Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 1 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 17

Permanent settlement of Mariposa county's Fresno territory was slow and tedious. With only a narrow fringe of placer mines, confronting a great expanse of arid plains in the center and on the west, and backed by an equally uninviting ruggedness along the Sierra slopes, it was deemed to have few attractions for the white settler. The Indian troubles tended to hold back settlers, and so the few were restricted to the northeastern placers, with a light sprinkling of stockmen and farmers elsewhere.

In connection with General Riley's visit to the placers, a reconnaissance of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys was made with a view of establishing military posts to defend the miners and settlers. From the character of the mining population and the nature of their occupations, Riley advised that unless a strong military force were maintained on "the frontier." it would be impossible to prevent the outrages upon the Indians, and these in turn avenged by murders of isolated parties of whites. He urged that a military post be speedily established in the Kings River neighborhood, because the new gold discoveries being made in this vicinity were attracting miners, while the rapidly increasing population of the northern placers was gradually forcing the Indian to the south to congregate on the waters of Lake Buena Vista in the Tulare country. The later Fort Miller was one result, and it was the only military protection afforded the entire valley "frontier" as far south as Fort Tejon.

The record of early settlements and events in the Fresno territory is scant. Up to 1856, it is officially a part of the archives of Mariposa County. Newspaper there was none until the Millerton Times in January, 1865. It lasted two and one-half months, and then there was a hiatus until April, 1870. Both were weekly apologies, which gave what little news they chose to gather and color in the presentation after it had been popularly threshed over during the week and was as stale as a last year's bird nest. What newspaper publicity may have been given was in faraway journals by volunteer correspondents when the mood took them to send them a few lines. The actors, who participated in the early events, have nearly all passed away, and the story is necessarily a patchwork of fugitive-recorded recollections of the pioneers and the traditions handed down through their descendants. These are not always reliable because the memory of man is at best treacherous.

This slow settlement-process was due to various natural causes. It was scattered because the first comers located in the mountain gulches and on streams where there was gold, and the farmer where there was soil and water. Moreover the population was of the floating class, with little thought of permanency in location. Besides, the territory was so isolated and so remote from the county seat that actually for years there were communities without the semblance of authoritative government, unless in the repressive representation by the military at the fort, and it having nothing to do with matters civil. No wonder that there were excesses and that human life was valued at so little in -those wild and woolly times. For years, there was unrest because of the Indians. The nearest populous stage points were Stockton, 140, and Visalia, 120 miles, by the routes traveled then. Yet Millerton was a lively enough mining village in 1853, during which and for later years it was at its zenith, but with some of its glory and life departed on the abandonment of the fort and the removal of the soldiers in September, 1856, not to be reoccupied until August, 1863, because of rumored activities in the valley during the Civil War by adherents of the southern cause.

EARLIEST TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENTS

The earliest settlement in the territory was of course Savage's trading post of 1850, above Leach's old store on the Fresno River, which was afterward part of the county's northern boundary line. Next was very likely Rootville, the mining camp on the San Joaquin on the later site of Millerton, antedating even Fort or Camp Barbour, temporary headquarters of the commissioners during a part of the Mariposa Indian War and succeeded by the permanent Fort Miller. The peace treaty was signed in the camp on April 29, 1851. Upon return from the starvation campaign against the Chowchillas before that date, Fort Miller was being built for the protection of the settlers. It was named for Captain Miller, its first garrison commander, but was not established until 1852, and Rootville and Fort Barbour changed names accordingly. There was a Fort Washington further down the river on the site of a vaquero corral of 1849, according to tradition: but this is little more than a tradition.

This fort was below Rootville at Gravelly Ford on the river, and was the location of Cassady & Lane's post, where Cassady was killed and a previous massacre of several persons had occurred in the series that led to the Mariposa Indian War. It was hurriedly thrown up as an earthwork defense in expectancy of hostilities and was located above the present Lane's (Yosemite) bridge and below Little Dry Creek on land afterward of the V. B. Cobb ranch. The school district there still bears the name of Fort Washington. Cassady was surprised and killed while beyond reach of succor in search of stray stock. Certain it is that Cassady & Lane had post and camp operating in January, 1851, and possibly before.

