Contra Costa County CA Archives Biographies.....Smith, John F. S. 1821 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com November 29, 2005, 3:41 pm

Author: W. A. Slocum & Co., Publishers (1882)

JOHN F. S. SMITH.—Now living on the San Miguel Rancho, where his sons, Smith
Brothers, are engaged in farming and stock-raising, we find the subject of this
sketch. Mr. Smith, the old "ex-Sheriff" of Contra Costa county, as he is
familiarly known among all of the old settlers, and whose personal acts as an
energetic officer in the discharge of the then dangerous and trying duties of
his position, were not only in the arrest of criminals of the most desperate
kind, but on many occasions he was forced to contend with that greater danger to
society, the rampant "mob spirit" then prevailing and threatening at times the
subversion of law and order to the whims of an excited people, led generally by
thoughtless demagogues to the extremes of daring rashness. Mr. Smith was
evidently a success as a Sheriff, for notwithstanding the lapse of time, having
retired from office as Sheriff in 1855, his sobriquet of ex-Sheriff still
attaches to his name, and in the recital of the stirring events of his official
term, his fellow citizens invariably refer to him in the honorable terms of the
"right man in the right place." As stated, we found the old ex-Sheriff to be
quite a courteous gentleman, of about sixty years, living with his large family
on a fine ranch in Ygnacio valley, at the western base of Mount Diablo. We were
kindly received and agreeably entertained by himself and family. He was quite
willing to impart his knowledge of the early history of the county, but when
informed that our special object was his biography, as one of the pioneers of
Contra Costa county, a shade of sadness passed over his features and he replied
that notwithstanding many incidents of his personal history would make
interesting reading for a book, he did not relish the egotistical task of
writing of himself—for if not altogether a failure in the struggle of life, he
certainly was one financially. But after solicitation and informing him that it
was a necessity to our history of the county, he penned for us the following
events:—

  In throwing memory back over the thousand incidents in my personal history
since I became aware of passing events, the task of selecting matter for this
writing is overpowering, and I am tempted to condense by the simple recital
that, on information and belief, I am the third son of respectable parents, and
was on the 21st of November, A. D. 1821, in the city of Savannah, Georgia,
introduced to this troublous world, in which, after possibly passing a few more
years, the coroner will probably give you the date of my exit. But my promise
requires something more, and therefore I must comply and if possible make the
matter readable. My father was Captain James Smith of the United States navy, a
native of Richmond, Virginia, of the old cavalier stock of Smiths and Mumfords
of that old dominion. My mother was Mary Boylston, a native of Springfield,
Massachusetts, and of the old Puritan stock of Morgans. James Boylston, my
grandfather, was a Captain in the English army, and married my grandmother when
the old revolutionary war was only a "little unpleasantness" to be settled in a
few days, and which finally culminated in the independence of the Colonies after
a long and bloody war. It was similar to the beginning of the late "secesh war,"
and there were many William H. Sewards at that time to predict a resto -ration
of peace within "sixty days." The early history of my family brings out that
fact forcibly. The Morgans, of Springfield, were strong Whigs, there was a
family of Boylstons living in Boston, also Whigs, Captain James Boylston was
introduced to the family by my great uncle, the late General David B. Morgan,
his intimate friend, to placate the bitter hatred of the old mother towards the
English, represented him as of the Boston stock of Boylstons, and as such he was
welcomed to the family circle, they, my uncle and his friend the Captain,
anticipating that the war clouds then lowering over America would soon blow
over, and they would then find no difficulty in making peace with the old lady.
The possibility of war could not stop the course of true love, and the young
English Captain and the young daughter of the family fell hopelessly in love.
The old lady having learned that her guest was only a cousin of the Boston
family of Boylstons and the son and heir of the hated English stock, and still
worse, an officer in the army of King George, wrathfully drove him from the
house, and threatened, in case of any future visit, to have her negro slaves
(slavery then existed in Massachusetts) tie him and deliver him over to
Washington as a spy.

  The young captain and his lady love were married with the connivance of her
brother David, and until called off to duty in the army, continued to visit his
wife unknown to the old mother. My grandfather finally parted from his bride,
fondly hoping that the unhappy war would soon cease and he would be permitted to
return and claim her with the consent of all. But his young bride soon became a
widow, and soon after a mother of an orphan girl. Her husband became a martyr to
duty, and after giving birth to her child she followed him to where no ruthless
wars could separate them, leaving her little girl in the care of her brother,
the late General David B. Morgan, of Louisiana history, he to become her
guardian and protector, the old lady having never forgiven her daugher for her
secret marriage with the hated Englishman. The dying mother insisted upon
depriving her of any care for or interest in her child, and insisted on the
brother's promise to guard and protect her little babe. In the late "secesh" war
we have many analagous cases of the loves and hates of the female sex within the
rebel lines—for bear in mind my great-grandmother was a rebel of Massachusetts.

