USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 9
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50
UNLIMITED POWER EXERCISED BY ALCALDES.
they by the pure water and abundance of fish to which he had directed them. The stream will ever live, in history, as the Truekee River.
CONSTRUCTION OF VESSELS.
1845 .- William Hardy eame ashore from a whale-ship in the latter part of the year 1845. He first went to work as a carpenter for Thomas O. Larkin, in Monterey. He had not been employed in this way long before Roselean and Sansevain sent over to Monterey for carpenters to come to Santa Cruz and build a schooner. Mr. Hardy came, among others, and they went to work on the vessel. The vessel was completed in 1846, and was ealled the Santa Cruz, and sailed to the Sandwich Islands to be eoppered. She returned, and was lost at sea.
THE FIRST GRINDSTONES.
Mr. W. C. Moon settled at " Moon's Ranch," in Tehama County, in 1845, and with him a noted hunter and Indian fighter by the name of Merritt. They, with Peter Lassen, made a large eanoe-load of grindstones, on Stony Creek, in Colusa County, in 1845, and packed them on mules over twenty miles to the river. They sold a few at Sutter's Fort, and peddled the rest out all round the Bay of San 'Franeisco. When the canoe left Sacramento it was laden to within six inches of the top. As they proceeded from point to point the canoe became lighter, of course; but, at first, it seemed any- thing but safe, even for inland navigation.
THE CELEBRATED ALCALDE.
In the year 1845 Mr. William Blackburn eame to Santa Cruz. He came over the plains from Independenee, Missouri, and arrived here in October. He was a native of Virginia, born in 1814. He came over the country in company with Jacob R. Snyder, George McDougal and Harvey Speel.
They stopped together on the Zyante and went to making shingles. William Blackburn was a eabinet-maker by trade, and in the year 1844 worked at that business in New Orleans. But men arriving in California, of course, took hold of any business that would pay. So these men seem to have been still engaged in lumbering and shingle-making when the Bear flag went up in Sonoma.
When the Bear Flag Battalion eame marehing down towards Monterey, early in July, 1846, William Blackburn and his as- sociates joined it. Just now, too, the United States flag went up in Monterey, and the battalion went south to see that its authority was acknowledged. In due time Blackburn returned to Santa Cruz and went into the merehandizing business, estab- lishing himself in the old adobe building fronting on the upper plaza.
In the year 1847 he was appointed alealde by Governor Mason, and for a year or two dispensed justice in a way pecu- liarly his own, as some of the old records of his court will show.
BLACKBURN AS ALCALDE.
Many eurious illustrations of it could be given, but we will instanee one or two. Many enlarged stories have been told of Judge Blackburn, but these here mentioned are taken from the reeords, or from living witnesses' statements.
The alealde records in the County Clerk's office of Santa Cruz of date of August 14, 1847, show that on that day a jury tried Pedro Gomez for the murder of his wife, Barbara Gomez, and found him guilty.
Sentence of the Court: " That the prisoner be conducted back to prison, there to remain until Monday, the 16th of August (two days only), and then be taken out and shot."
"August 17. Sentence carried into effeet on the 16th ac- eordingly. W. BLACKBURN, Alealde."
Pretty summary justice that ! It should, perhaps, be stated that, according to law, Judge Blackburn ought to have reported the trial of this criminal to the higher Court in Monterey, and have had the action of his Court sanetioned, before the execu- tion. For some reason he did not do this, but had the criminal shot, and then reported both the trial and execution to head- quarters !
This did not quite suit Governor Mason's ideas of propriety, even in that lawless time, and some pretty sharp correspond- ence followed between the Governor and Judge Blackburn. This exaet course of procedure does not seem to have been re- peated !
A TOUCHING SCENE.
But there was a sequence, on the 21st of August, before the Court, that is touching, indeed. Josepha Gomez and Balinda Gomez, orphan children of a murdered father and murdered mother, were brought into Court-two little girls-to be dis- posed of by the Court.
The Court gave Balinda, eleven years old, to Jaeinto Castro " to raise " until she was twenty-one years of age, unless she was sooner married; the said Jaeinto Castro obligating himself to give her a good education, and three eows and calves at her marriage, or when she arrives of age.
The Court gave Josepha, nine years old, to Alexander Rod- eriguez, with some similar provision for her education and eare. But it is a sorry feeling that comes over us as we seem to see these poor little orphan girls parted there to go among stran- gers. It is hoped their lives have been less a grief than their childhood.
