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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 29, 2013 - 07:07am PT
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This text provided by Merced County geneologists.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/history/merced/1925-ch18.txt
We have seen that the first comers to the county [of Merced] came, some of them,
from the north, from Stockton or Sacramento or San Francisco, and some of them
from the south by way of Los Angeles and Tejon, Visalia and Fort Miller; also
that their first objective was not this valley country at all, but the mining
country of the hills, the Southern Mines. But though the immigrants came from
both north and south, supplies came practically all from the north.
Stockton was the point from which nearly all the freight was shipped; it came that far from San Francisco by water, and from Stockton it was hauled by wagon to the mines.
The main artery of travel was not down in the valley where the railroad and the
State highway now parallel each other, but along the edge of the foothills. This
was so for two reasons: first, because it was to the hills that the freight was
going; and second, because of the difficulty of crossing the tributary rivers
which flow into the San Joaquin from the east, which difficulty. would have been
much greater down in the plains than it was at the edge of the foothills.
Very early there were ferries established across these tributaries along
the edge of the foothills: we read in the biographical sketch of Judge James W.
Robertson, for example, that he arrived on the Merced River near where Snelling
was afterwards established in January, 1850, at the old California Ferry, where
Young's Ferry afterwards was.
Phillips' Upper Ferry was the point mentioned in the description of the line
dividing Merced from Mariposa County when Merced was created in April, 1855.
During the first year of the county's history we find in the minutes of the board
of supervisors that there was quite a fight on between Phillips and Young with their
ferries and Murray with his bridge, and that the board licensed them all three,
charging them each $250 or $300 license a year, and putting each under bond
at something like $20,000. That indicates a good deal of traffic by that time;
going to indicate that a large portion of this traffic stopped between these
points and Millerton, is the fact that the yearly license on Converse's Ferry
across the San Joaquin at the latter point was but $75, and the bond somewhere
in proportion; the mines did not extend much south of Fort Miller.
These ferries and this bridge, like practically all the others which
existed
in those early days, were toll-ferries and toll-bridges. They were
established
by private individuals, under permission granted by the county or
counties
concerned; the county, as we have seen, put them under bonds and
collected
a license from them, and also the county prescribed the rates which
they might
charge. There were also toll-roads, established in like manner by
private
individuals or companies for their own profit but under some county
regulation.
In the first year or two of Merced County's history we find numerous
references
in the minutes of the board of supervisors to A. Firebaugh and his
toll-road
across
Pacheco Pass. Firebaugh and several associates, under
permission
from this county and Santa Clara, built the road across the range
between
the San Joaquin Valley and Gilroy, and there was a proviso in the
franchise
granted them that after a period of years the road should become
public.
Proprietary toll-roads were built in many places in the hills; places
where
the expenditure of more money than the county could afford to spend on
some hill
would produce a road enough better than the public one so that
teamsters
would pay the toll. One of the most interesting toll-roads locally was
that which
Washburn built from this side of Cold Springs into Yosemite, which
was opened
to travel in 1875, and which remained a toll-road until just a few
years ago;
many people since the coming of the automobile will remember paying
toll on it.
"Toll House" is a geographical name which occurs repeatedly in the
foothills
and commemorates the day of the toll-roads.
There is a Cold Springs, California, in Tuolumne County.
There is also the Fresno area Cold Springs Rancheria.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cold-Springs-Rancheria-of-Mono-Indians-of-California/133126040058583?nr
Since this is near to Toll House, this must be the Cold Springs mentioned above.
In Merced County, in the valley country, a road was created in the early days
by the simple process of dedicating a more or less indefinite strip of country
to the purposes of travel. The line was made definite upon the ground by traveling
over it,
but in case of washouts and ruts the travelers pioneered out a new route alongside
the old one.
There was plenty of land, and for the most part it was public land, and was used
only for cattle range, except the comparatively small areas along the river and
creek bottoms. The law prior to the No-Fence Law of 1870 required the farmer to fence stock out instead of requiring the stockmen to fence their animals in, and
accordingly
the roads were for the most part not fenced. Roads were worked by the system
of road overseers; and in the early minutes of the supervisors we
find
repeatedly where they appointed overseers, a dozen or more for the duff
rent
districts into which roughly they divided the county, with each overseer
given
the men who lived in his district, each man being required to work out his
road tax.
The great artery of travel was the road from Stockton out to the edge of the
foothills about Knight's Ferry and thence along the edge of the hills by way of
La Grange, Merced Falls, the Union Post Office, Newton's Ferry across the Chowchilla,
Converse's Ferry across the San Joaquin, Fort Miller, and so on to Visalia and Tejon
and Los Angeles. But the bulk of travel stopped with the limit of the Southern
Mines, for the most part north of the San Joaquin.
