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Alton Pryor is the author of the Blog on this web site, as well as the author of all the books that appear on other pages. Please browse the site and have some fun.

To comment on any of my blog posts, please go to stagecoach@surewest.net

Posted July 4, 2008

Do I dare believe in miracles? As I was struggling to get out of bed one recent morning, I had the most excruciating pain in my back, a pain I hadn't really felt before, although I've had severe back trouble for four years. On this morning, I had to struggle to get out of bed. I sent my back doctor an email, complaining that the shots he had given me didn't work and that the exercises that had been prescribed only made my back worse. I then laid down on my office sofa and took a nap, though it hadn't been long since I had gotten out of bed.

When I woke up, I had the curious sensation that my back didn't hurt. I couldn't figure out what had happened unless the way I slept on the sofa caused the herniated discs to shift away from the nerve they were irritating. I was feeling so jubilant this afternoon I asked my wife to go to a new, fancy, shopping mall opening here in Roseville. For the first time in about four years I walked nearly the length of the mall and back without back pain. I had shortness of breath but I think a lot of that was from lack of exercise.

It was truly a grand Fourth of July. If you're interested I'll rent you some nap time on my office sofa.

P.S. My wife didn't even buy anything.

Alton

Posted June 28, 2008

Supporting the Sanitary Commission

When the Civil War broke out, there were many Southerners in California. Many of these Southerners left California to join the Confederate forces.
In California, a strong Union party generally opposed the southerners, and it represented the majority of the people in California.
California's interest in the war was expressed in great part by its contributions to the Sanitary Commission. This was an organization set up to care for the sick and wounded in the Union armies, similar to today's Red Cross.
Californians donations to the Sanitary Commission are said to have totaled at least a million dollars, representing as much as one-fifth of the contributions that the Commission received from all of the United States.
One of the major fund raising campaigns involved a sack of flour. In Austin, Nevada, a man named Gridley lost a political bet and auctioned off a sack of flour for the benefit of the wounded Civil War soldiers. The flour sold for $550.
The buyer agreed to let the same sack of flour be auctioned off in a neighboring town, where it was repeated a number of times before arriving in California. The sack of flour was sold in San Francisco, Sacramento, and any number of other towns.
Bids on the sack of flour sometimes ran as high as $3,000. By the end of the Civil War, this single sack of flour had amassed some $275,000 for the Sanitary Commission.
Undoubtedly, the first city to hold a fair for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission was Lowell, Mass.
Although not as large as the fairs that followed it in other cities, the idea for Sanitary Fairs came from Lowell.
The Northwest Branch of the Sanitary Commission held the second sanitary fair in Chicago.
This branch had already sent to the field thirty thousand boxes of hospital stores with an estimated value of $1,500,000 and its treasury needed replenishing.
The ladies of this branch distributed ten thousand copies of a circular throughout the Northwest. They mentioned the figure of $25,000 as the most they could hope for.
In one day, they mailed seventeen bushels of letters and documents pertaining to the fair.
On the 27th of October, the City of Chicago came to a standstill. Courts adjourned, banks and post offices closed, schools took a holiday.
One feature of the opening procession to the fair came from Lake County-one hundred wagons, laden with the produce of gardens and farms. Potatoes, onions, squashes, cabbage, turnips, barrels of cider, kegs of beer, and enough men and boys to unload it all at the Sanitary Commission.
One of the more interesting donations to the Chicago Fair was the original manuscript of the Emancipation Proclaimation.
President Lincoln said in his letter accompanying the document, "I had some desire to retain the paper, but if it shall contribute to the relief and comfort of the soldiers, that will be better."
T.R. Bryan, President of the Chicage Soldiers' Home, purchased it for $3,000.
In the dining hall, fourteen tables were set, with accommodations for about 300 people at a time. Each table was reset four or five times a day. There was a Curiosity Shop and an Art Gallery. Entertainment was presented each evening at Metropolitan Hall, which alone raised almost $4,500.
A daily newpaper was printed, "The Volunteer", and sold throughout the fair. Not only did it raise enough to cover its printing cost, it added $377 to the donations.
A small sum of money was found in the pocket of a soldier who had died in a southwestern hospital.
It was forwarded to his sister, who purchased a quantity of worsted wool with it and knitted an afghan, which she in turn donated to the fair. It was sold for $100.
The Chicago Sanitary Fair contributed to the treasury of the Commission $78,682.89, after expenses.

Posted June 24, 2008

I wish I could claim credit for writing the following, but I can't, and I don't know whom to credit it to. Nevertheless, I think it is clever and presents a pretty accurate picture of a dilemma we now face across America--Alton

A scene at City Hall in San Francisco

"Next."

"Good morning. We want to apply for a marriage license."

"Names?"

"Tim and Jim Jones."

"Jones? Are you related? I see a resemblance."

"Yes, we're brothers."

"Brothers? You can't get married."

"Why not? Aren't you giving marriage licenses to same gender couples?"

"Yes, thousands. But we haven't had any siblings. That's incest!"

"Incest?" No, we are not gay."

"Not gay? Then why do you want to get married?"

"For the financial benefits, of course. And we do love each other.
Besides, we don't have any other prospects."

"But we're issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples who've
been denied equal protection under the law. If you are not gay, you can get married to a woman."

"Wait a minute. A gay man has the same right to marry a woman as I have.
But just because I'm straight doesn't mean I want to marry a woman. I want to marry Jim."

"And I want to marry Tim, Are you going to discriminate against us just
because we are not gay?"

"All right, all right. I'll give you your license. Next."

"Hi. We are here to get married."

"Names?"

"John Smith, Jane James, Robert Green, and June Johnson."

"Who wants to marry whom?"

"We all want to marry each other."

"But there are four of you!"

"That's right. You see, we're all bisexual. I love Jane and Robert, Jane
loves me and June, June loves Robert and Jane, and Robert loves June and
me. All of us getting married together is the only way that we can express our sexual preferences in a marital relationship."

"But we've only been granting licenses to gay and lesbian couples."

"So you're discriminating against bisexuals!"

"No, it's just that, well, the traditional idea of marriage is that it's
just for couples."

