California to 1860
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Pre-European history: http://www.ccnet.com/~laplaza/calhist1.htm
State maps: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/california.html
State web site: http://www.ca.gov
California is about the same size as Japan or Sweden.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
The state covers 163,707 sq. miles and has over
32.6 million people. The Pacific coastline stretches for 840 miles.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.CA4)(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.6)
The state marine fish is the bright-orange Garibaldi. The state
bird is the California quail.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A17)(SFC, 7/8/99, p.A13)
California has 58 counties. The Washoe Indian tribe once ranged
along the Sierra from Honey Lake to Mono Lake. There were some 80
California
Indian languages of which 30 were extinct. The Takic family of
languages
was spoken in Northern and Southern California. The Cahuilla [Kaweah]
and
Cupeno languages are part of the Cupan family, which is part of the
Takic
family.
(SFC, 6/22/97, p.A18)
John Conness was one of the first senators from
California.
The Conness family settled Stockton, Ca.
(SFC, 3/5/96, p.A16)
The Anz-Borrego Desert State Park, west of the Salton Sea, was the
largest in Ca. at over a million acres.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.T7)
d225Mil BC-65 Mil BC Dinosaurs were
both numerous and varied in California. In 2003 Richard P. Hilton
authored “Dinosaurs and Other Mesozoic Reptiles of California.”
California was under water at the beginning of the Mesozoic (255-63).
By the end of the era roughly the eastern third of the state had
emerged.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.26)(CW, Winter 04, p.51)
170Mil BC In northern California magma burbled up
through older, softer rock and formed a granite pluton. Wind and water
over the next 100 million years scrubbed the area which later became
known as Castle Crags.
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.G8)
140 Million Masses of peridotite rack heaved onto the
sea floor from the earth’s crust about this time. It mingled with
seabed sediment and merged with an oceanic plate that slid toward the
Sierra foothills and the Klamath region of northern California until it
hit the North American plate. The peridotite turned to serpentine under
pressure and rose to parallel the San Andreas Fault.
(CW, Fall ‘03, p.42)
115 Million Dinosaur bones from the Budden Canyon
Formation of western Shasta Ct., Ca., dated to this time of the
Cretaceous. It was a small bipedal herbivore about the size of a deer.
It seemed similar to a group known as hypsilophodonts, small a
primitive members of the suborder Ornithopoda. The region was a
seafloor west of the coastline of this time.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.26)
85-65 Million California dinosaur fossils of the
Cretaceous have been found in the Moreno and upper Panoche Formations
of western Fresno Ct., the Point Loma Formation near San Diego, and the
Ladd and Williams Formations of Riverside Ct. These include the
Saurolophus, a large bipedal "duckbill" dinosaur.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.28)
c84 Million Garnet-rich crustal rock called eclogite
formed below an area that later became the Sierra Nevada of California.
(SFC, 7/30/04, p.A4)
80 Million BP Dinosaurs roamed the Sierra foothills.
A therapod bone fossil was found in Placer Ct. in 1997, in a geological
region called the Chico formation. Here sediment was laid down by the
Pacific Ocean whose tides washed the cliffs of the Sierra Nevada.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A1)
76 Million The Point Loma Formation contained a
nodosaurid, a quadrupedal herbivorous dinosaur with an extensive
covering of bony armor.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.30)
50 Million The collision of the North American and
Pacific plates about this time lifted the Clear Lake basin of
California above sea level.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.C8)
40Mil BC In 2006 scientists presented evidence that
the Sierra Nevada mountain range rose about this time. Earlier
estimates pegged the uplift at 3-5 million years BC.
(SFC, 7/7/06, p.B1)
~30 Million The Mendocino triple junction (MTJ), the
meeting of the Pacific, North American and Gorda plates, was born about
this time and began moving up the California coast. It was later
believed to be responsible for the northern California Coast Range.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A6)
23 Million A volcano erupted that later became known
as the Pinnacles of central California. It was on the San Andres fault
line and half stayed in southern California as the other half migrated
north.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.T4)
15 Million In 2005 the fragmentary remains of a
3-toed horse from this time were reported from the central valley of
California. Merychippus californicus stood 3 ½ feet at the
shoulder.
(SFC, 2/23/05, p.B1)
10 Million In the Mohave National Preserve volcanic
formations of this age formed caves of congealed lava over 25,600 acres.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A17)
4-3 Million Mount Whitney, Ca., and sister peaks in
the Sierra Nevada were formed during this period as a chunk of Earth’s
crust broke loose sinking into the mantle generating upward forces.
(SFC, 7/30/04, p.A4)
3 Million The Petrified Forest, 6 miles west of
downtown Calistoga dates to this time. A volcanic eruption felled
redwood trees that turned to stone.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.T1)
2Mil BC About this time California’s King’s Canyon
was carved out by a slab of ice 2,000 feet thick.
(SSFC, 7/24/05, p.F7)
1.8Mil -400k A mammoth found in 2005 in Moorpark,
southern California, dated to this period.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A17)
c760,000 Mono Lake has existed since at least this
time. Mono Lake is 700,000 years old.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.38)(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.T6)
c760,000BP The Long Valley Caldera, a 10 by 20 mile
crater in central-eastern California, was created by a volcanic
eruption in what later became the Bishop area. Mammoth Lakes was later
set on the edge of the caldera, 215 miles northeast of LA. In 2003 it
was reported that the Long Valley dome had been thrusting upward about
an inch a year for the last 8 years.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.A4)(SFC,12/11/97, p.A8)(SFC,
12/20/99, p.A8)(SFC, 12/8/03, p.A4)
c750,000BP California's Mono Lake was formed as the
Sierra Range lifted and the Great Basin sank.
(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.C12)
c560,000BP Tectonic uplifting caused the Central
Valley inland Corcoran Lake to rise and cut an exit to drain into the
Bay Area. This carved Carquinez Strait and plugged the Salinas Valley
outlet to Monterey Bay.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
c500,000BP The Medicine Lake Volcano created lava
tubes that later became known as Lava Beds National Monument in
northern California.
(SFC, 5/29/04, p.B4)
c435,000BP A major eruption by Mount Lassen left
sediment called the Rockland Ash that could later be seen in the sea
cliffs of Fort Funston on the SF coast.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
250k-50,000 The San Joaquin soil was formed as
glacial runoff from the Sierra Nevada.
(SFC,12/31/97, p.A6)
150,000BP The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, Ca.,
are no older than 150k years.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A17)
c100,000 In 1943 construction workers in Millbrae,
Ca., uncovered elephant bones that dated to about this time.
(Ind, 9/21/02, 5A)
c40,000 BP Volcanic activity began forming the
craters and mountains around Mono Lake.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.2)
c17,000BP The SF west coast extended out 6 miles past
the Farallon Islands.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
14000BC-10000BC Rock art was inscribed in the Coso
Mountains of California. In 2005 the area was designated as the Coso
Rock Art National Historic Landmark.
(SSFC, 10/23/05, p.F12)
c12,000BC Rising ocean waters flowed into the Golden
Gate and formed the nascent SF Bay.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
c12,000BC During the last ice age the Channel Islands
off California were part of one vast island geologists call Santarosae.
The northern islands were linked, but probably not with the mainland.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T11)
11,000-9,000BC A woman's bones were discovered in
1959 at Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island, one of the Channel
Islands off California. Two tests in 1999 dated the bones as 11,000 and
13,000 years of age.
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A1,15)
8,000BC Researchers in 1986 dated a clay floor in
Stanislaus National Forest, 150 miles east of SF, to this time.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A3)
8,000BC Grinding tools from this time were found in
1999 in the Cross Creek site of San Luis Obispo. Beads, shells, tools,
seeds and carved stone fish suggested that humans came to the area by
sea and did not rely on hunting for subsistence.
(SFC, 6/25/99, p.A6)
8,000BC Pigmy mammoths browsed on the Channel Islands.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Z1 p.1)
7,500-7000 Evidence of human habitation has been
found from this time at El Portal in Yosemite.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
6,000BC The Wappo Indians settled in the area
northern California around Mt. Konocti. The eruption of Mt. Konocti
millions of years earlier left a fissure in the earth through which
ground water reaches the hot magma at 4,000 feet, and resurfaces as
Indian Springs’ three thermal geysers at 212 degrees. The water rises
through old sea beds adding rich mineral and salt traces. The Wappo
built sweat lodges over the escaping steam.
(Flyer on Indian Springs, 7/95)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.T8)
c6,000BC The Hokan Indians preceded the Miwoks in
Northern California.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.B5)
c6,000BC In 1999 human skull fragments and a tooth of
this time were found at the Huntington Beach development site of the
Bolsa Chica wetlands.
(SFC, 8/13/99, p.D4)
c3,000 BC Evidence of human habitation in the
Yosemite Valley.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
c3,000 BC "Bison Hunter" villages around Middle Lake
in Modoc Ct. were carbon-dated to this time.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T9)
c1,000BC The Miwok Indians arrived in Northern
California about this time.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.B5)
c0CE The last small lake disappeared
from the Death Valley basin about this time. At least 4 lakes covered
the valley floor in Earth's history.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T5)
c0CE In Death Valley the Ubehebe
Crater formed by the explosion of steam when magma met water-soaked
rock.
(SSFC, 3/14/04, p.D5)
c1300 The Panum Crater at Mono
Lake erupted about this time.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.T4)
c1400 The Ahwahneechee, a Southern
Sierra Miwok band, first began to inhabit Yosemite.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
c1500 Lake Cauhilla, the
predecessor to the Salton Sea, measured 50 by 100 miles and began
evaporating.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A22)
1510 In Spain Garci Ordonez de
Montalvo authored "Serges de Esplandian" (The Adventures of
Esplandian), a novel that described an island filled with gold named
California and ruled by Queen Califia.
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.1)(SFC, 2/25/00, p.C14)
1542 Jun 27, Juan Rodriguez
Cabrillo set out from the port of Navidad, Mexico, with 2 ships, the
San Salvador and the Victoria, to "discover the coast of New Spain."
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo claimed California for Spain. [see Sep 28]
(NPS-CNM, 4/1/97)(MC, 6/27/02)
1542 Sept 28, Juan Rodriguez
Cabrillo, Spanish explorer, stepped ashore at the present day harbor of
San Diego and named it San Miguel. He went on to explore the coast of
California. The tip of Point Loma in San Diego is the home of the
Cabrillo National Monument, the second most visited monument in the US
after the Statue of Liberty. The island of Coronado was named in honor
of the Four Crowned Martyrs, Los Quatro Martires Coronados, on whose
feast day it was discovered.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(AAM, 3/96, p.52)(NPS-CNM,
4/1/97)(SFC,12/26/97, p.C22)
1542 Oct 7, Explorer Cabrillo
discovered Catalina Island off the Southern California coast.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1542 Nov, Cabrillo landed at the
Channel Island, now known as San Miguel. His men got into a scuffle
with local Indians and Cabrillo broke a leg. The party continued to
sail north almost to present day Fort Ross.
(NPS-CNM, 4/1/97)
1542 Explorer Juan Cabrillo
spotted and named the 534 foot rock at Morro Bay, Ca.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T10)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.T3)
1565 Father Andres Urdaneta
sighted land believed to be the California coast while sailing on the
Manila to Acapulco trade route.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1579 Jun 17, Sir Francis Drake
sailed into San Francisco Bay and proclaimed English sovereignty over
New Albion (California). Some claim that Sir Francis Drake sailed into
the SF Bay. Sir Francis Drake claimed San Francisco Bay for England. It
may have been Drake’s Bay or Bolinas Lagoon. In 1999 there were 17
proposed locations for his landing with the latest set in Oregon and
described by Bob Ward in the book "Lost Harbor Found." A brass plate,
allegedly left by Drake, was found in 1993, but determined to be a fake
in 1977.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(HN,
6/17/98)(SFEC, 8/22/98, p.T6) (SFC, 10/29/99, p.A3)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A1)
1579 Jul 26, Francis Drake left SF
to cross Pacific Ocean.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1579 Portuguese explorer Juan
Rodriguez Cabrillo discovered San Diego Bay. His mate, Bartolome
Ferrelo, continued exploring north. [see 1542]
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1587 Oct 18, Spanish Captain Pedro
de Unamuno "discovered" California. He landed at a place he called Port
San Lucas, later identified as Morro Bay City, while sailing from Macao
to Acapulco with a crew of Luzon Indians.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1595 Nov, The San Augustin, a
Manila galleon, sank off the coast of northern California near Point
Reyes with a load of silks and porcelains from the Orient.
