LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The settlement of Lake County by European-Americans changed forever the lifeways of native cultures that resided here on this bountiful land for thousands of years.
Our county, like most of California, was a magnet for mining and agricultural ventures.
Quicksilver mining companies, like the “Dead Broke,” “Pioneer” and “Bradford” formed.
“The California Borax Company” was kept busy, as there was a big demand for the mineral, borax.
Lake County's native peoples – the Pomo, Miwok, Yuki and Wappo – enjoyed their traditional lifestyle for a slightly longer period of time than did coastal tribes who met up with the Spanish missionaries.
Not that all Lake County tribes were exempt from the enslavement of working at the missions. It is clearly written in history that some American Indians who lived in what is now Lake County were sent to work at the missions.
Russians from the Fort Ross settlement on the North Coast traveled to the Clear Lake Basin area in 1811 to retrieve furs and trapping paraphernalia
Ethnographic studies began on the coast of California by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s expedition of 1542-43.
Cabrillo met with American Indian tribes, including the Chumash of Southern California. Although the Chumash were a peaceful people they possessed no silver, gold or other inducement for European conquer.
The Pacific Coast off of California came alive with further European exploration around the late 1700s, prompting the Spanish crown to affirm settlement of lands north of Mexico.
The Franciscan Mission Order was organized in San Diego in 1769. Twenty-one missions were established, with the last occurring in the town of Sonoma in 1823.
There was little early Euro-American exploration of the Clear Lake Basin area early on, but in the late 1820s a few trapping and hunting parties made their way through our area.
In 1836 Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, commander of the Mexican forces north of San Francisco sent his brother, Capt. Salvador Vallejo to the Clear Lake Basin to explore in 1836.
Capt. Vallejo applied for a Mexican land grant of 16 leagues. Charles Stone and Andrew Kelsey garnered permission from Vallejo to graze their cattle on his land.
The story gets quite involved, ending tragically for local tribes, with the Bloody Island massacre chapter.
Settlement of Lake County had begun. On May 20, 1861 Lake County was established. It had originally been a part of Napa County.
Not many people know that there was a mission to the north of Sonoma, here in Lake County.
Father Osuna, who belonged to the Franciscan Order, established Mission St. Turibius in a district schoolhouse on Kelsey Creek, near present-day Kelseyville in 1867.
It was located on 235 acres and served as both church and school. There were approximately 100 American Indians living at the mission then.
The vast landscape that is Lake County continues to draw new people with mining and agriculture ventures in mind.
By looking back in the pages of Lake County history we benefit from the old stories.
Henry David Thoreau said, “The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit- not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave our excuviae from their graves.”
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is an educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.
Lake County Time Capsule: Lake County Settlement by Euro-Americans
- Kathleen Scavone
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