Odd, Old News: The Pioneer Philanthropist

Crop of 1914 Lentell map of Humboldt County.

Nuggets of old news are served up by David Heller, one of our local historians.

Note: (The Blake homestead in Christmas Prairie was three miles east of Bald Mountain in section 27 of T6N, R3E. Bald Mountain was once known as Brizard’s Store, and when a Post Office was established, briefly as Acorn)

Odd Old News returns this week to another story from Charles Blake, the author of the article Dog Tales, and son of James Blake who took up a homestead on Christmas Prairie in the rugged country east of Blue Lake. Charles wrote a warm tribute to his father and mother that we have edited down to focus on their homesteading years before they moved to Arcata.

The James Blake family came to California from Michigan in 1879, living first in the Central Valley before locating land in Humboldt County and moving to it in 1883.

Charles’s biographical sketch is a storyteller’s delight. There is a treasured family anecdote involving President Lincoln, and stories of the challenges and risks of homesteading in remote areas. A family tragedy motivated James Blake to string the areas first phone lines, first from Christmas Prairie to Brizard’s Store, then on to Blue Lake, and eventually Arcata and beyond. These were the first phone lines of the Blake Independent Telephone Company, the first telephone service in the area and lasted until Pacific Telephone and Telegraph company took over. Mr. Blake did much more for the communities where he lived, let’s let his son tell the story….

Blue Lake Advocate
July 18, 1957
Mrs. Eugene Fountain
A Pioneer Philanthropist
Charles Blake
I find it very hard to write a biographical sketch of my own Father. I have made many starts now, wishing to give an introduction that will do him justice for those who never knew him, as well as to satisfy those few yet living who had the privilege and good fortune to know and associate with him during his life. Father had the unique experience of carving out a home in pioneer Humboldt County, many miles from town and neighbors, enduring, with his wife, my mother, the hardships, and they were many, for many years, and then spending his latter years in comfort of urban living….

He wanted the folks to come to Humboldt as he had bargained to buy land from James Denny, so at the close of the fruit season in 1882, Father gave up his leases and went to work for the Southern Pacific for a few months as telegraph operator, waiting for near Spring before moving to the North.

We arrived in Arcata in the early part of March, 1883 and stayed at the Denny home in Arcata until Father could secure a team to move us out to what would be our home for many years on Christmas Prairie near Bald Mountain. The first teamster would take us only as far as Scottsville, only eight miles out from Arcata.

Bald Hill [Photo courtesy of HSU Library Humboldt Room Special Collections, Palmquist Collection]

Here we stayed overnight at the Scottsville hotel. Here, Father engaged a Mr. Ben Vaissade to take us on out to the ranch. We started early the next morning with a fine team and a light wagon, a buckboard, taking only part of our goods, leaving the rest stored and we travelled hard all day, climbing very steep hills through mud nearly axle deep to the wagon find we arrived at Bald Mountain, the home of Mr. Vaissade, having covered only about twelve miles for the full day. We stayed the night at Bald Mountain and went on down to the ranch, if one could call the place a ranch as it was then. This was a very new and “raw” experience for the folks, especially for Mother, as she had been raised in a well organized community, with all the comforts of a home and now to move into what we found here.

Christmas Prairie

Christmas Prairie, which had been named from an Indian battle that was fought by white troops with the Indians on Christmas Day, 1863, was a peculiar little valley nestling in the top of a long, rather flat, ridge. The land sloped from all ways but one down to a pretty lake of pure spring water at one end, the tops of the hills surrounding were topped by a growth of tall fir trees, which shut out the view and one could see nothing but the sky and the valley could not be seen from even the high mountains to the west or the east. If we will anticipate a few years to the time when we had the place improved and an orchard planted, and when it was a real home, the valley as it was then is perfectly described in the first stanza of that old poem, “The Old Oaken Bucket” —

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
The wide-spreading pond and the mill which stood by it,
The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
And e’en the rude bucket which hung in the well,—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well. (Samuel Wordworth)

There was only one item missing in our old home and that was the mill. Everything else was there even, to the open well with the old style well sweep and the bucket on the rope. This later was replaced by a pump to bring up the purest, coolest water ever drank.

To return to Father and his experiences in those early years. We had no transportation and very little capital, so Father bought an old mule. Having no knowledge of mules, he was led to believe that the mule was young and in good condition, when in fact he was old enough to die and did just that in about three years.

Our nearest store was at Scottsville, but much better stores were in Arcata, so Father usually went there. This meant that he rode the mule down and then packed the supplies on the mule and he walked home.

The first year Father and Uncle peeled a lot of tanbark which they sold to Mr. Denny and he, Denny, hauled it out. This gave them some ready cash, which enabled them to procure a team and an old wagon. The men had raised a few crops, such as potatoes and beans and root vegetables for the next winter and with a supply of flour, coffee and sugar, we were all set for our first winter. Of course our meat came from the woods as there were many deer and in those days there were no game laws to hinder. To procure aid, Father used a large steel bear trap and caught several large fat bear in the fall and tried out the fat which made excellent lard.