(SFC, 9/26/97, p.A21)
1602 May, Sebastian Vizcaino, a
Basque merchant, led 4 small ships north from Acapulco, Mexico, to
chart the coast of California.
(SFC, 11/13/02, p.A8)
1602 Nov 12, The Vizcaino
expedition held Mass on the feast day of San Diego de Alcala. He named
the California landing port after the saint.
(SFC, 11/13/02, p.A8)
1602 Dec 16-Jan 3, The Vizcaino
expedition stopped at Monterey, Ca., and grizzly bears were seen
feeding on a whale carcass. Sebastian Vizcaino, Spanish Explorer,
discovered an island off the coast of California that he named San
Nicolas. It is the outermost of the eight Channel Islands about 75
miles southwest of Los Angeles. It was later used as the site for Scott
O'Dell’s novel: "Island of the Blue Dolphins." [see 1835-1853] Santa
Barbara was named by the Vizcaino expedition.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.12)(IBD, 1960,
p.183)(Via, 3-4/99, p.41)
1602 Father Antonio de la Ascencio
was the 1st European to see a California condor in Baja.
(SFC, 3/3/00, p.A21)
1603 Jan 1, The party of Sebastion
Vizcaino sighted a point off the Central California coast that they
named Ano Nuevo.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, p.T8)
c1650 The Cinder Cone at Mt.
Lassen volcano was formed.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T1)
1700 Jan 27, A tsunami hit Honshu
Island, Japan. It was later estimated that wave was triggered by a 9.0
magnitude earthquake in California.
(CW, Spring ‘99, p.32)
c1750 A caldera erupted in the
middle of Mono Lake.
(SFC, 8/20/01, p.A6)
1768 King Carlos III of Spain sent
Father Junipero Serra from Mallorca to California.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)
1769 Mar, King Carlos III of Spain
chose Don Jose Galvez to protect interests in Mexico. Galvez sent
Gaspar de Portola and Father Junipero Serra with 62 Spanish soldiers
out to establish a settlement at San Diego and on a northerly journey
from Loreto to found missions along the Baha Peninsula and into
California. Jose Antonio Yorba was one of the 62 soldiers. For his
loyalty he received 62,000 acres of land that included much of what
later became Santa Ana, Tustin, Orange and Mosta Mesa.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)(SFC,
6/17/98, p.C4)
1769 Mar, Captain Portola set out
with a group of soldiers, priests, Christian Native Americans and
muleteers. Their intention was to go as far as Monterey Bay but passed
it. Gaspar de Portola led the first European land expedition to
sight the San Francisco Bay from land. Captain Portola had been
appointed governor of Baja and Alta California and sent on an
expedition to explore and replace the Jesuits with Franciscans in the
Baja missions and start new Franciscan missions in Alta.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(Park,
Spring/95)(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1769 Jul 16, Father Junipero Serra
founded Mission San Diego de Alcala, the 1st mission in Calif. The
Franciscan friars soon planted cuttings of olive trees. California’s
first olive press was established in Ventura County in 1871.
(http://missions.bgmm.com/sdiego.htm)(SSFC, 8/27/06,
p.F2)
1769 Oct, Captain Portola and his
party camped at what is now Linda Mar Beach, Pacifica. Portola camped
in San Pedro Valley and sent Sergeant Jose Ortega out to survey what
was ahead.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(Ind, 6/13/00,16A)
1769 Nov 1-3, Sgt. Jose Francisco
Ortega with his scouting party climbed Sweeney Ridge and first looked
upon SF Bay from the vicinity of Point Lobos.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(Ind, 6/13/00,16A)
1769 Nov 4, Portola received
reports of a large bay ahead and went to see for himself. He crossed
Sweeney Ridge in San Mateo County and saw the SF bay. Francisco de
Ulloa was a navigator and member of the party.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1769 Father Junipero Serra blessed
the 1st mission, San Diego de Alcala.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)
1769 Los Angeles was born as El
Pueblo de Nuestra de Los Angeles.
(SFEC,12/797, p.T3)
1769 El Camino Real began as a
footpath when Franciscan missionaries began to establish missions from
San Diego to Sonoma. Gaspar de Portola reportedly camped under El Palo
Alto during his expedition that discovered the SF Bay.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A15)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.T7)
1769 A seafaring explorer first
chronicled Morro Rock, the Gibraltar of the Pacific. It later became
state landmark No. 801.
(SFC, 10/12/97, p.T3)
1769-1848 This period is covered in the 1999 book "A
World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold
Rush" edited by Joshua Paddison.
(SFC, 4/1/99, p.E1)
1770 Jun 3, Father Junipero Serra
founded Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on the shores of
Monterey Bay as a chapel for the new Spanish Presidio of Monterey. A
year later he moved the mission to Carmel.
(SSFC, 11/25/01, p.C5)(www.sancarloscathedral.net/)
1771 Jul 14, Father Junipero Serra
founded the Mission San Antonio de Padua in California. Repairs a
hundred years later were knocked out by the 1906 earthquake. It was
reconstructed in 1948 with help from the Hearst Foundation.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D6)
1771 Sep 8, Mission San Gabriel
Archangel was formed in California.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1771 Father Junipero Serra moved
the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Rio Carmelo over from Monterey. The
Carmel mission was his 7th.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)
1772 Sep 1, Mission San Luis
Obispo de Tolosa formed in California. Father Junipero Serra held the
1st Mass at San Luis Obispo. He left Father Jose Cavalier the task of
building the state’s 5th mission.
(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.T6)(MC, 9/1/02)(SSFC, 10/20/02,
p.C1)
1772 After Father Serra
established a mission in Monterey, Pedro Fages and Father Juan Crespi
set out to explore the SF Bay by land.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1774 Fernando Rivera and 4
soldiers climbed San Bruno Mountain and watched the sun rise over the
bay.
(GTP, 1973, p.126)
1774 Juan Bautista de Anza was the
first non-native to cross the Sierra to scout the Bay Area.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1775 Oct 30, Fr. Lasuen founded
Mission San Juan Capistrano, but the site was abandoned after eight
days when they received word of an attack at the San Diego Mission.
They quickly buried the bells for safe keeping and fled to the Presidio
(fort) in San Diego for shelter.
(http://missions.bgmm.com/sanjuanc.htm)
1775 Juan Bautista Anza, a
40-year-old Mexican captain, led 240 soldiers, priests and settlers to
Monterey. Jose Manuel Valencia was one of the soldiers. His son,
Candelario Valencia, later served in the military at the Presidio and
owned a ranch in Lafayette and property next to Mission Dolores. One of
the soldiers was Don Salvio Pacheco.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A22)
1775 Captain Bruno Heceta led a
group of explorers along the slopes of San Bruno Mountain to the shores
of Lake Merced. He most likely named the mountain.
(GTP, 1973, p.124)
1775 Bodega Bay, Ca., was founded
by the Spanish.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.T3)
1775 268 people from the
expedition of Juan Bautista de Anza settled in various parts of the Bay
Area.
(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A13)
1775-1776 Juan Bautista de Anza led 198 colonists and
1,000 cattle from Sonora, Mexico, to California.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
c1775-1799 In the late 1700s padres from the Santa
Cruz Mission introduced livestock raising over Rancho del Matadero, an
area from Point Ano Nuevo to the Pajaro River.
(Ind, 7/11/00,10A)
1776 Nov 1, Father Junipero Serra
arrived at the site of Mission of San Juan Capistrano and re-founded
it. His mission was to convert the members of the Acagchemem tribe
called Juanenos by the Spaniards. The tribe at the time was
experiencing the end of a 7-year draught.
(HT, 3/97,
p.58)(http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/missioncalifornia/a/capistranohist.htm)
1776 Don Marcos Briones came to
San Francisco. His daughter, Juana Briones, was the first settler on
Powell St. in North Beach. She was a battered wife and was the first
California woman to get a divorce.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1777 Jan 12, Franciscans founded
Mission Santa Clara de Asis, the 8th of California’s original 21
missions.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A13)(MC, 1/12/02)
1777 Nov 30, San Jose, California,
was founded by the Spanish as El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadeloupe,
California's first town.
(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.1)(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A12)(SFC,
11/30/07, p.B4)
1777 The Acagchemem Indians built
a small adobe church at Mission San Juan Capistrano. It’s been renamed
the Serra Chapel and is the oldest building still in use in California.
In 1791 a bell tower was completed.
(HT, 3/97,
p.60)(http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/missioncalifornia/a/capistranohist.htm)
1799 The Russian-American Co. was
chartered by Tsar Paul I. It expanded into Spanish California (see
1812) when sea otter populations declined in Alaska.
(SFC, 6/15/01, WBb p.7)
1781 Sep 4, Mexican Provincial
Governor, Felipe de Neve, founded Los Angeles. He founded El Pueblo de
Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles (Valley of Smokes), originally
named Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, by Gaspar
de Portola, a Spanish army captain and Juan Crespi, a Franciscan
priest, who had noticed the beautiful area as they traveled north from
San Diego in 1769. 44 Spanish settlers named a tiny village near San
Gabriel, Los Angeles. Los Angeles, first an Indian village Yangma, was
founded by Spanish decree. 26 of the settlers were of African ancestry.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/4/97)(SFEC, 4/12/98, Par
p.20)(HN, 9/4/98)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)(HN, 9/4/00)(MC, 9/4/01)
1782 Father Serra held Easter Day
services on the beach in Ventura, Ca., and founded the Mission San
Buenaventura.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T8)(SFCM, 7/18/04, p.16)
1782 Father Serra and Jose Ortega
were welcomed in Santa Barbara by the native Chumash Indians.
(Via, 3-4/99, p.41)
1782 The Presidio at Santa Barbara
was built by the Spanish military.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.T6)
1784 Father Junipero Serra
(b.1713) died of tuberculosis at the adobe church of San Carlos
Borromeo de Carmelo, later Carmel.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)(WUD, 1994, p.1303)
1785 Manual Gonzalez, the 3rd
mayor of Pueblo San Jose de Guadelupe (California), conscripted local
residents to build the town’s 1st City Hall.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.B4)
1786 Sep 14, Two French ships
appeared off the coast of Monterey, the first foreign vessels to visit
Spain's California colonies. Aboard was a party of eminent scientists,
navigators, cartographers, illustrators, and physicians. For the next
ten days Jean Francois de La Pérouse, the commander of this
expedition, took detailed notes on the life and character of the area.
Perouse’s notes were later published under the title “Life in a
California Mission: Monterey in 1786: The Journals of Jean Francois De
LA Perouse.”
(http://tinyurl.com/fbuud)
1786 Mission Santa Barbara, at
2201 Laguna St., was founded as a place for the Franciscan friars to
assemble and convert the native Chumash Indians.
(Via, 3-4/99, p.41)(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.T6)
1787 La Purisima Concepcion church
was founded in Lompoc, Ca. It was rebuilt closer to El Camino Real
after an earthquake in 1812.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D6)
1790s In Ventura Chumash workers
built a 7-mile aqueduct and reservoir to store water form the Ventura
River.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T8)
1791 Gregorio Briones, son of Don
Marcos Briones, was born in Monterey.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1791 Jose Cardero, a Spanish
artist, painted "Vista del Presidio de Monterey."
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.E6)
1792 Construction began on the
Royal Chapel at Carmel, Ca. It was dedicated in 1795.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, p.B3)
1793 The Spanish Governor of Alta
California made the first official notice of the fire problem in
California. He warned military officers, missions and civil authorities
of the problem.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)
1794 A church was built at San
Juan Capistrano. [see 1777]
(SFEC, 7/11/99, p.T6)
1794 Gov. Diego Borica took
command of Alta California and remarked on the general fecundity of the
Bay Area.
(BN, 4/07, p.25)
1794 Archibald Menzies introduced
the California poppy to England. The seed that he brought to Kew
Gardens did not survive. [see 1792, 1816,1825-1833]
(NBJ, 2/96, p.12)
1795 Jan 25, The Royal Chapel at
Carmel, Ca., was dedicated with a Mass of Thanksgiving. A major
renovation was undertaken in 1856.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, p.B3)
1797 Jun 11, Padre Fermin
Francisco de Lasuen and a few Spanish soldiers established Mission San
Jose on a little creek and grove of trees that they called Alameda. It
was the 14th of 21 California missions. It was the end of a way of life
for the local Ohlone Indians.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A17)
1797 Jun 24, Mission San Juan
Bautista, the 15th and largest in California, was founded in the lands
of the Mutsun Indians. Father Fermin de Lasuen blessed the future site
of Mission San Juan Bautista in California.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A16)(SJSVB, 6/24/96, p.41)(SFC,
9/3/97, p.A17)
1797 Jul 25, Presidente Fermin
Francisco de Lasuen founded Mission San Miguel Archangel, the 16th
California mission. He took possession of the land on behalf of Viceroy
Branciforte. The mission facilitated travel between Mission San Luis
Obispo and Mission San Antonio.
