Plumas County CA Archives History - Books .....Meteorlogical 1882 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com January 2, 2006, 7:34 pm Book Title: Illustrated History Of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties METEOROLOGICAL. Plumas county lies entirely within the section drained by the Feather river, one of the principal confluents of the Sacramento. Scarcely a drop of water or a flake of snow falls within the county that does not find its way into one of the many tributaries of the Feather, and thence to the sea. The watershed between the Nevada and Sacramento basins forms the dividing line between Plumas and Lassen, while the dividing ridge between the Feather and Yuba rivers forms the Sierra county line. On the north-west, the dividing ridge between the waters of the Feather and of Butte and Deer creeks forms the county line, so .that Plumas county lies solely within the dominion of Feather river. Moisture falls in these high mountain regions chiefly in the form of snow, especially on the mountains, though in the early and latter parts of the rainy season the valleys are refreshed with copious showers of rain while the mountain tops are white with snow. Thus it often happens that while the roads in the valley are almost impassable on account of mud, the mountain roads are equally blockaded by the drifts of snowv The heaviest fall of snow occurs on the ridge lying west of the American and Indian valleysj and also between Nelson Point and La Porte. Across this ridge communication is frequently maintained only by messengers on snow-shoes, and mails and express are often transported in that way. [See article on Express and Stages.] The stoppage by snow of the routes of travel has often caused great privation, and even death, especially in the early years. [See Early History and Migration of 1852.] Great suffering has been endured by those caught on the mountains in the winter storms, and many have perished amid the bleak forests, far from help or friends, and others almost within reach of shelter. One of the saddest of these incidents happened but a year ago. On Tuesday, January 25, 1881, John Harold, a workman at the Monte Christo mine, and Mrs. John Nibecker, wife of the engineer at the same place, started from Buck's ranch to go to the mine on Spanish Peak. At the time they left it was storming some, but before they reached the top of the grade the wind and snow were beating down the mountain in a terrific manner. A few rods from where the road to the mine turns off from the stage road they were overtaken by James Parker, driver of the stage, with his sled, and rode as far as the junction. When Parker learned of their intention to go to the mine, he endeavored to persuade the woman to go on with him to the toll-house and stay all night, and not attempt to climb the mountain until the storm ceased. He told them that they were now sheltered from the force of the storm, but that when they got upon the top of the hill the wind would be terrific, and they would perish from cold and fatigue, and be buried by the drifting snow. His warnings were not heeded, and they started up the hill, accompanied by a dog that had been their companion, while Parker drove on to Quincy. When Parker reached the same point on his trip back the next morning he observed the dog, and at once surmised that his prediction had been realized. Taking a shovel from his sled, he followed the dog a few rods from the road, and began digging at the foot of a tree where the dog had evidently spent the night, not, however, without a show of displeasure by the canine guardian. He soon uncovered the stiffened form of Harold, but searched in vain for his companion. He went on to the mine, and gave the intelligence that soon started a party in search of the missing lady. The previous afternoon George Massey, while on his way from the mine to the toll-gate, saw a man walking down the wagon road, but thought nothing of it. Soon after he heard a cry that sounded like a woman's call for aid. He answered it, and received a response. Again answering, he went in the direction of the sound, but heard nothing more. Satisfied that he had heard the scream of a California lion, he resumed his journey to the toll-gate. When he heard of the loss of Mrs. Nibecker, Mr. Massey went to the peak, and search was made in the direction of the cry he had heard, and the frozen body of the lady was soon found. This was Thursday, the search having lasted since the day before. It seems evident that the two had progressed to this spot, when the lady became unable to proceed, and the man started alone for assistance, went in the wrong direction, and finally perished near the roadside. The cry for help heard by Mr. Massey must have been the last effort of exhausted nature, and the hope raised in the lady's breast by the answers, followed by despair when help came not and she was no longer able to speak, were both soon lost forever in the icy sleep of death. The sad tragedy came not to an end with the death of the first two actors. When Mr. Parker carried the news to the mine on Wednesday, the gentleman in charge there, E. J. Parsons, selected George Robinson, a young man twenty-one years of age, to carry the intelligence to the toll-house and Meadow valley, and to procure a large sleigh for the purpose of carrying the bodies to the valley. He strapped on his snow-shoes and started down the mountain, and headed directly for the toll house, Where lived