Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 1 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 19

For about six years, the territory now comprised in Fresno County, and more too, was tied to the governmental apron strings of Mariposa, the mother county in the San Joaquin Valley, once regarded by common consent as a part of that geographical myth mapped on ancient charts as "The Great American Desert." A time came to cut loose and assume political majority as a county. Fresno, Merced and Mono were originally comprised in Mariposa, and all of Madera, parts of Kings and San Benito in Fresno. Mariposa had, in 1850, a population of 4.879, and in 1860, of 6,243. As showing the population increase of Fresno, there are the decade census returns as follows:

1860 4,605

1870 6,336

1880 9,478

1890 32,026

1900 37,862

1910 75.657

And in further proof that Fresno was not standing still but slowly developing her resources, despite drought and flood years, the following assessment figures are quoted for the first twenty years:

Year. Property Value. Total Taxes.

1856 $431,403.60 $7,345.96

1860 931,007.00 14,895.86

1864 728,040.00 18,753.19

1868 2,366.025.00 55,143.40

1872 5,556,801.00 69,460.01

1876 8,292.918.00 136.431.48

The mining and lumber industries, the growth of agriculture, which had made a promising beginning, and the location of the military post here for the entire valley region had attracted a population, which had to transact its public and court business at Mariposa as the county seat, going thither from the farthermost end of the territory, involving a tedious and costly roadless journey over steep and rugged mountains and at times across dangerous streams. Th.is was a growing source of expense to the individual, as well as to the taxpayers, for which those in the southernmost section on the San Joaquin received little return. The distance was so great and the isolation so marked that little attention was paid this section in the matter of roads or bridges or public needs — the territory was a source of revenue to Mariposa County while receiving comparatively no return. The county's territory was so immense, the revenue so limited in view of the sparse population and the many pressing demands of the new region, and the conditions so unsettled that the mother county could really not do much in a tangible way.

These conditions could not be worse but might be improved with home government and the spending of the tax revenue nearer home. They led to the county organization movement, and a petition to the legislature of 1856, resulting in the enabling statute of April 19 and the creative enactment of May 26. In petition and acts the original spelling of the county's name was "Frezno", a phonetic version that was soon abandoned. Millerton as the then most populous center was regarded as the logical place for the county seat — in fact could not then have had a rival. To organize the new county, seven commissioners were named in the act — Charles A. Hart, Ira McCray, James Cruikshank, H. A. Carroll, O. M. Brown, J. W. Gilmore arid H. M. Lewis. The last named two were absent from the meeting at McCray's hotel on May 26, 1856, to organize and order for June 9 an election for county officers and to vote on county organization, which was accepted as a foregone conclusion. Cruikshank, a lawyer, was chairman and Carroll secretary of the commission, and the county legal machinery was duly set in operation. The first mentions of the new county are in the legislative proceedings and in the State Register for 1857, a publication on the Blue Book order. The latter's mention is reproduced as a present day curiosity:

FREZNO COUNTY

(County Seat — Millerton)

Frezno County, organized 1856. Boundaries: North by Merced and Mariposa, east by Utah Territory, south by Tulare, and west by Monterey.

TOPOGRAPHY— This county was formed from portions of Mariposa, Merced and Tulare, and contains that section of the mining region known as the extreme Southern Mines. The agricultural land in the county is situated in the vicinity of King's River, and is represented to be well adapted for grazing purposes. Number of acres in cultivation, including the Reservations, 2,000.

LEGAL DISTANCES — Not yet established by law (from Millerton to Stockton about 140 miles).

OFFICERS

Office. Name. Residence. Salary.

County Judge Chas. A. Hart Millerton $2,500

District Attorney J. C. Craddock Millerton 1,000

County Clerk and Recorder I. S. Sayles Tr Millerton 1,000

Sheriff and Tax Collector W. C. Bradley Millerton 1,000

Treasurer Geo. Rivercombe Millerton 1,000

Assessor John G. Simpson Millerton 1,000

Surveyor C. M. Brown Millerton 1 ,000

Coroner Dr. Du Gay Millerton Fees

Public Administrator James Smith Kings River Fees

Supervisor John R. Hughes Millerton Per diem

Supervisor John A. Patterson Kings River Per diem

Supervisor John L. Hunt Huntsville Per diem

(The terms of all of these expired in October, 1858.)

THIRTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT— Hon. Edward Burke, of Mariposa, judge district court; sessions, second Monday, March, July and November.

SIXTH SENATORIAL DISTRICT— Senator: Hon. Samuel A. Merritt of Mariposa; term expires January, 1859.

MEMBER OF ASSEMBLY— Hon. Orson K. Smith of Woodville.

AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES— Wheat, 1,000 acres; barley, 500 acres, and vegetables, 500 acres.

FRUIT TREES— But little attention has as yet been devoted to the culture of fruit. There are two vineyards in a forward state, and a few fruit trees, which appear to thrive remarkably well.

LIVE STOCK— Horses, 1,400; mules, 200; asses, 150; cattle, 18,650; calves, 2,650; sheep, 1,000; swine, 4,000; goats, 50; total 28,100. Assessed value, $360,000.

MINERAL RESOURCES — There are several important mining streams, principally worked by Chinamen. Amount of foreign miner's tax collected $1,000 per month.

WATER DITCHES, ETC. — There are two extensive water ditches in the course of completion; one steam sawmill and two quartz veins, represented to be remarkably rich.

