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 16
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Francis, whose faithful missionaries had put in centuries in an ill-rewarded effort to christianize the dull Californian Indians, was given the distinction of a city-but such a city, a golden city, worthy of a prophet's vision. And when the "Yerba Buena" got back to its island home it found its claim jumped and its title clouded by the plebeian name "Goat." But Doc Semple on the shores of Carquinez, just substituted another name of La Senora Benicia Francesca Carrillo-Vallejo, and Benicia it went into the geographies.
GOES UP THE RIVER.
But it was a sorry trick Sacramento played upon her confederate. It was easier to pry the capital from the little town on the Straits than from Vallejo, so Benicia got the gubernatorial people and the distinction for a session of the legislature, as they passed drifting up the river. Then the Sacramentoans built a levee around the state institution to prevent their river from washing it back to the bay. Vallejo tried to provide the buildings in accordance with his splendid offer, but was financially unable to do so. The city lost the state capital but she gained a navy yard, and that gave her a national standing. Benicia is geographically located for the seat of the state government but lost to the superior attractions of the great valley town and of the pleasures of steamboat rides up the noble stream that rolled deep and clear from mountain to sea before the hydraulic miner shoaled and muddied its waters and almost ruined it for navigable purposes.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
SONOMA COUNTY SETTLES DOWN TO HOUSE-KEEPING.
When California passed into the possession of the United States govern- ment, Sonoma ineant considerable area; she was called a "district" and her boundary lines ran a sort of go-as-you-please anywhere except out in the Pacific, and they enclosed a space within the beach, Oregon, Rio Sacramento, San Pablo Bay and Marin. With all that land-grab it is remarkable that little Marin nook of soil on the southwest escaped her. The legislative act of April, 1851, drew in these wide lines to nearly the present limits, with the exception that on the north the line beginning at the mouth of the Russian river followed up that stream to the Mayacmas mountains, thence leaving the river it struck easterly across-country to Mount St. Helena, the northwestern corner of Napa county. This made Sonoma county about half her present size, but by a peculiar provision of the act Mendocino county was "attached for judicial and revenue purposes" to Sonoma until a county government could be organized for her. Consequently this county mothered Mendocino until 1859, kept her from straying away and getting lost in her own wild forests, decided her lawsuits, taxed her, trained her to govern herself-and in fact, raised her to county womanhood through a probation of eight years. Then Sonoma grabbed a piece of her, enough to double the grabber's area and spread her north line to the Valhalla river, and then let Mendocino set up housekeeping for herself. Before the establishment of boards of supervisors the county government was vested in a court of sessions, consisting of the county judge and two justices of the peace as associates. These governmental duties passed to the boards of supervisors by the act of March 20, 1855. In 1851 the town of Sonoma was made the county seat. During the earlier time there were known to be four townships in the county-Petaluma, Sonoma, Bodega and Russian River-not surveyed or lined out, but just "guessed" for geographical convenience. That quartet has grown to fifteen well organized townships, namely: Analy; Bodega ; Cloverdale; Glen Ellen, Knight's Valley ; Mendocino; Ocean ; Petaluma; Redwood; Russian River; Washington : Salt Point; Santa Rosa ; Sonoma and Vallejo.
On September 3. 1851, California had her first election as a real state- as one of the great civic sisterhood with representation in Congress and a new white star on the flag. John Bigler was chosen governor with twenty-three thousand seven hundred seventy-four votes. over P. H. Redding with twenty- two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three. Martin E. Cook represented the Eleventh Senatorial District, which was composed of the counties of So- noma, Solano, Napa, Marin, Colusa, Yolo and Trinity, and this Assembly Dis- trict, composed of Sonoma, Marin, Napa and Solano counties was represented in the Legislature by John A. Bradford and A. Stearns. The population of Sonoma county at this time numbered five hundred and sixty-one. The new county officers were Judge C. P. Wilkins: sheriff. Israel Brockman and Dr.
