Hindley family, late 1890s

The Hindley family of Honeydew. From Mary Rackliff Etter's collection, where there are many more like it.

Here is another randomly-found letter that tries to explain the members of a family picture. A few years ago, I wrote to Wendy Lestina of the Ferndale Museum about this photograph of the Hindleys, which was on a page with several other sittings of the same large group, taken in roughly the same period. I had asked Laurence Hindley (of Fortuna; the guy who collects and fixes up all the old farm and tractor equipment, including steam engines) and he couldn’t tell for sure who everyone was, so i don’t feel so bad. Maybe putting out the pictures online like this might find some answers.

Dear Wendy,
I only know that George and Margaret Jane Holman Hindley were married on December 25, 1866, in Weaverville, CA, and by 1874 were in the Upper Mattole (now Honeydew) area. They had 13 children, 4 of whom died in childhood. The remaining 9 were:
1. George Lawton H., b. 1867, married Mary J. Hogan
2. Annie Maud, b. 1872, married Walter E. Hackett
3. Ernest Richard, b. 1876, have no marriage info; died 1936
4. (Margaretta) Cora, b. 1881, married Walter C. Reishus
5. Verna Verena (?), b. 1883, married George C. Lindley
6. Hazel Enid, b. 1886, married Martin Waddington
7. Rebecca Elizabeth, b. 1888, married Joseph Keating, then Gordon Nichols
8. Joseph N. D., born 1893, married Blanche Cecil Haywood (their children were Vera Jean [Myers], Harlan, Cecil Joseph [C.J.], and George Hindley)
9. Henry C., born 1895, married Mary Ann Holbrook

My guess is that the picture shows Offspring 1 through 7 at the top of the picture–2 young men and 5 girls–and that the bottom group is the two youngest boys, Joseph and Henry, with 5 of their nieces and nephews–children of the older siblings.

If the picture were taken about 1897, when the eldest son was 30 and the eldest girl was 27, this would make sense. The two youngest of the George and Margaret children would have been ages 4 and 6 then.
Laurence and Lisa Hindley couldn’t figure it out, though they were sure that it is George and Margaret Jane flanking the children. So (maybe) our guess is as good as anyone’s.
~Laura

P.S. George Hindley was a well-known public servant. He was county supervisor and had much to do with getting the Fernbridge built. One of his misadventures was being shot in the face by a neighbor with whom he had seemed to get along, and with whom he worked and traded; the man is mentioned often in his diary. Cyrus C. Fitzgerald, or was it Fitzpatrick? Anyway, the man turned out to be quite a rogue, and i believe died in a jail, in ill health, in his 40s. Speaking of the diary… Laurence Hindley gave the MVHS a copy of a solid year of George Hindley’s journal from the 1880s. There is only a paragraph, sometimes a couple of lines, for each day; but it is very revealing. I will see about posting bits of it on here. Might be kind of fun to do several entries for the appropriate month, i.e., “125 years ago this month.”

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Antelope in the Valley?

In the recent Now… and Then newsletter (#33; print copy available by contacting me here or at the MVHS), an article from the Humboldt Times of September 23, 1854, mentions “Grizzly Bear, Deer, Elk, and Antelope…” in our area. I noted that i wasn’t sure about the antelope, thinking of the African animal. But i kept thinking of that ultra-American folk song with the line “…where the deer and the antelope play; where seldom is heard a discouraging word…” and realized that yes, there are American antelope– but in the Mattole Valley?

It would be interesting to learn more. If there were any such animals here, they would be Antilocapra genus, which is not the same as the African antelope. The American antelope is commonly known as the Pronghorn (the true Antelope having single-spike horns, rather than the antler-like prongs of our genus), and its scientific name means “antelope-goat.” The Pronghorn is yet numerous in northeastern California, where hunting licenses are issued, and are one of the attractions of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. They seem to prefer high-desert, relatively arid grasslands… but who’s to say that the summer Mattole hills, so perfect for other ungulates, would not host a happy population. I have not seen other accounts of them here, but will keep my eyes open.

The official report of the USDA/Forest Service ( http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/animals/mammal/anam/all.html ) tells us of the Pronghorn’s known traditional territory, but in very general terms:

Historically, pronghorn range extended further north in Alberta and
Saskatchewan; west through most of California (my italics)
and all of BajaCalifornia; east to western Minnesota and Iowa; and south through
east-central Texas to San Luis Potosi in Mexico [76]. Warm desert
populations have declined greatly from historic size and range.
Pronghorn from the United States have been introduced in all Mexican
Chihuahuan Desert states from the international boarder south to San
Luis Potosi. The largest pronghorn populations are first, in Wyoming,
and secondly, Montana.