  We have a family story, which, as it concerns Washington, may be listened to
with interest. My great-grandfather Morgan being one of General Washington's
warmest supporters, was frequently visited by him for counsel and advice. My
grandfather, then young Boylston, was of course introduced and became acquainted
with the great man on such occasions. In the course of the bloody war which
followed, Washington in the early dawn was inspecting the outer or picket lines,
when he discovered a British soldier in the act of leveling his musket on him.
Whilst facing the man in expectation of the bullet, he perceived an officer
dashing rapidly up to the man, and in the next instant disarmed him, with these
words: "King George expects from you the duty of a soldier and not that of an
assassin," and then sent him in under arrest. Washington, in bowing his thanks,
begged to know the name of the preserver of his life. The response was: "At some
future time I hope to have the pleasure of giving it." The General subsequently
learned that the gallant officer was Captain James Boylston, and that he fell
mortally wounded on the battle field the same day, and died on board of a
transport shortly after. On relating the incident to the family at the close of
the war, he begged to be allowed to adopt little Mary, as he was childless, in
gratitude to the dead father. The family declined the honorable request. As time
rolled on and peace and social intercourse had been established, my mother, then
a girl of fifteen, with her uncle, visited the family of the Lord Chief Justice
of Canada. While there she was struck with the resemblance of one of the
portraits to that of her father in her locket, and while comparing the two, the
old Admiral Holloway, of the British Navy, came hobbling by, and inquired why
she compared them, and asked her who the locket represented. She replied: "My
father!" "Who was your father?" "James Boylston, sir." "Why, that is James
Boylston on the wall—my nephew;" and looking at the locket and then at her,
said, excitedly: "That is he, and you are surely his daughter. Explain to me,
child! I did not know of his marriage in America." She referred him to her Uncle
David, who soon explained the matter of the private marriage with his sister and
the unhappy circumstances following. The old Admiral became still more excited,
from the fact that James Boylston being supposed to have died intestate, the
large estates in England were inherited, with the name and title, by the eldest
son of the Admiral, he being the next in blood. After looking up the proofs of
the marriage, the Admiral insisted on taking young Mary to England, and as the
rightful heir of the estates, to be vested with her rights, as a simple act of
justice, though by so doing he would deprive his own son of the title and
estates which he was then unjustly enjoying. The papers being all arranged, they
in due time arrived in England. The son was required by his father to resign the
property, titles, etc., to the rightful heir; the young man refused; the father
denounced him as a dishonest man and a degenerate son, and proceeded to enforce
the claim at law. Some missing link or flaw in the proofs was observed, which
required a return to America for additional evidence; he thereupon returned with
her, and after having supplied the deficiency, was preparing to go back as soon
as the next convoy would start, with renewed determination to oust his
degenerate son, when death called the old man from earth and trouble. Feeling
that his end was near, he called for Mary, the papers and the Lord Chief
Justice, his son-in-law; placing the papers in his hands he exacted from his
son-in-law a promise to proceed to England and enforce the claim of James
Boylston's lawful heir and dispossess the degenerate son. As soon as practicable
thereafter (the war against Napoleon then existing rendering a convoy necessary
to cross the ocean), the Chief Justice and my mother were prepared to start in
pursuance of the dying injunction of the Admiral, and in performing the last
judicial act of his sitting—to wit, passing sentence of death upon the unhappy
son of a dear friend—the shock caused the bursting of a blood vessel, and he
died in his chair. Of course, this melancholy circumstance caused an indefinite
postponement, and as there seemed a kind of fatality attending the prosecution
of the matter she was loath to undertake it again, and as other sorrows soon
after followed, plunging her into deeper grief, she abandoned the contest
altogether, as she was not in need of the estates, having a good property of her
own in America. Where the papers are I do not know. As the widow of the Chief
Justice was the sister of the usurper, it is possible they were given to him,
and, if so, soon to the flames. Some few years subsequently he visited my mother
and proposed a compromise, offering to settle upon her one thousand pounds per
annum for a quit claim. She indignantly ordered him to be gone, and never again
dare to insult her in such manner. During the interval after the death of her
friend the Chief Justice, she had become the wife of Captain Alexander Cameron,
then stationed in Canada, who was taken from her by death, leaving her a widow
with one son, and thus overpowered by continued sorrows, she declined to
prosecute her claim any further.

  The foregoing, as appended to a biography of the writer, is, undoubtedly,
extraneous, if not irrelevent. I give it as a romantic circumstance, calculated
to interest the American reader much more than the tame commonplace recital of
the writer's experience, and much pleasanter writing to him.

  Responding to the obligation of writing a smattering of the writer's acts and
doings. My parents were prominent citizens of Savannah, Georgia. I was the
youngest of four children, three boys and one daughter. After the death of my
father, which occurred in 1829, my mother, then being reduced in fortune, was
induced to remove with her children to New Orleans, by her uncle and former
guardian, General D. B. Morgan. My eldest brother, the late Colonel William M.
Smith, and founder of the town of Martinez, having run away to sea to get rid of
the pedagogues, they being too much of the Teddy O'Rourke kind to suit his
temper, and, although he subsequently became a man of culture and refinement, it
was acquired by his own exertions as responsive to the calls of a brilliant
natural intellect. He was a boy of courage, wit and pride, and a favorite with
his schoolmates, but was termed a "bad boy" by teachers—and, as such, was the
recipient of hardships only, which he invariably returned in evil tricks upon
the master, and instead of learning, hated books and schoolmasters in
particular. My brother, Wm. M. Smith, having been an early pioneer of
California, and founder of the town of Martinez, is entitled to more than a
passing notice. The family resided in New Orleans in reduced, though fair
circumstances; from there my brother James and I were sent north to school, in
the Summer of 1833, and having been informed that the little town of Stonington,
Connecticut, possessed a fine academy, a healthy climate, and good Puritan
morals, and, as New Orleans, in 1833, was a bad place for boys, with its mixed
population of American, French, Spanish, quadroon and negro, (Anglo-Saxons,
Celtic and Teutonic races being classed collectively as Americans), there was a
continued war of races kept up between the boys, the Americans, (Irish, etc.,)
on the one hand, and the French, negroes, etc., on the other; many were the
glorious victories won over the combined forces of the enemy. Neither Generals
Grant nor R. E. Lee could claim higher credit than we awarded to our gallant
Captain "Jim Connolly." Ned Warfield was First Lieutenant, my brother James was
Second—of course, your humble servant was a junior in the ranks. We were not
hoodlums, but patriots, engaged in maintaining the superior qualities of our
race in a contest with numbers.

  The gens d' armes, or police, being French, we regarded them as enemies, and,
when in force, attacked them fearlessly—a war of races existed, and the boy who
shirked duty was disgraced. Hence, the moral atmosphere of the little Yankee
town was considered necessary as a wholesome antidote to the mental poison of
that turbulent city. We were duly shipped on the brig Citizen, and consigned to
Old Kirby, the Irish principal and proprietor of the Stonington Academy. My
brother James, being three years older than I, refused to submit to Kirby's
petty tyranny, and ran away and shipped to sea, leaving me alone at the age of
twelve in that far-distant place, a complete slave, under a miserable tyrant.
The people of the little town gave me the kindest sympathy. The little southern
boy was especially invited to all child-parties, among the highest families, as
a kind of compensation for Kirby's cruelty. Having succeeded, through the aid of
a school-fellow, in informing my mother of the facts, (Kirby having withheld and
destroyed my letters), I was immediately removed to the Lawrenceville High
School, in the State of New Jersey, with Rev. A. H. Phillips as principal, and
at which school I remained till the Fall of 1835, at which time I returned
south. While, during the nine months under Old Kirby, I had absorbed a little of
the rudiments of education—yet to the Rev. A. H. Phillips I am indebted for what
little I ever received from schools. Kirby governed by the rod, and in the true
Teddy O'Rourke style—if the mind wouldn't mark, faith he'd soon mark the
back—and as I could not stand his flogging, nor be a family "flunkey" at his
house, we were in constant warfare, and instead of being morally or
intellectually improved, he graduated me as a first-class hater of all Yankee
one-eyed-Irish schoolmasters. Evidently my frequent battles with the old tyrant
enlisted the sympathy of the townspeople, for my grateful memory recurs to and
treasures many incidents of their noble kindness to the little stranger.

