USA > California > Siskiyou County > History of Siskiyou County, California > Part 9
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The earliest information we have of a flood exists in the traditions of the savages, who say that years ago there was a terrible flood in which thousands of natives lost their lives, and hundreds of rancherias on the banks of rivers were washed away and destroyed. It is an era in then history from which they date events in the Sacramento valley, and occurred in the beginning of the present century, about the year 1805. The annals of the . Hudson Bay Company also show that the year 1818 was one of excessive storms and tremendous floods. The winter of 1826-27, when Jedediah S. Smith passed through California with his trapping party, the 6
water rose so high in the Sacramento valley that he was driven to the Marysville buttes for a camp- ing place, which he found teeming with elk, ante- lope and bear that had like him taken refuge there.
The winter of 1852-53 was a disastrous one throughout the whole State. The great Sacramento valley was one great sea of water, and great damage ·was done to the cities, and all improvements such as mining appliances, bridges, mills, etc. In Siskiyou county the floods, of which there were four during the season, swept the rivers clear of all mining improvements; wing-dams were carried away and drift claims were filled up and caved in. The few bridges that had then been built were carried down the streams, Yreka and Scott Bar were flooded and greatly damaged, while the valleys were full of water, doing less damage than later floods simply because there was less to be injured. The snow on the mountains and the mud and water in the valleys rendered communication with the outside world almost impossible. Provisions were scarce, and became more so before a pack-train could be brought in here with a new supply. Three dollars a pound for flour, one dollar per ounce for salt and a dollar each for eggs were prices that prevailed for a few weeks. Since that time no flood has been able to create a stringency in the market on account of the quantity of breadstuffs raised in the valleys at our very doors. For a few days communication may be shut off and butter, eggs and such articles become scarce, but no suffering ensues.
The winter of 1861-62 was one that will long be remembered in California, for its devastating floods, that came pouring down from the mountains, sweeping everything before them and leaving ruin and desolation in their pathway. The cities of Marysville, Sacramento, and Stockton, as well as dozens of towns lying in the great valley, were inundated, and suffered great loss of life and prop- erty. The whole valley was flooded and covered by a great inland sea miles in extent. Houses, barns, fences and all kinds of objects went whirling down on the bosom of the torrent, and hundreds of animals mingled their piteous cries with the roar of the angry waters that had engulfed them and were rapidly bearing them away to destruction. Every river seemed bent upon adding its quota to the great sum of damage, and when spring set in, scarcely a bridge of any importance in the State remained to boast of successful battle with the foe.
The month of November, 1861, was a very rainy one, and the last two weeks witnessed a steady and constant rain that filled the creeks and rivers to their fullest capacity. On Saturday, the last day of the month, it seemed as if the heavens opened and dropped their imprisoned waters in torrents upon
42
HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
the land. The streams were unable to carry off these last contributions of nature, and overflowed their banks, flooding all the flats and lowlands along their course. Streams ran down every little mount- ain gully and added their mite to the little lakes that rapidly formed wherever the water could find a resting-place. Early in the morning Yreka creek overflowed its banks and a torrent of water came rushing down Main street. The bridge was carried away, and the whole lower portion of the city was under water; gardens and cellars were flooded, and everything floatable went whirling down the rush- ing stream. Shasta and Scott rivers overflowed their banks and flooded large tracts of land, doing great damage to the farms, and destroying great quantities of hay and grain. Scott valley was one vast sea, upon whose bosom floated the debris from a hundred farms. Many bridges were carried away, the roads were badly cut up, and travel was inter- rupted for several days. Ditches were washed out, and great damage was done to mining claims all along the streams. Klamath river was a raging torrent, the angry waters lashing the sides of their rocky prison and beating themselves into foam in their frenzy. The storm abated at night, and Sun- day the water began gradually to subside, but not until the next day was there any great reduction of its volume, so that communication was fully estab- lished from point to point.
