5000carrillo

THE FIVE THOUSAND MORNINGS OF THE CARRILLOS

Any progress on saving the Carrillo Adobe? Nope; as of this writing (2022) what walls still exist continue to melt like very slowly thawing snow. The last restoration effort remains the shed roof put over the place thirty years ago, paid for by the Carrillo family and other donors. We should also be thankful the chainlink fence was finally repaired in 2012 after a homeless camp was found to be stealing original timbers from the building to use for firewood and tent poles.

Although it’s destined to be a park someday (right, city hall?) its future rests with the San Jose developer who owns the land and intends to build 162 condos next to it. That project is now called the “Creekside Village Townhomes” and a development plan was filed in 2020 (PDF) complete with blueprints, architectural sections, landscaping, elevation setbacks, chosen paint colors, streetlight designs and all the other trimmings a city would expect for a major housing development. The site plans only specify an outline for a “Future Carrillo Adobe Park” next door.

Devil’s advocate: Why should we even care if those ruins are preserved? We’ve been telling ourselves the same tale about the place for 150 years and frankly, it’s not all that interesting. The widow Carrillo arrives with her many children and they build the adobe. After the family moves out, a group of Americans use it for a store. Before long those fellows dash off to establish Santa Rosa and the adobe becomes a barn, a warehouse, a prune drying shed and other uninteresting things. A joke plaque could read: “On this spot nothing happened.”

It’s tragic we have allowed the adobe to fall into shambles, but it’s just as bad (or worse, in my opinion) that we have allowed its history to be scraped down to those bare bones, shorn of anything having to do with the Carrillos or how their lives were entwined with a significant period of history. Why has this happened?

Part of the reason is because researchers find few primary sources available; there were no memoirs written by or about the founding Carrillo family. Some of the Carrillo children were illiterate (at least in english) which would help explain why there are so few letters written by family members.1

There are good accounts of visits to the adobe from two english-speaking travelers (discussed below), but other than that the only contemporary accounts are incidental comments made by a U.S. government agent and others passing through the territory.

Such a dearth of original material is somewhat understandable; it was a long time ago – these were events from the 1840s plus a couple of years on either side of that decade. Less forgivable is that later journalists and historians had almost no interest in recording the family’s personal account while they were alive. Many of the founding Carrillo family lived into the late 19th century (two into the 20th), yet there are only a couple known newspaper interviews, both transcribed below for the first time. There’s more than a whiff of racism in that fact, as the Democrat newspaper in Santa Rosa eagerly printed anything having to with non-Hispanics whom they recognized as “pioneers.” The paper even venerated a flagpole because it once waved the Bear Flag over the town of Sonoma, although it turned out that wasn’t even the original pole.

And for the record, that indifference continued into modern times, ending only when Eric Stanley’s 1999 Master’s Thesis made the point that the adobe was historically significant not only because it was such an old building, but also because of the cultural importance of the Carrillo family living there. His writing was later expanded and incorporated into the Roop/Wick Archaeological Study.

That document is the definitive work on all things related to the adobe, detailing also the periods before and after the Carrillo years. It presents a broad picture tracing how they navigated through some very challenging times, including after matriarch Doña María died and the strongly knit family finally crumbled apart – “change happens gradually at first, then all at once,” as Ernest Hemingway famously (but never actually) said.

What follows covers the period from their arrival in the county to when the adobe was sold to the Americans. Those were mainly happy times, when for about five thousand mornings their great herds of cattle and semi-wild horses grazed on the unfenced Santa Rosa plain, puffing clouds of steam in the cool early hours. An upcoming chapter will cover the later years of Marta and Julio, the only children who remained in Santa Rosa and struggled to make their ways in a strange, and often cruel, new world.


THE CARRILLO CHILDREN

Although I have made my best effort to verify dates, some sources present conflicting data. Please leave a comment if corrections are needed.

*
JOSEFA   Josefa Maria Antonia 1810–1893
m. Henry Delano Fitch 1829
*
RAMONA   Maria Ramona de la Luz 1812–1886
m. Jose Antonio Romualdo Pacheco 1826
m. John Charles Wilson 1835
*
LUZ   Maria de la Luz Eustaquia 1814–1894
m. Salvador Vallejo 1840
*
FRANCISCA   Maria Felipa Benicia 1815–1891
m. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo 1832
*
JOHN   Juan Bautista 1817–1841
*
JOAQUIN   Jose Joaquin Victor 1819–1899
m. 1849
m. 1875
“Sebastopol Joaquin” Profiled here
*
RAMON   Jose Ramon 1821–1864
m. 1847
Profiled here (partially)
*
DOLORES   Jose de los Dolores 1823–1844
Died at age 21, buried in Santa Clara
*
JULIO   Julio Maria Tomas 1824–1889
m. 1842
m. 1862
Profiled in upcoming chapter
*
MARTA   Maria Marta 1826-1905
m. Jose Joaquin Maria Victor Carrillo Montano 1855
*
JUANA   Juana de Jesus 1829–1901
m. David Patrick Mallagh 1851
*
FELICIDAD   Maria Felicidad de la Angustias 1833–1856
m. Victor Ramon Castro of Rancho San Pablo 1853

“I have seen Doña María Ygnacia robed in a neat calico dress of a French texture, with a broad-brim straw hat made by one of her Indian women, mounted on a horse which had been broken to saddle by some of her sons expressly for her use,” wrote a traveler of the family matriarch.2 Such a fine, cinematic introduction to Doña María, who was only 44 when she arrived in Sonoma County, mother to twelve surviving children.

Although this was not long after the Carrillos moved into their adobe in 1839, the family already had created a rancho imposing by any measures. Indian laborers managed by Doña María planted and tended fields of wheat, corn, beans and other crops along with vegetables. Teenager Ramón and another son were wrangling about 3,000 head of cattle and as many as 1,500 horses according to that same early visitor.

It was a remarkable turnaround for the family, considering the death of Doña María’s soldier husband had left them in dire straits four years (or so) past. The story usually goes that she was encouraged by a priest and her son-in-law, General Vallejo, to relocate to Sonoma County, so in the summer or fall of 1837 they trundled 700 miles from San Diego on oxcarts. But in one of the overlooked articles, “Sonoma Valley Before the Gringoes Came,” Marta told the writer they came up by sea – which certainly makes more sense, considering she was bringing along nine children ages four to 23.3

It’s also commonly said they lived for a year or so with the Vallejos before scouting out places to settle. It’s certainly possible some of the younger kids stayed that long overall, but a decision on the location was quickly made. In January 1838, son-in-law General Mariano Vallejo granted her a land grant of nearly 9,000 acres. Prior to that a “log house” had already built on Santa Rosa Creek about a half-mile upstream of the adobe site, Julio said in the interview transcribed below.

Nor was there much question about precisely where the Carrillos were going to live. There was already a heavy-duty stone foundation built some ten years earlier (“the marks where the buildings stood were plainly discernible,” Julio said) which greatly facilitated construction of the adobe. Whether the abandoned footings were intended for a full-scale mission, a satellite “asistencia” – or maybe a military outpost – is an unsettled question. (EDIT: The particular foundation Julio referred to was near the site of the village of Hukabetawi, described below, not the other pre-existing foundation on which the Carrillo Adobe was built.)

Having a ready-to-use building foundation was a great advantage, but General Vallejo probably would have urged the Carrillos to settle in the Santa Rosa area anyway. The secularization of the missions created an ongoing headache for Vallejo, as mission properties were supposed to be given to Indians who had lived and worked there. The missionaries tried to skirt the law by creating popup colonies on land they claimed belonged to the church because. Vallejo evicted them from the Petaluma area with a promise to turn all of Santa Rosa into Mission Indian lands, but granting the entire acreage to the Carrillos was an endrun to the padre’s gamesmanship.4

But catastrophe struck before adobe construction could begin. In late 1837 a soldier caught smallpox while on a trading mission at Fort Ross. Vallejo and other Californios were vaccinated and he ordered Sem-Yeto (Chief Solano) and other Indians in his immediate circle vaccinated as well, while trying to prevent an epidemic by quarantining the rest of the Indians living nearby. It did little good; in May 1838 Vallejo sent a notice to all parts of Alta California warning smallpox was raging in the North Bay. He later estimated the disease claimed some 70,000 Indians in the region and Gov. Alvarado said 200-300k were killed “as far as the slopes of Mount Shasta.” A Californio historian wrote at the time they “died daily like bugs.”

oldvillages(“Old villages” c. 1800. After the 1838-1839 smallpox epidemic only a few remained. Source: “The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo and Neighboring Indians,” Samuel Barrett, 1908. Art by Jeff Elliott)

By the time the Carrillos moved into the adobe in 1839 the world had turned upside down. In the before-times, the Pomo tribelet in the Santa Rosa area (called the Gualomi in mission records) had an established village known as Hukabetawi – where W Third St. meets N Dutton Ave. – as well as another at the site of Santa Rosa city hall. With so many deaths happening so fast, essential family and community links shattered. Like Sebastopol and Dry Creek, Santa Rosa was now a refugee camp mixing people who often didn’t know each other, with Mission Indians next to those who saw the Californios as no better than the missionaries who treated them like slaves.

The chaos of an epidemic ripping through the area surely put adobe construction on hold for most of 1838, although the vaccinated Carrillo boys probably got the jump on cattle and horse ranching. Farming may also have started by the local Pomo, as smallpox did not reach here until later in the year. In fact, I suspect the Indians who Vallejo initially sent “far away” to quarantine were told to go to Santa Rosa and start work on his mother-in-law’s house, as they had recent construction experience in building Vallejo’s own adobe home. Similarly, Salvador Vallejo – brother of the General and soon to marry a Carrillo daughter in 1840 – is credited with supervising the work and possibly the layout of the Carrillo adobe.

The Carrillo children surely looked back upon the 1840s as the best years of their lives. They were young and strapping; the boys in their early twenties or close to it, the girls starting their teens. The rancho prospered and the new adobe gave everyone plenty of room (what is seen today is just the east wing of the adobe; a north wing collapsed in 1944).

The decade was not without its sorrows. Two of Doña María’s sons died as adults; Juan Bautista was age 24, supposedly due to accidental food poisoning by the Carrillo family cook. Dolores was 21 and possibly died while a soldier. Doña María Ignacia Lopez de Carrillo died on February 28, 1849, and her will is partially transcribed below.

There was also the crisis of 1846. The Bear Flag Revolt caused a few weeks of panic because rumors spread Americans were going to kill all Californios in their sleep – while the Americans feared the Californios were planning same. Worse, the family was defenseless because their protectors, Salvador and Mariano Vallejo were being held prisoner; Julio Carrillo would soon be a captive of the Bears as well. Ramón formed a militia to protect the ranchos from possible attacks and there are questions over whether some critical events played out at the adobe, topics discussed here.

