Soon after Henry Beeson was mustered out of the armed forces in the months following the end of the Bear Flag Rebellion in the early 1850s, Watt (Walter) Anderson and his family had settled on Grand Island, on Sycamore Slough, in Colusi (Colusa County), about six miles south of the present town of Colusa.
He was very satisfied with this fertile “island” which was only an actual island during the flood season. For two years he and his family lived there with plenty of bear meat and other wild life, and the produce of the fertile soil. Then up the river came some settlers who settled on the site of the present town of Colusa. Charles D. Semple, his nephew, Will S. Green, and a carpenter named E. Hicks soon learned that Watt Anderson strenuously objected to their settling in his “front door-yard.” It was said that he told these settlers that “although he liked neighbors, he felt crowded when anyone settled within five or six miles of him, and when that happened, it was time to move.” To make matters worse, he was horrified to think that not only were settlers coming in, but that where Semple, Green and Hicks had settled, a town, Salmon Bend, was being established!
This was the final straw as far as Anderson was concerned, so he packed his belongings and took his family where he could have more “elbow room.”
They journeyed southward, and when the family got to Lake County, they stopped there for awhile, but the attitude of the Indians, after the Battle of Bloody Island, was so hostile that Mrs. Anderson was fearful for her family, and Anderson consented to move on, apparently to Oat Valley, near Cloverdale.
While that move was being made, Henry, his brother Isaac, and step-brother, William, went ahead to find meat for the family. They wounded an elk and pursued it for some time. In all probability the young men were hunting somewhere in the vicinity of our present day road from Cloverdale to the coast. However, the early day trail is said to have been on the opposite side of the gulch. If one looks carefully across the gulch from the sign, “Alder Glen,” the old trail may be discerned.
Whether they found the wounded elk, I do not know, but a far more important discovery was made. The young men walked out on a stony ledge to see if they could see the wounded elk. Instead, they surveyed a panorama that was to them breathtaking, and almost beyond belief.
To the west, a dark forest covered the hills. The sunny eastern slopes, more open, were marked with shadowed ravines. Across the level valley floor, two small streams flowed to meet and form a creek, which moved out of sight down the valley. Ecstatic with the possibilities of this land, the youth, forgetting the elk, descended into the valley, crossed the level to the western foothills, and made a camp near what was later the Tom Ornbaun home. Here they lingered several days, exploring the vicinity and becoming more enchanted with the place each hour. Thick turf of dry grass carpeted the meadows. The level land, where the fairgrounds race track lies today, was covered with manzanita bushes, their berries hanging in rich clusters; clumps of black oak trees, resplendent in their lacquered autumn leaves, cast pleasant shade, as did the madrone, doubly colorful with its Indian-red bark and brilliant berries. Deer roamed as sheep today; bears feasted on huckleberries in the woods; elk bands came out of the timber to graze; small animals abounded.
The young men reluctantly broke camp and returned to their family party. They reported to Walter Anderson that they had found a big meadow, and it was like a Garden of Eden.
The family decided to settle there, and in the fall of 1851, the little group of ten moved into the valley. They set about building a log cabin, but before they had completed their home, Indians arrived, and the Anderson clan’s gestures were interpreted as threatening and the Indians ordered them to leave at once.
With the Lake County incident, still very fresh in their minds, they hastily left. In fact, in their haste, Mrs. Anderson was compelled to leave her spinning wheel. (I wonder if the Indians pondered over what it was)? It was believed that the family, on their retreat, spent the winter somewhere in Dry Creek Valley, west of the present town of Healdsburg.
Can you not see the yearning of ‘Watt’ Anderson for this land that they had seen? Here, indeed, was the “elbow room” he so earnestly coveted. It is also interesting that here, in the valley, his boys had described as a “Garden of Eden,” that he returned to and eventually remained, despite the possible invasion of Indians or neighbors.
It is said that Mrs. Anderson, in relating the story to her daughter Rhoda (who was four at the time), mentioned that in 1852, when they returned, that “others” had come with them to make it safer to settle. However, in true pioneer spirit, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, on horseback with a child behind each of them, were the first to enter the valley.
The spot chosen for a home was one mile west of Boonville, at the foot of the hill, just beyond the site of the high school. Here they erected their first house in Anderson Valley; an edifice of logs, an earth floor, and “clay and sticks chimney.”
Here Walter Anderson enjoyed life to the full. He dealt in horses and cattle, and drove them for years to his nearest market, Petaluma. The family has handed down the story of where he killed his last bear, marked by a tree that his daughter, Rhoda, remembered. At that time he was said to have been 108 years old. Is it any wonder that he was called “Bear” Anderson? A real hale and hearty “mountain man,” who never wore glasses and was an excellent shot throughout his life. He spent his last years in Ukiah with his daughter, Artemesia Jane, and is buried there.
Rhoda Anderson, a true pioneer, and the Pioneer Woman and Mother of Anderson Valley, was called to rest in 1857 at the age of 52. She had lived a life of hardships, there is no doubt, but let us hope that her last five years in Anderson Valley came closer to a life of happiness in their veritable “Garden of Eden.” She was buried on land owned by her son, Henry, and the weathered headstone still tells the world that Rhoda Crouch, a native of Kentucky, was the pioneer woman of Anderson Valley.
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