This was, however, but the first effort of a mighty power, for by the next Saturday the rains had again raised the water as high as before, and that evening " the rain descended and the floods came." Little rivulets ran down the mountain sides, too impatient to seek their accustomed channels; streams ran where never streams ran before, lakes appeared in strange and unfamiliar places; creeks became rivers, while rivers increased to mighty streams, all filled with rushing, roaring, leaping waters, rolling impet- uously towards the sea. Yreka creek, that little stream that in summer scarce floated a feather, was now a swiftly rolling river three hundred feet wide. All day Sunday men labored to divert the stream from the town, with little effect. Gardens were sluiced out, cellars were flooded, and buildings were undermined and borne away or overturned. At Fort Jones the river carried away everything in its path, including several buildings, while at Etna the saw-mill went down the stream and the water-wheel of the flour-mill was also borne away. The water of Indian creek forced its way through Hooperville, causing many to abandon their houses and flee for safety, while nearly every vestige of mining opera- tions was obliterated.
McAdams creek conquered everything but the Steamboat claim, and, shifting its channel, went
tearing through the town of Hardscrabble, at least ten feet deep. The large bridge across the Klamath at Cottonwood was carried away, and the wire bridge spanning the same stream near the mouth of Salmon river, and ninety feet high, although under water, resisted nobly until the logs and driftwood brought down by the flood overcame it, and it went the way of all bridges. On Salmon river every dam, bridge, mill, and flume was washed away or badly damaged, the loss from Sawyer's Bar to the Klamath being estimated at ninety thousand dollars. Every bridge and dam on Scott and Shasta rivers that had withstood the first flood succumbed to the resistless power of the second one.
The loss in hay, grain, stock, mining claims, ditches, bridges, buildings, etc., was enormous. The miners watched the waters fill up and cave in claims that had been drifted by years of patient toil, and saw the dams they had constructed by hard labor and great expense demolished in an hour. Farmers saw the products of their toil dis- solve and melt away before the conquering advance of the destroyer, and heard the piteous cries of their helpless cattle as the flood seized upon them and bore them rapidly downward. Lumbermen who had used the streams to float logs down to their mills, witnessed the same streams float the mills down also. Everything was afloat, and when the waters again found their natural channels, they left objects of every conceivable description stranded and wrecked all over the country.
Copious as had been the rain, nature had not yet exhausted her supply of water, and rallied two weeks later for another and final effort. On Sun- day, the twenty-second of December, another freshet swept away what little had been left by its prede- cessors, and made the universal ruin complete.
After three weeks of snow and rain, a freshet, nearly as great as that of 1861, occurred on Wednes- day, the seventh of December, 1864, but doing little damage. On Saturday, December twenty-fourth, a severe storm commenced and continued until Mon- day, at which time the streams contained nearly as much water as in the memorable flood of 1861. In Scott valley the water covered all but the high places, and no stages passed through for two days. The damage was slight, compared to that of the great flood.
Again in December, 1875, there was another season of extremely high water, that interrupted and impeded travel, but little damage being inflicted, however.
The season just passed was in its way a remark- able one. No rain fell until November, and then but sixteen one-hundredths of an inch, followed in December by less than three inches. So little rain
Pyle, at Yerka, for the United States Signal Service.
TABLE OF RAIN-FALL, FOR EACH MONTH, WITH TOTALS AND AVERAGES, FROM 1859 TO 1881.
MONTH.
1859-60.
1860.61_
1861-62-
1862-63_
1863-64-
1864-65.
1865-66_
1866-67.
1867-68-
1868-69_
1869-70_
1870-71_
1871-72.
1872-73.
1873-74.
1874-75_
1875-76.
1876-77-
1877-78_
1878-79-
1879-80_
Total.
Average.
1880-81.
Partial for
August.