SERVED HIM RIGHT.
But in Court, still further, November 27, 1847, the ease of A. Roderiguez rs. one C -; plaintiff sued defendant, a boy, for shearing his horse's mane and tail off. It was proved that the defendant did the shearing.
An eye-witness of the trial says that when it eame to the matter of the sentence, Judge Blackburn looked very grave, and his eyes twinkled a good deal, and he turned to his law
51
SCENES AND ACTS OF THE EARLY COURTS.
book, and examined it here and there, as if looking up author- ities touching a very important and perplexing case. All at once he shut up his book, sat back in his chair, and, speaking with a solemn tone, said :
" I find no law in any of the statutes applicable to this case, except in the laws of Moses-'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' Let the prisoner be taken out in front of this office and there be sheared close."
The sentence was literally carried into effect, to the great satisfaction and amusement of the native inhabitants, who expressed their approval by saying, "It served him right."
BLACKBURN'S CAREER.
In the year 1845 he crossed the plains from Independence, Missouri, to California, in the company of Jacob R. Snyder, George Williams, George MeDougal and Henry Speel, all being leading men in the company. They arrived in this county in October of that year, and settled on the Zyante, where Black- buru, Snyder and McDougal engaged in the shingle business. Speel left the party at Fort Hall for Oregon, but arrived in California in 1846.
Blackburn, with all of these fellow-travelers, was in Fre- mont's battalion, under the Bear flag, Blackburn being First Lieutenant of Artillery, Company F-Captain McLane. At the battle of Buenaventura, Lieutenant Blackburn fired the first gun, loading and handling it. During that campaign Snyder was the Quartermaster. They continued in the service till the treaty of Couenga, when they returned to Santa Cruz as their home, Blackburn opening a store on the old plaza, which was also an open hotel, for no white man was ever asked pay for supper or lodging; but anything there was in the house was at the service of the guest; open-handed hospitality being the character of host and people in those primitive times, here as elsewhere, throughout California. MeDougal settled in Gilroy.
BLACKBURN AS JUDGE.
During those stormy periods of anarchy and lawlessness he performed the duties of the office to the entire satisfaction of all; and although his decisions cover points of all the varied questions of jurisprudence, we believe none have ever yet been reversed by any higher Court. His pretensions were not based on Coke or Littleton, but on common sense and justice. The records of his Court are as amusing as the jokes of "Puneh."
Blackburn, as Judge, was always anxious that the law and justice should be fully and quickly vindicated, and, after passing sentence, would give no delay to its execution; for, although it was the rule for his decisions to be sent to the Gov- ernor for approval, they were generally sent after the execu- tion, so that there should be no chance for a delay of justice. Although that might seem to be summary proceeding, yet it met the approval of the people over whom he governed, but at times was the cause of some sharp and terse correspond- ence between himself and his superiors.
In 1848 he resigned his office to go to the gold region. He returned to Santa Cruz in 1849, and was appointed a Justice of the Peace under the Territorial Government.
BLACKBURN'S FARMING PROFITABLE.
In 1851 he settled on his homestead in Santa Cruz, and com- meneed farming in company with his brother, Daniel Black- burn, and they planted the bottom with potatoes, and such was the enormous yield of the whole bottom that at thirteen cents per pound, the then price of potatoes, the yield was nearly $100,000; and for several years the profits of potato raising were enormous. Where the house now stands four acres yielded $1,200 worth of potatoes to the acre; they were early, and brought 12} cents per pound. Next ycar thirteen acres were rented to Thomas Weeks at $100 per acre, full payment in advance.
BLACKBURN'S PREMIUM POTATOES.
From this place the Judge sent samples of potatoes of four pounds weight (which was a general average), to the Crystal Palace Fair at New York, and received a premium for the finest potatoes ever known. From here also was derived the fame which Santa Cruz now holds of producing fine potatoes. In 1848 Judge Blackburn built a vessel, a schooner of about fifty tons burden, called the Zach Taylor, and Captain Vin- cent commanded it. When Monterey ceased to be the head- quarters of the Pacific, the vessel was run on the Sacramento River. He was also concerned in building the first saw-mill up the Blackburn Gulch.