The greater number of early roads in Merced County were for the pur�pose of connecting
the settlements which were creeping out into the flat country with this Stockton and
Fort Miller road; the chief exception to this was the road running down the north
side of the
Merced from Merced Falls clear to Hill's Ferry at the mouth of the Merced.
Somewhat later other roads connected Hill's Ferry with the country on west to the Coast Range. From San Jose across Pacheco Pass a stage road led to Visalia;
the San Luis Ranch
was a station on this road, and from the San Luis Ranch also we find pretty
early a road to Stockton.
A principal factwhich we must never forget is that along the line of the Central
Pacific and the main valley highway, where now the principal towns and the thickest
settlements are located, there was in the early days no route of travel
for the two reasons already indicated, that it was to the hills and not to the valley
that travel was bound, and that crossing, and travel between crossings too, was
easiest up next to the hills. Along that line there may have been up and downs,
but there was at least solid bottom, and freighting across the valley country
would in the winter have made one continuous mire hole of the road clear from
Stockton to Visalia.
It was not until almost the end of the sixties, when grain-farming had come as
far south as Stanislaus County, that travel began to leave the edge of the foothills
for further out in the valley; in 1868 we read of the establishment by Congress
of a new mail route from Stockton to Millerton by way of French Camp, Tuolumne
City, Paradise, Empire City, "Hopetown," P. Y. Welch's store on Mariposa Creek,
Appling's store on the Chowchilla, and so on to Millerton.
Along
about 1870 the newspapers carry notices of intention to petition
for three
new roads which may be said to have constituted a road system for the
East side:
one from Montgomery's Ranch, the present Wolfsen place, down the
north
side of Bear Creek to Dover; a second from Sandy Mush northeastward,
joining
the road from Snelling to Mariposa Creek near Montgomery's Ranch; and
the
third from the vicinity of Fergus or the Franklin schoolhouse to McSwain's
Ferry,
leading from the first road to the country north of the Merced River. As
indicating
the unfixed locations of the roads up to this time, we cite the
complaint
which Steele makes about the people of Plainsburg, of how the farmers, who have
recently settled on the grain lands, are changing the routes of the
roads to
suit their own convenience or whim, so that in many cases the bridges
which
the county had been at pains to build across some of the creeks were left
without
roads connecting with them.
The quantity of freight hauled between Stockton and the Southern Mines,
and the country tributary to the mines, was immense. Large freighting businesses
were built up. Among the men who were notable in this business were Alvin
Fisher, C. H. Huffman, and Hughes & Keyes. W. H. Hartley was also in this
business before he settled on Bear Creek and went to wheat-raising. Fisher
afterwards was one of the notable figures in the stage business to Yosemite, at
first from Stockton, and then as the railroad was built southward, from Modesto,
and then from Merced. A few miles out of Stockton on the Sacramento road, Fisher
had his own stock ranch, where he raised the horses he used in his teaming
business. C. H. Huffman, the old-timers will tell you, had the finest teams and
hauled the largest loads on the road. These were only a few of the notable
figures in the business. They were not only teamsters, but also commission
merchants; they bought supplies for regular and occasional customers in the
mining country and along the route from Stockton south, and delivered the
purchases. E. M. Stoddard, before he came to Merced about the time that town was
started, was in the teaming business out of Stockton, with a partner named Ladd.
They had a warehouse on Hunter Street. After the railroad reached Bear Creek and
Merced was built, Stoddard & Hubbard were commission merchants and teamsters for
a number of years. Stoddard later absorbed the business.
Pls. forgive my inadequate copying of the transcription of the original.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Jun 30, 2013 - 02:36pm PT
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hey there say, mouse...
as to this quote:
I try to be nice. I hope all this is inter-sting, too
really enjoy this history, as you travel about...
happy mulit and varied trails, as you seek out the 'lay of the land, as it
once was' and use it in ways to learn...
god bless, and happy climbs, as well! with good buddies!!!
:)
awwwwwwwwwwww, yes, the ol' pumpkin soup, and:
ranch life--the branch life:
meaning, the kind of life that teaches us to "branch out" and learn all
kinds of stuff--such opportunity, right under our own nose, :))
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Jun 30, 2013 - 04:09pm PT
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National Parks, the Ken Burns documentary is worth watching, buffalo soldiers kicking out the sheep farmers and all that,
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Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
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Jun 30, 2013 - 04:42pm PT
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This is a reproduction of the original.
I have another, similar book, entitled "Garden of the Sun" by Wallace Smith (1939), 4th Edition 1960. It is all about the history of the whole San Joaquin Valley.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 30, 2013 - 08:31pm PT
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Wallace Smith! I remember reading this about ten years ago, maybe less, and it is excellent. We had a copy come through that was primo. A local moneybags picked up the thing and offered the boss half and he gladly took the money.
TimidTightrope, thanks a million.
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