History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches, Part 6

Author: W.W. Elliott & Co
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: San Francisco, Cal., W.W. Elliott & co.
Number of Pages: 322

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They then applied to Captain John A. Sutter, a gentleman at that time residing near where Sacramento City now stands, and who had made a journey from Sitka, some years before, in one of their vessels. They persuaded Sutter into the belief that their title was good, and could be maintained; so, after making out a full invoice of the articles they had for disposal, including all the land lying between Point Reyes and Point Mendocino, and one league inland, as well as cattle, farming and mechanical implements, also, a schooner of 180 tons bur- then, some arms, a four-pound brass field-piece, etc., a price was decided upon, the sum being $30,000, which, however, was not paid at one time, but in cash installments of a few thou- sand dollars, the last payment being made through Governor Burnett, in 1849.

All the stipulations of the sale having been arranged satis- factorily to both parties, the transfer was duly made, and Sutter became, as he thought, the greatest landholder in Cali- fornia. In 1859, Sutter disposed of his Russian claim which was a six-eighths interest in the lands mentioned above, to William Muldrew, George R. Moore and Daniel W. Welty; but they only succeeded in getting $6,000 out of one settler, and the remainder refusing to pay, the claim was dropped.

EVACUATION OF FORT ROSS.

Orders were sent to the settlers at Fort Ross to repair at once to San Francisco Bay, and ships were dispatched to bring them there, where whaling vessels, which were bound for the northwest whaling grounds, had been chartered to convey them to Sitka. The vessels arrived at an early hour in the day, and the orders shown to the commander, Rotscheff, who immediately caused the bells in the chapel tower to be rung, and the cannon to be discharged, this being the usual method of convocating the people at an unusual hour, or for some special purpose, so everything was suspended just there-the husbandman left his plow standing in the half-turned furrow, and unloosed his oxen, never again to yoke them, leaving them to wander at will over the fields; the mechanic dropped his planes and saws on the beneh, leaving the half-smoothed board still in the vise; the tanner left his tools where he was using them, and doffed his apron to don it no more in the State of California.

As soon as the population had assembled, Rotscheff arose and read the orders. Very sad and unwelcome, indeed, was this intelligence; but the edict had emanated from a source which could not be gainsaid, and the only alternative was a speedy and complete compliance, however reluetant it might be-and thus 400 people were made homeless by the fiat of a single word. Time was only given to gather up a few household effects.

SUPT. SCHOOLS. 11. H. Murphy

DIST. ATTY.

SHERIFF.

RECORDER E. Denny.

NUMEROUS SETTLERS BEGIN TO ARRIVE.

Foreigners Begin to Come.

THE early success of the missions advertised the attractive- ness of California to the world. It became known not only in Mexico, but through the early adventurers and traders, in the United States. They not only traded in hides and tallow, but told the story of the mission wealth-the herds and flocks and fruits, and they told of the furs to be procured.

The valleys of California were, during the early part of this century, occupied and traversed by bands of trappers in the employ of the American and foreign fur companies. The sto- ries of their wanderings and experiences are mostly related in the form of sensational novels, whose authenticity and accu- racy must be taken with a great degree of allowance.

Few records concerning these fur hunters remain which are within the reach of the historian, and the information given has been gleaned, in part, from personal interviews with those whose knowledge of the subject was gained by actual experi- ence or by a personal acquaintance with those who belonged to the parties. In many cases their stories differ widely in regard to facts and names.

We here give the date of arrival of some of the most im- portant of the pioneers, and incidents connected with their movements.

1814 .- John Gilroy arrived at Monterey on the 5th of Feb - ruary, 1814. His baptismal name was John Cameron; but he assumed the name of John Gilroy in consequence of certain circumstances connected with his birth.

He spent most of his life around Monterey, and resided at what is called "Old Gilroy," a short distance from Gilroy, in Santa Clara County, which places are named from him.

UPPER SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY EXPLORED.

1820 .- As early as this date, Tulare, San Joaquin and Sac- ramento Valleys were occupied by trappers, who had wandered there while searching for the Columbia River. Captain Sutter, in 1834, while in New Mexico, heard from these California trappers, of the Sacramento Valley, which afterwards became so reputed as his home. The disputes arising in regard to the occupation of the northern part of the Pacific Coast trapping region in Oregon, led the American hunters to occupy the ter- ritory in and about the Rocky Mountains.

A TOUCHING LITTLE EPISODE.