Antilocapra americana. If this one looks familiar, consider that these Pronghorns are more closely related to giraffes than to African antelope.

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Some Mattole Native images

Here are a couple of pictures from the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley that i found online.
(As always, click on the photo to expand it; then do whatever your computer does to zoom in further.)

Joe Duncan, who learned his language before the first white person was seen in the Mattole Valley. Born perhaps c. 1850, he was informant to anthropologists here in the 1920s. His Indian name was something like "Taralash".

.

Both these pictures are of Isaac (also called Ike) Duncan, Joe’s son. I recently learned that Leonard Bowman, chair of the Bear River Band (Rohnerville rancheria) is Ike’s descendant. 1923 photo.
.

Ike and Joe Duncan were a couple of those Natives left living near the mouth of the river after the official Indian Wars were over. They hired out as ranch hands, and seemed to be generally well-liked and well-respected. In 1927, a linguist famous for his work with Tibetan as well as Native American languages spoke with the Duncans; i have had a few clues leading me to the conclusion that it was Joe and Ike, rather than, say, the Denmans he spoke with. I found online an interview with Dr. Fang-Keui Li from the 1970s about his visit to the Mattole and his experiences with the Duncans:

Li:
After a few weeks he [his mentor and boss] said, “Well, now you can go. You know all the techniques of how to ask questions, how to handle your informant. Now you can go and try to look for the Mattole Indians.”

The Mattole Indians were known to be along the Mattole River, but they were supposed to be extinct. That is to say, all the Mattole Indians had died. But there was news that there were still one or two still alive. One of our projects was to make a record of all those Indians that were still alive, because after that, that language would be dead; it would be no more. As a matter of fact, that is the case.

I took the material of the Mattole Indians after I got to that place and did about four or five weeks of recording texts and grammar and so on. After I left, I know that all the Indians of that tribe died [this is not quite true; however, Native speakers of the tongue were probably hard to find by the 1920s], so my record of that language is still the only record of the language.

After I left Hoopa Valley I went to some place called Fortuna, in order to look for the Mattole. So I wandered around all over that area in a taxi, asking where the Mattole Indians were. It was a kind of wild goose hunt.

But some people said, “Well, further south along the Mattole River you may find some Mattole Indians.” There was no bus or anything but a kind of a so-called post truck, that sent letters from one village to the other. So I took one of those trucks and went down to a small town called Petrolia. It was called Petrolia because it was thought at one time that there would be oil in that area, so that little town was called Petrolia.

I stayed in a hotel and started asking whether there were Mattole Indians there or not. They said, “Well, yes there are Mattole Indians, but they are on the mouth of the Mattole River on the Pacific Ocean. There is one family we know there who are Mattole Indians.” It was about, oh, three or four miles from Petrolia.

The only thing to do for me was to take a walk to the mouth of the river, and so I started walking. There was just the Mattole River going one way, so I forded it one way, and forded back and forth the other way, until I came to a farm house. I found it too hard to walk further (some 10 miles), so I borrowed a horse from a farmer. I said, “Can you lend me your horse so I can ride it to the mouth of the river?” The farmer was very nice, he said, “Yes, you can take my horse.” He started to put on the saddle, you know, for me, and I said, “I want a very old, very good-tempered horse, because I never learned how to ride.”

He said, “Oh, this is an old horse.” He said, “Now you take this, and if you follow the river, you’ll go down and get to the place. When you come back, take the horse to the stable.” He didn’t want to have any money paid.

So now the first time I took a trip on that horse, and went down to the mouth of the river and met these two old Indians. One was very old, seventy something, the other was about forty, fifty, something like that. I started asking them questions about their language.

The old man, I think was blind or something.

I asked them, “Will you teach me how to speak the Mattole language?” He apparently was willing. I said, “It is impossible for me to make a trip every day to your house. You have a horse.
You can ride down to town every morning, and I will provide you with a lunch at the hotel, and after we work, about four o’clock, you can ride back, and I’ll pay you for your trouble.”

At that time I inquired of Kroeber what was the normal rate to pay an informant. This is important, because you have to know the local rate in order not to pay more than the University of California, you see. Because that would have spoiled their game. Kroeber said, “Oh, pay him about forty cents an hour.” Forty cents an hour, for one day of six hours. “You pay him two dollars something, and you give him a lunch.” At that time that was quite sufficient; forty cents an hour was the going rate for the University of California.

So I told him, “I am going to pay you forty cents an hour,” and he was happy because he wouldn’t be able to get anything, normally. So he came every day to me, and I got some material for a little bit over a month.

