THE REAL STORY OF WAUGH SCHOOL
The tall tales regarding Reverend Lorenzo Waugh began a month before his death in September 1900, with a story that ran in the Petaluma Argus celebrating his upcoming 92nd birthday.
The Argus reported that Waugh: 1) built the first Methodist Church in Petaluma at Fourth and A streets, hauling lumber from the redwoods north of town with the same team of oxen he used to cross the plains; 2) was gifted with 320 acres by General Vallejo as a reward for his services as a missionary among the Shawnees; and 3) donated the land upon which Waugh School at Corona and Adobe roads was built in 1864.[1]
Over the next century, these and other apocryphal stories grew, fueled by newspaper articles that relied upon twice-told tales. Waugh was credited with not only donating the land for Waugh School, but also with building the 1865 schoolhouse, alleged to be the first country school established in Sonoma County.
The school itself, originally named Bethel, was reported by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in 1991 to have been initially founded as a religious school in accordance with Waugh’s Methodist beliefs. The paper went on to say it was converted to a public school in 1897, three years before Waugh’s death, at which time it was renamed Waugh School.[2]
None of these stories are true, as the facts assembled below demonstrate.
The Founding of Petaluma’s Methodist Episcopal Church
By all accounts, Rev. Waugh was a moral upstanding and admirable man. Most of what is known about his life however comes from the autobiography he wrote and first published in 1883. None of the 19th century historians who wrote books about Sonoma County— Thompson (1877), Munro-Fraser (1880), Cassiday (1889), Gregory (1911)—mention Waugh in any detail in their biographies of prominent early settlers.
As is true for all autobiographies, Waugh’s life story is selectively depicted through his eyes, with omissions and inaccuracies.
In the book, Waugh writes that he rode across the plains to California in 1852 with his wife and children in a wagon pulled by a team of oxen. He came not for the gold rush, but for his health, having suffered for years from the long-term effects of malaria, possibly contracted during his time as a missionary among the Shawnee and Kaw tribes in pre-terriotorial Kansas. After spending 20 years as an itinerant Methodist preacher in Ohio and Missouri, Waugh came west with the aim of retiring from the being a circuit rider and taking up farming. [3]
Petaluma’s first Methodist Episcopal Church, constructed in 1856 at Fourth and A streets, was not built by Waugh, nor was he ever one of its resident ministers. He did give sermons from time to time, as well as wed couples and perform burials.
In 1859, he took up what would become his main preoccupation for the next 40 years: traveling the state giving temperance lectures to young people. He also launched that year the Sonoma County chapter of the Settlers’ League, in protest of fraudulent land grant claims and the eviction of homesteaders on the land grants denounced as squatters.[4]
The Gift from Vallejo
After arriving in Petaluma, Waugh purchased 160 acres of farm land near the junction of Davis Lane and East Railroad Avenue in current-day Penngrove, planting a fruit orchard and vineyard. The two men Waugh purchased the land from told him it was government owned, and so available for homesteading.[5]
Under the terms of the Preemption Act of 1841, a squatter had the right to purchase up to 160 acres in the public domain, assuming he resided on the land for at least 14 months or made agricultural improvements to it for five years. [6].
Unfortunately, the men who sold Waugh his property lied about it being in the public domain. When Waugh learned he was actually squatting on part of the 66,000-acre Rancho Petaluma land grant owned by Mariano Vallejo, he asked for a meeting with Vallejo.
According Waugh’s account, Vallejo agreed orally to sell him the farm in recognition of his missionary work on the Shawnee and Kaw tribes reservations back in pre-territorial Kansas. But first, Vallejo said, they had to wait for the California Land Commission to survey the boundaries of his land grant as part of their legal review of his claim.[7]
Since Vallejo was actively selling off other parcels of Petaluma Rancho without awaiting final claim review from the Land Commission, it’s likely his concern with Waugh’s farm was that it bordered the Rancho Cotate land grant, raising some uncertainty as to its exact boundaries.[8]
In 1856, the commission approved Vallejo’s land grant claim (although, like most of the commission’s decisions, the approval was subjected to years of court appeals), clearing the way for Waugh to purchase his farm. For unknown reasons, Waugh failed to make the purchase.
