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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
182 HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.
gon, Cameo, and the Laura Virginia had anchored in the roadstead in 1850.
Crescent City had a peculiar and romantic
origin. An old story had been set afloat in
1849-’50 that a solitary prospector crossed the
Coast Range and “struck it rich;” that he accumulated a fabulous sum, hid it, and that the
Indians assaulted him and left him for dead;
that he recovered his consciousness, but not his
reason, and he wandered out of the forest into
the confines of civilization, and finally found his
friends in the East. This story of cuurse excited the cupidity of some miners, who in the
spring of 1851, under Captain McDermott, beyan a search and first found a magnificent harbor. Another party then started in search of
that harbor and they found and named Paragon
Bay. They dispatched a messenger to San
Francisco, who organized another expedition to
this bay, with the schooner Pomona, some tine
in the fall of 1852. The next spring the town
site was selected. During the winter of 1852‘63 A. M. Rosborongh purchased a land warrant in J. F. Wendell’s name for 320 acres, on
which Crescent City now stands. The place
was so named on account of the crescent shape
of the roadstead. Smith’s River Valley, the
only other settlement of importance in that
district, was settled in 1853.
In 1858-59 there was a war with the Mintoon Indians on the Upper Mad River, resulting in a surrender of the savages, under General
Kibbe. In February, 1860, there occurred a
great massacre of the redskins on Indian Island.
The Assemblymen from Del Norte County
have been: R. H. Campbell, 1887; L. F.
Cooper, 1880; W. B. Hamilton, 1883; R. P.
Hirst, 1858, 186364; W. B. Mason, 1881;
James E. Murphy, 1869-70, 1873~78, and
others from adjoining counties, which see.
EL DORADO COUNTY.
In this county is the spot now called Coloma,
where Marshall made the discovery that immediately excited the whole world. For a full
account of this, the great gold discovery, see a
previons chapter.
The word « El Dorado” is Spanish for golden,
or the gilt.
In 1541, so tradition goes, Gonzalo Pizarro,
brother of the conqueror of Peru, marched
from Quito to seek the fabled kingdom of gold,
which, according to the traditions of the aborigines, existed some place east of the Andes.
The monarch of this fabulons kingdom was
said, in order to wear a more magnificent attire
than any other king in the world, to be adorned
with a daily coating of gold. His body was
anointed every morning with rare and fragrant gums, and gold dust blown over him
through a tube.
Thus attired, the Spaniards called him El
Dorado. He was said to reside generally in
the superb city of Manos, in one street of which
there were said to be not less than 3,000 silversmiths or silver-workers. The columns of his
palace were affirmed to be porphyry and alabaster, his throne ivory, and its steps gold; the
body of the palace was of white stone, ornamented with gold suns and silver moons; and
living lions fastened with chains of gold
guarded its entrance. The county was 680
nained from the fact that gold was first discovered within its limits.
Abont the middle of the sunnmer of 1850
some Indians were killed in the neighborhood
of Johnson’s ranch, about six miles above
Placerville, on the immigrant road. It was
rumored at the time that no provocation for
this had been given by the Indians, and that it
was done to stir up a war of extermination. If
this was the scheme it worked well, fur the Indians killed some of the miners and then the
citizens aroused and organized companies,
placed Sheriff William Rogers at the head and
marched to the county line without finding any
Indians. After they disbanded Indians came
from their hiding places and again began committing outrages. A subsequent attempt was
made by the whites to exterminate the savages,
with doubtful results, and this was the last.