Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 81

CALIFORNIA 1 NO. 81 OAKLAND, SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 1948 traditionally, it seems, certain of the story to carry it on in several particulars, between Chico and Yuba City. Nelson, just "It was then my wife and I were up there," above Biggs, was a booming young town Burnham. all that has been written rounded. by rich wheat land and Dad picked of the place no one has mentioned a very in- it as a likely place to start in business.

He made iteresting subject which, perhaps, ho longer a deal with the railroad and built a warehouse exists. We came into Shasta and on the right to store and ship grain. The new land produced hand side of Main Street "was a block or more bumper crops and Dad did well for several A respondent wrote me of an. old couple-in Los Hill. From 1853 on it received.

inf or-Angeles who were visting In Mariposa. On one ration- about ships approaching over the hori-of their wanderings through the hills north of z'ii by electric wire telegraph "from Point that town they came upon the remnant houses city's easternmost tip, says the Na-of an abandoned village. They found' the owner tffhal Geographic Society. It then conveyed of the large tract of land on which the village' i information" to all settlers by ancient non-stood and bought 162 acres included the eflctric telegraph semaphore 'set to in-townsite. In some of the old houses they found date the type of ship.

Arms at a wide angle good pieces of furniture, books, papers and riiant a sidewheel steamer, the kind that other relics of the early gold days. One of the bought welcome mail from the East Others old houses they rejuvenated for themselves as" a summer home, and they are restoring and, preserving what is left of the old village. This abandoned town was old Whitlock. A number of times in my wanderings I have come unexpectedly upon ghost towns in the Sierra. On the ridge above Nevada City 25 years ago, I found an old town in the midst of a-forest Old houses and ruins stood among the tall pines.

This was old Selby Flat. In the neighborhood of lone in Amador County about 30 years ago I walked through the crumbling ruins of an old village in a little valley. It has long since'dis- appeared, and I have forgotten what they called the place. In that vicinity also was the site of an old town called Quincy, but its location has never been determined. We" know that the town once existed, since there afe' copies of an old newspaper published there in the early days: The paper reports affairs of the place, names of businessmen, doctors, etc.

The town was large enough to have streets with numbered houses. Yet oldest residents do not know where it stood. There are hundreds of old mining towns that have vanished, biit only a few that survive in the hills, nameless and forgotten." FortV-Nilier's Ad A Forty-Niner was getting ready for the long 'trek" to California and there were odds and. ends he wished tojlean up before The ad. he ran a Kentucky paper is revealing to those interested in the personal property of those days, or in comparing with that of dred years later.

Rev. William C. Eddy sends a copy oi the old advertisement and thinKS it worthy of note that the slave-holder of other days had a heart and refused to separate a fam- ily (possibly two families) of slaves. The; ad- r(Ine Knave: In your "Knave' of January 4, vertisement: "Having sold my farm and am Allle Southern brought back nostalgic mem-leaving for 'Oregon Territory' by ox team, will ors of a West Oakland of the early 1900's. Yes, offer on March 1, 1849, all of my personal prop- tfleiWest Oakland or the "Point" was quite a erty, to-wit: All of my ox teams except two plle The little old steam engines that teams, Buck and Ben and Tom and Jerry; two hiiffed and puffed along Seventh Street, and milch cows, one gray mare and colt, one pair imers will remember that the trains went of oxen and yoke, one baby yoke, two ox carts, the" left side of, the street and' came back segments of the Legislature emit loud yowls of pain when the size of the Governor's budget is announced Having done that, they set about and boost the budget far above the amount originally recommended by the Governor; Judging from the budget as it passed the Senate and was sent to the floor with a favorable recommendation from the Assembly Ways and Means the first annual budget session is no exception.