Instead, on October 25, 1858, two years after the commission’s approval, and six years after Waugh first squatted on the Rancho Petaluma, Vallejo sold Waugh’s farm to two of his sons, Antonio and Jose, as part of a larger 1,039-acre land acquisition.[9]
In his autobiography, Waugh blamed the sale on Vallejo’s lawyer, whom he claimed stealthily exercised his power of attorney during a period in which Vallejo was away in Monterey County, tending to the death of his brother. Vallejo’s brother died in 1856, and while it’s true Vallejo temporarily moved to Watsonville to tend to his brother’s estate, by the fall of 1858 he had returned to his home in Sonoma. His signature, not his lawyer’s, is on the county deed record of the sale.[10]
Three weeks after purchasing the 1,039 acres for $100 from their father, Vallejo’s sons flipped the property for $8,500 to George L. Wratten, the lawyer who served as the notary public on their original deed transaction with their father. A week later, Wratten sold 501 acres of his new purchase at a profit to a real estate agent named George W. Oman. Included in the sale was Waugh’s farm. [11]
A month after acquiring the land, Oman sold off Waugh’s 150-acre farm to a settler named Jacob Adamson for $1,500, and filed a lawsuit to evict Waugh from the property.[12]The property had been reduced from 160 to 150 acres following the Land Commission’s survey of the Petaluma Rancho and Cotate Rancho land grant boundaries).
Waugh claims he approached Oman with a counter offer, but was turned down. Given that Waugh’s net worth according to the 1860 U.S. census was only $600, it’s possible the terms of his offer came up short.
In 1860, with the eviction lawsuit still making its way through the courts, Waugh again approached Vallejo. According to Waugh, Vallejo offered him 320 acres of lots 286 and 287 in the Vallejo Township as recompense for selling his farm out from under him.
Waugh claimed Vallejo gifted him the property, however the deed records show a murkier series of transactions. [13]
Vallejo first sold the 320 acres to Hereziah Bisel Wilson, a workingman in San Francisco, for $1. A week later, Wilson sold the land to Waugh for $3,200. Given Waugh’s net worth at the time, it’s possible the land was in fact a gift, and that Vallejo used the intermediary sale to Wilson as a means of hiding that from county officials. The terms of transaction remain a mystery however. [14]
The Founding of Bethel School (Waugh School)
In the early 1850s, American settlers in rural areas outside Petaluma created public school districts as a means of taxing themselves to build country school houses, and also to qualify for county and state school taxes in operating them.
Bethel School was most likely established in 1853 or 1854. While one of Sonoma County’s earliest country schools, it was not the first. That honor goes to Iowa School near Two Rock, established in 1852. [15]
Bethel was originally one of three rural schools established in the Vallejo Township, which extended east from the Petaluma River to Sonoma Mountain, north to current day Cotati, and south to San Pablo Bay, comprising the western portion Vallejo’s Rancho Petaluma and the southeastern portion of Cotate Rancho.
Waugh was appointed one of three school trustees to oversee the Vallejo’s Township’s initial schools, along with Judge Stephen Payran and County Supervisor Alexander Copeland, both of whom lived in the township.
Because of the township’s large size, the county board of supervisors decided by 1855 to divide it into three school districts, each named after a founding trustee: District No. 1, the Payran District; No. 2, the Waugh District ; and No. 3, the Copeland District. [16]
Bethel School was the only school in Waugh School District during the 19th century and most of the 20th century. From early on, the schoolhouse served as the district’s election precinct as well as a community center for festivals, lectures, elections, political gatherings, and fraternal groups.[17]
The location of the Bethel Schoolhouse in the 1850s and early 1860s is uncertain, as no property transaction could be found in the county’s deed records. It most likely wasn’t located on Waugh’s original farm, lot 386 of the Vallejo Township, as country school houses were usually centrally located within school districts for commuting purposes.
Waugh’s farm resided at the far western edge of the Waugh School District, bordering both the Eagle School District in current-day Penngrove to the west and the Copeland School District to the north.
Bethel School most likely sat originally at the same place it occupied throughout the 19th century—the southwest corner of Adobe and Corona roads, which served as the main crossroad of the Waugh School District, Corona Road being its primary thoroughfare to Petaluma.
The property the school sat on was originally part of a 160-acre parcel purchased in 1853 from Mariano Vallejo by Judge Philip R. Thompson, an elected associate county judge.[18]
Born into a prominent Virginia family in 1797, Thompson came to California during the gold rush.[19] He was soon joined by his nephews, Thomas and Robert Thompson, who went on to edit and publish Petaluma’s first newspaper, the Sonoma County Journal, and then Santa Rosa’s Sonoma Democrat, as well as write some of early history books of Sonoma County.
Judge Thompson, along with two other elected judges, served as the initial judicial body of Sonoma County, whose population in 1851 numbered only 561. Along with their judicial powers, the three were responsible for dividing the county into townships and school districts, and establishing county-owned buildings.[20]
Despite Bethel School’s lack of deed records, it appears likely Thompson donated a small portion of his property for the Bethel School soon after purchasing it in 1853.