The Carrillo rancho also became a social hub for neighboring Californios. Another visitor described young men hanging around, waiting for an opportunity to race and chase down wild horses in the Carrillo’s substantial herd:


…In front of the house there was a courtyard of considerable extent, and part of this was sheltered by a porch. Here, when the “vaccaros” [sic] having nothing to call them to the field, they pass the day, looking like retainers of a rude court. A dozen wild, vicious little horses, with rough wooden saddles on their backs, stand ever ready for work; whilst lounging about, the vaccaros smoke, play the guitar, or twist up a new “riata” of hide or horse-hair…

The writer continued that after an afternoon nap they mounted up and “…away they all go in a cloud of dust, splashing through the river, waving their lassos round their heads with a wild shout, and disappearing from the sight almost as soon as mounted. The vaccaro wants at all times to ride furiously, and the little horses eyes are opened wide enough before they receive the second dig of their rider’s iron spurs…”

That colorful passage was written by Frank Marryat, who spent several days with the Carrillos.5 His visit came in 1850, the year following Doña María’s death so we’re sadly denied a description of her. By then, however, the three Carrillo girls were young women of marriageable age, and we’re treated to a memorable description of “Quilp,” there trying to court 24 year-old Marta:


Breakfast over the Spanish guests were introduced; they were all fine dashing looking fellows, with the exception of one, a short stout man; from the first moment of our meeting war was tacitly declared between us and this gentleman; we found that he was a suitor for the hand of the eldest sister, who, by the way owned a part of the ranche, and I suppose he imagined it was our intention to contest this prize with him; for he commenced at once to show his disapprobation of our presence; we called this fellow Quilp…

QUILP
QUILP
Ramón took the writer on an antelope hunt (!) and when they returned to the adobe Quilp was still hanging around, doing his best to impress Marta he was a great catch: “…he would sit down on a stool in the porch, and throwing one leg over the other, would twang the old guitar and accompany it with a Spanish hymn to the Virgin, which being delivered in a dismal falsetto, bore much resemblance to the noise of a wheelbarrow that requires greasing and was about as musical.” (I urge you to read his whole section about the Carrillos. It’s 22 short pages and is great fun.)

Doña María’s ambitious plans for her rancho required a large, year-round workforce, and according to the 1884 Robert Thompson history, “it is said that at the time of the occupation of the valley by Señora Carrillo there were three thousand Indians living in the neighborhood of [Santa Rosa].” That estimate probably came from Julio – Thompson had interviewed him in 1872.6 The number is likely an exaggeration, but even if just half that many were here it was far larger than the estimated pre-smallpox population of the original villages in the area, which shows the scope of the Indian diaspora after the epidemic.

By most accounts the Carrillos got along particularly well with their Indian workers. The former Mission Indians would have settled in to rancho peonage easily, being used to field and domestic work in exchange for food and clothing. Traditionalist Indians were accommodated by the rancho having a temazcal (sweat lodge) and those converted to Catholicism must have been exceptionally pleased when at age 13, Marta stood as a godparent at the baptism of an Indian child, which was unusual and not just because of her youth.

William Heath Davis, that traveler who visited the Carrillos early on, worried that among them were several hundred “unchristianized” Indians which might pose a threat to the family.7 Doña María told him “she had perfect confidence in her raw help because she treated them so well,” that she kept them well-fed and could speak their language. Julio likewise told historian Thompson the Indians were “…our faithful servants and with their help we were enabled to till our immense fields and drive to pasture our countless thousands of cattle.”

But in her later “Gringos” interview (below), Marta told the writer “occasionally there was a mutiny” which Doña María herself suppressed using her riata/lasso “with the Indians when they were disposed to be ugly.” There is no description of what was done with the protesting Indians once they were roped, but from the context it’s apparent punishment followed.

After Doña María died, this ad hoc Indian refugee community would also fade away quickly. There would be no more livestock, no more crops to tend. There would be no more Carrillos to serve and no more vaqueros and suitors hanging about. There would only be the Americanos, and nobody was sure of how to deal with them.

Around the Twelfth Night of Christmas – a significant holy day in the Mexican Catholic calendar – Doña María saw the shadows of death creeping towards her and wrote a will (partially transcribed below). She would live less than two more months.

Doña María was thoughtful and fair about dividing the lands amongst her children. Three of the eldest daughters – Josefa, Ramona, and Francisca – received no bequests because they were married with their own households. She affirmed Luz already had been given land between Santa Rosa Creek and “the swamp” (huh?) and asked all of the children to regard Luz as the new family matriarch. Although she and husband Salvador Vallejo had their own adobe in Napa, they seemingly spent much of their time at the General’s adobe, judging from biographies.

The three unmarried daughters shared the adobe and land bordered on the south by “El Potrero” creek (eh?) and “the limits of Santa Rosa,” which I’m guessing is approximately E street. The rest of the property belonged jointly to Julio and Ramón. Joaquin – who had his own substantial land grant on the west side of the Laguna – was left a share of the livestock.

Following the Bear Flag Revolt, Ramón took part in the Mexican-American War and remained in Southern California, returning here for a year (or so) after his mother’s death. That was when he met Frank Marryat and settled his affairs with the family, apparently never to return. He sold his interest in the land to Julio for two dollars and Mariano Vallejo gave him $16,672 (over a half-million today) which was presumably for all/most of the Carrillo livestock. Was it a coincidence that sale happened on September 9, 1850 – the day California became part of the United States?

Although there was no more ranching, some farming continued at least through the following year. U.S. Indian Agent George Gibbs came through and described conditions: “…The slovenly modes of cultivation in use, comparatively unproductive as they are, have yet the merit of requiring little or no expenditure of money in wages; the Indians receiving a bare support beyond what they can steal, and then only during the summer.”8 Once Doña María was gone, it seemed the Carrillo’s relationship with the Indians quickly frayed.

Nor was that the only change during 1851 that would have saddened Doña María. Juana married David Mallagh, who with a business partner turned the front part of the family adobe into a general store. They also opened a tavern they called “Santa Rosa House” in the adobe. Then later that year Marta, 25 years old and unmarried, gave birth to her son Agobar. The name of the father was never mentioned.

The next year Alonzo Meacham arrived and bought the store (whether the tavern was included is not known).9 Meacham petitioned the government to open a post office there under the name “Santa Rosa;” historian Robert Thompson quipped, “Mr. M. is entitled to the gratitude of posterity that he did not call the post office Mallaghsville, Buchanansburg, or some other stupid name of like derivation.”

Also in 1852 the Carrillos began selling off their inheritance. Julio sold seventy acres to Meacham, which would become the east side of old Santa Rosa (E street to the middle of Courthouse Square). The situation with the three youngest sisters was more complex, as Doña María had left her other portion of the rancho to them jointly. Felicidad owned 337½ acres outright; Marta co-owned portions with Juana and Luz. It was the deed shared with Luz that became a later scandal.

According to the “Gringos” article found below, one day Marta was surprised to receive an eviction notice because her 1,600 acres had been sold. Shown the new deed, Marta – who could neither read nor write – discovered her name had been forged, and the person who did it was Salvador Vallejo, Luz’ husband. Not wishing to cause a family disgrace, she kept quiet at the time and went to live with one of her brothers. That story has been often retold by history writers since.

None of that is true. County records (Book H:115) show that on May 21, 1852, she indeed signed the deed of sale with an “X” and it was properly witnessed. Luz also signed with a mark while Salvador wrote his full name.

marta deed

This is not to say that Salvador might have cheated her in some other way – such as not giving her a complete share of the proceeds – but the document was not forged. The writer of the 1900 newspaper article must have misunderstood (there was certainly plenty of other villainy in Salvador Vallejo’s life she might have mentioned).

The Carrillo family was also about to lose ownership of the adobe. An old friend of Meacham’s became his partner, before he decided he wanted to be a farmer instead and sold his share to another guy and his nephew. The new partnership called Hoen & Co. turned it into a major trading post. Wrote historian Thompson: “That summer of 1853 business was lively at the “old adobe;” all the freighting was done by pack-mules and it was a purchasing point for settlers up the Russian River valley, and as far north as Clear lake. Trains of pack mules might be seen at all hours either loading or uploading freight…”

Juana and husband David apparently still lived there, and when a smallpox epidemic passed through Santa Rosa their child (Helena Felicidad) died. That loss might have been the reason the Mallaghs decided to sell the adobe and move to San Luis Obispo, where older sister Ramona lived.

They had always rented that front part of the building with the store for $25/mo. Marta – the last unmarried daughter – was living with one of her brothers (according to “Gringos”) and once the Mallaghs were gone there would be no one from the family remaining. With the rest of the adobe vacant, the new owner demanded Hoen & Co. rent the whole place for $300 per month.

Hoen and his partners refused to even negotiate with Walkinshaw, the new landlord.10 Instead, they went to Meacham, who had bought those seventy acres from Julio a year earlier. Paying Alonzo $12/acre, they set up shop over there and added a new line of business: Selling real estate.

Thus sometime, probably in the early autumn of 1853, came a morning when the Carrillo adobe was no longer anyone’s home. There was no smoke seen rising from the chimney, no smell of fresh tortillas in the kitchen, no shutters open to invite the sun. All was quiet and still, except for the distant pounding of many hammers driving nails a mile further to the west.

NOTE ON THE TITLE IMAGE: Some Carrillo family members on Ancestry and FaceBook have asserted this young woman is Marta Carrillo. It is probably not her or any of her sisters, but it is impossible to prove either way. (EDIT: Eric Stanley has corrected me that the set of images likely did include some of Doña María’s daughters.) It came from a set of daguerreotypes purchased decades ago by an out-of-state collector at an estate sale. The background image is a photograph from the Sonoma County Museum collection titled, “Fountaingrove with hills surrounding Santa Rosa” and has been slightly tinted here for effect.marta from ancestry


1 Some of the children could not even write their names, yet others were literate in spanish and maybe english. In 1864 the Democrat published a well-written english language letter from Julio, while Ramón and Francisca strategized via letters during the 1846 Bear Flag revolt in spanish. Doña María corresponded with son-in-law Henry Fitch. I have not seen copies of any of these documents, so some/all may have been dictated.

2 Seventy-five Years in California by William Heath Davis; 1929, J. Howell, pp. 25-26. This passage did not appear in the original form of the book, Sixty Years in California published in 1889. The entire section reads: “Doña María Ygnacia was ambitious, and cultivated large fields of wheat, barley, oats, corn, beans, peas, Jantejas [sic – he meant Lentejas/lentils], and vegetables of every variety. I have eaten from water- and musk melon of a hot summer day in the broad corridor of the homelike adobe dwelling. I have seen Doña María Ygnacia robed in a neat calico dress of a French texture, with a broad-brim straw hat made by one of her Indian women, mounted on a horse which had been broken to saddle by some of her sons expressly for her use, ride over the hacienda and direct the gentiles in sowing and planting seed and in harvesting the same. She supervised the farming herself, but the management of the stock and rodeos was left to her son José Ramon and his brother. José Ramon inherited his mother‘s gift. Although she was the mother of eleven grown daughters and sons, she was well preserved and still looked handsome with all the charms of her younger days. She was of medium height, with all the graceful movements so characteristic of her race.”