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John Handly, clerk and recorder. Philip Thompson and A. C. Goodwin were appointed associate judges. The first board of supervisors for this county met at Sonoma July 5, 1854, and was composed of David O. Shattuck, chair- man; William A. Hereford; L. P. Hanson, and James P. Singley; W. O. King succeeded L. P. Hanson. At the election that year E. W. Mckinstry was chosen judge, district judge; J. M. Hudspeth, senator; H. S. Ewing and James McKamey, assemblymen. In 1853 the elections resulted as follows: Senator, J. M. Hudspeth ; assemblymen, J. N. Burnett and W. B. Hagan; county judge, Frank Shattuck, in place of P. R. Thompson ; sheriff, Israel Brockman ; county clerk, N. McC. Menefee; treasurer, G. W. Miller; district attorney, Ashael Clark, succeeding J. A. McNair ; assessor, R. F. Box, succeeding J. A. Reynolds : public administrator, Coleman Talbot; coroner, Dr. Elisha Ely; supervisors, H. G. Heald, James Singley, S. L. Fowler, and Alexander Copeland. Among the unsuccessful candidates that election was Captain Joe Hooker, a resident of Sonoma, who had been nominated for the assembly. The Captain was after- wards "Fighting General Joe Hooker" in the Union army during the Rebel- lion. James N. Bennett of Bennett Valley was Hooker's running mate and fellow loser in the race for the legislature. However, the Captain was ap- pointed roadmaster and improved the condition of the cow-trails of the county during his incumbency.
WHEN "ORO, ORO," WAS HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.
Betwcen '48 and '53 the golden lure swept great floods of people into California, the mining counties getting not only the metal-mad immigration. but pretty much of the settlers of the other portions of the state. However, "Marshall-Coloma-1848," is not the true record of the first golden discovery on this part of the coast. In 1841-2 the yellow mineral was mined in the San Feliciano Canon, Los Angeles county, and during those years these placers produced a large amount of gold despite the shiftless method of the Cali- fornians. In fact, it was an Indian from these mines who happened to be at work in Marshall's sawmill site at Coloma when the discovery-nuggets were shoveled out of the creek. Sutter and Marshall tried to keep the character of the find a secret but the Indian caught sight of it and his loud cry of "Oro! Oro!" was heard around the world, and the Great Stampede was on. Yet there were people in California not blinded by the yellow haze that drifted down from the "diggings," and the ranchos continued to receive their share of the new-comers. Some were even mining gold on the newly discovered farms. A German settler named Schwartz, on a few acres near Sacramento, sat in his doorway and saw the droves of men wildly plunging northward. They cheerily called him to join the rush, but he calmly smoked his pipe and let them pass on. From his small farm he raised and sold in Sacramento that year $30,000 worth of watermelons. In the rich, virgin soil of that incomparable valley his melons grew to $5 and $8 sizes and the would-be eater, with his "dust" was there to buy, though many miners returned poorer than they went. And Herr Schwartz was only a sample of the stones that did not roll and gathered moss. While in the aggregate, California volcanoed out the golden millions from her subterranean treasury, flashing a yellow gleam across the world, the individual average winnings from her great lottery were insignifi- cant. The production of the metal in 1853, when the industry reached its
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highest point, was about $65,000,000, and to the one hundred thousand miners at work that year this was $650 for each man; $54.16 monthly-thirty days- Sunday was a lost day in the mines: $1.80 per diem; a wage almost ample enough then to keep the miner in his daily bacon-provided he was a moderate eater. The Schwartzs did better.
HARVESTING THE GOLD OF RANCHI AND MINE.
The harvest of the mine was not the only harvest that was to be gathered from this wealth-producing land. The Spaniard or Mexican could get over countless leagues of the soil. but he seldom got down in it. Neither one was a prize farmer. He plowed with an iron-pointed forked tree-branch that turned no furrow. but simply scratched the surface of the ground. So he did his scratching in the most favorable spot he could find, sowed the seed, brushed the loose dirt over it with the branch of the tree that supplied his plow, and left the crop to fight it out with the weeds. He was either a stoic, easy in his "what will be will be, what won't be won't be" or he had a beautiful faith in the wheat's ability to choke down the tares. As this system of plowing gave en- couragement to the most backward weed, only the most propitious season saved the harvest. Yet notwithstanding the heavy odds favoring its growing enemies, often the wheat won out with an enormous yield. But there was little market for the crop "before the gringo came," enough of him to count, and if the ranchers got enough out of his field for the family table, he was satisfied. Por mañana, porque"-Why for tomorrow? It was for the north- ern agriculturist to blend the seed and the soil and the season into the where- with to feed the world. If the Mexican colonist grew enough corn for his tamales, and enough wheat for his tortillas, also enough beans and peppers for the frijoles y chile con carne against the coming of the meal hour, that was as far as he ventured into the luxuriant plant possibilities around him. The mission fathers striving to vary and improve the fare of their retainers and neophytes, brought from Spain slips of grape vines and fruit trees which they planted around the big adobe buildings. At that period the industry had not spread over the country. While the grapes would produce wine which appealed to the taste if not the peculiar thrift of the Californian, apples and peaches he did not generally care for, and he had no time to waste on their culture. A different time and a different people came to the land lying idle and its trees and vines grew heavy with fruit. The padres planted a few orange trees at the Mission San Gabriel in 1851, but little or no attention was paid to the cultivation of the fruit. It was long-believed that this noble citrus would thrive only in the low soils, especially on the banks of streams, but the River- side and Cloverdale experiments prove that it is on the mesa lands that the orange attains the perfection of its culture. While the cultivation of the mul- berry, and the silk industry does not belong to the early agricultural efforts of the Californian, the tree grows rapidly and strong in this state. Some years ago the legislature, to encourage seri-culture, authorized the payment of a bounty of $250 for every five thousand mulberry trees two years old. It thus encouraged the silk worm culture with a vengeance, and only the repeal of the act saved the state from bankruptcy. Then the ten millions of trees in Southern California fell into innocuous desuetude and the silk worms on the
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leaves fell into the English sparrows-one of California's unlucky importa- tions-to be endured till somebody imports something to eat the sparrows.