I found him very dull, a very dull person. He didn’t know how to get your point, what you asked. And he could not–I said, “Can you tell me a story?” I thought I would give him–. No, he didn’t know how to tell story. [all laugh] It is a difficult thing. You do get informants that cannot tell stories. If you ask you, yourself: “Can I tell me a story?” You’ll search, but you may not be able to find any story to tell.

So he could not tell a story.

Peter:
This was the younger person?

Li:
Yes, the old man could not come out; he was blind and over seventy years old. He could not come to me.

Lindy [Li’s daughter]:
He probably knew the stories.

Li:
I got mostly grammatical material, like “I come, you come, he comes,” and so on. This kind of grammatical material which you could easily get from him. Or, say, “I go from here to there,” and so on.

So, after a little over a month I found that this was getting a little bit–the, how would you say it? Economically it is called what, the limit of returns?

Lindy:
Diminishing returns.

Li:
You stay longer, you get less. So I said, “I had better try another Indian tribe.”
~ [Can’t seem to post an active link here, so just Google “Linguistics east and west: American Indian”, type “Mattole” into the Search box, and you will find lots more good stuff where this came from.]

John Jackson, a.k.a. Johnny Jack, at his cabin at the mouth of the Mattole. He had a daughter named Cora (Greslik, then married to an Everett Anderson) who was around here up until the 60s, at least. This photo from the Mary Rackliff Etter collection.

The Merrifield family of the Phillipsville/Miranda area, c. 1915; courtesy of the HSU Library, Humboldt Room

Truman Merrifield, or Mayfield as the name is sometimes spelled, was the son of Daniel Merrifield, a white man originally from Vermont, who got together with a Native Mattole woman in the 1860s. There was a daughter (Rhoda?– let me correct this later when i’ve looked that up), and son Truman, who married another Native or half-Native woman– here is their large family.

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Thoughts of a Boy Growing Up

In 1999, Kenneth G. Nelson, born February 20, 1921, and raised in the Honeydew area, presented his seven grandchildren a book of his memoirs. The cover photo of Thoughts of a Boy Growing Up shows young Ken with his brother Roy, Mildred Lindley, Jack Smith, and Leland Hadley, laughing in the sunshine of a long-ago school day outside the Upper Mattole School. It’s a great photo, truly eliciting the “era of ‘boyfoot boy with cheeks of tan’,” as Ken describes that time, in the volume’s dedication.

The cover photo from "Thoughts of a Boy Growing Up," both editions

I loved the book, which has not been widely available, though i wished it contained more pictures. I can’t quite recall where i picked up my first copy, a hardback book. The first 69 pages concern Ken’s days in the Mattole, which ended when the family, due to Depression-generated financial difficulties, was forced to move to Lodi in 1930. Ken’s mother, Sue Black Nelson, had been raised there and Ken’s maternal grandparents gladly welcomed the family into their home until they got themselves set up, eventually as dairy farmers.

Ken Nelson’s paternal grandparents were Steven D. and Grace Nelson, who in the 1920s built the camp long known as Nelson’s, then as the Mattole Resort, and most recently as the Mattole Country Cabins. The scenic retreat is between Upper Mattole and Honeydew. Maud Nelson Hunter was Ken’s father Roy’s sister; she and her husband Ray Hunter took control of the Resort when Steve and Grace passed away. Maud and Ray’s daughter was Virginia Hunter Mast (also a Curzon and Tuxon in there, though i am not sure of the order), who finally sold the place out of the family, i think in the 1980s. Another daughter of Maud and Ray (and thus Kenneth G. Nelson’s first cousin) was Velma Hunter Childs Titus, who is as regular as she can be at MVHS events, and always quick with a fact, a story, or a picture whenever i’ve asked. These cousins are a pair of dynamos– you would never be able to guess their ages by their energy and sharpness of mind. I spoke with Ken on the telephone tonight, and he was, as they say, sharp as a tack, with his 90th birthday in a month. He gave me permission to reprint whatever i wished from his book.

The book! That’s the good part. He recently republished his memoirs with a great selection of photographs. Just a couple of days ago i received a signed copy in the mail, via Velma Titus. What a wonderful surprise! The book itself was already delightful reading; Ken’s is a very honest and humble voice, and he’s an enjoyable, smooth writer. But the photographs– well again, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here are a few of the photographs from the book, along with Ken’s own captions. Please excuse the funny textures… something seems to happen when my pixels interact with the book’s pixels.

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Earthquake damage: 3 shots from after April 18, 1906

Yesterday’s post mentioned the earthquake damage to the old two-storey school in Petrolia which made it unsafe for holding classes. Here is a photo of the building taken by a Mr. Eakle in 1906, and found in the Bancroft Library’s easily searched online photo collection– along with two others found there.

