The Project Gutenberg eBook of Spanish and Indian Place Names of California: their meaning and their romance, by Nellie Van De Grift Sanchez.

The author wishes to express grateful appreciation of generous aid given in the preparation of this book by Herbert E. Bolton, Ph.D., Professor of American History in the University of California.

Acknowledgment is also due to Dr. A. L. Kroeber, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Harvey M. Hall, Assistant Professor of Economic Botany, Dr. John C. Merriam, Professor of Palaeontology, Dr. Andrew C. Lawson, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, all of the University of California; Mr. John Muir, Father Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., Mr. Charles B. Turrill, of San Francisco, and many other persons in various parts of the state for their courtesy in furnishing points of information.

For the sources used in the work, the author is indebted, in great measure, to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, and to the many writers from whose works quotations have been freely used.

“NONE CAN CARE FOR LITERATURE IN ITSELF WHO DOES NOT TAKE A SPECIAL PLEASURE IN THE SOUND OF NAMES; AND THERE IS NO PART OF THE WORLD WHERE NOMENCLATURE IS SO RICH, POETICAL, HUMOROUS, AND PICTURESQUE AS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.... THE NAMES OF THE STATES AND TERRITORIES THEMSELVES FORM A CHORUS OF SWEET AND MOST ROMANTIC VOCABLES; ... THERE ARE FEW POEMS WITH A NOBLER MUSIC FOR THE EAR; A SONGFUL, TUNEFUL LAND; AND IF THE NEW HOMER SHALL ARISE FROM THE WESTERN CONTINENT, HIS VERSE WILL BE ENRICHED, HIS PAGES SING SPONTANEOUSLY, WITH THE NAMES OF STATES AND CITIES THAT WOULD STRIKE THE FANCY IN A BUSINESS CIRCULAR.”

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I.
INTRODUCTION.

This volume has been prepared in the hope that it may serve, not only as a source of entertainment to our own people, but also as a useful handbook for the schools, and as a sort of tourist’s guide for those who visit the state in such numbers, and who almost invariably exhibit a lively interest in our Spanish and Indian place names.

We of California are doubly rich in the matter of names, since, in addition to the Indian nomenclature common to all the states, we possess the splendid heritage left us by those bold adventurers from Castile who first set foot upon our shores. In these names the spirit of our romantic past still lives and breathes, and their sound is like an echo coming down the years to tell of that other day when the savage built his bee-hive huts on the river-banks, and the Spanish caballero jingled his spurs along the Camino Real.

And in what manner, it may well be asked, have we been caring for this priceless heritage,—to keep it pure, to preserve its inspiring history, to present it in proper and authentic form for the instruction and entertainment of “the stranger within our gates,” as well as for the education of our own youth? As the most convincing answer to this question, some of the numerous errors in works purporting to deal with this subject, many of which have even crept into histories and books for the use of schools, will be corrected in these pages.

In the belief that the Spanish and Indian names possess the greatest interest for the public, both “tenderfoot” and native, they will be dealt with here almost exclusively, excepting a very few of American origin, whose stories are so involved with the others that they can scarcely be omitted. In addition, there are a number that appear to be of Anglo-Saxon parentage, but are in reality to be counted among those that have suffered the regrettable fate of translation into English from the original Spanish. Of such are Kings County and River, which took their names from El Río de los Santos Reyes (the River of the Holy [5] Kings), and the Feather River, originally El Río de las Plumas (the River of the Feathers).

While searching for the beginnings of these names through the diaries of the early Spanish explorers and other sources, a number of curious stories have been encountered, which are shared with the reader in the belief that he will be glad to know something of the romance lying behind the nomenclature of our “songful, tuneful” land.

It is a matter of deep regret that the work must of necessity be incomplete, the sources of information being so scattered, and so often unreliable, that it has been found impossible to trace all the names to their origin.

Indian words are especially difficult; in fact, as soon as we enter that field we step into the misty land of legend, where all becomes doubt and uncertainty. That such should be the case is inevitable. Scientific study of the native Californian languages, of which there were so many as to constitute a veritable Babel of tongues among the multitude of small tribes inhabiting this region, was begun in such recent times that but few aborigines were left to tell the story of their names, and those few retained but a dim memory of the [6] old days. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of this information, stories of Indian origin will be told here with the express qualification that their authenticity is not vouched for, except in cases based upon scientific evidence. Some of the most romantic among them, when put to the “acid test” of such investigation, melt into thin air. In a general way, it may be said that Indian names were usually derived from villages, rather than tribes, and that, in most cases, their meaning has been lost.

In the case of Spanish names, we have a rich mine in the documents left behind by the methodical Spaniards, who maintained the praiseworthy custom of keeping minute accounts of their travels and all circumstances connected therewith. From these sources the true stories of the origin of some of our place names have been collected, and are retold in these pages, as far as possible, in the language of their founders. Unfortunately, the story can not always be run to earth, and in such cases, the names, with their translation, and sometimes an explanatory paragraph, will appear in a supplementary list at the end of the volume. The stories have been arranged in a series of [7] groups, according to their geographical location, beginning with San Diego as the most logical point, since it was there that the first mission was established by the illustrious Junípero Serra, and there that the history of California practically began. The arrangement of these groups is not arbitrary, but, in a general way, follows the course of Spanish Empire, as it took its way, first up the coast, then branching out into the interior valley, and climbing the Sierras.

Some of the stories may appear as “twice-told tales” to scholars and other persons to whom they have long been familiar, but are included here for the benefit of the stranger and the many “native sons” who have had no opportunity to become acquainted with them.

A few words in regard to the method of naming places customary among the Spanish explorers may help the reader to a better understanding of results. The military and religious members of the parties were naturally influenced by opposite ideas, and so they went at it in two different ways. The padres, as a matter of course, almost invariably chose names of a religious character, very often the name of the saint upon whose “day” [8] the party happened to arrive at a given spot. This tendency resulted in the multitude of Sans and Santas with which the map of our state is so generously sprinkled, and which are the cause of a certain monotony. Fortunately for variety’s sake, the soldiers possessed more imagination, if less religion, than the padres, and were generally influenced by some striking circumstance, perhaps trivial or humorous, but always characteristic, and often picturesque. In many cases the choice of the soldiers has out-lived that of the fathers.

Broadly speaking, it may be said that names were first applied to rivers, creeks or mountains, as being those natural features of the country most important to the welfare, or even the very existence, of the exploring parties. For instance, the Merced (Mercy), River was so-called because it was the first drinking water encountered by the party after having traversed forty miles of the hot, dry valley. Then, as time passed and the country developed, towns were built upon the banks of these streams, frequently receiving the same names, and these were often finally adopted to designate the counties established later in the [9] regions through which their waters flow. In this way Plumas County derived its name from the Feather River, originally El Río de las Plumas , and Kings County from El Río de los Reyes (the River of the Kings). This way of naming was, however, not invariable.

It sometimes happens that the name has disappeared from the map, while the story remains, and some such stories will be told, partly for their own interest, and partly for the light they throw upon a past age.

Among our Spanish names there is a certain class given to places in modern times by Americans in a praiseworthy attempt to preserve the romantic flavor of the old days. Unfortunately, an insufficient knowledge of the syntax and etymology of the Spanish language has resulted in some improper combinations. Such names, for instance, as Monte Vista (Mountain or Forest View), Loma Vista (Hill View), Río Vista (River View), etc., grate upon the ears of a Spaniard, who would never combine two nouns in this way. The correct forms for these names would be Vista del Monte (View of the Mountain), Vista de la Loma (View of the Hill), Vista del Río (View [10] of the River), etc. Between this class of modern Spanish names, more or less faulty in construction, given by “Spaniards from Kansas,” as has been humorously said, and the real old names of the Spanish epoch about which a genuine halo of romance still clings, there is an immense gulf.

In the numerous quotations used in this book, the language of the original has generally been retained, with no attempt to change the form of expression. In spite of the most conscientious efforts to avoid them, unreliability of sources may cause some errors to find their way into these pages; for these the author hopes not to be held responsible.

II
CALIFORNIA

First comes the name of California herself, the sin par (peerless one), as Don Quixote says of his Dulcinea. This name, strange to say, was a matter of confusion and conjecture for many years, until, in 1862, Edward Everett Hale accidentally hit upon the explanation since accepted by historians.

Several theories, all more or less fanciful and far-fetched, were based upon the supposed construction of the word from the Latin calida fornax (hot oven), in reference either to the hot, dry climate of Lower California, or to the “sweathouses” in use among the Indians. Such theories not only presuppose a knowledge of Latin not likely to exist among the hardy men who first landed upon our western shores but also indicate a labored method of naming places quite contrary to their custom of seizing upon some direct and obvious circumstance upon which to base their [14] choice. In all the length and breadth of California few, if any, instances exist where the Spaniards invented a name produced from the Latin or Greek in this far-fetched way. They saw a big bird, so they named the river where they saw it El Río del Pájaro (the River of the Bird), or they suffered from starvation in a certain canyon, so they called it La Cañada del Hambre (the Canyon of Hunger), or they reached a place on a certain saint’s day, and so they named it for that saint. They were practical men and their methods were simple.

In any case, since Mr. Hale has provided us with a more reasonable explanation, all such theories may be passed over as unworthy of consideration. While engaged in the study of Spanish literature, he was fortunate enough to run across a copy of an old novel, published in Toledo sometime between 1510 and 1521, in which the word California occurred as the name of a fabulous island, rich in minerals and precious stones, and said to be the home of a tribe of Amazons. This novel, entitled Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), was written by the author, García Ordonez de Montalvo, as a sequel [15] to the famous novel of chivalry, Amadís of Gaul , of which he was the translator. The two works were printed in the same volume. Montalvo’s romance, although of small literary value, had a considerable vogue among Spanish readers of the day, and that its pages were probably familiar to the early explorers in America is proved by the fact that Bernal Díaz, one of the companions of Cortés, often mentions the Amadís, to which the story of Esplandián was attached. The passage containing the name that has since become famous in all the high-ways and by-ways of the world runs as follows: “Know that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California , very near to the terrestrial paradise, which was peopled by black women, without any men among them, for they were accustomed to live after the manner of Amazons. They were of strong and hardened bodies, of ardent courage and of great force. The island was the strongest in the world, from its steep rocks and great cliffs. Their arms were all of gold and so were the caparisons of the wild beasts they rode.”

It was during the period when this novel was at the height of its popularity that Cortés wrote [16] to the King of Spain concerning information he had of “an island of Amazons, or women only, abounding in pearls and gold, lying ten days journey from Colima.” After having sent one expedition to explore the unknown waters in that direction, in 1535 or thereabout, an expedition that ended in disaster, he went himself and planted a colony at a point, probably La Paz, on the coast of Lower California. In his diary of this expedition, Bernal Díaz speaks of California as a “bay,” and it is probable that the name was first applied to some definite point on the coast, afterward becoming the designation of the whole region. The name also occurs in Preciado’s diary of Ulloa’s voyage down the coast in 1539, making it reasonable to suppose that it was adopted in the period between 1535 and 1539, whether by Cortés or some other person can not be ascertained.

Bancroft expresses the opinion that the followers of Cortés may have used the name in derision, to express their disappointment in finding a desert, barren land in lieu of the rich country of their expectations, but it seems far more in keeping with the sanguine nature of the Spaniards that their imaginations should lead them to draw a [17] parallel between the rich island of the novel, with its treasures of gold and silver, and the new land, of whose wealth in pearls and precious metals some positive proof, as well as many exaggerated tales, had reached them.

An argument that seems to clinch the matter of the origin of the name is the extreme improbability that two different persons, on opposite sides of the world, should have invented exactly the same word, at about the same period, especially such an unusual one as California .

As for the etymology of the word itself, it is as yet an unsolved problem. The suggestion that it is compounded of the Greek root kali (beautiful), and the Latin fornix (vaulted arch), thus making its definition “beautiful sky,” may be the true explanation, but even if that be so, Cortés or his followers took it at second hand from Montalvo and were not its original inventors.

Professor George Davidson, in a monograph on the Origin and the Meaning of the Name California , states that incidental mention had been made as early as 1849 of the name as occurring in Montalvo’s novel by George Ticknor, in his History of Spanish Literature , but Mr. Ticknor [18] refers to it simply as literature, without any thought of connecting it with the name of the state. This connection was undoubtedly first thought of by Mr. Hale and was discussed in his paper read before the Historical Society of Massachusetts in 1862; therefore the honor of the discovery of the origin of the state’s name must in justice be awarded to him. Professor Davidson, in an elaborate discussion of the possible etymology of the word, expresses the opinion that it may be a combination of two Greek words, kallos (beauty), and ornis (bird), in reference to the following passage in the book: “In this island are many griffins, which can be found in no other part of the world.” Its etymology, however, is a matter for further investigation. The one fact that seems certain is its origin in the name of the fabulous island of the novel.

It may well suffice for the fortunate heritors of the splendid principality now known as California that this charming name became affixed to it permanently, rather than the less “tuneful” one of New Albion , which Sir Francis Drake applied to it, and under which cognomen it appears on some English maps of the date.

III
IN AND ABOUT SAN DIEGO

Like many other places in California, San Diego (St. James), has had more than one christening. The first was at the hands of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who discovered the harbor in 1542, and named it San Miguel (St. Michael). Cabrillo was a Portuguese in the Spanish service, who was sent to explore the coast in 1542 by Viceroy Mendoza. “He sailed from Natividad with two vessels, made a careful survey, applied names that for the most part have not been retained, and described the coast somewhat accurately as far as Monterey. He discovered ‘a land-locked and very good harbor,’ probably San Diego, which he named San Miguel. ‘The next day he sent a boat farther into the port, which was large. A very great gale blew from the west-southwest, and south-southwest, but the port being good, they felt nothing.’ On the return from the north the [22] party stopped at La Posesión, where Cabrillo died on January third, from the effects of a fall and exposure. No traces of his last resting-place, almost certainly on San Miguel near Cuyler’s harbor, have been found; and the drifting sands have perhaps made such a discovery doubtful. To this bold mariner, the first to discover her coasts, if to any one, California may with propriety erect a monument.”—(Bancroft’s History of California .)

Then, in 1602, came Sebastián Vizcaíno, who changed the name from San Miguel to San Diego. He was “sent to make the discovery and demarcation of the ports and bays of the Southern Sea (Pacific Ocean),” and to occupy for Spain the California isles, as they were then thought to be. From the diary of Vizcaíno’s voyage we get the following account of his arrival at San Diego: “The next day, Sunday, the tenth of the said month (November), we arrived at a port, the best that there can be in all the Southern Sea, for, besides being guarded from all winds, and having a good bottom, it is in latitude 33½. It has very good water and wood, many fish of all sorts, of which we caught a great many with the net and [25] hooks. There is good hunting of rabbits, hares, deer, and many large quail, ducks and other birds. On the twelfth of the said month, which was the day of the glorious San Diego, the admiral, the priests, the officers, and almost all the people, went on shore. A hut was built, thus enabling the feast of the Señor San Diego to be celebrated.”

A party sent out to get wood “saw upon a hill a band of 100 Indians, with bows and arrows, and many feathers upon their heads, and with a great shouting they called out to us.” By a bestowal of presents, friendly relations were established. The account continues: “They had pots in which they cooked their food, and the Indian women were dressed in the skins of animals. The name of San Diego was given to this port.” Thus, it was the bay that first received the name, years afterwards given to the mission, then to the town. During the stay of Vizcaíno’s party the Indians came often to their camp with marten skins and other articles. On November 20, having taken on food and water, the party set sail, the Indians shouting a vociferous farewell from the beach ( quedaban en la playa, dando boces .)

A long period of neglect of more than 160 years then ensued. The Indians continued to carry on their wretched hand-to-mouth existence, trapping wild beasts for their food and scanty clothing, fishing in the teeming streams, and keeping up their constant inter-tribal quarrels unmolested by the white man. Several generations grew up and passed away without a reminder of the strange people who had once been seen upon their shores, except perhaps an occasional white sail of some Philippine galleon seen flitting like a ghost on its southward trip along the coast.

Then the Spaniards, alarmed by reports of the encroachments of the Russians on the north, waked up from their long sleep, and determined to establish a chain of missions along the California coast. Father Junípero Serra was appointed president of these missions, and the first one of the chain was founded by him at San Diego in 1769. The name was originally applied to the “Old Town,” some distance from the present city. The founding party encountered great difficulties, partly through their fearful sufferings from scurvy, and partly from the turbulent and thievish nature of the Indians in that [27] vicinity, with whom they had several lively fights, and who stole everything they could lay their hands on, even to the sheets from the beds of the sick. During one of these attacks, the mission buildings were burned and one of the padres, Fray Luís Jaime, suffered a cruel death, but all difficulties were finally overcome by the strong hand of Father Serra, and the mission was placed on a firm basis. Its partially ruined buildings still remain at a place about six miles from the present city.

To return to the matter of the name, San Diego is doubly rich in possessing two titular saints, the bay having been undoubtedly named by Vizcaíno in honor of St. James, the patron saint of Spain, whereas the town takes its name from the mission, which perpetuates the memory of a canonized Spanish monk, San Diego de Alcalá. The story of St. James, the patron of Spain, runs as follows: “As one of Christ’s disciples, a nobleman’s son who chose to abandon his wealth and follow Jesus, he was persecuted by the Jews, and finally beheaded. When dragged before Herod Agrippa, his gentleness touched the soul of one of his tormentors, who begged to die with him. [28] James gave him a kiss, saying ‘ Pax Vobiscum ’ (peace be with you), and from this arose the kiss of peace which has been used in the church since that time. The legend has it that his body was conducted by angels to Spain, where a magnificent church was built for its reception, and that his spirit returned to earth and took an active part in the military affairs of the country. He was said to have appeared at the head of the Spanish armies on thirty-eight different occasions, most notably in 939, when King Ramírez determined not to submit longer to the tribute of one hundred virgins annually paid to the Moors, and defied them to a battle. After the Spaniards had suffered one repulse, the spirit of St. James appeared at their head on a milk-white charger, and led them to a victory in which sixty thousand Moors were left dead on the field. From that day ‘Santiago!’ has been the Spanish war-cry.”—(From Clara Erskine Clement’s Stories of the Saints .)

It happens, rather curiously, that in the Spanish language St. James appears under several different forms, Santiago , San Diego and San Tiago . The immediate patron of our southernmost city, San Diego de Alcalá , was a humble Capuchin [29] brother in a monastery of Alcalá. It is said that the infante Don Carlos was healed of a severe wound through the intercession of this saint, and that on this account Philip II promoted his canonization.

May the spirit of the “glorious San Diego” shed some of his tender humanity upon the city of which he is the protector!

CORONADO BEACH

Coronado Beach , the long spit of land forming the outer shore of the harbor of San Diego, “derived its name from the Coronado Islands near it. These islands were originally named by the Spaniards in honor of Coronado. When the improvement of the sand spit opposite San Diego City and facing the Coronado Islands was made in 1885, the name of Coronado Beach was bestowed upon it.”—(Charles B. Turrill, San Francisco.)

In all the history of Spain in western America there is nothing more romantic than the story of the famous explorer, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, [30] who, with the delightful childlike faith of his race, marched through Texas and Kansas in search of the fabulous city of Gran Quivira , “where every one had his dishes made of wrought plate, and the jugs and bowls were of gold,” and then marched back again! Imagine our hard-headed Puritan ancestors setting forth on such a quest!

SAN LUÍS REY

San Luís Rey de Francia (St. Louis King of France), is the name of the mission situated in a charming little valley about forty miles north of San Diego and three miles from the sea. It was founded June 13, 1798, by Padres Lasuén, Santiago and Peyri, and its ruins may still be seen upon the spot. A partial restoration has been made of these buildings and they are now used by the Franciscans. The exact circumstances of its naming have not come to light, but we know of its patron saint that his holiness was such that even Voltaire said of him: “It is scarcely given to man to push virtue further.” Born at Poissy in 1215, the son of Louis VIII and Blanche of [33] Castile, he became noted for his saintliness, and twice led an army of Crusaders in the “holy war.”

PALA

Pala , often misspelled palo , through an accidental resemblance to the Spanish word palo (stick or tree), is situated some fifteen miles or more to the northeast of San Luís Rey, and is the site of the sub-mission of San Antonio de Pala, founded in 1816 by Padre Peyri as a branch of San Luís Rey. This mission was unique in having a bell-tower built apart from the church, and many romantic stories have been told about the “bells of Pala.” It was located in the center of a populous Indian community, and it happens, rather curiously, that the word itself has a significance both in Spanish and Indian, meaning in Spanish “spade” and in Indian “water.” The Reverend George Doyle, pastor at the mission of San Antonio de Pala, writes the following in regard to this name: “The word ‘Pala’ is an Indian word, meaning, in the Cupanian Mission Indian language, ‘water,’ probably due to the [34] fact that the San Luís Rey River passes through it. The proper title of the mission chapel here is San Antonio de Padua, but as there is another San Antonio de Padua mission chapel in the north, to distinguish between the two some one in the misty past changed the proper title of the Saint, and so we have ‘de Pala’ instead of ‘de Padua.’ Some writers say Pala is Spanish, but this is not true, for the little valley in no way resembles a spade, and the Palanian Indians were here long before the Franciscan padres brought civilization, Christianity and the Spanish language.”

Pala , in this case, is almost certainly Indian, and originates in a legend of the Luiseños. According to this legend, one of the natives of the Temécula tribe went forth on his travels, stopping at many places and giving names to them. One of these places was a canyon, “where he drank water and called it pala , water.”—( The Religion of the Luiseño Indians , by Constance Goddard Dubois, in the Univ. of Cal. Publ. of Arch. and Tech.)

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO

San Juan Capistrano (St. John Capistrano), was at one time sadly mutilated by having its first part clipped off, appearing on the map as Capistrano , but upon representations made by Zoeth S. Eldredge it was restored to its full form by the Post Office Department. A mission was founded at this place, which is near the coast about half-way between San Diego and Los Ángeles, by Padres Serra and Amurrio, November 1, 1776, the year of our own glorious memory. While on the other side of the continent bloody war raged, under the sunny skies of California the gentle padres were raising altars to the “Man of Peace.”

The buildings at this place were badly wrecked by an earthquake on December 8, 1812, yet the ruins still remain to attest to the fact that this was at one time regarded as the finest of all the mission structures.

Its patron saint, St. John Capistrano, was a Franciscan friar who lived at the time of the crusades, and took part in them. A colossal statue of him adorns the exterior of the Cathedral at [36] Vienna. It represents him as having a Turk under his feet, a standard in one hand, and a cross in the other.

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

There remain some names in the San Diego group of less importance, yet possessing many points of interest, which will be included in the following list, with an explanation of their meanings, and their history wherever it has been possible to ascertain it.

Agua Tibia (warm water, warm springs), is in San Diego County. For some reason difficult to divine, this perfectly simple name has been the cause of great confusion in the minds of a number of writers. In one case the almost incredibly absurd translation “shinbone water” has been given. It may be thought that this was intended as a bit of humor, but it is greatly to be feared that the writer mixed up the Spanish word tibia , which simply means “tepid, warm,” with the Latin name of one of the bones of the lower leg, the tibia . In another case the equally absurd [39] translation “flute water” has been given. Where such a meaning could have been obtained is beyond comprehension to any person possessing even a slight knowledge of the Spanish language. Agua Tibia is no more nor less than “warm water,” applied in this case to warm springs existing at that place. This extreme case is enlarged upon here as an example of the gross errors that have been freely handed out to an unsuspecting public in the matter of our place names. There are many more of the same sort, and the authors of this inexcusable stuff have been accepted and even quoted as authorities on the subject. Those of us who love our California, in other words all of us, can not fail to be pained by such a degradation of her romantic history.

Ballena (whale), is in San Diego County at the west end of Ballena Valley, and as it is a good many miles inland its name seems incongruous, until we learn from one of its residents that it was so-called in reference to a mountain in the valley whose outline along the top is exactly the shape of a humpbacked whale.

“This place has probably no connection with [40] Ballenas, a name applied to a bay in Lower California on account of its being a favorite resort of the Humpback whale.”—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

Berrendo (antelope). A writer whose knowledge of Spanish seems to be wholly a matter of the dictionary, confused by the fact that the definition given for berrendo is “having two colors,” has offered the fantastic translation of El Río de los Berrendos as “The River of two Colors.” Although the idea of such a river, like a piece of changeable silk, may be picturesque, the simple truth is that the word berrendo , although not so-defined in the dictionaries, is used in Spanish America to signify a deer of the antelope variety and frequently occurs in that sense in the diaries. Miguel Costansó, an engineer accompanying the Portolá expedition of 1769, says: “ Hay en la tierra venados, verrendos (also spelled berrendos ), muchos liebres, conejos, gatos monteses y ratas (there are in the land deer, antelope, many hares, rabbits, wild-cats and rats).” On August 4 this party reached a place forty leagues from San Diego which they called Berrendo because they caught [41] alive a deer which had been shot the day before by the soldiers and had a broken leg. Antelope Creek, in Tehama County, was originally named El Río de los Berrendos (The River of the Antelopes), undoubtedly because it was a drinking place frequented by those graceful creatures, and Antelope Valley, in the central part of the state, must have received its name in the same way.

El Cajón (the box), about twelve miles northeast of San Diego, perhaps received its name from a custom the Spaniards had of calling a deep canyon with high, box-like walls, un cajón (a box).

Campo (a level field), also sometimes used in the sense of a camp, is the name of a place about forty miles east-southeast of San Diego, just above the Mexican border. Campo was an Indian settlement, and may have been so-called by the Spaniards simply in reference to the camp of Indians.

Cañada del Bautismo (glen of the baptism), so-called from the circumstance that two dying native children were there baptized by the padres, [42] as told in the diary of Miguel Costansó, of the Portolá expedition of 1769. Death, when it came to the children of the natives, was often regarded as cause for rejoicing by the missionaries, not, of course, through any lack of humanity on their part, but because the Indian parents more readily consented to baptism at such a time, and the padres regarded these as so many souls “snatched from the burning.”

Chula Vista (pretty view), is the name of a town near the coast, a few miles southeast of San Diego. Chula is a word of Mexican origin, meaning pretty, graceful, attractive. “This name was probably first used by the promoters during the boom of 1887.”—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

Coyote Valley , situated just below the southern border of the San Jacinto Forest Reservation. Coyote , the name of the wolf of Western America, is an Aztec word, originally coyotl .

Cuyamaca is probably derived from the land grant of that name, which in turn took its name [43] from the Cuyamaca Mountain, which, according to the scientists, was so-called in reference to the clouds and rain gathering around its summit. Mr. T. T. Waterman, instructor in Anthropology at the University of California, says the word is derived from two Indian words, kwe (rain), and amak (yonder), and consequently means “rain yonder.” The popular translation of it as “woman’s breast” is probably not based on fact. There was an Indian village of that name some miles northwest of San Diego.

Descanso (rest), is the name of a place northeast of San Diego, so-called by a government surveying party for the reason that they stopped here each day for rest.

Dulzura (sweetness), is the name of a place but a few miles north of the Mexican border line. What there was of “sweetness” in the history of this desolate mining camp can not be discovered.

Encinitas (little oaks), is a place on the coast about twenty miles northwest of San Diego.

Escondido (hidden), a place lying about fifteen miles from the coast, to the northeast of San Diego. It is said to have been so-named on account of its location in the valley. A place at [44] another point was called Escondido by the Spaniards because of the difficulty they experienced in finding the water for which they were anxiously searching, and it may be that in this case the origin of the name was the same.

La Jolla , a word of doubtful origin, said by some persons to mean a “pool,” by others to be from hoya , a hollow surrounded by hills, and by still others to be a possible corruption of joya , a “jewel.” The suggestion has been made that La Jolla was named from caves situated there which contain pools, but until some further information turns up this name must remain among the unsolved problems. There is always the possibility also that La Jolla means none of these things but is a corruption of some Indian word with a totally different meaning. More than one place in the state masquerades under an apparently Spanish name which is in reality an Indian word corrupted into some Spanish word to which it bore an accidental resemblance in sound. Cortina (curtain) is an example of this sort of corruption, it being derived from the Indian Ko-tina .

Laguna del Corral (lagoon of the yard). Corral is a word much in use to signify a space of ground [45] enclosed by a fence, often for the detention of animals. In one of the diaries an Indian corral is thus spoken of: “Near the place in which we camped there was a populous Indian village; the inhabitants lived without other protection than a light shelter of branches in the form of an enclosure; for this reason the soldiers gave to the whole place the name of the Ranchería del Corral (the village of the yard).” There are other corrals and corralitos (little yards) in the state.

Linda Vista (charming or pretty view), is the name of a place ten or twelve miles due north of San Diego.

Point Loma (hill point). Loma means “hill,” hence Point Loma, the very end of the little peninsula enclosing San Diego bay, is a high promontory.

De Luz (a surname), that of a pioneer family. The literal meaning of the word luz is “light.”

Del Mar (of or on the sea), the name of a place on the shore about eighteen miles north of San Diego.

La Mesa (literally “the table”), used very commonly to mean “a high, flat table-land.” La Mesa , incorrectly printed on some of the maps as [46] one word, Lamesa , lies a few miles to the northeast of San Diego.

Mesa Grande (literally “big table”), big table-land, is some distance to the northeast of San Diego.

Potrero (pasture ground), is just above the border line. There are many Potreros scattered over the state.

La Presa (the dam or dike). La Presa is a few miles east of San Diego, on the Sweetwater River, no doubt called Agua Dulce by the Spaniards.

Los Rosales (the rose-bushes), a spot located in the narratives of the Spaniards at about seventeen leagues from San Diego, and two leagues from Santa Margarita. Nothing in the new land brought to the explorers sweeter memories of their distant home than “the roses of Castile” which grew so luxuriantly along their pathway as to bring forth frequent expressions of delight from the padres. This particular place we find mentioned in the diary of Miguel Costansó, as follows: “We gave it the name of Cañada de los Rosales (glen of the rose-bushes), on account of [47] the great number of rose-bushes we saw.”—(Translation edited by Frederick J. Teggart, Curator of the Academy of Pacific Coast History.)

Temécula , the name of a once important Indian village in the Temécula Valley, about thirty-five miles south of Riverside. Its inhabitants suffered the usual fate of the native when the white man discovers the value of the land, and were compelled to leave their valley in 1875, and remove to Pichanga Canyon, in a desert region.

Tía Juana (literally Aunt Jane). Travelers on the way to Mexico who stop for customs examination at this border town are no doubt surprised by its peculiar name. This is an example of the corruption, through its resemblance in sound, of an Indian word, Tiwana , into Tía Juana , Spanish for “Aunt Jane.” Tiwana is said to mean “by the sea,” which may or may not be the correct translation.

IV
LOS ÁNGELES AND HER NEIGHBORS

Los Ángeles (the angels). In the diary of Miguel Costansó, date of August 2, 1769, we read: “To the north-northeast one could see another water-course or river bed, which formed a wide ravine, but it was dry. This water-course joined that of the river, and gave clear indications of heavy floods during the rainy season, as it had many branches of trees and debris on its sides. We halted at this place, which was named La Porciúncula . Here we felt three successive earthquakes during the afternoon and night.”—(Translation edited by Frederick J. Teggart.)

This was the stream upon which the city of Los Ángeles was subsequently built and whose name became a part of her title. Porciúncula was the name of a town and parish near Assisi which became the abode of St. Francis de Assisi after the Benedictine monks had presented him, about 1211, with the little chapel which he called, in a [52] jocular way, La Porciúncula (the small portion). By order of Pius V, in 1556 the erection of a new edifice over the Porciúncula chapel was begun. Under the bay of the choir is still preserved the cell in which St. Francis died, while a little behind the sacristy is the spot where the saint, during a temptation, is said to have rolled in a brier-bush, which was then changed into thornless roses.—(Catholic Encyclopedia.) In this story there is a curious interweaving of the history of the names of our two rival cities, St. Francis in the north and Los Ángeles de Porciúncula in the south.

Continuing their journey on the following day, the Portolá party reached the Indian ranchería (village) of Yangna , the site chosen for the pueblo established at a later date. Father Crespi writes of it thus: “We followed the road to the west, and the good pasture land followed us; at about half a league of travel we encountered the village of this part; on seeing us they came out on the road, and when we drew near they began to howl, as though they were wolves; we saluted them, they wished to give us some seeds, and as we had nothing at hand in which to carry them, we did not accept them; seeing this, they threw some [53] handfuls on the ground and the rest in the air.”

August 2 being the feast day of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles , as the Virgin Mary is often called by the Spaniards, this name was given to the place.

The actual founding of the pueblo did not occur until September 4, 1781, when Governor Neve issued the order for its establishment upon the site of the Indian village Yangna. It is said that the Porciúncula River, henceforth to be known as the Los Ángeles, at that time ran to the east of its present course. The name of the little stream was added to that of the pueblo, so that the true, complete title of the splendid city which has grown up on the spot where the Indian once raised his wolf-like howl is Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciúncula).

The social beginnings of Los Ángeles were humble indeed, the first settlers being persons of mixed race, and the first houses mere hovels, made of adobe, with flat roofs covered with asphalt from the springs west of the town.

