The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-21
CONDITIONS THAT HAVE LED UP
TO THE MENDOCINO COUNTY
FEUD.
A PARADISE FOR OUTLAWS.
PERJURY TO DESTROY A WOMAN S
NAME TALES TOLD ON A
MOUNTAIN TOP.

the morning and travelling eastward into
the mountains he will by noon again cross
the county bridge of the Eel River. From
this level the road will lead him through
infinite windings of mountain canyons,
upward, on upward, for five toilIng miles
ofrUgged, unpeopled magnificence to where
Camp Welcome, with cool spring and
spreading shade trees, stands upon the
summit, and there, stopping to rest, the
stage-driver will languidly point with his
whip to the east.
Through the trees, from far down at the
mountains foot to its other boundary OF
other distant mountains, level as lake,
spreads away Round Valley IN every
blending shade of green and brown and
gold that tree and grass and fields of corn
and sun and cloud shadow and autumn
may lend to landscape.
Seen for the first time it robs one of
speech.
Beautiful" says the stage-driver, con-
templatively. Eyes, beautiful, but
o Godr'
All, yes; this is not paradise. This is
Round Valley. From these splendid
heights, with this wonderful picture of
peace spreading away to the horizon, one
forgets. This is Round Valley-the stolen
valley-for every square mile of the fertile
green level of which there is a story of
crime such as might blacken the sky and
poison the air, the dark fame OF which has
lent the use of its fair name to horrible
proverbs. Those far-off purple hills are
dotted with the graves of murdered men
murdered not in the heat of mountain
quarrels. but one by one. through years,
oo1A e1O Il oil h.
cause they chose to MAINTAIN their right to
settle there and refused to allow the theft
of their stock, the burning of their homes,
persecution in the courts or any other cir
cumstance to turn them from that pur-
pose. For that they were murdered.
Every mountain pass that permits an
entrance into this paradise has been and
still is an avenue for the robbery and
pillage of the surrounding country. 1t is
q history of horror from the earliest times,
when the children of slaughtered Indians
were sold into slavery, to this later day,
when brave men, disarmed by authority of
law, are, thus defenseless, shot to death
from ambush and afterward hanged.
Do you see that group Of oaks and the
regularly marshaIed trees of the orchard
there in the very center of the valley,
where the sun and cloud-shadows are Just
now working their wonderful color effects
Among those trees sits the palace of
George E. White, the king of Round Val
ley. 1t is as luxurious place perhaps as
may be built or even imagined in these
mountains beautiful residence OF shin
ing white, sitting in an ample green lawn,
among the trees, equipped with every
modern comfort and luxury, with music
and billiard-rooms, and running water
throughout, as in the City, with great white
barns adjoining, and fruit orchards and
fine horses.
The acres of the man who lives there
spread over three counties, and COM
prise an estate equal to a principality
His stock range through all these hills
And yet when he first stood there, look
ing down upon this valley-the first white
man, it is said, who did so-he was full
grown man, and as poor as is now the
meanest of his vaqueros.
How he became the autocrat of Mendo-
cino County, enabled to boast as he does,
ofowning even the Judges upon the bench,
forms very much of the terrible story of
Round Valley. All, the crimes that are
said to have been Matched in or about that
white palace! Do you see the orchard
there?
That was the rendezvous not long
ago of company of men night after night
to rehearse their elaborate parts in perjury
designed to rum a good woma ms life.
This is Round Valley. Beautiful, but
o Cod
Do you see that group of houses little
frther away? That isthe town of Covelo
1t is the headquarters of the rough riders
of these mountains, but the people who
live there are not all badly no means.
Indeed, but comparative few. of these
rough riders are SO. If you have good eyes
you may see a church spire rising above
the trees. and 1t marks place where good
people gather nightly now, crying "How
long, Lord, how long?"
The cowardly murder Of brave Jack Lit
tlefield, shot to death in narrow noun
tain trail while unarmed and submitting
to arrest for crime it is almost certain he
did not commit, following closely as it did
upon the equally cowardly murder of Jim
Williams, has brought home to these good |
people the terrible realization that this |
horrid history is not closed. There are
others and still others, no doubt who are |
marked for the relentless vengeance of this |
side or the other of warning factions, or
who stand in the way of ambition or
avarice, at whose nod, at the most con-
venient time or place, will be "done for"
Robbery and murder, arson and perjury
interlinked through years. and the &C
emulation of vast estates and money and |
power, a colony of people are necessarily |
implicated. Have you knowledge of any
of it? Are you disposed to talk too |
much? You then become dangerous and |
are better dead. Or are you merely i'm
patient at the moral desolation of this |
beautiful valley and disposed to be active
in ferreting crime for its punishment? |
That is embarrassing, too.
So, terrorized, the well-disposed people |
do not dare to tell each other what they |
think, but in their church and in their |
closets on their knees they whisper to |
Heaven, Glow long, Lord, how
long?"
Does this seem like exaggeration-
trifing with over-serious things? Jack
Littlefield, the man who was shot to death |
and hanged the other day, was formerly on