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 18
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In 1861 William Beihler, the claimant of the German Rancho which is situated north of Fort Ross, after some "warm" work in the United States District Court, ejected about eighteen settlers from that grant. He quieted the title to his rancho but he never quicted the disturbed feelings of the unsuccess- ful litigants and he seldom visited his "unsafe" ranch. It soon passed into other hands.
The great Sutter-Muldrew litigation over a portion of the Bodega grant that for years kept the ranchers from Tomales Bay to Fort Ross fighting for their titles, has been narrated in this work. It was really a case of Russian vs. Mexican title and the latter won, the former having not even a shadow of validity, and the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty only concerning itself with the grants from Mexico.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
PEOPLING THE RICH SONOMA VALLEYS.
Sonoma today in her half-moon valley shows very little of the Sonoma of the roaring '40s, or of the milder '50s. Years, apparently do not age an Ameri- can city, though it is not built for everlasting, as time here is disposed to hide its ravages behind its newer creations. In the eastern hemisphere man built once for all, and ponderously. Not that he had any clear conception of a future with needed changes, for he didn't. His little horizon shut him in like the walls of a circular tent. He built that way because he did not want to do the job over again-the great stones were too heavy to handle-and that appears to be the only thought he gave to the matter. Then he died, and the buildings grew old and older. Time found it hard to destroy but it wore heavily on the structures and that dilapidation is their attraction, their stock in trade. If the ancient architect were to gather himself from his dust and see how profitable his old ruinous houses have become for show purposes, his astonishment would drop him dead again. On this half of the planet man begins in his present, but the in-rushing future soon jams him into the past, consequently he hasn't time enough to put up monuments reminding the after-comers how great he was, or to build eternal structures for the entertainment of tourists. Here and there in the old Pueblo Sonoma appear portions of the adobe walls of Mexico, bridg- ing the interval of a half century. Where the old houses have not been built around, added to or crowded out by modern structures, they have crumbled in the downpour of fifty winters' rains and the warp and strain of fifty summers' suns. It was in 1835 that Comandante M. G. Vallejo with pocket compass and tape line laid out the town, first measuring off a central plaza, without which no Spanish-American town was ever laid out, providing there was any level ground handy. This ancient plan is worthy of adoption as it insures a town breathing spaces, public parks-something which cannot be measured in dollars and cents. The first houses in Sonoma, including the inevitable church of a Latin settlement, the official residences and military quarters, were built on the four sides of this quadrangle, facing the open center. From this space ran in four directions the streets. A number of the old fabrics repaired with modern material are now in use, among them the barracks, also the "palace." as the residence of the comandante was called. A fortified structure, always known in a Spanish city as the "castillo," provided with portholes and a watch-tower. stood on guard at one corner of the plaza. The pavements of Sonoma may not have "resounded with the tread of mailed heel," but it was a place of some martial splendor in that early period. At the head of the soldierly line is the old Comandante Vallejo, Military Chief of the Northern Division of California, also one of the governors of the territory; Captain Salvador Vallejo, Mexican Army, dashing cavalier, rollicking fellow, held in leash by the steady hand of his more decorous brother and superior ; Colonel John Charles Fremont, U. S. Engineers, Pathfinder of the Far West, the man who stirred the Bear
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Flaggers into action; Lieutenant John W. Revere, U. S. N., of the United States sloop of war "Portsmouth," who hoisted that vessel's ensign over Sonoma; Captain Kit Carson, logical successor of Fenimore Cooper's "Deer- slayer" and "Leatherstocking," and a grand specimen of the American back- woodsman; General Persefer F. Smith, military governor and commander in chief of the United States forces in the State, who had his headquarters here ; Captain A. E. Gibbs, afterwards prominent in the great rebellion. Fighting Joe Hooker, commander in chief of the Army of the Potomac in 1863, lived here in '53. During the piping times of peace prior to the Civil war he resigned from the service and became a quiet citizen of the pueblo. A road-over- seer was wanted and as Captain Hooker-he wasn't a Fighting Joe then- was a graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, he was considered qualified in the science of civil engineering enough for road- making and was unanimously chosen. It is of record that Joe kept the mule and cow trails in good order. This dip into the maelstrom of politics started the Captain in a dash for the legislature on the Democratic ticket, but he was considerably beaten by J. N. Bennett of Bennett valley, who swept into the Assembly on the Settlers' ticket. Hooker re-entered the army in '61 and won his "fighting" title in the bloody battles of Antietam, Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Lookout Mountain. He commanded a division with Sher- man in the tuneful march "Through Georgia." Another soldier of the Civil conflict who formerly was on duty at Sonoma was General Philip Kearny- nephew of General Stephen W. Kearny, who saw service in New Mexico and California. The gallant Philip lost an arni in Mexico, and his life in the battle of Chantilly, Va., while leading his brigade in attack on a strong Confederate position. Captain C. R. Stone, U. S. A., one of the heroes of the disastrous fight and retreat at Ball's Bluff, and Colonel Baker, the gallant California soldier who was killed in that battle, were at one time residents of the town. General T. C. Sherman and General Halleck, General George Stoneman, dis- tinguished cavalry officer of the bloody '6os, and afterwards governor of this state, Lieutenant Derby, known to literary fame as "Squibob," also a number of other soldiers who afterwards became famous. Among the noted civilians were W. M. Boggs, ex-governor of Missouri, Count Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian nobleman, scientist and viticulturist, chief of the grape promoters of Sonoma valley; Jasper O'Farrell, pioneer surveyor of the coast ; Judge D. O. Shattuck, Hon. George Pearce, and others of that troop of sterling men who have since disappeared over the Divide.
PEOPLE OF THE OLD ADOBE HALLS.
Echoing faintly through the old adobe halls, one seems to hear voices and the empty places are peopled with the viewless forms of those who walked here in the long ago. In that squad of Sonoma's early population were the Bear Flag men and that other grim company known as Stevenson's Regi- ment. It may be noted that those citizens, in general, were not of the class marked "Safe To Fool With." There were no professional "bad men" in that band of mavericks, but no doubt many gun barrels there showed the significant "notches." Captain Henry D. Fitch, before he located on Russian River, and George Pearce, before he studied law, were hotel kecpers: the latter came to California with General Stephen Kearny's command and took part in the blun-
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dering fight at San Pasqual when the American forces were signally defeated. Several prominent physicians, scholarly and cultured men, were attracted to the locality-in fact, Sonoma was in a fair way to become the early center of culture under the American regime. Among these were Dr. Charles Van Gel- dern, Dr. August Heyermann, and Don Frederick Reger, an educated Belgian, instructor of the young Vallejos.
Sonoma arose to the dignity of an incorporated city in 1850 and her first mayors were Messrs. Cameron, Vallejo and Hopkins. For years she was the county seat-by default of any other town being in the county. The pueblo possessed a "seaport," a landing on the creek where that stream nears San Pablo Bay, fittingly called by the Californians, "Embarcadero." The place is now burdened with the misnomer "St. Louis." Wherever and whenever the Americans have changed the original Spanish names there appears a bald, glaring, verbal blunder. Sonoma through her embarcadero had direct commu- nication with San Francisco, and with a market for her selling and buying.
The fertility of this crescent-plain has passed into a proverb that is heard in all the tongues of the world. Its soil will produce from valley-floor to hill- crest and its vineyards that compete with the famous vines of middle Europe, lie on the warm, volcanic slopes of the surrounding uplands. The igneous loam as well as the sunshine gives fire to the vintage. Somebody has said that the grapevines would cover Vesuvius and Aetna, and hide the scars of the past, if their craters would "go dead." Besides the one hundred and six or seven thousand acres of the valley proper, thousands of acres on the wide bay frontage for years have been under process of reclamation, consequently it truthfully may be said that Sonoma valley is growing-encroaching on San Pablo Bay. However complete and splendid its present, there will always be a grander future for this rich vineyard of the New World. The missionaries brought from Spain, with the seed of the faith they were to plant, the seed of the vines they were to plant at each successive mission they founded, and these vines nurtured along the adobe walls, were the pioneers of the vines now running so luxuriantly over the warm Sonoma hills.