This was the school used for over four decades, until 1906, located near the site of today's Yellow Rose restaurant, on the east side of the lower North Fork, Mattole.

The rear (west) ell of the hotel built around 1880 as a family home by John Walsh. Later Modest Giacomini converted it to a hotel, and by 1906 Jack Wright and Ellis Hunter were running it.

The Knights of Pythias had a chapter here which met in this building, later the Mattole Lumber Company Store. Not positive precisely when Calvin Stewart and the MLC set up shop here. Northwest corner of the Petrolia Square (view toward southeast)

Calvin Stewart’s daughter, Lavinna– variously spelled– was married to Tommy Few-Hairs Johnson, and the Johnson couple ran the Mattole Lumber Co.’s merchandise business. Since the store in the downstairs (upstairs was retained as a meeting and dance hall) seems not to have had any other names before “Johnson’s” or “Mattole Lumber Co.” we might assume that the Stewart family bought the building after the earthquake, fixed it up, and were ready for business by the time the Mattole Wharf was up and running in August, 1908.

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Community Center flourishes in old schoolbuilding

I found this synopsis of events leading to the beginning of Cabaret culture at the Community Center in my computer archives. It was put together about five years ago; i think i did it to help someone write an article that was part of a push to get funding. The renovation and expansion of the MRC offices upstairs, and the kitchen and bathrooms downstairs, was Phase One of a plan that should soon start taking the next step– pushing out the north wall to make room for a stage and dressing room, creating an even more entertainment-friendly venue. More than one lovely article could be written– this is only the outline of the earlier years.

So much has happened in this building, both as a school and in its many functions as the Community Center; important things in our lives (besides the obvious schooling and graduations) like friendship, play, drama and sports, parties and dinners, graduations, and now birthdays, memorials, baby blessingways and women’s circles, classes, workshops, breakfasts, and the ongoing work of the Mattole Restoration Council. At the MVHS’s Grange office we have a couple of binders of articles and pictures of the Community Center’s formation, and of the moving of the building across the street to its present location.

Brief history of Mattole Union School
and Mattole Valley Community Center connection

1859—Mattole School District established
1860—First building destroyed by falling tree (Humboldt Times, August 4, 1860)
1861—New school building completed (“according to county records,” says Book of Petrolia, p.56) on northwest side of North Fork creek
1862—Schoolbuilding burned down by vandals (Book of Petrolia)
1862—New two-storey wooden clapboard structure built about 100 yards east of the North Fork and north of the county road—near present Yellow Rose restaurant (Book of Petrolia)
1869—Mattole District counts 83 students, compared to Eureka’s 282 and Ferndale’s 54 (Humboldt Times, August 29, 1869)
1871—Or perhaps this is when the two-storey white clapboard school was built. Humboldt Times of August 26, 1871, states that “Trustees of the Mattole School District invite proposals for the building of a schoolhouse near Petrolia.” Also, some county records (according to History of Humboldt County Schools) date a “Petrolia School District” to 1871
1877—120 students in Mattole District; 57 at Upper Mattole (Humboldt Times, August 31, 1877)
1880s-90s—Ninety or more students in two classrooms (one upstairs and one down) covering twelve grades (Book of Petrolia)
1906—Schoolbuilding seriously damaged by April 18 earthquake. School held temporarily in Community Church (now Seventh-Day Adventist). Plans made by District Trustees to raise a tax and build a fine new school (Ferndale Enterprise, April 19, 1907)
1907—Contractor P.T. Petersen building new schoolhouse. (Ferndale Enterprise, April 19, 1907). Frank Adams and Jack Wright hired; some of the lumber from local mill run by Frank Etter. (Local newspaper clipping by Laura Stansberry Hunter Smith, 1962). Other wood is fine lightweight redwood hauled from Ferndale to Petrolia at 3000 feet per load by John Titus (Enterprise)
1907 or ‘08—Bell and its cast-iron frame salvaged from old school and placed in belfry atop new schoolbuilding, located on southeast crest of Crane Hill, in present grassy playfield just east of paved area. West end of building was main entry with a porch-wide flight of steps and eventually two separate doors. School begins here in fall of year (Book of Petrolia vs. memories of oldtimers at Petrolia Day—see Now… and Then, v1, n4)
1920s—Additional building (present office building) constructed separately, north of original building on site, as high school. Grades 1 through 11 taught through 1948, when students are sent to Ferndale on boarding-out basis, through agreement with their district (Book of Petrolia)
1924–Mattole Union District formed when Union Mattole School (located near Squaw Creek) is closed and the Petrolia “Mattole” School absorbs its students. (History of Humboldt County Schools, Vol. III)
1926—Mattole enrollment at low of about 10 (County records)
1950-51—Mattole average daily attendance is 15. One teacher (Directory of Public Schools, 1951)
1954-55—Larger population due to logging boom. Two teachers at Mattole School: 1-4 and 5-8 grades (Directory)
1956—Belfry torn down and bell taken to County Fairgrounds (Book of Petrolia)

