Yolo County CA Archives History - Books .....Settling Along The Big River 1913
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com December 3, 2005, 7:48 pm

Book Title: History Of Yolo County

CHAPTER XII 
SETTLING ALONG THE BIG RIVER

    The merchants at Fremont and other places in the vicinity received their
merchandise from San Francisco by river steamer, and the old freight bills on
the goods are curiosities. Among the items are forty pounds potatoes, $6; one
sack flour, $10; two pounds lead, thirty cents; pair shears, $1; ten pounds
coffee, $6; twenty-seven pounds dried apples, $10.80; one wooden faucet, $8; one
pair spurs, $16; four pounds butter, $3; one set knives and forks, $2.50.
Naturally, the cost of living was somewhat high, but the "dust" was coming down
from the mines and prices did not appear "lofty." The "feast" at a Fourth of
July celebration that year at the home of William Wadsworth on Cache creek was
pickled pork, codfish, a bottle of pickles, pancakes and molasses. The neighbors
had assembled to help Wadsworth build his log-house and after they had finished
they concluded to be patriotic. Their flag was a combination of a blue blanket,
a red shirt and some white cloth, but it was "the day we celebrate" and they
truly observed the time in the old spirit of '76. It must not be understood that
these primitive Yoloans were rude and rough even if the first sheriff did jump
his job because it cost too much to run down horse-thieves. There was a law
making the theft of property valued at $50 or more grand larceny and punishable
by imprisonment of from one to ten years, or by death, as the jury might decide.
The early records show that the juries of those times were given to pronouncing
the extreme penalty, and a man caught with a stray horse or steer in his
possession had to get busy if he would save his neck. It is one of the old
stories of the time and place that no less prominent a person than Judge J. C.
Murphy of Mono county came near being a victim of a Yolo court, he being at that
time a resident of this county.

MURPHY WITHIN THE TOILS

    One day while teaming through the country his loaded wagon became "stuck" in
the mud, and seeing a number of horses in a corral in the vicinity, harnessed a
span of the animals, added them to his team and hauled his outfit from the
mud-hole. But for his cleverness he got himself into a more serious difficulty,
for before he could get the borrowed team back into the corral the owner caught
him "with the goods." Murphy tried to clear himself of the felonious accusation,
but no explanation would fit the case and a fierce constable soon had him before
the local justice of the peace, who happened to be William Gordon, the owner of
the horses. The prisoner demanded a jury trial, but the court decided that in
this case there was no need of the delay of getting a jury, as the province of
that body was only to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused person and
here the court knew of its own knowledge that the prisoner was guilty, hence the
jury was unnecessary. The constable was then ordered to take the prisoner
immediately to some convenient place and hang him. Murphy's demand for a change
of venue on the ground of the court's disqualification was disallowed and
preparations were being made for the prisoner's decease when Archibald McDonald,
a prominent resident of the county, appeared, and threw himself into the case.
His work was so full of energy that Murphy got his change of venue to another
court, where he was discharged from arrest.

GOOD LAW FOR CATTLE THIEVES

    While this class of unswerving, unbending justice occasionally overshot the
mark, it did much in those "lawless" times to win from the mixed population a
wholesome respect for the law. On the fertile plains and hills of the Sacramento
valley livestock bred so rapidly that the bands roamed almost at will over the
country, making cattle-stealing an easy occupation—except when caught in the
act. The high prices paid for beef encouraged this business, but the stock-men
would quickly form themselves into posses under the direction of the sheriff,
and make the industry unpopular. For the petty thieving the common penalty was
flogging, the trials brief and the lashes well laid on. The stealing of a
calf—value being less than $50—generally won the convicted offender fifty lashes
on the, bare back, and after receiving this donation he usually quit the
business of selling veal in Sacramento for elk meat. Occasionally the sheriff
and his volunteer posse would "raise" a camp of cattle thieves and there would
be a battle and when the rifle smoke had blown away generally there would be a
number of the thieves out of the business forever. This method of disposing of
the cases was not unpopular, it being more deterrent in its effect on others and
sooner over with.

