Petaluma was never just about chickens and cows. From day one, the city has been a transportation hub for goods and people. Which was why, legend has it, the town faced its first existential crisis in the summer of 1852.
Established the previous winter, Petaluma found itself unexpectedly confronted by a rival town calling itself Petaluma City. Located just a couple miles downstream on the Petaluma Creek—as the river was then known—the new town allegedly sought to replace Petaluma as Sonoma County’s main shipping port.[1]
Back then, the highways were the waterways. Petaluma Creek was sprinkled with the sails of flat-bottomed schooners hauling game meat, potatoes, and hay from Petaluma to San Francisco.
But paddlewheel steamboats—the Bay Area’s main means of transportation—were nowhere to be seen. Robert A. Thompson, author of Sonoma County’s first written history, A Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Sonoma County, claimed deeper water vessels were afraid of running aground, given the creek was actually a tidal slough that rose and fell twice a day with the ocean tides.[2]
According to Thompson, Petaluma City’s strategy for putting Petaluma out of existence turned on luring steamboats up the creek. In the fall of 1852, they persuaded the captain of a steamer called the Red Jacket to pilot his boat on high tide up the creek to their new landing.[3] As the remaining three miles of the waterway to Petaluma were then a zigzagging maze of oxbow bends, seemingly impossible for a steamboat to navigate, Petaluma was effectively left up the creek without a paddleboat.
But Petalumans refused to concede defeat. They managed to convince the Red Jacket’s captain to navigate his boat through the serpentine bends to the Petaluma docks, thus putting an end to the existential steamboat rumble and ultimately to Petaluma City itself. [4]
Robert A. Thompson and his 1877 history of Sonoma County (photo Tuomey’s 1926 History of Sonoma County)
As origin stories go, Thompson’s sounds like a tall tale told over drinks in a local saloon. Little of it holds water. While the creek undoubtedly posed a navigational challenge for steamboats in 1852, the reason they weren’t plying its waters was more likely because, aside from meat and potatoes, Petaluma had little to offer. But times were changing.
THE FOUNDING OF PETALUMA
In the summer of 1851, a disappointed, 50-year-old gold miner from Missouri named George H. Keller rode into a rugged camp along the Petaluma Creek. Set on a former Miwok trading village called Lekituit, the camp consisted of a few rustic cabins occupied by game hunters and a warehouse for storing potatoes, Sonoma County’s first boom crop, to ship down to San Francisco.[5]
That fall, newspapers in San Francisco and Nevada City began running ads of farmland for sale in the Petaluma Valley.[6] Gold miners—only a fraction of whom made any money—began streaming into the camp, looking to stake their claim in California’s next gold rush: agriculture.[7] To accommodate them, Keller built a makeshift general store, hostel, and dining house beside the creek.[8]
At the time, the Petaluma Valley, along with another 10 million acres in California, was subdivided into large Mexican land grants. Thanks to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago that ended the Mexican-American War, they remained in the hands of their Mexican owners. But not for long. By American legal standards, many of California’s land grants were sketchy or saddled with disputed claims. That included the 13,316-acre Rancho Arroyo de San Antonio the Petaluma camps sat upon, which had two opposing owners.[9]
To clean up the legal morass, in 1851 Congress appointed a three-man Land Commission to review California’s 813 land grants. The commission placed upon the Mexican grant holders the legal burden of proving ownership. Many of them, unable to pay the exorbitant legal fees, were forced to sell to American speculators, who then subdivided the land grants into farms and ranches for sale.[10]
Like everything during the Gold Rush, investing in real estate was a gamble. Buyers could either purchase a parcel in hopes the Land Commission would ultimately approve the speculator’s land grant claim—which could take many years—or they could illegally squat on the parcel in hopes the commission would reject the speculator’s claim. In such cases, the land grant would be placed in the public domain, allowing the squatter to make a homesteader’s claim to their parcel under the Preemption Act of 1841.[11]
Many settlers decided to roll the dice as squatters. Banding together, they organized settlers’ associations, including at the Petaluma camp. It was there, in December 1851, that a group formed the Settlers’ Association of the Rancho Arroyo de San Antonio. As president they elected Major Henry P. Heintzelman, a 32-year-old Pennsylvanian who fought in the Mexican-American War.
