Sonoma County Biography
John S. Taylor
As one of the early pioneers of California John S. Taylor has given the strength and purpose of his manhood toward the development of the resources which have made this a commonwealth of great importance to the Union. Coming in the year 1849, when the current of immigration brought men of every class and condition to form the new society, the integrity and inherent qualities of Mr. Taylor were doubly welcome, since they became a part of the foundation for the statehood and insured its future greatness. He came to Sonoma county in 1853, and the same year settled on fourteen hundred acres of virgin land near Santa Rosa, property which he still owns and manages, though of late years he has made his home in town. He was born in Pittsylvania county, Va., November 27, 1828, and was reared in that locality and in Ray county, Mo., whither the family removed during his boyhood.
No account of Mr. Taylor’s journey to California or his experiences in the early days of this commonwealth could better express the true conditions than the account given in his own words, and we therefore give it verbatim herewith:
“In the year 1849, when the news of the rich gold finds of California became known, the excitement in the older settled states ran high, especially among the young men and boys, and I, being one of the latter, determined to cast my lot with other adventurers and seek the gold fields.
“I left my adopted home (being a Virginian by birth) in Ray county, Mo., near where the town of Orric now stands, when to Independence and got a chance under General Lucas to drive a six-yolk ox-team across the plains to El Paso on the Rio Grande. A day or two later Tom Gordon, also a Ray county boy, put in an appearance and got a chance to drive a team with the same train; knowing each other we were glad to be together, and the ties of friendship were strengthened by the arduous trials of our long journey, even to the closing scene, where I sat by his side and closed his eyes in the last sleep.
“The train, which now consisted of twelve wagons, soon started on its long and perilous trip. The first few weeks were uneventful, save for the novelty and newness of our experience in ‛roughing it,’ and getting used to the swing of camp life. About the 15th of September we reached the Arkansas river; the water was getting scarce in the mountains, where the buffalo ranges in the summer, and they had collected in this beautiful valley of the Arkansas until it was literally black with them. We travelled for about eight days up this valley, the buffalo crowding out ahead of the train and closing up behind it, keeping about three hundred yards away. We shot one every day, taking out what meat we needed for present use, leaving the rest to be eaten and fought over by the band of wolves, which is the invariable accompaniment of every heard of buffalo which ranges the plains. They act as scavengers, eating all that die from any cause, and often killing the calves, which, however, are closely guarded by the older buffalo forming a strong phalanx around them as they move.
“When we reached the Cimarron an impressive sight met our gaze; here, piled by the road side, telling a tale of desolation and possible despair to human beings, were the skull bones of ninety-eight mules which had perished in the snow storm two winters before. (This was later found to have been a government train en route to Mexico.) We were now in the native haunts of the death-dealing blizzard, yet too early in the season to fear them. However, a few more weeks of travel, which was very slow, brought us within twenty-five or thirty miles of Red river, where we struck camp, got our supper of coffee and bacon, with flap-jacks cooked in a frying-pan over a fire of buffalo chips, put out our guards and ‛turned in,’ when the alarm, was given by one of the guards that a snow storm was upon us. We yoked up our cattle immediately and traveled all night, and reached the Red river about three o’clock the next afternoon; here we found wood and water, but no feed for our cattle, as the snow covered the ground to the depth of eight inches, so we made our corral as usual, which is by drawing the wagons together with heavy log chains, the front wheel to the hind wheel, until all were connected. Into his corral we put our cattle; and as I stood guard that night I thought it was the brightest and lightest night I ever saw. The next morning we made an early start, as our cattle must have food; we traveled until noon before we found grazing for them. They had grown so weak they could hardly pull the big wagons.
“In due course of time, without exciting incident, we reached Las Vegas, the first Spanish settlement we had struck; here a battle was fought the year before between the Americans and the Mexicans, in which some of old Ray’s brave sons took a hand, and the chivalrous Captain Hendley of Richmond was killed.
“On New Year’s day, 1850, we crossed the Rio Grande, and first set foot on Mexican soil at the town of Paso del Norte (now Borez, opposite El Paso), which had a population of about ten thousand at that time. We had now reached the end of our journey with the ox-train and must make different arrangements if we wished to extend our trip to the gold fields of California. Tom and I were fortunate to fall in with a train of Texas en, thirty-three in number, who were going to the city of Durango; we were aiming to reach the sea coast and ship to San Francisco, so this was just to our liking. We started, and the third night had camped out at a big spring, put our guards out around our mules and rolled up in our blankets, when we heard the blood-curdling Indian yell. The Indians dashed in between our wagons and the stock and away they went with every animal we had. We slept with our clothes on, and our guns ready to our hands in case of emergency. Half of our men, including Tom and myself, went after the stock; after traveling about two miles we heard something coming toward us, which we naturally supposed to be Indians, but which dissolved itself into a lone, badly frightened, white-faced sorrel mule, which had been stampeded with the rest, but had made its escape and was coming back to camp. We then gave up the search and returned to the wagons; the owners of the stock and half our men returned to Paso del Norte and bought other teams with which to continue the journey.