his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. Robinson. Late in the afternoon some of the searchers for Mrs. Nibecker went to the toll-house, and were horrified to learn that young Robinson had not been there. They at once thought of a large snow-slide they had observed across the road, and hastened back to see if perchance the body of the young man lay beneath it. When they reached the point, about a mile above the toll-gate, they found an, immense mass of loose snow lying across the road, that had slid down a little hollow. The wind had blown it over the edge of the bank, where it accumulated until it broke off by its own weight and went rushing down the hollow, just in time to meet and bury out of sight the messenger of mercy. The young man was coming down the mountain to the road with the speed of the wind, going in a course diagonal to the avalanche, which the howling of the storm and the beating of the snow prevented him from observing. As he reached the road he was struck by the descending mass, possibly killed by the shock, and covered in a twinkling with a spotless shroud of snow. All this was but too plainly revealed by the tracks of his snow-shoes that led directly into the slide. Work was at once commenced to excavate the body. Day and night did eager hands ply the shovel, fresh men taking the places of the exhausted ones. Robinson was a young man of splendid character, and a general favorite with all; and when the intelligence was spread abroad that he lay beneath an avalanche of snow, many hastened to render what assistance they could in recovering his body. Thus they labored, half a hundred men, from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday, night and day; until, on that quiet Sabbath morning, the body was uncovered and taken to his home but a mile away. His funeral the next Tuesday was attended by a large number of friends, who came many miles through the snow to pay their last respects to the inanimate clay of him who had offered up his young life on the altar of mercy. Another incident, one that occurred during the winter of 1857-58, will suffice to illustrate the perils of the snow. Heavy falls of snow that season had made traveling dangerous to the inexperienced. Few ventured a trip over the mountains, unless in company with the hardy expressmen, who were experts in the art of snow-traveling, and were always provided against emergencies. Occasionally, however, some daring spirit would start out alone, and oftentimes realize but too painfully the folly of his undertaking. The following adventure is but one of the many similar ones that have occurred yearly since the county was first inhabited. Mining on Rich bar, east branch, that winter, was an old pioneer, William L. Perkins, an old sailor who had pursued the mighty leviathan of the deep in the icy seas for many years. One bright morning he left Meadow valley, and followed the trail left by others in the snow to Buck's ranch, at which place he arrived about ten o'clock in the forenoon. After resting a short time, he pushed on towards Buckeye, only to encounter the deep snow on the summit. Through this he struggled and plunged until he became completely exhausted, and he sank powerless in the snow within two miles of the station he was striving to reach. Fully realizing his terrible condition, he managed to crawl through the snow several hundred yards, and then, overcome by cold and fatigue, lay down in his cold couch and surrendered himself to his fate. The drowsy numbness that precedes death in this form soon released him from the agony of a consciousness of his impending fate, and he sank into that slumber that, unless rudely disturbed, leads surely to the embrace of death. A deliverer was at hand. With papers, packages, and letters strapped upon their backs, and fighting sturdily against the elements in their endeavor to make as quick time as possible to American valley, came the energetic expressman, F. B. Whiting, and an assistant. It was about ten o'clock at night when they came upon the unconscious form of a man in the snow, in which Mr. Whiting at once recognized his old friend Perkins. Quickly raising him to his feet, it was found that he was unable to stand or move, and seemed to be beyond hope of resuscitation. The assistant was dispatched in haste to Buckeye for help, blankets, and restoratives. When these arrived, wine was forced down the throat of the benumbed man, which revived him so that he exhibited unmistakable signs of life. He was then placed upon a blanket and drawn through the snow to the station, where he was fully restored. Though his feet were badly frozen, he continued his journey, after recruiting a few days at the Buckeye. Some years subsequent to this he was crossing the river in a boat at Twelve Mile bar, was capsized, and though a strong swimmer, was drowned with three companions. Snow-shoeing is quite an art, and to become expert in the use of these implements requires considerable practice. Like skating, it demands natural strength and dexterity to become an adept. All through the mountains this method of travel is adopted to go from place to place, where high mountain ridges covered with deep snow have to be crossed. Two kinds of snow-shoes are used, the Indian and the Norwegian. The former is an egg-shaped hoop, filled with a network of threads. When it is placed upon the foot, the wearer has his weight distributed over a large surface, but has to walk in order to make any progression. The Norwegian shoe, or rather