The association’s stated purpose was to monitor the Land Commission’s legal review process, but their real intention was to support George Keller in making a squatter’s claim to a 158-acre parcel upon which to establish the town of Petaluma.[12] Heintzelman dubbed it a last resort after efforts to contact the rancho’s two rival owners were met with silence.[13]
In the fall of 1851, Keller hired a surveyor named John A. Brewster, who first came to California in 1846 as a cartographer with Captain John C. Frémont, to map out the town on 40 acres of his claim. He then began selling lots at his general store on Washington Street beside the creek.[14] His first recorded sale was on January 3, 1852, to David Flogdell, who purchased a lot at the foot of today’s Western Avenue, where he and Thomas Baylis built the Pioneer Hotel.[15]
Keller’s sales were all filed by the Sonoma County recorder’s office, which apparently shared his skepticism that the Land Commission would ever determine a legal owner for the Rancho Arroyo de San Antonio. It helped that Brewster was the county recorder’s deputy clerk, and that Keller’s real estate attorney, a 46-year-old miner from Tennessee named Micajah G. Lewis, was appointed Petaluma’s first justice of the peace.[16]
To make sure buyers understood the risk involved, Keller promised in in his property deeds to defend buyers against lawful claims to their property, “except the confirmed titles of any Mexican Grant of the Government of the United States.”[17]
THE FOUNDING OF PETALUMA CITY
A few months after Keller began selling lots, his lawyer Lewis teamed up with Heintzelman, president of the local Settlers’ Association, to create Petaluma City. As a third partner, they brought in Colonel James B. Huie, 53-year-old businessman from Kentucky who operated an auction house in San Francisco.
The three men then entered into a deal with Mariano G. Vallejo to develop Petaluma City on 600 acres of Vallejo’s 66,000-acre Petaluma Rancho that extended from the eastern bank of the Petaluma Creek to Sonoma.[18]
They centered the new town around Vallejo’s Landing on the creek at the end of Casa Grande Road.[19] Site of today’s Rocky Dog Park, Vallejo used the landing during his operation of the Petaluma Adobe to ship hides and tallow down the creek to San Francisco for export to Europe.[20]
Left, the original street grid of Petaluma City, 1852 (Sonoma County Deed Records); right, colored outline of the original street grid imposed on a current map of the area, with the original bends in the creek in blue (courtesy of Terry Park, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)
Cash-strapped after the Mexican-American War decimated his cattle empire, Vallejo took half interest in Petaluma City’s development—the odd numbered lots—apparently hoping he had found himself a new cash cow.[21]
Within a month of filing the development with the county, Lewis sold his interest to Huie, retaining a handful of lots as a passive investor.[22] Huie and Heintzelman then opened a realty office at the southeast corner of Washington and Main streets, across from Keller’s store, and began selling lots to Petaluma City. Locals quickly nicknamed the development New Town.[23]
Contrary to Thompson’s account, it doesn’t appear Petaluma City’s developers were looking to usurp Petaluma as the creek’s head of navigation. There were no signs of bad blood between them and Keller, in fact, Lewis continued to serve as Keller’s real estate attorney.[24] They were more likely hedging their bets, given that Petaluma’s development rested on an illegal squatter’s claim.[25]
Thompson’s story of the steamboat rumble is also dubious. He claims Huie convinced the captain of the Red Jacket (whom he misidentified as Captain Van Pelt) to pilot his boat up the creek to Petaluma City.[26] Huie—who later took credit for introducing steamboats to the creek—more likely convinced the Red Jacket’s owner, Thomas Hunt of the Union Line Company, that the route had sufficient freight and passenger demand to make it financially viable.[27]
Hunt purchased the Red Jacket specifically for Petaluma Creek. The steamer was previously owned by Charles Minturn—aka the “Ferryboat King”—who ran it between San Francisco and Oakland. In September 1852, Hunt bought the boat from Minturn and directed Captain L.B. Edwards to begin making runs from San Francisco to Petaluma three times a week. There were no scheduled stops at Petaluma City, which was still in early development. [28]
The Red Jacket’s run lasted only six weeks. After returning from a trip to Petaluma on November 2, 1852, it was severely damaged in a storm at the San Francisco wharf.[29] Steamboats would not return to the Petaluma Creek until the spring of 1853, when Huie and Heintzelman bought one of their own, the Soic, which they renamed the Reindeer. They began running the Reindeer three days a week from San Francisco to both Petaluma and Petaluma City, which had developed into a wharf, a couple of warehouses, and a handful of dwellings.[30]
In the fall of 1853, Minturn began running one of his steamboats, the E. Corning, between San Francisco and Petaluma three times a week.[31] It was his way of marking territory.
