Period of new spain



Download 0.79 Mb.
Page3/10
Date16.01.2018
Size0.79 Mb.
#36509
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

    12Ibid. A19, April 13, 1858.

    13Los Angeles Star Weekly, May 22, 1858.

    14Possessory Claim Book: A21, June 17, 1858.

    15Los Angeles Star Weekly, March 20, 1858.

    16Ibid. February 13, 1858.

    17Ibid. May 22nd.

    18Ibid. January 23rd, 1858.

    19Harold O. Weight, "We Found a Mighty River," Westways, Vol. 57, No. 10, October, 1965. Los Angeles Star Weekly, January 16, 1858; September 12, 1858.

    20Ibid. January 16, 1858.

    21Ibid. There is something about strong young men getting wives, "now that the Elders are out of the picture." Maybe it was precaution; maybe it was for added strength; maybe it was Time.

    22F. M. Lyman Biography, p. 39, says Col. Kane went through with his train February 1 - March, 1858.

    23Quotes from the Deseret Magazine, in Los Angeles Star Weekly, May 1st, June 20th.

    24Who, in September, 1857, filed Possessory Claim on the SW 1/4 of the s 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of Section 25, T2S, R1W (Highland Springs), A1.

    25Los Angeles Star Weekly, July 17th (Dr. Wozencraft has treated two for arrow wounds).

    26Ibid. September 19th.

    27Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 19, 1858.

    28Ibid. July 17th (two men got slit throats).

    29Burr Belden, History in the Making, San Bernardino Sun, November 25, 1961; December 16, 1951.

    30Los Angeles Star Weekly, October 9th, 1858.

    31Deed B254, December 8, 1857 (A89 was the original deed, granted by Micheltoreno April 29, 1843; twice since, parts have sold for pennies).

    32Deed D128, November 9, 1858 @ $3,300.

    33Los Angeles Star Weekly, November 16, 1858.

    34Alta Californian, January 6, 1859, quoting from the Salt Lake Valley Sun of December 17, 1858.

    35Alta Californian, January 6, 1859.

    36Ibid. April 18, 1859.

    37Deed D244 @ $4,400.

    38Mortgage B48; Mortgage B65.

    39Agreement A20, July 26, 1859.

    40Los Angeles Star Weekly, August 13, 1859.

    41Mortgage B101, June 30, 1859.

    42Huldah James Mecham, herself (the first of three mountain births).

    43Memoirs of Sidney P. Waite, mail carrier (later San Bernardino County Clerk); Excerpts in Big Bear Panorama, 1934 booklet published by Big Bear High School, edited by Bea Peddar, pp. 28-30. Quotes are from Boyd and Brown, History, pp. 284-285.

    44Wm. Elliott, History of San Bernardino County, 1883, p. 142.

    45Newmark, My Sixty Years, p. 247.

    46Alta Californian, April - May, 1859; see also note 19.

    47October 22nd. A sixteen-day trip, it was said, at one-third the cost of steamer service.

PART 2, CHAPTER 4

"PROSPECTING DAYS"

    Sidney Waite Memoirs, Big Bear Panorama, p. 28.

    2Per a Holcomb daughter. February 20, 1860.

    3From Gold, Sliver, and History, master thesis of Laurance A. Jacobs, UCLA 1962, deposited with the Bear Valley Ranger Station. His source is the Los Angeles Star Weekly, January 7, 1860.

    4Los Angeles Star Weekly, January 7, 1860.

    5Ibid. April 14, 1860.

    6Miscellaneous Records A______, April 30, 1860.

    7The story is that told by Wm. Francis Holcomb, himself, in a "Journal of Holcomb Valley" (compiled in 1888). Quoted often by centennial newspapers (San Bernardino Sun, October 1948) and by Big Bear Panorama, p. 26. In 1930 a novel of the flag incident was dramatized by the community as "Nevertheless, Old Glory," San Bernardino Sun, July 4, 1930.

    8W. F. Holcomb, "Journal of Holcomb Valley," p. 13.

    9Los Angeles Star Weekly, June 30, 1860.

    10Ibid. July 7, 1860.

    11Ibid. August 29th.

    12Possessory Claims A29, July 18, 1860.