(SB, 3/28/02)
1797 Father Juan Norberto de
Santiago arrived in the area of Temecula in Riverside County, Ca., to
build a mission and convert the Pechanga Indians (renamed Luiseno
Indians by the Spanish).
(SSFC, 5/23/04, p.D5)
1798 Jun 13, Mission San Luis Rey
was founded. Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen founded the Mission at
San Luis Rey in 1797. Lasuen founded a total of 9 missions.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)
1799 The Mutsun Indians built a
chapel at Mission San Juan Buatista.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A17)
19th cent David Kerr charted more than 100 sq. miles
of Bay Area marshland for the US Coast Survey, the first federal
mapping agency.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A10)
19th cent Floods turned the Central Valley into a
lake 700 miles long.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)
1802-1889 Juana Briones Y Tapia de Miranda was born
in Santa Cruz. She was a battered wife and became the first California
woman to get a divorce. She was the first to settle on Powell St. in
what is now North Beach, SF. In 1989 the Women’s Heritage Museum
persuaded the state to authorize a plaque in her honor to be set in
Washington Square.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A11)(SFC,11/17/97, p.A1,21)
1803 A series of severe
earthquakes cracked and split the walls of the original church at
Mission San Juan Bautista.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)
1805 Spanish soldiers under Lt.
Francisco Ruiz discovered badgers in a canyon during an expedition in
southern California. The area was thus named El Tejon (the badger).
(SFC, 5/9/08, p.A1)
1806 Apr, Nicolai Rezanov (42), a
director of the Russian-American Co., arrived in SF aboard the Juno. He
had proposed a California outpost to serve the Russian colonies in
Alaska and sailed south to establish a settlement on the Columbia River
but could not land there due to difficult seas. He sailed south to the
Presidio at Monterey and negotiated a trade deal with Commander Jose
Arguello. He also fell in love with Commander Arguello’s daughter and
proposed marriage. He died that winter while crossing Siberia.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T5)(SFC, 2/18/06, p.A1)
1806 May 21, Nicolai Rezanov
(1764-1806), a director of the Russian-American Co., departed SF for
Sitka, Alaska. He died that winter while crossing Siberia.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T5)(SFC, 2/18/06, p.A1)
1806 An earthquake destroyed the
church at San Juan Capistrano.
(SFEC, 7/11/99, p.T6)
1806 A fire destroyed a major
portion of Mission San Miguel Arcangel. It was rebuilt in 1816.
(SB, 3/28/02)(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D6)
1807 In Santa Barbara the padres
built a dam on Mission Creek.
(Via, 3-4/99, p.41)
1809 A stone mission was completed
in Ventura after the original burned down.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T8)
1810-1813 Boston-based whalers slaughtered an
estimated 150,000 fur seals on the Farallon Islands, 28 miles west of
San Francisco. Russian hunters followed and occupied the islands for
the next 25 years during which they wiped out the remaining fur seals.
Fur seals began to return around 1977, but their first pup wasn’t born
until 1996.
(Bay, 4/07, p.33)
1811 Feb 2, Russian settlers
established Ft. Ross trading post in northern California. Fort Ross was
settled by peg-legged Ivan Kuzkov (Kuskov) in Sonoma County (1912). It
was designed as a base for fur hunters and a warm weather supplier for
the Russian colonies in Alaska. The colonists included 25 Russians and
over 80 Aleut Indians from the islands of western Alaska. Kuskov
managed the settlement until 1821.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1
p.4)(SFC, 6/15/01, WBb p.7)(MC, 2/2/02)
1812 Dec 8, The Great Stone Church
at Mission San Juan Capistrano crashed down after an earthquake just 6
years after being completed. Forty worshippers were killed. Half of the
church under the work of architect Isidro Aguilar (d.1803) remained
standing.
(HT, 3/97, p.60)
1812 Mission San Juan Bautista in
San Benito County was completed.
(SFEC, 9/12/98, p.T6)
1812 A tidal wave damaged the
church and belfry in Ventura.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T8)
1812 The 1787 La Purisima
Concepcion Church in Lompoc, Ca., was rebuilt closer to El Camino Real
after an earthquake.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D6)
1813 In San Juan Bautista a
structure was built to house Spanish soldiers. In 1856-58 Angelo
Zanetta added a 2nd floor and it became the Plaza Hotel. It was
purchased by the state in 1933.
(PC)
1813 John (Cameron) Gilroy of
Scotland sailed from England on the Isaac Todd to Monterey where he was
dropped off to recover from scurvy.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A14)
1814 The Avila House, a
thick-walled adobe building at 14 Olvera in Los Angeles, was built.
(SFEC,12/797, p.T3)
1814 Jose Dario Arguello,
Spanish-born commander of the Presidio, served as the governor of Alta
California. He was later buried at Mission Dolores.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1816 San Antonio de Pala Church in
northern San Diego County was built as a sub-mission (asistencia) of
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D6)
1816 A new church at the Mission
San Juan Bautista was completed.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)
1816 Stone foundations were laid
for the church at Mission San Miguel.
(SB, 3/28/02)
1816 The California poppy was
correctly described and named by Adelbert von Chamisso, a native
Frenchmen driven to Germany by the revolution. He was appointed
naturalist with the Russian scientific and trapping voyage of Kotzebue
and developed an intimate relationship with the ship’s surgeon, Dr.
Johann Frederich Eschscholtz, for whom he named the San Francisco
poppy, Eschscholzia californica. [see 1792,1794, 1825-1833]
(NBJ, 2/96, p.12)(SFC, 4/1/99, p.E1)
1816 Adelbert von Chamisso spent a
month around SF Bay while aboard the Russian ship Rurik, which was
circumnavigating the globe.
(SFC, 4/1/99, p.E1)
1816 Thomas W. Doak, a sailor from
Boston, jumped ship and became the 1st American settler in California.
He painted the reredos behind the altar of the Mission San Juan
Bautista.
(PC)
1818 Nov 21, Frenchman Hipolito
Bouchard and Englishman Peter Corney led a 2-ship attack against the
presidio at Monterey, Ca. Gov. Pablo de Sola and his soldiers and
families fled as some 400 rebels pulled to shore. The presidio was
ransacked and burned. Bouchard and Corney days later plundered Mission
San Juan Capistrano and the rancho at El Refugio.
(SFC, 10/10/03, p.B3)
1818 Dec 14, The pirate Hippolyte
Bouchard demanded gunpowder and other supplies from the padres at
Mission San Juan Capistrano. The padres refused and the pirate sent 140
men to destroy the mission and the town was stripped of its provisions.
(HT, 3/97, p.61)
1821 Feb 24, Mexico rebels
proclaimed the "Plan de Iguala," their declaration of independence from
Spain, and took over the mission lands in California.
(HT, 3/97, p.61)(AP, 2/24/98)(HN, 2/24/98)
1821 John (Cameron) Gilroy of
Scotland married Maria Clara Ortega, the 13-year-old granddaughter of
Jose Francis Ortega, a member of the "Sacred Expedition" of 1769. They
lived in San Ysidro. The town of Gilroy is named after John Gilroy.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A18)
1821 Esteban Munras arrived at
Mission San Miguel and supervised the interior decorations of the new
church.
(SB, 3/28/02)
1821-1846 Mexico ruled over California with a series
of 12 governors. During part of this time Gen’l. Jose Castro commanded
all of the Spanish forces in California and was an active opponent of
US rule in 1846.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1822 The Queen of the Angels Roman
Catholic Church in Los Angeles was built.
(SFEC,12/797, p.T3)
1822 California passed from
Spanish to Mexican rule.
(Via, 3-4/99, p.41)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1822 Monterey had begun the
century as the Spanish capital of Alta California but in this year
became the Mexican capital of Alta California.
(SFEC, 11/3/96, DB p.71)
1822 Gregorio Briones married
Ramona Garcia, sister of Rafael Garcia.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1822-1825 Luis Antonio Arguello, son of Jose Dario,
was the first native-born governor of Alta California.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1823 Mission San Francisco de
Solano de Sonoma was established by Father Jose Altimira. It was to be
the last of the 21 California missions set up to convert the native
Indians and develop the local resources. The native Indians were of the
Nappa tribe, hence the name of the Napa Valley. Spanish explorer
Francisco Castro accompanied Father Altimira and they planted the first
grapevines.
(WCG, p.58)(INV, 7/95, p.12)(SFC, 7/14/00, WBb, p.8)
1824 The Mexican governor of
California offered all missions for sale under a program of
secularization.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)
1824 Rafael Garcia led the defense
of Mission San Rafael against hostile Indians.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1825 Franciscan missionaries
planted vineyards north of San Francisco to make sacramental wine.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.CA1)
1826 Nov 27, Jebediah Smith’s
expedition reached San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the
south-western part of the continent. He crossed the Mohave Desert and
the San Bernadino Mountains from Utah.
(HN, 11/27/98)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T5)
1828 Jun 7, A party led by
Jebediah Smith completed a journey down the Klamath River and were on
the verge of starvation when they were visited by Indians who brought
food. Smith's party proceeded north to Oregon and most of the party was
killed by Umpqua Indians. Smith was killed in 1831 by Comanches on the
Cimarron River. Smith’s party were the 1st white people to see Lake
Earl, the biggest lagoon on the West Coast.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T5)(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.B1)
c1828 Don Salvio Pacheco
petitioned for a land grant in northern California.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A22)
1830 The non-Indian population of
California was 4,256.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1830s Ignacio Pacheco retired as a
customs officer in San Francisco's Presidio and received a land grant
in Sonoma County. He thought it unsuitable for agriculture and traded
it for a 7,776 acre plot in Marin County. Much of it later became
Hamilton air Force Base.
(SFC, 1/15/04, p.D4)
1830s In the late 1830s Rancho
Matadero was renamed Rancho Refugio and deeded to a soldier named
Joaquin Castro.
(Ind, 7/11/00,10A)
1831 James Alexander Forbes,
Scotsman, arrived in the Bay Area on the whaler Fanny. He became the
British vice-consul while California was under Mexican rule. [see 1850]
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.C5)
1831 George Calvert Yount of North
Carolina first arrived in the Napa Valley, Ca.
(www.westsong.com/yountville/yountdo.html)
1832 Don Pio Pico led a rebellion
against Gov. Manuel Victoria, but served only 20 days as rivals in San
Diego and Monterey also declared themselves governor.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.CA1)
1833 George C. Yount built the
first structure in Sonoma, Ca., and planted the first grape vines in
Napa Valley, the coarse Mission variety.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.T4)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.T8)
1833 Mexico took mission property
from the Church and turned out the Acagchemem Indians at Mission San
Juan Capistrano.
(HT, 3/97, p.61)
1834 Orders to secularize the
California missions arrived from Mexico as did General Mariano Vallejo
to Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma. General Vallejo’s job was to
establish a town and so Sonoma was designed around a central plaza.
This ended mission ownership by the Franciscans.
(WCG, p.58)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)(SFC, 7/14/00, WBb,
p.8)
1834 Mexico granted Don Salvio
Pacheco 18,000 acres in northern California known as Monte del Diablo,
which included what would later became Concord and Walnut Creek. The
family later donated land to the government for roads and public
buildings. The area was originally inhabited by the Bolbones Indians.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A22)(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A13)(SFC,
7/17/06, p.B5)
1834 John Thomas Reed (d.1843)
obtained a Mexican land grant for Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio and
shortly thereafter built a landmark mill that gave Mill Valley,
California, its name. The land grant spanned 9,000 acres from Tiburon
to San Rafael.
(SFC, 5/19/04, p.A4)(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.A25)
1834 California’s 1st printing
press, an old wooden Ramage press, was off-loaded at Monterey, Ca. It
later produced the 1st issues of 5 California newspapers of the gold
rush. It was burned by ruffians in Columbia, Ca, on Nov 13, 1861.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.10)
1835 Petronillo Rios supervised
the building of an adobe home with Indian labor next to Mission San
Miguel.
(SB, 3/28/02)
1835 George Calvert Yount chose to
settle in the heart of the Napa Valley at what is now called Yountville.
