Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Peter Lassen - Danish Pioneer of California Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: Franklin D. Scott Source(s): Historical Society of Southern California # of Pages: 13 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-08-27 15:03:44 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 05:50:06 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:50:06

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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Historical Society of Southern California sued them far up the Sacramento River. They not only recov. ered the horses, but Lassen spotted for himself a tract “beautiful as a picture” at the confluence of the Sacramento and Deer Creek, twenty-two miles south of Red Bluff. He requested a grant from Governor Manuel Micheltorena, swore fealty to the Mexican government, and was awarded five Spanish leagues (22,000 acres), Here, straddling Deer Creek, he brought his herds now numbering 2,300 cattle, horses, and mules, and established Bosquejo Rancho (Woodland Ranch), the settlement farthest north in California at that moment — F ebruary 1845, Except for the Indians who helped him care for the stock, he was alone during the first years. He trapped beaver and otter and sold the skins for three and four dollars per pound; he planted cotton and started a vineyard with roots he brought from southern California. He saw the potential for growing grapes and was reputedly the first to make wine in this region — later to become famous for its quality product. He found suitable raw material and processed grindstones; he loaded them into a canoe up to its gunwales and peddled them down the river. He fertilized the soil where already wild oats grew five feet tall He built an adobe house, a smithy and a corral, and most importantly he established a store where he sold food and tools and whiskey and “other necessities.” Bosquejo became the center of activity for the entire area north of Sutter’s Ranch. Settlers came and Lassen laid out a town to be called Benton City in honor of the senator he had come to admire in Missouri. Even while he was getting established, he took part with Sutter and Bidwell in the campaign of Micheltorena against General Castro in southern California.° Lassen was at home the following spring when the bold and enigmatic John C. Fremont came through with his fifty-man exploration party, moving north out of California to Oregon. Fremont had his headquarters at Bosquejo for most of the month of April 1846. It is said that he caught salmon three to four feet long. Evidently he took a strong liking to the Danish frontiersman, “a man of practical sense and courage.” On May 1, six days after Fremont and his men had departed, Lieutenant Archibald E. Gillespie with one Negro servant arrived at the ranch, hot on the trail of Fremont, “Uncle Pete” could not permit two lone [118] Peter Lassen travelers — acquainted with neither the unpredictable Indians or the rugged terrain — to push into the wilderness by them, Ives. So he and three other settlers joined the party to follow Fremont’s trail. After a few days two of them, Samuel Neal and M. Sigler, were sent on ahead. They were overtaken by posal Indians but the speed of their horses enabled them to oscdipe an . catch up with Fremont at Lake Klamath on the Oregon oneer Fremont, “The Pathfinder,” immediately chose ten of vO est men to go with him to the relief of the remaining four, Abou forty-five miles to the south they were happy to see © four men coming out of the woods. Fremont got his first tioings nom home in eleven months, and he got from Gillespie wor 2 is exploring duties were over and, “on the authority of the —a tary of the Navy that to obtain possession of California was the i ject of the President.” on That morning a generous Indian chieftain had given the fous tired and hungry travelers a big salmon, and everything seemed peaceful around the evening campfire. No guard was 7 ace after the glad reunion and the reading of messages. aries exhausted and asleep when the ever alert Kit Carson was W' ome by the sound of an axe crushing the skull of Tajeunesse, ano her of Fremont’s trusted companions. Two more men were kille fore the raiding chief was himself felled and his Klamath tribes men fled into the night. The slain chief was the same who ae given Gillespie and Lassen the salmon! Next came the day ° revenge, the slaughter of an Indian village led by Fremont’s Delawares who had lost one of their own.’ On May 11 Fremont was on his way south again to rassen's ranch, though by a different route. There followed in rapi ue cession the Bear Flag revolt and the capture of Sonoma, rs linkage of General Zachary Taylor’s warfare in Texas = e less bloody conquest of California, and the Treaty of Guada upe Hidalgo. Neither Lassen nor the other recent Mexican grantees played any part — directly, at least —in these events, for ney honored their Mexican oaths of fealty.’ Nevertheless, after e treaty they of course became American citizens and the United States soon validated Lassen’s land grant. — ; Sitting at home on his ranch, cultivating his vineyards a Caring for his herds and his store was never enough for the [119]