    13Semi-Weekly Southern News, July 6, 1860.

    14"Cerf" is the width of wood taken out by the saw.

    15Huldah James Mecham Memoirs.

    16J. J. Willis' bookkeeping shows every tobacco purchase or other advance against their wages. Jonathan James Mill Ledgers.

    17Board of Supervisors' Minutes, August 6, 1860 - A82.

    18Los Angeles Star Weekly, August 29, 1860. (He invested in Dr. Wozencraft's Greenlead Mine.)

    19Perhaps Silas Cox's burro-stops here have left a name. No early possessory claim or patent or lease has been found for this grassy, spring-fed meadow.

    20As seen by a later Brown-Tucker-Willis agreement, A24.

    21This dramatic account (p. 96 in a book of local history researched by Victor Valley College) gives form to a story current in many pioneer memoirs: Mohave (1966).

    22Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 1, 1860. (William Caley's Journal (Belden, 1951) reported 300 men voting.)

    23Supervisors' Minutes, October 20, 1860, p. 94; November 12, 1860, p. 109.

    24Holcomb Journal.

    25Ibid.

    26Possessory Claim Book A, pages 30-34, November 17, 1860. Per a San Bernardino Guardian of March, 1867: ". . . argentiferous galena and lead which they know of no way to profitably extract."

    27Los Angeles Star Weekly, April 20, 1861, said to be "on the eastern slope bordering on the desert." (Probably near the Permanente Plant in a spot still called Cushenbury Grade.)

    28Agreement Book A24, January 4, 1861; Brown agrees to furnish $231 for each of his partners and take it from the first tolls.

    29Possessory Book A31-32.

    30Miscellaneous Records (as all the first mining records were), A37.

    31Hayes, Pioneer Notes, p. 212, January 9, 1861. (Word of the Secession had, I believe, been received December 29th, 1860.)

    32Los Angeles Star Weekly, January 21, 1861.

    33Ibid. Ogier Mine has persisted a century. By a 1953 Division of Mines Report it was located in Section 30, T3N, Range 1 East, on John Bull Flat, and noted as having the "most extensive lode work of the area."

    34Miscellaneous Records, A35, A36, A46, S. S. Smith. A37, A442, A45, A452, March 9, 1861 through April.

    35Miscellaneous Records A37, May 20, 1861. (30 years later this will be the area of Rose Mine and Morongo King.)

    36Agreement A22, August 26, 1861.

    37Miscellaneous Records A34, March 16, 1861, as Holcomb Creek could rightfully be called. Its headwaters would be below the old Hitchcock Ranch headquarters.

    38Water Records A40, April 1861.

    39W. D. Frazee, Climate and Resource of San Bernardino County, p. 79.

    40Los Angeles Star Weekly, April 13, 1861.

    41Los Angeles Star Weekly, April 13, 1861. Advertisement

JOEL SCRANTON

Holcomb Valley

EXPRESS
    42Ibid.

    43" . . . worst between Burnt Valley and Holcomb," they said.

    44The Harold Goldbrandsens of Victorville researched the route in connection with Victor Valley's historical publication.

    45Los Angeles Star Weekly, from a correspondent signing himself as Selma.

    46Sidney Waite Memoirs.

    47Los Angeles Star Weekly, June 3, 1861. In a Civis letter from Holcomb Valley.

    48Austin Drake, Big Bear Valley History, Legends, and Tales (Grizzly Press, 1949 Centennial Edition, Big Bear Lake), p. 64, has a charming tale about a stage-load of "dance-hall girls" who danced under the stars at the foot of Snubbing Post Grade during a breakdown. (His source I have not seen.)

    49Sidney Waite Memoirs.

    50Los Angeles Star Weekly, June 3, 1861. Selma letter.

    51Ibid. April 20, 1861.

    52Ibid. June 1st.

    53Sold by Lewis Marjoni to James C. Udell in Agreement A33, November 4, 1861.

    54Drake, Bear Valley History, p. 76. They may have named it for the popular Round House, made over into an Octagon House, which Harris Newmark describes as Los Angeles' favorite beer garden of the era (My Sixty Years, p. 192, p. 476). This may have been Sylvester's building next to Mellus Mill.

