Colusa County

History

The Formative Period of Colusa County.

CHAPTER V.

A Steady March of Development.

        The United States census of 1850, taken under the direction of J. Neely Johnson, the census agent of the State, placed the population of the county at one hundred and fifteen. In fact, so slow was the county in increasing the number of its inhabitants, and so backward in material development at that period, that in the year 1852 it was proposed in the State Senate to divide Colusa County into two new counties, to be called Arena and Leco. But the committee to whom the subject was referred reported adversely, as "the county was almost destitute of population." In the next decade the county had progressed materially and the population had received substantial accretions through immigration and natural increase, though not in proportion with other counties close by and which did not possess the material advantages almost unconsciously enjoyed by Colusa County. The census of 1860 gave the county's population at two thousand two hundred and seventy-four.

        Before the discovery of gold, what is now Colusa County occupied an isolated position. Through it were no highways of travel over which passed long trains of white-bonneted "prairie schooners" bringing the adventurous, or the daring, the disciplined mechanic or the observant home-seeker. All these kept to the east side of the Sacramento River and followed the valleys in their way to San Francisco, so that it was not surprising that settlements of some importance were made on the Upper Sacramento, Bear River and Feather River before General John Bidwell, the first white explorer of Colusa County, gazed on the ten thousand aborigines therein resident in 1843. It was not till 1850 and 1851 that immigration to any appreciable extent invaded the west side of the river. Hitherto there had been very little grain farming or stock raising and that little was carried on by John S. Williams on the Larkin's Children's Grant, and also by Sterling and Swift on the same grant, though the latter also took up a ranch at the Willows and also at "the adobe," now William Murdock's place. But these men were almost altogether engaged in stock raising. What little grain was sowed was barley, and even this was not produced till after the discovery of gold. In 1851 quite a number of ranches were located. While the miner was busy in the streams, gulches and grass­roots seeking the precious metal, his wants must be supplied, and teams were kept constantly on the road between the mining camps and various points of supply. The transportation industry rapidly grew to towering proportions. And hence it was but natural that hay and barley commanded high figures. It was to meet this demand that these ranches were taken up on the west side of the river. The stockmen, too, had spied out this land, exceptionally prolific in wild oats and succulent grasses. And they soon drove their stock over. Among the first of these to cross with their herds were Charles Brooks, Ben and Bob Payne, James C. Wilson, S. P. Wilson, Jack Long, U. P. Monroe, Williamson, Corhart, Howard and Berkey. The cattle that grazed here were not remarkable for quality, being chiefly of the long-horned Spanish scrub-stock, first introduced into the county by John S. Williams in 1847, when he located on the Larkin's Children's Grant, or the better American breeds which were placed here to recruit after an exhausting march across the plains. A number of sheep and hogs were brought into the county between 1852-55. And the foot-hills, with their advantages of running streams of fresh water, were taken up in ranches. Hogs and chickens rated higher proportionately than cattle, for the assessment roll of 1852 charges R. J. Walsh $130 for three hogs and $100 on thirty chickens; and Cleaton Grimes, of Grand Island, has told us that in buying his first chickens from Captain Littleton he gave a "slug" ($50) for ten hens and a rooster.

        The assessment roll of 1851 will aid very much in showing the limited farming operations of that time. At the lower end of the county H. Graham and E. R. Graham were paying taxes on improvements. On Grand Island Thomas Eddy, Cleaton Grimes, E. Grimes, Daniel H. Allen, John Fitch, and Cain, Hoy and Bailey were engaged in farming. None of these were stock­men, though Cleaton Grimes was the first to introduce hog raising in the county, and had then begun to feed a few head, taking up no little of his time in keeping the bears from devouring them. Andrew Pierce and J. C. Johnson, just west of the island, were assessed on improvements, work-horses, fourteen hogs, and twenty-five chickens. James Jackson, residing near the head of Sycamore Slough, paid taxes on one hundred hogs and fifty pigs, assessed at $5,500. At that time Pervere and Hyde were the largest grain farmers in Colusa County, and had sowed several hundred acres of barley at the bend of the river just north of Colusa. Long and Abbe, at the head of Sycamore Slough, were in the cattle business. Small areas of land were cultivated by the White brothers, J. T. Marr, and the Gibson brothers in the bend between Colusa and Sycamore. Hill and Payne farmed on a small scale at the Seven Mile House. Thomas and B. F Hance raised some two thousand bushels of barley in 1851-52. Between Hills and Princeton David Woodman, Obed De Long, C. B. Sterling and Byron O. Smith had planted barley, and Sterling raised also the same year some three hundred bushels of wheat. Between Princeton and Monroeville a small acreage of grain was sown by Isaac Sparks, R. B. Ord, George L. Pratt and Watkins and Bounds. From there to the present upper line of the county, Nelson and McClanahan, R. J. Walsh, Monroe and Williamson, Reager, Cleek and William Swift had sown more or less grain. Near Orland, Granville Swift had in on Stony Creek both barley and wheat.

