Odd Old News: Afloat and Afoot, Travels Through Mendocino County Into Humboldt, Pt. 3

The Main Eel River 1908 [Photo by Pliny E. Goddard at 
UC Berkeley, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
Collection,California Ethnographic Field Photographs]

Odd Old News returns to Reverend McDonald’s narration of the journey of a party of men who had determined to float down the Eel River. We resume their story where they set out following the drainage of Outlet Creek after leaving Sherwood Valley, presumably in the neighborhood of today’s Longvale. Even before they have reached the Eel River, the nature of the journey they have embarked upon begins to reveal itself.

Slowed by the rugged terrain, the travelers suffer mishaps, animals experience near tragedy, and food supplies run short. Prevailing upon locals living near their route, they augment their supplies, and the Reverend’s comments shows the era’s prevailing attitude towards men with Native American partners.

Arriving at the mouth of the North Fork where they hope to be able to get a boat for their planned ‘float’ down the Eel River, the party observes a group of Native Americans living there. His views are both racially condescending, and mildly understanding of the post-genocide situation for Native American survivors.

Fenton range shown on 1914 Denny map of California

After the 1860’s, Native Americans found sanctuary off of the reservations where-ever they could, survival often dictated working for Euro-American ranchers. To the north of the mouth of the North Fork of the Eel River, on the east side of the Eel River lay the Fenton range. This was the traditional territory of the North Fork Wailacki. It is known that rancher Charles Fenton had a sizeable Indian crew of vaqueros, shepherds, and ranch-hands, their numbers are revealed on the 1880 census for this area, suggesting that it may have been a sanctuary of sorts for the Wailacki.

In the mid-1930’s anthropologist Frank Essene hired local Native Americans to interview and record Native elders stories in Mendocino County. One such interview was with Yuki informant Lizzie Franks Tillotson who told the story of a young Native man of Yuki/Wailacki descent who was captured by soldiers and taken to the Indian prison on the North Peninsula at the mouth of Humboldt Bay. We can place this in time as occurring sometime after late summer of 1862, though possibly it occurred in the summer of 1863.

Prior to that, Indian prisoners had been held in squalid conditions in a ”death-camp” holding pen near Ft. Humboldt before being moved to the Peninsula. A group of these prisoners, including a number from Island Mountain, escaped and made their way south to their homeland, traveling at night to avoid detection by the Native tribes whose territories they trespassed through. The young man traveled on to Yuki lands, but stated that a large group of his fellow travelers stayed on in the Island Mountain area, glad to be home. It is likely that some of them composed the large group of Wailacki survivors seen by Reverend McDonald and his party.

Mendocino map of Eel River expedition route.

The Eel River valley could tell many stories. We return to the 1881 expedition down the Eel River.

DOWN EEL RIVER– Afloat and Afoot Pt. 4
BY REV. J AS. S. MCDONALD
Humboldt Times
September 25, 1881

(Continued.)

We were not able to follow the bed of the creek all the way to its mouth. We had some steep climbing to where we closed the day’s journey and encamped on the bank of the already splendid river. If ever a river feels disgusted or humiliated or belittled because of the name that has been conferred upon it, as some people might well do for the same reason, (for example a young man whose indiscreet father called him Amander, his dead mother’s name being Amanda) this stream to which we have now come might justly do so. The name it bears on the maps is ‘The South Branch of the Middle Fork of Eel River.’ They might as well call the Missouri the West Branch of the Middle Fork of the Ohio. It is Eel River. If we are not greatly mistaken, it surpasses the combined Middle, North and South Forks in volume.

At the same time of our visit, the Little Lake outlet itself was nearly as large as the stream of which this river is called the South Fork, and contributed about as much water to it as the North Fork. We were, without attempting to be exact, about one hundred and ten miles from the mouth of Eel River, and at an elevation of 1200 feet above tide water. Our object was to follow it, as closely as possible, the whole of its length. It is an exceedingly crooked river, but its general course is northward, bearing somewhat to the west, and emptying into the Pacific a few miles south of Humboldt Bay. It is most prolific in rooks and rapids. We found at the outset that the bed of the river was so utterly obstructed by rocks, often of the most massive kind, that we could not follow down it with animals. We could only ford it at rare intervals, and could not therefore cross and recross and make our way down in spite of obstructions. Our first night was spent a half mile below the mouth of Little Lake Outlet. We slept on the sand, and found it uncomfortably hard.

