Contra Costa County History

There had been attempts made to settle on other parts of the big ranch, but the discouragements were many. No fence laws to protect the crops from the cattle, the variable seasons, and the lack of building material were the handicaps that protected the Doctor in the peaceful possession of his ranges; and this continued until the commissioners reduced his claim to three instead of thirty leagues, and its boundaries were finally determined by the surveyor-general of the State. The ensuing years up to 1868 brought their annual influx of settlers, eager to avail themselves of the low-priced lands obtainable either at the double minimum price or to purchase the railroad land - the alternate sections - for five dollars an acre.

Successful experiments had been made in raising wheat, and in 1868 there was a bountiful crop; but the ensuing year the rainfall was lighter, and in 1870 there was less - in fact, crops were a failure, with a single exception: Matt Burling had a piece of land plowed ready for the seed in the spring of 1869. Fearful of losing his high-priced seed, he held it back until the ensuing fall; then he took his chances and put it in the dry fallow soil. The few inches of rain of the season of 1870 were sufficient to start it, and it matured a generous crop without further moisture. But the secret of successful wheat-growing in eastern Contra Costa was solved - by thus concentrating the two seasons' rainfall in one crop the subsequent failures were eliminated.

The drought of 1871, following the short rainfall of 1870, was disastrous, particularly to those who were making their start in farming. Seed-wheat was selling at two and a half to three cents, hay was unobtainable, and the stock were dying by thousands, sheep were unsaleable at seventy-five cents a head, and Sherman Island straw, coarse, woody, and laden with ashes, was readily saleable at twenty to twenty-five dollars a ton! But on Christmas day, 1871, the Lord opened his pluvial blessing, nor ceased until miniature cataracts were chasing each other down the sides of Mount Diablo, the rivers torrents, and the country flooded.

This resulted in a luxuriant harvest, and from that on wheat became the great staple. Landings were constructed - one at Point of Timber, connecting by canal with Italian Slough, and is known as Babbe's Landing. Large shipments of wheat were made over the Marsh Landing, and Antioch became a veritable entrepot. The Grangers partially loaded one of their sea-going vessels there. The Tulare & San Pablo Railroad was completed in 1879, and stations were established at Antioch, Brentwood, and Byron. Warehouses were built to accomodate the rapidly increasing production, Dean & Company building at Brentwood in 1880, and also at Byron in 1882.

The towns above named became flourishing villages, schools were established, and accomodations extended by the construction of beautiful buildings; and finally a high-school district was organized and a building erected in Brentwood that in its location will ever be accepted as the monumental mistake of the trustees.

It was not without a struggle that the wheat-growers of eastern Contra Costa attained to this degree of prosperity. In the earlier stages of the industry they were not only handicapped by the dry years, but by their lack of credit - their inability to obtain loans from the city banks, even at exorbitant rates of interest - and not until the organization of the Grange and the establishment of their own bank could they obtain a dollar from Moneybags. Sometimes a friendly broker would extend the grower some accomodation, but then it usually carried with it the privilege of handling his crop in the fall at a round commission. Not only this - he was also beset by conscienceless wheat-buyers and market manipulators working in combination to beat him, and with no trifling success. These efforts became so pronounced that the wheat-growers of the State were called to meet in convention in San Francisco for the purpose of farming a State Farmer's Union. While we were discussing the pros and cons of the situation, a man knocked for admission and asked to be heard. He was invited to the platform and introduced as Mr. Baxter. He stated

that he was the representative of the National Grange, and that his mission was to establish the organization on this coast. He explained its workings and object so satisfactorily that we gave willing ear, and when he advised us to go home and organize granges, and thus work together, and harmoniously, in our business and social affairs, we consented, and went to work enthusiastically.