CHANGES ON THE GREAT RANCHOS.
With the first missionary expeditions to this country came the Spanish horses, cattle and sheep. These animals were turned out on the wide plains and in the mild climate and rich vegetation became the countless herds of the great ranchos. No attempt was made to improve the original breed, as a steer was worth only the comparatively little the hide on his carcass and the tallow within it would bring after shipping it around the Horn to an Atlantic port. A blue-ribboned bovine would bring no more, and to a Spaniard his sirloin would be no more juicy. Milk and butter were unknown in a ranchero's home, as the Spanish cow with a young calf around to excite her maternal solicitude, was about as safe for dairy purposes as a female panther. The vaquero aboard his mustang-and that animal almost as wild as the cow-was afraid of noth- ing that wore hoofs, but dismount him to do the milking, even when the fight- ing-mad vaca was roped and tied, would place lim at a disadvantage, and ulti- mately scare him to death. So she was left in peace to nourish her calf and raise him up to the age when his hide and tallow would be turned into the shoes and the candles of commerce, and the coyotes get the remainder of him. The Mission fathers used the sheep in their plan of salvation for the Indians. The wool was woven into a coarse cloth and when the good padre caught a "native son" gentle enough to safely handle, he put a shirt on him, believing that decency is next to godliness. The original Californian did not indulge in clothing, except the union-suit he wore after a rich, sticky mud-bath, and he was not particular about the fit of that if it was heating in winter and cold- storage in hot weather. In general, he objected to being made a fashion-plate, and if the father was too insistent, Lo shed his shirt and hiked for the distant rancheria. However, if the mission bells' call to prayers and frijoles y carne was louder than the call of the wilds, he tolerated-under protest-his shirt which made him itch, and stood without hitching, a fairly good Injun.
WHEN THE MUSTANG GALLOPED OUT OF THE TWILIGHT.
It is not known just when the horse galloped out of the prehistoric twi- lights of animal creation to become man's beast of burden, or what was his disposition at that period, but judging him from the Mexican mustangs we have met, he was a "bad one." On second thought, Bronco might have come from his natal wild with ferocity undeveloped and savagery was thrust upon him or hammered into him by humanity. Certainly nothing but a Mexican horse can live under a Mexican rider. But mount that vaquero, clad in his gaudy trap- pings, on a vicious, always-ready-to-buck cquine-devil of the rancho, and a more complete and more fantastic centaur never plunged out of mythology. Consideration for the horse seems to have been unknown to those horsemen and the animal seems to have known that, and lived only for the purpose of bucking off his rider. For this he endured abuse and starvation, climbed almost inaccessible places with the sure-footedness of a goat, and kicked the miles behind him with the perseverance of an express-train; and all the time he was thinking of the debt of gratitude he owed man-the obligation to throw and kick him to death at the first opportunity; and this obligation he
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always tried to pay. With the coming of the American farmer came the splendid draught horse-colossal and grand and the antithesis of the seemingly- frail, little mustang. Also came the fleet thoroughbred, every ripple of his blueblood showing under his silken coat, and the pride of his Arabian lineage in the swing of his dainty heels-a far remove from the shaggy-haired, hoof- worn, half-starved. wild thing of the western range.