1822 .- About the year 1822, an Englishman landed at Santa Cruz, known by the name of William Thompson. He is em- ployed in the hide buisness. There is a touching little story connected with him. His native place was London. His father was a sail-maker. And there lived the family- mother, brothers, sisters and all. William went to sea. They parted with him with regret and sorrow, and after a time they ceased to hear from him. Years went by and they could get

no tidings of him. The family grieved; and the mother pined for her son. But time went on, and no tidings came. By and by his brother Samuel proposed to go in search of him. Though he did not know where on the globe he might be, if still alive, yet he thought he could go to sea, and make voyages to differ- ent parts, and somewhere fall in with him, or hear of him. His plan was agreed to, and he started. Just how long he sailed, and where he went, is unknown; but after a while he was on a ship that came into the port of Santa Cruz. Here was anchored, at that time, another ship, taking on board a cargo of hides.

Samuel then came ashore and inquired for the captain of that ship. When he found him, he asked him if among his crew there was one William Thompson. The captain said he didn't know certainly whether he had a man by that name " but there the men are," said he, pointing to them at work on the beach, carrying hides, "you can go and see." Samuel went, and the very first man he met was William! We can imagine Samuel's joy at the meeting, after so long a search; and the joy, also, that the account of it caused in that home in London, when it reached there. But it appears, instead of Samuel getting William to go home, that they both remained on this coast. They shipped together and went down to South America, and then returned to Santa Cruz.

STRANGE MEETING ON THE MERCED.

1823 .- The Ashley expedition was fitted out in 1823, at St. Louis, for the fur trade. This party entered the San Joaquin Valley, and hunted and trapped along the Merced, Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers.

Belonging to this company was Joshua Griffith and William Hawkins, who met first at St. Louis, and afterwards hunted in the San Joaquin Valley.

Years rolled on and they were widely separated, and after many vicissitudes, of wild adventure, through scenes of peril, among hostile Indians and various hair-breadth escapes- strange to say, we find them after years had passed away, in 1874, settled down to quiet life, each with a family, on the Merced River, which locality seems to have impressed them as the choicest of the State. They were living there as late as 1878.

Captain Juan B. R. Cooper came to Monterey in 1823, and obtained a license to hunt otters, as also did some others.

1824 .- Santiago McKinly, a native of Scotland, arrived in Los Angeles during the year 1824. He was at that time twenty-one years of age. He became a merchant, and his name appears on a list of foreigners resident in Los Angeles in 1836, now on file in the city archives. He afterwards went to Monterey, and was reported dead some years ago.

From Scotland came David Spence, in 1824, with the view of establishing a packing house in Monterey for a Lima firm.

SETTLERS ORDERED TO LEAVE CALIFORNIA.

down the Mary's or Humboldt River for California, over a country entirely unknown to the trappers. They discovered Truckee, Carson and Walker Rivers, Donner Lake and Walk- er's Pass, through which they went and pitched their camp for the winter on the shore of Tulare Lake, in December, 1833.

FIRST AMERICAN RESIDENTS IN SAN FRANCISCO.

1835 .- William A. Richardson mnoved from Saucelito to Yerba Buena (San Francisco), opened a store, and began trad- ing in hides and tallow in the summer of 1835.

1836 .- Jacob P. Leese, for a number of years a resident of Los Angeles, in July, 1836, built a store in Yerba Buena. He had previously met many obstacles in obtaining a grant of land upon which to locate the building, but by the authority of Governor Chico, this was finally effected.

Previous to the location of Richardson and Leese, the only inhabitants of the pueblo and mission at Yerba Buena were Spaniards, Mexicans and Indians.

EARLY IMMIGRATION SOCIETIES.

1837 .- As early as 1837 several societies were organized in the American States to promote immigration to the Pacific Coast. During that and ensuing years, thousands of emigrants jour- neyed across the rocky and snowy mountains, enduring toils and hardships indescribable, to settle in California and Oregon. Others came by the way of Mexico or Cape Horn, and soon the valleys of the northern rivers were peopled by American agriculturists; and the southern and coast towns by American traders, who speedily monopolized the whole busi- ness of the country, and even in some communities formed the numerical strength of the white population.

The Mexican Congress, feeling that California was about to slip from their country as Texas had done before, passed laws against the intrusion of foreigners; but there was no power in the State competent to put these edicts into execution.

We have mentioned a few of the early pioneers so as to give an idea of the extent and kind of settlers up to about 1840, at which time numerous companies of settlers arrived, and we shall now only mention those of the most importance, and who took an active part in political affairs.

FIRST SAW-MILL ERECTED.

1833 .- Isaac Graham came from Hardin County, Kentucky, to California in 1833. He settled near Monterey, and his name is intimately associated with Santa Cruz and vicinity.

It is said that he erected on the San Lorenzo, somewhere in the neighborhood of where the powder works now are, the first saw-mill in California.

