Sonoma-Yuba-Sierra County CA Archives Biographies.....Mecham, Harrison 1833 - ************************************************ 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 March 1, 2006, 2:26 pm Author: Alley, Bowen & Co. (1880) Mecham, Harrison. The subject of this sketch, whose portrait appears in this volume, is a native of St. Lawrence county, New York, having been born there June 20, 1833. When but an infant he was taken by his parents to Mercer county, Pennsylvania, and at seven years of age accompanied them to Springfield, Illinois, when, having remained a year, they removed to Keokuk, Lee county, Iowa, where they sojourned until 1845. From here his family transferred their habitation to Fremont county, Iowa, and there were domiciled for two years more. At this period Mr. Mecham became acquainted with the parties that piloted Commodore Stockton from California, after the closing of the war with Mexico, across the plains to St. Joseph, Missouri. These men were all old mountaineers, and telling such marvelous stories of grizzly bears, elk, wild cattle and horses being lassoed, that young Mecham became inspired with the desire to partake in these adventures, and so appointed to meet and accompany them, the rendezvous being Fort Kearney, on the Missouri river. From that point they were to start for California, on April 1, 1848. Without the knowledge of his parents Mr. Mecham started for Fort Kearney; no money in his pockets—no clothes save those on his back. On arrival, he found the party, consisting of twenty-five souls, already assembled. He became acquainted with Dr. St. Clair, an old Texan ranger, and was engaged by him to drive an ox-team to California, he receiving for this labor his board and clothes. On the day appointed a start was made, Mecham arrayed in his new buckskin suit and Pike county revolver. He took charge of his team, cracked his whip, and started for the land of promise. After making roads, building bridges, engaging Indians, and encountering many a hair-breadth escape, they made Fort Hall, which at that time lay on the direct route to Upper California. At the date of which we write the fort was the property of the Hudson Bay Company and under the command of Captain Grant, who announced that it would be impossible to go to California on account of the danger to be expected from hostile Indians on the route, proposing at the same time that if the party would remain at the fort during the Winter he would provide them with an escort early in the following Spring. This courteous offer they, however, declined, determining to make their way through at all risks. From, the time the party struck the head of the Humboldt until they reached to Truckee river, one continuous fight with the natives was maintained. The first news of the discovery of gold in California was imparted to them by a company of Mormons, on their way from that Territory to Salt Lake City. Proceeding on their journey, following the Truckee river, they passed through the Cannibal camp, where they saw the remains of the ill-fated Donner party; in one of the cabins there still remained remnants of the human bones from which the flesh had been torn in the frenzy of hunger. On September 10th they made Johnson's ranch on Bear river, on the edge of the Sacramento valley. While here, on the day after they arrived, there came into the camp Nick Carriger, of Sonoma, who desired assistance in effecting the capture of a rancheria of Indians that had slain two of his party (Hollingsworth and Newman, of Sonoma), near where the town of Auburn now stands; he next day saw the force surrounding the Indians capturing the chief and bringing him into their camp, informing the remainder that if the murderers were not produced and given up in two days their chief would assuredly be killed. At the end of the allotted time the four perpetrators of the deed were handed over; they all were hanged to one limb of a tree, and there left suspended, but their bodies were afterwards burned by their confreres, according to the cremation rites of the Indians. Here Mr. Mecham separated from his company—of them he writes: "They were as brave and noble a little band as ever trod the wilds of the West. Here I wish to speak of three noble and courageous women, who never flinched in the time of danger: Mrs. Dr. St. Clair, Mrs. Slusher, and Mrs. Hitchcock." On the separation, the subject of our memoir, accompanied by a few others, went up the Yuba river, to a place now called Parks Bar, where he commenced mining. His first duty was to purchase a miner's outfit—a necessary but expensive requisite. This consisted of a wooden rocker, about three feet in length, price three hundred dollars; a crow-bar, ninety-six dollars; a common milk-pan, thirty-two dollars; a pick, sixty-four dollars, and two wooden buckets, twenty-five dollars each, which comprised what is known as a running outfit. He also paid such extravagant sums as ninety-six dollars per pair for blankets; fifty dollars for a pair of stogy boots; forty dollars for a frying-pan, and other articles in like ratio. At the above mentioned place he remained until April 1, 1849, when they proceeded eight miles higher up the stream, to a spot named Industry Bar, where he stayed until June 1st, then moving twenty more miles further to a point which they named Foster's Bar and there tarried until the 1st of July. From here they still further ascended the stream twelve miles to the Slate Bar, which place they named, remaining there until the middle of September