29

31

32

11

189

34

River, his chief stock-range, and also embracing une plantations.30 On the east side of this region lies the tract of Nicolaus Altgeier, and along the north of Bear River, Sebastian Keyser and the fami, ot William Johnson have located themselves; opposite are two Frenchmen, Theodore Sicard and Claude Chanon. The south bank of the Yuba is occupied by Michael C. Nye, John Smith, and George Patterson.33 Facing them, along Feather River, Theodore Cordua had settled in 1842, and established a trading post, owning some 12,000 head of stock. Charles Roether had in 1845 located himself on Honcut Creek, and near him are now Edward A. Farwell and Thomas Fallon.35 The lands of Samuel Neal and David Dutton are on Butte Creek; William Northgrave's place is on Little Butte; W. Dickey, Sanders, and Yates had in 1845 taken up the tract on Chico Creek which John Bidwell is at this time entering upon.36 Peter Lassen, the famous Danish trapper, had settled on Deer Creek, and erected a mill and smithy,37 granting a league to Daniel Sill, Sen. Moon's rancho is held by W. C. Moon and Merritt. A. G. Toomes occupies a tract north of the creek which bears his

29 A name applied by Sutter from the feather ornaments of the natives. 30 It was founded in 1841, and managed successively by Bidwell, Benitz, S. J. Hensley, and Kanaka Jim. It had 5,000 head of cattle and 1,200 horses. 31 Who settled on the present site of Nicolaus. North of Hock Farm, C. W. Flügge had obtained a grant which was transferred to Consul Larkin.

32 On the five-league rancho given to P. Gutierrez, deceased, by Sutter, who made several grants in the valley, by authority. They bought land and cattle and divided.

33 Smith, who came first, in 1845, sold a part of his tract to Patterson. The first two had nearly 2,000 head of stock.

34 This rancho, on the site of the present Marysville, he called New Mecklenburg, in honor of his native German state. Chas Covillaud was manager; trade relations were had with San Francisco.

35 The former on a grant claimed by Huber; the two latter on Farwell's rancho.

36 Northgrave was a settler on the tract claimed by S. J. Hensley, but disallowed afterward. James W. Marshall had abandoned his holding on the same tract. The confirmed grants were Fernandez, 4 leagues; Arroyo Chico of Bidwell, 5 leagues; Agua Fria of Pratt, 6 leagues; Llano Seco of Parrott, 4 leagues; Bosquejo of Lassen, 5 leagues; Boga of Larkin, 5 leagues; Esquon of Neal, 5 leagues. The claims of Cambuston, Huber, Hensley, Nye, and others were rejected.

37 Bidwell's Cal. 1841-8, MS., 231-2.

ALONG THE SACRAMENTO.

17

name, and above, on Antelope Creek, lives Job F. Dve, below P. B. Reading, who ranks as the most or hern settler in the valley, on Cottonwood Creek,38 one of the numerous tributaries here fed by the adjacent snow-crowned summits dominated by the majestic Shasta.

Descending along the west bank of the Sacramento, we encounter the rancho of William B. Ide, of Bear-flag fame; below him, on Elder Creek, is William C. Chard, and R. H. Thomes on the creek named after him.40 On Stony Creek, whence Sutter obtains grindstones,"1 live Granville P. Swift, Franklin Sears, and Bryant; below them John S. Williams has lately settled with his wife, the first white woman in this region."2 Watt Anderson is found on Sycamore Slough, and on the north side of Cache Creek the family of William Gordon.43 Eastward lies the rancho of William Knight," and below him, facing the mouth of Feather River, that of Thomas M. Hardy." In a hut of tule, facing the Sutter's-fort grant, lives John Schwartz, a reticent builder of airy castles upon his broad domain, and of whom it is said that, having lost his own language, he never learned another. A northern slice of his land he sold to James McDowell and family. On Putah Creek, John R. Wolfskill had, since 1842, occupied a four-league grant. Adjoining, on Ulattis

46

38 One Julian occupied it for him in 1845, and he himself settled there in 1847.

39 Just below the present Red Bluff, a tract bought by him from Josiah Belden. These northern grants averaged five leagues each.

40 He built the first dwelling in the county, on the site of Tehama

41 Cut by Moon, Merritt, and Lassen.

42 Of Colusa county, daughter of Jos. Gordon. He located himself two miles south of Princeton, on the Larkin children's grant, with 800 head of cattle, on shares with Larkin. M. Diaz' claim to 11 leagues was rejected.

43 Who built the first dwelling in Yolo county, in 1842, on Quesisosi grant. His son-in-law, Nathan Coombs, was probably the first white bridegroom in the Sacramento Valley. Married by Sutter in 1844. His son William was the first white child of Yolo county. Coombs soon moved to Napa Valley. "Who settled at the present Knight's Landing.

45 An Englishman, hostile to Americans.

46 McDowell built a log house at the present Washington, and was, in 1847, presented with the first white girl of Ÿolo county. He paid Schwartz 12 cents an acre for 600 acres.

HIST. CAL., VOL. VI. 2

Creek, extends the grant of Vaca and Peña, and at its mouth are Feltis Miller J D. Hoppe, and Daniel K. Berry.