After peace on the treaty signing. Savage put up a second store in the summer of 1851 on the Fresno, moving in the winter further down the stream to Bishop's camp or fort, before which the Fresno reservation had been selected on the Fresno. That summer Coarse Gold Gulch was a bustling mining camp, and Texas Flat was booming, Rooney & Thornburg keeping a store there. Fine Gold Gulch was probably also in existence then. Another Indian war threatening in October, 1851, Coarse Gold was depopulated by the miners, save for a half dozen, including William Abbie, but before December they returned and C. P. Converse and T. C. Stallo opened a store one and one-half miles below Texas Flat in charge of Samuel H. P. Ross, nicknamed "Alphabetical" Ross, afterward district attorney of Merced County.

Asa Johnson came then, with three negroes and a wench, in the summer of 1852. He killed Thomas Larrabee and upon acquittal left the country. Stallo & Converse discontinued their store in the spring of 1852 and were succeeded by the Walker brothers, James N. and C. F., who continued until 1859. James was twice in the legislature in 1863 and 1871, and was sheriff and tax collector, elected in 1867 and in 1869.

In 1852 John Ledford and Geo. M. Carson erected a store at Fresno Crossing, but soon sold to J. L. Hunt, elected in 1856 as one of the first county supervisors and four times reelected between 1860 and 1865, and to I. R. Nichols, who sold to J. M. Roan, who did not qualify in 1856, wherefore Hunt's special election but who went to the legislature in 1858. In October, 1854, Jefferson M. Shannon and S. B. Coffee engaged at Coarse Gold in the hog business, making large profits in selling pork for three years at twenty-five cents a pound and more, to Chinese miners. In 1854 T. J. Payne had a store at Fine Gold in charge of J. S. Ashman and one Julius William Aldrich. Ashman was sheriff four times, elected in 1865, 1871 and 1875 and appointed in 1874. In 1856 T. J. Allen kept restaurant and bar at Roan's store on the Fresno, officiating also as justice of the peace and being a law unto himself in holding a trial before a jury of three for a civil debt of $350 when the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace was limited to $299.99. But almost anything "went" in those days.

Among some of the foremost at Millerton were in 1852-53: Dr. Lewis Leach, C. P. Converse, T. C. Stallo, Hugh Carlin, T. J. Allen, Hugh A. Carroll, L. G. Hughes, Ira Stroud, Charles A. Hart, first county judge and subsequent owner of the Millerton townsite and of the fort, which was his home until death. Dr. Du Gay, Henry Burrough., John McLeod, William Rousseau, besides others. In 1854 Ira McCray and George Rivercombe, first elected county treasurer, and again in 1859 and 1860, engaged in the hotel and livery business at Millerton, Rivercombe retiring early, leaving McCray to "coin money" over his bar, his gambling tables and his ferry directly opposite the court house entrance. In 1855 George Grierson, Otto Froelich and Gomer Evans located as general merchants, Grierson returning with family in May, 1868, to Denmark, Evans removing to San Francisco as bookkeeper and cashier for Parrott & Co., the bankers, and Froelich continuing until 1872, when with the general exodus he came to Fresno and became prominent in banking and commercial circles.

On the Upper Kings, about 1852, was a thriving settlement with John Poole establishing the first ferry across the river and located there was William Y. Scott, the second sheriff of the county elected in 1858, for whom the place was named. Scott was popularly known as "Monte" because when he and Hazleton came to these parts they brought with them a monte layout. Scottsburg was washed away by a flood, but the settlement was rebuilt on higher land. It named itself Centerville and was in its day a flourishing community, but because of a like named older village in Alameda County it locked horns with the postal authorities and was not recognized officially save as "Kings River." Centerville as the name staid, was at one time the most populous village in the county, saving Fresno, the seat, and held the balance of political power. Today it is a collection of weather-beaten rookeries, and little more than a memory of the past, having been superseded by the bustling town of Sanger in the Kings River bottoms in the center of the pioneer orange and citrus belt of the county. Among the earliest Centervillians may be named; W. W. Hill, supervisor in 1863, and treasurer from 1867, until his death in 1874, the Smoot and Akers families. P. W. Fink. A. M. Darwin and E. C. Ferguson. John A. Patterson, William Hazleton, C. F. Cherry, Jesse Morrow of the Morrow House, which stood so long on the site of the federal building in Fresno. Richard and William Glenn, William Deakin. William J. Hutchinson, the village blacksmith and county assessor from 1883 to 1891, and others engaged in agriculture and stock raising.