    55Holcomb Valley owners listed on the 1862 Assessor's Roll.

    56Ibid.

    57Ibid.

    58Agreement A32, November 12, 1861 (near Julian Co. in Lower Holcomb).

    59Los Angeles Star Weekly, June 27, 1861, Holcomb Valley correspondent, J. A. Talbot, later Unionist editor of the Star.

    60Editor Sherman's letter is quoted in Major Carleton's classified report on San Bernardino to the War Department. Rebellion Records, pp. 552-553.

    61Los Angeles Star Weekly, June 27th, Talbot letter.

    62Ibid.

    63Ibid. July 23rd, Selma letter.

    64Hayes, Pioneer Notes, p. 257. Entries for July 6th, August 8th.

    65Duly sent to Secretary of State Seward. Rebellion Records, p. 629.

    66Arrival June 24th; program, Sept. 11th Los Angeles Star Weekly; also Rebellion Records, p. 567.

    67Maybe also from the San Gabriel Mines. Men are there from "the upper country." Los Angeles Star Weekly, March 4, 1861; Rebellion Records I, p. 43.

    68Showalter had fought a too-successful duel with San Bernardino's Assemblyman Piercy on May 25, 1861.

    69The only Visalia man mentioned was a Dr. Snell who came to assay in Holcomb Valley. Women and children hiding in the half-finished Catholic Church should date Showalter's passage west of town. Mrs. E. P. R. Crafts, Pioneer Days.

    70Los Angeles Star Weekly, July 19th; Civis letter.

    71Not far east of the grove of Holcomb Campground, facing Caribou Creek, is a junkyard of rusting machinery. It could date from 1861, or as late as 1925.

    72Los Angeles Star Weekly, August 17th. (No possessory claim shows until 1867.)

    73See map of Patent A132 in Book A, August 27, 1872, and on the Olio, etc. Also maps in Surveyor's office for 1876.

    74Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 1, 1861. God and Union correspondent, Holcomb.

    75Semi-Weekly Southern News, September 13th.

    76Los Angeles Star, September 7th.

    77Alta Californian, September 9, 1861. The societies would have been "Knights of the Golden Circle."

    78Ibid.

    79Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 14, 1861. Selma letter.

    80Ibid. God and Union letter, . . . of young Rowland searching for stock.

    81Ibid. Editorial comment on "a Johnson who ordered $15 worth of clothing, the receipt for same, and $5 cash . . . at gunpoint."

    82Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 14, 1861. Selma letter.

    83Hayes, Pioneer Notes, p. 257.

    84Rebellion Records, pp. 597-615, August 31st - September 5th.

    85 Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 11, 1861, Correspondent Selma.

    86Misc. Records, A48 (Udell to Thomas Bisset), September 6, 1861 @ $1,000 (payable at $40 a week).

    87McCoy, @ $211 (A49) and $500 (A51) respectively.

    88Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 14, 1861.

    89Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 14, 1861. Van Leuven, Waters, Rowland, Wilson, Wolfskill and Stearns lost horses.

    90Hayes, Pioneer Notes, p. 259 (September 22, 1861); Belden, History in the Making, San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, June 6, 1952. Showalter escaped after five months and made his way to the Confederate lines.

    91Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 16th. Letter from San Bernardino.

    92Ten Salt Lake men who kept stolen horses in a mountain valley were sent to San Quentin. (Los Angeles Star Weekly, November 9, 1861.)

    93Los Angeles Star Weekly, October 9, 1861. Civis letter.

    94Ibid. October 5th.

    95Ibid. October 19th.

    96Ibid. December 21, 1861.

    97F. M. Edgar, Possessory Claim Book A35, April 23, 1861.

    98Note: A projection from Huldah James Mecham's memoirs, from this year when Sam was fifteen.

PART 2, CHAPTER 5

"IGNORING THE WAR"



    Los Angeles Star Weekly, January 10, 1862.

    2Hayes, Pioneer Notes, p. 265. He did almost strip himself of cattle and hay, which he sold to the Union troops to get enough money to restore the Turnpike. See above, pp. 260-261.

    3Los Angeles Star Weekly, January 22, 1862; Hayes interviews, February.

