Chapter 1
STORIES OF CALIFORNIA
BY
ELLA M. SEXTON
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1903
_All rights reserved_
1902,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up, electrotyped, and published September, 1902. Reprinted October, 1903.
Normond Press J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
FOREWORD
To recount in simple, accurate narratives the early conditions and subsequent development of California is the purpose of this book. In attempting to picture the romantic events embodied in the wonderful history of the state, and to make each sketch clear and concise as well as interesting, the author has avoided many dry details and dates.
Several of the stories endeavor to explain the remarkable physical characteristics of California. The work to this end was rendered lighter by the hope that the reader might find the book merely an introduction to that larger knowledge of personal observation and inquiry.
But the writer's chief aim has been to interest the children of California in the beautiful land of their birth, to unfold to them the life and occurrences of bygone days, and to lead them to note and to enjoy their fortunate surroundings.
Among the many authorities consulted for the work, special acknowledgment is due to the historians, Theodore H. Hittell and H.H. Bancroft.
CONTENTS
CALIFORNIA'S NAME AND EARLY HISTORY
THE STORY OF THE MISSIONS AND OF FATHER SERRA
BEFORE THE GRINGOS CAME
THE AMERICANS AND THE BEAR-FLAG REPUBLIC
THE DAYS OF GOLD AND THE ARGONAUTS OF '49
MINING STORIES
HOW POLLY ELLIOTT CAME ACROSS THE PLAINS
THE BUILDING OF THE OVERLAND RAILROAD
STORY OF THE WHEAT FIELDS
ORCHARD, FARM, AND VINEYARD
THE STORY OF THE NAVEL ORANGE
THE LEMON
FLOWERS AND PLANTS
THE BIG TREES AND LUMBERING
OUR BIRDS
OUR WILD ANIMALS
IN SALT WATER AND FRESH
ABOUT CALIFORNIA'S INDIANS
THE STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO
MEN CALIFORNIA REMEMBERS
OUR GLORIOUS CLIMATE
SOME WONDERFUL SIGHTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
NEVADA FALLS (height 617 feet), YOSEMITE VALLEY
FATHER JUNIPERO SERRA
MISSION CHURCH, MONTEREY
OLD SAN DIEGO MISSION. Founded 1769
MISSION SAN LUIS REY. Founded 1798
MISSION DOLORES. Established 1776
SANTA BARBARA MISSION. Founded 1786
UPPER SACRAMENTO RIVER
PLACER GOLD MINING. Washing with Cradle
AN ORANGE TREE WITH FRUIT AND BLOSSOMS
PALMS OVER 100 YEARS OLD AT LOS ANGELES
HOP VINES
AMONG THE HOP VINES
WHITE SANTA BARBARA POPPY
WILD CALIFORNIA POPPY
IN A MISSION GARDEN
A CHRISTMAS GARDEN
"WAWONA" (28 feet in diameter)
THE GRIZZLY GIANT (33 feet in diameter)
BIG TREES AT FELTON, SANTA CRUZ CO.
YOUNG TOWHEE
BABY YELLOW WARBLERS. From photographs by Elizabeth Grinnell
CALIFORNIA RED DEER. From a photograph by George V. Robinson
LEAPING TUNA
BLACK SEA BASS
HUMPBACK WHALE (57 feet long)
TROUT FROM LAKE TAHOE
INDIAN WOMAN WITH PAPPOOSE
INDIAN WOMAN WITH BASKETS
INDIAN BASKETS
SEAL ROCKS, SAN FRANCISCO
THE NEW CLIFF HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO
ENTRANCE TO JAPANESE TEA GARDEN, SAN FRANCISCO
FALLEN LEAF LAKE
MOUNT SHASTA FROM STRAWBERRY VALLEY
"EL CAPITAN" (3300 feet in height)
YOSEMITE FALLS
NATURAL BRIDGE, SANTA CRUZ
[Compiler's note 1: Four illustrations were omitted from the published book, but were listed in the Illustrations pages.]
