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 8
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THE INDIAN'S LOVE FOR A HORSE.
After the California Indian learned how useful as a means of transporta- tion-also as an article of food-a Spanish horse was, that animal was to him a burning temptation, and the profession of horse-stealing was practiced among the red people as well as among the whites of the territory. Notwithstand- ing Vallejo severely punished horse-thievery among his subjects, he was not always able to prevent the neighboring tribes from fighting over a band of mustangs whose ownership was in grave doubt. Occasionally he would have to get out after some aggressor with his soldiers and friendly Indians and the fatherly castigation he would administer generally turned the horses back to their rightful possessors. The important tribe of the Cainameros, or Santa Rosas, had long been at peace with their neighbors, but having taken upon themselves to recover some horses stolen by the Sotoyomes, were furiously attacked by the latter tribe, who killed and wounded a large number of them. They appealed to Vallejo, their ally, and lie quickly responded, defeating in a warmı fight and driving back into the Geyser hills the Sotoyomes, almost exterminating the band. A treaty of peace with seven chiefs followed this outbreak and this ended the Indian internal troubles, although Zampay, head of the Yolo tribe, and Tobias, chief of the Guilicos Indians, tried to stir up trouble. Vallejo's old friend and ally, Solano, occasionally backslid from the high char- acter the General had built up for him, but a night in the guard-house would
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bring a morning of shame and repentance and a vow to shun in future the seductive "spirit-water" of Sonoma's vineyards.
IN THE VALE OF THE ROSE.
A stream of settlers and among them Spanish families from the south were beginning to flow into Sonoma valleys. The Carrillos, relatives of Señora Benicia Vallejo, were of the first-comers, as was Captain Don Enrique de Fitch and wife-whose sea-elopement with Josefa Carrillo from San Diego was a love romance but a severe shock to the strict padre of that parish. It is needless to state that after Henry D. Fitch got settled in his adobe hacienda on Russian river he shed his Spanish titles and passed to the status of a plain American rancher. In 1859 Padre Juan Amoroso with a companion, Jose Cantua, traveled up the great central valley until he reached a little river called by the Indians Chocoalomi. The missionary induced the Indians of the rancheria in the neighborhood to attend divine service in his camp and succeeded in making one convert, but history and subsequent events have made that service a notable one. The convert was a young squaw of the band, tribe name unknown, but the priest gave her a new and lasting one as he led her down into the baptismal waters of her native Chocoaloni. It is doubtful that she had the remotest idea what the lustral ceremony was about, but likely the kindly appearance and solemn manners of the white man won her childish confidence and she virtually left her people, their belief and traditions, and like another Ruth followed the stranger. When the Indian girl came out of the stream she was Rosa, a Chris- tian maiden and the Jordan of her doctrinal purification was Santa Rosa creek, the day of her baptism being the feast day of Santa Rosa de Lima. This occurred a short distance east from the city of Santa Rosa, where Señora Maria Ygnacia Lopez de Carrillo in 1838 built the large adobe which yet marks the place, although the suns and storms of seventy-two years have told heavily on its mud walls. Near Sebastopol the ruin of her brother Joaquin's ancient house further marks the coming of this family to the valley. The race was a prolific one both in the southern and northern portions of the state-the boys taking part in the political affairs of the territory (Carlos Carrillo and Pio Pico had been governors) and the many girls marrying advantageously, or bringing to their husbands-mostly American-rich Mexican grants of land. And where these American husbands held on to the lands of their California wives, the Californians with characteristic improvidence let the broad ranchos which their own government had generously given them, wastefully slip away. Señora Lopez de Carrillo was granted most of the Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa and her son Julio inherited the portion on which the city of that name is located, while Joaquin Carrillo received a large tract of the Rancho Llano de Santa Rosa lying to the west. John B. R. Cooper, another Carrillo son-in-law, was granted Rancho El Molino, three leagues (17,892 acres) north and west of Santa Rosa, while Jacob P. Leese, matrimonially of the same family, received two square leagues of the Rancho Huichica ( 18,704 acres) in Sonoma township, and Mrs. Carrillo-Fitch was one of the owners of eight square leagues (48,- 836 acres) of the Sotoyome Rancho in Russian and Mendocino townships. The "Old Adobe" finally became the residence of Mr. and Mrs. David Mallagh, nee Carrillo, and her descendants were among the claimants of their grandmother's estate in the Imperial Valley of Santa Rosa.