(SFC, 6/9/96, DB p.69)
1835 Alexander Forbes served as
the British vice-consul in Monterey, Ca.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.D6)
1836 Mar, George Yount became the
grantee of the Rancho Caymus (11,814 acres), the first US citizen to be
ceded a Spanish land grant in Napa Valley, Ca., in exchange for making
wooden shingles for Gen. Mariano Vallejo. In Oct 1843 he was deeded the
Rancho de La Jota (4,053 acres).
(WCG, 7/95,
p.21)(www.noehill.com/napa/cal03.asp)(www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/vets.html)
1836 Jul 14, Ignacio Coronel
assumed jurisdiction over Mission San Miguel for the civil government.
(SB, 3/28/02)
1836 Oct, Don Juan Alvarado,
president of the 7-man legislature in the Mexican territory of
California, fled Monterey with his deputies to Mission San Juan
Bautista under threats from Lt. Col. Nicolas Gutierrez, the military
governor. There they formed plans for a coup.
(ON, 4/04, p.9)
1836 Nov 4, Don Juan Alvarado and
a group of followers forced the surrender of Lt. Col. Nicolas
Gutierrez, the military governor Monterey. The quickly drafted a
constitution and proclaimed California independent of Mexico. Officials
in southern California refused to recognize Alvarado's government and
he agreed to make California a territory of Mexico with himself as
governor.
(ON, 4/04, p.10)
1836 Richard Henry Dana, author of
"Two Years Before the Mast," attended a 3-day wedding party at Casa de
la Guerra.
(Via, 3-4/99, p.41)
1836 Father Veniaminov, later
canonized, as St. Innokenty of Alaska, spent 3 months at Fort Ross,
baptizing, burying and teaching.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T3)
1836 Rafael Garcia petitioned for
and was granted the Rancho Tomales y Baulenes from the slopes of
Tamalpais to the ocean, from Bolinas Bay north to Tomales Bay. He moved
to the vicinity of Olema, ran cattle and became Don Rafael.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1836 Faxon Dean Atherton, ship
captain, settled in California.
(SFC, 11/6/01, p.A20)
1837 John Marsh (1799-1856),
Harvard graduate and Minnesota Indian agent, bought Rancho de Los
Meganos east of Mount Diablo and became the 1st American in the San
Joaquin Valley. He purchased the Rancho Los Meganos from Jose Noriega
for $300 in cowhides. The land stood where the hills of Contra Costa
met the San Joaquin Valley. He built a stone Gothic mansion in 1856. In
2002 plans were made to restore the Marsh House.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.E4)(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.B3)
1837 Jose Maria Amador led a
"recapturing expedition." They found and murdered 200 Indians.
(SFC, 12/31/00, BR p.12)
1838 Apr 21, John Muir (d.1914),
naturalist, was born. He discovered glaciers in the High Sierras.
(HN, 4/21/98)(SFEC, 1/2/00, DB p.23)
1838 George Calvert Yount, trapper
and mountainman, came into the Napa Valley and began building a log
cabin home. [see 1831, 1833, 1835]
(SFEM, 10/25/98, p.4)
1838 Monterey became the state
capital under Juan Bautista Alvarado. He named Mariano Vallejo
commandant general.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1838 A smallpox epidemic north of
San Francisco killed over 60,000 Indians.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1839 Capt. John Sutter
(1803-1880), a Swiss who claimed to have been an officer in the French
army arrived in California. Sutter was born in present-day Germany and
lived much of his early years in Switzerland. He convinced the Mexican
governor to grant him lands on the Sacramento River. He established a
fort on a hill near the American River east of Sacramento Ca. A
biography of Sutter was later written by Richard Dillon.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T3)(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A13)(HNQ,
11/18/00)
1839 Richard Henry Dana, author,
obtained a grant of 37,887 acres near San Luis Obispo, built an adobe
house, and raised a family of 21 children.
(SFEC,12/14/97, BR p.7)
1840 Richard Dana published his
novel "Two Years Before the Mast." It was based on his voyage from
Boston to California around Cape Horn.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)
1840 Mexican Gov. Juan Bautista
Alvarado granted 12,500-acres in the mid-Peninsula to Irishman John
Coppinger, who carved up the property. 942-acres of the area later
became San Mateo’s Wunderlich Park.
(Ind, 5/26/01, 5A)
1840 A SF physician established a
small health resort at a Sonoma site that had served as a sacred
healing site for Native Americans. It burned down in 1923 and was
rebuilt in 1927 and later became the Sonoma Mission Inn.
(SFEM, 3/5/00, p.6)
1841 May 1, The 1st emigrant wagon
train left Independence, Missouri, for California.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1841 Nov 4, The 1st wagon train
arrived in California.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1841 Nov, The first
overland party of settlers arrived at the Rancho Los Meganos in present
day Brentwood, Contra Costa, California. This makes the Rancho of
Dr. John Marsh the first terminus of the California Trail. They were
inspired to make this trip by letter from Dr. John Marsh the first
American to settle in the San Joaquin Valley. His Stone House is now
part of the newest State Park in the California system.
(www.johnmarshhouse.com/marshnewsbio.htm)
1841 John Sutter built a fort on
the Sacramento River.
(HNQ, 11/18/00)
1841 The Russian fur traders sold
Fort Ross, Bodega and all their ranches and livestock in California to
John Sutter. They had made a settlement at Fort Ross (an archaic form
of Russia) in order to develop a source of provisions for themselves
and their Sitka, Alaska settlement.
(WCG, p.58)(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T15)
1841 The Bartleson-Bidwell Party
made the trek to California. John Bidwell was on the 1st wagon train
over the Sierra Nevada and later founded Chico.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.E4)(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.B3)
1841 Princess Helena, wife of the
governor-general of Siberia and the Russian colonies on the Pacific
Coast, christened the highest mountain, an extinct volcano, on Dr.
Bale’s Rancho "Mount Saint Helena," reportedly after her patron saint,
mother of Constantine the Great.
(Article on Calistoga by Sybbil McCabe, 7/95)
1841 Dr. Edward Turner Bale was
granted the lands between Rutherford and Calistoga, Ca. which he named
Rancho Carne Humana. He later built the Bale Grist Mill. [see 1846]
(WCG, 7/95, p.21)
1841 The valley stretching north
from Sonoma, Ca. was referred to as "Valle de la Luna."
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-3)
1842 Oct 18, US Commodore Thomas
ap Catesby Jones sailed into Monterey, the Mexican capital of
California, on the mistaken belief that the US and Mexico had gone to
war.
(SFC, 1/9/04, p.D2)
1842 Oct 19, US Commodore Thomas
ap Catesby Jones ordered the surrender of Mexican officials in
Monterey, Ca., on the mistaken belief that the US and Mexico had gone
to war. He soon learned of his error and returned Monterey to Mexican
authority.
(SFC, 1/9/04, p.D2)
1842-1846 The Sanchez Adobe was constructed in
Pacifica by Francisco Sanchez, owner of the Rancho San Pedro. He led
volunteer forces against the US in the Battle of Santa Clara.
(SMMB)
1843 Olompali (later Olompali
State Park near Novato) was part of a Mexican land grant to Camilo
Ynitia, a Christianized Miwok and the last "hoipu" (headman) of the
Olompoli village.
(SFC, 7/28/00, WBb p.7)
1843 In California a land grant
established Rancho El Tejon. The area was named El Tejon (the badger)
after Spanish soldiers under Lt. Francisco Ruiz discovered the species
during an 1805 expedition.
(SFC, 5/9/08, p.A1)
1844 Juana Briones bought the
4,400-acre Rancho la Purisima Concepcion for $300.
(SFC, 4/12/01, p.A19)
1844 By this time Charles Brown, a
pioneer lumberman, acquired a 2,880-acre portion of the Coppinger land
grant in San Mateo Ct. Brown called his holding Mountain Home Ranch.
(Ind, 5/26/01, 5A)
1845 Don Pio Pico was again
appointed governor of California and made his capital in Los Angeles.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.CA1)
1845 The California Missions were
ordered to be sold at public auction.
(SB, 3/28/02)
1845 Don Juan Forster,
brother-in-law of the Mexican governor of California, bought the
Mission of San Juan Capistrano for $710.
(HT, 3/97, p.62)
1846 Apr 15, The Donner family set
out for California from Springfield, Ill.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)
1846 May 13, The US under Pres.
Polk declared war against Mexico, 2 months after fighting began.
(WCG, p.59)(HFA, ‘96, p.48)(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1846 Jun 8, Don Pio Pico, the last
governor of California under Mexican rule, allegedly signed an order to
award "the mission of San Gabriel with all its lands and improvements
of town and country" to ranchers Hugo Reid and William Workman for
services rendered. A US attorney contested the deed in 1855.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.CA1)
1846 Jun 13, Jose Noe, owner of a
4,000-acre ranch in the center of SF, was the last chief magistrate
under Mexican rule. He became a city official when the Americans took
over and is buried in Mission Dolores.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1846 Jun 14, Americans in Northern
California rebelled against Mexican authorities in what is called the
Bear Flag Revolt and proclaimed the Republic of California. Wagonmaster
William B. Ide, leader of the Bear Flag Party, was urged to loot the
Mexican stronghold but said: "Choose ye this day what you will be! We
are robbers or we must be conquerors." Although the US had declared war
against Mexico in May, word did not reach California until July.
Commodore John Sloat raised the Stars and Stripes over the American
Customs House in Monterey, and three days later it flew over the Sonoma
Plaza. Ide was installed as president of the new republic.
(WCG, p.59) (SFEM, 6/9/96, p.32)(AP, 6/14/97)(SFEC,
3/1/98, p.W36)
1846 Jun 14, William L. Todd,
nephew of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln designed a flag for the Bear Flag Revolt
with the words California Republic. With rusty nails and blackberry
juice he painted a grizzly and a star on white cloth. The lower red
border was said to come from the flannel petticoat of Nancy Kelsey, who
sewed the flag. The Bear Flag Revolt got its name from the presence of
a grizzly bear on the standard proposed for the independent California.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.16)(HN, 6/14/99)
1846 Jun 28, Near San Rafael, Ca.,
a US military detachment was approached by 3 unarmed Mexicans, Jose de
los Reyes Berryessa, Francisco de Haro and his twin brother Ramon.
Captain Fremont was asked by trapper Kit Carson whether he should take
the men as prisoners. Fremont responded that he had no room for
prisoners and Carson shot the men dead and left their bodies to rot.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A20)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.E1)
1846 Jul 7, U.S. annexation of
California was proclaimed at Monterey after Commodore John Sloat
reached Monterey and claimed California for the US.
(HFA, '96, p.48)(AP, 7/7/97)
1846 Jul 9, Captain J.B.
Montgomery raised the American flag over San Francisco. Montgomery
claimed Yerba Buena (SF) for US.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W36)(MC, 7/9/02)
1846 Jul 21, Mormons founded the
1st English settlement in the San Joaquin Valley of Calif.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1846 Jul, Capt. Thomas Fallon
raised the American flag over San Jose 2 months after Congress declared
war on Mexico. Commander Thomas Fallon conquered San Jose for the US
and later became mayor of the city. Fallon married a Mexican woman and
all his children were Latino. Fallon had 2 divorces, a mistress and
various lawsuits over his life.
(SFC,11/12/97, p.A18)(SFC, 10/12/00, p.A18)
1846 Aug 13, The American flag was
raised for the first time in Los Angeles.
(AP, 8/13/97)
1846 Aug 17, US took Los Angeles.
[see Aug 13]
(SC, 8/17/02)
1846 Aug, By the end of August the
US Pacific Fleet with the help of General John C. Fremont, had occupied
the entire state of California.
(HFA, '96, p.48)
1846 Oct 31, Heavy snows trapped
the Donner party in the eastern Sierras near what is now Truckee.
(SFC, 7/20/96,
p.C1)(www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Chronology.htm)
1846 Dec 16, In desperation 10 men
and 5 women of the Donner Party left on snowshoes to cross the Sierra
Nevada. The 5 women and 2 men survived. All but one of the dead were
eaten. Of the 89 members in the whole group 42 died.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)
1846 Aug 15, The first California
newspaper was the Californian of Monterey issued by Colton and Semple.
It was written half in English and half in Spanish.