In a short time Baxter came up and instituted the Point of Timber Grange No. 14, with the following officers: R. G. Dean, Master; M. A. Walton, overseer; J. H. Baldwin, lecturer; J. B. Henderson, steward; A. Richardson, assistant steward; A. Plumley, chaplain; Thomas McCabe, treasurer; J. E. W. Casey; secretary; Mrs. J. H. Baldwin, Ceres; Mrs. C. M. Casey, Pomona; Mrs. J. B. Henderson, Flora; Mrs. J. E. W. Casey, stewardess.

The specific object of the organization of the grange was to buy and sell direct - sell to the consumer and buy from the manufacturer, and eliminate the middleman. This we were anxious to do, as we were conscious of being robbed, by being obliged to sell our wheat for $28 to $30 a ton, when it was worth from $60 to $65 in Liverpool. On investigation, we found that Isaac Friedlander, of San Francisco, was handling all the tonnage, chartering every wheat-carrier that entered the harbor, and that we could get no ships to transport our grain unless we outbid him. His plan was simple: engage the ship for about 24 shillings ($6) a ton, pay brokers $38 to $40 a ton f. o. b. ship, the wheat thus costing him $2.25, or not to exceed $2.30, a cental. "Now, Mr. Broker, you go into the country and buy the wheat as cheap as you can, and I will take all you can get at the above figures." The brokers districted the State, assigning a certain area to each, on an agreement not to compete against each other in buying. The growers were helpless, they could get but the one bid - that of their local buyer; he offered according to his whim - Monday, $1.40; Tuesday, $1.42 1/2; Wednesday, $1.45 - and Thursday he was "out of the market." Saturday he was in again with an offer of $1.42 1/2! The following week, finding that he was getting only the small lots that could not be held, owing to the necessities of the owner, he put the price to $1.471/2 and $1.50, moving the bulk of the crop at that figure. Later, to persistent holders, he advanced the price until the last lots passed into his hands at $1.60. He could have paid this price for the whole crop and still have made a handsome profit , as he was receiving from Friedlander $2.25 or $2.30, and realizing a profit of from $5.00 to $15.00 per ton, while Friedlander himself was disposing of his cargoes afloat at a profit of equal amount. A revolt on the part of the wheat-growers from this condition of affairs was inevitable. Is it any wonder that the wheat-growers and farmers flocked to the grange? it was their only avenue of escape from the clutch of the shipper and the broker.

The State Grange was organized, a bank was instituted, a business association established, and Mr. Wolcott, a highly connected broker from New York, was invited by the State Grange to establish himself in San Francisco in the grain trade and act as an agent through whom the members would ship their wheat. he received the backing of the London & San Francisco Bank, which made the requisite advances on Grangers' cargoes, and we began to load his chartered ships. Of course, Friedlander and his friends resented this opposition and began to force up the price of tonnage. We authorized Wolcott to outbid him, and, standing on either side of a table in the Merchants Exchange, they bid a ship to 80 shillings ($20) a ton freight! - and the growers loaded it, receiving their advance of $25 a ton - and that's all they got. To the writer's knowledge, there was some eastern Contra Costa wheat on board that vessel, but he had the satisfaction of assisting in breaking Friedlander's monopoly and in forcing him to compromise with his creditors on the basis of twenty cents on the dollar; and, owing to the fact that vessels came competing for cargo and dropped their rates to 16 shillings ($4) a ton, the writer was enabled to sell his wheat the ensuing season for $2.25 a cental in Babbe's Landing. After the Friedlander episode growers received better prices for their wheat, although their were several attempts made to corner the market, but only with disastrous results, wherein some of them dropped their twenty-dollar pieces like rain i a spring shower.

