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 CALIFORNIA. 11 The natives were either friendly, timid or slightly hostile, having to be scattered once or twice by the nvise of a cannon. The neophyte Rafael from San Francisco had but little diffienlty to make himself understood. The most serivus calamity was the loss of a mule that fell into the river with two thousand cartridges on its back. There were no indications of foreigners. “On the 30:h, to use the words of the diary, ‘the place where we are is situated at the foot of the Sierra Madre, whence there have been seen by the English interpreter, Juan Antonio, two mountains called Los Cuates—the twins— on the opposite side of which are the presidio and river of the Culumbia. The rancherias before named are situated on the banks of the Rio de Jesus Maria, from which to-morrow a different direction will be taken.” Accordingly the 31st they ‘marched west until they came to the foot of a mountain range, about fifteen leagues from the Sierra Nevada, which runs from north to south, terminating in the region of Bodega.’ Exactly at what point the travelers left the river and entered the: mountain range, now bounding Trinity County on the east, I do not attempt to determine, though it was evidently not below Red Bluff. The distance made up the valley, allowing an average rate of three miles an hour for sixty-eight hours, the length of the return march of ninety-six hours through the mountains, at a rate of two miles an hour, and the possible identity of Capa, reached in forty-four hours froin Carquinez, with the Capaz of modern maps opposite Chico, would seem to point to the latitude of Shasta or Weaverville as the northern limit of this exploration. ; “For nine days, the explorers marched southward over the mountains. No distances are given, and I ehall not retend to trace the exact route followed, though I give in a note the names recorded in the diary. Like those in the valley, the savages were not, as a rule, hostile, though a few had to be killed in the extreme north; but their language could no longer be understood, and it was often difficult to obtain guides from rancheria to rancheria. The natural difficulties of *the mountain route were very great. Many horses died, and four pack-mules once fell down a precipice together. The 3d of November, at Benenue, some blue cloth was found, said to have been obtained trom the coast, probably from the Russians. On the 6th the ocean was first seen, and several soldiers recognized the ‘coast of the Russian establishment at Bodeza.’ Next day from the Espinazo del Diablo was seen what was believed to be Cape Mendocino, twenty leagnes away on the right. Finally, on the 10th, the party from the tup of a mountain, higher than any before climbed, but in sight of many worse ones, abandoned by their guides at dusk, with only three days’ rations, managed to struggle down and out through the dense undergrowth into a valley. «And down this valley of Libantiliyami, which cpuld hardly have been any other than that of the Russian River, though at what point in the present Sonoma County, or from what direction they entered it [am at a loss to say. The returning wanderers hastened; over a route that seem to have presented no obstacles— doubtless near the sites of the modern Healdsburg and Santa Rosa—and on November 12th, at noon, after twenty hours’ march in three days, arrived at San Rafael. Next day, after a thanksgiving mass, the boats arrived and the work of ferrying the horses across to Point San Pablo was begun. The infantry soldiers, who were mounted during the expedition, also took this route home, both to Monterey and San Francisco. Thns endel the most extensive northern expedition ever made by the Spaniards in California.” . By reference to the notes referred to by Mr. Bancroft in the above, it is quite certain that Argiiello and his companions reached Russian River at or near the present site of Cloverdale. Be that as it may, it is beyond cavil that they were the first Spaniards to traverse the central valleys of Sonoma County. While the expedition was not fruitful of far-reaching results, yet it furnishes an important leaf to local history. Being the first of civilized race to traverse the territory of the county its whole length, entitles that little band of explorers to kindly remembrance and honorable mention in her annals. But the time was close at hand when Sonoma County, which had lain fallow all these years, except that portion of seaboard under occupancy by the Russians, was to come under Spanish The establishment of a new misThe causes which domination. sion was determined upon.