A few months later, he and other major steamboat operators formed the California Steam Navigation Company, assigning members monopolies to various waterways in order to impose higher fees by reducing competition. Minturn was awarded the steamboat monopoly on the Petaluma Creek.[32] He promptly added a second steamboat to the creek, the old Red Jacket, which he had repurchased, refitted, and renamed the Kate Hayes.[33]
THE DOWNTURN
Then California’s first recession hit, the result of overspeculation, a market glut of goods, and a real estate crash. Around that time, Sonoma County’s potato boom went bust, the victim of overproduction and soil depletion.[34] Petaluma, whose population had grown to more than 400 in 1854, began to stagnate, as did, presumably, Petaluma City.[35]
During the recession, founders of both Petaluma and Petaluma City began to depart for greener pastures. Keller was to first to go. In the fall of 1853, he returned to the Midwest, where he joined with a group of developers in co-founding the city of Leavenworth, Kansas. Before leaving town, he granted his lawyer Lewis power of attorney in all future property sales in Petaluma.[36]
Lewis himself ran into financial trouble during the recession, defaulting on a handful of property investments. He left town in 1854, eventually settling in Calaveras County, where he was elected county supervisor.[37]
Heintzelman and Huie continued to operate the Reindeer steamboat until November 1854 when, undercut by Minturn’s new monopoly, the boat was repossessed and sold at auction.[38] The next month, Heintzelman was elected to the state senate, representing Sonoma, Marin, and Mendocino counties. After his term ended in 1856, he departed for Crescent City, where he was appointed government agent for the Klamath Indian Reservation.[39] That same year, Brewster was elected Surveyor General of California and left for Sacramento.[40]
Huie left town shortly thereafter, eventually returning to Kentucky.[41] He passed the development of Petaluma City over to his two sons, J. Thompson Huie, a Petaluma druggist, and Dr. George W. Huie, a Petaluma physician. By then it had failed to develop into much more than a shipping port for farmers and ranchers on the east side of the creek.[42]
In 1855, the Land Commission conferred ownership of the Rancho Arroyo de San Antonio to James F. Stuart, after he cut a deal with Thomas B. Valentine to withdraw his competing claim.
More than 200 Petaluma landowners forked out $70,000 ($2 million in today’s currency) to repurchase their properties from him. Stuart split the proceeds with Valentine, who, feeling shortchanged, later challenged Stuart’s ownership in court, setting off a complicated legal battle that wasn’t fully resolved until 1874.[43]
Meanwhile, Petaluma’s economy began to rebound thanks to the Crimean War which cut off Russian wheat exports to Australia and New Zealand, forcing those countries to turn to California.[44] By 1857, the California wheat boom had turned Petaluma into a bustling port town with a population of 1,338. A year later, it incorporated as a city.[45]
But the wheat boom posed a new existential threat to Petaluma. Increased runoff from the farms began to fill the Petaluma Creek with silt, especially at the oxbow bends near town, making it difficult for steamboats to navigate up into Petaluma.