We were now in the Apache Indian country, where no white man was sure of his fate. We traveled about two hundred miles through this country without being molested. We camped one night without water, and made an early start next morning to reach Gallego Springs ( a bad place for Indians) by noon. Just before reaching the springs we were attacked by a band of sixty Indians; they were dressed in red gauze, which they had taken from a Mexican train just a few days before, at this same place; their faces were covered with war paint, they were mounted on beautiful horses, and armed principally with bows and arrows, yet some of them had guns and others spears. They were tall, well-built fellows. We heard the war whoop, looked around, and the Indians were upon us and had possession of half our wagons before we recovered from our surprise. They held them for some time, but the fight became too hot for them and we recovered our wagons. They got possession of one of our men, whom they killed; they cut off his head, stuck it on a lance, and galloped around us, holding it so that we must see it. The battle lasted about three hours, but we were finally victorious. Several of our men were wounded, and we took them to a hospital in Chihuahua, where we left them. We remained in this city eight days, and while there saw a bull fight; there were nine wild bulls turned into the ring that afternoon, and one at a time; each would fight until exhausted, then some tame cattle would be driven in and he would follow them out. One bull killed two horses and crippled one man.
The following morning after the bull-fight we resumed our journey and passed through many strange towns and saw many strange sights before reaching Durango, a city of thirty thousand inhabitants. We tarried there for nine days, then hired pack mules to carry our belongings over the Sierra Madre mountains to the sea-port town of Mazatlan. In port lay the sailing vessel Barkazam; it was loading for San Francisco; we took passage, and after five days sail, dropped anchor at Cape St. Lucas, and thirty days later passed through the world-renowned Golden Gate into the harbor of San Francisco. We went ashore next day, May 12, 1850. San Francisco at this time was simply a collection of canvas tents and board shanties perched upon the barren sand hills, not a very inviting or home-like picture for two young, inexperienced fellows who had suffered such hardships as we had, and to add to the gravity of our situation, Tom was sick and despondent. Our assets were running low, our clothing, which was but little, was almost worn out, my wardrobe consisting of a pair each of half-worn shoes and pants, two shirts and a tattered old hat; Tom’s ditto. It devolved upon me to replenish our exchequer if possible.
“I applied for work and found it hard to get, but finally found a job in a lumber yard; the man said I was too young and small to handle that heavy lumber, but I determined to have that job. I went back to the camp and put on both of my shirts to make me look larger and stronger and went back and applied for the same job; the man looked me over and said, ‛All right, go to work.’ For that afternoon’s work I was paid $1 an hour. I expected no more than $1 for the half day.
“When Tom was well enough we pushed on to the mines and got our initiation in the work on Deer Creek, near where Nevada City now stands. Here Tom was stricken with a fever, from which he died on the 20th of November. Some miners whose claims adjoined ours helped me bury Tom. I marked his grave with a carved wooden headboard and enclosed it with a paling fence. Years afterward I returned there to see the silent monument on the lonely hill where many others so soon followed him. I spent the winter there and in the spring moved further north into the Sierra Nevada mountains to the small mining camp on Cannon creek.
There was another mining camp just a mile below us; from this camp a miner came and told us that a man had been arrested down there for the theft of a pistol. Forty or sixty men from the surrounding camps collected there, and from them the man who was bound and guarded was allowed to select twelve men as jurors to try his case. They found him guilty. The sentence, twenty-five lashes on the naked back and expulsion from Cannon Creek after ten o ‘clock next morning, or hang. They tied him to a pinetree and on h is naked body laid the twenty-five lashes with a rope; he begged them to kill him; he was helped on with his clothes and ordered to leave, which the poor wretch was glad to do, no doubt.
“I did not want to winter there, as the snow got so deep that we could neither get in or out after it began to fall, so before October I went to Natchez, in the Honcut mountains. The day I arrived there they brought in and buried three men who had been killed by Joaquin Murietta and his band of robbers. No one knew the murdered men, nor how much gold the robbers got. It is probable that their friends never knew what became of them. I stayed here four months mining in Robinson’s ravine, where I found the largest piece of solid gold that my fortunes in the gold fields ever gave me. It was worth $78.
“In April we heard of rich diggings in Downieville, now the county-seat of Sierra county; myself and two other men, John Wade and John Prine, rolled our purses of gold dust inside our blankets, took them on our backs and after a four days’ journey over rough mountains, arrived at Zumolt’s flat, on the Yuba river; we were very high up in the mountains. Here we built a small log cabin to live in and went to mining in the Blue banks across the river. One morning, just at daybreak, I got up to cook breakfast (we each took our turn at cooking) and heard some shooting; looking down the trail I saw four men coming up, one of them was shooting off his pistols; just a few paces behind them four others came firing their pistols. I knew there was going to be a duel, and went with them to see it. They crossed over the forks of the river, and there I saw the famous duel between Kelley and Speared. Joe McKibben, afterward member of congress, was one of the seconds. Revolvers were the law of the land by which many disputes were settled in those days. The more cool-headed men would arbitrate their difficulties, which were generally about mining claims.