        In this same year (1851) the list of early business men in the country is arrived at by finding the names of those who are credited with money paid into the treasury for licenses. They were as follows: U. P. Monroe, Hiram Willets, John C. Crigler, Carhart & Co., Newell Hall, Vincent & Berkey, Jesse M. Sheppard, Tharp & Co., Baird & Co., Moon, Ford & Co., J. H. Liening, Knox & Shannon, Carpenter, Hamilton & Spaulding, Alderman & Co., La Croix, M. Meador, R. H. Maltby, Hatch & Co., D. Blodgett, Julius Ort, Obed De Long, R. H. Black, J. M. Swift, Van Wie & Co., George Patch, H. Dean, Montgomery & Co., N. Proctor Smith, Case & Greer, Hoope & L'Ammoroux, G. H. Sandy, John Bills, John McGinley, S. Nobles, Clark & Murray, Kimball & Bullock, Gilbert & Bettis.

        The assessment rolled for the following year (1852) shed much light not only on the valuation of property, real and personal, but on the extent of land in cultivation. In this year the Larkin's Children's Grant was assessed as follows: Thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty acres of tillable land, at $1.25 per acre. Three years later Larkin disposed of the south half of this grant to settlers, at about $1.25 per acre, and in 1866 A. Montgomery purchased the residue at about ninety cents per acre. The Jimeno grant was rated at the same valuation. Judge Ide, of whom frequent mention is made in this book, owned thirty thousand one hundred and fourteen acres of land, was assessed at the same rate. Hay was assessed at $15 per ton, and threshed barley at $2.00 per bushel; wild cattle at $12 per head. Granville P. Swift paid the largest tax on personal property. He was assessed on two thousand head of cattle, at $12; five hundred head of sheep, at $8.00; three hundred horses, at $12; one hundred horses, at $30; two hundred bushels of wheat, at $2.00. Martin A. Reager, of Stony Creek, was assessed that year on two thousand bushels of barley in the straw, $3,000. Those assessed in 1852 on more than $5,000 were the following: Baxter Co. (stage line), $18,700; Wm. G. Chard, $21,282; J. T. Bailey, $5,630; Thos. C. Gray, $5,570; Hill & Payne, $6,715; Newell Hall, $12,345; James M. Ide, $22,140; Johnson, Eastman & Co., $9,980; Wm. B. Ide, $43,869; Lewis Johnson (cash), $5,000; Thos. O. Larkin's Children's grant, $52,770, and on Jimeno grant, $24,071; Moon & Ford, $15,850; Wm. H. McKee, $10,610; Salvador Munraso, $8,050; L. H. Sanborn, $11,400; Nelson & McClanahan, $11,119; Granville P. Swift, $38,285; R. H. Thomas, $47,901; James Stokes and Josefa De Sota, his wife, $24,071; R. J. Walsh, $15,520. The foregoing paid more than the three-fourths of the entire taxes of the county. The number of poll-taxes paid this year was four hundred and seventy-six. In the following year (1853) there was a striking decline in the number of poll-taxes, one hundred and forty-three receipts only being sold.

