USA > California > Solano County > History of Solano County...and histories of its cities, towns...etc. > Part 5
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The " Weekly Solano Republican," published at Suisun, writing on Octo- ber 30, 1873, remarks : " We object to the removal, because-
First-The county seat is centrally located now, which makes the expense and trouble of reaching the seat of justice more nearly equal to all than any other location can; and we deny the justice of any arrangement which makes any man pay two dollars, or travel two miles, in order that two, or ten other men, may save one dollar each, or avoid travelling one mile each.
Second-The county now possesses, unincumbered by debt, buildings fully adequate to its wants for the next ten years; and we denounce the policy which will add the cost of even less serviceable buildings to the heavy debt the county is now carrying and groaning under.
Third-The removal of the county seat will work a huge injustice to a very large majority of the tax-payers of the county, whether the cost of removal be much or little. Vallejo contains half of the population of the county, but only one-third of the taxable property ; and whatever may be the cost of removal, two-thirds of that expense will be paid by that half of the population, whose interest will be injured by the removal."
Ahah fristig
NEWYORK
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
At length the long looked for election day-November 26, 1873-arrived and ended, the ballot showing at its close, a majority for Vallejo over Fair- field, of 333. Benicia's rancor was of no avail ; but retribution was near at hand. It was directed that the county offices should be removed on Feb- ruary 9, 1874, to Vallejo, and that that city be declared the county seat, through the public newspapers. In time a few of the offices were carried thence, notably those of residents in that city, when arrangements were made for the temporary location of the several departments.
But the northern part of the county had conceived the reasonable idea that the election of Vallejo was not carried out in as clear and straightfor- ward a manner as it should have been ; they, therefore, proceeded to Sacra- mento, and while the Legislature was in session, had a bill passed through both the Assembly and Senate, creating Vallejo into a county seat in its own right, since it was so ambitious of provincial honors. This, to the eyes of the Governor, seemed too preposterous a scheme, acknowledging at the same time the justice of the objections, he, therefore, vetoed the bill, but informed the complainants that another one, locating the county seat at Fairfield, would be favorably considered. Thus, for the present, all heart-burnings were ameliorated, and ruffles smoothed, and the question finally set at rest by the Act of the Legislature, approved March 28, 1874, whose first section pronounces the doom of Vallejo, in the following ver- dict : "The county seat of Solano County shall be Fairfield, in said county."
THE SETTLEMENT OF SOLANO COUNTY.
In the old days, long ago, somewhere in the year 1817, as has been shown in another part of this work, Jose Sanchez, then a Lieutenant in the Span- ish Army, was despatched with a small force to subjugate the Suisun tribe of Indians, an expedition which was attended with but little loss on one side, and sad havoc on the other. As time dragged out its weary course, but little was gained; the aboriginals were coerced into the service of their taskmasters, and without doubt endured many a torture of mind and body, when brought under the yoke of the Mexican Government. It is not for a moment to be imagined that, though the savages were driven into bondage, they suffered all the distress supposed to be a part and parcel of their thral- dom ; this is not the case ; for General Vallejo, who had the lands of Suscol granted to him, held as lenient a sway over his aboriginal vassals as was possible under the circumstances; and, indeed, was the first to prove the soothing influences of even a partial civilization; yet, these people have now vanished, whither it is impossible to trace; the advent of a dominant race was more than they could cope with; hence, they are nowhere to be
4
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
found ; and it is only at distances, few and far between, that traces of their former locations are to be discovered. It is believed that those who inhab- ited the valleys with which we have especially to deal, were thinned by the hostilities in which they were engaged with the Spaniards, materially aided by a decimating scourge of small-pox that carried off numbers of the half- fed and ill-clothed savages. This epidemic broke out in the year 1839, and such was the devastation which ensued that almost an entire race was ship- wrecked, leaving but few survivors of the catastrophe. They died so rap- idly that the usual funeral rites were abandoned: huge pits were dug, and the pestilential corpses placed therein by twenties while they were covered up, when filled, with a rude mound of earth; many of them forsook the land of their birth, now become accursed on account of the presence of the odious intruder ; their wives and daughters, by the maltreatment received at the hands of these half-civilized soldiers from the Spanish Main, had ceased to bear children, and thus they drifted out of ken, until now they are a thing of the past, their presence in Solano County being at best but a memory which only lingers in the mind of the early pioneer.