But with all this class distinction, here's to you, Mexican mustang. You look tough, you act tough, you are tough ; but you came into Old Spain with Moorish knighthood and you shared the glory of your warrior-rider. You are a poor, humble, despised bronc, but your patent to equine nobility goes back to the golden days of Good Haroun Al Raschid!
IT WAS LIVE TODAY-WORK MANANA.
In those crude old days the mathematical accuracy of a survey seldom ap- peared in practice. Often the lines were run on a mustang, the surveyor tak- ing the bearings of a prominent point at the extreme range of his vision and with his riata he would mark off the acres, driving the stakes from his saddle. An ancient deed was filed wherein it stated that the lines of the tract of land began at a "shanty with a stove pipe sticking up through the roof." Sixty years have dragged heavily over the now unknown site of that shanty with the stove pipe sticking up through it, leaving only a cloud on the title of the ranch. The north boundary of another farm is the edge of the creek "during high water." In the long intervai of a half-century the creek found for itself another channel, and that change with the contingency of high or low water would make an interesting matter for adjudication should somebody put that deed on the witness-stand. It is no wonder that many a league got out of one rancho into an adjoining one and was the source of long land disputes in later years.
Where now the six-cylinder touring-car with its purring engine marking off the miles fifty of them to the hour, sweeps along the broad highways, a creaking, rude, nondescript vehicle once moved over the plains. Its wheels were circular sections of a log with holes bored through the center, and the axles were the two ends of a straight, strong pole thrust through the center holes in the wheels. Another pole lashed to the middle of the axle served as a tongue to the cart and on this roughly-made running-gear was a framework of withes bound together with rawhide. This was the means of transporta- tion on the ranchos as well as the family carryall in most instances. With a half-broken yoke of oxen iashed to the tongue and an Indian to prod them to something like speed, the inter-rancho tourists could make as much as four miles an hour. Two-wheel vehicles were the limit of their efforts as the coupling of the four wheels together for anything like practical use was a trick too com- plicated for a Mexican colonist. However, as the American immigrants began to crowd into the territory their wagons and lighter vehicles began to be seen in use on the ranchos. Whenever there was any necessity to protect the grain fields from straying stock a ditch was dug around the tract and on the ridge of upturned soil a brush fence was made. The scarcity of saw mills in the territory and the plenitude of Indian lahor made the most primitive fencing convenient.
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The ripe grain was cut with any convenient implement and the threshing- floor was generally the hard ground of the stock corral. In this inclosure the crop would be piled and a band of horses would be driven over it till most of the grain was trampled out of the chaff. Naturally with such rude methods a good percentage of the grain remained in the straw, but the cattle got it and there was no material waste. The grain was separated from the chaff by winnowing and came from this rude method very clean. Once a year the great bands of horses and cattle were rounded up,-rodeod-branded, and this was an occasion of not only rare exhibitions of skillful horsemanship in handling the wild and vicious animals, but was also an occasion of feasting and dancing. In fact the twin-recreations, feasting and dancing, were on the program if any industry was to be gotten out of the "live-today-and-rest-mañana" Mexicans. This was a happy-go-lucky day, but it was drawing to a close. The dis- integration of the big rancho into the smaller ranch was beginning and the im- proved home-farm with its flower beds and fruit trees commenced to show where once the unfenced tracts of wild oats grew. Who may say that the hand of a destiny, wise and exorable, was not in this? The Mexican statesman not alive to land values or to the inighty leverage to power in the ownership of the earth's surface, gave vast tracts of soil away with a prodigality that would ap- pear sinful to the acre-baron of the present. These leagues of land remained only a short time, comparatively, in the possession of the original rancheros, and were then parceled out to the last comers. The Almighty, when he said "Let the dry land appear," did not intend that it should appear exclusively for the monopolist, and the vacant tracts of California began to blossom as the rose when the ranchos went to pieces.
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
HOW CAPTAIN SMITH CAME TO BODEGA.