STORIES OF CALIFORNIA
STORIES OF CALIFORNIA
CALIFORNIA'S NAME AND EARLY HISTORY
A Spanish story written four hundred years ago speaks of California as an island rich in pearls and gold. Only black women lived there, the story says, and they had golden spears, and collars and harness of gold for the wild beasts which they had tamed to ride upon. This island was said to be at a ten days' journey from Mexico, and was supposed to lie near Asia and the East Indies.
Among those who believed such fairy tales about this wonderful island of California was Cortes, a Spanish soldier and traveller. He had conquered Mexico in 1521 and had made Montezuma, the Mexican emperor, give him a fortune in gold and precious stones. Then Cortes wished to find another rich country to capture, and California, he thought, would be the very place. He wrote home to Spain promising to bring back gold from the island, and also silks, spices, and diamonds from Asia. For he was sure that the two countries were near together, and that both might be found in the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea, as he called it, by sailing northwest.
So for years Cortes built ships in New Spain (or Mexico), and sent out men to hunt for this golden island. They found the Gulf of California, and at last Cortes himself sailed up and down its waters. He explored the land on both sides, and saw only poor, naked Indians who had a few pearls but no gold. Cortes never found the golden island. We should remember, however, that his ships first sailed on the North Pacific and explored Lower California, and that he first used the name California for the peninsula.
It was left for a Portuguese ship-captain called Cabrillo to find the port of San Diego in 1542. He was the first white man to land upon the shores of California, as we know it. Afterwards he sailed north to Monterey. Many Indians living along the coast came out to his ship in canoes with fish and game for the white men. Then Cabrillo sailed north past Monterey Bay, and almost in sight of the Golden Gate. But the weather was rough and stormy, and without knowing of the fine harbor so near him, he turned his ship round and sailed south again. He reached the Santa Barbara Islands, intending to spend the winter there, but he died soon after his arrival. The people of San Diego now honor Cabrillo with a festival every year. He was the sea-king who found their bay and first set foot on California ground.
About this time Magellan had discovered the Philippine Islands, and Spain began to send ships from Mexico to those islands to buy silks, spices, and other rich treasures. The Spanish galleons, or vessels, loaded with their costly freight, used to come home by crossing the Pacific to Cape Mendocino, and then sailing down the coast of California to Mexico. Before long the English, who hated Spain and were at war with her, sent out brave sea-captains to capture the Spanish galleons and their cargoes. Sir Francis Drake, one of the boldest Englishmen, knew this South Sea very well, and on a ship called the _Golden Hind_ (which meant the Golden Deer), he came to the New World and captured every Spanish vessel he sighted. He loaded his ship with their treasures, gold and silver bars, chests of silver money, velvets and silks, and wished to take his cargo back to England. He tried to find a northern, or shorter way home, and at last got so far north that his sailors suffered from cold, and his ship was nearly lost. Obliged to sail south, he found a sheltered harbor near Point Reyes, and landed there in 1579. Drake claimed the new country for the English Queen, Elizabeth, and named it New Albion. A great many friendly Indians in the neighborhood brought presents of feather and bead work to the commander and his men. These Indians killed small game and deer with bows and arrows, and had coats or mantles of squirrel skins.
Drake and his sailors repaired and refitted their vessel during the month they stayed at Drake's Bay. They made several trips inland also and saw the pine and redwood forests with many deer feeding on the hills; but they did not discover San Francisco Bay. On leaving New Albion, Drake sailed the _Golden Hind_ across the Pacific to the East Indies and the Indian Ocean, and round the Cape of Good Hope home to England, with all the treasure he had taken. The queen received him with great honors and his ship was kept a hundred years in memory of the brave admiral, who had commanded it on this voyage.
During the next century several English commanders of vessels sailed the South Sea while hunting Spanish galleons to capture, and these ships often touched at Lower California for fresh water. Some of the captains explored the coast and traded with the Indians, but no settlements were made.
Then the Spanish tried to find and settle the country they had heard so many reports of, thinking to provide stations where their trading ships might anchor for supplies and protection. Viscaino, on his second voyage for this purpose, landed at San Diego in 1602. Sailing on to the island he named Santa Catalina, Viscaino found there a tribe of fine-looking Indians who had large houses and canoes. They were good hunters and fishermen and clothed themselves in sealskins. Viscaino went on to Monterey and finally as far north as Oregon, but owing to severe storms, and to sickness among his sailors, he was obliged to return to Mexico.