        Stock, as has been seen, was the recognized paramount interest of this period. A claim to range was, by a tacit understanding, respected, and as the raising of grain seemed of secondary importance, the stockmen were anxious that grain lands should be fenced in. But several dry seasons following closely upon one another, proved very discouraging to the settlers. The winter of 1850-51 was so dry that had grain been sowed nothing would have grown. The seasons of 1854-55, 1855-56, 1856-57, were so dry that most of those who had located on the plains pulled up stakes and turned their backs on its desolation and aridity. Besides, there was another and more destructive agent to dismay and dishearten the settler. The entire county in 1855 was swarming with grasshoppers. They ate up the pasturage, destroyed the oats and killed many of the trees. A writer of that period relates that they traveled from the foot-hills eastward towards the river and were met at the edge of the timber on the river by millions of birds, and except where the timber was very narrow, they did not reach the river, but when they did reach the river they swarmed into it, making the water seem thick. They did not get on the east side of the river to do any great deal of damage. It was in 1856 that an impetus was given to immigration and settlement caused by the government offering most of the public land in the county at public sale, and after that it became subject to public entry. The Spanish grant titles on the west side of the river began to be recognized also. Some purchases were made, usually in large bodies, and Colusa County was fast approaching that transition period when her lands would prove more profitable in farm productions than in the raising of cattle or sheep.

        The first term of the District Court was held at Monroeville on February 6, 1852, and was presided over by Judge W. S. Sherwood. The first grand jury of Colusa County which met at this time was composed of the following persons: M. L. Connell, C. B. Sterling, Isaac Davis, H. Willits, James M. Hill, A. D. Carpenter, A. G. Tooms, W. G. Chard, L. H. Smith, William Sheppard, L. H. Sanborn, Wm. C. Moore, H. G. Cardwell, J. C. Crigler, Boone Smith, James M. Ide, Robt. N. Parkhill. The first case on the docket was Monroe & Williamson vs. D. G. Leonard. The action was brought to recover the sum of $2,622 in payment for "one hundred and fifteen fat sheep, averaging seventy-six pounds per head, at thirty cents per pound." Leonard, the defendant in the case, was remarkable for his equestrianism, riding a horse from Tehama to Sacramento in a day, and back in a day, the whole distance, as the roads were then, being one hundred and twenty miles.

        It could not be expected in these early days of land greed and gold avarice, of social unrest, and miscellaneous immigration, but that disturbances and disorder should breed deadly quarrels and resultant murders. These are usual and will always be the inevitable disfigurements of the history of all new countries, rapidly filling up with a heterogeneous population loosed from the restraining influences of home and enforced law in the distant States of the East. The courts of justice here had scarcely been put in operation, and even if its machinery was made ready to move, it was many times difficult to find suitable men to administer justice or serve processes. Hence, to some extent, the unwritten law was the lex non scripta of the frontier, based upon that equity, or spirit of natural honesty and fair play, which regulated and controlled with admirable impartiality, but with the sternest of promptitude and unflinching decision, the raw and inchoate conditions of a new, irregular, strangely composite, well-meaning, but sometimes turbulent advance groups of a pioneer civilization. In these early days Colusa County bore an enviable reputation for the maintenance of law and order. The rights of property were respected, boundary disputes were submitted to the courts or to the amicable discriminations of arbitration, cattle and horse stealing was of rare occurrence, human life was sacred, and what few murders were committed were left to the calm judgment of courts to punish. Lynch law, as will be noticed further on in this work, was only resorted to—and that only in a few instances—when popular sentiment, and an enlightened sentiment it proved to be, growing weary of the childishness of juries inspired by perverted mercy and momentary imbecility, chafing at the paralysis of law inflicted through the cunning and chicane of criminal lawyers, or losing all respect for the weak ministers of the law, who had allowed red-handed criminals to insolently exhaust the patience of all the courts in a formal way, and then finally escape just punishment on some recondite quibble—it was only then, we say, that the exasperation of the multitude taught courts as well as criminals that the letter and the spirit of the statutes must be enforced.

        The first legal execution in the county was that of Nathaniel Bowman. It was sometime during the latter part of 1851 that Bowman killed Levi Seigler at Moon's ranch, by beating him over the head with a bottle. The particulars of this case are not now to be obtained, since the records of the Court of Sessions, where Bowman was tried, as well as those of the county, are singularly scant, and as in fact they prove to be for several years afterward, greatly to the chagrin, if not to the impatient disgust, of him who would collate and preserve the county's chronicles. Bowman was imprisoned at Monroeville, or rather placed under guard there, and on March 22, 1852, he was indicted for murder in the first degree by the following grand jurors: C. Nelson, E. G. Alderman, Dr. Robert Salisbury, H. P. Hulburt, A. S. C. Cleek, E. P.. Ingersol, Ben Hambright, A. Russel, Kimball Bullock, Ben Knight, Henry Dean, Thomas Gray, R. H. Warner, A. G. Stiffey, O. C. Berkey and Suprace Billou. A reward had been offered for the capture of Bowman but just how much is not now ascertainable. Even all the names of those jurymen who voted for his conviction cannot be established. That Martin A. Reager, Thomas Shannon, Gus Eastman, Geo. M. Carhart and Thomas McClanahan were on the jury, is sufficiently authenticated. After conviction Bowman escaped, and, hobbling into Jesse Sheppard's house with the heavy irons clanking in dismal rhythm with every slow, furtive, measured step made by the fleeing murderer, he begged piteously of Sheppard to file his irons loose. Sheppard respected the verdict of juries, and led Bowman back to Monroeville, where he was executed sometime in the spring of 1852.