3 “‘Sonoma Valley Before the Gringoes Came,’ written for the Sunday Bulletin, March 11, 1900”: undated and anonymous, 7 typewritten pp. Gaye LeBaron Collection, Sonoma State University Library

4 The Creekside Village Archaeological Testing Program, Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California by William Roop, Emily Wick, 2008; pp. 75, 278-280, 285-286

5 Mountains and Molehills, Or, Recollections of a Burnt Journal by Frank Marryat; 1855. pp. 61-82

6 “Narrative of Julio Carrillo as given by him to by Robert A. Thompson editor Santa Rosa Democrat”; 1872. Bancroft Library, UC/Berkeley (READ). The eleven page manuscript is mostly political remarks and gossip from the late 1840s, but has passages about the rancho and Indians, although not the est. 3,000 population. It shows Julio was quite an articulate speaker in english.

7 Davis op. cit.

8 Roop/Wick op. cit. pp. 287-288. Gibbs’ report reflects his barely concealed contempt for the Californios as well as their use of Indian labor.

9 The common story told about Alonzo Meacham held that he was a shopkeeper burned out by the great San Francisco fire of May, 1851. Classified ads in the Alta California show he was first an auctioneer and then had a company selling building stone until September of that year.

10 Robert F. Walkinshaw lived in Santa Clara and had no other interests in Santa Rosa – he was never mentioned in any of the papers as coming through the area. But a few years earlier he was a controversial figure. In April 1847 he was the sailing captain of the Schooner William, which arrived in San Francisco Bay with a valuable cargo of mining equipment from Mexico, including gunpowder, intended to be used at a mercury mine near San Jose. As this was during the Mexican-American War, the ship was seized by the Americans. The schooner was flying an English flag and in Admiralty Court hearings it was claimed the tools were owned by a British firm. Walkinshaw was a Mexican citizen and members of the firm had lived in Mexico for many years but were still British subjects. Although the judge conceded the vessel and cargo were property of a business based in a neutral country, everything coming from an enemy nation must be taken from its owners as being spoils of war. Military governor of California Richard Mason, however, stepped in and ordered the ship and its cargo released.

 

sources
 

SONOMA VALLEY BEFORE THE GRINGOES CAME
(Written for the Sunday Bulletin, March 11, 1900)

Santa Rosa, March 3. – Old and feeble and bent with age, in a little cottage on Fourth street in this city, lives Marta Carrillo, daughter of the remarkable woman whose indomitable energy and intrepid courage blazed the pathway for civilization in this fair valley of the Santa Rosa.

Marta has lived here seventy years. Many changes have occurred in that time – changes swift and wonderful, to Marta, swifter and more wonderful with each passing year – each one leaving the old lady a little more bewildered than did the last. And the one change which Dona Marta cannot understand at all, and, indeed, one which she makes no pretense of understanding, is the sad, stern change in her own condition that bespeaks the fallen fortunes of the house of Carrillo.

Time has passed quickly with Dona Marta, and to her it seems not so very long ago that all this country about here, including the site where now stands the city of Santa Rosa, belonged to her mother, to her brother and to herself. The memory of those old days is to her fresher than those of more recent and less pleasant times. She recalls distinctly the day when her mother’s residence, the old adobe house, now crumbling to decay on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, was the only dwelling in this section, and when the cattle of the Carrillos wandered over leagues upon leagues of this land, which is now parceled out among “the Gringos,” with only a single acre of it left in the possession of a Carrillo.

All Marta’s brothers and sisters are dead. All died comparatively poor. But the name of the family is inseparately interwoven with the early history of this State; one of Marta’s sisters was the wife of General M. G. Vallejo, Military Governor of Alta California; another sister was the mother of Governor Romualdo Pacheco, while a third married Colonel Salvador Vallejo, brother of the general of that name.

In the year of 1826 Father Ventura, one of the founders of the Mission of New San Francisco, or Sonoma, returned to San Diego after spending three years among the Indians of Northern California. Among his friends in the southern settlement were the family of Colonel Joaquin Carrillo. The colonel had died during the absence of the good padre, leaving a rather small estate to his widow and her nine children. When the estate had dwindled, in the course of three years, to an amount so small that the family could subsist upon it only with great economy, Father Ventura bethought him of the beautiful and fertile country, far to the north, where a home might be built and land in any quantity obtained for the taking. The priest urged the widow of his friend to go to this new country far to and north of the Sonoma Mission, picturing its beauties, its adoptability to cultivation, the docility of the natives, who, he said, could be employed at farming and herding. He bade her place her trust in God and the saints, take her family, go to the country he described, and she would be blessed.

And so Dona Maria Ignacia Lopez, the widow of Colonel Carrillo, with her four girls and five boys, set sail for San Francisco. The family reached Sonoma, where they found the young commander, Vallejo, in charge with a few Mexican soldiers. Dona Maria and her children remained in Sonoma several months. During that time two courtships were in progress, and before the widow left the shelter of the settlement her daughter, Frances Benicia, was wedded to Commandant M. G. Vallejo, while the latter’s brother, Salvador, at that time a captain, espoused Lus, another daughter of Dona Maria.

At that time the country lying west of Sonoma was very little known, except that near the Coast. Nevertheless, Dona Maria determined to follow the advice of Father Ventura and seek a home for herself and children in the then almost unknown land that bordered on the Mission of New San Francisco.

With a band of cattle, a few horses and an ox team, they set out, accompanied by an Indian guide. After two days’ travel they reached a spot that appeared to be suitable for their purpose, and there laid the foundation for what afterward became famous as the Rancho de Cabeza de santa Rosa. The first step was to construct a dwelling. Dona Maria designed the structure and assisted her sons in making the mud bricks and, after they had been dried in the sun, in plastering them together. The result of their labor still stands near Santa Rosa, though the old adobe is now used for a barn and is crumbling away through lack of repairs.

Dona Maria’s executive ability, so unusual in the women of her race, made her the dominant, ruling spirit of the rancho to the very day of her death. It was not long after her first occupation of the land before she had gathered about her a large number of Indians. These she set to work to till the land, to herd cattle, to thresh grain and to do the general work of the place. The Indians were tractable, as a rule, but occasionally there was a mutiny, and during troublesome times the bravery of the pioneer woman is said to have been greater than that of her sons. In those days firearms were exceedingly scarce. The principal weapon was the “rista,” or lasso, which was used against man or beast with equally good (or bad) effect. The long rope with the noosed end was the chief argument employed by Dona Maria with the Indians when they were disposed to be ugly, and though she often faced great odds, it is not of record that the lady was ever worsted in an encounter.

As the years passed the cattle increased in number until they could be counted by thousands. The boys and girls grew to manhood and womanhood. Juanita married Don Pacheco; Marta, the youngest, was as yet unmarried.

In 1840 Dona Maria applied to the Mexican Governor, Manuel Jimeno, at Monterey, for a title to her land. She was given a grant of two “sitios” (leagues) under the caption of “El Rancho de Cabeza de Santa Rosa.” About the same time her son, Joaquin, applied for and received title to the grant known as the “Laguna de Santa Rosa,” consisting of three sitios, adjoining the land of his mother. This made an area of fifteen square miles of land, owned by mother and son.

All went well with the Carrillos until the death of Dona Maria, about 1848. Then the trouble began. The heirs had a disagreement over the division of her estate, which was finally settled, however, principally by the method of the strong arm. Then the Americans began to arrive in large numbers. They cultivated the Mexican habit of gambling, but usually to the disadvantage of the Mexican.

Once divided among the children of Dona Maria, the great estate passed rapidly into other hands. In one way and another the property was disposed of to the Americans, who soon overran the country until not an inch of the original grants was left in the possession of the Carrillo family.

About 1855 Dona Marta married her cousin, Joaquin Carrillo. Their early married life was one or many hardships and privations until the husband by hard work had accumulated a little fortune of three or four thousand dollars. Then they purchased the acre of ground in Santa Rose whereon they now live with their daughter and two little grandchildren.

A few years prior to her marriage, Marta was still in possession of a portion of her share of her mother’s estate. This consisted of 1600 acres lying between Santa Rosa creek and Matanzas creek. These boundaries would now include a goodly chunk of the city of Santa Rosa. One day Dona Marta was served with a notice of ejectment. When she protested she was shown what purported to be a deed to the property, signed by herself. They told her that her brother-in-law, Salvador Vallejo, had effected the sale and he had been paid the purchase price. This was all news to Marta, for, while she could ride a bronco or throw the riata with skill and grace, she had never been taught to write and could not even scribble her own name. But she would not bring disgrace on the family by making complaint, so the purchaser of a magnificent property at one-hundredth part of its value was permitted to take possession, and little Marta, robbed of her birthright, went to live with one of her brothers. The brothers were equally unfortunate; within a few years they, too, had lost their possessions. A few years more and all the children of Dona Maria were dead – all except Marta. But in the meantime love had come into her life and smoothed over the rough places and abided with her through all the years of trouble that followed. And, though lands and cattle and retainers are hers no longer, Dona Marta is happy in the little cottage on the little acre of ground – all that is left of the once vast domain of the Carrillos.

– manuscript copy courtesy the Gaye LeBaron collection, Sonoma State University

 

 

LAST WILL OF MARIA YGNACIA LOPEZ CARRILLO (excerpt)

…I declare that I was lawfully married to Don Joaquin Carrillo (now deceased), in which marriage we begot our legitimate children, Josefa, Ramona, Maria de la Luz, Francisco, Joaquin, Ramon, Juan, Dolores, Julio, Marta, Juana, and Felicidad.

I declare as my executors my sons Jose Ramon, Joaquin, or Julio. I declare as legitimate heirs of the property that I actually possess my daughter, Maria de la Luz, Jose Ramon, Joaquin, Julio, Maria Marta, Juana de Jesus, Maria Felicidad de las Augustias. – (The exception of Josefa, Ramona, and Francisca, who have come to have no share in the property willed.) I declare that the property which I actually possess and which belongs to me is derived from the personal labor of my sons and daughters mentioned in the above clause. – I declare the land that my daughter Luz actually possesses, and its boundaries, are the Santa Rosa Creek, above, almost as far as the limits of the swamp which belongs to me; and the width shall be the swamp, above, along the edge of the surrounding hills. –

I command that my house in which I now live be given up, with all its appurtenances, incomes, outlets, furniture, gardens, fences, and cultivated lands to Marta, Juana, and Felicidad; I declare the limits to be the Santa Rosa Creek, below, as far as the junction of the creeks on the North; and on the South, the creek known by the name of El Potrero as far as the limits of Santa Rosa on the East. –

I command that the rest of my property be divided in equal parts between my children already mentioned; my son Joaquin, having received some cattle on his account, shall have these deducted from his inheritance. – (I bequest to Julio the house and lot in Sonoma without this being counted in the remainder of my property.)

