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. 21 were expected to bear the principal expense. Either through inability or flagging zeal in behalf of a government that was always impecanious, the padres did not respond to this new levy upon their resources. Vallejo, in obedience to orders, made a tour to Bodega and Ross. That fall Vallejo made an attempt to establish settlements at Petaluma and Santa Rosa. Bancroft says: “Ten heads of families, fifty persons in all, agreed to settle at the former place (Petaluma), hitherto unoccupied; but the padre at San Francisco Solano, hearing of the project, sent a few men to build a hut and place a band of horses at that point in order to establish a claim to the land as mission property. Two or three of the settlers remained and put in crops at Petuluma, Vallejo himself having ten bushels of wheat sown on his own account. The padre’s representatives also remained, and the respective claims were left to be settled in the future. Much the same thing seems to have been done at Santa Rosa, where a few settlers went, and to which point the padre sent two neophytes with some hogs as the nucleus of a mission claim. All this betore January 8, 1834. In his speech of May lst to the deputacion, Figueroa mentioned the plan for northern settlement, but said nothing to indicate that any actual progress had been made. The 14th of May, however, he sentenced a criminal tu serve out his term of punishment at the new establishment about to be founded at Santa Rosa. In June the rancho of Petaluma was granted by the Governor to Vallejo, and the grant approved by the deputacion, this being virtually an end of the mission claim. Respecting subsequent developments of 1834~’35 in the Santa Rosa Valley, the records are not satistactory; but Figueroa, hearing of the approach of a colony from Mexico, resolved to make some preparations for its reception, and naturally thought of the northern establishment, which person. All that we know positively of the trip is that he started late in August, extended his tour to Ross, examined the country, selected a site, and having left a small force on the frontier, returned to he resolved tu visit in _Monterey the 12th of September. To these facts there may be added, as probably accurate, the. statements of several Californians, to the effect that the site selected was where Vallejo’s settlement and Solano neophytes had already erected some rude buildings, that the new place was named Santa Anay Farias, in honer of the President and Vice-President of Mexico, and that the settlement was abandoned the next year, because the colonists refused to venture into a country of hostile Indians.” The scheme of founding a frontier post at or near Santa Rosa seems to have proved a failure; at least the next move with that end in view was in the direction of Sonoma, where the mission San Francisco Solano had already run its course under ecclesiastical rule, and was then in process of secularization under the manage ment of M. G. Vallejo as commissionado. This failure of the attempted establishment of a settlement at Santa Rusa by Governor Figueroa, in the face of the fact that eleven years previous Altimira, taking his life in his hand, had established a mission at Sonoma, inclines us to take off our hat in reverence to that padre, although his zeal may, at times, have befugged his better judgment. History should be both impartial and just, and the records unmistakably show that the Catholic missionaries had occupied the field embracing the main portion of Sonoma County at least ten years before the military and civil anthorities exercised duminion* here. Figueroa still adhered to his policy of establishing a frontier settlement and garrisun north of San Francisco Bay. The following, the letter of instruction to Gen. M. G. Vallejo from Governor José Figueroa in relation to the locating and governing of “a village in the valley of Sonoma,” was transmitted only a few months betore tiat governor’s death: POLITICAL GOVERNMENT OF .UPPER CALIFORNIA. CoMMANDANCY-GENERAL OF Upper CALIFORNIA: MONTEREY, June 24, 1835. In conformity with the orders and instructions issued by the Supreme Government of the Confederation respecting the location of a village in the valley of Sono.