1911

1906 EARTHQUAKE: THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Every year, the Santa Rosa newspapers yielded new insights regarding the Great Earthquake. Here are the nuggets from 1910 and 1911:

HOW THE INSURANCE WARS WERE WON   Much has already been written here about the earthquake insurance wars (introduction and wrap-up), but in brief: Immediately following the disaster, there was considerable anxiety as to how much and how soon the insurance companies would pay for losses. A few small insurers declared bankruptcy and did not pay at all, but most eventually offered settlement, although usually for less than the value insured. The worst case was the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company, which flatly refused to pay its handful of Santa Rosa customers because they said the earthquake voided the fire insurance policies.

One of the strange angles to the story is that Connecticut Fire paid every single claim without fuss in San Francisco, and was praised by the SF Chamber of Commerce in November, 1906 as being one of the very few “dollar-for-dollar” companies. What was not mentioned at the time was that the Santa Rosa Chamber went to war over the double standards. As described in a 1910 Press Democrat article:

…the Connecticut advertised broadcast that it was “one of the few companies that settled all losses growing out of the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906.” The facts being exactly to the contrary, several thousand circulars were sent out by the local Chamber of Commerce calling attention to the false claims being made by the Connecticut, and showing that of all the companies doing business here at the time of the fire  the Connecticut was the only one that had failed to settle on some basis or another. These circulars were sent to nearly every important commercial organization in the United States.

The 1910 Santa Rosa papers also printed the appellate court decisions against the insurance company, which revealed further bits of lost history.

As explained in the series’ introduction, the legal fight was over the “fallen-building” clause in the insurance policies: If the contents of the building were on fire before the structure collapsed, the insurance company had to pay up (the Santa Rosa policies were all coverage of store inventories, not the buildings). To win, the insurance company lawyers only had to convince a jury that any part of the building fell down before fire destroyed the goods.

(RIGHT: Fourth street and Mendocino intersection after the 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy Larry Lapeere)

Given that eyewitnesses encountered a scene on Fourth street of such absolute destruction that they often could not identify particular buildings, it seems like the insurance company should have won every one of these suits with ease. But while it was always safe to presume some trial witnesses perjured themselves to help their fellow Santa Rosans triumph over the insurance company, the appellate decisions show serious mistakes were made in the conduct of the trial and the suits were ultimately won by the Santa Rosa shopkeepers via legal hairsplitting, not the merits of any evidence.

The appeals court likewise showed bias towards the Santa Rosa plaintiffs. In the Moodey shoe store case, they refused the request for a new trial although they found the trial judge had completely misinformed the jury about the fallen-building clause. Superior Court Judge Denny told jurors it meant that “some functional portion of the building, the falling of which would destroy its distinctive character,” and it didn’t apply as long as more than three-fourths of the building was intact, even if the roof had collapsed along with the front falling away. All of these ifs, ands, or buts apparently tumbled out of the good judge’s vivid imagination, but, hey, the appeals court ruled that didn’t matter because the jury ended up deciding that no substantial parts of the building fell before the fire.

Bias was even more obvious in the appeal for the Davis pharmacy case. The insurance company lawyer wanted a mistrial because there was an objection to asking Fire Chief Muther and J. D. Ward, material witnesses on the scene, “do you know whether it fell by fire or otherwise?” The appeal was denied – although the justices had to twist logic into a pretzel to provide reasons why.

First, the Court of Appeals didn’t like how that question was phrased: It implied Muther and Ward had “actual knowledge” of what happened. Since they weren’t there when the building fell down, any answers would be merely opinion, which “could have added nothing to the probative force of their testimony.” Note the point that their opinions didn’t matter.

The Court also disagreed with the insurance company’s argument that “the very issue in the case” was whether the building fell down because of fire or earthquake. The cause of the structure’s collapse, said the Court, didn’t matter at all – unless it fell down before the stuff was burned. Thus “why” and “when” were disconnected into separate issues, unless perhaps they weren’t.

But even while the Appellate Court ruled opinions didn’t matter and the sequence of events probably didn’t matter, they wrote, “…from the facts to which the said witnesses testified only one inference could be drawn and that is that the earthquake virtually destroyed the building…” Ward had described that section of Fourth street as being “all a mass of debris tumbled down[,] I couldn’t exactly distinguish where the Davis drug store was, but they all looked the same.” Muther had also testified the earthquake had caused the damage to the drug store building.