Irrigation at this era was beginning to receive public attention, but the riparian laws that had grown musty on our statue-books, and the vested rights under them that had become as fixtures in the public mind, interfered with the free appropriation of water, and so much opposition was manifested that it required political action and reconstruction on the part of the law-making power of the State to remove them. Hence, taking advantage of the drift of public opinion when the conventions of the two political parties met, resolutions were adopted "favoring irrigation," thus modestly but surely opening the way for the introduction of a plank. "Wherein we favor the amendment to the riparian law and indorse a general and comprehensive system of irrigation" was inserted. Thus committing the party to the proposition, any plausible scheme that might be introduced would be sure to meet with favor and be enacted into law. It was under these favorable conditions that a scheme was promoted to construct a canal from Tulare Lake to Antioch and irrigate the whole west side of the San Joaquin - and herein lies the historical reference to the project as significant of the influence of the Point of Timber Grange in defeating it. The proposition originated at Greysonville. it was honestly conceived and honorably intended - simply for the land-owners along the route to associate themselves, assess their property, build the ditch, and own it themselves.

Antioch and Point of Timber granges were notified and invited to participate. They responded by each sending delegates to attend the convention to be held at Greysonville, Captain Kimball from Antioch, and R. G. Dean et al. from the point of Timber. The plan was freely discussed, estimates submitted, and much enthusiasm manifested when a committee was appointed to formulate a law under which the ditch could be constructed and which would be submitted to a subsequent convention for ratification. The delegates reported to their home granges, but Point of Timber treated the project with much indifference - wheat-growing had become profitable through the system of summer-fallowing, and irrigation was not especially favored. With Antioch it was different. It was proposed to make the canal navigable for the transportation of freight on flat-bottomed barges, and Antioch was to be the outlet. J. P. Abbot, editor of the Antioch Ledger, Tom Carter, a contractor, and Frank Williams, a saloon-keeper, were especially enthusiastic for its construction. At a subsequent convention the formulated law was considered, adopted, and a committee appointed to present it to the legislature. Its provisions were carefully considered and all interests guarded, and it permitted a vote of the districts (there being five) to adopt or reject. So we as land-owners felt safe, and quite regardless of its provisions returned to our plows.

The measure was introduced as the West Side Land Owner's Irrigation Canal bill. From reading the legislative reports we noticed the bill was dragging, but that another - "The Scrivner Supplemental Bill" - had been introduced and was well on its way to its final passage. Chancing to meet Carter in San Francisco, the writer inquired: "Tom, how is the West Side scheme getting along?" Tom smiled as he replied: "Oh, there's nothing in that bill; but the other one is all right. We can make some money out of that; and, by the way, you are slated for one of the trustees." I was frightened, for the scheme of the supplemental bill flashed through my mind. Hurrying to the telegraph office I wired to a friend in Sacramento for a copy of the supplemental bill. It was in Antioch on my return, and, startled at its provisions, I hastened to call the grange in session to consider it. Promptly they appointed a committee to visit Sacramento to defeat it.

The committee found the bill had passed the lower house and had been sent to the senate, and by them referred to its judiciary committee. An appeal was made to Senator Paul Shirley, but he would do nothing, as the "party was committed by its platform to assist irrigation, and this was the only bill that would pass." Assemblyman Charles Wood was surprised at our opposition; he "supposed we all favored the measure." he had procured some slight amendment and then voted for it. He must be "consistent", and could do nothing to help us. "Get us a hearing before the judiciary committee," we pleaded; but he was obdurate. Finally, through Senator Shirley, the committee gave us a hearing, and we argued strenuously against the iniquity, but to no purpose. Our last resort was the ear of Governor Irwin. He would not veto the measure, but he kindly consented to return it with the request that it be amended to provide for a survey and estimate of cost, also that the law be submitted to a vote of the people for confirmation or rejection. That was sufficient; the bill was amended, the survey was made, and the estimate of cost, which exceeded $3,500,000 submitted. The expense of the survey was put up by Williams, and the State authorities would not reimburse him; and when the vote was taken the law was voted down all along the line. This was a very narrow and fortunate escape from serious consequences, for had the bill become a law we would have been assessed out of all proportion for our share of the expense of construction, as our land was more valuable than that up the valley, and the probability is that no water would have reached here, owing to the insufficient supply.

