of 1849 a party of nineteen deserters from the United States forces stationed in Oregon passed through here en route for the lower gold mines. It was impossible during the early gold excitement to keep soldiers at their posts for the meagre pay they received, when such wonderful opportunities of getting rich lay temptingly before them. They deserted on all sides. General Lane started across the plains in 1848 with a military escort, to organize the Territory of Oregon, but when he reached San Francisco the only attendant he had was Joe Meek, United States Marshal of the Territory. Thus it was everywhere the gold excite- ment spread its influence. Among this party was Fred Deng, well remembered in Yreka as the founder of the Yreka Bakery, a name that spells with equal correctness forward or backward. They were led off from the regular trail by an Indian trail that led up Willow creek back of Edson's, and came suddenly upon a rancheria of Shastas at a place now called Carr's corral. Before they recovered from their surprise, the Indians naturally thinking them-
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
selves attacked, fell upon them fiercely, and before they succeeded in driving the savages away, three of the soldiers were killed. Nothing but the superi- ority of guns over bows saved them from utter annihilation, and as soon as the Indians fled, they also departed and did not stop to camp until many miles away. Dr. Hearn has in his cabinet two of the bullets fired on this occasion, dug from a pine stump, to which he was conducted years ago by a Shasta Indian who related the occurrence and pointed out the spot. Mr. Deng also confirmed the Indian in his account and gave the details. It is, however, a subject he seldom referred to, as he was a deserter from the army and did not desire to refresh the minds of the authorities on that point.
We have now reviewed all that is known of the presence of white men in Siskiyou county before the magic wand of gold was waved above her mountain tops, to draw a band of restless and hardy pioneers and to convert a wild of nature into the home of civilization. The trapper came and went; the emi- grant and the traveler passed through, but the country still remained an almost unknown wild. From the south to the north and from the north to the south men had passed, but it is to the west we must look for the men who laid the foundation and built upon it.
There is one event in the early history of this region that is shrouded in mystery, though efforts are being made to clear it up. The story is best told by Hon. E. Steele in a letter to the Treka Journal, November 4, 1874. Mr. Steele says: "WHEN ? BY WHOM? AND WHY ? The above inquiry was suggested to my mind on arriving at Battle's milk ranch, on the north fork of McCloud river, on my late visit to Modoc county. At the ranch I met the old gentleman, Mr. Battle, who asked me to take a walk with him to the summit of a hill on the north side of the river, and about six hundred yards dis- tant therefrom, to examine an old trough that he had unearthed there. On arriving at the spot designated, I found a trough about sixteen feet long, about eighteen inches wide and a foot deep, dug out of a cedar tree, that lay under the surface of the ground about three feet, and was much decayed by time. The trough had been hewn out of a tree about two feet through, as near as I could judge, and then the inside burned, the work bearing evi- dences of having been executed with a good sharp axe and by a handy axeman. It was buried in the summit of the hill in a red elay soil, and had lain there until it had nearly decayed, the form and character of the wood and the charred coating of the inside only remaining. The earth had been so long upon it, that it had assumed its natural appear- ance of an undisturbed soil, no evidence being dis- cernable of its ever having been dug, roots of the shrubs and trees passing all through the clay above the trough. Upon the surface of the ground, lying lengthwise over the spot upon which the trough was buried, was an old pine tree, about three feet in diameter, which had blown down since the ground had been disturbed, in falling burying some of its branches a foot or more into the soil, and which had lain thus until it was nearly rotted away, the por- tion directly over the trough having been consumed by fire. About ten feet from the south end of
the trough, were some old, rusty gunlocks, buried about one foot under ground.