In other words, despite (non-opinionated) testimony that the building’s collapse was caused by the earthquake before the fire started, it wasn’t important that the jury ignored this key fact in deciding their verdict.

Reading that decision, one gets the impression that the Appellate Court really enjoyed slapping the insurance company around (not that’s necessarily a bad thing), making the point they lost the case despite having all evidence in their favor and the Davis lawyer making a stupid mistake. It was testified that Davis wanted to enter the wreckage to rescue his prescription book, but was prevented by two policemen who feared an aftershock could trap him in the debris. The trial should have ended at that moment; there could be no further debate as to the condition of the building before the fire. But Davis had died before the trial began, so the story was hearsay; the trial judge would have excluded it if the Davis lawyer was awake at the time and had objected. As the jury was apparently determined to ignore evidence in the insurance company’s favor, this little anecdote had no bearing on the trial, and was not part of the appeal. The only reason for the Appellate Court to mention this at all was to simply rub the insurance company’s nose in it.

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE TRAGEDY   Local history buffs still are heard to claim (boast, actually) that the 1906 earthquake had a relatively greater impact on Santa Rosa than San Francisco. That dubious honor is certainly not true and is based on skewed interpretations. The amount of property damage is routinely exaggerated; much of Santa Rosa’s business district was flattened or burned but not all of it, and only a handful of homes were seriously damaged. By contrast to the fourteen commercial and municipal blocks here with buildings lost to fire or collapse, nearly 500 city blocks were destroyed in San Francisco and a quarter of a million people were left homeless.

It’s also said there were proportionately more casualties in Santa Rosa, which is discussed on the 1906 earthquake FAQ page. That might be true if you play with the numbers – namely, that you select the highest estimates of those killed here and compare it to a low count of the population. The key part of that equation is knowing how many people lived in Santa Rosa at the time and that’s no easy thing. Not only was 1906 between the decennial years of the national census, there was ongoing debate as to what constituted “Santa Rosa.” The city was physically so small that anyone could bicycle from one end to the other in ten minutes, yet additional thousands lived just outside the city limits. The newspapers groused that Santa Rosa needed to expand its borders, but it was never seriously discussed in that era. (I suspect that they wanted to keep the town looking small but affluent as to attract investors to buy any municipal bonds.)

Finally in the 1910 census, a better picture emerges: There were 13,560 people in the entire Santa Rosa township that year with 42 percent of them living outside of city limits. It is fairer to use the overall township count when comparing the earthquake outcome because San Francisco included its entire footprint on the peninsula.

Working backwards from those numbers, it would place the earthquake population in the high 11,000s, which is also the figure that emerges from estimates by the company that published the city directories (see FAQ).

Bottom line: The best estimate we can probably ever make is that about 0.7 percent of the overall Santa Rosa population was killed in the 1906 earthquake, slightly less than half the percentage of fatalities in San Francisco.

POPULATION OF SANTA ROSA AND PETALUMA TOWNSHIPS

Washington, March 10–The population of Santa Rosa township, including Santa Rosa city, is 13,560, according to the thirteenth census. The population of Santa Rosa township outside of the city is 5,743.
The population of the city by wards is…7,817.
The population of Petaluma township, including Petaluma city, is 8,787.
The population of Petaluma township outside of the city is 2,907.
The population of the city by precincts is…5,880.

– Press Democrat, March 11, 1911
POPULATION BASED ON SCHOOL CENSUS

The population of Santa Rosa is 10,851 as shown by the school census of 1910 just recently completed, based upon the estimate used by Job Wood, Jr., who is probably the leading expert of the state on school census figures and their relation to population. For fourteen years Wood has been connected with the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, being assigned to the census department. He has made a special study of the matter, and has arrived at his knowledge by comparing the school census with other computations of the population of the bay cities for many years. The last federal census and the various other computations such as the post office directories, city directories, school censuses, which included the whole population, etc., have all been used by him in determining the percentage.