Long prior to the transition from the pastoral to the agricultural era - long before Doctor Marsh had the opportunity to see thousands of acres of his big ranch a shimmering wheat-field, or to hear the drone of the leviathan-like threshing machine crawling over the fields, feeding into its insatiable maw the ripened grain, only to be thrown out in filled bags ready for delivery to the stations - ere he had seen this, other than in his optimistic dreams of the future, the Doctor had built for himself a massive stone dwelling, a fitting residence for the princely proprietor of his 13,316 acres. The site is an ideal one - in the portal of a pretty valley extending back into the hills. Facing the east, it possesses a commanding view of the plain, even as far as the eye can reach across the tule delta, fringed by century-old oaks and skirted by a willow-fringed creek with a living stream of water. But ere he had an opportunity to occupy this palatial structure, so like in its style of architecture and in its manorial proportions some old English residence, the Doctor was murdered - assassinated by the ruthless hand of a drunken Mexican vaquero.

The inherited ranch remained in the family for several years, the stock was gradually disposed of, and finally it was purchased by a promotor, one Jack Williams, backed principally by the Sanford family of New York. Williams' plan was to open up the coal vein that was known to exist on the ranch, build a railroad to Marsh Landing, where there was deep water-frontage on the river, and establish a shipping point and a manufacturing center. The scheme was an ambitious one, and practical, provided the coal mine developed. Williams organized the Brentwood Coal Company; he secured two sections of land adjacent to the landing, erected a substantial wharf extending to deep water, opened the coal measure with a double-compartment working shaft, supplied expensive hoisting machinery, built boarding - and - tenement - houses for the miners, employed as expensive expert engineer, and spent money lavishly. Things were booming for a while - but alas for the result! The coal vein was found to be narrow, it lay deep under the surface, was of inferior quality , and the water flowed into the shaft in great volume. The bubble burst. Jack dropped out of sight. Sanford came out and took over the Brentwood Coal Company's effects and assumed the debt due to the Clay Street Bank, from which a heavy loan had been obtained. Taxes were unpaid, interest defaulted, and some other claims pressing, and finally the ranch was sold for taxes and bought in by the Clay Street Bank and ownership asserted. M. B. Ivory was placed in possession as superintendent and agent, Sanford instituted suit, and years of expensive litigation followed.

In the meantime, the big ranch was let to tenant farmers on the basis of one-third and one-quarter of the crop delivered in sack at the warehouse as rent, and the proceeds went into the coffers of the bank. One by one the litigants and lawyers died, until there was but one of the claimants left. To her, Miss Josephine Sanford, the property was finally awarded. The bank was ousted under the plea of having held the property in trust; hence it was compelled to give an accounting. The bank's original claim was the loan of $150,000, to which was added some $50,000 more, paid to quiet title. The rentals had been paid to the bank for sixteen years, averaging not less than $30,000, aggregating $480,000. And still the bank asserted a claim of over $600,000 against the estate! This was finally adjusted, and a claim of $220,000 allowed.

Balfour, Guthrie & Company advanced this sum to Miss Sanford, and R. G. Dean was placed in charge of the ranch as superintendent and manager; but within a short period Miss Sanford passed away, and then another eleven years of litigation ensued. But it was eventually settled by partition, and finally the Los Meganos, or Marsh ranch, passed by purchase to its present owners, Balfour, Guthrie & Company, who have inaugurated the extensive system of concrete-lined canals, electric pumping-stations, and distributing ditches, covering the entire area of the irrigable section of the ranch, and capable of watering twenty thousand acres. This is the key that will unlock the Aladdin-like riches imprisoned in its generous soil and enable the historians to write a new and interesting page on the agricultural resources of eastern Contra Costa County, covering the wealth and variety of its products. Already the fiat of change has gone forth - 2000 acres of alfalfa, 1500 acres of sugar beets, and orchards of walnuts - and this is only a beginning for this favored section,

Where no sea-fogs come to linger,

Where no blizzards dare intrude,

Where no ghastly icy finger

Touches bloom, or plant, or frond.