THE IN-DWELLING SPIRIT OF THE MISSION GRAPE.
And amid these the mind of the visiting moralist goes a-wander. Every- thing is so winey, and suggests the volatility-the spirit of some rare vintage grown and gathered in a forgotten long ago. The green, leafy rows where the clusters are accumulating wealth from soil and sun; the place of pressing- the "wine-fats" of old literature; the cave-like aging places where darkness and dust and cobwebs and years bring to the bottled blood of the vitis vitifera that matchless and perfect maturity. Possibly the genii of the grape-the wizardry of the wine-gets among his nerve-centers, though the in-dwelling spirit of a Mission grape should not inspire vagrant or irreverent thoughts. Yet will the loiterer among the padres' sacred vines hark back nearly eight cen- turies to the ancestral vineyards of the Mission grape, purpling under the blue Persian sky, where he will hear again Omar Khayyam in the mystic spell of Shiraz wine recite his quatrains of eastern philosophy that is older than the Magi:
"And lately, by the tavern door agape,
Came shining through the dusk an Angel Shape
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Bearing a vessel on his shoulder ; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas-the Grape.
"The Grape that can with logic absolute The Two-and-Seventy jarring sects confute ; The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into gold transmite ;
"Why, be this juice the growth of God, who dare Blaspheme the twisted tendrils as a snare?
A blessing, we should use it, should we not? And if a curse-why, then, who set is there?"
So the thought can hardly be characterized as vagrant as it is not so far a cry from a Sonoma Mission grape to a grape of its generic vintage twice four hundred golden autumns ago. The rather audacious sentiment expressed in the quatrains of the Rubaiyat may be a needed justification for ill influences of the profane parent stock, but the Mission grape grown in the odor of sanctity, pressed and blessed by church, has been shrived of the black-art sins of the Wizard East. That the priestly grape whose juice should be of the same brand as the wine served by the Savior at the wedding feast in Cana, should be caught confuting the seventy-two "jarring" faiths, is after all an idea rather vagrant, and possibly irreverent.
WARM VOLCANIC SOIL FOR THE VINES.
When the last cowled adobe-mason was working at the northern terminus of the "Camino Real" now at the ruined portal of Mission San Francisco de Solano, he noted that the crescent-shaped valley was well-watered, making irrigation an easy question for solution. So he found a patch of ground for his grape cuttings, to insure their living and producing, then turned to the sun- drying of the big mud bricks for his church. The early vineyardists always considered the grape vine a water-drinker and calling for moist soil to root in, and to the thin, sour wine they made they added spirits to sweeten it. The person who discovered the error of this belief was Colonel Agoston Haraszthy, a political exile from his native Hungary, and a man of rare culture. He reached Sonoma in 1856 and being a practical viniculturist, he virtually landed in the exact place prepared for him in the scheme of things. He first began importing vines from abroad, and these he planted on the higher lands sur- rounding the valley. The success of this venture proved that the grape is a true product of the slopes and not of the valley levels. Colonel Haraszthy soon became the head of the wine interests in the state. In 1861 he was sent as a government commissioner to Europe, where he made a thorough examination of the vineyards of the different wine countries of that continent and returned with three hundred varieties of vines which now produce the most valuable wines of the Pacific coast. Some of the vines proved to be superior to others, but all were found to maintain in this soil their distinctive native qualities, but the several hundred thousand roots and cuttings which he introduced to the virgin soil of Sonoma and other localities in the state, make California the wine growing state of the western continent. In 1862 he was chosen president of the State Agricultural Society and next year he organized the Buena Vista
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Vinicultural Society, to which he conveyed his four hundred acre vineyard in Sonoma. In 1869, while a resident of Nicaragua, he mysteriously disappeared. It is supposed that while attempting to cross a river on his plantation he fell into the water and was drowned. The remains were never found. The advan- tages possessed by California as a wine-growing country have been ably set forth by Arpad Haraszthy, son of the Colonel, in published articles, portions of which are here given :
