The Adair County news. [volume] (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987, 1921-02-02
CHAPTER I.

In the summer of 1850 q topSatl
schooner slipped into the cove under
Trinidad head and dropped anchor at
the edge Of the kelp-1elds. Fifteen
minutes later her small-boat deposited
on the beach q man armed with long
squirrel rifle and an axe, and carrying
food and clothing in a brown canvas
pack. From the beach he watched
the boat return and saw the schooner
weigh anchor and stand out to sea
before the northwest trades. When
she had disappeared from his ken, he
swung his pack to his broad and pow
erful back and strobe resolutely into
the timber at the mouth of the river.
The man was John Cardigan; in
that lonely, hostile land he was the
first pioneer. This is the tale of
Cardigan and Cardigan's son, for in
his chOser land the pioneer leader in
the giganti. task of hewing a path
was to know the bliss of woman's love
and Of parenthood, and the sorrow
that comes of the loss of a perfect
mate; he was to know the tremendous
joy of accomplishment and worldly
success after infinite labor; and in
the sunset Of life he was to know the
dull despair of failure and ruin. Be
cause of these things there is tale
to be told, the tale of Cardigan's son,
who, when his sire fell in the fray,
took up the fight to save his heritage
"a tale of life with its love and hate,
its battle, victory, defeat, labor, joy,
and sorrow, a tale of that uneonquer-
able spirit of youth which spurred
Bryce Cardigan to lead a forlorn
hope for the sake not of wealth but
of an ideal Hark. then, to this tale
of Cardigan's redwoods.
Along the coast of California,
through the secret valleys and over
the tumbled foothills of the Coast
range, extends a belt of timber of
an average width of thirty miles. In
approaching it from the Oregon line
the first tree looms suddenly against
the hOrizon-an outpost, as it were, OF
the host of giants whose column
stretches south nearly four hundred
miles to where the last of the rear
guard maintains eternal sentry-go- on
the crest of the mountains overlooking
Monterey bay. Far in the interior of
the state, beyond the fertile San
Joaquin valley, the allies of this vast
army hold a small sector on the west
slope of the Sierras.
These are the redwood forests of
California, the only trees of their
kind in the world and indigenous only
to these two areas within the state.
Notwithstanding sixty years of attri-
ton, there remain in this section of
the redwood belt thousands upon
thousands of acres of virgin timber
that had already attained vigorous
growth when Christ was crucifed.
In sizes ranging from five to twenty
feet in diameter, the brown trunks
rise perpendicularly to a height of
from ninety to a hundred and fifty
feet before putting forth single
limb, which frequently is more mas
sive than the growth which men call
a tree in the forests of Michigan.
Scattered between the giants, like
subjects around their king, one finds
noble fir, spruce, or pines, with some
Valparaiso live oak, black oak, pepper
wood, madrone, yew, and cedar.
John Cardigan settled in Humboldt
county, where the sequoia sempervir-
ems attains the pinnacle of its glory,
and with the lust for conquest hot in
his blood, he fled upon quarter
section of the timber almost on the
shore Of Humboldt bay-land upon
which city subsequently was to be
built. With his double-bitted axe and
crosscut saw John Cardigan brought
the first of the redwood giants crash
ing to the earth. above which 1t had
lowered for twenty centuries, and in
the form of split posts, railroad ties,
pickets, and shakes, the fallen giant
was hauled to tidewater In ox-drawn
wagons and shipped to San Francisco
in the little two-masted coasting
schooners of the period. Here, by the
abominable magic of barter and trade,
the dismembered tree was transmitted