"Since when are you standing on tradition?"

"Well, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere."

"Who says? There's no logical reason to limit marriage to couples. The
more the better. Besides, we demand our rights! The mayor says the constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. Give us a marriage license!"

"All right, all right. Next."

"Hello, I'd like a marriage license."

"In what names?"

"David Deets."

"And the other man?"

"That's all. I want to marry myself."

"Marry yourself? What do you mean?"

"Well, my psychiatrist says I have a dual personality, so I want to marry the two together. Maybe I can file a joint income-tax return."

"That does it!
I quit!!

To comment on the above item: stagecoach@surewest.net

June 21, 2008

Alton: Interesting story, but I wager there is a bit more not reported. What, I do not know. But there is a rest of the story somewhere. Denis

If this story doesn't make you mad, it should. At the time of this posting the outcome was still up in the air.

Prospector Being Evicted

By Sarah Foster
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com
It may be a close call, but help is on the way for a beleaguered, small-scale gold miner that the U.S. Forest Service wants to oust from an abandoned mining town that's been his home nearly 40 years.
Gerald "Jerry" Fennell, 61, is the last of the independent gold miners in the Jicarilla Mountains in south-central New Mexico, and one of the few remaining in the state.
Under orders sent last October by the Forest Service, Fennell had until yesterday to pack up and clear out or face trespassing charges. But with help from a local group and folks in the area who are rallying 'round, he's going to dig in his heels and fight.
"We'll be asking for an injunction to stop the eviction," says Jay Walley, communications director at the Paragon Foundation, a nonprofit public-policy organization in Alamogordo, N.M., that focuses on land rights and public access to federal lands. "From what we can tell, the Forest Service does not own those buildings where Jerry's living and has his mine - the question is, who does? In any case, there needs to be a closer look at this."
You won't find Jicarilla on a standard road map. It's "miles from nowhere," and to get there you must travel along a dirt forest road to the heart of the Lincoln National Forest. If you don't look sharp you just might miss it. Today it's a ghost town, but 75 years ago it was a small but thriving mining community. During the early 1930s, it had a population of some 300 people. There are only three buildings left - the church, the log schoolhouse and the former general store that Fennell moved into in 1997. The nearest town is Carrizozo, population 1060, located 30 miles to the southwest.
Sitting on a gold mine
Fennell owns several mining claims in the area, and what's left of the town sits on one of them. A 1988 article in the International California Mining Journal estimates there's a bonanza of $20 million in fine gold in the 1,920 acres that make up his mining claim, but he limits his operation to a swimming pool-size pit behind the store, which he works with a pickaxe and shovel, hauling the ore by wheelbarrow or with the help of a burro named "Dusty."
Last summer, Walley traveled to Jicarilla to meet the long-time resident gold miner and see his place first hand.
He keeps his efforts "small by design and philosophy," wrote Walley in an Aug. 18 report for newssite Sierra Times.
"I keep it that way because I don't want to disturb the land more than I have to; I just take enough gold to get by," Fennell told Walley. "I don't use any chemicals and darn little water."
As there is no natural supply of water at his home, what water he uses he draws from a well down the road, hauling it back in an aging pickup truck. A generator supplies electricity for lights and a computer. He has a few chickens running about that he keeps for eggs, and a goat for milk.
Fennell told Walley he had "recently" received a letter from the Lincoln National Forest office stating he'll be charged with trespassing unless he prepares various papers and forms, which he claims would likely put him out of business.
Specifically, the service is demanding that he file a "plan of operation" - a document describing the extent of his operation, the equipment to be used, restoration plans and other details. It's a standard request demanded of those wishing to mine or log or otherwise obtain resources from federal land. But applicants have found that when completed, further demands are made for ratcheting up requirements, thereby making it very difficult if not impossible for small-scale entrepreneurs like Fennell to operate.
"Once I file the paper [a plan of operation], the Forest Service will impose such a huge reclamation bond that I won't be able to afford it," he explained. "I have watched them do it to my neighbors. They are all gone now. I am the last miner in the Jicarilla Mountains."
Although they insist Fennell should jump through a series of bureaucratic hoops, the Forest Service and its employees say they object only to his living arrangements, which they regard as squatting.
"Fennell has a legal right to his claim, but he is illegally occupying cabins that are on national forest land," Lincoln National Forest ranger Jerry Hawks told Walley.
But Fennell has a copy of a 1999 ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that says miners can live on their claims if they can produce possessory title and vested rights for structures and equipment.
And according to Walley, he does have tax records showing he has paid taxes on the structures and equipment for years.
Recently, Rene Romo of the Albuquerque Journal visited Fennell, and talked with Johnny Wilson, Forest Service's recreation and lands staff officer.
As far as Wilson and the Forest Service are concerned, Fennell doesn't run a true mining operation, Romo reported, despite his having a home "littered with various types of equipment used to sift through fine, dry dirt."
"He [Fennell] has done what is called prospecting - a pick and shovel operation," said Wilson.
"Well," Fennell retorts, "how have I made a living all these years?"
He wouldn't tell Romo how much money he has made over the years, but Fennell did say that selling gold, at the current rate of about $351 per ounce on the spot market, has sustained him "for decades."
In October, Fennell received notice from the Forest Service that he had 90 days to pack up and get out, "without further changing the historic structures." That period was up yesterday, Jan. 15. Wilson told Romo that if he had not left by the deadline, the agency would seek a court order for eviction. The next step would be for Fennell and the Forest Service to battle it out in court over whether the long-time resident has the right to live on his mining claim and who actually owns or has the right to control what remains of the town of Jicarilla.
That latter is a major bone of contention, since the Forest Service claims the buildings as its own. According to Fennell, the congregation of the Jicarilla Community Church used the old school house as a chapel until a few days before last Easter, when the Forest Service padlocked the door and posted a sign reading:
"PROPERTY of THE UNITED STATES" and warning "All Persons Are Prohibited Under Penalty of the Law from Committing Any Trespass."
At their meeting in August, Fennell showed Walley an envelope stuffed with "well-thumbed documents" he has collected over the last few years.
"Look at this," he exclaimed, selecting a record dealing with the schoolhouse. "This building has been used as a church since the '30s. How can the Forest Service just padlock and post it?"
And if he leaves, what will happen to the buildings? The Forest Service admits having no plans for restoration - it just doesn't want Fennell or anyone else living there.
"For years I have watched and cared for this building [the now-locked church] and the others," Fennell remarked. "If the Forest Service pushes me out, in a couple of weeks what is left of this little village will be vandalized or bulldozed and burned by the feds."
Fennell said he has asked the Forest Service to prove they even own the land on which his claim is located. Being in the middle of a forest is not automatic proof of federal ownership. There may be private, state and county holdings.
"All they have provided is a copy of an executive order signed by President Woodrow Wilson that indicates certain lands must be taken to connect the Lincoln National Forest to another national forest," said Fennell. "As best as I can determine through my research, this land may not even belong to the Forest Service."
Walley describes the title trail as "incredibly convoluted." Besides successive ownership by Spain, Mexico and the Republic of Texas, Jicarilla has been part of three New Mexico counties over the past hundred years, as boundaries were shifted. The Lincoln County tax assessor's office admitted, "There is really no way to know where all the records for Jicarilla are located."
Fennell is not saying he owns Jicarilla, but he is questioning the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service. As he sees it, there are other more likely owners than the U.S. Forest Service.
"I've told them [the Forest Service], you show me proof of ownership, and it's over. I'm gone," Fennell explained to Romo. "The only thing I'm claiming here is the mining claim, my mine and the houses. The town, the history, the land belongs to the state of New Mexico, the county of Lincoln and the people. That's my firm position."