Early in life he went to New Mexico, and Benjamin D. Wil- son met him at Taos. Mr. Wilson has described him as being at that time a very disreputable character. He also says that Graham left a family in Tennessee, being obliged to flee that

State to escape the consequences of some offense he had com- mitted.

He reached Los Angeles in company with Henry Naile about 1835, and remained there until the following year, when he removed to "Natividad," Monterey County, and (according to Mr. Wilson) " established a small distillery in a tule hut which soon became a nuisance owing to the disreputable character of those who frequented it."

Graham was a brave and adventurous man, a thorough fron- tiersman, at home with his rifle in his hand, and this had become known to the native officials in Monterey.

When, in 1836, Juan B. Alvarado, a subordinate customs officer, was plotting revolution and contemplated the expulsion of Governor Guiterrez, he came to Graham and sought his assistance, and that of the foreigners who acted with him in the inatter.

INDEPENDENCE OF MEXICO CONTEMPLATED.

On condition that all connection with Mexico should be sev- ered, and that California should become independent, the assist- ance of Graham and others was promised, and in due time it was rendered. And by means of it Guiterrez was sent away, and Alvarado and his party soon became masters of the situa- tion. Now was the time for the fulfillment of the promise of independence of Mexico, but Mexico, instead of punishing Alvarado, proposes to confirm him in his usurped authority. Alvarado, pleased and flattered by this, quickly breaks his promise to Graham, but in so doing, he feels a wholesome fear of those rifles, by the assistance of which he had himself gained his promotion.

His first care seems to have been to disable that little force of foreigners, and to put it out of their power to punish his breach of faith.

GENERAL ARREST OF FOREIGNERS.

1840 .- Orders are sent out secretly to all the Alcaldes in this part of the country simultaneously, on a certain night to arrest foreigners and bring them to Monterey. Jose Castro himself heads the party for the arrest of Graham.

It was on the morning of the 7th of April, 1840, before light, that the party reached Graham's dwelling. They broke in the doors and shattered the windows, firing at the inmates as they saw them rising from their beds. One of the assailants thinking to make sure of Graham himself, discharged a pair of pistols aimed at his heart, the muzzles touching his cloak, which he had hastily thrown over his shoulders.

This assassin was amazingly surprised afterwards on seeing Graham alive, and he could not account for it till he examined his holsters, then he found the reason. There, sure enough, were the balls in the holsters! The pistols had been badly loaded, and that it was that saved Isaac Graham from instant death.

BIOGRAPHIES OF PIONEER SETTLERS.

FIRST SCHOONER BUILT.

1831 .- William Wolfskill was born March 20, 1798, near Richmond, Kentucky. Until the year 1831 he roamed through the great West as a hunter and trapper. In February of that year he reached Los Angeles with a number of others, and here the party broke up. Aided by Friar Sanchez, then in charge of San Gabriel Mission, he, in company with Nathaniel Pryor, Richard Langhlin, Samuel Prentiss, and George Young, late of Napa County, (all Americans) built a schooner at San Pedro for the purpose of hunting sca-otter.

FIRST BILLIARD TABLES MADE.

1832 .- Joseph Pawlding was a native of Maryland, and en- tered California from New Mexico in the winter of 1832-33, by way of the Gila River. He afterwards traveled a good deal in both countries. He was a carpenter by trade, and made the first two billiard tables ever made in California; the first for George Rice, and the second for John Rhea. He died at Los Angeles, June 2, 1860.

HUNTERS AND TRAPPERS OF 1832.

About the middle of 1832 another band of trappers, under Michael Laframboise, came into San Joaquin Valley from the north, and until the next spring spent the time in trapping on the streams flowing through the great valley. The Hudson Bay Company continued sending out its employés into this region until about the year 1845. Their trappers in California belonged to the "Southern Trapping Party of the Hudson Bay Company," and were divided into smaller parties composed of Canadians and Indians with their wives. The trapping was carried on during the winter in order to secure a good class of furs.

The free trappers were paid ten shillings sterling for a prime beaver skin, while the Indians received a moderate compensa- tion for their services.

' The outfits and portions of their food were purchased from the company.

HUDSON BAY COMPANY.

The Hudson Bay Company employed about ninety or one hundred men in this State. The greater part of the In- dians were fugitives from the missions, and were honest and peaceably inclined, from the fact that it was mainly to their interest to be so.

From 1832 the chief rendezvous was at French Camp, about five miles south of Stockton. About 1841, the company bought of Jacob P. Leese, the building he had erected for a store in San Francisco, and made that their business center for this territory.

The agents were Alexander Forbes and William G. Ray. The latter committed suicide in 1845. His death, and the scarcity of beaver and otter, caused the company to wind up their agency and business in the territory.

FIRST ENGLISH HISTORIAN OF CALIFORNIA.