  By contrast, allow me to return to the noble Phillips, and his gentlemanly
tutors, at the Lawrenceville High School. Boys were taught to be gentlemen, and,
as such, held to a strict responsibility—corporal punishment being the last
resort, only prior to expulsion and eternal disgrace. The result of such
treatment, (in lieu of the code of Old Kirby, as practiced by him under the
"Puritanical system of Connecticut,") was the development of all the best
elements of character—the intellect was stimulated and cultivated by the best of
teachers, and the deportment of a gentleman being always required in the
intercourse between pupils as well as with the teachers, who were companions as
well as teachers.

  In closing this subject, I must say that my practical experience of the New
England system of education under "Kirby" at the Stonington Academy is not
favorable, but, to the contrary, a damning record of the brutality of a
prominent pedagogue, practiced in full knowledge of the people of that Godly and
moral town upon a helpless child of one of the best families of the South, out
of hearing and reach of his people, and for no other cause than refusing to be
the house "flunkey" after school hours of the tyrant to whose care he was
entrusted, through the influence of New England friends residing in New Orleans.
The reader must not infer from the foregoing that I was by nature a "bad boy."
To the contrary, I was kind and tractable, and not rebellious, except when
glaring injustice aroused the natural spirit of my race. At Lawrenceville, under
the noble Phillips, all the good elements of nature were cultivated; and
reviewing the course of my early life, cast at the age of seventeen amidst the
wild excitements of border life on the frontiers of Texas, I feel that to my
friend Phillips I am largely indebted for those sound principles of true honor
inculcated into my mind, acting as a chart of guidance through all the
temptations of a varied life, exposed to the allurements of gilded vice of every
form, when suffering under the usual poverty and want incidental to the
adventurous youth.

  So much for the two styles of educating. Under Kirby's training, my Texan
experience, in spite of a certain pride of blood inherited from my ancestry,
would no doubt have inclined me to the bad—"for as the twig is bent the tree's
inclined." Returning South, I joined my mother in Mobile, the family having
removed from New Orleans. I remained there and at New Orleans till the Spring of
1839, at which time I arrived in Houston, Texas. Having been self-supporting
after leaving school, I considered that to make a fortune it was only necessary
to get to Texas, where I could soon be able to provide bountifully for my dear
old mother, whose income had been reduced by successive misfortunes to a bare
living. Full of hope, I sought employment in Houston, and, like the generality
of foolish boys, got rid of my stock of money quite rapidly, till I found myself
at the bed-rock with barely the color, when I attracted the attention of a noble
gentleman, by name of Bancroft, through whose influence I found employment at a
small salary in the office of the County Clerk. Soon tiring of the monotonous
work of copying dry writs of law, etc., I secured a place more to my liking with
a brilliant young merchant (Jno. W. Pitkin), where I remained only a short time,
for, unfortunately, Norval-like, "I had heard of battles," and I "longed to
follow to the field some warlike lord." And Heaven soon granted, etc., for that
warlike lord, under name of Captain Willson, appeared in Houston with a company
of volunteers recruited principally in Galveston and destined to the frontiers
to fight the Comanche Indians and anything else worth fighting. The temptation
was too strong, and away I went as a bold soldier boy, mounted on a gallant
mustang, as volunteer in the service of the Republic of Texas.

  We started out about the 1st of September, 1839, marching direct to the
frontier. At San Antonio, Col. Carnes took the chief command, and after adding
to our squad a band of scouts and a company of surveyors, under young Jack Hays
(now our old Col. Jack of Alameda county), we boldly advanced into the heart of
the Indian country. The Comanches, at that time, were the most powerful and
war-like tribe of the western plains, but with Carnes, the most celebrated
Indian fighter on the frontier, as our leader, we had no doubt of a successful
campaign. The redoubtable Capt. Willson, of our squad, possessed a monstrous
knife, it was intended as an improvement on Jim Bowie's knife, being larger and
curved like a Moorish scimiter—I mention the knife because it was of more
importance than the owner, and calculated, from its dimensions and bright brass
scabbard, to give the owner a character of blood-thirstiness sought after by
every bombastic coward since the days of old Jack Falstaff —seeing him with such
a knife at the head of his command, and as he flourished it before the admiring
gaze of his company, it is no wonder that in my eighteenth year, I selected him
as leader to the field of glory. Carnes led us to the Indians on the waters of
San Saba, a tributary of the Colorado. We killed some Indians; got from them
forty-seven horses and mules, and after locating some Texas land scrip on what
was supposed to be rich mineral lands, returned to the settlements. The most
remarkable incident of the campaign was the killing of a "dead" Indian by our
gallant Captain with his celebrated knife. We attacked the Indians in the early
dawn of a drizzly morning, and as there were scarcely Indians enough to go round
we soon finished up killing all but two or three, out of a war-party of
twenty-four, led by the noted chief Isawakanee, which had just left the main
body for an independent foray on the settlements below. In the grey of the
twilight, after the scrimmage was about over, as I was returning to the Indian
camp, a voice cried out, "Shoot that damn'd Indian over there; he is showering
us with arrows."  Two of us shot him, I think Col. Jack Hays and myself—he was
down with a broken thigh; our bullets broke his arm and entered his body at the
breast—he cried out in Spanish, after falling against some bushes: "don't kill
me, I want to talk." As Col. Carnes, with others, advanced to hear him, not
dreaming of danger from a man with only one available arm and leg, and a ball
through his vitals, he noticed the bow at the feet of the Indian, when whiz came
an arrow directed at his head. Knowing Carnes by his "red head" this chief had
often tried to kill him, as the worst foe of the Comanches, and now with death
upon him he hoped to accomplish it, and thus go to the Indian heavens with
glory. But Carnes, ever watchful of a Comanche, saw the movement and dodged the
arrow. With only one leg and arm available, he caught his bow with his toes, and
with the agonies of death upon him fixed and pointed the arrow at his mortal
foe. Excited by the treachery, Carnes cried, "Kill him!" etc., and the Indian
was riddled with bullets, and fell back a corpse. Of course we admired the game
and pluck of   the Indian, and would liked to have saved him, but a Comanche
seldom gives, and never asks quarter—he died as he had lived, the implacable foe
of the white man. There was a kind of sympathy for the dead redskin among the
boys present, but our gallant Captain appearing at the close of the action with
his famous knife, and perceiving the conspicuous corpse, fell upon it with
murderous blows, and fleshed his glorious knife in the body of an Indian—as dead
as a door nail. Learning, from a Mexican prisoner held by the Indians as a slave
and mortally wounded, that there was a large body—some five thousand or more—of
Indians within a few miles of us, and as one had escaped on horseback, Carnes
ordered an immediate return to San Antonio, which was done, Captain Willson
being the only one of the company who had acquired a notoriety—he "killed the
dead Indian."