Tell us how you feel about this: stagecoach@surewest.net
Ψ

The Lost Woman of San Nicolas

San Nicolas is a windswept island about 65 miles from the nearest point on the California mainland.

The island, only 8-miles long and 3-miles wide, is said to have been inhabited by a superior race of almost white Indians, most likely the offspring of trading ship sailors.

These Indians wrested a precarious living from the kelp beds surrounding the island.

An American sea captain under contract to a Russian-American trading company hired 30 Kodiak Indians from Alaska to hunt sea otters in California.

Ships carrying the Aleut Indian hunters came to the island, bent on taking the valuable sea otters abounding at San Nicolas Island.

The Russian hunters were attracted to the women on the island, and considered them as desirable for taking as were the sea otters. These villainous plunderers readily killed the men who tried to defend their women.

The sea otter population at San Nicolas was reduced to minimal numbers, and the Indian tribe itself had dwindled to a puny population of inhabitants.

By 1835, the tiny tribe was so decimated that the Mexican government decided to move the Indians to Mission San Gabriel for protection as well as to save their pagan souls.

One of the rescue vessels sent to save the Indians was the Peor es Nada. The name, loosely translated, means "Better Than Nothing."

The little schooner was directed to San Nicolas Island to pick up the remnants of the island's residents. Because of an ominous storm brewing, the Peor es Nada quickly left the island.

One woman aboard found that her baby was not aboard the schooner. The frantic mother leaped overboard and swam ashore to search for her child.

The captain of the schooner, one Charles Hubbard, decided the storm was too threatening to wait for the woman and hastened the vessel to San Pedro, where his passengers were distributed to the various missions.

The woman who had leapt overboard to search for her child was all but forgotten.

In 1853, Captain George Nidever decided to comb the island once again in search of the Indian woman. When Nidever went ashore, he spotted a faint, yet fresh footprint in the hard sand. He found other prints moving away from the sea toward the steep cliffs that sheltered a cove.

Before he could trace the footprints up the cliff, a furious blast of northwest wind sent the captain's schooner reeling. It was heeled over, tugging at its anchor, forcing the captain and crew to board and sail away from the island before the ship was wrecked against the rocks.

It was a year before the captain returned to the island, this time determined to find the lost woman. Carl Dittman, who later wrote an account of the trip, accompanied him.

The two men first discovered a basket, woven of grass, placed in the clump of some high bushes.

The basket's contents included a dress, or gown, made of the skin of a cormorant. There were several skins of the same kind, cut in a square shape. The basket also held bone needles and knives, fishhooks made of abalone shell, and a rope made of animal sinews, about one-half inch in diameter and fully 25 feet long.

"This sinew rope was twisted as evenly as the best rope I have ever seen. I think that it was used in snaring seals, by making a noose and spreading it on the rocks near the beach where the seals were accustomed to sleep," Dittman wrote.

While alone on the island, the woman had proved to be quite resourceful. She cast fishing lines fitted with her abalone shell hooks, and she built a hut made from whalebones.

One of Nidever's crew spotted the woman high on a ridge, surrounded by several dogs. She was skinning a seal with a knife made from a piece of iron hoop.

Talking to herself as she worked, she occasionally paused to watch the progress of the men as they approached.

She welcomed the men and served them a meal of roasted roots.

The woman was no longer young and her head was covered with thick, matted hair. Her only companions were five wild dogs.

The men convinced the woman, with crude attempts at sign language, to accompany them.

She placed her things in a basket. Her possessions included seal meat, which had become rank, and a seal's head from which putrefied brains oozed.

As the group arrived at a spring issuing from a shelf of rock, the woman stopped to wash. When they reached the boat, the woman crept forward to the bow, where she knelt, holding firmly to either side of the craft.

Following dinner, which the woman ate heartily, Dittman made a petticoat and a man's shirt for her from ticking. She asked Dittman, by signs, to allow her to sew.

Nidever provided her with an old cloak that was almost in ribbons. Dittman had to thread the needle for her as her eyes seemed weak.

She sewed up every rent and hole in the cloak. Her manner of sewing was peculiar. She placed her work across her knee, and thrust the needle through the cloth with the right hand and pulled the thread taut with the left.

She was taken to Santa Barbara and christened Juana Maria.

The remarkable woman, who survived the rigors of the forlorn island, had lost the knowledge of language. She could impart her history only with signs and gestures.

While she received the best of care, the woman who had been lost so long, and who was the last human inhabitant of San Nicolas, became ill from eating too much fruit.

