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 19
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When Vulcan, the classic genus of the earthquake, the busy blacksmith whose forge is in the volcano, but up this coast. there geysered up through the broken crust of the planet, from somewhere, several thousand springs, some that give off hot and cold water, pure and simple, fit for man and beast, while others are chemicals in solution, puddles of sulphur, rills of iron, or soda fountains which nature set playing away in the wilderness awaiting the health resorter. Sonoma early received her apportionment of mineral gushers- pos- sibly because of her nearness to Mount St. Helena, the mother mountain of these basaltic hills born from her flaming craters in that far day when the lava floods swept the plains. So among the vineyards, orchards and oak groves are the hot, cold, fresh, salted, fountains from the cavern sea, each in its own channel, piped directly from the central laboratory where the gnome-alchemists of the underworld "around about their caldrons go." Padre Altimira wrote in his log book-"We descended into the plain and in less than one-fourth of a league we found six hundred and seven springs of water." Down under that green vale a mighty river -- feeder of those six hundred springs-is flowing, somber because no ray of light ever falls on its surface, and silent because no earthly ear can catch and change to sound the pulsation of its splashings. The thought recalls Coleridge's poem composed in a dream- "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river ran Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."
In this plutonic land where the mountain chain is the upheaval of forces underneath, and the valley-level is the erosion of hilltops into the deep gorges below, the reminders of the strange, the weird, and the horror of that evolu- tion are ever at one's elbow. It is a whimsical, yet true, idea that the broad central llano of this county was once an abyss, a great ditch-depth unknown- full of Pacific Ocean, whose tides sweeping northward between side-walls of coast-range, splashed against the highlands around Healdsburg and Cloverdale ; and that the side-walls of hills were loftier-even Alpine in altitude-before they began to wear down into the seas at their feet. To move on in the geo- logical dream, the filling in went daily and yearly and centuryly ahead. The tides passed no farther than the Russian river valley, and presently-ages may pass in the "presently" of that period-that river over dry land was cutting itself the crooked ditch it now uses in its run to the sea. As the detrition con- tinued the ocean stopped below Santa Rosa and the newly-formed creeks in that valley had to work their own way through the newly-formed soil or be dammed.
More ages lost themselves in the lost past and enough mountain had washed down to check the tide farther south, and what is now the Petaluma plain hegan
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to be shoal-water. And the next change reported-though its date is uncer- tain-is that the sea had been blocked in the swamp lands south of Petaluma. So the ocean retired through the Golden Gate, but leaving a great dry central valley, and at the southern end of it, San Pablo Bay-for another invasion northward should another volcanic disturbance drop the floor of the plain be- low the sea-level. A similar contract was completed about the same time in Sonoma valley, in fact a monster work of reclamation along the western rim of this hemisphere was then finished, and this was the evening of the first day of local creation.
THE REDWOODS GREW DEEP.
Vegetation came to the new district. Whence-we do not hazard a reply, except in the matter of the redwoods-the evergreen sequoia, which science calls "sempervirens," and not without reason, for they seem to be a deathless remnant of the order coniferae, indigene of the sub-carboniferous age, a pretty low plane in the strata-dceps that mark the building-periods of this multi- million-year-old planet. Think of it,-below the Cretaceous, the shell of vast seas; below the Jurassic-the slate deposit ; below the Triassic-the old red sandstone; down under the far coal measures. But these trees are going now. Volcanoes, earthquakes, all the stupendous forces that have heaved and racked the old globe in and out of shape-the crash and drag and grind of the slow moving, countless centuries, could not break the life-line of these noble trees till man the real, the perfect destroyer, appears on the earth. Man has not de- stroyed Death-who will one day destroy his human rival-but the wrecking homo often trespasses on the domain of the grisled-monarch. But this is ahead of the geological story. Then was the evening of the second day.
