USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 15
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The Normal School, at San Jose, is one of the most admir- ably managed of our State Institutions. It has an excellent faculty and over 400 students. An additional Normal School is about to be ereeted at Los Angeles.
California has, besides these State Institutions, fifteen col- leges endowed or maintained by the different religious denomin- ations.
78
BAYS, LAKES, AND NAVIGABLE STREAMS.
DIMENSIONS OF CALIFORNIA.
Width on the north end, 216 miles; extreme extension from west to east, 352 miles; average width, about 235 miles; exten- sion from north to south, 655 miles. A direct line from the northwest corner of the State to Fort Yuma, being the longest line in the State, is 830 miles ; a direct line from San Francisco to Los Angeles, 342 miles ; a direct line from San Francisco to San Diego, 451 miles. San Diego lies 350 miles south, and 285 miles east of San Francisco. Los Angeles lies 258 miles south, and 225 miles east of San Francisco. Cape Mendocino, the most westerly point in the State, is 96 miles west of San Fran- cisco and 185 miles north.
California has an area of 164,981 square miles, or 100,947,- 840 acres, of which 80,000,000 acres are suited to some kind of profitable husbandry. It is four times greater in area than Cuba. It will make four States as large as New York, which has a popu- lation of nearly 5,000,000. It will make five States the size of Kentucky, which has a population of 1,321,000. It will make 24 States the size of Massachusetts, having a population of 1,500,000. It has an area of 144 times as great as Rhode Island. It is four-fifths the size of Austria, and nearly as large as France, each having a population of 36,000,000. It is nearly twice the size of Italy, with 27,000,000 inhabitants, and is one and one-half times greater than Great Britain and Ireland, hav- ing a population of 32,000,000. Its comparative size is best shown by the diagram on page 76.
California needs population-she is susceptible of sustaining millions where she now has thousands.
With industry, economy, sobriety, and honesty of purpose, no man in this State, with rare exceptions, will fail of success in the ordinary pursuits of life.
BAYS, HARBORS, ISLANDS, AND LAKES.
California has a sea-coast extending the whole length of the State, amounting, following the indentations, to somewhat over 700 miles. The principal bays and harbors, beginning on the south, are San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Mont- erey, San Francisco, Tomales, Bodega, Humboldt, Trinidad and Cresent City Bay.
San Francisco Bay, the most capacious and best protected harbor on the western coast of North America, is nearly fifty miles long (including its extension, San Pablo Bay,) and about nine miles wide. The entrance to the bay is through a strait about five miles long and a mile wide, and is named Chrys- opylæ, or Golden Gate.
There are few lakes worthy of mention in California. The largest is Tulare, in the southern part of the State, which is very shoal. It is about thirty-three miles long by twenty-two wide, though in the wet season it covers a much larger area. Owens, Kern, and Buena Vista are much smaller lakes, in the same vicinity.
Lake Tahoe, in Placer County, thirteen hours from Sacra- mento by rail, is visited by the tourist, attracted by the won- ders of the scenery, oftener than the invalid; has a pure mountain air, with a most charming summer climate, there being no exces- sive heat, and only an occasional and enjoyable thunder-stormn. Herc, besides the lake and the streams, are the waters of mount- ain springs and hot and cold mineral springs. There is trout fishing in the streams as well as in the lake, where a number of fislı are taken-trout of several kinds, from a quarter of a pound to five pounds in weight, minnows, white fish, and sev- eral other sorts. Several of the beaches or bays of the lake are of interest, as Emerald and Carnelian Bays, carnelian stones being picked up that are very pretty. The lake is more than 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, and is twenty-two by twelve miles in size. Its greatest measured depth is something over 1,500 feet, and this great depth makes the principal won- der of the lake. The water is fresh, varying from thirty-nine to sixty degrecs in temperature, and the extreme cold of the depth, which prevents drowned bodies from decomposing and rising to the surface, has given rise to the erroncous belief that the water is not buoyant, and will not float any object.
Donner Lake, near the scene of the Donner tragedy, is a small body of water much visited by tourists, situated near the east- ern border of the State.