He was considered a man of enterprise and improvement, and we find him from his start towards the Pacific to have been a man of note, first as one of the leaders in the train with which he journeyed; again a commander and soldier in the first war towards the generation of a Pacific Government; then, as a jurist, his history is recorded in the archives of the country ; finally as an agriculturist, his mark was made and is on record in the proceedings of the Crystal Palace World's Fair, New York, which was also probably the first visible knowledge demonstrating to the East the capabilities of California to raise her own food.
FIRST PROTESTANT WORSHIP.
1846 .- Mr. A. A. Hecox appears to have commenced the first Protestant public worship in California. He was an authorized Christian minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Worship was first held at the house of John D. Green, in August, 1847, and after that in the house of J. G. T. Dunleavy.
Mr. Hecox thinks he preached the first Protestant sermon in California at the funeral of a Miss Hitchcock, who died at San Jose, about December, 1846 .* Feeble in body and leaning upon a staff he made his way to the house of mourning, where he found a few of the relatives of the deceased, who had assem- bled to bid farewell to their departed sister, who had fallen far,
*See Elliott's History of Santa Cruz County.
52
ACTIVE LIFE OF EARLY PIONEER SETTLERS.
far from home. His remarks were based upon the following words: " Remember how short my time is."
The first Methodist class was formed in the latter part of Feb- ruary, 1848, and the Rev. E. Anthony elected preacher, and Mr. Hecox appointed in charge of the work in San Jose.
The gold discovery, however, drew off the people very sud- denly in the latter part of the year, and public worship was practically suspended for the time.
Alfred Baldwin came in 1846. When a boy, living in Delaware County, New York, he got very much interested in this Pacific region through reading Lewis and Clark's jour- nal.
The desire to see this country that was said to have no cold winters, grew upon him. Being in St. Louis in 1845, when a party was starting overland to Oregon, he embraced the oppor- tunity and joined it.
They reached their destination in the fall of 1845. Mr. Bald- win came to San Francisco early in 1846. He very soon- enlisted under Purser James H. Watmough, purser of the sloop of war Portsmouth, with others, to see that there was no resist- ance to the flag of the United States, which had then just been raised. They were stationed at San Jose.
THE SAN JOAQUIN.
While they were there news came down from the Mission San Jose, that Indians from the San Joaquin neighborhood were making their usual raids and stealing all the horses they could lay hands on.
This was an old habit of the Indians, and frontier ranchos, like Marsh's or Livermore's, could not keep horses.
The spirit of the new flag did not propose to submit to these depredations. So, very promptly, Captain Watmough organ- ized a party to go and look after these matters. It consisted of some twenty-five or thirty men.
They went to the Indians' lurking place on the Stanislaus River, and there camped for the night. By and by, in the darkness, a band of horses came rushing on them.
The Indians had stolen them from around the mission, as before remarked, and now as they thought they were driving them into their own secure retreat, they were driving them into the hands of our encamped force. The horses were secured and brought back, but the Indians themselves succeeded in get- ting away into the willows and thickets.
Returning to San Jose, the party was ordered at once to go south in a vessel named Sterling to help take care of things there. Getting a little below Monterey, they met the Vandalia coming up with orders that they should return to Monterey, and there fit out an expedition and proceed, in force, down the coast by land. Back to Monterey they came. Men were sent to the Sacramento Valley to get horses to mount the expedition. Mr. Baldwin, meanwhile, worked at his trade in Monterey, get- ting the harnesses ready for the hauling of the cannon.
STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN RULE.
In the month of November, 1846, the requisite number of horses having been obtained, they were about to be driven across .
the Salinas plain toward Monterey.
But just here, Pio Pico, who had heard of this coming band of horses, confronts them with a force of Californians.
Before he gets the horses, however, the men in charge of them turn them aside to a rancho in the hills, and on the next day go out to disperse the opposing California forces.
The battle of the Salinas resulted, and it went very hard with our few men. It is said to have been the only battle during the struggle for American rule in California that did go hard with our forces. The record is that Captain Foster, the officer in command, was killed, and eleven of his men. But the horses were not captured. That night their faithful Indian guide, " Tom," broke through and carried the news to Monterey. The entire force there marched immediately over to the Salinas, but no enemy was any longer to be found. The horses were obtained, the expedition was gotten ready, and moved down the country. Of course in December and onward they encoun- tered the rainy season, and the storms in the St. Inez Mount- ains were terrible; but they got through at last, and accom- plished the object of their equipment.