Student body of Mattole Union School, 1955-56. Teacher for the upper grades was Mr. William Johnston, and for the lower, Mrs. Inez Johnson. Photo courtesy Tom Fisher

1962—Bell returned to school grounds (is now atop water tower on northwest end of school property). Map of Mattole Valley painted on inside west wall by students for Petrolia Day (Book of Petrolia)
Mid-1960s—Last graduation ceremonies held in old Mattole Union School building; henceforth held at Mattole Grange, as they had often been previously (1940s) (Memory of Ray Azevedo, 1960s school principal)
Early 1970s—Replacement classrooms set up at Mattole Union School site (Ray Azevedo); old schoolbuilding condemned as unsafe for use under Field Act for Earthquake Safety (MVCC archives)
1975—First meeting of the Mattole Valley Community Action Planning Committee in June (MVCC archives)
1977—Mattole Valley Community Center with more than 70 members negotiates with School Board for purchase of old school building. Sold for $100 (MVCC archives)
1978—Mattole School Song written by Dorothy Short
1978, August—Building pulled across street by volunteers to present location on west side of county road. Keeps old east-west orientation so that entries are reversed: the old back door now fronts the county road
1979, January—New front porch added, woodstove installed, electrical wiring completed. By March, building ready for use. By fall, Mattole Valley Preschool begins operation in old building; new office space upstairs, later to be the Mattole Restoration Council office, opened as library (Now… and Then, v1, n4)
1979, fall—First Cabaret held at Mattole Valley Community Center (MVCC archives)

The Mattole Valley Community Center in 2006, after first expansion

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John Mackey store

Store built by John Mackey in early 1880s. Burned down in downtown Petrolia fire, April, 1903. Across road from south side of Petrolia Square. Photo from Mary Rackliff Etter collection

Click to zoom in and enlarge! (Isn’t it amazing how much detail is in the tiniest photos from before 1900?)

Check comments below “Downtown near Major’s…” for more information about the store and its vicinity.

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Little bits of info around Ida Sophina Dudley Roscoe

Here is part of a letter I wrote a few years ago to a woman researching the old Dudley home at Union Mattole (presently the Fun Farm, just south of the Concrete Arch bridge near Squaw Creek). The house is one of the oldest in the Mattole Valley, and Kathy Dillon was writing an article about it for the Times-Standard. Maybe I will be able to scan the article when I am at the office, and put up its picture of the Dudley place here. But for now, just this letter and the beautiful photograph of Ida and Wesley Ernest (found in the stucco house at Upper Mattole, where they lived much of their married life) which prompted my posting it:

Ida and (Wesley) Ernest Roscoe, c. late 1930s. Unknown girl and cat. Photo courtesy Dave Sholes, who lived in the stucco house (behind Ida) for some years. Ida "built character" by caring for her tuberculosis-ridden mother, and assuming her staggering household duties, by the age of eleven.

Milton Rice Dudley and his wife Amanda lived in the house now owned by Mary and Larry Bacchetti. The Dudley brothers, James Newton Dudley, Milton Rice Dudley, Thomas, and William, came to California from Iowa (where they’d come from Illinois). They made it to Marysville in 1864 or 1865, and to Humboldt County by 1871. Milton Rice Dudley was married to Amanda Miner, whose sister, Lucinda, was married to his brother James Dudley. (The women’s brother, Henry Allen, was the grandfather of Allen, Buck, Ruth, Doris [Lindley] and Edith [Matthews] Miner, and their sister was Elizabeth Miner [Mrs. Lewis J.] Cummings.)
I don’t have as much on Milton (born December, 1841 in Illinois, and listed by occupation as a miller) as on his wife, Amanda. She was born in Wisconsin, November 16,1843, must have married at about the age of 19 (early 1863), and died at Mattole in 1905 of tuberculosis. She and Milton had 10 children, 4 who died at birth or in infancy. Here are the surviving six:

1. Ida Sophina Dudley, 1863 (Iowa) -1956, married Wesley Ernest Roscoe; this pair were the forebears of many of the Roscoes around the Valley in the 20th century and today.
2. William Allen, 1867-1913; never married.
3. Lena Elmina, born 1873, married a George L. Hill and had 2 children. (Not George R. Hill, who married Bertha Roscoe.)
4. Nettie, born 1875, married Ellis Hill and had 1 child.
5. Grace, born 1880, married Walter Lines, had 1 child.
6. Blanche, born 1882, married Robert Williams, had 2 children.