Hence, down the Sacramento for four leagues stretches the Ulpinos grant of John Bidwell, which he sought to improve by sending, in 1846, a party of immigrants to transform the lonely house then standing there into a town. After a few months' suffering from hunger and hardships, the party abandoned a site for which the Indian name of Halo Chemuck, 'nothing to eat,' was for a time appropriately retained. Charles D. Hoppe bought a fourth of the tract in 1847. Equally unsuccessful was the contemporaneous effort of L. W. Hastings, a Mormon agent, to found the town of Montezuma, fifteen miles below, at the junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin in Suisun Bay. His co-religionists objected to the site as devoid of timber; yet he remained hopeful, and ordered a windmill and ferry-boat to increase the attractions of his solitary house.*

48

These efforts at city building indicate how widely appreciated was the importance of a town which should tap, not merely each section of the great valley, as at Sutter's Fort and Stockton, but the joint outlet of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. It was foreseen that hence would flow the main wealth of the country, although the metallic nature of the first current was little anticipated. The idea seems to have struck simultaneously Bidwell, Hastings, and Semple. The last named, with a judgment worthy of the towering editor of the Californian, selected the billowy slopes of the headland guarding the opening of this western Bosphorus, the strait of Carquines, the inner golden gate of San Francisco Bay. Indeed, the

47 The present town of Rio Vista lies just below the site. Another version has it that the three families settled there were carried away by the goldfever, and that 'halachummuck' was called out by Indians when they here killed a party of starving hunters.

48 Cal. Star, Oct. 23, 1847; Buffum's Four Months, 2o Here rose, later, e hamlet of Collinsville.

NAPA AND SONOMA VALLEYS.

19

superiority of the site for a metropolis is unequalled on the Pacific seaboard, and unsurpassed by any spot in the world, lying as it does at the junction of the valley outlet with the head of ocean navigation, with fine anchorage and land-locked harbor, easy ferriage across the bay, fine climate, smooth and slightly rising ground, with a magnificent view over bays and isles, and the lovely valley of the contra costa nestling at the foot of Mount Diablo. And Benicia, as it was finally called, prospered under the energetic management. Although less than a year old, it now boasted nearly a score of buildings, with two hundred lots sold, a serviceable ferry, and with prospects that, utterly eclipsing those of adjoining aspirants, were creating a flutter of alarm in the city at the Gate.49

Passing on the extreme right the Armijo rancho,50 and proceeding up the Napa Valley, now famed alike for its scenery and vineyards, we find a large number of settlers. Foremost among them is the veteran trapper, George Yount, who in 1836 built here the first American block-house of the country, as well as the first flour and saw mill, and extended warm hospitality to subsequent comers. North of him entered soon afterward J. B. Chiles and William Pope into the small valleys bearing their names, and E. T. Bale and John York. The Berreyesa brothers occupy their large valley across the range, on the headwaters of Putah Creek; and on the site of the present Napa City, just about to be laid out, stand the two houses of Cayetano Juarez and Nicolás Higuera, who had settled on this spot in 1840, followed by Salvador Vallejo, and later by Joel P. Walker and Nathan

51

19 Stephen Cooper was alcalde. For other names, see preceding volume, v. 672 et seq.

50 Properly in Suisun Valley, near the present Fairfield, where bordered also the grants of Suisun and Suscol, the latter claimed by Vallejo, but which claim was rejected. Mare Island was used as a stock-range by V. Castro, its grantee.

51 At the present St Helena and Calistoga, respectively. With Yount was C. Hopper; with Pope, Barnett; and with Chiles, Baldridge. Below extended the Chimiles grant of J. I. Berreyesa.

Coombs; ana by John Rose and J. C. Davis, who in 1846 built a schooner here, and were now erecting a mill for Vallejo.52 Northward, in the region round Clear Lake, Stone and Kelsey occupy a stock-range, and George Rock holds the Guenoc rancho.53

The similar and parallel valley of Sonoma, signifying 'of the moon,' is even more thickly occupied under the auspices of M. G. Vallejo, the potentate of this region and ranking foremost among Hispano-Californians. This town of Sonoma, founded as a presidio thirteen years before, near the dilapidated mission Solano, claims now a population of 260, under Alcalde Lilburn W. Boggs, with twoscore houses, among which the two-story adobe of the general is regarded as one of the most imposing in the country. The barrack is occupied by a company of New York volunteers under Captain Brackett, which adds greatly to the animation of the place. Several members of Vallejo's family occupy lands above and below on Sonoma Creek, as, for instance, Jacob P. Leese; westward on Petaluma Creek, Juan Miranda and family have settled; above are James Hudspeth, the large grant of the Carrillos, and the fertile ranchos of Mark West and John B. R. Cooper, the latter with mill and smithy. At Bodega, Stephen Smith had in 1846 established a saw-mill, worked by the first steam-engine in California, and obtained a vast grant,55 which embraced the former Russian settlement with its dismantled stockade fort. Edward M. McIntosh and James Dawson's widow hold the adjoining ranchos of Jonive and Pogolomi, the latter having planted a vineyard on the Estero Americano. Above on the

54

52 There were a number of other settlers, nearly four score, by this time, and two saw-mills and two flour-mills. Cal. Star, Jan. 22, April 1, 1848.

53 Of 21,000 acres. J. P. Leese and the Vallejos had stock, the latter claiming the Lupyomi tract of 16 leagues, which was rejected, and Rob F Ridley that of Collayomi of 8,000 acres, which was confirmed.

5 Mrs Carrillo's covering the present Santa Rosa, and Joaquin Carrillo's that of Sebastopol.

55 Of 35,000 acres.

the other from Erin.

Both men had been sailors, the former from Scotland,