A Valley Wedding In The 1870s [1936]

I think I will tell you of an early Anderson Valley wedding. This wedding was brought to mind by a recent mention of Grandpap McGimsey, Justice of the Peace, and Ex- Confederate soldier. This wedding was in the early 1870s. Anderson Valley was a little kingdom unto itself at that time. It was dependent on its own for everything except basic groceries, and sundries that the four horse teams brought back twice a year on their return from hauling the wool to Cloverdale for the semi-annual wool sale.

On these trips groceries were brought back in large quantities (imagine enough to last six months) though the people were all neighborly and helped each other in case one ran short on supplies. Meat was plentiful as at this time each family head did his own butchering from his stock, hogs, sheep or cattle and also his own curing, salt or brine, and bacon. It was arranged so that the families didn’t all butcher at the same time, and the pigs’ feet, back bones, sausage and head cheese. Leftover parts when beef or sheep were butchered were divided with the neighbors, which was reciprocated later, thus making an endless chain.

Game was very, very plentiful: deer, quail, grouse, etc. Sugar came in big barrels, about 195 pounds, and was brown, no white sugar at this time. Later we had what they called “Golden Sea” sugar which was much lighter in color. Coffee arrived in 100 pound gunny sacks, green. It was roasted in the home oven, as needed two times a week or so, and ground in a hand-operated mill usually attached to the wall. Syrup in small kegs was so thick that it ran out so slow we would set the keg on a chair and a big pitcher under it and let it run for an hour and then take a knife and cut it off where it came out of the barrel. It was wonderful syrup, useful to flavor such things as Tea Garden Drips. Tobacco came in big boxes in long plugs and every fellow cut his own, either for pipe or “chaw.” No cigarettes (or “cigereets”) as they called them later, at this time.

The game at the time (about 1874) was mostly around our sheep ranch. The deer were in small herds, from a half dozen or so to as many as 40. I remember seeing at various times 25 or 30 grazing on the ridges, momings and evenings, near the poison oak patches, and have seen several bears at this time grazing in the clover patches too. They were perfectly harmless, would sit up and look, then drop down and amble off. Also mountain lions were in action. One time I saw an old one and two young ones chasing some sheep down a long ridge. They looked like big dogs and had the sheep on the run. So I reported this to my father and he took his dogs and rifle and started out on horseback, and finally after half a day's run, the dogs treed the lions near “Bear Waller” and Father killed them. The old one measured over nine feet from tip to tip.

Fish, mostly salmon were plentiful, as were wild ducks. Eagles and redtail hawks were bad on lambs then, and coyotes had not invaded the ranches. Mountain lions, wild cats, were occasionally a problem. But even then some claimed the bears weren't sheep killers.

At this time the ranchers ran their own bullets and loaded their own shells. 

James Reilly (builder of the fine Philo house of that name) was a very fine and highly educated man, the first man I remember being a Mason. He was superintendent of the woods. The timber that was cut during that time is now what is called second growth timber and can be cut and milled now, so you can see it doesn’t take so long for the re-growth of the redwood.

But back to the wedding. 

It was at North Fork, or Flynn Creek which we know now as the Dimmick Grove Section, the timber was being cut for the Navarro Mill at Navarro Flat, where Navarro River reaches the ocean. (This is all gone now.)

Christine Gschwend and Mr. Reilly were to be married and the guests were invited to the wedding at Justice Judge McGimsey's home. We were first to arrive, having to come over the hills from the ranch on horseback. I rode behind my Father and Bob behind Mother. Horseback was the most used means of transportation those days, not having arrived at the “horse and buggy days” yet. 

As the guests arrived, horses were tied to the rail fence and presently the bride and groom arrived on horseback, and dressed up for the occasion. They were a fine looking couple. Everyone entered and were greeted by the judge. We all stood up and the ceremony was soon over. But the judge couldn't find his ink and had to call on his wife, Aunt Charity, to hunt it up before the papers could be signed.

Guests and bride and groom then dispersed for a wedding luncheon at the hotel. The ladies rode side saddle those days with tight fitting jackets and many buttons down the front, the longer the skirt the better. If it reached to the horse's knees all the better for modesty and decoration. 

By they way, that old orchard east of the old home where the wedding took place is I think the oldest in the valley. I always heard Mr. Walter Anderson planted it. You know of course that Ike and Henry Beeson were his step-sons. They were among the wedding guests. Around the old house were many old black roses and Castilian and yellow briar roses, which you never see now, but the Castilian was very fragrant, pink and thomy, and I have been told that this root was the original graft for all our fine bush roses.

Quite a vineyard also grew near where that road is now, just west of the present house. My husband Bob and I were delighted to hunt elk horns. They were plentiful then, mostly lying in the edges of the redwoods. My father had several fine sets nailed to the barn. At one time there must have been many elk there, near Rancheria Creek. When I speak of ranch I mean what you know now as the Walker Ranch (Hutsell) and there was no Point Arena road.