EL RANCHO LA BREA

La Brea (the asphalt), has been retained as the appropriate designation of the ranch containing the famous asphaltum beds near Los Ángeles. Ever since the days of the Tertiary Age, the quaking, sticky surface of these beds has acted as a “death trap” for unwary animals, and the remains of the unfortunate creatures have been securely preserved down to our times, furnishing indisputable evidence of the strange life that once existed on our shores. Fossils of a large number of pre-historic and later animals have been taken out, aggregating nearly a million specimens of bird and animal life, many of them hitherto unknown to science. Among them are the saber-tooth tiger, gigantic wolves, bears, horses, bison, deer, an extinct species of coyote, camels, elephants, and giant sloths. Remains are also found of mice, rabbits, squirrels, several species of insects, and a large number of birds, such as ducks, geese, pelicans, eagles and condors.

Among the most remarkable of these fossils are the saber-tooth tiger and the great wolf. [55] Specimens of the wolf have been found which are among the largest known in either living or extinct species. This wolf differs from existing species in having a larger and heavier skull and jaws, and in its massive teeth, a conformation that must have given it great crushing power. The structure of the skeleton shows it to have been probably less swift, but more powerful than the modern wolf, and the great number of bones found indicate that it was exceedingly common in that age. One bed of bones was uncovered in which the number of saber-tooth and wolf skulls together averaged twenty per cubic yard. Altogether, the disappearance of these great, ferocious beasts from the California forests need cause no keen regret.

Next to the large wolf the most common is the saber-tooth tiger, of which one complete skeleton and a large number of bones have been found. The skeleton shows the animal to have been of about the size of a large African lion, and its most remarkable characteristic was the extraordinary length of the upper canine teeth, which were like long, thin sabers, with finely serrated edges. These teeth were awkwardly placed for ordinary [56] use, and it is thought by scientists that they were used for a downward stab through the thick necks of bulky creatures, such as the giant sloth. There is also an unusual development of the claws, possibly to make up for the loss of grasping power in the jaws, resulting from the interference of the long saber teeth. It appears from the state of many of the fossils that these teeth were peculiarly liable to fracture, and accidents of this sort may have led to the extinction of the species, the animal thus perishing through the over-development of one of its characteristics.

Fossils of the extinct horse and bison are common, and a smaller number are found of camels, deer, goats, and the mammoth. The bison were heavy-horned and somewhat larger than the existing species of buffalo. The camel, of which an almost complete specimen has very recently been taken out by Professor R. C. Stoner, of the University of California, was much larger than the present day species. Since the above was put in type, a human skeleton has been taken from the vicinity of the La Brea bed. Whether this skeleton belongs with the La Brea deposits, and what its comparative age in relation to other human [57] remains may be, are matters now being investigated by scientists.

The preponderance of meat-eating animals in the La Brea beds has attracted the attention of scientists, who believe that these creatures were lured to the spot in large numbers by the struggles and cries of their unfortunate prey caught in the sticky mass of the tar. In this way, a single sloth, or other creature, may have been the means of bringing retribution upon a whole pack of wolves.—(Notes taken from an article in the Sunset Magazine of October, 1908, entitled The Death Trap of the Ages , by John C. Merriam, Professor of Paleontology in the University of California.)

The manner in which this great aggregation of animals came to a tragic end in that long-past age is exemplified in the way that birds and other small animals are still occasionally caught in the treacherous asphalt and there perish miserably, adding their bones to those of their unhappy predecessors.

The La Brea beds furnish one of the richest fields for paleontological research to be found anywhere in the world; and it may be said, that with her great Sequoias in the north, and her [58] reservoir of pre-historic remains in the south, California stands as a link between a past age and the present.

The tarry deposit itself has its own place in history, for it appears that the first settlers of Los Ángeles were alive to the practical value of this supply of asphaltum lying ready to their hands, and used it in roofing their houses. Even the Indians, little as is the credit usually given them for skill in the arts and crafts, recognized the possibilities of this peculiar substance, and used it in calking their canoes.

LOS OJITOS

The story of Los Ojitos (literally “little eyes”), but here used in the sense of “little springs,” situated about two leagues from Santa Ana, indicates that the pleasures of social intercourse were not altogether lacking among the California Indians. In the diary of Miguel Costansó, of the date of their arrival at this place, he writes: “We found no water for the animals, but there was sufficient for the people in some little springs [59] or small pools, in a narrow canyon close to a native village. The Indians of this village were holding a feast and dance, to which they had invited their relatives of the Río de los Temblores (River of the Earthquakes, or Santa Ana).”—(Translation edited by Frederick J. Teggart.) During this time the travelers experienced a series of earthquakes lasting several days.

Ojo de agua was commonly used by the Spaniards to mean a spring, but during the eighteenth century it was frequently used in America in the sense of a small stream of water rather than a spring.

SANTA ANA

On the day, Friday, July 28, 1769, of the arrival of the Portolá expedition at the stream now called the Santa Ana , which takes its rise in the San Bernardino Mountains, and empties into the ocean at a point southeast of Los Ángeles, four severe earthquakes occurred. Speaking of this circumstance in his diary, Father Crespi says: “To this spot was given El Dulce Nombre de Jesús de los Temblores (The Sweet Name of Jesus of the [60] Earthquakes), because of having experienced here a frightful earthquake, which was repeated four times during the day. The first, which was the most violent, happened at one o’clock of the afternoon, and the last about four o’clock. One of the gentiles (unbaptized Indians), who happened to be in the camp, and who, without doubt, exercised among them the office of priest, no less terrified at the event than we, began, with horrible cries and great demonstrations, to entreat Heaven, turning to all points of the compass. This river is known to the soldiers as the Santa Ana .” This was one of the rare cases where the usual method of naming was reversed, and the soldiers chose the name of the saint. St. Anna was the mother of the Virgin and her name signifies “gracious.”

In the account of Captain Pedro Fages, of the same expedition, the natives on this stream are described as having light complexions and hair, and a good appearance, differing in these particulars from the other inhabitants of that region, who were said to be dark, dirty, under-sized and slovenly. This is not the only occasion when the Spaniards reported finding Indians of light complexions and hair in California. One account [61] speaks of a red-haired tribe not far north of San Francisco, and still another of “white Indians” at Monterey, but, judging by the light of our subsequent knowledge of these aborigines, the writers of these reports must have indulged in exaggeration.

On the southern bank of the Santa Ana, not far from the coast, is the town of the same name, and further inland its waters have made to bloom in the desert the famous orange orchards of Riverside.

SANTA MÓNICA

Santa Mónica , situated at the innermost point of the great curve in the coast line just west of Los Ángeles, was named in honor of a saintly lady whose story is here quoted from Clara Erskine Clement’s Stories of the Saints : “She was the mother of St. Augustine, and was a Christian, while his father was a heathen. Mónica was sorely troubled at the dissipated life of her young son; she wept and prayed for him, and at last sought the advice and aid of the Bishop of Carthage, who dismissed her with these words. ‘Go in [62] peace; the son of so many tears will not perish.’ At length she had the joy of beholding the baptism of St. Augustine by the Bishop of Milan.”

Santa Mónica is venerated as the great patroness of the Augustinian nuns, and might well be placed at the head of the world-wide order of “Anxious Mothers.”

SANTA CATALINA

Santa Catalina , the beautiful island off the coast of Southern California, was named by Vizcaíno in honor of St. Catherine, because its discovery occurred on the eve of her feast day, November 24, 1602. In the diary of the voyage we get an interesting description of the island and its aboriginal inhabitants: “We continued our journey along the coast until November 24, when, on the eve of the glorious Santa Catalina, we discovered three large islands; we took the one in the middle, which is more than twenty-five leagues in circumference, on November 27, and before dropping anchor in a good cove which was found, a great number of Indians came out in canoes of [63] cedar-wood and pine, made of planking well-joined and calked, and with eight oars each, and fourteen or fifteen Indians, who looked like galley-slaves. They drew near and came on board our vessels without any fear whatever. We dropped anchor and went on shore. There were on the beach a great number of Indians, and the women received us with roasted sardines and a fruit cooked in the manner of sweet potatoes.”

Mass was celebrated there in the presence of 150 Indians. The people were very friendly and the women led the white men by the hand into their houses. The diary continues: “These people go dressed in the skins of seals; the women are modest but thievish. The Indians received us with embraces and brought water in some very well-made jars, and in others like flasks, that were highly varnished on the outside. They have acorns and some very large skins, with long wool, apparently of bears, which serve them for blankets.”

The travelers found here an idol, “in the manner of the devil, without a head, but with two horns, a dog at the feet, and many children painted around it.” The Indians readily gave up this idol and accepted the cross in its stead.

St. Catherine, patroness of this island, was one of the most notable female martyrs of the Roman Catholic church. We are told that she was of royal blood, being the daughter of a half-brother of Constantine the Great. She was converted to Christianity, and became noted for her unusual sanctity. She was both beautiful and intellectual, and possessed the gift of eloquence in such a high degree that she was able to confound fifty of the most learned men appointed by Maximin to dispute matters of religion with her. The same Maximin, enraged by her refusal of his offers of love, ordered that she be tortured “by wheels flying in different directions, to tear her to pieces. When they had bound her to these, an angel came and consumed the wheels in fire, and the fragments flew around and killed the executioners and 3000 people. Maximin finally caused her to be beheaded, when angels came and bore her body to the top of Mt. Sinai. In the eighth century a monastery was built over her burial place.”—( Stories of the Saints. ) Santa Catalina is the patroness of education, science, philosophy, eloquence, and of all colleges, and her island has good reason to be satisfied with the name chosen by Vizcaíno.

LAS ÁNIMAS BENDITAS

Of Las Ánimas (the souls), which lay between San Gabriel and the country of the Amajaba (Mojave) Indians, we find the story in Fray Joaquín Pasqual Nuez’s diary of the expedition made in 1819 by Lieutenant Gabriel Moraga, to punish the marauding Amajabas, who had murdered a number of Christian natives. This name was also used as the title of a land grant just south of Gilroy.

The Moraga party arrived at a point “about a league and a half from Our Lady of Guadalupe of Guapiabit. We found the place where the Amajabas killed four Christians of this mission (San Gabriel), three from San Fernando, and some gentiles (unbaptized Indians). We found the skeletons and skulls roasted, and, at about a gun-shot from there we pitched camp. The next day, after mass, we caused the bones to be carried in procession, the cross in front, Padre Nuez chanting funeral services, to the spot where they had been burned. There we erected a cross, at the foot of which we caused the bones to be buried [66] in a deep hole, and then we blessed the sepulchre. We named the spot Las Ánimas Benditas (The Blessed Souls).” May they rest in peace!

SAN GABRIEL

San Gabriel , the quaint little town lying nine miles east of Los Ángeles, is the site of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel (St. Gabriel Archangel), founded September 8, 1771, by Padres Cambón and Somera. This mission was placed in a fertile, well-wooded spot, in the midst of a large Indian population, who, under the instruction of the padres, became experts in many arts, such as sewing, weaving, soap-making, cobbling, etc. Their flocks and herds increased to such an extent that they covered the country for many miles around.

The patron saint, San Gabriel, was the second in rank of the archangels who stand before the Lord. Whenever he is mentioned in the Bible, it is as a messenger bearing important tidings, and he is especially venerated as having carried to the Virgin the message that she was to become the mother of Christ.

SAN FERNANDO

It was in the valley of San Fernando (St. Ferdinand), a short distance northwest of Los Ángeles, that the mission pertaining to the latter place was established, September 8, 1797, by Padres Lasuén and Dumetz. The Camulos Rancho, the home of Ramona, the heroine of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson’s romance, was once included in the lands of this mission.

St. Ferdinand, King of Spain, in whose honor this place was named, was a notable warrior, as well as a saint, and he succeeded in expelling the Moors from Toledo, Córdova and Seville. He is said also to have been a patron of the arts, and to have been the founder of the cathedral at Burgos, celebrated for the beauty of its architecture. But more than for such attainments, he is remembered for his tenderness toward the poor and lowly of his people. When urged to put a tax upon them in order to recruit his army, he replied: “God, in whose cause I fight, will supply my need. I fear more the curse of one poor old woman than a whole army of Moors.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

TEMESCAL

Temescal (sweathouse), in Riverside County, although a place of no great importance in itself, is interesting in that its name recalls one of the curious customs widely prevalent among the natives of the Southwest. The word itself is of Aztec origin, and was brought to California by the Franciscans.

The temescal is thus described by Dr. A. L. Kroeber, in the University of California Publications in Archaeology and Ethnology: “At the Banning Reservation a sweathouse is still in use. From the outside its appearance is that of a small mound. The ground has been excavated to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, over a space of about twelve by seven or eight feet. In the center of this area two heavy posts are set up three or four feet apart. These are connected at the top by a log laid in their forks. Upon this log, and in the two forks, are laid some fifty or more logs and sticks of various dimensions, their ends sloping down to the edge of the excavation. It is probable that brush covers these timbers. [71] The whole is thoroughly covered with earth. There is no smoke hole. The entrance is on one of the long sides, directly facing the space between the two center posts, and only a few feet from them. The fireplace is between the entrance and the posts. It is just possible to stand upright in the center of the house. In Northern California, the so-called sweathouse is of larger dimensions, and was preëminently a ceremonial or assembly chamber.”

Dr. L. H. Bunnell, in his history of the discovery of the Yosemite valley, gives us some interesting details of the use of the sweathouse among the Indians of that region: “The remains of these structures were sometimes mistaken for tumuli , being constructed of bark, reeds or grass, covered with mud. It (the sweathouse), was used as a curative for disease, and as a convenience for cleansing the skin, when necessity demands it, although the Indian race is not noted for cleanliness. I have seen a half-dozen or more enter one of these rudely constructed sweathouses through the small aperture left for the purpose. Hot stones are taken in, the aperture is closed until suffocation would seem impending, when they [72] would crawl out, reeking with perspiration, and with a shout, spring like acrobats into the cold waters of the stream. As a remedial agent for disease, the same course is pursued, though varied at times by the burning and inhalation of resinous boughs and herbs. In the process of cleansing the skin from impurities, hot air alone is generally used. If an Indian had passed the usual period of mourning for a relative, and the adhesive pitch too tenaciously clung to his no longer sorrowful countenance, he would enter and re-enter the heated house until the cleansing had become complete. The mourning pitch is composed of the charred bones and ashes of the dead relative or friend. These remains of the funeral pyre, with the charcoal, are pulverized and mixed with the resin of the pine; this hideous mixture is usually retained upon the face of the mourner until it wears off. If it has been well-compounded, it may last nearly a year; although the young, either from a super-abundance of vitality, excessive reparative powers of the skin, or from powers of will, seldom mourn so long. When the bare surface exceeds that covered by the pitch, it is not a scandalous disrespect in the young to remove it [73] entirely, but a mother will seldom remove pitch or garment until both are nearly worn out.”

This heroic treatment, while possibly efficacious in the simple ailments by which the Indians were most often afflicted, usually resulted in a great increase of mortality in the epidemics of smallpox following upon the footsteps of the white man. One traveler speaks of a severe sort of intermittent fever, to which the natives were subject, and of which so many died that hundreds of bodies were found strewn about the country. Having observed that the whites, even when attacked by this fever, rarely died of it, he was inclined to ascribe the mortality among the natives to their great cure-all, the temescal .

A number of places in the state bore this name, among them a small town lying between the sites now occupied by the flourishing cities of Oakland and Berkeley. Its citizens became discontented with the undignified character of the name, and changed it to Alden.

SAN BERNARDINO

San Bernardino is the name of a county in the southeastern part of California, whose broad expanse is mainly made up of volcanic mountains, desert plains, and valleys without timber or water.

The name was first given to the snow-capped peak, 11,600 feet high, lying about twenty miles east of the city of San Bernardino, which is situated sixty miles east of Los Ángeles, in the fruit and alfalfa region. The name of this town is one of the most regrettable examples of corruption that have occurred in the state, having passed from its original sweetly flowing syllables through the successive stages of San Berdino , Berdino , until finally reaching the acme of vulgarity as Berdoo , by which appellation it is known to its immediate neighbors. If ideas of romance, of pleasant-sounding words, and of fidelity to history make no appeal to our fellow-Californians, let them read again the quotation from Stevenson given above, and learn that a romantic nomenclature may sometimes be a valuable financial asset.

San Bernardino (St. Bernardinus), the patron saint of the places bearing his name, is particularly remembered as the founder of the charitable institution known in Spanish as Monte de Piedad (hill of pity), and in French as Mont de Piété , municipal pawnshops where money was loaned on pledges to the poor. These pawnshops are still conducted in many Spanish towns, in America as well as in Europe.

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Abalone Point , some miles to the southeast of San Pedro bay, was no doubt so-named from the abundance of the great sea snails called abalone , whose iridescent shells, the abandoned dwellings of the dead animals, almost comparable in beauty to the mother-of-pearl, once covered the beaches of the California coast with a glittering carpet. The word “once” is used advisedly, for, with our usual easy-going American negligence we have permitted these creatures of the sea, valuable for their edible meat as well as for their exquisitely colored shells, to be nearly destroyed [76] by Chinese and Japanese fisheries. That the flesh of the abalone formed a useful part of the food supply of the Indians is evidenced by the large number of shells to be found in the mounds along the shore. In the living state the abalone clings to the rocks on the shore, and its grip is so tenacious that more than one unfortunate person, caught by the foot or hand between the shell and the rock, has been held there while death crept slowly upon him in the shape of the rising tide. There is another Abalone Point on the northern coast.

Agua Caliente (literally “hot water”), generally used in reference to hot springs. Of these there are many in the state, one on the Indian Reservation southeast of Riverside. Agua Caliente was originally a land grant.

Alamitos (little cottonwoods), from álamo , a tree of the poplar family indigenous to California. There are several places bearing this name in the state, one a short distance northeast of Santa Ana.

Aliso (alder tree), is the name of a place on the Santa Fé Railroad, south of Los Ángeles, near the shore, and was probably named for [77] the Rancho Cañada de los Alisos . It is probably modern.

Azusa is the name of a place in Los Ángeles County, twenty miles east of Los Ángeles, and was originally applied to the land grant there. It is an Indian place name of a lodge, or ranchería, the original form being Asuksa-gna , the gna an ending which indicates place.

Bandini (a surname), is the name of a place a short distance southeast of Los Ángeles, on the Santa Fé Railroad. The founder of this family was José Bandini, a mariner of Spanish birth, who came to California with war supplies, and finally settled at San Diego. His son, Juan Bandini, was a notable character in the history of the state. He held several public offices, took part in revolutions and colonization schemes, and finally espoused the cause of the United States. Bancroft gives the following resumé of his character: “Juan Bandini must be regarded as one of the most prominent men of his time in California. He was a man of fair abilities and education, of generous impulses, of jovial temperament, a most interesting man socially, famous for his gentlemanly manners, of good courage in the midst of [78] personal misfortunes, and always well-liked and respected; indeed his record as a citizen was an excellent one. In his struggles against fate and the stupidity of his compatriots he became absurdly diplomatic and tricky as a politician. He was an eloquent speaker and fluent writer.” Members of the Bandini family still occupy positions of respect and influence in the state and have made some important additions to its historical literature.

Bolsa (pocket), a term much in use with the Spaniards to signify a shut-in place. Bolsa is in Orange County, twelve miles north by west of Tres Pinos, and was probably named from the land grant, Rancho de las Bolsas .

Cabezón (big head), is the name of a place southeast of Colton. It was probably named for a large-headed Indian chief who lived there at one time and who received this name in pursuance of an Indian custom of fitting names to physical peculiarities. This name is improperly spelled on some maps as Cabazon.

Cahuilla , the name of an Indian tribe, probably “Spanishized” in its spelling from Ka-we-a. The valley and village of this name are situated in the [79] San Jacinto Forest Reserve, southeast of Riverside, and received their name from a tribe who lived, in 1776, on the northern slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains. The word Cahuilla is of uncertain derivation.

Calabazas (pumpkins), is northwest of Los Ángeles. This is possibly a corruption of an Indian word, Calahuasa , the name of a former Chumash village near the mission of Santa Inez. There is another possibility that this name may have been given to the place by the Spaniards in reference to the wild gourd which grows abundantly there and whose fruit may have been considered by them to bear some resemblance to pumpkins, but this is of course mere conjecture.

Casa Blanca (white house), is a short distance west of Riverside, on the Santa Fé Railroad, so-called from a large white ranch house once in conspicuous view from the railroad station.

Casco (skull), shell or outside part of anything. El Casco is situated about twelve miles east of Riverside. Its application here has not been ascertained.

Conejo (rabbit), is the name of a number of places in the state, one of them in the Santa [80] Mónica Mountains, another in the Central Valley, on the Santa Fé road.

Cucamonga , is an Indian name, derived from a village in San Bernardino County, forty-two miles by rail east of Los Ángeles. It was originally applied to the land grant at that place.

Las Flores (the flowers). At this place there was once a large Indian village, called in the native language ushmai , the place of roses, from ushla , rose.

Hermosa (beautiful), is the name of a town in San Bernardino County, and of a beach in Los Ángeles County.

Indio , the Spanish word for “Indian,” is the name of a place in Riverside County, near Colton.

Los Molinos (the mills, or mill-stones), a name applied to a place east of San Gabriel by the Moraga party of 1819, who went out from the mission on a punitive expedition against the [81] Amajaba (Mojave) Indians. Padre Nuez, who accompanied the party, says: “On the return we passed by a place where there was plenty of water, below a hill of red stone, very suitable for mill-stones.” The same name, probably for similar reasons, was applied to other places in the state, among them one in Sonoma County, and Mill Creek in Tehama County, originally called El Río de los Molinos (The River of the Mill-stones).

Montalvo (a surname), the name of a place in Ventura County, near Ventura. This name is interesting as being the same as that borne by the author of Las Sergas de Esplandián , in which the fabulous island of California plays a leading part.

Murietta (a surname), the same as that of the noted bandit, Joaquín Murietta, who once terrorized California with his depredations. The town of Murietta, however, was not named in honor of this gentleman of unsavory memory, but for Mr. J. Murietta, who is still living in Southern California.

Los Nietos (literally “the grandchildren”), but in this case a surname, that of the Nieto family. Los Nietos was a land grant taken up by Manuel Nieto and José María Verdugo in 1784.

Pasadena , said to be derived from the Chippewa Indian language. The full name is said to be Weoquan Pasadena , and the meaning to be “Crown of the Valley.” Let no man believe in the absurd story that it means “Pass of Eden.”

Prado (meadow). “The Prado” is also the name of a famous promenade in the city of Madrid.

Puente (bridge), in Los Ángeles County, was taken from the name of the land grant, Rancho de la Puente .

Redondo Beach (round beach), a well-known seaside resort near Los Ángeles, is usually supposed to have received its name from the curved line of the shore there, but the fact that a land grant occupying that identical spot was called Sausal Redondo (round willow-grove), from a clump of willows growing there accounts for its name.

Rodéo de las Aguas (gathering of the waters), a name once given to the present site of La Brea Rancho, near Los Ángeles, perhaps because there is at that point a natural amphitheatre which [83] receives the greater portion of the waters flowing from the neighboring mountains and the Cahuenga Pass.

San Clemente (St. Clement), the name of the island fifteen miles south of Santa Catalina. The saint for whom this island was named “was condemned to be cast into the sea bound to an anchor. But when the Christians prayed, the waters were driven back for three miles, and they saw a ruined temple which the sea had covered, and in it was found the body of the saint, with the anchor round his neck. For many years, at the anniversary of his death, the sea retreated for seven days, and pilgrimages were made to this submarine tomb.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

San Jacinto (St. Hyacinth), was a Silesian nobleman who became a monk, and was noted for his intellectual superiority, as well as for his piety. San Jacinto is the name of a town in Riverside County, thirty miles southeast of Riverside, in the fruit region, and of the range of mountains in the same county.

San Onofre (St. Onophrius), was a hermit saint [84] whose chief claim to sanctity seems to have been that he deprived himself of all the comforts of life and lived for sixty years in the desert, “during which time he never uttered a word except in prayer, nor saw a human face.”

San Pedro (St. Peter), is on San Pedro bay, twenty-six miles south of Los Ángeles. St. Peter, the fisherman apostle and companion of St. Paul, is usually represented as the custodian of the keys of Heaven and Hell, one key being of gold and the other of iron. “There is a legend that the Gentiles shaved his head in mockery, and that from this originated the tonsure of the priests.” Peter suffered martyrdom by crucifixion, “but traditions disagree in regard to the place where he suffered.” The name Peter is said to signify “a rock.” “Thou art Peter, on this rock have I founded My church.”—(Matthew, 16, 18.)

Saticoy was the name of a former Chumash Indian village on the lower part of Santa Paula River, in Ventura County, about eight miles from the sea. The present town of Saticoy is on the Santa Clara River, in Ventura County, near Ventura.

Serra (a surname), probably given in honor of the celebrated founder of the California missions.

Trabuco Canyon (literally blunderbuss canyon), from trabuco , a short, wide-mouthed gun formerly used by the Spaniards, although this may not be the true derivation of the name in this case. One writer has translated this name as “land much tumbled about,” but where he obtained such a meaning remains an impenetrable mystery. Trabuco may be a surname here.

Valle Vista (valley view), is in Riverside County, five miles northwest of San Jacinto. This name is modern and incorrect in construction.

Verdugo was named for the Verdugo family, the owners of the Rancho San Rafael , northeast of Los Ángeles and near the base of the Verdugo mountains. José María Verdugo was one of the grantees of the Nietos grant in 1784.

Vicente Point (Point Vincent). This point was named in 1793 by George Vancouver, the English explorer, in honor of Friar Vicente Santa María, “one of the reverend fathers of the mission of Buena Ventura.”

V
IN THE VICINITY OF SANTA BÁRBARA

Santa Bárbara , the charming little town that dreams away its existence among the flowers of its old gardens, on the shore of the sheltered stretch of water formed by the islands lying to the seaward, was named for a noble lady of Heliopolis, the daughter of Dioscorus. She became converted to Christianity, and was in consequence cruelly persecuted and finally beheaded by her own father. “The legend that her father was struck by lightning in punishment for this crime probably caused her to be regarded by the common people as the guardian saint against tempest and fire, and later, by analogy, as the protectress of artillery-men and miners.” (Catholic Encyclopedia.) For this reason her image was placed over the doors of powder magazines, and her name came at last to be applied to the magazines themselves, which are known to the Spanish people as santabárbaras . Thus is explained the apparent incongruity between the name of the [90] gentle saint and the places for storage of the instruments of savage war.

At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards the shores of the Santa Bárbara channel probably supported a denser native population than any other part of the state. The gracious climate and never-failing food supply furnished by the generous waters of the ocean, enabled the Indians to live at ease.

When Cabrillo entered the channel in 1542, he reported that: “A great number of Indians issued from the bushes, yelling and dancing, and making signs, inviting us to come on shore. They laid down their bows and arrows and came to the vessel in a good canoe. They possessed boats, large enough to carry twelve or fourteen men, well-constructed of bent planks and cemented with bitumen.”

These Indians were of a higher order of intelligence than those further north, and were skilled in some of the arts, including the making of excellent pottery. They were expert fishermen, using nets for the purpose, and often eating the fish raw. They wore their hair long, tied up with long cords, to which many small daggers of flint, [93] wood and bone were attached. They had some notion of music, using a primitive sort of flute, or whistle, made of the hollow bones of birds. They lived in conical houses, which were covered well down to the ground.

When Father Serra passed that way, more than two centuries later, he found the same conditions of population, counting as many as twenty populous villages along the channel. He was moved to bitter tears of grief over the delay in establishing a mission where so rich a harvest of souls lay ready to his hand. He died before this dearest wish of his heart was accomplished, yet Santa Bárbara may justly claim the honor of his presence at her birth, for he took part in the establishment of the presidio, which occurred in 1783, three years before the building of the mission. In Palou’s Life of Serra he describes that occasion thus: “The party traveled along the coast of the channel, in sight of the islands which form it, and when they judged it to be about half-way, about nine leagues from San Buenaventura, they stopped and selected a site for the presidio, in sight of the beach, which there forms a sort of bay, furnishing anchorage for ships. On [94] this beach there was a large village of Gentiles . Here the cross was raised, Father Serra blessed it and the land, and held mass. The following day they began to cut wood for the building of the chapel, the priest’s house, officials’ houses, cuartel, almacenes (storehouses), houses for families of married soldiers and the stockade.”

The mission, which is still in an excellent state of preservation, was not established until December 4, 1786, although Serra looked upon that location as the most desirable in California, and spent the last years of his life in constant efforts to urge on the authorities to the work. That his hopes were realized to the full after his death, and that large numbers of natives, as well as the succeeding white parishioners, knelt before the altar dedicated to the gentle Santa Bárbara, is evidenced by the deeply worn marks of several generations of feet to be seen in the wide flight of steps at the entrance.

A circumstance that makes Santa Bárbara unique among the missions is that within her gardens, hidden behind their secluding walls, there is a “holy of holies” where no woman’s foot is permitted to desecrate the sacred ground. It is quite likely that this rule is kept up by the [95] brothers now in charge of the mission, rather through a desire to preserve the traditions of the old church than through any unwarranted prejudice against the fair sex.

SAN BUENAVENTURA

San Buenaventura Mission , at the town now called Ventura, stands near the southeastern end of the Santa Bárbara channel. It was the last work of the great Serra, and was founded March 31, 1782, by the venerable president himself and Father Cambón. Palou gives us a detailed account of this event in his Life of Serra : “March 26, the whole party, the largest ever engaged in the founding of a mission, soldiers, settlers, and their families, muleteers, etc., but only two priests, Padres Serra and Cambón, set out.... They went on to the head of the channel, a site near the beach, on whose edge there was a large town of Gentiles , (unbaptized Indians), well built of pyramidal houses made of straw. They raised the cross, erected an arbor to serve as chapel, made an altar and adorned it. On the last day of March [96] they took possession and held the first mass. The natives assisted willingly in building the chapel, and continued friendly, helping to build a house for the padre,—all of wood. The soldiers began to cut timbers for their houses, and for the stockade. They also went to work at once to conduct water by ditches from a neighboring stream, to bring it conveniently near the houses, and to serve to irrigate crops. By means of a neophyte, brought from San Gabriel, they were able to communicate with the natives, and to let them know that their only purpose in coming here was to direct their souls to Heaven.”

The patron of this mission was originally named Giovanni Fidanga. When a child he fell very ill, and was taken by his mother to St. Francis to be healed. When the saint saw him recovered he exclaimed: “O buena ventura!” whereupon his mother dedicated him to God by the name of Buenaventura (good fortune). It is a pity that a name of such happy augury should be mutilated by the amputation of its first part, the town and county now appearing as Ventura .

ASUNCIÓN

In the diaries of the Spanish pioneers, a distinct impression is conveyed that the California Indians, so far from being morose and taciturn, as their brothers in other parts of the United States are often portrayed, were rather a merry lot, and received the white men everywhere in their long journey up the coast, with music, feasting and the dance. In fact, we run across a complaint now and then that their hospitality was sometimes so insistent that their guests suffered from loss of sleep, the serenading being kept up during the entire night.

Their music, no doubt of the most primitive sort, was produced by means of “a small whistle, sometimes double, sometimes single, about the size and length of a common fife. It was held in the mouth by one end, without the aid of the fingers, and only about two notes could be sounded on it.”—(Bancroft, from Cal. Farmer.)

Along the Santa Bárbara channel the festivities in honor of the strangers were especially lively. At Asunción (Ascension), a point on the coast five [98] leagues below Carpintería, they received a reception of which we read in Costansó’s diary of the Portolá expedition of 1769, date of August 14: “We reached the coast, and came in sight of a real town, situated on a tongue or point of land, right on the shore, which it dominated, seeming to command the waters. We counted as many as thirty large and capacious houses, spherical in form, well built and thatched with grass. We judged there could not be less than four hundred souls in the town. These natives are well built and of a good disposition, very agile and alert, diligent and skillful. Their handiness and ability were at their best in the construction of their canoes, made of good pine boards, well joined and calked, and of a pleasing form. They handle these with equal skill, and three or four men go out to sea in them to fish, for they will hold eight or ten men. They use long, double-bladed paddles, and row with indescribable agility and swiftness. All their work is neat and well finished, and what is most worthy of surprise is that to work the wood and stone they have no other tools than those made of flint.... We saw, and obtained in exchange for strings of glass beads, and other [99] trinkets, some baskets or trays made of reeds, with different designs; wooden plates, and bowls of different forms and sizes, made of one piece, so that not even those turned out in a lathe could be more successful. They presented us with a quantity of fish, particularly the kind known as bonito ; it had as good a flavor as that caught in the tunny-fisheries of Cartegena de Levante, and on the coasts of Granada. We gave it the name of La Asunción de Nuestra Señora (the Ascension of Our Lady), because we reached it on the eve of that festival.”—(Translation edited by Frederick T. Teggart.)

EL BAILARÍN

El Bailarín (the dancer). This spot, one league from Carpintería, was named in honor of a nimble-footed Indian, who cheered the weary travelers on their way, as thus told by Father Crespi, in his diary of the Portolá expedition: “This place was named through the notable fact of an Indian having feasted us extraordinarily two leagues beyond (always coasting the sea-shore), where there is a large town on a point of land on the same shore; which Indian was a robust man of [100] good form, and a great dancer; through respect for him we called this town, of which our friend was a resident, El Pueblo del Bailarín (the Town of the Dancer).”