Some "tall guessing" must be indulged in-must be permitted-regarding date of coming, and personal characteristics of the pioneer mammalia of this then newly laid-out happy hunting ground, as little is known of it except a fragment of data science has scraped from the thighbone of a mastodon found conserved in the mud of Petaluma creek. That bit of fossil could not fit a Missouri mule, and General Vallejo never confessed to the ownership of a Spanish steer of that heft. Possibly it was the solitary escape from its pre- historic home-woods in the Petrified Forest near Geyserville at the time those trees were withered and became their own gravestones; or when St. Helena had opened her furnace valves and was raining death around. And in a wild run across the quaking plain, showered with ashes and pursued by waves of lava, the animal had mired and entombed itself in the morass where found. Follow- ing the mammoth and the ponderous members of his quadrupedal set came a later growth of the old stock-the genera ursine, feline, cervine, lupine, but in the tongue of the present countryside-bear, panther, deer, wolf. also the smaller fry of the family. And this was the evening of the third day.
Then following his brother-mammal came man-the more voracious animal of the two immigrants. Whether he came from the places of the cave dwellers, or from a more modern settlement somewhere on the bleak Siberian steppes, "hot-footing" it over the ice of Bering Straits before the returning summer melted his winter bridge, cannot with certainty be written. He was here feed- ing free on the fauna and everything else edible to a Digger Indian when we landed and set history recording his presence and his end. And finishes the fourth and the genesis of this local creation.
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DEVIL WATERS FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS.
This dream is made of real "stuff." The craters of St. Helena are cold and her prehistoric lava output is the basalt block of modern commerce. The earthquakes that jumbled the continent into gorge and cliff, and tilted the mathematically-level strata into dips and spurs and angles, and general geolog- ical chaos, are not doing the business of the busy long-ago. Occasionally we feel a shiver running through our eminent domain like the muscular quiverings in a lifeless body, but though the tremblor moves us it does not move the mountains around us off their foundations, so we stick to our claims. Sonoma valley is Sonoma township, the area lying within the Napa line on the east, the bay shore on the south, the high range of hill on the west, and a zigzag line running easterly and westerly just south of Eldridge. This places the pretty little village of Glen Ellen-its name reminding one of some bonny heather hamlet of Scotland-with her highlands and lowlands, in a township all her own. In the Sonoma region are the aguas caliente, whose thermal mineral waters bubble for the healing of the nations, among which are the Boyes Hot Springs on the old Leavenworth rancho in the northern part of the valley. This well known and very popular health resort could date the beginning of its popularity before dates were used in the markings of time-flights. The Indians found the spring boiling and bubbling in its own hot vapors from the ground, and though fully believing that the heated water and malodorous gases were directly from the Devil, they also believed there were curative virtues in the demon fountain. The only thing in their wood-lore they did not understand, and did fear was the High Priest of Evil, whose abode they supposed was in underground piaces; and the eerie sounds they heard coming from the pent-up flow of gas and water were the chantings of some diabolical choir. So their sweathouse stood near the spring, and for generations-possibly ages,-this aboriginal sanitarium with its healthful heat, this fountain of Hygeia boiling and bubbling, like the troubled Pool of Bethesda, was the hope of the tribal afflicted. Dr. Leavenworth constructed a small bath-house and a tank at the spring and made it the pioneer health resort of the county. The doctor was peculiar and eccentric to the explosive point-which point one day he reached during a violent discussion with his wife over the cashiership of the institution. In his rage he burned the bath house and filled the tank with earth and stones and went out of business. Many years after General Vallejo told Mr. and Mrs. Boyes, a health-seeking couple just from England, of the existence of the old spring, and recommended its mineral waters. Mr. Boyes after long probing in the swampy soil found the old tank in its excavation. It was cleaned out and the long choked fountain set boiling again. The re-discoverers found the lost mineral spring a mine indeed, and the place well improved with modern conveniences is now one of the most popular health-producing resorts in the state.
MOVING THE COUNTY SEAT.