She lived only six weeks. Her story, however, is even more sensational than that of Robinson Crusoe, especially since his was fiction, and hers was not.

(This and many other stories can be found in Alton Pryor's several books listed on other pages of this web site. We would love to get your order. We promise the books will not be boring.)

June 19, 2008

Learning to Drive

Learning to drive for my older brother (now deceased) and I started at six and seven years old.

My father worked for a row crop farmer and was in charge of irrigation. He also was in charge of moving irrigation pipe from one section to another.

The truck that hauled the irrigation pipe was an old International (the year eludes me). It had what then was called a "compound" gear, which was the lowest of the low as far as gear speed.

Dad would head the truck down two crop furrows, which insured it would go straight. My brother and I traded turns being brakeman and steerman. This allowed my dad to load or unload the irrigation pipe without constantly getting in and out of the truck. He simply loaded or unloaded the pipe while the truck was doing a slow crawl. To steer the truck, one of us had to kneel in the seat of the truck to be high enough to see through the windshield.

The brakeman would sit on the floor in front of the driver's seat and man the pedals, not able to see in or out. When Dad shouted to stop, the brakeman pushed in the clutch. There was no need to use the brake as the truck traveled so slow, it was simply a matter of engaging and disengaging the clutch.

As we grew older, we were allowed to drive the truck back to the house with my Dad always ready to assume control in case things went wrong.

By the time my brother and I were nine and ten years old, we were pretty proficient drivers. We had the best instructor in the world, my Dad. I'm sure today my Dad would be hauled into court for violating some child labor law. But for me, I'm glad I learned how to drive before a child labor law took my driving privileges away.

Care to comment. Go to: stagecoach@surewest.net

June 16, 2008

A dear friend was obviously concerned about my health and sent me the following email:

The Importance of Walking**

**Walking can add minutes to your life.

This enables you at 85 to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5000 per month.

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60.

Now she's 97 years old and we don't know where the hell she is.

The only reason I would take up exercising is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks.

Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there.

I have to exercise early in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.

If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.

.............And last but not least,

You could run this over to your friends but why not just e-mail it to them!

We'd like to hear from you. Just go to: stagecoach@surewest,net

June 12, 2008

Some wonderful stories are told about the Heritage House on the Mendocino coast. The house was built in 1877 for relatives by John Dennen. Dennen and his wife were the only settlers on the Mendocino coast.

Among the colorful tales told: The place was used for smuggling, both for liquor during prohibition, and for bringing in illegal Orientals. Cables and a secret cave used in these operations still exist.

The place also secreted Baby Face Nelson when sheriff's deputies searched for the bandit. The lawmen found out too late that Nelson had successfully hidden in the then empty house. Don't hesitate to check out the Heritage House when you want a quiet weekend on the Mendocino Coast.

The Camel Experiment

The cost of maintaining its army outposts across the U.S. was appalling to both Congress and the War Department.

It wasn't "wild Indians" or "renegade Mexican bandits" that ran up the costs. It was the transporting of forage and other necessary outpost items through semi-arid country.

Eureka! Government officials had the ideal answer. They dusted off an old plan for a "Camel Corps". The army would use camels as freight animals to traverse the desert.

Caption goes here

Backers of the scheme insisted that if camels could be used successfully in Africa and Asia, they might also flourish in the "Great American Desert".

Some 75 Mediterranean camels, along with Greek camel tenders, were imported in the mid-1850s and delivered to Camp Verde, Texas. The so-called "dromedary express" was underway.

One of the first tests of the camels was at Fort Tejon on top of the Grapevine Grade, south of Bakersfield.

The experiment didn't come without a fight. When Lt. Edward F. Beale was ordered by Secretary of War John B. Floyd to pick up 25 camels from Camp Verde and take them to his command post in California, he exploded.

"What," he asked, "was an Army man going to do with a herd of camels?"

While Beale fumed, both orally and in written letters to Secretary Floyd, the secretary stood firm. Beale had no choice but to travel back to California with 25 camels in tow, along with their Greek camel tenders.

The first contingent of camels made the trip from Arizona in only fifteen days, with the camels swimming the Colorado River on their way.

On January 8, 1858, the population of Los Angeles turned out to witness the arrival of the state's first camel caravan as they arrived at Fort Tejon.

Despite Beale's initial displeasure, he found the camels reliable, docile, and patient. They would not stampede as the mules did.

Their biggest detriment was the need to tend them during stopovers to camp, as the camels would amble for miles in search of forage. But the trip across the desert to California changed Beale's thinking about the beasts.

The camels did suffer from the rocky soil of the Mojave Desert, which chewed into their soft hooves. The Mojave was not the same as the soft sands of the eastern Mediterranean.

Even so, Beale took a liking to the usefulness of the camels and refused to return them to Camp Verde when the army ordered him to do so.

His excuse was the camels would be invaluable should California become involved in a military action, such as a threatened war with the Mormons.

Instead, he left the camels at the ranch of his business partner, Samuel A. Bishop, who operated a teamster service.

Bishop continued to use the camels to haul freight to his own ranch and to the developing town of Fort Tejon during the next year.

Mojave Indians often harassed teamsters along the route where Bishop hauled freight for Beale's work crews. The Indians willingly attacked civilians traveling through the area, but shunned soldiers.

At one point, Bishop's men encountered a large force of Mojaves. The Mojaves sent ominous signals of wanting to attack. Bishop ordered his teamsters to mount the camels and make a charge.

It is said this was the only "camel charge" in the west. Ironically, the Army had nothing to do with it. The surprise charge did rout the Mojaves, however, who were unaccustomed to fighting men on such strange beasts.

Beale was eventually ordered to turn his camels over to the Army. He told his partner Bishop to take the camels to the Army at Fort Tejon.

The camels had been worked so hard and were in such poor physical shape they were not worth feeding. They were consequently moved to a rented grazing area 12 miles from the post.

As the animals' health returned, the Army resumed its experiments with camels. In one test, camel tenders were ordered to deliver mail by camel, much like the Pony Express.

Mail was carried from Fort Tejon to Fort Mojave on the Colorado River.