  After returning to San Antonio, I joined a party bound to Mexico to take part
in the struggle for independence of the people of the northern part of that
country, comprising the States of Cohuila, Nueva Leon, Tamaulipas and Chihuahua,
then marshaling their forces against the Central Government. With about two
hundred and thirty Texans, under the command of Colonel Jourdan, we were
associated with from five hundred to one thousand Mexicans and Indians,
resembling very much Falstaff s motley crowd of ragamuffins—better skilled in
stealing than fighting. Interspersed with the Mexicans were a few old soldiers,
but the mass was composed of vaqueros, Leperos and Mescalero Apaches—all
first-rate soldiers on "retreat," either before or after the enemy; the two
hundred and thirty Texans being allowed to do the fighting. General Canales was
chief in command of the Federal forces—as our fellows were termed—and General
Arista chief of the Central forces. The object of the Federals—as the
Revolutionists termed themselves—was to restore to the several States the
original sovereignty guaranteed by the Mexican Constitution of 1824, which had
been changed to a Central Directory by General Santa Anna, and continued by
Bustamenta, then President of Mexico, regardless of the Constitutional rights of
the States. The Revolutionists, however, soon changed their plans, and declared
for an independent Republic, comprising the four States mentioned, with the name
of "Republica del Rio Grande," electing one "Vedauri" as President.

  Like all revolutions of that unstable people, the leaders, after continuing a
lively campaign for several months, Judas-like sold out to the Central Power for
their thirty or more pieces of silver, and the poor Texans were compelled to
fight their way back to the Rio Grande and into Texas, wiser if not richer men.
There had been two attempts on the part of our patriot friends to deliver us
over to the tender mercies of the Centrals, one at the city of Monterey on the
1st of January, 1840, and another at the town of Morales. Soon thereafter, at
Monterey, I was informed that the price for which we were to be delivered was an
ounce or doubloon per head. I never knew the price at Morales. As we were not
parties to the contract, we fought our way out of the country, fully satisfied
with our experience of Mexican patriotism. Of the many little fights of the
campaign, the desperate valor of the Texans was always successful. The capture
of a battery of four pieces loaded to the muzzle with canister, near the town of
Mier on the Rio Grande, was one of the most gallant charges in modern history.
Two hundred and twenty-five men charged a battery of four pieces, supported by
six hundred of the flower of the Central troops. As they advanced in the open
plain they were met with a shower of canister, at about two hundred yards
distance, but falling to their faces at the first smoke of the priming, the
discharge was measurably harmless. Rising to their feet, they dashed forward
with the old Texan yell, shot down the artillery men from the already reloaded
guns, turned them upon the six hundred then in mass and in close range, when up
went the white flag. We had more prisoners than we could guard, so had to send
for our Mexicans to come from the far rear to take care of the prisoners. An
amusing incident occurred in the beginning of this action:

  There were in our mongrel crowd of patriots about two hundred Mescalero
Apaches, and, to make them available, Colonel Switzer, one of our men, was
detailed to lead them against the enemy. Switzer gallantly advanced his command,
but receiving a harmless volley at long range, every Indian deserted him, and,
as they swept by us, every breach-clout fluttering in the breeze, at a two-forty
trot, the Colonel followed on his white horse, crying, "Avancen ! Avancen!"
being all the Spanish he knew. They continued to advance, but in the wrong
direction to suit the Colonel, and as they dashed into the thickets and gulches,
the disgusted Colonel gave up the chase of his flying soldiers, and dismounting,
rejoined his old comrades in the front, and, in the subsequent charges, proved
that there was one gallant man left of his regiment. Though the famous Apache
appears to make a success of fighting Uncle Sam's Regulars in Arizona, his
reputation with us was that of a first-class coward.