Ranchería del Baile de las Indias (Village of the Dance of the Indian Women). As a rule, the women seemed to take no part in the dances, but Costansó tells of one occasion when they joined in the festivities: “They honored us with a dance, and it was the first place where we saw the women dance. Two of these excelled the others; they had a bunch of flowers in their hands, and accompanied the dance with various graceful gestures and movements, without getting out of time in their songs. We called the place the Ranchería del Baile de las Indias .”

CARPINTERÍA

Carpintería is the name of a little cluster of houses near the shore about ten miles east of Santa Bárbara. It lies in a region once densely populated with natives of very “gentle and mild [101] disposition.” The story of its naming is told by Father Crespi, of the Portolá party: “Not very far from the town we saw some springs of asphaltum. These Indians have many canoes, and at that time were constructing one, for which reason the soldiers named this town Carpintería (carpenter shop), but I baptized it with the name of San Roque .”

MONTECITO

Montecito (little hill or little wood), is the name of a small village about six miles from Santa Bárbara. The country in this vicinity, through its extraordinary charm of climate and scenery, has attracted a large number of very rich people, whose splendid country houses, in bizarre contrast, now occupy the self-same spots where the Indians once raised their flimsy huts of straw.

SANTA CRUZ ISLAND

While traversing the shore of Santa Bárbara channel, the Portolá expedition of 1769 took time to make trips to the islands and bestow names [102] upon them. The island of Santa Cruz received its name from a rather trivial circumstance. By some chance the padres lost there a staff which bore a cross on the end. They gave it up as irretrievably lost, so were the more pleased when the Indians appeared the following day to restore it. From this they gave the island the name of Santa Cruz (Holy Cross).

RANCHERÍA DE LA ESPADA

Of the Ranchería de la Espada (village of the sword), Captain Fages, of the Portolá expedition says: “Two and a half leagues northwest of Point Conception, another glen is found with a population of twenty hearths, with 250 Indians, more or less. The natives of the settlement here are extremely poor and starved, so that they can scarcely live, being without canoes, in rugged land, and short of firewood. While here a soldier lost his sword, leaving it carelessly fastened, so that they took it from his belt. But the Indians who saw this theft themselves ran in pursuit of the thief, and deprived him of the article in order that its owner might recover it.” From this the [103] place received the name of the Ranchería de la Espada , and the little story is still commemorated in the name of Espada Landing.

MATILIJA

Matilija Creek and Matilija Springs , in Ventura County, derive their name from an Indian village, one of those mentioned in the mission archives. The name is best known as applied to the Matilija poppy, that flower of the gods which has its native habitat along the banks of the creek. This giant poppy, by reason of its extraordinary size and delicate beauty, has a just claim to be called “queen of all California’s wild flowers,” as the Sequoia is king of her trees. It is a perennial plant, of shrubby character, and grows wild in the southern part of the state, from the Santa María River southward, extending into Lower California, where it spreads over large areas. It flourishes in particular luxuriance in the Matilija canyon, but the popular idea that that spot was its only habitat is erroneous. The shrub reaches a height of eight or ten feet, has gray-green foliage, [104] and bears splendid, six-petaled white flowers, often six or seven inches in diameter, “of a crepe-like texture, pure glistening white, with bright yellow centers.” “It not only grows in fertile valleys, but seeks the seclusion of remote canyons, and nothing more magnificent could be imagined than a steep canyon-side covered with the great bushy plants, thickly covered with the enormous white flowers.”—(Miss Parsons, quoted by J. Burt Davy, in Bailey’s Cyclopedia of American Horticulture .)

POINT PEDERNALES

Captain Fages, of the Portolá party, says of this place: “Going two leagues through high land, and with a good outlook over the sea-coast, a flowing stream appears, with very good water, and near it a poor settlement of only ten houses, probably numbering about sixty inhabitants, crowded together. We stopped at the place near where a strip or point of land extends to the sea. There we gathered a multitude of flints, good for fire-arms, and so this place is called Los Pedernales (the flints).”

Point Pedernales still remains as the name of “that point of land extending into the sea,” a few miles north of Point Conception.

CAMULOS

Camulos , also spelled Kamulas , was the name of an Indian village near San Buenaventura. This village is among those mentioned in the mission archives, and is noted as the home of Ramona, the heroine of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson’s romance. The meaning of the word Camulos , according to Professor A. L. Kroeber, is “my fruit.”

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Los Álamos (the cottonwoods), is in Santa Bárbara County, northwest of Santa Bárbara. The álamo is a species of poplar tree indigenous to California and widely spread throughout the state.

Argüello Point is on the coast of Santa Bárbara County, just south of Point Pedernales. Argüello is a surname, that of a pioneer family, of which [106] José Darío Argüello was the founder. “For many years Don José was the most prominent, influential and respected man in California.”—(Bancroft.)

Argüello Point was named by Vancouver in honor of the Spanish governor.—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

El Cojo (the lame one). This place, near Point Conception, was so-named by the Spaniards because they saw here an Indian chief who was lame.

Point Concepción , the point at the southwestern extremity of Santa Bárbara County, was so-named in reference to the “immaculate conception” of the Virgin.

Los Dos Pueblos (the two towns), is on the coast a few miles west of Santa Bárbara. On October 16, 1542, the Cabrillo expedition anchored opposite two Indian villages here, and named the place Los Dos Pueblos . “Although these villages were separated only by a small stream, their inhabitants were of a different race and language, those on one side being short, thick and swarthy, and on the other tall, slender and not so dark. The depth of the kitchen refuse at the site of these [107] two towns indicates that these Indians had lived here since the Christian era and were contemporary with the mound builders.”—( History of Santa Bárbara County. )

Gaviota (sea-gull), is on the shore a few miles west of Santa Bárbara. Father Crespi mentions having given this name to another place further down the coast: “We reached an estuary, on whose border stood a ranchería of fifty-two huts, with three hundred people. For having killed a sea-gull here, the soldiers called this place La Gaviota , but I named it San Luís Rey de Francia .” As San Luís Rey it has remained upon the map.

Every one who has crossed the bay of San Francisco in the winter season must have rejoiced in the sight of the flying convoy of those beautiful creatures, the gaviotas , by which each ferry-boat is accompanied.

Goleta (schooner), is the name of a village in Santa Bárbara County, seven miles west of Santa Bárbara.

Guadalupe (a Christian name). The town is near the northern border of Santa Bárbara County.

Lompoc is one of the names of Indian villages taken from the mission archives. It is situated fifty miles northwest of Santa Bárbara, on the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Nojoqui , in Santa Bárbara County, was presumably the name of an Indian village.

Los Olivos (the olives), is in Santa Bárbara County, on the Coast Line Railroad.

La Piedra Pintada (the painted rock), is about eighty miles from Santa Bárbara. Here there was a stone wigwam, forty or fifty yards in diameter, whose walls were covered with paintings in the form of halos and circles, with radiations from the center.—( History of Santa Bárbara County. )

Punta Gorda (fat or broad point), is one of the points of land running into the sea from the Santa Bárbara Coast. Its name indicates its shape.

Punta de las Ritas (point of the rites), perhaps refers to some religious ceremony held upon that spot.

Rincón Point (corner point), is one of the many points of land running out from the Santa Bárbara Coast.

Point Sal , was named for Hermenegi do Sal, who was one of the prominent figures in the early [109] history of Southern California. He was a Spanish soldier who came to this coast in 1776 with Anza and his party of colonists. Sal filled many important military offices. This point was named by Vancouver for this official, who was at one time commandante of the presidio of San Francisco, in return for signal courtesies shown by him in 1792, when he permitted Vancouver to go to the mission of Santa Clara, this being the first occasion when this part of Spanish America was penetrated by any foreigner.

Sal Si Puedes (get out if you can). Several places in the state, one in the Santa Cruz Mountains, another in Santa Bárbara County, received this name, so eloquent of the rough road that the Spaniards sometimes had to travel. Captain Argüello, in his diary of the expedition of 1821, refers to his struggles in getting out of a certain canyon in these terms: “On account of its difficult situation it was named Montaña de Maltrato y Arroyo de Sal si Puedes ” (mountain of ill-treatment and creek of get out if you can).

Santa Inez (St. Agnes), is the name of a river in Santa Bárbara County which rises in the coast range and falls into the Pacific Ocean about ten [110] miles north of Cape Conception. The town of the same name is situated on this river. The Mission Santa Inez was founded September 17, 1804, by Padres Tapis, Calzada and Gutierrez. It flourished for a time, but was greatly damaged by an earthquake in 1812, was rebuilt and damaged again by the Indians in the revolt of 1824, and its partially ruined buildings still remain to tell of a vanished past. Its patroness, St. Agnes, was one of the four great virgin martyrs of the Latin Church. She was a Roman maiden of great beauty, and was condemned to death by the sword, by the Prefect Sempronius, in revenge for her refusal to marry his son, on the ground that she was “already affianced to a husband whom she loved, meaning Jesus.” Before causing her death Sempronius attempted to procure her dishonor by having her conveyed to a house of infamy, “but when she prayed to Christ that she might not be dishonored, she saw before her a shining white garment which she put on with joy, and the room was filled with great light.”

Santa María (St. Mary), so-named in honor of the mother of Christ, is in Santa Bárbara County, near the Santa María River.

Santa Paula (St. Paula), is in Ventura County, thirty-five miles west of San Fernando, on the Southern Pacific Railroad. “St. Paula was a noble Roman matron, a pupil and disciple of St. Jerome. Though descended from the Scipios and the Gracchi, and accustomed to luxurious self-indulgence, [113] she preferred to follow her saintly teacher to Bethlehem and devote herself to a religious life. She built a monastery, a hospital, and three nunneries at Bethlehem.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

Sereno (serene), a place on the shore near Santa Bárbara, whose placid charm well befits its name.

Ventura (fortune), a town near the southeastern end of the Santa Bárbara channel.

VI
THE SAN LUÍS OBISPO GROUP

San Luís Obispo (St. Louis the Bishop). Travelers on the Coast Line, whose attention is attracted to the smiling vale where the pretty town of San Luís Obispo nestles in the hollow of the hills, about eight miles from the ocean and ninety to the northwest of Santa Bárbara, will doubtless be pleased to learn something of its history. So peaceful is the aspect of the valley at this time that it comes rather as a surprise to read, in the diaries of the Portolá expedition of 1769, stories of fierce fights with bears, which then haunted this place in such numbers that the explorers gave it the name of La Cañada de los Osos (the glen of the bears). From Father Crespi we get some account of the numbers and ferocity of these animals: “In this glen we saw troops of bears, which have the ground ploughed up and full of scratches which they make in search of the roots that form their food. Upon these roots, of which there are many of a good savor and taste, the [118] Gentiles (unbaptized Indians), also live. The soldiers, who went out to hunt, succeeded in killing one bear with gun-shots, and experienced the ferocity of these animals. Upon feeling themselves wounded they attack the hunter at full speed, and he can only escape by using the greatest dexterity. They do not yield except when the shot succeeds in reaching the head or heart. The one that the soldiers killed received nine balls before falling, and did not fall until one struck him in the head.”

Captain Fages, of the same expedition, gives a similar account “....a spacious glen with a rivulet of very good water.... In said glen they saw whole herds of bears, which have ploughed up all the ground, where they dug to seek their livelihood from the roots that it produces. They are ferocious brutes, and of very difficult hunting, throwing themselves with incredible speed and anger upon the hunter, who only escapes by means of a swift horse. They do not yield to the shot unless it be in the head or heart.”

Miguel Costansó, of the same party, says: “In the afternoon, as they had seen many tracks [121] of bears, six soldiers went out hunting on horseback, and succeeded in shooting one bear. It was an enormous animal; it measured fourteen palms from the sole of the feet to the top of its head; its feet were more than a foot long; and it must have weighed over 375 pounds. We ate the flesh and found it savory and good.”—(Translation edited by Frederick J. Teggart.)

At a later date, when the mission at Monterey was in serious danger of a famine, Captain Fages called to mind the experiences in the Cañada de los Osos , and headed a hunting expedition to that region for the purpose of securing a supply of bear meat. The party succeeded in killing a considerable number of the animals, and were thus able to relieve the scarcity at Monterey. The name of Los Osos (the bears), is still applied to a valley in the vicinity of San Luís Obispo.

Finding this spot highly suitable for a settlement, in the matters of climate, arable land and water, points always carefully considered by the padres, the mission of San Luís Obispo de Tolosa (St. Louis the Bishop of Toulouse), was established by Padre Serra, September 1, 1772, in La Cañada de los Osos . In the usual course of events, [122] the name of the mission was extended to the town and finally to the county.

The story of the patron saint of this mission runs as follows: “St. Louis of Toulouse was the nephew of St. Louis King of France, and son of the King of Naples and Sicily. Like his kingly uncle-saint, he was piously reared by his mother. When he was but fourteen, his father, being made prisoner by the King of Aragón, gave Louis and his brother as hostages. He became wearied of everything but religion, and in 1294, when he was made free, he gave all his royal rights to his brother Robert, and became a monk of the Order of St. Francis. He was then twenty-two years old. Soon he was made Bishop of Toulouse; and he set out, bare-footed and clothed as a friar, to take his new office. He went into Provence on a charitable mission, and died at the castle of Brignolles, where he was born. He was first buried at Marseilles, then removed to Valencia, where he was enshrined. His pictures represent him as young, beardless, and of gentle face. He has the fleur-de-lys embroidered on his cope, or on some part of his dress. The crown which he gave away lies at his feet, while he [123] wears the mitre of a bishop.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

SAN MIGUEL

San Miguel (St. Michael), situated about forty-seven miles northeast of San Luís Obispo, is the site of Mission San Miguel, founded July 25, 1797, by Padres Lasuén and Sitjar. It is said that “the lands of this mission extended from the Tulares on the east to the sea on the west, and from the north boundary of the San Luís Obispo district to the south line of San Antonio. It had its work-shops and little factories where the good padres taught the Indians the useful arts. Its property was confiscated in 1836, and sold at auction in 1846.”

St. Michael, in whose honor this mission was named, “is regarded as the first and mightiest of all created spirits. He it was whom God commissioned to expel Satan and the rebellious angels from Heaven. His office now is believed to be two-fold, including that of patron saint of the Church on earth, and Lord of the souls of the dead; presenting the good to God and sending [124] the evil and wicked away to torment.” In pictures St. Michael is always represented as young and beautiful, sometimes as the Lord of souls in pictures of death, sometimes in armor as the conqueror of Satan.

PASO DE ROBLES

Paso de Robles (pass of the oaks), known far and wide for its hot sulphur springs, where the sick of many lands find surcease from their pain, is situated twenty-nine miles north of San Luís Obispo. It was named for the reason indicated by Father Crespi, who says: “....in a valley in the hollow of the Santa Lucía Mountains, called Los Robles , for the great abundance of these trees with which it is populated.”

It should be explained that the roble is not the evergreen, or live-oak, which is called encino . At Leland Stanford Jr. University the names of these two species of oaks have been rather poetically used for the students’ dormitories,—Encina Hall for the men, and Roble Hall for the women.

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Arroyo Grande (big creek), a village in San Luís Obispo County, fifteen miles southeast of San Luís Obispo.

Buchón (big craw), is the name of the point on the coast directly opposite the town of San Luís Obispo, and has a significance not altogether agreeable. The Spanish soldiers called the place Buchón from an Indian in the neighborhood who was the unfortunate possessor of an enormous goitre, which was so large that it hung down upon his breast.

Cañada del Osito (glen of the little bear), so-called because some Indians from the mountains offered the Spaniards a present of a bear cub.

Cayucos is the name of a village in San Luís Obispo County, eighteen miles northwest of San Luís Obispo. The word cayuco is probably Indian in origin, and is used in different senses in different parts of America. In Venezuela it means a small fishing boat, built to hold only one person, while [128] in Cuba it means “head.” As this place is on the shore, it was probably named in reference to Indian fishing skiffs.

Morro (headland, bluff). Morro is the name of a hamlet in San Luís Obispo County, on the shore, twelve miles northwest of San Luís Obispo.

Nacimiento (birth). This word is generally used by the Spaniards in the sense of the birth of Christ.

Pismo , an Indian word said to mean “place of fish”, but this definition is not based upon scientific authority.

San Simeón (St. Simeon), is the name of a [129] village in San Luís Obispo County, on the shore twenty miles south of Jolón. It has a good harbor. St. Simeon, the patron saint of this place, was one of the apostles, and is called “the Prophet” because he was the translator of the book of Isaiah in which is made the prophecy “Behold a virgin shall conceive.”

St. Simeon Stylites, who set the fashion of the pillar-hermits, spent almost half of the fifth century on the summit of a column sixty feet in height, drawing up his meager food and water in a pail which he lowered for the purpose. This peculiar and apparently senseless mode of life has been partially justified by the reflection that the notoriety he thus gained brought curious crowds of pagans about his pillar, to whom he was enabled to preach the Christian doctrine. It is said that he converted many thousands of the nomadic Saracen tribes to Christianity.

Santa Lucía (St. Lucy), is the name of a section of the coast range of mountains in the central part of the state. St. Lucy is the protectress against all diseases of the eye, and is the patroness of the laboring poor.

Santa Margarita (St. Margaret), is the name of [130] a town in San Luís Obispo County, on the Southern Pacific Railroad. St. Margaret is the patroness who presides over births.

VII
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF MONTEREY

Monterey . “ Llegamos á este puerto de Monterey á 16 de Diciembre, 1602 á las siete de la noche ” (We arrived at this port of Monterey on the sixteenth of December, 1602, at seven o’clock in the evening).—(From the diary of Sebastián Vizcaíno.)

When Vizcaíno sailed into the beautiful blue bay of Monterey, and looked about him at the ring of hills, dark with the dense growth of pines covering them from summit to base, he became at once enamored with the place, and wrote enthusiastically to his Spanish Majesty concerning it. In a letter of the date of May 23, 1603, he says: “Among the ports of most importance which I found was one in latitude 37, which I named Monterrey. As I wrote to your majesty from there on the twenty-eighth of September of the said year, it is all that can be desired for the convenience and sea-port of the ships of the Philippine line, whence they come to explore this [134] coast. The port is sheltered from all winds, and has on the shore many pines to supply the ships with masts of any size that they may wish, and also live-oaks, oaks, rosemary, rock-roses, roses of Alexandria, good hunting of rabbits, hares, partridges and flying birds of different sorts. The land is of mild temperature, and of good waters, and very fertile, judging by the luxuriant growth of the trees and plants, for I saw some fruits from them, particularly of chestnuts and acorns, larger than those of Spain; and it is well-populated with people, whose disposition I saw to be soft, gentle, docile, and very fit to be reduced to the Holy Church. Their food is of many and various seeds that they have and also wild game, such as deer, some of which are larger than cows, also bears, and cattle and buffalo, and many others. The Indians are of good body, white of countenance, and the women somewhat smaller, and well-favored. Their dress is of the people of the beach, of the skins of seals, of which there are an abundance, which they tan and prepare better than in Spain.”

At first thought it would seem that Vizcaíno must have been in error about finding buffalo [137] at Monterey, but investigation shows that in 1530 those animals “ranged through what is now New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.”—( Handbook of American Indians. ) Oregon is not so far away but that scattering herds may have wandered as far as Monterey, and that Vizcaíno actually saw them there. It has been suggested, also, that he may have mistaken the tracks of the great elk for those of buffalo. In calling the Indians “white,” he was, no doubt, speaking comparatively. According to the diaries of the Spaniards, the natives of different sections varied considerably in complexion. What he meant by “chestnuts” can only be conjectured, since that tree is not indigenous to Monterey, but it is possible that the nut of the wild buck-eye, which resembles the chestnut in size and shape, may have been mistaken for it by the Spaniards.

Vizcaíno named the port in honor of Gaspar de Zúñiga, Count of Monterey, at that time Viceroy of Mexico. The word itself, whose literal meaning is “the King’s wood,” or “the King’s mountain,” since monte may be used in either sense, was formerly spelled Monterrey, Monterey, or Monte Rey.

When Father Serra arrived at Monterey in 1770, he decided to make it the headquarters of all the California missions, and it was there that the rest of his life was spent, excepting the periods of absence required in visiting the other missions, and in one visit to Mexico. Very shortly after the landing of the party in a little cove at the edge of the present town, it was decided that not enough arable land existed at that point for the support of the mission, so the religious establishment was removed to Carmel Bay, while the Presidio and its chapel remained at Monterey.

The Mission San Carlos Borroméo (St. Charles Borroméo), was founded June 3, 1770, near the shore of the charming little bay of Carmel, about seven miles from Monterey. This church, now in an excellent state of repair, through the efforts of the late Father Ángelo Casanova, is distinguished above all the others, “for under its altar lies buried all that is mortal of the remains of its venerable founder, Junípero Serra.”

Its patron saint, St. Charles Borroméo, belonged to a noble family of Lombardy. Being a second son, he was dedicated to the church at a very early age, and soon rose to distinction, receiving [141] the cardinal’s hat at twenty-three. The death of his elder brother placed the family fortune at his disposal, but he gave it all in charity, reserving for himself merely enough for bread and water, and straw on which to sleep. In public he gave feasts, but never partook of them himself. At the time of the plague in Milan, when all others fled from the city, he remained to attend the sick. His remains repose in a rich shrine in that city.

SAN ANTONIO

At San Antonio (St. Anthony), in Monterey County, between Kings City and Jolón, Father Serra established the mission of San Antonio de Padua, July 14, 1771. In connection with its establishment, Palou tells a story that brings out one of the most marked characteristics of the venerable founder, his ardent enthusiasm: “They [the founding party] departed for the Santa Lucía Mountains, taking priests for the new mission, the required escort of soldiers, and all necessaries. Twenty-five leagues south-southeast from Monterey, they arrived at the hollow [142] of this ridge, where they found a great cañada , which they called Robles (oaks), from the great number of those trees. Finding a level plain in the same cañada , bordering on a river which they called San Antonio , and which they thought to be a good site, for the good flow of water, even in the dry month of July, which could be conducted to the lands without difficulty, all agreed upon the choice of this spot. Serra ordered the mules to be unloaded, and the bells to be hung up on the branch of a tree. As soon as they were hung up, he began to ring them, crying out, ‘Ho! Gentiles, come, come to the Holy Church, come to receive the faith of Jesus Christ!’” One of the other priests remonstrated with him, saying it was idle to ring the bells in the absence of the gentiles, but Serra said, “Let me ring, let me relieve my heart, so that all the wild people in this mountain range may hear!” It happened that some natives were attracted by the ringing of the bells, and came to witness the first mass, which Serra regarded as a good augury.

St. Anthony of Padua, the patron of this place, was a Portuguese by birth, who entered the Franciscan Order. He went as a missionary to the [145] Moors, but was compelled by illness to return to Europe, where he had great success in Italy and France as a preacher. Among many miracles accredited to him is the one thus related: “When preaching at the funeral of a very rich man, St. Anthony denounced his love of money, and exclaimed, ‘His heart is buried in his treasure chest; go seek it there and you will find it.’ The friends of the man broke open the chest, and to their surprise, found the heart; they then examined his body and found that his heart was indeed wanting.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

POINT CYPRESS

La Punta de los Cipreses (Point Cypress), is the home of those wonderful trees, twisted and gnarled into a thousand fantastic shapes by their age-long struggle against the ocean winds, which furnish yet another proof of the part played by California in the preservation of the rare and the unique, for this species of coniferous tree is said to be confined to that region, not occurring in any other part of the world.

The following interesting paragraph on these trees is quoted from The Trees of California , by Willis Linn Jepsen, Asst. Professor of Dendrology in the University of California: “ Cupressus Macrocarpa is limited to two localities on the ocean shore at the mouth of the Carmel river near Monterey. The Cypress Point grove extends along the cliffs and low bluffs from Pescadero Point to Cypress Point, a distance of two miles, reaching inland about one-eighth of a mile. The Point Lobos grove is much smaller. The trees are scattered over the summits of two headlands, and cling to the edges of the cliffs, where on account of the erosive action of the ocean, they are occasionally under-mined and fall into the sea. Monterey Cypress is most interesting for its remarkably restricted natural range and the exceedingly picturesque outlines characteristic of the trees growing on the ocean shore. As a result of their struggle with violent storms from the Pacific Ocean which break on the unprotected cliffs and headlands of Cypress Point and Point Lobos, they present a variety and singularity of form which is obviously connected with their exposed habitat, and lends a never-failing interest to these [147] two narrow localities. Of the highly picturesque trees, the most common type is that with long irregular arms. Such trees recall most strikingly the classical pictures of the Cedars of Lebanon. Monterey Cypress is of course a genuine cypress and Lebanon Cedar a genuine cedar; the two do not even belong to the same family of conifers. Yet the popular story that the two are the same makes so strong an appeal to the imagination of the tourist at Monterey that the guides and promoters in the region will doubtless never cease to disseminate it. As a consequence the error goes into the daily press and the magazines, and is evidently destined to flourish in perennial greenness under the guise of fact. The wide dissemination of this fiction is all the more remarkable in that in the case of all other unique features of the state, such as the Sequoias and the Yosemite, our Californians have evinced a remarkable pride in their possession, without thought of inventing a duplication of them elsewhere.... The matter of the age of these trees has been much exaggerated. It is a tree of rapid growth, and the older specimens are probably not more than 200 or 300 years old.”

The above paragraph, quoted from a writer acknowledged to be one of the best authorities on the trees of California, is given here in full, in the hope of correcting these two common errors concerning the Monterey Cypress,—the one that it is identical with the Cedar of Lebanon, the other, an exaggerated notion of the great age of some of the trees. As Professor Jepsen justly remarks, the truth in this case is a greater matter for pride than the fiction.

POINT PINOS

La Punta de Pinos (the point of pines), is situated a few miles from Monterey, just beyond Pacific Grove. It is one of the most picturesque points on the coast, and is the location of one of the government light-houses.

SALINAS

When the Portolá expedition of 1769 arrived at the Salinas River, they made the first of the series of errors which caused them to pass by the [151] bay of Monterey without recognizing it, for they mistook this stream for the Carmel. The Salinas (salt marshes), so-called for the chain of salt-water ponds lying along its course, was known by various names before a permanent one became attached to it, appearing at different times as El Río Elzeario , Santa Delfina , and El Río de Monterey .

The town of Salinas is the county-seat of Monterey County and is situated about eighteen miles east of Monterey, in the heart of an important agricultural, dairying, and sugar-beet district.

SOLEDAD

Soledad (solitude), in Monterey County, 143 miles southeast of San Francisco, is described as “a very dry plain, with few trees, swept by fierce winds and dust storms in summer.” No wonder they called it Soledad ,—Lonesometown!

Yet those same dry plains proved to be of sufficient fertility to warrant the establishment, in 1791, of the mission of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad , freely translated as “Our Lady of Sorrows,” [152] which became the center of a large and prosperous Indian community. The buildings of the mission have now fallen into almost complete decay.

PÁJARO

Pájaro (bird), a town in Monterey County, on the Pájaro River, which rises on the slope of the Coast Range, and flows westerly, falling into Monterey Bay, derives its name from a circumstance told in the diary of the faithful Father Crespi: “We saw in this place a bird, which the Gentiles (unbaptized Indians), had killed and stuffed with straw, and which appeared to some [of the party] to be a royal eagle; it was measured from tip to tip of the wings, and was found to measure eleven palms (nine feet and three inches), for which reason the soldiers called the place El Río del Pájaro .” The scream of the eagle may still be heard in the more remote parts of the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the great birds are occasionally seen circling far over-head, or perched in the tops of the tallest trees.

SANTA CRUZ

Santa Cruz (holy cross), the well-known seaside resort lying at the northern hook of the great curve that forms Monterey Bay, was named by the Portolá expedition, as thus described by Father Crespi: “We camped on the north side of the river [San Lorenzo], and we had a great deal of work to cut down trees to open a little passage for our beasts.... Not far from the river we saw a fertile spot where the grass was not burnt, and it was a pleasure to see the pasture and the variety of herbs and rose-bushes of Castile.” The next day they moved on again, and the diary continues: “After proceeding about five hundred steps, we passed a large stream of running water, which has its source among some high hills and passes through some great table-lands of good soil, that may easily be irrigated by the waters of the said creek. This creek was named Santa Cruz .”

A mission was established at this place by Padres Salazar and López, September 25, 1791, but the buildings finally fell into a ruinous condition, [154] and were removed to give place to the modern church which now stands upon the original site.

SAN JUAN BAUTISTA

San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist), has suffered mutilation by the dropping of its last part, and usually appears as San Juan . San Juan is a small town in San Benito County, in a fertile valley on the San Benito River, forty-four miles southeast of San José. At this place the mission of San Juan Bautista was founded, June 24, 1797. Although this mission passed through some strenuous experiences, and was twice attacked by the Indians, and somewhat damaged by repeated earthquakes in 1800, it is still moderately well preserved.

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Agua Amargosa (bitter water), a place in San Benito County now known by its English translation, “Bitter Water,” and so-called from mineral springs.

Año Neuvo (new year), is the name of a prominent cape running out from the shore of Santa Cruz County, where one of the coast light-houses is situated. It received its name from the day of its discovery.

Arroyo Seco (dry creek). The Arroyo Seco, rising in the Santa Lucía Range and flowing northeasterly into the Salinas River, is probably the most remarkable example of terrace formation to be found among the streams of the state.

There are other Arroyo Secos in the state, one near Los Ángeles which is very striking in its color effects.

Blanco (white), is a town in Monterey County which may have received its name from Thomas B. Blanco, a pioneer and grantee of land in that county.

Chualar is a village in Monterey County, in the Salinas valley, 128 miles southeast of San Francisco. The chual is a wild plant of California,—pig-weed or goose-foot, and chualar is a spot abounding in chual plants.

Corral (yard, enclosed place). On October 11, [158] 1769, the Portolá party stopped at a place about a league from the Pájaro River, where they constructed a fence between a lake and a low hill, in order to keep the animals secure at night without the need of many watchmen. Palou, in his Life of Serra , says: “The first expedition called this place the Corral , on account of having built there, with some sticks nailed together, a pasture in the manner of a yard, in order to keep the animals safe at night. This was of great assistance, for there were so many sick that there were not enough [people] to guard the animals.” In different parts of the state there were many Corrals and Corralitos (little yards). Sometimes the enclosing fence was made of stones, when more convenient, and the enclosure was then called Corral de Piedra (stone corral); sometimes a barricade of earth was thrown up, and it was then called Corral de Tierra (earth corral). Corral de Tierra is the name of a well-known ranch near Monterey. In the days of old, many a joyous merienda (picnic) and barbecue was held at the Corral de Tierra Rancho. Corralitos (little corrals), is in Santa Cruz County, fourteen miles east of Santa Cruz.

Gabilán , also spelled Gavilán (hawk), is the name of the long mountain ridge, a branch of the Coast Range, which extends through the counties of San Matéo and Santa Cruz.

Gonzales (a surname). This place is in Monterey County, in the Salinas valley, seventeen miles southeast of Salinas.

Las Grullas (the cranes). In the diaries of the Portolá expedition, date of October 7, 1769, we read: “We pitched our camp between some low hills near a pond, where we saw a great number of cranes, the first we had seen on this journey.” This was about four leagues from the Pájaro River.

Jolón , a word of doubtful origin, which has been variously explained. It is thought by some persons to be a corruption of Jalón, a proper name, but old Spanish residents say it is an Indian word, meaning “valley of dead oaks.”

Laureles (laurels). Los Laureles is the name of a ranch near Monterey. The wild laurel is a shrub common to many parts of the state.

Lobos (wolves), generally used on this coast in the sense of lobo marino , (sea-wolf, or seal). There is a Punta de Lobos (seal point), near Monterey which is noted for the bold grandeur of its ocean scenery, as well as for its seals.

Moro Cojo (literally “lame Moor”), is the name of a well-known ranch in Monterey County. The Spaniards were in the habit of using moro to mean anything black, and in this case, according to old residents, the ranch was named for a lame black horse that ran wild there.

Natividad (nativity of Christ), is the name of a town in Monterey County, about one hundred miles southeast of San Francisco.

Paicines is in San Benito County. This is a word of doubtful origin, and many theories have been advanced to account for it. The most probable is that given by an Indian woman, a resident of the place, who says it was the name of an Indian tribe. The word is also sometimes spelled Pajines . See Tres Pinos , page 98.

Panocha is in San Benito County. This is a [161] word applied to crude sugar, or syrup, somewhat resembling sorghum. Probably modern.

Pleito (quarrel, argument, lawsuit). This place is in Monterey County. It has not been possible to ascertain the application of its name.

Puentes (bridges). This place, two leagues from the San Lorenzo River, was reached by the Portolá, party October 18, 1769, and the reason for its naming is explained by Miguel Costansó: “These canyons contained running water in very deep ditches, over which it was necessary to lay bridges of logs, covered with earth and bundles of sticks, so that the pack animals could cross. The place was called Las Puentes .”