skate, is excellently well adapted to locomotion on the frozen crust of the snow—more so, even, than on the loose snow when newly fallen. It consists of a bar shaped like the runner of a sled, six to ten feet long, four inches wide, two inches thick in the middle, and grooved underneath. The foot is strapped upon the middle of the shoe, and with a long pole in his hand by which to steer, the skater shoots down the hill like a rocket. Climbing the hills by the aid of the pole is not so easy, but still is rapidly done by an experienced skater. The skill displayed in the Scandinavian mountains by the originators of these wooden skates is marvelous in the extreme; and for many months in the year all travel among the icy bergs is done by means of the swiftly gliding skate, and many a legend and tradition hangs about the precipitous mountain passes. One of these relates the bold feat of a Norseman who was captured by a band of Swedes on their way to make a raid into some mountain village of his countrymen, and compelled to act as a guide through the dangerous mountain defiles. He conducted them safely until he came to a place where the trail turned sharply around the face of a cliff but a few feet from the verge of a yawning chasm. Yelling to his captors to follow him, he shot like an arrow down the descent that led to this dangerous pass, and then turned sharply to one side and disappeared around the cliff; while those behind, unaware of the precipice until right at its verge, and unable to either stop or turn, plunged, one after the other, over its slippery side, and were dashed to pieces on the rocks and ice below. The rain-fall in Plumas is the same that is common to the more northern portion of the Sierra. Much of it comes in the form of snow, and it is customary to estimate a foot of snow as an inch of rain, and in this way pretty accurate records can be kept. Aside from the damage to bridges and mining claims, which has sometimes been very great and disastrous, high water has but few terrors for the people in the mountains. Water frequently covers the valleys of this county in low places, but as it leaves nothing behind it but a little of the soil washed down from the mountain-sides, it is rather a benefit than otherwise. The earliest information we have of a flood exists in the traditions of the savages, who say that years ago there was a terrible flood, in which thousands of natives lost their lives, and hundreds of rancherias on the banks of rivers were washed away and destroyed. It is an era in their history from which they date events in the Sacramento valley, and occurred in the beginning of the present century, about the year 1805. The annals of the Hudson Bay Company show that the year 1818 was one of excessive storms and tremendous floods. The winter of 1826-27, when Jedediah S. Smith passed through California with his trapping party, the water rose so high in the Sacramento valley that he was driven to the Marysville buttes for a camping place, which he found teeming with elk, antelope, and bear that had also sought refuge there. A number of other wet seasons are reported by the early pioneers. All remember the wet and muddy winter of 1849-50, and the difficulty experienced in keeping the mining camps supplied with food. The winter of 1852-53 was a disastrous one throughout the whole state. The Sacramento valley was one vast sea of water, and great damage was done to the cities, and to all improvements, such as mining appliances, bridges, mills, etc. In Plumas county there was little to damage except the flumes and wing-dams in the rivers, but the storms so blockaded the mountain trails that many were in danger of starving. [For the particulars of this see The Exodus of 1852, farther on.] The winter of 1861-62 was one that will long be remembered in California for its devastating floods, that came pouring down the mountains, sweeping everything before them, and leaving ruin and desolation in their pathway. The cities of Marysville, Sacramento, and Stockton, as well as dozens of towns lying in the great valley, were inundated, and suffered great loss of life and property. The whole valley was flooded, and covered by a great inland sea miles in extent. Houses, barns, fences, and all kinds of objects went whirling down on the bosom of the torrent, and hundreds of animals mingled their piteous cries with the roar of the angry waters that were rapidly bearing them away to destruction. Every river seemed bent upon adding its quota to the great sum of damage; and when spring set in, scarcely a bridge of any importance in the state remained to boast of successful battle with the foe. In Plumas county, as in the other mining counties of the Sierra, the damage to bridges and mining claims was considerable, and the flood caused many to go to Idaho who would otherwise have remained in the mines of California. Since that time there have been a number of seasons of comparatively high water; but it was reserved for the storms of January and February, 1881, to strike the severest blow. Scarcely a bridge of any importance in the county was left standing, and the bridge bill of the county for the past year, to repair the damage caused by those two weeks of storm, amounts to a fortune. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties San Francisco: Fariss & Smith (1882) File at: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ca/plumas/history/1882/illustra/meteorlo105gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 16.7 Kb