WORDS OF A PIONEER.
Hon. Elam Brown, who resides at Lafayette, Contra Costa County, was prominent and active in aiding to establish the rule of the Americans. He was a member of the conven- tion that formed the Constitution at Monterey.
Mr. Brown participated in the first two sessions of the Legis- lature. What he lacked in ability and knowledge, he in a great measure made up in industry and economy.
Mr Brown tells us : "I was eighty-three years old the 10th day of last June. I labor under the same embarrassment that the hunter did who could not shoot a duck; for when he took aim at one, another would put its head in the way. I find inuch less difficulty in collecting than in selecting incidents. My own and Mr Nathaniel Jones' families were the first Ameri- eans that settled within the present bounds of this, Contra Costa, County. There were no white families nearer than San José Mission. I settled on my present farm in 1848, and I expect to remain on it the balance of my time on earth." *
Mr. Brown disclaims any praise over the tens of thousands of others who have equally participated and aided in the great work of reclaiming the vast waste of wilderness, that seventy- six years ago was almost entirely occupied by the native Indians and wild beasts, but now covered over with organized States, counties, cities, towns and farms, with all the comforts and conveniences of art and science that civilization confers. Being an eye-witness in the front line of a long march, the picture is plain. The work is large to those who have not seen
*Elliott's History of Contra Costa County.
FRONT VIEW OF RESIDENCE.
" MUSSEL SLOUGH"THOROUGHBRED STOCK FARM, PROPERTY OF A. J. SCOGGINS, LEMOORE, TULARE CO, CAL.
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53
BEAR FLAG WAR INAUGURATED.
the beginning and end of the whole extraordinary advance of settlement and civilization in America from the year 180+ to 1880.
FIRST CAST PLOW.
1846-Elihu Anthony came to California in 1846, from Indi- ana. He stopped first in San Jose, but moved with his family to Santa Cruz in January, 1848.
Mr. Anthony's foundry made the first cast-iron plows ever constructed in California. Patterns were obtained from the East in 1848, and the castings made and attached to the proper wood-work. Previous to this they had been imported and sold at high figures. The modern plow was at this time sup- planting the old Mexican atfair, illustrated and described else- where.
FIRST MINING PICK.
At this same foundry were made, in the spring of 1848, the first picks for mining purposes. As soon as the report of gold discovery was known in Santa Cruz, Anthony went to manu- facturing picks for miners' use. He made seven and a half «lozen. They were light and weighed only about three pounds cach.
Thomas Fallon, now of San Jose, took them with his family in an ox-team across the mountains to the Sutter mines, or mill, to dispose of them. He sold nearly all of them at three ounces of gold each; but the last of the lot brought only two ounces each, as by this time other parties had packed in a lot from Oregon.
These were some of the men who were at the head of affairs here in that stirring transition period between the two flags, the Mexican and that of the United States, and the introdue- tion of California as a State of the American Union. This brings us to what is known as the Bear Flag War.
FIRST WHITE WOMAN ARRIVED.
Mrs. Mary A. Kelsey crossed the plains at the age of eigh- teen years. She left Jasper County, Missouri, with her hus- band, Benjamin Kelsey, in the spring of 1841. She was the only woman in that party, which consisted of thirty-three persons, of which General Bidwell and others were members, as mentioned on page 48. She and her husband remained at Sutter's Fort until 1843. They then went to Oregon and resided in Willamette Valley until 1844. Getting dissatisfied with that locality they moved to Napa, and Kelsey was pres- ent at the capture of Sonora in 1846. In 1851 they again went to Oregon and remained until 1555, and then again returned to California. In 1856 they pulled out for Texas, which State they reached in 1858, and remained there several years. Fin- ally they decided that no place was like California, and returned and located near Stockton.
We have now given the names of some of the leading arri- vals previous to the discovery of gold, and leading incidents in their active lives.
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Bear Flag War.