Lake Mono, fourteen miles long from east to west and nine miles wide, lics in Mono County, east of the Sierra Nevada. The water, being saturated with various mineral substances, the chief of which are salt, lime, borax, and carbonate of soda, is intensely bitter and saline, and of such high specific gravity that the human body floats in it very lightly. No living thing except the larvæ of a small fly and a small crustacean, inhabits this lake, which is sometimes called the Dead Sea of California.
The other lakes are: Clear, in Lake County, in the western part of the State, about ten miles long; and Klamath and Goose Lakes, lying partly in Oregon.
CHIEF NAVIGABLE STREAMS.
The Sacramento is about 370 miles long, and is navigable' for large steamboats at all seasons to Sacramento, ninety miles from its mouth, or 120 miles from San Francisco, and for sınaller craft to Red Bluff, 150 or 200 miles above Sacramento.
The San Joaquin, about 350 miles long, is navigable for ordin- ary steamers to Stockton, and for small craft during the rainy season to the mouth of the Tulare Slough, about 150 miles. The Calaveras, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced empty into the San Joaquin. Tule and swamp lands line the banks of the river. The soil is rich and needs only to be protected against high waters, to equal any in the State for production. The tules are a sort of tall rush, and in early times, fires swept over them as on a prairie. The effect is faintly indicatel in our engraving on page 43
79
THE TIMBER RESOURCES OF THE STATE.
THE NATURAL WONDERS.
Among the many remarkable natural curiosities of California is the valley of the Yo Semite.
This far-famed valley is 140 miles east of San Francisco, and is a eañon a mile wide and eight miles long. The bottom of the valley is more than 4,000 feet above sea level, and the walls rise as high as 4,000 feet. Its principal water fall (though not the only one, nor the most beautiful), has 2,600 feet to fall. Great cliffs, rising 6,000 feet high, and gigantic dome-shaped mountains, are gathered in this narrow valley, which are supposed to have been formed suddenly one day by a fissure, or eraek, in the solid mountain ehain. The valley seenery is of great beauty, and the summer elimate is cool, with snow in winter. People camping in tents have an inelosure in Yo Semite set apart for them, and may also locate themselves in other parts of the val- ley, always under the stated regulations, which provide that fire-wood may be pieked up, but never eut down; that fires must not be left burning; that fish may be taken with hook and line only, and that birds must not be killed. In the valley are three hotels, three stores, four livery stables, a blacksmith, a cabinetmaker, four photographers, a saloon, a bathing house, three carpenters and four laundries.
The Big Trees of Mariposa, only one of several interesting groups in the State, are sixteen miles from Yo Semite. The tall- est tree in this grove is 325 feet high, and the thiekest is twenty- seven feet through. The age of the oldest one, which has been counted by rings, is, 1,300 years old, its seed having taken root in this California valley, in the sixth century after Christ, when the world's history (so called) was confined to that narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea, with the barbarous nations on its borders. These trees are of the Sequoia Gigan- tea, and only the Eucalyptus Amygdalena of Australia ever grows so large.
The Geysers are also remarkable natural phenomena. There is a collection of hot sulphur springs, more than 300 in number, covering about 200 aeres, in a deep gorge, in the northeast part of Sonoma County. They are about 1,700 feet above the sea, and are surrounded by mountains from 3,000 to 4,000 feet high. Hot and cold, quiet and boiling springs are found within a few feet of each other.
There are five natural bridges in California. The largest is on a small creek emptying into the Hay Fork of Trinity River. It is eighty feet long, with its top 170 feet above the water. In Siskiyou County there are two, about thirty feet apart, ninety feet long; and there are two more on Coyote Creek, in Tuolumne County, the larger 285 feet long.
The most noted caves are the Alabaster Cave in Placer County, containing two chambers, the larger 200 feet long by 100 feet wide; the Bower Cave in Mariposa County, having a chamber about 100 feet square, reached by an entrance seventy feet long.
