Collection: Books and Periodicals

About This Item:

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  

HISTORY OF NORTHERN OALIFORNIA. 123 Colusa insisted that the town and the county ought to be spelled alike. After 1854 the etattes concerning the county had the termination a and the officials seals were changed accordingly. In 1846 or ’47 Dr. Robert Semple went up to the head of the Sacramento Valley to see some old pioneers who had settled in what is now Tehama County. Returning by way of the river, he tied two cottonwood logs together for a boat. Ie found great difficulty in navigation until he came to the rancheria of the Colus Indians: from there down it was easy. Looking over the vast territory of fertile lands around this spot, he made a memorandum of it as the future city of the upper Sacramento Valley, and found that it was owned by John Bidwell under a Mexican grant. When in 1849 his brother, Colonel Charles D. Semple, came out to California, he favorably received his notions, hunted up Bidwell and purchased his grant. In the spring of 1850 he set out with a little steamboat for the future city. The Colus ranchieria, to which the Doctor had directed him, was entirely hidden from the river, and the first rancheria insight from the river was a temporary encampment of a portion of the Colus Indians seven miles above the present site of the town. The Indians being asked about the name of the tribe, very promptly answered Colus; and, thinking he was on the right spot, and the water being so high as to render navigation alike everywhere, the boat’s cargo of merchandise and men were landed and a town laid out and christened Colusa. In the spring of 1850 Dr. Semple commenced to build a steamboat at Benicia to run up to the new town, and on the first of July that year she made her first trip, and she too was named Colusa. She was a side-wheel boat, had a very trim hull and cabin, and was of fair size. But no engine cculd be found large enough to run her, and no two small engines could be found that were alike so as to constitute a pair; so the novel experiment was tried of running one wheel with an engine made for the style of the smaller engine, with an entirely different stroke and power. They ran the boat, and on the inorning of the third of July the proprietor started ont from Benicia for Colusa. On the sixth they arrived at the present site of Colusa, then called Salmon Pvint, and then troubles commenced; for it required nearly a week to — get up to where the town was laid out. About three miles up the river the little engine broke down, and the boat had to be warped from there up. An Indian guide was employed to pvint out the exact site of the place, leading the boatmen through a thicket of wild rose-bushes to a poiut opposite the place; for this was on the east bank of the river. The Indian took the men’s clothes across tied in a boat upon the top of his head, and then they could wade or swim across. Inaday or two the boat reached the landing, was discharged, and started back with one wheel. Although it cost over $60,000, this was the last trip she ever made. Colonel Semple found that he had made a mistake in the location of the city, and that the Colas rancheria was really some seven miles lower down the river. About a month afterward the goods were hauled down there, and thus the city was founded. In this locality it was favorably situated for the trade between Shasta and the northern mines. Colonel Semple bought a little steamer called the Martha Jane. and ran her regularly a few trips, but it was too early in the development of the country to obtain remunerative patronage, and he had to sell her. In the autumn of 1851 Captain George V. Hight undertook the navigation of this portion of Sacramento with an iron-hulled boat, but it struck a snag on the first trip and sank, just above Knight’s Landing. Next Captain Bartlett, with the Orient, a fast little stern-wheel boat of about 100 tons’ burden, succeeded in making several profitable trips. The town was then growing rapidly. One of the greatest drawbacks to the town has been the imperfect title to the land, made so by conflicting boundaries of grants and imMississippi steamboats, and the other with a . perfect description given in deeds. This mat-