At the stage, in proceedings the past week, the budget totaled more than above the amount -asked by the administration, Those who watched the scene closely told the knave that the budget had better original preparation and closer legislative scrutiny this year: than for many jy ears past. Despite almost herculean efforts bf Assemblyman Marvin Sherwin's Ways and; Means Committee, the total started-climbing. The Senate approved a budget increase of something like $6,000,000, and Sherwin's committee had lopped about $3,000,000 from the original estimates, before the pressure began building up foi additional appropriations. The thing that made the situation particularly interesting was that some of the very people who were advocating the increased costs were among those who were shouting loudest for tax. cuts which would reduce revenues toa point where such cots could not be met e3cept by robbing Political Reasons -'Most of the aforesaid yowls and practically all of the tax cut oratory were strictly political in motivation the Knave understands.

tyot only do such things sound gooc back home, but, in this narticular instance, thev can be used in an attempt to. embarrass the administration. It would be both unfair and incorrect to imply that all Who voted for the abortive attempt to slash taxes by plundering the state's reserves were party to an attempt to discredit Gov. Earl Warren in a year in which he is California's "favorite son" candidate for the GOP presi dential nomination. But most observers were agreed that the two principal leaders of the.

battle appeared: spurred by personal animosity toward the chief executive. Principal authors of the 20 per cent tax jcutj. measure were Assemblyman Ernest 'Geddes of Pomona, and Jonathan J. HolUbaugbJ of Huntington Park whojast out last session infthe major attempt they made to block the; adnMriistration-favored long range highway development program. Another co-author on the Geddes bill although he voted against it was Assemblyman Randal F.

Dickey of Alameda, who, as we recall, was against the Governor almost all the way on the highway fight And among those from this area who voted for the Gecjdes-Hollibaugh tax bill was Assemblyman Frahcis Dunn of who was right in therepitching with them to the end last year agains highway development Just to keep the recod straight, Dunn is the only Democrat among those named. The roll caHwhich defeated the Geddes bill did not divide along partisan lines. Quite a few Democrats sided With the administration. Incident- ally, there was spme speculation in capitol corridors as to whyj Speaker Sam B. Collins did not vote in fact his name wasn't even called when the poll was taken on that measure while he was presiding.

Others wanted to know how it happened that he miscalled the voice vote on a motion 'made during the tax debate. GOP Parlefy Delegates After weeks screening, California GOP leaders came out' this week with the list of Republican convention delegates pledged to Goy. Earl Warren, and, as usual, there were some hurt feelings, we hear. There are always disappointments, of course, because hundreds of names are submitted and Calif ornia only has 53 delegates. Political analysts, however, were of the opinion that, all things considered, the committee had done a sound job.

The delega- a i 1 ili: nl; lion was Droacuy representative ox uuionua interests and the party and was one which would carry out its commitment to the Governor as California's "favorite5 son" candidate at Philadelphia in June. The' Governor himself will not be on the detection, but it will include U.S. Senator William F. Knowland, Republican State Chairman Arthur W. -Carlson, National Cornmitteewonian Jessie Williamson, National Committeeman: Mctntyre Faries, Arthur F.

Strehlow, State President of the Cali-fornia Republican Assembly, and representatives of other leading Republican groups. There will be spokesmen for business, and veterans, and the scope "of the body will be enlarged when the alternates are selected. The expressions jof disappointment, by the way, seemed to emanate principally from persons whose past allegiance would not appear to qualify for a spot on a delegation spe-cifically pledged to Governor Warren. Visit to Shasta; Unless the Knave is mistaken W. D.

Burn- ham. with an impression of old Shasta in thp early 1930's will stir some who know more of shells of old brick and stone buildings, roofless, and ba that in several of them trees of some agewere growing gave a fair idea of the time; of their abandonment At the end of the row was one building more or less preserved and in it an elderly man, a had accumulated an assortment of articles, shelved them, put them in cases and, in fact, created a museum tt the golden days. It seems that, as the different stores folded up and left, he had bqught up their entire stock with -the idea of an enduring display of the old days. Such things as a showcase of infants' boots, tassels arid all, whkh had been imported from England, mining tools; old firearms, stage schedules, old lamps, were there. On the wall he had hanging an old engraving of the Redding-Weaverville stagecoach en route, horses at full gallop and the driver braced with every sign of animation.

We were told that an Easterner who had dropped in a few days before we were there had offered him a cool $1000 for that picture and was refused! He told us it was his intention to deed the entire stock to the State of California and that he never sold any part'of it. Another interesting building, almost directly across from the. museum, is the original lodge No. 1 a brick building with iron shutters and blue lamp over the entrance. All the furniture for the lodge was brought around the Horn in sailing ships.

The storekeeper told us they still held meetings once a month at which time members came from as far off as 40 miles. What of this pioneer and the place and its contents?" Worked for Bidwell In this installment of Louis E. Van Ness' story of his pioneer father, H. J. Van Ness, we shall learn how the latter once worked for General Bidwell.