The most recently discovered of the great natural wonders of
the State is the petrified forest, about seventy-five miles north of San Francisco, the existence of which was first made public in 1870.
TIMBER FORESTS.
California is noted for its large forests of exeellent timber, and for trees of mammoth size. The sides of the Sierra Nevada, to the height of 2,500 feet, are covered with oaks, manzanita and nut pine and above this, to a height of 8,000 feet, with densefor- ests of pine, fir, eypress, hemlock, and other coniferous trees.
Dense forests of redwood exist on the coast north of latitude thirty-seven degrees, chiefly in Humboldt County. This tim- ber is used for fenee posts, railroad ties, and furnishes lumber for all building purposes. It answers the same for house mate- rial in California as Wisconsin and Michigan pine does in the Mississippi Valley. There is a large amount of timber of the various species named in the mountains and valleys in the northern part of the State, from the Sierra Nevada Range to the ocean.
The redwood, bearing a strong resemblance to the mammoth, frequently grows to a height of 300 feet, and a diameter of fif- teen feet. These forests are fully described in the local history of the County.
White and live oak abound in large quantities on the west slope of the Coast Range, and in the intervening valleys south of latitude 37°, in the counties of Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara. This wood is chiefly used for fuel and is of little value for building or feneing purposes.
A great part of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, the Colorado Basin, the east slope of the Coast Mountains, and the Coast Range south of Point. Conception, are trecless. '
The sugar pine is a large tree, and one of the most graceful of evergreens. It grows about 200 feet high and twelve feet in diameter. This wood grows in the Sierra Nevada, is free-split- ting and valuable for timber. The yellow pine and white cedar are all large trees, growing more than 200 feet high and six or eight feet in diameter.
The story is told of two men who were engaged in the cut- ting of one of these immense trees into logs, with a eross-eut saw. After they had sawed themselves out of sight of each other, one of them became impressed with the belief that the saw was not running as easily as it ought, when he erawled on top of the tree to remonstrate with his partner, whom he dis- eovered to be fast asleep.
The visitor to California has not seen it all until he has spent a week in the deep recesses of a redwood forest. It is then, standing beside the towering monarch of the forest, that a man will realize his utter insignitieanee, and how inestimably ephem- eral he is compared with many other of God's handiworks. He looks upon a tree that stood when Christ was yet in his youth, the cireles of whose growth but mark the eyeles of time almost since the first man was, and on whose tablets might have been written the records of the mighty men of old.
80
CENSUS OF THE STATE BY COUNTIES.
POPULATION AND ITS INCREASE.
In 1831, the entire population of the State was estimated at 23,025, of whom 18,683 were Indian converts. During the year's 1843, '44, '45 and '46 a great many emigrants from the United Stated settled in California. In January, 1847, the white population was estimated at from 12,000 to 15,000. Its population in 1850 was probably 150,000. The population of the State in 1880 was 858,864. There are, on the average, six inhabitants to the square mile, but the distribution of the settle- ment over the State is unequal. Thus, San Francisco has about 8,000 people to the square mile, while those portions of San Diego and San Bernardino Counties in the Colorado Desert and inclosed basin, with an area of 14,000 square miles, have at least seven square miles to each white inhabitant. The coun- ties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Yolo, Solano, Napa, Sonoma, and Marin, fronting on San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bays, and the deltas of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, all within thirty miles of Mount Diablo, and distinctly visible from its summit, have 580,800 inhabitants, or about fifty-eight to the mile, leaving a little more than two to the square mile for the remainder of the State.
TABLE OF VOTES CAST BY CALIFORNIA AT ALL THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.
DATE.
NAME OF CANDIDATES.
No. OF VOTES.
MAJORITY.
1852
Scott and Graham ..
35,407
5,219
Hale and Julian
100
35
San Luis Obispo ..
336
1,782
4,772
8,142
3,370
36
San Mateo (y)
3,214
6.635
8,717
2,082
37
Santa Barbara
1,185
3,543
7,784
9,478
1.694
38
Santa Clara.