San Benito (St. Benedict), was named in honor of the founder of the great order of Benedictines. San Benito Creek was named in 1772 by Father Crespi, and the name was eventually applied to the county. The town of San Benito is on the Salinas River, sixty miles southeast of Monterey. It is said of St. Benedict that he became a hermit [162] at the age of fifteen and fled to the wilderness, where he lived on bread and water. While there he was tempted by the remembrance of a beautiful woman he had seen in Rome, and to overcome his wish to see her again “he flung himself into a thicket of briers and thorns, and rolled himself therein until he was torn and bleeding. At the monastery of Subiaco they show roses, said to have been propagated from these briers.”

San Lucas (St. Luke), is in Monterey County, sixty miles southeast of Salinas. St. Luke was the disciple of Paul, who speaks of him as “Luke, the beloved physician,” but tradition reports him to have been an artist, and that he always carried with him two portraits, one of the Saviour and the other of Mary. Doubtless for this reason he is regarded as the patron of artists and academies of art.

Sur (south). Point Sur (south point), on the coast south of Monterey, is a bold promontory where a light-house was placed by the government, in consequence of the frequent occurrence of shipwrecks there. The Sur River runs through a region remarkable for the wild picturesqueness of its scenery, and for the strange [163] tales told of happenings among its early inhabitants.

Toro (bull), is the name of a ranch near Monterey, said to have been so-called after a wild bull.

Tres Pinos (three pines), a place in San Benito County, one hundred miles southeast of San Francisco. Postmaster Black, of Tres Pinos, gives us the following history of the naming of this place: “The name was originally applied to what is now known as Paicines , but when the railroad came to this place they appropriated the name of Tres Pinos, hence it has no significance as applied to this town. The name was given the stopping-place now known as Paicines because of three pines alleged to have grown on the banks of the Tres Pinos creek near that place. Paicines, then Tres Pinos, was the scene of the Vásquez raid and murders in the early ’70’s.”

Uvas (grapes), the name of a town and creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains, no doubt so-called from the abundance of wild grapes found in that locality.

VIII
THE SANTA CLARA VALLEY

Santa Clara. When the Spaniards passed through this valley, they were not slow to recognize in it one of those favored spots on the earth’s surface where climate and soil unite to produce the highest results. So here they founded two missions, one at Santa Clara, and one at San José.

Santa Clara (St. Clara), stands in one of the most fertile valleys in California, which is equivalent to saying in the whole world, and is about forty-six miles south-southeast of San Francisco. The mission was founded by Padres Peña and Murguia, January 12, 1777. The buildings now standing are mainly modern, but a small portion of the original structure being incorporated in them. The ceiling over the sanctuary is original, and a small part of the adobe buildings.

Clara de Asís, the sweet saint for whom this mission was named, was the daughter of a nobleman. Her beauty and wealth brought her many offers of marriage, all of which she refused, [168] preferring to devote herself to a religious life. She became the founder of the order of Franciscan nuns, known as the “Poor Clares,” to which many noble ladies attached themselves. The rules of the order were so strict that St. Clara’s health finally became under-mined, and she died in an ecstatic trance, believing herself called to Heaven by angelic voices. Her special symbol is the lily, peculiarly appropriate for the patroness of the ever-blooming Santa Clara Valley.

SAN JOSÉ

San José (St. Joseph), enjoys the distinction of having been the first white colony planted in the state by the Spaniards, although when we read the complaints of the padres concerning the highly undesirable character of its first settlers, recruited mainly from the criminal classes of Sonora, the distinction would seem to be of rather a doubtful sort.

Spurred on by the old bogie of their fear of foreign invasion, the Spanish government decided to establish colonies of white settlers, believing [171] that their hold upon the country would be rendered more secure by this means. The pueblo of San José de Guadalupe, founded November 29, 1777, by Lieutenant José Moraga, then in command at San Francisco, under orders from Governor Neve, was originally located on a site about a mile and a quarter distant from the present city, but was removed in 1797, in consequence of the discovery that the low-lying ground of its first location was often submerged during the winter rains. The people of the pueblo were compelled to travel a distance of three miles to attend mass at the Santa Clara Mission, and in order to make this journey more agreeable, Father Maguín de Catala laid out the alameda between the two places, planting a fine avenue of willow trees which once comforted the wayfarer with their grateful shade. The original trees have now practically all disappeared and others have taken their places in part. The old alameda has vanished.

Not until 1797 was the mission of San José founded, on a spot some fourteen miles distant from the pueblo. The padres had no keen desire to place the missions in close proximity to the pueblos, fearing the evil influence on the Indians [172] of a bad class of white men, besides other inevitable complications, such as the mixing up of cattle. Father Engelhardt, in his History of the California Missions , tells the story of the founding of the Mission San José thus: “Here, on Trinity Sunday, June 11, 1797, Father Lasuén raised and blessed the cross. In a shelter of boughs he celebrated Holy Mass, and thus dedicated the mission in honor of the foster-father of Christ, St. Joseph.”

The old church was unfortunately so shattered by an earthquake in 1868 that it was torn down and replaced by a wooden edifice.

It should be made clear that two missions were established here, Santa Clara and San José, and that the latter was not at San José, as some maps represent it, but some fourteen miles distant from the town.

PALO ALTO

Palo Alto (high stick, or tree), in Santa Clara County, sixteen miles northwest of San José, once a stock farm where blooded horses were raised, now best known as the site of the Leland Stanford Junior University, is said to have received its [173] name from a tall redwood tree on the San Francisquito (little St. Francis) creek. This tree stands just a few feet from the railroad bridge near Palo Alto station, and is said by old residents to have originally been in the form of a twin tree, one of the twins having been cut down. The trees of this species received the name Palo Colorado (red stick, or tree), from the Portolá party, whose attention was attracted by their uncommon size and the peculiar reddish color of the wood, and the honor of their discovery may justly be awarded to Gaspar de Portolá, since he seems to have been the first white man to make report of having seen them.

This place was named by the Anza expedition of 1775-1776, and it seems rather strange that no mention is made in the diaries of the fact that the tree was a twin. Father Pedro Font, who accompanied the expedition, says: “From a slight eminence I here observed the lay of the port from this point and saw that its extremity lay to the east-southeast. I also noticed that a very high spruce tree, which is to be seen at a great distance, rising up like a great tower, from the Llano de los Robles ,—it stands on the banks of the [174] Arroyo de San Francisco , later on I measured its height—lay to the southeast.” Further on in the diary he says: “Beside this stream is the redwood tree I spoke of yesterday: I measured its height with the graphometer which they lent me at the mission of San Carlos, and, according to my reckoning, found it to be some fifty yards high, more or less; the trunk was five yards and a half in circumference at the base, and the soldiers said that there were still larger ones in the mountains.”—(Translation edited by Frederick J. Teggart.) This description of Father Font’s gives rise to a strong suspicion that the tree now so highly venerated is not the original Palo Alto from which the place takes its name. The name was first applied to a land grant.

LA SALUD

La Salud (health). In the name of this place, not far from the San Lorenzo River, reached by the Portolá party on October 22, there is a reference to one of the heaviest of the afflictions from which the Spaniards suffered during their journey [177] up the state,—serious sickness and many deaths from scurvy. To their great surprise, after a wetting received during a heavy storm at this place, all the sick began to recover. Costansó, in his diary, date of October 22, says: “The day dawned overcast and gloomy. The men were wet. What excited our wonder was that all the sick, for whom we greatly feared that the wetting might prove harmful, suddenly found their pains very much relieved. This was the reason for giving the canyon the name of La Salud .”—(Translation edited by Frederick J. Teggart.)

LOS GATOS

Los Gatos (the cats), is the rather unpoetic name of a very pretty town in Santa Clara County, ten miles southwest of San José. From its location at the mouth of a canyon in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the inference may be drawn that it was named in reference to the wild-cats which even at this day infest that region. John Charles Fremont, in his Memoirs , says: “The valley is openly wooded with groves of oak, free [178] from under-brush, and after the spring rains covered with grass. On the west it is protected from the chilling influence of the northwest winds by the Cuesta de los Gatos (wild-cat ridge), which separates it from the coast.”

“It seems to have been known as early as 1831 as La Cuesta de los Gatos . That there were troublous times about there in other matters besides wild-cats is evidenced by the story of a lively fight that took place in 1831 against a band of Indians under a chief named Yoscol. This chief was eventually captured by the Santa Clara authorities and beheaded, his head being exposed in front of the mission as a warning to others.”—(W. Drummond Norie, of Los Gatos.)

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Almadén (mine, mineral), a word of Moorish origin. New Álmadén, in Santa Clara County, where there is a quicksilver mine, is named after the famous Almadén quicksilver mines of Spain.

Alviso (a surname). Alviso is in Santa Clara County, eight miles northwest of San José, and [179] received its name from Ignacio Alviso, a native of Sonora, born in 1772, who was a member of Anza’s party of colonists in 1775-6. He was the original Alviso of California, and was the grantee of Rincón de los Esteros Rancho .

Coyote , the native wolf of California. Coyote is an Aztec word, originally coyotl . The town of this name is situated thirteen miles southeast of San José.

Las Llagas (the wounds or stigmata of St. Francis),—in reference to the legend that St. Francis was supposed to have received, after a fast of fifty days, the miraculous imprint of the wounds of the Savior in his hands, feet and side. Las Llagas was the name of a place near Gilroy, and was also given by the padres to Alameda Creek.

Madroño , often misspelled madrone , is the name given by the Spaniards to a very beautiful tree indigenous to California, which is thus described by Fremont in his Memoirs : “Another remarkable tree of these woods is called in the language of the country Madroña . It is a beautiful evergreen, with large, thick and glossy digitated leaves; the [180] trunk and branches reddish-colored, and having a smooth and singularly naked appearance, as if the bark had been stripped off. In its green state the wood is brittle, very heavy, hard and close-grained; it is said to assume a red color when dry, sometimes variegated, and susceptible of a high polish. Some measured nearly four feet in diameter, and were about sixty feet high.”

San Felipe (St. Philip), is the name of a village in Santa Clara County. There were four saints of this name, perhaps the most distinguished being St. Philip Neri, a Florentine, born in 1515. He was the intimate friend of St. Charles Borroméo, patron of the mission at Monterey, and was the founder of the order of the Oratorians, “who were bound by no vows, and were not secluded from the world, but went about reading and praying with the sick and needy, founding and visiting hospitals and doing various charities.” Then there was St. Philip of Bethsaida, who, going to Hieropolis, “found the people worshipping a huge serpent, or dragon, which they thought to be a personification of Mars. Then Philip took pity on their ignorance. He held up [181] the cross and commanded the serpent to disappear. Immediately it glided from beneath the altar, and as it moved it sent forth so dreadful an odor that many died, and among them the son of the King; but Philip restored him to life. Then the priests of the serpent were so wroth with the apostle that they crucified him, and when he was fastened to the cross they stoned him.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

San Martín (St. Martin), is a town in Santa Clara County, six miles north of Gilroy. St. Martin has many legends connected with his history. Before he became a Christian, he was a soldier and was noted for his kindness and charity to his comrades. “The winter of 332 was so severely cold that large numbers perished in the streets of Amiens, where the regiment of St. Martin was quartered. One day he met at the gate a naked man, and taking pity on him, he divided his cloak, for it was all he had, and gave half to the beggar. That night in a dream Jesus stood before him, and on his shoulders he wore the half of the cloak that Martin had given the beggar. And he said to the angels who attended him, ‘Know ye who hath thus arrayed me? My [182] servant Martin, though yet unbaptized, hath done this.’ Then Martin was immediately baptized.” Again it is told of him that being invited to sup with the emperor, “the cup was passed to Martin, before his Majesty drank, with the expectation that he would touch it to his lips, as was the custom. But a poor priest stood behind Martin, and to the surprise and admiration of all, the saint presented the full goblet to him, thus signifying that a servant of God deserved more honor, however humble his station, than any merely earthly potentate; from this legend he has been chosen the patron of all innocent conviviality.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

IX
AROUND SAN FRANCISCO BAY

San Francisco. Many persons, misled by an incorrect translation of a certain passage in Palou’s Life of Serra , have ascribed the naming of the bay of San Francisco (St. Francis), to the Portolá expedition of 1769, but, as a matter of fact, the outer bay, the great indentation in the coast outside of the Golden Gate, between Point Reyes and Mussel Point, had received this name many years before. In remonstrating with the Visitador General because no mission had been provided for St. Francis in Upper California, Serra remarked, “And is there no mission for our Father St. Francis?” Señor Galvez replied, “ Si San Francisco quiere misión, que haga se halla su puerto y se le pondrá (If St. Francis wants a mission, let him cause his port to be found and one will be placed there for him).” By “his port” Galvez referred to a port already discovered and named, but which had been lost sight of during the intervening years, and which he wished to [186] have re-discovered. This is further carried out by the succeeding statements of Palou, in which he says that after failing to recognize the port of Monterey, “they came to the port of St. Francis, our father, and they all knew it immediately by the agreement of the descriptions which they carried,” referring to descriptions obtained from the papers of the first discoverers. Father Crespi, who accompanied the expedition, says: “All the descriptions which we found here we read in the log-book of the pilot Cabrera Bueno, in order to form a judgment that this is the port of San Francisco. To make it all clear, the Señor Commandante ordered that during the day Sergeant Ortega should go out with a party of soldiers to explore.” Further on in the same diary we read: “From the top of a hill we made out the great estuary, or arm of the sea, which probably has a width of four or five leagues.” This is undoubtedly the first occasion when the eye of a white man rested upon “the great arm of the sea,” that is, the inner harbor of San Francisco as we now know it.

It must be remembered that until the arrival of Portolá, the Spaniards only knew this part of [189] the coast from the sea side, having no knowledge of that great inland sea known to us as the bay of San Francisco. When the party came up by land on their futile search for Monterey, they reached Fort Point, and there recognized the marks of the outer bay as given by early navigators and called by them San Francisco . Then they climbed a hill, and looking to the landward saw the “great arm of the sea,” the inner harbor, to which the name of San Francisco was finally extended.

Palou ascribed the failure of the party to recognize the port of Monterey, and the consequent continuance of their journey as far as San Francisco, to a direct interposition of the divine hand, so that Galvez’s promise of a mission for St. Francis might be carried out.

The honor of the christening of our world-famous bay probably belongs to Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeñón, a Portuguese navigator, who was commissioned in the year 1595 by Philip II to search for safe harbors along the coast for vessels in the Philippine trade. These ships usually shaped their return course so as to touch first at about the latitude of Cape Mendocino, making [190] a knowledge of the harbors south of that point a matter of great importance, especially in stormy weather. Cermeñón had the misfortune to lose his vessel, the San Agustín, on Point Reyes, and was compelled to make his way home, with great peril and suffering, in a small boat. In his Derrotero y Relación (Itinerary and Narrative), under date of April 24, 1596, he says: “We sighted New Spain at Cape Mendocino on November 4, 1595.... We left the bay and port of San Francisco, which is called by another name, a large bay, in 38⅔ degrees, and the islets [Farallones] in the mouth are in 38½ degrees, the distance between the two points of the bay being twenty-five leagues.” It is clear from this description that he referred to that great indentation in the coast between Point Reyes and one of the points to the south, possibly Mussel Point, and that he gave the name of San Francisco to it, displacing some other name by which it had been previously known. At any rate, if this is not the origin, it is likely to remain lost in the mists of the Pacific. Bancroft says: “There can be little doubt that Cermeñón named the port of his disaster San Francisco .”

An absurd theory advanced by certain persons that the name was derived from that of Sir Francis Drake is wholly unworthy of consideration. The resemblance between the two names must be regarded as purely a co-incidence, and any connection between “ El Pirata ” (the pirate) Drake, as the Spaniards usually called him, and the name of the gentle St. Francis must be taken in the light of a jest.

Portolá, then, although he was indubitably the discoverer of the bay as we know it,—the inner harbor,—found the name already applied to the outer ensenada by his predecessor, Cermeñón.

It is held by some persons that Portolá cannot in all fairness be considered the actual discoverer of the bay, since it is most probable that Lieutenant Ortega or perhaps some member of a hunting party which was sent out actually laid physical eyes upon it first, and it is even thought possible that Portolá never saw it at all, but remained in camp all the time during their stay on its shores. Even granting these facts, the question remains whether he, as the commander of the party making the expedition which resulted in the discovery, [192] is not still entitled to the fame which has generally been granted to him.

A parallel might be drawn between the case of Portolá and that of Columbus. When the famous expedition of 1492 drew near to the shores of the new world, it was not the great admiral, but a common sailor, Rodrigo de Triana by name, who first raised the thrilling cry of “land! land!”; yet, nevertheless, the world justly awards the honor and glory of the discovery to Christopher Columbus, the leader and the soul of the party, whose splendid imagination and unconquerable resolution made it possible.

Although the Portolá party made a partial examination at this time of the shores of what they called the “great arm of the sea,” and Captain Fages returned for further explorations in 1770, and again in 1772, when he stood on the present site of Berkeley and looked out through the Golden Gate, the mission was not established until 1776. Father Palou was its founder, and he states in his Life of Serra that the presidio was established with solemn religious services, September 17, 1776, on the day of the “impressions of the stigmata of St. Francis,” but on account of [193] a delay in receiving orders, the founding of the mission did not take place until October 9. On that day a procession was held with the image of St. Francis, and mass was celebrated by Father Palou himself.

So they prayed and sang their hymns, in the year of ’76, while their hearts beat high with the zeal of the missionary, and, happily, no echo of the roll of drums and boom of minute guns came to them across the untrodden miles of mountain and plain, of forest and prairie, that separated them from the alien race on the other rim of the continent, for whom they were all unconsciously preparing the way to the possession of a great principality.

No natives were present at this mass, for the reason that in the month of August they had been driven on their tule rafts to the islands of the bay and the opposite shores, by their enemies, the Salsonas, who lived about seven leagues to the southeast, and who had set fire to their rancherías and killed and wounded many of their people, the Spaniards not being able to prevent it.

The first settlement was three-fold, including the mission of San Francisco de Asís , on the [194] Laguna de los Dolores (the lagoon of sorrows), the presidio, and the pueblo, separated from one another by about a league. The Pueblo was at first known as Yerba Buena , in reference to the profuse growth of that vine about the locality. The change of the name is ascribed by General Sherman, in his Memoirs , to jealousy of the town of Benicia, which was at first called Francisca , in honor of General Vallejo’s wife, and was thought to bear too marked a resemblance to the name of the great patron, San Francisco. General Vallejo himself states that the change was made as a matter of convenience, to bring the three points of the triangle, church, town, and presidio, all under one name. Whatever the reason for the change, it is a matter of congratulation that it occurred, for the name of the venerable saint carries a dignity more commensurate to a noble city than the poetic, but less impressive Yerba Buena .

The church of San Francisco de Asís , popularly known as Mission Dolores , still stands in a good state of preservation, having almost miraculously withstood the earthquake and fire of 1906, which laid low all its proud modern neighbors. Of its [197] patron, the gentle St. Francis, it may be said that he was the son of a rich merchant, but that he abandoned his riches, adopted vows of poverty, and founded the order of Franciscans. “While in a trance, or vision, after having fasted for fifty days, he received the miraculous imprint of the wounds of the Savior on his hands, feet, and side.” His chief attributes were humility, poverty, and love for animals. In pictures he is always represented as accompanied by a pet lamb.

THE GOLDEN GATE

Although this name, not being of Spanish or Indian origin, is not properly included in these pages, its close relationship to San Francisco, and its position as the gate-way to the entire state, will not permit it to be passed by.

In view of the comparatively recent origin of the name, 1844, and the accessibility of the story, it seems strange indeed that any writer should have advanced the theory that the Golden Gate received its name from Sir Francis Drake, yet this wholly unfounded explanation has found its way into print. In the first place, it has been [198] pretty thoroughly established by historians that Drake never saw the inner harbor, and knew nothing of the narrow strait leading to it. In the report of his voyage, written by one of his companions, we read: “At 38 degrees toward the line, it pleased God to send us into a faire and good harborow, with a good wind to enter the same. Our General called this country Nova Albion , and that for two causes;—the one in respect of the white bankes and cliffes, which ly toward the sea; and the other that it might have some affinity with our country in name, which sometime was so-called.” The white cliffs under Point Reyes answer so well to this description that there can be little doubt that Drake’s anchorage was in the small outer bay under that point, now known as Drake’s Bay; to say nothing of the fact that the account of the voyage has no word concerning the great land-locked harbor, with a narrow strait as its only entrance, a circumstance so novel that, as Bancroft justly observes, Drake could not have failed to mention it had he known aught of it.

All discussion of the name Golden Gate is, moreover, brought to an end by the fact that its real [199] author, John Charles Fremont, gives a circumstantial account of it in his Memoirs . After an elaborate description of the bay, and its surroundings, he says: “Between these points is the strait,—about one mile broad in its narrowest part, and five miles long from the sea to the bay. To this gate I gave the name of Chrysopylae , or Golden Gate; for the same reasons that the harbor of Byzantium (Constantinople afterwards), was called Chrysoceras , or Golden Horn. The form of the harbor and its advantages for commerce, and that before it became an entrepot of eastern commerce, suggested the name to the Greek founders of Byzantium. The form of the entrance into the bay of San Francisco, and its advantages for commerce, Asiatic inclusive, suggested to me the name which I gave to this entrance, and which I put upon the map that accompanied a geographical memoir addressed to the senate of the United States, in June, 1848.”

Here we have, told in the somewhat pedantic language of its author, the true story of the first appearance of the famous name Golden Gate upon the map of the world, and instead of its having been “named by Colonel Fremont because of the [200] brilliant effect of the setting sun on the cliffs and hills,” as one writer has fondly imagined, or from any idea connected with the shining metal, which still lay buried deep from the sight of man beneath the mountains of the land, it was born in a sordid dream of commerce. Yet, for so wonderfully apt a name, whatever may have been Fremont’s motive in selecting it, we owe him a debt of gratitude.

There is some disposition to doubt this explanation of the name Golden Gate , partly on the ground of a distrust of Fremont’s trustworthiness, and partly because of its far-fetched nature. As to the latter objection it should be remembered that he was that kind of a man. He was possessed of a certain amount of erudition which he was fond of showing off, and this labored method of seeking for a name in the old Greek was quite in keeping with his character. As to his reliability, although it is quite possible that he colored events of a political character to suit his own purposes, in ordinary matters there seems to be no reason to doubt his statements. At all events, the name Golden Gate does in fact appear upon his map of 1848 as he says.

According to Dr. Vallejo, the Golden Gate was called by the Indians Yulupa , pronounced ee-oo-loo-pa , which means “near the sea plunge,” that is, the plunge of the sun into the sea, and may be freely translated as the “Sunset Strait.” The suffix pa is said by Dr. Vallejo to signify “near.”—( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

ALCATRAZ

Alcatraz (pelican), the fortress-like island in the bay, just inside the channel, performs the triple duty of a fortified military post, prison, and light-house. Although but 1650 feet in length, it rises to a height of 130 feet above the water, and in the shadowy light just after sunset, its high, rocky walls, topped by the buildings of the fortifications and prison, make a silhouette against the sky strikingly like a great dreadnaught, standing guard at the harbor’s entrance.

The story of its naming can not be run to earth, but it probably originated in some circumstance connected with the great sea-birds whose ungainly [204] forms may still be seen heavily flapping over the bay, or resting on the island.

ANGEL ISLAND

Angel Island , the Americanization of La Isla de los Ángeles (the isle of the angels), belies its name, since it has been devoted to the quite un-angelic business of quarantine station of San Francisco.

Palou, in speaking of the expedition of 1776, says: “They moved to the island which is in front of the mouth, which they called Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles [Our Lady of the Angels], on which they found good anchorage, and going on land, they found plenty of wood and water.”

A story has found its way into print that the island was named “from a miner who once settled there,” the writer probably mixing it up with the name of Angel’s Camp, in the Sierras. What a desecration for our island, with its romantic name of “Our Lady of the Angels,” piously given to it by the Spaniards in honor of the Virgin!

YERBA BUENA ISLAND

Yerba Buena (the good herb), is the name of a dainty little vine native to the California woods, which has an agreeable aromatic odor, and was much in use among the Spanish as a medicinal herb, and to add a pleasant aroma to their tea. Fremont, who, whatever else may be said of him, had enough poetry in his soul to feel an expansive joy over the plant life of this flowery land, describes it as follows: “A vine with a small white flower, called here la yerba buena , which, from its abundance, gives its name to an island and town in the bay, was to-day very frequent on our road, sometimes running on the ground, or climbing the trees.” It is said that the Hupa Indians were in the habit of weaving the tendrils of this vine in their hair for the sake of the perfume.

Some talk has arisen of late that this poetic and historic name is to be taken away from our island. Commuters, when you pass it on your daily journey, let your minds carry you back to the day when the delicate tendrils of the little vine waved on the island’s steep slopes, and its [206] sweet scent was wafted on the breeze from the Golden Gate, and do not, I pray you, consent to call it Goat !

MARE ISLAND

Mare Island , in San Pablo Bay, separated from Vallejo by a strait one-half mile wide, a charming spot with an unpoetic name,—is another example of writers attempting to make difficulties where none exist, and so they would have us believe that the name of this isle arose, like Venus, from mare , the sea. Apart from the fact that this labored method of naming places, by seeking in the Latin, was quite foreign to the custom of the Spaniards, it happens that the true story in this case is at hand, and can scarcely be doubted, since it occurred in the immediate family of Dr. Vallejo, who tells it thus: “In early days, the only ferry-boat on the waters near Vallejo and Benicia was a rude one, made chiefly of oil barrels obtained from whaling ships, and propelled by sails. These barrels were secured together by beams and planking, and it was divided into compartments for the accommodation of cattle, to the transportation [207] of which it was chiefly devoted. One day, while this boat was coming from Martínez to Benicia, a sudden squall overtook it, and the craft pitched fearfully; the animals, chiefly horses, became restive, and some of them broke through it. The boat was upset, and the living cargo thrown into the bay. Some of the livestock were drowned, and some managed to reach either shore by swimming. One of the horses, an old white mare, owned and much prized by General Vallejo, succeeded in effecting a landing on the island, and was rescued there a few days after by the General, who thereupon called the place La Isla de la Yegua (the island of the mare).”

An interesting corroboration of this story is found on page 574 of Fremont’s Memoirs , where he refers to the island as La Isla de la Yegua .

A statue of a white horse would perpetuate the history of this isle in a manner both appropriate and beautiful, in the same way that upon the heights of Angel Island a colossal figure of an angel, or of the Virgin, and upon Alcatraz a great pelican with outspread wings, might be placed to tell their stories. In the old world, many legends of the past are perpetuated in this way, [208] and there is no reason why the equally romantic episodes in California’s history should not be so commemorated, at least in those cases that lend themselves readily to purposes of art.

ALAMEDA

It has been thought that this name may have been derived from the resemblance between Alameda creek, at one time thickly shaded along its banks by willows and silver-barked sycamores, and an alameda (an avenue shaded by trees), but since the primary meaning of the word is “a place where poplar trees grow,” from álamo (poplar or cottonwood), it requires less stretching of the imagination to believe that some such grove of cottonwoods near the creek gave it the name. Fray Dantí, in his diary of the exploration of “the Alameda” in 1795, says: “We came to the river of the Alameda, which has many large boulders, brought down by floods, and is well populated with willows, alders, and here and there a laurel. At a little distance from where the river runs, the tides of the Estuary come.”

From the name of an insignificant little stream, Alameda has come to be the designation of one of the most important counties in the state, and of the flourishing city on the east side of San Francisco Bay, nine miles east-southeast of San Francisco. [211] This city was once known as Encinal (place of oaks), on account of the groves of beautiful live-oaks there, nearly all of which have, most unfortunately, been sacrificed to so-called “improvements.” Yet, some fine specimens still remain in the county, perhaps the best being those on the campus of the University of California, at Berkeley, Alameda County. The encino (live-oak), is thus described by Professor Jepsen: “It is a low, broad-headed tree, commonly twenty to forty feet, but sometimes seventy feet high. The trunk is from one to four feet in diameter, usually short, and parting into wide-spread limbs, which often touch or trail along the ground.” This tree has little commercial value, but is highly regarded for its hardy nature, which permits it to flourish in exposed localities along the coast, where no other tree thrives, and for the perennial green with which it adorns an otherwise often bleak landscape.—(Notes taken from The Trees [212] of California , by Professor Willis Linn Jepsen, of the University of California.)

LOS FARALLONES

Los Farallones , the three small islands standing like watch-dogs at our outer gate, about thirty-two miles due west of the entrance to the bay, derive their name from farallon , a word meaning “a small pointed island in the sea.” Although this word is commonly employed by the Spanish to designate such islands, and its use in this case is perfectly obvious, the statement has been made that our isles were named for a certain Ferolla, one of the early navigators, a theory entirely without value.

The Farallones are frequented by multitudes of sea-fowl, which breed there and at one time supplied great quantities of eggs for the San Francisco market. For some twenty years or more the United States Government, owing to the contentions of rival egg companies, has prohibited the gathering and sale of these eggs.

MOUNT TAMALPAIS

Tamalpais (bay mountain), is in Marin County, five miles southwest of San Rafael; it rises to a height of 2606 feet above sea level, and dominates San Francisco Bay and the surrounding country, offering one of the most magnificent panoramas of sea and land to be seen anywhere on the earth’s surface. Its name is a compound of two Indian words, tamal (bay), and pais (mountain). The resemblance of the latter word to the Spanish pais (country), is thought by ethnologists to be purely accidental.

Dr. Vallejo has an explanation of the meaning of this word which differs somewhat from the one given by ethnologists. He says it was originally called Temel-pa (near the sea), and was corrupted into its present form by the Spaniards. According [214] to Dr. Vallejo, the suffix pa signifies nearness. ( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

A very remarkable circumstance in the history of this mountain is the fact that it underwent a change of position at the time of the great earthquake of 1906, of course in conjunction with the entire sheet of the earth’s surface upon which it stands. On that occasion, the northeast and southwest sides of the rift slipped upon each other, first carrying the sheet of land upon which Tamalpais rests to the north, then the “springback” carried it back toward the south again. According to the report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission, “As a consequence of the movement, it is probable that the latitudes and longitudes of all points in the Coast Ranges have been permanently changed a few feet.”

So the old mountain, sitting in Indian stoicism, indifferent to the storms that sometimes lash its sturdy sides, the fogs that roll in a white, billowy sea around its foot, and earthquakes that shift its latitude and longitude some feet, has very appropriately received its name from the language of the aborigines who once dwelt at its base.

MOUNT DIABLO

Mount Diablo (devil mountain), is an isolated, conical peak of the Coast Range, in Contra Costa County, about thirty-eight miles northeast of San Francisco. It rises 3849 feet above the level of the sea, and is the most conspicuous land-mark in the central part of the state. General M. G. [217] Vallejo tells the following story to account for the name: “In 1806, a military expedition from San Francisco marched against a tribe called the Bolgones, who were encamped at the foot of the mountain. There was a hot fight, which was won by the Indians. Near the end of the fight, a person, decorated with remarkable plumage, and making strange movements, suddenly appeared. After the victory, the person, called Puy (evil spirit), in the Indian tongue, departed toward the mountain. The soldiers heard that this spirit often appeared thus, and they named the mountain Diablo (devil). These appearances continued until the tribe was subdued by Lieutenant Moraga, in the same year.”

If this be the true story of the naming of Mount [218] Diablo, and there seems to be no good reason to doubt it, it is quite likely that the Puy , or devil, was one of the “medicine men” who played upon the superstitions of the Indians by pretending to be the “spirit of the mountain.”

It is said by Dr. Vallejo that this mountain was regarded by the Indians as the home of the Devil, called in their language Pui , and that the medicine men claimed to be his agents. ( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

SAUSALITO

Sausalito (little willow grove), the diminutive of sausal (willow grove), or, as formerly and officially written, Saucelito (little willow, from sauce ), is on the west shore of the bay, in Marin County, six miles northwest of San Francisco. This is one of the delightful suburban towns around the bay, where business men of San Francisco have their homes.

MARIN COUNTY

Of Marin County, separated from San Francisco by the Golden Gate, and noted for the beauty of its scenery, we get the story from General M. G. Vallejo. It appears that in 1815 or ’16, an exploring party from San Francisco had a fight with the Licatiut tribe, so-called from a certain root used by them as food, especially in the Petaluma Valley. During this fight the chief was captured and carried to San Francisco, but afterwards escaped, and kept up constant hostilities in Petaluma Valley. He was finally converted to Christianity, and did good service for the whites as ferryman on the bay, and on account of his skill in navigating these waters, they called him El Marinero (the sailor); it is thought that the name of Marin County is a corruption of this word. El Marinero died at the mission of San Rafael in 1834.

TIBURÓN

Tiburón (shark), is on the Marin County shore, opposite San Francisco. It has been facetiously suggested that this name may have been derived from “sharks” of the land variety, but it probably came from some story connected with those of the sea.

SAN RAFAEL

Even in this land, so prodigal with its flowers from its northern to its southern borders, San Rafael, the county-seat of Marin County, fifteen miles north of San Francisco, is notable for the exceeding beauty of its gardens, where the lily and the rose bloom from year’s end to year’s end.

Its patron, St. Raphael, “is considered the guardian angel of humanity. He was the herald who bore to the shepherds the ‘good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people’, and is especially the protector of the young, the pilgrim [223] and the traveler.” The “herald of great joy” seems peculiarly fitting as the protector of a place where nature has done so much for the “joy of living.”