As the county was becoming more populated the location of its seat of governinent nearer the geographical center became a matter of public interest. In 1854 Mr. Bennett introduced a bill in the legislature authorizing a vote on the question of transferring the county seat from Sonoma to some other loca- tion. The transfer really began the year before when Joe Hooker and J. W. Bennett started in the run for the assembly. The question of county seat removal
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was not a publicly-discussed issue in the contest, but the fact that Bennett received an almost unanimous vote in Santa Rosa, demonstrated that the "Court- house" was then in the ballot-box. The general tally-sheet of this early elec- tion is of interest showing how public opinion on county seat removal then stood, and the result, first figures for Santa Rosa, second for Sonoma, is here given : Sonoma, 21, 209,-the ballot, at least in Sonoma, must have been ex- tremely "secret," as nothing serious regarding those "21" voters is on record; Santa Rosa, 195, I,-that lone apostate "1" perchance has long slumbered in its grave unidentified ; Petaluma, 32, 233,-Petaluma's opposition to Santa Rosa as a county seat was manifested early in the city of the Punta de los Esteros : Analy, 138, 27: Estero Americano, 29, 16; Bodega, 54, I: Bodega Point, 64. o; Vallejo, 42, 17; Russian River, 85, 1; Washington, 16, 13; Mendocino, 39. 3 : Big River, 1, 26; Fort Ross, o, 16 ;- distance to the county seat was evidently no object to the voters of the last two precincts, or else they never expected to make the journey.
HOW JIM WILLIAMSON STOLE THE COURTHOUSE.
By a vote of 716 to 563 the "court-house" left Sonoma, as a newspaper man of that period graphically writes,-"On Jim Williamson's two-mule wagon." Even with the popular decision against them the Sonoma people were loth to let the institution go, but a little head-work by N. McC. Menefee, and no little foot-work by Jim Williamson's team of mules quietly passed the county government from the pueblo. The man and the mules also have "passed," but their part in "the stealing of the court-house" merits honorable mention. Mene- fee was the county clerk, having only one leg, but he could get around rapidly. "Jim" and "Liza" were the team, but unlike the general run of mules, could, and would-and did-nuove with speed. By arrangement with the supervisors Williamson camped near Sonoma the night before the day of the removal, and next morning having received a quiet notification that the board had officially adopted the "move" resolution, he was at the door of the building. William Boggs and several other persons anticipating the move were trying to get out an injunction, even rushing a courier off to Napa for that pur- pose-but before the citizens in the vicinity were fully alive to the job, the county records, including the dusty old documents of the alcaldes, had been "rushed" aboard the wagon, and Jim and Liza were treading the "high-places" for Santa Rosa. Williamson was at the brake-which he never used in all that wild, twenty-two mile flight, and which lasted just one hundred minutes. Menefee beside him on the spring-wagon seat, had to let his jointless artificial leg-a mere wooden stick-rest on the dash-board, the end of the "peg" only a few inches from Liza's lively body. If she lagged ever so slightly in the mad pace she touched Menefee's peg-leg and this would almost jump her through the collar. Dropping down into a gulch or any of the many low places of the rough road and starting to rise in the corresponding ascent Liza would not fail to get "a good punch," and this, reports her owner, "sent the team up faster than it had come down."
Menefee expected they would be overhauled by Sheriff Israel Brockman with the writ, and he intended to take to the woods giving the injunction a run through the brush ; knowing that as an official he would be sought for service of the paper, and Williamson would be left to continue the journey. Even 10
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with a wooden-leg he grittily determined to keep Brockman on the trail until Jim and Liza got home. They were not overtaken, but landed the "court-house" in Santa Rosa,-time, 4:54. Jim Williamson-everybody calls him "Jim," is yet a citizen of the county-seat he "stole," and the petty-larcenous character of the act in nowise detracts from his popularity. Liza and the other Jim are no more, but their famous Hundred Minute Run is a living record. District Attorney McNair for his services allowed himself $250, but the supervisors amended it to $100. Jim Williamson modestly thought $15 was enough for the mules and himself, and the board thought likewise.
IN MEMORIAM.