"California has one distinct advantage over any wine-producing country on the globe, and that is the certainty, constancy and duration of her dry sea- son. The grape is a fruit that needs, above all others, a warm sunshine, with- out interruption, from the time that the blossoms set forth their tender flowers until they gradually develop into their rich, luscious fruit in October. This advantage has always existed here, as far back as our record extends and no rain or hail ever destroyed the tender fruit. The sure and uninterrupted dura- tion of this dry weather secures a crop without a chance of failure and ripens the grape to perfection. One of the most serious drawbacks in all other parts of the world is the uncertainty of the seasons and the entire variance from preceding ones, thus creating a great difference in the quality of the wine pro- duced in successive vintages. This difference in quality is so great that it is quite common to find the prices vary from one to two hundred per cent in the same district. The products of the renowned vineyards have been known to have fluctuated even to a greater extent. In Europe they only reckon to secure in ten years one good crop of fine quality, but small quantity ; while seven vintages are reckoned as being of poor quality: small quantity, and total failures. In our state the variation in quality seldom amounts to five per cent, while the most disastrous years have not lessened the crop below the ordinary yield more than twenty-five per cent in quantity. This variation in quantity can be fully known three months previous to the vintage, thus allowing the producer ample time to secure his casks, and furnishing him positive knowledge as to the number required. In other countries, even fourteen days before the vintage, there is no certainty of a crop; a wind, a rain, a hail-storm is apt to occur at any moment and devastate the entire vintage. All is uncertainty there ; nor has the vintner any possible means of positively ascertaining how many casks he must provide. In abundant years in the old countries, the exchange has often been made of so many gallons of wine for an equal number of gal- lons' capacity of casks. The disadvantages of being forced to secure such im- mense quantities of casks in so limited a period are easily perceived and we certainly cannot appreciate our own advantage too much in being differently situated. Another great benefit derived from the long continuance of the dry weather, is the exemption from weeds in our vineyards after the final plowing. Thus all the nourishment and strength of the soil go wholly to their destina- tion, the vine, and hence the vigorous appearance that even the most delicate imported varieties acquire even in our poorest soils. This circumstance will also explain, in a measure, why our cultivation does not cost as much per acre as that in European countries, though our iabor is much higher. The advan- tage of our dry weather does not end here; it precludes the possibility of con- tinued mildew and allows the vintner to leave his wines unstaked, the bunches of grapes actually lying, and securely ripening on the ground without fear of
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frost or of rotting. In this condition the grapes mature sooner, are sweeter and possess more flavor.
"Above and beyond the ability and advantage we have of producing all kinds of grapes to perfection, of making from them wines that are pleasant, inviting to the taste, and which will keep, with but little skill and care, for years, whose limit has not yet been found, we still have a greater advantage over European vintners in the cheapness of our cultivation. Labor, material, and interest are all very high with us, nevertheless, the setting out and cultiva- tion of an acre of vineyard costs less in California than it does in France. For this we are as much indebted to our improved means of cultivation as to the nature of our climate. All labor, in the majority of the wine districts of Europe, is done by hand. We use the horse and plow, while they use the prong- hoe and spade, and with few exceptions they actually dig and hoe up their entire vineyards. After our spring cultivation is over, we need not go into our vineyards, and, having no summer rains, weeding is not necessary, and still their freeness from weeds and their clean appearance strike the stranger with surprise. Owing to the contrary, to the wet season of Europe, the vine-dress- ers are constantly kept among the vines, trying to give them a clean appear- ance, but in spite of all their efforts, they but imperfectly succeed, and their vineyards never possess that appearance of high and perfect cultivation that is so apparent in our own."
FROM THE PADRE'S EARLY VINEYARD.
