USA > California > Sonoma County > History of Sonoma County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county, who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present time > Part 15
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for current expenses, and later on another act was passed authorizing the bonding of the state for $300,000, with interest at the rate of three per cent a month. And to get in some ready cash, passed laws for the collecting of revenue, taxing all real and personal property and imposing a poll of five dollars on every male person between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years.
STARTED THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
When California's request for admission reached Washington, virtually the War of the Rebellion began. The sixty senators in Congress were equally divided between the free and slave states, and the two new senators from the far west-John C. Fremont and William M. Gwin-who would take their seats when their state, with her free constitution, came into the Union, would destroy the balance of power. The southern states bitterly fought the proposed admission. After months of conflict a compromise was affected and August 13. 1850, California was admitted by the Senate, thirty-four ayes to eighteen noes, though Senator Jefferson Davis and his pro-slavery extremists fought -as they did fifteen years later-to the last ditch. The House passed the bill one hundred and fifty ayes to fifty-six noes, and President Fillmore signed California into statehood de jure September 9, 1850.
So, again the Goddess Minerva-who is the lady of the miner, and the Sonoma-flag bear, and the Sierra sunrise on the State Seal-sprang full-grown and full-armed and if not literally this time from the brow of Jove, she landed ready for business, and she has been busy every hour since. She had no childhood, no probation of any character, but was a woman from the start just as she is seen in the sunrise of her golden birthday-September-Ninth-Fifty. It is not known whether the "Eureka" which always appears in her picture. refers to what she had individually "found" before she sat down to look at the surrounding country, or to what the miner or bear had just dug up. How- ever, the designer of the seal, Major R. S. Garrett, U. S. A., says the typical grizzly is cating grapes-possibly Sonoma grapes, and the Greek motto, "I have found," applies either to the principle involved in the admission of the state, or to the success of the mother-lode seeking miner. General Vallejo, one of the convention -- surfeited with bears,-remembering June 14, 1846, wanted el oso (whom he recognized) chiseled off the seal, or at least have the animal lassoed by a vaquero to keep it from starting another Bear-flag revolution in the scene. But Minerva of the Romans -- Athena of the Greeks-in the role of Califa the amazon queen of an old Spanish romance, sits on the shore of her western sea, with her medusa-head shield at her knee and calls to the world-"Eureka." It is a far cry from Athens to Yerba Buena, but the di- vinity of the Attic academies, as originally designed, went on the Seal and she cost the new State one thousand dollars.
CALIFORNIA FORCING HER WAY INTO THE UNION.
As several men of Sonoma played star parts in the stirring drama of California's entry into statehood, and as Sonoma had been closely connected with affairs that deeply affected the state. a few pages will here be devoted to the events that led along a new trail up to the first Admission Day. And no other state ever came in as did California. She blazed her own way. And in view of the exciting election (1910) through which this state has just passed, California's first dash into American politics may not be told amiss.
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Moreover, one's own state in the great hody politic, like that state's star on the flag, is of first interest in the pages of a country history. Scott and Taylor, having finished the work laid out for them in Mexico, a treaty of peace was formulated at Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848; and was attested by Secretary of State Jamcs Buchanan, and promulgated by President James K. Polk as a part of the Fourth of July patriotic festivities of that year. Con- gress adjourned the last of that month, still fighting over the question of admitting California with or without slavery. This was a bitter disappoint- ment. Ever since the end of the war the people of California had been living under Mexican laws mixed with army rules administered by Mexican-born, American-born officials and army officers, and the human mind could hardly devise a poorer system of government. An American in his own country will not tolerate Mexican laws, and nobody except an enlisted soldier can exist under the straight-jacket code known as military law. When Congress ad- journed the deadlock was still on and California was hanging in the air, neither a state, territory, military department nor school district. President Polk in- formed the Californians that they already had a government de facto, and he advised them to submit to it, and not question the authority of the army officers who were governing them. But Senator Benton, who probably was better posted on far western affairs than his brother-senators, had different advice for the Californians, and that advice he sent them in a letter through Colonel Fremont. He held that the right to issue letters expository and advice was not exclusively with secretaries of state and with presidents, hence he assured them that by the