As the school-age population in Waugh School District grew, by the early 1860s a larger school house was needed. Waugh’s term as trustee apparently ended sometime in the mid-1850s. The district’s subsequent three trustees—Lorenzo Jackson, John Hardin, and George W. Frick—held a successful tax election in March 1863 to raise $1,650 to construct a schoolhouse that would accommodate 60 to 70 students.[21]
Judge Thompson, who became a real estate agent in Petaluma after retiring from the bench in the mid-1850s, sold his farm due to failing health in September 1864 to an English immigrant named Mark Carr, who had originally settled in California during the gold rush. A month after the sale, Thompson died.[22]The new Bethel schoolhouse opened that fall.[23]
The 320-acre ranch Rev. Waugh acquired from Vallejo in 1860 sat directly across the street from the Bethel School property, on the southeast corner of Adobe Road and Hardin Lane.[24]No deed records have been found of Waugh having owned the property the school sat on, nor of his donating it to the school district.
In the 1860s, Waugh gave or sold all but 40 of his 320 acres to his three children, building a home for himself and his wife on remaining acreage at 1515 Adobe Road. In 1890, three years after his wife died, he sold his 40 acres and moved to San Francisco to live with his granddaughter.[25]
The Bethel School was often referred to in the newspapers during the 19th century as the “Waugh School.” In 1925, the school was formally renamed the Waugh School, after residents of the Waugh School District approved a $10,000 school bond to erect a new schoolhouse. [26]
The old Bethel schoolhouse was divided into two structures, and moved to the nearby chicken ranch of Thomas King at 1055 Adobe Road, where it was repurposed as an egg house and a shop.[27]
The new school Waugh School remained in operation until 1991, after which it was sold as a private residence, which it remains today. [28]
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Thanks to Simone Kremkau of the Sonoma County History & Genealogy Library for her research assistance.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Lorenzo Waugh Visits Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus, August 3, 1900.
[2] “Pioneers Bought Vallejo’s Land,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955; “Ed Mannion’s Rear-View Mirror,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 9, 1963; “Ed Mannion’s Rear-View Mirror,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 13, 1963; “Mumbly peg’ and ‘Giant Stride,’” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 7, 1991; “Waugh School the Way it Was,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, August 27, 1991; “Larry Reed and Cinda Gilliland Have Converted the Former Waugh School into Their Residence,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, February 19, 2011.
[3] Lorenzo Waugh, Autobiography of Lorenzo Waugh (Oakland, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1883), pgs. 135, 189; “A Long Life: Short Historical Sketch of Rev. Lorenzo Waugh,” Daily Commonwealth, August 27, 1884.
[4] J.P. Munro-Fraser, “Methodist Episcopal Church,” History of Sonoma County (Alley, Bowen & Co., 1880), pp. 311-12; Waugh autobiography, pp. 218-220; “The Temperance Cause,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 1, 1860; “M.E. Church in Windsor,” Russian River Flag, June 10, 1869; “Settlers’ Meeting,” Sonoma Democrat, March 24, 1859.
[5] Waugh, pp. 208-209; According to deed records, Waugh’s farm was lot 276 in Vallejo Township of Bower’s 1866 map of Sonoma County.
[6] The Preemption Act of 1841, 27th Congress, Ch. 16, 5 Stat. 453 (1841), accessed from www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org; Paul W. Gates, The California Land Act of 1851, California Historical Society, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 395–430.
[7] Waugh, p. 212.
[8] Note: Waugh’s ranch was originally 160 acres. It sat on lot 376 of the Vallejo Township. The sale of lot 376 at 150 acres by Vallejo to his sons is listed as a partial sale, implying the additional 10 acres may have extended into the adjacent Cotate Rancho, and hence were cut from the lot in Rancho Petaluma.
[9] “Index to Grantees, Vols. 1-7, 1835 to 1888, Book 7, page 763, index image 390, October 25, 1858,” Deeds of Sonoma County 1847-1901, familysearch.org.
[10] Killed,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 29, 1857; Allan Rosenus, General M.G. Vallejo and the Advent of the Americans (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), pp. 215-218; Waugh autobiography, p. 213. Note: Waugh also erroneously states he lived on the land for 9 years, not the actual 6 years (1852-58), before Vallejo sold the farm.
[11] “Index to Grantees, Vols. 1-7, 1835 to 1888, Book 7, page 764, index image 390, November 19, 1858”; November 24, 1858; Book 7, page 795-6, index image 407; Deeds of Sonoma County 1847-1901, familysearch.org.
[12] “Index to Grantees, Vols. 1-7, 1835 to 1888, Book 9, page 123, index image 840,” Deeds of Sonoma County 1847-1901, familysearch.org.
[13] Waugh autobiography, p. 216.
[14] “Index to Grantees, Vols. 1-7, 1835 to 1888, Book 10, page 583, index image 428, September 29, 1860,” and “Book 10, page 604, index image 4439, October 11, 1860,” Deeds of Sonoma County 1847-1901, familysearch.org.
