Odd Old News: Afloat and Afoot, Travels Through Mendocino County Into Humboldt, Pt.5

Nuggets of old news is served up once a week by David Heller, one of our local historians.

When last we left Reverend James S. McDonald‘s account of the 1st Euro-Americans to attempt to float down the Eel River, the party had procured and caulked an old Round Valley reservation boat with the help of some Wailackis met along the way. The Reverend served in the capacity of narrator, commissary, “scientific officer” (he carried the thermometer), and crew, once the boat has been found. The boatmen experience one calamity after another when navigating the boulder field that was once the natural riverbed of the Eel River.

In Part 5 of the story, Wailackis come to the rescue of the party again at a difficult passage in the river that was once traditional Wailacki territory. The Native American man named Jim in the story is identified as Captain Jim, a leader of his people near Horse Ranch, and future informant for anthropologist Pliny Goddard. Goddard’s photographs that we have been viewing were taken when walking the Eel River canyon with Captain Jim in 1906. On the 1870 Long Ridge Precinct of Trinity county census, Jim and his family are the first names listed under sheep rancher Charles Fenton’s name. The census taker, George Burgess wrote “All of the list of Indians are in charge of Fenton and work on his sheep ranch as laborers” followed by a list of 23 families and a total 62 Wailackis living there. Survival for Native Americans in the post-genocide period often meant working for Euro-Americans, a topic that is well documented in William J. Bauer, Jr.’s “we were all like migrant worker’s here—Work, Community, and Memory on California’s Round Valley Reservation- 1850-1941”.

Despite being warned by “Indian Jim” that the next three miles of the river bed made going down the Eel River in a boat impossible, the party continued on from where we left off last week: “The river still had rocks and rapids, but they were not as numerous as above. The Commodore, taking the helm, assumed command, with the first officer and crew at the oars. We were frequently out, letting the boat down by the rope”.

>DOWN EEL RIVER
Afloat and Afoot
By Rev. Jas. S. McDonald
Humboldt Times, October 3, 1881
On one of these occasions, the man who had carried the thermometer was suddenly drawn into the stream, and went down to his armpits behind a large rock, while he held the end of the rope with the other, with the first officer and boat half way down a rapid. With some aid from a friendly hand, he was out again, and boat safely lowered. But his watch was so badly demoralized that it did no service till cleaned at Eureka, a week later.

We went downstream in fine style till about ten o’clock, when we swept down a long, swift stretch of stream, and found ourselves nearing a miniature Niagra cataract that seemed to be the end of our voyage.

The now large and impetuous river was drawn between immense rocks that did not seem to be over twenty feet apart, and plunged and boiled down over a fall in which such a boat such as ours would have been engulfed in an instant. It seemed impossible to lower the empty boat in safety over the fall into the calmer water away below. Owing to the weight of the boat the height of the bank, and rocky and rough nature of the whole place, it was out of our power to carry it around to a safe launching place.

A way up on the side of mountain we could see a cabin and parties looking on, the only habitation of any kind visible since we left the North Fork. The inhabitants of that whole region live on the summit of the ridges, or farther back still, out of sight and hearing; so that from that spot to Alder Point we only saw one house, and that, in our circumstances, inaccessible. In the present case, while two of the party carried the baggage around the fall, the third climbed up to the house to see what aid could there be secured. He found two Indian men and women…After a parley he succeeded in hiring the two men to go down and lend a helping hand.

We had already heard of a somewhat noted Indian who lived in the neighborhood known as the horse ranch, and that he had the only boat along the river. This boat we had seen some distance above.

It seems that as soon as the party left the house for the boat, one of those queens of the hills, large but fleet of foot, ran to Jim’s ranch and told him that some white men had stolen his boat, and where he would find them; and instantly the whole Native population was brought up to a high degree of excitement. And before anything was done to get he boast around the fall, “Jim” and a number of his braves appeared on the scene, followed by women without any cruel high heeled shoes on their fee or any pins and papers in their bangs, and curious to see the marauders. But a glance at the boat, and a good look at the benign and calm face of the Commodore satisfied Jim that it was not his boat, and that the story of its purchase from the agency was true. He felt so happy that, with promises of pay, he and five of his followers soon had the boat on the way over the rough rocks to its launching place.

But the trouble was not yet over. A far worse passage than anything encountered above was just before us. With great difficulty the officers of the craft, aided by an agile, bright and accommodating Indian through to good water.

