Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 050-1 - January 1996 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 8 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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

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Bar, and a Chinaman came into town today and stated that ten of his people who lived in a cabin on the South Yuba were drowned. A white man and woman, who took refuge in a tree near Smartville, night before last, were rescued yesterday. ... The splendid wire-suspension bridge at Parks’ Bar, on the road to Marysville, which was built last summer, is said to have been carried off by the flood. [December 12.] The Marysville stage arrived at Nevada at ten o’clock last night, bringing copies of Marysville papers of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. From these and other sources, we learn that the late flood in the Sacramento valley has been the most disastrous of any that has occurred since the country was settled by the whites. Sacramento and Marysville were both submerged, causing a considerable loss of life, while the destruction of property has been immense. Parties who went on top of Sugar Loaf [in Nevada City] on Monday and Tuesday could see that the whole country from the foot-hills to the coast range, with the exception of here and there an island, was under water, but as the telegraph was not working, and the stages were detained, we were not able to get any particulars of the inundation until yesterday evening. The water broke through the Sacramento levee early Monday morning, from the American river, and soon flooded the city.... At Marysville, the flood was scarcely less disastrous. The most of the city was submerged on Sunday night, and the water continued to rise till Monday noon, when it stood four inches above high water mark of the memorable spring of 1853.... The only place in telegraph communication with Nevada, is Smartville, in Yuba county. We are not able to get any news from there. The wires are down in every direction leading out of Sacramento and Marysville, and probably no attempt will be made to put them up until the waters subside. No Eastern dispatches have been received this week that we can learn of. [December 24,] We have just been visited by another severe storm. The rain set in about twelve o’clock on Saturday night, and continued to fall steadily until this morning, when it held up. The storm was very severe during Sunday night and yesterday, raising the waters of Deer creek and the South Yuba to nearly the hight attained two weeks ago. At Washington, yesterday morning, the South Yuba lacked only two feet of being as high as it was on the 9th instant. Both the Sacramento and Marysville stages, of yesterday, were detained, and have not yet reached town. We learn by telegraph that the Marysville stage stopped last night at Empire ranch, and will probably get in sometime this evening. [December 31.] We learn from a gentleman who arrived in town that Hoit’s Bridge [over the South Yuba] was carried away. He found it gone on Sunday. [January 2, 1862.] Condition in Sacramento ... the lower portion of the city is flooded and there is no way to leave the place or travel except by boat. The water was § feet deep at the Capitol. (January 11.] We are informed that the Indians living in the vicinity of Marysville, left their abodes a week or more ago, for the foothills, predicting an unprecedented overflow. They told the whites that the water would be higher than it has been for thirty years, and pointed high up on the trees and houses where it would come. The valley Indians have traditions that the water occasionally rises fifteen or twenty feet higher than it has been at any time since the country was settled by whites, and as they live in the open air, and watch closely all the weather indications, it is not improbable that they may have better means than the whites of anticipating a great storm.... Another dispatch received from Timbuctoo at eleven o’clock this forenoon, says the river had raised two feet since yesterday noon, and was still rising. Mr. Dornin, the telegraph operator at North San Juan, went over to Freeman’s crossing, on the Middle Yuba, this morning. He telegraphs that the Middle Yuba was five feet higher than at the flood on the 9th ult., and still rising. The timbers and other materials for Freeman’s new bridge have been carried away, and the water was up to the toll house, which it was expected, would also be swept off. [January 14.] As was expected, the heavy rains of last week have occasioned an unprecedented flood in the valleys, the waters rising to a height never before known since the settlement of the country. At Marysville, according to the local papers, the water rose from six to twelve inches higher than at the former overflow, and a few places in the city were above high water. The waters began to recede on Saturday afternoon, and the damage in the town is reported as inconsiderable. The farmers living in the vicinity of Marysville took their families to the city before the flood reached a high point, and others left for the foothills. When the waters had subsided, David I. Wood and his partners in the Virginia City Turnpike Company had to rebuild the Bridgeport bridge and restore the road on either side. Wood and William Thompson surveyed and laid out an improved 14-mile-long turnpike to restore traffic to the mines. David Ingerficld Wood lived with his wife Sarah, his son Samuel, and daughters Ellen and Amanda at the junction of the Yuba River and its south fork—a place they called “Point Defiance.” In addition to his Sierra County lumber operations and his partnership in the Virginia City Turnpike, Wood had been involved in a short-lived mercantile business at Virginia City that was burned out in 1860. Four years after the new covered bridge was constructed, a sheriff’s sale transfered title to Mr. N. Cadwallader, who subsequently soid the bridge to Samuel D. Wood, George H. Fagg, and Joseph M. C. Casper, the son and sons-in-law of