        The difficulty at this period seemed not so much how to convict but how to keep a prisoner till the courts had passed upon his case. It may have been the escape of Bowman which inspired Judge Wm. B. Ide with a happy idea for the safe detention of accused persons, for in the spring of this same year (1852) Mr. Ide related to a friend who called on him what he did to obviate the difficulties of being without a jail. "I have tools," said Judge Ide, "which I brought with me over the plains, and some I brought by steamer on my last trip from the East. I will get some good bar-iron from San Francisco and some bolts, and will build a cage with my own hands." And this handy man of all county work did so, with some assistance from the local blacksmith, perhaps. He drilled the bars and bolted them together, thus making a safe and durable cell for the confinement of prisoners. He placed this cage under the dense shade of a monster oak in front of a building, which at that time and for that place was a first-class hotel, stage office and county court-house. No guard was required, and it certainly needed no ventilation. It was a healthy as well as secure place for detaining the accused while awaiting trial. It was a success, a necessary and inexpensive structure, saving the county a considerable sum. A short time afterwards, when the county seat was removed from Monroeville, this cell, or cage, was also brought to Colusa, and resumed its former usefulness as a cell.

        In treating of this period in the history of Colusa County, whose paucity of details and deficiency of records must always be a matter of real regret, we cannot do better in order than to insert a few pages from the reminiscences of Will S. Green, a gentleman whose young manhood was coeval with the first permanent settlement of the county, who has surveyed the county in every direction, and consequently has a practical knowledge of its topography and its varied resources. Besides Mr. Green's intellectual gifts, his habits of close observation, his retentiveness of memory, his warm attachments to the old settlers and their families, as well as the natural grace and simplicity of his written contributions, conspire to invest him with an authoritativeness on subjects pertaining to Colusa County which everyone recognizes with alacrity and accepts with thanks. It is no meaningless flattery to assert that to Mr. Green is due in largest measure the fact that we possess so much historical data relating to this country, which, had he not as a labor of love rescued and preserved and vitalized by his charming style, would either have been almost entirely lost or would now merely consist of the unsatisfactory fragments of events without genesis or sequence, the disjecta membra of confused incidents, dates, names and localities, which make the hearsay of one generation the tradition of the next, but which is as invariably distrusted as its authority is anonymous.

        Mr. Green, in writing of the pre-golden period in Colusa County, says: "Concerning the settlements, of Bryant we know nothing further than the mention made by General Bidwell, but we get from Mrs. Lindsey Carson, of Lake County, who was the widow of John S. Williams, some of the particulars of his settlement. He got a band of eight hundred cattle on the shares from Thomas O. Larkin, and in June, 1847, brought them to Colusa County. He then built the old adobe, which stood for a good many years on the bank of the river on Hon. John Boggs' farm. He had married, on the 17th of May of that year, Miss Maria Louisa Gordon, daughter of Joseph Gordon, of Russian River, Sonoma County, and she came with him up to the ranch. She was therefore the first white woman that ever took up a residence in Colusa County. They were married at William Gordon's, on Cache Creek, by Judge Ide, who had been appointed an alcalde under the Mexican Government. They had one son born to them, on the 14th of December, 1848, at her father's house, on Russian River. This son, whose name is John S., married a Miss Bovee in Texas in 1870, and resided afterwards in Monroe County, Missouri. His father came to California in 1843 from Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. Three brothers, James, Isaac and Squire, came with him. Squire died in the mines in 1848. James died in Santa Cruz a few years afterwards, and Isaac died at Anaheim in 1856. Mr. Williams left the Larkin ranch in March, 1849, when he settled on Butte Creek, near the crossing of the Oregon Railroad, where he died on the 19th of May following. The cattle which Mr. Williams brought into the county increased so rapidly that in a few years they covered the plains between Stony and Cache Creeks. All the old stockmen in the northern part of the State were perfectly familiar with his brand. The brand, with all the cattle that carried it, was sold in 1850, we think, to G. P. Swift, who not only had his place on Stony Creek, near Orland, but he had to locate a cattle ranch at the Willows, and one on what was known as the Dobie, on William Murdock's place, at the foot-hills west of the Willows.

