Hi Good Report
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CHAPTER TWO RESEARCH DESIGN and HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -13- Figure 4. -14- RESEARCH DESIGN and HISTORICAL BACKGROUND A-TEH-2105H is located on relatively flat fertile land on the outskirts of the unincorporated area called Vina, eastern Tehama County, at an elevation of 366 feet above sea level in northern California’s Sacramento Valley. It is 114 miles north of Sacramento, eighteen miles Cnorth of Butte County’s City of Chico, and nine miles south of Los Molinos and the “old” town of Tehama (which sits on the west bank of the Sacramento River.) The site is in the southwest corner of Section 21, of Township 25 North, Range 1 West of the Mount Diablo Meridian. From today’s well traveled Hwy 99E, that runs north-south through Vina and crosses the bridge of the Deer Creek drainage, the archaeological site herein described is four miles due east of this bridge. Upon driving easterly from Hwy 99E to the site, the original natural setting is an oak parkland transition zone, becoming oak woodlands, today privately owned by cattle ranchers and walnut and fruit tree growers. Mixed among the blue oaks and scrub oaks, are cottonwoods and large sycamores, which compete against lava cap protrusions that jut up in places between occasional springs and scat- tered patches of river bottom soil (See Geology below). There is riparian growth along the seasonal wash of Acorn Hollow, with a few visible willows along the creek edges. A journey up Deer Creek Canyon brings one into a chaparral belt. Figure 5. CA-TEH-2105H site flat looking easterly with corral, feed shed, and windmill complex. Photograph by Susan Ferguson, October 4, 2003. -15- Plants - The grasses of the Valley and foothills with star thistle, medusa head, bull thistle and others, are introduced plants of the historic era, with the larger oak trees present during the life of the cabin location. Geology - Upon entering the graveled road and heading eastward though the natural ravine called Acorn Hollow, one rides over lava cap. This is lahar, volcanogentic lava mud flow of the Tuscan Formation, Late Pliocene 2-3 million years before the present. Originally, a wet concrete of ash and rock, the ash washed away earlier and one is left with the rocks today. Deeper down is the Montgom- ery Creek Formation and deeper still, the Chico Formation, of the Late Cretaceous Period, 70 million years B.P.1 The flat where the “outpost”2 Hi Good Cabin once stood in Section 21 contains enough soil for potential haying in places in the spring and grassy enough for low elevation cattle grazing in the winter months.3 The hot summer sun, however, quickly turns May and early June’s green grasses, with annual profusion of wild flowers, into a very dry and parched landscape. Its seasonal dryness was why Hi Good, with early partner Alexander Barrington, established their headquarters ranch earlier (circa 1856) 1 1/4 miles due south in Section 33 along the fertile south bank of Deer Creek that runs the whole season, from the snow on the mountains.4 Alluding to the many places in California like their Section 33 “Rio Alto Ranch,”5 where it is easy to irrigate, Good’s partner, Alexander Barrington, boasted in his 1856 letter home to his brother William back in Ohio, that “. the soil will raise anything from white beans to the very best corn.”6 The Section 21 property is today used primarily for cattle grazing. The stockmen property own- ers, Fred and Mike Hamilton (and sister Susan N. Junge), together own approximately 3,800 acres in adjacent Section 15 and Section 21. In 2003, their cattle of Hereford and Hereford-Angus cross, totalled 138 animals. They traditionally winter their cattle in Vina and move them for the spring and summer into the foothill’s eastern fringes of Acorn Hollow. This means that animals do freely wander across the Hi Good site flat for a good part of the year. Occasionally, neighbors run their cattle across the Hi Good flat as well. Standing water on the flat does result after a winter or spring down pour, and resultant cattle mud divots as deep as 9” are not surprising. _________ 1 Personal communication ( 2007) Professor Dick Hilton, author and geologist for Sierra College’s Natural His- tory Museum, Rocklin, California. 2 “Outpost” cabin refers to Hi Good’s more “frontier residence” in Section 21, which served dual purposes, namely: (1) to serve as a more remote base camp for Hi Good and his “boon buddies” to spy and be “prospect- ing” the foothills for the whereabouts of the Mill Creek Indians themselves, their guns, and their plunder, taken from the many settlers’ cabins and mines, and (2) to accommodate Good’s second and new sheep operations enterprise that he started up in 1866. 