treaty they were United States citizens, competent to govern themselves. He pronounced the edicts of Governors Kearny and Mason, "each an ignoramus," null and void, and warmly advised them to call a convention and provide themselves with a governor and all the necessary officials for self- government. Brigadier-General Bennett Riley, though acting as a sort of milito-civil governor, was anxious to correct the prevailing impression that California was governed by the War Department, and he approved of Benton's suggestion to form a provisional government pending something from Con- gress. The newspapers took up the matter and public meetings were held in different places, but nothing was accomplished except much talking. Finally Sonoma-frequently it was Sonoma in the lead when there was something doing-without waiting took the initiative and elected delegates to the con- vention. This started the work and General Riley ordered a constitutional convention to meet in Colton Hall, Monterey, September 1. 1849. Sonoma's contribution to that illustrious company of forty-eight pioneer statesmen were M. G. Vallejo, Dr. Robert Semple, Joel Walker and L. W. Boggs. The con- vention elected Dr. Semple its chairman. There were no individuals to award. no party axes to grind, no time to waste, consequently they did things during the six weeks of their stay in the old pueblo of Junipero Serra. Framed a constitution, fixed the boundary lines, prohibited slavery, and adopted a new state seal. True. the vote for delegates had been alarmingly small, and on election day in some precinct polling places it looked as if the voters would have to be lassoed and dragged in, as Senator Dayton in Washington had predicted, but there were enough ballots in the boxes-some of them prob- ably were dropped. there by-by accident. However, there were some big
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people in old Colton Hall during that term. Among these illustrious names were those of Captain H. W. Halleck, afterwards Commander-in-Chief of the United States armies; Captain Jolin A. Sutter, who kept open house in the Sacramento Valley when the American immigrants, footsore and weary from across-the-plains, needed him most; Thomas O. Larkin, first and last United States Consul in California, and the confidential agent who did so much to smooth the Californian's way into the family of their new Tio Sam; John McDougall, second governor of the State; Charles T. Betts, editor of a Demo- cratic paper afterwards published at Sacramento; Mariano de Guadalupe Val- lejo, at home with his new "gringo" brothers, and Dr. W. H. Gwin, afterwards United States Senator.
DRAWING THE NEGRO AND THE BOUNDARY LINES.
William .G. Marcy was the secretary, Caleb Lyon and J. G. Field, assist- ants and J. Ross Browne, the world known writer, official reporter. The membership which had been increased to forty-seven, was cosmopolitan. The convention represented seventeen states of the Union, and five foreign countries. Seven were native Californians, and quite a number did not understand the English language and addressed the body through an interpreter. But there was not much verbiage, repetition or irrelevant matter in those debates even if the oratory was not flowery with eloquence. Dr. Gwin had several copies of the constitution of Iowa for reference, and for awhile, some member said, it looked as if California and Iowa would be doing business at the same stand. But as the session went on the New York constitution more frequently became the guide, making it appear that the Empire State was to be taken into the organic-law partnership. The dimensions of the proposed state was a cumber- some question, not only because of the natural bigness of the new addition to the Union, but because of its geographical relation to the slavery zone. After getting the "darky" safely out of the proposed constitution the convention started in on the boundaries. The western had been fixed-unknown ages ago-and the Pacific would continue to take care of that side of the state. We couldn't get any further south than Mexico-the treaty stood there-and Oregon blocked all extension on the north. But the east was wide open, without bounds and without ownership, an opportunity and a temptation. The committee reported a line that would have taken in what is now the State of Nevada, while Mr. McDougall proposed the one hundred and fifth meridian of longitude, which would have pinched off a large slice of Kansas and Nebraska. Dr. Gwin seemingly was not so far reaching, and wanted the eastern boundary line to give California the Mormon settlements around Salt Lake. But the Doctor's scheme was soon apparent, and it showed that the negro was on hand-liter- ally ready to step across the boundaries as soon as they were drawn. Gwin and his plan would create a state with about four hundred thousand square miles of area, an enormous territory, the admission of which as free soil would draw the fierce opposition of the South. This probably would split the un- wieldy state in two pieces, the line of cleavage being the old slave parallel of thirty-six-thirty, putting Southern California in the South. As the great national question stood fifteen slave to fifteen free states, any new admissions must be shaped to preserve the politico-industrial equilibrium. When Gwin's plan became known there was a jumble of the lines. Dr. Semple of Sonoma, appeared to
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be the only one able to strike the right point, and he did so when he proposed the boundary line pretty nearly where it runs today.