        "Charles B. Sterling came up to the ranch in 1848, we think, while Mr. Williams was off at the gold mines. He remained there until after the cattle were sold to Swift. He sold, early in 1850, a half-interest in the hotel-stand to a man by the name of Taylor, and Taylor sold to D. C. Huntoon, afterwards for many years of Cottonwood. Mr. Sterling married Miss Lucinda Stewart, at Fremont, in Yolo County, in 1849. She is a sister of Mrs. E. A. Harris and Mrs. Chapin. Mr. Sterling was born in New Orleans and came to this coast as a purser on a man-of-war, and was Thomas O. Larkin's secretary while that gentleman was acting as United States Consul at Monterey. He is dead, but we do not remember the date of his death. He once told us that in the spring of 1849 he wanted to go over to the mines on Feather River, and, not liking to bury his money around home for fear of being watched, he put several thousand dollars in a square gin bottle and carried it with him to the bank of a slough in a direct line from his place to French Crossing, on Butte Creek, and there buried it, marking the place by a bunch of weeds he would know again. He stayed over there longer than he expected, and when he came back the weeds had been burned, and he could not find the place, and so the bottle with its treasure lies buried there yet.

        "In addition to the settlers mentioned by General Bidwell as being in the county before the discovery of gold, we may mention Watt Anderson, who lived on Sycamore Slough, and who afterwards moved to Anderson Valley, in Mendocino County. Hon. J. B. Lamar's wife is Mr. Anderson's daughter. Wm. B. Ide settled on the east side of the river, some three miles below Mr. Williams, in 1847, and remained there a short time, and Samuel Gibson was with Swift and Sears, on Stony Creek. These are all the additions we can make in the territory of the county as at present bounded. There were quite a number in the territory cut off into Tehama County in 1855. There were H. L. Ford, W. C. Moon, L. Seigler, A. G. Tooms, R. H. Thorns, Wm. G. Chard and James M. Ide that we know of. These all figure in the early history of Colusa County."

        Of the early hotels erected the same writer says: "By the spring of 1852, we had a hotel every few miles up the road. Those occurring to our memory were: Five Mile House, by Obed De Long; Seven Mile House, by James Hill; Nine Mile House, by Dr. S. H. Cooper; Ten Mile House, by L. H. Helphenstine; Eleven Mile House, by Thomas Parton; Sixteen Mile House, at Princeton, by J. P. J. Helphenstine, Seventeen Mile House, by Hiram Willet; Nineteen Mile House, by Griggs & Wilder; Twenty Mile House, by Tuttle; Twenty-one Mile House, by John and Lee Stephens. Jim and Chris Riley came in about this time just above there. Marshall had a hotel at the city of Tours, some three miles below Jacinto."

        Isaac Sparks had settled where is now the residence of Mrs. Dr. Glenn, and George L. Pratt at Placer City, just above. John McIntosh had built a hotel on the land afterwards occupied by his brother, L. H. McIntosh, and Andrew S. C. Cleek and Martin A. Reager located a station as early as the fall of 1850 on the Montgomery rancho, now owned by Herbert Kraft, in the extreme northern part of the county.

        EARLY RESIDENTS.-It will no doubt be a matter of interest to have recorded the names of those who were among the very earliest residents in the county. For this reason we append the names of those who paid a poll-tax in the county in the year 1852.