The mission of San Rafael Arcángel (St. Raphael the Archangel), founded in 1817, has now disappeared, not a vestige remaining of it.

A spur of the Coast Range in Southern California bears the name of the San Rafael Mountains .

BENICIA

Benicia (a surname), is the name of a town in Solano County, on the north side of Carquínez Strait, twenty-eight miles northeast of San Francisco. Its story may best be told in the words of General Sherman, in the following quotation from his Memoirs : “We found a solitary adobe house, occupied by Mr. Hastings and his family, embracing Dr. Semple, the proprietor of the ferry. The ferry was a ship’s boat, with a lateen sail, which could carry six or eight horses. It took us several days to cross over, and during that time we got well acquainted with the doctor, who was [224] quite a character. He was about seven feet high. Foreseeing, as he thought, a great city on the bay somewhere, he selected Carquínez Straits as its location, and obtained from General Vallejo title to a league of land, on condition of building a city to bear the name of General Vallejo’s wife, Francisca Benicia. Accordingly, the city was first called Francisca . At this time, where San Francisco now is was known as Yerba Buena ; now some of the chief men of that place, knowing the importance of a name, saw their danger, and so changed the name to San Francisco . Dr. Semple was so outraged at their changing the name to one so nearly like his town that he, in turn, changed his town’s name to the other name of Mrs. Vallejo, and Benicia it has been to this day.”

LAS PULGAS RANCHO

Las Pulgas Rancho (the fleas ranch), is near Redwood City. The story of this place, with its unpleasantly suggestive name, although of little importance in itself, is told here for the light it throws upon the manners and customs of the [225] original dwellers in the land. Father Engelhardt, in his History of the California Missions , describes their way of living thus: “Their habitations were primitive, in summer often but a shady spot, or mere shelter of brush. Their winter quarters consisted of a flimsy structure of poles fixed in the ground, and drawn together at the top, at a height of ten or twelve feet. The poles were interwoven with small twigs, and the structure then covered with tules, or tufts of dried grass. In some places these dwellings were conical in shape, in others oblong, and their size ranged according to the number of people. At a distance they resembled large bee-hives, or small hay-stacks. On one side there was an opening for a door, at the top another for smoke. Here the family, including relatives and friends, huddled around the fire, without privacy, beds or other furniture. A few baskets, a stone mortar or two, weapons, some scanty rags of clothing, food obtained from the hunt, or seeds, were kept here. All refuse food and bones were left where they were dropped, giving the earth floor the appearance of a dog-kennel. Fleas and other vermin abounded in this mass of filth, which soon became too offensive even for savages, [226] and they adopted the very simple method of setting fire to the hut and erecting another.”

After reading this description, we are not surprised when Father Crespi tells us that, having arrived at a deserted Indian village, and some of the soldiers having rashly taken refuge in the huts for the night, they soon rushed out with cries of “ las pulgas! las pulgas! ” (the fleas! the fleas!). He goes on to say, “for this reason, the soldiers called it the Ranchería de las Pulgas ” (the village of the fleas), a name borne by the ranch to this day.

La Perouse, in his Voyage Autour du Monde , says the padres were never able to change this form of architecture common to the two Californias. The Indians said they liked open air, and that it was convenient, when the fleas became too numerous, to burn the house and construct a new one, an argument not without merit.

POINT LOBOS

Point Lobos (seal point, from lobo marino , sea-wolf), is just outside of the Golden Gate, on the [227] south side, near the spot where the seals crawling about on the rocks have long been one of the chief attractions of the famous Cliff House.

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Álamo (cottonwood tree), is the name of a place in Contra Costa County, twenty-four miles northeast of San Francisco.

Alvarado (a surname), that of one of the first governors of the state. Alvarado is a village in Alameda County, on Alameda Creek, twenty-four miles southeast of San Francisco. Juan Bautista Alvarado was a central figure in California history. He was born at Monterey, February 14, 1809, and from ’27 on occupied various official positions, including that of governor of the state. Bancroft says of his character and appearance: “In physique Don Juan Bautista was of medium stature, stout build, fair complexion, and light hair; of genial temperament, courteous manners, and rare powers of winning friends. There was much in his character to praise, much to condemn. He was a man of dissipated habits, and engaged [228] in intrigues, but in his favor it may be said that he had more brains, energy and executive ability than any three of his contemporaries combined; he was patriotic and with good intentions toward his country, honorable in private dealings, and never enriched himself by his intrigues. He was not personally guilty of having plundered the missions, only responsible through being governor at that time. The accusations made against him of an unjust policy towards foreigners were entirely false.”

Bolinas , the name of a town in Marin County, delightfully situated on Bolinas Bay, eighteen miles northwest of San Francisco. Bolinas is probably a corruption of Baulines , an Indian word of unknown meaning. A land grant called Los Baulines was located at the same place, and was probably the name of an Indian village.

Point Bonito (pretty point), is the southern extremity of Marin County, on the north side of the Golden Gate.

Carquínez is the name of the strait flowing between the counties of Contra Costa and Solano, and connects San Pablo Bay with Suisún Bay. The strait is eight miles long, and at its narrowest [229] part nearly a mile wide. All the waters flowing through the great central valley of the state from the Sierra Nevada pass through this strait. According to the scientists the name Carquínez is derived from Karkin, the name of an Indian village in that region, but Dr. Vallejo has another story. He says the commandant at Monterey, who was a man with some classical education, named it from the Greek word karkin , crab, because of the report made by the Lieutenant Vallejo expedition of having found a great number of little crabs there. ( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

Contra Costa (opposite coast), so-called on account of its original position directly opposite San Francisco. It should be explained that the name Contra Costa, which scarcely seems appropriate in its present application, was originally applied to the whole of the coast opposite San Francisco. Afterwards the part directly facing San Francisco was cut off to form Alameda County, thus destroying the significance of the name Contra Costa.

Martínez (a surname), is the name of the county-seat of Contra Costa County, and is on the south [230] shore of Suisún Bay, thirty-six miles northeast of San Francisco. Ignacio Martínez was a native of the city of Mexico, born in 1771. He was a military officer under the Mexican government in California, and was commandante at San Francisco from 1822 to ’27. Bancroft says of him: “He was not popular as an officer, being haughty and despotic, but as a rancher he is spoken of as a very courteous and hospitable man. The town of Martínez takes its name from him or his family.”

Montara Point and Montara Mountains are in the western part of San Matéo County. Montara is a surname.

Olema , said to be an Indian word meaning “coyote,” is the name of a town in Marin County, one mile from the head of Tomales Bay, and thirty-five miles northwest of San Francisco.

Pacheco (a surname), that of a pioneer family of California. The town of Pacheco is in Contra Costa County, thirty miles northeast of San Francisco. Although Governor Romualdo Pacheco, of whom Bancroft says that “his record as a citizen, in respect of character, attainments and social standing was a good one,” was the most [231] prominent member of the family, the town was not named in his honor, but for Salvio Pacheco, a man who served in many military and civil offices. “He spent his life on Mount Diablo Rancho, on which is the town bearing his name.”

Pescadero (fishing place), is in a fertile valley of San Matéo County, on the coast about forty-four miles south of San Francisco. There are a number of Pescaderos in the state.

Pinole is said to be an Aztec word, applied to any kind of grain or seeds, parched and ground. Of this flour a very appetizing sort of gruel was made. The town of Pinole is in Contra Costa County, twelve miles west of Martínez. It is the site of extensive powder works. See page 239.

Portolá (a surname), is the name of a town in San Matéo County, and was named in honor of the celebrated discoverer of San Francisco Bay.

Potrero (pasture ground), is one of the districts of San Francisco. This is only one of the many Potreros in the state.

Presidio is a word used by the Spaniards in the double meaning of prison or military post. It may be that the custom of using convicts as soldiers, prevalent with the Spanish, had something [232] to do with this double usage of the word. The Presidio of San Francisco, now a regular military post of the United States, although still retaining its Castilian name, is picturesquely and delightfully situated on the north end of the peninsula. There is also a government presidio at Monterey.

Point Reyes (kings point), was named by Vizcaíno in honor of the “three wise men,” or “holy kings,” because it was discovered on the day of their devotion. This point is in Marin County and is the outer point of Drake’s Bay, where the noted adventurer is supposed to have made his anchorage, and where Cermeñón was wrecked.

Rodéo (round-up of cattle). Rodéos were held, and in some parts of the state still take place, for the purpose of separating and branding the cattle belonging to individual owners, an operation decidedly necessary when pastures were unfenced, and in early days one of the most picturesque features of California life. The village of Rodéo is in Contra Costa County.

San Bruno , a village near San Francisco, was named for St. Bruno, the founder and first abbot of the Carthusian Order. This order of monks [233] is among the most severe in its rules, requiring almost perpetual silence of its members. Its devotees are only permitted to speak together once a week. They never eat flesh, and are compelled to labor constantly.

San Gerónimo (St. Jerome), is the saint usually pictured as accompanied by a lion, in commemoration of the well-known story of the removal of a thorn from the foot of one of those beasts by Jerome, and the devotion of the lion to him afterwards. San Gerónimo is the name of a small stream in Marin County, noted for its salmon fisheries.

San Gregorio (St. Gregory), is in San Matéo County, twenty-four miles southwest of Redwood City. St. Gregory was a noble Roman who devoted his wealth to charity, and turned his home into a hospital and monastery. He was elected to the high office of Pope, and became the composer of what is called from him the “Gregorian Chant.”

San Leandro (St. Leander), is in Alameda County, on San Leandro Creek, sixteen miles southeast of San Francisco. St. Leander was at one time Bishop of Seville, and is one of the patron saints of that city.

San Lorenzo (St. Lawrence), was a saint who suffered martyrdom by being roasted on a gridiron. The legend relates that he said to his tormentors, “I am now sufficiently cooked on this side, turn me over and roast me on the other.” San Lorenzo is in Alameda County, twenty miles southeast of San Francisco.

San Matéo (St. Matthew), is the name of a county bordering on San Francisco Bay, and of a town on the west shore of the bay, twenty-one miles south of San Francisco. St. Matthew was a Hebrew by birth, and the author of the book of the Scriptures that bears his name.

San Pablo (St. Paul), is in Contra Costa County, on San Pablo Bay, fifteen miles northeast of San Francisco. One of the legends concerning St. Paul is that “the church called ‘San Paolo delle Tre Fontane,’ near Rome, is built over three fountains which are said to have sprung up at the three places where the head of St. Paul fell and bounded, after being cut off by the executioner. It is said that the fountains vary in the warmth of the water,—the first, or the one where the head fell, being the hottest; the next, or that of the first bound, cooler; and the third still cooler.”

San Quentin (properly San Quintín) is a village in Marin County, on the west shore of San Francisco Bay, eleven miles north of San Francisco. This place, where the forbidding walls of the State’s Prison shut out the light of California’s glorious sun from the unfortunates enclosed there, very fittingly bears the name of a saint whose gloomy story runs thus: “San Quintín was the son of Zeno. He became converted and gave up a high command which he held in the Roman army, in order to preach. He labored especially in Belgium, and suffered death by being impaled on an iron spit.”—( Stories of the Saints. ) It is probable, however, that the town was not directly named for this saint, but received the name indirectly from Point Quintín, on the Marin coast, which was so-called from an Indian chief of that region who had been thus christened by the Spaniards.

San Ramón (St. Raymond), is in Contra Costa County, nine miles east of Haywood. “St. Raymond belonged to the Order of Mercy, and labored for the captives among the Moors. By the Mahometans, among whom he was long a captive, for the ransom of his Christian brethren, [236] his lips were bored through with a red-hot iron, and fastened with a padlock,” an effective, if cruel method of preventing him from preaching the Christian faith.

Suñol (a surname). Suñol is a town in Alameda County, thirty-six miles southeast of San Francisco. In Fremont’s Memoirs he refers to Don Antonio Suñol, probably a member of the same family for whom this town is named.

Tocaloma is a delightful secluded glen and creek in Marin County, not far north of San Francisco, where a hunting and fishing preserve is maintained. The word is Indian, but its meaning has not been ascertained.

Tomales Bay is an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, extending southeastward into Marin County. It is fourteen miles long. The village of Tomales is on the bay of the same name, fifty-five miles northwest of San Francisco. The name Tomales is a Spanish corruption of the Indian tamal (bay), a word which came to be applied to the natives in the neighborhood of San Francisco Bay.

Vallejo (a surname), is the name of a place in Solano County. The Vallejos were among the most prominent of the California pioneer families. [237] “The founder of the family was Ignacio Vicente Ferrer Vallejo, born at Jalisco, Mexico, in 1748. He came of a family of pure Spanish blood, and of superior education. The most distinguished of his large family was Mariano Guadalupe, born at Monterey in 1808. Don Mariano served with great ability in various capacities under the Mexican government, and was at one time Commandante General of California. He was the founder of Sonoma, and it was to his untiring efforts that the development of the north was largely due. He foresaw the fate of his country, and finally cast in his lot with the United States, for which he seems to have been but ill-repaid. I have found none among the Californians whose public record in respect of honorable conduct, patriotic zeal, executive ability, and freedom from petty prejudices of race or religion or sectional politics is more evenly favorable than his.”—(Bancroft.)

X
NORTH OF SAN FRANCISCO

SONOMA

Sonoma , the name of the northern county, and of the town in the beautiful Sonoma Valley, forty-five miles north of San Francisco, is of doubtful origin. It is probable that it comes from Indian, rather than Spanish sources. In the native dialect of that region there is the constantly recurring ending tso-noma , from tso (the earth), and noma (village), hence, tsonoma (earth village or earth place). The name was given by missionaries to a chief of the Indians there, and later applied to all the Indians at the mission. From Indian sources it seems there was a captain among them who was commonly called Sonoma , but who was known by a different name among his own people.—(University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Technology.)

The name Sonoma is explained in a different [242] way by Dr. Vallejo, who says it was named for an Indian chief called Sono , a word signifying “nose,” given to the chief as his appellation because of the very large development of that feature of his face. The suffix ma is said by Dr. Vallejo to mean “valley” or “land,” and thus Sonoma would bear the meaning of “nose valley,” or “nose land,”—( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

It has been said that Sonoma means “valley of the moon,” in reference to the shape of the valley, but there is probably more of poetry than of truth in this story.

At this place, San Francisco de Solano , the last of the great chain of missions, was founded July 4, 1823. The mission buildings have been put in a fair state of preservation and the church has been restored by the state.

NAPA

Napa is the name of a county, river and city, the county adjacent to San Pablo Bay, into which the river falls. The town is the county-seat of [245] Napa County, and is on the river of the same name, about thirty-nine miles northeast of San Francisco. The Napa Soda Springs are an interesting natural feature of this place.

Napa , accented in some of the old documents as Napá , was the name of an Indian tribe who occupied that valley, said to have been one of the bravest of the California tribes, and who constantly harassed the frontier posts. The entire tribe was practically wiped out by smallpox in 1838.

According to S. A. Barrett, in the University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Technology, there is a Pomo Indian word, napa , meaning “harpoon point,” between which and the name of the town of Napa there may be some connection.

Dr. Vallejo says the suffix pa signifies proximity, and that Napa means “near mother,” or “near home,” or “mother-land,” and that according to tradition Napa Valley was the cradle of the Suysun race.—( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

CARNE HUMANA

Among the names of the old Spanish land grants are many that hold a suggestion of interesting and sometimes tragic tales, now lost in the dim shadows of the past. Of such is Carne Humana (human flesh), the name of a grant in Napa County, near St. Helena. This spot may have been the scene of one of those horrible acts of cannibalism to which the Indians of the entire Southwest were quite generally addicted. Captain Fages, in his diary of one of the expeditions to San Francisco Bay, mentions that this practice prevailed among the Indians of that region to a certain extent, but seems to have been confined to the eating of the bodies of enemies slain in battle, and only the relatives of the slayer were permitted to take part in the abhorrent feast.

SANTA ROSA

Santa Rosa (St. Rose), the county-seat of Sonoma County, is fifty-seven miles northwest of San Francisco.

An interesting story is told of Santa Rosa de Lima, said to be the only canonized female saint of the New World. She was born at Lima, in Peru, and was distinguished for her hatred of vanity, and her great austerity, carrying these characteristics to such an extreme that she destroyed her beautiful complexion with a compound of pepper and quicklime. When her mother commanded her to wear a wreath of roses, she so arranged it that it was in truth a crown of thorns. Her food consisted principally of bitter herbs, and she maintained her parents by her labor, working all day in her garden and all night with her needle. The legend relates that when Pope Clement X was asked to canonize her, he refused, exclaiming: “ India y Santa! Asi como llueven rosas! ” (An Indian woman a saint! That may happen when it rains roses!) Instantly a shower of roses began to fall in the Vatican, and did not cease until the Pope was convinced of his error. This saint is the patroness of America, and is represented as wearing a thorny crown, and holding in her hand the figure of the infant Jesus, which rests on full-blown roses.—( Stories of the Saints. )

MENDOCINO COUNTY

Mendocino County , in the northwestern part of the state, is distinguished for its extensive forests of redwoods. The main belt of these trees extends through this county, and they may here be seen in their highest development. They vary in height from 100 to 340 feet, and reach a diameter of from two to sixteen feet, having a red, fibrous bark sometimes a foot in thickness. Notwithstanding their great size, the delicacy of their foliage, which takes the form of flat sprays, gives them a graceful, fern-like appearance. The age of mature redwoods is said to range from 500 to 1300 years. The special characteristics of the wood of these trees are, its durability when buried in the soil, and its resistance to fire. Commercially it is valuable for many purposes, being preferred to steel for water supply conduits, and, in the form of saw-dust, found to be better than cork for packing fresh grapes.—(Notes from The Trees of California , by Professor Willis Linn Jepsen, of the University of California.)

Probably the first written mention of these [249] trees occurs in the diary of Gaspar de Portolá, the discoverer of San Francisco Bay, whose attention was attracted to them while on his way up the coast, and from whom they received the name of palo colorado (redwood). Altogether, the credit of their discovery seems to belong to Portolá, although it has been given by some persons to Archibald Menzies, who wrote a description of the trees in 1795.

The village of Mendocino is on the coast, about 130 miles northwest of San Francisco. The name was first applied to the cape, which was discovered by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542, and named by him for Don Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of New Spain.

KLAMATH

Klamath is the name of a village in Humboldt County, but is particularly known as applied to the Klamath River, which flows in a deep and narrow canyon through the counties of Siskiyou and Humboldt.

The word, in its different forms of Klamath , Tlametl , and Clamet , is the name by which these [250] Indians were known to the Chinooks, and through them to the whites, their proper designation in their own language being Lutuami .—(Bancroft’s Native Races , Vol. 1, page 444.)

The meaning of the word has not been positively ascertained, although it is thought by ethnologists to be a possible corruption of Maklaks (people, community,—literally, the encamped). The Klamaths were a hardy people, who had many slaves captured from other tribes. The slave trade seems to have been carried on quite extensively among the California Indians.

MODOC COUNTY

Modoc , the county in the northeastern corner of the state, is notable as having been the home of the only California tribe that ever caused serious trouble to the United States Government. The Modoc wars are a matter of history.

The Modocs were a fierce tribe of Indians who lived at the head-waters of Pit River, and the name is thought by some persons to mean “head of the river,” or “people, community,” but [251] ethnologists are of the opinion that it means “south people,” probably used by tribes living north of the Modocs. Bancroft, quoting from Steele, in Indian Affairs Report of 1864, page 121, says: “The word Modoc is a Shasta Indian word, and means all distant, stranger, or hostile Indians, and became applied to this tribe by white men in early days from hearing the Shastas refer to them by this term.” It does not appear that Bancroft had any genuine scientific authority for this statement.

Powers, in his Tribes of California , states that some persons derive this name from Mo-dok-us , the name of a former chief of the tribe under whose leadership they seceded from the Klamath Lake Indians and became an independent tribe. As it was common for seceding bands to assume the name of their leader, Powers is inclined to accept this explanation of the name.

SHASTA

To account for the name Shasta , a number of theories have been advanced, no one of which [252] seems to be positively established. According to the Bureau of Ethnology, “Shasta may be a corruption of Sus-tí-ka , apparently the name of a well-known Indian living about 1840 near the site of Yreka. The name was applied to a group of small tribes in Northern California, extending into Oregon, who were soon extinguished by the development of mining operations.”

Bancroft, in his Native Races , says, “Shasta was apparently the name of a tribe living about 1840 near Yreka, a tribe made up of several groups. They were a sedentary people, living in small houses, similar to those in use by the Indians on the coast immediately to the west. Their food was made up of acorns, seeds, roots, and fish, particularly salmon. The salmon was caught by net, weir, trap, and spear. Their arts were few. They had dug-out canoes of a rather broad, clumsy type. The bow was their chief weapon, and their carving was limited to rude spoons of wood and bone. Painting was little used, and basketry was limited to basket caps for the women, and small food baskets of simple form. The tribe soon succumbed to the unfavorable environment of the mining camp, and is now [255] almost extinct.... The Shasta Indians were known in their own language as Weohow , a word meaning ‘stone house,’ from the large cave in their country.”

“ Shas-ti-ka was probably the tribal name of the Shasta Indians. Wai-re-ka (mountain) was their name for Mt. Shasta.”—(Powers’ Tribes of California .)

Another theory advanced is that Shasta is a corruption of the Russian word tchastal , (white, or pure mountain), and still another that it comes from the French chaste , (pure), but it is likely that its resemblance to these words is purely accidental, and that its origin is Indian.

Whatever may be the derivation of its name, there is no question that Mount Shasta, with its snow-capped summit, has but few rivals for scenic beauty among its mountain sisterhood. It is an extinct volcano, with a double peak, and rises to a height of 14380 feet. There are minor glaciers on the northern slope. Fremont says of it: “The Shastl peak stands at the head of the lower valley, rising from a base of about one thousand feet, out of a forest of heavy timber. It ascends like an immense column upwards of [256] 14000 feet (nearly the height of Mont Blanc), the summit glistening with snow, and visible, from favorable points of view, at a distance of 140 miles down the valley.”

On a United States map of date of 1848, drawn by Charles Preuss from surveys made by Fremont and other persons, the name appears spelled as Tshastl .

Mount Shasta is in Siskiyou County, and is the most conspicuous natural feature in that part of the state.

SISKIYOU COUNTY

Except that it is of Indian origin, nothing authentic has been obtained concerning Siskiyou , the name of the county in the extreme north of the state. Several popular theories have been advanced, one to the effect that Siskiyou means “lame horse.” If that be true the word must have been introduced into the Indian language after the coming of the Spaniards, since horses were unknown to the Indians before that period. Another story, perhaps more pleasing than true, [257] runs as follows: “On the summit of a mountain in Oregon, just over the divide, there is a beautiful, level spot, watered by cool springs, which overlooks the country for miles around. Here the powerful Shasta, Rogue River, and Klamath tribes used to meet to smoke and indulge in dancing and games. They called the place Sis-ki-you , the ‘council ground’.”

Siskiyou County is notable for its mountain scenery, and includes within its borders the famous Mount Shasta.

TRINITY COUNTY

Trinity County received its name from Trinidad Bay, which was discovered and named by Captain Bruno Ezeta, on Trinity Sunday, in the year 1775. Trinidad is the Spanish word meaning Trinity.

Trinity River was so-named through the mistaken belief that it emptied into Trinidad Bay.

Trinidad is also the name of a village in Humboldt County, on the ocean shore, twenty miles north of Eureka.

YREKA

Yreka , the name of the county-seat of Siskiyou County, is an Indian word, of which the spelling has probably been corrupted, perhaps in a spirit of facetiousness, from the original Wai-ri-ka to its present eccentric form. Various theories have been offered in explanation of the word, but the only one apparently based on scientific data seems to be that it means “north place.” One writer advances the whimsical explanation that the word was formed by the transposition of the letters in “bakery,” but fails to explain what becomes of the letter “b.” This is, of course, but an idle invention.

Yreka is said by Powers, in his Tribes of California , to be the Indian word for “mountain,” especially applied to Mt. Shasta. Its former spelling was Wai-ri-ka . Here is a contradiction between scientists.

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Agua Caliente (hot water, hot springs), a village in Sonoma County, forty-five miles north of San Francisco.

Point Arena (sandy point), is the name of the cape on the Mendocino coast, and of the village in that county, 110 miles northwest of San Francisco.

Bodega (a surname), that of its discoverer, Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra, Captain of the schooner Sonora, who sailed into Bodega Bay October 3, 1775. This bay, and the town of Bodega Roads are in Sonoma County, about sixty-four miles northwest of San Francisco.

Point Cabrillo (a surname), that of the celebrated Spanish explorer, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo.

Calistoga , one of those hybrid words of which California has too many. This word was the invention of Samuel Brannan, an early settler, and is compounded of the first syllable of California and the last of Saratoga. It is given here lest it be mistaken for Indian or Spanish.

Cape Fortunas (cape fortunes). Fortuna is a village in Humboldt County, twelve miles south of Eureka.

Del Norte (of the north), is the name of the county in the extreme northwestern corner of the state.

Punta Gorda (thick or broad point). Punta Gorda and Punta Delgada are adjacent points on the northern coast whose contrast in shape is indicated by their names. See Punta Delgada .

Gualala , a village in Mendocino County, forty miles west of Cloverdale. This is an Indian word, “probably from walali , a generic term of the Pomo language, signifying the meeting-place of the waters of any in-flowing stream with those of the stream into which it flows, or with the ocean. The present spelling is probably influenced by the Spanish.”—(S. A. Barrett, in California Publications of Archaeology and Ethnology.)

Hoopa , a village in Humboldt County, on the Trinity River, was named for the Hupa Indians, a tribe on the lower Trinity River. Hoopa Mountain was named in the same way.

Oro Fino (fine gold), is the name of a village in Siskiyou County, twenty-five miles southwest of Yreka. This name is in contrast to the place called Oro Grande (coarse gold), in the southern part of the state.

Petaluma , the name of a town in Sonoma County, forty-two miles northwest of San Francisco. Petaluma was the name of an Indian village situated near the site of the present town on a low hill, and according to S. A. Barrett the word is compounded of peta (flat), and luma (back), making Petaluma (flat back), but Dr. Vallejo has another explanation of its meaning. He holds that the suffix ma means “valley” or “land,” and that Petaluma is a combination of three Suysun words, Pe-talu-ma , signifying “Oh! fair valley,” or “Oh! fair land.”—( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

Pomo is northeast of Ukiah. “Pomo was an [262] Indian village on the east bank of the Russian River, in the southern end of Potter Valley, a short distance south of the post-office at Pomo. The word is an ending, meaning ‘people of, village of’.”—(S. A. Barrett.)

Tomales Bay is just north of Drake’s Bay, in Marin County. The word is a Spanish corruption of the Indian tamal (bay).

Ukiah is the county-seat of Mendocino County, and is on the Russian River, 110 miles northwest of San Francisco. “The word is said to be derived from the Indian yokaia , yo (south), and ka-ia (valley), the name of a village about six miles southeast of the present town of Ukiah.”

XI
THE CENTRAL VALLEY

TEHAMA COUNTY

Tehama County lies at the extreme northern end of the great Central Valley of the state. There is a village of the same name in the county, on the Sacramento River, twelve miles southeast of Red Bluff.

The name Tehama was derived from an Indian tribe, but the meaning of it has not been ascertained. Two definitions have been offered,—“high water,” in reference to the overflowing of the Sacramento River, and “low land,” but these may be among those attempts to account for our names by making the name fit the circumstances, a method which has resulted in many errors. All that can be positively stated is that the word is of Indian origin.

COLUSA

Colusa is a county in the northern part of the Central Valley, and has a county-seat of the same [266] name, situated on the west bank of the Sacramento River, sixty-five miles northwest of Sacramento.

This name appears as Colus on the land grant located at that place, and is said by Powers, in his Tribes of California , to be a corruption of Ko-ru-si , a tribal name, a more reasonable explanation than any other that has been offered. General Will Green, said to have known the tribe well, was of the opinion that Colusa meant “the scratchers,” in allusion to a strange custom among these people of scratching one another’s faces. While it is true that the prevalence of this custom is mentioned by the Spaniards, Captain Fages referring to it in terms of great distaste, there is no scientific corroboration of that definition for the word Colusa .

YUBA

Yuba is the name of a county in the Central Valley, of Yuba City, the county-seat of Sutter County, and of the Yuba River, which is formed by the union of three branches rising in the Sierra Nevada.

The name Yuba was first applied to the river, the chief tributary of the Feather. The theory has been advanced that it received the name of Uba , or Uva , the Spanish word for grapes, from an exploring party in 1824, in reference to the immense quantities of vines loaded with wild grapes growing along its banks, Uba , becoming corrupted into Yuba , but Powers, in his Tribes of California , says Yuba is derived from a tribe of Maidu Indians named Yu-ba , who lived on the Feather River. This is probably the true explanation of the name. It is to be noted that Fremont, in his Memoirs , speaks of it as Indian: “We traveled across the valley plain, and in about sixteen miles reached Feather River, at twenty miles from its junction with the Sacramento, near the mouth of the Yuba, so-called from a village of Indians who live on it. The Indians aided us across the river with canoes and small rafts. Extending along the bank in front of the village was a range of wicker cribs, about twelve feet high, partly filled with what is there the Indians’ staff of life, acorns. A collection of huts, shaped like bee-hives, with naked Indians sunning themselves on the tops, and these acorn [268] cribs, are the prominent objects in an Indian village.”

YOLO

Yolo is the name of a county in the northern part of the Central Valley, and of a village near Woodland.

Yolo , or Yoloy , was the name of a Patwin tribe, and the word is said by the Bureau of Ethnology to mean “a place abounding with rushes.”

SOLANO

This county, situated in the Central Valley, immediately northeast of San Francisco, was named, at the request of General Mariano Vallejo, in honor of an Indian chief of the Suisunes who had aided him in war against the other natives. The name of this chief in his own tongue is said to have been Sem Yeto , “the Fierce one of the Brave Hand,” or Sum-yet-ho , “the Mighty Arm,” and, judging by the description given of him by [269] Dr. Vallejo, he must have been a living refutation of the common belief that the California Indians were invariably squat and ill-formed, for he was a splendid figure of a man, six feet, seven inches in height and large in proportion. He was converted to Christianity and received the name of the celebrated missionary, Francisco Solano, as well as a grant of land containing 17752 acres, known as the Suisún Grant.

SUISÚN

Suisún Bay is a body of navigable water connected with San Pablo Bay by the Carquínez Strait, and is the outlet of the San Joaquín and Sacramento Rivers. Suisún City is in Solano County, on a slough, about fifty miles northeast of San Francisco. Suisún was the name of an Indian village on that bay, and the word is said by some persons to mean a “big expanse.” The name was probably first given to the land grant.

This region was the home of an important tribe of Indians who had an interesting and tragic history. Their religious capital, if such it could be called, was at Napa, near which place there was [270] a certain stone from which they believed one of their gods had ascended into upper air, leaving the impress of his foot upon the stone. General Vallejo says that in 1817 a military expedition under command of Lieutenant José Sánchez crossed the straits of Carquínez on rafts, for the double purpose of exploring the country and reducing it to Christianity. “On crossing the river they were attacked by the Suisún tribe, headed by their chief Malaca, and the Spaniards suffered considerable loss; the Indians fought bravely, but were forced to retire to their ranchería , where, being hotly pursued, and believing their fate sealed, these unfortunate people, incited by their chief, set fire to their own rush-built huts, and perished in the flames with their families. The soldiers endeavored to stay their desperate resolution, in order to save the women and children, but they preferred this doom to that which they believed to await them at the hands of their enemies.” The Suisún tribe is now entirely extinct, a large number having been carried off by a frightful epidemic of smallpox. Dr. Vallejo states that this tribe, a people described by him as possessing many attractive qualities, was estimated [271] by his father to number at least 40,000 persons in 1835. After the great epidemic, which was brought down by the Russians from the north, and which lasted during the three consecutive years of 1837-38-39, there were barely two hundred left. Thus the disappearance of the California Indians was occasioned, not by the white man’s bullets or fire-water, nor even by the deteriorating influence of a changed mode of living, nor by the loss of native sturdiness through an acquired dependence upon the church, but suddenly and fearfully by the introduction of the hideous diseases of civilization.

SACRAMENTO

Sacramento County and the city of the same name, the state capital, situated near the center of the Great Valley, received their names from the river, which, following the usual custom of the Spaniards, was christened first, being named in honor of the Holy Sacrament.

Captain Moraga first gave the name of Jesús María to the main river, calling the branch [272] Sacramento , but later the main stream became known as Sacramento , and the branch as El Río de las Plumas (the river of the feathers).

COSUMNE

Cosumne is the name of a village in Sacramento County, about twenty-two miles southeast of Sacramento. The Cosumne river rises in El Dorado County, near the Sierra Nevada, and enters the Mokelumne about twenty-five miles south of the city of Sacramento.

Cosumne is an Indian word, said to mean “salmon,” and was taken from the tribe who lived upon the river. The frequent occurrence of the ending amni , or umne , in the names of rivers in the Sierras has led to the mistaken conclusion that the suffix actually means “river,” but we have the statement of A. L. Kroeber, Professor of Anthropology in the University of California, that, “The supposition may be hazarded that the ending amni , or umne , is originally a Miwok ending, with the meaning ‘people of’.” Thus the meaning of Cosumne may be “people of the [273] village of Coso,” and of Mokelumne, “people of the village of Mukkel,” and so on through all the names having this ending.

