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History of Herbert & Bernice Pingree and Kramer Farm (7 pages)
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Page: of 7
In 1876 when the nation was celebrating its Centennial, Robert Black built his mountain cabin at
Texas Creek in Nevada County on land leased from the railroad.
while he worked on the cabin, Robert Black might have heard the distant whistle of the first
transcontinental train which would arrive that day in San Francisco from Philadelphia. It was July 4”,
1876. Near the railroad, wagons carried silver from the mines in Virginia City and gold from those in
Grass Valley and Nevada City. Black was not a miner, he was a rancher who needed summer pasture for
his cattle in order to save feed for the fall and the cabin was necessary shelter for his family when they
could join him. ;
His father, William, had sailed from Scotland in the early 1850's, coming around Cape Horn to
settle in Marysville, California and establish a grist mill (the grist mill is on exhibit at the De Young
Museum in San Francisco”), William also owned the first water works in Marysville, doing a good
business selling safe water to residents who had been plagued by malaria on a land with no drainage.
Robert was born shortly after his family arvived in California.
Now twenty-three years old, he had his own ranch and a pretty wife who was expecting their
first child. It was a busy summer for the young rancher, bringing cattle to the mountain meadows,
building the cabin and caving for his family. when the cabin was finished, it was a simple structure, just
one room and a loft with plain furnishings: a big table and benches, an iron stove, a ladder for the loft and
buckets for drinking and washing water.
Water was no problem. The cabin was situated between Texas and Lindsay Creeks and close to
Upper and Lower Lindsay, Bull Pen and Culbertson Lakes. It was well located for another reason, his
young wife would not be lonely while he was out checking cattle. Her Cousins, the Loneys and the
Aldermans grazed their cattle nearby.
Robert completed the cabin and the cattle grew fat that sammer on the green grass at Texas
Creek. There was much laughter under the red firs, incense cedars, white firs and lodge pole pine, but
happiness for the couple was not to last.
His wife died in 1889, leaving him alone with six children. The oldest was Bill, a twelve-year-old
and the youngest was a four-year-old daughter. The children went to live with their grandparents in