Alexander Forbes was for a long series of years the British Consul at San Francisco, and by his genial manners, superior culture, and finished education, made a record which places him among the noted men of the State. This gentleman re- sided in Oakland; and, although seventy-five years of age, his faculties were as strong as ever. His memory was wonder- ful, and the power of retention, with the vast fund of knowl- edge possessed, has been of great service to the historian. He had the honor of being the first English historian of California, his " California," published in London in 1839, being written in Mexico four years previous to the date of its publication. He died in 1879.

In 1832 came Thomas O. Larkin from Boston, intend- ing to manufacture flour. Mr. Larkin's home was in Mon- terey, and he probably did far more to bring California under the United States flag than any other man.

1833 .- James Peace, a Scotchman, came into the country in 1833, having left, a ship of the Hudson Bay Company. He was of a somewhat roving disposition, and became acquainted with all the earlier pioneers from Monterey to the Sonoma District. Was with his countryman, John Gilroy, in Santa Clara County; was with Robert Livermore, an English seaman, who settled and gave the name to the Livermore Valley in .Ala meda County, and was at New Helvetia, the establishment of General Sutter.

FIRST CAMPERS ON TULARE LAKE.

Stephen Hall Meek, the famous hunter and trapper, who now resides on Scott Creek in Siskiyou County, spent the win- ter of 1833 on the shores of Tulare Lake. He is the only one of the large trapping party now living who wintered there.

There is probably not now living a mountain man who has had so varied an experience and so many wild adventures, hair- breadth escapes and battles with savage animals and no less savage men, as the veteran trapper, Stephen H. Meek. He was born in Washington County, Virginia, on the Fourth of July, 1807, and is a relative of President Polk. He attended the common schools of the day when young. When scarcely twenty years of age he became imbued with that restless spirit of adventure that has since been a marked characteristic of his life, and left his home for the then comparatively unknown West.

We have not space to relate his travels all over California and Oregon. In the spring of 1831 the party went up a trib- utary of the Yellowstone; then to Green River, and finally wintered on Snake River, where Fort Hall was afterwards built. In the spring he trapped Salmon, Snake and Poin Neuf, and then went to Green River rendezvous. There he hired to Capt. B. L. E. Bonneville to accompany an expedi- tion of thirty-four men under Joseph Walker to explore the Great Salt Lake. They got too far west and finally started

SETTLERS ORDERED TO LEAVE CALIFORNIA.

FIRST AMERICAN RESIDENTS IN SAN FRANCISCO.

1835 .- William A. Richardson moved from Saucelito to Yerba Buena (San Francisco). opened a store, and began trad- ing in hides and tallow in the summer of 1835.

Previous to the location of Richardson and Leese, the only inhabitants of the pueblo and mission at Yerba Buena were Spaniards, Mexicans and Indians.

EARLY IMMIGRATION SOCIETIES.

We have mentioned a few of the early pioneers so as to give an idea of the extent and kind of settlers up to about 1840, at which timne numerous companies of settlers arrived, and we shall now only mention those of the most importance, and who took an active part in political affairs.

FIRST SAW-MILL ERECTED.

1833 .- Isaac Graham came from Hardin County, Kentucky, to California in 1833. He settled near Monterey, and his name is intimately associated with Santa Cruz and vicinity.

It is said that he erected on the San Lorenzo, somewhere in the neighborhood of where the powder works now are, the first saw-mill in California.

State to escape the consequences of some offense he had com- mitted.

Graham was a brave and adventurous man, a thorough fron- tiersman, at home with his rifle in his hand, and this had become known to the native officials in Monterey.

INDEPENDENCE OF MEXICO CONTEMPLATED.

His first care seems to have been to disable that little force of foreigners, and to put it out of their power to punish his breach of faith.

GENERAL ARREST OF FOREIGNERS.

"PIONEER FARM, HOME OF DANIEL SPANGLER, NEAR KINGS RIVER, TULARE CO. CAL.

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CAPTURE AND IMPRISONMENT OF SETTLERS.

He was however hurried to Monterey and placed in confine- ment, as also were other foreigners, arrested on that same night.

What followed is best told in a memorial which these same prisoners afterwards addressed to the Government of the United States, asking that Mexico be required to restore their property, and compensate them for their injuries and lost time.

We quote from an unpublished manuscript, which Rev. S. H. Willey obtained in Monterey in 1849, and furnished for publication in Elliott's History of Monterey.

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History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches, Part 6

Author: W.W. Elliott & Co Publication date: 1883 Publisher: San Francisco, Cal., W.W. Elliott & co. Number of Pages: 322

Author: W.W. Elliott & Co
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: San Francisco, Cal., W.W. Elliott & co.
Number of Pages: 322