Writes Van Ness: "They mined while the water lasted, but they did not make much. Some other miners had come inland were mining in the big gulch or creek that Alder Gulch ran into and parties wanted to buy the small portion of the gulch. That had not been worked at the lower end so they sold it to them for $1000. A few days later, just before they were ready to leave, a big thunder shower came up ana JtianK noticed some DiacK sana that the hill dirt had washed off and he said he wondered how many more holes Bill had forgot to show them. There was about an ounce and one-half in this one.

This was the last of Dad's mining for himself for several years, although he worked in and around the mines for some of the big companies on construction work. Some- time during the period Dad helped ouud tne first hotel or stopping place that was built at Dormer Lake and while working he found in a gulch where he did a little prospecting on holi- days some of the finest and clearest moss agates I have ever seen. I have always wanted to look for that gulch. Dad workedfor General Bidwell for several years doing carpenter work. Some of Dad's friends at this time talked him into the idea of buying a drift mine under the lava which was near Oroville I think close to Table Mountain.

It did not pay very well. Dad told of drifting under the lava which was the roof of this tunneL It came down too low in places for convenience, and was so hard that the black blasting powder of that period would not break it, so they were always bumping their heads. Building Bridges "After carrying on this last mining venture for quite a while and not making anything, Dad gave up mining for many years. He was quite old when destiny brought to him a mining adventure that exceeded all his early day experiences. In 1867 Dad and a partner built a saw mill up on the Feather River not far from Oroville.

The partner ran the mill and Dad, who was a good draftsman, designed and built many of the old wooden truss and covered bridges of that time in Butte County. They had pile drivers and other equipment With the mill cutting the bridge timber and lumber they built a good part of the bridges of tt steel construction made the bigger wooden bridges out of date. Dad's nephew came out from New Jersey and as he wanted to work in the mountains Dad sent him up to the saw mill. He was just 20 years old and only worked a day or two when a log jumped off the skidway and jammed him against another log cutting him in two. This made Dad feel very badly and he de- nV smA visit his ffrandnarents.

who were stil living though very old, and give Pi'pfa 4V10 Jotai1c nf tint flrridpnt. His (JTand- DiOVCl fcAHS U.ktLU4 V. parents wanted him to stay and wanted to give him part of their propery, but his experiences in California had been varied and ineresting, and after a few months back there he could stand it no longer, so he came back to Butte County. Wheat was just corning into its own, Pyramid Circle Westward a few miles each day the McAuley wagon train was moving to new adventure on August 3, 1852, when young Elizabeth Ann McAuley wrote in her diary: "Road rather hilly this morning. Nooried on a little creek where there are two trading posts having among other things fresh vegetables for sale.

We bought some potatoes at 124c a pound. We here enter upon a stretch of 25 miles without water. Traveled 19 miles today. August 4-Very hilly road this morning. One very bad hill to de scend.

We. stopped about sundown, jjot supper and rested a while and then drove until 10 o'clock when we got through to a beautiful, spring and good grass. August 5 Lay by until noon, then hitched up and traveled about 10 miles and camped on top of a mountain. We' carried water along from a spring about a mile back and found plenty of good dry grass on the mountain side. Two packers are staying with us tonight.

A heavy rain has laid the dust nicely. August 6 Weather pleasant and road good. Had a very bad creek to cross and came near upsetting a wagon. Traveled 14 miles this forenoon and found but little grass. This after- noon traveled six miles and camped early on Sinking Creek.

Had fine grass. August 7 Fine roads today. Traveled two miles and crossed Sinking Creek again and went on to the east branch of the Raft River, 12 miles. This afternoon we passed the junction of Fort Hall and California roads. Traveled 20 miles today and found a good camping place.

August 8 Traveled 11 miles and camped, good grass and water. August Traveled eight miles when we entered Pyramid Circle. This is one of the greatest curiosities on the road. In some places a pillar rises to a height of 150 feet; with smaller ones piled on the top and sides, looking as though a breath of air would hurl them, down. These pyramids are of various colors.