The only excitement connected with this encampment was Billy’s morning encounter with a large rattlesnake. Had it not been cold and dull, it would, from his exposure to it, have struck its poisonous fangs into him. He saw it in time however, and though badly frightened killed it, and brought its thirteen rattles into camp.

Saturday morning we started on our trip down the river. Our chief and assistant went afoot, leaving Billy and old Bill, the postmaster, the commissary and mustangs to follow, with instructions to keep as close to the river as possible, so that we might be able to communicate by the way.

We left the camp at eight o’clock, and at noon had reached a point on the stream about one mile below our starting point; and we put in four hours of hard work to make it. There was no trail near the river. At the outset we found the mountain side covered with loose rock, and so steep we had to climb far up towards the summit to get a fair start, and then we would encounter, one after another, a deep canon or creek bed that we found great difficulty in crossing.

One of these came near becoming disastrous to old Charley. He lost his footing once before we reached it, and fell, but recovered his normal position with no delay. The great defeat occurred in crossing a small stream whose sides were both very precipitous, and where we had to make our own trial. The postmaster had hired old Charley with the understanding that he was to pay twenty dollars for him if he should get discouraged and lie down and die by the way, or any fatal accident occur to end his career as a packhorse of large experience. And when that excited and alarmed U S official saw horse and pack rolling over down the steep embankment, his heart sunk within him. But, if the unfortunate brute did not enjoy that method of getting on, it at least did him no visible harm. We soon relieved him of his pack, and with all hands heaving on him from neck to tail, we got him on his feet, and across the creek. We then attempted to get him up the steeper side, with nothing on him but his saddle. Again he fell, and rolled, and was only kept from going into the deep rocky creek-bed by the dexterity of the postmaster in getting his long halter around a tree. The case looked serious this time. But with the aid of the axe we relieved him of his entanglement, dragged him around to good footing, assisted him up, and with the aid of a rope ahead and whip behind, managed to reach the bluff. There a saddle horse was packed, and we started on again, hoping to be able to follow it, but that was impossible.

Finding a ripple, we forded it, and attempted to get down on the other side, but found that prohibitory, and had to return and struggle up the steep side. Fortunately we found smoother and more open country, and for the most part a sheep trail that helped us on. By the middle of the afternoon we crossed a creek, where our friends afoot had been waiting two hours for us, and went on.

A short distance above, a lost, bewildered, discouraged sewing machine agent from San Francisco, despairing of finding his way out, put an end to his life some months before, and was buried in the sad and lonely spot. [to be CONTINUED]
———————————————————-
Humboldt Times
September 27, 1881
DOWN EEL RIVER—Afloat and Afoot
(Continued.)

As we had the coats, blankets, and food of the party, with the exception of a few hard-boiled eggs and crackers, we had to push on and try to find our companions. They spent nearly all the afternoon waiting for us at a point they thought we ought easily to reach, ignorant as they were of our delays from the falls of our venerable pack-horse, and of many obstructions in our way, and finally they gave us up for that day, and climbed up the mountain side to a house visible from the river, intending to remain there over night. About six o’clock we came within hailing distance, and by the time we found a camping place and released our tired animals they returned. There the bulb of the thermometer was found to be cracked and that instrument rendered useless, so that the commissary’s occupation was gone as a special assistant in the scientific department.

There we spent a beautiful, quiet restful Sabbath. As it threatened rain in the evening, we went up to the house above us, where we found a barn, with hay for our beds and horses. The house and sheep range belonged to two men, one of whom lived there alone.

Like all other sheep owners in the mountains, he kept a large number of dogs for the protection of his stock. A well trained hound that will lead the pack is worth one hundred and fifty dollars. He must not only be trained to follow a bear or coyote periodically, but be taught to pay no heed to either sheep or deer. He is to wage war against destructive ‘varmints’ alone. These dogs were fed on cold mush, without cream and sugar, with only an occasional feast of meat.

A few days before they had undertaken the impossible—had tried to overtake a coyote: had followed him to the mouth of Little Lake Outlet; a distance that had taken us a day to traverse, but one they would make in a very short time. But the dog does not live that can catch a coyote.

For unprovoked, senseless, vulgar profanity, this man could hold his own with the great company found in almost all grades of our society, who seem to take delight in this method of defying God and grieving all who love and honor his His holy name. Some men persist in swearing at all times, under all circumstances, and in all company….