A short distance from the small town of Rockville, situated at the foot of Suisun valley, on the property of Lewis Pierce, stood a rude cross, which was popularly believed to mark the resting place of Sem-Yeto, otherwise Francis Solano, the Chief of the Suisuns. It is said that this tribe removed in 1850 to Napa county, taking with them all their grain, to the amount of several hundreds of bushels which had been held in reserve in their rude granaries near the above-mentioned site. This exodus would appear to mark the arrival of the hated white man.
It has long been, and in all human probability, it will be many a year before it shall be authentically decided who was the first settler in Solano county. That General Vallejo and his troops were the actual pioneers of the district now known as Solano, is conceded on every hand ; but they can scarcely be classed among the settlers, for though a great district of some ninety thousand acres had been granted to him by the Mexican Gov- ernment, still, he never had, until later, any actual domicile in the county, his residence being at Sonoma, whither he had been ordered to fix his head- quarters, and lay out a town.
The people immediately succeeding the aboriginal Indians were Span- iards ; or, more properly speaking, natives of Mexico, a race who were by no means calculated to improve and lay out a new country. Born in a warm and enervating climate, they were prone to pass their days in indolence. To be able to get sufficient food to allay the pangs of hunger and enough of water to assuage their thirst was to them satiety. In their own land they had made no change, nor in any way advanced their home interests by any civilizing influence save that of a forced Christianity, since the days when Montezuma was so barbarously and treacherously murdered by Cortez
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
and his pirate crew ; therefore, this country wherein they had cast their lot, was allowed to rest in its state of tangled confusion. Happily all of those who came from this southern clime were not of this somniferous kind, as the following remarks will show. The Baca (now pronounced Vaca, and in some law deeds Americanized into Barker) and Peña family arrived in Los Angeles, and after a residence of one year, came, in 1841, to the valley which now bears the name of the former, and there settled, building adobe houses for themselves; that of Juan Felipe Peña being constructed in Laguna (Lagoon) valley, and Manuel Baca's about one mile north-east there- from. These structures still stand on their original sites, the former being occupied by the widow of Peña, while the latter is the dwelling of Westley Hill. In the succeeding year (1842) there arrived the Armijo family, who took up their grant in the Suisun valley, built an adobe, and entered into residence about five miles north-west of Fairfield, the present county seat. With these three families to take the lead, others, as a matter of course, followed, not so much to labor in their own interests and toil for their wealthier fellows, but that they loved the dolce far niente mode of living to be found on the Haciendas of the rich. A certain amount of state was maintained by the rancheros of those days, which they had learned from the splendor-loving cavaliers of old Spain; they seldom moved abroad ; but when they did, it was upon a handsomely caparisoned horse, with at- tendant out-riders, armed, to protect their lord from wild animals, which infested the country. The earlier locators of land brought with them herds of cattle, which, in the natural sequence of things, became roving bands of untamed animals that provided the Spanish master and his servile crew with meat; while enough grain was not so much cultivated as grown, to to keep them in food, as it were, from day to day. Their mode of travel- ing was entirely on horseback; accommodation there was none; when halting for the night, an umbrageous tree was their roof ; the fertile valleys their stable and pasture; while, when food was required, to slay an ox or a deer, was the matter of a few moments.
Mention has been made of the adobe houses of the early Californians. Let us consider one of these primitive dwellings: Its construction was beautiful in its extreme simplicity. The walls were fashioned of large sun-dried bricks, made of that black loam known to settlers in the Golden State as adobe soil, mixed with straw, with no particularity as to species, measuring about eighteen inches square and three in thickness; these were cemented with mud, plastered within with the same substance, and white- washed when finished. The rafters and joists were of rough timber, with the bark simply peeled off and placed in the requisite position, while the residence of the wealthier classes were roofed with tiles of a convex shape, placed so that the one should overlap the other and thus make a water- shed ; or, later, with shingles, the poor cententing themselves with a thatch
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
of tule, fastened down with thongs of bullocks' hide. The former modes of covering were expensive-the Peña family, it is said, having given a man a considerable piece of land for shingling their house-and none but the opulent could afford the luxury of tiles. When completed, however, these mud dwellings will stand the brunt, and wear and tear of many decades, as can be evidenced by the number which are still occupied in out-of-the-way corners of the county.