For a long time after this failure to settle upon the coast, the Spanish came to Lower California for the pearl-fisheries. Along the Gulf of California were many oyster-beds where the Indians secured the shells by diving for them. Large and valuable pearls were found in many of the oysters, and the Spanish collected them in great quantities from the Indians who did not know their real value.
In this peninsula of Lower California fifteen Missions, or settlements, each having a church, were founded by Padres of the Jesuits. But later the Jesuits were ordered out of the country, and their Missions turned over to the Franciscan order of Mexico.
With the coming of the Franciscans a new period of California's history began. Spain wished to settle Alta California, or that region north of the peninsula, and Father Serra, the head and leader of these Franciscans, was chosen to begin this work.
How he did this, and how he and his followers founded the California Missions you will read in the story of that time.
THE STORY OF THE MISSIONS AND OF FATHER SERRA
The old Missions of California are landmarks that remind us of Father Serra and his band of faithful workers. There were twenty-one of their beautiful churches, and though some are ruined and neglected, others like the Mission Dolores of San Francisco and the Santa Barbara and Monterey buildings are still in excellent condition. From San Diego to San Francisco these Missions were located, about thirty miles apart, and so well were the sites chosen that the finest cities of the state have grown round the old churches.
Father Junipero Serra was the president and leader of the Franciscan missionaries and the founder of the Missions. He had been brought up in Spain, and had dreamed from his boyhood of going to the New World, as the Spanish called America, to tell the savages how to be Christians. He began his work as a missionary in Mexico and there labored faithfully among the Indians for nearly twenty years. But as his greatest wish was to preach to those in unknown places he was glad to be chosen to explore Alta or Upper California.
Marching by land from Loreto, a Mission of Lower California, Father Serra, with Governor Portola and his soldiers, reached San Diego in 1769. Here he planted the first Mission on California ground. The church was a rude arbor of boughs, and the bells were hung in an oak tree. Father Serra rang the bells himself, and called loudly to the wondering Indians to come to the Holy Church and hear about Christ. But the natives were suspicious and not ready to listen to the good man's teachings, and several times they attacked the newcomers. Finally, after six years, they burnt the church and killed one of the missionaries. But later on there was peace, and the priests, or Padres as they were called, taught the Indians to raise corn and wheat, and to plant olive orchards and fig trees, and grapes for wine. They built a new church and round it the huts, or cabins, of the Indians, the storehouses, and the Padre's dwelling. In the early morning the bells called every member of the Mission family to a church service. After a breakfast of corn and beans they spent the morning in outdoor work or in building. At noon either mutton or beef was served with corn and beans, and at two o'clock work began again, to last till evening service. A supper of corn-meal mush was the Indians' favorite meal. They had many holidays, when their amusements were dancing, bull-fighting, or cock-fighting.
San Diego, called the Mother Mission, because it is the oldest church, is now also most in ruins. But its friends hope to put new foundations under the old walls, and to recap firm ones with cement, and preserve this monument of early California history.
After Father Serra had started the San Diego settlement he set sail for Monterey. Landing at Monterey Bay, he built an altar under a large oak tree, hung the Mission bells upon the boughs, and held the usual services. The Spanish soldiers fired off their guns in honor of the day and put up a great cross. The Indians had never heard the sound of guns and were so frightened that they ran away to the mountains. The second Mission was built on the Carmel River, a little distance from the site of the first altar. This was called San Carlos of Monterey, and the settlement was the capital of Alta California for many years. It was also the Mission that Father Serra loved the best, and after every trip to other and newer settlements he returned to San Carlos as his home. This Monterey Mission is well preserved, and books, carved church furniture, and embroidered robes used in the old services are still shown.
At both San Diego and Monterey a presidio, or fort, was built for the soldiers. These forts had one or two cannon brought from Spain, and had around them high walls, or stockades, to protect, if it should be necessary, the Mission people from the Indians. The cannon were fired on holidays, or to frighten troublesome Indians.