This Eel river man of whom we have been speaking acted as our guide on Monday, and left us in the afternoon at the residence of one of a large class found all through the mountains, who are known as “squawmen”. Often the squaw if the better of the two; but we cannot admire the taste of either the man who spends his life, with such a bosom companion, or the man who poisons and disfigures his pure, beautiful mother tongue with useless and senseless oaths. [to be CONTINUED.]

and more…

DOWN EEL Afloat and Afoot
September 28, 1881
(Continued.)
Profanity is often a matter of association. In one company a man will swear; in another, where it is not fashion, he will be decent. When we first met our postmaster, I was disagreeably impressed with his profanity. When it was decided that he should accompany us for several days, I thought seriously of quietly hinting that we would prefer his English, as well as his coffee, unadulterated.

Billy never used an oath, and the rest of us got along without any profanity, and it was not long before I had the pleasure of saying to our friend, who had excellent qualities, “I have not heard you use an oath today.” And only once on the trip afterwards, when “old Billy” was unusually stubborn in the matter of selecting his own trail, did he break over the restraint. He owned that he felt better not to offend in that way.

Our second day down the main river was over an exceedingly rough country. We only came near the stream at intervals. With the aid of an Indian guide, from the home of the man who loved the squaw, at the close of the day we crossed the river on a ripple to the east side, and encamped on the “Round Valley Indian reservation” lands. Squatters and land grabbers are doing the best they can to fasten upon a large section of this government land. We spent the night at a beautiful spot on the river. There were (a rare thing) a few acres of level fertile land, a house, garden and family.

The commissary was sent to get fresh butter, milk and meat, if possible. Milk and butter and a few eggs were all that could be secured. Four little children were playing about the house. The mother said she had sent her two oldest to relatives in Stockton that they might go to school. It was a lonely, isolated place for such a family. I asked: “Mrs. L., how long have you lived here?” ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘I have lived here mighty nigh onto three year.’ But she had been in the mountains eleven years; had come for her health and been restored. And that mountain climate is one of California’s treasures. If more accessible and better supplied with the comforts and conveniences of life, many invalids would find it a splendid sanitarium. A much needed railroad will carry many there in years to come. The profane man who acted as our guide that day, came into the region with but one sound lung, had spent several years on his sheep ranch living in a way that would kill many men with dyspepsia, and yet in spite of his bad bachelor cooking, was quite a well man. The pure air and outdoor life were healing and invigorating.

Our river had been enlarged by the incoming of the ‘Middle Fork’ from the east, by Berger and Woodman creeks, and many smaller streams from the west. With a new guide we started Tuesday morning for the North Fork, where we hoped to secure a boat. We could only follow the stream for a mile, when we again to the steep slope, with our course frequently interrupted by creeks and canons. Only a man familiar with the country could have taken us directly on our way as we went. As it was we did a great of very steep climbing. We sometimes went down pitches so steep our horses would slide part of the way to the bottom.

Crop of photo of the mouth of North Fork Eel River. [Photo by Pliny E. Goddard at UC Berkeley, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
Collection,California Ethnographic Field Photographs]

Early in the afternoon we reached the North Fork at its junction with the main river. It is a beautiful stream, small compared with the river where we first saw it. It forms the northern boundary of the “Round Valley Indian Reservation.” Very few of the natives belonging to the Reservation were found there.Round Valley is situated about fifteen miles up the stream, and there the agency is located and most of the Indians reside.Just across the North Fork there was a camp of about fifty degraded poverty-stricken looking creatures that seemed to be independent of Government aid and control. Old, decrepit, weather-beaten, ignorant to a great extent of God and the Gospel, they are passing away without its supports and consolations, their sad conditions appealing to their more highly favored kind to remember and help them. They, like the Indian races of the great continent, have been deprived of their beautiful hunting grounds, that they never appreciated and improved, with little thought of care or kindness from those who have supplanted them. [CONTINUED]
Next Week DOWN EEL RIVER—Afloat and Afoot Pt. 4

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• • Odd Old News: The Tragic Wreck of the Columbia Near Shelter Cove in 1907
  • Crusade Against Blind Pigs in Humboldt County
  • Back to Nature Man in Trinity County
  • Building the Northwestern Pacific Tracks South to Ft. Seward
  • The Bug Catcher Lady
  • Holy Rollers Take Garberville
  • Odd Old News: The 1890’s Opiate Epidemic in Humboldt County
  • The Herstory of Two Women Sheep Ranchers in Mendocino County
  • Odd Old News: Afloat and Afoot, Travels Through Mendocino County Into Humboldt, Pt. 1
  • Odd Old News: Afloat and Afoot, Travels Through Mendocino County Into Humboldt, Pt. 2