MILITARY POST AND INDIAN RESERVATIONS— Fort Miller, Frezno Farm and King's River Farm Reservations are located in this county.

FINANCES— Receipts from date of organization July 1 to December 1, 1856, $6,281.15; expenditures, $4,268. Amount of taxable property, principally stock, $400,000, tax collected, $6,912; foreign miner's tax collected $1,200 per month.

POPULATION— Votes cast, 319; Indians, 1,300.

ATTORNEYS— Millerton: O. M. Brown, H. Clark and Tames T. Cruickshank.

PHYSICIANS— Fort Miller: Wm. J. L. Engle; Frezno River: D. J. Johnson, Lewis Leach; Millerton: W. A. N. Dulgnay (Du Gay).

The first meeting of the supervisors-elect was held on June 23 of Hughes and Patterson, J. M. Roan having failed to qualify wherefore Hunt was chosen at a special election ordered at this initial session, besides which the county was declared formally organized. Patterson was succeeded by J. E. Williams in February, 1857, Clark Hoxie elected in May to succeed Hunt and S. W. Rankin in August to supersede Hughes.

1856 — Fresno's birthyear is a memorable one in the annals of the state, being the year of the extraordinary reign of the great Vigilance Committee, "the most formidable public tribunal in the history of modern civilization," that ushered an era of moral, civic and political scouring and scrubbing, whose beneficial effect was experienced for a generation. Governor Johnson, who, with Gen. T. W. Sherman, was arrayed against the committee, referred to its deliberations as "turbulence and strife without a parallel in the recorded annals of our nation."

Politically, California voted at its first two presidential elections as follows:

1852 1856

Pierce (Dem.) 39,665 Buchanan (Dem.) 53,365

Scott (Whig) 34,971 Fillmore (Am.) 36,165

Hale (Free Soil) 100 Fremont (Rep.) 20.691

At this November, 1856, first national election, the county went:

Buchanan 218

Fillmore 123

Fremont 1

The identity of this Republican or Whig voter was no secret. He was William Aldridge, and of an age that the younger called him "Dad." He was the choresman at Payne's trading post at Coarse Gold, as populous a voting district as there was in the territory at the time. He became known over the entire state as "the lone Republican of Fresno." Aldridge also mined at Fine Gold Gulch. The correct version here given for the first time is that he came by his political appellation on account of an incident at the first election for Lincoln. The polling place was at Mace's Garden and Captain Mace was the judge of election, electors not voting then by ballot but by oral announcements of their choice of candidates. Registration of electors was an unknown art. Everyone, who was believed to have been born on the soil and to have residence, was considered to have a vote.

In the camp were two notorious, swashbuckling Copperheads known as Davis and Hill, very undesirable citizens and later suspected of being members of the terrorizing band in the early sixty's that robbed the cabins of Chinese miners of gold dust savings and outrageously maltreated these inoffensives, a reign that was ended only when the community took the matter in its own hands and hanged several suspects after "Judge Lynch" trials. Davis and Hill loudly boasted about the camp that no blank of a blank of an Abolitionist would be permitted to vote that day. Aldridge carried word of the threat to Mace and such swift and armed preparations were made that when Aldridge offered his vote there was no one to hinder him.

Hill ran counter, afterward, of Deputy Sheriff "Shorty" Green of Mariposa County in an affair at Indian Gulch in that county and was killed by the latter with a pistol bullet that pierced his skull in the forehead center. Whatever became of Davis no one recalls.

Aldridge was an inoffensive old fellow whose Democratic friends good naturedly would escort him to the polls, and one of the candidates for governor remembered him by sending him a fine hat in care of the county clerk. Aldridge declined to wear it until the county should give a Republican majority, but he passed away and the hat disappeared long before that event came to pass in an old time Democratic stronghold, built up by early settlers who very generally hailed from the southern states, and strengthened by those who came during and after the war and whose sympathies being with, the South religiously voted that way.

Organization year was one of small beginnings with Fresno. In 1856 the county was credited with 1,620 acres under cultivation as follows:

Acres Bushels

Wheat 1,000 30,000

Barley 520 20,800

Oats 100 3,500

Grapevines were estimated at 2,000. Los Angeles County exceeded every other district in the state then in the cultivation of the grape, with 726,000 growing vines.

Two canals taking water out of the San Joaquin for mining purposes were reported, the first of these almost opposite the fort but never completed. These were the Fort Miller Mining and Water Company, two miles long and to have cost $100,000: and Mace. Hatch & Company's five-mile canal at Clark's Bar. The only steam sawmill was Alex. Ball's, about fifteen miles east of Millerton, erected in 1854, operating one saw with capacity of 6,000 feet and valued at $8,000.

Fresno was on one of the seven principal wagon roads leading from California to the East — the Tejon route from Stockton via Millerton and the Kings River to the Tejon Pass to Los Angeles, San Bernardino and the military road to Salt Lake City, 1,100 miles.

Lieut. Lucien Loeser of the Third Artillery commanded the garrison of three officers and seventy-seven men at Fort Miller. He was the officer who was sent from Monterey to Washington with Colonel Mason's report on the gold regions, and carried with him a tea-caddy full of gold dust, besides cinnabar from New Almaden. The report was made ten days after the proclamation of the Mexican War peace treaty.

Hugh Carroll was postmaster at Millerton, and William Innes at Scottsburg, the only post-offices in the county at the time. Carroll was another of the tribe of squaw-men, known among the Indians as "What-what," meaning goose or gander and applied to him on account of his waddling and shuffling gait.