11,912
26.246
35,113
8,864
Buchanan and Breckinridge
53,365
17,200
39
Santa Cruz
643
4,944
8,743
12,808
4,605
Fillmore and Donelson
36,165
40
Shasta (d)
378
4,360
4,173
9,700
5,527
41
Sierra
11,387
5,619
6.617
998
1860 €1
Lincoln and Hamlin.
38,734
711
43
Solano
580
7,169
16,871
18.475
1,604
Breckenridge and Lane.
38,023
44
Sonoma
560
11.867
19,819
25.925
6.106
Douglass and Johnson
33,975
9,136
46
Sutter
3,444
3,390
5,030
5,212
182
Total.
119,868
47
Tehama
4.044
3.587
9,414
5.827
48
Trinity
1,635
5,125
3,213
4,982
1,769
1864
Lincoln and Johnson
62,134
13,273
49
Tulare
4.638
4,533
11.281
6,748
Total.
110,975
51
Yolo
1,086
4,716
9,899
11,880
1,981
1868
Grant and Colfax
54,583
506
53
Yuba
9.673
13.668
10,851
11,540
689
Total.
108,660
White
91.635
323,177
499,424 767.266
267.842
1872
Grant and Wilson.
54,020
3,302
Greeley and Brown.
40,718
Chinese
34,933
49,310
75,025
25.715
Indians
17,908
7,241
16,130
8,889
Total.
94,738
1876 =
Hayes and Whecler
79,308
2,842
Cooper.
47
Total ..
155,821
1880 16
Garfield and Arthur.
80,267
Hancock and English
80,332
65
Weaver.
3,381
Total.
163,980
For 1880, it is the average vote on elections. One Republican elector was elected and five of the Den.ocratic clectory, and the vote was cast accordingly.
CENSUS OF THE STATE BY COUNTIES* SINCE ITS ORGANIZATION.
COUNTIES
1850.
1860.
1870.
1880.
ten yras.
1 Alameda
8,927
24,237
63,639
39,402
·)
Alpine (a)
685
539
dee 146
3
Amador
10,930
9,582
11.386
1.804
1
Butte
3,574
12.106
11,403
18,721
7,308
5
Calaveras
16,884
16,299
8,895
8,980
85
6
Colusa
115
2,274
6,165
13,118
6,953
7
Contra Costa
5,328
8.461
12,525
4,044
8
Del Norte
1,993
2.022
2.499
628
9
El Dorado
20,057
20,562
10.309
10,647
338
10
Fresno
4,605
6,336
9.478
3,142
11
Humboldt
2,694
6,140
15.515
9,373
12
Inyo(6)
Kern(b)
2,925
5,600
2,675
14
Klamath(i)
1,803
1,686
6,643
3,674
16
Lassen (/)
17
Los Angeles
3.530
11.333
15.309
33,392
18.083
18
Marin
323
3,334
6.903
11,326
4.423
19
Mariposa
4,379
6.243
4,572
4,399
der.173
20
Mendocino(e)
55
3,967
7,545
11.000
3.455
21
Merced
1,141
2.807
5,657
2.850
22
Mono (f)
430
5,416
5,013
23
Monterey
1,872
4,739
9,876
11,309
1.433
25
Napa (c)
405
5,521
7,163
12,894
5,713
26
Nevada.
16,446
19.134
20.534
1.400
27
Placer
13,270
11,357
14,278
2,921
28
Plumas (d)
4,363
4.489
6,881
2,392
29
Sacramento
9,087
24,142
26,830
36.200
9,370
30
San Benito (4).
5,551
3,988
7,800
3,812
32
San Diego
4,324
4,951
8,620
3,669
83 San Francisco (g)
56,802
149,473
233,956
84,483
34
San Joaquin (h) -.
3,647
9,435
21.050
24,323
3,273
Total.
70,133
1856 ..
Fremont and Dayton
20,691
110,221
42
Siskiyou
7,629
6,648
8.401
1.553
45
Stanislaus (h)
2,245
6,499
8,951
2,452
MeClellan and Pendleton.