In 1856, John Rudesill opened a new landing a mile south of Petaluma City on the west bank of the creek, which came to be known as Haystack Landing (today Dutra Material’s asphalt plant). Steamboat passengers disembarked there for stages into town, while freight was offload onto smaller, flat-bottom boats known as “mud stages” able to navigate the shallow waters.[46]
In 1859, the new City of Petaluma commissioned Elliot R. Moffet, a local businessman and owner of the Rambler steamboat, to cut through two of the largest oxbow bends in the creek, including the one leading to the Petaluma City landing.[47] Moffet made the cuts, but not to the satisfaction of the city, which refused to pay him. Saddled with debt, Moffet sold the Rambler and fled town, eventually returning to his home state of Iowa, where he co-founded the town of Joplin, serving as its first mayor.[48]
Moffet’s cut across the bend leading to Petaluma City meant that schooners and steamboats traveling to and from Petaluma now bypassed the Petaluma City landing. That was the final nail in the coffin for New Town. In the early 1860s, Huie’s sons sold off the remaining lots for farmland, and Petaluma City, aka New Town, became history.[49]
In 1862, Charles Minturn undertook a new dredging of the creek from Haystack Landing to a point about a mile north called Italian Garden, across from Petaluma City’s landing. In an unintentional but fitting manner, he retired the former Red Jacket steamboat, now known as the Kate Hayes, at the site to serve as landing and freight dock. He then installed a horse-drawn rail line from Italian Garden to Petaluma.[50]
In 1866, after the creek around Italian Garden began to fill again with silt, Minturn extended his rail line to Haystack Landing. The Red Jacket was left to slowly crumble over the years into the mud, across from where it made its first run to Petaluma City in the steamboat rumble of 1852.[51]
******
Special thanks to Terry Park of the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum for his research assistance.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Robert A. Thompson, A Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Sonoma County (Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1877), pps. 55-56.
[2] Thompson, pps. 55-56.
[3] Thompson, pps. 55-56.
[4] Thompson, pps. 55-56.
[5] Thompson, pps. 54-55; J.P. Munro-Fraser, History of Sonoma County (San Francisco: Alley, Bowen & Co., 1880), pgs. 131, 259; “From California,” Letter from James B. Huie, Louisville Courier-Journal, December 24, 1849.
[6] “Farm for Sale,” Daily Alta California, May 17, 1849; “Farms for Sale” ad, Daily Alta California, October 19, 1851; “Farms for Sale” ad, The Nevada Journal, November 6, 1851; “Auction Sales by Henry Fitch & Co.,” Daily Alta California, July 11, 1852.
[7] Kevin Starr, Richard Orsi, eds., Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold Rush California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2000), pps. 243-248, 278-280; Kevin Starr, California: A History (New York: Modern Library, 2005), pps. 110-111.
[8] Munro-Fraser, pgs. 131, 259.
[9] David Hornbeck, “The Patenting of California’s Private Land Claims, 1851-1885,” Geographical Review, Vol. 69, No. 4 (October., 1979), pgs. 437-438, 443.
[10] Paul W. Gates, 1971, The California Land Act of 1851, California Historical Society, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 395–430.
[11] Donald J. Pisani, “Squatter Law in California, 1850-1858,” Western Historical Quarterly, Autumn, 1994, Vol. 25, No. 3, pps. 291-292; Paul W. Gates, The California Land Act of 1851, California Historical Society, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 395–430; “The Preemption Act of 1841,” 27th Congress, Ch. 16, 5 Stat. 453 (1841), accessed from www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org; Note: the Preemption Act of 1841 gave settlers the right to purchase 160 acres in the public domain, assuming they squatted on the land for at least 14 months, or made agricultural improvements to it for five years.
[12] “Settlers’ Association,” Daily Alta California, July 27, 1850; “General Notices,” Daily Alta California, December 18, 1851; “Mexican War letter describing the Battle of the Sacramento, 1847,” California State Library, California History Room, https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/001112803
[13] “General Notices,” Daily Alta California, December 18, 1851; Munro-Fraser, p. 259.
[14] “Pioneer Gone,” Sacramento Union, January 8, 1889; Adair Heig, History of Petaluma (Petaluma, CA: Scottwall Associates, 1982), p. 29; Munro-Fraser, pps. 259-260; Note: In 1855, the Land Commission decreed James Stuart the rightful owner of the Laguna de San Antonio land grant Petaluma sat upon, after which land owners were forced to repurchase their property from him.
[15] Sonoma County Deeds, Liber A, 1843-1853, Page 579 (original page 5), image 720, January 3, 1852; Munro-Fraser, p. 260.