The general sorrow in the pueblo over the loss appears to have found pub- lic expression in the following "in memorinm" of editor A. J. Cox of the Sonoma Bulletin :
Departed .- Last Friday the county officers with the archives left town for the new capital amidst the exulting grins of some, and silent disapproval (frowning visages) of others. We are only sorry they did not take the adobe courthouse along-not because it would be an ornament to Santa Rosa, but be- cause its removal would have embellished our plaza. Alas. "Old casa de adobe." No more do we see county lawyers and loafers in general, lazily en- gaged in the laudable effort of whittling asunder the veranda posts-whichi. by the way, require but little more cutting to bring the whole dilapidated fabric to the ground. No more shall we hear within and without and around it. lengthy political discussions, on which were supposed (by the discussers) to hang the fate of the world. The court house is deserted, like some old feudal castle, only tenanted, perhaps, by rats and fleas. In the classic language of no one in particular, "Let 'er RIP."
THE ROLL OF HONOR.
California arrived at statehood September 9, 1850, and the Sonoma Dis- trict builders of the state, also their male descendants, comprising the counties of Napa, Lake, Mendocino, Marin and Sonoma, and whose names are among those in the cornerstone of this commonwealth, are as follows:
William C. Adams, Louis Adler, Pierre Angardes, Stephen Akers, Jolın Abbott, S. J. Agnew, O. S. Allen, J. M. Armstrong, Joseph Albertson, W. G. Alban, Thomas Allen, Horatio Appleton, N. H. Amesbury, D. H. Alderson, John Hall Allison, Charles H. Allen, W. F. Allen, Charles Alexander, Charles G. Ames.
William M. Boggs, J. W. Boggs, H. E. Boggs, A. C. Boggs, H. C. Boggs, George W. Boggs, Joseph O. Boggs, Theodore Boggs, L. W. Boggs, J. B. Bean, William H. Brady, Herman Baruh, A. A. Basignano, E. Briggs, Louis Bruck, John Brown, Edward F. Bale, Samuel Brown, William Board, John F. Boyce, J. S. Brackett, David Burris, I. S. Bradford, R. Bunnell, R. T. Barker, R. F. Barker. John N. Bailhache, E. N. Boynton, A. R. Barney, J. D. Beam, H. H. Bower, William P. Boyce, M. C. Briggs, H. W. Baker, Erwin Barry, Sim H. Buford, Sanford Bennett, Elias Bennett, William Baldridge, J. N. Bennett, P. G. Baxter, Jesse Beasley, Z. Briggs, Robert Brownlie, Jonathan A. Bond. Peter D. Bailey, John Bright, T. C. Brown, A. B. Borrell, John Bailiff, William Bradford.
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY
Nicholas Carriger, Solomon H. Carriger, C. C. Carriger, .A. B. Carriger, Julio Carrillo, William Cory, Columbus Carlton, John Cavanagh, Howard Clark, G. W. Clark, W. W. Carpenter, B. L. Cook, T. S. Cooper, J. R. Cooper, W. L. Copeland, R. Crane, J. Clark, O. W. Craig, G. W. Cornell, W. M. Cole- man, E. Coleman, H. K. Clark, S. B. Carpenter, V. B. Cook, D. Chamberlin, J. Cairn, O. Clark, W. R. Coburn, J. L. Cook, J. J. Coghill, L. Carson, J. C. Crigler, J. Custer, B. Capell, J. Cyrus. A. J. Cox, S. Clark, L. Chapman, Nathan Combs, D. C. Crockett, Dr. C. Crouch, W. R. Cook, J. Chauvet.
H. Decker, M. Donohue, H. W. Dickinson, D. D. Davisson, M. Dorman, B. W. Diffendorffer, E. L. Davis, N. Dunbar, J. Dickerson. A. J. Dollarhide. J. W. Easter, T. Earl, E. Emerson, B. E. Edsal, L. F. Eaton, W. Edgington. A. Y. Easterby, W. Ellis, J. Fernald, J. F. Fowler, J. M. Freeman, A. J. W. Faure, J. T. Fortson, J. Fulton, J. W. Flavell, H. Fowler, W. Fowler, W. A. Fisher. S. W. Faudre, F. Fisher.