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IN THE OLD ADOBES.
Leaving the history of the family that pioneered the white immigration into the central and northern portion of the county the reader will be returned to Sonoma, where the stage is being set for the preliminary act, the curtain- raiser, of the short but snappy drama that passed the "California Republic" of the Bear Flag, to the most western star of the United States ensign. It was during this ante-bellum period that disaster fell on the Indian population of the locality, turning many rancherias into graveyards and many of the pretty little valleys into uninhabited places. It is said a soldier from the garrison at Sonoma was sent on duty to Fort Ross and there contracted small-pox in its most virulent form. Returning home he spread the pestilence abroad, and while the Spaniards escaped with moderate loss, the Indian having no sanitary habits or knowledge of therapeutics other than the unclean "sweat-house," followed with a plunge in cold water, under which treatment the deadly microbe struck right and left. So rapid and widespread was the epidemic that whole tribes were in a few weeks wiped out and in the territory north of the bay and west of the Sacramento fully 75,000 Indians died. Indeed there may have been rea- son for the statement that there was not enough of them left to oppose the coming of the whites into their lands.
General Vallejo had made improvements on his Petaluma Rancho of seventy- five thousand acres, erecting with other buildings the large adobe hacienda yet standing at the foot of Sonoma Mountain. The General's "broad domain" practically extended from San Pablo Bay well up towards Santa Rosa and from the Napa hills to Petaluma creek. The "adobe" farm house as was usual on those big ranchos, was the castle of the owner where his retainers, vaqueros and Indians "herded," and where the don often ruled and entertained in the manner of the feudal over-lord. The house was generally provided with a large porch, or a patio or inner court, the lounging place of the establishment, and here these early rough-riders, when not mounted and out on the range rounding up a band of half-wild cattle, passed the time smoking, playing the guitar, repairing a riata or plaiting a horsehair-rope, with their vicious-look- ing mustangs saddled and bridled patiently standing near. A call to dinner would hurry all hands to a long table where great platters of chile con carne, frijoles-the universal beans-tortillas, as the white flour cakes baked by an open fire are known in Mexican lands, were eaten with full-grown appetite. Then came the inevitable cigarette and the siesta in some shade, while the tough little horses standing with shut eyes by the porch apparently did the same. When the sun got well to the west the sleeping vaquero would lazily roll over and to his feet, stumble out to his horse, coil his riata on the horn of the saddle, see that the cinch was still holding the clumsy, wooden affair to the animal who, by the way, was accustomed to that and other modes of torture. By this time the whole gang was making a like effort to get away and in action. A Mexican vaquero has been said to be when afoot a lifeless thing, but when in the saddle one of the most animated. When the band got mounted the riders started the big spurs to work, swung the riatas around their heads and galloped yelling down the arroyo and out on the range, often for no other object than to get into motion and shake off the drowsiness of the siesta.
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In that part of the hacienda devoted to the family of the padron or master there was more luxury-more furniture and more gentility. The grace and chivalry of Old Spain possessed by her grandees in the home land was also pos- sessed by their descendants wandering in the distant west, and this racial charac- teristic was manifested in the hospitality of the Californian homes. General Vallejo in his big rancho home on the eastern rim of the great Petaluma valley entertained his guests, American as well as Spanish and other nationalities, like an old-world over-lord. His authority as military chief of the territory, his financial position as one of the wealtiest men in the country and his popularity as a just and humble official made his splendid hacienda-splendid for the rude, adobe days-a general resort for the highest of either republic, as well as for the humblest Indian on the estate.
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CHAPTER XII.
"LACHRYMA MONTIS."
