CONTRA COSTA COUNTY'S history would not be
complete unless it gave prominence to the man around whose name clusters so
much of historical interest - to one of its earlier and most intelligent
pioneers - to the man who paved the "way for future empires" and whose acts
and utterances appear to us to have been inspirational and prophetic. It is
to Doctor John Marsh the country, and particularly Contra Costa County, owes
a debt of gratitude which it can never repay, even though it inscribe his
name high on the roll of honor and write its acknowledgment in letters of
gold into the tomes of history. When the destiny of our Golden State was
hanging in the balance, when the question of its remaining a Mexican
province or becoming a part of United States territory was being debated,
when Daniel Webster from his seat in the Senate was thundering his
stentorian invectives against the confirmation of its purchase, asserting
that the "whole country west of the Rocky Mountains was an arid waste that a
crow could starve to death to fly over," it was the historical letters of
Doctor Marsh addressed to the Honorable Lewis Cass, then Secretary of
State, that largely influenced him to close the deal and take over
California with its eight hundred miles of coast line. Had he done no more
than this, the great service was monumental and deserving of our highest
consideration.
Quoting from one of the Doctor's letters,
under date of 1846, wherein he referred to the productive capabilities of
the wonderful land, he said: "The agricultural resources of California are
but imperfectly developed, the whole is remarkably adapted to the
cultivation of the vine, olive, and figs, and almonds grow well. It is the
finest country for wheat I have ever seen; fifty for one is an average crop
with very imperfect cultivation, a hundred-fold is not uncommon, and even
one-hundred and fifty has been produced." When we reflect that these words
were written nearly seventy years ago, when California was an unbroken
wilderness; when these broad plains were the undisturbed stamping-ground of
vast herds of elk, antelope, wild cattle, and wilder mustangs; when the only
homes were the scattered missions and the haciendas of the cattle barons,
and the only commerce a limited traffic in hides and tallow, we are
impressed with the inspirational and prophetic character of the statement,
and at once credit the Doctor with being a far-sighted and practical
observer.
He had drifted into this summerland of the
Pacific imbued, no doubt, with a wonderlust, a love of primitive conditions,
and the unrestrained freedom of the frontier, although he had tasted of
Boston estheticism and culture, having graduated from Harvard. He knew the
country from Yuma to the Oregon line, but, ignoring the opportunity of
selecting a location in other parts of the country, had with excellent
judgment chosen the eastern portion of Contra Costa for his future home. He
had with truly prophetic instinct looked forward to the day when this broad
domain would be under the protection of his native flag, when the great
watercourses of the State would beat as throbbing arteries with life and
commerce, when great and growing cities would be planted along their
margins, or seated by the Golden Gate, watching the full-freighted argosies
of the world riding in imperial splendor upon the bosom of the magnificent
bay, represented by every national emblem. Undoubtedly, he had pictured to
himself the incoming tide of humanity, rising higher and higher in the great
West, flowing with steady and irresistible sweep across the great plains,
until, stopped by the Western ocean, it would eddy and flow back into the
valleys, over these "arid wastes", and along the sunny slopes, until
California would become a great, populous, and wealthy state.
Hides and tallow, as articles of export, he saw
would be relegated to the past and other enterprises and industries engross
the attention of the coming multitude. Then the vision of limitless
wheat-fields with their "hundred-fold" waving a ripening luxuriance in these
fertile valleys, the vine-clad hills and olive orchards, and caught in the
summer wind the fragrance of almond-blossoms. It was no Utopian dream - his
prophecy has long since passed to its fulfillment, and its verification
justifies the judgment of the Doctor in the selection of his home.
Here under the shadow of Mount Diablo, in a
sequestered spot, shaded by grand old oaks that stand like sentinels, at the
very portal of one of the most romantic and picturesque canadas of the
State, he located and builded his home. The building itself is a prototype
of the man - grand in its outlines, massive in its manorial proportions,
solid as the enduring hills by which it was surrounded. Here he was content
to sit down and bide his time when the surging tide of immigration that was
eddying around him, turned by natural barriers from its path, returned to
seek beside himself the advantage that he had considered so fully years
before. It came ere he was aware, clamorous for his acres, restricting him
to the lines of his original concession.
Then some careless or designing hand scattered
wheat upon the soil, and lo! the scene changed as by the touch of an
enchanter's wand. Wheat-fields pressing upon and overspreading the limits of
his grant were spoken into existence and their yield was indeed "fifty and
an hundred-fold." No vision or prophecy was ever more truthfully fulfilled,
and at this writing, if the Doctor were alive, he could see the sunlight
reflected from the sheen of emerald fields and glinting cottages through
clumps of shade-trees that mark the habitations of prosperous cultivators of
the single cereal.
More than this, he could see the thriving town
of Brentwood on his ranch, with all its concomitants of hotels, stores,
business houses, churches, and schools - a smart enterprising, and
progressive people, who have built in the fullest confidence of the future
prosperity of this locality. And, if the Doctor so desired, he could see
from his own door the passing trains that haul their unbroken cargoes from
ocean to ocean, or bear their passengers in hurrying cars to and fro from
all parts of the world, and read his daily paper three hours from the press.
Probably his greatest surprise would be to see the elaborate system of
canals created and completed for irrigating the beautiful valley and the
hundreds of acres of alfalfa to which it has been seeded, and to note the
spirit of change that is weaving its silken web over the destinies of the
ranch, of which, notwithstanding his remarkable foresight, he could scarcely
have dreamed, or its possibilities, as developed by the modern system of
scientific farming by the application of water to the soil, to intensify
production and render its happy possessor independent of the variable
seasons and the drought, thus yielding in multiples beyond the visionary
estimates.