The men felled large fir trees and worked them into rails and pickets to make fences as all our crops had to be fenced to protect them from the deer and rabbits. The large log house was unfinished when we came, but that was soon made more comfortable and outbuildings constructed.

Father was fortunate to get acquainted. with the Lupton family about six or seven miles distant, as Mrs. Lupton, a full blood Cheyenne Indian, was Godmother to all the new settlers, and stocked us with plants and young fruit trees. I remember Father riding over to the Lupton place on Greenpoint and walking home with his horse loaded with garden stuff and young plants. “Mother Lupton” was generosity personified end was loved and respected by all who knew her.

These were hard years for Mother too, for the Pioneer Women took their share and more of the hardships endured in the new land. The first year, there being no fruit on the place, Mother and I went into the woods end gathered wild strawberries, salal berries as well as wild raspberries and huckleberries. Mother had brought a large stock of preserved and dried fruit from Yolo with her that helped largely for the first couple of years.

Father was a very mild mannered man but do not think he did not have a temper. Mother was very much afraid of the Indians, for she had heard stories of the earlier days and the fact that Christmas Prairie had been a battle ground. She was always looking for a “Bad Indian” and of course this fear was passed on to me in some amount. This summer we were living on a pre-emption claim and our camp or cabin was in a deep valley. I was at the upper end when I heard someone yell at me to “Run or we will shoot you.” I looked up on the top of the hill and saw two men on horseback and they had what looked like a gun. I needed no second longer for I was running. Mother had heard the shout and thought it was Indians. At this time I was six years old and was very small for my age. Mother took the two guns that were in the cabin and we started out in the woods where Father was cutting timber. Father had heard the threat too and started for home and met us. Of course Father knew that the men were not Indians but a couple of rowdy fellows who were partly drunk and it angered Father that they should frighten me and Mother. The men were riding down the hill toward the cabin and Father went out a few steps and when the fellows got quite near. Father ordered them to stop and brought his gun to ready. The fellows sure stopped and Father gave them to understand what Father thought of them and then said to them, “Now you fellows ride and do not stop until you get over that hill and never come on this place again. Now Ride!” And they sure rode. Father came back to the cabin and sat down and he was as white as a sheet and told Mother, “I nearly shot those hoodlums”.

To those who knew Father so well, this incident may seem untrue in that he could never have had any such deadly intentions. But this was a threat to those whom he loved and under his protection. Even the inoffensive Biddy Hen will attack a bull dog and fight to the death to protect her helpless chicks.

Father was never idle. During the long winters he did trapping for the fur animals that abounded at that time and he and Uncle killed deer. There were no seasons at that time, and he dried the meat over the cook stove and in front of the fireplace. Father was a perfectionist and cured his “Jerky” in such a way that he always received a premium for his meat and had a ready market.

Life was not all drudgery for in the winter time we often went to the neighbors visiting, these visits were not for an afternoon but for several days. We often went to visit the Lupton’s. They were great entertainers and there would always be target shooting and hunting. Perhaps the next winter they would return the visit.

One of Father’s favorite sports was spearing salmon when the spring run was on. This could be real exciting, when two or three men were out in the swift water up to their knees and one made a lunge at a big fish and hooked, him, the fish would carry one into deeper water if one slipped on the rocks and fell full length into the ice-cold water. We usually had a good fire on the bank to warm up by after an accident. Father also enjoyed trout fishing in the summer.

Some winters Father would go down to Arcata and work at house painting. Charlie Muhlberg, a resident painter, always welcomed him he did everything he put his hand to in a workman-like manner. So the years rolled on, Father getting more land cleared, an orchard planted and more equipment to work with. The summers were really rugged for besides carrying on with the ranch work, we nearly always cut and pealed a. lot of tanbark. The tanoak trees were scattered among the other timber, often in rough country as after the bark was peeled, then it had to be gathered, which meant that roads had to be built into the timber and the bark gathered and hauled cut to where a wagon could go or a sled. Often the bark had to be moved quite a distance by hand.

On January 15th, 1890 my sister, Lydia, was born. Mother had gone to Blue Lake late in December and there was much snow then. All Oldtimers will remember the Winter of 1889 and 1890. Roads were blocked for months. Mother could not get home until late in March and then only on a sled. Snow was our handicap nearly every winter.

