California's Olden Golden Days

Who is Buried in Maiden’s Grave?

Cheryl Anne Stapp — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:20:33 +0000

The inscription on the Maiden’s Grave marker reads: “Broken dreams and hope, carried 2,000 miles through scorching deserts and over loft mountains. At last…the sight of the promise land. Those of you who visit this grave carry a torch of love and hope (which this young girl lost), and pass it on, to generations unborn. Rechall Melton was laid to rest here, on a cold and frosty morning, Oct. 4, 1850. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” This grave marker erected by a private party on State Highway 88 in Kirkwood, Amador County, is witness to a pioneer family’s tragedy, but it doesn’t tell the whole mysterious story: who is really buried there? Around 1900, an elderly woman looking for the gravesite of her daughter Rachel (or Rechall), who had died in 1850 during the family’s westward journey by wagon train, set in motion a series of events that identified the wrong grave when some people from nearby Kirkwood Inn thought they knew the gravesite location and remembered that the original wooden marker said “Melton.” They donated a small headstone inscribed with “Rechall Melton Died Oct. 4, 1850, native of Iowa, Erected by Guests at Kirkwood, 1903.” For decades this site was known as “Maiden’s Grave,” eventually becoming California’s 28th official historical landmark. In 1986, while a landowner was clearing brush in a meadow two miles away, he discovered the rock outline of a grave that turned out to be the girl’s actual burial site. Further research in 1989 found a pioneer’s trail diary noting that a young man from Iowa named Allen Melton, who died on October 4, 1850, was actually the one buried beneath the Kirkwood guests’ monument. Rachel’s last name remains unknown.

Mission Santa Ines

Cheryl Anne Stapp — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:46:17 +0000

The 19th of the California missions, Santa Ines Virgen y Martir was founded September 17, 1804, and named for Saint Agnes of Assisi, a 13-year-old Roman girl who was martyred in A.D. 304. It is one of few inland missions, built on a site chosen as a midway point between Mission Santa Barbara and Mission La Purisima, and enjoyed the second highest production of wheat in the entire chain as well as a large and relatively stable livestock herd. It also served as a buffer against a hostile Indian group, the Tulares, who lived in the regions to the northeast. An earthquake destroyed most of the original church in December 1812 but the complex wasn’t abandoned, and a new church, constructed with thick walls and great pine beams was dedicated five years later. This mission is known for its extensive collection of church vestments, which date from the 17th century, and another attraction is a 1820s gristmill (presently in ruins) about half a mile from the church. The mission museum displays the bells of 1804, 1808 and 1818. Slightly more than 100 years after Mission Santa Ines began operations, a group of Danish educators established the town of Solvang at the edges of the mission’s lands. This mission was secularized in 1834, returned to the Catholic Church in 1862, and restored to its original design in the late 1940s.

Gold!

Cheryl Anne Stapp — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:51:21 +0000

The gold discovery in January 1848 at Coloma, California, rapidly transformed a pastoral landscape with 15,000 people into a societal melting pot of burgeoning towns as prospectors came from all over the world to seek their fortunes. Between 1850 and 1859, miners extracted 28,280,711 fine ounces of gold which would be worth more than $10 billion today. Malleable and beautiful, gold has been prized and sought after for millennia for coinage, jewelry, and other arts. A single ounce can be beaten into 100 square feet. In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for health. Today, because of its ductility and resistance to corrosion, gold has many practical uses in dentistry, electronics, and industry. Estimates are that 75% of all gold ever produced has been extracted, and that much of the gold mined throughout history is still in circulation in one easily recycled form or another. Gold may symbolize power, strength, wealth, happiness, perfection, and is further associated with wisdom and high achievement.

Dining on the Overland Trails

Cheryl Anne Stapp — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:44:35 +0000

People in the 19th Century called their mainstay mid-day meal “dinner,” and their lighter evening meal “supper.” While it was not unusual for any given repast to take hours of preparation time at home, the denizens of westering wagon trains had no such luxury. They couldn’t afford to waste travel time waiting for bread dough to rise or for a slow-turned roast to sizzle. Breakfasts of coffee, flapjacks or corn cakes sweetened with sugar-syrup, and slices of ham fried into bacon made quick meals while the men busily gathered and hitched the stock in early morning light. Mid-day, or dinner, was usually an hour or more halt to let the draft animals and footsore humans rest before pushing on. Non-rising baking powder biscuits slathered with wagon-movement churned butter and dried beans softened in back-of-the-wagon pots for days made quick lunches. Evenings saw more quick biscuits, stews made from fresh wild game or ham slices, rice, and more beans. Pioneer women who packed dried fruits in their wagons could put together apple dumplings or fritters from reconstituted pilot bread (a flat, rock-hard flour and water dough baked to dehydration). The epicurean highlight noted in many trail diaries was fresh, hot cobbler made from wild berries found along the trail.

Mascot of the Railway Mail

Cheryl Anne Stapp — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:57:37 +0000

Reporting on his world-traveling odyssey as if he were a person, the April 20, 1893 San Francisco Call devoted an entire column to the arrival there of Owney, a scruffy terrier mix already known as the mascot of every postal worker in America. The celebrated canine began his postal career in 1888 when he showed up at the Albany, New York, post office as a homeless puppy who cuddled up on a pile of old mail bags. Adopted by the postal clerks, Owney felt safe atop the soft piles of mail pouches on the wagons that moved the mail to the local railroad depot. Evidently sensing that guarding the mail was his responsibility, he began accompanying it on trains and ships, wearing a collar for identification. Eventually a special harness-like jacket was given to him by the Postmaster General to hold all the leather and metal bagging tags, hotel key checks, and badges he acquired as souvenirs at each place he visited. He journeyed all over the country, and around the world: in all, he traveled over 143,000 miles. Warmly welcomed wherever he went, Owney received a silver medal from a Los Angeles kennel club for “the best-traveled dog to attend their show,” a half-dollar inscribed by San Francisco’s Pacific Kennel Club, and many other similar honors nationwide. “No dog was ever more decorated or petted than he,” said the Call. “He will defend a mail sack against anybody but a postal clerk. He is known as being one-eyed, which for a Bohemian adds luster to his reputation. Owney’s stay in this city will be only for a few days, as he leaves shortly for Mexico.”