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Collection: Books and Periodicals
A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) (713 pages)
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Page: of 713
110 HISTORY
out to make pure wine for communion and similar purposes, being advised to do so by clergymen and others. To that end he employed a
first-class wine-maker. After an absence of two
years he returned home to find that sure enongh
he had pure wine, having in storage about 1,000
gallons of the best quality, besides considerable
material for inferior grades. He was not long
in discovering, however, that his wine-maker
had numerons friends whose number seemed
constantly increasing. In fact, their business
with him was so urgent that they had to come
while he was most engaged in the wine cellar!
He observed, too, that their business kept them
a good while, and with his own eyes he saw
that men began to go away with unsteady steps.
It then dawned upon him that he was actually
engaged in the business of manufacturing drunkards. His first impulee was to knock the casks
in the head and spill the wine on the ground.
From this he was disenaded, however, on the'plea
that the wine wonld be useful in a hospital at
San Francisco. As soon as he learned this was
the case, he sent all the good wine as a present
to that institution, while the poorer stuff he had
manufactured into vinegar. He then dug up
and burnt all the wine grapes and washed his
hands of the whole business.
OUTLINE OF HISTORY.
By Jesse Wood, ex-Superintendent of Schools and
editor of the Chico OhrontcleRecord.
Note.—Items have been interspersed by the editor of
this volume from other sources.
In 1841 John Bidwell came with a party
across the plains into California, and they were
donbtless the first party of whites who ever
crossed the Sierra Nevada. In 1843 he was in
the employ of Captain John A. Sutter, at Sutter’s Fort, or New Helvetia, now Sacramento
city. In company with Peter Lassen and James
Benheim, other employés of Sutter, he made a
trip up the Sacramento Valley as far as Red
Bluff, in pursuit of a party bound for Oregon,
to recover sume stulen animals. After his return from this trip Mr. Bidwell made a map
trom memory of the country passed over, showOF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.
ing its extent and the streams flowing into the
Sacramento River.
From this map various locations of land were
made and grants obtained from the Mexican
Government. Peter Lassen selected his grant
on Deer Creek, in what is now Tehama County.
In 1844 Edward A. Farwell and Thomas
Fallon eettled on the Farwell grant, on which a
part of the city of Chico now stands. Samuel
Neal and David Dutton settled on Butte Creek,
seven miles south of the present site of Chico.
William Dickey settled on the north side of
Chico Creek, on the “ Rancho del Arroyo Chico,”
the present property of the above named John
Bidwell. A number of other locations were
soon made in all parts of the great Sacramento
Valley. These were simply great cattle ranges,
whose boundaries were defined by creeks,
rivers and mountains, and their extent estimated in leagues.
The war with Mexico came on, and many, if
not all of the above named settlers were engaged
in it. Then came the discovery of gold, which
occurred in January, 1848, at Sutter’s sawmill, away up in the Sierras, east of Sutter’s
Fort or Sacramento. It did not take long for
the news to spreade In March, John Bidwell
went down from his Chico ranch to Sacramento,
learned of the discovery and took some specimens
to San Francisco. They were pronounced genuine by Isaac Humphrey, an experienced miner
fron Georgia, who at once went up to the place
of discovery, constructed rockers and went to
work, as did numerons others.
Returning from San Francisco, Mr. Bidwell,
whose title of Major, General and Honorable
have subsequently been won, visited the mill
and satisfied himself that all the gold of Calitornia was not at that one place. On his way home
he camped on Feather River, where the town of
Hamilton afterward stood, three miles east of
the present town of Biggs, and there washed a
few pans of sand obtained from the margin of
the streain. A few “colors” or scales of gold
was the result, harbinger of the vast fortunes of
gold subsequently found in that stream.