.50
.24
.09
.63
.07
.26
01
.05
.09
05
1.00
.02
.52
.21
3.76
.18
September
.87
.49
.02
.40
.04
1.15
.40|
.06
1.00
.01
.37
.41
.37
1.02
.01
.30
.04
6.96
.33
October
1.00
2.22
.51
.15
.25
.31
1.33
.88
.50
.01
.02
.05
.16
.54
1.55
4.45
3.75
.43
.71
.84| 19.74
.94
November
4.33
2.00 11.56
12
1.85 6.00
9.79
2.51
1.75
.77
3.04
1.00
1.62
2.67
1.71
4.33
7.31
.54
4.12
1.41 2.46| 70.89
3.33
.16
December
.75
5.74 10.63
1.90
6.17 12.75
1.21 11.75
9.68
2.80
3.56
3.50
7.68
3.38
4.49
.43
7.33
.01
1.06
.46 8.21 103.49
4.93
2.81
January .
2.50
1.12 9.29
4.75
2.07|
1.87
6.59|
3.50|
2.02
1.50
1.13
2.91
2.47
6.94
3.00. 1.80
.17
3.33
4.23
4.70
1.53
.91
2.49
3.29
March
4.12
2.50
1.32
2.45
.82
1.30
9.20
.64
3.70
1.32
1.73
1.62
1.40
1.05
3.65|
1.79
3.94
3.10
3.01
4.66
1.41|
54.73
2.61
April
75
3.00
2.00
2.00
2.70
.32
.02
1.34
1.14
3.61
1.37
2.27
34
1.50
1.55
.35
.71
1.23
.54
1.72
2.92 31.38
1.49
May.
2.00
.54
1.00
.40
.51
.05
1.72
.44
.18]
1.52
1.12
.55
.25
.27
.71
.75
1.19
1.48
.68
1.95
.63
17.94
.85
June .
.50
.30
.80
1.93
31
.75
.62
.01
1.06
.69
.13
.26
03
.03
.13
.12
18
.71
.07
.47
.10
9.20
.44
July.
1.62
10
.25
.35
.50
13
.35
.01
.03
01
.38
.34
12
.31
42
.28
5.20
25
Totals
20.19 20.65 40.96 15.72 15.60 26.77 35.65 28.38 23.61 18.29 19.87 13.91 22.87 13.84|21.39|13.09 31.04 18.90 22.24 16.23 21.29 460.05 21.91
43
HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
İ
1.25
2.50 3.75
1.75
.43
2.40
9.12
3.06
5.76
5.00
1.86
4.18
1.33
6.38
3.13
2.21
1.71
7.29|
2.08|
3.28| 84.54
4.03 14.26
February
1
1
1
.
.
.
I
August, 1859, and was kept from that date by
The annexed table of rain-fall commences in
that time. However, there was enough and to spare.
quantity of water was this year much less than at
that season, found no counterpart in this, so that the
of December, 1861, that preceded the January flood of
excess of the same month in 1862, but the heavy rains
was over fourteen inches, being about five inches in
little damage as possible. The rain-fall for January
ing into town into channels where it would do as
hour after hour to divert the water that came pour-
built by subscription, was also numbered with the missing. The damage was great, and the annoy- ance and inconvenience still greater, especially in Yreka and Fort Jones, where the citizens worked
The bridge at the mouth of Scott river, a new one
run a stage here and there between accessible points.
pany were unable for many days to do more than
kept the roads in such a condition the stage com-
rupted all over the county, and for nearly three weeks no through mail came up from below. The snow on the mountains and the water in the valley
again rising higher than before; travel was inter-
sustained other damage in the floating away of logs and other property. After an interval of about ten days the storm again set in on the twenty-sixth of January and continued for two weeks, the water
were filled up, and machinery, dams, etc., carried away, inflicting a great loss upon the mining indus- try. Several saw-mills lost their water-wheels, and
impassable. The two bridges at Callahan's were swept down Scott river, leaving that place cut off' from the outside world. Great damage was done to farms, in the destruction of fences, the covering up or washing away of valuable land and fine pasturage, the destruction of private roads and bridges. Mining claims on the rivers and creeks
away, and the one at Fiock's, under water and
down in blinding torrents, and the scenes of 1861 were repeated. On the fourteenth the Klamath river was as high as in 1861 and the water covered the valleys, poured down the creeks and rivers, and placed an embargo on travel for a few days. The Shasta river bridge below Hawkinsville was washed
place in January, and for a week the rain poured
times that would be sure to follow. A change took
season and bemoaning the short crop and hard
.