(SFEC, 3/8/8, BR p.6)(CVG, Vol 16, p.10)
1846 The California Star in Yerba
Buena was begun by 2 men a couple of months after the Monterey
Californian on the 2nd floor of a mule-powered grist mill on what is
now Clay St. Elbert P. Jones was the 1st editor of the California Star.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)(SFCM, 3/28/04, p.16)
1846 Cuthbert Burrel came to
California and served under Gen’l. John C. Fremont. His grandson,
lawyer Harry Haehl, served under Gen’l. Douglas MacArthur and assisted
in the revival of the Japanese merchant marine after WW II.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.B2)
1846 US Army forces under the
command of John C. Fremont conducted a murderous attack on Sacramento
River Maidu Indian villages.
(www.nativeamericancaucus.com/history.shtml)
1846 Commander Thomas Fallon
conquered San Jose for the US and later became mayor of the city.
(SFC,11/12/97, p.A18)
1846 Don Rafael Garcia gave a
party for Joseph Revere, a newly arrived American military officer. The
large ranch holders were called "Californios." The old families were
named Peralta, Noe, Bernal, Castro, Berryessa, and all eventually lost
their land.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1846 Gen’l. Vallejo married Dr.
Edward Turner Bale’s niece, and bestowed upon him a land grant. Its
last remnant in 1998 was the Old Bale Mill, south of Calistoga. [see
1841]
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.T5)
1846 Robert Semple, a
Kentucky-born printer, dentist, lawyer, physician and riverboat pilot,
helped lead the Bear Flag Revolt. He helped take Gen’l. Vallejo
prisoner and with financier Thomas O. Larkin paid Vallejo $100 to
become co-owner of 5 sq. miles around Benicia. Larkin was the American
ambassador to California and had been sent by Pres. Polk to encourage
the Californios to defect to the US.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W36)(SSFC,
6/25/06, p.E1)
1846 William Reed, Petronillo Rios
and Miguel Garcia bought Mission San Miguel and its property from Gov.
Pio Pico, who fled south after the Jul 7th American annexation.
(SB, 3/28/02)
1846 The Applegate Trail across
northwest Nevada and northeast California was blazed as a southern
approach to Oregon's Willamette Valley.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.T7)
1846-1850 Neal Harlow (d.2000 at 92), historian,
authored in 1982 "California Conquered: War and Peace on the Pacific,
1846-1850."
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.C2)
1847 Jan 3, California town of
Yerba Buena was renamed to San Francisco.
(MC, 1/3/02)
1847 Jan 10, General Stephen
Kearny and Commodore Robert Stockton retook Los Angeles in the last
California battle of the Mexican War.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1847 Jan 16, US Navy commodore
Robert Stockton appointed John C. Fremont (1830-1890), the famed
"Pathfinder" of Western exploration, as governor of California.
Fremont, explorer, soldier and politician, earned his nickname "The
Pathfinder" because of his explorations of the Pacific Northwest,
California, and Nevada during the 1840s.
(HN, 1/16/99)(HNQ, 3/11/00)(SSFC, 7/1/07, p.M4)
1847 Feb 19, The 1st rescuers
finally reached the ill-fated Donner Party in the Sierras, where many
resorted to cannibalism to survive.
(HN, 2/19/99)(ON, SC, p.6)
1847 Mar 1, James Reed reached
Donner Lake and found his two children alive along with 15 other
survivors.
(ON, SC, p.7)
1847 Aug, Construction of the
first 20 homes in Benicia began. The new city was named "Francisco"
after Vallejo’s wife, but residents of Yerba Buena changed the name to
San Francisco and Robert Semple renamed his town to "Benicia" after
Mrs. Vallejo’s middle name.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1847 Hasper O’Farrell,
surveyor-general of Northern California, laid out the streets of San
Francisco.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)
1847 In Palo Alto a tamped-earth
adobe home was built on the 4,400 acre Rancho Purisima Concepcion of
the Briones family. The house at Old Adobe Road off Arastradero was
subject to preservation plans in 2001.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A18)(SFC, 4/12/01, p.A19)
1847 The non-Indian population of
California grew to some 15,000.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 Jan 24, Gold was discovered
by carpenter James Wilson Marshall at his partner Johann August
Sutter's sawmill on the South Fork of the American River, near Coloma,
California. John [James Wilson] Marshall, while inspecting the
construction of a mill on the American River, being built for Capt.
John Sutter, spotted a gold nugget. Marshall, Sutter and their workers
tried to keep the discovery quiet but gold-seekers quickly began
pouring into California, raising the state's non-Indian population to
about 20,000 in 1848, 100,000 in 1849 and twice that amount by 1852.
(HFA,'96,p.22)(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC,
11/3/96, DB p.71)(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A17)(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T3)(SFEC,
1/4/98, Z1p.4)(HN, 1/24/99)(HNPD, 1/24/99)
1848 Jan, John Sutter got a
"lease" for the land around the gold site from the Culumah Indians in
exchange for "some shirts, hats, handkerchiefs, flour and other
articles of no great value." He then tried to get the lease recorded
with General Mason, the American military governor of California at
Monterey. His messenger, Charles Bennett, stopped in Benicia on the way
and displayed the gold after scoffing at talk of coal discoveries in
Contra Costa County. No title was available because a treaty with
Mexico was not yet signed.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.1)
1848 Jan, John Bidwell was a
bookkeeper for John Sutter. Bidwell later hauled a lot of gold from the
Feather River and purchased the 28,000 Rancho Del Arroyo Chico, where
he planted wheat, almonds, olives and some 400 varieties of fruit. John
and Annie Bidwell laid out the streets of Chico and donated land for
Chico Normal School that evolved into Chico State Univ. They also
donated land along the Big Chico Creek that became the 3,618 acre
Bidwell Park.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.T5)
1848 Feb 2, US and Mexico signed
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico ceded one-third of its
territory to the US including California, agreed to the Rio Grande as
the boundary between Texas and Mexico and was awarded $15 million.
25,000 Mexicans and 12,000 Americans lost their lives in the 17-month
old conflict.
(HFA, ‘96, p.48)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A17)(HN, 2/2/99)
1848 Apr 1, The SF-based
California Star reported the discovery of a rich silver vein in San
Jose valley. The discovery of rich beds of copper were also reported
near Clear Lake.
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 Apr 22, The SF-based
California Star reported the discovery of a rich gold mine towards the
head of the American Fork in the Sacramento Valley.
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 May 12, Sam Brannan, an elder
of the Mormon Church in SF, announced the discovery of gold on the
American River. He had just opened a store near the goldfields stocked
with shovels and mining tools. He and members of the Mormon battalion
were the first to profit in San Francisco from the Gold Rush.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)(SFEC,
6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 May 20, The California Star
reported that a fleet of launches had left the SF bound up the
Sacramento River due to “Gold Fever.”
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 May 27, The SF-based
California Star complained that everybody in the state was under the
spell of gold fever.
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 May 29, The Californian
newspaper complained that everybody in the state was under the spell of
gold fever and announced suspension of publication because the staff
was heading out to participate. The Californian and the California Star
were based in SF.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.1)(PI,
8/8/98, p.5)
1848 May 30, Mexico ratified the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts
of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1848 May, A Frenchman found gold
in a ravine north of Coloma and in a week the town of Rich Dry Diggings
was founded. It later was renamed Auburn.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 Jun 5, Army officer John C.
Fremont submitted his "Geographical Memoir" to the US Senate where the
SF Bay entrance was called Chrysopylae (Golden Gate). He had in mind
the Chrysoceras (Golden Horn) of Constantinople, and suggested that the
SF Bay would be advantageous for commerce.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A20)
1848 Jul, By this time 4,000
people were out hunting gold.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 Aug 19, The New York Herald
reported the discovery of gold in California.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1848 Dec 5, President Polk
triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been
discovered in California. Paula Mitchell Marks later wrote "Precious
Dust," an account of the gold rush. In 2002 H.W. Brands authored "The
Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream."
(AP, 12/5/97)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)(SSFC, 8/18/02,
p.M1)
1848 Dec 26, The 1st
California-bound gold seekers arrived in Panama enroute to SF.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1848 Charles B. Gillespie
(~1821-1907) traveled to California from Pennsylvania during the gold
rush and made a number of sketches, including depictions of Sutter’s
Mill, some of which he turned into paintings upon returning to Freeport
in 1851. In 2008 119 pen-and-ink sketches and 5 oil paintings were put
up for auction.
(SSFC, 11/23/08, p.B9)
1848 Gold was found at
Placerville, Murphys, Angels Camp, Mokelumne Hills and Jamestown.
Jamestown was named after Col. George F. James after gold was found at
nearby Woods Creek.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)(CVG, Vol 16, p.28)
1848 Pierson B. Reading discovered
gold in northern California’s Trinity River.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D5)
1848 Antonio Franco Colonel came
up from Los Angeles with 30 companions to find gold. He later became
mayor of Los Angeles.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 One third of the 10,000
Americans in Oregon left by the fall to find gold in California. This
included Peter Burnett who became the first governor of Ca.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 Don Luis Peralta owned the
Rancho San Antonio. This included nearly all the land on the eastern
shore of the SF Bay. He lost his land to the 49ers and the rancho
became Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Hayward and a dozen other towns.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 Of the 165,000 people in
California, only 15,000 were of European descent, and half of these
were Mexican citizens who called themselves Californios.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.1)
1848-1854 The non-Indian population of California
exploded from an estimated 13,000 to 300,000.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.6)
1848-1860 The Indian population of California dropped
from 150,000 to 36,000 in 12 years.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A13)
1848-1860 Era of the California gold rush. In 2000
Susan Lee Johnson authored "Roaring Camp: The Social World of the
California Gold Rush."
(SFEC, 3/12/00, BR p.9)
1848-1870 The native American population in
California dropped from 175,000 to fewer than 30,000, mostly due to
diseases that they had no immunity to.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.6)
1849 Jan, In Placerville, Ca., The
town of Old Dry Diggings was unofficially renamed Hangtown when a mob
ran down 3 men who reportedly tried to rob a local gambler. The men
were flogged and hanged on Main St. Later the Placerville tavern, The
Hangman’s Tree, was built over the site of the hanging tree.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T6)
1849 Feb 28, The ship California
arrived at San Francisco, carrying the first of the gold-seekers.
(AP, 2/28/98)
1849 Aug 23, The first mail
service arrived at Benicia, Sacramento and San Jose.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1849 Sep 1, California
Constitutional Convention was held in Monterey.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1849 Sep, Pioneer Jews gathered at
Lewis Franklin's tent store on Jackson St. to commemorate Rosh Hashanah.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.A17)
1849 Oct 13, The California state
constitution, which prohibited slavery, was signed in Monterey. It was
written in English and Spanish.
(HN, 10/13/98)(SFEC, 12/20/98, p.T7)
1849 Nov 13, Voters approved the
California state constitution 12,061 to 811. The original Constitution
was drafted and signed on 19 hand-written pages of an animal-skin
document. At the constitutional convention 48 delegates met in San
Jose. This was criticized by the state’s first daily newspaper, the
Alta California, as a location among the coyotes. The "Legislature of a
thousand drinks" established a code of laws and a judicial system,
elected 2 senators and voted to relocate to Vallejo. The constitution
abolished slavery but barred blacks from voting, holding public office
and testifying in court against whites. John Bidwell was elected to the
state Senate.
(WSJ, 6/11/97, p.CA1)(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)(SFEC,
3/1/98, p.W26)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A27)(SFC,
4/21/07, p.B5)
1849 Dec 3, California asked to be
admitted into the Union as a free state.
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)
1849 Dec 15, California's first
legislature convened in San Jose.
(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A12)(SFC, 1/16/04, p.A23)
1849 Dec 20, Peter Burnett
(1807-1895), the 1st governor of California, gave his inaugural
address. Burnett was elected governor of California before it had even
become a state. After his first annual address received criticism from
the legislature, he abruptly resigned from office. Burnett, who wrote a
book about his passionate conversion to Catholicism, is honored with a
memorial in the church at Mission Santa Clara.
(www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/biography/governor_1.html)
1849 Elizabeth Farnham, a matron
of New York’s Sing Sing prison, formed the California Association of
American Women to bring young women west to civilize the frontier. The
plan failed but Farnham did emigrate to the Santa Cruz area and later
oversaw the Stockton Insane Asylum. In 2004 JoAnn Levy authored
“Unsettling the West: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby in
Frontier California.
(SSFC, 5/16/04, p.M4)
1849 The Benicia Arsenal was
founded.
(SFC, 8/6/01, p.A13)
1849 The Great Seal of California
was adopted. It featured a profile of the roman goddess Minerva (born
full-grown from Jupiter’s head), representing the political birth of
California as a state without having 1st been a territory. 31 stars
represent its status as the 31st state. There were 4 design changes
before it was standardized in 1937.
