The Homesteaders

Wooden cross at John Rodriguez's cabin.

Our hill ranch has given me a new sense of appreciation for history. I’ve recently been investigating the history of our property for reasons that I’ll explain in later posts. It turns out that the first owners of our ranch were immigrants that purchased land created by the Homestead Act of 1862. Before that, it was owned by the U.S. Government. 

I’ve still got a way to go, but here is some of the information I’ve learned. Our ranch is section land and section land was created by government survey. In this case, the survey of Township 4 South, Range 2 East was recorded in May of 1875. The survey was started by a surveyor named Sherman Day in 1853 and it was completed by a surveyor named W.H. Carlton. In between it was worked on for many years by E.H. Dyer. 

A Township is 6 miles square and most Townships have 36 sections. In our Township, nearly a third of the land is Rancho Land, which means that it was created by a grant of the Mexican Government prior to California statehood and it was then blessed by a U.S. Government Land Commission in 1863. The remainder of the Township was subject to Homestead Acts. It was deeded out by the Bureau of Land Management as Land Patents. Some of these created warrants which helped the government pay of its debt to soldiers. Some of these debts remained from service during the War of 1812. 

Land Patents authorized under the Homestead Act of 1862 were most common, along with land given to railroad companies to incentivize them to build railroads. One of our Sections (27)was railroad land owned by Western Pacific Railroad. 

Some of our quarter sections are refered to by the names of former owners and a few of these were the original homesteaders. For example a quarter section in Section 26 is often called “The Logan” for the individual who purchased the original homestead. 

One of the homesteaders in Section 34 was Antonio Silva. According to the Land Patent, he purchased his parcel on September 10, 1886. Then he built on a north-facing slope under a group of large white oaks overlooking a stream later named LaCosta Creek, but only called “deep canyon” on the original survey map. Directly across the canyon was a huge rock bluff where the Ohlone Indians sat and pounded acorns. They also created bowls on the rocks with the stone pedestals used to crush the acorns. The top of the rock bluff is a pleasant place to spend time, especially when doing simple work. Oak trees shade the rocks and the view is inspiring. 

The cabin and barn on the quarter section homesteaded by Marcelino Maciel.

The next quarter section downstream was purchased by Marcelino Maciel on November 4, 1889. Maciel’s parcel is where Fritz’s cabin sits today. The building records state that it was built in 1908. Myron Harris purchased the property from the estate of Dick Marciel in 1954 or 55. Somewhere along the line, the name must have evolved from Maciel to Marciel. 

Local folk-lore is that a Portuguese immigrant named John Rodriguez appeared at Antonio Silva’s cabin one night. I have no way of knowing what year it was. Rodriguez had worked in a blacksmith shop in Mission San Jose, which was a major hub of commerce. When a man spit on him, Rodriguez went to his boss to ask what it meant. His boss explained that this was a sign of disrespect. The man later returned and spit on him a second time. Rodriguez buried the axe, he had been sharpening, in his tormentor’s chest. 

Then, knowing he was in trouble, Rodriguez fled to the hills and ended up at Antonio Silva’s cabin. Later, Silva went to town and located Rodriguez’s relatives. Apparently they helped him build a cabin and barn on the NE quarter of Section 28, another parcel we now own. His nieces purchased the property and Rodriguez apparently lived out his life there. The cabin was burned down when he died, but a cross sits in a dead oak tree next to the spot where his cabin stood.  All that remains is a rusted box spring and shell of an ancient Wedgewood stove. 

Wedgwood Stove at the Rodriguez cabin site.

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Camp Stories – The Pocket Gopher and the Broad-footed Mole

While sitting around camp, I had a couple new sets of ears to listen to one of my favorite stories about a pocket gopher that climbed out of his hole while I sat glassing for blacktail in Klamath National Forest.

As I sat on a ridge overlooking some pretty nice habitat where I spotted a group of large-antlered blacktails a day earlier, I noticed the gopher rise onto the mound of soft dirt only inches from my leg. As I watched, the gopher shivered a couple times and rolled over dead.