On an 1874 survey of the Mattole county road, Dudley’s stable is marked on the south side of the road near Bacchettis’, and a little further on to the east, Dudley’s mill is shown as a box on the south also, which would be on the banks on Squaw Creek. The house itself is not shown–it must have been just about to be built. However, T. Dudley (one of Milton’s brothers) is shown about a mile downstream.

According to Ken Roscoe in his book Heydays in Humboldt, “My maternal grandfather [Ken’s mother was Ida Sophina Dudley], Milton Rice Dudley, and his family had come to the Mattole Valley from Iowa in 1871 or 1872 to join his older brother, Jim Dudley, who had arrived in 1868 with the first and largest group of Marysville settlers. Jim had offered his younger brother a job as manager of his milling operation at the mouth of Upper Mill Creek southeast of Petrolia.
“Evidently my Great Uncle Jim was a bit of a bounder, and some said he spent a lot of time in Ferndale drinking and gambling away the profits Milton made on the lumber and flour the mills produced. Granddad didn’t like that too much, so he quit and moved up the river to Union Mattole where he built his own mills on Squaw Creek.
“My mother was the oldest of five sisters and a brother (four other children died at birth or in infancy). Her mother, Amanda Miner Dudley, had contracted tuberculosis, and Mom, being the oldest, did more and more of the housework and other chores as time went on…
“By the time Mom was eleven and in the seventh grade in 1874, her mother had become fully bedridden, and Mom had to quit school and assume full responsibility for the daytime care of her mother and the raising of her younger brother and sister. She prepared all the meals, including noontime dinners for the mill crew, and did all the washing and mending of clothes, even making the soap to wash the clothes and the dishes.
“Meanwhile, her mother Amanda continued having children. Nettie was born in 1875…” (Continues with list as above.)… “Amanda lived until 1905.”
“Grandfather Dudley’s sawmill and gristmill were near the mouth of Squaw Creek at Union Mattole [the old name for the area between and around Indian Creek and Squaw Creek, sometimes called New Jerusalem]. The sawmill was located on the south side of the creek and the gristmill on the north side. The mills were powered by water delivered from a lake behind a dam across the creek. The dam was about 25 feet high and backed water up Squaw Creek more than a mile. Until recently there was visible evidence of the location more than three quarters of a century after cessation of operation about 1911 or 1912.”

There is a page or two more on the construction and operation of the mills in Heydays in Humboldt. A little bit on Milton’s character: “Milton Dudley was of New England Yankee stock, and the family was originally from England. As some of these men did, Granddad had a genius for mechanics, as evidenced by the design of the dam and the mills, and could make about anything needed, including parts for my broken toys when I was a kid… Among his other skills, he was an excellent bee keeper, and I do not remember a bee ever stinging him…
“Grandfather Dudley was a man of strong convictions but did welcome a worthy challenge, particularly one that would give him an opportunity to quote the Bible to give force to his arguments. However, he also had a short fuse and would take immediate and forceful action if any man questioned his honesty…
“Granddad would sometimes mill other farmers’ oats, wheat, rye, or other grains for a share of the flour. He milled some grain for a neighbor, Fred Weinsdorfer, who then accused him of stealing some of the flour. Dudley responded by knocking Weinsdorfer down. Weinsdorfer filed a charge against him for assault and battery. On the day of the trial before the Justice of the Peace, Weinsdorfer did not apear, so the Justice dismissed the case.
“When questioned later as to the cause of his failure to appear, Weinsdorfer said, “My wife Clarissa, she not let me go. She say, ‘Fred, you not go. That red-faced Deadly, he will hit you again.’ ”
(Just threw that one in for a little bit of color from the period… Ken’s making fun of Fred Weinsdorfer’s Bavarian accent there.)

William W. Roscoe, a brother-in-law of Ida Sophina Dudley Roscoe, writes in his 1940 History of the Mattole Valley, “For a year or two [James N.] Dudley operated the sawmill [on east Mill Creek] in partnership with his younger brother, Milton R. Dudley. The latter soon decided to establish a saw and grist mill business of his own, free from partnership, so he settled on a timber claim on Squaw Creek, seven miles east of Petrolia [this would have been about 1873 or ’74]. Here for about twenty-five years he very successfully operated a saw and grist mill business… Milton R. Dudley’s mill furnished the lumber for the building in Upper Mattole.
“Milton R. Dudley continued in the grist mill and sawmill business on Squaw Creek until about the year 1900. When the decline in wheat-raising in the valley compelled him to abandon the mill, he set up in the spring bee and honey business and followed this vocation until 1908 when he sold his property to Calvin Stewart, a Mendocino County [and Mattole Valley] tan bark operator. Milton R. Dudley then spent the remainder of his days in Eureka, where he died in the summer of 1922.”