The only account which we can get of the trough was the history of its burial, as given by an aged Indian, which induced the excavation by Mr. Bat- tle. The Indian's story was, that when he was a small boy, three white men, a people before then never seen by the Indians, were discovered by him making a caché of blankets, etc., in this trough or canoe, as he called it. He went to the spot, and after looking around for a while, he fixed upon a place to commence digging, and there found the old gunlocks and some other trifling things, but not his canoe. He again made observation, and fixed upon another place about ten feet further north, and on digging there the canoe was found in it. He fur- ther said there was a camp of other white men at the time, about fifteen miles off, which was dis- covered by the Indians, and the white men killed. Then these, he said, left. He could give no date or time other than that it was when he was a small boy, and he is now an old man probably fifty years or upwards. The Indians undoubtedly raised the caché, as nothing was found in the trough, and no cover over it, the hollow side being upwards.
In connection with this discovery and the tale of the Indian, it will be remembered that the party of Hudson Bay Company men, under MeLeod, when caught by the snows of winter, cached their furs and other articles somewhere on the MeLeod river, which they went back for afterwards, but found to be spoiled. None of this party was killed by natives, and in that respect, the story of the Indian does not tally. On this subject Stephen Meek says that Me- Leod's (whose name he says was John MeCloud) party was attacked on this river by the Indians, and all killed but MeLeod himself and one com- panion, who succeeded in making their way back to Vancouver after many months of privation and ter- rible suffering. The information about McLeod came from J. Alexander Forbes, for years agent of the Hudson Bay Company in California, and author of Forbes' California, written in 1835 and published in London in 1839, and presumed to be far better posted on the subject than Mr. Meek, although the latter gentleman assures us that he has often con- versed with MeLeod about the affair. There is still another direction in which we may look for a clue to the mystery. Last fall a government agent passed through here, seeking traces of an old explor- ing expedition sent out a number of years before Fremont visited the coast, and which never returned. By patient and careful search, he had followed them to the eastern slope of the Sierra, in Northern Nevada, but had there lost all trace of them. An effort is being made to secure the old gunlocks that were found, so that by them some clue to their unfortunate possessors may be obtained. By the carelessness of thoughtless parties these relies have been mislaid, but hope is entertained of finding them, and thus, possibly, of answering the question, who were they?
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
CHAPTER VIII. SETTLEMENT BY GOLD SEEKERS.
TO WHAT is generally known as the Trinity excite- ment, we must look for the opening up and settle- ment of this region. The Trinity mines and the anxiety to get to them, led to many expeditions along the coast, the discovery of Trinidad and Humboldt bays, the mouth of the Klamath, and Salmon and Scott rivers, bringing thousands into this region, and transforming it in one year from a beau- tiful wilderness to the home of civilization, and making its hills resound to the unaccustomed sound of the axe, the rattle of the rocker, the shout of the packer and the merry laugh of the miner.
In 1858, Major Pearson B. Reading, the old trap- per and pioneer Californian, who settled upon his ranch in Cottonwood creek, Shasta county, in 1847, gave the following account of the first mining in northern California. At the time he named it, Trinity river was not an unknown stream to the trappers of the Hudson Bay Company, who were familiar with every stream of consequence in this portion of the state; that they had ever given it a name, however, is uncertain; if so, it is unknown to history :--
In the spring of 1845, I left Sutter's fort for the purpose of trapping the waters of Upper California and Oregon. My party consisted of thirty men, with one hundred head of horses. In the month of May, I crossed the mountains from the Sacramento river, near a point now called the Backbone; in about twenty miles' travel reached the banks of a large stream, which I called the Trinity, supposing it led into Trinity bay, as marked on the old Spanish charts. I remained on the river about three weeks, engaged in trapping beaver and otter; found the Indians very numerous, but friendly disposed. On leaving the Trinity I crossed the mountains at a point which led me to the Sacra- mento river, about ten miles below the Soda springs. I then passed into the Shasta and Klamath settlements, prosecuting my hunt. Having been successful, returned in the fall to Sutter's fort.
In the month of July, 1848, I crossed the mountains of the Coast Range, at the head of middle Cottonwood creek; struck the Trinity at what is now called Reading's bar; prospected for two days, and found the bars rich in gold; returned to my house on Cottonwood, and in ten days fitted out an expedition for mining purposes; crossed the mountains where the trail passed about two years since from Shasta to Weaver.