Another busy settlement was the New Idria quicksilver mine on the West Side (now in San Benito County) with its Cornish and Mexican miners. Its development was long retarded by protracted litigation over the William McGarrahan claim, which was prosecuted in the end to the Ignited States supreme court. It was about 1854 that L. A. Whitmore established the first ferry across the lower Kings at where the town of Kingston was located. He was killed and O. H. Bliss succeeded him and maintained it but discontinued it for a bridge and sold the property after a time to John Sutherland. Mr. Bliss had flower beds, green hedges, arbors and bowers about the ferry station, it being remembered as a veritable garden oasis the desert. He announced his activities in the following fashion:

O. H. BLISS

Notary Public

and WELLS, FARGO & CO.'S AGENT

KINGSTON FERRY

Mr. Bliss has a fine and commodious

LIVERY STABLE

For the accommodation of travelers

BLISS' FERRY at Kingston is the best and safest crossing on King's River.

A FIRST GLIMPSE OF MILLERTON

The earliest glimpse of Millerton is furnished in the itinerary notes of Mineralogist William P. Parks, who, in 1853, was with the Williamson government topographical survey of the California interior for a transcontinental railroad route. The party left the United States arsenal at Benicia Barracks, July 10, 1853, coming up the valley via Livermore Pass and Elkhorn and camped several days at Fort Miller on arrival July 25. The itinerary notes:

"Gold is found in the bed of the river in considerable quantity. It is mostly very fine scale gold and it is difficult to separate it from the black sand, which is abundant and heavy. Groups of gold washers and Chinamen were engaged along the banks, either washing out the gold in a common pan or using the 'cradle.' A panful of sand and gravel taken up anywhere on the surface of the first bench of the river would 'show color' on being washed out. This term 'color' has passed into general use among the miners, denoting the presence of just sufficient gold to be well recognized. One of the miners was working his claim with a cradle and employed two Indians to dig and bring the auriferous earth and gravel. He was obtaining about one ounce per day.

"Some of the officers of the army at Fort Miller were constructing a canal along the bed of the stream into which they were intending to turn the water of the river when at its lowest stage and thus be enabled to obtain the sand of its bed which: was supposed to be extremely rich in gold.

"The Indians collect about the fort in great numbers during the winter, as many as five or six hundred being there at one time. They live in the usual manner — in brush huts — a short distance below the fort. They make beautiful baskets or trays of a strong round grass, which they weave so tightly and evenly that the baskets will hold water, and they are sometimes used to hold water while it is made to boil by throwing in heated stones. One mile below the fort is the ferry across the river. The trade is chiefly with, emigrants, miners and the Indians.

"During our stay at camp. Captain Love at the head of a party of rangers arrived, bringing with him the head of the notorious robber chief, Joaquin Muerto (Murieta). They had surprised Joaquin with his party in a pass of the Coast Range and after a short fight, shot him through the head. (Note was also made that the rangers had been obliged to swim one of the sloughs in what is now called the West Side and that one of the prisoners was drowned.)

"The temperature of this valley or at least of our camp ground is worthy of note. Each day was like the preceding and the unclouded sun seemed to have a remarkable heating power. The high hills on each side prevented a free circulation of air and reflected back the heat. The thermometer during the middle part of the day seldom indicated a temperature lower th.an 96 degrees F. and generally stood from 100 degrees to 104 degrees in the shade, in some localities 115 degrees."

LISTED ON ASSESSMENT ROLLS

It goes without saying that in those unsettled early days of the 50's directories were unknown. In fact none was published in the county until the small affair of the spring of 1881, the names for which were "chased up" by R. W. Riggs, the photographer and historian of Pine Ridge, and S. L. Pettit, a nephew of Petroleum V. Nasby, the humorist philosopher. The pretentious county directory was in 1899-1900, but the assessment rolls for 1856 and 1857, unearthed for this history, list the subjoined established individuals and business partnerships for the first two years of county organization, and it is to be presumed that few were overlooked. Incidentally the rolls disclose the fact that canines were assessed $1.50 for the male and $3 for the female dog.