DURING the year 1846, the American settlers, many of whom had married Spanish ladies, learned that it was the intention of General Castro, then Governor of California, to take measures for the expulsion of the foreign element, and more especially of the Americans. Lient. John C. Fremont of the United States Topographical engineers, was then camped at the north end of the Buttes, being on his way to Oregon. The settlers sent a deputation to him, asking him to remain and give them the protection of his presence. He was afraid of a court-martial : but they argued with him that if he would take back to Wash- ington his broken Lieutenant's commission in one hand and California in the other, he would be the greatest man in the mation. The bait was a tempting one. Fremont hesitated : but they kept alluring him nearer to the scene of action. On the 9th of June, 1846, there were some thirteen settlers in his camp at the mouth of the Feather River, when William Knight, who had arrived in the country from Missouri in IS+1, and had mar- ried a Spanish lady, came and informed them that Lieutenant Arci had passed his place-now Knight's Landing-that morn- ing, going south, with a band of horses, to be used against the Americans in California.
THE SETTLERS ORGANIZE.
The settlers organized a company with Ezekiel Merritt, the oldest man among them, as captain, and gave chase to Arci. They overtook him on the Cosumne River, and captured him and his horses. The Rubicon was now passed, and there was nothing to do but to go ahead. When they got back to Fre- mont's camp they found other settlers there, and on consulta- tion it was determined to capture Sonoma, the headquarters of General M. G. Vallejo, the military commander of Northern California. They gathered strength as they marched along, and when they got to John Grigsby's place in Napa Valley, they numbered thirty-three men. Here the company was reor- ganized and addressed by Dr. Robert Semple, afterwards Presi- dent of the Constitutional Convention. We give the account of the capture in General Vallejo's own words, at the Centen- nial exercises held at Santa Rosa, July 4, 1876.
" I have now to say something of the epoch which inaugu- rated a new era for this country. A little before dawn on June 14, 1846, a party of hunters and trappers, with some foreign settlers, under command of Captain Merritt, Doctor Semple, and William B. Ide, surrounded my residence at Sonoma, and with- out firing a shot, made prisoners of myself, then commander of the northern frontier, of Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Prudon, Captain Salvador Vallejo, and Jacob P. Lecse. I should here state that down to October, 1845, I had maintained at my own expense a respectable garrison at Sonoma, which often, in union with the settlers, did good service in campaigns against the Indians: but at last, tired of spending money which the
54
BEAR FLAG WAR INAUGURATED.
Mexican Government never refunded, I disbanded the force. and most of the soldiers who had constituted it left Sonoma, Thus in June, 1846, the plaza was entirely unprotected, although there were ten pieces of artillery, with other arms and munitions of war. The parties who unfurled the Bear Flag were well aware that Sonoma was without defense, and lost no time in taking advantage of this fact, and carrying out their plans.
" Years before, I had urgently represented to the Government of Mexico the necessity of stationing a sufficient force on the frontier, else Sonoma would be lost, which would be equivalent to leaving the rest of the country an easy prey to the invader. What think you, my friends, were the instructions sent me in reply to my repeated demands for means to fortify the country ? These instructions were that I should at once force the emi- grants to recross the Sierra Nevada, and depart from the territory of the Republic. To say nothing of the inhumanity of these orders, their execution was physically impossible- first, because the immigrants came in autumn, when snow covered the Sierras so quickly as to make a return impracti- cable.
"Under the circumstances, not only I, but Command- ante General Castro, resolved to provide the immigrants with letters of security, that they might remain temporarily in the country. We always made a show of authority, but well con- vinced all the time that we had no power to resist the invasion which was coming upon us. With the frankness of a soldier I can assure you that the American immigrants never had cause to complain of the treatment they received at the hands of either authorities or citizens. They carried us as prisoners to Sacramento, and kept us in a calaboosc for sixty days or more, until the authority of the United States made itself respected, and the honorable and humane Commodore Stockton returned us to our hearths."
FIRST MOVEMENT FOR INDEPENDENCE.
On the seizure of their prisoners the revolutionists at once took steps to appoint a Captain, who was found in the person of John Grigsby, for Ezekiel Merritt wished not to retain the permanent command. A meeting was then called at the bar- racks, situated at the northeast corner of the plaza, under the presidency of William B. Ide, Dr. Robert Semple being Secre- tary.
At this conference Semple urged the independence of the country, stating that having once commenced they must proceed, for to turn back was certain death. Before the disso- lution of the convention, however, rumors were rife that secret emissaries were being dispatched to the Mexican rancheros, to inform them of the recent occurrences, therefore to prevent any attempt at a rescue, it was deemed best to transfer their prisoners to Sutter's Fort, where the danger of such would be less.
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