The sides have been washed by the rains in all manner of fantastic sjiapes, giving the place a most romantic and picturesque appearance The circle is five miles long and three miles wide, level within the walls and entirelv surrounded by these-pyramids or cliffs, except for an inlet at the east end of about 50 -yards, and an outlet at the west end just wide enough to permit the wagons to pass through. The rocks are covered as far up as one can reach or climb with names of emigrants. We left ours with a date in a conspicuous place for the boys behind. We saw the names of some of our acquaintances who passed here two years ago." QzXCLCS StOIV PutllQIIl The death of Mrs. Eugene H.

Morahan, bet- ter known to the art world by her professional name, Grace Story Putnam, recalls San Fran- cisco art history of not so long ago, a history made famous by several distinguished artists including Mrs. Putnam and her former husband, the late Arthur Putnam, Mrs. Putnam created the Bye-lo Baby while she was teaching modeling at Mills College, a doll that gave her fame and fortune. The fortune rather dwindled due to Mrs. Putnam's great generosity, although royalties were still coming to Mrs.

Putnam until death intervened. Arthur Putnam died in 1911, the victim of a brain tumor which had closed his career as an artist several years before his death. His bronzes were saved, thanks to the wisdom and generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Adorph B.

Spreckels and fill a gallery in one of ine permaneni coiieciions ai me region oi Honor in San Francisco. The Bye-lo Baby was modeled from an infant then changed a bit on the side of beauty, for infants are not always as beautiful as their parents think. Mrs. Morahan was the wife of Eugene H. Morahan, also a widely known sculptor.

Their home was in Santa Monica. She is survived by two children of her previous marriage, Kenneth Walkey, Pacific Palisades, and George Choate Putnam, DeKalb, Bi Qh gt Towns Following a recent address on "Motherlode Ghost-towns" to the Oakland Breakfast Club, John W. Winkley had ari interesting conversa- tion with one of its members, a Mr. Shaw, who he said came of a pioneer family and was born at old Folsom. Says Winkley: "He loved to hunt deer in the mountains, and on one trip with a.

nn in ih wilds alonir the Rubicon Rivr in iii 1 ivri it-iijfl in idi ci uiuii 1 11 i ik flirrnicTTi iht rViana-rral anr? fnr5t tntr a 1oa -u 1 t- i fc.AWA v-ww MMU ing where stood an ancient, abandoned town, The guide had never seen the place before and could'not account for it. Neither can I though I am familiar with all of the old mining towns of this region. The old histories do not. report any gold days town in the area. Recently a cor- years.

'elegraph Hills rise in London, in Alaska, ntlr Harbor in Massachusetts and largest of the Dalmatian Coast islands ujfthe Adriatic The most marked with "place inspired by the Morse invention is Brit iJ Columbia. Around 1860 a series of mishaps befallen repeated attempts to lay a cable afPss the Atlantic Ocean. As a result, work MS311 1864 on a telegraph line to join "the World with the Old across Bering Strait routeay, roughly, up the Fraser River and diWIV the Yukon. Wire was hauled into place prepared for stringing as far north as Tele- Creek, 58 degrees north latitude. Then, Cyrus W.

Field's success incompleting tk Atlantic cable caused overnight abandon- mWl or.the Bering Strait project For decades eafter there was no operating telegraph within a thousand miles of Telegraph Cieek. Then a Hudson's Bay Company post for triding, it is now a small mining camp with a government post office and telegraph station. Southeast 500 miles along the' Fraser River pi of the abandoned telegraph route is the Telegraph Range of mountains. Along the Brit-isColumbja coast from Victoria to the Skeena Rfrer are Telegraph Cove, Telegraph Bay, Tele- erah Harbor. Teletrranli Parsac and TpTa- Point.

Telegraph Plateau is the name to the relatively shallow ocean bottom between "Newfoundland and Ireland; where a 0f cables now cross. Deeper bottom might have added misfortunes and vpars nf rtelav tr -coynietion of the first Atlantic rh. 0(Jer West Oakland r. qrijihe left side. That was changed when the ro was electrified in 1913.

Barlin's Bakery orijj Seventh Street, wljere one could buy. three staj pies for a dime. The barber next door who snot the thug who killed Police Officer Fenton. Mftie tamale factory near Pine on the south sid'e of Seventh Street. It burned down one night and us kids slept all through the bedlam on Fifth Street) and early the next mqrjning my father told me to go over to M6rse's and get a tamale for him.

