During the early settlement of Anderson Valley there were two factions of cattlemen between whom there existed bad blood. Several men were killed. On one occasion both factions met in Boonville. Two members of the opposing factions engaged in altercation which was sponsored by the respective factions who forced themselves in battle array at close quarters. Henry Beeson, one of the members of the historic Bear Flag Party of Sonoma County, was a member of neither faction but a friend beloved by both. Before actual hostilities began, Beeson walked down between the two lines of men, shoving their presented rifles aside and admonishing them to desist. Beeson’s bravery and loyalty to both sides carried unanimously, the men laid down their arms, shook hands and became friends. Henry Beeson averted a terrible tragedy.
Another time Beeson, with a companion, was riding through a flat on Rancheria Creek on what was later the Hobson ranch near Boonville. An enemy of the companion fired from the grapevine-fringed creek bank, the ball shattering the man’s arm. Beeson hurried home in time to give the wound first aid which was about all the aid there was to an unfortunate in those times. The pioneers certainly felt cramped for elbow room when later settlers began to come in for locations.
When Henry Beeson settled in Anderson Valley, Mendocino and Sonoma counties were all Sonoma County. His lifelong friend settled in Lake County. The friend in Lake County attempted to visit Beeson at his home in Anderson Valley. Enroute, the man encountered a settler erecting his log cabin on the Russian River near the present site of Hopland. Being very much perturbed over the encroachment, on arriving at Beeson’s, the friend said with an oath, “Henry, you and I will have to leave these parts, they are getting too thick for us. There is a son of a gun building a shack over on the river between you and I. We want more room.”
The first settlers in Anderson Valley, like their brothers in other localities at the time, were a little clannish and adverse to strangers. When a new settler moved in, he was looked on with more or less distrust until such time as he had proven to their satisfaction his integrity.
July the fourth was held sacred to the pioneers; to allow that national day to pass without a fitting recognition would have been a sacrilege. The occasion was celebrated at the trading post of Boonville by a huge feast of barbecued elk, bear and venison with horse racing and games. A committee of mountaineers were appointed whose task was to ride the trails in every direction to the isolated cabins, bidding the settlers attend the feast to be held on that great day. As the promoters and committee of the celebration sat on the fence or squatted on their haunches at the trading post whittling sticks with their pocket knives, as was the custom where men congregated at that time, they discussed the ineligibles who were to be blacklisted. A new settler had recently moved in on Con Creek at the lower end of the valley. Only one or two members of the acting committee had met the new settler. None knew what manner of man he was. Long they debated the responsibility of inviting one who had no sponsor. At last one of the committee said, “Well, boys, if the new settler is an eligible feller, we don’t want to disappoint him, ‘tweed be a shame. On the other hand, if he can’t cut the mustard with his woman and passer of younguns, we don’t want his kinds.”
“Well Bill,” said another, “how you gain’ to find out?”
“Wall, les’ ask the varmint to come to the feed and see how the son of a gun will act.”
The man and family were bidden to attend the feast, the new settler was a seasoned pioneer who knew the ways of his kind. He made good at the feast and was unanimously accepted as one of their own.
Jasper McCracken, who lived near Windsor, hale and hearty at the age of 88, was one of the only surviving pioneers of that time. He lived in Petaluma in 1850. He related a hunting trip which he took at the time with another white man and three or four Indians into what is now Mendocino County with the light running gear of a spring wagon drawn by three yoke of oxen. As there were no roads, the team was hard put to draw the light rig over the gulches and mountain ridges. The only building they encountered on the entire trip was the Baihache adobe, La Casa, one mile below the present site of Healdsburg. Camp was made by the McCracken party on what was afterwards the Hobson stock ranch in Mendocino County four miles south of Boonville, where they killed many deer and several grizzly bears.
(Courtesy, Lofthouse Publishing, Amlin, Ohio.)
Henry Beeson was the youngest member of the Bear Flag Revolt that raised the California flag in the Sonoma Square in 1846, and its last survivor. He is buried in the Rawles-Babcock Cemetery, west of Boonville.