Where with water, soil and sun

Kindly nature will respond

In multiples for everyone.

The foregoing is but an epitome of the past. There are many interesting details of personal experience of the first settlers - their discouragements, their strenuous efforts to make headway against adverse conditions, the inroads of the cattle by which they were surrounded, the dry and rainless years that sometimes come in pairs, like 1870 and 1871, the deluge of 1862 and 1872, necessitating loans and mortgages at exorbitant rates of interest, usually two per cent per month and difficult to obtain at that rate, frequently followed by the sheriff and a change of ownership. But eventually the day of the mortgage and the fear of the sheriff passed, thanks to Mathias Burlingen, who discovered and exemplified the system of cultivation of the cereals by "summer fallow," or more widely known as "dry farming."

That portion of the delta region within the limits of Contra Costa County is not without its history of experimental farming and reclamation that resulted in alternate failure and success of the various owners during its half-century of occupancy. The Jersey Island, the Sand Mound District, the Byron Tract, Clifton Court, and the margin on our northern front extending from Babbe's Landing to Marsh Landing, each has a distinctive record that in the story of their reclamation would be interesting reading; and perhaps when the history of the great delta - composed of many thousands of acres, once a pestilential and mosquito-breeding swamp, now reclaimed by massive levees, surrounded by deep-channeled waterways, crossed by railroads and cemented highways, dotted with packing-houses and manufacturing plants, beautiful homes and villages, its wealth of products poured by trainloads into hungry Eastern markets - is written it will be perused with absorbing interest as a story of achievement, of failures and disappointments, of disaster by fire and flood, conquered and controlled by indefatigable and persistent effort, a story of man's mastery over the forces of nature never excelled even in the fabled achievements of the gods. Many abortive attempts were made at farming "the tules," and one, not without its amusing side, was that of a party of Kentuckians in the early seventies. A wealthy and enthusiastic resident of that State returned home after a successful money-making career on California, poured into willing ears the story of the wonderful richness of the tule islands. He had invested largely in them under the Swamp and Overflowed Land Act, which in its favorable conditions enabled a party to acquire title simply by reclaiming them. He induced a company of young men - clerks, bank employees, and visionaries, who had never soiled their hands at hard labor - to come out here and get rich by farming the tules. Their plan was to employ Chinamen to build a peat levee along the river-bank, burn the tules and meadow-grass, and sow wheat in the ashes. There was little work for them to do - principally to oversee the Chinamen, and this they did by sitting on the levee smoking their pipes, in great glee. "How is it possible, Mr. D., that you, an old resident here, allowed this opportunity to escape you?" they asked the writer when visiting them while engaged in their fortune-building enterprise. my reply was not a boost to their enthusiasm, and they smilingly regretted my ignorance of the conditions.

But wheat does not mature here until July, and June is the month when "Old Sol" sends down his rays in melting temperatures. The snow usually lies deep on the Sierras at this season of the year, and melts freely, pouring its ever-increasing volume of water into the rivers, raising them to flooding heights, originally inundating the entire tule delta. That promising wheat-field had to run the gauntlet of the June threshets. They came in full proportion, floating their dried and spongelike levees away bodily, and a few days later the beautiful wheat-field that was to be an object lesson to illustrate to the California farmer not only the fertility of the peat land, but how easily it could be reclaimed and cultivated, was the rich feeding-ground for a million, more or less, of mallard ducks. The sadly disappointed Kentuckians did not stay to repeat their folly, but "folded their tents like the Arabs, and as silently stole away." The object lesson was not lost, however. It was found that a heavier material than peat must be used and larger and higher levees constructed than was possible to build by hand labor. Hence the clam-shell dredge, with its hundred-foot boom, was brought into requisition and the problem of permanent reclamation of the delta was solved.