All the Mission buildings were of brown clay made into large bricks about a foot and a half long and broad, and three or four inches thick. These bricks, dried in the sun, were called adobes, and were plastered together and made smooth by a mortar of the same clay. Then the walls were coated outside and inside with a lime stucco and whitewashed. The roof timbers were covered with hollow red tiles, each like the half of a sewer pipe, and these were laid to overlap each other so that they kept the rain out. The floors were of earth beaten hard, and the windows had bars or latticework, but no glass. The large church was snowy white within and without and had pictures brought from Spain and much carved furniture, such as chairs, benches, and the pulpit made by the Indians. One or two round-topped towers and five or six belfries, each holding a large bell, were on the church roof, and a great iron cross at the very top.
Night and morning the Mission bells rang to call the Indians to mass or service, and chimes or tunes were rung on holidays or for weddings. These Mission bells were brought from Spain, and it was thought a blessing rested on the ship which carried them, and that shipwreck could not come to such a vessel. We read of one captain joyfully receiving the Mission bells to take to San Diego. When nearing the coast his vessel struck a rock, yet passed on in safety because, as he said, no harm could happen with the bells on board. On his journeys every missionary carried a bell with him for the new church he was to build. Father Serra's first act on reaching a stopping-place was to hang the bell in a tree and ring it to gather the Indians and people for service.
San Antonio, a very successful Mission, was the third one established, and it was in a beautiful little valley of the Santa Lucia Mountains. Every kind of fruit grew in its orchards, and the Indians there were very happy and contented, and in large workshops made cloth, saddles, and other things. San Gabriel, not far from Los Angeles and sometimes called the finest church of all, was the next to be built. This was the richest of the Missions and had great stores of wool, wheat, and fruit, which the hard-working Indians earned and gave to the church. The Indians, indeed, were almost slaves, and worked all their lives for the Padres without rest or pay. At San Gabriel the first California flour-mill worked by a stream of water turning the wheel, was put up. Some of the old palms and olive trees are still growing there.
San Juan Capistrano, founded in 1776, was one of the best-known Missions, for it had a seaport of its own at San Juan. Vessels came to its port for the hides and tallow of thousands of cattle herded round the Mission. The first fine church of this Mission was destroyed by an earthquake, and many people were killed by its falling roof. It was rebuilt, however, and still shows its fine front, and long corridors or porches round a hollow square where a garden and fountain used to be.
Old records tell us that Father Serra felt that there should be a church named in honor of Francis, who was the founder and patron saint of the Franciscan brotherhood of monks to which these missionaries belonged. When Father Serra spoke of this to Galvez, that priest replied, "If our good Saint Francis wants a Mission, let him show us that fine harbor up above Monterey and we will build him one there." Several explorers had failed to find this port about which Indians had spoken to the Spanish. At last Ortega discovered it, and Father Palou, in 1776, consecrated the Mission of San Francisco. Near the spot was a small lake called the "Laguna de los Dolores," and from this the church was at last known as the Mission Dolores. But the great city bears the Spanish name of Saint Francis, or San Francisco. A fort was erected where the present Presidio stands, and later a battery of cannon was placed at Black Point. It is told that the Indians were very quarrelsome here and fought so among themselves that the Padres could get no church built for a year. In that part of San Francisco called the Mission, the old building with its odd roof and three of the ancient bells is a very interesting place to visit. There are pictures, and other relics of the past to see, and in the graveyard many of San Francisco's early settlers were buried. This was the sixth Mission of Alta California.
The Santa Barbara Mission, where Franciscan fathers still live, has a fine church with double towers and a long row of two-story adobe buildings enclosing a hollow square where a beautiful garden is kept. One of the brotherhood, wearing a long brown robe just as Father Serra did, takes visitors into the church, and also shows them the garden and a large carved stone fountain. This church is built of sandstone with two large towers and a chime of six bells, and was finished in 1820.