While the General's hacienda, once the great rendezvous of the coman- dante's army of guests and retainers. is crumbling back to its original earth on the Petaluma plain, the town-home in Sonoma is yet occupied by members of that family. It is located in the northern portion of the pueblo, at the foot of the crescent mountain that walls the Valley of the Moon, which the Master with his cultured and artistic taste made into an ideal homestead. Here he entertained with true Spanish hospitality distinguished officials from Spain and Mexico, governors of the Territory of Alta California, French and English travelers from over the sea, American naval men and pathfinders, and while acting as the courteous host of the latter guests he knew from intelligent obser- vation of the trend of political affairs that the day was rapidly approaching when the Stars and Stripes would be the only flag in the land. Here also he entertained the courtly Russians from Fort Ross despite the fact that he con- sidered them the enemies of his government and called them the "pioneer squatters" of California. Within his doors they had broken bread with him and as his guests were honored as such. During one of their visits he forcibly prevented Chief Solano, his friend and ally, from carrying off to his mountains the beautiful Princess Helena, wife of the Moscovite commander, and with whom the Indian had become enamored. From the piazza of this dwelling one has an unobstructed view of the noble valley, the broad vista of bay, and farther to the south that other grand landmark, standing, a blue sentinel watch- ing over the great sweep of plain and called "Diablo" by the Spanish surveyors because the Indians said "Cucusuy," their tribal devil, made his home up on its crest. With this mountain of sulphurous title in close proximity to the saintly peak on the side lines of Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties, it looks as if the geography people set El Diablo guarding the beautiful Saint Helena-a sort of Mephisto taking care of Marguerite.
Even in the matter of a name for his home the General chose in poetical and graceful fitness. Near and on the lower slope of the mountain just above the house is a spring of water gushing clear and cold from its reservoir deep under ground, an everlasting fountain opened, possibly, during one of the volcanic uplifts that shaped St. Helena and her brood of surrounding hills or laid the Petrified Forest in stone, back in some pre-historic, planet-forming period. Whatever its origin, whatever struck the rock which held it within its cavern source, that flow is the town water supply, inexhaustible, life-giving. To the General, likely, this was a reminder of the storied spring up in the Sierra Nevadas of Old Granada. Its crystal waters flowing down through the matchless grilled arcades of the Alhambra was called by the Spaniards as well as by the original possessors, the Moors, the "Fountain of Tears." So within the pages of splendid Moorish legendary tales where waters fed from snow
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heights ripple down through the green vegas of Andalusia, or through the lat- ticed courts of fairy palaces, and where clashed the Christian sword of the chiv- alry of Spain and the Moslem scimitar of the warriors of the Arabian Prophet, the Californian found a title for his home-"Lachryma Montis," the Mountain of Tears. Sorrow has no great depth in the soul of the son of Spain-whether Spaniard or Moor, and tears in connection with water rippling cheerily from a fountain could never be associated with grief. Hence the sparkling spring of "Lachryma Montis."
Mountain of Tears-not tears- Tears that come from the places of sadness ; But the stream that appears From its mountain in ripples of gladness. And that stream from the heart Of the peak is a part Of the green valley's life, light and gladness.
SONOMA IN THE ROARING FORTIES.
Year by year and page by page has this history of the Farther West been followed for three centuries. Time here went slowly from 1543, when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo first flew the ensign of Castile and Arragon over Alta Cali- fornia, to 1846, when the flag of another day and race was raised above the territory. Spain thus began at San Diego and finished at Sonoma. The "Camino Real"-royal road-started at the most southern mission and stopped at San Francisco de Solano, where Padre Altimira's edifice, in the long chain of adobe churches, is crumbling back to the soil. From "Forty" to "Forty" the sleeping Mexican immigration traveling the broad highway cast up by the pioneer priests, was reaching the "northern frontier of colonization," as the territorial officials defined the upper line of their jurisdiction. In fact, "forty" appears to be an epochal number in the story of the state and more living history seems to have been made in those decades of the centuries than in the other of the hundred years. To properly bring the reader to the "still night in June" when Sonoma, sleeping in her moon-shaped vale, was rudely awakened to become the "California Republic," there will be noted here the nearby events which led up to the day of the Bear Flag-that homemade standard which the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West fittingly adopted after it had served its time and had given place to the Stars and Stripes.