In the first trial, the test camel dropped dead from exhaustion at the Fishponds (now known as Daggett).

A second attempt at "camel express" mail ended with the camel dying at Sugar Loaf (now Barstow).

In each trial, the camel rider ended up stripping the mail pouch from the animal and carrying it by foot to Fort Mojave.

The Army eventually determined camels were no faster than the two-mule buckboard it had under contract to deliver mail to Fort Mojave. Camels, they found, were not express animals, even though they could haul heavy loads.

In another poorly organized and confusing experiment, the Army turned its camels over to a survey crew mapping the California-Nevada border.

The group became lost often, and never found the coordinates for the new Nevada-California border.

As the survey crew floundered, drifting into the northern Mojave Desert, they soon lost their pack mules and had to abandon their equipment.

The slow-plodding camels, however, took the struggling survey crew over the Sierra to Visalia. The camels had saved the day.

We received a nice email today from the webmaster and chief bottle washer at the Thomas Ranch. If you haven't visited that web site, you're missing a real treat. I'm printing Russell Anderson's great email below.

Dear Alton,

First thing out the gate, Im sorry its taken me a couple of days to get back to you.

Next, thank you for connecting to our Ranchs web site!

http://www.thethomasranch.com/ I noticed that you had connected to it when you wrote about us in your blog, thank you for such a great write up. Yes Ive looked at your site several times and thru the renovations that you have put it thru. I really truly enjoy how you have transformed it.

I am more than happy to put a link back to your site.

http://www.stagecoachpublishing.com/ The only issue is I am deployed to Afghanistan, at the present moment, and I wont get a break from over here until sometime towards the end of summer. I am an Active Duty Soldier and a Web-Master all wrapped up in one. http://www.desertcowboys.com/ or http://www.cowboycrew.com/ you can read about us on either of these sites, but they are from our Baghdad deployment. I am unable to update these as well.

Back to business, I have been making daily updates to our Ranch's website to include people who are looking to get links back to their site. As a matter of fact I have already added your site into our website, prior to your email. But I cant update the site from over here. I have tried several times and I seem to mess a page up every time I try to update it. So, if you could be patient with me until the end of summer I will update our site and your link will be added to our pages.

Thanks again for your email.

Russell Anderson

Trail-Boss, Web-Master, Soldier.

June 8, 2008

A history of Father's Day

It's June 15, this year

The idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.

Having been raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

In 1926, a National Father's Day Committee was formed in New York City. Father's Day was recognized by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956. In 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. So Father's Day was born in memory and gratitude by a daughter who thought that her father and all good fathers should be honored with a special day just like we honor our mothers on Mother's Day.

To comment on this article, go to: stagecoach@surewest.net

June 6, 2008

Alton: Looks like you're as busy as ever. Your blog is a kick!

Janice

The California Presidios

When visiting Russians arrived in San Francisco, soldiers at the presidio were thrown into an embarrassing situation. Their armory was so poorly stocked, the red-faced soldiers had to borrow gunpowder from the Russian visitors to return a proper salute. This was not the only embarrassment of the military personnel manning these installations.

Even the officers, the aristocracy of these frontier fortresses, lived under primitive conditions, making them the pity of foreign visitors. The soldiers also had run-ins with the Spanish friars, who were diligent in keeping settlers, and especially the soldiers, away from their new converts, the Indians.

Soldiers, it was felt, were too apt to take advantage of the mission's charges, especially the women. Presidios, with their small troops of soldiers, were consequently located at remote distances from both the missions and from the pueblos.

California was divided into four military districts, with a presidio in each one. These fortresses, established at San Diego, Monterey, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara, were intended to protect the missions from Indians and intruders, and to guard Spanish claims to the area from foreign aggression.

But the presidios were so poorly financed and maintained, they generally fell into decay. Soldiers were also poorly outfitted. To their disgust, they were more often used to perform menial tasks rather than military duties. They were used to erect buildings, care for flocks and herds, and even more to their distaste, cultivate and tend the soil.

The soldiers did learn to be enterprising. They would employ Indians to do their menial tasks. In exchange for their labors, Indians might receive a string of beads, a dish of porridge, a pair of cast-off shoes, or a bit of cloth.

Presidios were located at strategic positions, often at the entrances of the best ports. Small groups of houses, inhabited by settlers, traders, and families of the soldiers grew up around the presidios. While the Spanish government may have been lax in fortifying its presidios, it was precise in planning down to the minutest detail the layout of its pueblos in Spanish America.

The inducements, offered to attract residents to these new communities, attracted more low life criminals than it did upstanding settlers. Mexicans emptied their jails in Sinaloa and Sonora, sending their riff-raff northward.

The Spanish pueblo planners were precise. Before a pueblo was located, it was first determined if adequate water was available. There must be wood for both building and for fuel, and sufficient arable land and pasture for livestock to feed the pueblo's populace. A great requirement was the proper soil for the building of adobe structures.

Because the designers of the pueblos were so exact, the towns in Alta California were much alike. A plaza was the center of town, for that's where the people met, shopped, and held their celebrations. Around the plaza were grouped the church, the town hall, and other important buildings.

To induce colonists to come to the new province, Spanish authorities provided many incentives. Each new settler received a house lot, a parcel for farming, and use of the common pastureland. Settlers received a small subsidy of $10 per month for the first two years, and $5 a month for the next three years. They were exempted from taxes during this first 5-year period.

The government's grandiose plans did not work. Those most ill suited to colonize came forth. Many recruits to the new pueblos were deep-dyed criminals. In spite of generous government support and elaborate planning, the pueblos of Alta California never really prospered.

Those settlers that came were poorly trained to be frontiersmen and more inclined to find ways to exploit the Indians than to do labor. Private ranchos were not originally intended as a means to settle California. Scattered ranchos were considered hard to defend and control, and the authorities discouraged them.

There were some land grants made for political reasons, or for personal friendship, and to military men, especially, in remuneration for services. The first rancheros in California were Spanish soldiers. Many had come to California with the explorers.The result was the granting of only some 25 ranchos and the creation of the landed elite.