when it was concluded that the party should return to the Sacramento valley. This they did and encamped on the site of the now thriving city of Marysville, where they remained a week, and thence proceeded to the confluence of the Feather and Sacramento rivers. On gaining this point Mr. Mecham found the surveyors busy laying out the present town of Fremont. Here he was robbed, it is supposed by a man named Wambo, of eight out of ten thousand dollars which he had brought with him; the remaining two thousand he invested in property in that town. Mr. Mecham sojourned at Fremont until December 1st, when intelligence was received of the finding of gold on Clear creek in the vicinity of Shasta; he therefore started for the new discovery, the journey thither occupying two anxious weeks. Here he mined and prospected until February 15, 1850, when he retraced his steps to Fremont and found the town "booming," and could have realized twenty thousand for his two thousand dollars investment. He was willing enough to sell; however, his friends advised him to "hold on," as "it would soon be worth a hundred thousand," for it was then believed that Fremont would be the true head of navigation. He remained here until the 1st of April, and then went back to the mines on the Yuba, to a place called Negro Bar, working there and in its vicinity until September1st, at which time he once more retraced his steps to Fremont, and found his investment worthless. "This," Mr. Mecham says, "taught me a lesson to rely on my own judgment rather than on the advice of friends." September 20, 1850, he started for the lower country, passed through the Suisun valley, crossed the Carquinez straits at Benicia, then down by way of the old Mission de San Jose (where he partook of the first pears and grapes he had tasted in California) to the town of San Jose, which consisted then of a few antiquated adobe buildings inhabited by Mexicans. From there he proceeded to the Mission of San Juan (where he ate his first apples, which were in size and taste like crab-apples) and then returned to Fremont where he arrived on January 10, 1851. On April 1, 1851, Mr. Mecham and three others proceeded on a prospecting tour between the Feather and Yuba rivers, pitching their camp in Grass valley, on the head waters of the South Feather river, and here discovered the Rabbit creek, Slate creek, Table rock, and Jennison creek mines. The 1st of November saw him back in Fremont. The 10th day of February, 1852, he left that town, and journeyed to the ranch of Captain Stephen Smith in Bodega, Sonoma county, with the purpose in view of purchasing cattle; not succeeding in this scheme, he went over to the rancho of Cyrus Alexander on Russian river, and from him bought three hundred head of steers, and drove them to a ranch which he had already acquired near Fremont. July 20th, he started over the mountains to Carson to buy stock; here he obtained seventy-five head of cows, and took them back to his aforesaid ranch arriving in the middle of October, and there abode until June 1, 1853, when he sold his farm and located in Suisun valley. August 1, 1853, Mecham moved from Suisun to Sonoma county, took up a ranch at the head of Two Rock valley, a mile and a half south of the Washoe House, and located on it. On this property he remained, rearing stock, dairying, and farming until October 1864, when he moved into Petaluma; still keeping his farm, however, and continuing in the same business. Mr. Mecham is one of the most successful of all of Sonoma's successful farmers. The greatest number of bushels of grain raised by him in any one year was one hundred and three thousand. There is grown on his ranch from one thousand to fifteen hundred acres of potatoes yearly. He rears and fattens from five hundred to twenty-five hundred head of hogs a year. His farm consists of seven thousand acres; His stock consists of hogs, horses, cattle, and sheep, he having at the present time seven thousand head of the latter on his property. Mr. Mecham has never held office in Sonoma county, save being President of the Sonoma and Marin Agricultural Society, an honorable position he has occupied, with the exception of one, for ten consecutive years. He married at Fremont, April 17,1853, Malicia J. Stewart, a native of Indiana, by whom he has Franklin Alma, born June 1, 1854; Silva Laretta, born September 3, 1856; Harriet Arceilia, born August 25, 1858; Henry Harrison, born December 22, 1859, died October 10, 1860; Mary Isabel, born August 1, 1861; George B. McClellan, born May 3, 1863, and died May 23, of that year. Additional Comments: Petaluma Township Extracted from: HISTORY —OF- SONOMA COUNTY, -INCLUDING ITS— Geology, Topooraphy, Mountains, Valleys and Streams; —TOGETHER WITH— A Full and Particular Record of the Spanish Grants; Its Early History and Settlement, Compiled from the Most Authentic Sources; the Names of Original Spanish and American Pioneers; a full Political History, Comprising the Tabular Statements of Elections and Office-holders since the Formation of the County; Separate Histories of each Township, Showing the Advancement of Grape and Grain Growing Interests, and Pisciculture; ALSO, INCIDENTS OF PIONEER LIFE; THE RAISING OF THE BEAR FLAG; AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF EARLY AND PROMINENT SETTLERS AND REPRESENTATIVE MEN; —AND OF ITS— Cities, Towns, Churches, Schools, Secret Societies, Etc., Etc. ILLUSTRATED. SAN FRANCISCO: ALLEY, BOWEN & CO., PUBLISHERS. 1880. 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