Butte County CA Archives History - Books .....Organization Of Butte County 1882 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 14, 2005, 4:40 pm Book Title: History Of Butte County ORGANIZATION OF BUTTE COUNTY. When this first legislature had so advanced in its labors as to be prepared to subdivide the state into counties, it was found to be a matter of great perplexity. Not only was the geography of the state but imperfectly known, but the population was so shifting and uncertain that a proper assignment of territory was impossible. Sections that were then unoccupied and almost unknown were liable in a few months to be filled with thousands of eager miners, or, perhaps, they might never become populated or become of sufficient importance to demand a county organization. In this dilemma they did the best the circumstances and a crowd of eager land and city proprietors as members and lobbyists would permit. The courses of the rivers and the character of the mountains were unknown, and thus many queer boundaries were given to counties of a most ungainly shape. From the Sacramento river to the eastern line of the state was a frequent and most absurd boundary, thus cutting up the valley into little patches and tacking each patch to the tail of a long strip of mountainous country, and, curiously enough, making "the tail wag the dog" by locating the county-seat in the valley portion, and generally at the extreme end. A little stream that scarcely floated a feather in summer, as the Honcut, between Yuba and Butte, would separate contiguous and easily-accessible sections of valley land, while within the limits of the county to which each belonged were to be found high mountains, whose deep snows almost severed the one part from the other for months at a time. One of the counties thus formed by the Act of February 18, 1850, was Butte, but far different in proportion from the county as it appears to-day. It included the present county, the county of Piumas, the major portion of Lassen, and a part of Tehama, Colusa and Sutter. The boundaries as then defined were:— "Beginning on the Sacramento river at the Red Bluffs, in latitude forty degrees, thirty- two minutes and twenty-three seconds, and running thence due east to the dividing ridge which separates the waters flowing into the Sacramento river above the Red Bluffs from the waters flowing into the Sacramento river below the Red Bluffs; thence following the top of said ridge to the Sierra Nevada; thence due east to the boundary of the State; thence due south, following said boundary, to the northeast corner of Yuba (now Sierra) county; thence following the northwestern boundary of Yuba county to Feather river; thence due west along the northern boundary of Sutter county to the Sacramento river; thence running up the middle of said river to the place of beginning." The territory thus bounded was nearly in the form of a parallelogram, and was about eighty miles in width from north to south, and about one hundred and sixty miles in length from east to west, containing a superficial area of some 12,800 square miles, or 8,330,000 acres. Butte county was then as large as the state of Vermont and the little state of Delaware combined. The impression seems to prevail that the county as thus bounded included within its limits the three buttes from which it derived its name, but it can readily be seen that this is an erroneous idea. The line dividing Butte and Sutter counties was one running "due west" from the northwest corner of Yuba county, which was then, and always has been, the mouth of Honcut creek. This line would leave the buttes entirely within the limits of Sutter county: That the legislature supposed they were giving these mountains to Butte county is probable, but their ignorance of the geography of the state and the absence of any map whatever to serve as a guide fully explain the failure of their intention. It was not until a few years later that for a brief period Butte county possessed her patron mountains. By this same Act the county of Colusa was created, but on account of it sparse population was temporarily attached to Butte county for judicial purposes, and so remained till the following January. How Butte county failed to organize in April, the time set by law, is best told by Hon. Warren T. Sexton, in his able article on the Past and Present of Butte County. He says:— "The Act of March 2, 1850, provided for holding elections for the election of county officers in all the counties of the state, to be held on the first Monday of April, 1850. The Act provided that certain prefects might establish the election precincts, and give notice of the same to the voters of the county, but in case the prefects did not act in the matter in time, the law provided that the voters might still hold the election on the day named, and themselves establish a precinct wherever there were thirty voters. No notice ever came to Butte, but as limited as mail facilities were, some of them had learned of the Act of the legislature, and determined to have an election at any rate, and an election was held on the first Monday of April. The only precinct we have with certainty in our memory as opening polls, was at Long's bar. A full set of county officers was voted for, all of them residents of Long's bar, or its immediate vicinity. Owing to a little circumstance which occurred on the eve of the election, this vote was not counted, never returned anywhere, and there is no record of it now in existence. Among the residents of the bar was a man known and generally called 'Old Dick Stuart,' intelligent, sharp, witty, and withal a most inveterate joker. Old Dick had labored for and with the candidates all the day long, with voice, money and whisky. About the time the polls closed. Stuart explained the matter by saying that 'it was the most successful April-fool joke he ever saw played off on a people.' It was, in fact, the first day of Apiil. So little was known of the law, that not one of the voters there could say with any certainty that the election was a proper or legal one. The successful candidates smothered their chagrin over their lost money and lost offices as best they might, and bore the badinage of the defeated ones for a time with philosophic equanimity." The failure to organize under the law of March 2, 1850, was not confined to Butte county alone. For this reason the legislature, which was still in session, passed the Act of April 18, 1850, providing that any county that had failed to properly organize could petition the county judge of any adjoining county, and