These early grants formed the basis of the extensive rancho system that dominated society when Spanish sovereignty ended in Alta California in 1821. While the sovereignty ended, Spanish institutions remained. About 40 years after Spain had started her colonies in California, Mexico became independent from Spain and claimed California as her own. In 1825, Spain relinquished its rule, and the Mexican flag flew over Monterey, the Capital.

June 3, 2008

Yes! I'm somewhat embarassed. I was asked by a cousin for information on my family history. My cousin was starting the job of assembling a family tree.

As a writer of California history, I think I was expected to have oodles of information at my fingertips. Beyond my immediate family, I was lost. I didn't even know the maiden name of my dearest sister-in-law, now deceased.

I really have little desire to put my own family tree together. It's too much like plowing a large field of dirt hoping to dislodge a jewel. I guess I'm too afraid of what might turn up.

We welcome your comments: stagecoach@surewest.net

Posted May 31, 2008

Beat Those Gas Prices

Don't be surprised if you see a man pulling a Rickshaw through the streets of Roseville. At least that is in his possible plans.

Tom Hatcher has pulled Rickshaws before. He found that not everybody approved of the idea. "Man did not invent the wheel to be put in the yoke," was the cry he heard at Berkeley.

He recalls he was having a good time pulling his rickshaw when he was confronted by a woman standing squarely in front of him. She said, "This offends me."

"Why?" Hatcher asked.

"Because you're being exploited."

"But nobody's hiring me to do this. I'm doing it myself! I'm my own boss."

To that she had no answer. When he offered her a free ride, she turned away.

Hatcher loves rickshaws, even though he knew the rickshaw's days were numbered. The rickshaw's star fell about as fast as it rose, he said. It was replaced by the automobile.

Pulling a rickshaw, Hatcher avers, is a great exercise for the puller. It's probably not a lot more strenuous than another exercise he does each day to stay in condition. Tom walks and runs daily, but on all fours. He has run on all fours all around the country, from San Diego to Alaska.

His rickshaw idea may be an answer to those soaring gas prices. Ride anyone? He won't pull it on all fours, however.

(Did you like this story?) Let us know. stagecoach@surewest.net

Hi Alton, I especially enjoyed the article about the bees. As apple growers we need the bees to help pollinate the blossoms. The bee hives are brought into the orchard at night, after the bees have returned to their hives. The beekeeper removes the bees after the blossom period is over. I don't know the variety of the bees the beekeeper has now but one of the more popular bees has been the Italian bee. We tried keeping the bees ourselves but the bear destroyed the hives.
Joan Barsotti

Dear Alton:

I'm afraid I'm with the woman in your rickshaw story. I think it's horrible to see men pulling rickshaws. I didn't see that when I was in China in 1987! Do you know if the McClatchy's were involved in the bee business? Is that why their newspapers are called The BEE? As always, I learned something new today.

Thanks

Pat ¿

Tom Hatcher enlightens us some more:

Hi Alton,
   I read your Blog. I liked most of what I saw, but I especially liked your May 31st blog about me. You forgot to mention I have also been a politician in Kalamazoo, an attorney in Berkeley, and a teacher in various places. You can also add a link to my website www.tomhatcher.us, and I'll put a link to your site on mine.
   Also, just this morning I talked with a woman in San Diego who's been walking on all fours since she was six years old. She doesn't do it as much as I do, but she does some. She's also a computer-minded person and thinks a video on youtube of walking on all fours is a good idea. She also suggested having a blog on my site.
   If I put up a blog, I think I'd make it so people can add comments without emailing me. I tried the mailto link and wrote you a message. But did you get anything from me other than this? It didn't seem to work. Of course, I don't use Outlook Express, and that's what came up when I clicked on the link to comment on the May 31st blog.
   Anyway, liked the story. Are you getting much response to the blog?

Tom Hatcher

Posted May 27, 2008

The Battle of the Honeybees

In 1867, honeybees were scarce in California. The industrious insect was not native to America. Like the horse, the honeybee had originated and propagated in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Explorers did bring both horses and honeybees to America, but honeybees generally kept to the eastern side of the continent.

The great American plains, the Rocky Mountains, the southwestern desert, and the humid jungles of southern Mexico were formidable barriers to the honeybee's western progress.

There were two events that occurred in the late 1840's and early 1850's that paved the way for the honeybee's migration to California. One was the discovery of gold, and the other was the invention of the Lanstroth moveable-frame beehive.

Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth invented the moveable beehive in 1851 in Philadelphia. Before Langstroth's honeybee hive, beekeeping was simply a hobby. Beekeepers, in order to harvest the honey from previous hive designs, were forced to kill the honeybees with sulfur smoke.

The new honeybee hive transformed beekeeping into an industry. It also offered an opportunity for entrepreneurs who could envision riches by bringing the industrious honeybees to California where settlers would pay dearly for a taste of honey.

The problem was in transporting hives of bustling honeybees nearly 6000 miles and still keeping them alive.

It took the enterprising John S. Harbison, a Pennsylvania beekeeper, to accomplish the feat.

Harbison arrived in Sacramento December 2, 1857, with 67 colonies of bees, thirty-five days after leaving Pennsylvania. Fifty strong colonies of honeybees had survived the arduous trip.

His first project after arriving in Sacramento was to increase his apiary herd. By the end of 1858, he had sold 130 hives of honeybees for $100 each. In Pennsylvania, each hive would have brought only $9 or $10 each.

Harbison returned east, and he and his brother, William, brought out another shipment. In 1859, the Harbison brothers sold 284 colonies of bees, again for $100 each.

One newspaper wrote that hardly a steamer arrives from Panama that did not contain hundred of hives of honeybees.

During the decade from 1859 to1868, the honeybee made its way south to Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. In 1869, a few hives were carted south to San Diego.

Because of the press of his Sacramento business, Harbison entered into an agreement with Robert G. Clark to operate the San Diego apiary under the name, Clark & Harbison.

Consequently, on November 28, 1869, 110 hives of bees arrived in San Diego. By the summer of 1871, Clark and Harbison were shipping honey to San Francisco.