I thought he had'gosthis mmd wanting a tamale that early infthe morning, but I dutifully went and then sa'kfwhere the fire had been. I went bitter tears wfci you juggled it back and forth. Mushy, the rail? Inan. mhn xvnnlA with the whole gang in hot pursuit and Mushy scr'eajrning obscenities at his nag. Cashay, the aiiv uui threw a rope around her body and -f totted it to Oakland, because a AtA Twltr v.

bnht. bigger bty, Anderson 7" at a. lcrrd, weaymg along the side- C04.i the With a rubber pillow 0 J-1118 eaf a tl(X l0 Dapper Link Dennis, who had a saloon at Seventh and Wood Strefs and training quarters in the back where Jack Johnson used to work out And this same -wearing beret, driving his big red 'yux -f-wue aionS Slae 01 him. UC- 5hrs grocery at Goss and Wood Streets, i whsrl the kids would steal emntv coal oil cans W- 1 fc" ont ana sen mem baff -f over. These are some of my "'IT" aaysA win Dimg a smne to some other old Hiihers.

EDWIN WEMMER. one iron plow with wood mole board, 800 feet of poplar weather boards, 1500 10-foot fence rails, one 60-gallon soap kettle, 85 sugar troughs made of white ash timber, 10 gallons of maple syrup, two spinning wheels, 30 pounds ol mut- ton tallow, one large loom made by Jerry Wil- son, 300 hoop poles, 100 split hoops, 100 empty barrels, one 32-gallon barrel of Johnson-Miller whisky, seven years old; 20 gallons of apple brandy, one 40-gallon copper still, oak tan leather, one dozen feel hooks, two handle hooks, three scythes and cradles, one dozen wooden pitchforks, one-half interest 'in tan yard, one powder horn, rifle made by Ben Miller, 50 gal- Ions of soft soap, hams, bacon, and lard, 40 gal- at having missed the beautiful fire. Shorfs Ions of sorghum molasses, six head of fox Bakry near Pine' Street, where, if you went hounds, all soft-mouthed except one. At the arjhind the back when they were baking dough-same time I will sell my six Iegro slaves two nuts the Short boys would drop a sizzling hot men 35 and 50 years old, two boys, mulatto, dougknut in your hands then howl in wenches 40 and 30 years Will sell all to- cm nartv win rit conn rat bpm Terms of sale, cash in hand, or note to draw 4 play "bat the wicket" with us while his horse per cent interest with Bob McConnell as se- wcjuld wander up the street into some neigh-curity. My home is two miles south of Ver- borst garden and start eating the flowers.

The sailles, on McCoons ferry, pike. -Sale wuT next thing we knew there was an angry house-begin, at 8 a.m. Plenty to eat and drink. belaboring Mushy horse with a broom L. Moss.w 'anji then 4 the horse would trot up the street TWO TeleQiaph Hills The effect of the telegraph on the diplomacy, rXSKTv il i iei 115 -v turn the trolley at the end of the line at Seventh trade and military strategy of a century is writ-- -a tt "jcvciiia ten into history.

It has hL an effect on geogra- Df torse-phy as well. Combining Greek tele, afir, and Jfi old agon Road" that paraUded the tra graphein, to write, the word telegraph sUU 'rf xu nJ 1 1- dayito gather drift wood from the Bay. The old means, as it meant before Benjamin Franklin experimented with key and kite, "an instru- ment that answers the end of writing by con-' i veying mtelligence to a distance through the 6 means of signals." weu-Known among place that employ the word allied to Samuel names F. B. Morse's invention are Telegraph Hill, Winchester, England, 50 mfles ithwestrof London, and Telegraph Hill overlooking the San Frrrn.

Th fnrmPr named long before the genius of Morse, Vail, Cooke, Wheatstone, Henry, Gauss, Weber and others made the electric telegraph a reality, The latter became' known for simultaneous electric and non-electric telegraph service. On TpI Will MVinrh-etrr lvnr hm Aav ftf at prTrinrv virmn ririM ri 1 1 iiiniiiri snrnx t. -a 1rt nra nnrorc af IflLmil infer rrale UUUi TV Ud. WVWkVU I i MA iUtf across the countryside, they enabled the Ad- miralty in London, -with the aid of telescopes, to maintain rapid communication -with Royal: Navy ships 70 miles away off Portsmouth and TniTpc awaV nff Pnrinih Southampton. A landmark of San Francisco's early decades was the telegraph station en, THE KNAVEi.