The chief pioneer west of the great central Sonoman valley at the time was Captain Stephen Smith, of Bodega. This gallant son of the sea was cast ashore in this part of the world in 1840, hailing from the old Bay State-an abrupt change from wintry Massachusetts to summery California. He was the skipper of the bark "George and Henry" and was trading his cargo of sugar. syrup, tobacco, cloth and many other articles for hides, horns and tallow, about the only products the country had to barter. He saw in the levels of arable land and in the leagues of lumber forests splendid possibilities of wealth. Hurry- ing back to the eastern coast he unloaded his bark and reloaded her with his mind at the future Bodega rancho far away on the shore of the distant Pacific. On his way to that ranch he took aboard the "George and Henry" something else-of more significance-a wife, showing beyond doubt that the gallant captain intended to "jump the ship." He picked Mrs. Smith up in the port of Payta, Peru, where she was Doña Manuella Torres, a lady of intelligence and refinement, sixteen years old. The captain's years figured just the reverse- sixty-one, the 6 and the 1, apparently magic numbers, and in some way offsetting the age-disparagement of the couple. The bride's mother and brother (Manuel Torres) were passengers to this country in the bark. As Smith had in his cargo a saw and a grist mill he took care to bring with him men who could put together and handle them-was there ever a more practical colonist? In Baltimore he employed Henry Hagler, a carpenter ; at Valparaiso he picked up David D. Dutton, millwright ; at Payta, where he found Mrs. Smith, he found William A. Streeter, an engineer. At other ports enroute he secured the services of Phillip Crawley and John Briggs, useful men for his colony. He arrived in Monterey in April, 1843, and at Santa Cruz shipped lumber for his mills. At San Francisco he shipped James Hudspeth, well known in this county, Nathaniel Coombs, now of Napa, John Daubinbiss, afterwards of Santa Cruz county, and Alexander Copeland. Captain Smith sailed his bark into Bodega Bay during the month of September of that year and landed his cargo.
WAS READY TO FIGHT FOR HIS RANCH.
Of course he came up against the prior Russian claim then held by Sut- ter, and John Bidwell, the agent, notified the new-comer to get himself, goods and chattels, back to the bark. But the old sailor went ahead with his mill- building and warned Sutter's man that any interference would bring on a fight. As the Mexican officials had never recognized the Russian claim and had practically stood indifferent while Sutter was paying out his $30,000 for Fort Ross and the Bodega country, Bidwell received no sympathy from them. The government not only permitted Smith to land and build his mills, but shortly after granted him eight leagues of the land in question. While Captain Sutter had acted in good faith when he purchased the Russian holdings he did so in
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the face of the protests, though mild, of the Mexican government, and he knew his title was clouded beyond all clearing. However, he may have pos- sessed a faint hope that the annexation of the territory by the Americans would pass his claim to Washington, where his ownership might be affirmed, before Mexico had granted the tracts to other settlers too strong to be dis- possessed. Captain Stephen Smith, sturdy as his old Cape Cod, honorable in every detail of his life, industrious, and fearing nothing, could not be moved from the soil, and Sutter, stalwart pioneer himself, recognizing a brother-spirit in the man from the sea ranching out on the Bodega hills, left him in peace.
A FAMOUS PIONEER PICNIC.
However, Smith did not wait for events to come his way, he went after them. He soon had the machinery of his new colony unloaded from his little "windjammer" of a bark and it was not very long before the original town of Bodega, including the steam flour and saw mills, were ready for business. The two latter, however, were about one mile northwest from the "Corners," as the village is called, and at the foot of a range of hills upon which grew thickly the great forest of redwoods he had picked upon for his saws, and for the future frame buildings of Sonoma and other settlements of California. All turned out as this far-thinking pioneer planned. When steam was up in his three, single-flue, thirty-six by two and a half feet boilers, and several logs had been cut on the hill above the place and easily rolled down to the mill, the captain invited the people of the surrounding country to attend the holiday. It was the first of Bodega's celebrated picnics and the most famous of all those social gatherings. All the dignitaries, rancheros, vaqueros and settlers of every nationality with their families were present in new sombrero, serapa. high- colored sash and mantilla. Several beeves had been prepared for the fire-pit of the barbecue, but Captain Smith made the provision of the bread for the great feast an object lesson for their entertainment. Wheat that had been grown in the neighborhood was brought to the place and the steam engine set in mo- tion. Then power was communicated to the grist mill and to the surprise and delight of the crowd, many of whom had never heard of such a remarkable arrangement, the grain was sent between the grinding mill-stones to finally appear in the soft, beautiful, white flour, the chief food of man, the "staff of life." To the early Californian house-keeper the "flor de harina," the flour of wheat, that came from those whirling burrs was a happy improvement on the unbolted meal, ground in a rude hand-mill; the tortillas now would be whiter and more appetizing in consequence. Out of a big oven, heated for the occa- sion, presently reappeared that wheat in newly baked bread, and while the captain's guests were using up all the admiration-terms found in their voluble Spanish he had another pleasurable surprise for them. The lumber mill was thrown in gear and the "sash" saw was soon going through a redwood log, and the first boards turned out were used for tables whereon they feasted.
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