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  

HISTORY OF NORTHERN OALIFORNIA. 145 the mission at Sonoma to make an expedition into the Clear Lake country. Just what was accomplished by this expedition does not appear, except that a few years later, the Vallejos drove in cattle and took informal possession of the valley as a stock ranch, condueted for them by major-domos, or overseers. Later on a claim was made by Salvador and Antonio Vallejo, for a grant of sixteen leagnes of land, but for want of adequate proof, this was thrown ont by the United States courts. The cattle multiplied fast, becoming wild as deer, and soon filled the valley to overflowing. In 1847, the Vallejos drove out all they could of the cattle, and sold the balance to four parties by name Stone, Shirland and Andrew and Benjamin Kelsey. Of these Stone and Andrew Kelsey came in and took possession, the others not coming in to reside at all, and seemingly never having much to do with the undertaking. They, or rather the Indians for them, erected an adobe house of considerable dimensions, being forty feet long and fifteen feet wide, on the banks of what is now known as Kelsey Creek, immediately opposite the present town of Kelseyville. They treated the Indians very badly, compelling them to work continuously, never paying them anything for their labor, and often supplying them bnt scantily with food. Parties of them, too, were more than once sent out to other points as laborers, and after the discovery of gold, to dig gold for the whites, most of them perishing on these trips. Asa result the Indians became restive and occasionally even threatening. Once they surrounded the adobe and but for the timely arrival of help from Sonoma, would probably have killed the two white men. This was in the spring of 1848. Stone and Kelsey paid no heed to these warnings, but if anything treated the Indians the worse, as a consequence. Finally, in the fall of 1849, the catastrophe occurred. The Indians beset the adobe again and put both the whites to death, burying them near by. As nothing was done to avenge the matter until the following spring, the Indians, fancying they had disposed of their oppressors forever, returned to their old haunts and habits. In the spring of 1850, however, Lieutenant Lyons, who later fell as General Lyons at the head of the Union forces at Wilson’s Creek, Missouri, during the Civil war, was sent up with a detachment of soldiers. When they reached the lower end of the lake, they found that the Indians had betaken themselves to an island in the upper part and they could not get at them. Consequently they sent back to San Francisco for two boats and two small brass cannon, which were sent up by wagon. It may be remarked here that these were the first wag. ons as well as the first built boats ever seen in Lake County. While a part of the soldiers, and volunteers who had flocked in to assist, went across the lake in the boats, the balance went round by land, this latter contingent being under command of Lieutenant (afterward General) George Stoneman. The result was catastrophe, short, sharp and sudden for the defenseless Indiane, but a small number escaping from the rifles and small arms of the whites. Later on in the year, H. F. Teschemaker and others came up to Clear Lake, held a grand pow-wow and made a treaty with the frightened Indians which they kept religionsly ever after. During these years, beginning in 1846, Jacob P. Leese of San Francisco, had also cattle in Coyote and Loconoma valleys in the southern part of the county, but the genuine settlement of the county can hardly be said to have begun till 1848, when Walter Anderson and his wife, the first white woman in the county, by the way, settled in the lower part for a short time. In 1851, he went on to Mendocino County, an important valley in that county being named after him. In the same year, 1848, Willian Scott settled in the valley that bears his name. In 1853, C. N. Copsey and L. W. Purkerson built a house, the first in the connty, near the head of Cache Creek, now the town of Lower Lake. The same year Jefferson Worden settled on Scott Creek, in what is now called Scott’s Valley. In 1854 immigrants arrived in Big Valley and settled along the lake shore. In