J. M. Gregson, T. C. Gray, F. P. Green, O. Greig, J. Gibson, W. Green, J. F. Green, J. Gallagher, W. W. Greening, A. J. Gordon. J. Griffith, J. J. Goodin. Dr. J. B. Gordon, G. G. Gardner. W. Gordon, C. Griffith, J. Grigsby, G. Grigsby, P. D. Grigsby, J. T. Grigsby, R. A. Gill. A. J. Gilbraithe. E. Gillen, P. Gesford.
J. Henly, W. Hood, T. Hopper. H. Hall, L. M. Harmon, C. Humphries, H. Hill. W. M. Hill, D. Hudson, J. Henry. T. B. Hopper, B. Hoen, H. H. Hall, S. H. Hyman, A. Hixson, A. Haraszthy, L. C. Hubbard, H. P. Holmes, J. W. Harlan, T. F. Hudson, W. B. Hagans. C. Hazelrigg, J. B. Holloway, W. H. Hol- laday, J. B. Horrel, J. Henry, W. Hargrave, M. Hudson, J. Hudson, J. Har- bin, M. Harbin, G. Hallet, W. A. Haskins, F. M. Hackett, L. Higgins, J. H. Howland, I. Howell, J. Howell, D. Howell, M. R. Hardin, R. S. Hardin, C. Hartson, R. D. Hopkins, W. Houx, A. Henry, L. Haskell. R. A. Harvey.
M. Ingler. R. Jones, B. Joy. E. Justi, E. K. Jenner, D. Jones, C. Juarez. J. A. Jamieson, G. E. Jewitt. A. Krippenstapel. F. Keller, H. Kreuse, A. Kohle, J. Knight, T. Knight, R. Kennedy, W. W. Kennedy. R. L. Kilburn. I. Kellogg. A. W. King, W. Kilburn, L. Kilburn.
C. W. Lubeck, N. Long, R. Lennox, G. W. Lewis, J. H. Lane, C. H. Lam- kin. J. A. Losse, J. Lutgens, H. H. Lewis, H. D. Day, A. J. Lafevre, B. Littic. F. F. Lamden, J. B. Lamar, G. Linn, Dr. T. M. Leavenworth, H. Ludolph.
J. E. McIntosh, N. E. Manning, R. McGee, W. E. McConnell, J. Mc- Laughlin, S. McDonough, W. Montgomery, J. H. McCord. J. M. Mansfield. R. G. Merritt, D. B. Morgan, l'. McChristian. G. W. McCain, J. Munday. M. T. Mcclellan, J. McCormick, L. W. Mayer, J. W. Morris, J. R. Moore, A. C. McDonald. W. J. March, J. Sedgley, J. H. Seipp, Jas. Singley, F. Sears, J. Stewart, A. A. Solomon, J. H. Sturtevant, C. J. Son. J. F. Shinn, C. Stew- art T. Smith, J. Still. J. Stiltz, W. C. Smith, J. J. Swift. J. Somers. A. Stines, Dr. B. Shurtleff, J. Short.
Smith D. Towne, G. Tomkins, Edward Towne. W. S. Thomas, C. C. Toler, C. Talbot. R. Tucker, J. Tucker, G. Tucker, William Truebody. J. Truebody. W. Truebody. S. Tucker, T. H. Thompson, William Topping. G. W. Thompson. J. Udall. F. Uhlhorn.
F. Van Hallan, P. J. Vasquez. A. Von Qnitsow. A. Van Berver, M. G. Vallejo, Salvator Vallejo, A. J. Van Winkle.
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David Wharff, W. S. W. Wright, Joseph Wright, H. L. Weston, H. M. Wilson, J. A. Williams, J. Walton, A. A. White, D. W. Walker, J. Wooden, W. H. Winters, J. Wilson, J. Westfall, R. B. Woodward, C. B. Wines, J. B. Walden, J. M. White, P. Ward, A. J. Willis.