Clark and Harbison encouraged others to take up beekeeping. The San Diego Union newspaper in its November 22, 1872 reported: "Nearly every ranch in San Diego is now an apiary on a small scale."

Not everybody in San Diego was fond of the honeybees. Sheep ranchers, then called "wool growers", had been allowed grazing privileges for their sheep without the encumbrance of fences.

Beekeepers petitioned the state legislature for repeal of the "No Fence" law then in existence, because bees also needed lots of forage. The No Fence law permitted grazing over uncultivated land in San Diego County but nowhere else in the state.

One angry beekeeper wrote: "San Diego County is the only place on earth where a man who owns and pays taxes on 160 acres of land has no right to the full and undisturbed possession and use of it."

The beekeeper maintained the law allowed sheep and cattlemen to literally eat the beekeepers out of "house and home" provided the land was not in cultivation.

The California Legislature repealed the No Fence law in March 1876.

San Diego's Board of Trustees passed an ordinance prohibiting the keeping of bees in that part of the city lying south of the San Diego River.

The ignoring of the ordinance by beekeepers brought on a new flood of complaints from citizens.

According to the San Diego Union, "Every household in town where fruit is being preserved, and every merchant dealing in honey is completely overrun by these little pests."

Beekeepers finally acquiesced and moved their bees outside of town.

The battle was not finished. Even more vocal than the San Diego citizens were fruit growers outside of town. They went to court to get the apiaries moved away from their orchards.

When the courts were slow to react, fruit growers adopted another tactic, that of night riding. Beekeeper Harbison said in an 1889 letter to the American Bee Journal that 350 of his beehives had been burned by arsonists. He noted that in addition, he himself had destroyed another 750 hives to satisfy the fruit men.

There was one act that brought new credibility to the buzzing honeybee. In May of 1881, a civic-minded swarm of bees was said to have attacked a six-foot-long rattlesnake and stung it so severely that it was easily killed with a spade.

The economics of the honey industry served to sweeten the acceptance of the honeybees.

Honey brought San Diego County some one hundred thousand dollars in 1874, one-tenth of the county's total revenues of one million dollars.

The honeybee was in California to stay.

Posted May 26, 2008

When I filled up with gas the other day, I remembered the elderly gentleman in our hometown whose car had its gas tank located in front of the windshield. For you kids, yes, there were such cars.

After paying for a tank of gas, he threw the coins he received in change into the gas tank. After a couple of years, he decided to check on his forced savings account.

There were enough coins in the tank to trade the old jalopy in and buy a brand new car.

I decided I would try this tactic (even though my gas tank isn't in front of the windshield). When I paid for my fill up, my problem was there wasn't any change.

Posted May 24, 2008

I don't claim to be the perfect writer. I don't even claim to be a good writer, but I do feel I'm quite passable. Maybe it's because I try to adhere to certain rules. Here's a good list that I hope you enjoy.

Some Guidelines for Aspiring Writers

Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat).
Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
One should never generalise.
Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be avoided.
Eliminate commas, that are not necessary.
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice.
Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forward earthshaking ideas.
use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
Proof-read carefully to see if you any words out.

If this helps your writing please let me know: stagecoach@surewest.net

"Dear, dear, dear: Your writing tips were too funny! Thanks for helping me smile on a gloomy morning."

Pat Canterbury

"You"re blog on grammar is a classic. couldnt of iimproved upon the illucidation...

HAVE A MEMORABLE MEMORIAL DAY!" --wille.

"Had to read your latest entries to your blog. As you can tell the recommendations for writing was not near as interesting as the other short stories. Keep up the good work."

Gary

Posted May 23, 2008

When we receive a query that we cannot answer, our first impulse is to "look it up".

Such a query came during the Auburn Home and Garden Show. "What do you know about the town of 'You Bet' was the question. My answer was "very little, but I'll look it up.

There's not a lot of information out there, but we did come up with some tiny, tiny nuggets. We're happy to share these little nuggets with you. Hydraulic Mining in the town of You Bet, Nevada County, California, was flourishing between the years of 1932 & 1935.

You Bet, we found, is a small mining town founded in 1858, on the Sierra Nevada Range in California. It's bordered by the Yuba and Bear Rivers. The town was popular for Western Expansionists.

The name, You Bet, was given to the town because it was the favorite expression of the local saloon keeper, Lazarus Beard. A post office was established there on May 11, 1868 and continued operating until October 15, 1903.

Sadly, the foothills of the west side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, northeast of Sacramento, were being washed away, all for the sake of men trying to get rich from the gold that was being water blasted out of "them thar hills."

Today, all that remains of the town of You Bet is the You Bet Cemetery, and even that is not right at the spot where the town was once alive.. Surrounding the small cemetery are young trees and manzanita bushes, showing a rebirth of an area that was scrubbed by powerful hydraulic hoses.

There are tombstones in the You Bet cemetery that are still readable.

Posted May 17, 2008

For friends and customers that may have looked for us at the Auburn Home and Garden Show, we were there for two days. And it was a lovely show---except! The first day went splendidly. The second morning was likewise. And then things just went wrong. To begin with, our booth was located on a hillside that only a billygoat dared traverse, making it near impossible to set up a level table, and really impossible to sit in a chair with rollers.

We coped well until the afternoon of the second day and then the sun literally hit us and our books in the face. It was so hot that the wax binding our books together was beginning to soften, threatening the loss of several books. We were literally forced to make the decision to abandon ship.

Believe me, we don't fault the Auburn Home Show folks. They put on a well-run extravaganza. Our mistake was not in registering early, paying a little more, and getting an interior booth. We live and learn. Sorry if we missed you.

Posted May 15, 2008

Pegleg Smith's Lost Gold Mine

By Alton Pryor

Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith was not a quitter. For years he searched for the mountain of gold he had discovered while lost in a sandstorm.

Smith was the son of Irish immigrants, born in Kentucky October 10, 1801. At 16, he ran away from home and joined the crew of a Mississippi riverboat. He fled a smallpox epidemic in New Orleans and headed north on the Cherokee Trail.

He had a run-in with pirates, one of whom he killed, and then lived with the Chickasaw Indians for a full year.