I command that the rest of my lands be divided in equal parts between Jose Ramon and Julio. I entrust my daughter Luz with my family, for her protection, as well as my own sons and daughters, they may look on her as sent by their mother. I entrust my sons not to be unmindful of assisting their sisters in all the emergencies necessary to pass through life, as the sisters may assist their brothers to the best of their ability…

Sonoma, January 6, 1849
Maria Ignacia Lopez

– Translated by Brian McGinty, The Carrillos of San Diego: A Historic Spanish Family of California (part four): The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4; December, 1957, pg. 375-376

 

 

THE OLDEST INHABITANT.

What He Has Experienced in the Past — What He Thinks of the Future — No Failure of Crops for a Period of Forty Years.

Knowing the deep interest felt in the matter of the rainfall, we have interviewed an actual oldest inhabitant, in the person of Julio Carrillo, and give our readers the benefit of his experience extending over a period of forty years, from 1837 to 1877:

When did you first come to Sonoma county, Julio?

In 1837. In the fall of that year my family built a log house on Santa Rosa creek about half a mile above the old adobe now owned by Mr. Hahman. The adobe was commenced in 1838-9.

What is your recollection of the seasons? What years were notably dry?

I remember that the winter of 1838-9 was much the same as this — the nights were cold and frosty. The first rain fell in the month of February.

Did you have any rain in March?

We had some rain in March, but think there was none after that.

Did you have in a crop?

Oh, yes; we had planted wheat, corn, beans and peas.

Did the crop mature?

Yes; we had a fair crop. There was plenty of grass and no loss of stock in this part of the country.

What is your recollection of the following winter?

In 1839-10 there was a good deal of rain. I saw snow for the first time in my life that year, on the Petaluma and Cotate [sic] hill. (The latter is now called Taylor Mountain.) There was no snow in the valley. I had come up from San Diego and having never seen snow, I rode out to the hills to take a closer look.

How were the crops that year?

We had a good crop.

How about the next season?

In 1840-41 we had a great deal of rain and snow on the mountains. In February, 1841, there came a tremendous fall of rain. I had gone from the adobe house, where I then lived, to Sonoma, and could not get back. Sonoma valley was entirely flooded; the water came up to the town. The whole of Santa Rosa valley was flooded. That year a mill that Capt. Cooper was building at the mouth of the laguna, and had nearly completed, was entirely washed away. That was the heaviest rainfall I remember.

Were there any other notable seasons within your recollection, either remarkably dry or wet?

There was but little rain in 1843-4, but we made good crops of wheat, corn and peas.

How about the following seasons?

There was nothing remarkable until the wet winter of 1849-50.

The next very dry winters were 1862-3 and 1863-4, when, as everybody knows, we had more than average crops here, owing to the late spring rains.

What do you think of the prospect this season?

I think it will be a dry year, but it does not follow that we will have a failure of the crop. It makes but little difference about rains now if we have them in the spring, and without spring rains you cannot have a crop, no matter how heavy the rainfall in the winter months. That is my experience. Without spring rains we are gone up; but we have never failed since I have been here in having enough rain to mature a crop.

– Sonoma Democrat, January 13 1877

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tuomeysign2

CALL IT MT. ST. HONORIA

At the very top of Mount St. Helena is a marker commemorating the founding of Fort Ross in 1812. Why there is a sign concerning a place 32 miles away is not explained, and should anyone examine the monument further, a deeper meta-weirdness is revealed: It’s really a sign commemorating an earlier sign.

After slogging up that steep and unforgiving trail for about three hours, a weary hiker also gets a mental workout in trying to grasp what the monument actually stated – which was that on this spot in 1912, a group of descendants of famous people put up this sign because on this spot there used to be a sign reading, ‘two Russians were at this spot in 1841’ which was removed from this spot in 1853.

Whew.

Intrigued but hopelessly confused, our intrepid hiker pulls a mobile phone from his/her backpack, certain that the cell towers also at the summit will provide a blistering signal (and hopefully not enough microwave energy to cause actual blistering).

From the internet, our visitor learns the monument actually describes how the mountain was named – which is a bit odd considering “Helena” does not appear anywhere on the marker. To paraphrase the top three results currently found by Google: During the 18th century Baron Count Rotchef visited Fortress Ross with his beautiful young wife Princess Helena, who was held in high regard by her people because. Helena joined a Russian survey party who ascended the peak in 1841, where they left a copper plate inscribed with her name and the date.

And that wasn’t all; had our hiker Googled a bit further, (s)he would have discovered that as the Russians came down from the mountain, an Indian chief tried to kidnap the princess.

As Gentle Reader can surely guess, there’s a whole lot of hokum to this story – problems that began even before the strange marker-about-a-marker was placed up there in 1912. It’s been like a very old and pretty tangled ball of yarn that everyone likes to handle but no one bothers to unwind and fix.

Here is what we know to be facts: Some Russians actually climbed the mountain in 1841 and left a copper plate there. There really was a “Princess Helena” around here at the time. End of facts.

We don’t know who the “Helena” was in the name, if the Russian named it before the day of their visit, or even that the Russians named it at all. Alexander Rotchev – the last administrator of Fort Ross and Helena’s husband – did not mention the mountain at all in his memoirs.1

The only written evidence the Russians were on the mountain at all comes from Ilya Voznesensky, who was sent to the Russian colonies by the Imperial Academy of Sciences to document the territory. All he states in his travel journal is that on June 16, 1841 he climbed “one of the highest mountains on whose summit no one had then yet been.”2

His journal didn’t mention the plaque or that anyone else was with him, but there were two names scratched into the metal: His and Yegor Chernykh, an agronomist who was at Ft. Ross to train the colonists in better farming techniques. Together they traveled widely in the area, visiting Pomo villages and mapping the Russian River as far as modern Healdsburg.

And, of course, there’s the copper plaque, which we know was actually on the mountain from a sighting of it in 1851. A letter to the Daily Alta California (transcribed below) described how nine men climbed the mountain and found a copper sheet about three feet square, “upon which was engraved hieroglyphics not by us decipherable.” The group – none of whom had obviously seen Cyrillic – wondered if it could be Aztec, or the “handiwork of the Mongolian race as far back as the time of Confucius.” The (un)helpful editor of the newspaper explained they saw the “latitude, longitude and altitude of the mountain, as ascertained by a party of Russian navigators,” and that “it is said that similar copper-plates were placed on several other high peaks in the vicinity of the coast.”

By 1866 the sign was gone. Another correspondent to the Alta wrote, “some years ago a fool or vagabond vandal removed an inscription that had been left on the summit” and the next year another informed the paper, “at the summit I found the post on which the Russians affixed the copper plate which was taken down several years ago by some persons who gave it to the State Geological Survey.”

And that’s the last we hear from anyone who had first-hand knowledge of anything related to the sign. Notice, too, that no one had yet claimed the Russian visit or the copper sign had anything to do with naming the mountain “Helena.” That all changed forty years after the Russians had gone away.

(By the way: The village of St. Helena was given that name in 1855 because the local chapter of the Sons of Temperance men’s group already called itself the “St. Helena Division.” As their Division names usually reflected a town or landmark, it’s safe to presume the mountain was commonly called Mt. St. Helena by then.)

From what I can find, the 1880 Sonoma county history was the first place the princess-namesake story shows up. The claim appears in a lengthy quote from Charles Mitchell Grant, an explorer and member of the Royal Geographical Society who then lived in the Bay Area. He had no expertise about the Russian colony at Fort Ross but twenty years earlier he had bummed around China and Russia, so apparently that made him an authority on all things Russian.3

Besides Grant’s matter-of-fact claim that the mountain was named for the administrator’s lovely wife, he also dishes up the first printed version of the kidnapping story. Grant wrote, “The beauty of this lady excited so ardent a passion in the heart of Prince Solano, chief of all the Indians around Sonoma, that he formed a plan to capture, by force or stratagem, the object of his love…”

That’s a paraphrase from a story in General Vallejo’s unpublished memoir, where supposedly Vallejo’s key Indian ally, Chief Solano (Suisun tribal leader Sem-Yeto), meets Princess Helena while she and her husband are visiting Vallejo in Sonoma. That night Solano tells Vallejo he planned to abduct her and asks for Vallejo’s approval. Vallejo is horrified and shames Solano into abandoning the notion. A translation of the full tale is found in the footnote.4

This isn’t the place to really dive into a full analysis of the story, but I’ll say only I don’t believe it happened as Vallejo described. It fits too perfectly with the school of humor which could be called the “wise captain and the fool,” where a stupid person is the butt of the joke because he must be instructed on how to behave properly. Vignettes with that theme were popular in newspaper entertainment pages during the 19th and early 20th centuries, usually with an underlying racist message – “those people” have strange ideas and aren’t as good as the rest of us.

The less titillating info in the 1880 history was further news about the Russian plaque: “In the year 1853 this plate was discovered by Dr. T. A. Hylton, and a copy of it preserved by Mrs. H. L. Weston of Petaluma, by whose courtesy were are enabled to reproduce it. The metal slab is octagonal in shape, and bears the following words in Russian: RUSSIANS, 1841 E. L. VOZNISENSKI iii, E. L. CHERNICH”.

Unfortunately, that terse description left unexplained whether Dr. Hylton took it away with him or just traced over what was written. Nor was it explained how large the original was. It was later stated the paper copy given to Mrs. Weston was only about five inches across and shaped like an octagon.5

If nothing more was written of the tale of the Russians on Mt. St. Helena, it would have ended up as an obscure anecdote to the history of Fort Ross. But starting in the early Twentieth Century, the story was transformed into a myth about the mountain of the beautiful princess and her thwarted Indian paramour. And all that is thanks to Miss Honoria R. P. Tuomey.

Honoria Tuomey was born in 1866 at her family’s ranch off of Coleman Valley Road. Most of her life she was a grammar school teacher and principal in West County; the Sonoma County Museum has a box of her memorabilia which is greatly filled with yellowed photos of her posing with farmkids in front of one-room schoolhouses. She started by writing poetry and had a lengthy profile of Luther Burbank printed as a Sunday feature in a 1903 Los Angeles paper; Gaye LeBaron wrote a 1990 profile of Tuomey worth reading for general background on her life and works.


(RIGHT: Honoria Tuomey, 1912. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Museum)

Tuomey is best known today for her two-volume Sonoma county history published in 1926, and although LeBaron’s remarks about those books might seem unkind, they really are worthless except for the biographies that makes up the entire second volume. The first book is interjected with a mish-mash of random facts, dubious hand-me-down stories and bits of melodramatic narrative  – complete with made-up dialog. Parts are even irrelevant to Sonoma county history; while there’s hardly a word about the Chinese there is a full chapter on “the French in California.” Overall it’s even worse than Tom Gregory’s 1911 history, and I suspect some of his research came from tall tales he swept up in Santa Rosa barrooms.