48,841
50
Tuolumne (h) Ventura
8,351
16,229
8,150
7.843
klee 307
Seymour and Blair
54,077
The State
92,597
379.994
560,247 864,686
304.439
Total .. 52
The returns of 1850 for Contra Costa and Santa Clara were lost on the way to the Census Office, and those for San Francisco were destroyed by fire. The corrected State census of 152 K ves the population of these three counties as follows : Contra Costa, 2,786; Sun Franci co, 36.154; nud Santa Clara, 6,764; and gives the total population of the State (save El Dorado), not returned) 215,122. El Dorado was estimated at 40,000, which would make the total population at that date 255,122. (Fide Doc. No. 14. Appendix to Senate Journal, 4th session Legislature.) (a) In 1863 Alpine from Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, and Mono.
(b) In 1865 organized.
(c) In 1961 Lake from Napa.
(d) In 1863 Lassen from Plumas and Shasta. (f) In 1843 organized.
(e) In 1800 organized.
(g) In 1857 San Mateo from San Francisco.
(h) In 1554 Stanislaus from San Joaquin and Tuolumne.
(i) Divided and attached to other counties.
(j) Organized 18:3.
(k) Organized in 1872 from Monterey.
*The census of 1880 gives u.ales, 518,271; females, 346 415; native, 572,006; foreign, : 92,680.
2,928
477
13
15
Lake(r)
2.969
1.327
3,341
2.014
Modoe (j)
4.700
4.700
5.584
5,584
31
San Bernardino
Colored
962
4,086
4,272
6.265
1.993
Tilden and Hendricks.
76,466
5,088
: 5,088
52
Bell and Everett.
Total.
Pierce and King.
40,626
Increas3
1,956
--
ARTESIAN WELL.
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ELLIOTT.B. CO. LITH. 42IMONT. ST.
NORTH END OF TULARE LAKE. AT MOUTH OF KING'S RIVER. LAST VOYAGE OF THE "WATER WITCH". STUMPS of SUBMERGED FOREST.
HISTORY
OF ---
TULARE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA,
FROM THE EARLY DAYS DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME.
WHEN the State was first formed into coun- ties, the whole country extending from the Tuolumne River on the north to Walker's Pass on the south and fr. in Nevada line on the east to the Coast Range on the west, was divided into two counties, Mariposa and Tulare. From this territory has since been formed Mariposa, Mono, Inyo, Merced, Fresno, Tulare, and Kern.
This portion of the San Joaquin Valley, until about the year 1835, was almost a terra incognita, having been visited by the trappers only, as already stated. At about that time an ex- pedition into this part of the valley was undertaken by Lieu- tenant Moraga, of the Mexican army, then stationed at the presidio of San Francisco, who, in command of a company of soldiers, pursued some Indians who had been committing dep- redations upon the settlers in the coast valleys, into the valley of the San Joaquin.
This expedition was undertaken in June. Lieutenant Moraga and his companions crossed the San Joaquin near the mouth of the Tuoluinne River, and traveled thence in a south- easterly direction to the Merced River, a distance of about forty miles, the whole of which had to be accomplished with- out water. The weather being very hot, it is no wonder they called the river, in whose limpid waters they slaked their burning thirst and laved their throbbing temples, El Rio de la Merced, the river of merey.
They continued the journey, naming rivers and streams, until after visiting King's River the expedition returned over the mountains to the west.
FIRST AMERICANS IN SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.
The first Americans who arrived in California, overland, ac- cording to an article in the Pioneer, were under the command
of Jedediah Smith, of New York. He accompanie } the first trapping and trading expedition sent from St. Louis to the head-waters of the Missouri by General Ashley, an account of which is given on a preceding page.
In the spring of 1826, Mr. Smith, at the head of a party of about twenty-five men, left the winter quarters of the com- pany to make a spring and fall hunt. He crossed the mount- ains and descended into the great valley of California near its southeastern extremity; thus being not only the first Ameri- can, but the first person who, from the east, or north, had en- tered the magnificent valleys of the San Joaquin and Sac- ramento, or who had ever seen or explored any of the rivers falling into the bay of San Francisco.