  Returning to Texas without glory or money, I made my way to Houston with one
companion. In Victoria, on the Guadaloupe, a friend gave us a three-dollar Texas
red-back, worth twenty-five cents on the dollar; with that we had to cross three
ferries and make a distance of over two hundred and fifty miles through a wet,
flat country. Being too proud to beg or steal, and having given my trusty rifle
to a friend on the Mexican frontier, reserving my side arms only, and my
companion having a Mexican scopet, or short musket, to scare off Indians only,
and unfit for use, as it had no flint, we could kill no game; we consequently
traveled like General Hardee's soldiers—by doubling distance at half rations.
The route was full of amusing incidents, but in crossing the last ferry (a ferry
was our bete noir), at the town of Richmond, on the banks of the Brazos, we
feared trouble. The banks were too miry to allow our mules to reach the water
for swimming, and a mule is a bad swimmer. We were told that "our kind" would be
required to pay in advance, and, as we had no money, the situation was
desperate. We were within forty miles of home, and the river must be crossed. I
boldly called the ferry-man from the opposite bank. He was one of those
trustworthy ancient privileged negroes of the olden time, known far and wide as
"Old Cain," and fearing his scrutiny of our shabby plight, I allowed him no time
to consider, assuming a patronizing manner in hurrying him off with his boat,
plied him with a constant stream of questions, allowing scarcely time to answer
till we were on the other side, when, on leaving the boat I said to him: "Uncle,
I'll return soon and pay you this ferriage." He replied in a dejected tone,
"Dat's wat dey all tells me," and dropping his head and looking at me from the
corner of his eye, accompanying his words with the motion of his head. " I does
spize dese poh white folks." Being amused instead of insulted, I passed out. A
few days thereafter I had occasion to cross his ferry again. My old employer,
John W. Pitkin, of Houston, welcomed me back, and after the barber and tailor
had finished with me, sent me to Richmond and vicinity to purchase several crops
of cotton from the adjacent planters, my judgment of that staple being
first-class. Mounted on the magnificent thoroughbred of my employer, with all
the barber and tailor could do for me, I appeared at the ferry of the
redoubtable Cain. In the most polite and obsequious manner, the apron of the
flat was arranged to admit my entrance; after crossing I drew out my
pocket-book, displaying a large roll of bills, and desired to know what was due
him—"one dollar, sah," with his hand to his hat. "But I owe you for two
ferriages more." "Isn't you mistaken, marssa? I never seed you afore." "I'll
remind you: I was riding a handsome brown mule, my companion a white one) and
when I proposed to pay the ferriage on my return, your reply was that you
"despised poor white folks." "I declar to God it warn't dis nigger; I nebber
talked dat way to a gentleman, in my life. 'Twas some odder nigger, shoh. I
can't take dat money, marssa; let dat miserable nigger get it hisself. You owes
me de one dollar, and no mo. I never seed you afore!" Almost bursting with a
desire to laugh, I pretended to believe him, and paid the one dollar only. So
much for appearances. My friend, Pitkin, the following year, closed his business
in Texas, and not finding employment to my taste in Houston, and having acquired
strong relish for the sports and excitements of country, and frontier life in
particular, I began a roving existence in search of fortune and pleasure over
the lovely praries of Texas—the "Beautiful," as its name signifies in the Indian
tongue. In the latter part of 1842, after having disposed of a good deal of the
"wild oats" of young manhood, the fortune still non est, and the pleasures very
much mixed with pain, I found myself among strangers, "dead flat broke," and
just recovering from a severe attack of malarial fever. Too proud to loaf on the
generosity of the country people, and unwilling to write home for help, and thus
confess my poverty, I concluded to attempt the art of agriculture as the only
field of progress open to my enterprise and capital, and as "he who by the plow
would thrive, himself must either hold or drive," I began operations in my new
sphere as captain, or navigator, of a pair of Texas steers attached to a plow. I
had learned to steer a boat and also to manage a pair of carriage horses, but
the most difficult task I ever undertook was to make a success of this last
institution. The oxen appeared to recognize a "greeny" at the helm, and were in
a constant state of mutiny; the plow would plunge to the beam, then porpoise
like, rise to the surface and skye to the right, then to the left, and had it
not been for the natural combativeness and pluck of the captain, the first
lesson in agriculture would have ended in a failure. But as perseverentia vincit
omnia, I finally graduated as an agriculturalist, and especially as a manager of
the Texas steer, through whose aid (five or six yoke of them attached to a
prairie "schooner") I ascended from the bed-rock of poverty and misery to the
position of a respectable merchant.

  In December, 1848, I married my first wife, then Miss Adeline Bramlette
Durham, the fourth daughter of Colonel Thomas Durham, the seventh son of John
Durham, of Chappel Hill, North Carolina, and Elenora Thompson, the only daughter
of William Thompson and Mary Jane McMullen, of same place. Colonel Durham was a
representative man in the early settlement of Durhamville, Tennessee, Lexington,
Mississippi, and subsequently Central and Western Texas. The varied and exciting
history of my Texas life would make a fair romance; but as history and not
romance is the object of this writing, I will state that in the Spring of 1850,
with my young wife, I left Texas for California, arriving in San Francisco on
the steamer Tennessee, on the 20th of June. There were many incidents of the
trip from New York via Panama, illustrating the grand rush for the gold fields
of California, and the trials and tribulations of that first lot of twenty
modest and respectable ladies, some with their husbands and the rest under
escort of friends coming to join their husbands who had preceded them.

  The passage from New York to Chagres, in the steamer Philadelphia, Captain
Pierson, was a pleasant one, the monotony being broken by the putting in at
Jamaica, for the purpose of landing Mrs. John McDougal, wife of the Governor of
California, she being dangerously sick. The Pearl of the Antilles was then a
Negro Heaven—all lately enfranchized and above work. The plantain trees and fish
of the bay furnished food, clothes in that warm climate being a superfluity, the
free Negro really "surfeited" in the luxury of laziness. Arriving at the bay of
Chagres, the sea being rough it was a trying time for ladies to disembark,
leaping from the ladder at the ship's side to the small boat, and into the arms
of strong men prepared to catch them as the rising wave lifted the boat to the
ladder, receiving each one a genuine hug, as she fell into the arms of her
catcher, no doubt beneficial to those wives coming to meet husbands and so long
deprived of a good manly hug.

  Arriving at the town, their modesty was shocked by the necessity of huddling
with the crowd in the temporary hotels, or shelters improvised for men only, as
lady passengers had been few up to that date. The private rooms for our ladies
of these hotels were eight-by-ten spaces, on a common floor, divided by
partitions of thin muslin or "butter cloth," the doorway to each being a curtain
of the same. This shock to the modesty of pure and refined women was only a
precursor to the trials of the river trip of three or four days, in dug-outs,
with native negroes as oarsmen, in the garb of Father Adam, without so much as a
fig leaf covering. Such being the circumstances, each and every one of the male
passengers, from the roughest to the most refined, appeared to vie with each
other in delicate sympathy, rendering every possible protection to them which
could have been given to their own pure mothers and sisters. My party,
consisting of my wife, then nineteen years of age, my friend, James F. Quinn,
and a negro man-servant, fared somewhat better.  After inspecting the room at
the hotel, and leaving my wife under the guardianship of the gallant Major
Chase, the veteran of Chapultepec fame, I started out to look for better
quarters, when, with much joy, I learned that my cousin, Captain David B.
Morgan, with his steamer, the Telegraph, was moored in the river above the town.
We lost no time in getting aboard his ship. Abandoned by his crew, he was
keeping ship with only a cockswain and two negro boys. After remaining with him
two or three days, he kindly loaned me his yawl, or gig, and the cockswain
having agreed to manage the boat, procured the services of two native oarsmen,
and thus we ascended to Gorgona, the natives being persuaded by the muzzle of a
pistol to keep their "calsoniz," or drawers, on in the presence of ladies.
Through a letter of introduction to the Alcalde of Gorgona, from my brother,
(the late Col. Wm. M. Smith), I readily procured a full equipment of horses,
mules and peons, for the passage over the summit to Panama. After passing the
summit, in advance of our baggage, we stopped at a canvas hotel for lunch and
rest; there we were told that a state of war existed between the natives and
Americans at Panama, and that the natives, having been repulsed at the city
walls the day before with the loss of several of their number, were mustering in
force for another attack on the city. This, of course, was alarming, but not
liking the looks of the landlord and his crew of New York roughs, Quinn and I
concluded there was less danger in running the blockade through the native
negroes, than trusting to our own countrymen of that stripe. Arriving at the
outskirts of Panama, we came upon a dense pack of some three hundred mixed
bloods and negroes being harangued by a tall negro apparently under great
excitement, but having determined that there was less danger in forcing a
passage than retreating, each of us having had some experience in fighting the
warriors of Mexico, we dashed forward at a quick gallop, my wife and I in
advance, Quinn next, and the colored servant in the close rear! We were then
inclosed in a kind of street-way, between huts, and close up to the pack of
natives. The danger was imminent, but the guarded wall of the city was in sight.
My wife, mounted on a splendid animal and accustomed to the saddle, was directed
to go for the gate, regardless of what might occur to the rest of the party, and
to sit close to the saddle, as I expected to shoot a lane through them. At our
approach the crowd opened a lane of about ten feet, but the orator and captain
planted himself across the center, facing us, apparently intending to stop us.
Cautioning my wife to hold her seat, I spurred a little forward, with pistol
cocked, but concealed at my side, and when about to shoot him at the front of
her horse, he stepped to one side, exclaiming, "Ah que boneta y tan galan!" (oh,
how pretty and so gallant)—and we swept by, unmolested, to enter the gates and
receive the hearty congratulations of our people inside at our lucky escape.
Ladies, crossing the Isthmus at that time, were either transported in chairs on
the backs of sturdy natives, or sat astride of the gentle mule or horse, led by
a native on foot. To the contrast of all this, our "lady," with youth and a fair
share of beauty, with proper riding-habit, and a gay feather in her hat, in
side-saddle, on a splendid animal which she gracefully sat and controlled, was a
thing of beauty, which caused the gallantry of the man to overcome his
combativeness for the moment. She was the first lady to cross the Isthmus in the
proper style of her countrywomen, and to that circumstance only we considered
our safe passage due. There was some little skirmishing that night—the
Americans, with the local police, guarding the walls through the night.