California had been running along for several years without any practical assistance or advice from Mexico, and having her own political revolutions and official changes quite independent of those of the mother republic. Noth- ing was stable except the happy-go-lucky disposition of the people. Whenever they became excited over anything, a revolution acted as a safety-valve. Speak- ing of these revolutionists, Colton says: "They drift about like Arabs. If the tide of fortune turn against them they disband and scatter to the four winds. They never become martyrs to any cause. They are too numerous to be brought to punishment by any of their governors, and thus escape justice. There was a conservative class in the territory, made up principally of the large, landed proprietors, both native and foreign-born, but these exerted small influence in controlling the turbulent. While Los Angeles had more than a fair share of that
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useless element, other large settlements in the territory could furnish their full quota of that class of political knight-errants whose pastime was revolution and whose capital was a gaily caparisoned steed, a riata, a lance, a dagger and pos- sibly a pair of horse-pistols. These fellows among themselves assumed a reck- less daring, but if they ever got within range of a 'gringo' rifle it was by acci- dent." President Santa Ana, whose social intercourse with the warlike Tex- ans had destroyed all possible affection for the Yankees, sent Micheltorena, the last governor provided by Mexico, out to the territory with an "army" of 350 men recruited in prisons. He had orders to check the American immigra- tion, and to clear the country of the "malditos extranjeros" -- wicked strangers. He landed at Santiago, in August, 1842, with his band of jail-birds and finally reached Los Angeles, where he was accorded a warm "welcome to our city" by the citizens, who hated Monterey, the rival capital. They hoped that the new governor would choose their place for his seat of government, but his army turned out to be such incorrigible thieves that Los Angeles was soon glad to speed the parting guests. Micheltorena promised well as a governor, but the unpopularity and uncourageous character of his so-called soldiers and the fact that he was one of those Mexican "dictators" and offensive to the "hijos del pais"-native sons-tended toward his undoing. With promises of gifts of large ranchos he induced Sutter to join him, and Castro, Alvarado and Vallejo, leaders of the "revolutionists," native sons, to offset this "foreign legion," enlisted about fifty Americans to serve with their force. At the first battle these two companies of Americans, serving on opposite sides, withdrew from the lines to let the Californians and Micheltorena's jail-birds fight it out alone, which these two forces did-not do. After some long-distance artillery-shooting dur- ing which a mule lost its life by foolishly feeding into the fire-zone of a gun, the war ended.
JUST BEFORE THE GRINGO CAME.
Micheltorena and his "braves" were corralled and shipped back to Mexico and Pio Pico was appointed constitutional governor by the supreme govern- ment, which did not seem to take offense at the revolutionary tendencies of its subject Californians. The new executive made Los Angeles his capital, which pleased the southerners, and he appointed Castro comandante general, Alvarado customs inspector at Monterey and Vallejo to remain military comandante at Sonoma. Jose Antonio Carrillo, kinsman of Governor Pico, was made military comandante of the south. This officer, who was a nephew of Alvarado, was something of a governor-maker himself, and as he hated his uncle and Castro impartially and was intensely jealous of Pio's good luck, he was soon plotting against everything in sight. He was more able and more intelligent than any of the others, but the attempt to overthrow them was too big a job and after a laudable effort he landed in prison. The governor did not care to stir up a family row by shooting his brother-in-law, so he shipped him with several other conspirators to Mexico for trial. They were back home in a short time, and their plottings were forgotten. Pico was watching Castro but had a little side plot of his own. He professed much antipathy for Mexico and favored annex- ation to either England or France, trusting that such a change would better his political fortune. In the last meeting of the territorial Junta, held at the San Juan Mission, he had strongly advocated secession from "that mock republic,
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Mexico," before their "beautiful country" became a prey to "hordes of perfid- ious Yankees." He not only regretted the passing of the "golden days of the Spanish monarchy" before the era of the "miserable abortion christened Mex- ico," but hoped for the coming of the fleet or army that would again place them under the wings of a monarchy. Vallejo, another member of the Junta, in an eloquent speech shattered this annexation proposition and California drifted,- into the arms of Uncle Sam. While the storm-clouds were gathering, Castro in Monterey, was busy plotting. He had the custom-house in reach and could milk it at will, but even this rich privilege did not satisfy him, for he wanted the governorship as well. But before his plans for the outbreak he contem- plated were fully matured, he was halted by the appearance of a party of Amer- ican surveyors, who slipped over the mountains from the east and settled down in the California valleys to make some history of their own.