        Allen, John, Abbe, S. K., Arnold, S. K., Allen, William, Adams, J. M., Alsap, G., Amente, A., Andrews, William, Allen, D. H., Ashbrook, Thomas, Annable, H. W., Allison, J. B., Bradley, J. W., Burges, Thomas, Burges, G. G., Black, James, Brownell, James A., Blethen, J. L., Brite, M. H., Barton, T., Bailey, J. M., Bigelow, D., Bartlett, E., Burns, A., Bills, John, Betts, J. M., Brackenridge, J, Barrows, H. D., Barge, F. F., Bailey, J. S., Bell, R. S., Careland, L., Chard, W. G., Cary, J. M., Craig, J. S., Cardy, Charles, Cain, P. E., Castle, Michael, Climer, S. T., Carpenter, A. D., Clark, William, Cain, Isaac N., Connell, M. L., Chapin, Fred S., Clement, Joseph, Craft, George, Cizer, H., Cardwell, H. G., Cusic, Sam, Culbertson, R. F., Cunningham, J. H., Cornwall, D. W., Champion, J., Cleek, Andrew S. C., Cunningham, W. S., Canton, Joseph, Cheney, L., Dodge, Gilbert, Dix, Thomas, Derrick, A., Dibble, Jerome, Dristoll, William, Duarte, T., Denbita, Jose, Dias, M., David, G., Estrada, Lucas, Edwards, J. P., Ebblie, John, Evans, C., Ellis, A. R., Eastman, Augustus, Ervin, James, Earthman, L. H., Eddy, Thomas, Fitch, John, Fort, A. J., Featherly, John, Folgert, David, Fox, G. W., Ferry, A. H., Ford, H. L., Foster, Albert, Finch, L., Fisher, W. R., Fundy, A., Flagg, William, Freeman, James E., Green, Isaac, Graham, Hiram, Graham, Ed, Graham, J., Gray, Thomas C., Gibbs, James F., Grimes, C., Grimes, E., Gibbs, L., Gallagher, J., Grigatra, V., Gregory, D. S., Gregory, John, Goodwin, Allen, Hambright, Robert, Hatch, Cutter, Hambright, Ben, Hartman, J. J., Holland, Charles, Huls, J. C., Huntoon, D. C., Hall, Willis, Hopkins, Joseph, Helm, James, Hammers, John, Hamilton, David, Harris, J. B., Horning, Lewis L., Hulbert, H. P., Hall, Newell, Hill, James M., Hall, Allen, Horton, L. R., Hall, M. S., Hobday, E. J., Hulsy, Charles, Hoffenshan, R., Hulsy, Allen, Hyde, Warren, Hyde, H. F., Hull, E. H., Hicks, Thomas, Healy, L. B., Hansen, R., Holliday, A. M., Haggart, D. E., Henry, Richard, Isbell, William, Ide, J. M., Ide, W. H., Johnson, W. H., Johnson, William, Judd, 0. D., Jarnagin, Joseph, Johnson, J. C., Johnson, Lewis, Knight, Ben, King, M. C., King, Frame, King, Thomas R., Kelly, John, Logan, George M., Lukins, W. S., Lucas, Ed, Logan, David, Lewis, Arthur, Ladd, L. D., Long, Jack, Lewis, John, Lawton, David, Lott, A., Lowe, James, Larnesso, C., Lameren, Simon, Lewis, Charles, McClure, P., McGinley, John Malarka, Dave, Miner, P. L., Markham, W. R., Montigue, A., McClung, Silas, Marr, W. C., McClung, S. H., Marr, J. T., McCune, W. F., McGilton, William, Maltby, R. R., Middleton, Thomas, Moon, W. C., Merhart, J. C., Merrill, N. McKappi, J. P., Mesman, H., Miller, Joseph, Matthews, John, McClanahan Thomas, McCanly, John, Mix, A. A., Montgomery, Wells, Neal, John, Noble, William, Norton, Ed, Naylor, J. N., Nelson, C., Owens, R. T., Owens, N. W., Paradao, Ignacio, Parbot, George R., Pease, C. W., Pike, H. A., Peters, John, Piant, P., Pervere, J. M., Plaison, G. N., Payne, Robert, Price, Isaac, Plummer, Ben, Prince, Richard, Packer, Elmon, Pickett, Charles E., Pierce, Andrew, Quinn, Mark, Rowe, G. W., Russell, Albert, Roberts, Jonathan, Ross, Joseph, Rand, Isaac H., Rankin, William, Riddle, James W., Robinson, W. S., Rice, S. S., Ramsdell, S. L., Ribler, P., Rowe, I., Ross, W. G., Reynolds, R. H., Reager, Martin A., Snyder, David, Shanesy, P. W., Semple, C. D., Smith, W. H., Shurr, William, Stiles, George, Stover, S., Snoddy, J. N., Sanborn, L. H., Stewart, J. M., Snowden, J. M., Stuffier, A. G., Swift, William, Swift, Granville P., Stackpole, Charles, Shipton, William, Salisbury, Robert, Spangle, William, Smith, N. Proctor, Tibbett, William, Tooms, A. G., Thomas, R. H., Taylor, L. G., Thorp, L., Tucker, Thomas 1., Turner, J. C., Vandroff, John, Walden, —, White, L. L., Warren, R. E., Willis, J. F., Wesson, R., Wesson, Joseph, Watrese, N., White, W. C., Welch, C. D., Williams, Ira, Woodfine, J. R., White, Ben, Weston, J. W., Wellington, J. B., Ward, H. C., Wilson, H. C., Waldo, L. C., Willis, W. E., Walsh, Richard J., Wolverton, A., Williams, Jarratt, Yates, James.