  On the first of June we waded to the boats, some hundred yards from the beach,
and were transported to the steamer Tennessee, off Toboga island. An incident at
Acapulco on the way up where the ship stopped to coal, was a famous "mule race,"
in which some of California's prominent men figured as first-class jockeys,
proving, as of old, that "the race is not always to the swift." Charlie Fairfax,
Bob Post and Sam Dwinelle, wandering in the outskirts of the town, fastened on a
pair of mules and immediately began racing; Charlie's mule, though much the
fastest, would invariably fly the track, and being summoned by the trio to aid
with counsel, I agreed with them that the slow mule would undoubtedly prove the
fastest. So a race was declared, and the sporting passengers of the steamer
repaired to the track to bet on the race between Bob Post and Charlie Fairfax.
As expected, Charlie's mule was the favorite, but the insiders, believing in
true Christian faith, that "the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race
to the swift," in meekness of spirit accommodated the friends of the fast mule
by taking all the bets offered. The mules were started, and in spite of
Charlie's desperate efforts, the fast mule came near winning, and if the outcome
judges had not closed in a little would have come out not only ahead, but the
winner of the race, to the chagrin of the insiders. But after a furious squabble
another race was ordered, in which the fast mule vindicated his true character
by dashing squarely out into the chapparal and leaving the race and stakes to
Bob and the slow mule. Of course, Charlie was accused of throwing the race,
which was indignantly repelled. We won the stakes, were all denounced as a pack
of frauds, and accused of playing on the innocents.

  After remaining in San Francisco a day or two, which looked much like the
camping ground of an army, with white tents covering the surface where now its
finest edifices are erected, we embarked on the sloop Sweetheart for Martinez,
the expectant city of the Straits, where we were kindly received by Aug. Van
Horn Ellis, the agent and town clerk of the embryo city, he kindly yielding to
myself and wife his comfortable quarters adjoining his office, taking our meals
at the Hotel de Steward, kept by a colored man and retired ship's cook by name
of William Jones. Steward furnished his table bountifully with hard-tack, pork,
beans and beef; potatoes, onions and vegetables were not then provided to any
extent in Contra Costa county, and consequently were a rare luxury in the early
history of Martinez. The population was truly a mixed one, the Nantucketers and
Pikers being in the ascendency, and though as totally different in habits,
customs and vernacular as is possible for people of one common country to be,
yet as harmonious as doves, the Pikers furnishing their aristocracy with the
titles of Squires, Judges and Colonels, while the Nantucketers were nearly all
Captains—a preference for "flapjacks and bacon" on the part of the former, and
"hard-tack and codfish" that of the latter, being the principal distinction. The
public institutions were the aforesaid Hotel de Steward; two stores, one kept by
J. C. Boorham, and the other by Theodore Kohler; the Alcalde's office, presided
over by Thomas A. Brown, with Nathaniel Jones as Alguazil or Sheriff; and the
ferry scow, commanded by Judge Hunsaker. Benicia, on the opposite shore, was
another embryo city, already possessing a good start, with the United States
navy yard, barracks and customhouse, and with the machine shops, dry docks and
iron foundry, to be erected by the Pacific Mail Company at Fisherman's Cove, on
the Martinez side, the ground having been tendered by Colonel William M. Smith
and accepted by Captain Stout, the agent of the company. As the selected site
was not included in the survey of the town, and Colonel Smith having neglected
to procure a quit claim from the heirs to the company for the then comparatively
worthless tract of thirty acres of wild, rough land, and during his absence to
the Atlantic States some of the heirs, prompted by feelings of jealousy towards
Smith, refused to make the title as agreed upon, except at an exorbitant and
unreasonable price, Stout, having in the meantime received favorable overtures
from the people of the Benicia side, immediately began the erection of the
Pacific works on that shore—eventually abandoned by the company, the tule land
proving unfit for heavy structures.