Honoria’s history focused on West County – which isn’t at all a bad thing, as all the other local histories dwelled heavily on Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Sonoma. Still, LeBaron quipped, “It weighted so heavily toward the coast that it threatened to tip the whole county into the Pacific Ocean.” So it’s not surprising Tuomey’s book contains much on the history of the Russians and Fort Ross, with four chapters on it – far more coverage than she gave the Bear Flag Revolt and founding of the state.

Her passion for the Russian colony extended to the legend of the lost marker on Mt. St. Helena, twice climbing the mountain in search of clues, as she later revealed in an article.  “For several years I had read and researched, and interviewed old settlers, and all to no avail so far as obtaining a clue either to the existence and whereabouts of the plate, or its possible location on the mountain.”6

Tuomey’s quest for the marker ended when she came across an old pamphlet mentioning the business about Dr. Hylton and Mrs. Weston. That she didn’t realize the same info could be found in Sonoma and Napa county histories published in the early 1880s says lots about her scholarship.

With an eye on placing a replica on the very same rock to mark the centennial of Fort Ross, Honoria got busy. She asked the Kinslow Brothers – a company more accustomed to carving tombstones – to donate a marble plaque, with this engraved in the center: “RESTORED JUNE 1912 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF FORT ROSS.” She asked a Santa Rosa jeweler to engrave three copper plaques: a reproduction of the original Russian, another with an English translation, and the largest of all with the names of some of Sonoma county’s famed Mexican and American families. And she trekked up the mountain for a third time by herself to make sure she knew the proper place for all this to go. Say what you want about Honoria Tuomey, but she had remarkable dedication to her mission; she was around 45 years old while doing all this.

And thus on the 20th of June, 1912, Honoria led a small army of celebrants climbing up the mountain. At the summit the American flag was raised, messages and poems were read and speeches delivered. There was a stirring benediction and everyone sang “America” at the end. I have absolutely no doubt this was the happiest moment of her life.

Honoria Tuomey at the dedication of the Mt. St. Helena plaque. 1912. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Museum

 

A few weeks later the San Francisco Call presented a Sunday feature on the ceremony with an article by Tuomey. Per the Russian visit in 1841, she wrote:


…The complete personnel of this doughty expedition is not revealed in any records of history, but besides Doctor Wosnesenski and his friend, E. I. Tschernech, it included the handsome young Helena, Princess de Gagarine, wife of Alexander Rotcheff, the last governor of Ross settlement, and John Edward Mcintosh, grantee in 1837 by General M. G. Vallejo of the rancho Estero Americano to block Russian encroachments inland; also a small guard of soldiers. There were some lively thrills on that trip of some forty miles, not the weakest being occasioned by the attempt of old Chief Solano to abduct the princess. Up the rough, almost perpendicular side of the mountain the party mounted to the summit of the north peak, the highest point of elevation. Here upon a flat rock the copper plate was spiked and additional blocks were fitted to form a cairn. While the others knelt, the princess, raising her right hand, proclaimed the name of the mountain forever “Helena” in honor of her royal mistress and namesake, Helena, empress of Russia…

In this new, never-before-told version, it’s getting pretty crowded up there at the summit, what with the princess, the soldiers and all. But thank goodness an armed escort was along on this trip because an Indian chief tried to snatch the princess. It’s all a perfect example of classic Honoria Tuomey: 10 percent was probably true, 10 percent was iffy, 10 percent was clearly junk and the rest was stuff she heard somewhere and thought it sounded good.

It would be easy to presume she just made most of that up, but thanks to her 1924 article, we learn her embroidered details came from Dan Patton, who ran the Mount Saint Helena Inn (7 miles from Calistoga on highway 29) back when Tuomey was on the hunt for all things Russian.

It seems Patton was pals with William Boggs, a notable figure in Sonoma and Napa counties in the decades after statehood. Boggs had known a guy (no name given) who supposedly was one of the soldiers in that pack of Russians who went up the mountain in 1841; when the rest of his countrymen abandoned Fort Ross and left for Alaska at the end of that year he was left behind for some reason. The Russian told the story to Boggs who told the story to Patton who told the story to Tuomey.

“Documentary evidence may not always be obtainable, may not exist,” she wrote, “but the free testimony of those who have lived and made history can be accepted, when known to have come down to us through veracious channels.” Dear Honoria; I know a few people who might disagree with you on that – namely every historian.

Tuomey had other novel and elaborate ideas about how the mountain came to named that won’t be detailed here. In a series of coincidences which Robert Ripley might have found hard to swallow, she believed it was independently christened “Saint Helena” three times – first by a Spanish friar, then by the Russians, and finally by Captain Stephen Smith of Bodega Bay.

Honoria R. P. Tuomey died in 1938. Besides the plaque on the mountain, she left hand-painted signs all over the county marking historic events – most (all?) are gone now, or stored away. But her real legacy is the unfortunate trail of misinformation about the Russian connection to Mt. St. Helena.

One afternoon I dived down the rabbit hole to see what people were writing about it since Honoria’s heyday. In travel guides, books, newspaper and magazine articles I found 27 new and unique details to the three Tuomey theories before I stopped counting. Some lowlights:

The princess on the mountain named it after her aunt, the empress of Russia (who wasn’t her aunt or named Helena); her arms were flung wide, Christlike, or she knelt in prayer as she named it after her patron saint; Russian sailors prayed or sang hymns. Another thread had Chief Solano and other Indians capturing the party at the base of Mt. St. Helena when Salvador Vallejo happened to come riding along to rescue them, or General Vallejo having to negotiate their release with the Vallejo silverware being Rotchev’s gift for saving his wife. The original plaque was given to the Society of California Pioneers museum in San Francisco by Dr. Hylton, where it was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake although it was never there.

Never, ever, is the simplest and most likely explanation discussed: That the “plaque” was possibly just the equivalent of 19th century grafitti – two guys taking a break after a long hike and scratching their names on a piece of scrap metal.

As of this writing (December, 2017) the park is closed because Mt. St. Helena burned in the Tubbs fire. I have been unable to reach anyone in the park service who can tell me whether the marker is still intact; the copper could have melted or the whole thing could have been run over by a big CalFire truck.

But if it’s really gone, let’s not rush to replace it – we don’t need to keep inspiring people to write phony history. Should the sign be indeed replaced, let’s at least offer an honest representation of what it said: “Russians Eli and George, June 1841.” And just leave it at that.


1 Most of Rotchev’s papers were destroyed in a 1974 fire, but in the Argus-Courier, October 12, 1963, there was a quote from a 1942 letter from Mrs. Harold H. Fisher: “Mr. Redionoff (chief of Slavic Divison, Library of Congress) wrote me that the A. G. Rotchev memoirs do not mention the mountain…”

2 The odyssey of a Russian scientist: I.G. Voznesenskii in Alaska, California and Siberia 1839-1849 by Aleksandr Alekseev, 1987

3 An overview of Charles Mitchell Grant’s travels appeared in the Royal Geographical Society’s 1862 proceedings. Grant had only one leg and frequently had to travel in a cart when the only transport available was via camel or mule.

4 When Senor Rotcheff…came to see me, he was accompanied by his wife, the Princess Elena, a very beautiful lady of twenty Aprils, who united to her other gifts an irresistible affability. The beauty of the governor’s wife made such a deep impression on the heart of Chief Solano that he conceived the project of stealing her. With this object he came to visit me very late at night and asked my consent to putting his plan into effect. The story horrified me, for if it should unfortunately be carried out my good name would suffer, for no one would be able to get it out of his head that my agent had acted on my account; and besides seeing the country involved in a war provoked by the same cause which actuated the siege of Troy, I, who had never hesitated at expense or trouble to please my visitors…would be stigmatized as the most disloyal being that the world had ever produced. It was necessary for me to assume all the authority that I knew how to assume on occasions that required it to make Solano understand that his life would hang in the balance if he should be so ill-advised as to attempt to break the rules of hospitality. My words produced a good effect, and that same night, repenting of his conduct, he went to Napa Valley, where I sent him to prevent him from compromising, under the impulse of his insane love, the harmony which it was so urgent for me to reestablish with my powerful neighbors…But, fearing that Solano might ambush them on the road, I went to escort my visitors to Bodega. (Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez translation as found in “Spanish Arcadia” by Sanchez, 1929)

5Dr. Thomas A. Hylton was a Petaluma physician in the mid-1850s, and H. L. Weston was the publisher of the Petaluma Journal, having purchased it from Thomas L. Thompson in 1856. His wife was mentioned in 1868 for her skilled needlework for having crocheted portraits of famous men and even De Vinci’s Last Supper. Caroline died in 1909, having lived in Petaluma for 52 years, and Henry died in 1920.

6 “Historic Mount Saint Helena” by Honoria Tuomey, California Historical Society Quarterly, July, 1924

 

The reproduction plaque and English translation (Image: Wikipedia Commons)
In The Presence Of Representatives Of The Sonoma Pioneer Families Of
General M. G. Vallejo – Senora M Lopez De Carillo
Captain Henry D. Fitch – Captain Stephen Smith
Jasper O’Farrell – C. Alexander
Donner Party – Bear Flag Party
And Of
The Native Sons Of The Golden West
The Spanish, British, Russian And Mexican Consuls At S. F.
Dr. T A Hylton Removed The Original Plate From This Rock
In May 1853 And Gave A Copy To H. L. Weston Who Has
Authorized Miss Honoria R. P. Toumey
To Make This Restoration
The Mysterious Copper Plate on the Top of St. Helena.

A correspondent of the Marysville Democrat writes as follows:

“Napa Valley is unquestionably one of the loveliest spots on this earth… At the upper end of the ralley rises St. Helena, an abrupt, lofty mountain — the highest peak north of the bay — upon the very highest point of which there rests, or did rest, a copper plate, the history of which is buried in the silent tomb of oblivion.

“As wonderful as that relic of by-gone ages is, I do not recollect ever having seen even a newspaper paragraph in relation to it. Eight years ago last July, three gentlemen from San Francisco, three from Sacramento city, two from Napa and myself, having heard of the existence of said plate, ascended that mountain’s rugged form and gratified as far as possible, our curiosity. It was indeed a wonder. The plate was thin, about three feet square, upon which was engraved hieroglyphics not by us decipherable, notwithstanding that our company, altogether, understood five different languages.

“While wondering over the defunct history of that old copper plate, we could not help speculating upon the probable race so advanced in the arts which could possibly have occupied this interesting country at so remote a period. Is it not possible that this continent mar have once been connected with the north-eastern coast of Asia? One might be led to look upon that valuable plate as a piece of handiwork of the Mongolian race as far back as the time of Confucius, were it not that the characters do not resemble their language.