The school census as reported to County Superintendent of Schools DeWitt Montgomery by the Census Marshals, reached a total of 1,973, or 63 more than a year ago. Mr. Wood declares that the population averages five and a half persons per census child which makes a total for Court House School district of 10,851. The usual average of computation, taking the state as a whole has alway been five, which would make the total 8,865.

– Press Democrat, May 24, 1910

MUST PAY SANTA ROSA CLAIMANT
Appellate Court Decides Against the Welching Connecticut Fire Insurance Company in the Fountain Case

Sacramento, March 3–In the case of O. Fountain vs. the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company the Third District Court of Appeal this morning affirmed the decision of the Superior Court of Sonoma county ordering the insurance company to pay Fountain for losses on merchandise in Santa Rosa caused by the earthquake and fire of 1906.
[..]
The course pursued by the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company in regard to its Santa Rosa claims aroused much hostile criticism, and resulted in its being dubbed “the welching company,” a name that it will be apt to retain for a long time. Immediately after the fire, Manager Smith curtly notified his Santa Rosa policyholders that he would not pay, and he stuck to it. Later, the Connecticut advertised broadcast that it was “one of the few companies that settled all losses growing out of the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906.” The facts being exactly to the contrary, several thousand circulars were sent out by the local Chamber of Commerce calling attention to the false claims being made by the Connecticut, and showing that of all the companies doing business here at the time of the fire  the Connecticut was the only one that had failed to settle on some basis or another. These circulars were sent to nearly every important commercial organization in the United States.

 – Press Democrat, March 10, 1910

SANTA ROSA INSURANCE SUIT WON IN THE HIGHER COURT
The Full Text of Judge Burnett’s Opinion Given Here

A copy of the opinion in the suit of Naomi E. Davis (now Mrs. H. H. Moke) against the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company to recover the sum of $1,000, a policy the late Henry S. Davis had on the stock in his drug store on Fourth street at the time of the earthquake and fire disaster on April 18, 1906, which opinion affirmed Judge Denny’s decision in favor of the plaintiff, has been received here. It was written by Judge Albert G. Burnett, and concurred in by the other justices of the Appellate Court, and is as follows…

– Press Democrat, April 2, 1910

CHIPMAN’S DECISION IN MOODEY INSURANCE SUIT
Full Text of Opinion Interests Many Santa Rosans

Presiding Justice N. P. Chipman of the Appellate Court, wrote the decision affirming the judgement of Judge Denny in the suit of R. C. Moodey against the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company which was in favor of Mr. Moodey…the jury rendered a verdict for $500.00…

– Press Democrat, April 21, 1910

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SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL VERSION 2.1

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Happy 140th birthday, Santa Rosa High School! Or maybe it’s really the 137th, as the high school was discontinued between 1880-1882, but hey, when you’ve got that many candles on the cake, it’s okay to be a little fuzzy on the particulars.

The current high school is the town’s third; the original was the Fourth street public school that taught children of all grades (it was at the current location of Fremont Park to Brookwood Avenue). When that became too crowded in 1895 they built a school just for high school students on Humboldt street, the same location as today’s Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts. It took Santa Rosa only fifteen years to outgrow that place.

(RIGHT: Santa Rosa High School Annex, 1941. Image courtesy Sonoma County Library)

There was nothing wrong with the Humboldt street high school – it rode out the 1906 earthquake with no reported damage – but it was just too small.

“Visit, if you will, the present High School building and see for yourself the crowded condition of the classrooms,” Probation Officer John Plover was quoted in the Santa Rosa Republican. “You will find there two classes stuffed in one corner of the basement in a place never intended for class rooms, where there would be small chance of escape in case of fire or quake.”

Plover was speaking at a 1911 alumni meeting seeking to drum up support for a municipal bond to buy the land next door to the south and build an annex. Mention “school annex” today and it probably calls to mind temporary buildings, trailers, and similar cheap-but-quick solutions. What Santa Rosa wanted to build was a state-of-the-art education center that would serve all schools in local districts for decades. It would have a gymnasium/auditorium that could seat 1,000, a stage, shower rooms for both boys and girls, even classrooms dedicated to teaching typewriting and “household sciences.” A large playground with a quarter-mile track would lend a campus atmosphere to the grounds. The drawback: All this would cost the eye-popping sum of $80,000, about one-fifth of what was spent on the sprawling and palatial county courthouse a few years earlier. That was a LOT of money to ask voters to approve for a mere annex to an existing school.