[15] “Iowa School Built Way Back in 1852,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955; Note: the report that Bethel was the first country school house built in Sonoma County most likely goes back to an erroneous news item in the July 17, 1863, edition of the Sonoma County Journal entitled “Laudable Enterprise,” reporting on the initiative of the Waugh School District to pass a tax to build a new schoolhouse for Bethel School.
[16] “Schools in Vallejo (Township),” Sonoma County Journal, February 26, 1858; “Our Public Schools,” Sonoma County Journal, December 19, 1856; “County School Funds,” Sonoma Democrat, January 28, 1858; “Apportionment,” Sonoma Democrat, July 14, 1859; “County School Funds,” Sonoma Democrat, January 28, 1858; “Apportionment,” Sonoma Democrat, July 14, 1859.
[17] “Sonoma County Elections, Sonoma County Journal, August 18, 1855; “Union Meeting at Bethel School House,” Petaluma Weekly Argus, October 13, 1864; “Bethel League,” Petaluma Weekly Argus, February 9, 1865; “May Day Festival,” Sonoma Democrat, May 13, 1865.
[18] “Index to Grantees, Vols. 1-7, 1835 to 1888, Book K, pages 176-77, index image 138,” Deeds of Sonoma County 1847-1901, familysearch.org; Note: Unfortunately, Book K is not included in the digitized database of deeds previously on microfilm, so this is an assumption that Thompson, who located to the Vallejo Township at that time, purchased lot #269 from Vallejo, and that it totaled 160 acres. This assumption is reinforced by newspaper ads from the 1850s that cite Judge Thompson’s ranch as a landmark in the Vallejo Township.
[19] Thompson’s younger brother, Robert A. Thompson, Sr., a former U.S. Congressman, followed him to Petaluma in 1853, before moving to San Francisco where he served on the justices’ court in the 1870s. Two of Robert A. Thompson’s sons, Robert Jr. and Thomas Larkin Thompson, became newspapermen in Sonoma County. Thomas founded the Sonoma County Journal and was the longtime editor and publisher of the Sonoma Democrat, and later a U.S. congressman and ambassador to Brazil. Robert Jr. served as the county’s longtime county clerk, and also wrote a history of the county in 1877 (Sources: Robert A. Thompson (1805-1876), findagrave.com; “Thomas L. Thompson,” Petaluma Courier, February 1, 1898; “R.A. Thompson,” Petaluma Courier, August 4, 1903).
[20] Robert A. Thompson, Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Sonoma County, California (Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1877), p. 47.
[21] “To the Electors of the Waugh School District,” Petaluma Weekly Argus, March 11, 1863; “Enterprising,” Sonoma County Journal, March 27, 1863.
[22] “Deaths,” The Sacramento Daily Bee, October 28, 1864; “Index to Grantees, Vols. 1-7, 1835 to 1888, Book 15, page 254, index image 180,” Deeds of Sonoma County 1847-1901, familysearch.org; “Pioneers Bought Vallejo’s Land,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955: this article states that Mark Carr donated the land for Bernal School from his property, but no records of that donation or sale was found in the Sonoma County database of deed transfers; The deed of sale lists the property—lot 289 in the Vallejo Township— at 145 acres, which is also how it is also reflected on the 1866 A.B. Bowers map of Sonoma County. At some point not found in the deed records, Thompson reduced his property by 15 acres from the original 160 acres he purchased from Vallejo.
[23] “To the Electors of Waugh School District,” Petaluma Weekly Argus, April 20, 1865; “May Day Festival,” Sonoma Democrat, May 13, 1865.
[24] “Index to Grantees, Vols. 1-7, 1835 to 1888, Book 10, page 604, index image 439,” Deeds of Sonoma County 1847-1901, familysearch.org.
[25]Index to Grantors, Vols. 8-12, 1888-1901: March 14, 1890, Book 125, page 330, image 418, Lorenzo Waugh, grantor, John Caltoft, grantee; San Francisco Directory, 1891 to 1892: Rev. Lorenzo Waugh, 1605 Mission Street, along with Edwin and Franklin Waugh; “Peggy’s Pencilings,” Courier, October 1, 1890: Waugh returned to his property on Adobe Road to remove the remains of his young son who died 20 years before, and move the body to Cypress Hill Cemetery; Source of boarded up Waugh home photo at 1515 Adobe Road: “Ed Mannion’s Rear-View Mirror,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 9, 1963.
[26] “Contract for School at Waugh is Let for $8,114,” Petaluma Courier, June 26, 1925; “New Waugh School to Open November 1,” Petaluma Courier, October 16, 1925; “Waugh P.T.A. Plans Old Fashioned Dance, Petaluma Courier, October 15, 1925.
[27] “Ed Mannion’s Rear-View Mirror,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 9, 1963.
[28] “New Use for Old Waugh School,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 13, 1991.
