A one sentence blurb in California Travelers' Trivia attracted my attention: "The small hamlet (Rough and Ready) seceded from the Union in 1850 and did not legally return until 1948." When I looked at a regional map of California, I discovered the community was about five miles west of Grass Valley, located on the Rough and Ready Highway.
It seemed unimaginable that a town in California had seceded from the Union ten years before the Civil War. My wife and I decided to go there to see if we could find out what had happened — and why.
We learned Rough and Ready was founded by Captain A.A. Townsend, a mining engineer from Wisconsin, in 1849, and the town was named after General Zachary Taylor, nicknamed "Old Rough and Ready," who'd just become the 12th President of the United States.
By 1850 most of the miners in the area were Southern sympathizers who were opposed to the idea of California becoming a Union state, but they also objected to a government-imposed mining tax on all claims.
On April 7th, 1850, the townspeople signed a Constitution similar to that of the United States, and they elected Colonel E. F. Brundage as President. The Constitution was referred to as Brundage's Manifesto, and read in part: "We deem it necessary and prudential to withdraw from said Territory (of California) and from the United States of America to form, peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must, the Great Republic of Rough and Ready," but the Republic fizzled the following 4th of July when Nevada City saloon owners refused to sell liquor to "foreigners."
Another town meeting was held, and the citizens of the "Great Republic" thirstily decided they wanted to rejoin the Union — immediately — so the world's smallest nation came to an end in slightly less than three months.
On July 28th, 1851, Rough and Ready became the third town in Nevada County to establish its own post office, but it was discontinued for about five years during World War II. When the local citizens reapplied for a post office, old records revealed the town had never officially rejoined the Union, but the matter was finally settled and Rough and Ready was welcomed back into the United States in 1948 — almost a century after seceding.
The secession is celebrated the last Sunday in June each year, but you can hear the Rough and Ready Fruit Jar Pickers every Sunday from 10am until noon at the Opry Palace, across the street from the Rough & Ready Market. The band performs country, bluegrass and gospel songs, and there's no admission charge.
The market has been around since 1850, but Barbara and B.J. Joachim purchased it last year, B.J. had been a contractor in Carlsbad, California, for 30 years, but he'd always dreamt of owning a small country store that would serve barbecued ribs and tri-tip on the weekends. (The barbecue is held every Friday and Saturday, from 4 until 8pm during the summer.)
Two trees in Rough and Ready have become legendary. When a large Cork Elm that had been planted in 1894 died in 1996, the remaining six foot tall stump was turned into a chainsaw carving of a prospector named "Old Bill," after the then-owner of the general store.
The other tree, according to a pamphlet published by the Chamber of Commerce, was a cottonwood that had been "started by accident in 1851 by the slave girl, Caroline Allen." The pamphlet doesn't explain why a "slave girl" was living in Rough and Ready, but it claims the tree, which fell in 1962, grew after she stuck a cottonwood switch into the ground as she was tying her pony.
Maria Swindle, who's lived in Rough and Ready for the past 14 years, told us a different story. She said the "slave girl" was hung from an oak tree in the early 1850s. Given Rough and Ready's Southern sympathies, her version seemed more credible than the Chamber of Commerce's, although I still don't know what a "slave girl" was doing there. (Ironically, the stump from the tree was turned into a love seat, which now rests on the porch in front of the general store.) Who knows which story is true? Maybe neither.
As William S. Burroughs observed, "All history is fiction."
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