IN THE LIVESTOCK DAYS

    Between '48 and '53 the golden lure swept floods of people into California,
the mining-counties at first getting not only the new metal-mad immigration, but
many of the settlers in other parts of the state. Yet there were people here who
were not dazed by the yellow glare of "the diggings," and the ranches continued
to receive new-comers. Some people were mining gold on their agricultural
claims. A German settler, it is related, named Schwartz, sat on his doorstep
near Sacramento, and saw the droves of men plunging northward. They cheerily
called him to join the "stampede," but he calmly smoked his pipe and let them
pass. From his farm he raised and sold in Sacramento that year $30,000 worth of
watermelons and other garden-truck. From the rich, virgin-soil of this
incomparable valley he grew the "dust." While in the aggregate California
volcanoed out the golden millions from her subterranean treasury, flashing a
yellow gleam across the world, the average individual winnings from her great
lottery were insignificant. The production of her mines for 1853, when the
industry reached its highest point, was about $65,000,000, being to the 100,000
miners at work that year $650 per capita; $54.16 monthly; $1.80 daily— enough to
buy his daily bacon, providing he was a small eater. The Schwartzs did better.

    So the harvest of the mine was not the only harvest to be gathered from this
wealth-producing ground. The Spaniard or Mexican could get over countless
leagues of land, but he seldom, if ever, got down in it. If he farmed he plowed
with an iron-pointed tree-branch that scratched the soil-surface, and then
harrowed-in the seed with the top of the tree that supplied the plow. After this
he rolled a corn-husk cigarette and left the crop to fight it out with the weeds
or drought as the weather might be. As this manner of plowing and sowing
encouraged the growth of the most backward weed, only the most propitious season
produced anything in the way of a crop. So the Mexican colonist left it all "a
manana," to the morrow, and if he raised enough corn for his tamales, enough
wheat for his tortillas and enough peppers for his chile con carne against the
coming of the meal hour, that was as far as he ventured into the vast plant
possibilities under and around him.

THE PADRES FARMED A LITTLE

    The mission padres striving to vary and improve the fare of their retainers
and converts planted slips of grape vines and fruit trees around the big adobe
buildings. But the infant industry languished. The Californian could take the
wine in light or heavy doses, but peaches, apples or even oranges did not appeal
to his peculiar taste for food—or labor, and the few trees of that noble citrus
planted at the Mission San Gabriel in 1851 did not grow in increase—or favor.
While the mulberry and the silk industry did not get to the early agriculturist
of California, the tree grows rapidly and strong here. Several years ago the
legislature, to encourage sericulture, placed a bounty of $250 on every 5,000
mulberry trees two years old. It thus encouraged it with a vengeance, and only
the repeal of the act saved the state from bankruptcy. Then the ten millions of
trees in Southern California fell into innocuous desuetude and the silk worms in
the trees fell into the English sparrows, one of California's unlucky
importations which must be endured until somebody imports something to eat the
sparrows.

INDIANS AND OTHER STOCK

    With the first missionary expeditions to the Pacific coast came the Spanish
horses, cattle and sheep. These animals were turned out on the wide plains and
mesas to luxuriate in the mild climate and rich vegetation and become the
countless herds of the great ranches. No attempt was made to improve the breed,
as a steer was worth only the little the hide on his carcass and the tallow
within it would bring after shipping them around the Horn to an Atlantic port;
and a blue-ribbon bovine would bring no more. Milk and butter were unknown in a
ranchero's home, as a Spanish cow with a young calf around to excite her
maternal solicitude was about as safe for dairy purposes as a female panther.
The vaquero aboard his mustang—and that animal almost as wild as the cow—was
afraid of nothing that wore hoofs, but dismount him to do the milking, even with
the fighting-mad vaca roped and tied, would place him at a disadvantage. So she
was left in peace to nourish her youngster and bring him up to the age when his
hide and tallow were fit for the shoes and candles of commerce, and the rest of
him for the coyotes. Should a milk-demand be strong enough for action, they
milked the goat. Bobbing Nanny's kid was safer.

SHEEPSKINS AND SALVATION

    The mission fathers used the sheep in their scheme of salvation for the
Indians. The wool was woven into a coarse cloth, and when the good padre caught
a "native son" gentle enough to safely handle, the missionary put a shirt on him
in the belief that decency is near-godliness. The original Californian did not
indulge in clothing except in the union-suit he wore after a rich, sticky
mud-bath, and he was not particular about the fit of that if it was heating in
winter and somewhat cold-storage in summer. In general he objected at any season
to be made a fashion-plate, and if the father was too insistent, Lo shed his
shirt and hiked for the distant rancheria. However, if the mission bells' call
to prayer and beef was louder than the call of the wilds, he tolerated—under,
protest—his shirt, which made him more lousy and itchy,—and stood without
hitching, a fairly good Injun.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]


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