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George Hyde and a sapient council. The population is chiefly composed of enterprising Americans, sturdy pioneers, with a due admixture of backwoodsmen and seafarers, numerous artisans, and a sprinkling of traders and professional men-all stanch townsmen, figuring for beach lots at prices ranging as high as $600, and for local offices. There are rival districts struggling for supremacy, and two zealous weekly

newspapers.

Less imposing are the immediate surroundings; for the town spreads out in a straggling crescent along the slope of the Clay-street hill, bordered by the converging inclines of Broadway and California streets on the north and south respectively. A thin coating of grass and melancholy shrubs covers the sandy surface between and around, with here and there patches of dwarfed oaks, old and decrepit, bending before the sweeping west wind. The monotony incident to Spanish and Mexican towns, however, with their low and bare adobe houses and sluggish population, is here relieved by the large proportion of compact wooden buildings in northern European style, and the greater activity of the dwellers. The beach, hollowed by the shallow Yerba Buena Cove, on which fronts the present Montgomery street, presents quite an animated scene for these sleepy shores, with its bales of merchandise strewn about, and piled-up boxes and barrels, its bustling or lounging frequenters, and its three projecting wharves; while a short distance off lie scattered a few craft, including one or two ocean-going vessels. Farther away, fringed by the fading hills of Contra Costa, rises the isle of Yerba Buena, for which some wild goats shortly provide the new name of Goat Island. On its eastern side is a half-ruined ranchería, still braving the encroachments of time and culture.

"There were 160 frame buildings and only 35 adobe houses, although the latter were more conspicuous by their length and brightness. 'At California, Clay, and Broadway streets.

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In the rear of the town, which extends only be'tween California and Vallejo streets to Powell on the west, from the direction of the Lone Mountain and beyond, comes a spur of the Coast Range, tipped by the Papas Peaks. To either side diverges a trail, one toward the inlet of the bay, where is the presidio enclosure, with its low adobe buildings, and to which the new American occupants have added frame houses, and earthworks with ordnance superior to the blatant muzzles of yore. Two miles to the south, beyond the sand hills, lies Mission Dolores, its dilapidated walls marked by darkened tile roofs, scantily relieved by clumps of trees and shrubs. The cheerless stone fences now enclose winter's verdure, and beyond the eddying creek, which flows through the adjoining fields, the sandy waste expands into inviting pasture, partly covered by the Rincon farm and government

reserve.8

The opposite shores of the bay present a most beautiful park-like expanse, the native lawn, brilliant with flowers, and dotted by eastward-bending oaks, watered by the creeks of Alameda, San Lorenzo, San Leandro, and their tributaries, and enclosed by the spurs of the Diablo mountains. It had early attracted settlers, whose grants now cover the entire ground. The first to occupy there was the Mission San José, famed for its orchards and vineyards, and now counting among its tenants and settlers James F. Reed, Perry Morrison, Earl Marshall, and John M. Horner. 10 Below are the ranchos of Agua Caliente and Los Tularcitos; and above, Potrero de los Cerritos;" while behind, among encircling hills, is the valley of San José, the pathway to the Sacramento, and through which runs

* Padre P. Santillan, who afterward became conspicuous as a claimant to the mission ground, was in charge at Dolores. The Rancho Punta de Lobos

of B. Diaz extended to the north-west.

"In charge of Padre Real. The claim of Alvarado and Pico to the soil was later rejected.

10 The latter a Mormon, living with his wife at the present Washington Corners, and subsequently prominent.

The former two square leagues in extent, and transferred by A. Suñol to F. Higuera; the latter three leagues, and held by A. Alviso and T. Pacheco.

the upper Alameda. Here lives the venturesome English sailor, Robert Livermore, by whose name the nook is becoming known, and whose rapidly increasing possessions embrace stock-ranges, wheat-fields, vineyards, and orchards, with even a rude grist-mill.12 Adjoining him are the ranchos Valle de San José of J. and A. Bernal, and Suñol and San Ramon of J. M. Amador, also known by his name. Northward, along the bay, lies the Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda of José Jesus Vallejo; the San Lorenzo of G. Castro and F. Soto; the San Leandro of J. J. Estudillo; the Sobrante of J. I. Castro; and in the hills and along the shore, covering the present Oakland and Alameda, the San Antonio of Luis M. Peralta and his sons. 13