UNCLE SAM'S GRAND LAND DEAL.
The convention sensibly declined to make their state of imperial dimen- sions and hemispherical bulk under the argument that the California of Mexicc was of this grand area and it was unbecoming to cut her up. The members could see no wisdom in taking up the white man's burden of governing a vast territory of deserts and wild lands, much of which was then worthless, no1 of gathering in the Mormon problem which was becoming a territorial menace nor of making a new Northern State so large that the South would mass all her powers to fight its admission. So the discussion ended with the present line starting from the forty-second parallel of latitude and running south along the one hundred and twentieth meridian of longitude to the thirty-ninth parallel; thence southeasterly to the Colorado; thence along that river to the Mexican line. This was supposed to have taken in everything received from Mexico that was of earthly value-giving us plenty of land-one hundred and eighty-eight thousand, nine hundred and eighty-one square miles of it. Besides some fighting, we paid Mexico $25,000,000 for the strip of land southwest from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific ocean-a good real estate deal; paid $15,000,000 to the French for the Louisiana Purchase-Napoleon wanted war- money; bought Florida from Spain for $6.500,000 and Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000-neitlier government knew that it was throwing away a king- dom. So for $53.700,000 cash, thrifty Uncle Samuel "traded" for a "few ranchos" as additions to his original holdings, the real value of which additions is beyond the comprehension of finite mind.
GOVERNOR "PETE" BURNETT.
Lotteries were adjudged an offense to public morals, and dueling, the cowardly code of Mississippi and Tennessee, was also prohibited. The capital was fixed at San Jose, but could be removed at any time at a two-thirds vote of each house of the legislature. The expenses of that first session of Cali- fornia's governmental body is an interesting item, and the amount is not large considering that in these "days of gold" a dollar to be of any account must be accompanied by three or four of its brothers. The secretary of the convention received for his six weeks' labor twenty-eight dollars per diem; assistants and engrossing clerk, twenty-three each; copying clerk, sixteen ; doorkeeper, twelve; two chaplains, Protestant and Catholic, sixteen dollars. The reporter, J. Ross Browne, was paid $10,000 for preparing and delivering daily, the printed pro- ceeding of the session. November 13th, the constitution was adopted by the people in a vote of 12,064 to 11 ballots against it, about 1200 ballots being re- jected because of an error in the printing. Peter J. Burnett was elected gover- nor. with 6,716 votes, his competitors came out as follows: W. Scott Sher- wood, 3,188: J. W. Geary, 1,475; John A. Sutter, 2,201 ; William M. S. Stewart, 619. The five candidates spread the fourteen thousand votes over considerable surface giving Burnett a good lead. John McDougall was elected lieutenant governor, and George W. Wright and Edward Gilbert were elected to Con- gress, with five or six thousand votes apiece. This general vote result from a claimed population of over a hundred thousand, was not calculated to fill the local politicians with enthusiasm nor make a favorable impression in Congress 8
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where the matter of statehood would finally be threshed out. And they were glad when Governor Burnett decided that no more special legislation would be needed for some time, and incorporated the cities of San Francisco, Sacra- mento, San Jose, Monterey, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sonoma, Benicia and Santa Barbara without any more elections.
HOW SONOMA CAST HER FIRST VOTE.
Stephen Cooper was Judge of First Instance for the District of Sonoma, and Richard A. Maupin, long an old resident of Sonoma, Judge of the Superior Tribunal. The district of Sonoma polled at this first election five hundred and fifty-two votes, all but one hundred and twenty-eight being for Burnett, who was a candidate on one of the two People's tickets. General Vallejo went to the Senate and J. S. Bradford and J. E. Brackett to the Assembly. Vallejo came near losing his election by a clerical error in which the returns from Larkin's Ranch gave Rev. James Spect, his opponent, twenty-two votes in- stead of two, the correct number. The roster of that legislature is worthy of insertion here, and as they have all passed over the "Great Divide," this list may be In Memoriam.