is made up from the official records kept by C. H.
the level of the sea. Since October, 1877, the table
branch of Patterson creek in Scott valley, twenty-
was kept at the mouth of Scott river, and from that
Isaac Titcomb. The first three months the gauge
time till October, 1877, on Rattlesnake creek, a
two miles from Yreka and three thousand feet above
had fallen that every one was anticipating a dry
-
.02
---
.08
52.22
44
HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
Compare the following tables to get an idea of the comparative rain-fall here and in Sacramento.
SACRAMENTO.
SISKIYOU.
1849-50.
36.00
1850-51
4.71
1851-52
17.98
1852-53.
36.36
1853-54
20.06
1854-55
18.62
1855-56
14.75
1856-57
10.42
1857-58
18.95
1858-59
16.00
1859-60
22.59
20.19
1860-61
15.52
20.65
1861-62
35.52
40.96
1862-63
11.55
15.72
1863-64
7.83.
15.60
1864-65
22.48
26.77
1865-66
17.40
.35.65
1866-67
25.28 28.38
1867-68
32.73
23.61
1868-69
16.62
18.29
1869-70
13.56
19.87
1870-71
8.44
13.91
1871-72
25.02
13.84
1872-73
14.19
. 21.39
1873-74
21.88
13.09
1874-75
17.63 31.04
1875-76
25.27
18.90
1876-77
9.39
22.24
1877-78
21.30
16.23
1878-79
16.77 21.29
CHAPTER VII. EARLY HISTORY OF THIS REGION.
It is but little more than fifty years since the first white foot pressed the soil of Siskiyou county and left any record of its visit. Whether at any time before that the eye of a white man ever gazed upon its lofty hills and grass-carpeted valleys is unknown, but extremely improbable. Up to that time the Hudson Bay Company had not penetrated so far south, nor had the American trappers yet been so far to the west. This mountain region was then in the state of nature, abounding with leer, antelope and bear, the home of the simple natives, whose eyes had never rested upon the face of a white man, and whose ears had never heard of a pale-face race, save in a tradition some of them have of a band of men with fairer skins that suddenly appeared many, many long years ago on the coast, and supposed to have been one of the early exploring parties that sailed up the coast.
In chapter IV the journey of Jedediah S. Smith and his band of trappers, from the Sacramento river to Oregon, along the coast, is related; also their defeat and alınost entire destruction by the savages at the month of the Umpqua river, and the subse-
quent punishment of the offenders by a party of Hudson Bay Company men; also of the continuance of this party under Alexander Roderick McLeod over the same ronte into the Sacramento valley, their ascent into the mountains along the Sacramento river, and their terrible experience with the snow on the banks of the McLeod in the winter of 1827. The members of that party are the first white men known to have been within the limits of Siskiyou county. When they cached their traps and furs and made their way back to Vancouver, the route they traveled is not known. They may have gone back to the Sacramento valley and returned the way they came, or they may have gone up Pit river or came over the mountains and passed through Shasta valley. At all events it was but a few years before the Hudson Bay Company, in passing back- wards and forwards from Vancouver to California, traversed nearly the same route now pursued by the stage road on the Sacramento River route, and a well defined trail was soon made. This trail crossed the Sacramento river three times, passed through Straw- berry valley, down the Shasta valley, across the Klamath about one-half mile above Bell's ferry, and over the Siskiyou mountain a short distance east of the present route of travel.