Thus in the written description by one of Sonoma's most intelligent and practical wine-growers may be seen the wonderful place Nature, the great vine-dresser, has prepared for the cultivation of that peerless plant-the grape. Since the morning when man started on humanity's long trek westward from his cradle in the Himalayan hills this princely scion of the vegetable kingdom has been a part of his domestic impedimenta and wherever in his migration he has halted, the vineyard has soon appeared near the new home. In the desert and desolate places of earth where the currents of life run slow, the grape. and its noble brother, the fig, have shaded with their broad, green leaves, the desert-dweller, or have fed him from their never failing store, until "Under- the-Vine-and-Figtree" has long been in the east the synonym of peace and plenty. It would seem that this last and final stopping place of the race migra- tion has been found to be "the perfect habitat of the grape; that this plutonic loam holds yet a portion of its original heat; and that the rainless summer lapping over the autumn even to an often-belated winter, gives the growing fruit long golden days and mild, temperate eves in which to gather richness from sun and soil. In proof of this it may be mentioned that the vintage of 1910 in Europe is lower than in any year during the last century. Lack of sun- shine during the spring and early summer, and excessive humidity throughout the entire season, all of which engendering various forms of insect life, blight- ing the grapes and destroying the harvest, are the causes of the disaster. All the wine-producing countries of Europe are affected, and the consular reports state that in France this is little short of a national calamity. Nor have the vineyard places of Sonoma failed in any particular, of their early promise to Altimira as he entered the beautiful valley in that June of 1823. "No one can doubt the benignity of the Sonoma climate," wrote the Father in his journal,
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"after noting the plants, the lofty and shady trees-and especially the abundance and luxuriance of the wild grapes. * * ** The permanent springs are almost innumerable. *
* We saw from these and other facts that Sonoma is a most desirable site for a mission." And the output of wines, vintage after vin- tage, is superior on average to the product from any other country, not even excepting France. Long has it been known that much of the wines shipped from that country is a mixture of their inferior grades, flavored in imitation, artificially sweetened, strengthened with cheap alcohol and colored with chem- icals. This delectable combination is "watered" down to the claret per cent and in bottles that have the "grand foreign air" it sold in competition with pure California wines. And it is sold, too, because the American buyer is an anomoly in the market. He loves his incomparable country and its domestic institu- tions, certainly-in theory, and in practice he prefers the foreign article with its antique labels and artistic packings. Even before Colonel Haraszthy demon- strated that a California grapevine without old world nursing and without irri- gation could turn out prize wine, the Sonoma vineyards were doing well. Sal- vador Vallejo probably was the pioneer grower of the valley and county, his vineyard being a part of what is now the big Buena Vista tract. In 1850, General Vallejo had about three acres in vines at Lachryma Montis, his home near the town, which netted him that year in the San Francisco market six thousand dollars.
From those small patches of vines have grown the noble vineyards of Kohler and Frohling, W. McPherson Hill, La Motte, Herman, Warfield, Wrat- ten, Craig, Tichner, Dressel, Gundlach. Snyder. Winchel, Hayes, Leavenworth and others. The Buena Vista vineyard is one of the largest in California, it being a portion of the six thousand acre tract belonging to the Buena Vista Vinicultural Society. Its winery plant is probably one of the most perfect in the world-modernized to the latest instant, and constructed against the side of a convenient hill it utilized the interior of the elevation and in the under- ground galleries the product gathers age and maturity. Nicholas Carriger dropped into the valley the year of the Bear Flag, and saw Jacob P. Lecse, who then occupied a portion of the Buena Vista tract, making wine. The process was crude-the grapes being placed in a soft cow-hide and tramped out by Indians. Leese gave the newcomer some cuttings which were planted in the pueblo, but he hurried off to the mines and during his absence Vallejo's cattle pastured on the young vineyard. In 1849 he began planting his present extensive grape tracts, and construction of the costly winery on the Carriger estate, three miles west from town. While all of the many wine-growing estab- lishments of Sonoma add their individual testimony to the adaptability of this locality for grapes, it is on the estate of Colonel George F. Hooper that the most thorough fruit culture try-out has been made. In vineyard, orchard and grove, wealth, science and industry have proven that there are very few things that will not grow in Sonoma. Its soil apparently is "middle ground" between the zones of earth's vast acreage, and seemingly a true home for its cosmopoli- tan vegetation. A seed or cutting transported over seas finds here conditions ideal and identical with its natal place of growing.
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CHAPTER XXX.
VULCAN-BUILDER OF A CONTINENT.
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