In the early fifties the great tule swamp was a terra incognita, exposed only along the watercourses and the front, where it joined the upland. The rank growth of tules, higher in places than horse and rider, and its floating meadows were a barrier to its occupancy for any practical purpose. Sand mounds, many acres in extent, above the highest water levels, were the home and breeding ground for a band of elk, found and exterminated by market hunters. They pursued a profitable industry in trapping otter and beaver, to a final extermination of these also.

There is another section of the eastern slope that has not been especially referred to, but which is worthy of mention, as its historical antecedents date back aeons of time, perhaps to that period when the pillared ruins of Karnac lay unchiseled in their quarries and the Pyramids were an undeveloped dream in the minds of the Pharaohs. Reference is made to the sand belt commonly known as the "Sand and Live Oak District." The writer has a theory that this district was once a great sand bar covering many sections. Its western apex near Antioch and its eastern near Brentwood, created by the rotary action of water that covered it to a great depth - in fact, an island lake whose waters washed the foothills of the parallel ranges, and extended for three hundred miles in a northerly and southerly direction. That there was a rotary current in this lake, caused by the prevailing trade winds that sweep southward along the eastern foothills of the Mount Diablo range, creating a current strongly accelerated by the inflow of a thousand streams, from the Sierra watershed, extending from Mount Whitney to Mount Shasta, thus forcing a current to flow northward on the east side and southward on the west side. These currents running in opposite directions on each side by the lake received an increasing momentum from the Sacramento and its tributaries, and in its ceaseless rotary action created a great central eddy that deposited its sand and silt and built up a huge middle ground, or sand-bar, which the receding water left bare after cutting its way through the barrier of hills at Port Costa, admitting the ocean tides that in their ebb and flow ultimately wore deep the waterway of the Straits Of Carquinez.

We allege that the sand plains of Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Madera, and Fresno counties, are evidence of the existence of the great body of fresh water whose waves rolled over them in slowly shoaling depth as the lake gradually receded, spreading the sandy deposits of the streams that were carried far out into the lake, leaving it to be smoothed into level areas miles and miles in extent by the action of the water. Of course, this valley occupied by the lake was created by the upheavel of the Diablo Range long subsequent to the upheavel of the Sierras, as evidenced by the system of dead rivers that came down from the northwest, cross-cutting the Sierras, the broken and distorted channels of which the miner's pick developed, and sections of which are found thousands of feet above the present sea-level. It was the water-torn, smooth gold found in the ravines and gulches, and covered deep in the gravel beds of the hydraulic claims that was spilled from the old channels of these torrential streams when they were broken up and destroyed by the later upheavel. The great sand bar in Contra Costa County was finally left exposed but the gradually receding lake, its smooth and drifting surface to be eroded by summer winds into mounds and depressions until kindly Nature stopped the process by covering it with a dense growth of unyielding chamisal brush and a fringe of live-oaks. In this condition it was found by the early settlers - the hiding-place of wild animals.

In 1854 Fred Babbe and a party killed a grizzly bear in the chamisal and secured one of its cubs, which the writer saw chained to the tent-stake of Fulton Sanders; and he himself surprised a couple of half-grown California lions near the edge of the brush, and, being on horseback, drove them into a tree. Having no rifle, he spread his saddle-blanket under the tree, supposing that would hold them, but on his return with his gone they were gone; the mother lion, probably being near by, had called them down. And even at this date there was a band of thirty or forty head of cattle, wilder than deer, that found refuge in the brush, venturing out only at night for food and water, returning to their shelter with the first break of dawn. It was exciting sport for a couple of horsemen to conceal themselves in the edge of the brush near the O'Brien place and await the cattle coming in, and, when sufficiently close, rush out and lasso or shoot down a fat two-or-three year old.

Sixty-two years have wrought a wonderful change in the old sand-bar. There is little evidence remaining of former primitive conditions. In the spring it is an immense bouquet of particolored bloom of fruit trees and almonds. It is seamed with thoroughfares. A transcontinental railroad furnishes transportation for its many carloads of products, and its industries support the flourishing village of Oakley - one of the most pretentious of all the growing trade centers of Contra Costa County.