Powers, in his Tribes of California , says Kos-sum-mi was the Indian word for “salmon,” and that this is the probable origin of the name Cosumne.

The Bureau of Ethnology has an interesting paragraph on the manners and customs of these Indians: “They went almost naked; their houses were of bark, sometimes thatched with grass, and covered with earth; the bark was loosened from the trees by repeated blows with stone hatchets, the latter having the head fastened to the handle with deer sinews. Their ordinary weapons were bows and stone-tipped arrows. The women made finely-woven conical baskets of grass, the smaller ones of which held water. Their amusements were chiefly dancing and foot-ball; the dances, however, were in some degree ceremonial. Their principal deity was the sun, and the women had a ceremony which resembled the ‘sun dance’ of the tribes of the upper Missouri. Their dead were buried in graves in the earth. The tribe is now practically extinct.”—(quoted from Rice, in American Anthropology , III, 259, 1890.)

SAN JOAQUÍN

San Joaquín County , famous for its vast fields of wheat, is a part of the great Central Valley, and the river of the same name rises in the Sierras, flows north-northwest through the valley and unites with the Sacramento River near its mouth.

The river was named in honor of St. Joachim, the father of the Virgin. Lieutenant Moraga first gave the name to a rivulet which springs from the Sierra Nevada, and empties into Lake Buena Vista. The river derived its name from this rivulet.

The rich valley of the San Joaquín, two hundred miles long and thirty miles wide, with its wide, treeless expanses where the wild grasses grew rankly, was once a paradise for game. Fremont says: “Descending the valley we traveled among multitudinous herds of elk, antelope, and wild horses. Several of the latter which we killed for food were found to be very fat.” Herds of wild horses still range in California and Nevada, and are sometimes captured for sale, fine specimens bringing high prices.

STANISLAUS

Stanislaus is the name of the county just south of San Joaquín, and of one of the tributaries of the San Joaquín River.

The word Stanislaus is said to be derived from an Indian chief of that region, who became Christianized and was baptized under the Spanish name of Estanislao . He was educated at Mission San José, but became a renegade, and incited his tribe against the Spaniards. In 1826 he was defeated in a fierce battle on the banks of the river now bearing his name.

Fremont thus describes the scenery along the Stanislaus: “Issuing from the woods, we rode about sixteen miles over open prairie partly covered with bunch grass, the timber re-appearing on the rolling hills of the River Stanislaus, in the usual belt of evergreen oaks. The level valley was about forty feet below the upland, and the stream seventy yards broad, with the usual fertile bottom land which was covered with green grass among large oaks. We encamped in one of these bottoms, [276] in a grove of the large white oaks previously mentioned.”

MERCED

Merced (mercy), is the name of the county south of Stanislaus, of its own principal stream, and of its county-seat. The river was named by the Spaniards, in honor of the Virgin, El Río de Nuestra Señora de la Merced (the river of our Lady of Mercy). This name was given to the stream by the Moraga party as an expression of their joy and gratitude at the sight of its sparkling waters, after an exhausting journey of forty miles through a water-less country.

According to Fremont, this stream was called Auxumne by the Indians: “In about seventeen miles we reached the Auxumne River, called by the Mexicans Merced .... We encamped on the southern side of the river, where broken hills made a steep bluff, with a narrow bottom. On the northern side was a low undulating wood and prairie land, over which a band of about three hundred elk was slowly coming to water, feeding as they approached.”

The Merced River is notable in that it flows along the floor of the Yosemite Valley. Like all the other streams that have their rise in the Sierras, its character in its upper and lower reaches is vastly dissimilar. In the days of its turbulent youth it is a wild and boisterous stream, and in the voice of its hissing, roaring waters the wayfarer hears no sound of “mercy,” but after it makes its tremendous plunge down the western slope of the Sierras, and debouches upon the floor of the valley, it takes on a serene air of maturity, and widens into a placid river, its current flowing sluggishly between low, level banks.

MADERA COUNTY

Madera (wood, timber), is the name of the county to the southwest of Stanislaus. It occupies a stretch of fertile land, and was called Madera by the Spaniards on account of its heavy growth of timber.

FRESNO COUNTY

Fresno (ash-tree), so-called in reference to the abundance of those trees in that region, is the [278] name of a county in the San Joaquín Valley, in the heart of the grain and fruit country. Raisins and wine are its especial products. Its capital city and principal stream also bear the name of Fresno.

KINGS COUNTY

This county, now appearing under its English form, originally received its name from the river, which was discovered by a Spanish exploring party in 1805, and called by them El Río de los Santos Reyes (the river of the Holy Kings), in honor of the “three wise men.”

A considerable part of the area of this county was at one time covered by Tulare Lake, but the shrinkage of that body of water through the withdrawal of its sources of supply have added nearly the whole of the territory occupied by its waters to the arable land of the county. This subject is further discussed under the head of Tulare.

The river seems to have been known at one time as the Lake Fork , by which name Fremont mentions it in the following paragraph: “We crossed an open plain still in a southeasterly direction, [281] reaching in about twenty miles the Tulare Lake river. This is the Lake Fork, one of the largest and handsomest streams in the valley, being about one hundred yards broad, and having perhaps a larger body of fertile lands than any of the others. It is called by the Mexicans El Río de los Reyes . The broad alluvial bottoms were well wooded with several species of oaks. This is the principal affluent of the Tulare Lake, a strip of water which receives all the rivers in the upper or southern end of the valley.”

TULARE COUNTY

Tulare (place of tules, or rushes), is the name of a county in the south-central part of the state, of Tulare Lake in Kings County, and of a town in the San Joaquín Valley. The county is remarkable for the high mountain peaks of the Sierra Nevada, on its northeast border. Among these is Mount Whitney, about 14500 feet in height.

Tulare Lake , in Kings County, at one time filled a shallow depression about thirty miles in length, and received through a number of small streams [282] the drainage from the southern part of the Sierra Nevada, soon losing the greater part of this water by evaporation. It is now practically dry, as a result of the withdrawal for irrigation purposes of Kings and Kern Rivers, and the territory formerly covered by it has been to a great extent placed under cultivation. The lake was discovered in 1773 by Commandant Fages, while hunting for deserters from the presidio at Monterey, and called by him Los Tules (the rushes), from the great number of those plants with which it was filled. In 1813 Captain Moraga passed through the valley of this lake, and named it Valle de los Tules (valley of the rushes).

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Acampo (common pasture), is the name of a village in San Joaquín County. See Final Index.

Chico (little), is the name of a town in Butte [283] County, ninety-six miles north of Sacramento. This place derives its name from the Rancho Chico (the little ranch), of which General John Bidwell was the original grantee. The Arroyo Chico and the town both took their names from the ranch.—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

Chowchilla , a large ranch in the San Joaquín Valley, takes its name from the Chowchilla Indians, a branch of the Moquelumnan family. Fremont refers to this name under a somewhat different spelling: “The springs and streams hereabout were waters of the Chauchiles and Mariposas Rivers, and the Indians of this village belonged to the Chauchiles tribe.”

Dos Palos (two sticks, or trees), is in Merced County, twenty miles southwest of Merced.

Hornitos (little ovens), is in Mariposa County, sixteen miles northwest of Mariposa. An attempt has been made to account for this name as a reference to the intense heat sometimes prevalent in that region, but the probable origin of the [284] name is that given by Mr. J. P. Gagliardo, a resident of the place, who says it was derived “from a number of hornitos built here by the first settlers, who located here about the early fifties.” Hornos (ovens), of brick and adobe, built out-of-doors, and used to bake the bread for several families, were in very common use among the first Spanish settlers of California. Ovens were also used by the Indians, for, instead of eating their food raw or imperfectly cooked, they used quite elaborate methods in its preparation. Their ovens are thus described in the Handbook of American Indians , by Dr. Pliny E. Goddard, of the American Museum of Natural History: “The pit oven, consisting of a hole excavated in the ground, heated with fire, and then filled with food, which was covered over and allowed to cook, was general in America, though as a rule it was employed only occasionally, and principally for cooking vegetal substances. This method of cooking was found necessary to render acrid or poisonous foods harmless, and starchy [285] foods saccharine, and as a preliminary in drying and preserving food for winter use. Most of the acorn-consuming Indians of California cooked acorn mush in small sand-pits. The soap-root was made palatable by cooking it in an earth-covered heap. The Hupa cook the same plant for about two days in a large pit lined with stones, in which a hot fire is maintained until the stones and surrounding earth are well heated; the fire is then drawn, the pit lined with leaves of wild grape and wood sorrel to improve the flavor of the bulbs, and a quantity of the bulbs thrown in; leaves are then placed on top, the whole is covered with earth, and a big fire built on top.” Mr. Charles B. Turrill states that “the meal of the ground acorns was placed in shallow hollows in the sand and water poured on it, by which means the bitter principle was leached out. Then the meal was placed in baskets and cooked by putting hot stones therein. The cooking was done in the basket, not in the sand.” Other Indians used pit ovens for baking clams, and the Panamints of California roasted cactus joints and mescal in pits. The Pueblo Indians used dome-shaped ovens of stone plastered with clay, a form that may have been imitated by the Spaniards, since their ovens were of that character.

Modesto (modest), is the county-seat of Stanislaus County, and is thirty miles south of Stockton. According to residents of this town, “The place was first named Ralston in the year 1870, in honor of Mr. Ralston, who was then a very prominent resident of San Francisco, and president of the Bank of California. He was so modest that he preferred that some other name be adopted, so the name was changed to Modesto .” If this be the true story, it was surely a unique reason for the naming of a town.

Oroville (gold-town), is a hybrid word made up of the Spanish oro (gold), and the French ville (town). Oroville is the county-seat of Butte County, and is on the Feather River, in the heart of a mining and fruit region.

Río Vista (river view), is in Solano County, on the Sacramento River. Modern. Incorrect construction. It should be Vista del Río .

Tehachapi , an Indian word of which the meaning has not been ascertained, is the name of the mountain pass in Kern County across the Sierra Nevada, of which it approximately marks the southern limit, and of a town in the same county, thirty-five miles southeast of Bakersfield.

“In the famous Tahichapah Pass was a tribe called by themselves Ta-hi-cha-pa-han-na , and by the Kern Indians Ta-hich . This tribe is now extinct.”—(Powers’ Tribes of California .)

Vacaville is situated in a beautiful and fertile valley in Solano County. It received its name from a family named Vaca , who were at one time prominent in that region. Manuel Vaca, the founder of the family, was a native of New Mexico, and came to California in 1841. “He was a hospitable man of good repute.”

XII
IN THE SIERRAS

THE SIERRA NEVADA

The Sierra Nevada Mountains , California’s wonder-land, derive their name from sierra (saw), and nevada (snowy),—descriptive of the saw-toothed outlines of the summits of the range, and the mantle of perpetual snow that covers the highest tops.

The term Sierra Madre , absurdly translated by some persons as “Mother of Christ,” means, of course, “Mother Sierra,” that is, the largest mountain range personified as the mother of the smaller ranges.

“The Sierra Nevada is generally considered to extend from Tehachapi Pass in the south to Lassen Peak in the north, and constitutes the dividing ridge between the great basin on the east, to which it falls abruptly, and the San Joaquín and Sacramento Valleys on the west. It is characterized by deep and narrow valleys, [294] with almost vertical walls of rock thousands of feet in height, and its scenery is of surpassing grandeur, much more imposing than that of the Rockies. Many of its higher summits are covered with perpetual snow.”—(Lippincott’s Gazetteer .)

PIT RIVER

Among the many tributary streams that carry the waters of the Sierra Nevada down the western slope into the Sacramento, the Pit , often incorrectly spelled Pitt , is one of the most important, and, although not properly belonging in these pages, is included for the sake of the information to be gained concerning Indian customs.

The natives along this river were in the habit of digging pits near the banks to catch bear and deer, and, on occasion, even their human enemies. The pits were dug in the regular trails of animals, twelve to fourteen feet deep, conical in shape, with a small opening at the top, covered with brush and earth. Signs, such as broken twigs, were placed as a warning to their own people, and sharp stakes were placed in the bottom to [297] impale any creature that might fall in. Another account of this custom is given in Miller’s Life Among the Modocs : “Pits from ten to fifteen feet deep were dug, in which natives caught man and beast. These man-traps, for such was their primary use, were small at the mouth, widening toward the bottom, so that exit was impossible, even were the victim to escape impalement upon sharpened elk and deer horns, which were favorably placed for his reception. The opening was craftily concealed by means of light sticks, over which earth was scattered, and the better to deceive the unwary, travelers’ footprints were frequently stamped with a moccasin in the loose soil.” It was from these Indian pits that the river received its name.

PLUMAS

Plumas (feathers), is the name of a county in the northeastern part of the state. It is drained by the Feather River, which flows through one of the deepest and most picturesque canyons in California. The county is characterized by its [298] wild and rugged scenery, its deep canyons and extensive forests of evergreen trees. In the northwest corner Lassen Peak, now an active volcano, rises to a height of 10437 feet.

The county derives its name from its principal stream, which now appears under its English form of The Feather , but which was originally named El Río de las Plumas (the river of the feathers), by Captain Luís A. Argüello, who led an exploring party up the valley in 1820, and whose attention was attracted by the great number of feathers of wild fowl floating on the surface of the river. Even to this day the valley of the Feather has remained a favorite haunt of the wild ducks and geese, as will be attested by the many hunters who seek sport there during the season. By an inconsistency, the county has retained the original Spanish name, Plumas , while that of the river has been Americanized. An erroneous and extremely far-fetched explanation of the name has often appeared in print to the effect that it was derived from a fancied resemblance between the spray of the river and a feather.

THE AMERICAN RIVER

The American River , another of the names which have been translated from the original Spanish, is formed by three forks rising in the Sierra Nevada, and empties into the Sacramento at the site of the city of that name. The three branches forming it run in deep canyons, sometimes two thousand feet in depth, and the scenery along its course is of a rugged and striking character.

The river was originally called El Río de los Americanos (the river of the Americans), probably from the presence on its banks of a company of western trappers, who lived there from 1822 to 1830, and not “because it was the usual route of travel by which Americans entered the state,” as is stated by Bancroft and others.

In Fremont’s time it was still known by its Spanish name, by which he refers to it in the following paragraph: “Just then a well-dressed Indian came up, and made his salutations in very well-spoken Spanish. In answer to our inquiries he informed us that we were upon the Río de los [300] Americanos , and that it joined the Sacramento River about ten miles below. Never did a name sound more sweetly! We felt ourselves among our countrymen, for the name of American, in these distant parts, is applied to the citizens of the United States.”

EL DORADO COUNTY

El Dorado (the gilded man). Although it is known to most people, in a vague, general way, that the name El Dorado was given to this county on account of the discovery of gold there, the romantic tales connected with the name are probably not so well known. The Indians of Peru, Venezuela, and New Granada, perhaps in the hope of inducing their oppressors to move on, were constantly pointing out to the Spaniards, first in one direction, then in another, a land of fabulous riches. This land was said to have a king, who caused his body to be covered every morning with gold dust, by means of an odorous resin. Each evening he washed it off, as it incommoded his sleep, and each morning [303] had the gilding process repeated. From this fable the white men were led to believe that the country must be rich in gold, and long, costly, and fruitless expeditions were undertaken in pursuit of this phantom of El Dorado . In time the phrase El Dorado came to be applied to regions where gold and other precious metals were thought to be plentiful. According to General Vallejo, one Francisco Orellana, a companion of the adventurer Pizarro, wrote a fictitious account of an El Dorado in South America, “a region of genial clime and never-fading verdure, abounding in gold and precious stones, where wine gushed forth from never-ceasing springs, wheat fields grew ready-baked loaves of bread, birds already roasted flew among the trees, and nature was filled with harmony and sweetness.” Although old Mother Nature has not yet provided us with “bread ready-baked” or “birds ready-roasted” in California, her gifts to her children have been so bountiful that they may almost be compared to the fabulous tales of El Dorado , the gilded man.

PLACER COUNTY

Placer , the county in the Sierras famous for its surface gold-mining, has a puzzling name for which no satisfactory explanation has yet been found. Although it has been used in Spanish countries for centuries in the sense of surface mining, dictionaries remain silent upon the subject. The theory often advanced that the word is a contraction of plaza de oro (place of gold), bears none of the marks of probability, and another that it means “a river where gold is found” is not supported by adequate authority. One old Spanish dictionary gives the meaning of placer as “a sea bottom, level and of slight depth, of sand, mud, or stone,” and states also that the word is sometimes used to designate places where pearl diving is carried on. It may be that the word was extended from this usage to include placer mining, since in that case the gold is found in shallow pockets near the surface. This theory is offered here as a mere suggestion.

Placer County has some of the most striking mountain scenery in the state, and has been the [305] theatre of many remarkable events in its history, particularly those connected with the “days of ’49.” In the town of Placerville, the county-seat of El Dorado County, there is an instance of a change of name from English to Spanish for the better, for this place was originally called Hangtown , in commemoration of the hanging of certain “bad men” on a tree there.

THE TRUCKEE RIVER

The Truckee River rises on the borders of El Dorado and Placer Counties, and is the outlet of Lake Tahoe, discharging its waters into Pyramid Lake in Nevada. This mountain stream is justly celebrated for the wild charm of its scenery. There is a village bearing the same name, in Nevada County, well-known to travelers through being on the regular route to Tahoe. At this place winter sports, tobogganing, skiing, skating, etc., are provided for San Franciscans, who need to travel but a few hours to exchange their clime of eternal spring for the deep snows of the Sierras.

The explanation generally accepted for the [306] name of Truckee is that it was so-called for an Indian, by some accounts described as a Canadian trapper, who guided a party of explorers in 1844 to its lower crossing, where the town of Wadsworth now stands. The party, who were suffering from thirst, felt themselves to be under such obligations to the Indian for having guided them to this lovely mountain stream, with its crystal waters and abundance of fish, that they gave it his name. Of this Indian it is said that “he joined Fremont’s battalion, and was afterwards known as Captain Truckee; he became a great favorite with Fremont, who gave him a Bible. When he died he asked to be buried by white men in their style. The miners dug a grave near Como, in the croppings of the old Goliah ledge. Here he was laid to rest, with the Bible by his side.”—( History of Nevada County. )

LAKE TAHOE

Tahoe is another of the Indian names whose meaning can not be ascertained with any degree of certainty. The definition “Big Water,” the [309] one usually given, is considered doubtful by ethnologists. The statement has been made by intelligent Indians now living on the banks of the lake that the word, pronounced Dá-o by them, means “deep” and “blue.” Yet it is much to know that this pearl among all lakes has at least been fortunate enough to receive an indigenous name, escaping by a narrow margin the ignominious fate of being called Lake Bigler, for a former governor of the state. It appears that Fremont was the first to give to this body of water a name, and it is shown upon his map under the rather indefinite title of Mountain Lake. Afterward it was known for a short time as Lake Bigler. The story goes that in 1859 Dr. Henry de Groot, while exploring the mountains, learned that tah-oo-ee meant “a great deal of water,” and from this Tahoe was evolved as an appropriate name, but did not become attached to the lake until the period of the Civil War. During that time the Reverend Thomas Starr King, the famous “war” clergyman of San Francisco, visited the lake, and inspired by indignation against the Democratic Governor Bigler, whom he regarded as a secessionist, he definitely christened it Tahoe , for which we [310] may be grateful to his memory, regardless of the motives by which he was actuated.

Tahoe is partly in Placer, and partly in El Dorado, at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, a portion of its waters also extending into the state of Nevada. It is twenty-two miles long and ten wide, and has an elevation of 6225 feet above sea level. It is especially remarkable for its great depth, being over 1500 feet deep.

AMADOR COUNTY

Amador (literally “lover”), but in this case a surname. Amador is the long, narrow county lying between Calaveras and El Dorado, and was probably named in honor of the Amador family, either Don Pedro Amador, or his son, José María. Pedro Amador is said to have been a “soldier of fortune” in the Spanish army, who came to California in 1771. His son, José María, was also a soldier and a renowned Indian fighter, and was known to be living as late as 1883.

CALAVERAS

Calaveras (skulls), is the name of a county in the central part of the Sierra Nevada, on the eastern border. This county is famous for its gold and copper mines, and its Giant Sequoias. The river, to which the name of Calaveras was first given, rises in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and flows southwest, emptying into the San Joaquín about fifteen miles below Stockton.

The river received its rather lugubrious name at the hands of Captain Moraga, who led the first expedition up the Sacramento and San Joaquín rivers. In his diary, Moraga says that the river tribes fought against those of the Sierra for possession of the salmon in the stream, and that in one battle as many as three thousand were said to have been killed and left on the field. A great number of skulls, relics of this bloody conflict, were found by Moraga scattered along the creek bed, and caused him to give it the name of Las Calaveras . We find in Fremont a corroborating reference to the salmon as a cause of dissension among the Indians of that region: [312] “This fish had a large share in supporting the Indians, who raised nothing, but lived on what nature gave. A ‘salmon water,’ as they named it, was a valuable possession to a tribe or village, and jealously preserved as an inheritance.”

Particular interest was aroused in the Indian relics of this county some years ago by the finding of the celebrated “Calaveras skull,” purporting to have been taken from the Tertiary deposit, a stratum in which no human remains had ever before been discovered. A close examination into the circumstances, however, caused scientists to look with great doubt upon the assertion that the skull had been taken from the Tertiary deposit. In the Handbook of American Indians , published by the Smithsonian Institute, the following reference appears: “Remains of aborigines are plentiful in this county, embedded in ancient river gravels, from which gold was washed. By some scientists these remains were thought to belong to the Tertiary Age, but their resemblance to the modern Indian makes this doubtful. The Calaveras skull, still preserved in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, was said to have come [315] from the gravels of Bald Mountain, at a depth of 130 feet, but there are good reasons for suspecting that it was derived from one of the limestone caves so numerous in that region.”

TUOLUMNE

Tuolumne is the name of the county in the Sierras just east of Calaveras, and of the river which rises at the base of the Sierra Nevadas, and flows into the San Joaquín, twenty-five miles south of Stockton, a part of its course running through a deep canyon.

Here we have another of the river names ending in umne , already discussed under the heading of Cosumne . As stated before, umne probably means “people of,” and it is held by some authorities that the meaning of Tuolumne is “people of the stone houses, or caves.” Bancroft maintains this theory, holding that the name is a corruption of talmalamne , “a group of stone huts or caves, or collection of wigwams.” Objection has been raised to this theory on the ground that the Indians of California were not cave-dwellers, but [316] universally lived in flimsy huts made of sticks and grass. This objection is cleared away in some measure by a very interesting paragraph in the diary of Padre Pedro Muñoz, who accompanied the Gabriel Moraga expedition of 1806 into that region. The passage in question relates: “On the morning of this day, the expedition went toward the east along the banks of the river, and having traveled about six leagues, we came upon a village called Tautamne . This village is situated on some steep precipices, inaccessible on account of their rough rocks. The Indians live in their sótanos (cellars or caves); they go up and come down by means of a weak stick, held up by one of themselves while the one who descends slips down. They did not wish to come down from their hiding-places, and for me the ascent was too difficult. This village probably has about two hundred souls, judging by the considerable mass which we repeatedly made out among the rocks and corridors [or ledges], in the manner of balconies, which the precipice made.” This meeting with the cave-dwellers occurred at a spot about six leagues from the Guadalupe River, after the expedition had left the Merced. It is not, of [317] course, to be inferred from this circumstance that the California Indians were genuine “cliff dwellers,” but rather that, at least in the mountainous parts of the state, they may have had the habit of taking refuge in natural caves from inclement weather or attacks of enemies.

As to the pronunciation of the word, it is said that the Indians called it Tu-ah-lúm-ne , rather than Tuólumne , which is the general usage.

MARIPOSA

Mariposa (butterfly), is famous as the county that holds within its borders two of the wonders of the earth, the Yosemite Valley and the Giant Sequoias. Some of these trees are three hundred feet high, thirty feet in diameter, and 2400 years old, having unfolded their feathery fronds before Christ came upon the earth. According to Professor Jepsen, “they are the direct descendants of the species dominant in the Tertiary Period,” and thus are a living reminder of the plant life of that dim and distant past of which the animal life is pictured for us in the fossil remains of the [318] mammoth and saber-tooth tiger of the La Brea asphalt beds.

Nearly every writer who has attempted to account for the name Mariposa has fallen into the error of ascribing it to the charming little flower called the Mariposa lily. Fremont, with his intense appreciation of the beauty of the wild flowers covering the whole country with a carpet of many hues at the time of his passage over the Sierra, says: “On some of the higher ridges were fields of a poppy which, fluttering and tremulous on its long thin stalk, suggests the idea of a butterfly settling on a flower, and gives to this flower its name of Mariposa (butterflies), and the flower extends its name to the stream.” It is almost a pity to demolish such a pretty story, yet it is unavoidable, for the true explanation is at hand in the diary of Padre Muñoz, who accompanied the Gabriel Moraga expedition of 1806 into the Sierra. He says: “This spot [not far from the Merced river], was called Las Mariposas (the butterflies), on account of their great multitude, especially at night and in the morning, so much so that they became excessively annoying, carrying their desire to hide from the rays of [321] the sun so far that they followed us everywhere, and one even entered into the ear of one of the leaders of the expedition, causing him a great deal of annoyance, and not a little trouble in getting it out.” This story is corroborated by the fact that at the present day equally great numbers of butterflies, equally annoying, swarm through the mountain forests during a certain part of the autumn.

YOSEMITE

Yosemite (grizzly bear, not large grizzly bear, according to the scientists), said to have been called Yohamite by the natives, is one of the few Indian names whose meaning has been ascertained with a reasonable degree of certainty. It must be remembered that Yosemite, like most Indian words, has been greatly corrupted from its original form, which was u-zú-mai-ti , o-só-mai-ti or uh-zú-mai-ti , according to the tribe using it, and the valley was never known by this name to the Indians, but always as A-wa-ni , from the name of their principal village. Considering the great alteration of the name from its native form, [322] it does not seem to be a matter of vital importance whether it shall now be used as one word, Yosemite, or in two words, Yo Semite, although the latter form was at one time the more general usage, and is greatly preferred by some persons. The valley was discovered in 1851 by Major James D. Savage of the United States army, while chasing the Indians, who had a bad habit of sallying forth from their hiding-place in the valley to commit depredations. The name was chosen by Dr. L. H. Bunnell, surgeon of the expedition, who tells the story in his Discovery of the Yosemite . He gave it the name of an Indian tribe living there and to whom this name had been given by other tribes, they calling themselves Ah-wah-nee . Their chief, Ten-ei-ya, said that when he was a young man the name Yosemite , or Yohamite , had been chosen because the tribe lived in the mountains and valleys which were the favorite resorts of the bears, and because his people were expert in killing them. He also said, perhaps in a spirit of boasting, that the name was bestowed upon his tribe to express the idea that they were held in as much fear as the bears. This band of Indians was said to have been [323] originally composed of outlaws or refugees from other tribes, and may have well deserved their evil reputation.

Indian names, few of which can be scientifically defined, have been given to many peaks and waterfalls in the valley. In the folder printed by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company more or less fanciful definitions are given for these names, for which there is no foundation in fact except in the case of Yosemite itself and Hunto , which really does mean “eye,” though not “ watching eye.” Tenaya Peak was probably named for the Yosemite chief, Ten-ei-ya. The definition of Pi-wa-ack as “cataract of diamonds” is absurd on its face, for a moment’s thought will remind any one that diamonds were wholly unknown to the Indians of that time and place.

“ Ma-ta (the canyon), a generic word, in explaining which the Indians held up both hands to denote perpendicular walls.”—(Powers’ Tribes of California .)

“ Tis-se-yak is the name of an Indian woman who figured in a legend. The Indian woman cuts her hair straight across the forehead and allows the sides to drop along her cheeks, presenting a square [324] face, which the Indians account the acme of female beauty, and they think they discover this square face in the vast front of South Dome.”—(Powers’ Tribes of California .)

Cho-ko-nip-o-deh , translated as “baby basket” in the Southern Pacific folder, means literally “dog-place” or “dog-house.”—(Powers’ Tribes of California .)

MONO

Mono is the name of a county on the eastern border of the state, and of the lake near the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada. This lake is fourteen miles long and nine miles wide, and is peculiar in having no outlet, its waters being strongly saline and alkaline. It lies 6730 feet above sea-level and is almost completely destitute of animal life.

This name, corrupted from Monache , the name of the Indians of this region, through its resemblance to the Spanish word mono (monkey), has been the cause of considerable confusion, and of a number of extravagant theories, such as the supposed existence of monkeys in that country, [327] or the resemblance of the natives to those animals, but the similarity between the two words is regarded by ethnologists as purely accidental. The meaning is obscure, but it is said that the name was applied to some Shoshonean tribes of southeastern California by their neighbors on the west.

INYO

Inyo , a word of unknown meaning, was the name of a tribe of Indians in the Sierra. Inyo County is on the eastern border of the state, adjacent to Nevada. Its largest stream is the Owens River, which flows into Owens Lake, another body of saline water having no outlet. This county has the unenviable distinction of containing within its borders the terrible “Death Valley,” where the bones of so many unfortunates have been left to whiten under the desert sun, and which still claims a victim now and then. This desolate valley is forty miles long, lying far below the level of the sea, is destitute of all vegetation, totally without water, subject to terrific heat, and in all respects well deserves its funereal [328] name. Inyo is unique in containing the highest and lowest points in the United States, Mount Whitney and Death Valley, within sight of each other. In other parts of the county the mountain scenery is of remarkable grandeur, and the gold mines in which it is unusually rich are still worked with profit.

AMARGOSA RIVER

Amargosa (bitter), is the very appropriate name of a river of Nevada and southeastern California which flows into Death Valley, sometimes known also as the Amargosa Desert. The mountains lying northeast of the river’s upper course are sometimes called the Amargosa Mountains. Fremont gives a characteristic picture of this dreary country in the following paragraph: “We traveled through a barren district, where a heavy gale was blowing about the loose sand, and, after a ride of eight miles, reached a large creek of salt and bitter water, running in a westerly direction, to meet the stream bed we had left. It is called by the Spaniards Amargosa , the bitter water of the desert.”

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Alta (high), is a village in Placer County, sixty-eight miles northeast of Sacramento, two miles from the great American Canyon. The altitude of this place is 3607 feet above sea level. The name is modern and was only given to the place after the building of the Central Pacific Railroad.

Cerro Gordo (large, thick hill), is the name of a famous mining camp in Inyo County.

Cisco is a town in Placer County, situated at an altitude of 5934 feet above sea level. Cisco is a word of disputed origin. It has been said to be derived from the Algonquin word cisco , meaning a fish, a sort of oily herring found in the Great Lakes, but it seems unlikely that such a name should be transported all the way from the Great Lakes to the Sierras, especially as no fish of that kind is to be found there. Other persons believe the word to be derived from the Spanish cisco (broken pieces of coal), but for this there appears to be no legitimate reason. In the History of Placer County the statement is made that the town was named for John J. Cisco, at one time [330] connected with the United States Government, an explanation which is probably the true one.

Hetch Hetchy is the Indian name of a deep valley in the Sierra, lying north of the Yosemite, which will some day cease to be a valley and become a lake, as the people of San Francisco have succeeded in obtaining the permission of the United States Government to turn it into a reservoir for the city’s water supply. An explanation of the meaning of the word Hetch Hetchy has been obtained through the kindness of John Muir, who says: “I have been informed by mountaineers who know something of the Indian language that Hetch Hetchy is the name of a species of grass that the Tuolumne Indians used for food, and which grows on the meadow at the lower end of the valley. The grain, when ripe, was gathered and beaten out and pounded into meal in mortars.” The word was originally spelled Hatchatchie .

Lancha Plana (flat-boat), is in Amador County, and its story is thus told by Mr. Junius Farnsworth, an old resident of Stockton: “This town [331] is located across the Mokelumne River from Poverty Bar, a name given to a gravel bar in the river which was exceedingly rich in placer gold, and to which thousands of early day miners were attracted. Those who came from the north side of the Mokelumne centered in Lancha Plana and reached Poverty Bar by means of a flat-boat, or flat ferry. The Spanish soon designated the settlement on the north bank of the river as Lancha Plana, as it was the point at which the flat-boat tied up.”

Moquelumne is the name of a river which rises in the high Sierra in Alpine County, flows southwesterly and empties into the San Joaquín. The word is a corruption of the Miwok Wakalumitoh , the Indian name of the river. The Moquelumne family was made up of an aggregation of tribes which occupied three sections, one lying between the Cosumnes and Fresno Rivers, another in Marin, Sonoma, and Napa Counties, and a third occupying a small area in the south end of Lake County. (A. L. Kroeber, in American Anthrop. VIII, no. 4, 1906.) The Miwoks constituted the great body of this family, the different branches of which were connected by a [332] similarity of languages. The Miwoks are described as being quite low in the scale of civilization, and “it has been asserted that this tribe of Indians ate every variety of living creature indigenous to their territory except the skunk. The skins of jack-rabbits were rudely woven into robes, and they bought bows and arrows from the mountain Indians for shell money. Cremation of the dead was usual, and all possessions of the departed were burned with them. Their names were never afterward mentioned and those who bore the same names changed them for others. Widows covered their faces with pitch, and the younger women singed their hair short as a sign of widowhood.”—( Handbook of American Indians. ) Muk-kel was the name of the principal village of this tribe, and if umne does in fact mean “people of”, Moquelumne may be “people of the village of Muk-kel.”