    4Hayes, Pioneer Notes, pp. 270-271: February 6th talk with the Trujillos in their open-air ramuda.

    5Huldah James Mecham Memoirs. For the interest of feminine readers, doctors, devotees of the "good olde days," she was never "right." She was killed at sixteen in a buggy wreck.

    6Huldah James Mecham Memoirs.

    7Los Angeles Star Weekly, February 6, 1862. Letter of Acting-Coroner A. J. Beard.

    8Mortgage Book B146.

    9Ibid. The Tibbetts Mortgage and the Pierson Mortgage were listed together, both here and on exemption for taxes.

    10Per 1857 original Survey Map of Township 2 North, Range 4 West, shown at the end of the Mormon Lumbering section.

    11Assessor's Yearbooks, 1862, p. 3.

    12Ibid. p. 3.

    13Written by W. B. Coombs from pioneer and family remembrances, 1937.

    14Assessor's Yearbooks, 1862, 1863, 1864.

    15Ibid.

    16Ibid.

    17The Strongs were on the wagon train which Frank Talmadge joined en route to California. Mr. Strong was, even then, an invalid.

    18Eugene Caley article in January 13, 1939, San Bernardino Daily Sun.

    19Told in a WPA Writers' Project, The Old West, Pioneer Tales of San Bernardino County, Native Sons (Sun Company, San Bernardino, 1940), p. 49. Susan Strong (Caley), who would have been 12 and whose tales I use, reversed the fates of the two bears as given by the Native Sons. Cf. 18.

    20Los Angeles Star Weekly, March 1, 1862.

    21Ibid. April 5th, "buying $2,000 - $3,000 a month;" May 22nd, "a $12,000 shipment, the largest yet."

    22Also Newmark, My Sixty Years, p. 313.

    23Los Angeles Star Weekly, February 8th-15th, etc.

    24Ibid. April 19th.

    25Miscellaneous Records, A58.

    26A Star correspondent of September, 1861, had said, "a $20,000 investment."

    27See advertisements of Sheriff's Sale, Los Angeles Star Weekly.

    28Kelley, Wozencraft, Henderson, Sylvester, Bellamy, Wm. Osborn, Lewis Marjoni, Tom Valencia, James Davis, John B. Cook, George Hamilton, Sydney Waite, . . . doubtless, others.

    29Judge Ogier's death took place in Holcomb Valley, May 1861, per Newmark, My Sixty Years, p. 54.

    30Judge W. D. Frazee, Climate and Resources of San Bernardino County, pp. 56-57. An 1881 Editor, boosting Valley Gold Co. possibilities, quotes Wells-Fargo as authority.

    31Los Angeles Star Weekly, September 20, 1862.

    32Miscellaneous Records, A60, A61, A64.

    33Ibid. A75, November 1, 1862.

    34The division of the Salt Lake Trail from the Government Road.

    35Los Angeles Star Weekly, April 19, 1862, February 13, 1864.

    36Ibid. July 26, 1862.

    37The new editor was the same J. A. Talbott who had corresponded from Holcomb Valley.

    38Forecast in the Los Angeles Star Weekly, November 8, 1862. (Not really carried out until January 2, 1863.)

    39Los Angeles Star Weekly, January 3, 1863.

    40Ibid. February 21st.

    41Ibid. August 19th.

    42Ibid. May 12th, Civis letter from San Bernardino.

    43Ibid. March 1, 1863.

    44Los Angeles Star Weekly of that date. Both Mrs. Sanford and her daughter, Mrs. Banning, were aboard.

    45Miscellaneous Records, A75; April, 1863, to James Walsh & Co.

    46The name on the Assessor's Rolls.

    47According to the San Bernardino Guardian, March 9, 1867, he installed a 35 hp engine, a centrifugal crusher, and shaking tables.

    48Miscellaneous Records, A67, May 8, 1863. There must have been some copper ore involved if he named it, as he said, for a "green stain."

    49See Deed F296, November 3, 1863.

    50Miscellaneous Records, A92, October 13, 1863.

    51Ibid. A73, September 24, 1863; Prieta was from Agua Mansa; once Caballeria spoke of him as a poet.