Similar to the Alameda Valley, and formed by the rear of the same range, enclosing the towering Monte del Diablo, lies the vale of Contra Costa, watered by several creeks, among them the San Pablo and San Ramon, or Walnut, and extending into the marshes of the San Joaquin. Here also the most desirable tracts are covered by grants, notably the San Pablo tract of F. Castro; El Pinole of Ignacio Martinez, with vineyards and orchards; the Acalanes of C. Valencia, on which are now settled Elam Brown, justice of the peace, and Nat. Jones; the Palos Colorados of J. Moraga; the Monte del Diablo of S. Pacheco; the Médanos belonging to the Mesa family; and the Méganos of Dr John Marsh, the said doctor being a kind of crank from Harvard college,

12 His neighbor on Rancho Los Pozitos, of two square leagues, was José Noriega; and west and south in the valley extended Rancho Valle de San José, 48,000 acres, Santa Rita, 9,000 acres, belonging to J. D. Pacheco, the San Ramon rancho of Amador, four square leagues, and Cañada de los Vaqueros of Livermore. Both Colton, Three Years, 266, and Taylor, El Dorado, i. 73, refer to the spot as Livermore Pass, leading from San José town to the valley of the Sacramento.

13 D. Peralta received the Berkeley part, V. the Oakland, M. the East Oakland and Alameda, and I. the south-east. The grant covered five leagues. The extent of the Alameda, San Lorenzo, and San Leandro grants was in square leagues respectively about four, seven, and one; Sobrante was eleven leagues.

By purchase in 1847, the latter owning one tenth of the three-quarter

league.

SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.

11

who settled here in 1837,15 in an adobe hut, and achieved distinction as a misanthrope and miser, sympathetic with the spirit at whose mountain's feet he crouched.

The upper part of the San Joaquin Valley had so far been shunned by fixed settlers, owing to Indian hostility toward the Spanish race. With others the aborigines agreed better; and gaining their favor through the mediation of the influential Sutter, the German Charles M. Weber had located himself on French Camp rancho, which he sought to develop by introducing colonists. In this he had so far met with little success; but his farm prospering, and his employés increasing, he laid out the town of Tuleburg, soon to rise into prominence under the new name of Stockton.16 He foresaw the importance of the place as a station on the road to the Sacramento, and as the gateway to the San Joaquin, on which a settlement had been formed in 1846, as far up as the Stanislaus, by a party of Mormons. On the north bank of this tributary, a mile and a half from the San Joaquin, the migratory saints founded New Hope, or Stanislaus, which in April 1847 boasted ten or twelve colonists and several houses. Shortly afterward a summons

15 He bought it from J. Noriega, and called it the Pulpunes; extent, three leagues by four. The San Pablo and Pinole covered four leagues each, the Palos Colorados three leagues, the Monte del Diablo, on which Pacheco had some 5,000 head of cattle, four leagues. The aggressive Indians had disturbed several settlers, killing F. Briones, driving away Wm Welch, who settled in 1832, and the Romero brothers. Brown settled in 1847, and began to ship lumber to San Francisco. There were also the grants of Las Juntas of Wm Welch, three square leagues; Arroyo de las Nueces of J. S. Pacheco and Cañada del Hambre of T. Soto, the two latter two square leagues each.

16

Among the residents were B. K. Thompson, Eli Randall, Jos. Buzzell, Andrew Baker, James Sirey, H. F. Fanning, George Frazer, W. H. Fairchild, James McKee, Pyle, and many Mexicans and servants of Weber. See further in Tinkham's Hist. Stockton; San Joaquin Co. Hist.; Cal. Star, May 13, 1848, etc. Taylor reports two log cabins on the site in 1847, those of Buzzell and Sirey. Nic. Gann's wife, while halting in Oct. 1847, gave birth to a son, William. The name French Camp came from the trappers who frequently camped here. T. Lindsay, while in charge in 1845, was killed by Indian raiders. The war of 1847 had caused an exodus of proposed settlers.

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