Senators : Selem E. Woodworth; Davis F. Douglass ; Elean Heydenfeldt ; M. G. Vallejo ; Pablo de la Guerra : Thomas Vermeule; W. D. Fair ; Elisha O. Crosby; David C. Broderick; Dr. E. Kirby Chamberlain ( President pro tem. ) ; J. Bidwell; H. C. Robinson; Benjamin S. Lippincott. Assemblymen : Thomas J. White (Speaker) ; Elam Brown; J. S. K. Ogier; Dr. E. B. Bateman ; Ed- mund Randolph; E. P. Baldwin; A. P. Crittenden; Alfred Wheeler; James A. Gray; Joseph Aram; Joseph C. Morehead; Dr. Benjamin Cory; Thomas J. Henly; Jose M. Covarrubias; Elisha W. Mckinstry; George B. Tingley: John S. Bradford.
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CHAPTER XXVI.
SACRAMENTO CORRALS THE STATE CAPITAL.
Under the Spanish and Mexican regime the capital of California was of a roving disposition, and it might be said to have been wherever the man who happened to be governor at that particular period hung up his hat. The pref- erence, however, was for Monterey and Los Angeles, and between these two points the distinction swung with pendulum-regularity. The first city being a seaport had the custom house-no small item to a governor whose salary generally depended on what he could extract from the revenues of the country. But the City of the Angeles was gayer-more given to the world and the flesh and the devil-and the swell fandangos of the southern capital kept the execu- tive and his official family from going to sleep-when a revolution in the north was not keeping them awake. After the Americans got the country and the offices, Monterey acted as capital for a brief period, and Colton Hall was the state house. Then San Jose had an opportunity to entertain the first legisla- ture, but the two-story adobe building which she proposed to donate to thie state was slow in construction and generally unsatisfactory when constructed, consequently the governor and his party decided to move again. During the year 1850 Senator Vallejo laid out what is now the navy yard city of his name, but which he called "Eureka" and where he offered to locate the state capital free of charge. To his fellow legislators the offer looked all right, but the title of the town was too classical. Greek mottos might do for state seals but not for state capitals. So they persisted in calling the place Vallejo in honor of its founder, and the Senator perforce accepted the change. He proposed to give the state twenty acres for a Capitol and grounds.
This was only the beginning of his munificence, as he also proposed to give the state one hundred and thirty-six acres for other public buildings and grounds, as follows : Governor's residence, ten acres; other state offices, should they not be placed in the capitol, five acres; State Library and Translator's office, one acre; Orphan Asylum, twenty acres; Male and Female Charity Hospitals, ten acres each : Blind and Deaf and Dumb Asylum, four acres each ; Lunatic Asylum, twenty acres; four common schools, eight acres; State Uni- versity, twenty acres; State Botanical Garden, four acres; and a State Peni- tentiary, twenty acres.
VALLEJO MAKES \ GOLDEN OFFER.
As General Vallejo was a wealthy man in the matter of acres, owning all the land in the vicinity, the proposal was a small affair to him, but he followed this up with an offer that made his brother legislators suddenly sit up and gasp for breath. Within two years after the acceptance of his proposals he would pay to the State three hundred and seventy thousand dollars, to be apportioned as follows: For the building of a State Capitol, one hundred and seventy- five thousand dollars; furnishing same, ten thousand dollars: Governor's house, ten thousand : furnishing same, five thousand: State Library and Translator's
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office, five thousand ; other offices, if separate from Capitol Building, twenty thousand two charity hospitals and five asylums, twenty thousand dollars each ; State University, twenty thousand; scientific furnishing, sixteen thousand; four common school buildings, ten thousand; books therefor, one thousand; Lunatic Asylum and Penitentiary, twenty thousand each; State Botanical Garden, three thousand.
Proving that the Senate from Sonoma was very much in earnest when he made his offer, worthy of a prince of the realm, he further proposed in his memorial address to the legislature, that in the event of the State declining his offer, that the proposition be put to a popular vote at the general election held in November of that year. His arguments were simple, direct and strong. He believed "the location indicated to be the most suitable for a permanent seat of government because it was the true center of the State, the true center of commerce, the true center of population, and the true center of travel; that, while the Bay of San Francisco is acknowledged to be the first on the earth, in point of extent and navigable capacities; already, throughout the length and breadth of the wide world it is acknowledged to be the center between Asiatic and European commerce; the largest ship that sails upon the broad sea could, within three hours, anchor at the wharves of the place proposed as the seat of the State government; from this point by steam navigation, there was a greater aggregate of mineral wealth within eight hours' steaming, than existed in the Union besides; from this point the great north and south rivers San Joaquin and Sacramento-cut the State longitudinally through the center, fringing the immense gold deposits on the one hand, and untold mercury and other mineral resources on the other; from this point steam navigation ex- tends along the Pacific coast south to San Diego and north to the Oregon line, affording the quickest possible facilities for our sea-coast population to reach the State Capitol in the fewest number of hours; this age, as it has been truly remarked, has merged distance into time; in the operation of com- merce and the intercourse of mankind, to measure miles by the rod is a piece of vandalism of a by-gone age; and that point which can be approached from all parts of the State in the fewest number of hours, at the cheapest cost, is the truest center."
