Preface
When 1 sought to collect material for a story of Sonoma I soon found myself reaching out into the history proper of California. Every trail leading to this count) runs back into the earlier times of the state. The Spanish- American settlement of Sonoma was planned in the City of Mexico. The coming to Sonoma of the Mission San Francisco de Solano can be traced backward through San Rafael, Dolores, San Jose, Santa Clara, Carmelo and kindred institutions to the southern end of Alta California. Sonoma began at San Diego, — the first adobe laid in 1769, the last in 1823 completing the rosary of the missions. Territorial records having their opening chapters in Our City of the Angels, had their ending in Sonoma. The various governments sitting at various capitals marked Sonoma a key position on the line of the northern frontier. The legislative events occurring in Monterey were soon manifest in Sonoma. The first statesman of the California political period was the Comanclante of Sonoma. When plotting officials snarled and wrangled from San Jose to San Diego they in turn sought the adherence of Sonoma ; and when these same plotters were preparing to hand this logical-territory of the Great Republic over to the tenderness and the tenaciousness of an European protectorate, the little game largely was blocked by that same Mexican military commander of Sonoma. When Fremont, advised by Benton at Washington, collected the American settlers for the first strike, they struck at Sonoma ; and Commodore Sloat, U. S. N., raised the Stars and Stripes over the country only after he had heard of the Bear Flag at Sonoma.
At an earlier day that jolly pirate, Drake, came hurrying along this shore with two millions of Spanish gold and several millions of leaking holes in his weather-beaten and battle-worn little ship; and while the carpenter on the beach was pumping the Pacific ocean out of the craft, he made out the titledeeds and calmly presented the whole coast to Queen Elizabeth, — nothing small about Francis. The hungry and frost-bitten Russians from the north found the Sonoma littoral an excellent summer-resort, and for thirty years the doubleheaded eagle of the Czar from the palisades of Fort Ross screamed defiance out of his two throats at his brother-bird of Mexico.
So these trails, like the great "Camino Real," reach towards Sonoma, — not hidden under the overgrowth of the years, but standing out in the light of history. They come up from the south over llano and mesa, over piney slopes and oaken meadows, along the sharp ridges and through the dark canyons where the pilgrim-priest sore-beset clasped tightly the symbol of his salvation tearful that death would meet him on the way ; over the sunlit hills where the oats tassled at his corded waist and the poppies dropped their golden petals over his sandled feet, along the wild beaches when the wind was on the waves and the shore-breaking billows lifted their deep organ-bass in the chant to Him who made the sea. Then in the rare Indian Valley of the Moon the Padre Pathfinder planted the cross and called to prayer, "In Nomine Patris."
Sonoma — Wonderland of this Wondrous State — Masterpiece of creative power, a garden-place of fruitage and bloom — true domain of Luther Burbank. birthplace of the Flag of the Golden West. There is no rincon — no corner within her mountain walls that is not stamped with the golden pages of California's living history. If this indifferent story of Sonoma were worthy, it would be dedicated to her greatest historical character — him who sleeps at Lachryma Montis.
Santa Rosa. 1911. TOM GREGORY.
Chapter I. Page
Sonoma — Valley of The Moon 5
Fitting Indian Title — The Fair Amazonian "Califa" — Empire Between River and Bay Between Mountain and Sea — The Beginning by Cabrillo at San Diego — Telling the Rosary of the Missions — -San Francisco de Solano.
CHAPTER II. Sonoma Enters California History 10
Five Flags Have Waved Here — Sir Francis Drake and New Albion — Russians Come Hunting Sea Otters — Bodega and His Bay — Greek and Roman Crosses On Sonoma Soil.
CHAPTER III. Hidden in The Coast Range 14
Vegas and Mesas of Never-Failing Fertility — Two Means of Temperature Walk Hand in Hand — Where the Poppy Yellows the Plain — Kingdom of Luther Burbank — St. Helena, the Mother Mountain of the Sonoma Hills.
The Digger in His Eminent Domain 52
Natural Unattractiveness — Indian Table Luxuries and Manners — A Grasshopper Meal When Other Far.- Failed — Chief Solano the Faithful Friend of Vallejo.
CHAPTER XII. "Lachryma Montis," Home of Vallejo 58
In the Valley of the Rose — California Girls and Their Broad Acres — Old Adobes That Are Crumbling Back to Mother Earth — Sonoma in "The Roaring Forties" — Just "Before the Gringo Came."
CHAPTER XXI. The Historian Continues the Conflict 95
On the Trail of the Bear — Only a Deep Sea Yarn — The Paths Fremont Found — The War of the Gold Braid — Petty Persecution of the Pathfinder — Fremont Tried and Exonerated.