  Thus for the stupid jealously of some of the Pinole heirs, Smith's pet town,
in which they were jointly interested, after a few spasmodic struggles declined
into a "Rip Van Winkle sleep" until awakened by the snort of the "Iron Horse" to
a contemplation of what Martinez, with its proximity to the mines, might have
been under the attracting influence of the wharves, dry docks, foundries and
machine shops of the company, drawing to it, if only for repairs, the whole
commercial fleet of the Pacific. Happening with my brother at the office of the
company in New York, April 15, 1850, when the change of locality and cause was
explained, with intense disgust at his co-owners in Pinole Ranch, he exclaimed,
" d—n them, they have blasted the hopes of the town and my work is lost."
Continuing my personal narrative, my destination being "Pinole," the home of my
brother, we soon took horses and left Martinez, and after a romantic and
pleasant ride in the midst of a gay cavalcade, consisting of some American
friends and the gaily dressed retainers of Don Vicente Martinez on fine horses,
all richly caparisoned with gold and silver mounted trappings, and the females
of the family ensconced in the peculiar carriage of the country—yclept
"Correton" or "Dobie Cart"—we duly arrived at the residence of my brother in
Pinole, where we were kindly welcomed by his wife, the leading lady of that once
proud and happy family of native aristocracy (the Martinez and Castros being the
most refined and wealthiest families of the upper district of the Contra Costa).
How different now is the status of the remnants of those once proud and
imperious families, with their wealth of domain comprising half the area of the
county, with cattle and horses in immense numbers covering the thousand hills
and valleys. The contact and contest with the Anglo-Saxon race for thirty-two
years, leaves them mere beggars at their own threshold, now the property of the
stranger.

  The product of the gold placers being wonderful, I was anxious to try my
fortune with the rest, but my brother having arrived from the East, on the July
steamer, prevailed upon me to settle down as a rancher. I thereupon began fixing
up for my family, on what was then called the "Ward and Smith League" of the
Sobrante, now known as the old Smith ranch of San Pablo creek. Having hired
several American farmers and sailors, at the monthly wages of seventy-five
dollars, I soon had some shanties erected, a field fenced, and good corrals
built for the stock, and after the rains began, started some plows to turning
over the virgin soil for the future crops. My eldest son, William Quinn Smith,
was born at the Pinole ranch on the 11th of December, 1850. The mother having
passed the Winter at my brothers house, returning to the new ranch, after the
Spring rains were over, with her young babe. With five hundred head of cattle,
one hundred head of horses, a league of land, a young wife and baby boy, under a
good shelter, with a cultivated field of barley wheat, corn and vegetables, I
was as happy as a lord. My nearest neighbor, some three miles distant, on the
only wagon road out to Martinez, was Squire Elam Brown—the Patriarch of his
settlement, who still lives honored and loved by all of his old acquaintances,
as a true type of "God's noblest work."

  I remained on this ranch for two years, where, as a kind of outpost of the
inner settlements, I was continually battling with the grizzly bears and
marauding caballeros, not yet reconciled to the Gringo. While riding into
Martinez one day alone, I saw two of these caballeros approaching at a gallop.
One of them began preparing his riata, evidently with the intention of throwing
it over me in passing and jerking me from the saddle with deadly force.
Perceiving his intention, I reined out about twelve feet, holding my cocked
revolver under my Talma cloak, and continued to meet them. Instead of reining
out to pitch the riata with one quick motion, or whirling it to reach me, he
muttered "Caramba!" and dropped the coil in the road. As he did that I remarked,
"Bien echo armigo," and returned my revolver to the holster at my side as we
passed each other, The lasso or riata was more dangerous in skillful hands than
firearms, and had I not been skilled in its use through my Texan and Mexican
experience, and thus able to detect the intention in his movements of
preparation to throw, I would no doubt have been instantly killed by the jerk to
the ground. My playful friends were Joaquin Murietta and Three-fingered Jack,
his lieutenant, desiring a little playful practice on a "Maldito Gringo." Being
twelve or more feet distant, requiring a whirl of his riata to reach me with
certainty, his prudence saved his life when he threw down his rope— being as
certain with my revolver, from long practice, as he with his rope. Those playful
tricks were quite common in the early settlement of California. It must not be
understood that the native Californians of this county were of the above
description; to the contrary, they were kind and generous in the extreme to the
way-worn pioneer seeking a home.

  Removing to the Bull Head ranch near Martinez, in the Fall of 1852, where I
engaged in farming on a small scale, and stock raising, having reconveyed my
interest in the Sobrante to my brother, who was then suffering under severe
financial difficulties, I began another start by investing in gentle cows and
hogs—the former at one hundred and fifty dollars per head, and the latter at
fifty cents per pound, with poultry rating at from fifteen to twenty dollars per
dozen. I soon had the tules stocked with hogs at heavy cost, expecting a small
fortune in profits. But as the " best laid schemes of men and mice, gang aft
agley," ship after ship arrived from the Pacific islands, laden with that
peculiar breed of hogs known as ''razor blades," or "wind-splitters," and down
went the price through excess of importation, below cost of production. I closed
out those most convenient at two cents per pound, the remainder and larger
portion being given their independence in the tules. Speculations in lumber,
nails, tobacco, whisky, etc., frequently brought ruin instead of fortune to
their unfortunate owners, and to show the fickleness of the times, flour had
been held at fifty dollars per barrel, during the time of '51-'2, with  many
other articles of daily necessity in like proportion, depending upon the supply
at hand. In the Fall of 1853, the county, having become thoroughly populated by
an intelligent people settled upon almost every available one hundred and sixty
acres of the surface, with schools, churches and established law in full
progress, I was elected to the office of Sheriff, with its emoluments, and
especially with all its resposibilities. As custodian of the lives and property
of the law-abiding citizens of my county, in their struggle with the murderous
thieving element then surrounding us, I was fully taxed for all the executive
force of my nature, to give them the protection of our laws. There was another
force spasmodically rising among the honest and brave settlers of the county,
still more dangerous than the murderers and theives constantly prowling around.
It was the "mob spirit," or "lynching mania," often rendered necessary through
inefficiency of law in early days. In all my experience the most trying and
dangerous position in which I was ever cast was that of maintaining the majesty
of "civil law" against the votaries of Judge Lynch, maddened by excitement,
attempting to override and crush out the most sacred rights of man, guaranteed
by that grand code of jurisprudence and proud boast of the Anglo-Saxon. When
interposing between his own respected friends and neighbors in protecting the
prisoner of the law, to be forced to drop the muzzle of his pistol covering the
face of his nearest advancing friend, crazed with temporary madness, is the most
terrible ordeal of an officer. It is to do, or not to do, in an atom of time,
for stern duty forces action, and the feelings of the man must yield to the
necessities of the occasion.