Perhaps one of the first services that Father rendered Arcata and Northern Humboldt was as a Fifer. He was in demand whenever the Grand Army of the Republic held Memorial Service or had a patriotic parade. Father was called on to play the fife for he had been a Fifer, not in the Civil War, but for the duration of the war. His Father, then an old man, organized a fife and drum corps and played all through Western New York at political gatherings and at recruiting mass meetings. His band made the tour with Lincoln and Douglas on their famous debating campaign and traveled in the car with the candidates and was present when Mr. Lincoln made the much repeated statement about the length of a man’s legs. I have heard so many versions of this story that I shall give it to you as it really happened. The party was on a train between Rochester and Buffalo when some of the supporters got into an argument about who would be the best looking President. Most of us know, Mr. Douglas was short and very heavy set, meticulous in dress, haughty and very conceited and with no sense of humor. Of course, Mr. Lincoln was everything that Douglas was not. One of the Douglas men remarked that Abe would not look well in the President’s chair, as his legs were so long that his would be up under his chin. Lincoln retorted that they would have to find a footstool for Douglas as his feet would not reach the floor.

Father said that Douglas was all burned up, red in the face fidgeting in his seat, outraged that they should discuss him in this manner. Abe was reading a paper and to all appearances heard nothing. Finally one of the fellows turned to Mr. Lincoln and asked, “Say, Abe, how long should a man’s legs be, anyway?” Lincoln did not look up from his paper but drawled, “I ’low they should be long enough to reach from his body to the ground”.

Father had his old Wartime Fife and could play those old stirring tunes that would make you lift your head, straighten your back and force you to get in step and join in the march.
It is hard for me not to go on and on, telling of the many experiences, the hardships, the failures and the’ successes of those early years, some lean and many of plenty, but I must leave many to pass into oblivion with the closing of my life and take up the last phase of Father’s endeavors. In 1897 another son was born in Arcata where Mother had gone so as to be near a doctor. Soon after they returned to the ranch, but little Henry was never too well and when four years old, he was taken with pneumonia and before a Doctor could be gotten from Blue Lake, Little Henry died. This was a heavy blow to my parents and to Father in particular, blaming himself for trying to raise a child so far from medical help. Father had never gotten away from “Communications” and had followed the development from the Morse Code through the early days of the telephone, for his one luxury in reading was the old Scientific American, a magazine devoted to new inventions.

He felt that if the outlying homes could be connected with the town by phone, such things as had happened in his home would not happen in others, so he set about planning for a line to Blue Lake. His first circuit was to Bald Mountain, stringing the wires to trees whenever possible and using as few poles as possible. The next stretch was to Angels Ranch and finally to Blue Lake, where the doctor and the drug store were the first to be connected.

This was really a philanthropic venture, for Father wanted a phone in every home where there were children and I am sure he never removed a phone from a home for failure to pay the small charge that he made for service. I have known him many times to string a temporary line along a fence to connect a home where there was an expectant Mother, making no charges until the Mother was over her ordeal.

In 1902 my wife and I returned to the ranch and along with taking over the ranch work, I helped Father run lines to several ranches in the Bald Mountain and Redwood district. Finally Father and Mother moved to Arcata and we extended the system from Blue Lake to Arcata. From Arcata, Father extended his lines into the Arcata Bottom and along Mad River Valley until he had quite a system.

Here in Arcata, Father really began to live, for he had companionship with other men of his ideas and took an active part in social and civic matters. Father played a large part in the establishing of Humboldt State College in Arcata, for he did much footwork in getting things lined up and served on the first Board that presented the offer of Arcata to the site and made such a good case that Arcata was selected. Whatever Father put his hand to, he put his whole soul into it and “Neither wind or storm or gloom of night prevented him from carrying through”. This moving to Arcata was emancipation for Mother, for she had never been too happy in the mountains, for life was very rugged and she always longed for more social life. She made the very best of things as they were, but she really blossomed out when she got to town, joining in social affairs and working in the Methodist Church. It was good for my sister, Lydia, as she had better jobs and the life a young person should enjoy. I think it fitting that we should close this story of a Pioneer, a Father, a homemaker in a wilderness, a worker for better living and civic leader.

James Blake

We end Charles Blake’s article with an excerpt of his father’s obituary:
“This was one of our fellowmen, worthy of our regard, in response to the call he has entered upon his last sleep. Family ties have been broken, but memory holds the threads that are woven into the social fabric of the past, and the consciousness that society is better because of this one’s having been with us, his life and influence have entered into that betterment, gives us strength for future duty.”

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• Lost At Sea — The 1867 Wreck Of The Kaluna
• When Wolves Made the News
• When U.S. Grant Was Stationed at Old Fort Humboldt
• Odd, Old News: Fruit Raising in Southern Humboldt
• The Big War on Marijuana–100 Years Ago
• Eager Businessmen, Big Talk, and Railroad Progress–Round Valley Coal Fields, Part Two
• The Sad Saga of Big Diamond, Humboldt County’s First Elephant Fatality
• Dog Tales…
• Early Plans for an East West Railroad to Humboldt County
• Northern California in the Seventies