Amazingly, the bond measure passed with apparently no squawk. By contrast, the 1923 bond to build our current high school faced a citizen’s lawsuit that threw the town into uproar, and that was to pay for a new school which was urgently needed because the Humboldt street high school had burned down – more about that in a following article.

The Santa Rosa High School Annex was designed by architect W. H. Weeks (William Henry Weeks), who created hundreds of similar nice, sturdy buildings around Northern California, including our beloved Mendocino Ave. high school about a decade later. His drawing, shown below, appeared in both local newspapers in advance of the bond vote, and amusingly shows the building at the intersection of two great boulevards. The actual Humboldt street that we all know and love is so narrow that bicyclists could be imperiled if drivers try to pass (or so say bicyclists).

The Annex remained part of the high school even after the new building was opened at the present location. In 1942 it was christened the Santa Rosa Junior High School, which it remained until it was demolished c. 1970. A neighbor who still lives across the street watched bemused as crews of workmen struggled to tear it down; it was so well built, he says, the demolition contractor lost a bundle on the project. Should the city ever decide “progress” demands we get rid of the current high school – still going strong despite 90 years of continuous use – bring a sturdy lawn chair and a mountain of popcorn. It’s gonna be a loooong show.

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW ANNEX
Features of Proposed New Structure to Be Added to Santa Rosa’s School Equipment

The plans for the proposed new high school annex to be erected on the lots on Humboldt street adjoining the high school on the south, call for a very artistic structure, which gives promise of providing many of the necessities which the high school has been in need of for some years past.

The new structure is to face west…and will have a basement and two stories. The exterior will be rather plain but the interior will be fittingly for the various purposes for which it is intended.

The basement will have girls’ dressing and sanitary rooms with showers and all other conveniences on the north front and the duplicate for boys on the south front. On the east will be the household science department with dining room, pantry, lockers, sewing room, fitting room, drying room, janitor’s quarters, lumber and storerooms, heaters, motor for circulation, teachers’ room, lockers, etc.

The main floor, or first floor above the basement, will include a commodious gymnasium or auditorium with vaulted ceiling through the second floor surrounded on the second floor with balconies for use in seating spectators during exercises of various kinds and various indoor sports. This will be one of the features of the building and will provide the long-desired quarters for all kinds of gatherings in connection with the schools of the city.

There will also be three commodious class rooms on the first floor with an apparatus room, girls’ and boys’ cloak rooms, corridors, and a suitable stage with all modern conveniences for presenting dramatic plays, etc.

In addition to the balconies on the second floor for the auditorium or gymnasium there will be four class rooms, teacher’s room and typing room, in addition to corridors, cloak rooms, and necessary closets, etc.

The exterior of the building will be of concrete plaster with terra cotta cornice and trimmings for doors and windows. There will be a double entrance in front–one on each end of the building–while other entrances are provided for the north and south sides of the structure.

 

[..]

– Press Democrat, November 19, 1911

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THE HISTORICAL RELIC THAT WASN’T

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

For a flagpole to merit its own postcard, it had better be a darn special flagpole. And the old pole at the Sonoma plaza – which in 1846 first flew the Bear Flag of the California Republic, then a few months later, the first U.S. flag over the new state – was such an important historical artifact that there were (at least) two postcards of it, one without even any kind of flag waving from the top. For more than sixty years after statehood, every Admission Day (September 9 – mark your calendar!) brought out a grizzled veteran of the Bear Flag Revolt to solemnly raise the stars and stripes once again up that venerated old stick.

Yes sir, the Bear Flag flagpole was really something special – until it fell over and everyone discovered it wasn’t the fabled relic after all.

(RIGHT: 1907 postcard. Image courtesy Sonoma County Library)

The winds that blasted through the Sonoma Valley in the spring of 1910 caused enormous destruction, blowing down barns and tearing off roofs. But most lamented by the Press Democrat was the lost flagpole: “One feature of the damage done that is most regretted perhaps is the demolition of the old flag pole upon which the Bear Flag was raised, familiarly known as the ‘Bear Flag Pole’ so interesting to visitors.” Then a few days later, a letter from William Boggs arrived on the desk of PD editor Finley.