[16] “Historical: Petaluma Birth and Growth,” Petaluma Courier, October 19, 1892; “Capt. Micajah Green Lewis, USA (1803 – 1893),” Geni.com, https://www.geni.com/people/Capt-Micajah-Lewis-USA/6000000121302494821; “Election Notice,” Daily Alta California, September 5, 1855; “Pioneer Gone,” Sacramento Union, January 8, 1889. Note: Brewster was elected on the People’s Party ticket, which advocated for settlers’ rights. He served one term of State Surveyor from 1856 to 1858.
[17] Sonoma County Deeds, Liber A, 1843-1853, Page 579 (original page 5), image 720, January 3, 1852.
[18] “Died in Kentucky,” Petaluma Argus, February 27, 1880; “Law Report,” Daily Alta California, April 25, 1855.
[19] Ed Mannion, “Casa Grande Road Served as Newtown,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 20, 1957.
[20] Stephen Silliman, Lost Laborers in Colonial California: Native Americans and the Archaeology of Rancho Petaluma (University of Arizona Press, 2004), p. 13; Allan Rosenus, General M.G. Vallejo and the Advent of the Americans (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), p. 212-13.
[21] Ed Mannion, “Casa Grande Road Served as Newtown,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 20, 1957; Liber A Deeds, Sonoma County, Page 710-711 (original page 208-209) Sonoma County Deeds: deed sale by Mariano G. Vallejo of Sonoma to M.G. Lewis and Henry P. Heintzelman of Petaluma of “undivided half of the town site of Petaluma” as laid down in map by C.W. Rowe. Lewis and Heintzelman to hold even numbered lots, and Vallejo odd numbered lots. Lewis and Heintzelman also deposit an undivided interest in said town to James B. Huie. Signed by Vallejo, Lewis, Heintzelman, and Huie.
[22] Deeds, Liber M, Sonoma County, Pages 171-173 (original page 197-198) Sonoma County Deeds: On July 9, 1852, M.G. Lewis sells James B. Huie for $1,000 his interest in 600 acres known as the City of Petaluma mapped out by Wesley Rowe, being a piece of the parcel conveyed by Mariano G. Vallejo to Lewis and H. P. Heintzelman in deed on June 12, 1852. Lewis reserves for himself 7 lots of 80×100 feet each; Note: Lewis also made an unsuccessful run for the state senate in 1852 (“From the Interior: Sonoma,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 4, 1852; “Election Returns—Sonoma County,” Sacramento Union, November 27, 1852).
[23] Deeds, Liber M, 1852-1855, Sonoma County, Pg. 3, image 230: September 20, 1852, ownership of lots 10 and 12, which on the 1852 Rowe map are beside the creek, in what appears to be marsh land: James B. Huie and Henry P. Heintzelman, joint owners of lots numbered 10 and 12 in Petaluma City, in consideration for one dollar each paid to the other, Lot 10 shall be divided into lots 80 feet, each fronting Front Street and running to the Petaluma Creek. Huie shall have the corner lot situated at Main & Front streets, the adjacent lot granted to Henry P. Heintzelman, and each remaining alternative lot in subdivision is granted to the two parties. The remaining part of Lot 12 running back to Petaluma Creek shall remain for the use of a ferry, owned by James B. Huie, the remaining part of Lot 12 owned by Heintzelman; Munro-Fraser, p. 260: location of Hertzelmann’s office.
[24] Deeds, Liber M, 1852-1855, Sonoma County, Pg. 267, image 366: On August 1, 1852, M.G. Lewis, serving as attorney on behalf of George H. Keller and “signing in fact” for Keller, for the sum of $150 sold lots 17 and 18 in Petaluma to Samuel Terrill (a fellow Justice of the Peace); Deeds, Liber M, 1852-1855, Sonoma County, Pg. 207, image 335: On July 24, 1853, M.G. Lewis, serving as attorney on behalf of George H. Keller and “signing in fact” for Keller, for the sum of $80, sold three lots in Petaluma to James Delaney.
[25] “Land Commission: Claims Filed Since Last Report,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 3, 1852.
[26] Thompson, pp. 55-56.
