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  

H(sTORY Of NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. 158 fornia could be consulted. Governor Stanford appointed Robert Robinson to visit Governor Clemens of Nevada and consult with him what todo. It was finally agreed that each State appoint a representative to run the boundary line; and until that was completed Plumas County should have jurisdiction as far east as the eastern end of Honey Lake; and several minor conditions were stipulated. The Surveyur General, by request of the Califurnia Legislature April 27, 1863, directed a survey of the east line of the State of California. John F. Kidder was appointed by a surveyor general to do the work, and Governor Clemens appointed Butler Ives on the part of Nevada Territory tu accompany him in the work. The work was accordingly done, throwing Aurora, which was also in the disputed district, seven miles into Nevada. The remainder of the line was cumpleted in 1865. The survey made by Von Schmidt, in 1876 threw the eastern line of California trom Lake Tahoe north a few miles further east. Of course it was a hardship for the people of the Honey Lake Valley to be subject to a countyseat so far west as Quincy and over the summit of the mountains; and for their relief the new county of Lassen was formed, from the northeastern portion of Plumas and eastern portion of Shasta County, April 1, 1864. Otticers were elected and local government began to run smoothly. When the County of Modoc was organized, with great difficulty and after a hard struggle by its citizens, Lassen County maintained the integrity of its territory. About the time Lassen County was formed settlers began to enter the extreme eastern end of Siskiyou County. Stock-raising was the first and is still the leading industry. MISCELLANEOUS. Lassen County was created by act of the Legislature, April 1, 1864, from the eastern parts of Shasta and Plumas counties, there having been ineluded within its boundaries a strip of territory that prior to 1862 had been claimed by the Territory of Nevada, constituting the western half of Roop County, in that Territory. From a portion of it and the counties south, an effort was made in the Legislature of 1872 to create the county of “ Donner,” but in vain. In the fall of 1871 the people of Surprise Valley petitioned the Legislature to create a new county from the north end of Plumas and eastern portion of Siskiyou. .A counter petition was presented by those residing in Big Valley and the settlements along Pit River, as the proposed county-seat was as far away as the one they had. The measure failed in the Legislature. In 1874 a bill was introduced in that body for the creation of that territory under the name of Canby, in honor of the brave and faithful general who was killed by the Modoc Indians under a flag of truce. The measure was again defeated, and another bill was immediately introduced for the formation of the county of Summit, out of the eastern end of Siskiyou alone. This bill passed and became a law February 14, 1874, and the name of the county changed to Modoc. The northeastern portion of California has been the scene of innumerable depredations by the Indians. They have been made by three tribes, —the Washoe or Wasso, the Pah-Ute (variously spelled) and the Pit River,—the latter being the worst. The first principal outbreak was in 1857. The troubles of this season are generally referred to as the Potato war, owing to the cause of the difficulties. The troublesome savages were of the Pit River tribe, and a company of settlers, under Captain William Weatherbow, and accompanied by Winnemucca and a band of his Pah-Ute braves, went out against the savages and punished them severely. They, however, continued to annoy the settlers for the next three years, when they were chastised by General Crook. January 13, 1860, Dexter E. Demming was killed by the Smoky Creek band of the PahUtes, and the citizens petitioned Governor Roop to follow up and chastise the Indians on the border. Roop asked the Department of the