William M. Boggs was one of the most memorable “pioneers” in Sonoma County, and not only because he seemed to know everyone significant in early California; Boggs also liked to write, particularly about historical errors. We met him earlier when he wrote to the Press Democrat and corrected mistaken ideas about the Petaluma Adobe. Now he was clearing up facts about the flagpole – and because he was William Boggs, it was natural that he was also a participant in the story.

The flagpole that fell down, Boggs wrote, was a replacement made by the Americans. The real “Bear Flag Pole” was smaller and stood about fifty feet away from the current location. Nor did anyone regard it as important at the time; “It was finally taken down and cast aside and some boys cut it up for fire wood,” Boggs wrote.

Boggs stated the new pole was erected by George Stoneman, then a lieutenant, while Sonoma was still being used as a U.S. Army presidio. (Stoneman was posted to Sonoma 1849‑1851.) It was near Boggs’ house where Stoneman’s men dressed a redwood log to become the new flagpole, but that’s not why Boggs remembered it so well.

It seems that one day while the log was still lying on blocks he went for a buggy ride with a lady. While they were returning to the plaza, he heard pounding hoofbeats; the soldiers who had been drilling outside of town had decided to race back to their barracks, and in the lead was Major General Philip Kearney holding the bridle reins in his iron hook, his left arm having been amputated during the War with Mexico. “His horse leaped a wide mud-hole in the middle of the street and passed me at a break-neck speed,” Boggs wrote. The mule pulling his buggy panicked and Boggs lost control. It ran into the plaza with Boggs and his lady friend bouncing along behind. The mule headed for the log and jumped over it.

The leap was a high one, carrying the buggy over the top of the big log, the step of the buggy plowing through the bark. The sudden shock broke the top off of the buggy and the lady went over the back of the seat into the top of the buggy.

 
No one was hurt (surprisingly enough) and Boggs concluded, “…and that is why I remember the flag staff.” Well, I should say so.

Boggs was a soldier during the Mexican-American War, so he wasn’t around during the Bear Flag Revolt. But a participant in the uprising shared Boggs’ interest in historical accuracy, and wrote the Press Democrat to clarify another disputed point: When was the Bear Flag actually raised?

It’s well established that the key event was when the Bear Flaggers took prisoners of General Mariano Vallejo and other Mexican officers in Sonoma, and that indisputably happened June 14, 1846. But was the “California Republic” actually flying by the end of that day? Writing in his 1886 History of California series, Hubert Howe Bancroft thought it doubtful:

The balance of testimony is therefore in a sense in favor of the 14th; but the evidence is very slight indeed; and it must be regarded as doubtful whether the insurgents had time on that Sunday afternoon to devise, manufacture, and hoist their new banner; especially if, as some say, the halyards were broken, so that the flag-staff in the plaza had to be lowered and raised again.

The Americans were really, really interested in what was taking place over in Sonoma and the commander of the sloop of war “Portsmouth,” anchored in Sausalito, sent a small party of soldiers to find out what was going on. The report written June 17 had the first mention of the flag: “The insurgent party has hoisted a flag with a white field, with a border or stripe of red on its lower part, and having a star and bear upon it.” So we know the flag went up sometime between June 14-17.

(RIGHT: 1910 postcard. Image courtesy Sonoma County Library)

Bear Flagger Henry Beeson, however, wrote the PD to state the flag was indeed raised the first day. (His letter, transcribed below, only also appeared in a small regional magazine and may be of interest to genealogists and local historians.) Beeson died in 1914, making him the last survivor of the Bear Flag Party. He made his final public appearance in 1908, raising a facsimile of the Bear Flag from the facsimile flag pole, and yes, there was a postcard of the occasion.

The flagpole bonafides and flag-raising date are not the only bits of misinformation about the Bear Flag Revolt. Aside from the 1906 Santa Rosa earthquake, I have not explored another story where every book, article, and web page seems to have so many mistakes. An accurate, but basic history of the Bear Flag Revolt can be found at the bearflagmuseum.org web site. (That website is now a gambling portal – 2024) For example, the artist who painted the original flag, William L. Todd, is always mentioned as being a relative to Mary Todd (Mrs. Abraham) Lincoln, but he’s identified  as a nephew in some places and others as a cousin (he was a first cousin and her same age). In the semi-official “Story of the Bear Flag” written in 1911 when it was designated as the official state flag, our own hometown historian Tom Gregory went further and claimed Mr. Todd’s middle name was “Lincoln,” which would have shown his parents to be prescient – the future president was only nine years old when little William L. was born.