The Santa Ynez Mission was much damaged by the heavy earthquake that in 1812 ruined other Missions. Here the Indians raised large crops of wheat and herded many cattle. Over a thousand Indians, it is said, attacked this church in 1822, but the priest in charge frightened them away by firing guns. This warlike conduct so displeased the Padres, who wished the natives ruled by kindness, that the poor priest was sent away from the Mission.
One of the early Missions was San Luis Obispo, where services are still held. It was specially noted for a fine blue cloth woven by the Indians from the wool of the Mission flocks of sheep. The Indians there also wove blankets, and cloth from cotton raised upon their own lands.
San Juan Bautista, or St. John the Baptist, north of Monterey, had a splendid chime of nine bells said to have been brought from Peru and to have very rich, mellow tones. San Miguel had a bell hung up on a platform in front of the church, and now at Santa Ysabel, sixty miles from San Diego, where the Mission itself is only a heap of adobe ruins, two bells hang on a rude framework of logs. The Indian bell-ringer rings them by a rope fastened to each clapper. The bells were cast in Spain and much silver jewellery and household plate were melted with the bell-metal. Near them the Diegueño Indians worship in a rude arbor of green boughs with their priest, Father Antonio, who has worked for thirty years among the tribe. They live on a rancheria near by and are making adobe bricks, hoping soon to build a church like the old Mission long since crumbled away.
The last of the Missions was built in 1823 at Sonoma, and proved very active in church work, some fifteen hundred Indians having been there baptized.
Father Junipero Serra died at more than seventy years of age, at San Carlos. During all his life in America he endured great hardships and suffering to bring the gospel to the heathen as he had dreamed of doing in his boyish days. A monument to his memory has been erected at Monterey by Mrs. Stanford, but the Missions he founded are his best and most lasting remembrances.
BEFORE THE GRINGOS CAME
This is the story Señora Sanchez told us children as we sat on the sunny, rose-covered porch of her old adobe house at Monterey one summer afternoon. And as she talked of those early times she worked at her fine linen "drawn-work" with bright, dark eyes that needed no glasses for all her eighty years and snow-white hair.
"When I was a girl, California was a Mexican republic," said the Señora, "and Los Gringos, as we called the Americans, came in ships from Boston. They brought us our shoes and dresses, our blankets and groceries; all kinds of goods, indeed, to trade for hides and tallow, which was all our people had to sell in those days. For no one raised anything but cattle then, and all summer long the cows cropped the rich clover and wild oats till they were fat and ready to kill. In the fall the Indians and vaqueros, or cowboys as you children call them, drove great herds of cattle to the Missions near the ocean where the Gringos came with their ship-loads of fine things and waited for trading-days.
"For weeks every one worked hard, killing the cattle, stripping off their skins and hanging the green or fresh hides over poles to dry in the sun. When dried hard and stiff as a board the skins were folded hair-side in, and were then worth about two dollars apiece. The beef-suet, or fat, from these cattle was put into large iron kettles and melted. While still hot it was dipped out with wooden dippers into rawhide bags, each made from an animal's skin. When cold and hard these bags of tallow were sewed up with leather strings, and thus they were taken to Boston.
"So much beef was on hand at such times that not even the hungry Indians could eat it all while it was fresh. The nicest pieces were cut into long strips, dipped into a boiling salt brine full of hot red peppers and hung up to dry where the sunshine soon turned the meat into carne seca, or dried beef. We put it away in sacks, and very good it was all the year for stews, and to eat with the frijoles, or red beans, and tortillas, which were corn-cakes.
"All we bought from the Gringos was paid for with hides and tallow, so it was well, you see, children, that my father owned ten thousand cattle; for counting relatives and Indian servants, we always had more than thirty people on our ranch to feed and clothe. We raised grain and corn and beans enough for the family, but had to buy sugar, coffee, and such things.
"Did we have many horses, you say? Yes, droves of them, and we almost lived on horseback, for no one walked if he could help it, and there were almost no carriages or roads. Neither were there any barns or stables, for the mustangs, or tough little ponies, fed on the wild grass and took care of themselves. Every morning a horse was caught, saddled and bridled, and tied by the door ready to use. All the ladies rode, too, and I often used to ride twenty miles to a dance with Juan, my young husband, and back again in a day or so.