Thus were these solitary denizens of what is now the prolific garden known as Solano county, housed in the midst of scenery which no pen can describe nor limner paint. The county, be it in what valley soever we wot, was one interminable grain field; mile upon mile, acre after acre, the wild oats grew in marvelous profusion, in many places to a prodigious height- one great glorious green of wild waving corn-high over head of the way- farer on foot and shoulder high with the equestrian. Wild flowers of every prismatic shade charmed the eye, while they vied with each other in the gorgeousness of their colors and blended into dazzling splendor. One breath of wind and the wide emerald expanse rippled itself into space, while with a heavier breeze came a swell whose waves beat against the mountain sides, and, being hurled back, were lost in the far-away horizon. Shadow pursued shadow in a long merry chase. The air was filled with the hum of bees, the chirrupping of birds, an overpowering fragrance from the various plants, causing the smallest sounds, in the extreme solitude, to become like the roar of the ocean.
The hill-sides, overrun as they were with a dense mass of almost impene- trable chapparal, were hard to penetrate; trees of a larger growth struggled for existence in isolated sterile spots. On the plains but few oaks of any size were to be seen, a reason for this being found in the devastating influence of the prairie fires, which were of frequent occurrence, thus destroying the young shoots as they sprouted from the earth; while the flames, with their forked tongues, scorched the older ones, utterly destroying them, leaving those only to survive the rude attack which were well ad- vanced in years.
This almost boundless range was intersected throughout with trails whereby the traveler moved from point to point, progress being, as it were, in darkness on account of the height of the oats on either side, and rendered dangerous in the lower valleys by the bands of wild cattle, sprung from the stock introduced by the first settlers. These found food and shelter on the plains during the night; at dawn of day they repaired to the higher grounds to chew the cud and bask in the sunshine. At every yard, cayotes sprang from the feet of the voyager. The hissing of snakes, the frightened rush of lizards, all tended to heighten the sense of danger; while the flight of quail, the nimble run of the rabbit, and the stampede of antelope and elk, which abounded in thousands, added to the charm, making him, be he
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
whosoever he may, pedestrian or equestrian, feel the utter insignificance of man, the "noblest work of God."
At this time, as now, the rivers, creeks, and sloughs swarmed with fish of various kinds that had not, as yet, been rudely frightened by the whirl of civilization. The water at the Green Valley Falls, that favorite picnic resort of to-day, then leaped as it e'en does now from crag to crag, splashing back its spray in many a sparkle. Then, the shriek of the owl, the howl of the panther, or the gruff growl of the grizzly was heard. Now, the scene is changed ; it has ceased to be the lair of the wild beast, but civilization has introduced the innocent prattle of children, and the merry tones of womanhood, causing one to stay and ponder which be best, the former wild solitude, or the pleasing pleasant present sunshine of sparkling voices and sparkling water.
Let us here introduce the following interesting resume of the experiences of the first of America's sons who visited California :
THE AMERICAN PIONEERS OF CALIFORNIA.
The following interesting record of the adventures of the first American argonauts of California is abridged from an article which appeared in "The Pioneer " in the year 1855 :
The first Americans that arrived in California, overland, were under the command of Jehediah S. Smith, of New York. Mr. Smith accompanied the first trapping and trading expedition, sent from St. Louis to the head waters of the Missouri by General Ashley. The ability and energy dis- played by him, as a leader of parties engaged in trapping beaver, were considered of so much importance by General Ashley that he soon proposed to admit him as a partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The proposal was accepted and the affairs of the concern were subsequently conducted by the firm of Ashley & Smith until 1828, when Mr. William L. Sublette and Mr. Jackson, who had been engaged in the same business in the mountains, associated themselves with Mr. Smith and bought out General Ashley. They continued the business under the name of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company until the summer of 1830, when they retired from the mountains, disposing of their property and interest in the enterprise to Messrs. Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Solomon, Sublette, and Trapp. Mr. W. L. Sublette subsequently re-engaged in the business.