Gregory’s entire account is enjoyable reading as long as you keep in mind that it is roughly equal parts well-known fact and humorous bullshit. While it’s true later commentators said that Todd’s original flag included a poor silhouette painting of a Grizzly Bear that more resembled a Brown Bear or a pig, Tom Gregory took that many steps further and made up comic dialog he placed during the event: “…the curious town-people who looked, laughed and said it was ‘el porcino’ and an English sailor present voiced in his natal vernacular that idea when he said that it was ‘nothing so like a bloomin’ red ‘og.'”

Boggs also wrote in his letter to the Press Democrat that the original pole additionally served as a “whipping post for those who committed petty offenses,” and thank the lord Tom Gregory didn’t know about that detail; the mind reels to think of the lurid embellishments he could have added to the story.

BEAR FLAG POLE IS DEMOLISHED

Sonoma, May 16–A wind storm, more terrific than has ever been known in the history of this place, swept over the Sonoma Valley from seven o’clock Sunday night until noon today when it subsided, leaving in its path a big amount of damage.

Bear Flag Pole Demolished

One feature of the damage done that is most regretted perhaps is the demolition of the old flag pole upon which the Bear Flag was raised, familiarly known as the “Bear Flag Pole” so interesting to visitors.

[..]

– Press Democrat, May 17, 1910

PIONEER BOGGS WRITES OF OLD “BEAR FLAG POLE”
Memorable Race In the Old Town of Sonoma

Editor Press Democrat–Will you please do me the favor by correcting a historical error that the press and even the citizens of the historic old town of Sonoma are making in perpetuating the old “Bear Flag Pole” on which the original Bear Flag was hoisted.

The flag staff with a cross tree that has stood at the northeast corner of the plaza in Sonoma, and reported as recently blown down, is not the original Bear Flag pole or Mexican Flag staff on which the Bear Flag party hoisted the original Bear Flag. The staff alluded to as having fallen down was built and erected by Lieutenant Stoneman, afterwards General Stoneman, and later Governor of California, was made from a large tree, and hauled from the redwoods in the Sonoma mountains. It was set up near the northeast corner of the plaza of Sonoma town and a moss tree, like a ship’s mast, spliced to it to lengthen it out. The original tree before it was dressed off was mounted on blocks and being from two to three feet in diameter, with the bark on, was near my residence while being prepared by Lieutenant Stoneman’s men, and when finished was raised and set in the ground about fifty feet from where the old Mexican pole or flag staff that the Bear Flag party utilized to hoist the Bear Flag. The latter described pole or original Mexican flag staff stood immediately in front of the quarters or barracks just the width of the street in front of the main entrance to the barracks, whereas the Stoneman flag staff was set up about fifty feet east or nearer the corner of the plaza. The old Bear Flag pole was made of a single small tree and only about from six to eight inches in diameter. It stood in its place for a number of years, and was used by the authorities of the town as a whipping post for those who committed petty offenses. It was finally taken down and cast aside and some boys cut it up for fire wood.