“Again, it is not impossible that the original Aztec tribe, the founders of those splendid ruins of Yucatan, may have originated from the Caucasian stock, and gradually worked their way towards Bhering’s Straits [sic] down the continent, having temporarily occupied different portions of the now Alta California in the course of their gradual migration.”

The mysterious character alluded to in the above correspondence, are those of the latitude, longitude and altitude of the mountain, as ascertained by a party of Russian navigators, who made a hasty survey of the coast, when the Russians had possession of the coast near the mouth of Russian river, and expected to hold a large part of California. It is said that similar copper-plates were placed on several other high peaks in the vicinity of the coast.

– Daily Alta California, January 1 1860

Places of Note.

…To me, one of the most interesting points is Mt. St. Helena, not because of any peculiar natural attraction, but it haa bern consecrated by the footsteps of the great Humboldt, and I never look up to that dark mountain pile without feeling as if it had been rendered a sacred spot by the influence of such a presence. Some years ago a fool or vagabond vandal removed an inscription that had been left on the summit by that greatest of philosophers. It was a copper plate set in the rock, and was a valuable memento of long years of the past.

– Daily Alta California, August 30 1866

LETTER FROM CALISTOGA

…At the summit I found the post on which the Russians affixed the copper plate which was taken down several years ago by some persons who gave it to the State Geological Survey. It should be replaced with another plate containing a translation of its inscription…

– Daily Alta California, May 3 1867

 

ACROSS THE MAYACMAS.

…St. Helena, the highest and most shapely mountain in this lofty chain, is visible from base to crest, the line of light and shadow on its rugged slopes is so plainly marked, its clean-cut outline against the sky is so well defined that it is difficult to realize the intervening space of foot-hill, valley and wooded Slope, which makes up the foreground of this far-reaching and surprisingly beautiful landscape. This view of St. Helena, or at all events a similar one, doubtless, inspired the Russian naturalist Wossnessensky, who was the first to ascend it, and who named the mountain in honor of his sovereign, the Empress of Russia. He imbedded, in a rock on the summit a copper plate, to commemorate the event. Upon the plate was inscribed the date of the ascent, “June 12, 1841,” the name Wossnessonsky, and that of his companion, Techernich, and the word “Russians,” twice repeated in the Russian language and once in Latin. This plate was removed by some vandal and afterwards came into the possession of members of the so-called State Geological Survey, who probably took it out of the State where it has no local interest.

– Sonoma Democrat, May 28 1881

 

THE SHORT STORY CLUB HAS MEETING

Miss Honoria R. P. Tuomey read a charming description of the life and writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, having secured the local color for her sketch by a visit to his old camp on the southwest side of Mount St. Helena. It was here that he wrote “The Silverado Squatters.”

– Press Democrat, June 19 1910

 

RESTORATION ON ST. HELENA
HISTORIC PLATE TELLS OF RUSSIAN OCCUPATION
Old Spanish Families Represented at Notable Ceremonies on the Mountain’s Summit Thursday

On Thursday last, June 20th, the great Mount St. Helena was awakened from its sleep of age into a new historical life. Its rocky gorges, its thorn-brushed ridges and its lone wild peak away up against the blue sky, all rang with the echo of a Voice. It was the Voice of the age one hundred years distant from the white hand of the Czar of all the Russias. One hundred years away from the black bearded Muscovite who toiled and climbed from old Fort Ross by the Pacific, through primeval redwood forests o’er meadowlands deep grassed, but angered into life by the growl of the grizzly and the leap of the stag. On and on they came, those Russians of the frozen sea and the aurora land of ice. Wosnesenskl, the Third, Tschernech, and their beautiful princess, up and up the steep mountain side, scaling the cliffs and tearing their chaparal pathway to the wild, desolate peak of the great unnamed mountain.

The story is of June, but the pathway was as December, wild in its every setting. The sacred burden of their pilgrimage was a rudely carved copper plate bearing the inscription
RUSSIANS
P. L. WOSNESENSKL III
E. I. Tschernech
RUSSIANS
This in the rude character lettering of the kingdom of the Czar. This they bolted to a rock of the peak in June of 1841, and as they stood on this great mount “Helena.” Later, woven in a triple story of romance, it became the “Sainted” mountain.

The years that made this story of christening have gone, and too, the rude plate of record was taken from its fastenings and lost to the world forever, save its replica on a film of paper, almost miraculous in its preservation.

Another age has come, the years of the city, the orchard, the vintage; the years of the puffing engine, the harnessed bird of the air, and conquered light of the clouds. It is the day of “Restoration,” and the great mountain feels the footprints and hears the sound of the English-speaking voice.

Sonoma county may well be proud of the little lady who made possible this day of restoration on the old mountain peak.

The notable historical event in all its minute detail and plan, was under the skilled management of Miss Honora R. P. Tuomey, an educator and writer of Sonoma county. She bears a great love for the preservation of these historical landmarks and, too, of telling the story in writing of those days and times, of those men and incidents of early days of this western life.

To Miss Tuomey was given the authority of restoration, and well did she complete the task in every detail. As a princess of the Russians first gave the mountain name, so it was but fitting that a lady of this western land should replace it under the western sun.

It is a long, interesting story, the story of the original plate, of its placement and its final untimely destruction, of which limitations deny in this brief article.

The day of the restoration last Thursday was one of threatening clouds and storm. Invitations had been issued to representatives of the pioneer families of the county and a few guests. Those going to the summit of the mountain from the southern portion of the county chose to go by the Patton toll house trail; those going from this city and section were to climb the mountain from the west, over a trail of steep ascent and heavy with overgrown brush. Those in the party from the Healdsburg section were…

… The copper plates were given by Hood Brothers of Santa Rosa, and the marble tablet by Kinslow Brothers. Harry Parks had charge of the masonry work and bolting to the rock, and was assisted by Mr. Frates…

.. Bolted to the rock on the peak of the great Mt. St. Helena, the story retold, a companion of the mighty storm, the blow of the wind; the drift of the snow and the flash of the clouds of heaven, this tablet bolted to the mountain peak shall stand forever, a leaf from the page of history of the great State of California.
J. M. ALEXANDER.

– Healdsburg Tribune, June 27 1912

 

RUSSIAN TABLET IS RESTORED ON MT. ST. HELENA
THE 100 TH ANNIVERSARY OF FONT ROSS SEES A NOTABLE CEREMONY IN THE HISTORIC SONOMA PEAK

By Honoria R. P. Tuomey

EARLY in June, 1841, there arrived at Fort Ross an adventurous naturalist attached to the national museum of zoology at St. Petersburg, Dr. P. L. Wosnesenski, commissioned to make collections on the northern Pacific shores of Asia and North America. From the summit of Mount Ross this enterprising man of science saw on the far eastern horizon a quadruple peaked mountain looming conspicuously above the lower summits of the Coast range. Speedily he organized a party, caused a copper plate to be made and inscribed by the artisans at Ross and pioneered a journey to the mountain that until then had been unvisited and unnamed by the Russians who had seen it from afar for a generation.

The little riding party passed across pastoral Sonoma, occupied by Indian tribes not wholly friendly and claimed by Mexico, always hostile to the Muscovite “intruders,” whose stout stronghold she dare not attack.

The complete personnel of this doughty expedition is not revealed in any records of history, but besides Doctor Wosnesenski and his friend, E. I. Tschernech, it included the handsome young Helena, Princess de Gagarine, wife of Alexander Rotcheff, the last governor of Ross settlement, and John Edward Mcintosh, grantee in 1837 by General M. G. Vallejo of the rancho Estero Americano to block Russian encroachments inland; also a small guard of soldiers.

There were some lively thrills on that trip of some forty miles, not the weakest being occasioned by the attempt of old Chief Solano to abduct the princess. Up the rough, almost perpendicular side of the mountain the party mounted to the summit of the north peak, the highest point of elevation. Here upon a flat rock the copper plate was spiked and additional blocks were fitted to form a cairn.

While the others knelt, the princess, raising her right hand, proclaimed the name of the mountain forever “Helena” in honor of her royal mistress and namesake, Helena, empress of Russia.  The party returned without mishap to Ross, and the close of 1841 saw the settlements at Ross and Bodega abandoned in obedience to the imperial decree to quit this region, since it had finally been found unsuitable for the purpose for which it was founded in 1812—the victualing of the Russian possessions In the Aleutian islands.

The plate disappeared from the mountain and, while our California historians mention its disappearance, they do not claim to have seen it, and all give its inscription incorrectly in part and misstate the method of its depositing. They give the first word as “Helena,” whereas, that name does not appear, the christening by the princess de Gagarine being entirely verbal. Nor did she call it “Saint Helena.” By two successive coincldences the mountain was named “Saint Helena,” first by a missionary in the early 30’s and in ’42 by Captain Stephen Smith, whose ship, the St. Helena, brought him to Bodega bay. It is stated that a post was erected and the plate nailed thereto, while in fact it was secured to a rock.

The lost Russian plate became one of my quests in my study of local history. For a long while I could find no clew. Finally, while a guest at the Mount St. Helena inn – the tollhouse of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Silverado Squatters” – I was shown by the host Dan Patton, a venerable and widely known Napa pioneer, a copy of an ancient local publication that led me soon to make a pilgrimage to Petaluma. There I called upon a courtly old gentleman for half a century prominent In Petaluma’s business and social life, now, at four score and six, retired within the beauties of his fine old home and big, old fashioned flower garden. After a little teasing of his memory, crowded with the recollections of his long and busy career, Mr. Weston unearthed in his antique secretary a long forgotten scrap of paper, the only copy In existence of the Russian plate. It is of heavy, white linen paper, an octagon 5 1/8 inches in diameter. The face bears this inscription, given here in English:

“Russians, June, 1841, P. L. Wosnesenski III, E. I. Tschernech, Russians.” The latter word, “Russians,” is in Latin. “Jose,” Spanish for Joseph, appears across the upper left corner, and we may but conjecture that this Jose was an Indian or Mexican guide. The remainder of the inscription is in Russian. Upon the reverse side is penned the autographic certification: “Exact copy of the inscription found on a copper plate nailed to a rock on the summit of Mount St Helena by T. A. Hylton in May, 1853.”

“Doctor Hylton gave me this copy, made by himself In 1853,” said Weston. “He was an old friend and fellow townsman. He died on his way east In 1859.”

The seeker after rare historical relics can best appreciate my rapture on that day.

The year 1912 is the centenary of the founding of Ross settlement, and June the anniversary month of the Wosnesenski party’s visit to Mount St Helena. Therefore June, 1912, was fixed as the time to erect a memorial tablet.

The north peak is accessible from more than one point But the only cleared trail leads up the south peak and along the summit, starting at the Mount St. Helena inn, 2,300 feet elevation, on the highway between Calistoga and Middletown. The inn possesses a superabundance of hospitable spirit, but is rather limited as to actual bed and board accommodations. So invitations to the restoration ceremonies were limited to those whose presence was deemed necessary to give dignity and significance to the occasion. The list included Hon. Hiram W. Johnson, governor of California; the consuls at San Francisco of Spain, Great Britain, Russia and Mexico, since each of those countries in succession claimed this territory.