“I had now been away from my home nearly three years, and had not heard a word from there since I left, so my pleasure was great when a pack train of mules, loaded with provisions and mail, came into Downieville one day and I got a letter from ho me. Our cabin was twelve feet square, covered with shakes, and had a dirt floor. We were comfortable and concluded to winter there. The weather until the 1st of December was fine, then o ne morning we got up and found the snow six feet deep and still snowing very fast. The storm lasted two weeks, snowing a great portion of the time, until the snow was fifteen feet deep. Provisions could not be brought at any price and none could be brought nearer than thirty miles from Downieville. About one hundred miners were here and we must have food. We, in our cabin, had been living on small Irish potatoes for several days and had neither meat nor bread. The next morning the miners met and concluded to take a man from each cabin and try to beat a trail out over the snow and pack provisions on our backs. When a trail is once packed on the snow it is easy to walk right along. That night we drew lots in our cabin to decide which of us should go; it fell on me.
“Twenty-eight men started next morning to beat a trail to Forster’s Bar, the nearest point where we could get flour. We went a few miles down the river on a trail already beaten, then had to beat up the mountains to a station twelve miles away. We took turns a beating the trail, as it was hard work to pack the snow so that it would bear the weight of a man. Three of our men gave out and we had them to carry; night was coming on and we knew what that meant to us if we did not find shelter. We knew the station was not very far away, but had lost the direction. Some thought it to the right of us, others to the left, and some said straight ahead. In the confusion some of the men commenced to halloo; their shouts were heard at the station, a mile and a-half to the left of us. The men at the station knew we were from Downieville, trying to get out provisions; they fired several shots which we heard, and turned in that direction. They started to meet us, blowing a horn at intervals, which we answered until we met. We got in at eleven o’clock with all our men alive, but exhausted, cold and ravenously hungry. Our meals at this station cost us each $3 a piece. Our bill of fare consisted of bacon, and beans with bread and tea, and a royal feast it was to us, for which we would have willingly paid twice the price if necessary.
“The next morning we continued on our way, and as the trail was now down grade, we made better time, finishing the journey about nightfall. We started on our return trip the third morning, each man carrying a sack of flour, and some of them took other things besides. I carried a fifty-pound sack of flour and was offered $75 for it after I got back with it. I took it straight to the cabin, where Wade and Prine received me joyfully, but the sack of flour more so, as they had not tasted bread for a week.
“The weather was cold, but clear, and pack mules soon began to come in on the trail we had made, and provisions became plentiful once more. We worked there the following summer, sold our claims, rolled our purses of gold dust in the blankets, bid farewell to Downieville and took a walk of ninety miles to Marysville, camping out at night; from there we took stage to Sacramento, and boat to San Francisco. John Prine went to Rushville, Ind., John Wade went to Joliet, Ill., and the writer came to Santa Rosa, Cal., where he has lived for fifty-six years.”
Here that same year Mr. Taylor settled on fourteen hundred acres of land, later receiving title to the land direct from the United States government. He still owns the property, which for over half a century has been maintained as a dairy and stock ranch. Owing to advancing years he has given its active management over to younger hands, although every day finds him looking after the interests of his large ranch property. Eleven hundred and fifty acres of the ranch are devoted to dairy purposes entirely, and forms one of the largest industries of the kind in the county. Besides his ranch property Mr. Taylor owns a valuable lot on Fourth street, extending through to Fifth street, on which he has erected one of the fine and substantial business blocks of the city, known as the Taylor block.
Mr. Taylor’s marriage in 1876 united him with Miss Nancy A. Clark, a native of Illinois, who came to California by way of the Isthmus in 1863. Two children were born of this marriage, Zena Mildred, the wife of Eugene Weber, and John S., the latter now in Honolulu. Mr. Taylor is a member of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained the thirty0second degree. He is now living in Santa Rosa, at the Piedmont Hotel, hale and hearty at the age of eight-two years and for the entire time he has lived here has been closely identified with every movement that has been for the advancement of the county. He was one of the organizers of the Santa Rosa Bank, serving as its president as one time, and is still a stockholder in the institution. The others who were principals in this organization were Dave Burris, Thomas Hopper, and Elijah Farmer. Mr. Taylor was one of eleven men who constructed the race track in Santa Rosa.
History
of Sonoma County, California
History by Tom Gregory : Historic Record Company, 1891
Los Angeles, Ca. 1911
Transcribed by Roberta Hester Leatherwood
May 6, 2011 Pages 867-873
Sonoma County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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