Panamint Range of mountains was named for the Panamint tribe, who belonged to the Shoshonean family, and lived around the Panamint Valley, in Inyo County, southeastern California. Many unfortunate seekers after gold have lost their lives in this desolate mountain range.

Pinto Range (painted or spotted range), so-called because of the variegated colors of the rocks. This range is in Inyo County.

San Andreas (St. Andrew), is the county-seat of Calaveras County, and is situated near the Calaveras River, fifty-six miles southeast of Sacramento. Placer gold mining was at one time extensively carried on here. St. Andrew, the patron saint of this place, was the brother of Simon Peter, and was the first called to be an apostle. He suffered martyrdom by being crucified, supposedly on a cross shaped like the one that bears his name. He is the patron of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and of the great Order of the Cross of St. Andrew.—( Stories of the Saints. ) San Andreas is anomalous in being almost the only Spanish name in the mining district. The circumstances of its naming have not been ascertained.

Sonora , named for the province of Sonora in Mexico, is the capital of Tuolumne County, and is situated ninety miles southeast of Sacramento. It received its name from the large number of Sonorans from the Mexican province who mined there in the very early days. This is a mining [334] period name and has no real connection with Spanish names.

Tenaya Peak in Yosemite Valley is named for Ten-ei-ya, chief of the Yosemite Indians.

Vallecito (little valley), is in Calaveras County, fifty-five miles northeast of Stockton.

Wawona , in Mariposa County, is said by some authorities to be a Moquelumnan word meaning “big tree,” but this definition is regarded by ethnologists with doubt.

CAMINO REAL

Camino Real (royal road, or the King’s highway). The Camino Real was the road connecting the missions, and was the chief means of intercourse between the different settlements during the early years of the state’s history. After American occupation the road fell into disuse, but at present is being reconstructed along the old route, with many extensions and branches, and will, when finished, be one of the finest roads in the United States.

PRONUNCIATION OF SPANISH NAMES.

While it scarcely falls within the province of this book to enter into an elaborate discussion of the matter of pronunciation of Spanish names, it is thought desirable to present a few of the simplest rules, with some examples, so that persons unacquainted with the language may avoid at least the worst of those pit-falls set for their inexperienced feet by our nomenclature. It should be mentioned that in California the Spanish-American usage, rather than the Castilian, is followed in the pronunciation of the c and z. The rules of pronunciation quoted here are those given in Ramsey’s text books, generally regarded as excellent authority.

VOWELS.

A sounds like a in ah , midway between the English a in father and that in fat . Example, Pala , pronounced Pah´lah .

E sounds like a in hay , its sound being slightly varied according to situation. Example, Rode´o , pronounced Ro-day´o .

O sounds like o in hope . Example, Contra Costa , pronounced Cone´trah Coast´ah . This name is frequently mispronounced by using the short sound of o , as in not .

Y , when a vowel, is equivalent to i . Y is considered a vowel only when standing alone, as in y (the conjunction and ), or at the end of a word, as in ley (law), but is sometimes used interchangeably with I at the beginning of a word, as in San Ysidro , pronounced San Ee-see´dro , and sometimes spelled Isidro . In other cases it is a consonant and is pronounced like the y in the English yard .

CONSONANTS.

Only those consonant sounds differing from English usage need be mentioned here.

C has two sounds. Before e and i it is pronounced like s in seat , that is, in Spanish-American usage; examples, Cerro , pronounced Ser´ro , and Cima , pronounced See´mah . In all other cases c has the sound of k ; examples, Carlos , pronounced Kar´loce , Colorado , pronounced Ko-lo-rah´do (each o long, as in hope ), Cuesta , pronounced Kwes´tah , and Cruz , pronounced Kroos .

D is slightly softened, and when occurring between vowels and at the end of words it is almost like th in then . Examples, Andrade , pronounced Ahn-drah´-dthay , and Soledad , pronounced Sole-ay-dadth .

G has two sounds. Before e and i it has the sound of strongly aspirated h . Examples, German´ , pronounced Hare-mahn´ , and giro , pronounced hee´ro . In all other [337] cases it sounds like g in go . Examples, Gaviota , Goleta , Guadalupe , Granada . In gue and gui the u is regularly silent; exceptions to this rule are marked by the diaeresis, as in Argüello , pronounced Ar-gwayl´yo , or in Spanish-American, Ar-gway´yo .

H is silent except in the combined character ch . Example, La Honda , pronounced La On´dah , with long o , as in hope .

J has the sound of strongly aspirated h . Examples, Pájaro , pronounced Pah´hah-ro , and San José , pronounced San Ho-say´ . This letter is one of the worst stumbling-blocks in the pronunciation of Spanish names.

Ll has the sound of the letters lli in the English million , but in many parts of Spanish-America it is pronounced like y in beyond . The latter is not considered an elegant pronunciation. Example, Vallejo , properly pronounced Val-yay´ho , but in Spanish-American, Va-yay´ho .

N has the sound of the letters ni in the English pinion . Example, Cañada , pronounced Can-yah´dthah .

Q only occurs before ue and ui , and sounds like k , the following u being always silent. Example, San Quintín , pronounced San Keen-teen´ .

S has the hissing sound of s in say , base , and is never pronounced like sh as in mansion , or z as in rose . Thus in Santa Rosa the s is sharply hissed and is not pronounced as Santa Roza .

Z is sounded in Spanish-America like sharply hissed s , as in say or base . Example, Zamora , pronounced Sah-mo´rah .

A peculiarity of pronunciation common to almost all Spaniards is the confusion of the b and the v so that one can hardly be distinguished from the other. Vowel sounds are pronounced shortly and crisply, never with the drawling circumflex sound sometimes heard in English. Without going into the complications of the division of syllables, it may be stated that the fundamental principle is to make syllables end in a vowel as far as possible; examples, Do-lo-res (not Do-lor-es ), Sa-li-nas (not Sal-in-as ).

ACCENT.

All words ending in n or s or a vowel are regularly accented on the next to the last syllable; examples, Sausalíto , Altúras , cómen . All others are accented on the last syllable; examples, San Rafael´ , Avenal´ . In words following the above rules no mark is used, but in the exceptions, which are many, the stress must be indicated by the written accent. Examples, Portolá , Jolón , Álamo , Los Ángeles .

ARTICLES.

In the Spanish language articles agree with their nouns in gender and number. The forms of the definite article are el (singular) and los (plural) for the masculine, la (singular) and las (plural) for the feminine. Examples, El Portal (the portal, or gate), Los Gatos (the cats), La Paz (the peace), Las Vírgenes (the virgins).

LIST OF NAMES MOST LIKELY TO BE MISPRONOUNCED, WITH THEIR PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION.

FINAL LIST AND INDEX

Acampo (common pasture). See page 282 . This name is used here in the sense of “camp,” and was given by the Southern Pacific Railroad years ago, in reference to a camp of wood choppers and Chinese which was located there.

Adelante (onward, forward), now changed to Napa Junction, is in Napa County. This place was called Adelante in the hope that its location on Napa River would cause it to become the principal city of the valley.

Agua (water), is in very common use in referring to springs, usually accompanied by a qualifying adjective. See page 339 . This word is usually mispronounced by Spanish Americans.

Aguaje del Centinela (water hole, or watering place of the sentinel), the title of a land grant.

Aguajito (little water hole). Near Monterey, in a delightful little glen, there were a number of these springs, or water holes, where the women were in the habit of doing the town washing, kneeling upon the ground and washing the clothing directly in the springs. This place was called Los Aguajitos (the water holes), by the Spanish residents, and “washerwoman’s canyon” by the Americans. In the pastoral days of California, entire families climbed into their ox-carts, made with solid wooden wheels, and, provided with a liberal lunch basket, made a picnic of “blue Monday” under the green trees of Los Aguajitos canyon. See page 339 .

Agua Mansa (still water, smooth-running current). One writer, for what reason does not appear, defines this as “house water.” This place is in Southern California, near Colton.

Agua Puerca y las Trancas (muddy water and the bars, or stiles). This was the peculiar title of a land grant, based, no doubt, upon some trivial circumstance now forgotten. One writer has translated it as “water fit for pigs and Frenchmen,” a gratuitous insult to the French people of which the Spaniards were not guilty. This writer evidently mistook the word puerca (muddy or dirty) for puerca (sow), and by some strange twist of the imagination, seems to have taken trancas to mean Frenchmen!

Las Águilas (the eagles). Real de las Águilas means the “camp of the eagles.”

Ahwanee (an Indian place name), popularly but not authentically translated as “a deep or grassy valley,” is the name of a place in Madera County.

“ A-wa-ni was the name of a large village standing directly at the foot of Yosemite Fall.”—(Powers’ Tribes of California .)

Alameda (an avenue shaded by trees, or a cottonwood grove). This word is derived from [350] álamo , a poplar tree known in the West as cottonwood. See pages 208 and 339 .

Los Álamos y Agua Caliente (the cottonwoods and hot spring), the title of a land grant.

Alcalde (mayor, justice of the peace). This place is in the southern part of Fresno County.

Alhambra , near Los Ángeles, was named for the famous Alhambra of Spain. The Alhambra was an ancient palace and fortress of the Moorish monarchs of Granada in Southern Spain, probably built between 1248 and 1354. The word signifies in Arabic “the red,” and was perhaps given to this building in allusion to the color of the bricks of which the outer walls are constructed. “The marvelous beauty of the architecture of this structure has been greatly injured by alterations, earthquakes, etc., yet it still remains the most perfect example of Moorish art in its final European development.”

Anacapa Island. This name is Indian, but the popular story that it means “vanishing island, disappearing island,” is probably not authentic. “ Anacapa is a corruption of Vancouver’s Indian name of the island, Enneeapah ; the engraver spelled it Enecapah on the chart, and subsequent compilers have endeavored to give it a Spanish form.”—(Geo. Davidson in United States Coast and Geodetic Survey .)

Aptos is said to be an Indian name, meaning “the meeting of two streams,” in reference to Valencia and Aptos Creeks. As this was a method of naming very much in vogue among the Indians, it is likely that this is the true explanation of Aptos.

Armada (fleet, squadron). The Armada was the name of the great fleet sent against England by Philip II in 1588. Whether the name of this town, situated in Riverside County, has this origin has not been ascertained.

Las Aromitas y Agua Caliente (the little perfumes and hot spring), title of a land grant.

Arroyo (a creek or small stream). The designation [353] arroyo is sometimes applied to the dry bed of a former stream. It does not, as is sometimes thought, refer only to a bed with steep sides, but is applied as well to shallow streams flowing through level country.

Arroyo de los Dolores (creek of the sorrows). Dolores Creek in San Francisco was so-named “because this was the Friday of Sorrows.”

Arroyo de las Nueces y Bolbones (creek of the walnuts and Bolbones). The meaning of Bolbones has not been ascertained, but it may have been the name of an Indian tribe.

Asfalto (asphalt), incorrectly spelled asphalto , is in southwestern Kern County.

Atascadero (bog-mire). See page 127 . The Atascadero is one of the largest ranches in the state, comprising 22000 acres.

Avila (a surname), eight miles from San Luís Obispo, was probably named for a pioneer family of Los Ángeles.

Los Baños (the baths), is in Merced County, thirty-five miles southwest of Merced. This place was so-called from the creek, which has large, deep [355] pools of clear water that were used by the early inhabitants as a bathing place.

Batata (sweet potato), is in Merced County, and is so-called because it lies in the best sweet potato growing district in California.

Berenda , probably a misspelling of berrenda (female antelope), is in Madera County.

Blanco (white). See page 157 . In early days an American named Thomas White lived near the present town of Blanco. His name was translated into the Spanish form for white, blanco , by the native residents, and the place became known by that name.

Boca (mouth), in this case refers to the mouth of the Truckee River, in Nevada County.

La Boca de la Cañada del Pinole (the mouth of the valley of the cereal meal). This was a land grant, which received its peculiar name from the fact of the Spaniards having been compelled to live on pinole while they awaited the return of a party with supplies from Monterey. See Pinole , page 231 .

Bolinas , probably a corruption of Baulines , an Indian word. See page 228 .

Bolsa de Chamisal (pocket of the wild cane, or reeds). The chamisal, sometimes incorrectly spelled chemisal, is defined in the dictionaries as wild cane, or reed, but in California, at least, it is applied to a “shrub attaining a height of six or eight feet. Its thickets are almost impassable except by bears or similar animals, as the branches [357] are low and very stiff and tough. In some places men are only able to penetrate it by crawling.”—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

Bolsa Nueva y Moro Cojo (new pocket and lame Moor). The word Moro was often used to mean anything black, as, for instance, a lame black horse, for which the Moro Cojo Rancho, near Monterey, is said to have been named.

Bolsa del Potrero , y Moro Cojo ó la Sagrada Familia (pocket of the pasture, and the lame Moor or the Holy Family). This is the combined name of several land grants.

Cabrillo (a surname), the name of a cape on the coast of Mendocino County. See page 259 .

Cádiz , between Needles and Barstow, was probably named for the well-known Spanish city of the same name. “In naming the stations on the Southern Pacific Railroad from Mojave to Needles going east, an alphabetical order was used, Barstow, Cádiz, Daggett, etc., until Needles was reached.”—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

Cahuilla , is said to be a corruption of the Indian word Ka-wia. See page 78 .

El Cajón (the box, or canyon). The name of El Cajón was first given to a valley lying about fifteen miles east of San Diego. The valley comprises about 16,000 acres of level land entirely surrounded by hills several hundred feet high, thus presenting a box-like appearance that gave rise to its name. See pages 41 and 339 .

Calexico , on the border of Lower California, is a hybrid word made up of the first part of California and the last of Mexico. Its counterpart on the Mexican side is Mexicali , in which the process is reversed.

Caliente Creek. See page 41 . This creek was so-named because its water is warm.

Calneva and Calvada are two more hybrids, made up of syllables from California and Nevada.

Calor , near the Oregon line, is likely to cause confusion by its resemblance to the Spanish word calor , (heat); this Calor is one of those composite words to which Californians are so regrettably addicted, and is made up of the first syllables of California and Oregon.

Calpella was named for the chief of a village situated just south of the present town, near Pomo, in Mendocino County. The chief’s name was Kalpela.

Calzona is another trap for the unwary, through [360] its resemblance to the Spanish word calzones (breeches); it is one more of those border towns bearing names made up of the syllables of two state names, in this case, California and Arizona.

Camanche , a post town in Calaveras County, was so-named in honor of the great Camanche, or Comanche tribe, whose remarkable qualities are thus described by Father Morfi in his Memorias de Texas , a document written about the year 1778: “The Comanche nation is composed of five thousand fighting men, divided into five tribes, each with a different name. They are very superior to all the others in number of people, extent of the territory that they occupy, modesty of their dress, hospitality to all who visit them, humanity towards all captives except Apaches, and their bravery, which is remarkable even in the women. They live by hunting and war, and this wandering disposition is the worst obstacle to their reduction, for it induces them to steal. Nevertheless, they are very generous with what they have, and so proud that one alone is capable of facing a whole camp of enemies if he cannot escape without witnesses to his flight.” Both spellings are used in the original records.

Camaritas (small cabins or rooms). The application of this name has not been ascertained. It may refer to Indian huts seen by the Spaniards, or may have a totally different meaning.

Cañada de los Coches (valley of the pigs). Coche , [362] used in the sense of “pig”, is a Mexicanism, said to have originated in the state of Sonora.

Cañada del Hambre y las Bolsas (valley of hunger and the pockets), a name said to have been given to this canyon because some Spanish soldiers nearly perished of starvation there. A bolsa is a pocket, or shut-in place.

Cañada de los Osos y Pecho y Islay , valley of the bears and breast (perhaps referring to Pecho Mountain in San Luís Obispo County), and wild cherry. Islay is said to be a California Indian word meaning wild cherry. Islais Creek, San Francisco, may take its name from the wild cherry.

Cañada del Rincón en el Río San Lorenzo de [363] Santa Cruz (valley of the corner section on the river San Lorenzo of Santa Cruz).

Cañada Verde, y Arroyo de la Purísima Concepción (green valley and creek of the immaculate conception).

Capitán (captain), the name of a flag station in Santa Bárbara County. It was named for a ranch owned by Captain Ortega, which was called Capitán , in reference to his title.

Capitán Grande (big captain). The origin of this name has not been ascertained.

Carneros (sheep). Carnero is especially applied to sheep used for mutton, rather than wool.

Casa Grande (big house). This place was so-called by the Spanish explorers on account of an unusually large Indian house they saw here. They speak of finding a “large village of many houses, and among them one extremely large.” This place is not to be confused with the famous Casa Grande in Arizona.

El Casco (the skull, or outside shell of anything). See page 79 . As casco also has the meaning of potsherd, or fragment of a broken vessel, a theory has been deduced that it was so-called because of a resemblance between the hollow in the hills where the place is located and a potsherd. This is one of those extremely far-fetched theories which are not likely to have any basis in fact.

Castac , an Indian word. The Castake was one [365] of several tribes occupying the country from Buena Vista and Kern Lakes to the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range. Castake Lake in the Tejón Pass region derives its name from this tribe. According to Professor A. L. Kroeber, castac means “my eyes.”

Castroville , a composite word made up of Castro, a surname, and the French ville (town). The Castro family was perhaps the most numerous in California. Its most prominent member was General José Castro, of whom Bancroft says: “The charges against him of mal-treatment of settlers were unfounded. His conduct was more honorable, dignified, and consistent than that of Fremont, and he treated immigrants with uniform kindness. He was not a very able man, but energetic, popular, true to his friends, and in public office fairly honest. An injustice has been done him in painting him as a cowardly, incompetent braggart. He was at one time Commandante General of California.” The town of Castroville, named for this prominent family, is near Monterey.

Cayeguas was named for a former Indian village [366] near San Buenaventura. This village was among those mentioned in the mission archives.

El Centro (the center), three miles from Imperial and so-named because it is practically the center of the valley. This name is recent.

Cerro de las Posas (hill of the pools or wells). The translation “hill of the seat” has been given to this by one writer, apparently without any justification. Posa , or poso , was in constant use among the Spaniards in the sense of “pool” or “well.”

Las chimeneas (the chimneys), old volcanic rock shaped like chimneys. This place is in San Luís Obispo County.

Chino , a word which may mean a Chinese, or a person with curly hair. The town of Chino, in San Bernardino County, took its name from the land grant called Santa Ana del Chino , but why the grant was so-called has not been ascertained.

El Chorro (a gushing stream of water). This place is in San Luís Obispo County.

Chowchilla was the name of a Yokuts tribe of the Central Valley. See page 283 .

Cimarrón (wild, unruly). The Spaniards applied this word to plants or animals indiscriminately, sometimes using it in reference to the wild grapes which they found growing in such profusion in California, sometimes in reference to wild Indians. The writer who translated it as “lost river” must have drawn upon his imagination for that definition.

Ranchería del Cojo (village of the lame one), so-called from a lame Indian seen there.

Coloma , a town in El Dorado County, so-named from the Koloma tribe, a division of the Nishinam family. It was at this place that Sutter’s Mill, where gold was discovered in 1848, was situated, and it is also there that the native sons erected a monument to John W. Marshall.

Córdova , near Sacramento. Córdova or Córdoba is the name of a province of the Argentine Republic, in South America. Cattle raising is its chief industry. The California town may have been directly named for the city of Córdova in Mexico.

Cortina , a town in Colusa County. Cortina , the Spanish word for “curtain,” is a corruption of Kotina , the name of the chief of a former village near the east bank of Cortina Creek.

Cosumne , a word of Indian derivation, said to mean “fish, salmon.” See page 272 . If the theory that the suffix umne means “place of” be correct, then it may be that the meaning of Cosumne is “place of fish,” probably referring to salmon fisheries.

Cotate , in Sonoma County, derived its name from a former Indian village. Mr. George Page, whose family have been in possession of the Cotate ranch since 1849, states that he has never been able to ascertain the meaning of the word.

Crucero , a word having several meanings, possibly in this case “cross-roads.”

Cucamonga , in San Bernardino County, derived its name from an Indian village. See page 80 .

Cuesta (hill, ridge, slope of a hill). Cuesta is the name of the old stage road leading from Santa Margarita to San Luís Obispo. It was so named because the road came over the crest of the Santa Lucía range. See page 128 .

Del Monte (of the wood or hill). The Hotel del Monte, near Monterey, was so called from the grove of magnificent live-oaks in which it stands. Modern.

Del Norte (of the north), is the name of the county in the extreme northwestern corner of the state.

Del Rosa (of the rose). Unless this is a surname, [372] the construction is incorrect, and should be De la Rosa .

Point Duma , on the coast north of San Pedro, was named by Vancouver for “the reverend friar Father Francisco Duma, priest at Buena Ventura,” as an expression of his gratitude for the father’s courtesy in furnishing the explorers with abundant supplies of vegetables from the mission gardens.—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

Embarcadero (landing-place). There were a number of embarcaderos in the state, in Sonoma, [373] Santa Clara and other places. The street skirting the San Francisco water front is now called the Embarcadero , having been recently changed from East Street.

Encanto (enchantment, charm), is in San Diego County. Encanto “was so named on account of its especially pleasant climate, being frostless, and always cool in the summer, with beautiful views of the ocean and bay and the city of San Diego. It was named by Miss Alice Klauber.”—(W. A. Shaules.)

Encinal y Buena Esperanza (oak woods and good hope), the combined name of two land grants.

Ensenada (bay), used often by the Spaniards in referring to a large, wide-open bay.

Entre Napa (between Napa), the name of a land grant referring to the land between Napa Creek and Napa River.

Entre Napa ó Rincón de los Carneros , combined name of two land grants (between Napa or corner of the sheep).

Escalón (step), is the name of a place twenty [374] miles from Stockton, on the Santa Fé Road. According to Mr. Romane Moll, a resident of Escalón, the word is used in the sense of “stepping-stone,” and was taken from a city in Mexico, where an important battle was fought during the recent revolution.

Etiwanda , in San Bernardino County, is a transplanted Indian name, given in honor of an Indian chief of Michigan, by Mr. George Chaffey, founder of the California colony.

Famoso (famous), is in Kern County. The origin of this name has not been ascertained.

Fandango Peak is in Modoc County. The fandango is a Spanish dance. Its application in this case has not been ascertained.

Point Firmin , north of San Pedro, was named by Vancouver for the father president of the Franciscan Order.—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

Fortunas (fortunes). Cape Fortunas is on the coast of Humboldt County, north of Cape Mendocino. See page 260 .

Las Gallinas (the chickens), in Marin County. A tribe called Gallinomero occupied Dry Creek and Russian River below Healdsburg, and there may be some connection between this name and Las Gallinas Rancho in Marin County. Las Gallinas may be a mere corruption of Gallinomero.

Gaviota (sea gull). Probably so called from the large number of these birds which frequent the mouth of the little creek that flows into the sea at this point. See page 107 .

La Goleta (the schooner). This place is said to have been so called because a schooner was stranded there in early days. See page 107 .

Granada is twenty-seven miles from San Francisco, on the Ocean Shore Line, and was probably named for the province in Spain of the same name. Granada also means pomegranate.

Guadalupe y Llanitos de los Corréos (Guadalupe and the plains of the mails), combined name of two land grants. Corréos (mails), may have been used in reference to mails brought by messenger to the Spaniards while they were encamped upon these plains.

Los Guilicos , in Sonoma County, named for a former Indian tribe living in Napa County, near Santa Rosa.

Guinda (fruit of the wild cherry). This place is in Yolo County, near Woodland.

La Habra (the opening, or pass), here refers to an opening in the hills, and is situated a short distance southeast of Whittier, in Orange County.

Honcut , a place south of Oroville, in Butte County, named from a tribe of Maidu Indians who formerly lived near the mouth of Honkut creek.

Honda (deep). Honda is in Santa Bárbara County, and there is also La Honda , referring to a deep canyon, in San Matéo County. The name is incomplete in this form, and probably in its original form was La Cañada Honda .

Huasna , in San Luís Obispo County, received its name from a former Indian village near Purísima Mission in Santa Bárbara County. The signification of the word has not been ascertained.

Hueneme , the name of a former Chumash Indian village on the coast, a few miles south of Saticoy, in Ventura County.

Huerhuero Creek. Huerhuero is said to be a corruption of güergüero , a stream of water which makes a gurgling noise. An attempt is made to imitate the sound by the word. Huerhuero Creek is in San Luís Obispo County, near Paso de Robles.

Huerta de Romualdo ó el Chorro (orchard of Romualdo, a Christian name, or the gushing stream). This is the combined name of two land grants.

Huichica , the name of a land grant derived from an Indian village called Hutchi , formerly situated near the plaza in the town of Sonoma.

Huililic , the name of a former Indian ranchería near Santa Bárbara. Mentioned in the mission archives.

Iaquá , the name of a place in Humboldt County, was a sort of familiar salutation, something like our “hello,” with which the Indians of Humboldt and adjacent counties greeted each other when they met. From hearing the word so often the [380] whites finally adopted it as the name of this place.

Inaja , or Inoje , was the name of a former Indian village near San Diego. Mentioned in the mission archives. The meaning of the word Inaja is “my water.”

Jamón (ham). The application of this peculiar name has not been ascertained, and there is always the possibility that it is a corrupted word and has no such meaning.

Jarame , the name of a tribe thought to have been natives of the region around San Antonio, Texas.

La Joya (the jewel). This name is comparatively modern, and has its origin in the fact that the residents, like those of every other California town, thought their place the bright particular “jewel” of the locality. La Joya Peak is in Los Ángeles County. See pages 80 and 340 .

Juárez (a surname). The name of Benito Juárez, the Mexican patriot who led the national armies to victory against Maximilian, is one of which every native of that country must be proud. This man was a brilliant example of the triumph of natural genius over tremendous obstacles. He was of pure native blood, and had so few advantages in his youth that at the age of twelve he was still unable to read or write, or even to speak the Spanish language. Yet, his ambition once aroused, he succeeded in acquiring a collegiate education, graduating with the degree of Bachiller (bachelor in science or art), and later became President of the Mexican Republic. Among the early settlers of California is the name of Cayetano Juárez, who was at one time an official [382] at Solano, and who took part in many Indian expeditions.

La Junta (union, junction, meeting of persons for consultation). See page 340 .

Laguna (lake or lagoon), in Sonoma and Orange Counties. There were many lagunas in the state. See page 80 .

Laguna de las Calabasas (lagoon of the pumpkins). Calabasas in this case may be a corruption of the name of an Indian tribe, Calahuasa . See page 79 .

Laguna Puerca (muddy lagoon), in the San [385] Francisco district. This name does not mean “Hog Lake,” as has been stated.

Lagunitas (little lagoons or lakes), one in Inyo County and one in Marin County. See page 340 .

Largo (long). This place is in Mendocino County. The name of this station represents an inversion of the usual order of naming, since it is a translation into Spanish of the name of Mr. L. F. Long, a pioneer of Mendocino County.

León (lion). See page 80 . This name turns out not to be Spanish in origin, but merely the name of an American who first had charge of the post-office there.

Llanitos de los Corréos (plains of the mails). Corréo was used to mean a King’s messenger, mail or bag of letters, and it is possible that at this point a messenger or mail carrier caught up with the exploring party.

Llano (a flat, level field). There are places bearing this name in Los Ángeles and Sonoma Counties.

Llorones (the weepers), a name given to a place in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay, for the reason given in Palou’s account of the expedition to that region in 1776, as follows: “The launch went out again with the pilot Bautista Aguiray to examine the arm of the sea that runs to the southeast; they saw nothing more than two or three Indians who made no other demonstration than to weep, for which reason the place was called La Ensenada de los Llorones (the bay of the weepers).”

Loma Vista (hill view), near Los Ángeles. Modern and improper in construction. It should be Vista de la Loma .

Lomerías Muertas (dead hills), possibly should be Lomerías de los Muertos (hills of the dead).

Lugo (a surname), that of a family of early settlers. This place is thirty miles from San Bernardino.

Madrone , properly spelled Madroño, a native tree of California. See page 179 .

Málaga , the name of a province in Southern Spain celebrated for its exports of grapes, raisins, oranges, lemons, figs and almonds. As raisins are among the chief products of this part of Fresno County, the town of Málaga was so named from the Spanish province.

Manca , or Manka . To prevent the unwary from falling into the erroneous belief that this name is Spanish or Indian, the rather humorous story of Manka is told here. The story goes that it was named for a German who came there in ’67, built a little sixteen by twenty-four foot shanty and sold whiskey. It was his proud boast that in the fifteen years he ran this business he never renewed his stock. The inference may be drawn.

Manteca (lard, butter), is near Modesto. This place was so called by the railroad company in reference to a creamery existing there. In Spanish America butter is called mantequilla .

Manzanita (little apple), a native shrub that is one of the most striking objects in the California [389] woods. Fremont says of it: “A new and singular shrub was very frequent to-day. It branched out near the ground, forming a clump eight to ten feet high, with pale green leaves of an oval form, and the body and branches had a naked appearance as if stripped of the bark, which is very smooth and thin, of a chocolate color, contrasting well with the pale green of the leaves.” Towns in Marin, San Diego, and Tehama Counties bear the name of Manzanita .

Powers, in his Tribes of California , describes the method of making manzanita cider practiced by the Indians, as follows: “After reducing the berries to flour by pounding, they carefully remove all the seeds and skins, then soak the flour in water for a considerable length of time. A squaw then heaps it up in a little mound, with a crater in the center, into which she pours a minute stream of water, allowing it to percolate through. In this way she gets about a gallon an hour of a really delicious beverage, clear, cool, clean and richer than most California apple cider. As the Indians always drink it up before it has time to ferment, it is never intoxicating.” Fremont also mentions this as a very delicious [390] drink that he had tasted when among the Indians.

Maricopa is the name of an Arizona tribe. The word is said to mean “bean people,” which is probably the correct definition.—(A. L. Kroeber.)

Médanos , also spelled Méganos (sand-banks, or dunes). This place is in Contra Costa County.

Milpitas (little patches of corn). This word is said to be the diminutive of milpa (a patch of maize or corn), but in that case must have referred to corn cultivated by Mexicans, since the California Indians raised no cultivated crops, but subsisted entirely on the natural products of the land. Milpitas is a village in Santa Clara County, which for some unexplained reason, has come to be used as a term of derision, the “jumping off place of creation.” It was probably the name of a land grant.

Miramar (sea-view), is the name of a post town in San Diego County and of a summer resort near Santa Bárbara.

Miramontes (a surname). Candelario Miramontes, a native of Mexico, was the grantee of the Pilarcitos Rancho in ’41.

Mojave , or Mohave . Mojave, also spelled Mohave, is an Indian tribal name of disputed meaning. It has been stated that it comes from hamucklihabi (three hills), but this view is positively contradicted by scientists. In the documents of the Spanish explorers the Mojaves are referred to as Amajabas. The Mojave River is remarkable in that it has no true outlet, but sinks into the alkaline soil of the desert near the middle of San Bernardino County.

El Río de los Molinos (the river of the mill-stones), now called Mill Creek, in Tehama County. See page 80 .

Monte (hill or wood). Monte was generally used [393] in the sense of “wood” or “forest” by the Spanish-Americans of the eighteenth century.

Del Monte (of the wood or hill). In the case of the Hotel del Monte, near Monterey, the name refers to the grove of fine live-oaks in the center of which the hotel stands.

Monte Vista (mountain view). Modern and improper in construction. It should be Vista del Monte .

Moreno (a surname). One of the leading members of this numerous family was Antonio Moreno, a native of Lower California.

Morro (a round headland, bluff). It is upon such a rock that the well-known Morro Castle at Havana is situated. See page 128 . This place receives its name from Morro Rock, a remarkable round rock, 600 feet high, situated at the entrance [394] to the bay. The name has no reference to its grey color, as some people imagine, but refers to its shape—round like a head.

Mugu Point , on the coast of Ventura County. The Mugus were a tribe of Indians. The word mugu means “beach.”

Nacimiento (birth), referring in this case to the birth of Christ. See page 128 .

Natoma , is a name about which the romanticists have concocted some pleasing theories upon very slender foundation. According to scientists it is a tribal name, indicating direction, a favorite method of naming among the Indians. It may mean “north people,” or “up-stream,” or “down-stream,” or some such term of direction. By a severe wrench of the imagination, as has been suggested, it may be considered that “up-stream” would eventually lead to the mountains, and that in the mountains there were people, among whom [395] there were undoubtedly girls, and in this “long-distance” manner Mr. Joseph Redding’s definition of Natoma as the “girl from the mountains” might be evolved, but the imagination is likely to suffer from such a violent strain. In the same way, the persons who believe it to mean “clear water” may have acquired this idea from the simple fact that the word contains an indirect reference to the stream in pointing out the direction of its current. It is disappointing perhaps, but nevertheless true, that Californian Indian nomenclature has little of romance behind it. The Indians usually chose names based upon practical ideas, most often ideas of direction, such as “north people,” “south people,” etc.