I have a good reason to remember the flag staff erected by Lieutenant Stoneman. While it was mounted on blocks or pins of small pieces of wood prior to being dressed off, and during the headquarters of the army at Sonoma, when Colonel Joe Hooker, Stoneman and many other officers of the regular army were stationed there, Major-General Phil Kearney was there as a guest of the staff of General Persiper Smith. He was better known as “One Armed” Phil Kearney, one of the bravest and best officers in the United States army. A daring and reckless rider, he lost his arm in charging at the gates of the City of Mexico. He wore an iron hook by which he held the reins of his steed. He had taken a company of Dragoons out west of town while at Sonoma, to put them through some cavalry drills, and after the exercise proposed to race back to the barracks. It happened that I was out in that direction with a lady in a single buggy, with a top, driving a fine, large American mule, and as I was returning toward the plaza I heard the rattle of the soldiers in their race back to the barracks, with General Kearney far in the lead. He passed me on his fiery black horse with his iron-hook arm holding the bridle reins and his saber in the other hand. His horse leaped a wide mud-hole in the middle of the street and passed me at a break-neck speed. My mule took fright at the approach of the company and the rattle of the sabers and ran into the plaza, and up the street in front of the barracks, where all the men left in the barracks had turned out to see the race between General Kearney and his men. They scared my mule, already frightened, so that I could not hold it and it left the street and leaped over this large tree that was mounted on blocks, two or three feet off the ground. The leap was a high one, carrying the buggy over the top of the big log, the step of the buggy plowing through the bark. The sudden shock broke the top off of the buggy and the lady went over the back of the seat into the top of the buggy. I ran the mule up against the adobe building nearest to me. The lady escaped unhurt and no damage was done to the buggy, except the bending of the iron step which caught in the bark of the undressed flag staff. The mule’s leap over the top of the log must have been about five feet. And that is why I remember the flag staff that has stood so many years at the northeast corner of the Sonoma plaza, and erroneously called the “Old Bear Flag Pole.”

My wife saw some boys cut up the original Bear Flag pole that had been taken down and thrown on the ground near where it had stood.

I resided in Sonoma about seventeen years, from 1846, and am quite familiar with the early settlement and occupation by our people of that historic old town, and I am sorry to see so many mistakes made in our press about the early events of our Golden State.

Yours truly,
W. M. BOGGS
Napa, May 21, 1910.

– Press Democrat, May 21, 1910
PIONEER BENSON WRITES OF THE BEAR FLAG PARTY

Henry Beeson, an aged survivor of the famous “Bear Flag Party” at Sonoma, has written a short, but intensely interesting sketch of the events of that occasion with a few details of the incidents leading up to the “raising” for the Cloverdale Reveille which is well worth preserving. Mr. Beeson says:

“I wish to correct some erroneous impressions that have been made by some journals and other publications regarding the raising of the “Bear Flag” in old Sonoma, on June 14th, 1846, the month and day being anniversary of the adoption of the American flag by the Continental Congress in 1777. Standard historians have not agreed as to the exact date of that occurrence, one placing it as June 12, and another June 15, but I can clearly recollect the day as being Sunday, June 14. The publications referred to were of the last celebration of Admission Day, September 9, at Santa Rosa. It had been long and universally known that I happened to be one of that once famous party of thirty three who raised the “Bear Flag” and I am now the sole survivor.

“The latter incident was omitted in the celebration proceeding of those publications referred to. We selected Ezekial Merritt, one of the oldest of the party as our captain, and our acquaintance with each other, one and all, became lasting. I have attended many celebrations of Admission Day in Sonoma and several of them in company with two of my life-long friends, the late Ben Duell and Harvey Porterfield, then survivors of the flag-raising, but now long since dead. The last I attended was in 1908. when I raised  the facsimile of the flag we first flung to the breeze on June 14, 1846, the original having been destroyed by the earthquake and fire of San Francisco in 1906. I have preserved as a valued souvenir, a likeness of the last three survivors of the party, together with a list of names of entire thirty-three.

“Another esteemed and old time friend, Jas. McChristian, was one of Fremont’s famous battalion that entered the town of Sonoma next day to that of raising the flag. Mr. McChristian and I had been in close touch with each other during a trip of six months, having in 1845 crossed the plains together in the train of about 100 wagons from Indian Nation to what is now Sacramento, when it fell to my lot to drive an ox team all the way, about 3000 miles, and to travel most of that distance afoot.

“Next year to the close of the Mexican war in 1848 our family circle, consisting of the Anderson and Beeson families, emigrated to Lake county, where we remained until a threatened uprising of the local Indians there, and the death of Andy Kelsey at their hands when we took our hurried departure and journey by slow stages via Cloverdale, until we reached the site of Boonville, in good old Anderson Valley on May 3, 1852. I am now of the age of 82, making my house with my daughter, Mrs. H. Newton Ornbaun of Ornbaun Valley, Anderson township, Mendocino county, surrounded by loving children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. My mother Mrs. Walter Anderson, who was the first white person who died in Anderson Valley from natural causes.”

– Press Democrat, November 4, 1911

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