    52Assessor's Rolls 1863-64. Taxes $366.



53Quotation from Deed F296, November 3, 1863, Moronga Silver Mining Co.

    54Deed A66, April 10, 1863. One of his working associates was Juan Flores. One wonders if this might have led to the later ranch name. Governor Pico had made the name fashionable.

    55Beattie, Heritage of the Valley, pp. 92-94, whether one league or seven leagues.

    56Evidence of his work and cattle are seen on 1864 tax rolls.

    57Possessory Claims A46, A47, A49, February 14, 1863.

    581863 Tax Rolls.

    59James Mill Account Ledgers, kept by J. J. Willis.

    601863 Tax Rolls, April.

    61George Momyer interview with George Miller, San Bernardino County Museum Association Quarterly, Winter, 1962.

    62Los Angeles Star Weekly, July 11th, 1863.

    63Ibid. October 3, 1863.

    64Ibid. October 31, 1863.

    65Miscellaneous Records, A87: "1-1/4 miles northwest of Holcomb Valley" - forerunner of the "Alpine District" and Arctic Canyon.

    66Assessor's Rolls, 1864. A66 was Lawler's Possessory Claim. Hamilton may have been the original owner of Hamilton Hotel in Lower Holcomb.

    67Miscellaneous Records A91.

    68Deed F221.

    69Possessory Claims A65, June 17, 1864 (Cox Rancha).

    70Miscellaneous Records A97, May 27, 1864.

    71Tri-Weekly News, February 10, 1864.

    72Ibid. April 18th, April 29th.

    73Los Angeles Star Weekly, February 6, 1864.

    74Ibid. September 3, 1864.

    75Ibid. February 13, 1864.

    76Ibid. June 11th. "70-80 head of beef are on the road to Hardyville."

    771864 Assessor's Rolls.

    78Miscellaneous Records A106, October 13, 1864.

    79Los Angeles Star Weekly, July 2, 1864; apparently Abbott, the original locator, objected to the man his partner sold out to.

    80Miscellaneous Records A105.

    81Los Angeles Star Weekly, April 2, 1864.

    82Newmark, My Sixty Years, p. 329.

    83According to the 1864 Tax Rolls: on "ranch and carpentry tools, and $160 improvements on the Agua Caliente."

    84Momyer interview with George Miller, p. 77, San Bernardino County Museum Association Quarterly, Winter, 1962.



85Talmadge Annals; also memoirs of John Talmadge, Centennial Issue of San Bernardino Sun, October, 1947.

    86Assessor's Rolls, 1864-65 Fiscal Year, p. 147.

    87Miscellaneous Records A112: Debts $559, $200, $300, which is not, of course, its whole value, either to Mellus or to his assignees. Thus the mill ownership was fragmented.

    88The San Bernardino Guardian, March 9, 1867, giving Green Lead history, said: "a Ryerson amalgamator," and there was a Mr. Ryerson in the company.

    89In March, 1865, there would be a $1,000 steam quartz-mill listed on the Assessor's rolls.

    90Los Angeles Tri-Weekly News, October 1, 1864.

    91Ibid. December 10, 1864.

    92Bruce Catton, This Hallowed Ground, New York, 1956.

    93Tri-Weekly News, November 12, 1864. San Bernardino County: Lincoln 231, McClellan ___.

    94Tri-Weekly News of December 10, 1864, had said it would be ready January 1st, and hauling would be $30 a ton cheaper.

    95Tri-Weekly News, February 7, 1865; Superintendent Nichols' account.

    96Assessor's Rolls 1864-65.

    97Ibid.

    98Ibid.

PART 2, CHAPTER 6

"QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT"



    Value on the 1864-65 tax books as $1,250 instead of $2,500.

    2Perhaps that Dark Canyon one spoken of by George Miller as where he cut off his finger. San Bernardino County Museum Association Quarterly, Winter, 1962.

    3Possessory Claim A79; May 26, 1865. He also stated, which must have been a compass error, that he was "6 1/2 miles nearly North from Huston's new mill," later proved on Section 19, T2N, R3W.

    4Between Masonic Hall and the Twin Peaks Church.

    5Miscellaneous Records A119.


Download 0.79 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page