D. York, H. York, J. York.
L. W. Znager.
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY
CHAPTER XXXI.
WITHIN THE VALE OF SANTA ROSA DE LIMA.
Santa Rosa de Lima, titular patroness of the capital city of Peru, was born in that place April 20, 1586, and died there August 24, 1617, after her almost entire life of thirty-one years passed in the austere existence of a nun of St. Dominic. Her family was of noble birth in Old Spain, numbering in its line many cultured and illustrious persons. Because of the remarkable flower-like beauty of the babe, her face showing forth the faint tintings of the queen rose of the Lima, there could be only one fitting name for her-Rose, and she was named Rose of Saint Mary. Even while little more than a child she evinced the deep spiritual feeling of a person of mature years, and such was her exalted and saintly character, that fifty-one years after her death, her beatification took place, and in 1671 she was canonized by the order of Pope Clement X, who appointed August 30th for her feast day. In Lima this day is celebrated in politico-religious splendor. In a great procession is carried her image covered with priceless jewels and decorated with beautiful red roses for which the South American city is famous.
August 30, 1829, Padre Juan Amoroso, the founder of Mission San Rafael, with José Cantua, an attendant, held religious services on the bank of the River Chocoalomi-the name of a small stream which flows through the pres- ent county seat of Sonoma, and about a mile above the city. The zealous priest was doing missionary work, and under the trees he struggled in language laboriously fitted to their simple understanding, to portray the godliness of the Peruvian saint-it being her fast day. The spirituality of a California Indian, the mission fathers found to be a rocky field to toil in, but this day, Padre Amoroso labored not wholly in vain, as one convert-a young girl-expressed a willingness to accept the faith of that other girl spoken of by the white stranger. He baptized her there giving her the name of Rosa. Then he ab- ruptly ended his ministrations on the Rio Chocoalomi, and the next minute- or less-he was aboard his mustang and flying south-bound through the wild oats with half a hundred yelling Indians trying to stick him as full of arrows as St. Sebastian.
They had sat around on the banks of the stream and curiously watched the unknown "medicine man" at his strange ceremonies, and they had enjoyed the entertainment until he came to the rite of baptism. This mystic perform- ance was too much for their primitive nerves and they arose as one "Injun" and the whole rancheria broke loose. Talking to the braves even though they did not in the least understand the talk, was harmless; but bewitching a squaw with what seemed to be magic incantations was a deadly peril to the tribe. Father John safely reached Mission San Rafael, thanks to his good horse which had sufficient Andalusian thoroughbred in his heels to lead the biped racers; and which "stunt" the priest fully appreciated, for he named the animal "Cen-
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tella," a direct reference to the lightning-like dash back to Marin county. Cantua after considerable dodging and doubling on the trail, landed in San Rafael next day, his condition being what may be described as "all in." The padre continued his mission among the natives of the coast, but there is no record of Jose ever taking any more interest in their moral advancement.
ROSA SLIPS WRAITH-LIKE FROM SIGHT.
In the confusion of the missionary's hurried hegira from the valley, Rosa, after this brief appearance, slips wraith-like out of history, whither no man knoweth. Such is to be regretted; she might have become the wife of some early Sonoma pioneer and the mahala-mother of a race of F. F. C. blue-bloods. like Pocahontas and her Virginians; or she might have been the theme of an immortal poem to tinkle like running water through old western forests, re- minding one of Minnehaha. But the red people of the Chocoalomi rushed the white medicine man out of the scene and his neophyte back into the wilds so suddenly that her story ends unfinished. Whether Rosa renounced her new faith or suffered martyrdom for it and became a second edition of Santa Rosa de Lima, no "early settler" in voluminous reminiscence has told. But her name-in-religion, and the name of her saintly patroness live in the stream whose lustral waters in sacred rite confirmed her christianity; live in the floral city of the north where the Liman roses bloom in all the saintly beauty of the flower- sisterhood under the towering walls of the Andes; live in the broad vega parked under its oaks, the level llano mapping itself out in fields of unfailing harvests.
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