Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
"Francisco Lopez pulled wild onions near an oak tree on his Placerita Canyon Ranch and found gold nuggets caught in their roots."
lol, no doubt odinthor. I'd return from the trip with a trunk full of wild onions!
Here's an interesting bit of ephemera:
Walker's Camp was using the 1842 gold find as a marketing tool in the 1930s.
FRONT AND BACK ONLY
SCVHISTORY
and this.....(about the brochure)
"In a promotional brochure published by 1930s Placerita landowner Frank Walker:
"The first anniversary [in 1843] of this gold discovery was celebrated by the erection of a chapel on the site of the discovery
and the chanting of a solemn high mass by three priests, two from San Fernando and one from Los Angeles,
six altar boys, the entire Mission choir, consisting of twenty neophytes and eight musicians.
Many prominent families of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Buena Ventura and the surrounding country
and the Commissioners sent by Mexico to investigate the truth or falsity of the discovery, were present,
— a date in the history of our State was solemnized, which was to be forever after forgotten."
That's a surprise! I wonder what happened to the chapel?
[...]
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At your service
e_r!: I suspect that the chapel they erected was some sort of temporary ramada (framework of lopped-off tree limbs covered over with brush or palm leaves), a sort of erection, er,
construction frequently made use of in those days by the mission fathers. Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, very thorough historian of the missions and missionaries of Alta and Baja California, calls it a “bower”: “According to the account given by Mrs. Catalina Lopez, on the first anniversary of the discovery, March 9, 1843, in a bower surrounded by a great multitude of people, Father Blas Ordaz, O.F.M., in charge of San Fernando Mission, celebrated a High Mass, and the neophytes supplied the music as well as the singing” (Engelhardt, San Fernando Rey, 1927, p. 144).
But let’s go back a little further: “In the month of June, 1841, two vaqueros (herdsmen) of a neighboring ranch, while riding over the ranch of San Francisquito, dismounted from their horses by the side of a rivulet to give them a breathing spell, and seeing a bed of wild onions they engaged in gathering some of them. While so doing, one of them, by name Francisco Lopez, who had been present and saw the pebbles which Castillero had said was an indication of gold placers, noticed some of them here and said to his companion: ‘Look at this; there is gold here, for I heard Don Andrés Castillero say that there was gold to be found wherever these little stones exist’; and immediately scooping up a handful of the sand and gravel which had been loosened by pulling up the onions, he rubbed it with his other hand, and sure enough he found in his handful a grain of gold. On their return to Santa Barbara these men took with them a few dollars worth of gold which they had obtained from the gravel” (from
A History of the Precious Metals, by Alexander Del Mar, 1902, p. 413).
But, no, we have to go back further. What’s this about one Andrés Castillero saying something?
“1841. In the early part of this year Don Andres Castillero, a native of Mexico, a man of scientific attainments and mineralogical knowledge, travelling from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, saw and gathered up, near the rancho of Las Virgenes, some mineral specimens, which he exhibited in Santa Barbara, and said that generally, if not invariably, placer gold existed wherever this class of pebbles were found” (Del Mar,
op. cit., p. 413).
No, no—can’t stop there. Who is this Andrés Castillero?
Well—Castillero actually lies behind several interesting and significant developments in California history, which I have cleverly hidden amidst the dross in the following notes: April, 1836, Capt. Castillero arrived in California with the choleric Governor Mariano Chico (memorable as the governor who wore green spectacles); 1836, in Alta California with Governors Chico and Gutierrez, not only a military man but also with some knowledge of medicine; November 23, 1836, landed at Cabo San Lucas, Baja California, with the rest of the exiled Gutierrez party; early 1837, secretary to Jose Caballero, comandante general of Baja California; May, 1837, directed to take a force north by the authorities in Baja California in order to dampen the spirit of insurrection in Alta California; June 12, 1837, at the Baja/Alta California frontier; June 14-15, 1837, at Mission San Luis Rey with his army; June 15, 1837, at San Luis Rey, attaching himself and his army to the San Diego Revolt army led by Portilla; June 19, 1837, arriving in L.A. with the joint army; June 22, 1837, to Mission San Fernando Rey with the army; June 27-July 2, 1837, mediating between the
Norteño Alvarado/Castro interests and the
Sureño Carrillo/Bandini interests, the final result being that, since both sides agreed to accept the new Mexican constitution, the revolt became a non-entity (only to be replaced by the Carrillo Revolt); July 17, 1837, at San Gabriel, leaving, perhaps the 18th, for San Diego with his army; after several weeks of campaigning on the frontier, to Santa Barbara; August 15, 1837, boarding the California at Santa Barbara, sailing for Acapulco with Nicanor Estrada, on a commission from Gov. Alvarado, arriving at the destination September 15; 1838, brought documents from the Mexican government granting amnesty to recent rebels, recognizing Alvarado as governor, and bringing a number of people appointments to various official positions, detractors calling these people
Oficiales del Catarrillo (“
catarrillo” playing on the name of Castillero, and referring to the catarrh), not much to the liking of said people; 1839, granted Santa Cruz Island (in 1837, he had proposed to the government that the island be used as a penal colony); 1845, fomenting dissension between Jose Castro and Pio Pico; in the Yankee era, Castillero had legal wrangles involving the famous New Almaden mine up in the Bay area; “He was an adventurer, who had come to the country with Governor Chico. Having a little smattering of medical knowledge, he found employment as an army physician; but without confining himself to regular business, he held himself ready for any new enterprise, and mixed in all the political agitations that were going on” (from “Juan Bautista Alvarado, Governor of California,”, in
Overland Monthly, Vol. VI, p. 346, October 1885, by Theodore H. Hittell).
Anyone still awake? No? Mission accomplished!