Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Collection: Books and Periodicals
A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) (713 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 713
192 HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.
able. It is ueual to compare such climates with
that of Italy, so famous as the resort during
past centuries for those seeking the relief and
pleasure found beneath her skies. So it may
not be out of place to simply state a comparison
between Rome, the capital and center of Italy,
and Sacramento, the capital and center of California. The statistics from official sources on
either hand are stated below. Averages for
past ten years:
Spring. Sum’r. Autumn. Winter. Yeat
Sacramento....... 59.5 T.7 61.5 48.3 59.5
Rome.......-.... 57.6 72.2 64.0 48.9 60.7
In the face of these facts, the claim must not
longer be made four fair Italy alone, that it is a
land where “ perpetual summer exists, skies are
blue, and the sun ever shiues.”
As to the healthfulness of Sacramento, Judge
J. W. Armstrong has ascertained that but one
other city in the world shows a cleaner Dill of
health, and that is the capital of the Basque
Province, in the northern part of Spain.
MINES AND MINERALS.
In the early days of mining a great deal of
gold dust was taken from the placers in this
county—Mormon Island, Michigan Bar and
several other localities having afforded guod
diggings of this kind. In the low hills on the
east a considerable extent of shallow placers
have also been worked, some of these until
quite recently.
The most of the gold now produced in Sacramento is taken out in the vicinity of Folsom,
chiefly along Alder Gulch, by the Portuguese
and Chinamen. The deep deposits are worked
by shafts and drifting, the shallow by hand
sluicing in the dry season and ground sluicing
in the wet, when there is free water. There are
gold-bearing quartz veins in the east-lying hille,
but they are mostly small, and have been but
little worked. In these hills occurs a belt of
serpentine containing chromic iron in small
bunches and pockets.
In the neighborhood of Folsom occurs an extensive bed of excellent granite, which for many
years has been largely worked.
At the quarry of David Blower, two miles
east of Folsom, opened ten years ago, there is
exposed a thirty-foot face, twenty feet above and
ten below the surface. About fifteen tons of
roughly dressed stone are shipped from this
quarry weekly, the most of it being used for
cemetery work and street curbs. Thirteen men
are employed here at wages ranging from $2.50
to $4 per day.
In the quarry on the State Prison grounds at
Folsom, a large force of convicts are employed
getting out stone for the dam being built by the
State on the American River.
Most of the cobblestones used for paving the
streets of San Fr&ncisco were taken from the
banks of the American River, in the vicinity of
Folsom.
At Michigan Bar, on the Cosumnes River,
occurs an extensive bed of potter’s clay. Being
a good article, and easily obtained, large quantities of this clay are taken out and shipped to
the potteries at Sacramento, San Francisco, and
elsewhere in the State. Great quantities of
brick are made from the more common clays
found abundantly in this county.
THE MEXICAN LAND GRANTS
within the present limits of Sacramento County
were: Cosumnes, 26,605 acres, patented to the
heirs of W. E. P. Hartnell in 1869; Omocb.
umnes, 18,662 acres to Catherine Sheldon and
others in 1870; Rio de los Americanus, 25,521
acres to J. L. Folsom in 1864; San Juan,
19,983 acres, to Hiram Grimes in 1860. In
Sacramento and San Joaquin connties, Jabjon
de los Moquelumnes, 35,508 acres, to the heirs
of A. Chavolla in 1865.
In February, 1858, Edwin Stanton was sent
to San Francisco as special counsel for the Government in pending law cases. Captain Sutter
clained thirty-three leagues of land in the
Sacramento Valley, under two grants; one for
eleven leagues made by Governor Alvarado in
1841, which was adjudged legitimate; but the
other, which he had obtained from Micheltorena,
for twenty-two leagues, covering the sites of