(SMMB)
1849 Dr. Thomas Stokes Page
acquired the 17,000 acre Rancho Cotati from the original Mexican
Land-grant holder.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)
1849 Josiah Gregg and a band of
gold miners explored the north coast of California and settled around
Humboldt Bay.
(Hem., 12/96, p.127)
1849 William Slusher, a farmer
from the East Coast, built a cabin on Nuts Creek (later Walnut Creek,
Ca.) and became the first American settler in the area.
(SFC, 7/17/06, p.B5)
1849 A prospector named Stevens
planted a few grapevines in Coloma.
(SFEM, 10/31/99, p.28)
1849 A party of 10 African
Americans, an American Indian, a Cook Island native and a Scotsman
named William Downie struck gold in the California Sierra.
(SSFC, 4/29/01, p.T9)
1849 Downieville in Sierra County
was renamed from The Forks, after the 2 rivers that converge there.
Early settlers called the area "Tin Cup Diggings" from legends that a
man could capture a tin cup full of gold from the Yuba River. Many of
the first minors arrived with "Major" William Downie. Within a few
years it became the 5th largest town in California.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, p.T5)(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T6)(SSFC,
9/1/02, p.C1)
1849 The Dunham, Carrigan and
Hayden company supplied picks and shovels to the miners of the Gold
Rush.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A21)
1849 A mass meeting of miners
working the Yuba River passed a resolution stating that "no slave or
negro should own claims or even work in the mines."
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)
1849 Sarah Eleanor Bayliss Royce,
mother of the philosopher Josiah Royce, left New York with her husband
and -2-year-old daughter in a covered wagon for California.
(WSJ, 1/117/00, p.A16)
1849 Charles Louis Ducommun, a
Swiss immigrant, walked for 9 months to Los Angeles from Arkansas. He
soon opened a general store for miners headed to SF. His 4 sons changed
the business to a metals-services operation that later became a part of
the aerospace industry.
(WSJ, 10/9/02, p.B3C)
1849 A party from Kansas, headed
for the California Gold Rush, called themselves the Jayhawkers. Another
party from Missouri named themselves the Bugsmashers. Both groups left
Salt Lake to late to cross the Sierra and took the southern route. The
stumbled into the Death Valley region around Christmas. Historian Leroy
Johnson later wrote of their experiences in "Escape From Death Valley."
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A15)
c1949 Numerous Tennesseans went to
California for the gold rush. In 1998 Tennessee historian Walter T.
Durham wrote "Volunteer Forty-Niners," an account of the Tennesseans
experiences in California. In 2000 Brian Roberts authored "American
Alchemy" The California gold Rush and Middle-Class Culture."
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.E5)(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR p.6)
1849 Peter Lassen pioneered a new
route to California that bypassed the 40 Mile Desert in Nevada. The
trail led from Nevada to Oregon and was combined with another trail
that led past his ranch and trading post near Chico. The trail however
led across more desert and came to be called "The Death Route."
(SFC, 8/22/98, p.A13)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A1,9)
1849 The Odd Fellows fraternal
organization arrived in California with the gold rush.
(SFC, 11/28/00, p.A21)
1849 A large cavern, later known
as the California Cavern, was reported near Vallecito. It had been used
by Miwok Indians as a dungeon and was initially called Mammoth Cave.
Captain Joseph Taylor opened it to the public in 1850.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.29)
1849-1869 In 1997 Ida Rae Egli edited the book: "No
Room of Their Own: Women Writers of Early California."
(SFEC,11/9/97, BR p.9)
1850 Jan 2, William Robinson, a
gold rush pioneer, left a letter posted on this date inside a trunk in
Death Valley that was found with other artifacts in 1999. Williams died
within a few weeks in the Mohave Desert. The trunk was later declared a
fake.
(SFC, 1/20/99, p.A13)(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A1,15)
1850 Jan 29, Henry Clay introduced
in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included the admission
of California into the Union as a free state.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1850 Feb 27, The city of
Sacramento was incorporated.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1850 Mar 27, The party of Dr.
Thadeus Hildreth found a 22-pound gold nugget in Tuolemne County, Ca.
The place was initially named Hildreth’s Diggings, then changed to New
Camp, then American Camp and finally Columbia. The population soon
swelled to 15,000.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 3/19/00, p.T6)(CVG, Vol
16, p.1)
1850 Apr 4, The city of Los
Angeles was incorporated.
(AP, 4/4/97)
1850 May 31, Joseph Alemany, O.P.,
was ordained the Bishop of Monterey.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1850 Jun 11, Cardinal Franzoni
told Rev. Joseph Sadoc Alemany, a Dominican missionary who had worked
in the Midwest frontier, that he was appointed the new bishop of
Monterey, Ca.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A22)
1850 Jun 16, Pope Pius IX
persuaded Rev. Joseph Sadoc Alemany to return to the US and to go to
California.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A22)
1850 Jul 25, The clipper ship
Frolic, enroute from Hong Kong to SF, wrecked on a reef at the north
edge of what is now California’s Preserve off Point Cabrillo Light
Station. It had run opium from India to China to trade for silver and
merchandise. The crew escaped in small boats and though all trade goods
were lost the area became recognized as ideal for a redwood sawmill.
(SSFC, 2/11/07,
p.G10)(www.pointcabrillo.org/frolic-history.htm)(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.W10)
1850 Sep 9, California was
admitted as the 31st state of the US.
(INV, 7/95, p.12)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A17)(SFC, 1/25/97,
p.A17)(AP, 9/9/97)
1850 Nov 6, The San Francisco Bay
Yerba Buena and Angel islands were reserved for military use.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1850 Dec, John Woods was killed
and skinned alive by Yokut Indians on the south Bank of the Kaweah
River. Woods and some fellow miners had refused to leave the area after
warnings from the Indians.
(HN, 4/28/00)(WW, 6/99)
1850 Bayard Taylor authored "El
Dorado," a reporter’s account of the California gold rush. In 2001 it
was reprinted as "Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire."
(SSFC, 2/4/01, BR p.5)
1850 The journal of gold seeker D.
Jagger ended from a Sierra cabin where he spent the winter. He had
written: we were "strangers in a strange land."
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A9)
1850 William M. Gwin, originally
from Tennessee and a defender of slavery, was elected in California to
the US Senate. David C. Broderick, an opponent of slavery, was also
elected to the US Senate. The 2 were bitter enemies.
(Ind, 5/12/01, 5A)
1850 Gen'l. Mariano G. Vallejo
donated land and cash for a state capital in Vallejo.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A16)(SFCM, 12/19/04, p.4)
1850 Ygnacio, the grandson of Dona
Juana Sanchez de Pacheco, built the first homestead in the Walnut Creek
area of northern California.
(SFC, 7/17/06, p.B5)
1850 James Alexander Forbes,
Scotsman, built a stone flour mill on Los Gatos Creek. The area became
known as Forbestown until it was renamed Los Gatos after the local
mountain lions.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.C5)
1850 Ferry commuting began on the
SF Bay.
(SFEC, 4/21/97, p.A11)
1850 A Philadelphia trained
physician working in Valparaiso, Chile, obtained the Spanish land grant
for Rancho Cotati. It extended from Petaluma to Santa Rosa.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A26)
1850 Gregorio Briones, a soldier
of the Spanish and then Mexican army, claimed title to 13,320 acres of
west Marin land. King Ferdinand VIII gave Briones the land grant that
included what later became Bolinas.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A10)(SFEC, 2/28/99, p.D4)
1850 Nancy Gooch, a slave, crossed
the plains to California by wagon. She obtained her freedom when Ca.
joined the Union as a free state and began working in Coloma as cook
for miners.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T3)
1850 John Coffee Hays, a Texas
Ranger turned Californian, acquired a piece of the Coppinger land grant
and called it Hays Ranch. He later became the 1st sheriff of SF and
after that served as the federal surveyor-general for the state.
(Ind, 5/26/01, 5A)
1850 John Berry Hill came to
California from Charleston, Ill., to find gold. He later wrote of his
years in the gold country and in 1998 his descendent Kristin Delaplane
published his account: "A Gold Hunter." He later predicted that by 2090
California would produce "the greatest man of his generation."
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.E8)
1850 Englishman Thomas Stoddard
showed up in Marysville and claimed to have found a gold lake in the
Sierras.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.D13)
1850 The town of Quartzburg
evicted the worst of their worst and the outcasts moved to Hornitos,
which became a haven of ill-repute.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T6)
1850 Pres. Millard Fillmore
designated the Lime Point Military Reservation, later Fort Baker, on
the Marin side of the entrance to SF Bay.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.B4)
1850 Peter Burnett of Oregon
became the first governor of Ca.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1850 Laws in California were
passed that allowed the enslavement of Indians.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1850 California passed anti-sodomy
legislation in its “crime against nature” law.
(SSFC, 5/11/08, Books p.4)
1850 Residents of the northern
California town of Rough and Ready rebelled against taxes and began a
secession movement from the US. It last just 3 months in part
because nearby saloonkeepers refused to sell liquor to the “foreigners.”
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.E8)
1850 A cholera epidemic killed 10%
of the population in San Jose and 15% of the people in Sacramento.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1 p.6)
1850s Joseph A. Donohue and John
Parrott founded the Donohue-Kelly Banking Co. in SF.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C4)
1850s John C. Fremont occupied
Fremont’s Ranch in Bear Valley, north of Mariposa, a Mexican land-grant
of 44,000 acres. He later became the state’s first US Senator and the
first Republican candidate for president. He also became a Civil War
general and a governor of the Arizona territory. In 2000 David Roberts
authored "A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, and the Claiming
of the American West.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T6)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A20)(WSJ,
1/10/00, p.A24)
1850s Harmon Heald settled in the
area of a small trading post that later became known as Healdsburg.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, p.T6)
1850-1851 "The Mariposa Indian Wars 1850-1851."
[title mentioned without details]
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.14)
1850-1870 A major wave of Italians immigrated to
California. The majority came from Liguria and Tuscany. A 2nd wave
began in 1880.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.D5)
1850-1930 In 2005 Richard J. Orsi authored “Sunset
Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the
American West.”
(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.B1)
1850-1956 The Empire Mine in Grass Valley produced
over 5.8 million ounces of gold. It had 365 miles of tunnels and was
later turned into a 784-acre state park.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T7)
1850-1969 In 2000 Prof. Marshall Dill Jr. (d.2000 at
84) authored "The Fays and Dills in California: 1850-1969."
(SFC, 9/6/00, p.D2)
1851 Jan 9, John McDougall
(1818-1866), the 2nd governor of California, gave his inaugural
address. During his term he issued so many proclamations beginning "I,
John McDougall", that he was soon known throughout the state as "I
John". McDougall opposed legislation that would outlaw dueling.
(www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/biography/governor_2.html)
1851 Mar 21, Yosemite Valley was
discovered (by non-natives) in California. The 58 men of the Mariposa
Battalion under Major James D. Savage were the first whites to enter
Yosemite Valley. Their first view of the valley was from the plateau
later named Mount Beatitude. They expelled Chief Tenaya and his band of
Ahwahneechee Indians. Dr. Bunnell, a physician in the battalion, named
the valley Yosemite to honor the local Indians. He did not realize that
the word "yohemeti" meant "some of them are killers" and was an insult
against the valley people.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.1)(MC,
3/21/02)
1851 Apr, Ethnic disputes in the
Jewish community spawned 2 rival houses of worship. Traditional Poles
established Sherith Israel and more liberal Germans founded Emmanu-El.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.A17)
1851 May 12, A treaty was signed
on the south bank of the Kaweah River, the site of John Wood's grave.
Woods was killed by Yokut Indians. The California Tule River War ended.
(HN, 4/28/00)(WW, 6/99)(HN, 5/12/01)
1851 Jun, The California
Legislature moved to Vallejo.
(SFC, 1/16/04, p.A23)
1851 Oct 25, The 1st newspaper in
Columbia, Ca., the Columbia Star, was produced.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.5)
1851 Sep 19, John Bigler was
elected governor of California over the Whig candidate Pearson B.
Reading.
(www.sfmuseum.org/hist/chron2.html)
1851 California Governor Peter
Burnett said that unless the Indians were sent east of the Sierras, "a
war of extermination would continue to be waged until the Indian race
should become extinct."