El Nido (the nest). See page 46 . It is thought that this place was so named because of its location in the hills and mountains suggesting the idea of a nest in the landscape, but there is no definite information about it.

Los Nietos (literally “the grandchildren,” but in this case a surname). See page 81 .

Nimshew , in Butte County. This is an Indian word, from Nimsewi (big river), a division of Maidu Indians living on upper Butte Creek, in Butte County, near the edge of the timber.

Nipomo , in San Luís Obispo County, is probably Indian, but its meaning has not been ascertained.

Novato (new, beginning anything, but possibly in this case a surname). The exact origin of the name of this California town has not been ascertained. The place is in Marin County and as there was a land grant there called El Rancho de Novato , the probabilities are that it is a surname of some family of early settlers.

Noyo , is in Mendocino County. It was the Indian name of a creek, not the one now bearing the name of Noyo, but of another one in the vicinity.

Oakland was originally called Las Encinas (the oaks), having been named by the commandante [397] at Monterey as a result of the report of Lieutenant Vallejo of the great number of those trees growing upon the spot.—( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

Ojai , the name of a former Indian village in Ventura County, popularly translated as “nest” or “big tree,” neither of which can be looked upon as authentic. According to Professor A. L. Kroeber, the meaning of the word Ojai is “moon.”

Ojo de Agua de Figueroa (spring of Figueroa), the last word being a surname. The Figueroa family were among the earliest settlers.

Olancha , in Inyo County, just below Owens Lake, was named for the Olanches Indians of southeastern California.

Oliveras (olive-trees), in San Luís Obispo County. Olivera is also a surname.

Olla (a round earthen pot, also a whirlpool in a river or sea). Its application here has not been ascertained.

Olompali , was named for a former large Moquelumnan village in Marin County, about six miles south of Petaluma.

Oro Grande (large or coarse gold), forty-nine miles north of San Bernardino. Also in Madera County.

Otay , or Otai , was the name of a former Indian village near San Diego. It may have first been applied to the Otey or Otay land grant.

Dos Palmas (two palms), in Riverside County, so called from two giant palms near a spring.

Palo , literally “stick,” was used by the Spaniards in the sense of “tree.”

Palo Colorado (redwood tree). These trees were first observed and named by Gaspar de Portolá, the discoverer of San Francisco Bay.

La Panza (the paunch), in San Luís Obispo County, so named by some hunters who placed the paunch of a beef to catch bear. La Paleta [400] (shoulder-blade) and El Carnaso (loin) were put out in other places, and the names still remain.

Las Papas (potatoes) Hill, is in the San Francisco district. Papa (potato), is provincial and American.

La Patera (a place where ducks congregate). In early days the fresh water swamps near here abounded with ducks. La Patera is a flag station in Santa Bárbara County.

La Paz (the peace). Probably a peace arranged [401] with the Indians, or it may have been named for La Paz in Lower California.

Pecho Rock , near San Luís Obispo. The reason for this name has not been discovered, but it may be a reference to the shape of the rock. Pecho means “breast.”

Picachos Mountains , a ridge east of San Francisco Bay. Pichacos are frequent, isolated, conical peaks.

Picacho (top, sharp-pointed summit), is the name of a post village in Imperial County.

Pico (a surname), ten miles from Los Ángeles. José María Pico of Sinaloa was the founder of this family, and its most notable member was his son, Pío Pico, at one time governor of California. According to Bancroft, the character of Pío Pico [402] was a mixture of good and bad, in which the good predominated. “He was abused beyond his deserts; he was a man of ordinary intelligence and limited education; of a generous, jovial disposition, reckless and indolent, fond of cards and women; disposed to be fair and honorable in transactions, but not strong enough to avoid being made the tool of knaves. He did not run away with large sums of money obtained by sales of missions, as has been charged.”

Pilar (literally “pillar of stone”). Point Pilar may have been named for Nuestra Señora del Pilar , (Our Lady of the pillar), from a church at Saragossa, Spain, where there is an image of the Virgin on a marble pillar. Pilar is also a surname, that of a pioneer family, for whom this point may have been named.

Pinole (parched corn ground into meal). Point Pinole was so named because the expedition under Lieutenant Vallejo had nothing to eat but pinole while they waited at that spot for the return of the cargadores with provisions from Monterey.—( Memoirs of the Vallejos , edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)

Piñón (pine kernel, also the scrub pine, a very picturesque tree bearing a delicious nut).

La Pita , in San Diego County. Pita haya is the fruit of the cactus called “prickly pear.”

Poonkiny (wormwood). Poonkiny, sometimes misspelled Pookiny, is from the Yuki Indian language.

Posa (well, pool, also spelled by the Spaniards pozo , poso ). The fact that posa also has the meaning of “passing bell for the dead” has caused some rather ludicrous mistakes. For instance, La Posa de los Ositos (the pool of the little bears), evidently refers to a place where some bears were seen drinking, and certainly would be absurd translated as “the passing bell of the little bears.” [405] When used as names of places the connection makes it quite clear that they were so called in reference to pools of water present on the spot.

La Posta (person who rides or travels post, post-house, military post, etc.). In the case of La Posta, 170 miles from the Mission Tule River Agency, it probably means post-station.

Potrero y Rincón de San Pedro de Reglado (pasture and corner of St. Peter Regalato). St. Peter Regalato was a Franciscan, and was “especially distinguished for his sublime gift of prayer.” This was the name of a land grant.

Potrero de San Francisco (pasture of St. Francis). This district still goes by the name of “the potrero” in the city of San Francisco.

Prado (meadow), in Riverside County. See page 82 . This place was so named on account of its resemblance to a prairie.

La Presa (dam, dike). See page 46 . This place is so called from the Sweetwater irrigation dam located there.

Punta Loma (hill point), near San Diego. See page 45 . It should be Punta de la Loma .

Purísima Point (point of the most pure conception). On the Santa Bárbara Coast.

La Quemada (the burned place), from the verb quemar (to burn). This name refers to a custom prevalent among the Indians of burning over large tracts of land for the purpose of killing the under-brush and encouraging the growth of grass, which resulted in attracting game. The diaries of the Spaniards refer frequently to this custom, and speak of finding a great deal of country burned over in this way. One writer has offered to his astonished readers the translation of La Quemada as “the over-full, having enough to eat.”

Quinto (a surname). Simón Tadéo Quinto was one of the members of this pioneer family.

Ramona (a Christian name), well known as that of the heroine of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson’s romance.

Ranchería , a word meaning “settlement,” but generally used by the Spaniards to mean an Indian village.

Ranchería del Baile de las Indias (village of the dance of the Indian women). See page 100 .

Refugio (refuge), is in Santa Bárbara County. Refugio is also a Christian name.

Represa (dam), so called on account of a dam at that point, west of the state prison at Folsom.

Del Rey (of the king), also known as El Rancho Nacional because it was used to provide meat and horses for the military. This ranch was in Fresno County.

Rincón is the interior angle formed by the junction of two walls or lines, and is one of the terms used in the apportionment of land grants.

El Rincón (the corner), is in Los Ángeles County, and comprises rich agricultural land on either side of the Santa Ana River.

Rinconada is the corner formed by two houses, streets, roads, or between two mountains.

Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito (corner of the creek of little St. Francis). Land grant.

Rincón de la Puente del Monte (corner of the bridge of the wood, or hill). Land grant.

Rincón de las Salinas y Potrero Viejo (corner of the salt marshes and the old pasture). Land grant.

El Río del Nido (the river of the nest), referring to the nest of an eagle once seen in a tree on the banks of this stream. The name is now shortened into Río Nido, or Rionido.

Río Vista (river view). See page 289 . Improper construction. It should be Vista del Río .

Rivera , literally “brook, creek,” but also a surname. The Rivera family were among the pioneers. See page 82 .

Roblar de la Miseria , (oak grove of poverty, wretchedness). It is likely that in this grove the Spaniards suffered from a shortage of food supplies, and named it in memory of their sufferings. Land grant.

Rodéo (cattle round-up). See pages 232 and 340 . The town of Rodéo was first laid out to maintain a large packing-house for meat, but this was abandoned, and it has become an oil-refining town.

Del Rosa (of the rose), in San Bernardino County. If this is not a surname it is improper in construction, and should be De la Rosa .

Rosario (rosary), procession of persons who recite the rosary. Also a Christian name.

Salida (exit, out-gate), village in Stanislaus County, seven miles northwest of Modesto.

San Ardo (St. Ardo), is in Monterey County. St. Ardo, in Latin Smaragdus , was a Benedictine monk who wrote a life of St. Benedict which is considered reliable. He died in 843.

San Augustine (properly Agustín), born in Numidia, was the son of Santa Mónica. “In his youth he was so devoted to pleasure that his mother feared the destruction of his character,” but he became converted by the preaching of St. Ambrose, and it is thought that the Te Deum was composed in honor of the occasion of his baptism. It is told of him that “while walking on the sea-shore, lost in meditation on his great theme, the Discourse on the Trinity , he saw a little child bringing water and endeavoring to fill a hole which he had dug in the sand. Augustine asked him the motive of his labors. The child said he intended to empty all the water of the sea into this cavity. ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed St. Augustine. ‘Not more impossible,’ answered the child, ‘than for thee, O Augustine, to explain the mystery on which thou art now meditating.’ St. Augustine is the patron of theologians and learned men.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

San Bernabé (St. Barnabas, or Barnaby). This saint was a native of Cyprus, and a cousin of St. Mark. “He labored with Paul at Antioch, and [417] tradition says he preached from the gospel of St. Matthew, written by the Evangelist himself, which he carried always with him, and that it had power to heal the sick when laid upon their bosoms. He was seized by the Jews and cruelly martyred, while preaching in Judea.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

San Bernardo (St. Bernard). There were two saints of this name, one born in 1190 at Fontaine, and the other in Savoy. The latter, St. Bernard of Menthon, is famous as the founder of the St. Bernard hospitals in the Alps, where “the monks, assisted by their dogs, search out and care for travelers who are lost in the passes of the mountains, where the storms are severe, and the cold intense.”

San Dimas “probably St. Dismas, is popularly [418] supposed to have been the good or converted robber on the right side of Christ on Good Friday. In places he is celebrated by the Latins on March 25. The Greeks have him on a much later date.”—(Fray Zephyrin Engelhardt, O. F. M). San Dimas is the name of a post-village in Los Ángeles County.

San Domingo (St. Dominick). St. Dominick was a Castilian of noble descent, and was the originator of the Dominican Order of barefoot priests, and of the use of the rosary.

Sanel , the name of a former Indian village called variously Se-nel, Sah-nel, Sai-nel and Sanel. “Sanel is derived from cané (sweathouse), and was the name of a very large village situated south of the town of Sanel, on the eastern side of Hopland Valley.”—(Barrett, in Univ. Publ. in Arch. and Tech.)

San Emygdio , “English or Latin St. Emygdius , Bishop and Martyr, feast August 5. The Roman Martyrology has this on him: ‘St. Emygdius, Bishop and Martyr, was consecrated Bishop by Pope St. Marcellus and sent to preach the Gospel at Ascoli. He received the crown of Martyrdom for confessing Christ, under Diocletian.’ He is [419] invoked against earthquakes.”—(Fray Zephyrin Engelhardt).

San Francisco de las Llagas (St. Francis of the “stigmata”). See page 179 .

San Gorgonio Mountains and Pass are in the Coast Range in Southern California. Their patron saint, Gorgonius, suffered martyrdom in 304 at Nicomedia during the persecution of Diocletian. Gorgonius, who had held a high position in the Emperor’s household, was subjected to most frightful torments, and was finally strangled and his body thrown into the sea. It was, nevertheless, secured by the Christians and was afterwards carried to Rome.

San Ignacio (St. Ignatius). St. Ignatius Loyola was the founder of the order of the Jesuits. “In [420] his youth he was a page in the court of Ferdinand the Catholic, and later a brave and gay soldier.” He became a permanent cripple through being severely wounded in both legs. While confined by these sufferings, he devoted himself to reading the life of Christ, and was thus induced to take up religious work. After some years of study, he induced five men to join him in forming a community under the title of the “Company of Jesus,” whose especial duties are “first, preaching; second, the guidance of souls in confession; third, the teaching of the young.”

San Isidro , also spelled Ysidro (St. Isidore). There were two saints bearing this name. St. Isidore the ploughman could neither read nor write, but performed many miracles. His master objected to the time wasted by Isidore in prayer, but his objections were silenced when he found, upon entering the field one day, the plough being drawn by two angels, while St. Isidore knelt at his devotions. The other St. Isidore was Bishop of Seville, and in the church in that city bearing his name, there is a “magnificent picture which represents him dying on the steps of the altar, having given all his property to the poor.” See page 341 .

San José y Sur Chiquito (St. Joseph and little south). These are the names of two creeks near Monterey.

San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana (St. John canyon, literally “box,” of St. Anne). Deep canyons were often called cajones (boxes).

San Julián (St. Julian). This seems to have been a favorite name for saints, since there were twelve who bore it. Only two, however, are of special importance, St. Julian Hospitator, and [422] St. Julian of Rimini. The first had the fearful misfortune to kill his own father and mother through an error, and to make reparation, he built a hospital on the bank of a turbulent stream in which many persons had been drowned. “He constantly ferried travelers over the river without reward, and, one stormy night in winter, when it seemed that no boat could cross the stream, he heard a sad cry from the opposite bank. He went over, and found a youth, who was a leper, dying from cold and weariness. In spite of his disease the saint carried him over, and bore him in his arms to his own bed, and he and his wife tended him till morning, when the leper rose up, and his face was transformed into that of an angel, and he said: ‘Julian, the Lord hath sent me to thee; for thy penitence is accepted, and thy rest is near at hand’.... St. Julian is patron saint of ferrymen and boatmen, of travelers and of wandering minstrels.” Little is known of St. Julian of Rimini except that he “endured a prolonged martyrdom with unfailing courage.”—( Stories of the Saints. ) See page 340 .

San Justo (St. Justus). Little authentic is known of this saint, except that he was the fourth [423] archbishop of Canterbury, and died there about 627.

San Luís Gonzaga (St. Louis Gonzaga). This saint, also known as St. Aloysius, was the son of a noble Italian lady, the Marchesa di Castiglione. “He entered the Society of Jesus when not yet eighteen years old, and became eminently distinguished for his learning, piety and good works. He died at Rome in 1591 of fever, which he contracted while nursing the sick.”—( Stories of the Saints. )

San Marcial (St. Martial) was the Bishop of Limoges, and is especially noted for the conversions he accomplished, in particular that of the beautiful virgin St. Valerie, who suffered martyrdom for her faith.

San Marcos (St. Mark). “This evangelist was a disciple of St. Peter. He founded the church at Alexandria, and on account of his miracles the [424] heathen accused him of being a magician; and at length, while celebrating the feast of their god Serapis, they seized St. Mark and dragged him through the streets until he died. Then immediately there fell a storm of hail, and a tempest of lightning came with it which destroyed his murderers.” His remains were removed in A. D. 815 to Venice, where the splendid cathedral of St. Mark was erected over them. Many legends are told of this saint, among them the story of his having saved the city of Venice from destruction by demons, who raised a great storm and came in a boat for that purpose, but were driven away by St. Mark, who went to meet them and held up a cross.

San Marino , near Los Ángeles, was named for a saint who was born in Dalmatia in the fourth century. He was a poor laborer and was employed in the reconstruction of the bridge of Rimini. His piety attracted the attention of the Bishop of Brescia, who ordained him as a deacon. Marino retired to Mount Titano, and gave himself up entirely to religious practices. His cell attracted others, and this was the origin of the city and republic of San Marino, the smallest republic in the world.

San Nicolás (St. Nicholas). Little that is authentic can be obtained concerning the history of this saint, but there are numerous legends of miracles performed by him, several of them connected with raising children from the dead, and similar stories. St. Nicholas is the chief patron of Russia and of many sea-port towns, and is the protector against robbers and violence. He is also the patron of children and schoolboys in particular, and of poor maidens, sailors, travelers, and merchants.

San Pasqual (St. Pascal). This saint was a Spanish peasant, born in Aragón in 1540. He was a member of the Franciscan order, and was remarkable for his unfailing courtesy and charity to the poor.

San Pedro , Santa Margarita , y las Gallinas (St. Peter, St. Margaret, and the chickens), combined names of three land grants.

Santa Ana y Quién Sabe (St. Anne and “who knows”), combined names of two land grants.

Santa Gertrudis (St. Gertrude). St. Gertrude the Great was a benedictine nun and mystic writer, born in Germany in 1256. She is especially noted for her learning and religious writings, all of [427] which were written in Latin. She was charitable to the poor and had the gift of miracles.

Santa Margarita y las Flores (St. Margaret and the flowers), combined names of two land grants.

Santa Rita is the name of a village in Monterey County, near Salinas. The patron saint of this place was born at Rocca Porena in 1386 and died in 1456. Her feast day is May 22, and she is represented as holding roses, or roses and figs. When but twelve years of age Santa Rita was compelled by her parents to marry a cruel, ill-tempered man. This man was murdered, and after his death, his widow desired to enter the convent at Cascia, but was at first refused admission on account of her widowhood. She was finally received, however, and so many miracles were reported to have been performed at her intercession that she was given in Spain the title of [428] La Santa de los Imposibles (the saint of the impossibilities).

Santa Susana (St. Susanna). This saint, who was remarkable for her beauty and learning, was a relative of the Emperor Diocletian, who desired her as a wife for his adopted son Maximus. St. Susanna, having made a vow of chastity, refused this offer, and Diocletian, angered by her refusal, sent an executioner to kill her in her own house.

Santa Teresa , was born at Avila in Castile, March 28, 1515. During her earliest youth, through reading the lives of the saints and martyrs, she formed a desire to take up religious work. In accordance with this desire, at the age of twenty years, she entered the convent of Carmelites, and chose as her life work the reforming of the order of Mount Carmel, as well as the establishment of a number of convents for men. It was she who made the Carmelites go barefoot, or sandalled. Santa Teresa had distinct literary gifts, and her history of her life is a work of absorbing interest, which is still read with genuine pleasure by students of the literature of Spain. She attained a position of such authority in that country that [429] Philip III chose her for its second patron saint, ranking her next to Santiago (St. James).

Santa Ysabel , also spelled Isabel (St. Isabella of France), who founded the convent at Longchamps, was sister to the saintly King Louis. She was educated with her brother by their mother, Blanche of Castile. St. Isabel dedicated her convent to the “humility of the Blessed Virgin,” and gave to it all her dowry. As long as the convent existed the festival of this saint was celebrated with great splendor. ( Stories of the Saints. )

San Timotéo (St. Timothy). St. Timothy was the beloved disciple of St. Paul, whom he accompanied on many journeys. It is said that he was Bishop of Ephesus, until at the age of eighty years he suffered the cruel fate of being beaten to death by pagans.

San Tomaso (St. Thomas), was a Galilean fisherman and one of the apostles. “So great was his incredulity that he has always been remembered [430] for that rather than for his other characteristics,” and it was in this way that the familiar expression “a doubting Thomas” arose. At the time of the ascension of the Virgin, Thomas refused to believe in the event, and the legend relates that in order to convince him the Virgin dropped her girdle to him from the heavens. Three other saints also bear this name, St. Thomas á Becket, the celebrated English historical character; St. Thomas Aquinas, a grandnephew of Frederick I and a man of great learning; and St. Thomas the Almoner, who was so charitable that “as a child he would take off his own clothes to give away to children in the street.” It is related of the last named that he wore the same hat for twenty-six years, and that his whole life was “but a grand series of beneficent deeds. When the hour of his death came he had given away everything except the pallet on which he lay, and this was to be given to a jailer who had assisted him in executing his benevolent designs.” There is a remarkably beautiful picture of him by Murillo, representing him as a child, dividing his clothing among four ragged little ones.

San Vicente (St. Vincent). Three saints bear [431] this name. St. Vincent of Saragosa was martyred during the persecution of the Christians by Diocletian. Legend has it that his remains were guarded by crows or ravens, and when in the year 1147 Alonzo I removed them to Lisbon, two crows accompanied the vessel, one at the prow and one at the stern. In pictures St. Vincent is always represented as accompanied by a crow or raven. St. Vincent Ferraris was born at Valencia in 1357. He was a celebrated preacher and missionary, and “so moved the hearts of his hearers that he was often obliged to pause that the sobbing and weeping might subside.” The third of this name, St. Vincent de Paul, was the son of a Gascon farmer, and his charities were so various and so many as to cause his name to be revered by all, irrespective of religious differences. He established the Hospital La Madeleine for the Magdalens of Paris, a foundling hospital, and numerous other charities. In truth, the practical good done by this man during his life makes him well worthy of the title of “saint.”

El Segundo (the second), so called because at that place the Standard Oil Company’s second refinery on the Pacific Coast is located. Modern.

Sequoia , the giant tree of California, was named for the Cherokee, Sequoyah, who invented an alphabet for his tribe. Sequoyah, also known as George Gist, or Guess, was the son of a white man and a Cherokee woman of mixed blood, and was, after all, more white man than Indian. He had a natural genius for mechanical invention, and, having been crippled for life in a hunting accident, he occupied his time in devising the alphabet, which was accepted with such enthusiasm by his people that every Cherokee, of whatever age, had learned to read and write in a few months. Sequoia, although not a place name, is given here for the interest it may have for tourists and other persons unacquainted with the origin of the name of the famous “big trees.”

Serena (serene). See page 113 . This name is [433] spelled on some maps as Sereno , but is called Serena by the people of the neighborhood.

Sespe , named for a former Chumash Indian village said by Indians to have been on Sespe Creek, in Ventura County.

Sierra Morena (brown range) is the name of a spur of the Coast Range commencing about ten miles south of San Francisco and running through San Francisco County into Santa Clara County. This mountain range, which contains some very charming scenery, may have been so named on account of its color, or it may be the namesake of the Sierra Morena of Spain. The name is sometimes spelled Moreno , and one of the possibilities is that it was named for the pioneer Moreno family.

Sis Quoc , a town and river in Santa Bárbara [434] County, named from Souscoc , a former Chumash village near the Santa Inez Mission.

Sobrante (residue, surplus), a term applied to a piece of land left over after measuring off land grants.

Soquel , or Souquel , was probably derived from Usacalis, a Costanoan Indian village situated in 1819 within ten miles of the Santa Cruz Mission.

Sotoyome , a former Chumash Indian village near Santa Inez Mission, in Santa Bárbara County.

Suerte , a word of many meanings (luck, chance, lot of ground). In the apportionment of land by the Spaniards a suerte was a cultivable lot of land granted to colonists near the pueblos and within the four leagues assigned to the pueblo. Each [435] suerte consisted of two hundred varas of length and two hundred of breadth, a vara being about thirty-three inches. Thus one suerte is one lot (of land), and not, as one writer has translated it, “one chance.” Dos suertes is two lots.

Sur (south). For Point Sur see page 162 . In this vicinity the scenery is remarkably picturesque.

Suscol was the name of a Moquelumnan tribe who lived in a village on the east bank of Napa River. See Soscol.

Tambo , South American for inn, or hotel, so called because in early days there was a stopping place in this vicinity for travelers crossing the continent. Near Marysville.

Tenaya Peak , in Yosemite Valley, named for Ten-ei-ya, chief of the Yosemite Indians.

Tasajara , the name of a resort near Monterey, [436] is probably a corruption of tasajera , a place where jerked meat is hung up to cure. Tassajara in Contra Costa County, and Tasajero creek in Contra Costa and Alameda Counties are probably different spellings of the same word.

Temécula. See page 47 . Temécula is in the southern part of Riverside County.

Tolenos , in Yolo County, is probably a misspelling of Yolenos, from the Indian Yolo . See page 268 .

Toluca , near Los Ángeles, is probably derived from Tolujaa , or Tilijaes , a tribe among the original ones at San Juan Capistrano in 1731, although there is also a place named Toluca in Mexico.

Trabuco (blunderbuss, a sort of wide-mouthed gun), but it may not be used in that sense in this case. See page 85 . Trabuco Canyon is in Orange County.

Trampas (traps, snares), perhaps named in reference to traps which were in common use among the Indians to catch game, as well as their human enemies. In Contra Costa County.

Tranquillón Mountain is in Santa Bárbara County. Tranquillón is a mixture of two kinds of grain, such as wheat and rye, called in English “mastlin,” or “maslin.”

Tulucay Rancho , near Napa State Hospital, is derived from the Indian word tuluka (red).

Tunitas is a place near San Francisco on the Ocean Shore Road. The tunita is a beach plant sometimes called the “beach apple.” Tuna is the Spanish name for the common cactus known as “prickly pear.”

Tustín (a surname), a place in Orange County, near Santa Ana. Fernando Tustín was one of the early settlers, and came to California in 1845.

Usal , in Mendocino County. This is an Indian word, derived from yosal , or yusal , the name of a tribe of Pomos, living on the coast from Usal northward.

Vallecito (little valley) is the name of places in Calaveras and San Diego Counties. See page 334 .

Valle Mar (sea valley), on the Ocean Shore, near San Francisco. Improper construction. It should be Valle del Mar (valley of the sea).

Valle Vista (valley view). See page 85 . Improper construction. It should be Vista del Valle (view of the valley).

Las Vegas (the meadows). Fremont refers to the vegas of the Southern Central Valley in these terms: “We encamped in the midst of another very large basin, at a camping ground called Las [442] Vegas , a term which the Spaniards use to signify fertile or marshy plains, in contradistinction to llanos , which they apply to dry and sterile plains.”

Monte Vista (mountain view). Improper construction. It should be Vista del Monte (view of the mountain).

Río Vista (river view). See page 289 . Improper construction. It should be Vista del Río (view of the river).

Vizcaíno Cape , named for the celebrated Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno, who touched at various points on the California coast in the year 1602.

Wahtoque is an Indian word meaning “pine nut,” the name of a place near Fresno.

Weitchpec , near Hoopa valley, Humboldt County. “The Weitspekan family consisted of the Yurok tribe alone, inhabiting the lower Klamath River and adjacent coast. The name is adapted from Weitspekw, the name of a spring in the village. At the site of the present post-office of Weitchpec was one of the most populous Yurok villages, and one of only two or three at which both the Deerskin dance and the Jumping dance were held.”—(A. L. Kroeber in Handbook of American Indians .)

Yokohl , in Tulare County. This was the name of a Yokuts tribe formerly living on the Kaweah River, Tulare County.

Yorba (a surname). This was the name of one of Captain Fages’ original Catalán volunteers. Yorba is near Los Ángeles.

Zamora , probably named for the province of the same name in the ancient kingdom of León, in Spain. There is an old proverb about this place which says: “No se ganó Zamora en una hora” (Zamora was not taken in an hour), the same idea as expressed in “Rome was not built in a day.”

ADDENDA

Las Calabazas means “the squashes” or “the gourds,” particularly with reference to the wild gourds that grow in that locality.—(Mr. Charles F. Lummis.)

El Chorro (the gushing stream), is the name of a creek near San Luís Obispo, and was so named from a waterfall on its course.

Garvanza is a corrupt word, possibly corrupted from garbanzo (chick-pea). The town name is a modern one, not given by Spaniards but by tenderfeet, and there is no known reason for its application.—(Mr. Charles F. Lummis.)

In a recent publication on a California subject the definition of Palo Alto is given as “high hill,” and of Palo Verde as “green hill,” both of which are, of course, incorrect. Anyone who will take the trouble to consult an ordinary Spanish dictionary will find that palo means “stick.” As stated elsewhere in this book, the Spaniards used this word in the sense of “tree,” and Palo Alto consequently means “high tree,” as is fully set [446] forth under the heading of this name in these pages. The meaning of Palo Verde is, of course, “green tree.”

Prado (meadow) is a modern name applied without much regard for its fitness.—(Mr. Charles F. Lummis.)

Rivera should be spelled with a “b” instead of a “v.” It means “banks of a stream,” and the name is given for this reason.—(Mr. Charles F. Lummis.)

Serena (serene) is incomplete in this form, as Spaniards do not use an adjective standing alone as a place name. It may have been originally La Ensenada Serena (the serene bay) in reference to the charming little cove situated there.

Triunfo (triumph) is a modern real estate name, and has no historical significance that can be discovered.—(Mr. Charles F. Lummis.)

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	Page
CHAPTER I
Introduction	3
CHAPTER II
California	13
CHAPTER III
In and About San Diego	21
CHAPTER IV
Los Ángeles and her Neighbors	51
CHAPTER V
In the Vicinity of Santa Bárbara	89
CHAPTER VI
The San Luís Obispo Group	117
CHAPTER VII
In the Neighborhood of Monterey	133
CHAPTER VIII
The Santa Clara Valley	167
CHAPTER IX
Around San Francisco Bay	185
CHAPTER X
North of San Francisco	241
CHAPTER XI
The Central Valley	265
CHAPTER XII
In the Sierras	235
Pronunciation of Spanish Names	335
CHAPTER XIII
Final List and Index	347-444
Addenda	445

	Page
Mission of San Diego de Alcalá, Founded in 1769	23
Mission of San Antonio de Pala, Founded in 1816	31
Archway at Capistrano	37
Mission of San Gabriel Arcángel, Founded in 1771	67
Mission of Santa Bárbara	91
Mission of Santa Inez, Founded in 1804	111
Mission of San Luís Obispo, Founded in 1772	119
Mission of San Miguel, Founded in 1797	125
Monterey in 1850	135
Mission of San Carlos Borroméo, Founded in 1770	139
Interior of the Quadrangle at San Carlos Mission	143
La Punta de los Cipreses	149
Mission of San Juan Bautista, Founded in 1797	155
Mission of Santa Clara, Founded in 1777	169
The Palo Colorado (Redwood Tree)	175
The City of Yerba Buena (San Francisco in 1846-47)	187
Mission of San Francisco de Asís, commonly called Mission Dolores	195
The Golden Gate	201
The Farallones	209
Tamalpais	215
The Mission of San Rafael, Founded in 1817	221
Napa Valley	243
Mount Shasta	253
El Río de los Santos Reyes (The River of the Holy Kings)	279
In the Sierra Nevadas	284
In the High Sierras	295
El Río de las Plumas (Feather River)	301
El Río de los Americanos (American River)	307
Shore of Lake Tahoe	313
Mariposa Sequoias	319
Vernal Falls in the Yosemite Valley	325
Map of the Missions	343
Kaweah Mountains	383
The Mission of Purísima Concepción, Founded in 1880	409
The Tallac Trail to Tahoe	437

Agua	pronounced	Ah´gwah . Spanish Americans often mispronounce this word by leaving out the g , calling it ah´wa .
Aguajito	”	Ah-gwah-hee´to .
Alameda	”	Ah-lah-may´dthah .
Los Ángeles	”	Loce Ahng´hell-ess .
Asunción	”	Ah-soon-see-on´ , with the o long, as in hope .
El Cajón	”	El Kah-hon´ , with the o long, as in hope .
Camino Real	”	Kah-mee´no Ray-ahl ´.
Cañada	”	Kahn-yah´dtha , with the d slightly softened like th in then .
Carpintería	”	Kar-peen-tay-ree´ah .
Carquínez	”	Kar-kee´ness .
Conejo	”	Ko-nay´ho .
Corral	”	Kore-rahl´ .
Dolores	”	Do-lo´ress .
Farallones	”	Fah-rahl-yo´ness , in Spanish-American, Fa-rah-yo´ness .
Los Gatos	”	Loce Gah´tos , the o long, as in hope .
[340] Guadalupe	”	Gwa-dah-loo´pay .
La Jolla	”	La Hole´yah , or in Spanish-American, Ho´yah .
La Joya	”	La Ho´yah .
La Junta	”	La Hoon´tah .
Laguna Seca	”	Lah-goo´nah Say´cah .
Lagunitas	”	Lah-goo-nee´tas .
Matilija	”	Mah-tee-lee´hah .
Merced	”	Mare-sedth´ , with the d slightly softened like th in then .
Mesa	”	May´sah .
Ojo	”	O´ho , with the j strongly aspirated.
Pájaro	”	Pah´hah-ro .
Paso Robles	”	Pah´so Ro´blace .
Portolá	”	Por-to-lah´ .
Punta Arenas	”	Poon´tah Ah-ray´nas .
Rodéo	”	Ro-day´o .
Salinas	”	Sah-lee´nas .
San Gerónimo	”	Sahn Hay-ro´nee-mo .
San Jacinto	”	Sahn Hah-seen´to .
San Joaquín	”	Sahn Wha-keen´ .
San José	”	Sahn Ho-say´ .
San Juan Bautista	”	Sahn Whan Bau-tees´ta .
San Julián	”	Sahn Hoo-lee-ahn´ .
San Luís Obispo	”	Sahn Loo-ees´ O-bees´po .
[341] San Martín	”	Sahn Mar-teen´ .
San Quintín	”	Sahn Keen-teen´ , colloquially spelled Quentin .
Santa Fé	”	Sahnta Fay´ .
Santa Inez	”	Sahnta Ee-ness´ .
San Ysidro	”	Sahn Ee-see´dro , also spelled Isidro .
Suñol	”	Soon-yole´ .
Vallejo	”	Val-yay´ho , in Spanish-American Vah-yay´ho .
Las Vírgenes	”	Las Veer´hen-ess .