CHAPTER XXII. General Vallejo in California History 102
Imprisonment of the Sonoma Comandante the Only Error of the Bear Flaggers — He Was More American Than Mexican — Generosity His Only Fault.
CHAPTER XXIII. California the Mecca of a Mighty Pilgrimage 104
The Great Trek Into the West — Sierras Bar the Way — In Donner's Dreary Glen of Death — Under Their White Pall — Among Those Heroes the Women and Children Fared Best — Wild Gales of Nevada Boom Their Requiem.
Chapter XXIV
John A. Sutter and His Fort 108
Wanted to Sell Out Before the War — Forgot "to Have Smith Arrested — He Forgot to Return — Some Americans Were Horse Thieves — Official Locusts That Devour the Earth.
CHAPTER XXV. When the State of California Was Not a State 113
"Legislature of a Thousand Drinks" — Started the War of the Rebellion — : Sonoma's Bear on the Great Seal — California Forcing Her Way Into the Union — Drawing the Negro and the Boundary Lines — Uncle Sam's Grand Land Deal.
CHAPTER XXVI. Sacramento Corrals the State Capital 119
Vallejo Makes a Golden Offer— The Legislature Accepts— Sacramento Flealess if Not Flawless — San Francesco at Last Gets a Name — Benicia Sees the Legislators Go Up the River.
CHAPTER XXVII. Sonoma County Settles Down to Housekeeping 123
When "Oro" Was Heard Around the World— Harvesting the Gold of Farm and Mine — Changes on the Great Ranchos — When the Mustang Galloped Out of the Twilight — The Early Californians Gave Away Their Lands — Live Today and Work Mariana.
v i i i CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXVIII. Captain Stephen Smith of Bodega 129
Ready for a Fight or a Fandango — A Famous Pioneer Picnic — Vallejo's Prediction Comes True — Old Sonoma Land Grants — Chain of the Missions — Strenuous Day of the Squatter — Petaluma and the Miranda Ghost.
CHAPTER XXIX. Peopling the Rich Sonoma Valleys 139
Shades of the Old Adobe Halls — Sonoma the Vineyard of the World — The In-Dwelling Spirit of the Mission Grape — Pressed and Blessed by Church — Warm Volcanic Soil — From the Padre's Early Vines.
CHAPTER XXX. Vulcan — Builder of a Continent 146
The Redwoods Grew Deep — Devil-Waters for the Healing of the Nations — Hot Springs and Sweat-Houses — The County Seat Question — How Jim Williamson "Stole the Courthouse" — A Hundred Minute Mule Run — In Memoriam — Roll of Honor.
CHAPTER XXXI. Within the Vale of Santa Rosa De Lima 153
Parson Amoroso Makes One Convert — Rosa Slips Wraith-Like Away But Leaves Her Name — Marring the Tonal Harmonies of Spanish Titles — The Old Carrillo Adobe — Tragedy of Franklin Town.
Petaluma and Her Name Origin 174
Guadalupe Vallejo Boggs — In the Fall of Forty-Nine — Or Spring of Fifty — The Settlers "Dropped In" — Always Fritsch and Zartman— How "Harry" Mecham Got Here.
CHAPTER XXXVI. Tragedy of the Vigilance Committee Bell 182
Tts Golden Voice Filled the Valleys — Even Called the Santa Rosans to Repentance — Petaluma Thought of Arresting the County Seat — Destroyed in the Night — The Pioneer Class of Fifty-Six.
CONTENTS i x
CHAPTER XXXVII. City of the Little Chicks 187
When the Hen Cackles a Market Falls — Science Does the Hatching — Byce the Incubator Man — -Eggs for Far Cathay — -Does An Incubator "Set" or "Sit?"
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Where the Analy Apple Grows 190
How Sebastopol Got Her War-Sounding Name — Incident of the Crimea — The Tempting Gravensteins — Apples and Women in Mythology — Fruitful Orchards and Vineyards of Gold Ridge — Ocean and Salt Point Townships.
CHAPTER XXXIX. Nature's Ancient Grove — Redwood Township 196
Among the Tall Sequoias — Whirr of the Mill is the Dirge of the Tree — Armstrong Woods — Along the Rio Russian — -Valley of the Sotoyomes.
CHAPTER XL. Dale of the Clover Bloom 201
Where Asti's Wine Sleeps Under the Mountain — Steamy Geysers of Knights Valley — Garden of Chemicals and Floods of Satanic Brew — Dead Trees Their Own Gravestones — In this Wonder of Wonderlands.