he should order an election. Application was therefore made to Hon. Henry P. Haun, county judge of Yuba county, who issued an order for an election in the county of Butte, to be held on the tenth of June, 1850, for the purpose of electing county officers and locating the seat of justice, as provided in the organic act. Each center of population selected its own inspectors and judges of election, and the inspectors of the various precincts formed the board to canvass the votes and declare the result. The election having been held, the board thus constituted met at Chico on the eighteenth of June, and had the following proceedings:— PROCEEDINGS OF BOARD OF INSPECTORS. The board of inspectors for Butte county having met, pursuant to law, at Chico, the meeting was called to order by Mr. Sanders. Major J. W. E. Brown having been called to the chair. A. T. Perry was nominated and duly elected secretary. On motion of Mr. M. H. Darrach, the board adjouned until sundown in order to give the utmost time for those precincts as yet not represented. (Signed) A. TH. PERRY, Sec. The board met pursuant to adjournment. After some debate the resolutions offered by Mr. Perry were amended. After a closely contested vote the resolutions of Mr. Perry were adopted. Discussions were closed by a motion to read the minutes of the meeting. An amendment of the resolutions obtained. RESOLUTIONS By the board of inspectors of elections for Butte county, California:— Resolved, That, in this early stage of the settlement and legislation of this state, the difficulty of communication with the seat of government and the absence of authorized exponents of the law, it is almost impossible that the law as regards elections should be complied with in its fullest sense. Resolved, That a too strict regard to mere technicalities in the law would rather have the effect of defeating than furthering the ends of justice. Resolved, That when, in the judgment of this board, a poll has been conducted in the spirit of the law, with a sincere desire to do justice to the different candidates as well as to the people, the returns from such poll shall be received and duly canvassed, notwithstanding the minor forms of law may have been omitted. Resolved, That the returns from the different precincts, as received and canvassed by this board, are believed to be the proper expression of the opinion of the voters of Butte county, and as such have been received by this board; and, therefore, this board declares that the candidates whose names are attached to this report, as having the largest number of votes, are fairly and justly elected to the several offices opposite their names. J. W. E. BROWN, Inspector. June the 18, 1850. A. TH. PERRY. Secretary. Filed June 18, 1850. The returns, as promulgated by the boai'd in pursuance of the above resolutions, were as follows:— SHERIFF. French Paige 108 William Fletcher 259 ______ Stout 50 C. C. Catlett 422 J. Q. Wilbur 473 COUNTY ATTORNEY. J. E. N. Lewis 311 J. M. Burt 547 W. H. Farnham 36 J. H. Stilson 95 K. I. Barr 66 RECORDER. G. D. Foote 289 T. J. Jenkins 360 D. D. Fralick 262 G. W. Stockton 63 TREASURER. Thomas Edsall 243 J. M. Kerr 347 ASSESSOR. J. C. Flint 345 J. T. Elliott 322 H. C. Dorsay 97 COUNTY CLERK. J. B. Howard 289 W. T. Sexton 521 DISTRICT ATTORNEY. J. W. McCorkle 772 W. H. Farnham 319 CORONER. J. M. Brown 314 E. Wallingford 317 COUNTY JUDGE. Moses Bean 889 J. B. Smith 340 * COUNTY-SEAT. Bidwell's Bar 386 Hamilton 196 Ophir City 161 * See article elsewhere on the county-seat question. The canvass-sheet compiled does not show the number of votes cast at each precinct, nor the number and names of precincts, but from the original returns we have obtained the number of votes cast at each precinct. This may not contain all the precincts, for the total vote thus shown was 1234, while the vote for sheriff, in the above table, was 1312. The vote cast was: Stringtown, 132; Long's Point 146; Ophir City, 62: Veazie City, 38: Brown's Bar, 55; American Bar, 46; Adams, 58; Stony Point, 58; Middle Fork, 35; Bartee's Ranch, 72; Hamilton, 83; High Rock, 30; Pleasant Valley, 74; St. Louis, 34; Bidwell's Bar, 311. Total, 1234. The action of the board called forth a written protest from a minority of the members, couched in the following language:— BUTTE COUNTY, CHICO, June 18, 1850. To the Hon. Judge Haun, of Yuba County:— We the undersigned, a minority of the board of inspectors, do solemnly protest against the proceedings of said board. First—To Hamilton, because the number of votes cast exceeded the number of citizens or inhabitants of said town, which we can substantiate, and no poll-books or list of names returned. Second—To Bidwell's Bar, because the officers were not sworn, as the law required. Third—To High Rock, the same as Bidwell's Bar; illegality, no officers being sworn. Fourth—To the American Bar. The polls were held contrary to law. There was but one inspector and no judges; the inspector being a candidate for the office of county clerk, and openly declared himself as such. Fifth—To Bartee's Rancho, there being but the one inspector, and his returns not signed or delivered by himself, but by his clerk, who was a foreigner. Respectfully we sign our names, B. F. BURCHE, Long's Point. G. P. SANDERS, High Rock. JAMES BOON, Ophir City. J. H. BURCH, City of St. Louis. W. R. SHANNON, Pleasant Valley. THOS. H. PARIS, Veazie City. The protest seems to have had no effect whatever, for the records disclose no action of Judge Haun in the matter; and the officers first declared elected proceeded to qualify and enter upon the discharge of their duties. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF BUTTE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, IN TWO VOLUMES. I. HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA FROM 1513 TO 1850. BY FRANK T. GILBERT. The Great Fur Companies and their Trapping Expeditions to California. Settlement of the Sacramento Valley. The Discovery of Gold in California. BY HARRY L. WELLS. II. HISTORY OF BUTTE COUNTY, From its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. BY HARRY L. WELLS AND W. L. CHAMBERS. BOTH VOLUMES ILLUSTRATED WITH VIEWS AND PORTRAITS. HARRY L. WELLS, 517 CLAY STREET, SAN FRANCISCO 1882. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by HARRY L. WELLS, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. FRANCIS, VALENTINE & Co., Engravers & Printers 517 Clay St., San Francisco File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/butte/history/1882/historyo/organiza43nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 14.3 Kb