James Dudley, the brother from whom Milton split when he established his own mills, was the one who drowned in the Mattole River while trying to secure a log boom (story recounted in Now… and Then, no. 32).

Ida, Ken’s mother, had a long, industrious life, and was much beloved. Both Ken Roscoe’s Heydays in Humboldt and his nephew Stanley (Neb) Roscoe’s Heydays in Mattole tell stories revealing her wit, wisdom, and warmth.

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Broad view of history

(Not Mattole history– i mentioned at the start, this blog is only from West of the Redwoods; subject matter may wander afar.)

I am hyper-excited to be reading a wonderful history book, catching me up on world history– sweeping me away in world history! I might have to lead into how and why i came to this little love affair with The Alphabet versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image before you will consider it, for you may have the same reservations against it that i did before i began it.

A month or two ago, we listened to Will and Ariel Durant’s The Lessons of History on five hours’ worth of CDs. It was great fun, a wonderfully colorful and witty retelling of what once seemed daunting dark vaults of creaky old dates and wars. Durant (it was his voice) puts everything into perspective by organizing cyclical patterns; taking this long view, he might perhaps anger narrow-minded traditionalists (as any intellectual peeping around the blinders might); however, he is no dreamy idealist who constantly persecutes the victors and anguishes over the losers. Without taking sides, he makes it clear that, in the long run, we are always either on a path to ruin or recovering to rescale the beckoning heights of enlightenment and progress. The currents overlap, and while one civilization or mode of thought is dying, the seeds of another are germinating.

I had never absorbed an overview of human history before, surprisingly. My interest in history began when i came to the West Coast, and the immediate here-and-nowness of local history grabbed me. However, because i had a good ol’ modern liberal college education after the Second Wave of feminism (around 1980; the so-called First Wave being the half-century or so leading to women’s right to vote in the U.S. in 1920)– and then came straight to Santa Cruz– i had read plenty of “explanations” for the state of affairs in the modern world– what had happened (because of Western, patriarchal, monotheistic, anti-Nature attitudes), why it happened, and what we must try to do about it. Everybody had a version of this tale of downfall from Eden, or the early Goddess-loving societies, and there were lots of common threads; but the gist of the “Why?” question was never really answered for me.

Leonard Shlain’s book, The Alphabet versus the Goddess, was published in 1998. One look at the summary of the book’s thesis– that alphabet literacy, which encourages left-brain, linear, masculine-type thinking, has led to most of the world’s worst excesses of intolerance, violence, and misogyny– made me immediately dismiss it. For one thing, i myself am obviously a big champion of the written word, of communication and education as a panacea, and of the great power of the pen, as opposed to the sword, to change and improve the world. And our video-and-computer trend toward looser language, abandonment of “proper” language for slang and of spelling for abbreviations, etc., made me all the more resistant to anything further denigrating the literary arts. Basically, to me it looked like the replacement of books and writing by flashing digital media was the death of civilization.

For another thing, i was bored silly by the old anti-monotheistic, anti-patriarchal line. Not that i didn’t agree with it; i had just heard it all before. The new twist on the “why” aspect seemed to me just another bizarre tactic to make a paradigm-changing proposal even more attractive to the fringe, and less acceptable to common sense.

Well, was i ever wrong. Geez, Leonard Shlain, i ignored you for thirteen years at my own expense! (Shlain recently passed away from cancer in the Bay Area. He was a respected M.D. and pioneered many inventions in the field of laparoscopy. He was truly a Renaissance Man! An insatiably demanding scholar and creative thinker, he wrote several books while excelling in his medical field as well.) Anyway, at my brother- and sister-in-law’s for Christmas, i saw the book on the shelf, and since i had just heard the Durants’ version of world history, decided to browse it. Now i think of it as one of the most fascinating books i have ever read. (Noticing the anti-social fervor with which i delved into its pages, Jane insisted i borrow the volume.) It is thoroughly professional and well-reasoned, and never tells us what to think… it just poses the question, and suggests the answer. What you decide is completely up to you, but even if you disagree with his proposal, you will want to keep reading his lively tale of the progress of the world, and literacy’s complicity in it.