LEGISLATURE ACCEPTS.
The memorial received in the Senate, a flattering reception and a report on the matter to the President contained these words: "Your committee can- not dwell with too much warmth upon the magnificent proposition contained in the memorial of General Vallejo. They breathe throughout, the spirit of an enlarged mind and a sincere public benefactor for which he deserves the thanks of his countrymen and the admiration of the world. Such a proposition looks more like the legacy of a mighty emperor to his people than the free donation of a private planter to a great State, yet poor in public finance, but soon to be among the first of the earth." The matter was presented to the Senate by Senator David C. Broderick of San Francisco, finally accepted, and the necessary act signed by the Governor. Vallejo's bond for the performance of his portion of the contract was accepted, his solvency was approved by a committee appointed by the Senate, and a favorable report of the commission- ers sent to mark and lay out the tracts of land to be donated, was adopted. The next Legislature-the third-mct at the new capital. Vallejo, January 5.
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1852, but on account of the lack of acconunodations in that place the members were not generally pleased with the locality. It did not possess the social life of the other cities which had in turn acted as capitals, Sacramento being on the broad trail from the Bay to the mines, was making a quiet struggle for the prize, and many of the State government officers were anxious to get into near proximity to the golden store.
SACRAMENTO FLEMLESS IF NOT FLAWLESS.
Suddenly, one sleepy afternoon of the session, the Assembly with a re- inarkable unanimity jumped up a bill for the removal of the session to Sacra- mento. So unusually harmonious was this usually combative body over the removal "up the river." that people were generally mystified. Such, a half century later would have suggested bribery, but in that day there was nothing in the country with which to bribe an official. It may be surmised that the lawmakers left the new capital because Vallejo, in his provision for their com- fort, hadn't got around to feather beds and table napkins. The bill went to the Senate where it was bitterly opposed, and beaten by one vote. Next day a Senator Anderson moved reconsideration, and the fight was on again. It was reported that the Senator, after one night in Vallejo, had been persuaded that Sacramento was flealess, if not flawless. Whatever the argument, in a few days the whole government from State seal to House gavel was a-sailing through the Straits of Carquinez, their carpetsacks checked for New Helvetia. That was a proverbial Sacramento winter and the members of the Legislature put in much of their time keeping above high-water mark and from being flooded out of the latest capital. When it adjourned, it adjourned to meet at Vallejo, where the floods were the ocean tides and of regulation height. while the Sacramento river, in winter, never could be depended on.
SAN FRANCISCO -- AT LAST-GETS A NAME.
January 3, 1853, the government was in business at Vallejo, but Sacra- mento was not idle. She appears to have entered into a treaty of offense and defense, sub rosa, with Benicia, a new town laid out by Thomas Larkin and Dr. Robert Semple on the Straits of Carquinez, seven miles from Vallejo. General Vallejo, who never refused a donation from his leagues of land, had given the two men one mile square for the site of what they intended to be the chief bay-city. They had on tap for a name, "Francesca," which was one of the several pretty christian names of Senora Vallejo, and was also from the name of St. Francis de Assisi. But before the city of Francesca was ready for her name and the glory that was to come to her as the chief metropolis of Cali- fornia, Alcalde Bartlett, of Yerba Buena, squatted on the title. Long years ago the Spanish found a few sprigs of mint growing on an island in the bay and called the insignificant little plant and the island "Yerba Buena." The Spanish, who are good at names, as the noble and saintly titles up and down this coast show, couldn't seem to find some word or sentence suitable for the matchless port and harbor which is now the wonder of the world, and the name of the silly little weed came out of the bay and lent itself to the place. When the Alcalde was casting about for something fitting the grand locality, and some name the Americans wouldn't mangle trying to pronounce, he said, the padre in charge of Mission Dolores suggested the name of the head of the Franciscans, and the name stands -- San Francisco. Thus at almost the last moment St.
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