My party consisted of three white men, one Delaware, one Walla Walla, one Chinook and abont sixty Indians from the Sacramento valley. With this force I worked the bar bearing my name. I had with me one hundred and twenty head of cat- tle, with an abundant supply of other provisions. After about six weeks' work, parties came in from Oregon, who at once protested against my Indian labor. I then left the stream and returned to my home, where I have since remained, in the enjoyment of the tranquil life of a farmer.
Mr. Reading has, no doubt, placed his mining expedition one year too early, and should have said in 1849, or else he went back again the next year, something that his language implies, though it does not positively state, he did not do. At all events he did go to Trinity river in the summer of 1849, for a report of his trip was given by the Placer Times of Sacramento in August of that year. In June, 1849, Major Reading started from his ranch with a small party for the purpose of exploring this stream. They went up Clear creek and then crossed the mountains to the river, going up the stream some distance and finding gold in abundance. About the first of August they returned to the Sacramento valley, and reported that they had made forty dollars per day to the man, for the few days they had worked. They also laid considerable stress on
the fact that in crossing the summit they had camped one night above the snow line. Oregonians could not have disturbed him in 1848, as news of the gold discovery did not reach Oregon until Sep- tember of that year.
The effect of such a statement as this can well be imagined. Emigrants were then coming down from Oregon, or entering the upper end of the Sacra- mento valley by the Lassen route from across the plains, and while most of these preferred to go on to the well-known mines farther south, a few were venturesome enough to cross the high mountains to Trinity river. In this way quite a number of miners gathered and worked on the banks of the Trinity in the fall of 1849. The reports sent out and brought ont by these men ereated quite a fever of excitement, but the fear of the rigors of winter were so great that few dared to go into the mount- ains until spring, and the majority of those who were on the river in the fall went back to the valley for the same reason.
The error made by Major Reading in supposing that the river he had named Trinity flowed into the old Trinidad bay of the Spanish explorers was com- municated to others and became the general opinion. It was then conceived that the best route to the mines must be to go to Trinidad bay in a vessel and thence up the river to the mines. All that was known of the bay was the record of the explorers and the indication of such a place at an indefinite point on the northern coast. To find Trinidad bay, then, became the next and the all-absorbing question. It had been discovered by an exploring expedition, consisting of a frigate commanded by Bruno Ezerta and a sloop under Juan de la Quadra Y. Bodega, on the eleventh of June, 1775. This was the Sunday of the Holy Trinity, and the bay was named Trini- dad in consequence. As the bay discovered by the Americans and named Trinidad is an open roadstead and scarcely deserves the name of bay, it is probable that the one the Spaniards christened Trinidad was the one known to us as Humboklt bay.
As early as March, 1848, a call was made in San Francisco for a public meeting to take steps to re-discover and explore Trinidad bay, to see what kind of a harbor it presented and what was the character of the country tributary to it. The announcement of the gold discovery at Sutter's mill, however, put an end to all such designs, and the matter lay in abeyance until the reports from the Trinity mines revived it.
In the month of November, 1849, two parties left the Trinity mines to discover the desired harbor.
One of these went over to the Sacramento valley, and down to San Francisco, where they commenced fitting out a sea expedition. The other party, con- sisting of Josiah Gregg, L. K. Wood, D. A. Buck, -Van Dusen, J. B. Truesdall, C. C. Southard, Isaac Wilson and T. Sebing, followed down the Trinity to the Bald hills, and then crossed over to the coast, thus failing to discover the fact that the Trinity did not empty into the ocean direct. They came upon the coast at Mad river, which was named by them because Gregg flew into a passion there when some of the party wanted to abandon the enterprise and not go up the coast a few miles to examine a bay the Indians told them lay in that direction. They
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
had endured many hardships on the mountains, and now gladly accepted the fish the Indians offered them. As directed by the natives they went up the coast and discovered a bay about fifteen miles long and eight wide, supposing the river and bay to be the Trinity and the Trinidad. These were in reality Mad river and Trinidad bay. From this point they traveled south inland and soon came upon a stream whence they found Indians taking fish in great abundance. They named the stream Eel river, and continued up its banks and through the Coast Range to Sonoma, reaching there some time in February. The news that Trinidad bay had been discovered spread like wildfire, and a dozen expedi- tions began to fit out, a few by land but most of them by sca, some of them having members of the late exploring party connected with them, and some ."going it blind" on general principles.