The pioneers of the county who prospected it from one end to the other in 1850 and 1851, will remem- ber the anxiety the Indians displayed to know if they were "Maki men," and how they assured them they were, when they ascertained that to be a "Maki man" was to be looked upon with great favor. The explanation of this is easy. A Scotchman named Thomas Mckay (pronounced by the Scots Maki) was one of the head trappers of the Hudson' Bay Company, and for a number of years led trap- ping parties through this region. He was just and even generous to the natives, and they took a great fancy to him. It was his son, Donald McKay, who led the Warm Spring Indians in the late Modoc war. There is now living in the county an old trapper who came through this region with a band of trappers led by this same McKay in 1836. They crossed the Klamath on the old trail, came up Yreka. creek and over to Scott valley by the way of Green- horn and McAdams creeks. They remained a month in the valley, trapping Scott river on both forks, getting eighteen hundred beaver. "The rich- est place for beaver I ever saw," said Meek to the writer. The valley was all one swamp, caused by the beaver-dams, and full of huts. The party then crossed over to Shasta Butte, and followed the Sac- ramento down to the valley and on to Yerba Buena (San Francisco), where they left their furs with the agent of the Hudson Bay Company. On their way back they trapped the American, Yuba, Feather, Sacramento, Pit, McLeod and Shasta rivers, and then returned over the trail to Vancouver.
The settlement of many of the American trappers in the Willamette valley (pronounced by them at that time Wallamette) has been mentioned. A number of these gentlemen formed, in January, 1837, the "Wallamette Cattle Company," for the purpose of buying a large band of cattle at the mission set- tlements in California and driving them up the Sac- ramento valley and through the mountains into Oregon. In this company were many whose names
DN Lash
DANIEL N. LASH.
Mr. Lash was born in Licking county, Ohio, March 23, 1833, and moved to McLean county, Illinois, the same year. When he was but three months old he lost his mother by death, and fifteen months later his father also passed over the silent river. Left an orphan thus in his infancy, young Daniel was reared by his relatives, early learning to take care of himself. In 1851 he came across the plains by the Oregon route, and through that Territory to Yreka, arriving October 6, 1851. He mined on Humbug till September, 1852, when he was won by the attractions of the new gold fields of Australia whither he went to seek his fortune. He mined in New South Wales that winter, and returned to California and this county in May, 1853. He again went to work on Humbug, which has been his home till he came to Yreka in 1879. For eight or nine years Mr. Lash was engaged in quartz mining, working the well-known Eliza ledge. He com-
menced with a hand-mortar, and as he progressed, he increased his facilities, until he had a fifteen- stamp mill. At that point the ledge failed and the result of Mr. Lash's labors for nine years was gone. In 1879 he was elected sheriff, and removed to Yreka where he has since resided. He has made an efficient and faithful officer, and enjoys the esteem and confidence of the people, irrespective of their political opinions. He is one of those pioneers of Siskiyou county, who have labored continuously here to build up the county, and develop its resources. So closely has he applied himself here, that he has never revisited the place of his birth or the home of his boyhood. In 1861 he married Miss Mary Mallon, by whom he has one daughter, Anna Maria, born April 21, 1863. The wife and mother died in 1871. November 20, 1874, Mr. Lash again married Mrs. Mary Shubridge. Every movement of a public character for the good of the county is participated in by Mr. Lash, who gives all his earnest encouragement and support.
RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL MUSGRAVE, LITTLE SHASTA SISKIYOU CO. CALIFORNIA.
,
45
HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
are well-known in the trapper annals of America, the leading spirit being the same Ewing Young who led a party of trappers into the San Joaquin valley in the winter of 1829. The historian of the expedi- tion was P. L. Edwards, then a young man, who recorded in diary form all the incidents that attended the journey, the volume being now preserved in the State library at Sacramento and numbered 23,989. The exact composition of the party is not fully given, but among others were Young, Edwards, Hawchurst, Carmichael, Bailey, Erequette, Des Pau, B. Williams, Tibbets, Gay, Wood, Camp and enough others to make a company of about twenty men, all enured to the dangers and privations of a mountain life.