[27] Ad for sailing yacht Gen. Geo. Cadwallader, Daily Alta California, May 18, 1850: Huie was engaged in the ferry business in San Francisco; “Died in Kentucky,” Petaluma Argus, February 27, 1880.
[28] Ad for Red Jacket, Daily Alta California, August 14, 1852; “Notice,” Daily Alta California, September 14, 1852; Ads for Red Jacket, Daily California Alta, September 24, 25, 26, 27, 30 1852, October 1, 1862; “Died in Kentucky,” Petaluma Argus, February 27, 1880: Huie’s obituary gives him credit for running the first steamer up the Petaluma Creek; Heig, p. 71.
[29] “The Gale Yesterday—Accidents in the Harbor,” Daily Alta California, November 4, 1852.
[30] Ad “For Petaluma,” Daily Alta California, March 2, 1853; “Notice, Daily Alta California, May 27, 1853; Ad for Reindeer Steamer for Petaluma, Daily Alta California, October 13, 1853; “From the Interior: Sonoma,” Sacramento Daily Union, July 28, 1853.
[31] First Ad for steamer E. Corning to Petaluma, Daily Alta California, October 27, 1853.
[32] Wilbur Hoffman, “When Steamers Sailed the Feather,” Sutter County Historical Society News Bulletin, Vol. XVIII, April 1979; Jerry McMullen, Paddle Wheel Days in California (Stanford University Press, 1944), pp. 17-19.
[33] Minturn ad for newly refitted Kate Hayes for Vallejo and Napa route, Daily Alta California, January 10, 1853; Ad for Kate Hayes for Petaluma, Daily Alta California, March 31, 1854; “Historical: Petaluma’s Birth and Growth,” Petaluma Courier, October 19, 1892.
[34] “Commercial Depression 1854,” FoundSF.org, https://www.foundsf.org/COMMERCIAL_DEPRESSION_1854
[35] Thompson, p. 56. Note: Thompson provides the population figure, but avoids any mention of the recession, instead promoting a tale of rising prosperity.
[36] Henry Miles Moore, “Sketches of the Early Settlement of the City and County of Leavenworth,” Western Life (Leavenworth, KS), August 3, 1900; Deeds, Liber A, 1852-1855, Sonoma County, Pg. 833 (original page 93), image 842: on October 26, 1853, Keller grants Lewis power of attorney in all his real estate transactions in Petaluma. Note: it appears that Keller’s son, Garret V. Keller, who remained in Petaluma for a few years, also handled some property sales after his father’s departure.
[37] “Election Returns,” San Andreas Independent, September 4, 1858; “Postal Affairs,” Sacramento Union, August 18, 1884; Deeds, Liber M, 1852-1855, Sonoma County, Pg. 149, image 304; “Sheriff’s Sale,” Petaluma Journal, August 18, 1855; Note: In 1853, Lewis purchased 160 acres from Bartholomew Bojoques for $1,000 on the road to Bodega. In 1855, that property was part of a liquidation sale to pay off Lewis’s debts.
[38] Sheriff’s Sale,” Daily Alta California, November 11, 1854; Auction sale of Reindeer, Sacramento Daily Union, December 2, 1854; “Ellen Craig,” Petaluma Journal, December 15, 1855; Note: Apparently a lawsuit between Huie and John W. Brittan led to the sheriff seizing control of the Reindeer and selling it at auction. The new owners of the Reindeer it running to Petaluma and Petaluma City for another year before replacing it with the steamer Ellen Craig.
[39] Edwin C. Bearss, “Chapter 6: The Establishment of the Klamath River Reservation,” History Basic Data, Redwood National Park, Del Norte and Humboldt Counties, California, U.S. Department of Interior, September 1, 1969. https://npshistory.com/publications/redw/history/chap6.htm; “Office of Klamath Indian Reservation ,July 13, 1857,” California Indian History, https://calindianhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/07_13_1857.pdf; 1855 letter from Heintzelman to Congressman James W. Denver, December 19, 1855, Bartlebys Books.com, https://www.bartlebysbooks.com/pages/books/66219/h-p-heintzelman/reporting-on-the-political-climate-in-sacramento-the-candidates-for-california-secretary-of; Note: During his senate term Heintzelman undertook a survey of Sonoma and Mendocino native tribes for the Department of Indian Affairs.
