The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-21

began in turn to haunt the dreams of the
land-grabbers. A plan was formed for
which the white men of Round Valley
give credit to the Henleys.
In the last hours of the session of Con-
gress in 1878 bill was rushed through
creating a new reservation consisting of
$4,000 acres of grazing mountain lands
and but 5000 of the level, throwing the
other 10000 acres open for purchase at
81 % an acre without even the requirement
of residence. With such studied plan
so well carried out it need not be written
that few of those 10000 acres fell into the
hands of honest settlers.
The 49, 900 acres of grass land, which now
became a Government reserve, was thus
made secure from settlement, and per-
petuated as an immense grazing tract
upon which the land rabbers of the val
ley need pay no taxes.
1t was so that for this fair picture was
earned the title of 1.-The stolen valley"
Begun thus with wanton slaughter of
bucks, the appropriation of squaws and
the enslavement of Indian children, the
history of Round Valley passes into its no
less horrible second era under which the
same rapacious and relentless methods
have been and are still applied to the
white man, who in good faith seeks to
take up land in the neighboring ranges
and earn an honest living.
Whether or not George E. White, the
Car of Round Valley, was the first white
man to discover the valley-that was in
1S53-he did not settle there until 1867.
He took up 100 acres at the point where
his mansioh now stands. The Henleys
had already begun their accumulation of
acres by building little cabins over the
Government land and labelling them with
the names of claimants in order to keep
settlers away. But this could not last OF
course. For the live settler insisted and
then the trouble began.
For considerable time George E.
White struggled with poverty and
lived, like the most iIl-conditioned set
tier, accommodating a little band of cattle,
the price of which went up once upon a
time to point that enabled him to sell
at an unusual profit, and from that date
his prosperity began and with it consum-
ing ambition. He gathered about him the
pick OF the freebooters of the country, and
by locating men upon land whom he could
Noiieioi, ICiIOIlZliiS luOSe WHO CdIHe III 10
take up land for their own use, and by
other and worse methods, his estate has
grown from that original 100 acres to 150,-
QUO acres, reaching through Mendocino,
Trinity and Humboldt counties. His cat
tie are unnum bered, and he at one time
employed constant train of teams over
the mountains carrying his wool to mar
ket. He is rated as the richest rancher in
Northern California.
1t is this George E. White who was the
plaintiff in the most sensational divorce
suit ever tried in California perhaps, the
evidence in which suit gave the first
glimpse to the outside world of the terri
bic golngs-on of this mountain region
the suit which Judge Wilson, in deciding
the case against White, declared was with
out parallel in the history of California for
Its evident perjury and the shocking char
acter OF its testimony, and that every wit.
ness for the plaintiff George E. White)
had apparently received his reward or ex-
pected to receive it.
When they brought the Wylackie In
olans over from Tehama County to the
reservation there came along John D.
Wathan, white man, who was to ever