FIRST HUNTERS ON TULARE LAKE.
The fur traders doubtless trapped the beaver on the San Joaquin River and its tributaries many years ago, that valua- ble fur-bearing animal being abundant at the time. We have it from old settlers that these hunters were trapping in Califor- nia when the country was first explored by the missionary fathers. As stated on page 39, Stephen Hall Meek spent the winter of 1833 hunting about Tulare Lake.
The trappers were extremely reticent with reference to the countries in which they followed their vocation. They gave no information that would lead to the settlement of their trapping grounds. They were jealous of those who were seek- ing information with respect to new countries suitable for agri- culture and stock-raising, and, generally, entertained a supreme contempt for them. It is, then, not a matter of surprise that the first settlers could get from the trappers neither a writ- ten nor a verbal deseription of the San Joaquin River, its trib- utaries, or the valley through which they flow. Had the missionary fathers known the extent and resources of the val- ley, the vast area of grazing lands, affording the finest quality
82
FIRST PERMANENT SETTLERS ARRIVE.
of pasturage, the extensive tracts of agricultural lands which have since become so valuable, they or their companions would have secured the greater portion of it as grants from the Mex- ican Government, as they did the greater portion of the coast valleys of California.
FIRST SETTLERS KEPT NEAR THE COAST.
The settlers on the coast and in the San Jose Valley seldom or never ventured east of the summit of the Monte Diablo Range of mountains. In very dry seasons, when grass became scarce, and when thousands of cattle and horses were likely to perish for lack of food, the rancheros would drive some of their cattle and horses to the top of the Monte Diablo Range and turn them loose; but they never followed them up or gave any further attention to them; hence the large number of wild stock found roaming over the plains at the time the immigra- tion of Americans to this State began.
The reason the stock was never sought after seems to have been the fear of Indians, a popular belief having obtained among the settlers of the San Jose, Sonoma, and other coast valleys, that there existed a powerful and warlike tribe of Indians in the San Joaquin Valley.
FIRST PERMANENT SETTLERS.
Capt. C. M. Weber, the founder of Stockton, was one of the first to locate permanently in the valley, although he had been preceded by Dr. John Marsh, whose occupation and settle- ment is described on page 43.
Weber was induced to come by the glowing accounts given by Dr. Marslı in his publishel letters heretofore noticed. This was in 1841, before the trip (to be mentioned) of Fremont.
In August, 1844, David Kelsey, with his wife and two chil- dren, a boy and a girl, settled at French Camp and built a tule house. Mr. Gulnac, who was stopping at the Cosumnes River, had offered to give Mr. Kelsey a mile square of land if he would stop at that place, and live one year; he turned over to him the "swivel" that Sutter had given him. Every night Mr. Kelsey threw this piece of ordnance "into battery," and fired an evening gun, which he did to frighten the Indians, on the same principle that a boy sometimes whistles as he is going through the woods after dark. At that time there was only one other house in the county, also constructed of tule, occu- pied by Thomas Lindsay, at Stockton.
Mr. Kelsey remained for several months at that place, and after his family had been obliged to live for two months on boiled wheat, meat, milk, and mint tea, gathered along the bank of the creek, he buried the swivel and removed tempo- rarily to San Jose, where he first saw Captain Weber.
Numerous others began to locate in the next few years. The discovery of gold in 1848 brought a grand rush of people into the valley on their way to the mines. No one had the slight- est idea of the San Joaquin Valley ever being, as it now is, a pre-eminently agricultural country. The rolling prairies and
grassy meadows were overrun with cattle and stock -- thou- sands of head. No idea of any other industry but grazing was then thought of in the vast valley, except in a limited way along the rivers by a few who were believers in its agricultural resources.
FREMONT VISITS THE VALLEY.
General Fremont's expedition in April, 1844, having as guides Kit Carson and Alexis Godey, who still lives at Bakers- field and whose residence makes one of our best illustrations, passed up the San Joaquin River, which he describes after passing the mouth of the Merced, as follows :-
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