At the age of 22, Smith joined a caravan at Santa Fe, and then to Utah where he became a trapper. He wasted little time in gaining a strong reputation as a "trafficker" in horses and as a fighter.

Pegleg got his nickname while officiating at the burial of a partner who was killed by Indians in a horse-stealing foray. During that incident, Smith was shot in the leg by an arrow, breaking the large bone.

According to legend he cut the muscles in his own leg in aiding an amateur frontier surgeon with the amputation.

Smith felt more comfortable with the Indians than with his white brethren. He returned to the tribe to rest from his frontier surgery.

While with the Indians, he whittled a wooden pegleg from an oak sapling. This piece of wood served him well, both as a leg and as a weapon in many later encounters.

Pegleg journeyed down the Colorado River, trapping along the way.

It is at this point that the tale of Pegleg's gold begins.

Pegleg lost his way in a desert sand storm. He was miserably lost and climbed the highest hump he could find to survey his surroundings. He needed to get his bearings and, hopefully, spot where water might be located.

Pegleg remembered seeing three buttes sticking up on the horizon. But it was the color of the hill on which he stood that really sparked his interest.

The base was a chalky yellow color while the summit was black. The hill was literally covered with odd, round-shaped stones, the size of walnuts.

These stones were black and heavy. He put a few of the rocks in his pocket, and then went to sleep so he could get an early start the next morning.

When Pegleg had the stones assayed at Temecula, he learned the black obsidian-like rocks were pure gold. Instead of immediately returning to the site, Pegleg continued to trap, drink, fight and carouse.

Pegleg eventually came to his senses, and organized an expedition, using Warner Springs as a starting point.

The only real thing he knew was his starting point the day he walked through the sand storm and found the oddly shaped stones.

He only knew there were high mountains to the northwest, and there were three distinctive buttes.

Pegleg was later seen searching at the Mud Pots below Salton Sea, in the hills south of the Santa Rosa Mountains, around Carrizo Canyon, and at Warner's Ranch. He never again found that elusive spot where he had gathered the golden stones.

With disappointment, he discontinued his search,

The legend of the three golden buttes has not only survived through the years, but has grown in its retelling.

Some, who continued searching for the path to the lost mine, lost their lives to the cruel and inhumane desert.

Others have carefully reenacted the very details and conditions under which Pegleg traveled when he found the odd, walnut-like stones.

Still, stories of Pegleg's gold abound. One involves a Yaqui Indian, employed at Warner's Ranch. He would disappear for several days before any local celebration. When he returned, he had plenty of gold to spend on a good time, never bothering to get good value for his lava covered nuggets. He knew where to find more.

Attempts to follow the Indian to his golden horde were futile. The cagey Indian would enter the Pegleg region of desert and was never gone more than three days.

The Indian was killed while on a spree in Anaheim. Four thousand dollars in coarse gold was found in his bunk.

The Yaqui's squaw, Carmelita, was closely questioned. She explained that her buck got his last water at the spring of the White Ledge before entering the desert. He always left the water hole at daybreak, travelling toward the sun until about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he would come to "mucho, mucho gold", she said.

Many believe the White Ledge Carmelita referred to was the "sweet water" Pegleg Smith had referred to, and which is now called Borrego Springs.

Dozens of stories have continued pouring in from people claiming to have found the Pegleg gold.

The search goes on.

Posted May 5, 2008

One of my most favorite web sites is www.thethomasranch.com. This is a Bizbee, Arizona ranch. Their web site has to rate among the most interesting online. It has both adult and childrens pages, featuring activities for favorite holidays, how to read cattle brands, cowboy crossword puzzles, and a kids corner with all sorts of internet games. It's just a darn interesting site to go browsing around in. I think I find something new there every time I log on.

One of my favorite pages is Cowboy Sayings and Cowboy Quotes. Just to give you a few of the best try these on:

--Being silent may be your best answer.

--It's hard to put a foot in a closed mouth.

--The challenge is not always to say what you mean but say it with as few words as possible.

--If you're sitting at the counter eating, leave your hat on, but if you're sitting at the table, take it off.

--When in doubt, let your horse do the thinking.

They fairly sparkle with good sense. That's just a few, and there's a lot more. Do take a look at the site. You'll enjoy it.

Posted May 3, 2008

One of the fun aspects of selling my books is the meeting of new people, and I don't mean just the book customers although they are most welcome. We were at the Eldorado County Home and Garden Show at the Fairgrounds in Placerville, and the vendors next to me were Mike and Betty Simona.

It seems they met on the internet. Mike lived in Stockton and Betty was from Romania. The relationship persisted and Mike finally went to Europe to meet her in person. They are a delightful and helpful couple.

Far from her hometown, Betty eventually became bored. Rather than sit idle, she opened her own online store http://www.magicsenses.com/. There she offers customers some of the most attractive soaps, body lotions and other goods that one can imagine. Always creative, she has now started a coffee blog: (http://www.100cafestreet.com/. Give it a look, you won't be sorry.

Posted May 1, 2008

(To comment on this story, email author at: stagecoach@surewest.net

‘Lucky' Baldwin

Had an Eye for Money

Lucky Baldwin came south from San Francisco with his deep pockets full of money. His early fortune, which he made after arriving in California, came from a variety of sources, including poker, horse racing, mining shares, real estate, and other less legitimate enterprises.

"To be a success," Elias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin philosophized, "you've got to keep your eye on two ends-when to go in and when to go out-and don't waste any time doing either."

He despised the "Lucky" sobriquet that had been pinned on him. He insisted that eve Caption goes here rything he had achieved was the fruit of his own labor. There was no such thing as "luck" to Lucky.

When Baldwin landed in San Francisco, he had seven thousand dollars in his pocket. Almost immediately, he could see there was a lack of living facilities in the city, either for men, or for their horses.

After spending a few days in the badly managed Pacific Temperance Hotel, Baldwin was sure he could run the place better. The proprietor said he would sell for six thousand dollars. Baldwin offered five thousand.

The proprietor asked, "Supposing I had asked five thousand?"

Baldwin g