[40] “Pioneer Gone,” Sacramento Union, January 8, 1889.
[41] “Religious,” Sonoma County Journal, August 2, 1856: the last listing of Huie in Petaluma, where he chaired a group creating St. John’s Episcopal Church.
[42] Ad for George and J. Thompson Huie selling hay at Petaluma City warehouse, Sonoma County Journal, January 29, 1858; Ad for shipping service out of New Town, Sonoma County Journal, August 26, 1859; Ad for 2 large warehouses and a number of lots sold in New Town, Sonoma County Journal, August 20, 1858; Ad for Real Estate for Sale, Sonoma County Journal, October 23, 1863; “Death of a Former Resident,” Petaluma Courier, December 13, 1893.
[43] Deeds, Liber M, 1852-1855, Sonoma County, Pg. 221, image 342, May 16, 1853: Keller ironically sold Stuart a lot in Petaluma in 1853; “The First Fight of the Lobby,” Petaluma Argus, February 25, 1863; “The Miranda Resolutions,” Sonoma County Journal, February 27, 1863; W.W. Robinson, Land in California: The Story of Mission Lands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 178-179.
[44] Donald Pisani, From the Family Farm to Agribusiness (Berkeley: UC Press, 1984), p. 5-10; James Gerber, “The Gold Rush Origins of California’s Wheat Economy,” December 2010, America Latina en la Historia Economica, 17(34):37-66; James Gerber, “Gold Rushes and the Trans-Pacific Wheat Trade, California and Australia, 1848-57,” Pacific and Pacific Rim Economic History Since the 16th Century, edited by Dennis O. Flynn, A.J. H. Lathan, and Lionell Frost (NJ: Routledge, 1999).
[45] Robert A. Thompson, pg. 56.
[46] First ads for Rudesill’s Landing, also called Haystack Landing: “New Coach,” Petaluma Journal, June 7, 1856; Ad , Petaluma Journal, June 14, 1856; Ad for Kate Hayes, Petaluma Journal, June 21, 1856; “Engines, Mules on Haystack Line,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955: use of small boats for shuttling freight from Haystack Landing; Honoria Tuomey, History of Sonoma County (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1926), Vol, 1, p. 471: Petaluma’s “mud stages.’
[47] “Act to Improve the Creek,” Sonoma County Journal, April 13, 1860; “The Work Commenced,” Sonoma County Journal, August 26, 1859; “Improvement of the Creek,” Sonoma County Journal, October 14, 1859.
[48] “Steamboat Changes,” Sonoma County Journal, November 25, 1859; Not Dead,” Daily National Democrat, December 6, 1859; “He Served as the First Mayor of Joplin Through Appointment,” Joplin Globe, June 10, 1923.”
[49] Ad for 2 large warehouses and a number of lots sold for sale in New Town, Sonoma County Journal, August 20, 1858; Ad for Real Estate at Auction, Sonoma County Journal, October 15, 1858; Ad for Real Estate for Sale, Sonoma County Journal, October 23, 1863; Ad for J. Thompson Huie’s 320-acre Farm for Sale, Sonoma County Journal, September 22, 1864; Ad announcing closing of J.T. Huie & Co. pharmacy, Petaluma Argus, January 31, 1867; “Serious Accident,” Petaluma Argus, March 3, 1876: Huie closes his pharmacy in Petaluma, and presumably the land at New Town, and moves to Fort Point in the Presidio to serve as Lighthouse Keeper.
[50] “Straightening the Creek,” Sonoma County Journal, February 11, 1862; “The Cars are Coming,” Sonoma County Journal, February 19, 1862; “Kate Hayes,” Sonoma County Journal, April 11, 1862; “Projected Enterprises,” Sonoma County Journal, June 13, 1862; “Finished,” Petaluma Argus, July 21, 1864; “Railroad Extension,” Petaluma Argus, May 17, 1866; “Engines, Mules on Haystack Line,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955.
[51] “The Old Steamboat Days,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955.