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CHAPTER XIII.
APPEARANCE OF THE PATHFINDER.
The leader was John Charles Fremont, then a brevet captain in the corps of the United States Topographical Engineers, on his third tour of exploration across the continent and was seeking a better route from the western base of the Rocky Mountains to the mouth of the Columbia River. Fremont visited Castro and solicited permission to take his surveyors, consisting of sixty-two men, through the country. Castro was all cordiality and courtesy and gave his word "on the honor of a Mexican soldier" that these strangers within the ter- ritory should not be molested. Of course, this word and promise was of little value, as he was immediately busy stirring up the Californians in the vicinity to attack the surveyors, hoping thereby to make political capital with Mexico and so further his designs on the governorship of the territory. He soon had an "army" of several hundred men, and then sent Fremont the fierce ultimatum of quickly getting out of the country or be destroyed. Such bombastic ferocity was amusing to this band of armed pathfinders, among whom were Kit Carson and others of like caliber, the flower of American frontier manhood. These tried fighters curiously looked on while Castro maneuvered his gaily clad cavalry in view, dashing them toward the intruders' camp but always wheeling to one side before they got within range of the deadly rifles they knew were awaiting their too-near approach. Finally Fremont grew tired of Castro's circus antics and moved off towards the Oregon line to finish his work. May 9, 1846, he was overtaken near Klamath Lake by Lieutenant A. H. Gillespie, United States Marine Corps, who had been dispatched from Washington the November pre- vious in search of him. Gillespie had held long conferences with United States Consul Larkin at Monterey, and then had slipped northward on the trail of Fremont before the Californian learned his real character or mission. "Mr. Gillespie, a private gentleman traveling for his health," carried messages from President Polk-unwritten-to prevent their contents from falling into the hands of the Mexicans in case they should catch the messenger. He also car- ried letters from United States Senator Benton, of Missouri, Fremont's father- in-law, and these communications certainly advised the Pathfinder of the politi- cal significance of the California question. It is said that Fremont sat long before his camp-fire that night reading those letters and consulting with Gil- lespie. In Congress the two parties had fought out the war of "territorial acquisition" and here it was transferred to the distant Pacific for final adjust- ment. Fremont understood, and clearly his work was cut out for him.
Great Britain, Mexico and the United States, each from her corner, was watching the rich territorial prize in the center of the triangle. An English fleet was on the coast and the northern boundary matter was looming into prominence. The United States government demanded nine degrees more of latitude than John Bull was at first disposed to concede and "Fifty-four forty
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or fight," was a party watchword until both countries at issue agreed to run the line along the forty-ninth parallel. The North and South were "debating" with increasing truculence the slavery question, the latter advocating the acquisi- tion of territory for the negro-working plantations, and the former opposing with the cry of "plotting to rob Mexico." Certainly Fremont, a junior officer in the government engineer corps, with secret instructions or suggestions having the weight of direct orders, was in a peculiar position. Gillespie had been told to "find Fremont" and from Washington he had sailed to Vera Cruz, crossed Mexico in disguise to Mazatlan where he found a United States ship of war awaiting him, thence to Monterey and the last lap of the long search up the Sacramento Valley to the camp of the man who was to introduce California to her future family -- the Sisterhood of American States. There is no doubt that the "hint" he received left him to consult his own judgment, a judgment which proved to be unerring, and which won him the perfect and flattering indorsement of the Secretary of State. Still he knew that a failure or a weak handling of the revolution he might inaugurate, or appear to inaugurate, would overwhelm him with reproach; and it is quite certain in that event he would be left to bear his "troubles alone." He had won his famous title-Pathfinder- cutting his way through the perils of savage-infested wilds, and he was in the habit of weighing small chances of success against the multi-failures always menacing him. He did not hesitate at this new call, but he sat long before his camp-fire studying the orders. Then he turned toward the south. In a few days the Bear Flag was floating over the Castillo of Sonoma and another star was due to appear in the constellation of American States.
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