In the spring of 1826 Mr. Smith, at the head of a party of about twenty- five men, left the winter quarters of the company to make a spring and fall hunt. Traveling westerly he struck the source of the Green river, which he followed down to its junction with Grand river, where the two form the Colorado. He there left the river and, traveling westerly, approached the Sierra Nevada of California. When traveling in that direction in search of a favorable point tò continue his exploration towards the ocean, he crossed
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
the mountains and descended into the great valley of California near its south-eastern extremity; thus being not only the first American, but the first person who, from the east or north, had entered the magnificent valleys of the San Joaquin and Sacramento, or who had ever seen or explored any of the rivers falling into the bay of San Francisco.
The following winter and spring he prosecuted with success the catching of beaver, on the streams flowing into the lakes of the Tulares, on the San Joaquin and tributaries, as also on some of the lower branches of the Sac- ramento. At the commencement of summer, the spring hunt having closed, he essayed to return, by following up the American river ; but the height of the mountains, and other obstacles which he encountered, induced him to leave the party in the valley during the summer. He accordingly re- turned ; and, having arranged their summer quarters on that river, near the present town of Brighton, prepared to make the journey, accompanied by a few well tried and hardy hunters, to the summer rendezvous of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, on the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains. Selecting favorite and trusty horses and mules, Mr. Smith, with three com- panions, left camp to undertake one of the most arduous and dangerous journeys ever attempted. Ascending the Sierra Nevada, he crossed it at a point of elevation so great, that on the night of the 27th of June, most of his mules died from intense cold. He descended the eastern slope of the mountains, and entered upon the thirsty and sterile plains that were spread out before him in all their primitive nakedness ; but his horses were unable to accomplish the journey.
Next to the Bedouin of the great African desert, if not equally with him, the trapper of the wilds of the American continent worships the noble horse, which not only proudly carries his owner up to the huge bison, when hunger presses the hunter, and swiftly flees from the overpowering horde of savages who seek his life ; but while the solitary, benighted, and fatigued hunter snatches a few shreds of repose, stands a trusty sentinel, with ears erect and penetrating eye, to catch the first movement of every object within its view, or with distended nostril, to inhale the odor of the red man with which the passing breeze is impregnated, and arouse his affectionate master. What, then, were the feelings of these men, as they saw their favorite steeds, which had long been their companions, and had been selected for their noble bearing, reeling and faltering on those inhospitable plains. Still worse when they were compelled to sever the brittle thread of life, and dissolve all those attachments and vivid hopes of future com- panionship and usefulness by the use of the rifle, which, at other times, with unerring aim, would have sent death to the man who should attempt to deprive them of their beloved animals.
They hastily cut from the lifeless bodies a few pieces of flesh, as the only means of sustaining their own existence ; and in this manner they supported life until they passed the desert and arrived on foot at the rendezvous.
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
A party was immediately organized, and, with such supplies as were required for the company, left for California, Mr. Smith hastening his de- parture. Traveling south, to avoid in some degree the snow and cold of winter, he descended and crossed Grand river, of the Colorado, and, contin- uing south-westerly, he approached the Colorado river from the east, near the camp of the Mohave Indians. In the attempt to transport his party, by means of rafts, over this river, in which he was aided by the Mohaves, who professed great friendship and hospitality, he was suddenly surprised by the treacherous Indians, who, upon a pre-concerted signal, simultaneously attacked the men who were on each bank of the river, and upon a raft then crossing, massaered the party, with the exception of two men and Mr. Smith, who escaped, and after great suffering arrived at the Mission of San Gabriel, in California. They were immediately arrested by the military officer at that place, because they had no passports. This functionary forwarded an account of the arrival and detention of the foreigners to the commandant of San Diego, who transmitted the same to General Eehandia, then Governor and Commander-in-Chief of California.