Rev. John R. Cantillon, representing the early mission fathers and particularly Padre Benito Sierra, who as chaplain of the sloop Sonora celebrated at Bodega bay the first religious services ever held on Sonoma soil.

Mrs. L. Vallejo Emparan, daughter of General Mariano G. Vallejo of distinguished memory. Juanita Bailhache Waldrop, Temple Bailhache, Benjamin E. Grant Sr., Benjamin E. Grant Jr., descendants of Captain Henry D. Fitch, accomplished New England shipmaster, Pacific coast merchant and grantee of several large tracts, including the peninsula of Coronado, the Potrero in San Francisco and the Sotoyome rancho near Healdsburg; also relatives of Senora M. I. Lopez de Cabrillo, grantee of the Rancho Cabesa de Santa Rosa and mother of Mrs. Vallejo, Mra Fitch and Mrs. J. B. R. Cooper.

Mrs. Stephen M. Smith and daughter. Mrs. E. Juanita Smith-Rose, of San Francisco, relatives of Captain Stephen Smith, who In ’42 received title to the great Bodega and Blucher ranchos without renouncing his prized American citizenship, but only on condition that he establish certain manufactories. Captain Smith brought round the Horn from Massachusetts a whole shipload of machinery, including the first steam engine ever brought to California, plants for a saw mill, grist mill, tannery, distillery, etc., and four skilled mechanics to erect and manage them. He came the best equipped pioneer that ever settled on this coast. On his way he called at a Peruvian port and married a young Castllian lady, Dona Manuela Torres, to whose brother, Don Manuel, was granted the region about Fort Ross, known as the Muniz rancho.

Miss Elena O’Farrell. daughter of Jasper O’Farrell, who surveyed much of San Francisco, one of whose streets bears his name, and who barely escaped lynching at the hands of irate owners of lots along Market street because he sliced deeply enough into their property to give to the infant city the wide thoroughfare he foresaw it would need. Mr. O’Farrell bought the Ranchos Estero Americano and Canadade Jonive adjoining the Bodego rancho. He made his home at Freestone, renaming his estate the Analy ranch in memory of the principality of Analy in Ireland, ruled for centuries by the O’Farrells, princess of Analy.

Mrs. J. V. A. Frates. daughter of the venerable James McChristian, survivor of the Bear Flag party, and niece of Mrs. Jasper O’Farrell.

George Donner Ungewitter, grandson of George A. Donner of the illfated Donner party.

Mr. Julius M. Alexander, nephew of Cyrus Alexander, a pioneer settler in Alexander valley.

Mr. H. L. Weston, possessor for 59 years of the only existing copy of the Russian plate.

Mr. Donald Mcintosh, grandnephew of John Edward Mcintosh, present at the ceremonies of June, 1841.

Claude O. Howard, district deputy grand president of the Native Sons of the Golden West.

Mr. George Madeira, Mr. Dan Patton and a few other friends, including Mr. and Mrs. Fred. Cummings, Mr. and Mrs. Jirah Luce, Mra A. H. Graeff, Miss Nina Luce, Emile Bachman, T. G. Young, Calvin E. Holmes and Harry Parks, who as a member of the establishment of Kinslow Bros., marble workers of Santa Rosa, who generously donated the marble slab, went along and, assisted by Mr. Frates, made a capital piece of work by securing the tablet In place.

Upon a roughly set tufa platform some 4,500 feet above the level of the Pacific a streak of blue to the west, the party assembled after a reunion and lunch. Three-quarters of California lay smiling below under clear skies. The long serrated wall of the Sierras ran along the eastern horizon, sharply notched where the Truckee flows. Shasta’s white peak to the north, Whitney lording it In the south, Hamilton, Diablo, Tamalpais, Lassen, the northern Buttes lesser features. The bay and city of San Francisco lay near. Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties spread immediately below.

The program opened with the raising of the American flag. Father Cantillon’s invocatlonal utterance followed. Messages were read from Mr. Weston, Governor Johnson and the consuls at San Francisco for Spain, Great Britain, Russia and Mexico, accompanied by the raising In turn of the flag of each of those countries. The bear flag again waved and dipped to Its great successor, the stars and stripes The stories were recited of Cabrillo, Drake, Bodega, the Ross settlement the mission at Sonoma, the raising and lowering of the bear flag and Captain Stephen Smith’s Bodega flagpole. Mr. Patton contributed most of these historical sketches. A poem, ‘The Restoration,” by Julius M. Alexander, was recited by Mrs. Waldrop. Mr. Howard, on behalf of the Native Sons, made a stirring address Benediction and the singing of “America” closed the exercises.

The memorial tablet is of white marble, an octagon 18 inches in diameter and one inch thick. The engraved copper plates are recessed and riveted In place and the slab is fastened with long extension bolts set with solder far into the tufa boulder. Americans are finally commencing to learn that memorial tablets and other monuments are meant to be left intact and not carried away piecemeal as souvenirs. So we feel that this newly erected memorial to the Russians and the Sonoma pioneers will be safe under the sun and the snow on the summit of Mount St. Helena.

There were many intensely funny and a few near tragic incidents on the trip. There was the surreptitious attempt of a well known Healdsburg physician and his son to circumvent the Healdsburg section of the party and scale the mountain by an almost inaccessible ridge to raise a crude Russian flag on the summit and throw bombs at the rest, but the attempt failed ingloriously because those burlesque adherents of the czar got lost and had to return home in chagrin. Then there was the veteran mountain climber, who sat down to rest on the Kellogg trail, was left by his fellows, wandered miles to the inn and finally left on the outbound stage for San Francisco, still laden with 15 pounds of ham, an American flag and a canteen. Again there was the modest Healdsburger upon whom some wag had palmed two left shoes for the climb, and who will, because of an innocent but unlucky observation of Father Cantillon’s, be known for the rest of his life as “the left legged man.” And then the fair daughter of an ancient house, who showed the fearless blood of her ancestors by hastening to view an old, yellow, fierce eyed rattlesnake, declaring it the first of its kind she ever had encountered, and which, through the mercy of providence, was pleased to continue gliding into the brush instead of turning upon its admirer, almost, in her eagerness, treading on its many rattled tail.

– San Francisco Call, July 28 1912

 

FOURTH OF JULY GREETING FROM CALL
Two Thousand Pounds of Red Fire Will Burn
MESSAGE TO FLASH TO PEOPLE FROM HISTORIC TABLET
In Every Direction Will Be Seen The Call’s Best Wishes and Faith in Great State

When selecting a location to make a red fire display upon the night of July 4, The Call chose a spot full of historical significance, for on the very top of Mount St. Helena, where, on the night of July 4 The Call’s red fire will blaze, stands a bronze tablet defying time and weather and telling of a visit made there in 1841 by the Russians.

The original tablet was long ago removed from its place upon the rocks because of the value attaching to it as an historical relic. This removal took place in May, 1855, in the presence of representatives of the Sonoma pioneer families of General M. G. Vallejo, Captain Henry D. Fitch, Jasper O’Farrell, members of the Donner party and Senora M. Lopez de Carillo, Captain Stephen Smith, C. Alexander of the bear flag party, the Native Sons of the Golden West, the Spanish. British. Russian and Mexican, consuls at San Francisco.

COPY OF TABLET PLACED
Actively in charge of the work was Dr. T. A. Hylton,. who. took a literal copy of the inscription and gave it to H. L. Weston, who a little over a year ago authorized Miss Honora and P. R. Toumey to place upon the rock which bore the original tablet the copy which is now there. The inscription is as follows: “Russians. June, I841. C. L. Vosnisenki III. E. I. Tschernegi. Russians.”

The original tablet was destroyed when the Pioneer building was lost during San Francisco’s great fire, and today all that remains to mark the visit of the Russians to this part of California at that early period of the state’s history is the present tablet, which stands defying the winter’s winds and snows .and the blaze of the summer sun to tell of that visit of the Russians who scarcely realized the splendor of the domain, which they overlooked.

WHERE MESSAGE WILL FLASH
Within 10 feet of the spot where this tablet rests will flare on the night of July 4 a message of good will, from The Call to its California friends…

– San Francisco Call, June 15 1913

tuomeysignoriginal

Untouched original image of featured graphic. Courtesy Sonoma County Museum

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THE MANY DEATHS OF COWIE AND FOWLER PART I

All we know for certain is this: Somewhere around Santa Rosa, their lives ended on the last day of spring. The Bear Flag Revolt was not even a week old.

(Regrettably, this article had to be split into two parts because of its length – yet another technical reason why I am migrating this blog to SantaRosaHistory.com. Footnotes for this part are included here but the full set, along with transcribed materials mentioned below, appear in part two.)

The stories about the horrific deaths of Cowie and Fowler dumped gasoline on the bonfire of anxieties among American immigrants in the North Bay. Earlier that June of 1846 rumors spread that the fearsome Mexican Army was on the march, preparing to drive them out of the territory – or maybe slaughter them in their beds. In truth, the Mexican government had trouble remembering anything existed beyond Yerba Buena (San Francisco) and probably had barely enough soldiers north of Los Angeles to fill a modern high school gym. When a small division of Mexican soldiers encountered armed settlers at the “Battle” of Olómpali they quickly retreated, even though they outnumbered the Americans by about four to one. More on the background and immediate American reaction to the deaths can be found in the earlier article, “TWO MARTYRS FOR THE FLAG OF THE BEARS.”

From the Californio viewpoint, the small immigrant population just suddenly went nuts, declaring they were taking over and starting a new country. “The running up of this queer flag caused much fear to the families of the Californians established in the neighborhood of Sonoma, Petaluma and San Rafael,” General Vallejo wrote in his memoirs, adding the ranchers would not have been so alarmed if it were the United States declaring annexation. But the aristocratic Vallejo and his brother – who represented the rule of law in that part of Alta California – were prisoners of this little breakaway rebel group and the citizens didn’t know what they should do. A few “seized their machetes and guns and fled to the woods, determined to await a propitious moment for getting rid of the disturbers of the peace,” the General continued. In other words, they formed a patriotic resistance force to hold on until order was restored by the mighty Mexican Army, see above.