3 Interview sessions in 2003-2006, with Section 21 property owners Mike Hamilton and Fred Hamilton. 4 One geographically precise statement comes from the memoir by Simeon Moak in the 1923 The Last of the Mill Creeks, p. 32. for the year 1870. He reports that, “Good lived in Acorn Hollow at this time and had a fine ranch and garden on Deer Creek about one mile and a half south.” 5 “Letter No. 9, from Alexander Barrington, to his brother William Barrington, dated February 29, 1856 from “Rio Alto Ranch” as reprinted in Jane Bissell Grabhorn 1934 A California Gold Rush Miscellany. San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, pp. 43-45. This letter, in its entirely is reprinted in the Appendix. 6 Grabhorn (1934:43). -16- Large blue oak is barely discernible along ridge top Lassen Peak (Waxganuup’a) at Ned’s Draw, to where Hi Good’s body was likely and approximate study area dragged and where Indian Ned was killed in May just out of view in distant left. 1870. Figure 6. Open range land southwest of the Hi Good Cabin site. Photo by the author, March 17, 2007. Figure 7. Angular lava rocks of the Tuscan Formation, strewn across the flat. The Tuscan Forma- tion mudflow of the Late Pliocene, occurred 2 to 3 million years ago. Photo by the author, March 3, 2007. -17- The approximate five acres studied in Vina’s Acorn Hollow, sets in a kind of bowl that pro- tects its occupants from direct winds across the Vina Plains, winds that have real power during the hard rains that invariably strike in the dark winter months. The foothills, consisting of volcanic lava rock aggregates from the more recently formed Southern Cascade Mountain Range, begin to ascend from the Sacramento Valley floor just 1 1/2 miles east of the site. This rugged foothill country was originally labeled as “rough and mountanious” [sic] on the 1859 plat of the Township 25. The gradual rising ridge continues upward for some fifty miles distance to its 10,457 feet zenith, the now dormant Lassen Peak volcano. Her last eruption commenced on May 30, 1914. Its active rumbling continued until about 1921. On a clear day when standing near to the fenced corral and windmill area of the site and looking northeasterly, snow capped Lassen Peak is visible (See Figure 6). Ishi’s tribe called Lassen Peak, Wa ganu p’a [also spelled Waxganuupa] which translates, “Little-Mount-Shasta.” (Sapir and Swadesh 1960:172). This majestic, dormant, volcano appears just above the ridge line of Little Dry Creek drainage and the upper Acorn Hollow terrain. Deer Creek is entirely out of view. The Deer Creek drainage is a full 1 1/2 miles east and south from CA-TEH-2105H. Deer Creek - This major drainage enters the Sacramento Valley about two miles southeast of the site. For an unbeknownst geological reason in eons past, the Deer Creek water’s course turned abruptly south at the point where it approaches the Sacramento Valley proper. It continues southward and then arcs to the west, such that Deer Creek is never closer than the 1 1/2 miles distance at any point. She passes Hi Good’s former ranch headquarters, formerly on the south side of Deer Creek in Section 33. At this point, the river’s natural flood plain is on the south side. Hence, irrigating its bordering terraces for vegetable gardening, remains to this day, easily achieved by diverting some of its waters. Walnut orchards today cover the terraces of Hi Good’s former ranch. Nothing that might have been Hi Good’s former ranch house has ever been observed by the present owner who has had the property since 1975 (See Anderson 1909::49-53 and VI. “Land History” below). Deer Creek’s original water source is the north face watershed of Butt Mountain in Plumas County. This mountain is 7,866 feet in elevation, and clearly seen in the southeast from Deer Creek Meadow (where today’s Hwy 36 and 32 converge). Its waters run across Deer Creek Meadow, which was evidently Hi Good’s favorite spot for summer grazing of his sheep (Approximate years: 1867, 1868, and 1869). Deer Creek’s snow-melt waters then tumble and churn their way westward, continu- ing along side Hwy 32 for several scenic miles. Eventually Deer Creek runs into a deep canyon gorge, which in some places is 1,000 feet deep. Its red rim-rock canyon walls in rugged forested terrain, is both picturesque and spectacular. Deer Creek winds through the Lassen National Forest and the federally protected “Ishi Wilderness” (established by Congress on September 28, 1984, Public Law 98-425, the California Wilderness Act.). Plant (flora) status - Endemic and interdependent tree and plant species found include: Blue oak, Black oak, Mountain juniper, Gray pine, Ponderosa pine, Western red cedar, California laurel (bay), Common buckeye and others.