I figured nobody could top this observation which was one of my most unique, but then my brother Rob reminded me of the spring turkey hunt he’d been on with my cousin Wes. With Wes there to confirm the story, there was nothing I could do but admit that I’d been one-uped.

While sitting against a large bolder listening for gobblers, Rob and Wes noticed the ground shaking a few feet away. They watched as a mole worked it’s way beneath the ground’s surface through the soft wet dirt of springtime. As the shaking approached a rock, blocking the path, a worm shot out of the ground and by leaving the dirt behind, escaped the mole. Reaching the rock, the mole turned and proceeded in the opposite direction, apparently in search of a new victim.

The gopher story had been trumped by the mole.

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Uncommon Sense

 I knew LR Teeken for two hunting seasons before I ever questioned the source of his name. I’d heard a few of his close friends refer to him as “Lightning.” and I’d mistakenly assumed it was a sarcastic expression as LR never responded to anybody very quickly.  

Upon learning of my misunderstanding, and that his real first name was Stephen, I had to ask where the initials LR came from. He got a sheepish look on his face. I knew he’d tell me, but first I had to earn the right to hear the story. Eventually LR began to talk and this is what he told me.

 

LR liked to hunt from a tree stand, and one of his favorite stand locations was in a hell hole over the top of backbone ridge. Each season, LR would carry his tree stand several miles up hill to the highest point on the ridge, and then drop down for about a half mile to a small group of beaver ponds and elk wallows. I never figured out exactly where the stand was located, in fact I always stayed away from that side of the ridge because I knew if I heard an elk bugle down in the bottom, I might go down and kill an elk in a spot where I’d have to eat it rather than carry it out.

 

Anyway, LR kept on talking. It turns out that a few years back, he hunted in that stand on the next to last day of the season. Although there had been a bunch of elk in the area, previously, the end of the season had brought on a series of fruitless hunts, and LR decided to carry the tree stand out that evening rather than come back after the season. As LR unbolted the eight-foot chain that attached his stand to the tree, he took note that a storm was brewing. Rather than still-hunt through a patch of timber, as he had originally planned, LR decided to head straight over the mountain and to avoid the brunt of the storm.

 

LR was always in good condition, but with it being nearly the end of elk season he was in top shape. He hiked up the mountain with that ten-pound tree stand strapped to his back pack as though he were on a Sunday morning stroll. He wasn’t even breathing hard as he came to the clearing near the top of the ridge. Per LR, it was at this point that he heard the thunder that made him feel a bit uneasy. Now LR was no dummy, and he had enough experience in the woods to know that lightning was no laughing matter, especially with a ten-pound metal tree stand strapped to his back.

 

The thunder was a ways off though and he figured that the chances of making it over the ridge before the storm arrived were good. He had only a couple hundred feet to climb, and maybe a quarter mile to go before he’d be over the summit. The wind was picking up considerable and the rain started to fall in large drops. Before LR knew it, he was hit by driving rain that soon turned to hail. Now he had to choose – sit it out or push on into the brunt of the storm. The lightning was closing in. As the time intervals between thunder and the flashes of lightning grew shorter and shorter, LR made the decision to move on over the top of the ridge and get to his truck before total darkness hit.

 

As he cleared the top of the ridge, LR debated about whether to stay out on the open ridge top or travel in the cover of the timber. It was at this point he took a direct hit. The jolt of the lighting bolt knocked LR out cold. He awoke a few minutes after the lightning strike – laying face down in the muddy trail.

 

Now comes the part of the story that demonstrates just how clever LR was. He would probably not have survived the direct hit, but in preparation for such an electrifying event, LR had loosed the chain of his tree stand and had let it drag in the muddy trail. The lightning bolt actually melted the last two links of the chain together, an indication that the strike would surely have finished LR off if he hasn’t used some uncommon sense.

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