The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-05
A CALIFORNIA RANCH.
How 1t Was Transformed by
the Tidal Waves of Men.
sPANIARD. AReoNAuT. EMIeRANT
A Leaf From the Endless Story of HUI
man Occupation of the Earth-vic-
cfssitudes of the Sunol Grant.

Inc Story begins IN tuc ClOsiug years Va
the eighteenth century. Europe was
volcano Of war, soon to send forth lava
streams from Egypt TO Moscow. The rag
ged Continentals were returning to farms
and workshops, and the thirteen colonies
were beginning TO shape the American
constitution. Florida, Louisiana, Texas
and the great unknown wilderness from
the Mississippi to the Pacific were lands OF
Spain, and barriers against the young re-
public.
A little village of which Washington, JEFF
ferson, Robespierre and Napoleon never
heard nestled in the hollows OF a promon-
tory. Pines and expresses made forrest
near. Great Californian live oaks stood in
groups, like the oaks of an English park,
over the plain that rose in gentle slope
from the sheltered bay to the blue Coast
range. The village was Monterey, where
Padre Junipera Sierra had planted the
cross. Supplemented Spanish settlers,
mostly from Mexico, were colonizing Alta
California. Once year the galleons came.
bringing goods and seeds, little writing
paper, a few casks of wine-for vineyards
and orchards were as yet few. The priests
gathered the Indians together and taught
them few industries; the governor estab-
sions and gave grants of lands to worthy
settlers, to soldiers whose terms of service
had expired, TO runaway sailors who had
married California wives-in short, TO
every one who was not an unblest hereto.
The individual ranch" with which this
narrative deals was miles from Monterey,
northward near the bay of San Francisco,
little off from the track of Captain FACES
80 II and alfa Of
$1,000 and 5000 acres, with nothing small
Ter and many larger, soon caused the set
tiers to search the coast range valleys. In
the last year of the century, Antonio
Sunol, retired soldier, visiting the newly
established mission San Jose, found cir
cular valley OF perhaps three miles in di-
ameter, shut off from the sea winds by
range of hills, and so he obtained a grant
that covered the bottoms, the mesa, or
bluffs, and much of the surrounding hill
country.
Indians dwelt in few villages by the
streams, as they had done since "time i'm
memorial" They dug CANVASS roots on
the ridges at respectful distance from
the grizzlies who were better and stronger
CANVASS lovers; they pounded 'soap root"
and threw it into the water to stupefy the
the marsh and shared wild ducks with
twisted bark fiber. Sunol and his half
tanned Mission Indians, settling in the
valley, building adobes and living the
ancient pastoral life of Oriental lands. as
tonished and frightened these -Arcadians.
In a few years the first change had come
upon the land. Cattle and horses were on
the hills and in the beautiful valley.
lid, laynt in,
the sun or rode like whirlwinds up rocky
heights, down steep canons, crying wild
cries. Absolute quiescence for hours;
passionate force, in sudden bursts of
energy, when need came-that was the
Spanish Californian of the pastoral age.
Full in the sunlight in front of the adobe
homestead, horse saddled and bitted at
hand for his use, old Don Sunol sat every
day. He looked over his unfenced, I'M
plowed lands; he saw the cattle driven up
and the colts broken; his tall, strong sons
gladdened his heart as they rode first and
best among the people. The Don ruled
like prince of ancient Syria. the absolute
master of his domain. Provincial author
ity never reached within his gates. Mex
ico Spain, Europe-these were things of
which he never thought, though blindly
loyal in his heart to the far-of king.
All this-the perfect life pastoral in a
land of blue skies and blossoms; a warm,
fruitful, pleasant land of sunshine-was
fairly begun, remember, in the years when
Napoleon Bonaparte was descending like
on avalanche on Italy, and every throne
was shaken and stars were falling into the
sea. 1t was months and years before the
noise of these world-events crept into the
mountain grit valley of Sunol; even then
it soon faded away, an alien in the peace
ful atmospere. No one, even among the
younger men, cared to go out from Cali
fornia Few came in, but for those there
was boundless hospitality, such as one
dreams of as belonging to the times of
Abraham the Hebrew, the Bedouin Sheik,
the Father of the Tribes. He, too, sat in
his tent door watching his young men
mark the cattle, break the colts, and shear
the wool for the women's weaving.
Seventy-hve years after Captain FACES,
the first Spanish explorer, had led the
way into the region occupied few years
later by old Den Sunol, the second trans
formation of the valley began. The thir.
teen colonies of 1776 had become the
United States. Territory after territory
gon and Washington were American
soil, and the Lone Star republic
kept the fords of the Rio Grande. Next
came the Mexican war, the conquest of
three ancient provinces. New Mexico,
Arizona, California, and all this while the
pulses of the pastoral people in the valley
of Sunol beat hardly stroke faster. They
tended their docks and herds, sold hides
to the Yankee ships that sailed into Ierba
Buena harbor, gave heed TO feast days
and fast days, and talked sometimes OF the
blue-eyed. ight-haired men with rifles,
who came over the snow peaks far 10 the
east.
Came the year 1S4S, fateful for Europe,
with proclamations, solicitations, barri-
cades, revolutions and all manner of
changes, so that the world of civilized
men and women hastily forgot the brief
word il had heard of Captain Fremont, of
sklrmlshers In remote Mexican province,
as hopelessly pastoral as Paraguay, and of
the conquest of the strangely named, bar
barrie coast of California. As the year
closed a few strangers camped by the
streams of the Sunol ranch, and the next
spring many more crossed the valley.
| They stayed short space, for they were
sick with gold fever. The Sunols, descend
| ants of the pioneer Sunol who had taken
| possession of the valley fifty years before,
| gave the first corners beef and bread,
| horses TO ride, and rude maps of the coun-
| try beyond But soon the strangers came III
too great numbers, and the old inequalities
| grew scant. There were men from every
| race under the sun. conyicts from Botany
Bay, Frenchmen, Germans, Danish sailors,
| down-easter Yankees, Georgians and Mis-
sissippians, Missourians from st. Joseph,
| hunters from Oregon. None of them
stopped To look at the land; the gold