Leading the Californio militia here was 22 year-old Juan Padilla who owned Rancho Roblar de la Miseria (think of the Hessel-Roblar Road-Two Rock area). Padilla only had been in the area a few months but had some official Mexican government credentials as being recently the alcalde of Yerba Buena. Estimates of the number of men riding with Padillia ranged from a dozen to upwards of 200, the higher numbers probably the product of fevered imaginations from American alarmists. There was another Californio militia from the Napa area trailing the Americans taking General Vallejo and other prisoners to Frémont’s camp on the American River, but one of the few things certain about the Fowler and Cowie story is that they were put to death while in Padilla’s custody. The most concise account of what happened was told in Bancroft’s history:1

On the 18th or 19th, Fowler and Thomas Cowie were sent by Ide to obtain a keg of powder from Moses Carson at the Fitch rancho on Russian River. Disregarding the advice of Ide and Ford, they are said to have neglected all precautions, and to have followed the main road. Before reaching their destination they were captured by a party of Californians under Juan N. Padilla and Ramon Carrillo… It was near Santa Rosa that the two Americans were captured, under circumstances of which nothing is known. They were killed by their captors, and they are said to have been mutilated in a most horrible manner.

After they had not returned in two days, Bancroft continued, “…Sergeant Gibson [was sent] with four men to Fitch’s rancho. Obtaining the powder, but no news, Gibson started back, and near Santa Rosa was attacked by a small party of Mexicans, one of whom was wounded, and another brought captive to Sonoma. It was from him that information was first obtained about the murder.”

Almost everything written there by Bancroft came from the 1851 recollections of Henry L. Ford, the second in command at Sonoma and the guy who was really running the show (“Commander” William Ide was lost in the weeds, trying to decide if posterity would remember him as being more like George Washington, Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson).

Bancroft thought Ford was a trustworthy source but there were others who remembered things differently – sometimes very differently. There are multiple versions of where they were captured and killed and who was involved.  The various accounts fall into two rough categories: American and Californio, each further divided up by when the claims appeared. The first versions are those that mostly were written close to 1846:

FIRST AMERICAN   Warning: The descriptions of torture in this section are quite graphic.

The earliest version of the Cowie and Fowler story was published about ten weeks later in The Californian, the first newspaper in the province of Alta California. The author is not named but as the paper was founded shortly before by Bear Flagger Robert Semple he is the likely writer. Here is part of what Bernardino Garcia, known as “Four Fingered Jack” (because he supposedly was missing a thumb) reportedly told his captors at the Sonoma jail:

The party after keeping the prisoners a day or two, tied them to trees, then stoned them, one of them had his jaw broken, a riata (rope) was made fast to the broken bone and the jaw dragged out, they were then cut up, a small piece at a time, and the pieces thrown at them, or crammed in their throats and they were eventually despatched by cutting out their bowels.

An earlier military dispatch, written July 25 by Captain Gillespie from Frémont’s forces, told the same basic tale: “The Californios first shot the two Americans, tied them to trees, cut off their privates, scared [sic] their breast on either side, broke their jaws, and disfigured them with knives …they then threw the bodies into a ditch… “2

And although it didn’t appear in print until ten years later, Alexis Godey, another of Frémont’s men wrote about the same thing: “…their bodies presented a most shocking spectacle, bearing the marks of horrible mutilation, their throats cut, and their bowels ripped open; other indignities were perpetrated of a nature to disgusting and obscene to relate.” He continued by writing Cowie was well-known and popular, so “…the sight that his lifeless remains presented, created in the breasts of many of his old friends a feeling of stern and bitter revenge…”3

Then there was this statement from Bear Flagger William Baldridge, in an unpublished account requested by Bancroft: “It was stated and believed by some that after they surrendered, they were tied to trees and cut to pieces with knives, but if anyone stated positively that they were put to death in that way, I failed to hear it.”

Notice Garcia did not confess involvement with the killings, laying full blame on “the party,” which the article specified as a “small party of Californians under command of one [sic Juan] Padilla.” This was probably wise of him; in mid-July correspondence between Commander Montgomery of the American man-of-war sloop Portsmouth anchored off Sausalito and John Grigsby – the Bear left in charge of the 50-odd men remaining at the Sonoma fort after the others rode off with Frémont as part of the “California Battalion” – it was decided that Garcia and the other prisoner should remain in jail to protect them from being lynched.4

The accounts by Frémont’s men seem to confirm the mutilation story until you look at the calendar. By all accounts Fowler and Cowie were killed on June 19th or 20th somewhere near Santa Rosa. But Gillespie and Godey rode in with Frémont on the 25th, so if they actually saw the bodies, the remains would have needed to be close to Sonoma and still unburied, for some awful reason.

Also, this: Frémont and the California Battalion left Sonoma on July 6 and ten days later Grigsby wrote to the naval commander, “We have found the two men who were lost on the Santa Rosa farm, horribly mangled.” Thus none of Frémont’s crew ever viewed the bodies – and neither did any Bear Flaggers until the victims had been decomposing for nearly a month. Conclusions about what all this implies is discussed at the end of this piece.

Also in question is where Fowler and Cowie were headed. Bancroft stated flatly they were going to “the Fitch rancho on Russian River” without his usual thorough and long-winded footnotes. Baldridge supports that: “A man on Russian River, about one day’s travel from Sonoma, sent us word that he had a keg of powder and if we would sent after it he would give it to us.”5

But the Californian newspaper – in the same article describing the horrific deaths – claimed they were headed to Bodega, and that destination appears in several early and modern histories. This is probably a confusion because Bear Flagger William Todd and another man were sent on a mission towards the coast around the same time, carrying some note from Frémont (I suspect it was an appeal to Captain Stephen Smith to join the revolt and alert them of any Mexican troop ships appearing on the coast). Todd and his companion were captured by Californios and taken to Olómpali.6

William Ide wrote they went in yet another direction; he claimed Fowler and Cowie were “sent to Doct. Bails, a distance of about 20 miles, to obtain a keg of powder which had been purchased.” In many ways this possibility is the most reasonable. Doctor Bale had a substantial rancho where the Bears had rested before their assault on Sonoma, so Ide and the others had knowledge of what stores he had available. His place, however, was on the Napa River above St. Helena.

Thus depending whom you believe, Cowie and Fowler were going north, west, or east.

FIRST CALIFORNIO   There were no early printed Californio accounts of the Bear Flag Revolt except for Osio’s 1851 history (see sidebar in part 2, “HUNTING THE ELUSIVE BEARS”), and he does not mention Padilla’s militia or the Cowie and Fowler incident. But original documents published by Bancroft and others later give a remarkably thorough account of the doings of Padillia’s Californio homeland defense force from the capture of Cowie/Fowler around June 19 until the group faded away five days later when it merged with the soldiers at Olómpali.

In one of Bear Flagger Grigsby’s reports to Commander Montgomery he lists names or partial names of twelve men who were believed involved with the killings. Most were obscure locals except for José Ramón Carrillo, the 25 year-old son of the famous Santa Rosa family. But writings that appeared later show Carrillo’s group was separate from Padilla’s – Carrillo captured Cowie/Fowler and turned them over to Padilla, who murdered them.

Later that summer Carrillo was in San Diego where he gave a court deposition about the doings in the north. Bancroft summarized that testimony in a lengthy footnote concerning Cowie and Fowler (see sidebar in part two), writing: “Carrillo took the two men and delivered them to Padilla, who, against his advice and that of others, insisted on having them shot. Four men under a corporal were sent to shoot and bury them.” (Carrillo added he had reported what was done to Commandante General José Castro and he approved.)

In his memoirs, General Vallejo also made a distinction between the separate “command(s) of Captains Padilla and Ramón Carrillo.” Vallejo’s wife, Francisca – a sister of Ramón – said Bear Flag leader Ide strong-armed her into write a letter to both of them. Ide wanted a meeting and their promise not to attack Sonoma, warning Francisca that she and her family, who were under house arrest, would be killed “as soon as the California guerrilla men came in sight over the Sonoma hills.” She did as he asked, but also packed her brother a little something extra:7

…I agreed to write the letters that Ide requested of us and, in order to ensure the life of the messenger, we asked him to give us a passport…so that the Indian Gervasio might travel freely with his oxcart loaded with hides. At night we ordered Gervasio to place among the hides a dozen pistols, ten pounds of powder, four flintlocks and six sabers. He left in the direction of Petaluma. On the road he met my brother, Ramón, turned the weapons over to him and then continued on his way to Petaluma.

Ide apparently made the demand a day or two before the Bears discovered Cowie and Fowler were dead. Ramón replied to his sister June 22, writing from “Sierra de Petaluma”:

…I tell you not to have any fear that this force which I have reunited is for the purpose of doing any damage to that señor or his force. It is true that we have many armed Indians and people of class, and if we had any intention of doing any damage we would have done it…the only design for which we have united ourselves has been to guard our interests and to lay claim in a legal way to the peace which has been promised us…

Probably needless to say, the meeting did not occur; by the time Francisca must have received his reply, events had moved on and the Bear Flag irregulars were heading for Olómpali. His letter – with its defense-only message – did not mention Cowie and Fowler  (Ramón’s entire letter, in both Spanish and English translation, can be read here).

The Carrillo and Padilla forces again met up at Olómpali, and in his later court testimony provided one of the few first-hand Californio versions of what happened there: “After joining Padilla I proposed to him to set free his prisoners, and he did so before the fight. Then the foe fell upon us, all being under the command of [Captain Joaquin de la] Torre, who ordered us to mount and fire; but seeing that he could gain no advantage, since most of his men ran away, he ordered the rest to retire. We formed again in the plain, where we were not attacked; and then we retreated to San Rafael, with one man killed and two wounded.”


1 All references to H. H. Bancroft in this article refer to his History of California Vo. 5 1846-1848 published in 1886.

2 Officer Gillespie and Other Military Officers from the Pacific Squadron’s Dispatches to the Secretary of the Navy, George Bancroft, MS 89, Reel 33. National Archives, San Bruno, California. Cited in Scheiner (see sidebar)

3 October 1856, New York Evening Post cited in Walker, Dale; “Bear Flag Rising”, 199; pg 132-133

4 National Archives Squadron Letters cited in Warner; The Men of the California Bear Flag Revolt and Their Heritage; 1996, pg. 183. The second prisoner was named as “Blas Angelino” in that correspondence of Grigsby and Montgomery on July 16 and 18. Ford said he took the prisoners with them as he and the irregular volunteers went in search of the Californio militia and ended up at Olómpali. He did not explain why; perhaps he feared they would not be adequately safe in the Sonoma jail or maybe he anticipated he might need them as hostages to trade for the missing Bears.

5 The Fitch property was Rancho Sotoyome, which encompassed modern Healdsburg and lands to the east, including all of the Russian River nearby. Henry Fitch, married to the eldest of Doña María Carrillo daughters, was not a player in the Bear Flag story as he and the family lived in San Diego where he was part of the local Mexican government.

6 The party of Bears who confronted the soldiers at Olómpali were the rescue party for Todd and the other man. Todd was released unharmed at the start of the battle, but strangely, there is no conclusive answer about what happened to the other guy, who was reported as both killed and rescued. His name was Francis Young but usually mentioned as “English Jack,” “the Englishman” or specifically, “the dumb Englishman.” He was actually Canadian.

7 Vallejo’s “Historical and Personal Memoirs” vol 5, cited in Rosenus (see sidebar) pg. 147-148

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