Meanwhile, the other party that had come down to San Francisco in November had chartered the brig Cameo, and sailed on the ninth of December. They utterly failed to find any such bay, and returned with the report that Trinidad was a myth, only to be greeted by the appearance of the land party and the assurance that it certainly did exist. Away sailed the Cameo again, followed by the others as rapidly as they could be gotten ready.
Up and down the coast they sailed, meeting with numerous adventures and mishaps, but failing utterly to find any bay. Some of them returned with reports of their ill success, claiming the bay to be a myth, while others still maintained the search. The return of the unsuccessful searchers did not restrain others from attempting the voyage. Ships sailed loaded with adventurers, some of them being on the cooperative plan, while others charged from fifty to one hundred dollars for passengers. In this way the Cameo, Sierra Nevada, James R. Whiting, Isabel, Arabian, General Morgan, Hector, Califor- nia, Paragon, Laura Virginia, Jacob M Ryerson, Malleroy, Galinda, and Patapsco, had all gone in search of the mysterious bay by the first of April, 1850, at which time news of its discovery reached San Francisco from passengers of the Cameo, the first to sail and the first to discover, though not till three months afterwards, the long-sought harbor. On the sixteenth of March, 1850, the Cameo rounded to off Trinidad heads and sent a boat's crew to examine a point that made out into the sea. This crew, among whom was W. C. R. Smith, rounded the point and found the entrance to a har- bor which they believed to be the long-sought Trin- idad. The Cameo was compelled to sail on account of the stormy weather, and proceeded to Point St. George where she landed her passengers, unaware that the men in the boat had discovered the bay. The deserted men explored the bay, near the head of which they found a tree with the following inscrip- tion :-
Lat. 41º 3' 32" Barometer 29° 86' Ther. Fah. 48° at 12 M. Dec. 7, 1849. J. Gregg.
This was the record left by the other party, and proved the truth of their story about having seen the bay. Some twenty miles north of the bay they discovered a river entering the ocean, which they
supposed to be the Trinity. They were on shore eight days and were nearly starved, when the Laura Virginia arrived in the offing and was piloted in by the hungry explorers, being the first vessel to enter the harbor. She was soon followed by the James R. Whiting and California. The California sailed for San Francisco on March 28th, with news that the bay had been found and the Cameo supposed to be lost.
The reception of this news created great excite- ment, and a large number of vessels were at once advertised to sail for Trinidad with freight and pas- sengers. The excitement caused by the return of the Gregg party was by no means confined to San Francisco, nor to expeditions by sea. A party left Napa valley for Trinidad overland, early in April, followed soon by another. The following communi- cation appeared in the Alta, April 10 :-
"HO! FOR TRINITY !
" MESSRS. EDITORS :- From the reports of persons who lately came into Napa and Sonoma valleys from an exploration of the country around the Trin- ity, there remains no doubt of the great richness of the mines in that region. Already large bodies of practical and experienced miners are on the move in that direction. The mines are reached by an easy route, only one hundred and fifty miles distant from the head of Napa valley, in an almost northerly course, passing on the westerly side of Clear lake, some five or six miles above the head of the lake, through a prairie gap to the head-waters of the Rus- sian river, and thence by a good trail to a branch of the Trinity, where rich deposits of gold are found. By this route a large party, headed by Charles Hop- per, left Napa valley at the close of last month. Another party will leave Napa on the eleventh of the month by the Clear lake road, among whom are John Walker and that old mountaineer, Aaron Adamıs. Yonrs, etc., J. W. B."
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