In fact, i don’t agree with him, at least not without major qualifications. Because of his experience in surgery, Dr. Shlain knows a lot about the human brain. His main interest is in the right and left hemispheres of the brain: the kinds of thought that are associated with each; the traditionally male (hunter, warrior) traits and traditionally female (gatherer, nurturer) behaviors; how even the parts of the eye (cones=focus, precision, hunting, yang; rods=fuzziness, half-tones, dreamworld, firetime storytelling, yin) are associated with masculine and feminine, or left- and right-brain, modes of thought and behavior; and how entire cultures and religions have leaned toward or immersed themselves in one or another of these modes. This is all very good, and some very astute observations and connections are made; but still, a very strong response comes from deep in my own brain, of there needing to be much more to it.

At this point i believe that even if our brains were undivided solid masses, and people were unisex, we still would have had much the same history; but the power of Shlain’s book as a whole is that now i see that even without the inclusion of his split-brain theory, his survey of the association of the alphabetic written word and chaotic, violent social and military eruptions is impeccable. The content of the propaganda is the direct and obvious cause of the troubles; the fact of the written word’s assumption of authority (think of how the phrase “to author” means “to be an authority”) and its incredible power, especially among people new to it, for whom it seems like magic or divine revelation, seem to me to be the problem.

You can’t discuss or review this book without using the word “irony.” In fact, several times while reading, i have thought, “I better put this down and go do something right-brained or physical, before i turn into some Calvinist bigot or get some crazy Nazi urges…” He is using a book to help us see the drawbacks to book-learning. But that’s the problem with his theory, for me. If i’m reading something uplifting that tries to promote wider learning and more humane behavior, how can i not be swayed that way? While Shlain acknowledges that the content has often been the immediate cause of rabble-rousing and intolerance, he maintains that the actual function of literacy itself was the cause of humanity’s organizing into vast hordes of murderous zealots during, say, the Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, and the witch hunts. So far (and i am not finished with the book yet), i would have to accept this only to the point of saying that the “actual function of literacy” involves not (only) its effect on brain patterns or neurological impulses, but its cultural effect as being the Word, the ultimate source of eternal wisdom, a thing everlasting in the minds of humans who, for millenia before, heard words come and go, ephemeral and temporary, like every other earthly experience. Someone claiming to control this thing, this Written Word, had, and still has, a lot of power over people for whom literacy is still a magical mystery. (Think of Moses and his commandments written in stone, Shlain’s example of how the beginning of the alphabetic language of the Hebrews was the beginning of the reign of self-righteous and exclusive religion– he’s Jewish and says things about the Old Testament he might not want to say if he weren’t. The fact that Moses could read those funny etchings on stone instilled the people with great reverence– for what? Basically, for whatever the etchings conveyed. And every major religious figure’s life, as far as what we can tell from historical and even currently-accepted accounts such as the Bible, promoted peace, compassion, and spirituality; whereas later printed edicts turned their message to opposite ends.)

I’m repeating myself here; can’t quite see if i have made my point in the best way. (But hey, it’s the virtual age, and i can just delete or edit whenever i wish… nothing is permanent!) I could go on and on, but should instead ask you to read The Alphabet versus the Goddess for yourself. I’ll conclude with my opinion that, although the details of how the written word worked its (often evil) magic are debatable, Leonard Shlain’s case that its arrival has always been accompanied by widespread suppression of what we call right-brain values, women, and all that is feminine– and instigated intolerance, rigidity, and war– is indisputable. And the bold, sometimes quirky, insights he sprinkles throughout the text make for delightful reading.

Shlain is optimistic about the future, believing that the image-oriented virtual world will reprogram our brain patterns and help us return to some state of naturally cooperative, tolerant, life-loving human existence. I am optimistic that somebody i know might read this book, or has already done so, and might discuss it with me!

Dr. Leonard Shlain. As he notes, a picture is worth a thousand words. I liked him more after i found this photo!

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Another Sammons painting

Best viewed small; it gets all digital-pixelly when you enlarge. Gary Peterson found this recent eBay offering online the other day. They are asking $3000 for it.

Somewhere on the Mattole, by Carl Sammons

The caption is not the title of the painting– the work is unnamed.

Anyone with any conviction as to where to find this view? Gary guessed downstream near the Drury Hole; maybe; keep in mind that the hills in the background, if golden, are probably north-side (south-facing). However, back when the Mattole Valley was regularly burned, even the ridges south of the river were much more open than they are now.

I thought perhaps, since the river doesn’t look too wide here, it might have been up in my neck of the woods, below Shenanigan Ridge, looking downstream from behind Sterling and Cindy’s (formerly Herkie Lawrence’s) barn. Hmmm…

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