While they were thus engaged the baggage was carried over the rocks, a crowd of Indians on the bank and away on the hills watching the proceedings with lively interest. At length, the barriers were left in the lurch, the only loss being the commodore’s broad brimmed straw hat that he had word from Cloverdale. It went sailing gracefully down stream, and was never seen again. His reserve supply was brought out, and with four Indians, hired to go down the river some miles to assist through a rocky gorge, we started.

We soon left the Indians, who were afoot, in the rear. We are now running around what is known as the horse-shoe bend, and the Indians, to save time, left the river to cross over and intercept us below. That was the last we saw of them. About three o’clock we came to a rapid, where there were both rocks and willow brush and small trees in the river. Here we met with our first-serious disaster.

[To Be Continued.]

>DOWN EEL RIVER
Afloat and Afoot
By Rev. Jas. S. McDonald
Humboldt Times, October 4, 1881

Owing in part to the timidity of the crew, who had not thoroughly recovered from the demoralization of the previous evening, and who was hidden from the boat by a large rock, he held the rope too long after the commodore who was aboard, cried, “let go,” and the current caught it, swinging it around against two willow trees in the swiftest part of the stream and lodged it solidly against them, half-turning it over, while blankets, bundle, coats and provisions all went into the river, not waist deep at that spot. The only thing brought ashore at that moment was a sack of crackers.

The bundle mentioned above went down the river and was never seen again. So with the overcoats of the first officer. Two coats and blankets were caught in eddies and rescued some time after. A sack containing cooking utensils and bacon was fished out by the commodore who reasoned correctly that they could not float far away. The boat was immovable. One of the party immediately started down the river in hopes of seeing the Indians, but after going about a mile and finding no indications of them, left and took to the hills, encouraged by the sight of a hot, endeavoring to find a house and secure an ax; but the search was in vain.

On his return, he found to his surprise, that the blankets and provisions had been preserved.

Night was coming on, and nothing could be done but build a large fire, dry blankets and clothing as best we could, and remain there until morning. We had coffee, bacon, and wet crackers, and they made the weary crew so sick that he did not feel hungry for two days. Perhaps you will say presently, it was a fortunate thing for him.

The commodore who had remarked at the outset, “you couldn’t pull that boat out with a locomotive,” now pointed out the only way to get clear. The willow trees were about nine inches in diameter, and were so tough that they had withstood the floods and drift of many years. We had a large carving knife, and we were assured that our only hope was to wade in and cut that tree off with knife at the surface of the water, and then see if we could get the imprisoned boast off. It was not an inviting job in the early morning, but, after two hours of faithfully hacking and cutting, the tree was sent down stream, the boat with difficulty released and bailed out, and soon after ten o’clock we were on our way again. But at half-past eleven, as we neared a stretch in the river where Indians were to have helped us, (but how, it was difficult to conjecture, the rocks on the banks and in the stream being so obstructive), the boat was again capsized, and this time lodged against a rock, with the strong current pouring into it, so that it could not be shaken.

This was the crowning disaster. Three double blankets and the remaining overcoat were all the articles saved. There was not even a soaked cracker left. And so we stood on the bank, Friday noon, destitute of provisions and pretty well relieved of baggage.

All we knew of the topography of the country was that Alder Point was down the river, we judged about twenty miles, and there was a hotel there, on the stage route to Humboldt bay. The only alternative left was to go afoot to Alder Point. Now came the discomfort of a boot burst at one side and half turned over. As there was no choice but to follow the rocky, rough bed of Eel river, this method of navigating the Eel river was found to be exceedingly embarrassing.

The first officer started ahead, and kept to the hills for some time, with a view of finding a house, but failed, came down to the river, pressed on to Alder Point, reaching there and wading the river about four o’clock Saturday afternoon. To be brief, where the retrospect is not particularly delightful, we walked wearily on till 8 o’clock, slept as best we could till six next morning, then clambered over the almost interminable rocks till, after 9 p.m., Saturday, our hearts were gladdened by the sight of the wire cable that we knew spanned the river at Alder Point. Owing to the weakness and weariness of the shipwrecked crew, about half the time this day was spent in resting enough to walk the other half.

Mistaking the location of the hotel, we climbed the high bluff on the wrong side of the river, and only after long shouting succeeded in calling Captain Tichnor to our rescue with his boat.
[To Be Continued]

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