  Enjoying in a high degree the confidence and respect of my fellow-citizens,
and having on several occasions succeeded, through a little firmness and tact,
in holding this turbulent spirit subservient to law, it was my misfortune only
once to be placed in the above described position: It was in Martinez, in 1854.
Some several prisoners broke jail, three of them held for and one sentenced for
a horrible murder, and a common horse-thief or two. The excitement had been
intense. I was continually alarmed by reports of the organizing of lynchers from
the home of the victim, on the San Joaquin, and from the then notorious mob
element of the Redwoods. The town element was held moderately quiet, through the
influence of the best citizens exerting themselves in behalf of the civil law,
at my special request, when the horrifying, panicky cry of "The murderers are
out!" fell upon my ear. Rushing to the scene, and after capturing and returning
the nearest to the jail, two of them (one being the condemned man) being snugly
hidden and thus causing a delay in the search, a large crowd had assembled, and
rushing upon me in a state of frenzy, crying: "Hang them!" "Ropes!" etc., etc.
Being at the bank of the creek, with my hand on the sentenced man, I could feel
him shudder at the sight of the surging mass in front (though afterwards, at his
execution, exhibiting a wonderful coolness.) Warning them, over the pistol
barrel, the sight of a good honest face in front of the muzzle almost staggered
me into cowardice, when just beyond, in the line of range, I discovered the tall
head of a noted mob leader and would-be desperado who had refused to aid me in
upholding the law, and who had provoked me to the utterance, "that finding you
in any crowd interfering with me in the discharge of my duty, I shall select you
as the leader, and if my right arm fails me," etc., etc. With intense relief I
raised the level to his head, and, as he caught my eye, he cried out: "As the
Sheriffs got them, boys, let the law take its course." With the advantage of
this temporary check, and using the tact of calling them to my aid in guarding
the prisoners but a few days, when we would execute them by law, and thus as
good citizens they would escape the indelible stain of blood and the outrage of
that law so necessary to their own safety. Men who had no fear for pistols
listened to reason, and thus I was enabled to perform the crowning act of my
sheriff's term. The men were returned to jail, and a few days thereafter the
sentenced man was executed, in the presence of over two thousand quiet and
contented citizens of the State from far and near. Nothing but the ordinary
duties of the office occuring till the close of my term, and the old Whig party,
of which I was a member, having collapsed, and declining membership with either
the Democratic or Know-Nothing, the only two existing parties, and running
without a party, and neglecting to canvass the county, to the surprise of my
friends, I was beaten by the small majority of thirty-five votes, through a
combination of the Know-Nothings with the Democrats. The following term, the
fees of office having been reduced below what I thought commensurate with the
value of the service required, I declined a tendered nomination of the
Independents for Sheriff and accepted that of Assessor, to which I was
triumphantly elected in 1857, with a majority over the Democrats and
Know-Nothings combined. Having voted with the Democrats after the fall of the
Whig party, in 1856, and aiding materially in the success of the former, I was
tendered and accepted the position of First Assistant Engrossing Clerk to the
State Senate, in 1856-57, and, believing myself a full-fledged Democrat, the
following Fall I was induced to ask the nomination at their hands for County
Clerk. Appearing at the threshold of the convention with a strong delegation, I
found myself assailed by a large portion of my "new friends, but old political
foes," with the epithet of "Whitewashed Whig" only coming into the party for
office. Perceiving the probable effect upon the "unwashed" members, of this
unfair stigma, I prudently retired, and the convention nominated undoubtedly a
better clerk in the person of our present incumbent, L. C. Wittenmyer, whose
only crime—"Linked with a thousand virtues"—was that of becoming a Republican.

  My family history goes back to 1854, when my dear and noble brother was
carried to his grave at the early age of thirty-nine. Not only was he the
founder of Martinez, but, as the partner of the firm of Ward & Smith, one of the
founders of San Francisco's commercial greatness in 1847-48, as successors to
Liedesdorf, of ante-bellum, fame. My old and truly venerated mother, after
having joined her two remaining children in California died in February, 1857,
revered and honored far and wide; cradled in the Revolution, and during her
early and long widowhood the social drawing-room companion of Jefferson,
Madison, Webster, Clay, Jackson, and other bright stars of America's galaxy of
greatness—she was a living cyclopaedia of her country's history. Her memorable
prophecy of the immediate future I can never forget, given immediately after the
election of Buchanan, she solemnly said: "My son, this is your last Democratic
President for a long period, and perhaps forever. Republicans will be the next,
and Secession will follow, and may a kind God close my eyes ere I see that sad
sight."

  After the close of my term as Assessor, having in the meantime removed to the
country and again assumed the life of a quiet farmer, engaged in grain and stock
raising, I have continued to follow this monotonous course of life, only broken
by being called from home as a member of the commission appointed by the Court
to partition the grand old Rancho de Pinole among the heirs, and as a Democratic
candidate for Sheriff in 1871, when I was most ingloriously defeated by the
Republican nominee, though running two hundred votes ahead of my ticket. My poor
Spanish friends informed me that they were required to vote the entire
Republican ticket without a scratch, in order to secure the promised "vienta
reales," or two and one-half dollars. My patriotism being much diminished, I
again retired to the shades of pastoral obscurity —high in health, though low in
funds—yet rich in the possession of a true and loving wife, and as fine a family
of girls and boys as can be shown by any other pioneer in the State.

  In concluding these pages, while clouds of misfortune have continually hovered
over my financial progress, I have a right to claim a fair share in the
development of the advanced civilization surrounding us. Having planted the
seeds of progress upon what was considered a barren coast of the Pacific, we
live to see them fructified within a few short years—their branches spreading,
laden with the fruits of enterprise, challenging the admiration of the civilized
world.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY,
CALIFORNIA,
INCLUDING ITS GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATOGRAPHY AND DESCRIPTION;
TOGETHER WITH A RECORD OF THE MEXICAN GRANTS; THE BEAR FLAG WAR; THE MOUNT
DIABLO COAL FIELDS; THE EARLY HISTORY AND SETTLEMENT, COMPILED FROM THE MOST
AUTHENTIC SOURCES; THE NAMES OF ORIGINAL SPANISH AND MEXICAN PIONEERS; FULL
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE COUNTY; SEPARATE HISTORY OF EACH TOWNSHIP, SHOWING
THE ADVANCE IN POPULATION AND AGRICULTURE;
ALSO,
Incidents of Pioneer Life; and Biographical Sketches
OF EARLY AND PROMINENT SETTLERS AND REPRESENTATIVE MEN;
AMD OF ITS TOWNS, VILLAGES, CHURCHES, SECRET SOCIETIES, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED.
SAN FRANCISCO: W. A. SLOCUM & CO., PUBLISHERS
1882.



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