        It is a matter of surprise that of all of the foregoing persons who paid poll-tax in 1852, there are not six who now reside in the county. They are either scattered over the State, or for the most part have joined the silent majority.

        It will be seen by the foregoing that the line of settlement followed the Sacramento River. It then branched out on Stony Creek, and the smaller streams and fertile valleys soon after were located. The early stockmen claimed that nearly all the river lands were occupied, but during the years 1852-54, many new ranch-houses were built along the clear waters of the Sacramento, and new herds added to the verdant pastures.

        A Mr. Morrison built a flour and saw-mill on Grand Island in 1852, which did a thriving business in manufacturing lumber out of the trees lining the banks of the river, furnishing material for new houses, as well as grinding the cereals, which were produced in limited quantities. In 1853 this mill was sold to Judge George Wilson, who, finding the demand for flour greater than he could supply, did away with the saw-mill department. James Balsdon settled at the head of Grand Island in the fall of 1853, near Sycamore, and began stock and grain farming. Waller Calmes located on the island the following year.

        It was in 1852-53 that the territory on the east side of the river received its bulk of settlers, many of whom still occupy the lands on which they first located. Maberry Davis was among the first to take up land here, locating in May, 1852, the farm where his sons now live. Dr. Barnett also located on the east side of the river in 1852. In the early spring of 1853, L. F. Moulton bought the land near his present home, and in September of the same year Elijah McDaniel took up his place in this fertile, portion of the county. A. L. Sherman, since dead, built a house six miles north of Colusa in that year. Dr. A. Lull and J. W. Pratt located farms nearly opposite Princeton in 1852, but did not take up their residence there until the year following. Thomas C. McVey drove stock to the county in 1854, and settled three years later in the same locality. James M. Jones, the father of E. W. Jones, located in this portion of the county, nearer Colusa, however, in 1853.

        In 1854 a post-office was established, and the town of Princeton received its name. Mr. Arnet was appointed its first post‑master, and a ferry was put across the river at this point. That same year John Boggs bought his farm just below Princeton.

        The permanent early residents along Stony Creek made their appearance from 1854 to 1858, and about the same time the country around Newville was settled. In 1856 L. Scearce took up his home on Stony Creek, near where that stream leaves the foot-hills, and F. C. Graves located just below him about the same time. H. W. C. Nelson, a relative of Clayborn Nelson, one of the earliest settlers, located where he now lives, in 1857. Previous to this, Jeff. Walker had taken up the "Walker Ranch," on the plains to the south of Stony Creek.

        As early as 1853 James M. Kendrick, a pioneer of 1849, settled near Newville and engaged in the stock business. His widow lives near the original place of location. Thomas Bedford, who settled on the river in 1854, moved to the vicinity of Newville in 1856, and about the same date L. V. Cushman located land adjoining Mr. Bedford. R. G. Burrows, who had passed through Colusa County in 1849 on his way to Oregon, returned in 1857, and has since made his home near Newville. G. W. Millsap located in the same locality in the following year.

