Collection: Books and Periodicals

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Title: A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Publisher: Lewis Publishing Company Published: 1891 Copyright: In the public domain or published before 1925 Source(s): Google Books # of Pages: 713 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-07-22 00:25:09 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:11:29 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 06:30:36

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

Page: of 713  

162 HISTORY OF NORTHERN OALIFORNIA. time to crawl] inside. When a dance was to occur a large fire was kindled inside and the openings closed. Around this fire the naked Indians would dance for hours, jumping and screaming, with the perspiration streaming from every pore. After working themselves up to the highest pitch of excitement and exercise, they suddenly rushed out and plunged into the cold waters of a neighboring stream, and then crawl out and lay on the banks exhausted. This sweat-house was also used as a council room, and in it the bodies of the deal were sometimes buried, amid the howlings of the survivors. EARLY VISITORS AND SETTLERS. After his visit to Mount St. Helena, Rotscheff sent cattle and sheep from Ross and established what has since been known as the Matintosk rancho, but was called by the Russians Many. In 1776 a fort was erected by the Spanish Governor, Felipe de Neve, a short distance northwest of Napa, on an elevated plateau. The walls were of adobe, and three feet thick. The upper portion of the valley was unoccupied except by the natives. In 1847 there were only a few adobe buildings. Horseback riding was the universal mode of traveling, and when a horse became tired he was turned loose and a fresh one lassoed out of the nearest herd. Padre José Altimira and Don Francisco Castro went in June and July, 1823, with an armed escort under Ensign José Sanchez, tu select a proper site fora new mission. Altimira went on with his survey to Huichica (since then the property of Winter & Borel), and on the fifth day after exploring the Napa Valley,—“like to Sonoma in every respect,”—the party climbed the ridge of Suysunes, recently the property of Cayetano Juarez, where the State Insane Asylum stands, and there “found stone of excellent quality and so abundant that of it a new Rome might be built.” In 1831 Guy F. Fling, a young man, piloted George C. Yount to Napa County. He died in Napa in 1872. Mr. Yount, after he reached the valley, followed his occupation of hunting and trapping all kinds of game, which included the gigantic elk. In 1836 he built the first log house ever erected in California by an American, on his Taymus. It was eighteen feet square below, and the second story was twenty-two feet square, with port-holes through which he often defended himself from the savages. He is also said to have erected the first flour and saw mill in California. The first permanent settlers after Mr. Yount were Salvador M. Vallejo, C. Juarez and José Higuera, each of whom obtained grants of land near Napa City. In 1889 Dr. E. T. Bale, an Englishman, obtained and settled upon the grant called Carne Humana, north of Yount’s grant. Colonel Clyman, a Virginian, settled in this county in 1846; E. Barnett was a resident here with Mr. Yount in 1840-48; William Pope came in 1841; in 1843 William Baldridge settled in Napa Valley and built the griet-mill in Chiles Valley; William Fowler, with his sons Henry and William, and William Hargrave and Harrison Pierce, came in 1843; John §S. Stark, sheriff in 1856, came in 1846; and many others caine prior to the discovery of gold. Between 1840 and 1845 a considerable number of emigrant wagons arrived across the Sierra, bringing American families, and sometimes families of other nationalities, most of © whoin settled here. The Russians for more than thirty years remained in quiet possession of Ross and Bodega, under the rule of Koskoff, Klebinkoff, Kostromitinkoff and Rotschetf The latter Governor advanced with a party of Russians to Mount Mayacamas, on the summit of which he fixed a brass plate bearing an inscripscription in his own language. He named the mountain St. Helena, for his wife, the Princess de Gagarin. The beauty of this lady excited so ardent a passion in the breast of Prince Solano, chief of all the Indians about Sonoma, that he formed a plan to capture by force or stratagem the object of his love; and he might very likely have succeeded had not M. G. Vallejo heard of his intention in time to prevent its execution.