Taking passage on the brig Lariat, they sailed from the Columbia river on the twenty-second of January, and landed at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) after a voyage of no unusual interest. Here they were engaged all the summer in purchasing cattle and horses and in making preparations for the long and toilsome journey that lay before them. Having collected a band of over seven hundred cattle at three dollars per head, they set out upon their journey, where we find them near the last of Angust at the head of the Sacramento valley. The narrative of the journey from this point until the party reached the Rogue river is given in full as recorded by Mr. Edwards :-
AUGUST 25-This morning began traveling among the mountains which separate the valley of the Tulares from that of the Chastas. Had some diffi- culty in following the trail. We have now taken leave of the valley of the Tula, or Bullrush; its length is said to be about five hundred miles and its breadth upon an average about sixty. The soil, so far as my observation extends, is of an excellent quality, and immediately on the banks of its rivers superior to any I have ever seen on the Pacific coast. At this season it presents a parched-up and uninviting appearance. Large tracts are covered with pebbles, and a great portion of the valley is subject to annual inundations, of which fragments of pine wood and bark where pine trees do not grow, is sufficient evidence. The climate, though sometimes very warm, is upon the whole fine, par- ticularly the sea-breezes, which fan up the evening. The commercial facilities are admirable. The great- est defect is the want of timber, there being scarcely any except dwarfish oaks along the margin of the streams.
The intermittent fever sometimes fearfully pre- vails. Mr. Young informs me that with a trapping party he passed one summer here without having one man sick, but on his trip to the Columbia three years ago with stock, every one of the company, himself excepted, had this fever. We have, in our party, had two or three cases. On every hand we see revolting signs of its fearful ravages. About four years ago it prevailed with such mortality that the few survivors of a village sometimes fled from their homes, leaving the village literally strewn with the dead and dying. Mr. Y. says he saw hundreds lying dead in one village, forsaken by the few sur- vivors, and birds preying upon the uncovered car- casses. This disease seems to have prevailed with
like fatality from the bay of San Francisco to the Columbia river in these fatal times. Previous to 1829 it was unknown in the Columbia. Its great- est mortality seems to have been from about fifty to one hundred miles interior; still the Indians in the valley are numerous. They do not bury their dead but carry them a few hundred yards from their houses and leave them exposed. Skulls and bones are scattered all around their villages. They live principally on roots and grass seeds. Their abundant use of the latter has led the Californians to say they live on grass. They appear to be peace- able, and though shy of us have offered us no injury, except in two very doubtful cases. The horse guard one night fired upon what he took to be an Indian stealing a horse. On another night one of the men said that an Indian crept into camp and stole his gun, but he pursued him and recovered it. Of neither instance have we proof. Their mildness is as much, perhaps, the consequence of a want of energy as of any more worthy cause. The men cut off their hair and live mostly perfectly naked.
AUGUST 26 .- Since last date, traveling in the mountains. They appear every day to grow more difficult. "Hills peep over hills and Alps on Alps." The grass is so generally burned that our animals have become feeble. Our horses are so exhausted from the same causes that they are of more trouble than service. Yesterday as the forward cattle were drove down to the river to drink, being much heated, and the bank steep, they got into swimming water and crossed, nor were they stopped till about a hundred of the best cattle in the band were across. The water being very rapid it was difficult to get men and horses over. Before we succeeded, the cat- tle, weary as they were, had gained the summit of a mountain several thousand feet high. With much difficulty they were recrossed. Several of us started in advance to hunt a camp. Myself up the bank, etc., until I rose the mountain, made for the road. Turner and Tibbets found one, though not good, which we reached after sunset. To-day the mount- ains grew more bushy, steep and rocky. To-day we have reached a place where there is water but no grass. Unless grass is found to-morrow, we have every prospect of starvation to our animals. A tremendous mountain rises before us, which we would fain have attempted, but Mr. Young, having rode up it for some distance, returned in a half hour, swearing that "a still higher mountain was on the top of this." "Now," said he, "if you are a philosopher, show yourself." Animals were, of course, hard to guard where there was nothing to eat. Some of the men being tired of eating dried meat insisted on killing a beef. Mr. Young did not consent, as he very reasonably did not wish to pack the meat over the high mountains ahead. A very rough and disagreeable quarrel ensued. Some had sworn they would kill one at all events. Mr. Young defied them and toll them to kill one at their peril.
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