        I. W. Brownell located the nucleus of his ranch on Stony Creek, in what is sometimes termed African Valley, in 1858.

        The country in the vicinity of College City, Arbuckle, and Williams was occupied as early as 1852-53. M. A. Britton located his home in Spring Valley, to the southwest of Williams, in 1852. W. H. Williams settled in the same valley in 1853, and raised wheat and barley as an experiment. The following year he moved to about the present site of Williams, raising both the cereals named successfully. Joseph S. Gibson also located near Williams that year. Thomas A. Botts began farming near College City in 1853. These locations received large additions to their scattered settlements in 1855-58, as follows: G. W. Johns, near College City, 1855; Gustave and Julius Weyand, between Arbuckle and Williams, 1856; William Kerth and J. H. and W. E. Sherer, near Arbuckle, 1857; Charles O. Sanders, south of College City, 1857; T. D. Griffin, near Arbuckle, 1858; J. W. Brim, west of Williams, 1856; Frederick W. Schultz, near Berlin, 1859; J. C. Stovall, west of Williams six miles, 1858. This is not a complete list of those who settled in these localities at that time, but those named are nearly all residents on their original locations.

        Godfrey C. Ingraham was among the first to locate in Bear Valley, going there in 1853 and taking up his permanent residence the year following. John Sites took up land in Antelope Valley, where the town which bears his name is located, in 1858.

        Jackson McElroy settled near the present location of Willows in 1856, and the same year G. P. Butterfield located a few miles to the northeast. Urias S. Nye settled during 1858 in the foot-hills northwest of "the old adobe," near the terminus of the Mendocino and Westside Railroad, where he still lives.

        In the summer of 1854 a frame building, costing $3,000, was erected in Colusa for a court-house. This building was occupied until 1860 for county purposes. During the sessions of the Legislature of 1855 a bill was introduced to cut off from Colusa County all that territory lying north of township twenty-two (the present north boundary line of the county), and annex it to Tehama. Colusa County as created was out of proportion, and since the creation two centers of population, Colusa and Red Bluff, had settled up. There was no opposition to the measure, and the bill became a law. Thus Colusa County was divested of a strip across the northern end twenty-four miles wide.

        In 1854 the government made a reservation of land near Paskenta (now in Tehama County) for the Indians, who were, up to that time, scattered all over the Coast Range and foot­hills, and were the cause of much annoyance to the settlers. The same year the work of gathering the Indians together and placing them on the reservation was begun. In June, 1855, Captain Williams, assisted by Joseph James, who now lives at Orland, went to a rancheria on Salt Creek, in the mountains about ten miles west of the present town of Elk Creek, to persuade the Indians it was better for them to move to the reservation. The Indians, who numbered about fourteen, attacked and surrounded Williams and James, shooting at them with arrows. The two men fought for their lives, and succeeded in getting away only after killing seven of the aborigines. James received an arrow wound in the breast, which proved almost fatal, and the mule Captain Williams rode was killed by an arrow.

        In the summer of 1856, Seth Handy and a man by the name of Thomas, got into a quarrel at John Miller's house, on the plains west of Colusa. In the affray Thomas shot and killed Handy. Thomas was arrested and tried. The evidence showed the killing to have been manslaughter, but the jury, holding otherwise, returned a verdict of murder. The sentence of death by hanging was passed upon Thomas, the second such in the county, and on September 26 he was hanged to an oak tree where Peart's store now stands. This was the first execution at Colusa.

        Jeptha R. Marsh, who had killed a man in Shasta County, was brought to Colusa in the fall of 1856 and tried for murder. He was sentenced to be hanged, and the day of execution was fixed. Marsh had many warm friends, who did their utmost during the trial in his defense, and the night before the day of execution he escaped from the jail, through the assistance of friends. He was lodged in a hollow tree north of Colusa until the excitement caused by his escape had subsided, when he was assisted in his flight for Mexico. From Los Angeles he wrote to the sheriff at Colusa, thanked him for his kindness, and regretted his inability to be present at the execution.

        Aside from the teaming up and down the river and the stage lines, steamboats made regular trips on the river as far north as Red Bluff; carrying freight and passengers.

        From 1858 to 1861 Colusa County received a steady growth of development. Villages sprung up in various parts of the county, and the stage lines were extended. Colusa grew to the dignity of a town. Princeton became a lively little place, and Newville and St. John had post-offices, besides numerous steam­boat landings along the Sacramento being recognized by names.

        Early in 1860, the old court-house being no longer adequate to the demands for transacting county business, the supervisors advertised for specifications for a new court-house and jail, and on May 7th a contract was let to J. S. Plummer, of Sacramento, to build the present court-house, for $18,625. The building was completed late in the fall.

SOURCE:  "Colusa County", Justus H. Rogers, Orland, CA, 1891