(HN, 4/29/00)(WW, 6/99)
1851 Harry Meiggs, founder of
fisherman’s Wharf in SF, sailed to Mendocino with a full sawmill and
made Mendocino the primary source for the Bay Area’s lumber.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, Par p.20)
1851 The Jesuits established the
first degree-granting college in the state at Mission Santa Clara and
followed up with St. Ignatius College (now the Univ. of San Francisco)
in 1855.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A13)
1851 The Beckwourth Trail,
discovered by James P. Beckwourth (1798-1866), an African American
explorer, opened to pioneers. It is the lowest pass (5,221 ft) over the
Sierras. Beckwourth was a freed slave and mountain man.
(SSFC, 4/29/01, p.T9)
1851 A flood wiped out the town of
Klamath in northern California.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T5)
1851 Francisco Guerrero, Mexican
official in Alta California, was struck in the back of the head by a
slingshot and died. His murder was believed to have kept him from
testifying in a murder trial.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1851 Fewer than 100,000 Indians
remained in California.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1852 Jan 8, John Bigler
(1805-1871), the 3rd governor of California, gave his 1st inaugural
address. While Bigler served as governor of California, his brother
served as governor of Pennsylvania.
(www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/biography/governor_3.html)
1852 Mar 18, Henry C. Wells
founded Wells, Fargo & Co. with William C. Fargo in San Francisco
as a Western equivalent to their east coast American Express. It
evolved into Wells Fargo Bank, headquartered in San Francisco and now
one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. In 2002 Philip L.
Fradkin authored "Stagecoach: Wells Fargo and the American West" for
the company’s 150th anniversary.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A10)(HNQ,
11/20/98)(SFC, 2/6/02, p.D1)
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.B1,4)
1852 Aug 2, State Sen. James W.
Denver challenged Edward Gilbert, editor of the SF Alta California
newspaper, to a duel due to an inflammatory editorial. The pair met at
Fair Oaks, near Sacramento, and when Gilbert forced a 2nd round of
shots, Denver put a fatal shot through his chest.
(PI, 6/13/98, p.5A)
1852 The Vallecito Stage Station
was built on the San Diego-San Antonio line called the "jackass route."
(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C1)
1852 The San Francisco Gas Co. was
founded by 3 brothers. In 1905 it merged with California electric Light
to form PG&E.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A5)
1852 Sam Brannan, San Francisco
newspaperman, arrived in Calistoga, Ca. and began plans for a health
spa to rival the famed Saratoga Hot Springs in New York State. [see
1860]
(Article on Calistoga by Sybil McCabe, 7/95)
1852 The US Senate rejected
treaties with 18 California tribes that included some of the Yosemite
band.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
1852 The California legislature
convened in Vallejo.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1852 The state passed a fugitive
slave law that allowed slave masters to reside indefinitely despite the
state’s prohibition on slavery.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15,18)
1852 Moses Dinkelspiel opened his
Dinkelspiel Store in Vallecito, Calaveras County.
(SFC, 11/17/98, p.B2)
1852 White Sulphur Springs in St.
Helena opened as the 1st spa in California.
(SSFC, 7/20/03, p.C5)
1852 Almaden Vineyards was begun
by Etienne Thee, an émigré from France, who settled near
Los Gatos, Ca.
(SFC, 1/24/08, p.C3)
1852 Miners found caves in Amador
County, Ca., near Volcano. They were named the Black Chasm caves.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, p.T5)
1852 More than 20,000 Chinese
immigrants arrived to the US. They were fleeing floods, droughts,
famines and revolutions and some 20,000 went to California. A foreign
miner's tax was enacted in California and enforced largely against the
Chinese. Other states passed similar taxes. The number of Chinese in
California reached 25,000, about one-tenth of the non-Indian population.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)(SFEC, 2/6/00, Rp.10)(SFEC,
9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1852-1884 Hydraulic gold-mining in the Sierra
released large amounts of mercury-enriched sediments into the SF Bay.
Hydraulic mining was invented in the Bear River watershed. A report in
2000 was issued on high mercury content in fish in the Bear and Yuba
Rivers.
(SFC, 3/17/99, p.A19)(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A3)
1853 Feb, John Bigler, the 3rd
governor of the state, signed a bill proclaiming Benicia the permanent
state capital of California. The Legislature passed 180 of 460 bills
during its 13 months in Benicia.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1853 Jun 6, The ship Carrier
Pigeon, a merchant sailing vessel, struck a reef off of Whale Point
(later Pigeon Point) on its way from Boston to SF. The wreck helped
prompt the erection of the Pigeon Point lighthouse in San Mateo Ct.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T3)(SFEC,11/16/97, p.B8)(Ind,
8/10/02, 5A)
1853 Oct 13, Lillie Langtry
(d.1929), British actress, was born. "The sentimentalist ages far more
quickly than the person who loves his work and enjoys new challenges."
She started the California Guenoc and Langtry Estate wineries.
(AP, 7/27/98)(HN, 10/13/00)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.C8)
1853 James Johnston built a showy
New England saltbox home just south of Half Moon Bay. In 1999 it was
one of the 12 oldest residences in the Bay Area and the only remaining
salt box.
(Via, 3-4/99, p.46)(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A21)
1853 The state prison at San
Quentin was completed. It was built to house 50 inmates.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)(SSFCM, 8/19/01, p.11)
1853 Placerville Hardware at 441
Main St. opened to sell gold pans and shovels to prospectors.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T7)
1853 Silas Coombs, lumberman from
Maine, moved to the Mendocino coast of California and built what is now
the Little River Inn.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T9)
1853 Ornithologist and artist
Andrew Jackson Grayson, inspired by Audubon's "Birds of America," set
out to depict the birds from the Sierra Nevada to the coast and later
published "Birds of the Pacific Slope."
(SFEM, 8/29/99, p.32)
1853 In San Luis Obispo the
Dallidet Adobe was constructed by a French vintner.
(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.T6)
1853 The California Academy of
Sciences was founded and established a policy that encouraged the
participation of women in every department.
(PacDis, Winter ’97, p.24)
c1853 Senator William Gwin, a
leader of pro-slavery interests in California, proposed to divide
California to create a pro-slavery southern half. He was opposed by
David C. Broderick.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1853 William Waldo, a Whig
candidate for governor, lost the election and moved to Oregon. He was a
major property owner in southern Marin Ct. and his name stuck to the
steep hill and later the tunnel just north of the GG Bridge.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A11)
1853 Levi Strauss and Co. got its
start peddling tough pants to California gold miners. The first pair
sold for $13.50 a dozen.
(SFC, 1/23/96, p.C4)(SFC, 1/9/99, p.D3)
1853 Weaverville Drugs began doing
business in Weaverville, Ca.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D5)
1853 In Columbia, California,
Peter Nicholas, described as an obnoxious drunk, stabbed and killed
Capt. John Parrot. Nicholas was tried, convicted and sentenced to die,
but the governor in Benicia commuted his sentence to no more than 7
years.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T5)
1853 Chief Tenaya of the Yosemite
Ahwahneechee was killed by a Paiute chief near Mono Lake.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
1853 In California the steam
freighter Tennessee was wrecked off the Marin headlands in heavy fog.
Everyone escaped safely. Tennessee Point and Tennessee Cove for named
after the freighter. The event spurred Congress to fund a lighthouse at
Point Bonita.
(WSJ, 9/17/96, p.A12)(G, Winter 96/97, p.3)(SSFC,
11/4/01, p.T5)
1853 The side-wheeled steamer
Winfield Scott ran aground and sank off Middle Anacapa Island, one of
the Channel Islands.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T11)
1854 Jan 4, Gov. Bigler, supported
by David C. Broderick, addressed the 5th Legislature and called to move
the capital to Sacramento.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1854 Jan 7, John Bigler
(1805-1871), the 3rd governor of California, gave his 2nd inaugural
address. The 1854 legislature honored Governor Bigler by naming a lake
after him. In 1870 Bigler Lake was renamed "Lake Tahoe".
(www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/biography/governor_3.html)
1854 May, The gold mining town of
Columbia, Ca., was incorporated as a town.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.1)
1854 Jul 10, Fire destroyed most
of the gold mining town of Columbia, Ca.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.24)
1854 The Union Democrat newspaper
of Sonora, Ca., began publishing.
(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A19)
1854 A newspaper began publishing
in Eureka, Ca. By 2006 Times-Standard operated with a paid circulation
of 20,000 and was managed by Dean Singleton of the Denver-based
MediaNews Group.
(SFCM, 8/13/06, p.10)
1854 Sarah Moore Clarke was the
first California woman to start a newspaper. She began the Contra Costa
weekly in Oakland and printed on the SF Evening Journal’s presses. She
and her husband later bought the SF paper.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1854 At Coloma in the gold country
Bekeart’s Gun Shop and the Odd Fellows Hall were built.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T3)
1854 Downieville in Sierra County
missed a chance to become the capital of the state by a few votes in
the Legislature.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, p.T5)
1854 Seth Shaw built his family
home in Ferndale, Ca. The town later became a California historic
landmark and the Shaw House an Inn listed on the National Register of
Historic Places.
(SSFC, 6/10/07, p.G8)
1854 In Humboldt Ct. the Shaw
House was built in Ferndale. It was modeled on Hawthorne’s House of
Seven Gables.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, p.T10)
1854 The Mariposa County
courthouse was built. The county initially covered a third of the
state. The Mariposa Gazette began operations. In 2003 Mariposa County
ranked 53rd among the state's 58 counties in terms of population and
income.
(SFC, 5/29/03, p.A14)(SSFC, 7/1/07, p.W8)
1854 In Mendocino a Victorian
house was built on Main St., known as the Ford House. It later became
the local state park information center (707-937-5397).
(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.T6)
1854 The National Hotel was built
in Nevada City, Ca. In 2006 it was California’s oldest continuously
operating hotel.
(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.F9)
1854 The town of Old Dry Diggings,
aka Hangtown, was renamed Placerville.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T6)
1854 Ulysses S. Grant was
stationed at Fort Humboldt in northern California.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T5)
1854 Yosemite Valley was granted
to California as a public trust.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
1854 The California Legislature
defined a public graveyard as a place where the bodies of six or more
persons are buried. Legislators met in the Sacramento County Courthouse
until the state capitol was completed in 1869.
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.CA1)(SFC, 1/16/04, p.A23)
1854 The California Supreme Court
ruled that laws prohibiting testimony of blacks and Indians in cases
involving whites also applied to the Chinese.
(SFEC, 2/6/00, Rp.10)
1854 The 1st California State Fair
was held in SF.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.F7)
1854 George Pendleton Johnson
authored anti-dueling legislation.
(PI, 6/13/98, p.5)
1854 Moses Meder foreclosed on the
Rancho Refugio, but continued a dairy operation there.
(Ind, 7/11/00,10A)
1854 Lola Montez, international
performer famed for her “Spider Dance,” retired to Grass Valley, Ca.,
and taught her neighbor, Lotta Crabtree, how to sing and dance.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.11)
1854 Pierre Pellier, having
settled in Santa Clara Valley, planted cuttings from France and
established his 1st San Jose, Ca., vineyards. In 1881 his daughter
married vintner Pierre Mirrasou. Mirrassou sold its brand name to Gallo
in 2002.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.D4)(SFC, 8/5/04, p.B7)
1854 The Vichy Springs Resort near
Ukiah began ministering to health seekers. The carbonated mineral baths
were similar to those in Vichy, France.
(SSFC, 7/15/01, p.T5)
1854 White settlers in Del Norte
County ambushed and killed 30 Tolowa Indians at the Etculet village on
Lake Earl.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.B1)
1855 Feb, There was a run on the
bank in Columbia and rumors of a failure caused a run throughout the
state.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T9)
1855 Mar 3, Congress approved
$30,000 to test camels for military use. Sec. of War Jefferson Davis
sent agents to northern Africa to purchase a small herd of camels and
sent them to New Mexico to transport goods to California
(SC, 3/3/02)(SFC, 2/20/04, p.A22)
1855 George Calvert Yount
(1794-1865) founded a town he named Sebastopol in Napa Valley, Ca.
Another town already had that name and in 1867 it was renamed
Yountville.
(http://www.westsong.com/yountville/)(SSFC, 12/5/04,
Par p.8)
1855 David S. Terry (32), born in
Kentucky and raised in Texas, was elected to the state’s high court and
soon appointed as chief justice.
(Ind, 5/12/01, 5A)
1855 The Point Pinos Lighthouse
was built on the Monterey Peninsula.
(SSFC, 2/9/03, p.C1)
1855 In northern California
tensions between the Wintu Indians and miners brewed into the Battle of
Castel Crags. This became one of several triggers for the Modoc War
(1872-1873).