After a harassing delay Mr. Smith was permitted to proceed to Monterey, and appear before the Governor. Through the influence and pecuniary assistance of Captain John Cooper, an American, then resident of Monterey, he was liberated, and having procured such supplies as could be obtained in that place, partially on account of beaver-fur to be sent from the summer quarters on the Sacramento river, and partly on eredit, he hired a few men and proceeded to the camp of the party which he had previously left in the Sacramento valley. After forwarding the fur to Monterey, he travelled up the Sacramento, making a most successful hunt up this river and its tributaries within the valley. Aseending the western sources of the Sacramento, he passed Shasta mountain, when he turned westerly and arrived on the coast, which he followed south to the Umpqua river. While Mr. Smith and two men were in a canoe, with two or three Indians, engaged in examining the river to find a crossing, his eamp was unexpectedly surprised by the Indians, who had, up to this time, shown the most friendly disposition, and the entire party, with the exception of one man, were murdered. Mr. Smith and the men with him in the canoe, after wandering many days in the mountains, where they were obliged to secrete themselves by day and travel by night, to avoid the Indians, who were scouring the country in pursuit, succeeded in escaping from their vicinity, and arrived at Fort Vancouver, a post of the Hudson's Bay Company, on the Columbia river. The man who escaped from the camp at the massacre of the party was badly wounded, and without arms to defend himself or proeure food, succeeded in sustaining life and making his way through many vicissitudes for a period of thirty-eight days, when he reached Fort Vancouver. On his arrival there Mr. Smith con- tracted with the superintendent to sell him the large quantity of fur which
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THE HISTORY OF SOLANO COUNTY.
had fallen into the hands of the Indians on the Umpqua, provided he would assist in recovering it, and to furnish a guide to lead a trapping party into the Sacramento valley. A company was fitted out under the command of Lieutenant McLeod, which proceeded to the scene of disaster, and after re- covering the fur, with which Mr. Smith returned to the fort, continued south, under the guidance of one of Smith's men, to the Sacramento valley, where a most valuable hunt was made. A large number of horses from California were also obtained, with which the party attempted to return in the fall of 1822. In crossing the mountain they were overtaken by a violent snow-storm, in which they lost all their horses. From the hasty and un- suitable manner in which they attempted to secrete their valuable stock of fur from the observation and discovery of the Indians or other body of trappers, it was found in a ruined state by a party sent to convey it to the fort in the following spring, and McLeod was discharged from the service of the company for his imprudence in attempting to cross the mountains so late in the fall.
Another band was fitted out from Fort Vancouver, by the Hudson Bay Co., under Captain Ogden, of New York, who for some time had been in the employ of that corporation, with which Mr. Smith left the fort on his final departure from the Pacific shore, for the rendezvous of the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. This company traveled up Lewis river, in the direction of the South Pass, when Mr. Smith pursuing his journey with a few men, Captain Ogden turned south, and traveling along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, entered the valley of the Tulares, on the trail which Smith had made in 1826. McLeod having left the valley before he was en- countered by Ogden, who spent the winter of 1828-9, and the following summer returned to the Columbia river with a valuable hunt.
One of the survivors of the massacre of Smith's party on the Rio Colorado remained in California. He was a blacksmith by trade, and obtained em- ployment at the Missions of San Gabriel and San Luis Rey. His name was Galbraith, and while in the mountains previous to his advent to California, was recognized as the most fearless of that brave class of men with whom he was associated. His stature was commanding, and the Indians were awed by his athletic and powerful frame, while the display of his Herculean strength excited the surprise of all. Many were the incidents that occurred in California during his residence, of which he was the principal actor. On one occasion, while employed at the Mission of San Luis Rey, he became riotous while under the exciting influence of aguadiente, and was warned that unless he conducted himself with greater propriety it would be necessary to confine him in the guard-house. This served to exasperate instead of to quiet his unruly passions. A corporal with two men were ordered to arrest Galbraith. On their arrival at the shop, they found the follower of Vulcan absorbed in anathemas, which he was pouring forth in rapid succession
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