lives on his old home place near Ross Station.
About 1866 a man by the name of Forrester built a small
house and started a saloon in Forestville, about where the Odd
Fellows’ Hall now stands. Mr. Faudre also started a chair
factory and made those rawhide bottomed chairs which are
now called the old homestead chairs. Then a man by the name
of Bump started a general merchandise store, Mr. John Oliver
came and started a blacksmith shop, and from then on Forestville
grew until it is now the terminus of Petaluma and Santa Rosa
Electric railway.
The place where we lived in Mariposa County was in a
mining district. We lived near a small town called Snellings.
Y ou would have needed a fortune to get what you really had to
have in the way of groceries, so the miners depended upon the
Chinamen to carry their supplies from Stockton, a distance of
perhaps a hundred miles. The Chinamen would go in bands of
from fifteen to twenty and sometimes more, carrying their
loads in baskets which were hung from the ends of a polo across
the shoulder. The baskets were about the size of a large hop
basket and filled as full as they could possibly get them.
It was very hot and dry in the part of Mariposa County
where we lived. The road to the mines ran near our house, and
the poor Chinamen would stop for water, and one day while
they were getting water, we heard a little chicken peeping, and
went out to see, of course, where they were. They had them in
one of the baskets and the little things were almost overcome
with the heat They had poured water on them to cool them off,
and had nearly drowned them. Chickens were a rare article in
those days. If you bought hens, you paid two or three dollars
each for them. The Chinese had brought some from China that
they called Shanghais, and they were big, long-legged fellows,
I tell you. We had one rooster that could stand on the ground
and eat off the top of a flour barrel. You may think this a fish
story, but it is a chicken story and a true one.
The horses that they had in the fifties were Spanish horses
and they were very small and wild. All they were used for was
riding and packing. The immigrants that came into the state
usually brought a few American mules and horses with them;
but it was several years before they began using mule teams for
hauling freight. When they did, they built wagons with long
beds and put from four to eight mules to each wagon. They
called them “prairie schooners.” These teams stopped the
Chinese freight and they began washing for a living. They did
the washing in all of the towns for many years.
When we were moving from Mariposa to Sonoma County,
when we reached Stockton, we saw tomatoes. They were the
first that we had ever seen and they were quite a curiosity to us,
and we thought them queer things to eat.
We arrived in Blucher Valley in the fall of ’56, and in the
spring, about the first of April, we began getting wild strawber¬
ries. We would find patches where the ground would be red
with them. Wild blackberries were plentiful also, but culti¬
vated fruit was almost unknown. Later a man by the name of
Easly started the first nursery in this section of the country. He
went to San Jose to get his supplies. He had all kinds of flowers
and fruits, and we did not know what it was to have a coddling
moth, or a scale bug, or any kind of pest to mar the fruit.
Mr. Easly’s used to be a great resort for young people on
SIXTY YEARS AGO
I'm very glad 1 did not live
Some sixty years ago;
For children then had no such fun
As they have now, I know.
My grandma says when she was young,
She had no pretty toys,
Like those that Santa Claus now brings
To little girls and boys.
My grandma thinks that little folks
Are now-a-days allowed
To have too many handsome toys.
She says they’re spoiled and proud.
Why only think! T ve heard her say,
When she played "Come to tea,"
She only had old broken plates,
Or saucers, it might be!
Or cracked dishes as she found
That had been thrown away;
And these, she said, were treasures rare,
With which she loved to play.
Such playthings I would not have liked;
And so I say again, —
"I’m very, very glad indeed
/
wasn’t living then"
Now I’ve a tea set all complete,
A walnut table, too;
And I can sit and pour out tea
As grownup people do.
Dear grandma says the happiest time
It was her lot to know
Was when she was a little girl
Some sixty years ago.
Well I am glad for grandma's sake
Since it has pleased her so
That she lived then, but 1 did not,
Some sixty years ago.
Sadie Ross
circa 1898
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