CHAPTER XLI. In the Earthquake's Deadly Zone. 206
Santa Rosa Shattered in a Half-Minute — -Then the Builders Began Building — Labor the Only Capital — A City Riveted to the Planet — The Newer Santa Rosa.
CHAPTER XLII. Luther Burbank — Traveler in Plantland 212
A Child Amid the Flowers — Giving Golden Poppy a Red Gown — The Great Shasta Daisy — Making the Cactus Cast Its Thorns — Unknown to His Countrymen — Wizardry — Down in the Life-Crypt of the Flower — Plant and Child Training.
CHAPTER XLIII. Farmers' Organizations of Sonoma County 224
Agricultural Societies — The First Grange — Feast of Pomona — Among the Farms — Assessed Valuation of 1910 — Sonoma Exhibits at the Fairs — Death of G. N. Whitaker — Rest.
CHAPTER XLIV. Sonoma County Statistics 246
Assessed Property Valuation of 1911 — Present Population — Sonoma County Schools — Table of County Officials from 1849 to 1911.
INI3EX
A
Abel, George L 806
Ackerman, P.. D 818
Adams, Elmer F 611
Adams, Samuel E 933
Adler, Adam W 455
Aguida, Augustine 1052
Aldrich, Edgar D 1068
Alexander, Cyrus 792
Alexander, Thomas 533
Allen, Samuel 1 1006
Alves, John J 821
Anderson, Alexander, M. D 371
Anderson, Tohn 713
Andrews, John H 1002
Andrews. William C 1018
Arenberg, Herman F 545
Arfsten. Carl W 1005
Arnhart, William H 1085
Atchinson, Austin T 595
Austin, Granville T 728
Austin, Herbert W 321
Austin, James 850
Avers, William 683
Ayers, William D 951
Avers, William H. M 836
P.
Babbino, Mike 1059
Bacon, Lafaj-ette W 731
Bailhache, Mrs. Josephine 494
Bailiff, John 786
Bailiff. John D 752
Baker, Albert 1017
Baker, Charles A 1004
Barham, Aubrev 758
Barlow, Thomas E 1075
Barlow, Solomon Q 584
Barnes, Edwin H 259
Barnes, Miss Florence M 704
Barnes. William H 816
Barnes, W. P 952
Barnett, Harrv T 799
Barry, Rev. M. T 1082
Barry, William R".' 1016
Bassett, William D 1003
Bassi, Rocco 1046
Batchelor, David W 431
Bauer, Tohn W 809
Beeson, Edward 1 812
Bell. George K . 832
Benjamin. Alexander 950
Beretta. Joseph 1 104
Bettinelli. Antonio 1103
Bettinel'i, Fillip 672
Bidwell, Ira 440
Bidwell, James 464
Bidwell, Tohn 378
Bird, Edward 805
Birkhofer, Carl 880
Bish, Lewis M 953
Blackburn, Charles 606
Blackburn, Frank L 357
Blackburn, John S 602
Blank, Tohn 1001
Bline, James P 788
Bloom, Adolph J 438
Bloom, Americo J 438
Bloom, James B 438
Bock, David 947
Bodwell, Charles A 408
Bohan. Miles 613
Bolla, Battista 689
Bolla, Elvezio B 596
Bondietti, Frank 612
Bones, William H 345
Bonniksen, John 1 577
Bourke, William 1039
Bowman, Henry C 456
Bowman, William F 946
Boyes, Mrs. Antoinette C 299
Boyes. Capt. Henry E 297
Boyse, Alexander E 823
Boyson. Conrad C 629
Brandt, Alonzo B 665
Brown, Charles 594
Brown, Samuel 449
Briiner, Grant 876
Bruner, John 876
Burgess, James F 811
Burris, L. W 346
Bussman, Peter W 874
Butler, Charles H 800
Byce, Lyman C 503
C
Cable. I. N 1077
Cadwell. Alexander 671
Cahill, James 879
Campigli, F. C 1064
Canepa, Giovanni 1082
Casarotti, Americo 1081
Casarotti, Filippo G 1 106
Cassiday, Samuel 1015
Cassin, Tohn M 815
Charles, ' Elbert R 635
Chauvet, Henry J 335
Chauvet, Joshua 328
Cheney, John M 339
Chenoweth, Charles J 383
Christenscn, John 959
Clark, Louis W 844
Clark, W. 1 600
Clarke, James P 829
Cline, Owen T 1042
Clough, Manley E 601
Collins, F. M 407
Combi. Giovani 1102
Comerford, Rev. T. J 970
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