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.G8)
1855 Lord Charles Snowden Fairfax
and Lady Fairfax received a 24-acre site in Marin as a wedding present.
The land later became the site of the Marin Town and Country Club.
(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A19)
1855 Kellogg & Company minted
$50 coins on Montgomery Street. In 2001 only 12 of the original coins
were known to exist and were valued at $250,000 each. 5,000 new coins
were planned to be struck with the original dies from California gold
bars salvaged from the 1857 wreck of the Central America.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.12)
1855 In the town of Columbia
saloon-owner Martha Barclay was verbally abused by an intoxicated John
Smith. Her husband happened in, saw Smith push his wife into a chair
and shot Smith. A crowd gathered and with a quick trial hung Barclay.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T9)
1855 Domingo Ghirardelli close his
chocolate factory in Hornitos due to the crime and mayhem and moved to
SF.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T6)
1855 In the summer the first
tourists visited Yosemite Valley.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.1)
1855 The College of California,
founded by former Congregational minister Henry Durant from New
England, was incorporated in Oakland. The founders chose to set their
new campus in Oakland to safeguard the students from the vulgarity of
San Francisco.
(www.berkeley.edu)(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.6)
1855-1858 Miners formed the Columbia and Stanislaus
River Water Company and built a 60-mile aqueduct at a cost of $1/2
million. It was soon bought out by the Tuolemne County Water Co.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.9)
1856 Jan 8, Dr. John A. Veatch
discovered borax in Tuscan Springs, Calif.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1856 Jan 9, J. Neeley Johnson
(1825-1872), the 4th governor of California, gave his inaugural
address. As Governor he once vetoed a bill because of "bad spelling,
improper punctuation and erasures", but he also holds the distinction
of approving funding for the State Capitol.
(www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/biography/governor_4.html)
1856 Feb 5, John Muir wrote about
sawmills encroaching on Redwood forests and the problem of
"sheep-men’s" fires in this day’s issue of the Sacramento Daily Union.
(SFEM, 5/18/97, p.28)
1856 Apr 18, Eureka, Ca., was
founded in Humboldt County.
(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.F10)
1856 Apr 26, Some 20 settlers of
Honey Lake Valley, California, met at the cabin of Isaac Roop and
formed "the independent Territory of Nataqua." They named the cabin
Fort Defiance, chose Peter Lassen as their surveyor and selected
Susanville, named after Roop's daughter, as the territorial capital.
(SFC, 2/27/04, p.D4)
1856 Apr 28, Yokut Indians
repelled an attack on their land by 100 would-be Indian fighters in
California.
(HN, 4/28/00)
1856 Apr 29, During the Tule River
War Yokut Indians repelled a second attack by the 'Petticoat Rangers,'
a band of civilian Indian fighters-some wearing body armor-at Four
Creeks, California. The Yokuts lived along the shores of Tulare Lake in
the Central Valley, which disappeared by 1900 due to water diversion
and farming.
(HN, 4/29/00)(WW, 6/99)
1856 May 6, U.S. Army troops from
Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepared to ride out to protect Keyesville,
California, from Yokut Indian attack.
(HN, 5/6/00)
1856 Jun 5, U.S. Army troops
in the Four creeks region of California, headed back to quarters,
officially ending the Tule River War. Fighting, however, continued for
a few more years.
(HN, 6/5/00)
1856 Aug 11, A band of rampaging
settlers in California killed four Yokut Indians. The settlers had
heard unproven rumors of Yokut atrocities.
(HN, 8/11/99)
1856 Sep 24, John Marsh, Harvard
graduate and pioneer California settler, was murdered on the road
between Pacheco and Martinez while traveling to SF. Marsh was the 1st
non-Hispanic to live in Contra Costa County. He had made a fortune
attracting settlers to Contra Costa and selling them land. His new
7,000 stone mansion in Brentwood was later made the center-piece of the
John Marsh/Cowell Ranch State Park.
(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.B3)
1856 Nov 4, Democrat James
Buchanan was elected US president. The American or Know-Nothing Party
had nominated Zachary Taylor over Millard Fillmore. The Know-Nothing
Party was an anti-foreigner, anti-Catholic political organization.
Buchanan easily won the presidential election, gaining 174 electoral
votes to Republican John C. Fremont’s 141, and Fillmore’s eight.
Fremont failed to carry California after Jasper O’Farrell testified
against him in the 1846 murder of 3 Californios.
(http://tinyurl.com/8ku7j)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.E10)(SFC,
2/21/97, p.A25)(HNQ, 6/17/01)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.E1)
1856 The 1st theater in California
was built in the gold-mining town of Nevada City.
(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.F9)
1856 The Emmanuel Episcopal Church
was built in Coloma.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T3)
1856 Shelton Fogus, Sacramento
merchant and councilman, built a mansion in downtown Sacramento. In
1861 he sold it to Leland Stanford. It was later taken over by the
Sisters of Mercy and used as an orphanage. In 2005 a 14-year, $22
million remodeling program was completed.
(SFC, 7/11/05, p.B2)
1856 Don Francisco Galindo and his
wife, Maria Dolores Manuela Pacheco, built a 2-story house on Amador
St. in Todos Santos (later renamed Concord).
(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A13)
1856 A tobacco and cigar emporium
was built in the gold mining town of Columbia near Sonora. The building
was later turned into the Cobblestone Theater.
(SFC, 8/18/00, WBb p.7)
1856 The Breuner Home Furnishings
chain was founded in Sacramento, Ca. by the great grandfather of
William R. Breuner (d.2005), the last family member to head the chain.
(SFC, 5/3/05, p.B5)
1856 The D’Agostini Winery in
Amador County, Ca. was founded. It later became the Sobon Estate Winery.
(SFC, 12/10/95, p.T-1)
1856 Mifflin W. Gibbs founded the
state’s first black newspaper and lobbied for the repeal of the state’s
"black laws."
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15)
1856 John C. Fremont and Edward D.
Baker passed through the Feather River region of northern California.
Baker was known as the "Gray Eagle of Republicanism" and gave this name
to the town of Graegle around 1916.
(SSFC, 7/7/02, p.C10)
1857 Apr 9, The gold mining town
of Columbia, Ca., was incorporated as a city.
(CVG, Vol 16, p.1)
1857 Aug 25, The California gold
rush town of Columbia burned down in a 2nd fire that was blamed on a
Chinese cook. Miners soon evicted all Chinese from the town.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.T6)(CVG, Vol 16, p.24,34)
1857 Sep 12, A wooden-hulled
steamship, the SS Central America under Capt. William L. Herndon, sank
off the coast of Georgia. The ship carried 21 tons of gold from
California to New York. The brig Marine and the Norwegian bark Ellen
rescued some 141 people. 425 (428) of 528 (578) passengers were
drowned. The survivors included Ansel Ives Easton (d.1868) and his new
wife Adeline. The wreck was in 8,000 feet of water and in 1987-1988
salvage operations were begun by Tommy Thompson. He hauled in $500
million worth of gold bars, coins and nuggets. After a court battle he
was awarded 92% of the gold. The story is told in the 1998 book "Ship
of Gold in the Deep Blue sea" by Gary Kinder. The loss of the gold
sparked "The Panic of 1857." The SS Central America sank off Cape
Romain, SC.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W3)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(SFEC,
6/28/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.B1)(ON, 7/01,
p.2)(MC, 9/12/01)(Ind, 12/1/01, 5A)
1857 Dec 23, Sister Mary Dominica
Arguello (b.1791), formerly Concepcion Arguello, died in at the
Dominican convent in Benicia, Ca. At age 15 she had fallen in love with
Nicolai Rezanov (1764-1806), a visiting chamberlain to the czar of
Russia. [see 1806]
(SFC, 2/18/06, p.A8)
1857 The National Hotel and the
Red Castle were built in Nevada City along with a stone brewery that
later became the Nevada City Brewery.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T7)
1857 The Sisters of Mercy
established the West Coast’s 1st hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, in the
SF Bay Area.
(SFC, 7/24/06, p.B8)
1857 Phineas Banning bought 640
acres to found Wilmington, Ca.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.CA1)
1857 Joel Clayton purchased 1,400
acres east of Mt. Diablo, laid out a town and sold plots. The town was
named Clayton and incorporated in 1964 to become the 13th city of
Contra Costa County. The Rancho del Diablo had been an 18,000-acre land
grant under Don Salvio Pacheco, who was a soldier in the 1775 Anza
expedition.
(SFC, 1/14/99, p.A15,19)(SFC, 12/29/99, p.C16)(SFC,
12/31/99, p.A22)
1857 The Fort Tejon, Ca.,
earthquake, estimated at magnitude 8, ruptured ground for 225 miles
from Parkfield to Tejon Pass. It killed 2 people and destroyed the
Teyon Army post.
(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A4)(SFC, 12/10/04, p.A4)
1858 Jan 8, John Weller
(1812-1875), the 5th governor of California, gave his inaugural
address. As Governor, he intended to make California an independent
republic if the North and South divided over slavery, and he personally
led an assault on San Quentin Prison to take back possession of it from
a commercial contractor. The most wed governor, Weller married four
times.
(www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/biography/governor_5.html)
1858 Aug 21, State Sen. William I.
Ferguson faced George Pendleton Johnston, clerk of the US Circuit
Court, in a duel at Angel Island. Johnston’s 4th shot hit Ferguson’s
thigh and shattered 6 inches of bone. Ferguson at first refused to have
his leg amputated, but consented on Sep. 14. He did not survive the
operation. Johnston was arrested but went free when the court decided
that Ferguson’s death resulted from his initial refusal to accept
amputation.
(PI, 6/13/98, p.5)
1858 Sep 15, The Butterfield
Overland Mail Company began delivering mail from St. Louis to San
Francisco. The company's motto was: "Remember, boys, nothing on God's
earth must stop the United States mail!"
(HN, 9/15/99)
1858 In San Juan Bautista, Ca.,
the Plaza Hotel was built. It incorporated the former Spanish military
barracks into its ground floor.
(SSFC, 2/22/04, p.C5)
1858 In Sutter Creek the American
Exchange Hotel opened. In 1998 it was the oldest continuously operating
hotel in the state.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T6)
1858 The state Supreme Court
invalidated a law that prohibited the sale of goods on Sunday.
(WSJ, 8/11/00, p.W13)
1858 Jacob Gundlach bought a
vineyard in Sonoma, Ca., and called it Rhinefarm. Charles Bundschu from
Mannheim, Germany, known for his prose and keen business sense, joined
the company in 1868, and became part of the family when he married
Jacob Gundlach’s daughter Francisca in 1875.
(SFC, 12/19/02,
p.D4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundlach_Bundschu)
1858 Henry Miller founded Miller
and Lux Inc., one of California’s largest livestock and agricultural
enterprises.
(SSFC, 6/12/05, p.A21)
1859 Sep 13, David C. Broderick, a
US Senator, faced David S. Terry, Chief Justice of the California
Supreme Court, in a duel at Lake Merced. Broderick was hit in the chest
and died after 60 hours. Terry fled the scene and resigned his position
the next day. He was charged with murder and was arrested Sep 23, but
was not convicted. The weapons used were a pair of Belgian .58-caliber
pistols on loan from an associate of Terry. Broderick’s weapon was set
with a hair-trigger, and misfired. The pistols sold at auction in 1998
for $34,500.
(PI, 5/30/98, p.5A)(SFC, 11/25/98, p.B8)(Ind,
5/12/01, 5A)
1859 Oct 19, Pres. James Buchanan
signed a letter that confirmed the return of California mission
properties to the church.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)
1859 The town of Bodie, east of
the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Calif., was founded. It was 8,400 feet
high and later the site of a gold find. William S. Body found gold in
Mono County and prompted the growth of the town of Bodie. It was later
made a State Historic Park maintained in its original condition. In
2002 it became the state’s official Gold Rush ghost town. Neighboring
Calico was designated the state’s official Silver Rush ghost town in
2003.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.T3)(SFEC,11/23/97, p.D5)(SFC,
8/21/02, p.A2)
1859 Milton Slocum Latham became
governor of California. He resigned within hours after receiving an
appointment to the US Senate. His SF home at 656 Folsom St. was alleged
to be one of the most sumptuous in America.
(Ind, 1/9/98, p.5A)
1859 Prospectors drove the Wappo
Indians out of Pope Valley following rumors of gold and silver
deposits. The miners found mercury instead of gold.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A15)
1859 Peter Lassen was killed at
Paiute Peak near the Black Rock Desert by a single shot through the
skull.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A9)
Go to 1860